The problem is that debates are a dime a dozen while bestsellers are one in a million. Anyone can debate a creationist. Not many can write a compelling and popular book refuting creationism. And it’s important enough that someone like Dennett doing it may save many other people the time of trying.
It still seems to me rather like getting Einstein to teach Kindergarden kids. Yes, he can teach classes twice as big as a regular teacher. However, aren’t there one or two other things he could be getting on with?
If the kindergarten kids controlled his research funding, spent half a trillion dollars on the military every year and were in charge of deciding who got to press the nuclear button, I’m sure he would be quite happy to speak to them, and I wouldn’t stand in his way. Teaching science is not a frivolous issue that can be left to those who are merely good at it, especially when your potential audience is not a classroom or an auditorium but everyone who can read. Religions certainly don’t confine their best assets to their studies; they put their most persuasive shysters front and center. It isn’t just Michael Behe and the Discovery Institute that scientific writers are up against—it’s Billy Graham and sermons on Sunday television, too.
In any case, individual scientists aren’t that important. They seem important because they got there first, but so what? Someone was going to discover relativity, and it didn’t have to be Einstein. If there were two or three or four times as many scientists thinking about the same problems at the time, it may well not have been him. And if Dennett convinces more people to do or support science, he might find his work a lot easier. Or he might be replaced entirely by people who are way better at it than him ;)
And, in fact, Einstein did put quite a bit of work into political activism, which on the face of it would be as much a waste of his talents as teaching small children, because he thought the danger of nuclear war was very great and that he might be a useful advocate against it.
The problem is that debates are a dime a dozen while bestsellers are one in a million. Anyone can debate a creationist. Not many can write a compelling and popular book refuting creationism. And it’s important enough that someone like Dennett doing it may save many other people the time of trying.
It still seems to me rather like getting Einstein to teach Kindergarden kids. Yes, he can teach classes twice as big as a regular teacher. However, aren’t there one or two other things he could be getting on with?
If the kindergarten kids controlled his research funding, spent half a trillion dollars on the military every year and were in charge of deciding who got to press the nuclear button, I’m sure he would be quite happy to speak to them, and I wouldn’t stand in his way. Teaching science is not a frivolous issue that can be left to those who are merely good at it, especially when your potential audience is not a classroom or an auditorium but everyone who can read. Religions certainly don’t confine their best assets to their studies; they put their most persuasive shysters front and center. It isn’t just Michael Behe and the Discovery Institute that scientific writers are up against—it’s Billy Graham and sermons on Sunday television, too.
In any case, individual scientists aren’t that important. They seem important because they got there first, but so what? Someone was going to discover relativity, and it didn’t have to be Einstein. If there were two or three or four times as many scientists thinking about the same problems at the time, it may well not have been him. And if Dennett convinces more people to do or support science, he might find his work a lot easier. Or he might be replaced entirely by people who are way better at it than him ;)
And, in fact, Einstein did put quite a bit of work into political activism, which on the face of it would be as much a waste of his talents as teaching small children, because he thought the danger of nuclear war was very great and that he might be a useful advocate against it.