Is it diversity to hire a creationist to teach evolution?
Friedman on this in the comment section:
I wasn’t assuming that the department was one for which views on apartheid were immediately relevant. If it was, faculty members would (hopefully) be able to distinguish an applicant who really held a defensible position from one who didn’t.
In my hypothetical, we already know that the applicant is competent in his field—that’s why he is a finalist in the job search. The question is whether having people around with heterodox views that they can defend is an asset or a liability.
Taking Daniel’s example of Marxists, I think for a physics department, a candidate being an able Marxist would be an asset, since other members of the faculty could talk with him and learn the arguments for Marxism. In the case of economics, if Marxism is really indefensible one need not hire Marxists to teach economics.
Similarly, an economics department should think that a candidate being an articulate and intelligent creationist is an asset—a biology department perhaps not.
and:
The creationist in a physics department is an asset because he gives his colleagues, and perhaps students he talks with, the opportunity to understand a set of ideas they otherwise might not understand.
And a policy of promoting rather than excluding such has the further advantage that some of the ideas that people are confident are correct are actually wrong, so exposing yourself to ideas you are confident are wrong may result in your learning that they are right.
As a physicist, I don’t think a creationist works, at least not as a general expert in Physics. Cosmology, planet and solar system and galaxy formation, all these are pretty senseless if you believe the universe was created 7000 or so years ago. If I were interviewing a talented researcher for physics faculty and they expressed a belief in creationism I”d tell them I didn’t want to hire them because I would never want a full professor of physics suggesting to students that a semi-literal interpretation of a text compiled over a thousand years ago should trump billions of dollars worth of more recent research and analysis. It is plausible that they could give me an answer that would put my concerns to rest, but I think unlikely based on my previous experience with creationists and non-creationist physicists.
To be fair, of course there are billions of non-creationists I would not want to hire as a physics professor as well.
I doubt apartheid is anywhere as disabling to a physicist as is creationism. I would be concerned it would be associated with an inability to teach blacks as well as whites, and to be fair in grading blacks as well as whites. It is a bit ridiculous to claim to believe political rights should be apportioned to people based on their race, but that university education and grading should somehow be race-blind. He’d have to be a heck of a good candidate otherwise for me to consider taking the risk that he would somehow be crazy enough to be racist in his politics but not in his professional life. And again, I can’t imagine what he could tell me that would assuage me, but I”m not ruling out there might be something.
Are there any creationists who don’t overweight their interpretation of the bible compared to the billions of dollars worth of research and analysis done since the bible was written?
Are there any atheist creationists? Any creationists who get there based on the billions of dollars worth of research and analysis done in the last 1000 years?
I wasn’t assuming that the department was one for which views on apartheid were immediately relevant.
For what department would the wrong view on apartheid be “immediately relevant”? Even in political science, why is the preference for one system over another relevant to truth claims about those systems?
So you can have diversity of moral views, but not when those views would be relevant to the subject at hand? We couldn’t let morally icky views into discussions where they are relevant, though Friedman would still allow them to be employed where their icky moral views would not infringe on the topic they’re hired for. The new flavor in academic tolerance, theocrat lite. I suppose it’s an improvement, but we’ve got a long way to go.
Friedman doesn’t seem to consider apartheid a moral view, but an empirical one:
I don’t think apartheid is indefensible. It isn’t the policy I would have recommended for South Africa, but neither is the one man, one vote policy they ended up pressured into.
And in general, he didn’t seem to be saying about moral views.
And in general, he didn’t seem to be saying about moral views.
Sorry, that’s missing a word: “he didn’t seem to be saying anything about moral views”. This was in reference to your earlier comment,
So you can have diversity of moral views, but not when those views would be relevant to the subject at hand? We couldn’t let morally icky views into discussions where they are relevant, though Friedman would still allow them to be employed where their icky moral views would not infringe on the topic they’re hired for.
in which you seemed to be saying that Friedman would be saying that we could sometimes reject people based on their moral views, and sometimes not. My response was that Friedman didn’t seem to be saying anything about rejecting or accepting people based on their moral views. He only said that people could be rejected if they held positions which the discipline they were being hired for had considered and rejected as clearly untrue, indicating that the people were actually incompetent for that discipline.
As for the empirical facts that I see in the quote, it seems to be implying that various policies have different consequences and that the observed empirical consequences of apartheid aren’t necessarily worse than those of the policy that South Africa actually ended up with, as measured on some generally accepted moral criteria (not being familiar with the arguments, I can’t say anything more specific than that).
The original faculty applicant under consideration was a “supporter of South African Apartheid.” He hasn’t committed to any fact that could be untrue, he has a preference. Most people would classify it as a moral (or immoral) preference.
