Re: [asa] Ottawa Citizen: The Skeptics Are Vindicated

On Nov 25, 2009, at 5:52 PM, Schwarzwald wrote:

> Sure peer-review is often inadequate, sure consensus science is questionable, sure scientists get it wrong (more often than they get it right, in fact) - but do you really think that scientists themselves are ignorant of this? You say we should regard them with skepticism, question their motives, and disagree with their findings - but what, pray tell, do you think scientists spend most of their time doing to one another?

Westminster Larger Catechism

Question 145: What are the sins forbidden in the ninth commandment?

Answer: The sins forbidden in the ninth commandment are, all prejudicing the truth, and the good name of our neighbors ... misconstructing intentions [orig. lang. imputing motives] .. raising false rumors, receiving and countenancing evil reports, and stopping our ears against just defense

Iain, you were being very patient to see if there was anything was innocent about the e-mails. Thank you. Questioning motives is just plain wrong. I live in both the scientific and Christian communities and it is a sad commentary that secular scientists far more rarely question other people's motives than Christians do. I do acknowledge that secular scientists do question Christians' motives but it's largely because of guilt by association by assuming that all Christians in the sciences act like the people who are drawing outrageous conclusions from the stolen e-mails. This is the reason why we are called "liars for Jesus".

There are far too many ASA members who are both good Christians and scientists who are unnecessarily getting tarred by this kind of crap. The felicity all around of questioning motives is one of the reasons Christians in the sciences won't admit they're Christians in a scientific setting and (the more common) admit they're mainstream scientists in a church setting. There is literally no sanctuary.

Rich Blinne
Member ASA

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Received on Thu Nov 26 11:05:11 2009