Comments on: Bye to Bloggingheads

By: Boycotting Bloggingheads: Reaction to an Intelligent Design debate shows limit to public discussion. | Uncommon Descent

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:54:26 +0000

[...] decision to repost the interview prompted notable scientists Carl Zimmer and Sean Carroll to publicly disassociate with the website because they believe Intelligent Design is not a serious [...]

By: Dov Elyada

Dov Elyada — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 14:40:54 +0000

Having fouled the way it did, science-minded people should shun BH.tv, promptly and without any qualms, and leave it to “those other guys.” Let it become “their” place and let Bob Wright see the light that way. I do not share Sean’s apologetics or his encouragement, in effect, of other scientists not to follow him. A cultural war is going on and you don’t win such by civility. Stopping the western culture from sliding back into the Middle Ages and, in particular, the erosion of America’s principle of separation of state and church (for that’s what they are after, in the long run) is much too important to be fought sportingly. Let the lines of battle be drawn clearly.

Imagine taking a sip of genuine fine cognac from a new bottle of your favourite brand and feeling the unmistakeable smack of kerosene — maybe just a tiny drop, 1 ppm, has found its way into the bottle. Would you excuse the maker on account of the 99.9999% of excellent liquor that still is in the bottle? Would you ever buy that brand again?

By: MB

MB — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:41:19 +0000

Just a few quick points:
(1) I agree with Sean completely.
(2) It just seems… reasonable… to decide that a forum is presenting things that you disagree with so strongly, that you will not participate at all. (And reasonable to argue that this is a foolish perspective)
(3) I APPLAUD Sean most of all for writing a reasonable and non-inflammatory comment that makes every attempt to be fair to the other people, including placing clear links to their comments. Let’s not forget that most of these decisions are announced in the form of RANTS WITH LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS. More civility = more dialogue = more understanding (if not agreement). This is good.

By: Podcasts in the intelligent design controversy, with comments | Uncommon Descent

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:06:14 +0000

[...] wonder when Bradley Monton will start to get even more real flak for asking key, rude questions about Darwinism, but then he doesn’t yet blog at Uncommon [...]

By: Bloggingheads Diavlog With Craig Callendar « Not Even Wrong

Bloggingheads Diavlog With Craig Callendar « Not Even Wrong — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:36:52 +0000

[...] who follow science-blogging controversies will have heard that certain science bloggers have announced a boycott of Bloggingheads, based on the fact that two [...]

By: Steve Richter

Steve Richter — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:57:22 +0000

What I find missing in this debate is the interests of the science audience, the common people who are interested in science and want to learn more. Behe’s “black box” book was fascinating to me. Judging by John McWhorter’s reaction and the sales of the book, many more people share this response. What was so interesting was Behe’s detailed and understandable explanations of the molecular workings of cells and microorganisms. The fact that Behe challenged the ToE by asserting that the molecular machines he describes could not have evolved in steps just peaked my interest in understanding the subject further.

I don’t think it is right when the science elite drive great teachers like Behe from the public space. Judging from the little I have learned from repeated attempts to read science pubs like Scientific American, Discover and NY Times Science Tueday, Behe’s talents as an educator in the popular science arena are rarely encountered.

By: The Evolution Of A Blogginghead; Or The Ballad Of Jim And Jerry « Around The Sphere

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:26:53 +0000

[...] Sean Carroll: Unfortunately, I won’t be appearing on Bloggingheads.tv any more. And it is unfortunate — I had some great times there, and there’s an enormous amount to like about the site. So I thought I should explain my reasons. [...]

By: Whats Hot » Blog Archive » Bloggingheads: Capo non grata

Whats Hot » Blog Archive » Bloggingheads: Capo non grata — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:00:29 +0000

[...] colleagues and fellow Hive Overmind bloggers Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer have written lengthy essays on why they will no longer participate on [...]

By: Bloggingheads’ business plan: Borrow credibility and then blow it. | Blubeanz

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:55:14 +0000

[...] hosting creationists. As a consequence, four of the most prominent science bloggers, physicist Sean Carroll, science writer Carl Zimmer, Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, and Pharyngula’s PZ Myers, have elected [...]

By: johnqeniac

johnqeniac — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:03:26 +0000

@TPD – I must reiterate that I have enormous respect for Sean Carroll’s work and his ability to convey difficult ideas. And I don’t regard him as living in a fantasy world at all. Far from it. I am also sympathetic to his (as well as many others’ in the scientific community) concern about all manner of unsupported ‘theories’ being taught on equal footing with evolution. My sole proposition here is that the concept of irreducible complexity seems to me to be sufficiently subtle that it merits a serious rebuttal rather than a cursory dismissal, if only so that laypersons without rigorous knowledge of the principles of evolution, and equally important, probability and statistics, can understand why he sees it as an absurd idea. What it comes down to is a matter of the probability of a particular piece of machinery appearing in the spectrum of biological structures as the result of evolution. And probability is not something that is generally understood by either laypersons or scientists. Because the crux of the technical (as opposed to the philosophical) refutation of IC is difficult the serious treatments are hard slogging even for a scientist (e.g., Michael Lynch, ‘Simple evolutionary pathways to complex proteins’), and practically impossible for the layperson. For this reason, I would rather see Sean Carroll use his superb teaching ability to explain the technical (probabilistic) arguments against IC in terms accessible to the public rather than dismissing it preemptively. After all, this is really one of the purposes of the Bloggingheads forum – to allow experts to explain difficult ideas to the layperson.

Just to reinforce my assertion that the very idea of IC is not a priori absurd, one has but to look at the methodology of Lynch’s commendable paper which refutes it. He uses Monte Carlo models to determine the likelihood of complex structures arising by evolution in available timescales with available numbers of organisms. This is an experimental, not a deductive, refutation, and though the results that Lynch obtains through numerical experiment support the evolutionary model, it could in principle have been the other way round. What would the response be if his numbers had proved the opposite?

Finally, again to emphasize what I regard as an inconsistent approach to ‘engagement with ones adversaries’ by Sean Carroll, I would ask Dr. Carroll if he would truly pass up an opportunity to debate this issue (if asked) with, say, Bill O’Reilly of Fox ‘News’? Fox is nothing if it isn’t an abject shill for right wing fallacies of virtually every flavor, and yet even Dawkins appeared on his show (and endured a particularly pitiful ‘proof’ of God’s existence by O’Reilly – the interview is available at Dawkins’ website: http://richarddawkins.net/article,915,The-Video-Bill-OReilly-Interviews-Richard-Dawkins,The-OReilly-Factor-Fox-News ).