| This Issue: |
|
Home Arts Forum News Sports |
| External Links: |
|
Bates.edu Dining Services Garnet Gateway Bates Catalog Bates Daily Bates Facebook Bates Handbook Bates Search Bates Webmail TheFacebook.com Weather |
Yet what have we really learned from Summer\\\'s current predicament? Is it that it is better to be politically correct when speaking in private and in public â€\\\" to keep our thoughts to ourselves? Or is it that people who do not conform to politically correct thought (or status quo) should not be given positions as leaders? I would like to posit that the same issue currently faces us in American politics. Should we have presidents of our nation express their personal opinion or should they only have the opinion that is void of opinion? Liberals would tend to prefer the latter.
I am not backing what Summers said in his remarks. Whether or not women are biologically predisposed to being less able to rise to the tops of the science fields is up to scientists to figure out. Yet, I also believe that all persons should be able to voice themselves, whether or not their opinion is popular. In science, as in many areas of the political arena, we are in search of the truth, and these truths are not always in favor of the popular opinion, for the truth is truth whether or not people are comfortable with it.
Should Summers be ousted as president because he has a hypothesis in neurology that still has not been proven (but by no means because of the lack of research) by scientists? I propose not. Summers was only laying claim to ongoing scientific research that has yet to be proven. Maybe he should have waited to voice himself until the data came out to back his opinion. Nevertheless, this is not an excuse to stay away from the subject.
If you read this week\\\'s Time magazine cover-page article, you will be able to walk away from it knowing that we really do not understand anything about how our brains work. Is it not possible that women and men have significantly different neurological wiring? Man has been studying this very subject for a long time and we still have not gotten anywhere with it, but I believe that it is just as possible for the sexes to have different neurological make-up as it is possible that our brains are almost completely alike. Yet, I do not think that the way to proceed in scientific endeavors is to dismiss the hypothesis that the sexes do indeed have different neurological make-up only because it is offensive to say so.
Back when man believed in the Eudoxian model, if somebody were to lay claim that perhaps the sun was the center of the universe and not the earth, they would be shunned or worse by the church and the state. Have we traveled so little since Copernicus? Paradigm shifts are always hard, but at the same time we should not shun those who propose them. We should stop to think about the data that we have, as well as the data that we have yet to obtain, before labeling them as sacrosanct, or misogynist.Sam Hostvedt
Opinion Writer