Scientists in hiding

Piers Corbyn

Superb stuff Christopher.

We seem to be having to fight attempts to impose a new age of religiosity where belief in the 'Official' view reigns supreme. One needs to be reminded that consensus never advanced science.

The Guardian and Independent now blatantly CENSOR items even where they respond to questions raised in threads! No surprsie I suppose but see this: -
What The Guardian & Independent Censored 17-18Sept - Censored comments against Eco-Babble http://bit.ly/bS1HL3

flimflam_machine

Tedious. I can't believe that Mr Booker has raised the same old thoroughly debunked arguments against evolution. Less than a minute's googling will give you answers to all of these. Try typing "evolution of the eye" into google and clicking the first link. Similarly intermediate forms etc. etc.

The reason that people who dispute the fundamental fact of evolution are scorned and mocked is that they attempt to dispute an overwhelming body of mutually supporting evidence from different fields using arguments that have no substance at all. If evidence contrary to evolution were to emerge it would be a huge story and scientists the world over would be discussing it vigorously in no time. But the fact that you don't understand or wilfully remain ignorant of the evidence for evolution (in it's substantailly more modern post-Darwinian form) does not constitute evidence!

Rupert

I do like the Spectator in a lot of ways, but how I wish that when you publish articles on science you found journalists who bothered to do even the basic bits of research.

It must be nice to be invited to villas in the South of France, hosted by "a thoughtful and youngish billionaire", to share paranoid stories over glasses of wine.

It certainly sounds more fun than bothering to read any books or even to use Google to find that these "unanswered" questions have indeed been answered, at great length and in great detail over many years.

To add to AGW and evolution presumably Mr Booker feels the earth can't be round (as people would fall off the bottom), or that it can't go round the sun (we would notice the wind). Those common-sense objections are not much better than the reasons he offers, and it is not surprising that people are equally dismissive.

Murdoch

It is scary to read up such text.

These are issues that have been sorted out ages ago. If our education has such gaps that you can pass a denier creationist through, then we are in trouble.

It is interesting to see the author not revealing anything about his supposed 'other' ideas he picked up to 'replace' evolution. If he did that, you would post hundreds of links that a mere google search would debunk these alternative theories.

Nick Singer

In line with the opinion expressed in a previous post and without going into the specifics of a counter arguement Mr Booker makes a glaring ommission by not providing the references to the studies he cites, nay not even the names of the scientists involved! Thus we can not check his references and draw our own conclusions. Are we to accept his reading at face value? I think not! Perhaps it is he and his ilk who would rather stifle the facts and not be bothered with rigorous debate.

Rebecca

The trouble is, creationists (and indeed IDer's) defend a two thousand year old theory which resembles a straw hut which has deteriorated and lacks support but then constantly deride a 150 year old theory which has been updated, upgraded, renewed and strengthened, like turning a mud hut into an indestructible towering edifice.

mrjohn

Perhaps we are the intelligent designers of our future selves.

Adam Wadding

Mr Booker you are a crank, but the world would be boring without loons

Paul M.

Mr. Wadding, do you see how your comment might seem a tad ironic?

M7

I find it interesting that these comments support the pont of the article. There is no support either side of the argument here, just a factual statement about the treatment of those who want to rightfully question the accuracy of the science at hand. Isn't that one of the objectives of science, to question and research everything from every angle to remove doubt 110%?

wayne

Rebecca: you prove the point of this article. No science, no proof, just ridicule and scoffing - clearly the modus operendi of Darwinian believers against everyone else (inside and outside of science) who don't buy into the Darwinian belief system.

Robert

would one not sack a mathematician who claimed 2 + 2 = 5?

Chris P

Why do they people who are not scientists to write such utter rubbish. Global warming is absolutely real and so is evolution.

What we have here is a bunch of leaches that get paid to have an "alternative" view. This is rather along the lines of Fox News. They take money from the ignorant to spread fear and stupidity.

schumpeter

Booker is the Sally Jockstrap of science. So ludicrous as to be beyond scientific criticism, or even parody.

Chris P

What ignoramuses we have here - an opthalmologist just prescribes glasses - he's not a freaking biologist.

Boy - stupid prevails

Richard Harris

Isn't there a code of ethics in the newspaper industry that prevents ignorant fools like C Booker from publishing articles that are factually incorrect?

Misinformation in the press is just about as bad as in advertising, if anyone takes it seriously, which is, after all, the intention of the author.

Marquis Cha-Cha

Oh hey, so a billionaire is backing these poor, oppressed creation "scientists"? GREAT! So presumably that means a fully-funded, scientific creationist research program is imminent, right?

Oh, that money's only going for lavish pity-parties, so a bunch of sad looneys can rehash the same tired, dull-witted arguments that were old and laughable even before Darwin's time?

