New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

Should Philosophers Self-Censor? (Schliesser Rebuked)

Recently there has been a great deal of discussion on this blog (and elsewhere) about Clark Glymour’s attack on philosophy where it does not either (a) engage with problems that scientists (would care about but) have not perceived, or (b) bring in at least a dribble of grant money. The idea, I suppose, is that philosophy has no autonomous value. I strongly disagree with Glymour’s implication, though I certainly agree that in certain circles there is a tendency to circulate dirty laundry (a practice that Glymour quaintly calls “incestuous”).

Now one of the reasons I find philosophy valuable is that it makes genuine progress. Of course, detractors say the exact opposite, but look at the record.

Take the pledge! Support UC Davis colleagues! Demand Katehi's resignation!

I've signed this pledge; you can too at [email protected]. Here is the bottom line:

UCD is one of several contested fronts in a much wider campaign against the marketization of higher education. As participants in this campaign, we pledge to suspend all professional association with UCD until Chancellor Katehi quits her post.

The argument is below the fold.

New draft resolution for Faculty Senates concerning nonviolent civil disobedience

The previous draft went through a number of revisions, making it difficult to read. Here is the current version. Comments still accepted on the blog or by email to me.

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Whereas the theory and practice of nonviolent civil disobedience is one of the great moral achievements of the past 200 years,

Whereas in particular the use of nonviolent civil disobedience was an essential part of the movements for women’s suffrage and for African-American civil rights that changed American society forever,

Whereas our charge as educators includes the nurturing of proper means of expression of the consciences of our students,

Securitization, the FBI, and UC Davis

Dave Zirin unearths a connection between UC Davis Chancellor Katehi and Penn State ex-President Spanier via the "securitization" of FBI and University relations:

The names Spanier and Katehi are now synonymous with the worst abuses of institutional power. But their connection didn’t begin there. In 2010, Spanier chose Katehi to join an elite team of 20 college Presidents on what’s called the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, which “promotes discussion and outreach between research universities and the FBI."

Spanier said upon the group’s founding in 2005, “The National Security Higher Education Advisory Board promises to help universities and government work toward a balanced and rational approach that will allow scientific research and education to progress and our nation to remain safe.” He also said that the partnership could help provide “internships” to faculty and students interested in “National Security issues.”

Read the whole thing. Then go read this on Katehi's role in ending University asylum rules in Greece that restricted the ability of police to enter university campuses. These became inconvenient when facing anti-austerity protests. Luckily enough for Katehi, she had her own police force, who didn't need no stinkin' badges.

Draft resolution for Faculty Senates concerning police tactics in response to nonviolent civil disobedience on university grounds

[UPDATE: 5:30 pm CST, 23 Nov: A new draft is available here.]

The following is a draft of a resolution I will introduce to my Faculty Senate early next month. Please attach comments below, or email them to me here. Please feel free to adopt this draft and send it to your own Faculty Senate. [comment in brackets represent additions to the original; strike through comments are suggested deletions from the original].

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Whereas the theory and practice of nonviolent civil disobedience is one of the great moral achievements of the past 200 years,

Whereas its theory was developed by some of our greatest thinkers, from Thoreau to Tolstoy to Gandhi to King,

Whereas its practice was used by hundreds of thousands of brave but otherwise ordinary people during our history,

Whereas in particular the use of nonviolent civil disobedience was an essential part of the movements for women’s suffrage and for African-American civil rights which have that changed the structure of American society forever,

Fear and Learning: Update from McGill

[From Hasana Sharp and William Clare Roberts.]

We want to update readers on developments at McGill since our last post.

We have a clearer, but not yet complete picture of the chain of events that led to the riot police using pepper spray, truncheons, and tear gas to clear students from the square in front of the James Administration Building on Thursday, November 10.  We know that campus security officers – who have no policing powers – manhandled several of the 14 students who occupied the office of Heather Munroe-Blum, and that it was the communication of this mistreatment via cell phone that swelled the crowd of students who gathered in front of the building (and occupied one of the lower floors).  We also know that it was security who initially called police. 

What remains opaque is the decision to clear the student gathering.  We do not know whether the Montreal police officers who were inside James ordered the crowd cleared on their own, or whether they consulted with McGill security or administration.  Nonetheless, we know that after approximately twenty bicycle police arrived to disperse the crowd, and the crowd did not budge, at least one officer used pepper spray on the front ranks of the students.  This is the same pattern we have seen play out so often of late: a large group of nonviolent protesters, or a few among them, refuse to obey a police order to disperse, and the first police recourse is to inflict pain in order to gain compliance.

