April 17, 2014
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The scientific community needs to go beyond tolerance of difference, to the genuine appreciation of difference, including those differences that make us feel uncomfortable. Especially an appreciation of those who see the world differently from us and think differently from us.
I”ll wager there are some keen differences between my thinking and Prof. Alexander’s. If my academic credentials were good, would Dartmouth welcome me to its faculty with genuine appreciation of those differences?
Most depressing of all, Prof. Alexander seems to believe that it is bold of him to fill a page with these grade-school “diversity” mottoes.
I have taken the challenge to bring up something that may make people uncomfortable.
Such a challenge! So brave!
For hangers-on of the sciences, this is depressingly familiar. You go to a conference on, say, microbiology. A white guy steps up and talks for half an hour about mitochondrial DNA. Then a white gal talks about ion transport across cell membranes. Then another white guy steps up and talks about developmental immunology. Then a black guy steps up. You think uh-oh, and sure enough, he talks for half an hour about how we can get more minority kids interested in microbiology.
The narcissism, the solipsism of American blacks beggars belief.
A working philosophy. Solipsism is the belief that nothing exists in the universe except one’s own thoughts. It’s all just figments of your imagination.
The philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote an essay for some general-interest outlet describing solipsism and demonstrating how absurd it is. A few days later he got a letter from a reader. “Dear Professor Russell,” said the letter. “You are quite wrong to doubt the validity of solipsism. I am a solipsist myself. I think it is a perfectly valid point of view, and many others agree with me. Yours sincerely …”