Sirs, I am crushed!

Zeno

Does the writer not know that Darwin both raised those questions *and* he answered them? Apparently not. He makes it sound like they've been hanging in air ever since Darwin penned them. And Darwin's answers have been improved upon ever since. When creationists stop whining and start doing research, then it will be time to listen to them. (Don't hold your breath.)

djfav

Would you care to name this "thoughtful and youngish billionaire" so that the Scientific Establishment can send its mutant space ninja army to dispose of him? Thanks.

Hugh

This is embarrassing. Christopher Booker: the crank's crank.

Though what I always wonder is whether its genuine, or whether he just knows that there's a good living to be had pandering to all the cranks out there.

djfav

Anna sez: "The Mona Lisa painting is simply a painting, color on canvas. It is not even a living organism."

And thus your analogy fails. Thanks for playing.

"Some of you need to use your brain, it's there for a reason."

I humbly suggest that you would do well to follow your own advice. Your brain is the result of millions of years of evolution. Don't blow it.

Pareidolius

Anecdotes ≠ Data. These people are not mocked for their beliefs, they are mocked for their "science."

Tim Harris

What an contemptibly dishonest and shoddy piece of writing. Doesn't the Spectator have an editor?

Marconi

Which of the following is the most compelling evidence for the existence of an intelligent and loving Designer?

1. The little girl born in Egypt with two functioning heads
2. The screams of a baby seal as it is torn apart by a shark
3. The superiority of the octopus eyeball to the human
4. Caribbean sunset

W. Courtney

So the point that Mr. Booker is making apparently is: Demonstrably false claims should not be ridiculed.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahah....

Bob

To all you critics of Mr Booker let me tell you that the ostracism he describes is real as I have experienced it myself. Every time I try to explain why I belive that the Earth is flat I get laughed out of the room.

Martin Anderson

So we have scientists who find they cannot 'believe' in evolution or AGM. Guess what, not believing is their prerogative but it is hilarious to present them as the victims of some conspiracy. Their consistent failure to provide evidence for their disbelief reveals them to be the ones who are guilty of dogmatic orthodoxy.

This is most obvious with the anti-evolutionists who hide their religiously fuelled disbelief behind 'Intelligent Design' (google 'cdesign proponentsists') and wedge documents. And in the meantime, the likes of Richard Lenski with his 20 year E.Coli experiment confirms (yet again!) that evolution is true.

The irony of drawing a parallel between the churches treatment of Galileo and these 'scientists' is breathtaking. In writing this piece, Christopher Booker has done only highlighted the vacuousness of the situation.

Simon Taylor

Thanks for raising this issue Christopher. You are a very, very, very brave man. I am a scientist and I know we are all incredibly worried about evolution being wrong.
Unfortunately the thought police are all around us and if we even mention our doubts we will probably be shot or even sacked from our jobs.

Please let us all know when you next go to see this youngish billionaire so that we can come too and talk about our doubts in safety.
You are like a crusader for the truth. I salute you! One day Science will understand the TRUTH.

ps please help the cause by telling all the doubters who the billionaire is, and put a list of all your sources on this site so that everyone else can see how RIGHT you are. These crazy evolutionists just need to see the evidence so that they can see the LIGHT.
pps. You are amazing.
ppps. You are my hero. We will be saved.

O.O. Howard

Pseudoscience- the playground of the mentally "different".

If you study reactionary movements the world over, what you tend to find is that the core activists are some form of undiagnosed OCD/bipolar sorts.

Roger Stanyard

I'm more than cynical about this "report". What it claims to say is that there was an unadvertised meeting attended by an unspecified number of scientists whose expertise was unstated and who offered no alternatives to whatever it was they might of disagrred with. All this was not financed by their own efforts but by an unnamed billionaire with, apparently, no expertise at all in whatever subjects might have been discussed. The report also claims a public conspiracy against them but provides no evidence or details whatsoever.

Hrafn

RELIGIOUS FANATICS PARADING THEIR FAUX-MARTYRDOM

1) To the best of my knowledge there has been only one scientific journal editor embroiled in a controversy for publishing "a paper sceptical of Darwin’s theory." His name was Richard Sternberg. (i) It WAS NOT "a major scientific journal", but a very minor one. (ii) He WAS NOT fired from it -- he published it in his last journal issue as editor, after resigning the position.

The paper was that of a Creationist fellow-traveller of Sternberg's (and thus a conflict of interest), it was published in violation of the journal's policy, had nothing to do with the journal's topic, and was appallingly badly written (and is commonly characterised as "Meyers' Hopless Monster'). All it is evidence of is the dishonesty all-too-frequently found in creationist circles.

