1. Cornell triumphantly announces a truly astounding ornithological and environmental miracle on April 28, 2005.
2. On May 29, 2005, Cornell University President Jeffrey S. Lehman delivers this Cornell commencement address, which makes no specific mention of Cornell's astounding achievement. Lehman talks a lot about the dangers of "good people run amok":
The Dark Side I am interested in is more subtle. Think of it not as evil, but as good people run amok. Yielding to a certain kind of wholly understandable temptation, in a way that ends up being counterproductive for the individual or damaging to the larger community.3. On June 11, 2005, Lehman delivers this State of the University address for Cornell reunion attendees. Lehman finds time to specifically mention the school's Mock Election project and wrestling team, but again, curiously, there is not a word about Cornell's announced ornithological miracle.
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People afflicted with moral tunnel vision recognize a good, something that carries a positive benefit to the world. They see a path to that good. And they become so committed to pursuing that path that they lose sight of the costs to other values that might be associated with going down that path. These are the kinds of blind spots that can undermine communal life and collective progress.
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[speaking of a rush to judgment] This is the temptation to see too quickly a pattern emerging, to infer too soon an organizing principle, and then to become unable to assimilate contrary evidence into your worldview.
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It will take hard work to remind yourself of the limits of your own knowledge, to stay receptive to new evidence, to keep an open mind, especially when you feel very real time pressures weighing on your decision.
Near the end of the speech, to "audible gasps", Lehman announces his resignation. According to the Ithaca Journal, "...Lehman would spend only two years in office and leave with the vague explanation that he and the Board of Trustees disagreed over how to manage the university."
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12/30/05 update: The most significant point here is that Lehman failed to utter a single word about Cornell's claimed Ivory-bill triumph in two lengthy speeches shortly after the announcement. If you have a plausible explanation that doesn't involve any skepticism by Lehman, please leave a comment.
...And a further update: When I Google "jeffrey lehman" and "cornell", I get over 13,000 hits. I can't find a single place where Lehman ever publicly said a word about the Ivory-bill story--one of the most-discussed feel-good stories in recent memory. Doesn't his silence seem just a little bit odd?
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7 comments:
Yer REALLY reaching here, dude. Seems far more likely he was talking about national and global politics than about woodpeckers. Relevancy points: 0.
I respectfully think that YER missing a major point, sir.
I think that sometimes what people DON'T say is as important as what they DO say.
The Ivory-bill rediscovery was ostensibly a huge triumph for Cornell. I do think it's a bit intriguing that Lehman could give two major speeches in the immediate aftermath without even mentioning that story.
Oh, the drama!
Really, trying to make some inference from what the president of the university did not say about a project he was not involved directly with to a group of students who probably didn't really care much about it...
The audiences included alumni and parents. Maybe Lehman figured that the Mock Election and wrestling tidbits trumped any interest they might have in one of the most astounding environmental announcements of the century, but I don't think that's likely.
Your mileage may vary, but I say that if he was a firm believer, he would almost certainly have prominently mentioned the story. If he was not a believer, he'd have incentive to ignore the story. And if he was not a believer, then his advice to "stay receptive to new evidence" etc could actually have some relevance to the subject of this blog.
I agree with the first commenter. Compared to issues of war and world politics, the IBWO hunt just isn't even on the radar. A university president has far, far more important things to deal with. He didn't mention it because to 99% of his audience that day, it didn't matter.
Someone mentioned this in a very rude manner before, which seems to have been deleted by the author (a move with which I respectfully agree) - but the one point that was valid, I believe, was that if you are willing to publish critiques of Cornell's handling of this issue based on their lack of hard evidence, you will invariably open yourself to warrented criticism when you yourself make broad speculations (such as the one made in this entry) as "evidence" of your own claim.
Otherwise, a most interesting website.
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