We talk about molecular population and evolutionary GENETICS and GENOMICS. You know, the caliper measurement of a gene's evolvability in moles.I gave Lawrence Krauss some shit regarding his double standard towards the tolerance of willful ignorance. He's cool with calling intelligent design proponents ignorant, but won't go all the way and say all religion is anti-knowledge. Judging by the letters in the NYTimes, there are some people who took umbrage at Krauss calling anyone ignorant:
To the Editor:
I disagree with Dr. Krauss's essay "How to Make Sure Children are Scientifically Illiterate." Darwinists are not advancing science by seeking federal court injunctions against criticism of Darwinism. Science is not a body of knowledge; it's a method of inquiry. Freedom of inquiry is indispensable to science.
Students should be taught to question prevailing theories -- even entrenched dogma like Darwinism -- with rigor and with civility. Contra Dr. Krauss, the opposite of science is not ignorance; it's censorship.
Michael Egnor, M.D.
Stony Brook, N.Y.
The writer is a professor of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
And if I took a big ol' steaming shit on a piece of paper and wanted that taught as science, I should get my wish. Because if you say shit on paper isn't science that's censorship. Damn you and your censoring school board.
Dr. Egnor, what if I wanted you to teach your med-school students that messages are propagated along the axon of a neuron by little trucks found in myelin? Oh, wait, that's a testable hypothesis. We could reject the hypothesis because it's complete and utter bullshit. We can't even test intelligent design because it doesn't even propose hypotheses. We don't waste time teaching complete bullshit in science classes just because some religious nutjob thinks it's a good idea. That's not censorship; it's not wasting valuable class time on the myelin truck theory.
(Via Evolutionary Times.)
Comments
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Posted by: Comstock | August 23, 2006 4:28 PM
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Posted by: NotLedByTheDarwinianLeash | March 27, 2007 10:29 AM