I have previously written about the toleration shown by colleges and universities in students and faculty disrupting speakers with whom they disagree. This has included protests where students have been prevented from studying as other students accuse them of privilege or racism. Administrators at schools like Dartmouth have allowed such abusive conduct to occur without disciplinary action, even apologizing to the protesters. Students at Columbia University library prevented College Republicans from speaking at a meeting while students at Northwestern prevented a class from being held. The latest example occurred last week at Georgetown where the Georgetown University College Republicans were prevented from holding an event critical of climate change theories. It is precisely the type of diversity of opinion that should be welcomed on a campus, but student protesters stopped others from hearing these views. As with the prior incidents, there is no indication of any punishment for the students in stopping the exercise of free speech on the Georgetown campus.
Notably, the article on the event by the college newspaper is titled “College Republicans’ Climate Forum Rebuttal Met With Protests.” In truth, the forum was not “met” by protesters but prevented from being held by protesters.
The students brought together experts and advocates to criticize climate change views. I have long subscribed to the science of climate change, but I still support such a forum as a vital part of our educational mission. Protesters however refused to allow others to hear opposing views, but yelling and blowing whistles. Students were removed but not disciplined. They were threatened with school discipline if they returned. They did not have to. The forum could not continue. In other words, they succeeded in defeating the free speech rights of other students. Georgetown did little beyond an institutional shrug.
There is no indication of discipline even after police had to be called.
The use of the heckler’s veto is now being used to silence those who hold opposing views on issues from abortion to climate change to contemporary politics. By not taking action, universities like Georgetown are enabling this conduct and stripping conservatives students and faculty of the benefits of not just free speech but open intellectual engagement.
FWIW, being skeptical is and of itself, neither good nor bad. It might indicate that the skeptic is more educated on the particular details of a thing, but even that is neither good nor bad in and of itself. Historically, skeptics have questioned the moon landings, whether the Earth circles the sun and not vice versa, whether there really were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whether Lee H. Oswald acted alone, whether Building 7 was destroyed by fire or not, whether the Earth was round, whether the Earth was flat, whether Obama was born in the United States, and whether the Russians help Trump win the election.
So there have been smart skeptics, and stupid skeptics, and no one can really say on AGW, which is more than mere “climate change”, that skepticism is there, by mere virtue of being skepticism, a good thing or a bad thing, or a true thing or a false thing.
The thing itself (res ipse) should be examined.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
STUDENT NEWSPAPER DESCRIBES FEATURED SKEPTICS
After GUCR leadership introduced the first speaker, Marc Morano, a protestor entered the room, loudly providing further background attempting to discredit his career. Morano is the communications director of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which advocates for free market strategies to address environmental concerns.
GUPD eventually instructed everyone in attendance to exit the room. After about 15 minutes of break, Geoffrey Bible, the university deputy director of protocol and events, announced the GUCR program would resume and students could not reenter the room with signs.
Morano then resumed his presentation. Following the disruption, the event also featured Paul Driessen, the CFACT senior policy advisor, Caleb Rossiter, the executive director of the CO2 Coalition, which seeks to educate the public about the value of carbon dioxide in the environment; and Patrick Michaels the former director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute. Kenny Stein, the director of policy for the Institute for Energy Research, a global energy market research organization, closed the event.
At least one student was later asked to leave for interrupting the speakers following the restart of the event.
Morano’s presentation highlighted what he sees as contradictions in media coverage on climate change that he said spoke to the invalid evidence of the phenomenon. He also rebutted the Democratic presidential candidates’ remarks at the MSNBC climate forum earlier Thursday.
Until sustainable energy becomes more accessible to the public, other energy sources should not be banned, according to Morano.
“The day we can go to Walmart, buy a solar panel, put it on a house and get off the grid is the day we can stop having an argument over climate policy. Until that happens, don’t ban everything that works for energy that’s not ready to take over,” Morano said.
Rossiter’s presentation: “There’s No Climate Crisis, Just an Energy Crisis: How Fossil Fuels Save Lives in Africa & America” focused on environmental statistics from his career as a research professor at American University. Climate change is completely linked to cyclical changes in the Earth’s orbit around the sun rather than human intervention, according to Rossiter.
“There is not enough evidence to support high confidence that humans’ carbon dioxide has affected temperature enough to change the overall trend,” Rossiter said.
While Georgetown should engage with conservative ideas about climate change, climate change denial should be shunned, according to Georgetown Students Fighting for our Futures, a group of students who helped organize the counterprotest.
“Conservative perspectives on climate change are welcome on this campus, but climate change denial is not this,” the group wrote in a statement to The Hoya. “Inviting to campus speakers such as Marc Morano, who has said climate scientists should be publicly flogged, is not a right leaning perspective; it is a message of violence.”
Edited from: “College Republicans Climate Forum Rebuttal Met With Protests”
The Hoya, 9/20/19
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Speaker Mark Morano feels that ‘free-market’ strategies are the best way to address Climate Change. Though one could argue that free market forces were and are part of the problem.
