On Creationism, ID, DI, etc

Just a note, Allen. I don’t have to Google the book, because I’ve read it. And while I agree with you that her framing of the Altenberg conference often shows ignorance of the subject matter and is filled with hype, it’s important to point out that the bulk of the book, probably 80% or more, is long direct quotations from the scientists she is interviewing. She typically asks a slanted, leading question, and then the scientist (well, mostly scientists, but one philosopher was at the conference as well) goes on to mostly ignore the question (occasionally objecting slightly to its framing), and just talk for several pages about what he wants to talk about. So you can learn the rough positions of these scientists, in their own words, from reading the book.

Of course, these were popular interviews, not scientific papers, and the scientists knew that they were contributing words to a book aimed primarily at laymen, so one shouldn’t expect rigorous argument or equations or diagrams etc. But taken for what they were, several of the interviews were interesting and informative.

I have nothing to say about how Meyer may have used Mazur; I just wanted to clarify that the book consists overwhelmingly of the words of interviewees rather than the words of Mazur, and that the book has some value (for the layman) because of that.

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