Introduction

March 6, 2012
Updated  Feb. 15, 2013

See article on "battle for the Mike" that illustrates the thrust of this website.

This website can be considered to have begun on that day I saw a flyer at the University of California San Diego library describing a conference on  "Political Civility and Scientific Objectivity"   We don't really care about civility in the sense of being polite, but in the political context, its absence, something I describe as "virulent partisanship"  from the medical definition "extremely infectious, malignant, or poisonous  often leading to the death of the organism," in this case of our very society.

Universities are charged not with amassing knowledge for its own sake, but to provide the setting, the values and the skills to address society's most challenging problems.  Unlike the intentionally adversarial political system,  the academic process defies simple explanation, differing among disciplines and across eras. Military colleges teach the skills of vanquishing a foe and schools of theology teach the perpetuation of the sects beliefs, but these are the exceptions, and useful as a contrast to the liberal arts university.

A few weeks after I started this website, I was visiting the UCSD campus and saw this headline on the college paper about this report, "STUDY: UC EDUCATION IS TOO LEFTIST"  I laughed, thinking that someone had been reading this website.  I knew it was from a right wing think tank, and didn't want to even read it, as they were from the other team.  I read the full report, and wrote this commentary on its insights and exaggerations.

This study, as important as it is, misses the origin of the leftist bias, which is conflict between the early church based colleges in this country and the secular public university.  It is illustrated by a book that could be the first shot in the culture wars that continues in a different form to this very day, "God and Man at Yale" written in 1949 by the founder of the current conservative movement, William F. Buckley.

I am not associated with this university or any other, except in the sense that I help fund it as a taxpayer, but there is something much more important; as a citizen I'm ultimately a beneficiary of what universities achieve. This conference was open to the public, and I accept this invitation not as an individual but as someone who is not part of the set of relationships and exigencies that define every institution.  As such I feel an obligation to evaluate these proceeding as one so unencumbered, to make these observations available to the participants and any other interested parties.  My obligation is also to those students who did not critically respond to the presentations, except one who thanked me for presenting a different view.

It could be that the sponsoring departmental consortium of Science Studies was not inclusive enough to address this larger issue, excluding disciplines such as political science, psychology, anthropology and law.  I have been reaching out to those of these disciplines who are addressing this issue, and will be included in this website.     If the departments included were too limited this also should be noted.  At this point I am attempting to gather the text of some of the key presentations, so my observations will be from notes and some recording taken at the conference, subject to revision upon reading the material presented. .

This was the email about the conference that I sent out:
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This is being sent to a diverse group of friends and associates, who all share some interest in exploring political life.

The event starts Thursday evening, all day Friday the 2nd, and Saturday morning. Here's the title and link for more information and registration, which is free and open to the public.

Political Civility and Scientific Objectivity:

This promises to be interesting, even if they fail in advancing their goal of increasing scientific objectivity. How the speakers address this issue, whether it is tainted by the purported liberal bias that Senator Santorum claims is the goal of liberal arts college education, will be interesting in itself.  Will there be a tacit assumption that scientific distortion is the sole province of conservatives, or will there be meaningful examples of such bias from the left in spite of the liberal orientation of state liberal arts institutions.

This is a multidisciplinary presentation, something that augurs well for reaching the ideal of Edmund O. Wilson's concept of "Concilience," transcending the limits of academic disciplines to achieve a higher level of understanding. All of us who decry the decline of political discourse should consider attending this presentation, and getting more familiar with this stellar institution right in our back yard.
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This website is a work in progress as I connect with the academic participants and others who are interested.  The comment section is open.  Due to limits on this blogspot formant, on the right side clicking on each month opens a list of different articles not necessarily in chronological order.

Essays on individual subjects related to this are found on the right column.