Re: A critique of the BBC aquatic ape programme and the transcript.

On Mon, 09 May 2005 02:02:36 GMT, "Rick Wagler" <taxidea3@xxxxxxx>
wrote:

>I do indeed think Jim's page is balanced, restrained and
>informative. And I do indeed have a problem with the AAT.
>What Jim wrote can in no way be described as a bitter,
>twisted rant. You do seem to have a rather dainty tea
>party sense of what academic debates look like. Get over it.

Balanced? Hardly. It's almost entirely anti-AAH, anti-proponents of
the AAH and negative, like the rest of the site, with barely a
positive comment to be found, but then it doesn't pretend to be
otherwise, so that's OK. If you want balance, you can compare it with
Algis's original post, which gave both the Moore url *and* the
transcript of the broadcast.

Restrained? Again, hardly. It seems an excessive response (13 pages
when printed) to a Radio 4 broadcast describing the history of AAH and
making some tolerant noises about it. And slagging off pretty much
everyone taking part is hardly restrained.

Informative? Well, your mileage may vary, but I noticed very little
hard information in it. Even the long and convoluted discussion about
EQ had no actual numbers in it. Even after reading this section
several times, I'm still not sure exactly what is incorrect about
Michael Crawford's statement that the zebra's brain is 360-70 grams
and the dolphin's is 1.8 kg.

A bitter, twisted rant? Certainly a rant (and that's OK, that's what
the web is for, isn't it?), and somewhat twisted, yes, in the subtle
and not-so-subtle slurs. Bitter - I don't know about that. Unpleasant
is the word I would use.

If Moore stuck only to identifying errors of fact, that would be fine,
but the attempt to paint AAH supporters as either ignorant or wilfully
deceptive, and the constant use of emotive language ("dodge", "cute
little trick", "spouting off", "suspiciously carefully", etc) makes it
look like a fairly zealous crusade on his part.

--
Pauline Ross

.