Evangelising science

[lord_pasternack]

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

Comments

Re: Popular science vs. reference or text books

[lord_pasternack]

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 more time doing scientific research before putting pen to paper - and that isn't a good sign either.

Don't get me wrong - I hold nothing against the guy except that which I've mentioned already. I do find him fascinaing and amusing, and I'm quite certain he does try to be correct in what he writes. And I'm quite happy to assist him, and anyone else for that matter, in that respect. Heck, I'd proof-read his books for free. What a shame he thinks I'm a cunt.

Re: Popular science vs. reference or text books

[lord_pasternack]

That is true, he isn't writing for scientific journals any more, after all. Despite having been through plenty of postgradification, I have to admit I don't know the situation re. books by established scientists or those that may describe themselves as such, such as Desmond. I guess there does come a stage where things don't get reviewed, but they still ought to be properly researched and watertight, especially if either the author or the publisher is going to make any claim to factuatily, let alone scientific facts! It certainly isn't the kind of book most scientists would care to peer review, but then I was never in the field of anthrolopology or behavioural science of any kind, so I'm not exactly talking about stuff I know about either. So I'll shut up now...

Na-night :-)