Categories: Coyne v. Wells

Coyne v. Wells on Gary Goodyear

VIDEO: Our blogging heads debate the controversy surrounding the Tory’s science and tech minister

by macleans.ca on Thursday, March 19, 2009 6:15pm - 61 Comments

Tags: Andrew coyne, coynevwells09, gary goodyear, paul wells, religion

Critical Reasoning

Excellent vlog. A very balanced perspective from both Andrew and Paul, although I think the case for alleged Conservative “anti-elitism” has been overstated.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

As I & others said on the other thread, this is another great vlog. Whether it’s the pacing, or the easy back-and-forth between big ideas and Canadian politics, or Mr. Coyne’s spring haircut, you guys are clearly onto a winning formula.

Re: the anti-rational, anti-expert Tory strategy, I wonder if it’s a strategy at all or just a dearth of talent. What the Conservatives need, it seems to me, is some Reihan Salam jiu-jitsu guy who can be sent out to slice & dice. Even if they canned the knee-jerk anti-intellectualism, they would still have to find a Reihan Salam to write, well, Stéphane Dion-style Letters to their opponents. Does one exist?

Critical Reasoning

I don’t think there is an “anti-expert” Tory strategy. I agree that the Conservatives need to recruit more “star” MPs to bolster talent. Part of the problem is inertia – it’s hard to displace those whose performance is adequate but not spectacular. Another problem is that talented MPs are sometimes passed over for Cabinet spots in favour of MPs who live in regions of the country where the party is trying to boost support.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Quite right, the more’s the pity. What about you, CR? You’d be a great Tory MP. Or — in light of what you remark here — a Tory Senator. If only the Senate weren’t for life, governments could fill it with articulate jiu-jitsu folk — as a “list” of the kind you get in PR, whereby some star thinkers and talkers get included and given a platform. Perhaps we could somehow work temporary Senate seats into the unwritten constitution?

Critical Reasoning

Thanks, Jack – I think I’m more comfortable on the sidelines. :) I think 8 year terms are a good idea for Senate reform.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

That’s a good round number. Ironically I’d bet the average tenure of a Senator is about that already, i.e. from 67-75 years of age. While I appreciate the wisdom of experience, it would be nice to see some younger sober second thought too. Or first thought, as I suppose it often is these days.

http://womancomputerinteraction.wordpress.com truemuse

“Carr said Goodyear is confusing evolution with ordinary, day-to-day change.”
Sounds like Carr doesn’t know much more about evolution than Goodyear. The problem in all of this is that everyone is dumbed down by access to information that they can’t process (through the internet). This is an ‘evolution’ that will eventually result in alot more ‘smart people’ but is uber frustrating for all those who really know what they are talking about on any given topic. It’s like when medical internet sites first came out and people went running to their doctors with ‘I know this, I know that’ and doctors had to adjust to this new type of patient and they all got dumbed down.

Paul Wells

Ooh! Enlighten us about evolution! Show us how you’re smarter than a biology prof! I’m gonna pop some popcorn. This will be good.

Here’s Steve Carr’s website. I’m pretty sure he didn’t learn what he needs to teach basic and advanced genetics, human population genetics, principles of evolution, biogeography and genetic biotechnology by Googling it:

http://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Directory.html

http://womancomputerinteraction.wordpress.com truemuse

Now when I was a school kiddy I learned about the white moths that turned black by a process of evolution. Close by the little forest where the moths fluttered there was a flame inside a smokestack. Black smoke dusted the trees of the forest and the unfortunate white moths (the Bishop’s Wing) were easily eaten by birds. Eventually only Black Moths lived in the Forest. Yet White and Black Moths lived elsewhere, in other forests far from the Flame. Evolution, of Grey moths into Black Moths, of While Moths away from Flame, is only a theory.
nighty night

Terry

Wow, your biology teacher you had as a “school kiddy” failed you.

Also, it is correct that evolution is a theory. A well-tested theory supported by all available facts though.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

The moths of old, how clearly I recall!
Some black as soot, some white as new-laid snow;
The children play beneath the factory’s pall
And with the moths go dancing — long ago.

But soon, alas! the underworld receives
The white, though not the black, insects we love;
The factory soot besmirches all the leaves
On which they perch, and soon the hungry dove

Espies the white, though not the black, and fills
Its greedy tummy with the bugs we love,
Till no white moths remain; so fate fulfills
Itself, and few take cognisance thereof.

