The “Mad” Scientists

If you’ve been reading Delaware Liberal for the past month, you’ve probably noticed the addition of a certain scientist with an attitude. You’re probably wondering what happened to the shy, retiring scientists in white coats that you’ve come to expect. And you might wonder, why are scientists so mad? What brought this on?

Perhaps my favorite scientist with attitude is P.Z. Myers, a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota-Morris, who blogs at Pharyngula. He’s an outspoken defender of evolutionary theory and uses ridicule to do it. He’s quite fearless. Looking through his archives, I found this post, which illustrates my point perfectly. (For the record, Ken Ham is a young earth creationist who built a creationist “museum” in Kentucky.)

Oh, dear. Earlier, I wrote about Ken Ham’s visit to the Pentagon, a soul-shuddering thought if ever there was one, and it seems Ken has read it. He has replied with a blog entry titled Biology Professor Calls Me “Wackaloon”. Ken, Ken, Ken. You act shocked at the thought that one guy publicly stated that you were Mr Flaming Nutbar, but you shouldn’t be. Millions of people, including some of the most knowledgeable biologists in the world, think just about every day that you are an airhead, an ass, a birdbrain, a blockhead, a bonehead, a boob, a bozo, a charlatan, a cheat, a chowderhead, a chump, a clod, a con artist, a crackpot, a crank, a crazy, a cretin, a dimwit, a dingbat, a dingleberry, a dipstick, a ditz, a dolt, a doofus, a dork, a dum-dum, a dumb-ass, a dumbo, a dummy, a dunce, a dunderhead, a fake, a fathead, a fraud, a fruitcake, a gonif, a halfwit, an idiot, an ignoramus, an imbecile, a jackass, a jerk, a jughead, a knucklehead, a kook, a lamebrain, a loon, a loony, a lummox, a meatball, a meathead, a moron, a mountebank, a nincompoop, a ninny, a nitwit, a numbnuts, a numbskull, a nut, a nutcase, a peabrain, a pinhead, a racketeer, a sap, a scam artist, a screwball, a sham, a simpleton, a snake oil salesman, a thickhead, a turkey, a twerp, a twit, a wacko, a woodenhead, and much, much worse.

You’re a clueless schmuck who knows nothing about science and has arrogantly built a big fat fake museum to promote medieval bullshit — you should not be surprised to learn that you are held in very low esteem by the community of scholars and scientists, and by the even larger community of lay people who have made the effort to learn more about science than you have (admittedly, though, you have set the bar very, very low on that, and there are 5 year old children who have a better grasp of the principles of science as well as more mastery of details of evolution than you do.)

This may be a more extreme example of the trend, but it is becoming common. This attitude has come about because scientists are tired of fighting the same battle, over and over again. On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, 150 years ago. Evolution is the fundamental basis of modern biology, and many advances in the field would not be possible without an understanding of the principles. The field of biology has advanced greatly in the last 150 years, but the field of creationist criticism has changed very little. [For an extremely comprehensive list of claims and counterarguments, see The Index of Creationist Claims.]

No matter how many years pass with evolutionary theory functioning perfectly well, the political controversy never goes away. And it’s a political controversy, not a scientific one. The critics can’t win a battle of science, which involves doing research, publishing that research and letting that research go through the peer review process. What makes scientists so angry is that these dishonest dealers are accorded the same respect as a scientific expert. These creationists, who have no peer-reviewed papers and little to no scientific training, are put on TV shows, newspaper columns and the lecture circuit as genuine experts who just want to “teach the controversy.” The creationists need to protect everyone from the meanie scientists who have a conspiracy to keep the real truth from being heard.

Many scientists now believe that engaging the critics give them legitimacy that they haven’t earned, and are responding to critics with ridicule and contempt. To be sure, this approach has alienated some allies who believe the best way to win over people is to engage with them. Some critics of the approach are horrified that scientists would ridicule people’s deeply-held religious beliefs. The “mad” scientists argue that society has been too deferential to people’s religious beliefs and that is part of the problem.

I feel that scientists are just starting to catch on to the fact that the battle of public opinion is not always settled by facts and figures. Scientists involved in politically-charged research are going to have to engage the public on several levels: data, political connections and emotional connection. I do think that ridicule can have a powerful effect on public conversation. Only time will tell if this new approach is successful.