“Having a science degree” is partly just a proxy for “caring enough about science generally that you also care about not getting stuff completely wrong.”
Author: Ophelia Benson
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Problems in science journalism
We ought to have a rule: if you can’t read the research and comprehend it, you shouldn’t be writing about it.
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If it’s new and different, it’s god
Why would something new and astonishing and apparently a violation of what we know about nature be evidence of “God” or a god or the supernatural rather than…something new and astonishing and apparently a violation of what we know about nature?
I can easily imagine evidence of something new and astonishing and apparently a violation of what we know about nature. I have a harder time thinking of something that would convince me it was evidence of “God” or a god or the supernatural.
I’m not being stubborn or dogmatic in saying that. I’m saying I just don’t see why something new and the rest of it couldn’t point to A Big Unknown as opposed to the familiar though speculative category “God.”
Maybe a very big very powerful Person? But that could be a part of nature we hadn’t known about before. It could tell us “Hey I’m the one in the Bible” [but in which language?] but that could be what this part of nature does.
Maybe all kinds of spectacular magical events? But that could be astonishing and inexplicable without necessarily being non-natural. It could just mean that we’d never known what we hadn’t known – which is bound to be true anyway.
On the other hand, I can see saying “this is at least evidence of something like what people have been calling ‘God’ all this time.” I can see agreeing that this changes everything I thought I knew, and everything I thought other people knew, too.
But just plain “evidence of God”? Well which one, for a start?
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A C Grayling on God and disaster
If he is powerful enough to stop an earthquake, but created a world that inflicts agonizing sufferings arbitrarily on sentient creatures, then he is vile.
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Newsflash: wood smoke is toxic
Lots of chumps still think it’s “environmentally friendly,” but it’s actually as friendly as car exhaust.
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Xian group launches petition against equality legislation
Is it true that “individuals who hold to mainstream Christian teaching” are “being barred from different areas of public life and employment”?
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She’s 11 years old. It shouldn’t have happened.
Last week the New York Times reported that an 11-year-old girl was gang-raped in a Texas town. It also reported a bunch of people saying she dressed like an adult and that the rapists would have to live with this for the rest of their lives. It forgot to say that the girl might have some displeasure with the whole situation too. People were disgusted. The Public Editor (as they call him) said they had a point. But…
My assessment is that the outrage is understandable. The story dealt with a hideous crime but addressed concerns about the ruined lives of the perpetrators without acknowledging the obvious: concern for the victim.
Yes; good; but…..
The Associated Press handled the story more deftly, I think. Its piece on the crime also noted the community view that the girl dressed provocatively and even the view of some that the girl may have been culpable somehow. But the AP also quoted someone in the community saying: “She’s 11 years old. It shouldn’t have happened. That’s a child. Somebody should have said, ‘What we are doing is wrong.’”
Um…..so if it’s not a child it’s ok? If the raped girl or woman is 17 or 25 or 40 or 70 it’s ok?
It’s weird the way people think about rape. Still, after all this time, when we’ve gone over it and gone over it. Nobody thinks of murder or assault or robbery that way, but rape is still sort of kind of the raped woman’s fault.
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What is neuroquantology?
Stephan Schwartz tells us that science is hindered and plagued and obstructed by three kinds of denialism
actively engaged in trying to impede the free development of science: the Creationists (e.g., Hornyanszky and Tasi, 2002), the climate change deniers (e.g., Lomborg, 2008), and the consciousness deniers who cannot, or will not, consider consciousness as anything other than materialistic processes.
Yes that’s right. Creationists deny evolution, climate change deniers deny climate change (that’s an easy one), and consciousness deniers…deny that consciousness is something that floats around the universe independent of brains or brain-like organs inside bodies that sustain them.
This is bad. They are breaking science.
…progress in understanding the nature of consciousness, particularly that aspect, the nonlocal that has not been explained by physiology, but is addressed by nonlocality and quantum processes, has a very direct social consequence. The nonlocal aspect of consciousness may very well account for the insight of genius, for religious epiphany, as well as for psychic experiences.
I’m so curious about nonlocal consciousness. Is it like soup? Oxygen? Ectoplasm? Weather? Energy?
I don’t know, but maybe if I read NeuroQuantology regularly I will eventually find out. Yes, NeuroQuantology. What are you laughing at?
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Tarek Fatah, in hospital, gets death threats
He calls the cops. Two cops arrive to ask questions, then two intel officers arrive to shut the investigation down.
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Stephen Schwartz explains about Deniers
Of evolution, climate change, and nonlocal consciousness. Srsly.
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Eric MacDonald on John Polkinghorne
A particle physicist turned Anglican priest, who writes consecrated pap for those who think that religion somehow completes or fulfils the scientific project.
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Gingrich worked so hard his pants fell off
That is, things happened that were not appropriate. But now he’s converted to Catholicism, so his pants will stay on.
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The Religion Communicators Council
What is the Religion Communicators Council? I’d never heard of it before yesterday. I’ve heard of it now though, and I’m curious. Is it, like, a household name? Is everybody aware of it off in the background somewhere, taking care of Religious Communication?
I don’t know. I think it sounds pretty horrible though.
The Religion Communicators Council, founded in 1929, is an interfaith association of religion communicators at work in print and electronic communication, advertising and public relations.
It’s a PR-advertising outfit for Religion, all Religion, Religion as such.
So it would be a peculiar kind of laurel for a journalist to get an award from them, wouldn’t it? Journalists don’t really want awards from PR outfits and advertisers, do they? Isn’t an award of that kind an announcement that one is not a journalist but rather an advertiser or PR-rep? Aren’t the two lines of work considered opposites rather than colleagues? Isn’t journalism supposed to be fundamentally not about marketing? The way the Religion Communicators Council itself puts it, that seems to be obviously the case:
The Religion Communicators Council and its members promote excellence in communicating religious faith and values in the public arena and encourage understanding among faith groups on a national level. Testaments to our goal of excellence are the Wilbur Awards.
It’s an award not for reporting but for communicating religious faith and values in the public arena. Fundamentally different and antagonistic kinds of thing.
Yet the Religion Communicators Council does give the award to practicing journalists. There’s one for Christopher Hitchens, which seems surprising. And there’s one for Chris Mooney’s Playboy article about “spiritual” scientists.
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When interests conflict
Should big PR firms that represent drug companies also run scientific societies’ media operations?
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Ben Goldacre on why cigarette packs matter
Cigarette packaging has been used for many decades to sell the crucial lie that cigarettes which are “light”, “mild”, “silver”, and the rest, are somehow “safer”.