White moths of yore! Alas that underfoot
Great Darwin’s laws have crushed your snowy race;
I linger yet beneath the factory soot
And with a sigh my dear black moths embrace.

Terry

You need a followup to that poem, in which the white moths return in numbers because of laws controlling pollution.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Forsaken thus, and wreathed in soot, I lay,
Immune alike to doves and to delight,
With none but moths to witness my dismay,
And in my wrath I cursed the factory’s blight.

Yet soon — for such is heaven’s clemency –
A little man who wore a white lab coat
Came to enforce the minister’s decree,
The better soot-free forests to promote.

He fits the filter and the gasket tweaks;
No more the chimney stains the verdant leaf;
The white-moth-murdering dove for hunger shrieks;
And I alone sit limply in my grief.

But look! what charm, what wizardry was that?
The white moths now return, unseen above,
And what their soot-free ancestors begat
The propagate again with soot-free love.

http://womancomputerinteraction.wordpress.com truemuse

And the doctors got dumbed down because they were forced to engage day in day out in a new type of communication with the ‘amateur’. Doctors began to take for granted a knowledge base that isn’t there in patients and an authoritarian top-down model of discussion gets transformed. So when we have Paul Wells saying ‘any school child knows this or that’ he’s kind of missing the point that all of us, in some measure, are school kids again or forced to deal with school kids daily and with that, comes a regrouping of the authority set — in this example, we have the Scientists who say ‘evolution is fundamental’ and a government that eschews expertise.

The fundamentals of all science are in flux now due to the electron microsope and the spin off from those discoveries. Study of the smallest observable things moved the boundary around the unseen and the borders around theory (how to predict what is not yet observable). In the liberal arts (including religion) theory also had to shift from this nexus to explain anew what is observable. Coyne and Wells are talking here about the relationship of authority to theory but a closer examination by them on this should take them inside their own discipline to understand where the authority now is in news dessemination.

cew

You’re seemingly getting your post-modern analysis, philosophy of science, and basic facts all mucked up, turned around, and basically incorrect. First of all there is no consensus within the philosophy of science about the status of unobservables, theory is not limited to predicting unobservable phenomena (unless you define that broadly enough to include relationships between observable phenomena, etc. – in which case your argument is flawed for different reasons), and the electron microscope hardly presented any findings so fundamentally contrary to previous theory that it has upset the current paradigm. The claims you are making are pretty contentious, and certainly do not have any sort of agreement or consensus among scholars, yet you present them as if they do, which is to say without at least backing them up with arguments.

Part of my problem is maybe with comprehension here because you are all over the place; you finish the last paragraph – about developments in theories about unobservables – with a reference back to the half-clear analysis of authority in your first paragraph.I don’t want to go into much detail here, especially since the specific points you are trying to make are vague and couched in deliberately over-complex language and syntax. However, suffice it to say that any shift in the “authority nexus” or controversy over atomic theory in no way invalidates work already done on evolution, and unless you present a coherent critique of evolutionary theory, or of the basic scientific method you don’t really have much of a point at all.

http://womancomputerinteraction.wordpress.com truemuse

‘seemingly’ is the operative word. That was a blog comment, not a dissertation :)
I do get to be oblio (thank-you Liz!) among the pointy headed if my blog comment:
1) gets one or more replies;
2) is deleted by the moderator;
3) makes the blog author click my blog from his/her WordPress dashboard;
4) makes the blog author delete his/her post before my comment is succeeded by another.

sf

I agree with cew, you don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t think there is any relation between authority and theory, the two concepts are completely unrelated.

The election microscope was the result of scientific advancement more than it was the precursor. It is a useful tool to perform tasks much more than it is a stimulator of new scientific discoveries.

The electron microscope cannot even come close to observing the smallest known things, because it is limited by the wavelength of the electron.

http://womancomputerinteraction.wordpress.com truemuse

How does a theory gain in authority?
Who has the authority to dismiss theories?
Are more conclusions drawn from theories with more authority?
What happens to the scientist who promotes a theory that has little authority?
By whose authority are research funds devoted to development of a theory?

