[WikiEN-l] Pity the admin....

[Tony Sidaway]

On 3/2/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 16:08:27 +0000, you wrote:
>
> >This article would be, I dare say, of intense interest to
> >members of the American and Canadian scout movement who are involved
> >in this controversy.
>
> Ah, so it's useful in furthering a political agenda.  That explains
> the massive pile-on in AfD, anyway.  I guess it's like Christianity:
> Jesus is dead so we can all make a living pretending we alone know
> what he thought :-)

I think that's over-cynical.  While the authors don't write in a
political vacuum, there's no suggestion that they're just grinding a
political axe.  Just because, say, evolution is still a political hot
potato in one or two countries, doesn't mean that we cannot write
factual articles about research in the area, and it certainly doesn't
mean that we should write off published research that is widely
recognised. Looking at the references section of the article and
comparing it to the contents page of Jeal's book at Amazon, I see that
he devotes a whole chapter, 35 pages in a relatively brief biography,
to the question.

I don't think there's any sense in failing to admit that this is a
controversial subject for some people and in some countries.  That
this is no longer considered such a controversial subject in
Baden-Powell's native England is not the point.  So it seems to me
that the question becomes: do we write about research in areas that
may upset the religious right of the United States?  Well I know my
answer.