There are a lot of reasons not to hold Arthur Conan Doyle up as a guide to solid scientific practice. The creator of the famously rational Sherlock Holmes was also an advocate of spiritualism and the existence of fairies, after all. Setting that aside, it would be a bad mistake to cite the work of fictional characters to justify claims about successful scientific practice, at least without copious clarification of the relationship between fictional scientists like The Lost World's Professor Challenger and scientists in the real world.
I might have had to deploy any and all of these arguments in responding to the latest swill from ID creationist mouthpiece Access Research Network, "You Still Walk Amongst Judges, Prophet Darwin!," but reading the first sentence reveals that there's no need for such thoughtful reply. Robert Deyes begins his discussion of Conan Doyle's sesquicentennial, and the supposed insights to be gained from a novel about an expedition to discover dinosaurs in South America, by quoting "Tony Mulholland's and Adrian Hodges's screen adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World."
In a discussion about what Arthur Conan Doyle thought about science, who cares what the screen adaptation says? If the discussion can't be motivated by the actual text of Conan Doyle's book, who cares? Similarly, Deyes later refers to Casey Luskin, Disco. Inst. shyster, as a biologist. This counts as scholarship in the ID world.
I had a similar reaction to a recent post at ID blog Telic Thoughts, which opens: "Stephen Jay Gould wrote Wonderful World…." The book is called "Wonderful Life," and anyone who couldn't go 6 words without mangling the subject hardly seems worth much attention. Even so, school boards take these people seriously.
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Help! Help! The rest of the post has been STOLEN! Stolen, I tell you!
Or is this a cliff-hanger ending, to be revealed next week?
A worried Bob:
Yes, Professor, this is a three pipe problem.
Rattle, rattle, rattle, clunk ... YES! I throw a six, OK, my guess is that Casey Luskin did it in the sewer pipe with an outright lie.
No?
William Dumbski did it in the restaurant with pseudo-mathematical gibberish? No, he got thrown out because he wouldn't pay for his lunch.
Try again.
Andy Assfly did it with his mother in a webshite patrolled by zombies who induce unstoppable fatal laughing fits in their victims? No, that can't be right, Assfly never does anything (except fulfil his Blessed Mother wishes).
Oh dear.
Michael Behe did it in the biochemistry lab with an irreducible flagellum...?
Got it!
God did it in the desert with an apple tree!
I object to calling Casey Luskin a shyster!
As far as I can tell, he has never practiced a lick of law since he graduated from law school and became the Discovery Institute's gofer.
Besides, we professional shysters have higher ethical standards ...
I read a wonderful analysis of Sherlock Holmes, once. It pointed out that SH absolutely relied of people conforming to type. That he was a reaction to the changes that indiustrialisation an urbanisation was binging about.
Yes, even though all the old stereotypes are becoming irrelevant, never mind - there's still structure and order, the class boundaries are still as present as they ever were, and SH can tell you everyone's proper place in the world.
"Even so, school boards take these people seriously."
Of course they do. Those people also vote. They also have a profound misunderstanding of what Darwinism is. People who think that man walked with dinosaurs on earth a few thousand years ago are beyond help, but that is a very small percentage of those you are speaking of. The rest just don't understand it. Ridicule just makes people dig their heels in, no matter the logic of your position.
Wonderful World?? That was a saying used on the old "Lum & Abner" radio show, started by a con man moving through Pine Ridge. Neither Lum nor Abner was very bright. Lum was on the school board. I wonder if this show has been an inspiration to Creationists.