Speaker Caleb Rossiter “seeks to educate the public about the value of carbon in the environment”. Apparently Mr. Rossiter feels that carbon has gotten a bad name. Rossiter claims that “fossil fuels have ‘saved lives’ in Africa and America”.
Speaker Kenny Stein is with a global energy market research firm.
Regarding Above:
One should note that only 30 years ago, there were still presumably qualified speakers questioning the science behind second-hand smoke. The tobacco companies were still paying ‘distinguished scientists’ to cast aspersions on efforts to ban cigarettes from the workplace. As recently as the 1990’s, the CEO’s of major tobacco companies sat before Congress to deny they knowingly marketed a dangerously addictive product.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dow-breast-implant-case-spotlights-elizabeth-warrens-work-helping-big-corporations-navigate-bankruptcies/2019/07/15/06b0d676-82fc-11e9-95a9-e2c830afe24f_story.html
Dow breast implant case spotlights Elizabeth Warren’s work helping big corporations navigate bankruptcies
When Dow Corning faced thousands of lawsuits in the 1990s from women saying they had become sick from the company’s silicone gel breast implants, its parent firm, Dow Chemical, turned to one of the country’s leading experts in corporate bankruptcies: Professor Elizabeth Warren.
Warren, now a Democratic presidential candidate, has never publicly discussed her role in the case. Her campaign said that she was “a consultant to ensure adequate compensation for women who claimed injury” from the implants and that a $2.3 billion fund for the women was started “thanks in part to Elizabeth’s efforts.”
But participants on both sides of the matter say that description mischaracterizes Warren’s work, in which she advised a company intent on limiting payments to the women.
“She was on the wrong side of the table,” said Sybil Goldrich, who co-founded a support group for women with implants and battled the companies for years. Goldrich said Dow Corning and its parent “used every trick in the book” to limit the size of payouts to women. The companies, she added, “were not easy to deal with at all.”
A person familiar with Warren’s role who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe litigation strategy said the future senator was part of a Dow defense team that had containing the company’s liability as a goal.
Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts and former Ivy League law professor, is building a White House campaign on her long-standing image as an advocate for consumers and a fierce critic of corporations. While Warren has won praise for a policy-driven platform offering a coherent critique of unchecked capitalism, she has yet to fully explain how her years of private consulting and legal work, sometimes on behalf of major corporations involved in bankruptcy cases, comport with her recent statements while campaigning.
she is an expert on bk. about the only thing she has said in the past which I like, is that a simpler fix to the mortgage crisis, would have been to allow BK courts to cram down security interests for consumers in personal BK organization cases, like they allow for in corporate reorganizations
i still agree with that
the rest of her garbage I don’t much like
That would be a good thing. Also, to be able to discharge student loans in BR, which would pretty much end student loans, and force colleges to fire a lot of their unnecessary admin staff and lower the outrageous pay some of the hgher ups get.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
yes i agree with that too. except that both of such policies would run afoul of Fannie Mae and Sallie Mae which are government sponsored lenders, essentially
the idea that every kid needs to go to college is just preposterous. a lot of really awesome young people are not well suited., they can and will go on to fabulous lives if they work hard and smart.
taking out a bunch of loans for a useless university indoctrination that does not teach you anything about the humanities, let alone getting you a good job, is not smart
Estovir, does this article legitimize Climate Skeptics or cast aspersions on Warren’s credentials as a consumer advocate?
Elizabeth Warren is a capitalist one day and a socialist the next.
A consumer advocate one day a corporate advocate the next.
An American Indian one day and a white American the next.
Today she is a female. What will she be tomorrow?
I believe you just described a political chameleon.
Allan…..maybe tomorrow she’ll be one of those pregnant transgender wimmin that Juan Castro promised us.
Fingers crossed!
Cindy what Elizabeth Warren would like to be is transgender, black, disabled and Muslim. She believes that the road to success is to pretend to be something one isn’t and where Democrats are concerned she might be right.
Allan and Cindy – Elizabeth Warren is trying to be all things to all people. The DNC is propping her up at this point.
Paul……i agree and think Hillary wants Warren to be nominee, or do you think so?…maybe the Clintons are resposible for whistleblower story? It may destroy Biden.
Cindy Bragg – I think the story came from Biden and the supposed “whistleblower.” Although, it appears the whistleblower has no direct knowledge. I think Hillary has temporarily anointed Liz, but would be willing to step in.
Eventually, probably during her presidency, all people will call Elizabeth Warren all things. Just not the ones she’d like to be called.
Allan……exactly
This article ignores Warren’s transformation over the years as she became an academic expert on bankruptcies and then advocate for middle class Americans. Politically she began as an independent, then Republican – she grew up in Oklahoma – and ultimately Democrat, but this transition – like her change from business advocate to consumer advocate – was due to her intellectual growth, not ambition. If she wanted to be rich, staying with Dow is how she could do it.
