Don’t Let Ray and Kirk Deface Darwin
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About the author
Rebecca leads a team of skeptical female activists at Skepchick.org and appears on the weekly Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast. She travels around the world delivering entertaining talks on science, atheism, feminism, and skepticism. There is currently an asteroid orbiting the sun with her name on it. You can follow her every fascinating move on Twitter: @rebeccawatson.
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Malachi Constant
11.04.2009
I suddenly have a strange compulsion to start worshiping “wheels!”
That’s the message here, right?
kd9280
11.04.2009
Banana?
modhran
11.04.2009
Has anyone seen the Comfort/Darwin book yet?
Has he left Darwin’s text alone, or has he edited the actual content? So has it been tampered with?
I’ve been wondering that since I heard about this travesty.
ZenMonkey
11.04.2009
@modhran: Their book has chapters missing, including Darwin’s own introduction. I wrote about my response to the whole thing here, which includes a link to Eugenie Scott’s review in U.S. News.
http://newly-nerfed.net/2009/11/02/dont-feed-the-troll/
Mark Hall
11.04.2009
Makes you want to publish an edition of the Bible with key words or phrases removed, doesn’t it?
“…so that who ever believed in him shall perish.”
“Though shall commit adultery.”
“Though shall covet thy neighbors wife.”
Maybe the last with a foot note that reads “Cause, damn, that bitch is fine. She can be the mistress of my household any time, yaknowwhatI’msayin’?”
ZenMonkey
11.04.2009
@Mark Hall: As soon as Cameron’s video about this came out, I wondered what would happen if we went around distributing “our” version of Bibles at churches all over the country.
Somehow I think this battle being reported and discussed mostly off the beaten path (aside from U.S. News) would instead turn into a national uproar.
Mark Hall
11.04.2009
@ZenMonkey: See, putting an introduction into the book I don’t mind so much. Sure, they’re idiots and they’re wrong, but if they want to pay to put Origin of the Species in everyone’s hands, more power to them.
But they’re not doing it honestly. They’re putting out an expurgated version that doesn’t include the stuff that strongly argues against their position. They’re paying a large amount of money to publish a straw man, and pretending that Scarecrow doesn’t have a puppet-stick up his butt.
It’s not fraud… but it is lying.
ZenMonkey
11.04.2009
@Mark Hall: That’s exactly what I talked about in my blog post. They pulled a bait-and-switch by claiming all they were going to do was add an introduction, and then they went and bowdlerized the book. How can anyone want to follow a movement that has to lie to you to get you to believe in them? It’s beyond me.
A. Noyd
11.05.2009
From what I understand, Ray started out with an abridged version and when caught in his lie, made lame excuses about not having enough money to print the whole book at first. He did a new (and much bigger) unabridged printing to make up for it. (I hear he still left out Darwin’s diagram of the branching lineage in the second, but haven’t confirmed it.) Supposedly he’s going to hand out those unabridged versions for free, but he’s trying to sell the abridged ones on Amazon.
Because his version shares its title (Origin of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition) with another version of Origin, those two were confused at first by Amazon and, for a while, only Ray’s would show up. His was also getting five star ratings people had awarded to the other version. Amazon fixed it only when enough people bitched at them. (Some of us sicced the publisher of the other version on them, too.)
So yeah, maybe he’s giving the full Origin away now, but he’s also trying to get people to pay for his “mistake.”
elsie22
11.05.2009
I really hope they are counting my university as one of the top 100…I think it’s right on the bubble.
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