"Terry M. Gray" wrote:
> Carol,
>
> I serve as the list owner and manager. I do not act as moderator. We have
> defined this as a self-moderating group. If this group does not want to
> pursue this discussion with George Hammond and then it should stop
> responding to his messages--either seriously or tongue-in-cheek. Frankly, I
> have found some of the responses somewhat rude and would encourage the
> principle of "not answering a fool" if that is your opinion.
>
> While I don't have a lot of sympathy with George Hammond's views as I
> currently understand them, I must admit that such ideas are not all that
> unusual. Someone referenced the recent issue of Newsweek with the God and
> the brain articles. Interesting, but honestly, not that different from what
> I'm hearing George Hammond say. Is it the work of a "cranks"? I guess it
> depends on your definition of "crank". I've seen many bizarre threads on
> this list, I've heard what I consider to be bizarre talks at ASA annual
> meetings, I've read what I cansider to be bizarre papers in JASA and PSCF,
> and I find odd some of the agenda of the Templeton Foundation (as partnered
> with ASA). I'm sure that many people find some of the things that I say to
> be bizarre. And from those things you might be able to guess what I think
> is bizarre.
>
> Such is the nature of the science-faith dialogue. Such is also the nature
> of email lists. We don't restrict participation to ASA members. We don't
> restrict opinions to those who agree with the ASA Statement of Faith. All
> our computers have delete keys. It appears that George Hammond actually
> read the instructions to this group and labeled his post (SOC/PSYC) so that
> people not interested in that topic could ignore it. The thread is well
> labeled and so those not interested in following it are free to ignore it.
>
> So, there is the "list manager's" libertarian view. If any of the ASA
> bigwigs want to state an alternative "official" position to the contrary,
> let them speak.
There are obvious cranks (e.g., the recently deceased president of the
International Flat Earth Research Society) and frauds (e.g., Hubbard). (The
distinction I intend is that the former actually believe what they say. It is,
of course, not always easy to tell the difference.) But there are also
ambiguous cases in which it's hard to tell if a person is a crank, or just
wrong, or perhaps right & brilliantly ahead of his or her time.
I think that a general discussion of "crankiness" (definitions,
distinctions, appropriate responses &c), both in science itself and in the
science-theology dialogue, would be helpful. Pseudoscience is, among other
things, a prominent factor in the progress of some cults - the Church of
Scientology is a good example. I don't think, however, that right now is a
good time to engage this topic on the ASA list.
I would agree that the ASA list should not exclude posts on
science-religion topics on account of content. There should, however, be some
ethical guidelines. One, which is just an elementary matter of courtesy, is
that private emails are not to be posted to the list deliberately (as
distinguished from just thoughtlessly hitting "Reply All" instead of "Reply")
without the consent of the sender.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Dialogue"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat May 12 2001 - 16:20:23 EDT