There will be an official investigation, of course.  It will be an internal investigation headed by the Dean of the Law Faculty.  It will assign no blame.  It will be a mix of fact-finding and suggestions to prevent a recurrence.  We can hope that  it will teach us more about what happened.  We cannot hope, however, that it will shed any light on the meaning of what has happened.  We would like to focus on this latter task.

"Why I walked Chancellor Katehi out of Surge II tonight"

"people should be assisted when they are afraid. Because I believe that in showing compassion we embrace a nonviolent way of life that emanates to those whom we refuse to see as enemies and in turn leads to the change that we all seek." Kristin Stoneking explains why. Rev. Stoneking is the Campus Minister at UC Davis.

An Open Letter to University Presidents and Chancellors

Please email Matthew Smith at Yale's Philosophy Department if you wish to co-sign his excellent Open Letter. He is looking for a publication venue. His email: [email protected]. A link to the letter is here. You may wish to email the link to the letter to your university adminstrators. Our thanks should go to Smith for his leadership here.

Key points: 

• We therefore call on chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges throughout the United States to declare publicly that their campuses are Safe Protest Zones, where nonviolent, public political dissent and protest will be protected by university police and will never be attacked by the university police.
• We call on these chancellors and presidents to commit publicly to making their campuses safe locations for peaceful public assembly.
• We call on these chancellors and presidents to institute immediately policies that reflect these commitments, and to instruct their police and security forces that they must abide by these policies.

The text of the letter follows:

Shame

A new version of the video, showing how the students set up the silent walk of shame.

Police brutality at UC Davis

Nathan Brown provides harrowing descriptions of the outrageous actions in the form of an Open Letter. The UC system is engaged in a frontal assault on academic freedom using police brutality as their preferred tactic.

Please read the letter and then contact Chancellor Katehi. My message was simple: "Your actions are despicable. If you were capable of shame you would have resigned by now."

Contact California Governor Brown here. Contact the UC Davis police at 1-530-752-1727.  Excerpts from Brown's Open Letter:  

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

Today [Friday, 18 Nov] you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday.... These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.

What happened next?

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.

Academic Freedom in Canada: Trouble Coming

This is an odd story, Dear Reader, and I beg your indulgence to tell it my way.

A few days ago, I got an email from Kevin McDonough of McGill University, directing my attention to a statement about academic freedom by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC)—a body that serves (among other things) as a college of university presidents. Reading through the AUCC statement quickly, I found it fairly anodyne. But I was about to be educated.

The crisis at McGill: who called riot police onto campus?

On November 10 – last Thursday – approximately 100 riot police from the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) marched onto the campus of McGill University, beating billy-clubs against shields.  They did so in order to drive student protesters gathered in front of the James Administration Building off of their own campus.  In the process, they pepper-sprayed, clubbed, and tear-gassed hundreds of students and at least one faculty member (philosopher Greg Mikkelson, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, on his way to pick his kids up from daycare).  These events have sent shock-waves through the University community.  Not since March 1969, when the “Opération McGill français” brought 15,000 nationalist protesters to the gates of McGill, had riot police been on the campus of the University.  This time, it didn’t require external intervention: the administration of McGill seems to have called the cops on its own students.

"This is not even ideology. This is simply nonsense."

The great blogger, Aaron Bady at zunguzungu, analyzes a particularly loathsome piece of Newspeak by Cal Berkeley admins. The rest of the post is superb, moving from personal experience to historical context to rhetorical analysis. This part of the analysis is particularly incisive. The first graf is from the admins; the rest is Bady.

It is unfortunate that some protesters chose to obstruct the police by linking arms and forming a human chain to prevent the police from gaining access to the tents. This is not non-violent civil disobedience.  By contrast, some of the protesters chose to be arrested peacefully; they were told to leave their tents, informed that they would be arrested if they did not, and indicated their intention to be arrested. They did not resist arrest or try physically to obstruct the police officers’ efforts to remove the tent.  These protesters were acting in the tradition of peaceful civil disobedience, and we honor them.

What he describes — occupying space in a way that nonviolently prevents the police from doing what they want — is actually the very definition of “non-violent civil disobedience.” On the one hand, it is utterly non-violent: linking arms and holding on to each other as the police try to knock you apart is not “violent” but is precisely the opposite. It is the endurance of violence. And second, it is civil disobedience, again, precisely by definition. They were disobeying civil authorities, obeying the authority of their own consciences and solidarity instead.

I have a friend...

