Detached Ideas

In April of 2005, shortly after Larry Summers’ public comments which resulted in his resignation as president of Harvard, there was a debate between Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke, both from the Harvard psychology department, on “The Science of Gender and Science.” Streaming video, a transcript, and slides from this debate are available on Edge – here. There are also comments on the debate by Nora Newcomb, David Haig, Alison Gopnik and Diane Halpern, with a response by Pinker —  here.

The question under debate was whether innate differences between the sexes might help account for the dearth of women tenure track faculty in the physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering at elite universities. At the beginning of his remarks, Steven Pinker made what seems to me to be a vital distinction:

[I]t is crucial to distinguish the moral proposition that people should not be discriminated against on account of their sex — which I take to be the core of feminism — and the empirical claim that males and females are biologically indistinguishable. They are not the same thing. Indeed, distinguishing them is essential to protecting the core of feminism. Anyone who takes an honest interest in science has to be prepared for the facts on a given issue to come out either way. And that makes it essential that we not hold the ideals of feminism hostage to the latest findings from the lab or field. . . . The truth can­not be sexist.

The debate proceeded mainly on empirical grounds, although there were also a few philo­so­phical moments. Elizabeth Spelke is the 2009 winner of the Jean Nicod Prize. Steven Pinker is author of The Blank Slate, among many other books, and is married to Rebecca Goldstein.

–Paul

Lawrence Lessig earned an MA in philosophy from Cambridge, and a law degree from Yale. He is a founder of Creative Commons. Formerly a professor of law at Stanford, he is currently the director of the Safra Foun­dation Center for Ethics at Harvard.

‘Theodore Dalrymple’ is the pen-name of Dr. Anthony Daniels, retired British doctor, contributing editor for the City Journal, author, and eloquent conservative obser­ver of contem­po­rary culture. Recently, Daniels was invited to give the annual John Kenneth Galbraith Lecture at Memorial University in Newfoundland. The Galbraith Revival is a reflection on that experience.

Other articles to try include: They dance, I take the dog for a walk, What is Poverty?, What the New Atheists Don’t See, False Apology Syndrome, and All Sex, All the Time. There is a directory of Dalrymple’s City Journal work here.

–Paul

It is important to have heroes.  When I was young Van Cliburn was one of my heroes. This performance, with Kirill Kondrashin in Moscow in 1962, came four years after his victory in the Tchaikovsky Competition — an event that precipitated a cultural thaw in the cold war.  Notice Nikita Khrushchev applauding at the end.

The thirteenth Van Cliburn Competition is May 22 to June 7 in Fort Worth — with live webcasts here.

Over the past decade the identity of Spengler, the pseudonymous Asian Times colum­nist, has been the subject of considerable speculation. Last week, Spengler finally revealed himself to be David P. Goldman — classical musician, philo­sopher, conser­va­tive economist, and senior financial officer for Bear Stearns, Credit Suisse, and Bank of America.

Spengler’s columns are dense, oracular, and provocative — it is prudent to ingest them in small quantities. They are remarkably erudite, and show an impressive command of cultural and religious history. Although I might take issue with particular conclusions, the scope and intensity of his thought is invariably bracing.  By his own esti­mate, the Asian Times columns reached a million readers, and the high level of pub­lic interest is evidenced by the 5000 or so registered participants in the Spengler Forum.

Some interesting Spengler essays to try are:

Overcoming ethnicity
Socrates the destroyer
Tolkien’s Ring: When immortality is not enough
Benedict XVI is magnificently right
This almost-chosen, almost-pregnant land

The most recent Spengler column is about the Susan Boyle phe­nomenon.  He says:

Meanwhile, in China, 60 million children are learning Western classi­cal music under the gimlet gaze of strict teachers. East Asian singers, parti­cularly Koreans, are working their way up the ranks of provincial opera companies, and every one of them sings better than Boyle. Who do you think is going to run the world 20 years from now? As the Italians say, we’re bolliti, “boiled”.  Now we can spell it with a “y”.  I hate to always be the one to say this, but the hope is fatuous. No, you can’t.

These talent spectacles, Spengler observes, betray an undercurrent of self-worship; we choose to pay homage to what is like us rather than what is above us.

David Goldman has a new home as associate editor at First Things.

–Paul