I’m not for Warren in the primaries, but she walks the talk and believes in principles she has studied and that guide her.
the thing about authorizing cramdowns in consumer BK reorganizations to relieve mortgage debt was actually a great idea.
it’s sad to me that i heard one fantastic idea like that, but never hear about anymore. rather, she’s elevated herself not on good ideas like that but simply by acting aggressive.
i see that andrew yang has gained on the others, a wee bit, but the Dems were able to exclude Tulsi. I guess they’ll never forgive her for undermining hillary when she quit the DNC!
I can’t see how anybody but biden has a chance against trump.
lots of things can change in a year however. who knows where it will end up . i never thought trump would win in the first place. even though I voted for him. LOL
most of all, i just hope we’re not in a war with china by the election. that would really screw the climate if we lobbed a few nukes back and forth! this remains a serious danger. especially with belligerent and irresponsible people in charge in taiwan. a declaration of independence from them would trigger war and somehow some of their “leaders” keep on tossing it around like it’s a good idea. its not. these are people from the socalled ” Democratic Progressive Party ” — sounds like trouble! i favor the pan blue coalition there.
by the way you can get solar panels from harbor freight but they’re for small appliance recharging.
but for even a basic house you need a generation with around 8 KW capacity
a gas backup generator that big is like a few thousand including the transfer box
a solar system with that capacity is over $20K i read
you can get them however. it might make sense in some locations. not mine. if i lived in hawaii i would think that would be a smart investment.
Should the conclusion be that climate change theories and research are so fragile that they must be protected from scrutiny or opposition?
Obviously, the behavior of these detestable ‘protesters’ has no bearing on the validity of the science of climate change whatsoever.
Yyy,
Then they shouldn’t act like the theories and research cannot handle scrutiny and opposition. If the theories and research are sufficiently robust, their strength, logic, and quest for truth will be demonstrated.
I agree.
The problem for these students is a lack of education and the fact that they are being manipulated. The phrase 97% of scientists believe climate change is real is meaningless. You would have to be a complete idiot to believe that climate is constant. You could probably get 97% of doctors to say that vaccines can have side effects. But you wouldn’t get 97% to say that vaccines cause autism.
But what about that study out of Australia claiming that 97% of scientists believe climate change is man made? Actually only 2% said that but the study’s author said he believed that while the others said no such thing he felt it was implied. Really? Try getting away with that in a doctoral oral exam.
How many of those students know that the Hockey Stick Graph that has been jammed down their throats for years got its shape from the fact that the graph’s creator left out the period known as the Roman Warming?
How many know how many ice ages there have been in the last 2.5 million years (at least 5) or can tell you what ended them?
How many know that during the Cambrian Explosion when multi-cellular life began to appear the CO2 in the atmosphere was 10 times what it is now?
The answer to all of those questions, with the exception of a few scattered geology majors, is NONE.
This whole exercise was virtue signaling on a massive scale. Interesting V.S. fact. Shortly after the Toyota Prius was introduced, a survey was done asking why the buyers bought the car. Most responders said that they bought the car to help the environment, right? WRONG. The most common response was: I bought the car because it says something about me.
I just got a message that I post too fast. Must be this blog is for the slow readers. Could explain some of the comments here. And my previous comment didn’t post. That’s ok. The slow readers might have trouble with it.
WordPress sometimes turns into an annoying monster that eats comments. So days it is fickle and eats more often and at random. Some days it targets people. One day I kept having to pester Darren to eject my expletive-free and link-free comments from the filter. It was unclear why 4-5 of my comments had been eaten.
Sorry that happened. It is frustrating.
If these “experts” think that the climate isn’t changing, they are not experts.
and you’re missing the point. people get to talk and form their own opinions. that’s what “freedom” is all about
and universities are about “Education” where presumably most of the people (students) are experts in, well, how can i say this nicely? Not very much!
So now they can just shout down their presumed political opponents., The Hecker’s veto in action
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler%27s_veto
I think its cyclical but hardly lethal.
Climate change is real. Experts who say it doesn’t exist are not experts they are shills BUT protesters should hold counter speeches. One should counter bad speech or speech with which one disagrees with more speech. Shutting speech is not appropriate.
one who presumes to call himself justice but couldnt be bothered to accept the notion that the “experts” may have indeed had impressive CVs.
why not ask, what were their qualifications ? and then impeach if you find them wanting
JH:
Read RSA above and prepare to be amazed at how much you don’t know.
When anyone wishes to promote doom and gloom with regard to the planet’s well being here is a partial
LIST OF DOOMSDAY PREDICTIONS THE CLIMATE ALARMIST GOT WRONG
Here is the source for numbers 1-27. As you will see, the individual sources are not crackpots, but scientific studies and media reports on “expert” predictions. The sources for numbers 28-41 are linked individually.
1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)
1970: Ice Age By 2000
1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
1972: New Ice Age By 2070
1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
1974: Another Ice Age?
