Diversity of Everything but Thought

Nice to see you around, Boss ...

Cheers, oh thou greatest of white, middle-aged rap stars . . . my eyes have been bothering me more of late, so i may need to bow out again for a while . . .

Wow, Set. Thanks for sharing. Hope you can write up some vignettes from your experiences there now and then. Sounds fascinating!

And though it is absolutely galling to have to admit it, I find Blatham's last post to be exceedingly reasonable, well thought out, and well done even with his own peculiar liberal point of view to which he is entitled. Whether he agrees or not, he demonstrates an ability to see the conservative point of view without attaching horns, tail, and pitchfork to it. I will be interested to see what the 'more' is.

You might also add to that portfolio my experiences of the extremely conservative atmosphere at the University of Illinois and the Ohio State Unversity . . . all of which is, of course, anectdotal information.

So my two original complaints with the organized silliness of this thread stand: no reliable evidence has been advanced in support of the goofy thesis herein advanced; even were one to concede for sake of argument this silly thesis, the putative harm arising has neither been detailed nor demonstrated.

One has to wonder why someone would bother to spend so much time on a thread complaining about the organized silliness of it. Also I think analysis of conditions 20, 30, 40 years ago is not particularly useful in assessing modern U.S. university campuses. My initial experience with college included a wide exposure to diversity of thought.

While I was not personally disadvantaged or harmed, my more recent experience has been very different. I am not willing to summarily dismiss the testimony and analysis of all others just because I don't have a personal basis for their premise.

As Set points out, all of this is anecdotal and worthless in terms of determining reality. Only through a scientific investigation of the reality of political bias, could I agree one way or the other. The real question is why is this question and recommendation for action being made now in this country? And why, without anything resembling scientifically based evidence?

I am as dedicated as anybody to give anecdotal evidence no more credit than it is worth. Generally it is good to express the experience of one person and cannot be automatically extended to include a larger group.

But I wonder. How many have to testify and agree before their collective testimony is no longer regarded as anecdotal?

It's not just quantity. It's context, too. I bitch about the phone company when I have a problem, but 99.99% of the time I don't have a problem. The phone just works.

You've provided no insight into how much of the time students don't have a problem.

Drewdad writes


Holy cow Drew. How much of the time are gays not discriminated against? How much of the time are women not sexually harrassed in the workplace? How much of the time are you not mugged or robbed or ticketed for speeding or falsely accused or experience credit card fraud or fired from a job or don't experience a toxic workplace? But when it happens, no matter how infrequently, it is a big deal and it is important.

To say that people who claim discrimination in the education environment cannot be assumed to be credible because we don't know how much of the time it doesn't happen just doesn't wash here.

How much of the time are gays not discriminated against?

LMAO!!!!

Holy cow, Drew!

Let's see, Foxfire, How many classes in how many colleges and universities are there? DrewDad is correct, imo.......it's not just how many it would take but in what context and in who's perception the incident took place. Some people are profoundly sensitive. If someone disagrees with them, especially if the disagreeing or confronting person is making a strong point, they have their feelings hurt and are sure they are being discriminated against. Many people who overly depend on the reassurance of others tolerate confrontation poorly. Just because some students are making complaints (encouraged to do so by a politically motivated initiative) does not prove there is a true problem. In my experience in university, students were generally encouraged to think broadly, to consider other possible points of view and to not be so set in their ways. This can be experienced by overly protected, rigidly religious students as an attack on their defenses and they over react. Of course there are bad teachers and they should not be encouraged to continue to teach. But they are the exception, in my anecdotal, subjective experience.

Given that what we are referring to here as "religious" is actually a fundamentalist point of view, I can understand that some professors may lose patience. The Evangelical Fundamentalism that is so popular these days is anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-doubt (a basic element in a scientific attitude) and literal-minded. Fundamentalism does not make it easy for students to study with an open mind.

And what's the big harm, anyway? Students need to toughen up if they are to make it in this world (and get what they want, that is.) These are university students. Why can't they simply find a way to express themselves?

I've rarely seen a student make a reasonable effort to consider the evidence, bring up an opposing view, in a sincere attempt to struggle with the evidence and make some sense of it, (whether they are conservative or liberal) that was not treated with respect in return (except in "Christian" Schools. For one thing, what kind of behavior is considered by these complaining students to be intolerant? It's all a matter of perception, which is subjective.

So we have a situation in which there are claims being made in which the only evidence is anecdotal and without any attempt to check for subjectivity. All this ruckus over that. I think this whole thing has been instigated for political purposes. And I don't appreciate it.

You miss his point. There is a principal of statistics which is known as the fallacy of the enumeration of favorable circumstances. Which is to say, that each time someone alleges that they have been victimized by partisanship, those who wish to believe the problem endemic start shouting: "See, see . . . more evidence!"

