Look, Ma! I’m In The Paper!
Well, anonymously:
pictureThe last time I wrote a column that mentioned evolution, a reader complained on his Web log that probably 20 percent of my columns were on that topic. (Though he was kind enough to describe himself as a fan, on that particular topic he is not.) That turns out to be wrong, as it happens; I asked our archives to find anything with my byline containing the word “evolution,” and there are 15, over seven years. Not all of them are columns, and not all of them are about biology, but 4 percent is pretty close.
Linda is talking about her fourth- or fifth-favorite gadfly, me. I didn’t get a link out of it, but then with how little I’ve written in the past month, she could as well drop by for dinner unannounced with the rest of the Rocky Mountain News editorial staff to find toys on the floor and unfolded laundry on the couch. Non-linkage was quite merciful under the circumstances.
And hey, what am I doing posting anyway? Aren’t I suppsed to be like superhumanly busy these days or something? Well, something like that. Blogging time has been non-existent in August, and next semester doesn’t look like it’s going to be easier. However, the course material will lend itself more naturally to interesting posts, so if I can make it happen, I will. I have to write no fewer than four papers by the end of December, at least three of which will be postable. You’ll have at least that much. It will never make me a superstar of the blogosphere, but it will keep TimBerglund.com alive.
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- Posted by Tim on Saturday, August 28, 2004 at 9:10:39 am PDT
- Category: Miscellany
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6 Responses to “Look, Ma! I’m In The Paper!”
I’m glad she called you on your whining, snivelling complaining. I was going to say something about your entrenched fundamentalist defensiveness, but then you might just count that as persecution for the kingdom.
One thing I am noticing about the articles (only 5% of the grand total, according to their author): they do not address the philosophical presuppositions involved. Says Seebach, “if you want to write to tell me why I’m wrong, please make sure first that your argument is not among those so deftly refuted in this book.” What if my arguments are still on a totally different page, or even a totally different book (i.e. metaphyics & epistomology, not cellular biology and physics). I do not doubt that the papers contained in Why Intelligent Design Fails are persuasive and important, but at some point we need to lift up our skirts a little and deal with our drooping stockings.
A movie quote that you are familiar with, Tim(cleaned up a bit): You __ people bafffle me. You spend all this money on these ___ fancy fooks, you surround yourselves with them. They’re the wrong __ books.
Comment Permalink | Posted on August 29th, 2004 at 8:37 am |Okay, I’m not entirely understanding this, but is the idea that she did a word search on “evolution” and based her statistics on that, but that when you add in things that are conceptually related to evolution, the total gest a lot higher?
Or did I just miss the entire point, my judgment being clouded by my ongoing withdrawal symptoms?
Comment Permalink | Posted on August 30th, 2004 at 1:57 pm |Sigh…you hadda go and post and mess up my brand new blogroll system so I’d have to go move your link, din’tcha?
Comment Permalink | Posted on August 30th, 2004 at 7:57 pm |Responding so quickly here! Call me Mr. Interactivity.
Adeodatus:
I would certainly like to deal with the Foundational Issues more than the Periphal Ones. That is where I think fruitful discussion is to be had. Not that I want to ignore the particulars, but at least acknowledging that we have vastly different epistemological (if not metaphysical) presuppositions would be kewl.
That said, I wouldn’t want the task of doing that in 750 words. Also, following my gratitude for not being linked, I am happy Linda hasn’t thrown down any big philosophical gauntlets at the moment. I’m kinda busy, and that stuff takes time. But if it should happen, I’ll more than likely bite.
pentamom:
I have no reason to doubt Ms. Seeback’s stats. Her quick-and-dirty criterion of “containing the word ‘evolution’” is probably good enough. However, I think her articles on evolution have been weighted more towards recent times, giving me the informal impression that she writes about it more than she actually does. Or IOW, I was thinking about the last year or so, and she was going for her Rocky Mountain News career total. She has a point, and so do I.
Valerie:
Put me in a category of Really Mediocre Bloggers Who Don’t Post Very Much These Days.
Comment Permalink | Posted on September 3rd, 2004 at 1:02 pm |Before the column Tim links to here, there were two columns dealing with evolution in 2004, one in April, one in June. I also did an interview with Michael Shermer, which shows up in the database, but that’s primarily about his views, not mine, so it probably shouldn’t have been counted.
Here are some of the things I balance when I write a column.
I often agree with readers who write to tell me that something I neglected to mention is germane. But since the length of the column is pretty much fixed, the practical question is what I have to take out in order to put that in.
So I use what I think is important until I run out of room and then I stop.
Also, I prefer things I haven’t said before to things I have, so if I’ve addressed some particular aspect of a large subject in a previous column, I won’t waste precious words explaining why I’m not mentioning it. Readers usually don’t know what I’ve written before, or certainly not all of it, and they assume I don’t know what I didn’t mention, or wrongly thought it wasn’t important.
And as a reader I’m impatient with the sort of writing I call “cosmic” — broad claims and sweeping generalizations that will not persuade me if I don’t already agree with them and will tell me nothing I don’t know if I do agree. So I choose a few specific, concrete details over grand abstractions, and try to give even people who think I’m wrong about the underlying principles that guide the choices some information they wouldn’t otherwise have.
And yes, Tim, you’re one of the favorite gadflies. I don’t rank them.
Comment Permalink | Posted on September 3rd, 2004 at 6:46 pm |Here’s to unsorted gadfly lists. And very slow comment responses (to the point of being perfuctory).
Comment Permalink | Posted on September 11th, 2004 at 5:50 pm |