1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life
1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent
1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes
1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend
1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000
1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024
2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018
2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013
2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles Says we Have 96 Months to Save World
2009: UK Prime Minister Says 50 Days to ‘Save The Planet From Catastrophe’
2009: Climate Genius Al Gore Moves 2013 Prediction of Ice-Free Arctic to 2014
2013: Arctic Ice-Free by 2015
2014: Only 500 Days Before ‘Climate Chaos’
1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide
1970: World Will Use Up All its Natural Resources
1966: Oil Gone in Ten Years
1972: Oil Depleted in 20 Years
1977: Department of Energy Says Oil will Peak in 90s
1980: Peak Oil In 2000
1996: Peak Oil in 2020
2002: Peak Oil in 2010
2006: Super Hurricanes!
2005 : Manhattan Underwater by 2015
1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985
1970: Nitrogen buildup Will Make All Land Unusable
1970: Decaying Pollution Will Kill all the Fish
1970s: Killer Bees!
Sorry, Experts… Sorry, Scientific Consensus… Only a fool comes running for the 42nd cry of wolf.
Don’t litter, be kind to animals, recycling’s for suckers (it’s all going to end up in the ground eventually), so stop feeling guilty… Go out there and embrace all the bounty that comes with being a 21st century American — you know, like Obama, who says he believes in Global Warming with his mouth but proves he doesn’t with the $15 million he just spent on oceanfront that we’re told
The news articles are here:
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions
the think is, peak oil as well is a real thing. wells go dry all the time.
now, some including many of the Russians believe in “abiotic replenishment”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
It seems like that is a weaker theory than peak oil.
the shale oil boom is mostly about extracting oil from weaker deposits, with more recent innovative methods, that was not economically viable at lower price levels.
so you can squeeze the lemons harder as the price of lemon juice goes up, but, oil doesn’t grow on trees like lemons does.
american universities won’t touch abiogenic petroleum hypothesis either, from what i can tell. american oil companies don’t subscribe to the notion so it’s hard for me to imagine that it has very much empirical support. but, I’m not a geologist
Kurtz, rather than consider abiotic replacement I like to look at entire processes as a whole. Think of that tiny form of life, algae, which exists all over the world in great quantity. It and many things similar to it could be used as a form of energy. Light is the energy behind C02 and water being converted into organic molecules that can be used in ways similar to which we use oil. Imagine that. We burn a product that produces C02 which based on sunlight and the water surrounding the planet produce the combustable product.
That type of equation sort of tells us a lot of things, that and the formula E=mc2. Never forget the first law of thermodynamics: energy can neither be created nor destroyed. (It can only be transferred from one form to another.)
Thank you, Allan!
Once upon a time, there was a consensus that the earth was flat.
Fox……..It is. (in the Panhandle😊)
Anyone watching a ship put to sea can ascertain that it is not. 😐
until it drops off the edge 😉
“Anyone watching a ship put to sea can ascertain that it is not. 😐”
History repeats itself.
Remember, David, those at the time in power pushed the flat earth theory and made those promoting contrary theories agree or go to the tower. We can still see their maps proving the earth to be flat just like Michael Mann’s false checkmark graph but none the less what remains today is a supposed consensus that doesn’t really exist except possibly through fear and the ability of those in power to control thought and free speech.
Keep it up “Conservative” republican’t Traitors – (insatiably greedy Sociopaths one and all)
Continue to fiddle faddle while the whole world burns………..
In the 70s they said we were headed for another ice age. The climate is always going to change if you can do anything about it why not stop the hurricanes.
Says an oyster.
I think this is relevant. A piece from Australia to the stupid twerp kids on climate strike:
Growing up
To all the school kids going on strike for climate change, you are the first generation who have required air conditioning in every classroom, you want TV in every room, and your classes are all computerized. You spend all day and night on electronic devices. More than ever you don’t walk or ride bikes to school but you arrive in caravans of private cars that choke suburban roads and worsen rush hour traffic. You are the biggest consumers of manufactured goods ever and update perfectly good luxury items to stay trendy. Your entertainment comes from electric devices. Furthermore, the people driving your protest are the same people who insist on actually inflating the population growth through immigration which increases the need for energy, manufacturing and transport. The more people we have, the more forest and bush land we clear. The more of the environment that’s destroyed. How about this? Tell your teachers to switch off the aircon. Walk or ride [your bicycle] to school. Switch off your devices and read a book. Make a sandwich instead of buying manufactured fast food. Nope. None of this will happen because the piece say is because you’re selfish, badly educated, virtue-signaling little turds inspired by the adults around you who crave a feeling of having a noble cause while they indulge themselves while they indulge themselves in Western luxury and unprecedented quality of life. The piece ends by saying “Wake up, grow up, and shut up until you’re sure of the facts before protesting!”
