Comments on: “Science in the Public Forum” Ira Flatow on Atheists Talk, October 24, 2010 https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/ Sun, 24 Oct 2010 20:42:39 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 By: clamboy https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525240 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 20:42:39 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525240 See, this is what happens when one responds to a comment when one doesn’t (when I don’t) know anything about the individual making the comment.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525239 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 20:27:21 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525239 Clamboy: I agree with what you are saying completely. However, Amanda was not suggesting a free-market only science. She was simply underscoring by restating what both Ira Flatow and I said because she completely agrees with it and thought it was the main point of the discussion.

Looking back at her comment, it does look like a libertarian jab, but I am certain that it is not. These brief twitter-like Internet conversations are like that.

]]> By: clamboy https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525238 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 19:55:53 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525238 Explanation ahead, sir! Okay, I admit it: it was my gut reaction to Amanda’s comment that got me going. The comment reads like a set-up to an Objectivist/Libertarian/Church of the Holy Free Market objection to use of public funds to support science. I think that it is patently obvious that private and public investment in the sciences are both necessary for these fields to succeed. Okay, maybe “science” would “survive” with no public (tax) money, but it surely would not thrive. Would the “free market alone” have built the LHC?
Again, I say that the necessity of backing science public and private funds is a trivial fact. A=A, the necessity of public and private investment in science necessitates public and privates investment in science.
Maybe not the clearest explanation ever, but an explanation nonetheless.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525237 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 19:10:29 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525237 Explain yourself, clamboy! Because I’m not entirely sure what you are getting at.

]]> By: clamboy https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525236 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 18:13:35 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525236 The statement “science cannot survive on free market alone – government is needed to back it” is trivially true. (I fear I may have just poked an acolyte of Ayn Rand. If so, I apologize for the potential derailing of this conversation.)

]]> By: Amanda https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525235 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 15:43:24 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525235 According to Greg and Ira, science cannot survive on free market alone – government is needed to back it.

]]> By: Mike Hanson-Haubrich https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525234 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 15:33:35 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525234 Mary, we got this comment while we are the studio and we are talking about doing an entire show on the topic.

]]> By: Amanda https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525233 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 15:29:02 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525233 “They’re trying to create more heat than light.” Favorite quote so far by Ira in regards to broadcast media on science.

]]> By: Mary Tanner https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525232 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 15:13:25 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525232 Thank you, Mike and Greg, for the clarification. I was hoping that Ira wasn’t planning on “outing” himself on the show, as though I would personally love to hear him come clean if he had such a persuasion, I think it would be devastating, politically and popularly, for his show’s listenership.

I look forward to hearing what he has to say from the other side of the interview desk, especially the issues that fall within the science/atheism Venn diagram overlap.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525231 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 03:36:10 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/10/23/science-in-the-public-forum-ir-1/#comment-525231 I assume Ira is an atheist, because I assume everyone is an atheist until they tell me differently (or demonstrate differently). The world is a much happier place that way!

But yes, what Mike said. Of the handful of shows I’ve done as a guest or interviewer, only one had any sort of explicit connection to atheism, and that was about missionaries. I don’t consider myself qualified to talk about atheism as a topic, especially in comparison to the many well informed highly educated experts that Atheist Talk seems to have going for it already.

By the way, one potential guest of about a year ago, who would have been a real coup to get on the show, happens to be a Christian and was reluctant to be interviewed because of the assumption that guests had to be atheists. A potential listener and facebook friend who happens to be a Christian said to me the other day, on hearing about tomorrow’s show, that she might even listen to it since she loves Ira.

So there are guests who won’t be guests who should be, and listeners who should be listeners who won’t be be. As it stands, I think if anything Atheist talk is suffering from a bit too much purity rather than too little!

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