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MIT's Tech newspaper reports on a growing list of MIT faculty who have signed a statement opposing a number of Donald Trump's cabinet appointments and "reaffirming their dedication to 'principles at the core of MIT's mission.'"
The statement denounces discrimination, promotes open communication, and asserts the need to respect the scientific method. Signatories include four out of the ten Nobel Prize winners currently part of the MIT faculty, as well as author Junot Diaz and Affordable Care Act architect Jonathan Gruber. [...]
About 25 percent of MIT faculty have now signed the statement. [The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences], which comprises 17 percent of MIT faculty, represents a disproportionately large percentage of the signatories at about 22 percent. The School of Engineering is underrepresented, with also about 22 percent of signatories, but comprising 37 percent of total faculty. These differences may be a result of the thus far uneven dissemination of the statement across departments.
The MIT statement joins a growing litany of open letters from scientists to the Trump administration, with over 2300 scientists -- including 22 Nobel Prize winners -- signing another statement asking for a "strong and open culture of science" and "adhering to high standards of scientific integrity and independence." A group of female scientists concerned about racism and sexism in science initially aimed for 500 signatures from women scientists, but their list now has grown to over 11,000 worldwide.
The actual MIT statement with list of signatories can be found here. At the time of this submission, it had grown by over 10% since the Tech report was written on Wednesday afternoon and now has over 500 signatures.
[Continues...]
The complete text of the statement reads:
The President-elect has appointed individuals to positions of power who have endorsed racism, misogyny and religious bigotry, and denied the widespread scientific consensus on climate change. Regardless of our political views, these endorsements violate principles at the core of MIT's mission. At this time, it is important to reaffirm the values we hold in common.
We, the undersigned faculty at MIT, thus affirm the following principles:
- We unconditionally reject every form of bigotry, discrimination, hateful rhetoric, and hateful action, whether directed towards one's race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, disability, citizenship, political views, socioeconomic status, veteran status, or immigration status.
- We endorse MIT's values of open, respectful discourse and exchange of ideas from the widest variety of intellectual, religious, class, cultural, and political perspectives.
- We uphold the principles of the scientific method, of fact- and reason-based objective inquiry. Science is not a special interest; it is not optional. Science is a foundational ingredient in how we as a society analyze, understand, and solve the most difficult challenges that we face.
For any member of our community who may feel fear or oppression, our doors are open and we are ready to help. We pledge to work with all members of the community – students, faculty, staff, postdoctoral researchers, and administrators – to defend these principles today and in the times ahead.
I imagine some reactions may be to dismiss this as yet another college appeal for "safe spaces" and "diversity," but from first-hand experience with the MIT community, I can say it's definitely distinct from the average "liberal arts school" environment. When they say "open, respectful discourse and exchange of ideas" from different perspectives, they generally mean it; I've personally seen debates there that would be instantly "shut down" elsewhere. I only wish they had reversed the order of the three bullet points and put science upfront, because that's what really distinguishes their message from many other groups.
More coverage on these letters expressing concern about science in the new administration in the Guardian and the Washington Post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @04:20PM
What does global warming have to do with anything? Red herring, much?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday December 02 2016, @04:27PM
It's one of the central anti-science elements of Donald Trump's platform that this petition is seeking redress for?
Seems topical to me.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @04:39PM
With regard to Climate Change research, there are real, worthy questions about methodology, bias, motivation, and even mathematical soundness. The only real scientific response is to address these questions systematically, not sign petitions or lobby officials or appeal to public emotion.
If you want public money to research and implement your views, then you've got to take criticism seriously.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday December 02 2016, @04:48PM
And now that your original point that it's irrelevant has been countered, you're awful quick to jump into the traditional anti-science classes of pseudoskepticism: "There are areas that require further investigation therefor people who call the whole thing nonsense and refuse to act on incredibly high quality information are okay in my book".
The nature of the argument is literally indistinguishable from those of
*Creationists: Do you know how organ Y evolved? Do you have transitional fossil #43245231.3? No? then evolution is obviously not science.
*Anti-vaxxers: Can you prove with absolute certainty that there are zero side effects to the exact vaccine schedule recommended by doctors? No? Then obviously it's okay to not vaccinate my kids.
and
*Ufologists: Do you have a proven explanation for this sighting? Oh you do? But not this one, so obviously you can't know for certain that we're not being run by reptilians
But you act sanctimonious about understanding the true nature of science unlike us people who just use the evidence to compare the central hypothesis to the null hypothesis and find no compelling confounding factors that could adequately explain the data. You're wrong. You're incredibly wrong. And you're dragging us to hell with you because your ego prefers someone who tells you what you want to hear(that it's all a Chinese myth).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @05:16PM
You want other people's money? You should have to convince them to give it to you.
There are real, scientific concerns with the methodology and even the mathematics behind climate research; maligning a dissenting voice through guilt by association with other maligned ideas is what is anti-scientific.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday December 02 2016, @05:31PM
You see "Your argument is of this same fallacious form as these other people" and your mind just looks for the most approximate match of a logical fallacy it can. In this case it selected the completely crazy "Guilt by association" which would requirement to say that because you have a standing relationship with those groups you're wrong.
To my knowledge, you personally know exactly zero creationists, anti-vaxxers, and ufologists. According to my post I attributed zero relationship between you and those groups other than making the same incorrect argument about the nature of scientific understanding.
You then proceed to conclude that my refutation of your bullshit is censorship, which very quickly leads me to suspect that you're not very good at this free-and-open society thing that you're pretending to care about for the sake of argument.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @09:54PM
Why do you think scientists hate grant proposals so much? They think their studies are valid and do not like wasting time having to justify them for funding. Sooo, yeah, you're really off base. I would totally have gotten my PhD if I knew the gov would just throw money at me for whatever I wanted!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday December 02 2016, @06:41PM
What does global warming have to do with anything? Red herring, much?
Never before have I seen on SoylentNews such an innocent, guileless admission of "did not read the FA." Do try to keep up, AC?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @07:21PM
Well, I've seen quite frequently on SoylentNews your inability to follow the argument at hand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @07:47PM
Well, that sure doesn't address the actual topic at hand or the inability of the previous AC to realize climate change is a central theme to this discussion.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday December 02 2016, @10:19PM
Sorry, "guileless" means "without guile", or not intended to deceive. I will try to use smaller and more common words in the future. Sometimes I forget we have ACs of limited vocabulary. Now, what was the thing we were arguing about again? Trump the ex-Birther is now a Climate-change Denier and anti-Vaxxer, and one of the most prestigious tech university's faculty has noticed this fact? No wonder you were confused.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @07:39PM
You must be new here!
(Score: 1) by new here on Saturday December 03 2016, @06:41AM
No, I am new here, you insensitive clod.