For the empirical facts you see, you’ve projected a utilitarian viewpoint on the guy which he just may not have. But let’s even go with that. Aren’t judgments of whether apartheid is better or worse than other systems still moral judgments?
Looking back at the quote, Friedman is just so wrong about the Marxist. He’s saying that a Marxist would be an asset in a physics department but not an economics department. Wrong. I’m opposed to Marx and his theories, but given intellectual history, of course a Marxist would be an asset in an economics department.
(And yes, he didn’t literally say the Marxist wouldn’t be an asset, only that they didn’t “need” to hire him. But interpreted that way, the Marxist as asset versus Marxist not strictly needed is an apples to orange comparison with little point.)
Friedman on this in the comment section:
and:
I think he overestimates what is possible for creationism. Sometimes, indefensible ideas are actually indefensible.
As a physicist, I don’t think a creationist works, at least not as a general expert in Physics. Cosmology, planet and solar system and galaxy formation, all these are pretty senseless if you believe the universe was created 7000 or so years ago. If I were interviewing a talented researcher for physics faculty and they expressed a belief in creationism I”d tell them I didn’t want to hire them because I would never want a full professor of physics suggesting to students that a semi-literal interpretation of a text compiled over a thousand years ago should trump billions of dollars worth of more recent research and analysis. It is plausible that they could give me an answer that would put my concerns to rest, but I think unlikely based on my previous experience with creationists and non-creationist physicists.
To be fair, of course there are billions of non-creationists I would not want to hire as a physics professor as well.
I doubt apartheid is anywhere as disabling to a physicist as is creationism. I would be concerned it would be associated with an inability to teach blacks as well as whites, and to be fair in grading blacks as well as whites. It is a bit ridiculous to claim to believe political rights should be apportioned to people based on their race, but that university education and grading should somehow be race-blind. He’d have to be a heck of a good candidate otherwise for me to consider taking the risk that he would somehow be crazy enough to be racist in his politics but not in his professional life. And again, I can’t imagine what he could tell me that would assuage me, but I”m not ruling out there might be something.
Fair point, though not all creationists are young-Earthers.
Are there any creationists who don’t overweight their interpretation of the bible compared to the billions of dollars worth of research and analysis done since the bible was written?
Are there any atheist creationists? Any creationists who get there based on the billions of dollars worth of research and analysis done in the last 1000 years?
For what department would the wrong view on apartheid be “immediately relevant”? Even in political science, why is the preference for one system over another relevant to truth claims about those systems?
So you can have diversity of moral views, but not when those views would be relevant to the subject at hand? We couldn’t let morally icky views into discussions where they are relevant, though Friedman would still allow them to be employed where their icky moral views would not infringe on the topic they’re hired for. The new flavor in academic tolerance, theocrat lite. I suppose it’s an improvement, but we’ve got a long way to go.
Friedman doesn’t seem to consider apartheid a moral view, but an empirical one:
And in general, he didn’t seem to be saying about moral views.
What empirical facts do you see in the quote? The most I see are implications about recommendations.
And I can’t parse
Sorry, that’s missing a word: “he didn’t seem to be saying anything about moral views”. This was in reference to your earlier comment,
in which you seemed to be saying that Friedman would be saying that we could sometimes reject people based on their moral views, and sometimes not. My response was that Friedman didn’t seem to be saying anything about rejecting or accepting people based on their moral views. He only said that people could be rejected if they held positions which the discipline they were being hired for had considered and rejected as clearly untrue, indicating that the people were actually incompetent for that discipline.
As for the empirical facts that I see in the quote, it seems to be implying that various policies have different consequences and that the observed empirical consequences of apartheid aren’t necessarily worse than those of the policy that South Africa actually ended up with, as measured on some generally accepted moral criteria (not being familiar with the arguments, I can’t say anything more specific than that).
The original faculty applicant under consideration was a “supporter of South African Apartheid.” He hasn’t committed to any fact that could be untrue, he has a preference. Most people would classify it as a moral (or immoral) preference.
For the empirical facts you see, you’ve projected a utilitarian viewpoint on the guy which he just may not have. But let’s even go with that. Aren’t judgments of whether apartheid is better or worse than other systems still moral judgments?
Looking back at the quote, Friedman is just so wrong about the Marxist. He’s saying that a Marxist would be an asset in a physics department but not an economics department. Wrong. I’m opposed to Marx and his theories, but given intellectual history, of course a Marxist would be an asset in an economics department.
(And yes, he didn’t literally say the Marxist wouldn’t be an asset, only that they didn’t “need” to hire him. But interpreted that way, the Marxist as asset versus Marxist not strictly needed is an apples to orange comparison with little point.)