… are, in some part, a snapshot of the corruption in academic life today.
(Guillermo “Privileged Planet” Gonzalez, successful exoplanet hunter and “billions of habitable worlds” skeptic*, was offered a position at Ball State University (Indiana) recently, having been denied tenure at Iowa State, after a campaign by local atheists.)
Now, re the (so far) sixteen Comments at this quick take at Inside Higher Ed:
The “Hitler” card was played almost immediately. I wonder if this is done in a Machiavellian style simply to subvert discussion.
Is there any Grave Five graduate out there who doesn’t know that that is always what happens? No, we thought not. So, when someone does it…
We read comments that such hirings should
and that
… He is no scientist and shouldn’t be allowed the mantle.
Mantle? You mean like a magician?
Neither of these people sound like they even know very much about the situation, but the message is clear: His work doesn’t matter; only his private assessments.
No wonder PayPal’s Peter Thiel gave kids money not to go to university.
(Heck, many kids could save that much just by not borrowing the money to go to university.)
Look, we can all run into these types of people anyway for absolutely free in the waiting room or at the coffee urn. People used to pay to go to university in order to hear a higher class of argument from smarter people.
Them was the days.