Indeed—Dawkins’ team controlled the camera, and could edit at they chose fit. No doubt any points the opponents might have made to give themselves credibility were edited out.
Seriously, these are often called “informal debates”. I would grant that they are not formal debates. They consist of animated discussions between the parties over a debating point, held in public. Even writing books enters into the public debate on the topic. My point is that science writers are spending their time on a point of no scientific interest. Dennet was doing science—but it was a relatively obscure branch of sociology associated with how people acquire and perpetuate their delusions—not a terribly inspiring area.
You’ve now completely lost the point of the initial discussion. Eliezer proposed having creationists debate students rather than credentialed scientists so as to maintain the institutions that sustain the marketplace of ideas while simultaneously making it clear that one should not consider creationists and scientists equally credible. Your initial comment was that creationists don’t need to debate students since they can debate all these famous atheist science writers. You haven’t been able to provide any recent (read: in the last two decades) examples of any of the people you named debating evolution with creationists in a formal setting. You seem bothered by the fact that the people you listed spend so much time dealing with creationism. But even if they were engaged in work on creationism for significant periods of time that doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t willing to engage creationists on an equal footing. Thus, the rationale for Eliezer’s proposal remains.
It strikes me that you may have just wished to complain about public intellectuals spending time on creationism and that you comment as such on this post because it was related. But if thats the case you really need to clarify that because as it stands you comments make very little sense in the context of Eliezer’s initial post. Look at the karma, its time to update.
Of course if this was you intent it still doesn’t change the fact that your list of public intellectuals at fault is really strange. Most of them aren’t biologists. Most of them work on issues unrelated to creationism. A few do more work on interpretations of evolution, but in that case the work is related to important questions in philosophy of science and philosophy of biology. The only person you named that seems to spend a preponderance of his time explaining basic science is Dawkins. And I don’t really see any reason to think Dawkins would be doing better than average work in research biology.
Re: You haven’t been able to provide any recent (read: in the last two decades) examples of any of the people you named debating evolution with creationists in a formal setting.
This guy was formally debated last month—he’s an evangelical Christian who believes in the virgin birth, immaculate conception, resurrection, the holy trinity, god’s covenant with the jews, a designed universe—and is from the Discovery Institute. A big enough nitwit for you?
Re: Your initial comment was that creationists don’t need to debate students since they can debate all these famous atheist science writers.
No it wasn’t. What I actually said was:
“Creationists don’t have to debate college students—they have Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christoper Hitchens, Sam Harris, P Z Myers, Robert Wright—who all seem quite prepared to stoop down to their level as part of some kind of “gutter outreach” program.”
I didn’t say the “stooping” was done via formal debates. That was an inference on your part. My list was of people who had recently bothered to write whole books on the subject—plus P Z Myers—who also apparently spends an enormous amount of time on the issue.
The topic under discussion is debates with creationists. You’ve claimed that the term debate should include books, blog posts and disagreeable interviews. But that definition is over broad for purposes of this discussion because it includes mediums that don’t come with the ‘giving credibility’ issues which brought about this post. The whole post was about why it would be best to pair creationists with students- all of the examples were like this. You don’t get pairing like that with people writing books. The whole back drop of all of this is several people leaving bloggingheads.tv because creationists were debated there. The people who left bh.tv have probably blogged about creationist issues before- but if that counted as debating in our context then it would be weird for them to quit blogging heads over someone else doing the debating.
Btw, of the people you listed only one has written a book on the subject of creationism. That book was published in 1986.
(I think I’m done with this thread as I’ve done my due diligence correcting errors.)
I don’t really see why you don’t get it: EY says creationists can debate college students. TT points out that they are already getting plenty of attention—as a result of all the TLC lavished on them by the “new atheists”. They appear on atheist documentaries, interview atheists on their documentaries, and generally bathe in the resulting media circus. There are many books written by learned men explaining why traditional religion is nonsense. Observers might be forgiven for thinking that there was some kind of real controversy here—instead of just a plague of ignorance and superstition.
You don’t get it. Different forms of engagement cause different amounts of prestige to flow. Writing a book mocking UFO cults doesn’t transfer prestige to UFO cults, but debating their leader in business suits does.
I am not clear on where I am supposed to have claimed equal effects on prestige.
People writing serious books about how there are no UFOs would probably have much the same effect as if they wrote serious books about how there is no God—it would make people think that there was a real issue there that was worth discussing and spending time on.
