Seth's Blog

I have no problem with Holocaust deniers. They are probably a good thing — a mild irritant keeping the rest of us on our toes (like fermented food). Being forced to look at evidence will do most people good. The people who scare me, who do real damage, are the ones who want to silence Holocaust deniers. They don’t meet enough resistance. That Holocaust actually happened is exactly why we should be so afraid of intolerance in any direction (e.g., pro- or anti-Semitic). But Holocaust deniers are too intellectually feeble to do a good job of defending freedom of thought. So, by and large, it is poorly defended. Sure, most “unthinkable” views (such as Holocaust denial) are nonsense. But not all.

The paragraph you just read (“I have no problem…”) is a terrible defense of academic freedom. It’s vague, argumentative, unemotional, impersonal, and abstract. I think the best defense of a belief is to practice it, which is why, in my lifetime, the best defense of academic freedom has been The Man Who Would Be Queen (about male homosexuals) by Michael Bailey, a professor at Northwestern. The book led to a campaign of vilification against Bailey led by Lynn Conway and Deidre McCloskey. I blogged and corresponded with McCloskey about it.

Bailey has again defended academic freedom by practicing it. Last week Bailey’s Human Sexuality class caused controversy because of an after-class demonstration in which a woman was brought to orgasm on stage using an unusual device. Again we are learning the actual consequences of academic freedom, as opposed to simplistic arguments (like mine) or homilies about how good it is.

The Human Sexuality controversy led to publication of this story (which I have shortened):

As an undergraduate at Northwestern University, I only saw one professor argue with his students. It happened several times in the same class, Human Sexuality. [The first time was in 2005.] The professor, J. Michael Bailey, had been leading us through some provocative research, which suggested that if you control for a whole variety of factors, adults who were sexually abused as children are not much more likely to have psychological pathologies than adults who were not.

[During the question period] a dark-haired young woman in the back of the class stood up right away. Hundreds of heads turned to look at her.

“You’re talking about sexually abusing children,” she said. “No matter what the research says, that is morally wrong.”

Bailey said that his moral judgment had nothing to do with the matter, that he was presenting research and that was all.

The student said, “What would you say if one of your daughters was molested?”

“If one of my daughters was molested, I would be devastated,” he said. “But I would take comfort in knowing that the molestation would not necessarily ruin her life.”

The young woman sat down. Bailey got back to his lecture.

What have I learned from this? At the simplest level, here are two stories — two pieces of evidence, two things to think about. Something more subtle is that a blunt argument (e.g., my first paragraph) is a kind of intolerance all by itself. The opposite of blunt argument is telling a story.

• “But I’m undocumented,” she said, and the room went silent.
• The dog that didn’t bark. Gates Foundation annual letter doesn’t mention global warming.
• Climategate computer code. A reader of this blog named Tierney told me, “The state of their data and databases are AWFUL. I’m not sure how anyone could look at it and still feel highly confident in the climate models!”

Last week Time published an article about self-experimentation called “My Body, My Laboratory” by Eben Harrell that is now fully available on-line. I am quoted a few times.

I distinguish between two kinds of self-experimentation — part of your job (the usual kind) or self-help (what I do) — and it’s easy to put each of the examples in the article into one pile or the other. However, I think that if you go far enough into the future and look back, you will see three varieties:

1. Professional. Self-experimentation done as part of your job (e.g., doctor). A dentist testing a new anesthetic, for example. All famous examples are in this category.

2. Self-help. Self-experimentation done to improve your own life. Done by non-professionals. I call this personal science.

3. Combination of the two. A professional combines job skills and self-help. This is what I did. My job (experimental psychologist) gave my self-experimentation (about weight loss, sleep, mood, and health, all common self-help topics) a considerable boost.

Professionals (Category 1) have skills and resources. The self-helpers, the non-professionals (Category 2) have freedom and (greater) motivation. People in Category 3 have all four. To summarize this paper in three words, that really helps. Please imagine the Venn diagram — one circle (“Professional”), another circle (“Self-Help”), and area of overlap (“Me”).

I will always remember the day (today) my work appeared in a graphic-design magazine.

Thanks to this article, I learned that many issues of Spy magazine have become available at Google Books (here). I loved Spy. In the last few years it got much worse but before that I would often read each issue three times. Now you can judge for yourself.