The whole thing (the religion and science part; about 21 minutes into the episode) is one big mess. According to Krauss, for example, religion and science are compatible because some scientists are religious. And how does he justify it? If some scientists are religious, religion and science must be compatible, because these scientists clearly don’t suffer from a schizophrenia. I don’t know if you’ve listened to the episode, Doug, but this is just to show you one part of Krauss’s opinion on science and religion.

Yeah, I listened to the episode. Just wondering what part you were unhappy with. FWIW I go both ways on the science/religion issue. Though I do believe that at base science and religion are epistemically incompatible (and Krauss sort of said as much), it’s clearly true that many scientific people are themselves religious. Further, as Dawkins himself says, it’s politically astute to include the liberal religious in the scientific tent.

I don’t think it was Krauss’s position on any of the issues discussed in that episode that bothered me. Rather it was the way he presented his views and opinions that were (at least to me) very confusing; almost as if he wasn’t sure if he should persuade the truth (or whatever he believes the truth might be) or, again, stick to being a nice guy.

dougsmith - 02 January 2008 09:37 PM

I have to assume this teacher gets her information from conservative news outlets, and likely is quite conservative herself, since she seems to be swallowing the industry-fed smokescreen on global warming. What is she a professor of? And what university does she teach at?

I can understand someone saying that the evidence is somewhat murky at this point, and that there may be a certain amount of error in the predictions. But to go beyond that is IMO unwarranted.

Incidentally there is no guarantee even at the best universities that you won’t have tenured professors who are off their rockers. It does happen. Even Harvard had John Mack and his UFO abduction theories ...

I’m not sure what she is a professor of.  She teaches at the University of Winnipeg.  I did ask my friend if she was ‘teaching a controversy’ but my friend said that’s not the impression she got - her prof taught that it was straight out inaccurate to say that any sort of global warming is happening to the degree that scientists are saying.
But who knows - I wasn’t in the class.

Well, George, I think he seemed mixed partly because he is, and partly because D.J. seemed to be pushing him to either join Dawkins or criticise him, and he didn’t seem inclined to do either, at least for the POI audience. I think he basically agree with Dawkins’ positions personally but feels, as obviously many of us do, that the confrontational, arrogant style Dawkins often uses is not the most effective way to communicate science or forward a scientifically-based social agenda. He was fairly clear that if you insult people you close their minds to what you’re saying, like when you use the word “delusion” in the title of your book. But, since he’s basically on the same side as Dawkins, I think he was reluctant to be too critical of him.

Some people seem to have trouble with the difference between style and substance. It is often implied that if one eschews Dawkins abrasive style one is pussyfooting/tiptoeing/pandering and so forth rather than speaking truth. I think that’s nonsense. I think communicating truth effectively requires adopting a style that suits the audience, and it is clearly possible to do this without compromising the integrity of the content one is communicating.