Sometimes – in fact often – the sheer vulgarity is surprising.
Brilliant scientists at some of our great seats of learning, men whose lives are devoted to the rational pursuit of knowledge, turn out to be capable of as much intolerance and stupidity as the rest of us.What have they done this time? They’ve hurled abuse and reproach on Lord Rees of Ludlow…a meteor shower of abuse descends upon his head.
I’m more puzzled by this kind of abusive behaviour than I am surprised. Deep down, we all know that great men of science can be as petty and spiteful…as politicians, footballers or captains of industry.
He seems to think all scientists are men, which is clueless and inattentive as well as vulgar, and the rest of it is just…well, abuse. It’s the usual: some atheists dissent from theophilic orthodoxy, and that is translated into a long list of boo-words like intolerant, stupid, petty, and spiteful.
What upsets part of the scientific community – needless to say, Oxford’s most militant atheist, Richard Dawkins, is part of the chorus – is their belief that Templeton, an enthusiastic Presbyterian, tries to blur the boundary between science and religion, making a virtue of belief without evidence.
That’s right. And? Why is it intolerant and stupid and abusive and militant to think that’s a problem? Michael White doesn’t say, he just says we all do it don’t we, like people who think Chelsea will win. That’s not a very cogent or reasoned explanation.
He says Harry Kroto wants Rees to give the money to the BHA.
I hope he doesn’t. What a waste! Take Lady R on a nice cruise, at the very least take her on a shopping spree in that nice new Cambridge mall before you do that, Marty.
That’s attractive, isn’t it? Lady R is a woman, therefore she is so hopelessly trivial and stupid that all she can want is a cruise or a shopping spree at a nice new mall. I think Michael White is what the astronomer Phil Plait would call (in the technical jargon) a dick.
In any case, many of our greatest scientists – Darwin, Michael Faraday, Isaac Newton – were men of faith.
Ah yes, Darwin the man of faith. Good one.
Comments
15 responses to “Buy Lady R some ribbons”
So, by the Guardian’s own standard, I guess it has to admit that it has several “meteor showers of abuse” on the Gnus?
Ah no because the standard always works in one direction only. Always always always. Anything we say about anything is aggressive militant spiteful abuse, anything they say about us is sage careful reasoned dissent.
Unbelievable.
John Templeton, Presbyterian, American patriot–renounced his citizenship when filthy rich was just not enough.
By the way, I love that you use the forms of the word “vulgar” in the traditional sense, Ophelia. Few people do. Most don’t know the concept extends beyond curse words.
One might also point out that Newton would have been well advised to avoid travel to (for instance) Spain, for fear of being burned as a heretic.
Oh but I forgot – it’s the atheists who are militant, isn’t it? My recollection of history must be wrong.
Damn, the links associated with the words abuse and reproach seem to be broken on the page I read. I hope they fix it. Otherwise, people are going to think that White doesn’t have any examples.
I think the only appropriate response to this is a strongly worded attack on Michael White which completely ignores anything he says, and accuses him (wrongly) of being a Satanist. We should maintain the high standards of argumentation set by the Guardian.
Not to mention the stereotype the Guardian maintains of us. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.
I’m sure Cambridge University’s first-ever professor of collaborative anthropology and author of Karl Marx Collective: Economy, Society and Religion in a Siberian Collective Farm would like nothing better than to be taken away from her piano playing for a trip down the shops!!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2006/feb/07/highereducationprofile.academicexperts
For all its espousal of secular and progressive causes, The Guardian really is completely Laodicean in outlook. And it is still being read by people who believe they ought to run the country but remain utterly clueless on how to run it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M
At least Sun readers know what they want!
# 10 – HA! That’s absolutely perfect – I was hoping she was someone like that but didn’t pause to research her.
It’s pathetic how laddism persists even among middle class Guardian hacks.
Sure, but all they did was patronize a woman (ok, maybe by extension they patronized all women). Gnus make a habit of INSULTING GOD!!! (and often use bad words too).
All that means is that even great minds can believe utter nonsense. You know that “greatest scientific mind in history” believed in alchemy, right? What, you didn’t? Perhaps this guy should do some research before spouting off utter nonsense. That doesn’t mean alchemy (or religion) and science are reconcilable. It means that people can be scientists while believing things that are unscientific, unevidenced, and untrue.
I doubt this guy has many female friends.
I do wonder why we never here more about Newton’s fervent non-trinitarianism. Do the Templeturds really approve of direct denial of the divinity of Jesus? I’d think Collins’d be most upset by the suggestion that his tripartite waterfall might somehow not be a confirmation of Christianity as she is practised.