Ridicule is a bit different. Books by comedians taking the piss out of religious idiocy would not induce the same type of comments from me. For example, note that Pat Condell [http://www.patcondell.net/] was not in my list—even though he evidently spends a lot of time on religious issues.
My point is that science writers are spending their time on a point of no scientific interest.
Science writers aren’t scientists. They aren’t looking for scientific interest. They’re trying to educate the broad public about science. The most important subjects, to them, are the “most wrong” beliefs contradicting science that are common in the audience. They correctly try to fix those, even though the beliefs’ alleged theories (“a GOD created the universe in 7 days 6000 years ago!”) aren’t of any scientific interest.
Your point is perhaps that scientists shouldn’t become science writers because it’s lower-status or less beneficial work. But people very rarely choose work according to what is objectively most beneficial to humanity...
Someone rather more sceptical might propose that these authors are interested in selling books—are inspired by The God Delusion’s 1.5 million copies, and want in on the debate—irrespective of its scientific relevance—or lack thereof.
We have certainly have had a recent rush of top science writers towards the theistic gutter. I preferred it when they were talking about science. Maybe the sheer number of people in the gutter mean it is an interesting place to go. However, from my perspective, engaging with the theists gives them undeserved credibility, and effectively takes science writers out of circulation—by getting them to deal with mindless drivel all day.
In education, the most conventional structure is a ladder, with people teaching those a bit below them. Here we see those at the top reaching down to teach those at the bottom. Anyone can teach those at the bottom—it’s easy. The problem with those at the top doing it is it takes them away from their regular roles—at the top is important—it’s the leading edge, where progress happens.
If this were a plot by theists to take the science enthusiasts out of their usual orbits—from where they could teach and inspire the brightest of the next generation—I would have to say it is going well.
Anyone can teach at them, maybe. It’s easy enough to tell them, “there is no god, and evolution is true”. The hard thing is to make the masses at the bottom rung believe it. Even our best rhetoricians and scientists from way up the ladder have been having only meager success (measured against the amount of people in the world who profess belief in creationism).
Indeed—Dawkins’ team controlled the camera, and could edit at they chose fit. No doubt any points the opponents might have made to give themselves credibility were edited out.
Seriously, these are often called “informal debates”. I would grant that they are not formal debates. They consist of animated discussions between the parties over a debating point, held in public. Even writing books enters into the public debate on the topic. My point is that science writers are spending their time on a point of no scientific interest. Dennet was doing science—but it was a relatively obscure branch of sociology associated with how people acquire and perpetuate their delusions—not a terribly inspiring area.
You’ve now completely lost the point of the initial discussion. Eliezer proposed having creationists debate students rather than credentialed scientists so as to maintain the institutions that sustain the marketplace of ideas while simultaneously making it clear that one should not consider creationists and scientists equally credible. Your initial comment was that creationists don’t need to debate students since they can debate all these famous atheist science writers. You haven’t been able to provide any recent (read: in the last two decades) examples of any of the people you named debating evolution with creationists in a formal setting. You seem bothered by the fact that the people you listed spend so much time dealing with creationism. But even if they were engaged in work on creationism for significant periods of time that doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t willing to engage creationists on an equal footing. Thus, the rationale for Eliezer’s proposal remains.
It strikes me that you may have just wished to complain about public intellectuals spending time on creationism and that you comment as such on this post because it was related. But if thats the case you really need to clarify that because as it stands you comments make very little sense in the context of Eliezer’s initial post. Look at the karma, its time to update.
Of course if this was you intent it still doesn’t change the fact that your list of public intellectuals at fault is really strange. Most of them aren’t biologists. Most of them work on issues unrelated to creationism. A few do more work on interpretations of evolution, but in that case the work is related to important questions in philosophy of science and philosophy of biology. The only person you named that seems to spend a preponderance of his time explaining basic science is Dawkins. And I don’t really see any reason to think Dawkins would be doing better than average work in research biology.
Re: You haven’t been able to provide any recent (read: in the last two decades) examples of any of the people you named debating evolution with creationists in a formal setting.
Your claim about my actions is inaccurate—and I expect it is because you need to familiarize yourself with the top of this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism
If you want more evidence, try this:
“Creationism vs. Humanism: Christopher Hitchens vs. Jay Richards”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2rp_VB7MCE
This guy was formally debated last month—he’s an evangelical Christian who believes in the virgin birth, immaculate conception, resurrection, the holy trinity, god’s covenant with the jews, a designed universe—and is from the Discovery Institute. A big enough nitwit for you?