The experiment to prove the existence of Quarks created an ‘electron microscope’ on a large scale. How much of nuclear physics, since then, is devoted to theories describing the movements of Quarks????? Electron Microscopy of DNA ? Without it how long do you think it would have taken to weaken the Theory of Evolution?
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_genoma04.htm
http://womancomputerinteraction.wordpress.com truemuse

http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-technology-1/State-of-the-art-electron-microscope-promises-to-aid-major-research-advances-10868-1/

Paul Wells

“The problem in all of this is that everyone is dumbed down by access to information that they can’t process (through the internet). This is an ‘evolution’ that will eventually result in alot more ’smart people’ but is uber frustrating for all those who really know what they are talking about on any given topic.”

Q.E.D.

http://womancomputerinteraction.wordpress.com truemuse

I’m glad we finally understand each other! Most of what I say here is Q.E.D. otherwise there is nothing to say.

Michael

http://www.functionsofnature.com

yes I am looking for a patron so I can finish the bloody thing without worrying about paying rent
Liz

Is Gary Goodyear going to resign? Will Stephen Harper replace him?

Since cew handed the oblio kid truemuse his/her pointy-headed hat, this debate is pretty much over.

Can Gary Goodyear continue effectively in the Science portfolio or not? is The Question.

Canada has been shown to be punching wildly and decidedly below its weight and under the belt in the scientific field.

Is Canada comfortable remaining in this particular weight class?

Goodyear has no credibility in this portfolio. What would a responsible government do?
Eskimo

I take issue with this whole “Conservatives will have to reach out to the smarty pants crowd’. That is exactly what David Frum is doing with his crusade to get so-called hard line Republicans to try this whole metrosexual/mushy middle thingy. Mr. Coyne and Wells, just to let you know that there ARE people west of Thunder Bay Ontairio that not only have PhD’s, but also vote Conservative.

There are Alberta rednecks who dropped out of high school and own and operate multi million dollar oilfield companies employing thousands. That takes some smarts. You can go to an opera in Edmonton. Or an art gallery in Saskatchewan. Conservatives are NOT mouth breathing, knuckle dragging wife beaters, contrary to what the Toronto Star, CTV and the CBC may have to say.

Why are the Conservatives always on the hook to be the ones that should change? Sorry, but I don’t WANT to have latte and don’t WANT to watch Queer Eye. Would it kill any of the limp wristed lefties to butch up a little and stop trying to be everything to everybody? There are certain Conservative principles that cannot be dumbed down or nuanced. All because it doesn’t sit well with the modern day ‘sissy-ism’ that is plaguing the western world.

Let’s say the Science and Technology Minister were a Muslim? Or Budhist? It wouldn’t be a news headine and we wouldn’t be debating it. Religion, specifically Christianity is being attacked because it can be pinned on the enemy, which in this case is Conservative politicians. Label him or her a radical, George Bush style EVIL bible thumping redneck is the battle cry of the left. This is right from the Liberal Party of Canada playbook whereby they need a scandal and distraction because they are a rudderless party in exile and need a diversion. A diversion that’s served up by a complacent and sympathetic left leaning press, free of charge and in heavy rotation on the daily news.

Remember, Paul Martin claimed to be a devout Catholic. He got a free ride all because of his political stripe. It’s as simple as that.

Paul Wells

Persuasive.

http://coyne kc

Very!!!

Neil from Calgary

Eskimo, thank you for that. There are quite a few pro-lifers in the Liberal Party, and I think one of them even tabled a private member’s bill that would have placed limits on abortion.

BTW I’m not a Christian. Not that there’s anything wrong with it…
Liz

The day that a Stephen Harper government appoints a Muslim, Jew or Bhuddist to the Science portfolio is the day I will take the pointy hat from truemuse and eat it.

Talk about red herrings and straw men!

Is Goodyear a go or not? is the question.

sf

Talk about completely missing the point.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

When was the last time you saw a Muslim, Jew, or Buddhist making a big fuss about evolution, say, or wanting the Koran/Torah/Life of Buddha read out in schools? I’ve never heard of such a thing. (Spare me the Steynian paranoia here.) Christian Creationists are the ones who have it in for the enlightenment, not those other religions, and they rally together on that basis. If Muslims, Jews, or Buddhists ever try the same thing in the mainstream press, you can be sure we’d fight back; but frankly I think those religions are far more civilised than our own homegrown Creationists and would neither care to try it nor get very far if they did try.

