I’m not trying to be condescending but have you actually studied any hard science professionally or read up about the various philosophies of science? Science is trusted not because any “man on the street” can in the 3 hours he spends in a museam can quickly verify two competing theories and decide based on a critical evaluation which he regards as right. Science is trusted through the process of peer review where theories are vetted by the peers in his field who have spent many years studying the question and are familiar with all the prior work done in the field.
There are a number of other professions which by law we have decided that the average person is not qualified to give an opinion on. If I build a house and do not get a professionally certified architect to sign off on it, I could later incur criminal damages if that house collapses. There is nothing controversial about creating an elite group of experts who are capable of dispensing wisdom from up high.
First of all, we’ve almost completely diverged from actually discussing the original issue. That said, it’s an interesting topic, and one that is not particularly cut and dried.
Suppose that Joe Bob is a white supremacist, and a very well-read, clever, and persuasive one. He’s spent years writing his masterwork, a 10 page essay about why blacks are inferior. It cherrypicks anecdotes and details to present what appears to be an inredibly compelling case for the racial inferiority of blacks. Plus, it’s charming and witty and full of droll illustrations and cartoons, and is generally a blast to read. Plus Joe Bob himself is friendly, charismatic, charming and generally seems like a decent and bright guy.
I think you and I both agree that if Joe Bob registers on the SDMB and posts a link to his essay, what should happen is, nothing. Or rather, nothing out of the ordinary. Assuming he obeys general board guidelines, he should be (and, I hope, would be), free to promote his views as much as he wanted, to argue for them and defend them and debate them. And if he managed to convince a few people that he was right, well, heck, that’s why we call it a free marketplace of ideas.
Similarly, if he wants to print up copies of his essay and distribute them on streetcorners, write letters to the editor, stand up in public-question-time in city council meetings, post his blog on the web, or anything else of that sort, he has every right to do so. I would never ever ever support any kind of restraint on any kind of activity of that sort.
BUT, suppose he approached a junior high school principal and said “I see you have a series of assemblies where people can come and speak about their views… I’d like to present my views at such an assembly”, I do NOT think he should be allowed to do so. Even if he were extra-clever and said “and because I know my views are controversial, and want students to make up their own mind, why don’t you pick a black member of your faculty, and he or she can have equal time at this assembly to attempt to refute my points”, I still don’t think that would be close to appropriate.
I’m going to sound like a totally stuffed shirt PC motherf***er for saying this, but, public schools are not always the place for ideas to be debated. Chlidren are extremely impressionable, and if someone comes up and gives a polished, crafted, kid-friendly hour-long presentation about white supremacy, even if someone tries to refute it, presumably with an hour-long far-less-polished recitation of boring old facts and logical fallacies and stuff, there’s a good chance that at least a few kids will come out white supremacists. I agree that it sounds very 1984 to say that kids should be protected FROM IDEAS, but, well, I guess that in certain contexts I think it’s true.
Anyhow, the Smithsonian thing, at least as it initially appeared to be, falls somewhere on the spectrum between a blog and a public school assembly.
There’s a very interesting section in the book Why People Believe Weird Things about debates between intelligent design advocates and supporters of evolution (ie, scientists). In many cases, the ID advocates handily won such debates, because they had done a very good job of picking the toughest and most easily understandable apparent-contradictions in evolution, had a polished spiel, a lot of ready answers, etc. The person debating pro-evolution, knowing that they were right (because they ARE right), went in basically unprepared, assuming that being right was enough, and got their clocks cleaned. I’m not at all certain I’d want junior high school or younger children to be presented with even a FAIR debate between ID and evolution advocates, because, in the very act of presenting it, the school/museum is saying “here are two viewpoints. Watch them be debated, and pick one”, much less a debate in which the ID advocate seems to come out ahead.
That is the worst analogy I have ever heard in my life.
It is simply silly – and offensive – to compare a racist agenda with religious beliefs about how the universe began. Racism effects people’s lives. As far as I know, the Big Bang vs. Adam & Eve debate hasn’t made a single difference in how anyone carries out their day to day business, outside of the laboratory or the church.
