It’s a busy week at The Intersection. This morning I’m headed to the WUNC studio to chat with Frank Stasio on The State of Things about Unscientific America. Meanwhile, Chris will be speaking at Northwestern University in Illinois tonight. Tomorrow I’m at Quail Ridge Books and Music in Raleigh, North Carolina and Friday you can hear me on The Scott Dick Show.
Posting may be light, but we have lots coming…
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Will some answers to these questions be coming? The suspense is killing me!
http://butterfliesandwheels.com/notesarchive.php?id=2841
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Dear SohwsOn who likes an internet moniker rather than a real name,
Will you answer the question of why you believe we have to settle this religious question before we work on the science?
As I mentioned in a comment yesterday, the famous line from Rhett Butler to Scarlet )’Hara applies. I don’t give a damn. It all has the feeling of fiddling while Rome is burning or re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. If we have to solve this before moving forward, then we really are doomed.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Wes,
You seem to be under the impression that these questions are not salient. You would be wrong. A fundamental premise of the book is that overt atheism hinders scientific literacy. Mooneybaum have yet to substantiate this claim (as well as the other pertinent questions as noted in the link). The claim has all the appearances of a WATB rant masquerading as journalism.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:08 pm
“A fundamental premise of the book is that overt atheism hinders scientific literacy.”
Not true. Overt atheism is one of MANY factors mentioned in the book.
July 22nd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Just listened to the NPR interview and found it interesting and engaging.
July 22nd, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Overt atheism is one of MANY factors mentioned in the book.
I don’t even think “overt” atheism is what’s criticized. I don’t think publicly saying you’re an atheist is viewed as a problem. *Combative* atheism by scientific public figures is.
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:44 pm
‘Combative’, ‘militant’, etc. Why are terms of violence given to people who are atheist even when they have never advocated violence? ‘Overt’ seems to be a much better adjective.
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
“Overt” just means out in the open. If you don’t like “combative”, how about “stridently socratic?”
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I know what overt means. Most of the problems caused by “new” atheists seems to be when they express atheist view points out in the open. How can you be overt without thinking your view point has value (more value then the viewpoints you have considered and rejected). Seems like the bar to avoid being labled negatively is to be a relativitist to such an extent that you believe your own thoughts are no more likely to be correct than any other thoughts. This same bar doesn’t seem to exist for overtly religious scientists.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Grammar and spelling were terrible above, sorry. That is the problem with typing too quickly on a phone.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:47 pm
And a new review in the Independent Weekly.
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:04 pm
I actually agree with Independent Weekly about the brevity. What’s missing is a number of “case studies” about what has worked. (Maybe the end notes have them. I haven’t gone through those.)
I disagree, however, with the people that say the book has no solutions. It gives recommendations on almost every page.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:00 am
It is rather sad that if someone wishes to come here for a free and open debate that they are very quickly called a troll. I was simply trying to make this blog something other than an “echo-chamber community”.
I think the disagreement is perhaps a difference of opinion on what is meant by pluralism. It seems that the accomodationist side wants a soft form of pluralism where even if people are aware that their views are in complete contradiction, they quietly don’t discuss them. In contrast, others are interested in a more harder pluralism where ideas and assertions are placed in competition with each other, and the one that best describes a particular phenomena is deemed to be the winner, of course until something else better comes along.
The former approach seems to be more popular in the humanities, while the latter is one of the best tools that science has used to further our understanding of the world.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:27 am
Seems anyone who asks questions you don’t want to answer is by default a troll.