In the Times yesterday, John Tierney attacked the Harvard School of Public Health for giving an award to Michael Bloomberg due to Bloomberg's fight against the use of trans-fats in New York City restaurant food.

How much good Mr. Bloomberg has done for New Yorkers’ health is debatable. But there’s no question he’s been good for the Harvard School of Public Health by promoting the trans-fat notions of its researchers, notably Walter Willett, the epidemiologist who has been the leading critic of trans fat.

Tierney goes on to say that maybe trans fats aren't so bad for you after all, and he quotes at length—it's actually a block quote—Elizabeth Whelan, the head of a group called the American Council on Science and Public Health.

How many deaths from heart disease will be prevented by the restaurant ban on trans fat? Our best guess is zero.

What Tierney doesn't bother to mention, though, is that both Whelan and her group are generally considered less than credible sources.

For one thing, it receives some of its funding from the fast food industry, which heavily fought the trans fat ban.

Some of the commenters point this out, and Tierney responds to them quite disdainfully—until Eric Schlosserhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schlosser], the author of Fast Food Nation, also chimes in, and Tierney doesn't bother to respond to him.

Here is a rule about journalism: If you make a mistake, it's better to admit it than to stonewall, whether you work for the New York Times or Podunk Weekly. And definitely don't compound it by mocking the people who point out your mistake. (Tierney actually asks readers to discuss whether he should delete a comment which criticizes him.)

Tierney should admit his mistake. And even better, the Times should hire Eric Schlosser as a columnist.

Here is my favorite lede in recent memory (and don't pretend it wasn't on purpose, you crafty Crimson folks):

For billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein, charges of illicit sex practices just keep coming.

Let me go on record as saying that I'm now starting to feel sorry for Jeffrey Epstein. The guy clearly has a problem. But he never forced anyone to do anything, and the lawsuit that the Crimson article describes sounds like a complete crock to me. And Crimson, are you sure it wasn't first reported in the New York Post, not by ABC News?

After all, the Post has been doing top-notch reporting on the Epstein case. Today, for example, it reports that ...

The stunning model wannabe who says she was pressured into a hush- hush affair with billionaire Jeffrey Epstein when she was only 16 has an even bigger secret - she's a man.

"I'm a spoiled bitch and really mean," her MySpace page says.

Now, I'm just guessing, but given that it was Alan Dershowitz who dug up dirt on some of the other accusers by checking out their MySpace pages, could Professor Dershowitz have possibly fed this delicious little item to the Post?

If so, I wouldn't blame him....

In the Globe, [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/10/20/women_science_and_gender_bias/ Cathy Young updates the discussion] on women, science and gender.

THE DEBATE over women's place in science, which proved to be the downfall of Harvard President Lawrence Summers after he suggested that male preeminence in the field could be due at least partly to biological traits and personal choices, remains a lightning rod for controversy. Earlier this month, the subject was tackled in two different symposiums - one at Harvard, the other at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based right-of-center think tank.

(Can we trust a writer who makes an egregious mistake in the very first sentence of her story?)

Young, who is a libertarian, is most concerned about government intervention in the debate.

The discussion of gender and science is not mere theory. It has to do with practical plans to remake the scientific establishment in a woman-friendly image. Many proposals are innocuous enough, and some are being implemented at many schools: extending the tenure clock for new parents and other measures to help combine scientific careers with family responsibilities. But there is also talk of programs to eradicate subtle and unconscious biases (which sounds like a prescription for politically correct witch hunts) and of invoking Title IX of the Civil Rights Act to bring down the wrath of the federal government on institutions that are purportedly too slow to correct inequalities in science.

Invoking Title IX? I haven't heard of this, but I'll take Young's word for it. Nothing could be more damaging to women scientists, of course, than affirmative action not of socioeconomic status, but of the mind.....

Isn't it sort of fascinating how James Watson, who in his book, Avoid Boring People, defends Larry Summers for his women-in-science remarks, now finds himself on a similar hot seat for remarks impugning the intelligence of black people?

And (sort of) just as Summers would lose his job in the extended aftermath of those remarks, so has Watson been suspended from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory?

Now a clever article in the Telegraph (those Brits! nothing if not clever) suggests that Watson is afflicted with Nobel Syndrome, an ailment that comes to the very intelligent who become so infatuated with their intelligence that they abandon the intellectual rigor which won them the Nobel in the first place.

Nobel Syndrome often emerges after retirement. ...Remove a great mind from this ultra-sceptical environment, then replace it with friends, family and colleagues who are happy to nod and smile when you go old coot, and it is easy to see how a pop star of science ends up talking drivel.

And did you know that winning a Nobel has been found to add two years to your life?

I suspect that Watson has just given those two years back....

She gave an interview to the FT's Rebecca Knight in which she said that her priorities are, in this order:

1) making Harvard more affordable to lower- and middle-income students 2) to "make Harvard operate as one university" 3) to advocate for the arts

Ms Faust said the fact that she is the first woman to lead Harvard "matters enormously".

