Comments on Skeptobot: Skeptics in the Pub Review - Paul Taylor from Ans...

If you are open to having a guest blog poster plea...

2010-12-29T07:13:40.647Z

If you are open to having a guest blog poster please reply and let me know. I will provide you with unique content for your blog, thanks.

It's a form of ecclesiastical spam to all intensiv...

2008-10-15T16:27:00.000Z

It's a form of ecclesiastical spam to all intensive purposes.

It may seem obviously illogical, refutable and badly intentioned, but if you spread something out through so many sources eventually someone bites.

I agree darkwinter, it's not a simple problem at a...

2008-10-15T15:37:00.000Z

I agree darkwinter, it's not a simple problem at all, and involves a lot of effort. But I think we are up to it.

@ mojo: I was stuck in a corner and didn't get a long enough look at that slide to be sure what he was saying, so I don't feel I can condemn him for it. But I got the same impression.

"Now in this situation, that's fine. The audience ...

2008-10-14T20:53:00.000Z

"Now in this situation, that's fine. The audience is experienced with science enough to see the game he is playing. But what has scared me since is pondering on how that talk is normally used."

Did you notice his slide with the full title of On the Origin of Species, with the second half highlighted, that was shown when he was talking about racism?

Hey hey. Followed your link from Skepchick.

2008-10-14T14:40:00.000Z
Hey hey. Followed your link from Skepchick.

I think the answer to your final question - which is something I too very much took away from the talk last night - has to be about education.

We need to raise the level of public debate and public knowledge of science; it's the only way I can see of preventing - or at least limiting - those seeds taking root.

How we go about that gets a little more sticky. Certainly one area which I think needs swift and comprehensive change is science in the media. But then, there's an argument that the media is only dumbed-down because people are more receptive to it that way - which brings us right back to education.

If we can get children more interested in science and more capable of using critical thinking skills, then we're on the right path to a long-term rational solution. But, again, going into the "how" of that gets awfully sticky.