Comments | lord_pasternack: Evangelising science

lord_pasternack

Evangelising science

Mar 03, 2008 04:41

I'm up late again tonight. In fact, I'm still sobering up from a few drinks a few hours ago - but I must post. I have a screaming sound in my ears, my palms are sweating and I am twitching. Desmond Morris, as much as I hate to pick on him, said something absolutely absurd about genetics, that, if taken seriously, would have anxious men accusing ( Read more... )

Comments 13

Bonobos anonymous March 7 2008, 06:26:55 UTC

Just one question: Where do the bonobos feature in all this?

Popular science vs. reference or text books anonymous March 11 2008, 21:36:25 UTC

Not having personally studied genetics, I can't say for sure just how correct that all is, but my wife did 3 years of undergraduate biology, including some genetics, before the human biology became a bit too practical and we demonstrated how antibiotics can deactivate the pill. But I digress ( ... )

Re: Popular science vs. reference or text books lord_pasternack March 12 2008, 04:16:21 UTC

Thank you for poking me with that stick, dear anonymous poster. You just know I couldn't ignore a comment written so deliciously provocatively, and I suspect you are someone who knows me fairly well and calculated this comment to get a decent intellectual rise out of me instead of the recent monosyllabic grunts of "I'm preoccupied..." Well FUCK YOU - I was planning for an early night tonight. (Just kidding.)

To start, you're right, most intelligent beings will probably take it as low-brow pinch-of-salt pop science, even though it doesn't come with a sticker on the front warning to this effect - but what of those who buy it, and buy the non-science in it, too... And from a man who talks about being passionate about communicating science without distorting it, it quite takes the biscuit.

To be honest, I think he'd actually be more insulted if I said what you're saying on my blog, rather than just effortlessly mowed down his argument. If I do that, then I'm implying simply that his argument is flawed. If I do as you say, then I'm ( ... )

Re: Popular science vs. reference or text books anonymous March 12 2008, 15:57:23 UTC

Too true, and you're quite right about who I am, of course. But, having put that to you by e-mail previously and heard your initial response, I thought it worth mentioning here too, so that whoever else may be reading your blog and/or his book (they'd have to be doing the former, of course) could partake of our discussion, particularly your points, which are not only pertinent, but even better expressed this time than they were the first time around. Indeed, all science should be peer reviewed and his is evidently not - maybe he feels as if he is above the rest and without peers, which would be a very sad way to go at the end of such a long and productive career. Must admit I overlooked the publisher's synopsis of The Naked Man when looking at it this morning, and its reference to it being packed full of scientific fact. At least the synopsis of Baby only refers to "facts ( ... )

Re: Popular science vs. reference or text books lord_pasternack March 12 2008, 20:59:11 UTC

Christ no - I'm not offended by yourself, I'm not angry at you, I'm not upset. I just thought you were cleverly playing me for a bit more reciprocal communication, that's all.

As for peer-reviewing - it is a commendable scientific practice, but it isn't absolutely always necessary. Something can be self-evidently true, and it doesn't necessarily need ten of your pals to concur on the matter. And as a lot of Desmond's ideas are neither falsifiable nor quantifiable, the men in the science faculty want nothing to do with them.

A weakness of Desmond's is that his degree of watertightness in thinking is inconsistent throughout his books. He'll cast a very healthy scepticism on one hypothesis on one page, and on the very next page he'll quite heavily endorse some piffle conjecture and and offer some tenuous "evidence" for it. It goes without saying that this stems from subjectivity and not objectivity - and it certainly isn't the ideal fruit of someone who likes to think they take science seriously. Plus, he appears in need of spending ( ... )

Thread 5

mottledpigeon March 17 2008, 21:35:25 UTC

This is Vikki from RDF! Be my LJ friend?

Nooooo lord_pasternack March 18 2008, 15:41:18 UTC

No - it's lordpasternack. What made you think it was Vikki?

Re: Nooooo mottledpigeon March 19 2008, 08:45:18 UTC

Are you taking the piss?

*I'm* Vikki. Meeee.

Re: Nooooo lord_pasternack March 22 2008, 16:00:14 UTC

Oh. Got the wrong end of the stick. How dawkish. Will add. :D

Thread 7