When Scientists Collide

What can one say about a book written by two scientists that promotes the dumbing down of science in order to appeal to the masses?  PZ Myrers, a much admired ScienceBlogs contributor, has rather a lot to say.  And his opinion of the book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future has sparked a flaming imbroglio among academics that's more riveting than an old episode of Knots Landing.  Apparently co-authors Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum sent the Pharyngula blogger a copy of their 224-page mini-tome asking him, in essence, to be fair and unbiased:  "We hope that like Dr. Coyne, you will suspend judgment until reading the book, at which point we'll be interested to hear what you think."  Writes Myers:  I was a bit offended; of course I was going to read it with an open mind. Why would they think it necessary to ask me to do so?  That was before I got to chapters 8 and 9, however, which open with very direct and personal attacks on me and on Pharyngula, atheists in general, and anyone who fails to offer religion its proper modicum of respect.

I have seldom seen a book so thoughtfully and meticulously dissected.  Dr. Myers may as well have taken a scalpel to the binding and then, one by one, fed the pages into the nearest paper shredder.  The science blogger admits that his judgment might be a teensy bit clouded by the authors' relentless personal attacks on him (So why did they send him a copy?  For publicity?) but even so, his deconstruction of the book's peculiar thesis is a thing of rare beauty.  Myers begins the evisceration with Chapter One, which he describes as "baffling."  The first deep incision:  

They chose to illustrate the serious problem of the disconnect between a science-illiterate public and the science establishment with a strange example: the redesignation of Pluto as a non-planet. This event was accompanied by a public outcry, by people who had some peculiar emotional attachment to the idea that Pluto was the ninth planet, an attachment that was fed by a willing media that found this level of trivia to be about as complex an issue as they could handle...  They come down on the side of Pluto being redesignated as a planet!  Apparently, the sin of the scientists was a failure to bow before popular opinion, and insufficient attention to the PR consequences of a scientific decision.  Well, Chris and Sheril, what should the astronomers have done? Should they have had a binding referendum delivered to the public to get their say? Are there other scientific matters that should be decided by popular vote? ...This chapter was symptomatic of the deficiencies of the whole book.  (Myers then lists those deficiencies in scrumptious detail.) 

From Unscientific America:  "Dawkins and some other scientists fail to grasp that in Hollywood, the story is paramount - that narrative, drama, and character development will trump mere factual accuracy every time, and by a very long shot."

Here the authors are referring to acclaimed evolutionary biologist and unabashed atheist Richard Dawkins who, Myers contends, is vilified by Mooney in part because he (and other non-religious academics) neglect to show deference to a culture immersed in knuckle-dragging fundamentalism.  Myers pointedly notes:  What Mooney and Kirshenbaum fail to grasp is that to a scientist, factual accuracy must be paramount; it is not a matter on which we can compromise.

Both the Pharyngula post and Mooney's brief rebuttal post on Discover Blogs have generated hundreds of deliciously acerbic comments from impassioned readers.  Really, it's like a cafeteria food fight but with test tubes and beakers! 

Myers' bottom line:  It's not a badly written book, but it's something worse: it's utterly useless.  (Pictured:  Myers, Mooney, Kirshenbaum)

Comments

[Trent]

Religion has no place in Science. Period.

[Tiger]

What PZ wrote on their book would probably fill ten pages if I printed it out.

And for their "response" they took a single quote that /wasn't even PZ's/ and responded to that rather than actually address a single one of PZ's claims, or acknowledge what his criticisms actually were. Those two have all the intellectual honesty of creationists.

[Amanda]

Why should it matter to scientists what religious nutjobs think? Good PR is fine, but science isn't (or shouldn't be) something that needs spin.

[Bee Girl]

What Tiger said: "intellectual honest of creationists"

Sums it up for me.