I have a friend who is a PhD student in Philosophy at a fairly known but not élite, large American university. She has been experiencing any number of forms of harassment, either from senior male professors more or less coming onto her, or fellow graduate students of a more 'fundamentalist' persuasion (yes, in the most common understanding of that term) being aggressive, at times borderline physically aggressive, or other faculty making jokes relating to her appearance.

The question is, where should she go for help (or less dramatically, 'support', 'advice', 'discussion')? I have stopped reading Leiter's blog a while ago and never was a frequent visitor to it (but I must say it is there I learned, sometime last year, of the astounding and shocking 'What is it like to be a woman in philosophy?' blog and its collection of tales, which has since been discussed here too). So, there is that blog, there is our own. Any other suggestions?

(I had asked, of course, if there were supportive female or male faculty members she could talk to, or graduate students with comparable experiences who might have developed 'survival strategies'; it's not clear if that is the case. I had also suggested she tell her story anonymously here or elsewhere, to shame the relevant parties - here the senior staff is probably more the issue - but she pointed out that they most likely are unaware of these blogs.) Thanks for your 2 cents.

Any thoughts?

Information provided by Masters Degree

Suppression at Elsevier?

I was chatting with my friend, Jim Brown, the distinguished philosopher of science, about the possible involvement of the publishers in the Synthese affair. He told me the following story about an unpleasant encounter with Elsevier:

I can well believe that the publishers played a major role and perhaps bullied editors who aren't used to dealing with such issues.

I had a run in with Elsevier a few years ago.  A paper of mine was accepted for a special issue of Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, it was copyedited, etc and ready to go.  Suddenly the publisher intervened and suspended the issue.  Their lawyer had demanded several changes in my article, saying it was libellous.  (It was about the pharmaceutical industry and the corruption of research.)  After much back and forth, eventually I agreed to make the changes provided I could add a paragraph saying I had done so.  Surprisingly, they initially agreed, then later then said they wanted several more changes.  This was after delaying the special issue for more than a year.  Some of the changes they wanted were ridiculous, for instance, they wouldn't let me quote from an article already published in the British Medical Journal.  Eventually I withdrew the article rather that submit to the censorship.  I'm still annoyed.

I feel certain that even those people who thought that the Synthese affair was driven by an North American political agenda will find it hard to condone Elsevier's behaviour above. I think we can say that there is now a trickle of stories of misconduct by commercially published journals.

Is it not time that we gave some thought to this matter as a community?

Burying the lede

Blah, blah, blah private company blah blah more efficient blah blah of course the academics will run the academic side blah blah, trust us, honest, the academics will run their part of the show blah blah, er, wait a minute, what the hell does this last graf say? 

BPP is part of the Apollo Group, a market-listed US company that owns the University of Phoenix, a private institution offering degrees through distance learning.

Can an untenured philosopher be underrated?

In this week's blog entry on most underrated, there was an interesting discussion on whether or not untenured people could be underrated. I fully agree with Eric that placing untenured people in this post may put them at risk. But I also agree with one of the commentors, who responded to Eric's rules for the post:

no. 1 assumes that all currently "untenured folk" are in the process of going for tenure or will someday gain access to the process of going for tenure. This is clearly not the case now nor has it been the case for some time. The vast majority of untenured faculty employed in academia nowadays will *never* be fortunate enough to bear the burden of compiling a tenure file. That is the reality of the two-tiered university system.

This brings me to the question of luck in tenure. I am currently preparing a paper on Chinese mathematics and extended cognition, which I will present at Catarina's forthcoming exciting workshop, and I have been delving into the system of the state examinations in China, which was in place from the Tang dynasty to the Ching dynasty (My main source for this is Elman, Benjamin. A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.)

During these examinations, students had show their mastery of a number of disciplines (a.o., reciting classic texts by heart, answering questions on the law, ethics, and policy). Success in this system was more or less a guarantee to a secure, well-paid position of civil servant, a situation that has some similarities to tenure today. In the early days of the system, students were carefully scrutinized, and the "deserving" students often ended up on the top positions. For example, if you ended up at the top in the (local) provincial examinations, you were likely to end up at the top in the imperial examinations as well, so the system was not random in its evaluation. But as time went by, during the Ming dynasty the bureaucracy started to reduce the staff involved in the grading and training, there were more exams that had to be graded by fewer and fewer administrative staff. Also, the number of people taking the exam increased year after year, putting more and more pressure on the system. The correlation between scores in provincial and imperial tests became lower and lower, until it became for a large part a matter of chance. 

