Comments on: Link roundup and space carnival

By: defectiverobot

defectiverobot — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:32:21 +0000

Then again, I do read PZ, so take me for what I’m worth.

By: defectiverobot

defectiverobot — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:30:51 +0000

I have to agree with stopgap. I didn’t read that story as necessarily pro or con. For the most part, it was fairly straightforward.

While I think last week’s NPR story about the teenage global warming skeptic wasn’t sufficiently incredulous, I find that on the whole the network is still fairly liberal. And as a fairly liberal person myself, I have to admit that I’d hate to see it veer into leftist propaganda. I mean, I can’t stand Rush or O’Reilly, but I’m not really a big Air America fan either. That NPR tends to walk the fence is fine with me. I prefer straightforward reporting where I can be the one to decide what to rant about.

By: stopgap

stopgap — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:30:45 +0000

Do you think NPR needs to be more opinionated in its reporting? All they did was report the story from an objective journalistic stand point.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90024822

By: Haate

Haate — Thu, 01 May 2008 21:26:59 +0000

Personally, I’d say that what the ID folks are trying to do is WORSE than straight up killing people.

They’re trying to kill people’s minds.

Killing people at least stops the victim from killing others. If you kill someone’s mind, then they’re apt to spread the misinformation and perpetuate the mind death…thus you’ve not just killed that person’s mind, you’ve potentially killed untold numbers of others.

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:32:05 +0000

Wow, that NAMBLA and KKK meme won’t die.

What the Expelled group is trying to do is defame millions of scientists, millions, by lying and slander — comparing PZ to Nazis who gassed Jews? They’re not killing people (as the KKK used to do), but they are trying to brainwash an entire generation of children in this country, and they are trying to bypass Constitutionally-mandated doctrines. It has been shown in a court of law that ID is the same thing as creationism, and therefore unconstitutional to teach.

What they’re doing is disgusting, and it’s undermining science. So I stick with my comparison.

By: EJ

EJ — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:24:23 +0000

Well, the NPRcheck piece was primarily about creationist-friendly news coverage on NPR, which I think is a lot more problematic than advertising, which is what the original BA post was about. (And seriously, if you’re going to compare the Expelled folks to NAMBLA and the KKK, you’re in no position to complain when they say science caused the holocaust).

The Science channel is an advertising supported business and is going to run ads if the money is right – they can hardly censor every advertisement that makes dubious claims – they wouldn’t have many left, and they’d have to figure out a way to make money from subscriptions, i.e. you’d have to pay for it.

In reality the ad was probably from a third party advertising network (the Science channel sells them the space, and they resell it to advertisers), and was context-matched by a computer algorithm based on keywords such as “evolution” or “science” appearing on the page. Most often when you’re seeing a particular ad online, no humans were involved in the decision to show it to you.

By: JackC

JackC — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:14:19 +0000

I was actually poking around NPR this morning looking for a way to complain – loudly. Thanks for this.

I am rather upset with much of their recent change in style. Can we please have Bob Edwards back?