Cluebats needed at Time

[lederhosen]

Via Pharyngula: Time magazine is treating the world to yet another "100 most important people" list, because apparently there aren't enough of those already. One of those to make the list, in the science category, is Richard Dawkins. So who did they find to write Dawkins' profile for the article?

Michael Behe.

For those of you who don't recognise that name - count yourself lucky - this is sort of like hiring Fidel Castro to profile John F. Kennedy, except that AFAIK neither Dawkins nor Behe have actually tried to have one another killed.

Comments

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

...did anyone even look at the index of The God Delusion? Because I'm sure Behe is mentioned there. Several times. Not nicely.

[scascot.livejournal.com]

The profile was an interesting read. It was like a rock, wrapped in a velvet bag. Wow. It was very obvious that Mr. Behe was paid lots of money to "be nice".

[manna]

That's actually a kind of inspired genius. I could really get behind the idea of a '100 most important people' with all the profiles written by bitter enemies. It would at least have the merit of being different.

[cheshire-bitten.livejournal.com]

I would read that. :)

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Personally, I would have said "hiring Whitley Strieber to write Carl Sagan's obituary", but you're right on the money. I haven't seen anything that wrongheaded since Oliver Stone finished Nixon. (I'm no fan of Richard Nixon, but I almost felt sorry for him after watching Stone go to work. Stone does for liberal filmmakers what Charles Manson and Newt Gingrich do for science fiction fans.)

[mdsteele47.livejournal.com]

This must be a theme for them... guess who they got to write about Nancy Pelosi?

Newt Gingrich.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Comparing the two... I'll probably never say these words again, but Gingrich actually did a halfway decent job. Behe's is the shortest of any that I've found, and he inserts himself into every single paragraph, which doesn't leave much room for any substance; at least Gingrich mostly remembered that he's supposed to be writing about Pelosi.

[shadow-5tails.livejournal.com]

and he inserts himself into every single paragraph

That was the bit that stood out for me. It was all very...something, really. *snerk*

I'd be curious to know how Time picked their profilers.

(And for the record, I have every intention of Scrabbling with you later today, if you're free.)

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Sounds good, but right now I'm only opening my eyes in short bursts. (Yay for touch-typing!) Maybe 4 pmish?

[shadow-5tails.livejournal.com]

Possibly; will want to rest before the gig tonight. And I'm not sure why I'm typing this, since touch-typing's one thing, but I doubt you can touch-read on a standard flatscreen...

Will buzz you when I'm vertical or something.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

And eyes seem to have recovered now, so buzz me whenever suits :-)

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Did they do stuff like that to all the people they chose? I mean, did they think it would be clever to have all the profiles written by people's critics?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

There are a couple (Gingrich on Pelosi, for instance) but it doesn't seem to be the norm. Benedict XVI's profile, for instance, is written by Vittorio Messori, an Italian Catholic journalist who's pretty enthusiastic about his subject, and Tzipi Livni is written up by her good friend Condi Rice. I'm not going to go through the whole site now (I've just been to the optometrist and my pupils are still saucer-sized) but as far as I can tell, the choice of profilers is fairly haphazard.