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Thursday, January 20, 2005
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NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO
FINDS AN EMPIRICIST TO INTERVIEW He's Drew Westen, a psychologist at Emory University. Here's some of what he said: “[The question of the] shortage of women in senior posts in science and engineering is … a scientific question… Do men and women differ in math ability? ….[F]emales tend to score higher in tests of language … boys tend to be much more likely than girls to score at the extremes, [both to have more] learning disabilities… [and be] exceptional at math. ... [T]here is some emerging evidence linking abilities to sex … [But] biology findings favor women as much as men…[Women are much stronger than men linguistically.] … [But gender stereotypes as children are raised are also in play.]…Did President Summers misspeak? … [I don't know, but I] hope this…won’t deter Summers from raising … disquieting questions…” Don't listen to Westen, though. He's prejudiced. He hasn't been through Emory's diversity workshop. Look at his department webpage: 'Dr. Westen received his B.A. at Harvard University, an M.A. in Social and Political Thought at the University of Sussex (England), and his Ph.D. in clinical Psychology at the University of Michigan, where he subsequently taught for six years. For several years he was Chief Psychologist at Cambridge Hospital and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. Prior to moving to Emory in 2002, he was at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University. His major areas of research are personality disorders, eating disorders, emotion regulation, implicit (unconscious) processes, psychotherapy effectiveness, and adolescent psychopathology. His holiday song, "Oy, to be a Goy on Christmas," still airs on the radio in New York during the holiday season.' Not only does Westen's Harvard pedigree render him incapable of dispassion. His rank bigotry against Christians makes him little more than an object of pity. *************************************** UH OH. IMMMEDIATE UPDATE AFTER CHECKING ANDREWSULLIVAN.COM: 'PINKER: Look, the truth cannot be offensive. Perhaps the hypothesis is wrong, but how would we ever find out whether it is wrong if it is “offensive” even to consider it? People who storm out of a meeting at the mention of a hypothesis, or declare it taboo or offensive without providing arguments or evidence, don’t get the concept of a university or free inquiry.' A COUNTER-TSUNAMI OF EMPIRICISTS HAS BEGUN!! |