Re: Your initial comment was that creationists don’t need to debate students since they can debate all these famous atheist science writers.
No it wasn’t. What I actually said was:
“Creationists don’t have to debate college students—they have Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christoper Hitchens, Sam Harris, P Z Myers, Robert Wright—who all seem quite prepared to stoop down to their level as part of some kind of “gutter outreach” program.”
I didn’t say the “stooping” was done via formal debates. That was an inference on your part. My list was of people who had recently bothered to write whole books on the subject—plus P Z Myers—who also apparently spends an enormous amount of time on the issue.
I think my paraphrase was more than satisfactory.
The topic under discussion is debates with creationists. You’ve claimed that the term debate should include books, blog posts and disagreeable interviews. But that definition is over broad for purposes of this discussion because it includes mediums that don’t come with the ‘giving credibility’ issues which brought about this post. The whole post was about why it would be best to pair creationists with students- all of the examples were like this. You don’t get pairing like that with people writing books. The whole back drop of all of this is several people leaving bloggingheads.tv because creationists were debated there. The people who left bh.tv have probably blogged about creationist issues before- but if that counted as debating in our context then it would be weird for them to quit blogging heads over someone else doing the debating.
Btw, of the people you listed only one has written a book on the subject of creationism. That book was published in 1986.
(I think I’m done with this thread as I’ve done my due diligence correcting errors.)
I don’t really see why you don’t get it: EY says creationists can debate college students. TT points out that they are already getting plenty of attention—as a result of all the TLC lavished on them by the “new atheists”. They appear on atheist documentaries, interview atheists on their documentaries, and generally bathe in the resulting media circus. There are many books written by learned men explaining why traditional religion is nonsense. Observers might be forgiven for thinking that there was some kind of real controversy here—instead of just a plague of ignorance and superstition.
You don’t get it. Different forms of engagement cause different amounts of prestige to flow. Writing a book mocking UFO cults doesn’t transfer prestige to UFO cults, but debating their leader in business suits does.
I am not clear on where I am supposed to have claimed equal effects on prestige.
People writing serious books about how there are no UFOs would probably have much the same effect as if they wrote serious books about how there is no God—it would make people think that there was a real issue there that was worth discussing and spending time on.
Ridicule is a bit different. Books by comedians taking the piss out of religious idiocy would not induce the same type of comments from me. For example, note that Pat Condell [http://www.patcondell.net/] was not in my list—even though he evidently spends a lot of time on religious issues.
Science writers aren’t scientists. They aren’t looking for scientific interest. They’re trying to educate the broad public about science. The most important subjects, to them, are the “most wrong” beliefs contradicting science that are common in the audience. They correctly try to fix those, even though the beliefs’ alleged theories (“a GOD created the universe in 7 days 6000 years ago!”) aren’t of any scientific interest.
Your point is perhaps that scientists shouldn’t become science writers because it’s lower-status or less beneficial work. But people very rarely choose work according to what is objectively most beneficial to humanity...
Someone rather more sceptical might propose that these authors are interested in selling books—are inspired by The God Delusion’s 1.5 million copies, and want in on the debate—irrespective of its scientific relevance—or lack thereof.
We have certainly have had a recent rush of top science writers towards the theistic gutter. I preferred it when they were talking about science. Maybe the sheer number of people in the gutter mean it is an interesting place to go. However, from my perspective, engaging with the theists gives them undeserved credibility, and effectively takes science writers out of circulation—by getting them to deal with mindless drivel all day.
In education, the most conventional structure is a ladder, with people teaching those a bit below them. Here we see those at the top reaching down to teach those at the bottom. Anyone can teach those at the bottom—it’s easy. The problem with those at the top doing it is it takes them away from their regular roles—at the top is important—it’s the leading edge, where progress happens.
If this were a plot by theists to take the science enthusiasts out of their usual orbits—from where they could teach and inspire the brightest of the next generation—I would have to say it is going well.
Anyone can teach at them, maybe. It’s easy enough to tell them, “there is no god, and evolution is true”. The hard thing is to make the masses at the bottom rung believe it. Even our best rhetoricians and scientists from way up the ladder have been having only meager success (measured against the amount of people in the world who profess belief in creationism).
Sure: that’s one of the properties of blind faith—no amount of reasoned argument helps.
They recognize that it is the devil talking—and they know his reputation as a debater—so the fingers go in their ears and we hear the “la-la” song.