Today's situation in academia is similar.With many people vying for fewer positions, and pressure on evaluation committees, getting tenure is more and more a matter of luck. I do not deny that there is still some correlation, but the correlation is getting weaker. What factors contribute to this? When the pressure on the market is increasing, as in the case of ancient China, because more and more people compete for fewer and fewer positions, search committees and tenure review committees, whose members also have an increasing workload, will tend to resort to heuristics, which are not foolproof. First, there is the Matthew effect (where an initial advantage tends to be amplified) and its inverse, the Matilda effect. An example of this is that young scholars with an eminent dissertation advisor, or from a prestigious graduate school, are more likely not to land on the reject pile of search committees, and conversely, those who graduate from obscure departments (euphemistically denoted as teaching oriented departments) get less attention. These effects also hold when papers are refereed: apparently, some referees get tempted to google the titles of the papers they have under review to know something about the authors.

Such effects can be mitigated, I believe, for example by asking authors to post their paper under a different title or by asking referees for more self-restraint (I don't think anonymized job applications are possible though). But other stochastic factors can come into play as well: for example, I've known people who immediately got into heavy-teaching load temp positions after their PhD, which meant they could not improve their CV at all, and after some years of this, they became totally unmarketable ("What, he's 4 years past his PhD and so few publications!"). Or one may just have the bad luck of doing research in something that is not in high demand (yet). These factors seem more difficult to address - although not entirely, for example, I read at one of the entries in the What's it like to be a woman in philosophy a testimony of a woman who was encouraged to take up a teaching-intensive position for the main reason that she was a woman. So it seems that even in such cases, we can make efforts to make tenure less like a lottery and more based on merit. 

AAUP statement on attacks on tenure in Louisiana

The full statement can be found here.

I am deeply disturbed by reports that the University of Louisiana System has embarked on what appears to be an unprecedented and unwarranted assault on its faculty.  In 2010, Southeastern Louisiana University discontinued its undergraduate major in French, dismissing its three tenured professors with a  year’s notice.  

... no reason was given for the decision, and the French program was not underenrolled in comparison to majors such as Spanish; but we are especially alarmed by SLU’s subsequent action, in which the administration proceeded to offer a temporary instructorship to one of the tenured professors it had just fired. 

This year, the AAUP has learned that the University of Louisiana at Monroe is planning to do the same, or slightly worse, to its four tenured professors of Chemistry: dismiss them with six months’ notice, then offer to re-hire them at the rank of instructor without tenure.  We believe we do not have to wait to hear a third report from the UL system before concluding that we see an emerging pattern....

These practices violate so many AAUP principles that it is hard to know where to begin.  But we should probably start by remarking that if senior professors with tenure can be fired and then immediately offered employment as short-term instructors, then tenure is essentially meaningless in the University of Louisiana System....

[We] acknowledge that many institutions are facing financial hardship, and will have to make difficult and painful decisions.  The University of Louisiana System, however, appears to be going well beyond anything that can be justified by economic hardship, launching a capricious assault on tenure as well as minimal standards of job security for the untenured.  

Faculty nationwide should be advised that the UL System has effectively nullified its tenure procedures; and students in the UL System, and their parents, should be advised that maintaining the quality of core liberal arts programs is no longer a priority of the UL System administration.

Academic freedom under attack in Flanders (Belgium)!

[Afer a brief, two paragraph introduction, I have copied and pasted a petition.] On Friday June 3th 2011, the Catholic University of Leuven sacked researcher Barbara Van Dyck because of her public support for the actions of the Field Liberation Front in the context of an action against an experimental, genetically modified potato field in Wetteren, Belgium on Sunday May 29th. (Van Dyck had been employed in the architecure department at Leuven.) Van Dyck had refused to condemn the "vandalism" of the protestors when interviewed on TV. Whether one agrees with the aim and tactic of this action or not, the sanction is disproportionate and a breach of academic freedom and freedom of speech. My own university, Ghent University, also quickly condemned the vandalism and has joined in the (initial) media hysteria against the protestors. It is not the first time that environmental activists have damaged property (or worse) in the Low Countries. I am, in fact, no friend of the fanatical elements of the environmental movement. But there are plenty of legal sanctions available to the authorities against activists convicted of crimes in a court of law. The Flemish universities caved in to the bio-engineering-industrial complex and are not protecting the right, even necessity of holding unpopular views. Given that research funding sources encourage conformity of opinion this is a very regrettable action. I am proud to say that my colleagues, Dean Freddy Mortier and Jean-Paul Van Bendegem, have been leading the opposition against the sacking of Van Dyck. Below an appeal to academics worldwide to resist this dismissal and to sign this open letter. UPDATE: A LINK TO THE PETITION IS HERE.