"My appointment was stunningly meaningful to women and men across the world. I find this moving; I find this a responsibility. I'm proud to play that role."

Does anyone else get the feeling that Faust's appreciation of her status as HFWP (Harvard's first woman president) has actually grown since she was chosen?

Everyone's dumping on UC president Ryan Petersen for giving a speech at Drew Faust's inauguration that took a couple of mild shots at the Harvard College administration. Now the Crimson edit board joins in:

...the fiery speech that Undergraduate Council President Ryan A. Petersen ’08 delivered criticizing the College administration was inappropriate and wholly out of character with the spirit of the occasion. Charged with speaking on behalf of students at the College and all of the graduate schools, Petersen’s tactless rhetoric undermined the many legitimate points he made and rendered us embarrassed to be among the constituency that he purported to represent.

Embarrassed to be among the constituency that he purported to represent? That's a bit harsh, no?

If I may offer a word in Petersen's defense....

I love Harvard students, really I do. I had a fantastic time teaching them back when I was a TF, I learned a ton interviewing them for Harvard Rules, and hell, I even work for two of them. They're great guys, and I'm not just saying that so they'll give me a raise, though that's fine too. Harvard students are, to me, the most inspiring thing about the university, and there are many inspiring things about Harvard.

But there are times when the modern generation of Harvard students seems so conformist, so desperately afraid of rocking the boat, that one wants to shake them to see if they're really alive or if they're instead just some sort of Stepford student.

Heaven forbid that students protesting a heavy-handed and unresponsive administration do anything impolite or tactless. That would be nuts, right? Because in life, the best way to get ahead is to conform, play by the rules, suck up to your superiors, and toe the line. After all, you're all part of the same power establishment, right?

Harvard's presidential installation is on one level a celebration of the university, true. But on another level, it's a deeply political event, a coronation of sorts. It's about power, and it harnesses all the resources and heritage of the university to get everyone affected to buy in.

The Crimson editorial board has obviously drunk the Kool-Aid. The paper says he "implicitly rejected the mutual responsibility of the student citizenship he represented." I'm not so sure. Couldn't it be argued that part of the responsibility involved is to remind the Harvard administration that its students aren't just smiling suck-ups waiting for a pat on the head? That they are more than neatly dressed drones in capitalism's assembly line?

(But...oh no! There may be some bumps on the road to Wall Street. Disaster!)

Ryan Peterson threw a stick in the spokes of Harvard's best-laid plans. He reminded the community that students do have strong opinions and that some of them aren't afraid to express those opinions. He committed a political act during a political event.

More power to him, I'd say. Twenty years from now, I'd rather have a Crimson alum manifest that kind of we're not gonna take it attitude than the hush-hush, be good now posture of the Crimson's editorial board.

Today is the big day: the installation of Drew Faust as president of Harvard.

Here's the Globe on context:

Faust, 60, faces high expectations that she can move Harvard forward with a more conciliatory approach than her predecessor, Lawrence H. Summers. Summers, an economist and former secretary of the Treasury, ended his tenure in early 2006 after five years, the shortest stint for a Harvard president in 144 years.

("Ended his tenure"?)

According to the Globe, Harvard faculty want Faust to.... 1) make the faculty and administration more diverse 2) unify Harvard 3) emphasize teaching

The Crimson suggests that Faust will continue to avoid talking specifically about her priorities, as she has done ever since she was appointed.

Faust will probably appeal to the University’s 371-year history when she takes the stage for her installation today. She will probably note Harvard’s responsibility as a leader in higher education. And she will probably restate her commitment to breaking down barriers across the University. But one thing she still won’t do is present a comprehensive agenda for her presidency.

Peter Gomes and Neil Rudenstine both say that vagueness is a good idea at such a time. "All you’ll do is give your enemies a shopping list with which to do you in," Gomes says.

Derek Bok and Neil Rudenstine say they shied away from giving her advice, because that could be tough for the speaker. (Chivalrous of them. But would they say the same of a man?)

Here are a couple of themes that I would think important for DGF to address, but which she probably won't:

1) Elevating the importance of scholarship at a place that is more and more about money

1a) Doing what she can to address the fact that the public perception of Harvard is increasingly as an economic institution—how rich the university is, how rich its graduates are. 2) A discussion of the relationship between the sciences and the humanities, and ways in which the importance of the humanities can be shored up 3) The importance of universities and their presidents during a time of war and national self-doubt

Here are a couple of themes that I would think unimportant for DGF to address, but which she probably will:

1) the fact that she's a woman 2) anything to do with bridges

Best of luck to President Faust—it's a gray day here in NYC, and I hope the weather is better up there.

More on the women-in-science debate: According to the website Associated Content, Stanford study seems to disprove Larry Summers' suggestion that women may have less innate capacity for high-level science and math skills.

Stanford University psychologists Mary Murphy and Claude Steele have conducted a study to be published in a journal of the Association for Psychological Science that shows that the social and institutional organization of math, science and engineering environments play a significant role in contributing to gender ratio imbalance in maths, sciences and engineering performance and careers.

