Aachen_hexgon, AV is not a bad guy, really
I have no doubt about that point. But the words we say matter. Otherwise why say them?
. I do think he means well with his criticisms of modern science.
I disagree. If one means well in regards to science one doesn't simply toss it when it is inconvenient, one critiques it and finds the flaws.
One does not simply tell it to "take a hike" and then follow up with laying the blame for every single horror that has happened to humanity at its doorstep.
It appears that AV wants science to take responsibility for Thalidomide but he doesn't realize that it was
science that helped us understand what thalidomide was doing that was bad. He wants science to take responsibility for Challenger yet it was science that helped explain what happened on Challenger.
Science
inherently takes responsibility for the problems and the problems happen and can be fixed through science.
It wasn't prayer that figured out what thalidomide was doing to fetuses. It wasn't a sign from God that explained what happened with Challenger.
Science is like a group of pioneers out exploring the edges of what we know. Bad things happen from time to time. The only way to avoid it is we simply stop growing, stop exploring, stop learning.
And then we would say "Science can take a hike".
I think maybe we should just try to understand him as he is -- a hyper-fundamentalistic Christian who believes that his comments (and challenges) make people think.
No doubt. But it doesn't appear to me that he actually takes in the impetus to thought that
others may provide. Instead he posts an endless stream of challenges and when faced with science that doesn't fit his view he doesn't examine the science he merely decrees it flawed and tells it to take a hike.
I don't think he should have to change his view of God by any means. He is free to believe as he feels is right. But if he despises scientists so much it seems disingenuous to call them all sorts of names, make unfounded accusastions against them, say they are unwitting tools of Satan and then try to slobber it into a compliment by decreeing these same creatures he's lambasted as "God's gift".
he did choose Alfred E. Nuemen after all.
I am more than willing to accept the "work" of those who would tweak the noses of the establishment, but they must do it from a position of actual thought. I don't really see that much of it from AV, especially when he gets on this rants about clipboards and satan's workers.
As far as Pluto is concerned, if scientists want to send a probe to its ice-ridden surface, then fine, let them send a probe. But on a personal level, whether we call Pluto a planet or not seems to me to be a lesser concern of life, as well as of science.
The Pluto Debate is an example of AV's special brand of intransigence. It has been explained to him countless times that it is merely a
definitional concept and it doesn't change the science one whit other than to establish a definition where one didn't exist prior to 2006. Yet he still loves to point to it as a "flaw" of science.
He does not seem to be willing to think when challenged. But he wants to challenge others to think?
That sounds like hypocrisy or a certain solipsism that leads him to believe he is the one in command of all knowledge. Even as he tells science to take a hike.