Academic freedom and tenure

The recent discussions on academic freedom on this blog warrant, I think, a re-examination of academic freedom as a justification for tenure. Tenure can only be revoked on the basis of severe misconduct or gross incompetence, and revocation is usually a tedious procedure. The rationale for this is to protect scholars when they dissent from authority, general opinion, or choose to undertake risky research. However, given that researchers have to wait and struggle increasingly long (or fail altogether) to obtain a tenured position, this justification seems to me hardly defensible. I do not think academic freedom should be reserved for the select few, but rather, I invite suggestions on how to make academic freedom available for the non-tenured as well. 

Consider the recent spate of tenure denials, where there are clear impingements on academic freedom: Feminist philosophers comment on the denial of tenure of about half a dozen faculty of color in De Paul. One of them, Dr. Namita Goswami, was hired to do philosophy of race, feminism and postcolonialism, but once hired, some of the faculty took issue with the subjects she investigated and decided on the basis of this that she was "not a good fit". Also, consider the recent case of Marie-Claude Lorne discussed in this blog. Her tenure review was irregular and not transparent, to say the least. These are extreme cases, but it does point toward a general trend where academic freedom is becoming a luxury for the tenured few.

In the early 2000s, the average age at which American academics got tenure was about 40, and for German academics it was about 37. I don't have more recent figures, but since the economic crisis the average age must have gone up still. This means that most researchers cannot enjoy the benefits of academic freedom for a decade or longer after their PhD, in what is often the most productive period of their career. 

The rising average age at tenure is an unfortunate thing, since it actively discourages young scholars from engaging in risky research. This is perhaps not so much a problem in philosophy as it is in other fields. Young scholars who make an honest mistake, for instance in molecular biology or physics, can basically bury their hopes for a favorable tenure review (I'm talking about honest mistake here, not about deliberate plagiarism or meddling with data). But how can you do ground-breaking risky research without at least the possibility of mistake? Another problem with the breaking down of the tenure system is that many young scholars (postdocs) cannot even choose on what they work. Increasingly in Europe, young postdocs work on larger projects that have fairly specific subject matters. Usually, the fit between these people's own interests and the project is not perfect, and in some cases, the fit is poor. I knew several young scholars who were working on matters entirely unrelated to their previous research in such projects. They were unhappy with the situation, but it was either that or academic oblivion.

The productivity of older, tenured researchers is variable. Undeniably, there are excellent tenured scholars that engage in risky research. In those cases, tenure does have a clear benefit. However, in many other cases, tenured scholars are no longer active researchers, they have not published anything in years. In those cases, tenure just grants the academic freedom to be idle.  Apart from introducing regular tenure reviews every few years (which would be very unpopular), I do not see an easy solution to this. But I do think that there are no objective grounds for reserving academic freedom for tenured folk only.   

On facts relevant to philosophy

When I wrote an extensive commentary on Milton Friedman's evolving views on methodology and how it related to the furore over his involvement with a Chilean dictator, I mentioned that most of the initial generation of Chicago Boys did not have a PhD in economics (only a MA) when they started serving Pinochet. It wasn't the focus of my argument, but it made sense in context to explain that these were not types with extensive research experience. Barbara Forrest did something analogous when she explored the details of how Beckwith's credentials and his arguments got used by his allies to promote a religious agenda in the public sphere. (She did not comment on Beckwith's character outside the public sphere.) All philosophers that enter the public sphere -- Heidegger, Mill, Socrates, Adam Smith, Rousseau, etc -- can expect that people will be interested in more than just their arguments, but also how those arguments relate to their public activity. (I call the relationship between philosophical argument and public scrutinity an instance of the "Socratic Problem"--more about that soon.)

Some contributors to this blog (in echoing the editors of Synthese) suggest such scrutinity somehow lowers our professional standards. If they and the editors of Synthese, can't handle public facts they shouldn't publish on topics that deal with the world. (But, please, stop the uneven treatment of Forrest and Beckwith.) Like the cold-war-traumatized heirs of the Vienna Circle, they can retreat to the lofty safety of logic and justification.

