Building on our previous Slate discussion, I've now done a diavlog with the author of Denialism; I'm embedding it below: We cover a lot of ground--why Americans are weird with respect to science; why Specter's book focuses on less known cases of denialism than the standard evolution/global warming stuff; and we got in depth into issues like Vioxx, genetically modified foods, personalized medicine, synthetic biology, alternative medicine, and much more. So I hope you enjoy it. P.S.: I'm aware that colleagues whom I respect, like Carl Zimmer and Sean Carroll, have a serious issue with Bloggingheads over two diavlogs in the past that featured creationists, and have decided they no longer want to participate. After that happened, I weighed their concerns, as well as the defenses offered by Robert Wright and others. I was torn, as I communicated to Carl and Sean. It was easy for me to see that mistakes were made at Bloggingheads, but not so easy for me to agree that this had to mean no longer participating in such a valuable venue for high level intellectual discussion. So while I respect what Carl and Sean (and Phil!) think, I ultimately decided that I feel differently. Certainly, we should watch critically as Bloggingheads evolves. But the admission that mistakes were made, combined with the considerable reserve of goodwill that I bear towards the site for the innovation that it is and the many great dialogues it has fostered, were ultimately enough to make we want to keep participating, at least for the present.
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