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MIT Removes Online Physics Lectures and Courses By Walter Lewin
jIyajbe writes MIT is indefinitely removing retired physics faculty member Walter Lewin's online lectures from MIT OpenCourseWare and online MITx courses from edX, the online learning platform co-founded by MIT, following a determination that Dr. Lewin engaged in online sexual harassment in violation of MIT policies. For an example of Lewin's colorful style, see this YouTube video. MIT has also revoked Lewin's title as professor emeritus, after the school determined that he "had sexually harassed at least one student online."
What does the professor's "on-line harassment" have to do with the quality and / or value of his lectures?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
The only thing removing these lectures does is make it harder for others to learn physics without attending school in person.
I would argue removing the videos does far more harm than he ever did, when you consider there aggregate effect on humanity.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sexual Harassment shouldn't cost us knowledge. It's disgusting that we're loosing the benefits of this amazing pedagogue simply because someone was offended by something he said to someone online.
This is total bullshit.
I tried to link to a lecture that explains which law of physics forces sexual harassment to retroactively make past lectures also sexist and offensive but they took that one down too. Oh well.
This seems like a harsh knee-jerk reaction, ostensibly to protect the public image of MIT. Taking down this content, stripping someone of a title -- removing a man's body of legitimate work that benefits the greater masses is a ridiculously absurd measure. What does MIT think they will gain from this, other than saving face.
And he allegedly harassed someone online -- that's all I've heard. Maybe he had a nip before bed and was just a little frustrated, we have no context -- who cares? Lots of people say a lot of things online that are far worse.
Give us all, and this professor, a friggen break MIT.
Nothing, but the institute wants to sever all ties. I do hope that they are replaced with courses of similar quality, but it is perfectly understandable that they want to distance themselves from him.
After all, the transistor was invented by William Shockley, a proponent of Eugenics.
Maybe they should stop publishing works about Martin Heidegger while they're at, I understand he was a Nazi sympathizer which seems like a pretty terrible thing to be. http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/... http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/... http://mitpress.mit.edu/search...
Would they have retracted these articles had he murdered someone? I bet not.
When did sexual harassments become worse than murder? This pc bullshit is way out of hand.
The Sex Life of an Electron
by Walter Lewin
One night when his charge was pretty high, Mirco-Farad decided to seek
out a cute little coil to help his discharge.
He picked up Milli-Amp and took her for a ride in his Megacycle. They
rode across the Wheatstone Bridge and stopped by a Magnetic field with
flowing currents and frolicked in the sine waves.
Micro-Farad, attracted by Milli-Amp's characteristic curves, soon had
her fully charged and proceeded to excite her resistance to a minumum.
He gently laid her at ground potential, raised her frequency, and
lowered her reluctance.
With a quick arc, he pulled out his high voltage probe and inserted it
in her socket, connecting them in parallel. He slowly began short
circuiting her resisitance shut while quickly raising her thermal
conductance level to mill-spec. Fully excited, Milli-Amp mumbled
"OHM...OHM...OHM!"
With his tube operating well into class C, and her field vibrating
with his currently flow, a corona formed which instantly caused her
shunt to overheat just at the point when Micro-Farad rapidly
discharged and drained off every electron into her grid.
They fluxed all night trying various connectors and sockets until his
magnet had a soft core and lost all of its field strength.
After wards, Milli-Amp tried self-induction and damaged her solenoids,
and, with his battery fully discharged, Micro-Farad was unable to
excite his field. Not ready to be quiescent, they spent the rest of
the evening reversing polarity and blowing each other's fuses.
So now we've become so extreme that the Universities that were guardians of free thinking have become the thought police and tools for censorship. Aiding vengeance of the political elite (corporations being some of the biggest but that's another topic) upon students it should be defending... I'm specifically thinking of Aaron Swartz where MIT was not an innocent party. Sounds far more governmental than like how a University should function, doesn't it??
I don't care if he was a rapist or serial killer! Where is the philosophy department when you need it?? (The only practical thing they are good for is defending freedom; aside from teaching.) Lets throw out everything NASA ever did under Wernher von Braun because he was a Nazi! If you only forbid work done during the "crime" then you have to throw out all the rocketry work he did for Germany and that kind of thinking would have had him completely passed over for working for NASA at all (because they'd not know his credentials since that info would have gone down the memory hole.)
People now are so fragile they can't even hear unpleasant news. I've been in hostile environments and was severely bullied so naturally most the stuff I see people complain about looks like pathetic wimps wanting attention as victims... appealing to the self righteous egotism of others looking to compensate / cover for their own hypocrisy which they are unable to face (because that again would be unpleasant... no wonder people want drugs over actual therapy!)
Being gay was a crime and to most people it's still a horrible sin against god. That didn't stop computer science; but today one has to wonder if those attitudes prevailed today how much we'd be set back?
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I wish I had more professors like this guy. Just watching him demonstrate physics and talk about how wonderful it is to inspire a student, and how he knows most will forget the thousands of physics equations they learn, but that is not the important part.
We need more professors like Lewin. May this video inspire the teacher in you to appreciate inspiration. And to the physics teachers out there that cannot allow an outside thought or a moment of tactile examples, shame on you!
Of course, people like him do not fit the mold and are bound to be kicked around by society. I am very curious what these alleged emails really contained. Was it merely something not quite PC enough for today's crowd, or was it something truly grotesque and thus damning and beyond recovery?
