The bioecological model
An email sent to Kristin Jacobson, Assistant Professor, University of Chicago Medical School Dear Prof. Jacobson, I was just leafing through my University of Chicago Magazine this evening when I came across the article summarizing your new grant. I have to say I was amazed. Though the author tiptoed around the area under investigation, you are entering some very choppy waters. The attempt to identify the genetic and biological contributions to anti social behavior and cognition is normally considered taboo, since it inevitably ventures into racial variables. Though I am familiar with some work reported in press releases and abstracts of journals, as you can see from my weblog, most researchers, considering the downside, tend to avoid such studies, even with the best of intentions. I can't help be reminded of the unfortunate lesson of Chicago's Dr. Bruce Lahn, with whom you undoubtedly have discussed your research interests. As was noted several years ago in the Wall Stre
Sad. I was interested and then he totally lost me when he made the snotty comment about how it isn't surprising which states still allow spanking in schools. I am from Mississippi. Not everyone from a red state is ignorant and religious. I find it not just disheartening that he made that comment, but - quite frankly for me it nullified everything he had to say from that point forward. I just closed the video. He totally invalidated himself by being a thoughtless, egotistical jerk. What a waste. He might have something decent to say but I couldn't bring myself to listen after he made that comment. How is him being insulting to half the population of this country helpful to anybody? He must think his audience is limited to the northern coastlines. And indeed he effectively made his reach much smaller in a matter of seconds. What a moron. He is the intellectual embodiment of the phrase "can't see the forest for the trees." Oh, I'm going to solve all the world's moral problems... blah, blah, blah... right after I wipe my feet on half the population.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be especially defensive about this statement, close to having a chip on your shoulder. And you made some huge leaps. Harris did not state where spanking is authorized. He did not speak about spanking. He was drawing attention to a practice in 21 states of using a wooden board to beat a student that should be morally outmoded. Are you defending this sort of action?
ReplyDeleteYour extreme push back to his placing physical child punishment that is grounded in religion ("spare the rod, spoil the child") among those that we should criticize, all of us, is a bit baffling. Why launch into a geographical diatribe rather than stay on topic--the factuality of morality?
Your angry response causes me to worry even more about the societal divide in this country.