I very much dislike the strategy of opposing points of view by boycotting venues that give those views voice. If such efforts succeed, they silence voices from which we might learn things. It seems a much more robust strategy to oppose points of view by arguing against them. If a view has a 90% chance of being wrong, it has a 10% chance of being right, and we lose by not letting its advocates make the best case they can. The reason to listen to those you disagree with is, you might be wrong.
I'm astounded that no one (especially in a blog devoted to rationalism) has mentioned the very obvious motivation for appearing on bloggingheads - self-promotion. Sean Carroll has already said almost everything he's qualified to say on bhtv, with the exception of promoting his upcoming book. He stands to benefit more from the attention/reputation he gains from 'taking a stand' than he does from doing nothing. He loses what? One more interview?
As EY pointed out, there is ample evidence that bhtv does not have a hidden 'religious' agenda. To say that only certain viewpoints have enough merit to be heard was never anyone's decision to make, save Bob Wright and his staff. SC's actions smack of a play for attention - the squeaky wheel, so to speak - that has apparently worked. If SC was so valuable to bhtv that Bob felt pressure at the thought of losing him, than bhtv has bigger problems with respect to its coverage of science.
And let's not kid ourselves - SC can have a 'seen the light' moment at any time and decide that he would prefer to engage in dialogue and attempt to add to the public's knowledge rather than subtract from it. Bob would welcome him back with open arms after readi...
Interestingly, at 10:21, Behe accuses scientists including Sean Carroll of committing the Mind Projection Fallacy:
They confuse what's going on in their own heads with what's going on in nature
It is disturbing that he can identify this in others, without seeing his own vulnerability to this bias.
Wow, I haven't seen Phil Plait's post until now. Bloggingheads "called Creationism science"? I can only guess what tortured reasoning gave rise to this claim.
But I think, Eliezer, that you're being too charitable to those who are jumping ship. Sean and Carl aren't doing so because they're anti-accomodationist, they just can't stand the thought of being within 300 internet meters of Creationists if they don't think they can leverage the situation against them. Whether this particularized form of distaste is justifiable is an interesting issue and ...
Why aren't you posting any new videos on Bloggingheads.tv any more? From the outside they seemed like low investment at least with regards to the amount of time spent and easily accessible. Some may have even been personally entertaining conversations with interesting people.
I think you should consider making an appearance once your rationality book is out for promotion purposes at least.
This looks sincere to me, and given that it's sincere, people really ought to be allowed more chance than this to recover from their mistakes.
I say that depends entirely on the nature of the mistake. Gross negligence should not be forgiven, although the proper response is not necessarily retributive.
I'm astounded that no one (especially in a blog devoted to rationalism) has mentioned the very obvious motivation for appearing on bloggingheads - self-promotion. Sean Carroll has already said almost everything he's qualified to say on bhtv, with the exception of promoting his upcoming book. He stands to benefit more from the attention/reputation he gains from 'taking a stand' than he does from doing nothing. He loses what? One more interview?
As EY pointed out, there is ample evidence that bhtv does not have a hidden 'religious' agenda. To say that only c...
You should link to your comment on BHV.
One thing that has come out of this is that BHTV has finally posted their editorial policy, but I am quite disappointed that it's so vague. The substantive parts are:
...At Bloggingheads.tv, we aim to set up conversations about interesting and important issues on which reasonable people have a diversity of viewpoints. We choose participants based on their past contributions to public discourse. This doesn’t mean we see particular merit in their views; it may just mean that they are articulate spokespeople for views that
I confess that I'm not really a fan of the idea that creationists should never get any space for debate. If prestigious scientists are worried that talking to creationists gives them too much credibility, then find some bright ambitious college student who reads Pharyngula to shoot their little fish in a barrel. But this business of trying not to have debates... doesn't quite seem to me like the right strategy, somehow, when the cold fact of the matter is that creationists already get plenty of airtime with plenty of listeners. That is probably one reason why I'm sympathetic to BHTV here.
I don't think there ought to be a debate about whether many-worlds is correct, but there is. Should I refuse to talk about it henceforth? Fundamentally, people talking to each other on public video just doesn't strike me as such a bad, terrible, awful thing, even if it's about something you shouldn't have to debate. Now setting up Behe with a non-opponent was terrible, but I'm willing to accept that as an honest mistake.
