In the maybe-next-time-you-should-actually-interview-people-before-hiring-them scenario, an English lecturer at Dartmouth went ballistic (link goes to the WSJ, ewww, sorry about that) when students questioned her suppositions.
Mind you, we’re only getting one side of the story, and that side is from the Wall Street Journal, which still thinks we’re being too easy on Iraq. Also, it opens with this anti-intellectualism line:
Often it seems as though American higher education exists only to provide gag material for the outside world.
Why do neocons hate smart people? Oh, I bet I can venture a guess.
Still and anyway, the story makes a good point. The lecturer appears to be something of a post-modern lunatic. The line of win is:
Ms. Venkatesan’s scholarly specialty is “science studies,” which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, “teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth.” She continues: “Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct.”
You can guess how I feel about that. Scientific facts do reflect natural reality. Of course they do! That’s what they are. I’d love to see her scientific background.
Maybe she can get a job with the Disco ‘tute, if they’re not already burgeoning to overflowing with Expelled teachers. But then, she chose to sue Dartmouth, and DI tends to cut and run when faced with actual lawsuits.
If anyone has any more info on this case, please feel free to link to it in the comments. I’d like to know more; she does sound nutty, but I have to also account for the source of this info.
And incidentally, I do get ragged on by commenters who think I am some sort of far-left liberal goofball, but perhaps they should save it for people who really are way over on the rive gauche.
Tip o’ the deconstructionist hegemonistic mortarboard to Fark. Typical childish taunts ensue in that link, duh, but some funny ones too.
