dear new scientist, are you missing a backbone?

From World of Weird Things.



I think I know what to get for New Scientist’s lawyers this holiday season: a spine. After one of the magazine’s editors wrote a brief guide on how to spot creationist weasel worlds and New Age pseudoscience, a guide much like you’d see on this blog, they pulled the piece because a certain Dr. James LeFanu whined about it and demanded that he be allowed to write a counter-comment before it goes back up.

Who is Dr. LeFanu? Oh just one of those desperate, attention seeking, New Age, post-modernist blowhards who write books on the limitations of science, and decry the concept of holding homeopathy to the same standards as conventional medicine as a witch hunt. Not only that, but since the editor who wrote the article in question also gave him a lackluster review, there’s an obvious hint of a personal vendetta, which the magazine’s lawyers should’ve just ignored and told LeFanu to find something better to do with his time than whine about his hurt feelings.

Here’s the thing. I know that cranks today are often rich, famous and spoiled rotten, and have a penchant for suing their critics if they don’t get their way, but that doesn’t mean that every time they huff and puff you should be afraid of them and give them column space.

LeFanu is just another post-modernist ditz spewing clichés in a book that decries science in the same way as the quantum woo-meisters on HuffPo, and since his attempt in this already over-crowded field failed, he’s desperate for attention. And what do you do when there’s a loon desperate for attention pounding on your door, demanding to be let in so he can have the spotlight and write a public comment to show everyone how relevant and important he is? That’s right, you tell him to go away, not give him exactly what he wants and encourage his bad behavior. Just like you don’t give kids candy after their temper tantrum, but put them into time out, so should you ignore self-important cranks who want to turn a very well known popular science publication into their bully pulpit while settling a score at the same time.

Read the Article