Good point. No-one mentioned the institution turning a fair profit from it. If there's a nice little earner involved, consider my objections withdrawn. Real good idea.

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Skep-ti-cult® member #488-28303-790

At SSU, they charged a minor fee to people who were not students, faculty, or staff. It was nowhere near enough to recoup the "loss" of the money they paid Hastings. The funds to pay him came from a University department that books events for students, and I think that money comes from student fees. So in the end the students paid for him.

Having people like that come to a University to speak would be okay if

1) They were not paid, and

2) There was a sponsored discussion afterward.

I think that a University has an obligation to expose students to different things, but I think that if they are to expose them to things that are patently false, the University has an obligation to at least have a discussion afterward, so the students can learn something from it. To simply invite a speaker like that, let him speak, and then let the students go, implies a tacit endorsement of the message. Worse, by paying him an honorarium it also implies support of that cause. Paying for travel and board is IMO acceptable, and even required, but anything more than that is questionable at best.

A University is more than a place where students learn form books and lectures; they should learn about life. This learning comes in many forms, and not all of these forms are pleasant. I readily admit that (some of the lessons I learned in school were pretty unpleasant). But if the University is going to sponsor such lessons, they need to follow through with a postscript of some sort, so the students get a chance to discuss what they saw.

I agree with the BA's comments, students are expected to pay for all their books etc. Why should they have to pay for some quack thats talking rubbish. If i was in a university studying i would like the uni to get someone like Feynman in to talk (im watching one of his lectures now) as he's won a nobel prize, he knows what he's talking about and for the love of god he's one of the undisputed best lecturers in the world on physics. He also admits he doesn't know everything he makes mistakes he even laughs at himself, i'd want to pay for something i'd learn from not for something thats a waste of a few hours in a lecture hall.

Im glad im not going to uni yet because if their throwing money away like that i think its best i teach myself (which i am).

It's been a while since I've had a chance to get back to this thread. It's nice to see that I'm not entirely alone in opposing the expenditure of funds on a UFO proponent.

Jigsaw, try this exercise: put yourself in the shoes of the person (committee?) responsible for scheduling these colloquia (or whatever they're called at this school). You have a limited budget, so you can only invite so many speakers -- perhaps a few more if they come cheap, or a few less if they demand higher honoraria. I'm assuming these events are "free" to the students; they don't produce any net income from admission fees. This is how the Physics department colloquia worked at my undergrad school.

Now, given that situation, how do you justify spending your budget on a UFO "researcher", given the many qualified (and truly fascinating) topics you have to select from? Even if you're limited to a relatively small part of the "idea space", such as Physics or Astronomy, there are scads of great people to choose from. Back in my undergrad days, in just one series of colloquia, our Physics/Astronomy department hosted Fred Hoyle (of cometary fame), a speaker on the technology of cruise missiles (a very controversial topic at the time), the Indian gentleman (whose name escapes me at the moment) who ran the "life from the primordial soup" experiments -- and many others. Now, which of those intriguing ideas do you exclude in order to bring in the UFO crackpot?

My point is, every choice you make as a colloquium scheduler will have the effect of limiting the range of ideas presented. How can you then rage about suppression of ideas, when that is an unavoidable part of the process?

Sorry, I've been away, too.


But see, I'm not talking about the committee deciding, "We don't have room in our schedule for this UFO guy", or, "We don't have money in the budget to schedule this UFO guy--we only have funds for 10 speakers this year, and he's not making the cut."

I'm talking about the committee deciding, "This UFO guy is too silly to deserve a spot on our schedule. This UFO guy is too out in left field to deserve a spot on our schedule. This UFO guy is too woo to deserve a spot on our schedule."

That's the attitude that I'm objecting to--that judgement call that the UFO guy is too silly, or too woo, or too not-mainstream. I think that the criterion for choosing speakers ought to be that you choose what's going to be of interest to the most people, and then you find a "major player" on that subject and get him to speak. It's the same approach that you use when looking for a speaker on physics, or cooking. It's just being applied to UFOs, or special creationism, or geocentrism, or homeopathy, or whatever. What I'm objecting to is the attitude that anything "woo" is automatically disqualified from the selection process just because it's woo.

And I really think that bringing a big woo up on stage and simply turning him loose to spout off at will would be tremendously educational.

Actually, if you're going to talk about mainstream and non-mainstream subjects, UFOs are a lot more mainstream than, say, remote viewing. If the committee had scheduled a speaker on remote viewing, I'd be the one scratching my head, because RV is the fringe of the fringe. A LOT more people believe in UFOs than believe in, or practice, remote viewing. But UFOs, heck, they're everywhere. You can't budge without bumping into a movie or a book or a magazine that deals with ETs and UFOs. And I think students need to hear the exponents talk about it in a collegiate atmosphere, not while merely shooting the breeze at Pizza Hut, or on the Internet.

And if I were on the committee, heck, yeah, I'd find a slot for the UFO guy and his ilk, maybe not every year, but in, say, a 10-year rotation, I'd definitely find time for a number of woo speakers. I'd definitely want both Hovind and Hoagland up there at least once, for starters.

And yes, in my world, we would most definitely have a Q & A discussion period afterwards. I'd pay money myself to hear Hoagland try to answer questions from a bunch of smart-mouth college kids.

Not quite you want someone that deals with facts for example someone who has a correct basis, theory and actual work for what they do. I'll prove my point by using myself as an example in the cooking one you so graciously opened up, i am a reasonably good cook depending on what you want and im good at making up recipies. I wouldn't be someone you would want to invite to give a lecture about cooking because (and i'll list:
1, i have managed to set water on fire
2, i can set anything on fire in an oven of any type
3, pressure cooking is leathal
4, microwaves can cook anything
and finally
5, all things must be kept below 10 degrees in my kitchen

The above are a list of things i have to take note of every time i cook because bad things happen which i think number 1 covered quite well. BTW this isn't BSing i set my kitchen on fire with water and its kind of funny cause i didn't know what to put it out with thankfully it was a full pan of 2 litres of water so it didn't do a chip pan and go kaboom it just burnt.

This may be a bad example afterall other then dont make me cook

But Jigsaw what you say improves with this:
Just let me spend 10 mins with him and i'll have him crying... we college kids aren't all just smart mouthed