Nerd Fight!
Inbred Jesus Cultists vs. Monkey-Loving Darwinists is so 1925. Astrophysicists vs. Ptolemists is the happening pop edu-clash!
Highly evolved anthroblogger John Hawks takes umbrage at a proposal to “de-emphasize Darwin” in order to lessen the ideological overtones in the debate over evolutionary science. Chron of Higher Ed:
In his controversial book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins insisted that scientists should work to dispel the idea that God exists. Without religion, Mr. Dawkins has said, the conflict between scientists’ beliefs about evolution and the fundamentalist religious belief that a supernatural intelligence created all life would vanish. Now an evolutionary biologist has proposed a different tack. In a meeting last weekend in San Francisco, he suggested scientists might win the argument by ditching Darwin.
“Evolutionary biology is a branch of natural science that is far beyond anything Darwin could have imagined,” said the evolutionary biologist, Ulrich Kutschera, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Friday.
Mr. Kutschera, a professor of plant physiology and evolutionary biology at the University of Kassel in Germany, said scientists should emphasize that evolution is a fully formed field of biological study “built up by generations of non-dogmatic scientists.” Terms like Darwinism can make evolutionary biology seem like an ideology, rather than a focus of empirical work, he said.
Few think that Darwin himself is such a divisive figure. But at a session on growing anti-evolutionary sentiment in Europe, scholars from both sides of the Atlantic agreed that scientists should change the way they present their views.
Pressure from religious groups to teach alternatives to evolution, such as intelligent design, in science classes once seemed mostly an American problem, but that is no longer true.
Hawks fires back with a proposal to de-emphasize Einstein to disarm the Ptolemists:
In his controversial book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins insisted that scientists should work to dispel the idea that God exists. Without religion, Mr. Dawkins has said, the conflict between quantum physicists’ beliefs about chance and the cryptoreligious belief that “God does not play dice” would vanish. Now an astrophysicist has proposed a different tack. In a meeting last weekend in San Francisco, he suggested scientists might win the argument by ditching Einstein.
“Astrophysics is a branch of natural science that is far beyond anything Einstein could have imagined,” said the cosmologist, Rebus Antikythera, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Friday.
Mr. Antikythera, a professor of cosmology and astrophysics at the University of Dornhelm in Germany, said scientists should emphasize that astrophysics is a fully formed field of biological study “built up by generations of non-dogmatic scientists.” Terms like general relativity can make astrophysics seem like an ideology, rather than a focus of empirical work, he said.
Few think that Einstein himself is such a divisive figure. But at a session on growing anti-relativistic sentiment in Europe, scholars from both sides of the Atlantic agreed that scientists should change the way they present their views.
Pressure from religious groups to teach alternatives to general relativity, such as Ptolemaic epicycles, in science classes once seemed mostly an American problem, but that is no longer true.
…
In September a Ptolemism group called Truth in Motion mailed teaching packets that promote geocentric physics as an alternative to general relativity to every secondary school in Britain. In October, Dean Wormer, a member of the European Parliament from Poland who has a Ph.D. in planetary science, organized a workshop for other members of parliament called “Teaching Newtonian Theory in Europe: Is Your Child Being Indoctrinated in the Classroom?”
And a book called Physics - A Critical Textbook, which describes a version of geocentrism, has been published in Germany and has been translated into 10 European languages, Mr. Antikythera said.
The book presents the view that a creator made basic spheres of the universe: sublunary and superlunary, for example, and then harmonic vibrations from the crystal spheres caused slight scintillations in the position of fixed stars, causing the phenomenon of “parallax”.
The belief in human uniqueness lies at the heart of the problem, said Don J. Fuller, a professor of integrative studies at Minnesota State University, in a separate briefing on scientific literacy. “As you begin to really unravel the mysteries of this world, the true understanding of the structure and nature of life will be a challenge. These issues come closer to people.”
Antonia Rockelyn, an associate professor of systematic theology at the Lutheran School of Theology at Boston, agreed. “It is the dethronement of humans that is so scary,” she said.
