Posted by You gotta love this. dlamming has a new follow-up post wherein he makes this highly amusing statement:
I called this position the absolute worst form of elitism. Now, Ed Brayton has a new post up, in which he admits he might be elitist, but he thinks that’s ok.
Actually, I didn’t say anything about whether I might be elitist in that post. What I did say was that the idea that what I said was the “absolute worst form of elitism” is idiotic rhetoric. And indeed it is, but apparently not enough so that dlamming won’t repeat it here as though it hadn’t been quite reasonably shown to be so already. As for whether or not I am an elitist, the answer is yes, I am an elitist. Everyone is an elitist, including those who claim not to be.
No one in their right mind believes that all people are equally smart, equally talented, equally motivated, equally knowledgable or equally anything else. And no one in their right mind really believes that professional training and expertise do not make a person more qualified to practice in a field, or comment on it, than a person without such training. If dlamming thinks that this obviously true position amounts to “elitism”, then I would simply invite him to use some other criteria for determining such expertise in his life.
Next time he needs surgery, rather than engaging in the “elitist” notion that someone with a medical degree and training in a surgical residency program might be more qualified than someone who lacks that experience, let him instead entrust his internal organs to a dentist, or better yet, an auto mechanic. For that matter, next time he needs his car fixed, let him take it not to someone who has had years of training and is certified in that discipline but instead take it to a landscaper or a fast food manager instead. The fact that he won’t do so is more than enough to prove that dlamming, despite his silly protests to the contrary, is an “elitist” in precisely the same sense that I am, his insistence on arguing against a straw man version of my position notwithstanding.
The simple fact is that someone who has training and experience in a given area really is more qualified than to comment on that field than someone who isn’t. Now, that alone does not tell us what the truth is, of course, because among qualified experts in a field there will always be some disagreements. Even Nobel Prize winners still have to lay out the evidence and the arguments for their claims and those claims are treated no differently than any other. But only a fool or a fraud would argue that it is some unjustified form of “elitism” to believe that those with more training and knowledge in a field are, on the whole, more qualified than those who without it. Lastly he says:
No matter how much Ed Brayton wishes it wasn’t true, the DI list demonstrates there are a number of people within the scientific community who doubt the theory of evolution.
If you can find me saying anything at all that denies that there are “a number of people within the scientific community who doubt the theory of evolution”, then by all means post it. The fact that you can’t quote me saying anything like that is proof that you are engaging in the beating up of a straw man. You’re arguing against the position you wish I had taken rather than the position I’ve actually taken. It’s quite a dishonest little game you’re playing here, dlamming, and it’s making you look quite foolish.
February 27, 2006
February 27, 2006