Accomodationism....

[Alric]

....can strike anywhere anytime.

Brian,

You may be aware this is a current controversy in the rationalist blogosphere. The conversation revolves on whether scientists should be more strategic when expressing their viewpoints to creationists and other religious people.

I am a firm believer of attacking the idea and not the person. However, I would not accomodate Sarah Palin's and Ahmadinejad's as valid or worthy of consideration. You can not take into consideration their social framework or their culture. If you present them with data that is not accepted or their ideas actively increase human suffering they should be called on it. Politely, but called nonetheless.

Sarah Palin criticizing fruit fly research and Bobby Jindal criticizing volcanism research were both stupid things to do and borne out of ignorance or worse, politics. All in spite of having available the internet and all the advisors they could ever want.

[Dgs5023]

I think you're thinking too hard about what the point was. Like the example of Timothy McVeigh it's better to have an understanding of the circumstances that caused a specific behavior / decision and criticize that as opposed to saying "He was just a nut". Same thing with Sarah Palin. You can criticize her policies but just dismissing her points because "She's just stupid" is useless. Further understanding would come from why the policy choice is wrong with a point by point analysis and rejection of her points with valid data, not simply dismissing her points all together. I don't like her support of building a pipeline through a wildlife preserve because I don't support the further destruction of natural habitats and I don't believe there is enough oil there for it to be cost effective for your average consumer, which I believe are much better reasons then "She's stupid."

In shorter terms: You can still criticize people on why their wrong, but with valid points and data that refutes their claims, not with a short dismissal of their entire point with nothing more then "They're crazy."

You dismiss the toothless homeless man on the end of the street saying that the sky is falling when it is raining.

[Greg_in_CO]

....Sarah Palin criticizing fruit fly research and Bobby Jindal criticizing volcanism research were both stupid things to do and borne out of ignorance or worse, politics.

Both ignorance and politics IMHO. In fact, Jindal's choice of words in his speech "something called volcano monitoring," is particularly telling; has he heard of volcanoes, or at least seen pictures of them? And what about the word "monitoring" does he not understand? What about this concept does not make sense to him?