About six months ago the great evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers won the Crafoord Prize. Well, he is now in a public dispute with Alan Derschowitz, resulting in the cancellation of a talk at Harvard. Frontpage Magazine has an amusing article up.
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Dershowitz really is an awful cunt who does more disservice to his cause than he could ever imagine.
I agree with the above statement. Derschowitz approaches Douglas Feith territory when it comes to psychotic ethnonationalism. Notice in the frontpage article that 'America' and 'Israel' are apparently interchangeable. If you criticize one, you criticize the other.
I especially liked this: 'Nazis -- and Nazi-like apologists such as yourself -- need to be confronted directly.' GO BOB!!!
Derschowitz approaches Douglas Feith territory when it comes to psychotic ethnonationalism.
Here, here.
The really appalling thing however is that Dershowitz was able by a letter to the Harvard police to get so eminent a scientist as Trivers dis-invited to give his scheduled talk.
All this with the guise that Trivers, an eminent scientist whose battles have all been fought with words, was threatened Dershowitz with violence when he wrote in a letter to him:
if there is a repeat of Israeli butchery toward Lebanon and if you decide once again to rationalize it publicly, look forward to a visit from me. Nazis -- and Nazi-like apologists such as yourself -- need to be confronted directly."
That's what's appalling here. In the aftermath of the Larry Summers replacement for speaking un PC truth -- what's wrong with Harvard these days?
Since I wrote a Guardian profile from which the creeps at Front Page are quoting, can I point out that Trivers did not grow up in Jamaica, did not stop scientific work in an embittered response to failing to get tenure, and did not establish contact with Huey Newton while he was in prison.
I'm surprised that you find amusing an article quite so full of bile and misdirection.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1556482,00.html
And what about this - Trivers is not best known for his biological writings at all but rather for his long collaboration with Huey Newton and the Black Panthers
- what does one say to that? Awful crap!
Someone please ask the author of this article if he can even comprehend one of those papers Trivers wrote in 1970s. Each of those gave rise to specific areas of research in biology.
As far as his "got turned down for tenure" - that is hugely questionable!
Harvard had done it on earlier occasions too, they cancelled Irish poet's Paulin's talk on basically similar grounds.
I was anticipating who brings this up at Scienceblogs. Razib- I refrained from forwarding you the story myself, since the entire incident I felt was pretty irritating & obnoxious .
So much for academic freedom & freedom of speech.
I'm surprised that you find amusing an article quite so full of bile and misdirection.
it's Frontpage. read it like the onion on crack.
From the Inside Higher Ed article: "Trivers said that "in retrospect," he wishes that he included the word "verbally" after the reference in his letter to confronting Dershowitz."
Trivers was right to have second thoughts about how he chose his words, because the letter as written - whatever Trivers' intent - was inappropriately suggestive of a threat.
With all of the trash-talking that routinely goes on in the blogosphere and message boards, many seem to think that standards of civil communication have changed.
One the subject of threats - intended and perceived - Irshad Manji mentions something interesting about the academic championed by Trivers:
http://www.muslim-refusenik.com/petition.html
"Only one person emailed a disconcerting message. A gentleman named Norman Finkelstein wrote to say, "Is there a petition supporting the death threats?" Maybe he's just a researcher."
"it's Frontpage. read it like the onion on crack."
Neither the onion or crack addicts frighten me.
I suspect that someone else signed Finkelstein's name.
re: John Emerson's comment:
That's possible. Since I have no special knowledge of the situation nor do I personally know any of the individuals involved, let me amend my previous comment to "Irshad Manji mentions something interesting about an individual claiming to have the same name as...".
@razib: My sense of humour must be differently tuned. (This remark is not intended to come out humourlessly.)
IIRC Robert Trivers married a Jamaican woman and has a mixed-race family. This *should't* be relevant to anything, but when accusations of racism or Nazism are flying around, it is.
Married a Jamaican eh? In the eyes of Derschowitz that would make Trivers a race-traitor, maybe that's what this is all about.