New Leiter post with one more disturbing data point

We may be approaching the point where all sides have aired their views about the Synthese issues, but Leiter has a post today well worth quoting in full, which (both Professor Antonelli's data point and Leiter's broader morals) I think expresses beautifully many of our worries. Moreover these broader morals are ones that I think all sides to the debates thusfar should take very seriously. As to Leiter's points, it just seems obvious philosophers do have obligations to support those like Forrest (and Nussbaum's analogous work, for example), and that to the extent that any of our own actions or inactions have undermined them, then we have derived obligations to rectify this.

Aldo Antonelli (UC Davis) writes:

After sitting on fence for a while (mostly out of respect for the reputations of the Synthese editors), I finally signed the petition.

What clinched it for me was a fact that I have not seen mentioned on your blog (but was mentioned elsewhere): Beckwith's "rebuttal" published OnlineFirst on March 5, is listed as having been both received and accepted on the same day, February 7. So it would seem (unless we hear otherwise) that the rebuttal was accepted without proper refereeing, in violation of Synthese's own guidelines.

I had not noticed this peculiarity.  And it is made worse by the points noted by Ingo Brigandt (Alberta) and Eric Schliesser (Ghent), namely, that Beckwith has already invoked the disclaimer in his response in order to discredit the Forrest article (even though the 'disclaimer' purportedly only concerned tone!), and that the disclaimer will in all likelihood be similarly deployed the next time Professor Forrest testifies before the Louisiana legislature about issues involving science education.  This is why, as Professor Brigant says, it is imperative that the disclaimer be withdrawn.   The civility and tone police can do their song-and-dance, but the fact is the editorial misconduct of Johan Van Benthem, Vincent Hendricks, and John Symons is going to have real political ramifications for science education in the United States.

[Full Disclosure: I still have not signed the petition above for reasons I've stated earlier, but I do urge those both those who have signed the petition, and those like myself who have not, to consider signing the petition urging the Synthese editorial board to allow Barbara Forrest a response to Beckwith. I think that this should be something that all interlocutors can agree is both minimally just as well ethically/politically responsible.]

A surfeit of Synthesitis

It's a shame that because it comes at the end of a long discussion and we have already created a few other pages and posts on the topic, Ph. Huneman's comment didn't get noticed much: I am happy to agree that the disclaimer letter is not a great, great thing to do, or a nice experience for an innocent author -or any author. And, not that anyone is seriously debating that, I agree with those who feel that it's not such a hot idea to do a special issue on evolution and ID. But I find it surprising and saddening that so many of us are so quick to know just what happened behind the scenes (e.g., that the Eds in chief never contacted the guest editor; something I don't believe). By now it doesn't matter much: we can debate the pros and especially cons of Beckwith, and the merits of letting him respond; oh, and we can parse the strange comments on Laudan and argue that they are not so bad. And, of course, we can try and polish our reputations on the backs of Synthese. I find the mixture of posturing and stubborn moralism a real disappointment. Guys: write an elegant, sharp letter and have it signed by 10 luminaries (including some excellent European philosophers of science :) ) and published in some grand place - the LRB? Nature?; and don't submit your fine papers to the journal. And get on with formal epistemology, common sense, the history of animal spirits, or Dreideggerian enownment!! As, in, our work !

Synthese--a superficial, but hopefully, enlightening sociological tour of European (analytic) philosophy

[During the last few days I have received a number of informal queries from American colleagues about why European philosophers of science seem so eager to defend the reputation of Synthese and its editors come what may and why these seem not to understand the political ramifications of the disclaimer.  What follows is inspired by reflecting on blog comments in support of Synthese around the net; I will be terse, partial, and no doubt superficial in my sociology of European philosophy (on the Western part of the Continent). I list my observations as separate points for clarity but they are meant to be mutually enlightening.]

First, the general editors of Synthese have a sterling reputation for quality and probity. Johan Van Benthem, in particular, is arguably one of the most important analytic philosophers of Europe. His work in logic(s) and formal semantics is widely respected (not to mention his appointment in Stanford).

Second, in European philosophy (and the Humanities more generally) *research* funding has become *zero-sum*. (Such funding pays for PhD, post-doc, and research-intensive positions.) Grants are distributed by national and European grant agencies to favored individuals and, increasingly, (international) research groups. These grants are increasingly decided by ‘objective’ scientific metrics. In particular, publications in journals that have an ESF ‘A’ ranking, have reasonably high impact factors, and/or are listed in reputable indexing services such as Thomson’s Web-of-Science/Knowledge, are favored over all other forms of publications.

