Bowen, William M. and Michael Schwartz
Edwin Mellen Press, 2005

Bowen and Schwartz postulate that the human intellect is the greatest adaptive mechanism of the species and that "civility, humaneness, and quality of life in human societies improve through advances in knowledge, that knowledge advances through a natural selection of ideas, and that the university has a vital role to play in these advances." They pose an idea-variation hypothesis, which stipulates that the rate of progress and advancement in knowledge throughout society at any time is equal to the variation of ideas at that time, and therefore, given that the aim of universities is to create, preserve, transmit, and find new applications for knowledge, the most effective strategy is to conserve the variation of ideas. Accordingly, by protecting the free and open expression of ideas, beliefs, and opinions, universities protect the rights of individuals to seek self-fulfillment and the attainment of truth, to provide for open discussion in legitimate democratic decision-making, and to enable flexibility and adaptation to change. This title won the Adele Mellen Prize for its distinguished contribution to scholarship.