Terry

Oh please Jack, of course there are conflicts of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism with our pluralistic society. There are also problems with each of those religions with people who don’t like what science has to say about some subjects. They are just a small enough in numbers to be easily ignored, in this country anyway. Other countries there are plenty of Jews and Muslims who have objections to evolution, while many Buddhists and Hindus do not believe science is useful at all as a discipline.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

That’s what I was trying to say. We don’t bother critiquing Buddhist and Hindu creationists because they are not a threat to enlightenment in our society. I’m sure such creationists could try and make themselves a nuisance if they wished, but they either don’t care to try or can’t succeed. So for all intents and purposes their creationism is moot.
Critical Reasoning

Christian Creationists are the ones who have it in for the enlightenment.

This is Canada, not Kansas. Christian Creationists pose no threat whatsoever to Canadian enlightenment.

frankly I think those religions are far more civilised than our own homegrown Creationists

A rather specious comment, wouldn’t you say?
Terry

I’m taking specific issue with “I think those religions are far more civilized than our own homegrown Creationists”.

You can find Jews and Muslims who find common cause with Christian fundamentalists on the issue of evolution, and you can find Hindus and Buddhists who make common cause with new-age threats to science, both in this country and in the U.S.
Terry

Also, the enlightenment wasn’t as pro-empiricism as everyone says it is. In fact, it was far less friendly to empiricism than the scholasticism it replaced.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

How many wild-eyed Wahhabis, violent Hindu nationalists, or whatever the Buddhist equivalent would be (sages who fast for a year?) are there in Canada? Proportionally to the mainstream Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist populations, very few indeed. But Creationist Christianity — i.e. hardcore literalist extremism — is a significant part of the Christian landscape in Canada. Thus, in Canada, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism are much less likely to be represented by aggressive anti-rational elements than Christianity is. (I don’t even know if there’s an aggressive anti-rational form of Judaism, but if there is I’ve never heard of it.) So I stick by those religions being far more civilised than our homegrown Creationists; since Western rationalism didn’t develop out of them, they may seem at odds with it, but they are not in reaction against it because they aren’t very interested in it. The creationism-vs.-Darwinism debate is a Western debate.

Terry: “You can find Jews and Muslims who find common cause with Christian fundamentalists on the issue of evolution”

If you look reeeaaaly hard you can.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

CR: “Christian Creationists pose no threat whatsoever to Canadian enlightenment.”

Dude, there is a creationist sitting in Cabinet as the Minister of Science. Another one is Minister of International Trade. One of the reasons they have not turned us into Kansas is that people deprecate their creationism.
Critical Reasoning

Another reason that Canada has not turned into Kansas:
Creationists in Canada: 50% of the population
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

You must mean Kansas.
Critical Reasoning

Part of my comment disappeared because the “less than” sign was read as formatting.

Creationists in Canada: less than 20%
Creationists in Kansas: more than 50%
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Phew! : )
Critical Reasoning

LOL.
Terry

@Jack – But you admit that those religions are far more civilized than our own homegrown creationists might have been mistaken?

Oh, and you don’t have to look that hard. I believe that a person of Jewish descent hosted a “documentary” against Darwin and his theories just last year.
Terry

I should perhaps make it clear that I’m talking about Ben Stein’s “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

@ Terry — Well, I think you’ve added some good caveats to that statement, but I would compare the logic of Western Christian creationism (though not its tactics, of course) to the most extreme forms of Islam. I think the mystical element of Buddhism, Islam, and Hindu philosophy is as civilised as anything in Christianity (generally speaking, comparing the best to the best), though as I say they have not had to grapple with Western rationalism for the last few hundred years so their theology isn’t really topical like ours is. But as far as I’m concerned anti-rationalism is anti-rationalism. If there’s something civilised about Western creationists it’s because no one’s told them about it so they haven’t had a chance to expunge it. I mean, let’s not kid ourselves, creationism is not some survival of primitive Christianity, it’s a wholly reactionary approach to thought and to society.

I quite agree with your point about scholasticism, btw. For me that’s the way forward through this pointless science-vs.-religion dichotomy, for which we have our 18th C friends to thank.

I haven’t seen Ben Stein’s movie, but what little I heard of it made me think it came from the distant far-right territory where the Rapture, antisemitism, extreme Zionism, militarism, etc. all blend together for purely emotional reasons. That is the weirdest alliance ever, I have to say; would be comical if it weren’t so intent on screwing up the world.
madeyoulook

Shorter Jack: Christian Creationists are fair game for ridicule because there are so many of them.

Is that what we’re going with now?

