Reviews and News:
When we lived in Switzerland, I read one day about students in Geneva protesting globalization by breaking the windows of McDonald’s and various retail stores. There were pictures. Most of them were dressed in typical H&M fare, posh sneakers, and Levis—oblivious to the hypocrisy. My guess is the following young, hip and (probably) college-educated protestors from (probably) middle-class families calling for an end to the “colonization” and gentrification of New York are equally unaware that there’s nothing more gentrified—more colonially chic—than calling for an end to gentrification and colonialism.
Well, that didn’t last long. The Atlantic has fired Kevin Williamson.
At the center of the Milky Way there are likely thousands of black holes.
People asked to stop relieving themselves in Walden Pond: It would be “prudent to further reduce the flow of anthropogenic nutrients to Walden Pond under the warmer, wetter conditions that most climate models project for New England during the 21st century.”
The future of science? “Demanding that a theory is falsifiable or observable, without any subtlety, will hold science back. We need madcap ideas.”
Morality after the death of God: “Philosophical naturalism assumes that everything can be explained by natural law. In its accounts of the human, God is expendable, as is all other mystery. Not only is this view of things mistaken, says Ronald E. Osborn, it is a moral disaster.”
Essay of the Day:
In National Affairs, Frederick M. Hess and Grant Addison explain how freedom of inquiry can be restored to university campuses in America: Withhold federal funding from universities that quash it. Here’s a snippet:
“Federal funds support university research because universities are deemed to be equipped — in terms of human capital, infrastructure, and environment — to conduct the necessary work. As an Institute for Humane Studies report aptly observes, ‘[H]igher education receives special financial and policy protections in exchange for providing society with a good that is distinctive to its mission: the pursuit of truth accompanied by the utmost freedom of speech and inquiry.’ To be sure, the special relationship between the federal government and higher-education institutions has long been cherished by both parties, with a history that can be traced back at least to the Morrill Act of 1862.
“Federal investment in and support of university research was catalyzed, however, by World War II. In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Office of Scientific Research and Development ‘for the purpose of assuring adequate provision for research on scientific and medical problems relating to the national defense.’ Led by Raytheon co-founder and MIT engineer Vannevar Bush, OSRD eschewed government-run laboratories in favor of contracting out its research and development efforts to private firms and to colleges and universities. By the end of World War II, OSRD had channeled contracts of at least $1 million to some 50 universities.
“Drawing on his wartime experience, Bush prepared a 1945 report for President Harry Truman that framed the postwar research relationship between Washington and higher education. Entitled ‘Science, The Endless Frontier,’ Bush’s report stipulated the basic principles of governmental support for scientific research and education. He held it paramount that scholars must be unmolested in their research efforts.”
Photo: Locarno
Poem: Elizabeth Spires, “Island Graveyard”
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