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More on the Snowball Earth prof attacked by Cancel Culture

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A sympathetic U Stanford source attempts to explain what happened to Dorion Abbot:

Since 1970, the University of Chicago has applied four principles in the hiring and promotion of faculty. They are:

-Research

-Teaching and Training, including the supervision of graduate students

-Contribution to intellectual community

-Service

These criteria may seem benign enough, but in our Woke New World, they are most certainly not. In previous weeks, one of Prof. Abbot’s colleagues told a departmental seminar that “If you are just hiring the best people, you are part of the problem.”

Prof. Abbot disagreed, and decided to respond, publishing a series of videos on YouTube voicing several very mild concerns about the DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies being promoted in the department…

Without a pause, or a hint of irony, a group of angry students claimed that Abbot’s remarks “threaten the safety and belonging of all underrepresented groups within the department.” They further accused him of “an aggressive act.”

Maxwell Meyer, “At UChicago, a Woke Inquisition—and a Warning” at Stanford Review

Read the rest. It is becoming increasingly clear that STEM is beginning to recruit students who just should not be at a university at all.

Dear Unsafe Students: If ideas you don’t agree with distress you to the point where you feel “unsafe,” there is a good chance that you are not employable in any typical 21st century workplace, constantly awash in communications of all sorts. So quit wasting money on university tuition. Here’s a possible career path: Look after sheep, cattle, or pigs for a living. Don’t access modern communications media. The animals don’t need anything like that and it is way too risky for you.

See also: Snowball Earth prof attacked by Cancel Culture. Jacobson warns, “What is so disturbing is the large number of graduate and post-doctoral students who signed the list of demands. I warned in 2017 that STEM would not be immune to the social justice (and racial) warfare tearing through universities.” One real advantage of belonging to Cancel Culture is that, if a student plays the cards right, the question of actual performance will seldom or never come up. Everything will be about screaming, crying, sign-waving, and demands. Their real troubles won’t begin until they try getting a job.

Here’s Abbot:

Comments
Of related interest to 'snowball' earth,,
Life and Earth History Reveal God's Miraculous Preparation for Humans - Hugh Ross, PhD – video (2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Y496NYnm8
At about the 35 minute mark of the preceding video Dr. Ross speaks of repeated glaciation events from the past 450,000 years with the climate then (uncharacteristically) stabilizing for the last 9000 years or so. These repeated glaciation events were necessary to produce the nutrient rich soils of the plains of the world that could support the large population of humans that we now have.
Ice Age is Ideal for Humanity Table 1: Ice Age Cycle Benefits for Humanity Melting ice fields brought nutrient-rich alluvial silt to the plains. Wind-blown dust delivered other nutrients to the plains. Melting glaciers water the plains. Ice field and glacier retreat formed millions of lakes. Formations of lakes and connecting rivers transformed barren deserts into productive land regions. Geological relief yielded abundant hydropower resources. Retreating ice sheets formed land bridges warm enough to facilitate human migration. Glacial retreat formed many safe harbors. Retreating ice sheets, ice fields, and glaciers formed rich ore deposits. Retreating ice sheets, ice fields, and glaciers made possible enhanced abundance of plants and animals during the warm interglacial episodes. Retreating ice sheets, ice fields, and glaciers created spectacular scenery. https://ses.edu/ice-age-is-ideal-for-humanity/ Soil wealth | Why North America Feeds the World Central North America, eastern Europe, northern China and the Argentine Pampas are the backbone of the world’s agricultural production. In all of these areas, loess from a few feet to hundreds of feet thick blankets continental bedrock. With a high proportion of finely ground, fresh mineral grains, soils developed on loess are renowned for their fertility. Loess is so fertile that it can be farmed productively even after the topsoil is eroded off. The same can’t be said for soils in most of the world, where rock lies just one to several feet below ground. North America’s tremendous agricultural productivity reflects a disproportionate share of the world’s loess. But American agriculture’s foundation did not originate in place. Loess blew in on the wind. If you fly over northern Canada on a clear day you can see vast areas of naked rock, the geological scar of where it all came from. Over the past several million years, glaciers repeatedly overran most of modern Canada. As they grew and pushed south, the great ice sheets scraped off weak layers of soil and fractured, weathered rock, stripping the land down to fresh, hard rock. Bulldozed up by the ice, Canadian soils were carted to the melting front of the ice sheet and deposited as broad outwash plains built by rivers of meltwater. Strong winds then spread this fertile blanket of fine, glacier-ground silt across the American Midwest.,,, thick loess soils can maintain agricultural productivity for longer than can thin soils developed in place from rock weathering. In all likelihood, North America will be feeding the world for the foreseeable future because of its natural endowment of loess.,,, With a limited – and shrinking – global amount of highly productive cropland, the future of humanity hinges on whether we take care of the world’s best soils.,,, http://www.cornandsoybeandigest.com/issues/soil-wealth-why-north-america-feeds-world
bornagain77
December 3, 2020
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Cry babies running universities,,, what a farce,,, You go to universities to get the best education possible from the best teachers possible, not to pick and choose your own personal mediocre Professors who will tickle your ears with whatever you want to hear to make you feel good.bornagain77
December 3, 2020
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The problem with education in America is it has become little more than propaganda in place of education. Part of the propaganda is targeted towards the inner-cities where they tell students they will never succeed because of the color of their skin. Tell children they'll never succeed enough times and most will start to believe it. Illiteracy is climbing throughout the inner-cities. If a person cannot read, most jobs, as in 90%, become unavailable. Socialists/Marxists who have taken over the schools, including what is taught in the text book, have no interest in an educated society. They want an indoctrinated society. If socialists/Marxists cared about people as much as they claim behind crocodile tears, they would call the rising illiteracy rates a problem, particularly for young black men who drop out of school more than any other group. They are nothing more than canon fodder to be used and thrown away. It is conservatives who point to real problems that do exist within the inner-cities. Socialists/Marxists are silent about the results of what they push for. If education, rather than indoctrination, was important, there would be an outcry from every Democrat about what's happening. Silence is admittance of guilt. Since socialists/Marxists invariably point the finger at those calling out real problems and demanding solutions, here is my solution to education. Get away from one size fits all systems. Set up a series of age appropriate assessments to determine ability. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Gear their education towards their strengths while working on their weaknesses. I don't care if a mathematician has a command of language and understanding of history. All that matters is their ability to become a mathematician. That same mathematician should never be told that they cannot succeed in America. There is no position not open to them that requires mathematics. The inner-cities are filled with lost potential. There are people who were meant to be engineers, writers, mathematicians, mechanics, pilots, etc., who will never reach their potential under the current system.BobRyan
December 3, 2020
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Well, disagreeing with the practices of the administration is NOT the same thing as scientific disagreement. Traditionally profs who were fired "for political reasons" were often at odds with the management. Sometimes it's just personal friction, sometimes insubordination. This is pretty close to insubordination.polistra
December 2, 2020
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