I will repeat from an earlier thread: they’ve got a CHIROPRACTOR as science minister, for crying out loud. He should be dropped — he never should have been there to begin with. We can keep religion safely tucked away, here, if only we would.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Not quite, MYL. Everybody’s fair game, but a) it’s not worth wasting one’s time attacking Zoroastrianism and b) the Creationists are reactionaries who have declared war on the modern world.

Critical Reasoning

Liz, perhaps you should start wearing that pointy hat of yours. At least truemuse is honestly expressing her beliefs, instead of flinging unfounded and completely inappropriate accusations of racism at our PM.

Liz

My comments are far from racist. I merely observe that PM Harper appointed someone sadly bereft of any scientific knowledge beyond grade 8 shop class.

If PM Harper had a muslim, bhuddist, or a jew competent enough for the science portfolio would he have appointed him or her?

Quite frankly I am getting tired of those who profess their beliefs are on the same level as fact. Considering your screen name, you should be tired too.

There’s drama classes and then there are science classes; yes it may matter which path you choose.

I’ll take Science for the Daily Double, Alex!
Critical Reasoning

Forgive me if I chose not to participate in the truemuse lynch mob just because her grasp of evolutionary science is at the same low level as most of the Canadian population.
Liz

Furthermore, religions are not races.

Whoopie Goldburg is a Jew. Madonna is a Bhuddist. Cassius Clay became a Muslim.

Quit playing to the stupid. It is unbecoming of someone who would use Kermit, that revered ambassador of getting-along-in-spite-of-ourselves.
Critical Reasoning

Furthermore, religions are not races.

No kidding. If your reading comprehension was better you’d understand that I wasn’t accusing you of racism. By the way, it’s “Buddhist”, not “Bhuddist”.

Quit playing to the stupid. It is unbecoming of someone who would use Kermit, that revered ambassador of getting-along-in-spite-of-ourselves.

That’s the point – I want us all to get along in spite of ourselves. I’m not “playing to the stupid”. I just have a hard time being disrespectful to a well-meaning, poetry-loving single mom just because she had the audacity to post an opinion on a subject she wasn’t qualified to discuss.
Liz

Then cut it out!
And you did too accuse me of racism: ” flinging unfounded and completely inappropriate accusations of racism at our PM.”

You are free to cuddle up to whoever will have you and vis a versa.

Start bandying my name about and accusing me of racism, pal, we’re going to have a problem.

So, what’s the deal here: Goodyear, in or out?
Critical Reasoning

Goodyear: out within 6 months.
Liz, I’m pretty sure this is all one big misunderstanding. In the spirit of Kermit, let’s forget about it and go in peace. :)
Liz

Goodyear out tomorrow or the first House sitting!

I didn’t come here for a fight, but if leaving means I bailed on one put up your dukes!

Critical reason has a certain meaning. When Canada is being ridiculed all over the world because the Minister of State for Science and Technology’s answer to scientific ideas is that he has no comment because the question is irrelevant and imposing on his right to privacy for his religious views, clearly this Minister is not up to snuff in a position he was annointed er appointed to in the face of science from an international viewpoint.

In short, Goodyear’s appointment by Harper is a national embarrassment and a slap in the face to serious scientific research in Canada and in the world.

Goodyear gone before he does much more damage, like yesterday!

sf

Eskimo, you are dead-on.

Blues Clair

I don’t know sf, if Eskimo tried my neighborhood coffee shop’s Mexician Latte… chocolate, cinnamon… it’s kind of sissy, I know, but delecious.

Critical Reasoning

Delicious, but lots of empty calories ;-)

Mark

Coyne and Wells: Would that more political commentators were as reasonable and grounded as you are. Macleans is lucky to have you. These sorts of Vlogs are wonderful, and I love that I can see intelligent, thoughtful debate about the issues here, without the partisan spin that permeates most of today’s news and commentary. Keep up the fabulous work.

glak from planet zork

Stop it, your giving me diabetes. Just wait until you get caught in a cranky ranting leftist typhoon.

Bill Shipley

So what would happen if a provincial or federal minister of health were to publically deny the germ theory of decease? How do you think that such a Minister might re-direct health spending is he thought that the “theory” that germs cause decease was wrong? Now how do you think that a science minister who doubts the “theory” of evolution might re-direct funding in basic science? This is the real problem – how can someone properly direct science policy who (i) either knows so little about science or (ii) simply doesn’t accept the science because it contradicts his personal religious beliefs?