EAST LANSING, Michigan Blaise Pascal compared human beings to "thinking reeds" that even a modest wind can bend and destroy. This view of humans from the 17th century seems apropos for describing the current offensive on the "thinking reeds" of the United States. . The human intellect, with its devotion to science that goes back to the scientific revolution started by Roger Bacon in 13th century, has been rudely attacked by people from both the left and the right. . Of course, there is a difference between the obscurantism of the Middle Ages and the obscurantism of our times. The defenders of religious fundamentalism, against which Pascal and a whole generation of French philosophers fought during the Enlightenment, did not use the slogan of diversity. . Now consider what has happened five years after the start of the 21st century in the United States. Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University, casually noted that it is possible that the difference in the proportion of men and women among the faculty in the natural sciences at the country's leading universities could be partially ascribed to some genetic factors. He proposed further study into this issue. . After these statements, a witch hunt started in the liberal community. Lacking the courage of Giordano Bruno, the 16th century Italian philospher who was ready to be burned at the stake, the poor president of one of the greatest universities in the world retreated from his remarks almost immediately. . However, his apology and clarification did not stop his persecutors. Summers has been attacked by the presidents of three major universities. Objectively, the goal of this campaign, as any other of this sort, is to destroy any reflection or scientific inquiry that could cast doubt on one of the most simplistic dogmas of political correctness, which suggests that men and women are genetically the same in all possible ways. . I remember vividly the ideological onslaught on genetics in the Soviet Union in 1948 under the direct guidance of Stalin. He used Trofim Lysenko, a scientific adventurist, to proclaim genetics as a false, bourgeois science. The scholarly community was ordered to stop thinking in terms of genetics and in general not to deviate from the dominant ideology. . Almost simultaneously we have seen another attack against the spirit of the Enlightenment, but this time by conservatives: The defenders of Intelligent Design - an evident variation of Creationism - published an opinion article in The New York Times, the symbol of intellectualism in the United States, as if this idea were equal in legitimacy to the biological mainstream. Of course, the newspaper could not stop this trend. Creationism is a fast-spreading epidemic here in this country. Teachers of natural science are made to be afraid of teaching evolution. To legitimize an antiscientific trend by writing under the guise of diversity is a terrible sin against the concept of progress. . Both victories - on the left and the right - mean only one thing: growing self-censorship in academia. There is an increasing number of taboo subjects in classes. More and more, students are being schooled in intellectual hypocrisy and conformism. . Religion deserves high respect, particularly for its positive moral role in society. Society should also do its best to guarantee an equal start in all spheres of life, including academia, for everyone, regardless of his or her gender, race, ethnicity or religion. However, it is very dangerous for social progress in this country to exploit pluralism and diversity - such noble values - for the revision of the Enlightenment's belief in the free thinking reed. . People in this country for whom a free spirit is highly valued should resist the attacks from both left and right. Otherwise, quite soon we will see an article in The New York Times on the subject of ghosts. According to a recent Gallup Poll, 42 percent of Americans believe "that houses can be haunted." For this social scientist, the fact that certain ideas are widely held in society does not, by itself, justify a serious discussion on them. At the same time, it would be wrong to stop the research on the differences between males and females, in the animal world as well as among Homo sapiens. . The thinking reed should be protected in this country. . (Vladimir Shlapentokh is a professor of sociology at Michigan State University.) .
