Tuesday, July 11, 2006

911 Denial to be Taught at Wisconsin

Wisconsin Law Professor Ann Althouse has several posts on an Introduction to Islam course to be taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As part of the syllabus the lecturer, Kevin Barrett, proposes to teach 911 denial:

''The physics of those collapses clearly could not have resulted from plane crashes and jet fuel fires with office materials.'' Barrett says jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel, and says recent tests on melted steel from the building prove his theory that it was wired to collapse, by the Government.

Barrett says the Bush Administration is fooling the American public with the Adolf Hitler 'Big Lie Technique'... ''Tell them a little lie and they'll wonder about it - weapons of mass destruction in iraq was a relatively little lie - and people are getting called on it.'' Barrett says. ''Tell em a big lie like 9/11 and they have a huge resistance to questioning it.''

University Provost Patrick Farrell calls the view "unconventional" and cites the Bascom Hall plaque that calls for the "continual fearless sifting and winnowing of ideas."

If there is to be a "sifting and winnowing" then why doesn't Farrell appoint a committee of the Engineering Department at the University of Wisconsin to issue an engineering report? Why doesn't the Wisconsin Engineering Department take it upon itself to issue a technical refutation?

Will Wisconsin permit Holocaust denial to be taught? How about "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?" Voodoo and witchcraft? AIDS in Africa planted by the CIA?

7 comments:

Rick Ballard said...

"Will Wisconsin permit Holocaust denial to be taught? How about "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?" Voodoo and witchcraft? AIDS in Africa planted by the CIA?"

I certainly don't see why they wouldn't. Each of those reinforce the Articles of Faith upon which the religion of "Reason Above All Else" is constructed - why shouldn't they be taught? Being a true progressive means that your sense of reason is so well developed that it permits you to believe in all that imagination might encompass. I'm sure that everyone would agree that banning discrimination in favor of equality is the only path to enlightenment and so a rational mind should welcome exposure to all ideas.

Nice to see you back, Brylun.

Knuck,

I'll take the gunny. He's actually done something with a modicum of utility. I would be a bit afraid of having Barrett next door. Theoretically, brain rot is not contagious, but it's not worth the risk.

Rick Ballard said...

Knuck - You've got two busted links "where do we find" and "Provost Farrell".

brylun said...

Rick, thanks for the welcome back. In case you were wondering, I was with my daughter in Egypt, Greece, Italy, France, Netherlands and England.

chuck said...

University Provost Patrick Farrell calls the view "unconventional" and cites the Bascom Hall plaque that calls for the "continual fearless sifting and winnowing of ideas."

When I read that I just laughed. Farrell has the words but the meaning has escaped him. Ideas are sifted and winnowed to find the truth, which requires critical thinking and balancing against the facts, which requires knowledge and honesty. And most of all, it requires the idea of truth itself. Ideas aren't valid just because they are far out.

Somehow I don't think Barret is going to endulge critical thinking in his class. Folklore? Shades of Campbell and Moyers, I suspect it is another subject full of bozo theory and deep sounding words. Another passing fad in the boomers quest for something easier and more entertaining than mere reality.

Anonymous said...

Well, we just need new parallel universities that hire different kinds of people who teach in different ways.

A: So where did you go?

B: Harvard.

A: You're still young. You might try to get in to -----.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Brylun--great to see you back. Are you going to give us some posts on the places you visited?

Anonymous said...

I sat in the front row at the UW-Madison Student Union auditorium in 1957 to hear Frank Lloyd Wright give a talk, and was proud of the University for allowing him to speak. But - according to the mentality of some who have posted here the UW should not have let him speak. I know that in his time the deceptions pulled off by powerful groups were small scale compared to 911. But Wright talked a lot about politics and government, and why the government never hired him to design one of their buildings. He and his apprentices opposed World War II, the draft, and J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI hated him and tried to get him. When his Monona Terrace Project was to be built in the late fifties or early sixties some fine Wisconsin members of the legislature and other politicos opposed Wright and his design for Madison. The project was finally built, but long after Wright was dead. Wright was eccentric and highly controversial with populist ideas. He also ran the University down when he came into the Student Union and sometimes into the Rat.
Bernard Pyron, UW Ph.D., 1963