A petition focused on the Synthese editors' disclaimer and on Beckwith's use thereof

Ingo Brigandt's comment here deserves its own post: 

Here is another petition, organized by those who are considering a boycott (as far as I know the plan is first have the petition and to decide whether to proceed with a boycott depending on the response of the editors-in-chief): http://www.petitiononline.com/Synthese/petition.html

This petition is stronger than the two created by Eric, as it includes the call to retract the disclaimer. The latter is to my mind non-negotiable at least for the following reason. In his response to Barbara Forrest (published in Synthese, but after the special issue), Francis Beckwith uses the issuing and unusual nature of the disclaimer as a major argument against her paper.

Some creationists instrumentalizing the disclaimer in some venues is not surprising, but it is not just the case that the EiCs opened the door to this (as an unfortunate side-effect), but they obviously approved Beckwith's response after having scrutinized it, so that the EiCs approve of using the disclaimer as an argument (even in their own venue).

Combine this the EiCs stating in their response to the boycott plan that "several articles included in the special issue contained language that is unacceptable" (my emphasis), responding to the guest editors' account by making explicit that the problem was not only Forrest's article. So by now we have a clear license by the EiCs to use the disclaimer against any article in the special issue, which cannot stand.

A real danger with leaving the disclaimer as it is, or at least not mitigating Beckwith's use of it, is the extremely high probability that the next time Professor Forrest testifies to the LA state legislature (as she often does in these matters, and no doubt will soon in the debate on SB 70, which would repeal the stealth creationist Lousiana Science Education Act or LSEA), some ID partisan will claim she has been "refuted" in the pages of a prestigious philosophy journal and that therefore her testimony should be discounted if not ignored. 

Philosophers and others outside Louisiana should never forget that this affair is far more than an intramural discussion of professional obligations, as seriously -- and rightly so -- as we take those concerns.

For there are real world  effects at work here. Effects as real world as it gets: we're talking about a state law in which the work conditions of Louisiana public school teachers (who are our colleagues too, let us not forget), and the quality of the science education afforded Louisiana public school students, are at stake. Which makes it all the more admirable that in a climate of drastic budget cuts to higher education our colleague Barbara Forrest is willing to carry the fight against a Legislature and a Governor who have already passed and signed a stealth creationism bill. 

UPDATE, M 25 April, 3:05 pm CDT: The eminent philosopher of biology Mohan Matthen has a powerful comment at Leiter Reports that should be read in its entirety. It begins: 

I read the Forrest article in Synthese, and am having some difficulty figuring out why the EiCs consider it discourteous, impolite, or (most of all) unfair. The article is among other things an examination of the epistemology of ID theory, and in particular of whether inferences to intelligent design can be considered epistemologically on a par with scientific reasoning. It considers this question in the context of whether it is constitutional to permit the teaching of ID theory in public schools on the grounds that it is science, just as Darwinian evolution is.

In this context, Forrest provides a lengthy exposé of religious rhetoric by some of the proponents of ID theory, including some that predates their entry into the ID debate. This exposé is couched in emotionally charged language, to be sure, but only in response to what Forrest reasonably takes to be a public policy aim of the ID proponents and their own rhetoric....

The conclusion: 

The Forrest paper is not an original work of philosophy, and is not intended to be. However, it is a powerful piece of contemporary historical research and is, moreover, quite astute in its exposure of philosophical fallacy. Even on a "pure philosophy" level, it is instructive to read of the perverted uses to which bad philosophical argument can be put. Moreover, its rhetorical temperature is perfectly appropriate in a work of this sort.

Online petition (Synthese): Give Barbara Forrest a chance to respond in Synthese (etc)

One aspect of the Synthese controversy that has bothered me most (I believe Rich Booher first called attention to it in discussion) is that in his invited and almost certainly unrefereed response, Francis Beckwith has used the editors' vague disclaimer to discredit Barbara Forrest (this is even clear from the abstract of his article posted online). Even if we trust the editors' public defenders that no public pressure was put on them to publish Beckwith's piece (yet the editors fail to address this issue fortrighly in their public statement!), the editors and their defenders should recognize that one of the premier philosophical venues is being used to help discredit a very brave philosophical colleague. And let there be no mistake: it really takes bravery for a professor at a public university to stand up to the powerful and well-funded Creatonism lobbey in Louisiana!

The editors of Synthese should also realize that by publishing Beckwith's particular piece they are enhancing Beckwith's credibility in the political arena. All of this is pretty galling once we remind ourselves of the historic roots of Synthese in scientific philosophy and public enlightenment projects. This is a clear instance where a procedural focus on politeness misses the very simple political fact that scientific authority is being abused by folk, however civil their tone, that have aims inimical to public reason.

