Spring Break
The Bush Library: On truth squads and tarnished reputations
David J. Weber, dweber@smu.edu
Issue date: 2/7/07 Section: Opinion
The camel's nose would be under the tent, they said, and Marxists would take over the university. I recall the anger of conservative faculty when some of us promoted the establishment of academic departments in black studies, Mexican-American studies, women's studies, Native American studies, etc. Opponents argued that these new programs would politicize the university and subvert putative academic standards of impartiality with slanted research.
Now the argument comes from the left instead of the right. Sverdlik claims that "over the last hundred years" universities have found "devices" to evaluate faculty research "only on the basis of its quality" and that think tanks lack those "devices." He offers a useful distinction, but it is easy to exaggerate the ability of our "devices" to produce what he calls "impartial research," and to demonize think tank that allegedly lack such devices. In academia, the "quality" of academic research is determined largely by a researcher's peers.
The system produces valuable checks and balances, but "impartial research" has also resulted in such agreed upon nonsense as that blacks were happy in the South under slavery, that Mexicans were lazy and non-goal oriented, that women had penis envy, and that cigarette smoking did no harm. The peer-review system did not end academic group-think that endorsed these ideas. Rather, better ideas entered the marketplace and drove out the defective products of this supposedly "impartial research."
So it will be with the ideas that come from a conservative think tank. It will make no effort to conceal its impartiality but will fail if it becomes known for shoddy thinking. It seems presumptuous at best to characterize a think tank that does not yet exist and to assume that its fellows will all be inexpert ideologues who think alike and utter outrageous lies that need to be countered by "truth squads" drawn from the SMU faculty. Ideologues can be experts and experts can be ideologues and they exist on university faculties as well as in think tanks-right along with shallow thinkers and deep thinkers (although, alas, what seems shallow one day might seem deep the next, and vice versa).
Universities are diverse places, and only the most myopic would judge a whole university by a single department or research center or institute. Did anyone suppose that Milton Friedman's once unpopular group of free-market economists at the University of Chicago represented the university?
SMU is a large, complex and intellectually rich institution, as the present debate over the Bush Institute suggests. SMU will not be judged or tarnished by a Bush think tank unless its faculty abandons research for politics and leaves the think tank to play the only research game on the Hilltop.
About the writer:
David J. Weber is the Robert and Nancy Dedman Professor of History. He can be reached at dweber@smu.edu.
Now the argument comes from the left instead of the right. Sverdlik claims that "over the last hundred years" universities have found "devices" to evaluate faculty research "only on the basis of its quality" and that think tanks lack those "devices." He offers a useful distinction, but it is easy to exaggerate the ability of our "devices" to produce what he calls "impartial research," and to demonize think tank that allegedly lack such devices. In academia, the "quality" of academic research is determined largely by a researcher's peers.
The system produces valuable checks and balances, but "impartial research" has also resulted in such agreed upon nonsense as that blacks were happy in the South under slavery, that Mexicans were lazy and non-goal oriented, that women had penis envy, and that cigarette smoking did no harm. The peer-review system did not end academic group-think that endorsed these ideas. Rather, better ideas entered the marketplace and drove out the defective products of this supposedly "impartial research."
So it will be with the ideas that come from a conservative think tank. It will make no effort to conceal its impartiality but will fail if it becomes known for shoddy thinking. It seems presumptuous at best to characterize a think tank that does not yet exist and to assume that its fellows will all be inexpert ideologues who think alike and utter outrageous lies that need to be countered by "truth squads" drawn from the SMU faculty. Ideologues can be experts and experts can be ideologues and they exist on university faculties as well as in think tanks-right along with shallow thinkers and deep thinkers (although, alas, what seems shallow one day might seem deep the next, and vice versa).
Universities are diverse places, and only the most myopic would judge a whole university by a single department or research center or institute. Did anyone suppose that Milton Friedman's once unpopular group of free-market economists at the University of Chicago represented the university?
SMU is a large, complex and intellectually rich institution, as the present debate over the Bush Institute suggests. SMU will not be judged or tarnished by a Bush think tank unless its faculty abandons research for politics and leaves the think tank to play the only research game on the Hilltop.
About the writer:
David J. Weber is the Robert and Nancy Dedman Professor of History. He can be reached at dweber@smu.edu.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Clayton Littlejohn
posted 2/07/07 @ 4:17 PM EST
I suppose the idea is that because a university professor once disputed the claim that smoking is bad for health we're supposed to invite the tobacco companies to set up a think tank on campus? I guess that's an argument. (Continued…)
Scott Rewak
posted 2/08/07 @ 2:22 AM EST
While I respect the opinion and academic background of Mr. Weber, I have a few comments. Like the previous comment deriding the use of the smoking analogy, I don't find these strawman arguments to be persuasive. (Continued…)
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