However, each time a student is criticized, and does not complain of being victimized by partisanship, no one is rushing out to say: "See, see . . . this contradicts your evidence!"

So, as those instances which confirm your hypothesis are noted, those which do not support it go unrecorded. Lola's point about how many students in how many courses is to the point here.

Years ago, the Duke University operated a Parapsychology Department. They collected data and conducted tests. Those who were thrilled by the prospect would point to all of the evidence they collected. Once a woman excitedly told me that they received more than one hundred reports of premonitory dreams each year. (A premintory dream is one in which the dreamer sees something bad happen, which--or so they allege--subsequently occurs in their waking life.) Leaving aside the thorough unreliability of such evidence by is very nature (we don't know if the reporter of the incident is telling us the truth, or even knows if they are in possession of a truth), one can shoot this down by referring to the fallacy of the enumeration of favorable circumstances. This is how that works: In a population of 250,000,000 million Americans, if one assumes they sleep an average of six hours per night (not an unreasonable assumption), and one knows that the alpha II type of characteristic brain wave activity which accompanies REM (rapid eye movement, indicating "dream sleep") occurs each ninety minutes, then that's at least four dreams per night. This yields one billion dreams dreamed per night in such a population. If only one one hundreth of one percent of those dreams are bad dreams involving personal disaster, then we have a yield of one hundred thousand such dreams per night. That's thirty six million five hundred thousand such dreams per year. If those reporting such dreams to the Rhine Insititute only represent one percent of those having such dreams, then we have 365,000 dreams which might have been reported--but weren't. One hundred, two hundred, five hundred reported premonitory dreams dwindle into statistical insignificance, and can easily be explained by coincidence, without the need to insult the putative dreamer by suggesting that they unconsciously manufactured the correlation after the fact. If that is not clear to you, don't feel bad, the woman i was speaking to didn't get it either.

So leaving aside the question of whether or not those who report being victimized by partisanship are reliable in and of themselves, and accepting for the sake of argument (and only accepting such a contention for the sake of argument) their version of events, one then needs to compare that figure to the entire number of students in the entire number of courses across the country who have received marks which they consider unsatisfactory and compare it those who allege partisan victimization. On such a basis, you'll need to line up, very likely, something in the neighborhood of thousands of such reported incidents to even approach statistical significance. Then we get to rake them over coals to find out if their perception of the event were skewed by their own partisan prejudices.

Fallacy of the enumeration of favorable circumstances--check it out online some time.

By the by, your question: "How much of the time are gays not discriminated against?" is a perfectly valid reference to the fallacy i've described, and would be a perfectly reasonable debate position to take in denying the proposition that gays are routinely discriminated against. If someone tells you this is so, but cannot provide you with statistical evidence of how many such discriminatory incidents occur relative to the entire population of gay people in this country, you have a very logical position in denying the case based upon their inability to demonstrate a statistically significant sample.

here's what I think is another fallacy - some guy claimed in our lecture for equal opportunities that straight guys are discriminated against. His example? "Why do we on our uni campus have a retreat for gay people who are being teased but none for straight guys and girls who are being teased?"

any comments?

Holy cow, Set! Thanks. I knew I had a reasonable point, but didn't know quite how to express it....

I think the point you and DrewDad missed is--

and Fox said this in other words--

The fact that it happens at all is unsupportable.

Frequency, or lack of, while it is an issue----wasn't the central reason for our reactions.

His comment was like wiping the problem aside.

No matter how often it happens, it's not OK.

No, we haven't missed that point, or at least i haven't. I also haven't missed the point that you bring this up when your original thesis, that such incidents are pervasive, is shot down. Rather like claiming that if one invades such and such a country, it will be justified by uncovering the WoMD which you just know are there; and then when the WoMD are not found, you say that you invaded to liberate those poor people in the first place.

Crying wolf is not just a bad habit, it destroys one's credibility when the wolf really is at the door.

Of course it's not ok, Lash........but as Set points out......that's not the point. I didn't miss the point......but who did? That's what I want to know.

I reached a happy, temporary agreement on page 153.

The frequency is a point, but (not speaking for Fox) I thought we agreed we'll wait for the results of the research to have verifiable evidence of the frequency.

Meanwhile, equivocating about who ISN'T being discriminated against is laughable. But, its not funny.

Again, we are satisfied to get the results. We know what's happening. It's happened to us. You say this isn't proof. That's fine by me. Proving it to you isn't the goal. Putting a stop to it is--and thankfully, a movement has started up, and studies are in progress. I doubt some people here would accept any evidence to shake their world. I've witnessed the inability for most liberals to accept liberal bias in the media.

That you agree its true isn't vital. Stopping it is. And, that's happening.