Luskin and the Discovery Institute Do Not Deserve the Respect They've been Afforded

The Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting Administration has made a decision in what has come to be known as t"The Luskin situation: A summary, analysis and decision." I believe they made the right decision, but for the wrong reasons. I respect and admire (and participate in) their efforts, but I think they are being nice. This is no time to be nice.

Here's the story. Casey Luskin is a creationist who posted a discussion of a PLoS (peer reviewed) article on the Discover Institute's web site. I don't give a rat's ass what he has to say or what the Discover Institute puts on their site, so I have not looked at it. But, a kerfuffle materialized in which the question arose: Should this post, or this organization, or this person, or whatever, be allowed to have a BPR3 icon and link? This issue was exacerbated by the fact that Luskin stole the BPR3 icon, putting it on his blog as a graphic without the link back to the site.

Just now, the BPR3 administration has come out with a lengthy description of a convoluted process of deciding whether or not to allow there to be a link of this sort. They decided no. The rational for their decision is well thought out, clearly described, and in my view, irrelevant.

I did not like certain aspects of where this discussion was going. For instance, Luskin's post was being evaluated on the basis of how well the writer kept separate his own opinion from that represented in the paper. Keeping such things separate is of course important in science journalism, but guess what. Were Bloggers, man, not journalists.

I'm actually getting a bit tired of hearing about journalistic ethics and best practices being applied to blogger. Bloggers are not journalists, and we are certainly not inadequate journalists or unethical journalists or wannabe journalists. Indeed, we are not really bloggers. We are something (sometimes a journalist, usually not ... in the case of Sb, a scientist, a student, lots of different things) who are blogging. Our behaviors, writing approaches, guidelines, ethics, etc. come not from journalism or even from our blogging, but from ourselves as people and our professional areas, whatever that may be. But I digress.

Anyway, my view is that the Discovery Institute and Casey Luskin are the bad guys, the guys who are trying to force religious dribble onto my daughter as she attends public school, the guys who are trying to change the interpretation of the US constitution to provide for and even encourage religious instruction with tax dollars, the people who are trying to wreck scientific endeavors. .. research, education, public outreach ... because of their sociopaths bad wishes and religious fear of a hateful god.

BPR3 needs no excuse to shun the Discovery Institute or any particular creationist. Indeed, they have a responsibility to shun them. Hey, BPR3! Stop shunning the creationists and I'm outta here and you can keep your nice BPR3 icon!

I think the BPR3 administration is simply trying to be nice, and to avoid a fight. But there is no reason for them to be nice, and they better damn well get into this fight. The channels of discourse in science need to remain clear of the flotsam and jetsam of creation science. If a group of scientist wish to build one of these channels and want real scientists to participate in it, and if scientists want to take advantage of this channel, then we need some mutual trust and respect. I trust BPR3 to kick out the misfits, and I demand the respect of not having an effort I agree to support hijacked by hoodlums.

You can read all about it here.