...Further Murphy, Steel and colleagues have conducted studies to test the hypothesis that it is environment and not innate traits that limit the numbers of women in these fields. Previous research into disparities between women's and men's academic choices have focused on biological and socialization explanations. The new study suggests that the environment and the situational cues of the environment are significantly important in the explanation for the differences between women and men in performance and representation in maths, sciences and engineering.

Somehow, one gets the feeling that this won't be the last word on the subject.

Harvard and other colleges don't want their students to party—the vomit clogs up the capitalist assembly line.

If you throw up on the college shuttle bus, should you be forced to pay the (several hundred dollar) cost of cleanup?

That's the urgent question being debated at George Washington University.

There it was in the GW Hatchet: "Fines Imposed for Vomiting on Vern Express." Students who drink until they are sick could be charged $200 to $300 or more to clean up the bus, which runs round-the-clock between the Foggy Bottom and Mount Vernon campuses, and to pay for cab vouchers for all of the student riders who are trying to get home.

And "mystery riders" could be on board at any time, the administration warned.

Like air marshalls! Saving us from the vomiterrorists!

Meanwhile, at Harvard, students may boycott Drew Faust's inauguration because of a decision by Harvard College dean David Pilbeam to stop underwriting undergraduate parties.

Colleges and universities in recent years have been under pressure to reform their alcohol polices following increased awareness of binge drinking on campus, and a series of student deaths on campuses. This year, New York University for the first time is requiring all students to undergo alcohol-screening questioning. Every student-run event at Columbia University must provide a "social, educational, or cultural theme, and may not have the availability of alcohol as its focus."

Bleh.

You have two more days of leverage, Harvard students! Use them. This is serious stuff.

(I speak as one who once engaged in a powerful silent protest, a procession of candle-carrying mourners, outside a New Haven bar to fight the cancellation of a two-for-one happy hour.)

Here's why this apparent triviality matters: Our country and our colleges seem determined to churn out perfectly behaved, brain-dead automatons who never do anything wrong...which likely means that they will never do anything really right. Perfect McKinsey fodder. But who wants to live in that society?

So fight for your right to party, friends. (Maybe not to puke, though. You're on your own there.)

Once they take that away, they come for more....

In this month's issue of 02138, we ran an excerpt of James Watson's new book, Avoid Boring People, in which he talked about Harvard's science crisis (Allston=big mistake) and discussed why he thinks Larry Summers shouldn't be faulted excessively for his leadership hiccups; he thinks Summers has Asperger's Syndrome.

In this interview with MSNBC.com, Watson continues to push that thesis. This excerpt is particularly intriguing:

Q: In the book, you led into those issues with the whole controversy over Harvard President Lawrence Summers and his remarks about genetic differences between the sexes [relating to proficiency in math and science], and how you might have handled that situation differently.

A: I would have, but you know, I think Larry had pissed off everyone even before he made that remark and didn’t know how to handle the hysteria afterward, which was led by my former student Nancy Hopkins, who went on television to denounce him.

Our brains aren’t equal. The same gene will make a boy badly autistic, and a girl will not suffer as much. So why? That’s really all I’m saying: This assumption that everyone has to be equal … Biology seldom treats people as equal. It hasn’t evolved to make laws easier, or social behavior easier.

But I’m convinced that instead of leading to a nastier society, we’ll be more compassionate. Instead of saying, “How can Summers be such a bore?” we’ll just say, “He can’t help it.” Of course, if you knew that, you wouldn’t have put him in as president of Harvard, because he really didn’t know how to deal with people.

The full interview with Watson is well worth the read.

I've been arguing for some time now that Harvard is in the midst of an identity crisis it refuses to acknowledge: It has become so rich that it is now better known for its vast wealth than it is for its educational product, and it is arguably better at raising money than it is at teaching students. (The cart before the horse and all that.)

And because of Harvard's being defined by great wealth, people are going to start asking questions of it that would typically apply to a business rather than a school.

For example: In today's Los Angeles Times, the economist Robert Reich wonders why giving to Harvard is considered giving to charity.

I'm all in favor of supporting the arts and our universities, but let's face it: These aren't really charitable contributions. They're often investments in the lifestyles the wealthy already enjoy and want their children to have too. They're also investments in prestige -- especially if they result in the family name being engraved on the new wing of an art museum or symphony hall.

..I see why a contribution to, say, the Salvation Army should be eligible for a charitable deduction. It helps the poor. But why, exactly, should a contribution to the already extraordinarily wealthy Guggenheim Museum or to Harvard University (which already has an endowment of more than $30 billion)?

Reich proposes a solution: Revise the tax code so that only gifts to charities explicitly designed to help the poor get a full deduction.

This surely won't happen. Nonetheless, it's another example of how Harvard's fortune is making people reconsider the way they look at the university. And that's not even mentioning how it changes the way the university looks at itself....