One of the issues that I want to address in this blog is the odd politically correct idea that, as a consequence of barring "discrimination," we must not allow any recognition that anything is different from anything else. It's the notion I call "Everything's the same."

Academia is infested with such thinking, and here's particularly noxious example, noted by both Volokh and Fire.org. It involves a piece in the journal Nature by Stanford neurobiology professor Ben Barres', discussing the field of study known as "gender cognative differences."  

It's an entirely respectable field of study, but it can be misinterpreted by the hair-trigger victim-mongers in academia. This is of course what happened to former Harvard president, Larry Summers, who made the mistake of worrying aloud about a very real issue: the dearth of women in the math and science fields. For demonstrating his concern on this issue, he was hounded out of office by Harvard faculty, who insisted he had suggested that women were incapable of competing in these fields. He said or implied nothing of the sort, but that didn't stop the victim-mongering. Barres apparently recognizes this, and so he takes great pains to establish his bona fides with those who are ready to misconstrue the issue:

…I welcome any future studies that will provide a better understanding of why women and minorities are not advancing at the expected rate in science and so many other professions.

 

But…it is incumbent upon those proclaiming gender differences in abilities to rigorously address whether suspected differences are real before suggesting that a whole group of people is innately wired to fail....In my view, when faculty tell their students that they are innately inferior based on race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, they are crossing a line that should not be crossed — the line that divides free speech from verbal violence — and it should not be tolerated at Harvard or anywhere else.

The problem here is that a logical leap is being made, the same silly leap that was made in the Summers case. To discuss scientific data on gender cognative differences is NOT the same as suggesting or declaring that women are innately inferior. Summers did not do that, though some (perhaps willfully) misunderstood to have said that. That someone might mistakenly conflate the two concepts is no reason to declare them identical.

Volokh carefully notes that there is genuine and justifiable concern about the consequences of discussion of innate gender differences:



Or, as Greg Lukianoff at Fire.org put it: "Apparently, we can now add 'verbal violence' to a list previously comprised of just sticks and stones. Students beware. Meet the new scientific method, which champions ideological conformity over observation, hypothesis and experimentation."

But there is another issue here, that both Volokh and Lukianoff missed: The stunning egotism reflected in Barres' comments. I find it hard to believe that there are very many college students out there who are accepting everything a college professor says at face value. Barres essentially implies that if he or some other academic declares from the podium that women are "innately inferior," that his female students will simply wilt and drop all their math classes. Did this happen with Summers? Or instead was Summers virtually tarred and feathered and ridden out of town? The colossal self-importance inherant in the statement is apalling! But, then again, suggesting that when a faculty member "tells their students" something, they might think for themselves about, well, that's out of the question, right?