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2019/09/21/so-much-this-australian-broadcaster-shares-a-harsh-reality-check-for-climatestrike-students-ouch-video/
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
OK, I have edited my typos:
Growing up
To all the school kids going on strike for climate change, you are the first generation who have required air conditioning in every classroom, you want TV in every room, and your classes are all computerized. You spend all day and night on electronic devices. More than ever you don’t walk or ride bikes to school but you arrive in caravans of private cars that choke suburban roads and worsen rush hour traffic. You are the biggest consumers of manufactured goods ever and update perfectly good luxury items to stay trendy. Your entertainment comes from electric devices. Furthermore, the people driving your protest are the same people who insist on actually inflating the population growth through immigration which increases the need for energy, manufacturing and transport. The more people we have, the more forest and bush land we clear. The more of the environment that’s destroyed. How about this? Tell your teachers to switch off the aircon. Walk or ride [your bicycle] to school. Switch off your devices and read a book. Make a sandwich instead of buying manufactured fast food. Nope. None of this will happen because you’re selfish, badly educated, virtue-signaling little turds inspired by the adults around you who crave a feeling of having a noble cause while they indulge themselves in Western luxury and unprecedented quality of life. “Wake up, grow up, and shut up until you’re sure of the facts before protesting!”
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Says another oyster.
You persistently refuse to draw the obvious conclusions.
1. The students are never punished because they are agents of the Administration.
2. The Administration behave this way because the faculty do not object and often approve. Institutional policies that faculty dislike will be eliminated. Not usually this year or next year, but within fifteen years or so. Complaints over this sort of behavior have been common for thirty years.
3. Which is to say, you want the source of the problem, look around you. Those are your ‘colleagues’ who are at fault here.
4. Another source of nonfeasance is the trustees. Trustees are commonly ineffectual hollow-man types. They might be better if they were elected by postal ballots cast by locally resident alumni in elections supervised by the state board of elections. Or not. Our professional-managerial element is deficient in character in comparison with my parents’ contemporaries. When did you ever advocate altering corporate governance as relating to institutions of higher education?
100% dead on!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky and DDS – you have to lead from the top.
+10
I love an A+ answer.
well said absurd. but he never does. why?
same reason I don’tb stand up in court and say “THE AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM GUARANTEES DUE PROCESS FOR THOSE WHO CAN PAY FOR IT”
Administration behave this way because the faculty do not object and often approve.
Independent thinking true scholars have little power at universities these days. Objections will get you targeted. If you disagree with the current national trends in education, you either remain silent and be miserable or depart your profession and turn to industry, consulting or writing. We lost our Dean of the School of Medicine 3 years ago when he resigned after >10 years, frustrated that his hands were tied as to leading a state university medical school. He was a brilliant MD, PhD scientist, a machine when it came to published research, and a respected physician, a good guy whom I admired. When he gave his last public open forum presentation, I attended and he let it rip, stunning all present, torching education in general and medical education in specific. He said little that was good about govt meddling in education. He had been reduced to a fraction of his former towering greatness. Dr Stanley Goldfarb at UPenn in his WSJ piece is spot on. If you only knew.
NB:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/take-two-aspirin-and-call-me-by-my-pronouns-11568325291
Take Two Aspirin and Call Me by My Pronouns
At ‘woke’ medical schools, curricula are increasingly focused on social justice rather than treating illness.
By Stanley Goldfarb
Sept. 12, 2019 5:54 pm ET
The American College of Physicians says its mission is to promote the “quality and effectiveness of health care,” but it’s stepped out of its lane recently with sweeping statements on gun control. And that isn’t the only recent foray into politics by medical professionals. During my term as associate dean of curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school, I was chastised by a faculty member for not including a program on climate change in the course of study. As the Journal reported last month, such programs are spreading across medical schools nationwide.
Why have medical schools become a target for inculcating social policy when the stated purpose of medical education since Hippocrates has been to develop individuals who know how to cure patients?
A new wave of educational specialists is increasingly influencing medical education. They emphasize “social justice” that relates to health care only tangentially. This approach is the result of a progressive mind-set that abhors hierarchy of any kind and the social elitism associated with the medical profession in particular.
These educators focus on eliminating health disparities and ensuring that the next generation of physicians is well-equipped to deal with cultural diversity, which are worthwhile goals. But teaching these issues is coming at the expense of rigorous training in medical science. The prospect of this “new,” politicized medical education should worry all Americans.
The traditional American model of medical training, which has been emulated around the world, emphasizes a scientific approach to treatment and subjects students to rigorous classroom instruction. Students didn’t encounter patients until they had some fundamental knowledge of disease processes and knew how to interpret symptoms. They were expected to appreciate medical advances and be able to incorporate them into their eventual fields of practice. Medical education was demanding and occasionally led to student failure, but it produced a technically proficient and responsible physician corps for the U.S.
The traditional American model first came under attack by progressive sociologists of the 1960s and ’70s, who condemned medicine as a failing enterprise because increased spending hadn’t led to breakthroughs in cancer treatment and other fields. The influential critic Ivan Illich called the medical industry an instrument of “pain, sickness, and death,” and sought to reorder the field toward an egalitarian social purpose. These ideas were long kept out of the mainstream of medical education, but the tide of recent political culture has brought them in.
