Public service should continue even after graduation

The first several paragraphs of last Thursday’s editorial (“Keeping the dream alive once the Bubble pops,” Feb. 16) demonstrated unwarranted pessimism. However, the editorial ended on a note of optimism by rallying students to “[g]et involved in programs that give life and realistic application to [their] abstract ideals.”

The editorial presumes that the only time to embrace and act upon one’s “cause” (implicitly, a cause related to ideals like social justice, opposition to morally unjustified wars, environmental degradation, and so forth) is while one is safely within the “Stanford Bubble.” The editorial presupposes that young Stanford graduates will have to leave behind such causes because of the time required to make a living and get “established.” In the words of the editorial, “Eventually, you will grow up and grow out of your idealism.” The perception of the editors seems to be that idealism will need to be abandoned soon after receipt of a Stanford diploma, lest the values linked to that idealism interfere with the work of life beyond Stanford.

My colleagues and I at the Haas Center for Public Service hold a different view, one based on our personal experiences and the experiences of innumerable others who have had satisfying and fulfilling careers based around the pursuit of causes embraced during the years before graduation. We refer, of course, to the countless number of alumni of Stanford and other colleges and universities who have spent all or part of their professional lives in public service, primarily with governments and nongovernmental organizations in the United States and abroad. Opportunities abound for engaging in fulfilling work at all levels of government, and there are uncountable numbers of community service organizations at which Stanford graduates have played central roles. And as for the enormous numbers of Stanford graduates whose careers have been exclusively in the private sector, a great many have pursued their ideals by making a difference via voluntary service in a variety of contexts, including service on boards of nonprofits.

To help current Stanford students learn more about these possibilities, we encourage visits to the Haas Center, a part of Stanford dedicated to helping students connect academic study with community and public service to strengthen communities and develop effective public leaders. By visiting the Center (or http://haas.stanford.edu/), students can learn about a host of public service opportunities organized around five topical areas: service-learning courses; community-based research; community programs (including those involving tutoring and mentoring children and youth in nearby schools); fellowships, which include grants to support work at government agencies and nonprofits during the summer and soon after graduation); and leadership development. Currently, we are working with several interdisciplinary programs to explore ways of integrating service-learning opportunities into graduation requirements for majors.

Activities of the Haas Center are closely aligned with Stanford’s overall goals. Indeed, the Center works to implement a sentiment expressed by Jane Lathrop Stanford in her November 1, 1901 amendments to the university’s founding grant:

“While the instruction offered must be such as will qualify the students for personal success and direct usefulness in life, they should understand that it is offered in the hope and trust that they will become thereby of greater service to the public.”

Leonard Ortolano

Peter E. Haas Director, Haas Center for Public Service, and

UPS Foundation Professor of Civil Engineering

The myths surrounding intelligent design

The Editorial Board rightly called for an “Intelligent debate of intelligent design” last week (Feb. 17). Framing the discussion as a face-off between reason and religion, however, propagates a misguided mythology that obscures, rather than clarifies, the controversy.

First, criticizing neo-Darwinism is not the same as promoting intelligent design. While microevolutionary mechanisms, such as the coupling of random mutations and natural selection, have clearly been demonstrated, they fail to explain macroevolutionary changes (e.g., morphological novelty). Neo-Darwinists argue there is no difference between the two kinds of evolution, but that claim is vigorously contested by many developmental biologists and paleontologists.

Second, creationism is not the same as intelligent design. Reasons to Believe, a creationist group which accepts that the earth is billions of years old, dismisses intelligent design as “not science.” The Institute for Creation Research, which argues for a literal six-day interpretation of Genesis, similarly criticizes intelligent design for not being biblical.

Third, intelligent design theorists, by and large, do not support the mandating of intelligent design in public schools. The real story out of Wisconsin is not the hypothetical “ban on teaching intelligent design,” but the critical approach to science adopted in 2004 by the town of Grantsburg and to which this “ban” is a reaction. Grantsburg’s policy states: “Students shall be able to explain the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory. This policy does not call for the teaching of Creationism or Intelligent Design.” Who could argue with that?

Sadly, neo-Darwinists do argue with that by stereotyping critics of evolutionary theory as religious zealots, by reducing the debate to the simplistic but familiar terms of science vs. faith, and by persecuting researchers like the Smithsonian’s Rick Sternberg for keeping an open mind. Pernicious caricatures notwithstanding, the signatories to the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism now stand at over 500 scientists, including several who earned their doctorates from Stanford. As science advances, why has this number continued to grow?

Tristan Abbey

Sophomore, History