Feb. 11, 2008

Sub-critical mass

By G. Rendell

Erin O’Connor, an English prof at Penn, blogs about higher ed, sometimes from a position politically to the right of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Last Friday, her post spoke about the sustainability groundswell on campuses as a “stealth ideological movement.” This in spite of the fact that proponents of sustainability have been doing everything we can to get on people’s radar screens, and the movement (hey! we’ve achieved movement status!) is so ideological — O’Connor also repeatedly uses ‘political’ as a synonym — that flavors of it appear in the platforms of John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and a vast majority of world leaders outside the USA.

O’Connor starts with a short paragraph linking PETA members to terrorists who firebomb researchers’ homes. The cause of animal rights has no bearing on the remainder of the post, but the image — firebombing innocent academic researchers — serves its purpose. O’Connor’s brush is now fully tarred and ready for use on her intended target. Mission accomplished.

A majority of the post is devoted to Focus the Nation, the nationwide teach-in at the end of last month. O’Connor claims to have found it “scary.” She must be easily frightened.

As evidence of what was wrong (and apparently scary) about FtN, O’Connor quotes at length a published article from Brown philosophy prof Felicia Ackerman, explaining why she didn’t participate. The reasons are simple and non-controversial — climate change is off her topic, she’s not qualified, there are other profs who would do a better job, she has other priorities — but none of them particularly supports O’Connor’s explicit inferences of political harangues, wastage of student time, or impositions on academic freedom. The imposition on academic freedom is particularly emphasized by O’Connor, and the AAUP is called on for redress. This, even though Ackerman compared the FtN invitation to “the frequent e-mails offering Viagra at a reduced price.” If she found the invitation imposing in any way, it doesn’t show.

Ackerman even makes the point that the subject of global warming is beyond her expertise. She states, “I am not disputing the scientific consensus about the technical aspects of climate change. As a non-scientist, I would have to be a crackpot to think that I know more than scientists about scientific matters.” O’Connor, on the other hand, apparently feels no such compunction. Instead, she rails about “people who try to peddle anthropogenic global warming as a settled truth — it’s not,” and “questionable science.” This, in spite of the fact that the National Academy of Sciences has said for years that the truth of global warming is about as unsettled as the truth of gravity. Of course, the lack of support in her quoted material needn’t stop O’Connor from arriving at her preconceived conclusions, and it doesn’t.

The remainder of the post consists of an attack on the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, which O’Connor says “enjoins college presidents to pledge to make their campuses climate neutral within two years while integrating ’sustainability education’ into the curriculum.” The flaws in this description are so numerous and so profound that I hardly know where to start.

First, the PCC doesn’t “enjoin” anybody to do anything. To “enjoin” is to issue an injunction — a judicial order prohibiting a specific party from taking a specific action. Parties and actions aside, “enjoin” implies coercion, not invitation. Signing the PCC is an entirely voluntary act.

Second, PCC signatories are not pledging to make their campuses climate neutral within two years. Even though O’Connor makes a major point of the irresponsibility of just such a commitment, it’s a figment of someone’s fertile imagination. What the college presidents are pledging to do is to come up with a plan to achieve climate (really, carbon) neutrality. The plan is due in two years, but the target date for achieving neutrality is clearly and explicitly left up to each college or university.

Finally, the words “sustainability education” don’t appear anywhere in the text of the PCC. If O’Connor is quoting, and she well may be, it’s not from the source she seems to imply. Maybe it’s from some other source. One that she’s actually read.

Ironically, O’Connor wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education, back in July of 2006, on the subject of faculty members and blogging. Her thoughts on the subject seem well-founded, and I recommend the article to anyone so inclined. I only wish that she had re-read her own words:

Scholars who blog should accept that their writing affects their professional image. If they take controversial stances, they will be criticized. If they behave badly online, their reputations will suffer. Academic freedom protects the tenured (a fast-shrinking group) from punishment when speaking out — but it does not and should not protect them from the unforgiving sorting process that is the marketplace of ideas.

Comments

Global warming

I read with interest Mr. Rendell’s hit piece on O’Connor, including the non-political statement of the non-political author that she was “somewhat to the right of the Sheriff of Nottingham.” That alone puts paid to his foolish implication that the ideological movement identified by O’Connor is not political.

So to quote Mr. Rendell: His “brush is fully tarred and ready for his intended target. Mission accomplished.”

