COLUMN: The Marching Morons

From Gabriele Marcotti's "Land of the Stoopid's," Fall '94 Girard, a University alumnus, claims the Pioneer Fund is a racist organization because it believes in eugenics, the idea that the human race can be improved by eliminating its "negative" traits. But what has him really annoyed is that the Pioneer Fund gave a University professor a $6500 grant. Girard sent a pointed letter to the trustees asking them to "look into" (whatever that means) the allocation to Dan Vining, an associate professor in the moribund Regional Science department. Presumably Messer Girard has enough pull with the trustees that he was able to summon the big guns -- none other than President Judith Rodin set up an investigation of Vining's grant. She enlisted the help of Vice Provost for Research Barry Cooperman, who promptly "looked into" Vining's funding and found absolutely no trace of wrongdoing. The conclusion? If you can get cash, do so, even if it means dealing with looneytunes like the Pioneer Fund people, who are stuck somewhere between pseudoscience and healthy Klansmanship. The University clearly did the right thing in reaffirming anyone's right to fund research. One could fill numerous hot air balloons with legitimate talk of free speech, free expression and freedom of thought to justify the University's position. If academia ever starts dictating what's "ethical" and what's "racist" in terms of research, then we're in for trouble. Today it could be proto-racist nostalgics like our Pioneer friends, tomorrow it might be Hostess, whose Twinkies" clog arteries and cause heart attacks (don't laugh, they've already contributed millions of dollars to research). Research must be free from public pressure, that's why quality professors get tenure -- so they can work on whatever they want, without repressive administrations breathing down their necks. The only thing that should be carefully scrutinized and evaluated are professors' final results. Besides, if big corporations and outside groups didn't fund research, students (mostly undergraduates) would pick up the tab. It's a common saying that "undergraduate tuitions pay for graduate departments and graduate research." We shell out 28 grand a year, get maybe $20,000 worth of education, and the rest goes to pay for Professor Such-and-such so that he can study the intestines of the Drosophila Melanogasta, or similar crucial research. Our dollar goes to pay for samples, labs, equipment and a slew of graduate students (most of whom are also funded by fellowships or grants) to help out with petri dishes and the like. But there are a number of other aspects which seem a bit funny, and raise questions about the University's judgment. The way Girard stumbled upon the Vining/Pioneer link is in itself quasi-comical. He was hanging out, kicking back with a good book -- The Nazi Connection by Stephan Kuhl -- when he stumbled upon the words "University of Pennsylvania." A few more pages of reading revealed his alma mater was getting money from the bad guys. One can't help but wonder about an administration that commissions an investigation because an alumnus randomly comes upon a subject he doesn't like. What is even more galling is that the probe was done a few weeks ago -- two full years after Vining stopped getting money. If one alumnus can snap his fingers and make Rodin & Co. jump, it doesn't bode well for the future. There is little question that the Pioneer Fund is inherently racist. One gem is a line in its original charter that aims to "improve the character of the people of the United States" by encouraging the procreation of "white persons who settled in the original 13 states prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States." Presumably those who drafted the Constitution, those who came over to work in factories or railroads and those who were kidnapped from their native land to slave away in cotton fields didn't improve character. But what of Vining himself? Does he subscribe to their views? While Vining isn't following in the footsteps of Drs. Mengele and Barbie, he does have a few loopy ideas. He used the Pioneer Fund money to prove what he calls the "dysgenic trend" -- less intelligent people reproduce faster than smarter people. Using aptitude tests and SAT scores, he tested the relationship between intelligence and birth rates in Israel and found evidence to support his theory. Without getting into the reliability of SATs as a measure of intelligence (which is extremely questionable), it seems that his research is a little bit off the deep end. As a matter of fact, it's a lot like a satire by Robert Heinlein, The Marching Morons, in which the world has been taken over by idiots with tons of children, while intelligent people refuse to procreate. Personally, I'm glad the Pioneer people funded his research -- I'd hate to think that anyone's tax or tuition dollars went to pay for this nonsense. But it does raise some interesting questions about how this guy ever got tenure. Ultimately, one would hope the University learned a thing or two from this affair. Cooperman did well to reaffirm Vining's freedom to receive funding from whomever he pleased. But the University's judgment in letting alumni interfere leaves something to be desired. As for the Pioneer gang, they offer an opportunity to conduct our own little research. If their numbers increase over the next one hundred years, we'll know that Vining's theory is correct -- morons do procreate faster. Gabriele Marcotti is a senior Communications and International Relations major from Milano, Italy, and Editorial Page Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. Land of the Stoopid appears alternate Mondays.

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