Re: Dawkins and increase in information

Ed Brayton (cynic@net-link.net)
Tue, 29 Sep 1998 13:14:09 -0400

Arthur V. Chadwick wrote:
>
> What genuinely puzzles me is that we were so quick to condemn the
> interviewere who produced the tape, but we have no condemnation for Dawkins
> who obviously has lied and fabricated a backpeddling of enormous
> proportions to cover himself. Sounds like a certain president I know of.
> But the question is why? Why do we not give our brothers the benefit of
> the doubt, but we accord Dawkins complete innocence. Even Glenn in his
> explanation offered no suggestion that Dawkins was anything but innocent.
> What gives here? And, what about his silence on that question, which after
> all seems to be the question of the hour here?

Speaking only for myself, Art, I can say that I did not jump on the
interviewer. In fact, when this whole thing broke, I contacted Gillian
Brown and got a copy of the original audio to find out for myself, and
forwarded that tape on to Glenn. He and I both reached the conclusion
that Ms. Brown had not done anything fundamentally dishonest (though I
think we both have some reservations about some aspects of the
incident). I certainly don't think she did what the Skeptic article
accuses her of doing. That has put me in the odd position, for me, of
defending a creationist against an evolutionist, but in the words of
Howard Cosell, I gotta call em like I see em. I think it is absolutely
shameful that Barry Williams wrote the article without so much as a
phone call to Ms. Brown to get the other side of the story. If anything,
THAT is the hatchet job here. He could have done what Glenn and I did
and found out that the entire situation is much more ambiguous than his
article claimed. I think this entire incident serves mostly to show how
quickly people on both sides of the creation/evolution debate tend to
ratchet up the rhetoric to absurd levels, and lob accusations at each
other simply without bothering to get the facts first (what the heck,
they're on the "other side", so they MUST be guilty, right?). The whole
thing is sad.

Ed