Thursday, February 08, 2007
Out of the Pan
While I'm at it, Pamela R. Winnick, an attorney and former reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, has a review in the Wall Street Journal of Monkey Girl by Edward Humes. Since I just got the book and it's next on my "to read" list, I'll refrain from commenting on the review itself, which is mostly negative (may I have a "Surprise!"?).
One indication of where Ms. Winnick may be coming from is her pulling out from Humes' book for particular comment the example of the peppered moth. She even refers to the 1998 Sargent, Millar, and Lambert paper, "The "classical" explanation of industrial melanism: assessing the evidence," in Evolutionary Biology that's prominently used in Chapter 7 of Jonathan Wells' Icons of Evolution. While Kettlewell's experiments were far from perfect, the report of the demise of the peppered moth as evidence for natural selection in the field is grossly exaggerated.
But here is the best part of the review: after criticizing Humes for "treating all ID-proponents as benighted fanatics with a crude political agenda," Winnick goes on to say:
He even spends four pages bashing Ann Coulter, as if she is an important thinker in need of refutation.
While I didn't know that devoting four whole pages was the dividing line between treatment of important thinkers and the dismissal of hacks, I have to agree with her assessment that Coulter's books are a needless waste of wood pulp.
.
.
Comments:
<< Home
Ms. Winnick is a partisan hack, though this was not obvious because the Wall Street Journal rather deceptively identified the reviewer as follows: "Ms. Winnick is an attorney and former reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette."
Winnick, in fact, has lectured at the Discovery
Institute (the pro-Intelligent Design think tank
which, perhaps not coincidentally, launched an attack on Monkey Girl the day before the review ran). Winnick is also author of a book entitled, A Jealous God: Science's Crusade Against Religion. The title alone conveys the rather large axe she has to grind; it is no coincidence that every other major publication that has reviewed Monkey Girl has remarked on its even-handedness.
Winnick has made a career of defending intelligent design and attacking evolution (supported by a $25,000 wingnut welfare grant from the arch-conservative Phillips Foundation), which is certainly her right. But the Journal never disclosed her partisanship on this issue, or even the telling title of her book. Even Winnick's rhetoric in the review is nakedly antievolution; only anti-evolutionary partisans refer to evolution, as she did in her review, as "the godless and random forces of natural selection that render the human species a mere accident of nature."
Winnick, in fact, has lectured at the Discovery
Institute (the pro-Intelligent Design think tank
which, perhaps not coincidentally, launched an attack on Monkey Girl the day before the review ran). Winnick is also author of a book entitled, A Jealous God: Science's Crusade Against Religion. The title alone conveys the rather large axe she has to grind; it is no coincidence that every other major publication that has reviewed Monkey Girl has remarked on its even-handedness.
Winnick has made a career of defending intelligent design and attacking evolution (supported by a $25,000 wingnut welfare grant from the arch-conservative Phillips Foundation), which is certainly her right. But the Journal never disclosed her partisanship on this issue, or even the telling title of her book. Even Winnick's rhetoric in the review is nakedly antievolution; only anti-evolutionary partisans refer to evolution, as she did in her review, as "the godless and random forces of natural selection that render the human species a mere accident of nature."
I read the book last night. There are just four sentences that mention the peppered moth, all associated with Wells' misrepresentations in Icons of Evolution. Those sentences are scattered across three pages (164, 172, and 173). She's really reaching if that's one main focus of her review.
2015-12-18keyun
chanel bags
ugg boots sale
oakley sunglasses wholesale
ugg boots outlet
air max 90
nike running shoes for men
uggs boots for women
uggs on sale
ugg boots
hollister kids
ray-ban sunglasses
hollister jeans
air force 1 trainers
true religion jeans outlet
louis vuitton outlet
michaek kors outlet
cheap uggs sale
ugg boots outlet
jordan 11s
louis vuitton handbags
coach outlet
jordan 11 concord
instyler
gucci outlet
nike huarache white
ray ban outlet
coach outlet online
tory burch outlet
ugg outlet store
uggs for chea
cheap ray ban sunglasses
canada goose
oakley store
coach outlet online
michael kors outlet
abercrombie & fitch
coach outlet
toms outlet
ray bans
fitflop clearance
Post a Comment
chanel bags
ugg boots sale
oakley sunglasses wholesale
ugg boots outlet
air max 90
nike running shoes for men
uggs boots for women
uggs on sale
ugg boots
hollister kids
ray-ban sunglasses
hollister jeans
air force 1 trainers
true religion jeans outlet
louis vuitton outlet
michaek kors outlet
cheap uggs sale
ugg boots outlet
jordan 11s
louis vuitton handbags
coach outlet
jordan 11 concord
instyler
gucci outlet
nike huarache white
ray ban outlet
coach outlet online
tory burch outlet
ugg outlet store
uggs for chea
cheap ray ban sunglasses
canada goose
oakley store
coach outlet online
michael kors outlet
abercrombie & fitch
coach outlet
toms outlet
ray bans
fitflop clearance
<< Home