Saturday, July 09, 2011

In Which I Explain Things to Claire Berlinski and Paul Nelson

Claire Berlinski, right-wing "journalist" and daughter of the nonentity David Berlinski, thinks something is strange because real scientists don't want to appear in her home video with creationist Paul Nelson.

Since you seem rather dense, I will try to explain it to you, Claire. It's because creationists and anti-evolutionists have a history of making phony and dishonest videos, and because real scientists have better things to do than to appear in your propaganda film. It's because your undergraduate degree in history and doctorate in international relations don't even remotely prepare you to understand the scientific issues you claim to be interested in. And having creationist philosopher Paul Nelson there probably didn't help things, either.

Claire, Claire... you'd do much better if, instead of trying to "expose" evolution, you actually read some evolutionary biology textbooks. Futuyma is a good start.

14 comments:

David said...

She has quite a collection of ridiculous interviews from this "Great Expectations" conference, you can see them all at her site, or on youtube. Nothing particularly new ID-wise.

It was apparently a top secret conference (in a villa in Tuscany) to discuss materialism in science or some such. It was in NO WAY organized by the DI, despite the fact that only DI fellows appear in the video interviews. And all these awesome scientists showed up, but only with assurances of anonymity, for fear of nefarious Darwinist reprisals. And apparently there were also secret venture capitalists, eager to invest in ID biotech but who also needed to remain anonymous. and one of them had a helicopter! and it was in Tuscany! 'cause important science conferences must always involve men travelling in helicopters to fancy villas, that's how you know its important science!

Nilou said...

Afraid? No. I just wouldn't want to waste time with people that boring or stupid.

half-entity said...

Nonentity: A person regarded as being of no importance or significance.

Ouch!

Jeffrey, on several occasions, you said that insults should be backed up with facts. So here's your opportunity.

David said...

Hah, I think I could survive at least three days with Paul Nelson if it was at the Borgo Finocchieto (where they stayed, according to Berlinski). The whole week, though, and the madness might start to creep in. The advantages of a "research institution" that doesn't spend any money on research I suppose.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

half-entity:

I guess you didn't bother to follow the link provided, did you?

SLC said...

Claire, Claire... you'd do much better if, instead of trying to "expose" evolution, you actually read some evolutionary biology textbooks. Futuyma is a good start.

Actually, before tackling a textbook, she might want to read Jerry Coynes' book, "Why Evolution is True," or Ken Millers' book, "Only a Theory," which were written for a general audience.

Reginald Selkirk said...

"Great Expectations" conference,

For realsies? They named their conference after a work of fiction?

half-entity said...

Sorry, Jeffery. Your post has three links, but when I opened up the comments, the first link wasn't underlined in blue, so I didn't know about it.

Chris Booth said...

This is the same in kind and degree as a group of "scientists" claiming that their careers are threatened because they "defy orthodoxy" in astronomy with their position that stars are holes in the dome of the sky through which we see the fire that burns beyond. They are not iconoclasts, they are shills for the very PoV that imprisoned Galileo and burned Bruno at the stake. They are cranks and they have no argument to present but fallacy. That is why the "young scientists" don't want to be identified. They are cranks and frauds and wallow in intellectual dishonesty.

Bill Anderson said...

I think what's going on here is the DI offered a junket to Tuscan paradise where the only requirement is that each scientist had to tell DI what they thought of them, or some similar bait. Then, when everyone is relaxing in the villa courtyard, in comes the video crew. And so they scatter, because they were really there just to get away, and they really don't want to be associated with the DI.

John Stockwell said...

I once had a lengthy email discussion with David Berlinski. He has some ax to grind against evolutionary biologists, which may stem from the fact that the biology community dismissed Murray Eden's pronouncements (and others)
at the famous Wistar conferences on evolution.

Also, I believe that he is bitter over the fact that the work of a couple of his buddies, Pierre Grasse and Marcel Schutezenberger was ignored by the biological community.

David Berlinski is in the business of writing books to make money. I am convinced that he has a business in writing pop-math books, and pop-anti-science books. It's all bottom line.

His daughter seems to be another "words for money" person who is trying to milk her old man's anti-science cow. Neither of these people have any scientific credibility, whatsoever.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

Nothing wrong with writing words for money - both my parents were authors and newspaper reporters.

What is wrong is when you don't really care whether your journalism is based on facts, when you don't bother to see if your sources are credible, when you don't bother to consult experts with different opinions. Then you're not doing journalism - you're just a propagandist.

John Stockwell said...

I notice that Ricochet is a pay-to-play site. You can lurk for free, but if you want to post anything, then you have to pay.

So, Claire B.'s is trying to piss people off enough that they would be willing to pay to post on her site.

I kind of wonder if she has shills that have posted a few things on there, just to prime the pump.

John Stockwell said...

In my opinion C.B. doesn't want to learn anything about evolution, or to usher in New World Order of anti-science. I believe that what she wants to do is to piss you off so much that you will actually pay money to post refutations on her site. She would like to get a 4 alarm flame war started so she can rake in the cash.