PZ Myers bemoans the lack of detailed knowledge of the history of biology endemic in the tech field, as revealed by the backstory of the Open Darwin mascot:
Once my platypus was chosen someone suggested that we use "Hexley" as the name of the new mascot since Darwin's assistant was named Hexley. It turns out we were wrong and the person we were referring to was actually Thomas Henry Huxley. Huxley was not Darwin's assistant but was a prominent English biologist in his own right. [...] By the time we found out our mistake "Hexley" had escaped into the ether and we felt that it was too late to change the name to "Huxley".
Quoth the good Professor:
Oooh. Ow. How embarrassingly ignorant. It’s bad enough that “someone” was so cavalier about the facts that they would toss out that misremembered rationale in the first place, but then for it to bounce around on a mailing list and no one noticed…ick.
Give me a break. Lack of information concerning one specialized field doesn't make someone working in an entirely different specialized field "embarrassingly ignorant". Whoever got Huxley's name and career wrong could no doubt reel off half a dozen names unknown to Prof Myers and sneer at him for his "embarrassing ignorance" too.
Then, in the next entry, one Sarah Ives finds herself labelled "credulous, bad [and] lazy" for "peddling lies to children" in this story.
According to the Bible, Noah was protecting the animals from a great flood. [...] some historians think Noah lived in the [Mt Ararat] area, if he in fact was a real man [...] Not everyone is convinced that McGivern and his group have found Noah's ark. There is still no proof that the ark exists.(emphasis mine) The story includes a quote from McGivern, another from someone credible who thinks it's highly unlikely and another from someone just pointing out that the mountain in question is a bugger to climb. Granted the title is a bit sensationalistic, but where are the terrible, horrible, child-corrupting lies? I hardly think Ms Ives' piece qualifies as religious propaganda, however hard mention of his least favourite mythology makes Prof Myers' knee jerk.
As it happens, spousal unit and I have just taken up a subscription to National Geographic, partly because we were so pleased to see that the answer they gave to this question was a resounding and uncompromising NO. Thanks all the same, Professor, but we won't be cancelling anything just yet.
Update: (via Richard Chappell in the comments to PZM's thread) A few months after the article that has PZM (and now Brian Leiter) telling me to cancel my subscription, Nat Geo came down hard on the Arkspedition, calling it a publicity stunt and quoting a swarm of skeptics.
Comments
Yeah, I'd have thought they'd Google it too. I just thought you overreacted.
Ditto with the nat geo piece -- there's no endorsement of religion or the idea of the ark, and the author carefully inserts all the necessary "as Xtians believe"-type disclaimers. It just seems like a little "news of the weird" article to me. It's certainly interesting to me that someone thinks they've found Noah's Ark, and if anything I'd have thought that article would encourage kids to question such ideas. Mentioning religious beliefs without explicit sneering does not equal endorsement or imply low standards.
the backstory of the Open Darwin mascot
evolution's like that, though. no matter how careful you are, sometimes the runt of this generation sneaks in and fathers the next.
It all evens out over the next millenia or so.
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I don't expect random gangs of computer geeks to know all the nit-picky details of the history of biology, but it just seems to me that someone might have thought to, like, Google it. That's the thing; you go to the effort of making a fancy logo, you might take two minutes to get some simple background correct.
As for nat. geo., I think it is extremely reprehensible for the organization to take a goofy expedition managed by religious fruitcakes and con artists so seriously that they package up a little story about it for kids. It says that they have set their standards extraordinarily low.