In search of reason: Melanie Phillips

So previously I briefly blogged about a rather repugnant attempt by Melanie Phillips to use Dawkins mistakes to slur all of science. I wrote about her in a colourful hyperbolic way, hopefully reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson, whose books I love. However as I acknowledged at the time this was not written in a way which would persuade any fans of Melanie Phillips or indeed anyone who did not already share my view of her. Let me address this now, because while my previous comments were cartoonish exaggeration, her writing is insidious and her suggestions dangerous.

We all remember the well known adage, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. And there is truth in this in the sense that words rarely represent any direct physical threat, and this is part of the reason we support freedom of speech. Nonetheless words do have power because they can persuade people to change their ideas, make different life choices and interact with each other in different ways. Words can guide the most important decisions we make, such as whether or not to go to war and whether or not to invest in hospitals to save lives. Melanie Phillips' words direct people in the wrong direction in this respect and as such could cause a lot of harm if taken seriously.

I hope that people are able to evaluate arguments when exposed to reason and favour the more rational, while discarding those which don't make sense. But it is only hope really, I can neither be sure that people will favour logic over exciting rhetoric nor even that producing increasingly rational justifications will lead to a "correct" answer. Nonetheless I do wish it to be true and suspect that a presentation of rational arguments at least helps.

Science, however, is something more than this. It is based on objective experimental evidence, with postulates which are linked to empirical predictions by rigorous mathematics. No matter how silver tongued and slick a theorist, like me, presents his or her ideas, if they are falsified by the evidence we know they are not realised in nature and reject them.

Melanie Phillips has her own ideas and she thinks they trump science. It doesn't matter that scientists say, based on evidential studies, that there is no basis to believe that MMR vaccine causes autism , based on isolated case studies and her wisdom, she knows better. It doesn't matter that intelligent design (ID) cannot be falsified because it makes no specific predictions and can fit any evidence, Intelligent Designers are making scientific arguments and ID came out of science. Evolution "is not a fact. It is a theory with holes in it." It is irrelevant what the scientific consensus is and what Britain's chief scientist states, Melanie knows that "there is no firm evidence that warming is happening; even if it is, it is most likely to have natural, not man-made causes".

It is very difficult for people with science backgrounds to read Melanie's articles and not cringe. It is not just that she takes a contrary viewpoint on so many different issues, but the that she so forthrightly insists that the expert scientists are wrong and she is correct; her continued misuse and misrepresentations of scientific literature and her ridiculous claims that scientists are dogmatic and ignore evidence.

In addition to this she writes many articles on other subjects which I find offensive for non-scientific reasons. She frequently stirs up hatred towards Muslims, takes very strong pro-Israel stances and attacks not just those who take equally strong pro Palestine positions (which I would also criticise) but also moderate Jews who criticise some Israeli government policies (you can read her words first hand here and read the mission statement of the people she is insulting here). She also argues against gay rights, accused Obama of promoting revolutionary Marxism through community organisations and was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq.

It is ironic that I'm writing this to clarify why I dislike her after writing what should have been clearly exaggerated and comical description of her, and then read articles titled "Jews for genocide", which I do not believe was intended as a joke. I think she genuinely believes that criticising the Israeli occupation of Palestine and calling for human rights on both sides top be respected is equivalent to supporting genocide of Jews.

While I am sure there are many intelligent people who hold some (or all) of her political views I expect their arguments would be more nuanced and careful. Normally I would rather challenge those people rather than pick a soft target like Melanie Phillips because it is more interesting and intellectually challenging (and there is always the possibility they'd respond with something which changes my mind). To be honest I find what I have wrote here all rather obvious and boring, but felt the need to explain why I dislike her so virulently since a few people have asked me about this. So one time only, here you have it.