Mr. Rendell goes on to downplay the example O’Connor gave of Philosopher Ackerman who felt the need to justify not participating in FtN’s extravaganza.

Of course, the salient facet of Ackerman’s non-participation is the one that Mr. Rendell skips over, even though it hides in the wide open: it is that she felt the need to formally justify her non-participation.

If Ackerman feels that the “invitation” by FtN really comes with as little pressure as the Viagra adds she receives, why did she need to justify her non-participation? Or, has she taken the time to write justifications for why she doesn’t respond to other junk mail, like the Viagra adds?

Contra Mr. Rendell, the science supporting AGW is indeed unsettled, catchy phrases by the National Academy of Sciences not withstanding.

First, science is not subject to the democratic process: one fact can destroy a consensus. Beyond this, Michael Crichton gives several examples of “scientific consensus” being woefully, horribly wrong, along with the tragic consequences of the wrongness, in his classic essay Aliens Cause Global Warming.

Second, there’s actually a great many scientists who have reservations about whether or not humans cause GW (see Senator Inhofe’s list, or the list of 60 or so Canadian Scientists who urged Canada’s PM Stephen Harper consider that there is a discrepancy between history and today’s computer models.

Third, some, like Bjorn Lomborg, will concede that humans are the cause of Global Warming, but /a>believe there are far more beneficial ways to allocate resources than to try and slow or stop it. Fourth, global warming is happening on other bodies in our solar system at the exact same nanosecond in the Solar System’s 4.2 Billion Year history. This argues against human generated CO2 being required for GW, and in favor of some other driving force (say like sun spots and cosmic radiation). Fifth, there are even who believe the evidence now points towards global cooling. (Link, link.) Believe me, I could go on and on, but my point is incontestable: the science is very much in dispute, and any “initiative” aimed at college students that doesn’t take into account both sides of the argument is pure political propaganda.And that is scary.

Minerva, at 6:55 pm EST on February 11, 2008

Thank you for publishing my comment. I’m sorry that you were unable to fit the links into the post, which would have allowed readers to judge for themselves whether or not I was inventing sources.

Isn’t it fortunate that I can fix that?

1) Aliens Cause Global Warning: http://tinyurl.com/2f4trk

2) Senator Inhofe’s list of skeptical GW scientists: http://tinyurl.com/35tnuy

3) Bjorn Lomborg: http://tinyurl.com/gatww

4) Other bodies of the Solar System warming: http://tinyurl.com/mfd4n

5) Global cooling link 1: http://tinyurl.com/2mtpq

6) Global cooling link 2: http://tinyurl.com/2xjwma

I wish to stressThank you for publishing my comment. I’m sorry that you were unable to fit the links into the post, which would have allowed readers to judge for themselves whether or not I was inventing sources.

Isn’t it fortunate that I can fix that?

1) Aliens Cause Global Warning: http://tinyurl.com/2f4trk

2) Senator Inhofe’s list of skeptical GW scientists: http://tinyurl.com/35tnuy

3) Bjorn Lomborg: http://tinyurl.com/gatww

4) Other bodies of the Solar System warming: http://tinyurl.com/mfd4n

5) Global cooling link 1: http://tinyurl.com/2mtpq

6) Global cooling link 2: http://tinyurl.com/2xjwma

Again, I wish to stress that I don’t know which side is correct, and that there are other areas which should instill doubt about AGW which I haven’t brought up.

I only know that there is controversy, that the science about GW is not settled, and that any movement that says it is is pure propaganda. If the “AGW is a fact” line is all that is being presented, then it is indoctrination, not education.

Like O’Connor, I find that scary.

minerva, at 9:50 pm EST on February 11, 2008

Many IHE readers know Erin O’Connor as a thoughtful, astute, and sharp-witted English professor who has written incisive higher education commentary in various forums over the past six years. Some may also know that the lively comments section of her Critical Mass blog attracts participants from across the political spectrum, testament to the fact that even those who disagree with Dr. O’Connor still respect her cogent reasoning, her elegant writing, and her evenhanded tone. She is hardly someone with a reputation for militant extremism — quite the opposite.

That a pseudonymous writer who launched his blog twelve days ago can accuse Dr. O’Connor of being “politically to the right of the Sheriff of Nottingham” is unremarkable in itself, given how neophyte bloggers commonly try to earn stature by trolling established figures. But that such ad hominem invective enjoys Inside Higher Ed’s imprimatur, and presumably meets with the approval of IHE’s editors, almost beggars belief.

