How can anyone take this guy seriously?! I don’t understand how he passed med school (or any school for that matter). He also believes that the pyramids were built to store grain. Wow! I guess evidence doesn’t matter when your followers live in the same fact free world as you!!
“After the war, the United States covered up Japan’s biological warfare research on humans, allowing the perpetrators to escape punishment and to prosper.” Why? It “enabled the United States to gather information that was of great use for its own biological warfare program, early in the Cold War.” I don’t think that any potential benefit from these horrific experiments can justify covering up these crimes. And in the long run, it is against our own interests by undermining our moral standing in the world. How we conduct ourselves around the world does have implications for our national security.
Read the entire article here: A New Look at Japan’s Wartime Atrocities and a U.S. Cover-Up – The New York Times
An exhibit at the Unit 731 museum depicts a frostbite experiment on prisoners.Credit Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times
Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign has prompted a heated debate over the meaning and viability of “democratic socialism.” In response to claims that it is un-American, Lawrence Wittner demonstrates that democratic socialism has long been part of American life: History News Network | Democratic Socialism Has Deep Roots in American Life
Read O’Farrell’s entire proposal here: History News Network | Alas, Eleanor Roosevelt Remains All-Too Relevant to Our Politics
Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute (a conservative think tank), claims that “[m]any academics and intellectuals are biased against conservative viewpoints.” But Brooks’ claim is built on rhetorical trickery.
And it’s important to note that Brooks works for a political think tank that has no interest in diversity in personnel or ideas. The goal of the AEI is not the pursuit of knowledge or truth, but the promotion of their ideology.
Brooks uses the language of liberalism (“diversity” and “open-mindedness”) to portray conservatives as victims of liberal bias. To pull this off, he takes advantage of the progressive affinity for “diversity.” However, it soon becomes clear that Brooks is not talking about diversity of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc., he is referring to the diversity of ideas (something that is very important to academia). This sounds like a good thing, but what Brooks is asking for is the acceptance of certain ideas (his) in the academic world based on something other than merit.
The acquisition of knowledge in the academic world is the result of a brutal competition of ideas. Only those ideas that survive this process are generally accepted as knowledge, and then only provisionally. If new evidence comes in, we must revise what we know. Academia is committed to the pursuit of knowledge (something that AEI is not because they believe they already have the truth). The process has its flaws, but over time it brings us closer to the truth. So if Brooks wants his ideas accepted they have to the same rigorous process that all ideas are subjected to.
So, for example, in my own field of history the conservative claim that the Civil War was over states’ rights because the evidence does not support it. In science, biologists don’t reject creationism (or its newer form ID) because they are biased, but because the evidence doesn’t support it! Climate scientists claim that the climate is changing not because they have a liberal bias, but because the evidence supports this conclusion!
Not all ideas are equally valid! The ideas that become accepted as knowledge win through merit not through appeals to fairness. Open mindedness requires only that the idea be given a fair hearing. If an idea is to be accepted, it must stand up to the rigorous standards of logic and evidence. Truth is not about fairness, although there should be fairness (based on relevant qualifications rather than irrelevant factors such as race, gender, etc.) in who participates.
Source: Academia’s Rejection of Diversity – The New York Times
History Chick in AZ 