Monthly Archives: April 2011

Planting the Flag

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Denial Depot’s Jaws: A movie review looks at the movie from a denialist perspective.

Matt Hooper from the “Oceanographic Institute” turns up. No-one seems to have called him, he just kind of appears. I’ve heard that scientists can actually smell sources of funding from up to 50 kilometers away. Hooper takes one look at the body and arrogantly proclaims:
“It wasn’t an ‘accident,’ it wasn’t a boat propeller, or a coral reef, or Jack the Ripper. It was a shark.”

What alarmist nonsense! He just blew through all those equally good explanations. And as the local pointed out “nobody’s seen a shark”. So it’s unscientific for Hooper to assert there definitely is a shark. He’s hiding the uncertainty and doubt. Of course if he admitted there wasn’t a shark all his funding would dry up…

I just want to point out that as far as Jaws being a movie about denialism, I got there first.

I Deserve Success

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From Students, a Misplaced Sense of Entitlement

How could it be that graduate students delivered such appallingly poor papers and presentations? They’d gotten undergraduate degrees; why couldn’t they write in sentences? Why were they devoid of originality, analytical ability, intellectual curiosity? Why were they accosting me with hostile e-mails when I pointed out unsubstantiated generalizations, hyperbolic assumptions, ungrounded polemics, sourcing omissions, and possible plagiarism?

The sad thing is, I’m not alone. Every college teacher I know is bemoaning the same kind of thing. Whether it’s rude behavior, lack of intellectual rigor, or both, we are all struggling with the same frightening decline in student performance and academic standards at institutions of higher learning. A sense of entitlement now pervades the academy, excellence be damned.