Nice men apparently do finish last, at least when it comes to salaries. Faculty commentary in this edition of Networthy ND runs the gamut from a study of why it may pay to be a jerk to the search for the “God particle” in physics to why Republican presidential candidates should be leery of the Tea Party.
Apparently it doesn’t pay to be nice. Literally. A study by ND business professor Timothy Judge and colleagues from Cornell and the University of Western Ontario found that “agreeable” men made about $10,000 less than their colleagues who were, shall we say, “jerks.”
Writing recently on The New York Times op-ed page, Notre Dame political scientist David Campbell and his Harvard colleague Robert Putnam argue that Republican presidential candidates embrace the Tea Party at their own peril. The director of Notre Dame’s Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy and Putnam cite evidence that the Tea Party is becoming increasingly unpopular with the American public. The political scientists conclude that the Tea Party is analogous to the anti-Vietnam war movement, which brought energy but stridency to the Democratic party, ultimately repelling moderate voters.
In another recent commentary in The Wall Street Journal, Campbell and Putnam say the key to increased religious tolerance for Muslims in the United State is building personal friendships with people from other religious backgrounds.
Another Notre Dame political scientist, Daniel Philpott, along with colleagues from Georgetown and Harvard, makes the case in The Christian Science Monitor that political reforms ushered in by the “Arab Spring” in the Middle East need to include the involvement of Islamist religious groups. A strictly secular approach would be counter-productive, Philpott argues.
Also writing in The Christian Science Monitor, ND political scientist George Lopez says the time is ripe for the international community to impose economic sanctions on Syria to hasten reform there.
Notre Dame philosophy professor Gary Gutting offers philosophical commentary on issues of topical interest at The New York Times Opinionator blog on a semi-regular basis. Recently, Gutting posted some thoughts on judging expert opinion in the global warming controversy and whether religion should play a role in political debate, as well as on what philosophy has to say about health fads and the quest “to live forever.”
News stories earlier this summer reported that physicists may be closing in on discovering the mysterious Higg’s Boson subatomic particle, which Nobel Prize winning physicist Leon Lederman nicknamed the “God particle.” In this video and in this story at the MSNBC website. Notre Dame adjunct professor of physics Don Lincoln, who along with other ND physicists is part of a team looking for the Higgs Boson, explains what the mysterious particle is and why it’s important. In the Autumn 2010 edition of Notre Dame Magazine , Lincoln describes ND’s scientific involvement with the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful subatomic particle accelerator.
As part of the “Big Picture Science” radio show, ND psychologist Darcia Narvaez recently debated University of Pennsylvania researcher Hugo Mercier on the evolutionary purpose of rational thought.
Notre Dame visiting professor of English Terry Eagleton examines the difference between “evil” and “wickedness” in a The Chronicle of Higher Education reflection about two 9/11s that are 30 years apart, and Notre Dame’s director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies R. Scott Appleby argues after 9/11 religion can no longer be ignored.