It’s also a lame analogy because it has already been shown (and cited in this thread more than three times) that this silly film is NOT being put up as an exhibition in a Smithsonian museum. It is an invitation-only event that it taking place in an auditorium, with a reception to follow. A private event has absolutely nothing to do with schools or the SDMB. The only kids who are going to be there are those who are invited by the producers of the film.
That’s interesting. This seems like the best option for the Smithsonian, since having already agreed to allow the film to be shown, they can’t easily renege on that without perhaps being subject to legal action on the part of the Discovery Institute.
The highest level official mentioned as having reviewed the film is the Associate Director for Science and Collections at the Museum of Natural History. Although un-named in the Post article, this turns out to be Hans Shues. I am surprised he would have approved it, since he has already been involved in a controversy with the Discovery Institute.
The very worst one? Wow. You must not get out much.
Please read my previous posts in the thread, and Shodan’s responses to them, to see the context in which this analogy was proposed. Shodan was saying “I’m never afraid of any idea and want 100% free debate of everything in all places and all times” (effectively) and I was trying to make the point that that’s not necessarily the case, depending on the context. I was not attempting to propose a direct analogy.
Yes, obviously. Reread the very first sentence of my post that pissed you off so much.
Yes, but for better or for worse, the Smithsonian is viewed by the general public as a Scientific Establishment which means that it has a duty towards the real Scientific Establishment to only promogulate views that are generally accepted by scientific peers to be correct. There was an example upthread about a conspiracy group using the cachet of the United Nations to lend support to their views, even when it was wholly unjustified. The Smithsonian letting this go ahead is going to lead to the exact same thing.
Yes. A bribe or a fee to look the other way or to use the museum’s good name to lend legitimacy to an absurd postulate.
I didn’t say it would “equate to censorship”; I said it would “open up the charge of censorship.” I personally don’t feel it is censorship, but not everyone makes that fine a distinction.
Well, they screwed up and are pretty much stuck now. If they signed an agreement with the Discovery Institute, they may not have much choice but to let them use it.
I agree that they shouldn’t have allowed this situation to arise in the first place, but since it has there may not be much more they can do at this point.
No, they’re not turning down a donation - they’re turning down one with booby-trapped strings attached. As I’ve already pointed out, there is absolutely no way they could have accepted the “donation” from Randi based on the condition he required. If he actually wants to make a donation with no strings attached, or wants to make a donation to present a counter-case to the Discovery Institute, I’m sure the Smithsonian wouldn’t have a problem accepting it.
No, I have not. But I don’t see why that should disqualify me from holding an opinion, especially since we are talking about a presentation aimed at the general public.
We aren’t talking quantum chromodynamics here. We are talking about a presentation aimed at the general public. And I can’t see why it is so darn difficult to show the holes in intelligent design if it is as weak a theory as everyone seems to assume.
Well, I am pretty sure you don’t mean it this way, but are you suggesting that people should be forbidden by law from expressing an opinion about evolutionary biology unless they have been licensed by the state? And, no offense I hope, but I bet the Inquisition used much the same analogy when deciding what topics were available for public discussion, and when the official orthodoxy should be enforced.
I don’t think analogies about architecture work terribly well here. Houses are not going to fall if someone fails to toe the party line in every aspect of theoretical science.
No, not exactly “in all places and all times”, which is why your example of Joe Bob the charismatic white supremacist doing his thing in the public schools is not very telling (IMO). We are not talking about lying to children. This film is what amounts to a public presentation for adults.
The Smithsonian is, at least in part, a public institution aimed at scientific education for adults. So, at least in part, is the JREF. What the whole thrust of the argument to date seems to be is that scientific educational efforts aimed at a wide audience are a hopeless cause, because anyone except a narrow range of the highly educated elite is too dumb to benefit by it. Which I disbelieve.
