Fwd: Re: NY Times Butterflying Article

[Patrick Foley]

In reply to Norbert Kondlia,

Far from unwarranted, my accusations of anti-intellectualism are based firmly on
the writings of Paul Cherubini, including his last post. In the United States (
I do not know about Canada), the right wing attacks the "intellectual elite",
whenever the scientific, literary or artistic communities show them up. Perhaps
we are also having trouble recalling Samuel Johnson's adage, Patriotism is the
last refuge of a scoundrel.

I have no special problems dealing with information and opinions that differ
from mine. This should be evident by my posts attempting to reconcile the
viewpoints of many on this list. I am always surprised at the rabid attacks in
this list on NABA. It feels like the early Church, but without any hope of
salvation in the end. Do you wonder that so many professional lepidopterists
avoid this list? Is that the intention of the attacks? What kind of list do you
want, one limited to the cranks and the incredibly patient? Maybe the list
shouldn't be hosted by a university but by Butterflies R US!

Patrick Foley
patfoley at csus.edu

"Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX" wrote:

> And it appears that unwarranted accusations of anitintellectualism can be
> used by people who have difficulty with information and opinions that do not
> agree with their view of the world. Where is the antiintellectualism in
> responding to published drivel??  How does that make one a scoundrel. A
> scoundrel to me is the person who takes the cheap shots, not the person who
> rises to the bait.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Patrick Foley [mailto:patfoley at csus.edu]
> Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 10:55 AM
> To: monarch at saber.net
> Cc: leps-l at lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: NY Times Butterflying Article
>
> Apparently in American intellectual life, the last refuge of the
> scoundrel is no longer patriotism, but antiintellectualism.
>
> Patrick Foley
> patfoley at csus.edu
>
> Paul Cherubini wrote:
>
> > I think intellectual elitism also figures into to this
> > anti-collector/pinner, anti-breeder/releaser sentiment
> > that NABA is promoting; i.e. - that recreational collectors
> > and commercial breeders are entomology's lowlifes.
> >
> > Sue Halpern, author of the new Monarch book "Four Wings
> > and a Prayer" said exactly that on page 127 of her book:
> >
> > "There were some on D-plex list who thought the scientists were
> > ganging up on Paul Cherubini and whipping him around with their
> > degrees, bullying him into a version of science to which he didn't
> > subscribe.  The commercial breeders in particular were aggrieved
> > on his behalf, but they tended to lurk at the margins since their
> > activities were even more reviled than Cherubini's own transfer
> > "experiments."  They were entomology's lowlifes, people who treated
> > butterflies as --in Bob Pyle's disparaging phrase -- "biodegradable
> > balloons".  And now Cherubini had joined their ranks, picking off
> > chrysalids whereever he could find them, hatching out the butterflies
> > and selling them fresh to breeders."
> >
> >
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