As concerns about social justice have taken over undergraduate education, graduate schools have raced to develop curricula that will steep future educators in the same ideology. Today a master’s degree in education is often what it takes to qualify for key administrative roles on medical-school faculties. The zeitgeist of sociology and social work have become the driving force in medical education. The goal of today’s educators is to produce legions of primary care physicians who engage in what is termed “population health.”
This fits perfectly with the current administrator-rich, policy-heavy, form-over-function approach at every level of American education. Theories of learning with virtually no experimental basis for their impact on society and professions now prevail. Students are taught in the tradition of educational theorist Étienne Wenger, who emphasized “communal learning” rather than individual mastery of crucial information.
Where will all this lead? Medical school bureaucracies have become bloated, as they have in every other sphere of education. Curricula will increasingly focus on climate change, social inequities, gun violence, bias and other progressive causes only tangentially related to treating illness. And so will many of your doctors in coming years.
Meanwhile, oncologists, cardiologists, surgeons and other medical specialists are in short supply. The specialists who are produced must master more crucial material even though less and less of their medical-school education is devoted to basic scientific knowledge. If this country needs more gun control and climate change activists, medical schools are not the right place to produce them.
Dr. Goldfarb is a former associate dean of curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
Thank you for posting this, Estovir. Though I am not a physician, I am very interested in health and the medical field. I was startled to see such things in JAMA. Horrified, more like it. Doctors and nurses must have mastery of their profession. Communal learning is no way to thoroughly achieve mastery.
New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, and others are not worthy of physicians support. I let my subscriptions lapse shortly after ACA was passed by Congress with support of the AMA, and since then the membership roster of the AMA comprises less than 33% of all licensed physicians in America. The medical journals already mentioned are propaganda. Hard core medical science is rarely front and center, but instead SJW “activism” is now the pressing affair, like Goldfarb stated
If you want to keep abreast of developing medical diagnostic and treatment paradigms, and bench top preclinical science research, which are always evolving, PubMed and Web of Science are the go to sources. Dry to most, exciting to some, politics free because science is like that.
Estovir,
I out myself as an uber-nerd. I like reading PubMed articles. I am not associated with an institution, so I cannot access all the articles, unfortunately. I hate when an article is an Elsevier article because they are generally not Open-Access and would cost me $40.00/article to read more than the abstract. Ah, well. Better than none at all.
Estovir,
Have you read any of Alessio Fasano’s work on gluten and zonulin?
Estovir, thank you for this editorial that should be read by every individual and incorporated in such a way that they recognize how social justice thinking negatively impacts on almost every endeavor.
I don’t think our young doctors are trained as well as they were decades ago and I believe the only reason that healthcare looks like it is moving forward is because technology has made so many advances filling in the gaps of knowledge and experience that are no longer taught or learned.
We all would likely agree that not all speech is “free” and allowed. So being able to speak about anything at anytime is not clearly a right—there are limits, though in US those limits are narrow. I would argue that a politically sponsored conference on a scientific subject is fair game for dissent, especially if the history of these discussions has been one of disingenuous arguments.
No, we would all NOT likely agree. I am sure though, that many neo-facists regard you as a compadre!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
We would not all likely agree.
Regardless, to the extent that ANY restrictions on free speech might be permissible., Your constraints are way beyond those.
Political speech is the most important speech to protect.
This fixation of the left with “motives” – is fundimentally EVIL.
You can not know what is in the minds of others.
Our law – the social contract punishes ACTS, there are rare instances in which good intentions mitigate a bad act. There are none in which presumed bad intentions may an otherwise acceptable act a crime.
Nor is this about dissent – dissent all you want – that too is free speech. But you may not use force or threats or violence to silence others.
“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion… Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them…he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”
John Stuart Mill
What we have here is students in one of the most prestigious universities in the country whose education is so poor they are completely ignorant of not merely the Mill quote above – but hundreds of years of classical liberal thought on free speech.
Why should anyone trust their judgement on Climate – if they are so poorly educated ?
Why should we trust the judgement of “scientists” on ANYTHING, when they too are coming from institutions that have failed to teach them that inquiry – science is not resolved by consensus, but by overcoming the objections of dissenters.
For that you must listen to the best arguments of the best opponents of your claims, and you must overcome those objections using facts, and logic. Anything less is religion not science.
“Why should anyone trust their judgement on Climate – if they are so poorly educated ?”
Great question. They are not educated to look and discuss all sides of any question.
Decades ago when I was at the university I had only a few professors that were brilliant. When I came up with a wrong answer they could actually figure out how I got to that answer. That is a person with knowledge.
the best professors are always a small number. it’s a lifetime blessing to have had one
my philosophy 101 professor was fantastic but so was my managerial accounting prof
the difference between my managerial accounting prof and the other sections?
mine actually made a lot of money in the private sector over the decades, unlike those other ones who exemplifed the old maxim… “those who cannot do, teach” lol
i respect turley for being a real lawyer who actually takes constitutional law cases and doesnt just theorize about them
You know the best prof I ever had challenged every one of my assumptions in a class entitled “Democracy and Its Discontents.” At the end of the term, I wrote a furious paper in rebuttal which he meticulously and publicly praised. It was the only superior grade he gave that semester. He told me eons later, he expected to get that response from me based on my copious comments.
