Uncommon Descent Contest: What should we call the reviewer of a book on evolution who seems to be shouting Amen! fifty times? — judged

_{Denyse O'Leary

October 15, 2017

Books of interest, Contests, Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design}

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Here. Years ago, we pioneered the term noviewer, to describe people who review books without reading them.

Now a friend has written to ask for a contest to come up with term to describe the reviewer who is the author’s public relations specialist. For example, the book is called Darwin was right and the reviewer is shouting Amen! fifty times. Or anyway, that is what it sounds like.

Sounds like fun. Judged October 15. Free shipping [of a copy of J. Scott Turner’s Purpose and Desire:What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It,] to postal address provided by winner.

Here are the entries we received:

At 1 full bore reviewer

At 3 cheer-reader

At 6 wheeeviewer

At 7 a glossary: here “unirev” for “uninformed reviewer”
“misrev” for “misinformed reviewer”
“irrrev” for “irrelevant reviewer”
“disrev” for “discredited reviewer”
“trorev” for “troll reviewer”
“sturev” for “stupid reviewer”
“imbrev” for “imbecile reviewer”

The term that would be easiest to work with, in my (O’Leary for News) view is “wheeeviewer,” except I would insert an exclamation point: wheee!viewer. So the author of comment 6 needs to be in touch with Denyse O’Leary, denyseoleary@gmail.com, to arrange for shipping. Thanks to all!

The next contest, shortly to be announced, will feature as the prize Michael Denton’s new book, The Wonder of Water

Note: News posting will be light till tomorrow evening due to other deadlines.

Comments

rvb8:
You see, reviewers don’t really need to review ID books, as they are(one after another), ponderings on unlikelyhood.
And yet reality refutes your willfully ignorant point of view. Dr Behe provided a p[positive case for ID as have others.
How this or that mechanism is utterly improbable
Then all one has to do is step up and demonstrate otherwise- you know do some SCIENCE.
So Mr Denton can live in his tiny world of incredulity, I prefer scientists who look at something (blood clotting- the immune system), and say, ‘right how does it work, how did it evolve?’
So your prefer scientists who lie and BS their way through it? Thank you for continuing to prove that you don't know jack about science. rvb8 would prefer someone who says Stonehenge is a natural formation and not an artifactET_{October 16, 2017
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The review was by the author's public relations specialist? In that case the reviewer is an HIAJ. (Hey, It's A Job). Or if you'r feeling impolite "paid hack".tribune7_{October 16, 2017
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RVB8, the highly anomalous properties of water (which are key to cell-based terrestrial planet life) go right down to the core of the physics of the cosmos, thus its fine tuning. You can start with the resonances that make H, He, O and C the four most abundant elements: stars, rest of periodic table, water, organic chem. N is close and with that we are at amino acids thence proteins. Dismissiveness on your part does not change any of this and a lot more that sets up what we see, long before we get to the FSCO/I rich challenge of the first, metabolising, self-replicating cell. KFkairosfocus_{October 16, 2017
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If the reviewer dissed a competing book while (anonymously) plugging his own book, we could call him "reader from Waco" or "reader from Riesel" or just "William Dembski". http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2004/03/27/dembski/MatSpirit_{October 15, 2017
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Good luck everyone but words ending in ev have to be drawn out and mankind searches for short . If you had "preev" for prejudiced viewer it would still not be as acceptable as "preef" Better to have a complete word like "hodgson" no offence, just a name at random, commemorating the reviewer who first shouted amen fifty times, or something equally unethical.Belfast_{October 15, 2017
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rvb8 @ 2: It's "Dr." Denton -- he has doctoral degrees both in medicine and biochemistry. He also has published research on the genetics of cancer. You might show a little respect for such learning. You might also try reading the book. I realize that most anti-ID folks who post here (and elsewhere) seem to have forms of attention disorder, because they seem to avoid reading complete books, and to limit their reading to blog posts and other items generally less than 15 pages in length. But sometimes, in order to understand an author, one must read a sustained, book-length argument. The book contains scores of tightly interlinked observations, indicating a remarkable overlapping of properties. The full force of the argument can be obtained only by reading the full book. If one is truly interested in understanding the nature of nature, one will be fascinated by this book. On the other hand, if one has a vested interest in denying the existence of any fine-tuning in nature, because such fine-tuning is somehow threatening to one's world view, then one will hate this book, regardless of how much evidence and sound argument it contains. For such people, who have already made up their minds in advance of all evidence and reasoning, I do not recommend reading this book. ID books can benefit only the thoughtful and the open-minded, not the ideologues who already have their minds made up and are sure there cannot possibly be any fine-tuning in nature.Timaeus_{October 15, 2017
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rvb8 @ 2 You could try reading it instead of assuming its contents. I prefer scientists who look at something (blood clotting- the immune system), and say, "Right, how does it work?"aarceng_{October 15, 2017
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"The Wonder of Water." Hmmm, will this be more than 200 pages on the unlikelyhood of the existance of water? Will it be a gobsmacked recitation of all the unlikely physical requirements for water to exist? Will it be a, 'hand in mouth', incredulous outburst of wonder at cretion? You see, reviewers don't really need to review ID books, as they are(one after another), ponderings on unlikelyhood. How this or that mechanism is utterly improbable; a knowing nod of the head, and a mild chuckle at the foolishness of scientists trying to understand, the un-understandable. So Mr Denton can live in his tiny world of incredulity, I prefer scientists who look at something (blood clotting- the immune system), and say, 'right how does it work, how did it evolve?'rvb8_{October 15, 2017
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I would like sobeit-reviewer, or just sobeit, as amen means so be it... Or even sobeit49-er...lolJ-Mac_{October 15, 2017
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