Politically Incorrect Guides to Science

[thatbiologyg]

Hello all, I'm so glad to have found this forum. I'm an evolutionary biologist, in the past I've worked on Cotton phylogeny and Hydra population genetics.

 

I noticed these books at the Borders the other day (The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design and they really disturbed me. They're published by REGNERY PUBLISHING, a publishing house with a conservative political agenda. Normally I don't really pay a lot of attention to politics. But this really bothers me, science should not be filtered through a political sieve. It seems so wrong that science should be hashed like this. Do they really have to have their science mashed, picked and squeezed so it fits into their world view, can't they look at the primary lit and make up their own freaking mind? And I am frankly appalled that I am being labeled a "left wing radical" simply for studying evolution. I can't help it if my research doesn't allign with someone's religious or political views and I can say with certainty that I'm not spending my nights sitting in a lab scheming of new ways to irritate the religious right.

 

 

I'm not sure if this is the right forum to post this, I'm sure if it's in the wrong place it will be moved. I really wanted to get some opinions on this. What do you all think of these books?

 

I'm sorry if this is a bit of a ranty first post. Maybe I had to much coffee this morning...

[Realitycheck]

There is kind of a cult going on in Christianity of people like this. They are everywhere, but they are not mainstream. Stupid people will believe in propaganda. This is why we teach evolution, because it is so increasingly picturesque and infallible, the more and more that information grows, while these cult followers pick at these little bitty holes in what they don't understand, as their cult leaders lie about what they do know, all the while that the educated mainstream laugh in disbelief.

 

You might want to read this to settle your nerves.

 

http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm

 

http://www.theharbinger.org/articles/rel_sci/fox.html

[CharonY]

Well, I have no intention of buying these books, so I can only comment it from the summaries. They are disturbing, of course as they try to put politics and religion into natural science and some of their proponents are even scientists themselves (though thankfully rather seldom biologists). On the other hand, since when was science fully free of politics? Grants position etc. are not always purely based on scientific achievements.

 

Maybe I had to much coffee this morning...

There is never too much coffee.