So there’s a little kerfluffle over at Pharyngula about P.Z. making fun of some
crackers. Basically, Bill Donahue and the Catholic League got their dander up about some kid absconding from Mass with a Eucharist wafer (which is totally the body of the Lord Jesus, even though it seems to every empirical investigator to be a tiny wafer that tastes like Styrofoam, and day is night, and war is peace, etc.); P.Z. made fun of the situation; then the League attacked P.Z and sent its minions to complain to the University of Minnesota President. P.Z. asked for support from his readers, and he got it in droves. I was encouraged by Dave to mail off a letter, and I thought about what I could say that hasn’t already been said. Other letter-writers have already outlined the basic facts of the situation (Pharyngula isn’t hosted or endorsed by the University, P.Z. has free speech rights, etc.), so I decided to make a slightly more personal appeal, praising P.Z.’s achievements as a science writer and popularizer. He, and the others at The Panda’s Thumb, Pharyngula, and other science blogs, have greatly contributed to my zeal for learning more about biology and have made me look forward to actually finishing my education (something that gave me the shivers a short time ago) and joining the community of working scientists. This is exactly the effect that a dedicated, honest university lecturer ought to have, and it’s the kind of ambassadorship to the community at large that I presume a university president would want to inculcate. Here’s what I sent off today:

[Butter]
[The Butter House]
[Midwest USA]
11 July 2008

President Robert H. Bruininks
202 Morrill Hall
100 Church Street S.E.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Dear President Bruininks:

Please add my name to the ranks of supporters of Dr. Paul Z. Myers. As I’m sure the facts of the controversial situation surrounding his writings on his personal blog Pharyngula are well-known to you, I’d like to share my experience of Dr. Myers’ influence as an educator, popularizer of science, and advocate of rationality and critical thinking.

I’m an undergraduate biology major at [Midwestern university], and quite simply, I wouldn’t be if it weren’t for Dr. Myers. Although I excelled academically in high school and have had a fascination with science since childhood, I was, at the beginning of my university education, untrained in critical thinking and without any specific career plan. Moreover, I was ignorant of the practice of science and the ways in which professional scientists form a community to interact and share knowledge. Put simply, I had no idea of what it meant to think and act like a scientist.

Fortunately, this is when, partially driven by my curiosity over the then-current Kitzmiller v. Dover court case in Pennsylvania challenging the teaching of so-called “Intelligent Design”, I discovered science blogs. I began reading the excellent Panda’s Thumb, a collaborative biology blog to which Dr. Myers is a regular contributor, and from there discovered his own blog, Pharyngula.

I was riveted by the nature of the conversations taking place. Here were writers, many of them professional scientists, using their razor-sharp intellects to cut through the lies, fallacies, obfuscation, and general baloney that clouded the issue. Besides the delightful excoriation of the politically driven creationist antics in Dover, I witnessed the chasm separating the petty arguments of the small-minded ideologues from the army of detailed facts and evidence, bound together in rational essays, that the actual scientists and other experts were able to marshal. This distinction left its mark on me, and it was made possible in open and free online communities created or maintained by Dr. Myers.

I became a regular reader of Pharyngula and am still stunned by the eager community of scientists, students, and educated laypersons he has assembled. This is perhaps Dr. Myers’ greatest skill: He inspires others to share their knowledge. His own contributions to these conversations are often hailed by the blog’s readers as eye-opening, fascinating encapsulations of basic concepts and controversies within biology. Within the past few months, for example, he has given introductory accounts of genetic synteny (25 June) and mechanisms of changes in chromosome number (21 April). As part of the online “Blogging on Peer-Reviewed Research” initiative, he has given his readers thoughtful commentary on recent papers on the evolution of E. coli (10 June), a recent fossil discovery in the lineage of amphibians (Gerobatrachus hottoni, 25 May), and a genomic analysis of the platypus (10 May).

Impelled by a newfound desire to join this community of rational, intelligent scientists who know so much about our natural world (as well as by my longtime love of wildlife), I changed my major to biology and have been happy and intellectually challenged ever since. I finally have at least a partially illuminated view of the work and company to which my education is taking me. I enjoy, too, the topics covered by Dr. Myers on Pharyngula that both complement and supplement the material covered in my undergraduate classes.

Dr. Myers does good work in spreading knowledge and rationality beyond the classroom and in fostering diverse communities of what are essentially volunteers dedicated to that same purpose. It is my heartfelt wish that this good be set against any distress his provocative but necessary and reasoned comments against the behavior of any religious group has brought to your institution.

Sincerely,

[Butter]

It’ll probably just earn a tick mark in the “Pro-P.Z.” column, since I’m sure the volume of mail he’s getting prevents him from reading each letter personally. But it’s the truth, and I thought it was important to say it.

Anybody have any other thoughts on the cracker fiasco?

Tags: Blogs, Freethought