And frankly, a lot of the arguments in this thread seem to establish that JREF really is afraid of debating ID proponents. The IDers are apparently such slick debaters that the mere presentation of their ideas in a movie establishes their case so strongly in the public mind that no amount of counter argument can remove it. So we don’t even try, we just try and bribe people to shut them down.
Perhaps as a former creationist, my view as to the efficacy of evidence-based argument is overly optimistic. But maybe not.
My apologies if I have done anything inappropriate to the forum. At least it didn’t go to the Pit.
No, of course your not disqualified. But unless you’ve had some intimate experiance with the process of doing science, or reading about science, it’s quite hard to get to grips with the entire process. Just because evolution is currently in the limelight right now does not in any way mean that the general public is any more qualifed to talk about it than quantum chromodynamics. Especially when the other side is not willing to play fair and uses as many dirty tricks as it can get away with. Intelligent Design is a weak theory to scientists who have spent many years in the field and have digested many hundreds of different strands of evidence that point convincingly towards evolution. But it’s simply not possible to present this evidence in museum format.
No, I’m not advocating suppressing free speech, the very notion of suppresion of free thought is completely anti-theatical to the scientific process. I was merely poniting out that certain professions have done a great deal to create a sanctioned body of the elite who’s job it is to dispense wisdom from on high. In architecture, that protection comes through the professional certifying bodies. In science, that comes through professional, peer-reviewed journals. However, in neither case should it be expected that every aspect of the profession should be able to withstand challenge from “the general public”. It’s generally accepted that “the general public” does not have the training to be able to give a reasoned analysis on the problem.
Again, It helps to have some understanding about the philosophies of science. Science is not a democratic process. Science does not rely on public opinion to be correct. When we speak of Science, we really mean three things. One is the process of thought and reasoning, approaching the world from a sceptical but open point of mind, trying to find theories that fit the facts and have maximum explanative power. Second is the vast body of knowledge that has been acquired via the use of the scientific method. And third is the application of this scientific method to expand the frontiers of this knowledge. When we talk about scientific education in the museum sense, we mean the first two which are admirable qualities for every citizen to have. When we talk about scientific education in the university sense, we mean the third which requires, according to our top universities, the better part of a decade to learn, thus implicitly creating our “educational elite”.
Yes, JREF IS afraid to debate creationists because it doesn’t matter what the quality of the arguments are, just the process of debating lends credibility to the creationists viewpoint so JREF would lose even if they won. Scientists have tried debating creationist’s many times before, it’s simply not possible in a 30 minute movie to present a fair and accurate view of the state of science to an uneduated crowd while at the same time rebutting the blatant disinformation that the creationists are putting out. You wouldn’t expect me to be able to teach you how to repair an engine in 30 minutes, why would you expect that a quite complex and broad scientific theory could be presented in that time?
The Smithsonian is for all things – art, history, science, everything. It is very reasonable for them to present the ID theory right along with the evolution theory. I say great.
It may come as a surprise, but over 90% of the World’s population believe in some sort of ID. Why should minority groups (evolutionists) want to be only game in town, what are they afraid of, being exposed as wrong?
Which strikes me as an argument that the Smithsonian, or anyone else below the university level, shouldn’t be teaching evolutionary biology at all, since it is so far above the grasp of the average person.
Frankly, if a thirty minute movie reduces the JREF debaters to such gibbering incoherence, I suspect the weakness of the case against ID is the least of their problems.
I guess I have a higher opinion of the average Smithsonian attendee than is common hereabouts.
Nobody’s saying they shouldn’t be teaching evolution, they’re saying that this is not the place which the merits of ID should properly be evaluated. That belongs to the universities and the academic journals and they have resoundingly said that ID is bunk. As I said, just because evolution is in the limelight doesn’t mean it’s any less complicated than any other scientific theory. If i asked you, or the genreal public to decide whether MOND or quantum gravity or string theory sounded more convincing, could you? What about the benifits of a RISC vs CISC architecture? or their opinion on how likely room temperature super-conductors are?
Evolution is just as complicated and, I don’t care how high your opinion of the general population is, they just plain aren’t qualified to debate the merits of any of those questions.