It's unbelievable, the company I somehow manage to keep in this blog neighborhood: Rob Knop of Galactic Interactions is one of the cosmologists today awarded a portion of this year's Gruber Prize in Cosmology.
Since pretty much the second he hung out his ScienceBlogs shingle, Rob has regularly been served a pretty good helping of shut-the-fuck-up, just because he's into God. And yet, he still bothers to educate readers--often with surprising gentleness--on the ways in which faith can be constructive. Although I've never met him, his blog shows him to be a principled, reasonable, and thoughtful guy. I guess he's pretty smart, too.
While we're looking around ScienceBlogs, let's all turn our eyes to the sweet green iPod nano in the right hand column of this blog. (You probably won't see it if you have an ad-blocker on. Your loss.) You should take the reader survey, then win this sweet green nano, then send it to me, because I need one, and I'm not allowed to enter the contest.
Oh, already have one of those? Well, how about a white-hot ScienceBlogs mug like the one pictured on the main ScienceBlogs page? No way you have one of these--they haven't even finished making them yet. They're modeled after those old chemistry lab beakers, with milliliter marks on the side and everything. The way to win this is to subscribe to SEED magazine, which is the parent magazine of ScienceBlogs. No need to forward it to me--I got a free one with my most recent cup of coffee aboard the ScienceBlogs Concorde.
I have shilled about all I can for today. Coming up: more about me, me, me.
- Log in to post comments
you say
"pretty good helping of shut-the-fuck-up,"
you are wrong.
I read all the posts in question. NO ONE EVER said that. please provide at least one and preferably five examples to back up your claim.
People said, "Rob you are stupid because you say stupid things." and I said, "Rob, you are NOT a Christian; get over it and call yourself something else."
In any event cudos to Rob for showing that a myth-blinded sky-pie believer can do some real science.
well...
"Rob Knop of Galactic Interactions and about 30 other astronomers split a quarter of the prize "
hmm $500,000 / 4 = $125,000 / 30 = 12,500 / 3 = 4,166.
er, Rob, I, ah, bill that for one week....
just saying...
Someone needs a nice cool glass of chill-the-hell-out.
I'll say. Who put a hornet in Kevin's underwear?
Is he trying to make it look like Rob's honor is less because it is shared with other astronomers? The Gruber prize is cool precisely because it doesn't just recognize the head honcho and ignore the contributions of all the team members that made the good stuff possible.
By the way Signout, I loved your writing in this post, even if it was "just" shilling. You have a nice way with words.
gee. I was on that thread.
"pretty good helping of shut-the-fuck-up,"
hmm maybe that as in some alternate universe. oh I see that in this one I said:
"In any event cudos to Rob for showing that a myth-blinded sky-pie believer can do some real science."
and "kudos" to all the other award winners.
No, he's been served because he continues to insist that his belief in a deity is rational and logically justified, instead of irrational and logically unjustified.
Respect is earned, not given. If you're going to insist that your beliefs be respected, you'd better be able to show that they deserve the respect you're claiming for them, otherwise you'd damn well better shut-the-fuck-up.
I'm sure you wouldn't tolerate a Christian Scientist, therapeutic-touch practitioner, or acupuncturist coming into your hospital and claiming their cherished methods are equivalent to the medicine you're practicing. Why do you expect rationalists to tolerate Knop's irrationality?
I think people differ greatly on this issue. For example, if it were completely unidentifiable as my own, I would have no problem with a picture of my naked ass being posted on the Internet. Others would be absolutely horrified by the prospect.