Topics: anthronerdism, geekism, science
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:17 pm on Wednesday, February 21, 2007
25 Responses to “Nerd Fight!”
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February 21st, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Atheism is just another faith based religion :P
February 21st, 2007 at 11:02 pm
God Dammit, Grimmy. How’d ya get the smily face to post?
February 21st, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Good for Hawks.
February 21st, 2007 at 11:09 pm
El Cid:
You mean :P ?
February 21st, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Hell yes, I mean that thing.
February 21st, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Lemme see here…:)
February 21st, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Shit!
February 21st, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Glad you guys managed to stumble over from Blair’s place and raise the level of discourse.
February 21st, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Well tomorrow we may even get Grimmy to take Dat course. He’s interposed, that way.
February 21st, 2007 at 11:52 pm
BRB, gotta grab a Heink…ummm, Hieni…screw it, Dutch Beer. Excuseeee me, it says Holland. What the hell are ‘they’ hiding from? I mean, HEY Dutch, Holland THE Netherlands…come on, huh? Pick one and stay with it. You guys didn’t publish ‘THE Cartoons’, so pick one, will ya’?
February 21st, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Dutch, Holland and The Netherlands are all the same place? Well hell, no wonder I could never find all of them on the same map at the same time. Silly furriners.
And as to that comment by Critt.
Aint there laws against discoursing in public?
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:09 am
Not around here. I think I’m going to crack one of them Sumerian meads. Where the heck is Wrongwright anyway?
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:23 am
Yeh know… the thing about that particular blend of mead… it’s so loaded with mash dregs it feels like you’re drinking a meal.
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:24 am
Tax season is nigh upon us, and wronwright is a …..shudder……a tax lawyer.
So take another drink of that mead, Jules, and hope that the Tardis keys remain securely locked up.
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:35 am
Bunch of damn drunks.
Where’s my snifter?
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:42 am
Hey, you know what? IF we could manage to get ahold of those Tardis keys, and IF we could figure out exactly when it was that Andrea absconded with wronwright’s spear and shield and IF we got a bit lucky…
we could maybe pop back into time just moments before and steal the spear and shield before Andrea did and hold them for return to wronwright and thereby secure my elevation in the VRWC!
Then I could be y’all’s inside guy :P
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:52 am
Grimmy, will you stop that smiley shit…LOL. Oppps, time for another Dutch beer. Whatever the hell it is. Says something about being a Logger…check that Lager.
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:00 am
TRJs
I thought wronie was a roofer…LOL. Could have utilized his talents (Tax) several years ago, had I known. Thank God, found another brilliant but a banana CPA with IRS credentials…two year running gun battle with the IRS. Even had my two U.S. Senators at the time (Florida) involved…only then did the IRS start calling me Mr. El Cid. Prior to, I was known as Hey You (and that was the nicest term).
But, I beat them, caught that lovely branch of govenment falsingfying my files.
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:02 am
Geez, I think we found a lovely place to have a driking thread…Cirttenden’s Tavern On the Green.
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:04 am
falsingfying is archaic German for falsifying, btw.
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:08 am
:P
“Grimmy, will you stop that smiley shit…” :P
:P I have no clue :P what you’re talking about. :P
:P :P :P :P
You feeling ok?
:P :P :P :P
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:08 am
dang, I blew it. Gave away the secret code.
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:49 am
Jesus, what a show off. Forget the damn smilies, where the hell is your horsey? That damn steed could sure stomp out answers. Had we put money in that night at Blair’s Bar Grimmy, we could have been millionaires.
Speaking of horses, think it’s time to make like horse shit and hit the trail. Pleasant evening, all. May your tomorrow be even more pleasant.
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:40 am
Grimmy’s horse can drink here anytime. So can Grimmy, if he’s with the horse.
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:15 am
Damn it all! I sold Doppleganger a while back. He kept kicking holes in the walls and wouldn’t patch them up. I got a good deal from a french restaurant.
I’m looking at getting another horse but I doubt he’ll be able to count as well as dopple. That horse was almost certified as an accounter after all.
This horse I’m looking at now cant count but it dont kick holes in walls so much either…and it can do a pretty good repair job on drywall anyway.