From: Ted Davis (TDavis@messiah.edu)
Date: Thu Jul 03 2003 - 07:37:32 EDT
I want to respond to two questions that have come up, relative to Max
Tegmark's article in Sci American.
First, what has happened to Sci American?
My gut sense is, that it has gone downhill quite a bit recently, in the
ways in which it seeks to project an anti-religious message. This may
reflect the influence of ideologue Michael Shermer--a grad of a Christian
college who used to be a "door-to-door" salesman of the gospel, but who
later lost his faith and studied my discipline at the doctoral level,
though you wouldn't realize it from his enthusiastic use of the warfare
model. Shermer is vehement against anything having to do with "design," and
loves to attack religious believers generally, esp in his classes at
Occidental College (does he still teach there?), where one of my colleagues
got her degree.
I wouldn't want to say that Shermer is solely responsible for Sci
American's drift, but I can't ignore his significant presence there.
Second, what about Tegmark's conclusions? The truth is, that Tegmark
himself believes that a theistic interpretation of the evidence is
reasonable, perhaps even as reasonable as the multiverse hypothesis. I base
this comment on something close to first-hand knowledge: one of my
colleagues was invited to speak at the top-drawer California conference on
the multiverse hypothesis, and he spoke extensively with Tegmark about this
very issue.
Apparently, Sci American simply chose to put an unsupported, anti-religious
spin on this in a prominent place--their cover--even though Tegmark himself
would not endorse it. See above.
Conclusion: anyone wishing to write directly to Sci American, debunking
their editorial policy, is encouraged to do so. It wouldn't help to cancel
your subscription.
ted
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu Jul 03 2003 - 07:35:43 EDT