Zimmer & Carroll vow no more bloggingheads.tv appearances

Possibly the most fascinating field of science is human psychology - where we see the highly improbable feat of human minds contemplating their own nature. Within that field is the phenomena of belief and the emotional drivers that cause belief to affect behavior. Rather than despair that Zimmer and Carroll are leaving, perhaps Bloggingheads could use this vivid display of emotionally tagged belief and behavior (by all four) as a window into examining how belief affects behavior - by psychologists who are doing current research onto these questions - like Antonio Damasio and Joseph LeDoux?

"I had expected that Iâd get a clear sense of [...] what sort of plan would be put in place to avoid it happening again. I imagined some kind of editorial oversight [...]"

Whatever. More rules = more boring.

Should scientists debate or ignore those who think there is some kind of scientific evidence for the existence of intelligent design or God? If the goal is to educated the public about what science can and cannot say in these matters and do it in a way that will not lose broad public support for the funding of the biological sciences, then the answer is pretty clear. But I am beginning to suspect scientists don't know how to do that, which is really too bad.

If the goal is to educated the public about what science can and cannot say in these matters and do it in a way that will not lose broad public support for the funding of the biological sciences, then the answer is pretty clear.

oh really? i happen not to be a telepath, so you might want o clarify ;-)

From my 3 Quarks comment:

I wish Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer would reconsider. First, because it is very damaging to bloggingheads.tv. And second, because the issues raised by the intelligent design controversy are too interesting to non-scientists to simply ignore.

For example, the notion of âintelligent designâ implies intentionality, a subjective state of consciousness and control. But intentionality by definition is just the sort of thing that can never be established by science no matter how long the odds of something happening by chance (long odds being what the notion of irreducible complexity really comes down to).

Consider current cosmology, Sean Carrollâs specialty. At the present time it looks like the chance of a universe with intelligent life in it is vanishingly small, as in one in a zillion. Physicists hope one day to reduce those odds but in the meantime they do not speculate about intelligent design. For a scientist life may be a miracle â ie, an extraordinary coincidence âbut it still happened by chance. All they want to do is to try to calculate the odds.

Ideas about meaning and purpose, beauty and justice, are about subjective states of feeling. Science, by definition, limits itself to what is objective.

Does this mean that beauty and justice, meaning and purpose are stupid, pre-scientific concepts that we could just as well do without? Of course not. They have served us well in the past and will never go away.

Likewise for faith in the idea that there is a moral order in the universe.

These are gut instincts and, as such, are an important part of what it means to be human. I doubt many scientists would entirely disagree.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that it would be preferable for guys like Carroll and Zimmer to make these distinctions rather than walking away from the forum. They need to educate the public about what science is and is not.

i really don't have any idea as to where that whole line of argumentation comes from. the reality is rather simple, scientists dislike being associated with creationists in contexts where they seem to be giving creationists credibility.

the reality is rather simple, scientists dislike being associated with creationists in contexts where they seem to be giving creationists credibility.

So why aren't they calling for a boycott of Lehigh U? say, a boycott of physics conferences held there? Yes, what scientists dislike is simple, but how they balance that is not.

So what did Behe say that was so wrong or offensive? His views are clearly and repeatedly labeled as being outside the mainstream.

Yes, what scientists dislike is simple, but how they balance that is not.

no shit. as noted in sean carroll's post.

So what did Behe say that was so wrong or offensive?

do you know what google is?

look, i'm not going to discuss in detail stupid creationist views. it's a waste of my time. so i ask that you do the time wasting on your own.

@Douglas Knight

Dude, you didn't even try. Lehigh biology has very clearly done the most in its power to dissociate itself from creationist crap short of firing Behe or jettisoning itself. Read its disclaimer. Your "counter example" couldn't have proved Razib's point more eloquently if you had tried.

Razib: "i really don't have any idea as to where that whole line of argumentation comes from. the reality is rather simple, scientists dislike being associated with creationists in contexts where they seem to be giving creationists credibility."

In that case they are just chickens who don't know how to defend themselves in a public forum.

More rules = more boring.

No rules = no ability to restrict what will be on Bh.tv = garbage predominates = no interest.

In that case they are just chickens who don't know how to defend themselves in a public forum.

oh wow, i'm totally blown away by the force of this argument!

