Dawkins’ new book

Richard Dawkins’ latest book is due out next September. The title – Childhood, Boyhood, Truth: From an African Youth to The Selfish Gene

It’s yet a new genre for Dawkins – autobiography. Mind you he has reached the age where people do tend to write memoirs and autobiographies.

Richard says  this book covers his life up to the  writing of The Selfish Gene.  There will be a second volume, published in 2015, covering the second half of his life.

I have enjoyed his other books and am looking forward to this one – especially as I have a special interest in scientific biography.

These two volumes will be a good read – he is an excellent writer and has had an interesting life, scientifically.

I wonder if it will get the same sort of emotional attacks his earlier books received?

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Overlapping Magisteria?

The relationship between science and religion, and the demarcation of their fields, or magisteria, seems to be topical at the moment. On the one had the boundary appears to be violated by religious promotion of creationism and attacks on evolutionary science. On the other, scientists are starting to make assertive comments about the nature of morality and the lack of any requirement for gods in understanding the origins of the universe and life.

This has been accompanied by debates among scientists about how to relate to religion. Whether religion should be immune from criticism or not? Should we challenge religion’s fanciful claims about reality?

So its not surprising that the concept of “Non-Overlapping Magisteria” is being discussed again.

This concept has both its supporters and critics. Different people ascribe different meanings to the concept. And there are of course political and ideological reasons for this.

Pseudoscience and anti-science nonsense

Book Review: Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk by Massimo Pigliucci

Paperback: 336 pages
Price: US$13.60; NZ$41.99
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (May 15, 2010)
Language: English
SBN-10: 0226667863
SBN-13: 978-0226667867

The “climategate” fiasco revealed an undercurrent of anti-scientific thinking in our society.  But that is just the latest issue. We have continuing problems with creationism, “alternative” medicines, and so on. Several centuries after the scientific revolution pseudoscience and anti-science attitudes are still common. The struggle for scientific literacy continues.

Massimo Pugliucci stresses this is an important issue for citizens in today’s society:

“Given the power and influence that science increasingly has in our daily lives, it is important that we as citizens of an open and democratic society learn to separate good science from bunk.

This is not a matter of intellectual curiosity, as it affects where large portions of our tax money go, and in some cases even whether people’s lives are lost as a result of nonsense.”

So, here is the motive for Pugliucici’s new book “Nonsense on Stilts.” In this he makes the case for real science, warns against the dangers of pseudoscience and provides readers with help in distinguishing the two.

Monckton requires religious certification for scientists?

Lord Christopher Monckton, the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley - Chief Policy Adviser of the SPPI

Christopher Monckton is one of the leading lights in the movement to discredit the International Panel on Climate Change, climate science and its findings on the human contribution to current climate change. Local climate change sceptics and deniers like Ian Wishart, the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, The Climate Coversation Group and bloggers pro0moting a denier platform eagerly promote his statements and videos.

Monckton is the Chief Policy Adviser of the Science & Public Policy Institute (SPPI) which disseminates propaganda aimed at discrediting climate science and scientists. So it’s worth considering what his ideological approach to science is.

Science gives us nothing!

Monckton has a rather revealing article, What is science without religion?, on the SPPI blog. Much of the article attempts to discredit science and scientists, often associating science with the worst aspects of humanity – similar to Ben Stein‘s approach in his creationist Expelled film. But the last two paragraphs hint at a very objectionable policy towards science. He says

“Precisely because the worst sort of scientists are prone to say, intolerantly, that religion is not a legitimate pastime for any scientist, many scientists have come to the view that they no longer need to adhere to any moral precept at all. Morality, they say, is the province of religion and not of science. We, they say, can do what we like as long as we can get away with it, and there is no such distinction any more as true or false, right or wrong, just or unjust.

Perhaps, therefore, no one should be allowed to practice in any of the sciences, particularly in those sciences that have become the mere political footballs of the leading pressure-groups, unless he can certify that he adheres to one of those major religions – Christianity outstanding among them – that preach the necessity of morality, and the reality of the distinction between that which is so and that which is not. For science without the morality that perhaps religion alone can give is nothing.”

So what can we take from this. He is saying without religion, specifically Christianity, one has no morality or concept of truth. Really he is proposing that science should be subordinate to relgion, to its concept of truth and morality. Instead of scientists determining the accuracy of their ideas by testing against reality they must test them against religious “truth” and “morals.”

Climate change denial similar to intelligent design

This is exactly the approach taken by the anti-science activists of the intelligent design movement. While I don’t by any means wish to equate very climate change sceptic with intelligent design, Monckton’s position does give some ideological explanation to the observation that many climate change deniers are also Christian apologists and intelligent design/creationism proponents.

So just imagine of Mockton had his way. Scientists would have to have religious certification, capable of being withdrawn anytime their findings contradict the religious “truth” promulgated by the Church.

Imagined lining up every six moths for your “scientific warrant of fitness.” Being examined by the local Bishop, Priest, Parson, Iman, Monk, etc., and, depending on how they thought you did in their test, relying on their accreditation, their stamp of approval.

I guess that’s one way of eliminating climate change!

What a silly man.

