Mario Beauregard is an Associate Researcher in the Departments of Radiology and Psychology at the University of Montreal in Montreal, Quebce, Canada. He is best known as the co-author of The Spiritual Brain with Denyse O'Leary.Jeffrey M. Schwartz is a research psychiatrist at the School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles (USA). He signed the Discovery Institute's "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" statement.
Beauregard and Schwartz joined in a holy alliance to write a letter of protest to New Scientist concerning an article published a few months ago. The article was critical of people like Beauregard and Schwartz who mix religion and science.
Your writer's attempt to smear scientists who are looking for new directions, while perhaps entertaining, is a poor substitute for thoughtful coverage of a growing area.Perhaps we should be looking to writers like Denyse O'Leary for thoughtful coverage?
It appears to me that the only area in which any growth is experienced by ID proponents is that of their collective stupidity, which is certainly growing daily. But then again, what do I know...
ReplyDeleteBut.. but.. she has so many blogs (one with over 30 votes!) and a published book. She must be really smart. You're probably just jealous.
ReplyDeleteScience thrives on new ideas, on revisiting old neglected ones, on mavericks and new directions. Unfortunately for O'Leary and Beauregard, the natural sciences require one to provide actual evidence, or make better sense of the available evidence, in order for such new ideas to persuade the scientific community. And even though they never provide it, the proponents of ID (and their more recent neuroscientific equivalents) whine rather than revisit their research and conclusions, which shows them for what they are: proponents of an ideology, seeking to claim the power of science undeservingly.
ReplyDeleteI wrote a review of The Spiritual Brain a while back that you may enjoy. I think I was not only fair but generous given the book's tone, which is far worse than its content (which is pretty poor to begin with).