It would explain a couple of articles I've seen recently. One, linked to by Making Light[1] (who, as always, has some cogent remarks in it[1]) is an in interview in the Guardian with a would be book burier Gerald Allen, a man incensed by the possibility of students finding as positive portrayal of homosexuality in a school book. So incensed, in fact, that he feels comfortable recommending that you "Dig a hole and dump them in it". The books, of course.
This man should not be news, he should be living his life far the glare of any publicity obsessively handing-out poorly mimeographed pamphlets and furtively seeking out rent boys that will do that special thing for him, but it turns out he's invited to meet Bush this week. It looks to be a meeting of minds.
Of course, this is all to protect the children. However when liberal atheist scientists try to prevent children from being lied to by creationists Voltaire gets wheeled out for his "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" party piece. Jay Bryant's piece actually makes a very nice contrast to the Jamie Whyte article below. You should read that and then Jay's and see if you can number all the logical fallacies and the plain errors of fact that Jay commits. I think you'll be unpleasantly surprised.
There's some particularly egregious guilt by association going on:
Liberals still profess to believe in the marketplace of ideas if the marketer in question is, say Robert Mapplethorpe, Larry Flynt or Michael Moore.
See what he's done there? Larry Flint, of course, being a pornographer, has his reputation stretched to cover Mapplethorpe and Moore, and Moore takes quite the hit because, as Mapplethorpe has been accused of pornography, the suggestion is that Moore must be a pornographer too. That's quite the ad hominem attack.
Further down science itself is called into question. Quantum mechanics is wheeled out to cast doubt upon the whole scientific edifice. Einstein is invoked. See, he didn't understand quantum mechanics and thought it was bad. Einstein was the cleverest of all scientists and yet physicists accept quantum physic so something iffy must be going on. Which is the kind of blether put out by people who have difficulty comprehending classical physics, never mind an area of science that very few can claim to totally understand.
There's plenty that's wrong about Jay's examples of science in turmoil, but the main thing is this: Science is a process, it's way of finding out more about the world and building models to help understand it. Finding that there's a problem with the model in certain conditions and trying to find ways to correct that model doesn't mean that science is cast into doubt, it means that science is working.
Anyway, having cast doubt on science and liberals Jay goes in for the killer blow. A book published 8 years ago cast doubt on Darwin and Darwinism, liberal scientists didn't like this, therefore Darwinism is wrong and so are liberals.
Sometimes, I get all curmudgeonly about "begging the question" not meaning what it used to, and, if there was any need for the old meaning (a fallacy of reasoning committed when one assumes the truth of what one is attempting to prove in an argument), the last few paragraphs of Jay's article demand it's immediate reinstatement.
That's quite a journey, though, isn't it? We've gone from some scientist being upset that a book that is a load of old tosh[2] is being sold as fact in a government institution to science is bankrupt in a handful of paragraphs. Not that any of the arguments are more than innuendo, but, really, that's how right-wingers in the 21st century operate.
[1] Teresa calls Mr Allen "stupider than dirt", the dirt community has already lodged a complaint.
[2] And it is tosh. I personally don't mind the idea that God was somehow responsible for the Grand Canyon, but his responsibility stops at making a universe where it was possible to happen.
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