Read the fine article that explains that the gentleman specifically harassed a student who was using his lectures, through the e-learning platform provided by MIT. If part of platform is to be able to interact with the author of the content, this puts university in an awkward position and removal of materials seems reasonable.
The alleged victim was a female student in one of his online courses (and she claims he did the same to other students), so he could possibly have held a positifof power over her. Completion of the courses results in a certificate but zero academic credit, and MIT has bragged that thousands enroll in the courses, so the amount of leverage he could have had over her is questionable. But if he was using this MIT program at all to try to pick up women then that is wrong, and it makes sense for MIT to put a stop to it. We don't know exactly what he was doing unless we can read the correspondence in question.
Most headlines make it sound like he "harassed" strangers online. No, it's a professor allegedly harassing one of his students, and it's not all that special if he did it "over the internet."
The alleged victim was a female student in one of his online courses (and she claims he did the same to other students), so he could possibly have held a positifof power over her. Completion of the courses results in a certificate but zero academic credit, and MIT has bragged that thousands enroll in the courses, so the amount of leverage he could have had over her is questionable. But if he was using this MIT program at all to try to pick up women then that is wrong, and it makes sense for MIT to put a stop to it. We don't know exactly what he was doing unless we can read the correspondence in question. Most headlines make it sound like he "harassed" strangers online. No, it's a professor allegedly harassing one of his students, and it's not all that special if he did it "over the internet."
What ever happened to being innocent until proven guilty? Why with claims of sexual harassment and misogyny do Constitutional protections no longer exist? In fairness, it's been happening with racism as well but those charges don't tend to ruin as many people as sexism claims (though the consequences are more dire for the victims).
Why won't the assholes that keep propping up this unconstitutional action bring up facts like the conclusion of the Duke LaCrosse team scandal? You know, the scandal that ruined the lives of more than a dozen people based on a completely false accusations. Not only was the accuser never charged with any crime from the false accusation, but the same person goes on to commit arson, attempted murder, and finally murder. Even today morons quote the Duke LaCrosse team as an example of misogyny.
The problems are not just in the US either. A Canadian University last month suspended an entire Hokey team and prevented graduations based on a top secret internal investigation (no police). Institutionalized vigilantism. There was in reality an allegation that 2 players were involved in sexual harassment, and the rest of the team was suspended for not speaking out against those two players. So in Canada not only is every allegation a criminal event, but if you want to wait for proof for the allegations you are also a criminal.
Welcome to your New World Order! Remain silent, it can only continue to get better.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
What does the professor's "on-line harassment" have to do with the quality and / or value of his lectures?
The message being sent is: "If you sexually harass our students you're done, you're gone, and we don't give a damn whether you are the star quarterback, the uber geek or the processor emeritus."
Not that there isn't something particularly gross about the elderly emeritus professor using his academic position and credentials to gain sexual leverage over a student forty or more years his junior,
Obligatory:
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
In my experience, the most vocal student complainers are the ones that are failing courses and not doing homework.
"He's so difficult, he makes us show our work."
That kind of thing. And they are, always, the most sensitive to teacher comments.
So combine the three together: A PC-culture with zero-tolerance policies, a wild out-there-awesome "round peg in a square hole" professor, and a lazy complaining student.
Getting back to your point, "enough for the student to formally complain" doesn't mean shit unless a large amount of students are complaining that he isn't doing his job.
Nothing. The Institute apparently thinks he's a scumbag and doesn't want to be associated with him, which is their right.
Prove it! I spent over 30 minutes searching for any actual evidence of sexual harassment and found nothing but conjecture. So you have false accusations that result in life ruining decisions (Duke LaCrosse) and real issues that Universities cover up (Penn. State). Why would they treat this guy like the LaCrosse team? Oh, it suits an agenda... Connect the dots man, it's really not that hard.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Apparently they're good lectures.
Yes there are copies hosted at
http://videolectures.net/walter_h_g_lewin/
and elsewhere. The lectures are creative commons licensed from what I've been told. MIT exercised its right to stop hosting them but others can continue doing so. No need for guerilla archiving, just put them up someplace if that's what you want to do. In MIT's case it felt it had more duty to dissociate from Lewin.
Makes perfect sense, according to the public.
I loved Rolf Harris, I grew up in the 60's watching his show on B&W TV, now he turns my stomach. I've laughed my arse off to Bill Cosby for 40yrs but now I look at him with suspicion. I came across the video in TFA earlier this year and reposted it to FB, now I want to unpost it. These people have made fools of all who applauded them in the past, they were "grooming" everyone, not just the immediate victim. It's human nature to want violent revenge, it's much more civilised to simply have nothing to do with them. So as a grandfather to 3 girls, I say publically ostracising sexual predators for their crimes makes perfect sense, they know the social and legal punishment, they know they will be a target in jail, but they still choose to do it.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Time to toss Richard Wagner's works seeing as how he was a racist.
Richard Wagner is dead.
Lewin is alive and at 78 years old was caught sexually harassing an MIT online student 50 years his junior. In the old days a man like this would have been quietly put out to pasture before his senility caused his school any further embarrassment.
Or ... we could toss the people who makes decisions like this out on their ass, which is a much better idea.
If you are not a sexually responsible adult you have no business being on the physical or online campus. It doesn't matter if you are the frat boy, the jerk jock, the twenty year uber-geek or the eighty year old professor emeritus.
It is now required to refer in all online textbooks to the structure of DNA as a "single helix" since one of the two discoverers of the double helix has been revealed to be a moronic racist in his spare time.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?