A slightly off-topic post…
I am talking about the Royal Society, once based on nobody’s words, but where today keeping up the appearances is the only thing that matters.
They’ve just sacked somebody everybody agrees with, including…the Royal Society!
Trouble appears to have been, the RS fears some words could be “open to misinterpretation”. The shock! The horror!
The end result is that they’re diminished, in the words of Lord Robert Winston. This most curious story may be useful to understand recent RS attitudes about people doubting AGW…
ps just to be clear, I do not think creationism can be taken as a viable alternative to evolution, and I consider Intelligent Design as bordering on the blasphemous
0 replies on “Royal Diminishing Society”
Ed: that is not the issue at all. Please compare what Michael Reiss has said a few days ago, and what the Royal Society is saying now. The sad thing is, there is no practical difference.
This is Reiss on Sep 13:
This is the Royal Society on Sep 16:
(my emphasis above)
The Royal Society’s attitude is equivalent to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. And the dismissal of Reiss (“guilty” of having raised the issue at all) is only a political move, to “keep up appearances”by getting rid of somebody “tainted” because…he’s been misquoted!
How is it “diminishing” to stand up and defend good standards and good, solid, truthful education?
To the contrary, the Society would be diminished if they compromised — “oh, here superstition is okay.”