Jeremy Stangroom

I'm almost certain that I sat in Student Union meetings at Southampton University where students shut down Tory MPs who had links to Barclays Bank. Certainly John Carlisle was unable to speak. Dangers of reconstructed memory, of course.

I believe you, but I think boycott, which is primarily an economic tactic, feels quite different to 'no debate' which I genuinely can't think of any precedent for. Disputes over , for eg abortion rights and Palestine solidarity, have been incredibly bitter, but very much debated.

Yes my impression / recollection is that the debate about race and IQ was won fair and square the old fashioned way, with reason and evidence. With special mention to Stephen Jay Gould for 'The Mismeasure of Man' but clear Wilson and Gould were absolutely in academic debate.

Well, Wilson & Gould were in an academic debate, but Wilson told me he had protestors in his lectures for a time after the controversy arose. So I think it was a mixed picture, but agree not systematic as today.

Well throwing cold water over him described in Wikipedia link above, well out of order! But the same Wikipedia entry describes Gould and Wilson being part of the same research group and Gould condemning such attacks. So not violating foundational HE values of reason and argument.

I lunched with him at Harvard once (I interviewed him for a book I did), so I chatted with him about this stuff. Things were very uncomfortable for him for a while. My view is that the shenanigans were certainly on the edge of violating foundational values of reason & argument.

So, for example, the American Anthropological Association debated a motion to censure Sociobiology on the grounds that it was an attempt to justify the elitist, sexist and racist status quo (it clearly wasn't that - most of it wasn't about humans at all!).

Gould & Lewontin talked about gas chambers when discussing Sociobiology. Okay, they didn't quite say that Wilson was justifying gas chambers, but even so.... Time magazine at the time stated that the reaction to Wilson was a bit like the denunciation of Galileo.