Filed under: Author - ACG, Religion, Science | Tags: BPSDB, Conservapedia, Creationism, Politicized Science
Indeed.
Andy Schlafly’s first experimental foray into the field of science (reported here), an attempt to discredit a real scientist (Lenski) on his own turf, has ended poorly, mainly in debunking and ridicule.
As a recap, this Lenski fellow published an article which firmly gave the lie to creationism, and Andy won’t have that: by Schlafly’s conclusion-based reasoning, Lenski must be wrong, and is in dire need of correcting. Having built himself a lovely windmill, Andy’s proceeded to tilt against it, going from personal letters to Lenski (who destroyed Andy), to legal threats (which never materialized – someone burn this kid’s bar card, really), to the making of foolish arguments in the internet equivalent of a no-scientists-allowed treehouse, and now, undaunted by failure, our Hero now plans to send a letter to Lenski’s journal, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, proffering the same debunked and ridiculed arguments.
See a draft of his proposed letter here. And stay tuned for fun.
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I don’t know what to think about this. I have no clue what he’s hoping to accomplish – assuming that he’s more evil than stupid, he’s got to know that they’ll glance at this and toss it in the trash. Is he gearing up to make a huge deal about how conservative voices are being shut out of PNAS when they properly ignore him? I can’t imagine that he’s serious about trying to get them to ‘correct’ Lenski, but I also just don’t see how this is particularly valuable theater for him.
Comment by Gotchaye July 22, 2008 @ 9:29 pmThis is a weird one. I may blog on it later.
Here’s how this is likely to play out though:
Schlafly sends his letter.
PNAS privately reject/ignore it.
Schlafly cries “I told you so! Liberal Conspiracy!! Even my letter took 14 days!!!”
We never get to see the response.
If I’m right, then this is going to be a very boring episode…
Comment by Martin July 23, 2008 @ 5:50 amIf Schlafly’s letter were to be published (PNAS letters are online-only, not in the journal proper), Lenski is entitled a response. It would be another smackdown, but in an official scientific forum. Perhaps he subscribes to the “all publicity is good publicity” belief?
Comment by James F July 23, 2008 @ 8:50 amHe definitely thinks negative publicity is positive. back in CP’s *ahem* heyday, they published with pride mainstream media reports mocking them. They’re like kindergarteners, proud of getting spanked for shoving crayons up a kid’s nose.
Comment by Ames July 23, 2008 @ 9:50 amIt won’t be published though, so there won’t be any negative publicity. Top journals like PNAS have standards that apply to the quality of any letters they publish. They’re not going to make a special case for Schlafly, because, well, why should they publish the ramblings of every crank that writes in?
So I’ll repeat, PNAS won’t publish it, they may or may not explain why in a private letter back to Schlafly, and he’ll just write a load of garbage about how it was rejected due to a liberal conspiracy.
Comment by Martin July 23, 2008 @ 2:19 pmIn fact, if I’m wrong and they do Ames, I’ll print out this page, eat it, and post the video on Youtube :)
Comment by Martin July 23, 2008 @ 2:20 pm@ Gotchaye – “I have no clue what he’s hoping to accomplish – assuming that he’s more evil than stupid, he’s got to know that they’ll glance at this and toss it in the trash.”
When you’ve lied in public, if you aren’t going to eat your words you have to play the thing out to the end. Andy has called Lenski all sorts of things, and Lenski has refuted him. Andy knows that in his world silence = consent (and oh how I hate that concept) so he’s got to keep this up.
It’s kabuki, it really really is.
~ John
Comment by John July 23, 2008 @ 5:55 pmMy favorite line of Lenski’s in his second response is still the part where he tells Andy something to the effect of: it’s not that I wrote a paper claiming to have seen a unicorn; it’s that I’ve got a whole herd of unicorn right now living in my lab. Lenski kicks ass.
Comment by mjr256 July 23, 2008 @ 8:57 pm[...] Link to the original site [...]
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