And yet...
Ben Stein described the brouhaha over his selection as commencement speaker at the University of Vermont as "*laughable*" on Tuesday called the whole episode "*pathetic*."
So much for "graciously."
In a phone call to the Free Press on Tuesday, Stein said that describing his views as "antithetical to scientific inquiry" was "a wildly unfair characterization." He said he was by no means "anti-science," as some of his critics have described him.
Anyone who follows Scientific American's 60-second science, knows better. It quotes Stein from the film "expelled" as quoting Darwin:
"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."
Scientific American, however, continues the Darwin quote, completing it in full:
"The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil."
Back to Stein from the Free Press:
"Mr. Stein has also expressed opinions on subjects unrelated to economics, most notably with respect to evolutionary theory, intelligent design, and the role of science in the Holocaust," Fogel said in a statement to the UVM community Monday. "Those views are highly controversial, to say the least."
Stein called the university's response to the furor "chicken sh**, and you can quote me on that."
As for the commencement speech, he said, "I didn't really want to do it in the first place."
I'd say this is win-win. |
250-1
55-1