It’s the only undergraduate paper I ever kept. he knew me better than I knew me. A big mouth through and through.
Maybe they will let you post it here as a weekend blog. You have always had a lot of good things to say.
I concur.
mespo……..I imagine that was an excellent piece of writing. You’re a natural at that…….in this readers opinion!
Everybody is way too nice.
The ‘protesters’ actions are only dissent as a tantruming two-year-old would recognize.
When are conservatives going to grow a pair and start fighting back on any of this? We have no one to blame if we are not willing to return the silencing on their events. Also, I wonder where he ACLU is? Is freedom of speech not a civil liberty? Crickets….
ACLU applauds left wing speech in 95% of instances.
they conscientiously pick 1/20 exceptions to keep the American public fooled.
The ACLU is trying to support “women’s rights” and “trans student atheletes” simultaneously. The two are incompatible.
Free speech appears to be off their radar.
As a former supporter of the ACLU, like many others that considered themselves civil libertarians I dropped my support.
Here is what Nat Hentoff said about the ACLU in 2015. He was a well known leftist and civil libertarian but respected by both sides of the aisle. He was an intellect.
ACLU Silence Enables Campus Anti-Free Speech Movement
https://www.uexpress.com/sweet-land-of-liberty/2015/12/9/aclu-silence-enables-campus-anti-free-speech
Wm Donohue wrote a history of the organization 30 years ago. His thesis was that the concern with ‘civil liberties’ was somewhere between secondary and ornamental. Essentially, it’s purpose had always been the pursuit of political goals through court suits. It’s a lawfare organization, and a frankly evil one.
DSS, Knowing what I know today I can believe that but I can’t say whether it is true or not. If he was the one involved with the Catholic leadership then I think he also agreed that they did some good work. It’s always difficult to get a handle on these things as I am sure there were many that thought highly of the ACLU back in its glory days. But then when it was founded we had just left the period of WW1 and the Wilson Administration which wasn’t very friendly to civil liberties.
i think i read that a whiles back. i agreed.
Germany had its Hitler Youth, and now we have Children of the Corn– with poster boards and sharpies, as witnessed last Friday.
Their older counterparts in colleges are just as frightening, and more dangerous, as we know..
This type of toddler pampering used to happen only in California when I was a young school teacher in 1969. There were incidents of 1st graders marching and protesting at their elementary schools!
If it weren’t for irony and hypocrisy, the left would have no guiding principles at all.
Alma Carman – I do not think the left understands irony.
I am certain they are as unable to see that as a tone deaf person cannot comprehend music.
Ironic considering I received an email from Georgetown U notifying me of an upcoming forum on tolerance. Unless GU takes decisive action on the disrupters of the climate change event, their upcoming tolerance event will be discredited.
https://catholicsocialthought.georgetown.edu/events/faith-race-and-politics
October 2, 2019
Faith, Race, and Politics
RSVP Required
African-American man against a USA flag background
October 2, 2019
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Location: Healy Hall Gaston Hall
In a polarized nation, faith, race, and politics can be divisive topics on their own. Bringing them together can be explosive. This Public Dialogue seeks to explore the intersections of faith, race, and politics in the United States in ways that can inform and engage, rather than pull us apart.
This timely conversation includes an African-American political leader trying to connect biblical values and the Democratic Party; a white evangelical leader insisting that “Who is my neighbor?” is the central question of the 2020 presidential campaign; a Latino bishop serving a Catholic diocese along the U.S.-Mexico border; and a respected journalist who has spent years covering the ways faith and race intersect in American politics and culture.
This dialogue is a continuation of the Initiative’s series on Faith and the Faithful in U.S. Politics. This particular conversation will ask:
What are the religious, social, and political contexts for how faith and race are playing out in our nation and in the 2020 campaign?
In what ways is faith being tested, used, or misused by believers and religious communities in addressing the challenges of racism, discrimination, and injustice?
How do race and ethnicity shape the public convictions, choices, and priorities of religious voters and communities?
How do these links challenge religious communities? The Democratic Party? The Republican Party?
How do these factors affect debates on immigration, abortion, criminal justice, poverty, and other global issues?
Will the interaction of faith, race, and politics continue to deepen divisions? Or can faith provide principles and approaches that build community across racial, ethnic, and political lines?
Featured
Adelle Banks is an editor and a national reporter for Religion News Service (RNS). Before joining RNS in 1995, she was a reporter in Florida, Rhode Island, and New York. She won the 2014 Wilbur Award for her coverage of the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington.
