Posted on 02/15/2003 4:18:25 PM PST by PatrickHenry
You started out saying the creationists had a right to their views, and I agreed, adding that you can't teach them that stuff at my expense. I didn't address the flip side of the issue, because earlier in the thread I've agreed with a few posts by people criticizing the government schools.
I quite agree that it's wrong to snatch children from their parents, force them into government education buildings, and then to ram anything into their brains -- even reading, math, and valid science. It's just wrong. Education should be voluntary. So I'm not in disagreement with you.
Sad to say, ol' Isaac was a bit of a leftie. It didn't show up in his science writings, or even in his science fiction -- not overtly. He mostly ignored economic issues. (However, as his Foundation stories reveal, he had this thing for long range planning.) But in his little essays, or in his speeches, the left-leaning side of Isaac was there for all to see. So his support of gov't schools -- as long as they're teaching evolution -- is charmingly silly. Still, Asimov was so good in so many different fields that it's almost always worth reading what he has to say. (As here, where he bashes creationism for the foolish bunch of junk that it truly is.) But just remember that he was no free-market advocate.
OMG! Actually caught one before he passed the event horizon of the Black Hole of Creationism! There must be hope for you.
Now for the root question: is the Book of Genisis reality, fiction, or garbled due to its ancient, prehistoric origins?
Garbled. At any rate, we shouldn't be trying to change our interpretation of the evidence about us to match it.
My favorite issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine contains a letter from a reader suggesting that cable TV offer a Science Fiction Channel. Dr Asimov, in that smug condescending tone that came through all too often in his responses to reader letters,basically told the letter writer that the idea was stupid because there just weren't enough people who wanted to watch SF TV shows and movies to make such a channel profitable : It wouldn't have enough subscribers. This, after the megasuccess of Star Wars,Star Trek (TV and films)and other SF shows and movies....and only a few years before the Sci-Fi Channel.
I respect Dr Asimov for his achievements, but even when I was much younger , his open and oft-stated support for a one world government (constantly brought up in his editorials and responses to LTTE in IASFM) bothered me. (Though I didn't understand why the notion made me uneasy till years later.) And while IASFM under Shawna McCarthy (now editor of Realms of Fantasy) was my favorite SF digest and arguably the best of the 'big three', and while it had a high quality level overall, it did print some "dogs". And these "dogs" were mostly notable for blatant, unsubtle, strident Christianity-bashing. Those stories, with their telegraphed endings, cardboard characters and sloganeering really stood out, precisely because the other stories were so much better. I can only assume that someone (Asimov or McCarthy) chose those poorer stories because they found the bias so attractive that it outweighed the flaws in plotting and characterization...Flaws that were noticeable to a HS student and then to a College fine arts major, and are even more obvious when reread today. But again, that's because most of the other stories in IASFM were so much better.(Some of the 1980s IASFM stories really linger in the mind, years after reading.)
Still, Asimov was so good in so many different fields that it's almost always worth reading what he has to say.
Agreed, wholeheartedly. I am sorry that the Good Doctor left us in 1992....Imagine if he'd had 10 more years to write! I believe L Sprague deCamp is another SF writer who is equally notable for his fine nonfiction works too.
What a shrill little rant this is. Asimov is demonizing his enemies as much as much as any cultist, and more than the vast majority of preachers in this country. In so doing, he completely undercuts his credibility as one who might explain the merits of evolutionary theory. It's not enough to be right, one also has to have a clue.Your take:
Oh, the sky is bloody falling. This is Asimov's Global Warming theory.
I don't think Asimov actually believed there was much of a chance the creationists were really likely to establish an Iranian-mullah theocracy in this country, although he mentions cases in which an organized few have come to power. (He might also have mentioned Lenin's boast along the lines that, when he came to Russia, political power was laying about in the streets waiting for someone to pick it up. There can be times like that.)
He's mostly telling us what kind of knuckle-dragging, drooling worldview animates the people who would tell us what the "real science" is and what they would bring us to if they could. No, it isn't likely that they can, but who wants to risk it?
No, it isn't. Whatever I thought I was going to quote, I made a mess of it.
I recall that Isaac was explicit about having nothing to do with the editing of the magazine. He let them use his name, and he contributed the opening essay for each issue. He also tossed in a few answers to the mail. Otherwise, the beauteous Shawna called the shots.
I'm afraid not. There are LBB's on almost every crevo board. However, their arguments and tactics are pretty much the same.
It was an ongoing theme of his. He was well aware that civilization (which he probably felt was safe in the hands of scientists) was a very thin layer of society, and very fragile. His all-time favorite story, Nightfall, involved Luddites storming an observatory.
BWAAAAAAAAHAHAHA!
A thing is not evidence for a "god of the thing."
This is not surprising. Luddites can't be expected to perceive the dangers of Luddism.
My perception is that Asimov was much more of a talker and explainer than a "doer". He earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry, but I have never heard anything about research he did himself, or advances to science that he made. I would be interested to learn otherwise if anyone here knows. Not that explaining and popularizing is a bad thing. Some of my graduate school professors, who were considered good researchers, were so bad at lectures that I bought Asimov's books to make sense of the lecture notes. There is a difference between explaining and discovering new information and I wonder what Asimov's capabilities were in the latter.
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