>>> "Jim Armstrong" <jarmstro@qwest.net> 03/23/06 1:28 PM >>>Jim writes:
But one would hardly describe these other posts mentioned as steady
drumbeats - a significant difference.
Or so it seemeth to me.
Ted replies:
This is on target. Sometimes a political comment or two will be made by an
active participant on the list, sometimes appropriately insofar as we might
be discussing an issue related to religion, science, and public policy--such
as evolution and education, or energy policy and stewardship. I have done
this myself, in talking about whether or not public education is religiously
neutral, and whether or not certain political ideas might be relevant to
making progress on this front; but I have not seen anyone object to my
inserting a political dimension in that particular case, and of course it
was obvious that I was on subject. In some cases poliitcal comments are
either purely for fun (evident in context) or in other cases just
gratuitous. I don't defend the latter, this isn't the place for that.
My impression of Janice's posts, as a group, is that they are heavily
motivated by a wish to enlighten us with viewpoints reflecting a specific
political agenda; that is, they are not motivated by a desire to
discuss/debate/ask questions about issues in science and religion. My
request to Janice and to the list moderator is, that her posts be clearly on
topic and just as clearly apolitical--except in those cases where the
political aspect of a science/religion issue is central to understanding the
issue as a whole. Furthermore, the tone that she often brings along with
the lengthy cribs from political websites is sometimes very unhelpful: my
mind is already made up, I am here to tell you what is wrong with your
theology and your science, let alone your politics and your "feminization."
It doesn't appear to be the case that Janice has anything substantive to
say--she makes few if any contributions of her own (inserting URLs without
thoughtful comments of ones' own is not a contribution of one's own), she
ignores arguments made fairly and respectfully in response to her posts, and
she seems entirely uninterested in learning from the many people on this
list who actually do know something about some of the topics we discuss.
It's this final point that bothers me most, for it reflects what is frankly
a very bad trend in our time: the politicization of knowledge, in the worst
sense of that term. If you don't like what the experts are saying, you go
find your own experts who say what you want them to say, whether or not they
are really experts. (This is of course what answersingenesis and other
creationist organizations do routinely, and we all know how damaging that is
to the truth. I do not accuse Janice of being a mouthpiece for AIG--I don't
recall seeing anything like that in her posts--but I am saying it's the same
kind of thing.)
If you want to stick around, Janice, I do recommend that you enter the
conversation without the chip on your shoulder, and that you *enter the
conversation*. If you don't feel like you have anything to contribute (in
the appropriate sense discussed above), there's no harm in lurking and
listening. But we aren't interested in being a sounding board for political
speech of any sort, when it is not germane to our conversations.
In closing, a disclaimer: anyone who tries to guess my political leanings
solely from my comments here is very likely to be mistaken. And off topic.
Ted
Received on Thu Mar 23 14:12:05 2006
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Thu Mar 23 2006 - 14:12:05 EST