Ben Stein Backs Out

This year's graduates of the University of Vermont won't have the benefit of hearing Ben Stein speak at their commencement.

UVM had invited him, and just as a stink was developing over this (his anti-Darwinism movie especially has made this an unpopular choice in many circles) Stein gracefully withdrew.

Richard Dawkins himself had written to the president of UVM to complain and that individual, Daniel Mark Fogel, wrote back in a letter that praises Dawkins' work and "scientific leadership," before letting Dawkins know, "We have recently learned that Mr. Stein will be unable to receive the honorary degree here or to serve as Commencement speaker."

[Here's my slightly early shout-out to Charles Darwin. Happy 200th birthday, CD!]

Intriguingly, Fogel thought it necessary to add that it wasn't the movie on biology that induced UVM to invite Stein in the first place. It was "our expectation that his remarks would address the global economic crisis and that he would speak from his widely acknowledged area of expertise on the economy."

That intrigues me because, first, if a college gives someone an honorary degree and invites him to give the commencement address, isn't it pretty much up to hom what he then talks about? What were they planning to do if he started to discuss how evolutionary theory is all a fraud and the practitioners a cabal? Call campus security and have him dragged away?

Second, though: why would they want him to talk about economics? He seems to be something of a numbskull on the subject, as I've documented on my other blog, Proxy Partisans from time to time.

I suppose if they wanted some enlightening inside stuff about the Nixon administration, or the backstage story of the making of Ferris Bueller, or suggestions on "how to produce a game show that is all about how smart you are," ... in any of those cases he could be their go-to-guy.

But his economics babble in recent months has been awful stuff about something he calls "trader Realism".

And while I have your ear ... why is the University of Vermont abbreviated UVM? Is it just a way of distinguishing itself from the University of Virginia by using a letter to stand for the second syllable of its state name? It's in Burlington, so why not UVB?