I think it should go without saying (but of course, nothing does) that anytime someone wants to protect something from "denigration" or other forms of criticism, we should all grab hold of our rights and hang onto them with a death grip. To put this case most eloquently, I offer the following.
LOL*cough* Excuse me. I nearly choked on a handful of almonds. My created/intelligently designed oesophagus is just a little too close to my trachaea, making it very easy to block the latter with particles of chewed food whilst laughing my arse right off its hinges when I read stuff like this FOX article:
State Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) proposed House Bill 2800 when he learned that The Institute for Creation Research (ICR), a private institution that specializes in the education and research of biblical creationism, was not able to receive a certificate of authority from Texas' Higher Education Coordinating Board to grant Master of Science degrees.So. "Education" and "research" (grin) of biblical creationism (chortle). OK, well, although I'm no theologian or creation scientist (snort) , allow me to sum up the entire proposed course for you: Education: God did it. Research: it says in the Bible that God did it. Thesis: the Bible says God did it; the Bible is always right because God wrote it; God is always right; the evidence for this is in the Bible which God wrote; my conclusion is that God did it (and is always right, just like the book He wrote). Well done, here's your diploma & whimsical "WWJD" t-shirt that all the kids are wearing. That'll be several thousand dollars. Hmm?
Should science study race and IQ? A recent article in Nature ("Should scientists study race and IQ") says yes, as long as the research is done carefully and kept free of outside influence and premature application by social scientists and politicians. Science did not give rise to bigotry. After all, scientific studies of race and IQ began in relatively modern times, only after long centuries of "pernicious folk-theories of racial and gender inferiority predated scientific studies." The authors believe that first-rate scientific research will, in the end, dispel much of the racial bigotry that still exists.
Some scientists hold more 'acceptable' views, ourselves included. We think racial and gender differences in IQ are not innate but instead reflect environmental challenges. Although we endorse this view, plenty of scholars remain unpersuaded. Whereas our 'politically correct' work garners us praise, speaking invitations and book contracts, challengers are demeaned, ostracized and occasionally threatened with tenure revocation.
Acts of censure edge close to Lysenkoism. They also do a disservice to science. When dissenters' positions are prevented exposure in high-impact journals and excluded from conferences, the dominant side goes unchallenged, and eventually its rationale is forgotten, forestalling the evolution of crucial ideas.
I am sympathetic to the need to for scientists to carefully examine everything, no exceptions. I'm concerned, though, that we need to look extra-closely at the concept of "race," which I consider to be virtually useless in daily matters. Nor should we allow the simplistic concept of "IQ" to serve as a variable, given much more expansive ways to measure intelligence (see, for example this post on Howard Gardner's work). For more on the dangers of misusing "IQ," see Steven J. Gould's 1996 book, "The Mismeasure of Man."
In sum, we should do good science and I believe that good science would suffocate bigotry. The article points out several examples of this. Good science should be done on only after kicking out the clumsy, pernicious concepts of "race" and "IQ," reframing the debate as the relationship between fine-grained genotypic variation and competence in each of the many ways in which humans display competence. Because genotypic variation within "races" is at least as wide as genotypic variation among "races," a meaningful scientific exploration would not amount to a simplistic survey of how people with different colors of skin do on standardized intelligence tests. That would not be good science. Good science will always take into account the convoluted ever-changing environment, and that is not easy to do when we are dealing with basic concepts that are vague.
I'm not convinced that we are prepared to begin the necessary research on this general topic, because too many of us, including many well-trained scientists, have not done their ontological homework (consider the incoherent and clumsy stumblings of DNA co-discoverer James Watson, described in the article). Are "race" and "IQ" useful constructs with which to do this sort of research? Time will tell if we are intelligent enough to sharpen our constructs before running off to demonstrate our "truths."
George Will has written an irresponsible article denying climate change (AKA global warming). Here’s the basic problem with George Will’s writing, as stated succinctly by The Wonk Room:
In “Dark Green Doomsayers,” Will attacked Secretary of Energy Steven Chu for discussing a worst-case scenario of California drought caused by the decimation of Sierra snowpack, falsely claiming Chu predicted this will come to pass “no later than 10 years away.” Will also incorrectly claimed that “global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979″ — based on a 45-day-old blog post by Daily Tech’s Michael Asher, one of Marc Morano’s climate denial jokers.
Will’s article is riddled with falsehoods. The radically untrue nature of Will’s article is beyond dispute. Confronted with Will’s cauldron of conservative climate denial propaganda, the Washington Post was faced with a stark choice. It could either A) confess that it failed to do any competent fact-checking or B) compound Will’s lies with its own by claiming that it did real fact-checking. It chose “B.”If you visit Ken Ham's creationist site, you'll see an article titled, "Did humans really evolve from ape-like creatures?" Here's a key concern raised in this article:
Perhaps the most bitter pill to swallow for any Christian who attempts to “make peace” with Darwin is the presumed ape ancestry of man.
It's difficult to believe the ignorance displayed by this sentence. Why can't creationists understand that not only did humans evolve from other ape-like creatures (the scientific evidence is abundant and irrefutable), but that humans are apes. Check the features listed here:The similarities can be seen throughout our bodies. For instance, humans and the African apes all lack external tails and have hands with a thumb that is sufficiently separate from the other fingers to allow them to be opposable for precision grips. Humans are also sexually dimorphic--males are 5-10% larger on average and have greater upper body muscular development. Like chimpanzees and bonobos, we are omnivorous. We kill other animals for food in addition to eating a wide variety of plants. Internally, our bodies are even more similar to the great apes. We have essentially the same arrangement of internal organs and bones. We share several important blood types. We also get many of the same diseases.