<b><h3>Quotas on Common Sense</b></h3>

Accuracy in Academia ^ | July 16, 2010 | Malcolm A. Kline

[AccuracyAcademia]

After saving the quota over merit system at the University of Michigan, Lee C. Bollinger went on to Columbia University to preserve its traditions. Unfortunately, he’s succeeding.

“The real world needs to embrace more of the intellectual character we try to practice here,” Bollinger said in his May 18, 2010 commencement address at Columbia. (Maybe he hasn’t noticed that it has, at least the elect and elite part of it.)

“There are three areas of concern: The denial of expertise (most vividly and disturbingly represented in those who would reject the consensus of the scientific community about human-induced climate change). The hardening of beliefs and intolerance (as witnessed in the unwillingness of many in public discourse to at least entertain the possibility that others may have better ideas, which inexorably leads to intimations of violence). And, finally, the corrosive attitude now prevalent in public debate that the less-said-the-better, because expression of your viewpoint can only get you into trouble (sadly represented in our current inability to discuss and debate what the Constitution of the nation does and should mean, beyond simplicities such as we must follow the ‘original intent’ of the founders).”

Speaking of the real world, “The temperatures for the first six months of this year average a bit below the peak year of 1998, which corresponded with a strong El Niño,” according to the Science and Environmental Policy Project. Meanwhile, the clumsy attempt to exonerate the University of East Anglia’s scientists in the “hide the decline” Climategate scandal was so transparent that a Labour MP in the United Kingdom dubbed it “inadequate.”