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The “supernatural” and dogmatism in science

Another post repeated from 18 months ago:

Do scientists ever concern themselves over terms like ‘materialist,’ ‘natural,’ or ‘supernatural’? I don’t think so – at least those scientists working at the coal face. I have never heard any scientist posing the question – “is this phenomenon ‘natural’ or ’supernatural’?” before investigating something.

Yet today science is attacked by some people for limiting itself to only ‘natural’ phenomena. Intelligent design (ID) proponents (and they aren’t the only ones) rail against the ‘materialism’ of science. They demand that science should be changed to include ‘supernatural’ explanations.

These are attempts to introduce dogma into science.

Distorting Darwin

Poor old Charles Darwin. In this year of celebration, when we mark the 200th year since his birth and the 150th year since the publication of his great work The Origin of Species, he is being subjected to a real deluge of misrepresentation. The ideological opponents of science, particularly evolutionary science, have been working overtime to quote him out of context, to cherry pick quotes, to “prove” he was a horrible person and that the “materialist” heart of science must be ripped out.

Behe’s “objectionable” interview reinstated

A few days ago (see Behe’s “objectionable” interview) I complained about the “interview” with Michael behe on Boggingheads.tv. About how pathetic the interviewer John McWhorter was. The interview was pulled, with an apology by McWorter:

“John McWhorter feels, with regret, that this interview represents neither himself, Professor Behe, nor Bloggingheads usefully, takes full responsibility for same, and has asked that it be taken down from the site. He apologizes to all who found its airing objectionable.”

As I said then:

“And now that the mistake of scheduling such a silly programme had occurred – why compound it by deletion? That just encourages the paranoia of the “expelled” brigade. And it removes the evidence for how these people will do anything to scam respectable intellectual fora.”

Fortunately, Bloggingheads.tv has now put the interview back up. With the following comment from Robert Wright, Editor-in-chief of bloggingheads.tv:

“This diavlog has now been re-posted. The decision to remove it from the site was made by BhTV staff while I was away and unavailable for consultation. (Yes, even in a wired world it’s possible to take yourself off the grid. Here’s how I did it.) It’s impossible to say for sure whether, in the heat of the moment, I would have made a decision different from the staff’s decision. But on reflection I’ve decided that removing this particular diavlog from the site is hard to justify by any general principle that should govern our future conduct. In other words, it’s not a precedent I’d want to live with. At the same time, I can imagine circumstances under which a diavlog would warrant removal from the site. So this episode has usefully spurred me and the BhTV staff to try to articulate some rules of the road for this sort of thing. Within a week, the results will be posted, along with some related thoughts on the whole idea behind Bloggingheads.tv, here.”

See also:
Behe’s Department Position on Evolution and “Intelligent Design”
Bye to Bloggingheads
Bloggingheads and the Old Challenges of New Tools

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Behe’s “objectionable” interview

Image via Wikipedia

What’s going on with bloggingheads.tv? I usually enjoy the programmes, regularly download the Science Saturday audios and keep an eye on the rest.

Yesterday I downloaded the discussion between Michael Behe and John McWhorter.  Listened to it on my daily walk. I don’t know what observers thought because I must have been swearing and muttering to myself. It was the sort of intelligent design (ID) promotion you get from the Discovery Institute. If you have ever listened to the ID the Future podcasts you will know what I mean. Case Luskin’s breathless exclamations as they misrepresent science and those evil Dariwnists.

Dawkins bashing season upon us?

Prepare yourself for another round of Dawkins-bashing. That’s not to imply there isn’t plenty of that already. And it does get pretty farcical. A commenter on a local apologetics blog recently claimed Dawkins “must be hopping mad and upset because we are hearing so little of him of late. He has been exposed as the emperor without clothes.” And this on a post which was devoted to repeating Micheal Ruse’s recent attack on Dawkins! These apologists will use anything, won’t they. And an atheist like Ruse becomes a valued ally when he is spouting his professional jealousy of Dawkins in this illogical manner (see Why I think the New Atheists are a Bloody Disaster).

This new round of attacks will be a response to Dawkins new book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution– out next month. In fact the attacks have already started pre-publication (see Is Richard Dawkins a stage magician?). Nothing new – such hostile reviewers usually never bother reading the book anyway. So look forward to a deluge of such “reviews.”

I am sure this new book will sell well. And it looks like it will be very informative about evolutionary science and helpful in raising awareness of its attackers and their arguments.

If you want a preview – have a read of the extract from The Greatest Show on Earth at Times On-line. Its the first part ofg a serialisation of the book (see The truth dogs reveal about evolution for the second part)

There are also three audio files of Dawkins and His Wife Lalla Ward reading from the introduction (Part 1; Part 2; and Part 3).

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“Historical science”

Here’s another faulty argument from The ghetto of apologetics “science”. A trick that creationists use to discredit scientific findings and justify by default their own “supernatural” explanations. This is their mechanical classification of science into “historical science” and “experimental science.” The creationist NZ blog True Paradigm was promoting this recently (see Types of science).

The usual philosophical “authority” used for this classification is Stephen Meyers, Executive Officer and co-founder of the Discovery Institute‘s Center for science and Culture. The intelligent design think tank and poliitcal promoter. He outlined it in his 1990 Ph D thesis “Of clues and causes: a methodological interpretation of origin of life studies.”