I wasn't claiming the shyster was the reporter . . . I know you weren’t. But, there just aren’t all that many candidates; the reporter (and maybe his editor), and the scientists with whom he spoke. Like that elephant in the room, the connections are there in the article - thanks to either the scientist(s) who said it, or the reporter who wrote it on his own (unless you want to blame errant quantum particles).
. . . you have 0% evidence of that.
I have the article. I have the other articles I’ve researched:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/08/14/project_on_the_origins_
The Boston Globe
Project on the origins of life launched
Harvard joining debate on evolution
By Gareth Cook, Globe Staff
On the basis of the articles, it’s perfectly reasonable to accept the reportage as information imparted by the scientists, and preferable to asserting that ‘some journalist made an ignorant claim’ as you did in an earlier post.
But whichever it is, the article makes it clear that a great amount of money and effort will be poured into an attempt to determine the origins of life and to prove that God doesn’t exist. A sort of abiogenesis Manhattan Project. Maybe we could call it the Cambridge Project? Probably not. Better to wait in case the project is located at a cite remote from the Cambridge campus.
Is this project real science? Does it deal with matters appropriate to science? Or does it actually belong in the Divinity Dpt or the Philosophy Dpt? It looks like it’s going to be 100% a science undertaking.
"I know you weren’t. But, there just aren’t all that many candidates; the reporter (and maybe his editor), and the scientists with whom he spoke."
Actually, you missed my point entirely. I was talking about the people who use the article to promote the false claim that the scientists had linked abiogenesis with evolution. I would not have used the term shyster though; I think the term I used was liar.
"On the basis of the articles, it’s perfectly reasonable to accept the reportage as information imparted by the scientists, and preferable to asserting that ‘some journalist made an ignorant claim’ as you did in an earlier post."
It was either an ignorant claim, or a calculated claim. What it also was positively was an unfounded claim.
The Boston Globe article, what I could read of it online without paying, said the same things as the AP article.
"But whichever it is, the article makes it clear that a great amount of money and effort will be poured into an attempt to determine the origins of life and to prove that God doesn’t exist."
That is simply not true. They are trying to find a natural process that could have led to life. The fact they are not going to use supernatural causes as *evidence* only means they are doing what EVERY other field of science does. They are not trying nor can they *prove* that God doesn't exist.
Name ONE science that allows supernatural causes as evidence. Abiogenesis is no different than any other field of science in that respect. Whether there is or isn't a God is a philosophical debate, one that science can't resolve one way or the other. And it doesn't try.