Shirley Tilghman uses Big Words

Princeton University president Shirley Tilghman appeared on the Charlie Rose show last night.

Shirley discussed the Bush administration's political repression of science, bragged about Alex Barnard and his "mohawk up to here" and used the word "periodicity" when discussing how often the University rejects the idea of a Princeton Medical School (every 20 years or so). Charlie was much impressed.

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On climate control and stem cell research: "In both of those cases, one could make the argument that the science was being manipulated to support a policy that the science actually did not necessarily lead to."

On creationism and intelligent design: "It was really a warping of science that led to the President, President Bush saying well, there's a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether Darwin's view of evolution is correct. That is just simply not the case ... It's been 150 years and his fundamental ideas that were based on very little evidence but incredible insight have held up extraordinarily well."

On our career choices: "Their experience at Princeton spending four years thinking deeply about what it means to be human...inform who they are when they are lawyers and doctors and...dare I say, bankers."

On the recession and Princeton's endowment: "We have made a commitment that we will not lose a single student for financial reasons, and so far we've been able to live up to that."

On a law school or medical school: "It's [a decision] that we revisit roughly with a periodicity of twenty years, so it's not like we never think about it."

On periodicity: "Periodicity --it's like a sine wave."

On green-haired students and Alex Barnard: "...the very very best student in the university...who had a mohawk hair-do up to here. You know? I just said, 'He's my guy!'"




(image source: njmonthly.com)

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