Don't send out an average TA. Send out an ambitious, bright TA from a higher-ranked school (or just with good SAT scores, I understand the results are the same) who's been vetted by P. Z. Myers for ability to debate well, explain well, and respond with scientific accuracy to standard lies. But send out a TA nonetheless, and make sure they're dressed in jeans.
I just registered here, since I agree with the 'rationality' premise. Rational thought is (hopefully) less wrong than a less rational position, the implication being that little that the human mind formulates is totally correct. Less wrong is a goal, and modification of a stated position is often a requisite of nearing a more correct position.
Anyway, back to the topic of Blogginheads (allowed topics), accomodation, and (related) a critique of Michael Behe. Oh, also the question of whether ID is essentially Creationism.
First, RW sets the standards. It's...
In what way does ID equate with Creationism? First define both, then state the correlation.
ID arose as a way to circumvent the Supreme Court decision Edwards v. Aguillard which banned the mentioning of deities in teaching of secular issues.
The creationist text book Of Pandas and People which was being written at the time of the trial subsequently underwent CTRL-H editing to exchange "creator" for "designer," leading to the hilarious chimera "cdesign proponentsists."
The people endorsing creationism and ID are more or less the same. By far, most types of argument put forth by IDists have previously been used by creationists. "Irreducible complexity" is merely a restating of Paley's Watch or, indeed, Darwin's own rhetorical reservations regarding the complexity of the eye.
Further, the vast majority of IDists have explicit religious motivation (pdf) for their viewpoints, and the ID community uses the same tactics of quotemining, making lists of non-biologist skeptics, and appeals to authority.
Finally, the leading ID "think"-tank, the Discovery Institute, has stated its ultimate goal in an internal workpaper, The Wedge:
...
- "To d
Recently, Sean Carroll, Carl Zimmer, and Phil Plait have all decided to stop appearing on BloggingHeads.TV (BHTV), and PZ Myers announced he would not appear on it in the future, after a disastrous decision to have creationist Michael Behe interviewed by the linguist and non-biologist John McWhorter, who failed to call Behe on his standard BS.
I'm hereby publicly announcing that I intend to stay on BloggingHeads.TV.
Why? Two main reasons:
1) Robert Wright publicly said that this was foolish, apologized for the poor editorial oversight that led to it, and says they're going to try never to do this again. This looks sincere to me, and given that it's sincere, people really ought to be allowed more chance than this to recover from their mistakes.
2) Bloggingheads.TV has given me a forum to debate accomodationist atheists who are insufficiently condemning of religion - for example my diavlog with Adam Frank, author of "The Constant Fire". Adam Frank argues that, while of course we now know that God doesn't exist, nonetheless scientific wonder at the universe and its mysteries has a lot in common with the roots of religion. And I said this was wishful thinking, historically ignorant of how religions really arose and propagated themselves, and a continuation of such theistic bad habits as thinking that things of which we are temporarily ignorant are "sacred mysteries". And no one at BHTV complained that I was being too confrontational, or too anti-religious, or that it was unfair to have the diavlog be between two atheists.
If BHTV is willing to let me come on and (politely) kick hell out of atheists who aren't atheistic enough to suit me, then I don't believe that their unfortunate failure to have Behe interviewed by someone who could call his BS, represents any deep hidden agenda in favor of religion and against science.
Rather, I think it represents a commitment to having interesting discussions by people who intelligently disagree with each other and have something courteous to say about it - even if that discussion wanders into the fearsome death zones where science does ("does not!") clash with religion - and this commitment managed to go wrong on one or two occasions.
My friends and fellow antitheists, this is an important commitment while most of the world is continuing to pretend that there is no conflict between science and religion. It's not surprising if that commitment goes wrong now and then. It is not reasonable to expect that a commitment to repeatedly discuss a scary controversy will never go wrong. It may well go wrong again despite Robert Wright's best intentions. But unless it starts to go wrong systematically, I'm going to stay on BHTV, arguing that science and religion are not compatible.
Of course, if most other non-accomodationists jump ship from BHTV as a result of the Behe affair, then it will become a hangout for accomodationists only. "Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs" is another reason why you should put forth at least a little effort to "Tolerate Tolerance" - to not insist that all your potential trade-partners punish the same people you've labeled defectors, exactly the way you want them punished, before you cooperate. Yes, Behe is an enemy of science, but Wright is not; and Wright may also dislike Behe, yet not wish to implement exactly the same punishment-policy toward Behe that you advocate; and that needs to be all right, if we're all going to end up cooperating.