2) 'Intelligent Design' has its origins in the creationist textbook 'Of Pandas and People', where it was used as a replacement for "Creationism" after the latter was ruled unconsitutional in american public schools -- leading to the embaressing 'transitional fossil' "cdesign proponentsists" in one draft. Those involved in promoting the term thereafter are hardly "expert scientists", in fact most aren't scientists at all.

3) Booker's "very serious questions" are in fact a bunch of flimsy fallacies (most comonly the fallacy of argument from personal incredulity/ignorance). The have all been debunked years ago, but are still trotted out at every opportunity as though they were something new and bright.

4) Creationists "who take Genesis as literally true" are Young Earth Creationists. Creationists who attempt to hide their beliefs' origins in theism, the Bible, etc are called Neo-Creationists. It is a 'term of art', not a caricature. (There are also Old Earth Creationists, Progressive Creationists, among others.)

Mike

Darwin did raise possible confounds for his theory but he did it as a rhetorical device. He then answered each point with remarkable accuracy that later research has supported.

The development of the eye and other supposedly "irreducibly complex" structures has been well documented. How is it you can write about a subject you are so ignorant of?

You are also ignorantly misconstruing the theory of evolution, which is as well documented as the theory of gravity, and the fact of evolution.

To compare those using reason and accepting evolution to wild eyed, clearly mad creationists is simply wrong. Stop it.

The academic embellishment and reasonable people don't accept the claims of creationists because they are wrong. That is all. It isn't being ostracized for an error to be proven and then to ignore as an idiot those who keep believing the error. The sheer wrongness and unprovability of ID (hint: you can't prove the existence of your creator deity so your dead in the water) is what causes it to be dismissed, not a "hole in the heart" of anything.

Shame on you, Mr. Booker. I would pity you for a fool for being taken in by such idiocy but you are trying to persuade others to your wrong and harmful positions. Thus, you deserve only contempt.

Baphomet

This article is so wrong in so many ways it's almost funny. Even a child could debunk this nonsense but it's probably not worth their time. Suffice to say the reason that all these so-called papers opposing evolution or climate change, or supporting homoeopathy or flat earth theory, are refused publication in proper scientific journals is that they're all unscientific nonsense. It's called peer review and it works bloody well on the whole.

You've made a good living pushing this claptrap on the gullible and uneducated; you should be ashamed of yourself.

PugetSoundAtheist

What I find especially rich about this essay is the author's total lack of names and places. Perhaps these "scientists" are too embarrassed to have their names listed and be counted among the "flat-Earthers" of the biblical creationist sect.
All Mr. Booker does is parade out old and totally debunked Creationist bullshit, while refusing to name anyone at this supposed "conference." Any so-called scientist deserves to be ridiculed for continuing to insist the world is flat, that God made everything in 6 24-hour days, and the complexity of the universe just "had to have a Maker." Mr. Booker, sir, you are an idiot, and a dangerous one.

GalapagosPete

"Simon Taylor"? Never heard of him; try providing some details.

Tarentola Mauritanica

You met with some people you wont name at some place you didn't really specify as guest of a youngish billionaire whose name you won't tell us.

need I say more ?

MacTurk

We have several unidentified but assuredly eminent, "scientists"(they must be, as Mr Booker says so), an unidentified, but benevolent, young billionaire and a certified lack of brain cells - aka Christopher Booker - meeting at an undisclosed location somewhere in the south of France. You must admit, persecution is easier in nice surroundings, no?

If Mr Booker wishes to be taken seriously by anyone who has more than three functioning braincells, he would be wise to provide evidence. Until then, this is more of his usual whine.

His basic approach is "I do not understand it, and I am too lazy to try. Ergo, it must be wrong". And anyone who points out that he is dribbling idiocy is persecuting him.

I do not see why he gets paid for this. I can find any amount of credulous, anti-scientific, creationist drool out there, produced by trolls who have not used their brains since the end of the Thatcher era. Hell, I could write any amount of the same rubbish myself for a small fee. Any offers?

Contemptible rubbish, which adds nothing to the grand sum of human welfare.

GalapagosPete

Apparently Simon Taylor was also one of the "attendees."

Patrick

There is nothing new in this article. The author embarrasses himself by publishing this. I never thought such banal and base ignorance had such purchase in this country.

cleo

What an extraordinarily silly article! Anybody would think that all our hundreds of years of scientific study was completely worthless.

jonah stiffhausen

Another much need article from Booker, calling into question the fatuous nonsense that is accepted wisdom these days.
What I can't work out is why the Darwinists get so upset about having this hilarious theory called into question. I mean, you'd think they'd be happy not having to accept that there were monkeys in the family.
More power to your elbow Booker!