Sure - I'm not calling for "mere anarchy." But the existing rules of B-heads seem fine. One of em is that if you praise Behe, 79,000 people will be like "ummmm seriously?"

I agree with you on these points, Eric Johnson: it was a terrible, terrible idea to take the video down. And people like Behe shouldn't be prohibited from coming on in all contexts.

But the 'interview' with McWhorter showcased gross ignorance of both relatively basic evolutionary biology AND the issues surrounding the ID and Creationist movements in recent history. There are NO circumstances under which either should be associated with actual science. Bh.tv has created that association twice, now.

As a contrarian, don't you wish they'd debate climate point by point, pro vs pro? I'd love to watch eight or ten hours of that, but they seem to have very near nil. (I'm talking climate - not climate policy or climate econ.) A lot of people are as huffy/squeamish about climate heterodoxy as they are about creationism - or moreso.

I'm behind on my Bloggingheads listening but was shocked when I saw Behe's name there in iTunes. I've not listened yet, but was hoping the person opposite was at least a competent evolutionist. Sounds like it wasn't. This is disturbing because I believe a few months back there was a fairly positive towards ID podcast on BH as well. Given that the guy who runs Bloggingheads is at best agnostic and seems to know at least a fair bit of evolution for a journalist I'm surprised he even arranged this.

That said, I hope Carroll and Zimmer don't quit simply because I enjoy listening to them on BH. It's also a great way to get science knowledge out beyond the science styled blogs.

clark, i think a lot of the people who show up do so without too much input from robert wright. e.g., my two appearances were prompted by me contacting a producer.

as noted in sean carroll's post

That's true. I liked Chad Orzel's post but it made me forget Carroll's similar paragraph. That seemed like a reasonable way to frame the question (although I disagree with the answer to that question). I don't like the paragraph about laundering money, but I agree with the conclusion, so maybe I just don't understand the metaphor. But Zimmer's post reads to me as a sulk.

J.J.E.,

I had read the disclaimer. But the physics department has no disclaimer, which is why I complained about physics conferences. I have a lot more sympathy with Zimmer than with Carroll. (despite my opinions on their posts)

Also, the Lehigh disclaimer really isn't much. It hardly seems more than Wright's disclaimer that C&Z don't make much of.

Robert Wright is crazy if he loses Carl Zimmer and Sean Carroll over this.

I'd be doing whatever it takes to win back their confidence in the forum.

Especially if banning McWhorter to the outer realm of darkness could be a part of that.

Yeah, I realized that after finally reading all the comments over at Zimmer's post. Kind of surprising on Wright's part. That is just a recipe for disaster. It sounds, honestly, like Zimmer and Carroll think Wright was simply more organized than he is whereas Wright is really running things by the seat of his pants. Something like this was bound to happen. Honestly, in a way Wright is lucky it happened in the science arena where fewer people care. There probably was just as good a chance he could have had a political controversy blow up in his face.

All that said, I hope Wright listens to Zimmer and Carroll's concerns and does get a bit more organized. Both because I really hope both return to podcasting but also because I earnestly think BH is doing something praiseworthy. There simply are far too few places with involved discussion with people of such wide ranging views like BH. You get liberal - liberal or conservative - conservative discussion but also conservative - liberal discussion that is actually intelligent. (Instead of the heated content free debate that Crossfire introduced decades ago and which has taken over most discussions)

The fact Wright injected science into this is very good. While I know some want a Science Blogs podcast they have to realize that they simply won't reach the same audience that BH does. If the goal is to get even non-scientists to understand science better then a Science Blogs alternative really isn't nearly as good.

What I think Wright wants to do is to have open the possibility of more philosophical discussion, including religion. The problem is figuring out how to balance that with the quite important concerns of Zimmer. Personally I'd like to see him have on a well informed critic of ID familiar with the mathematical issues but able to communicate it to the public along with someone well versed in philosophy. Because honestly a lot of the confusion (IMO) hinges on equivocation over the meaning of "information" (especially from Shannon's work starting Information Theory)

I worry about Zimmer and Carroll leaving in that I honestly and earnestly think the general public just doesn't understand why ID is bad science and why scientists are so concerned about it. Merely yelling about it at Science Blogs is just preaching to the choir whereas Blogging Heads would have been a fantastic avenue to communicate the reality of the controversy.