5 Responses to “Unscientific America on KPBS San Diego”

1. 1.   Austin L Says:
   August 13th, 2009 at 11:34 am

   Umm-hmm.

2. 2.   Evan Says:
   August 13th, 2009 at 11:47 am

   What a great show! You were such an interesting guest. Thanks to Maureen for introducing me to your work!

3. 3.   cadra Says:
   August 13th, 2009 at 2:50 pm

   In the article we read:
   “But anyone out there can put their opinion on the internet and is easily – and because of that, we’ve seen the rise of the anti-vaccination movement and a whole bunch of other – climate change denial. The anti-evolution folks have gotten really, really organized.”

   The problem is that pro-evolution neodarwinian movement is organized much better and occupies all Uni departments around the globe – from USA, England to Czech Republic (UNI Prague – but I must admit that darwinism is taken there in more relaxed way. Professor Zdenek Neubauer openly criticised neodarwinism in Dawkins’ edition).

   One has not to confuse evolution with neodarwinian explanation of it as often happens in the discussions under the Intersection UA entries here. There are many evolutionary theories – be it Orthogenesis, Nomogenesis, Saltationism by Richard Goldschmidt or Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis.

   Evolution is a fact, but neodarwinian explanation of it is no way “science”. It can’t be experimentally proved, and assuming that random mutation and natural selection created mankind from an ancient fish is only far-fetched hypothesis no one can support by any experimental evidence.

   Evolution – no one reject evolution! – is in fact like history. It happened but why it happened this way and not the other way depends on opinion and taste. Why Napoleon attacked Europe? Because of spreading freedom – or his ego? Is there any “scientific” explanation of it?
   The same for origin of wings in birds. No one saw evolution of it, but there are competing theories – arboreal, cursorial etc. I hope no one claim all of them are “scientific”. So what is “scientific” on those explanation? It seems that everyting in neodarwinism – every far-fetched hypothesis and fantasy – is believed to be “scientific” until it rejects supranatural. You have to mentioned that “natural selection” or “sexual selection” is behind of this or those phenomenon and you are at the same moment “scientist”.

   No wonder that Dawkins thinks that “natural selection” operates on genes level, the late Gould thought on organismal level and recently E.O.Wilson has brushed up “group selection”.

   They believe in natural selection as the major principle of evolution. They only do not know how and on which level it operates. But somehow they perform “science”. Those who dismiss “natural selection” – and there were many scholars like von Bertalanffy, Franz Heikertinger, Adolf Portmann, Richard Goldschmidt etc… – opinions of those scholars are labeled as “unscientific”.

   The same for Lynn Margulis who dismissed neodarwinsm – but not evolution itself!

   So the main problem is that neodarwinism and evolution should not be confused and – neodarwinism should not be confused with “science”.e Dawkins, Myers etc… are consequently not “scientists” in the sense we use the word “scientist” for Einstein, Feynman, Hawking etc…

   http://cadra.wordpress.com

4. 4.   murci3lag0 Says:
   August 14th, 2009 at 9:37 pm

   @cadra:

   natural selection si hardly a “neodarwinian” idea….. it was Darwin himself who introduced it!! Saying that “evolution is a fact” but natural selection is an unprouven new idea is just ignorant of what the theory of evolution says. Your interpretation of science and scientist does not fall into the definition of the dictionnary… stop trying to re define words. “neodarwinism” is a non existent straw man invented by the creationists to attack the science behind biology.

   Please, if you don’t know a thing about the definition of science and evolution, stop making absurd comments on internet… it is embarrasing for yourself.

5. 5.   Hamilton Jacobi Says:
   August 17th, 2009 at 5:08 am

   Here is some further media coverage:

   Downfall of Chris Mooney’s Scientific America