There is no doubt that Brian Leiter's call for a boycott caught the discipline's attention. Before it comes to a boycott there are still many ways in which Synthese can right some of the present wrongs in addition to offering a forthright explanation of the circumstances surrounding Beckwith's publication. For example, why not give Barbara Forrest the uncensored right to respond to Beckwith article? In many journals authors who are the target of discussion pieces are allowed such a response.

To that end, I have started AN online petition: one that calls on the editors of Synthese to grant Barbara Forrest the right to respond to Beckwith's article within the pages of Synthese; (I have disabled another one that calls on the editors to explain in forthright fashion to explain the circumstances of the publication of Francis Beckwith's article in Synthese.) The petition is very narrowly focused (I have added no background texts so that folk can just support these actions).

Update [ES]: Brian Leiter has also started a closely related petition. It overlaps, in part, with the second petition above (and this is why I disabled the link).

Update 2 [JP]: see above for an argument in support of Leiter's petition.

Barbara Forrest's brave and important work on behalf of real science education in Louisiana deserves our admiration and support

UPDATE: M 25 April, 10:53 am CDT: see here and here for petitions. Please also note the real world implications of the Synthese editors' disclaimer noted here.

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The Synthese controversy will have at least one good outcome if it brings the brave and important work of Barbara Forrest on behalf of real science education in Louisiana to the attention of the philosophical community. She deserves our admiration and support for the fight she's helping to lead. 

Background: In 2008 the Louisiana State Legislature passed the "Louisiana Science Education Act" (LSEA). You can read Forrest's analysis of this "stealth creationism" bill by following the link on this web page, or by going directly to the PDF.

Forrest often posts on the Louisiana Coalition for Science blog, which covers the Discovery Institute, hunts down "stealth creationism" around the country, and in particular fights the pernicious effects of the LSEA. 

Professor Forrest is not alone in her effort; this campaign run by a Baton Rouge High School student is particularly inspiring.

Some good news: 42 Nobel Laureates have written an open letter in support of SB 70, which would repeal the LSEA. Read the text of the letter here, or below the break. 

A response by the editors of Synthese

We have been asked to publish this note from the editors of Synthese.

In response to the controversy concerning a decision by the editors of Synthese involving a recent special issue on "Evolution and its Rivals":

We are committed to the view that Synthese, in addition to being a venue for pure philosophy, also be a forum for debate on issues which extend into the public sphere. In particular, we believe that philosophical debate concerning the role of religion in science and public policy is important. This is why we accepted the proposal to pursue this special issue.

We allow guest editors sufficient freedom to craft intellectually significant special issues. At the same time, as editors of Synthese we must ensure the highest standards of politeness and fairness.  This is sometimes a difficult balance to strike, especially with respect to highly-charged matters.

We judged that several articles included in the special issue contained language that is unacceptable: neutral readers of the issue will find no difficulty in identifying such passages. We placed no restriction whatsoever on content. After internal resolution failed, we added a preface as a way of acknowledging our ultimate responsibility, while expressing our regret for the breach of our standards.

While we grant anyone's right to judgment calls different from ours, the simple fact remains that it was our task as editors to make them in this case. Of course, there are lessons to be learnt from what happened regarding our internal procedures, and Synthese will do that.

Finally, we would emphasize once more that maintaining standards of courtesy in academic writing is not a matter of taking sides. It is beneficial to all parties interested in the pursuit of truth. The special issue is out there now, and we trust that colleagues interested in its theme will now proceed to discuss the actual contents.

Johan van Benthem

Vincent F. Hendricks

John Symons

Editors-in-Chief, Synthese

What is at stake in the Synthese brouhaha (please share thoughts!)

I just want to forcefully reiterate something Brian said yesterday in his blog. Mohan Matthen had written.

[H]ere is the summary [of what transpired]: Special Issue [of Synthese] consisting of critiques of intelligent design; Editors-in-Chief correspond with author of Special Issue paper, demanding changes, after that paper has been published on-line; they make these demands without the consent of the Guest Editors; most shocking of all, E-in-C’s insert a disclaimer regarding the Special Issue.

It seems clear that whatever their motives or exculpations, the E-in-C’s acted unprofessionally. Surely they should admit this and apologize. Nobody wants to participate in a “boycott” of philosophers as distinguished as they are, but they made an error in their public capacity, and they should simply make things right, with as little fuss as possible.

To which Leiter responded:

This leaves out only the role that intensive lobbying and threats of 'libel' from the ID crowd played in producing this outcome. . .

This is an extremely important point, possibly the central one.