Trouble in the “belief enforcement” science world gets noticed even in the New York Times

Who would have thought so? Have the Times people actually started connecting with the public again?

Here Virginia Heffernan comments on

The stilted and seething tone of some of the defection posts sent me into the ScienceBlogs archives, where I expected to find original insights into science by writers who stress that they are part of, in the blogger Dave Munger’s words, “the most influential science blogging network in the world.” And while I found interesting stuff here and there, I also discovered that ScienceBlogs has become preoccupied with trivia, name-calling and saber rattling. Maybe that’s why the ScienceBlogs ship started to sink.

Recently a blogger called GrrlScientist, on Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted), expressed her disgust at the “flock of hugely protruding bellies and jiggling posteriors everywhere I go.” Gratuitous contempt like this is typical.

- Unnatural science, The New York Times

The whole article is worth reading. Frankly, anyone interested in the intelligent design controversy or - for example - concerned about tax-based mismanagement of public issues like climate change or conservation - would do well to support Heffernan’s main point.

In my personal view, too many scientists are tax mooches. They do not need to be reasonable, because they are not doing anything that is obviously useful.

Let’s say you hire a mechanic to fix your car. Well, he either does fix it or he doesn’t, right? If you use public transit, either the system works or it doesn’t.

But the guy raising heck about the far past or the far future ... ? How much do you really want to pay for that?

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy: