Rant on Dembski 28 Jul 2009 My good friend Ian Musgrave has just put up a wonderful rant on Dumbski’s latest crap, and it’s also up at Panda’s Thumb. Go read it. Nothing unexpected, Dembski’s usual rhetorical tricks and bad research, but it’s a fun read. One guy you don’t want to get started ranting against you is Ian. Creationism and Intelligent Design
Biology Why is Darwin’s theory so controversial? 24 Nov 2012 So asks this essay and gets the whole thing wrong. Darwin’s theories (plural) are not controversial because they imply that species are mutable. This was a widely held view by preachers, moralists, Aristotelians, naturalists, breeders, formalists, folk biology, and even biblical translators. Darwin was not controversial because he implied racist… Read More
Censorship A chilling effect 24 Apr 2010 In the judgment in favour of Simon Singh against the British Chiropractic Association’s bogus defamation action, the judge noted that the use of defamation law on scientific discussions had a “chilling effect“, and a movement has resulted to reform libel law, to which all three major parties seem to be… Read More
Administrative Drowning in the sea of faith 20 Sep 2008 Actually I’m not. The Sea of Faith In Australia crowd are very nice and easy to get on with folk, and many of them are your garden variety humanists, atheists and skeptics. Lawrence Krauss is a very nice guy with a good patter in anti-ID; nothing I haven’t heard before… Read More
Dumbski is deeply scary, this sort of stuff never fails to amaze me, I have difficulty grasping what exactly motivates it. Ian certainly takes the sting out of it not sure I agree with the envy part as such a strong motivator, fear and hatred certainly. Ive not read the book on every-ones lips just now, I don’t think the problem is how scientists communicate science but how a minority of very vocal scientists and philosophers of science talk about culture that is a problem. It’s a problem that Dumbski has picked up on and will manipulate to the full. I think thats something to be concerned about. But this line has made my day “Scientists, fear us, we will take your children and feed them the best available knowledge.” Very nice!
Should we call this dance of politicians ignoring the warnings of science until it is too late “The Musgrave Ritual”?
Off topic. I just used the quote mine on George Wald to good effect. Thanks for that Mr Catshark, nice resource. I was an education officer for Friends of the Earth in the 80’s, public attitude was dire, apart from school kids who always seemed to take an intrest. It’s changed somewhat but not enough.