Dr. O’Connor may not have the institutional backing of a major higher education daily — but she has the courage to publish under her own name, and the civility to engage in open, respectful debate with those whose opinions differ from her own. “G. Rendell,” his Beowulfian nom de guerre aside, would rather envisage himself as a modern-day environmental Robin Hood, slinging arrows at imagined Sheriffs of Nottingham from the gloomy safety of his protective Sherwood Forest. But IHE only discredits itself by sanctioning such cowardly pseudonymous attacks on individual professors. Surely its editors should know better?

Maurice Black, at 6:50 am EST on February 12, 2008

Follow the links

For anyone with time and interest, I recommend that you follow Minerva’s links. Also follow the links in the documents she lists. Research the individual writers, and draw your own conclusions.

If some consider strong opinion (certainly expressed no more inflammatorily than the O’Connor piece, itself) more important than explicit errors of fact, logical non sequiturs and rhetorical guilt by random association, then we’ll agree to disagree.

Dr. O’Connor has, in fact, written many thoughtful pieces on a number of subjects. “Wolves in green clothing,” unfortunately, was by no means one of them.

As regards my use of a pseudonym, please be aware that I’m administrative staff, not tenured faculty. I intend and expect to comment on sustainability efforts at many campuses, sometimes negatively (if warranted), and quite likely sometimes my own. Those of you with tenure protections, please appreciate the privilege of your position. But this tree is my only guarantee of being able to speak freely, so I think I’ll just stay behind it!

G. Rendell, at 5:30 am EST on February 14, 2008

More on Your Hit Piece

G Rendell wrote: “For anyone with time and interest, I recommend that you follow Minerva’s links. Also follow the links in the documents she lists. Research the individual writers, and draw your own conclusions.”

Excuse me? Did you really write: “Research the individual writers, and draw your own conclusions.”

Translation: The message is unreliable because the messenger is not to be trusted.

This, of course, is the logical fallacy of “poison the well” (http://tinyurl.com/jve2t).

G. Rendell wrote: “If some consider strong opinion (certainly expressed no more inflammatorily than the O’Connor piece, itself) more important than explicit errors of fact, logical non sequiturs and rhetorical guilt by random association, then we’ll agree to disagree.”

No more inflammatorily? Yo! Earth to Rendell! Your rant was one long ad Hominem. The very first pixels damned O’Connor for being “somewhat to the right of the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

I defy you to point to any such ad Hominem in any of O’Connor’s works.

Are you unable or unwilling to distinguishing between an attack on an argument and an attack on a person? Which would be worse?

First, you attacked O’Connor personally, and now you’re trying to attack the sources I provided — not on the basis of their facts or logic, but because in your opinion, they cannot be trusted!

I haven’t read all of O’Connor’s stuff, but I’ve read a lot of it, and I’ve never, ever seen her launch anything like the vicious ad Hominem attack you have. She goes after ideas, not people.

You owe her an apology.

G Rendell wrote: “As regards my use of a pseudonym, please be aware that I’m administrative staff, not tenured faculty.”

Which conveniently allows you to launch ad Hominem attacks against a person’s reputation from the safe shield of anonymity.

Shame on you, and shame on IHE for sanctioning your hit piece.

minerva, at 7:40 pm EST on February 14, 2008

Pseudonymous Ad Hominem

From Wikipedia: “An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: “argument to the man", “argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim...”

Opening your post by stating that Erin O’Connor writes from a position “politically to the right of the Sheriff of Nottingham,” you ask your readers to accept that her allegedly extremist beliefs preclude any reasonable person from taking her arguments seriously. This is an obvious “argument against the man” (or, in this case, against the woman), per the definition quoted above. Minerva is absolutely correct in calling your post a “hit piece.” Your goal is not to respond to Dr. O’Connor’s arguments, but to blacken her name and besmirch her reputation.

Pseudonymity comes with responsibilities, G. Rendell. You may think that concealing your identity entitles you to use this IHE-sanctioned podium to vilify an individual professor — but it does not. I second the belief that you, and the editors of Inside Higher Ed, owe Dr. O’Connor a public apology.

Maurice Black, at 8:05 am EST on February 15, 2008