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Modern day Evangelicals can be as dumb about science as their forbears, finding suspicious activity everywhere - and often we end up sounding like anti-academic maniacs. Well, there seems to be a sensible campaign called Sense About Science. I became aware of it after Simon Singh ran into libel trouble with some chiropracters. Simon Singh is a superb science journalist and has written two books that have read - Fermat's Last Theorem and The Code Book. He is very gifted at explain science, maths and difficult concepts without dumbing them down. But after a comment piece in the Guardian last year questioning chiropractic effectiveness for certain treatments - especially in children - the Chiropracters' association decided against asserting their claims with science or evidence, but decided instead to sue him under libel laws. And it could end up cost Mr Singh hundreds of thousands of pounds - since he is presumed guilty and has to spend time and money defending himself. Crazy. It is not just a scientific issue but a legal one. Read all about it here in Mr Singh's own clear considered words.
1 comments:
Hmm -I'm not sure about this. Rather setting aside the specifics of the case, I'm not sure about the principles.
1. You're not guilty until proven innocent.
2. A court case would provide a setting in which evidence would be brought. In other words, the plaintiff would have to provide the relevant scientific data.
3. The whole idea of keeping spheres such as science outside of the legl framework is exactly the sort of thing that as a Chrisian i do not want to see. For example, the whole discussion about medical ethics has an element of the scientific fraternity arguing that lawyers, politicians and religious people should keep their noses out and leave the decisions to the experts.
So just because you may be sympathetic to one scientists arguments doesn't mean that the campaign is right!
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