My impression is that the list discussion has been doing fairly well at
dealing with what might be considered as racist or fascist ideas
masquerading as science. The list has even dealt with such ideas with
humour.
JISCmail does have guidelines. JISCmail is devoted to discussions among
academics and does not assume that list owners would control discussion. It
assumes academics are capable of conducting their own debates in a civilised
way without any authoritarian structure. I find the idea of control of
discussion by a list owner abhorrent. In my view attempt ot control
discussion would not reduce the danger of racist or fascist ideas being put
forward as science. Rather would it drive that danger elsewhere -
including underground.
To say "Remember, Hitler had his Race Science." is not a very articulate
comment. Could Jonathan Rosenhead spell out this point and relate it to
any relevanrt list discussion?
Ray Thomas, Faculty of Social Sciences, Open University
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-----Original Message-----
From: email list for Radical Statistics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 8:57 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Request to list-owner
I am impressed at the renewed vitality of correspondence on a variety of
issues that the Rad Stats list has shown in recent weeks.
However I am writing this message to ask the list-owner to exercise her
prerogatives to terminate conversations on some particular topics. I am not
concerned with discussions that simply stray some distance away from
statistics as usually conceived. I am, however, extremely concerned that
some strands of debate could be giving open house for the expression of
racist or even fascist ideas, masquerading as science. Remember, Hitler had
his Race Science.
I have been deleting those messages which seem to be taking us into this
territory. However if this should continue I will certainly terminate my
membership of the list (as I believe a number of people have already done).
Simple migration (to choose a term not entirely at random) could
progressively lead to a list of a decidedly different character.
If you think with me that the list-owner should use her editorial powers as
required to exclude such material, in my view it would be helpful if you
would signify agreement. If she is to take this action it is important that
it be with the general support of list members.
Jonathan Rosenhead
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