Bishop Daniel Flores has been a champion of human life and dignity as the bishop of the diocese of Brownsville, Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border for 10 years. He previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit.
Justin Giboney is an attorney and political strategist in Atlanta. He is the co-founder and president of the AND Campaign, a coalition of urban Christians seeking to bring the compassion and convictions of the Gospel to politics and the Democratic Party.
Rev. Jim Wallis is the founder, president, and editor-in-chief of Sojourners, as well as the author of the recently published Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus (2019), America’s Original Sin (2016), and God’s Politics (2005). He is a research fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and teaches in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.
Estovir:
Bring your whistle!
Better to take a crate full of Crucifixes and nail them in the rooms of each building on campus. but I suspect the surge of energy I would be liberating from the exodus of demons would destroy the metropolitan area of DC.
Hmmmm
Estovir:
I can get you twice-filtered Holy Water cheap! That’ll take care of the worst Beelzebubs!
Love the imagery. Well said. 🙂
“Georgetown University”. Consider the words in the name of the so called school, or college or university. George was a slave owner and a town got named after him. Then a so called university was formed and named after the George slave owner and the town named after him. Slave owners do not believe in free speech, free association or free anything unless its a piece of arse from a slave woman.
Liberty 2nd:
“Slave owners do not believe in free speech, free association or free anything unless its a piece of arse from a slave woman.”
*************
Ever hear of Thomas Jefferson or James Madison? History not a strong suit, eh?
I keep telling you guys that the Pope, who is a Jesuit, is not Catholic. When I was at Creighton University they had an atheist on the theology faculty, which I thought was rather broad-minded. Now this?
I am glad I turned agnostic.
The Jesuits are a political party not a religious order as they proved over and over again throughout their history.
many Catholic kings banned the Jesuits
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_the_Society_of_Jesus
“The modern view is that the suppression of the order was the result of a series of political and economic conflicts rather than a theological controversy, and the assertion of nation-state independence against the Catholic Church. The expulsion of the Society of Jesus from the Roman Catholic nations of Europe and their colonial empires is also seen as one of the early manifestations of the new secularist zeitgeist of the Enlightenment.[51] It peaked with the anti-clericalism of the French Revolution. The suppression was also seen as being an attempt by monarchs to gain control of revenues and trade that were previously dominated by the Society of Jesus. ”
In this instance, the modern view is accurate. but let me recast it plainly. they are and always have been internationalist schemers.
the Jesuits are for international anything. they oppose nationalism as a human-organizing force. they are behind the sanitizing of the Cathechism to make it more negative towards ethnicity and nationalism. and of course they were successful in elevating one of their made men into the Bishopric of Rome, where he has engineered a massive purge of Catholics that they don’t like. Bergoglio he has worked hard at alienating Republican Catholics in America, in particular.
i empathize more and more with Gary Lewis these days
Paul C……….Why not join us over at “Catholic-lite” (the Episcopal church), where we study the 10 Suggestions? 😃
Cindy Bragg – isn’t the Archbishop of Canterbury an atheist?
Paul C. …..not the current one! What have you heard?
Cindy Bragg – maybe it was the one before. It caused a minor scandal.
Paul C…..I finally found to what you are referring.
In an interview with The Guardian, Archbishop Welby (no relation to Marcus, M.D.), stated that he believes Jesus is present in his daily life. But during Welby’s daily walks, he talks to God, sometimes wondering why God does not make himself known as much as Welby would like…….He does have doubts, briefly, from time to time……but not about Jesus.
BTW, The Guardian would like for me to donate to their climate change scam, I mean fundraising effort.
We used to call them JV Catholics. Now, they’re the varsity.
mespo – I am fine being a spectator. 😉
Paul:
I prefer to be at Pascal’s betting parlor.
mespo…….Go Epissy-palians🏈!
here’s an update from the Church of England
Anonymous……Thank you for the video. As I have said before, and as I enjoy telling my fellow Episcopalians: My husband and I have participated in 2 gay weddings. Both weddings were conducted at our Baptist church home in Austin, while we were still Baptists.
P.S. The Episcopal church in America is separate from the Church of England.
Welcome to the neo-fascism that only Trump seems willing to stop. The Left is now a threat not only to free speech but democracy itself. The Georgetown Republicans need to file a complaint with the DOE and sue the school for failure to protect their rights. This is a disgrace that used to happen in the third world. Now it’s here and needs to be dealt with.
“Protesters however refused to allow others to hear opposing views, but yelling and blowing whistles. Students were removed but not disciplined. They were threatened with school discipline if they returned. They did not have to. The forum could not continue,”
********************
The article suggests that the event did resume and speakers did speak. That excuses none of the disruptions however. It was an organized protest by some Leftist group who doesn’t deserve to have their name mentioned just prosecuted for violating civil rights.
Most of the time I think, I’m glad I’m not in college in this time period. But then I think, man, it would be fun to get in the faces of these liberals. But then again, as a science major, I was too busy with schoolwork to get involved with SJW’s who obviously have a watered down education.