RYviewpoint

Here is an interesting video of Kary Mullis. I like the guy. But I stumbled across this on P. Z. Myer's blog Pharyngula. Myer's entitles it "Kook". Then proceeds to say:

I'm sorry to inflict this on you, and it's OK if you decide not to torture your brain watching it. This is Kary Mullis, Nobel prize winner for the discovery of PCR, giving a talk. It's long and rambling, and at various points he endorses global warming denialism and HIV denialism, but somehow thinks maybe there is something to astrology. It's a terrible, awful, embarrassingly bad talk from a prestigious kook. Mullis has one point of pride with me: when anyone asks me to name a book by a legitimate, successful scientist that demonstrates that even smart people can be awesomely stupid, Mullis's Dancing in the Mind Field beats out even Collins' Language of God.

I disagree with Myers. I find it interesting to watch Mullis. I've read his book. I enjoy his odd personality. He comes across as a California "surfer dude" who manages to be a scientist. I think Myers dislikes Mullis because he comes across as "flaky". But I think one reason why Mullis is more creative than Myers is that Mullis is open to oddball ideas. I can appreciate his personality without agreeing with everything he says. Myers, on the other hand, comes across as a fanatic who is quick to judge and eager to squelch. I find Myers the odd duck that I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time with. Give me a loopy guy open to new ideas over a guy who claims to have "the truth" and wants to enforce it by running down anybody with a different idea. Science works because it is democratic. Democracy is messy. Democracy needs to be messy to allow new and unpopular ideas to emerge.