The center of what, exactly?
Chris Mooney is at it again, this time with an article at the Huffington Post explaining that Dawkins really has changed his tune even though he explicitly and emphatically said he hasn’t when Jerry Coyne asked him while they were both at the Atheist Boys’ Alliance (emailing from room to room, apparently, as opposed to just talking, but then that means the money quote was in writing, which is always useful). Mooney acknowledges this clarification (though not the implied rebuke to the spin he and Rosenau rushed to put on it) but he turns it into a Point For His Side anyway.
But what’s truly noteworthy is where Dawkins hints as to how this all happened-e.g., he’s got an evolution book to sell now, and he’s sick of people thinking it’s an atheism book, so he’s trying to steer interviewers away from that, and seems frankly annoyed that they don’t get the difference…In other words, Dawkins appears to be grappling with a communication problem. Linking together atheist advocacy and the defense of evolution, as he has done so prominently, poses a pretty big problem when you hit the US media with a new book on the latter. After writing a million-selling atheist “consciousness-raiser” and “come-out-of-the-closet” book, is it at all surprising that Dawkins now finds his evolution book being prominently linked to atheism in the media mind?
Says the guy who has done perhaps more than any other single individual to make that true – the guy who, with his co-author, wrote an article in the LA Times announcing that Dawkins’s new book wouldn’t educate people because they would be too turned off by his evil atheist reputation. Mooney first worked hard to discredit Dawkins’s new book on the grounds that Dawkins is a vocal atheist, and now expresses pious concern about this ‘pretty big problem’ with getting people to talk about the new book when they interview him ostensibly about the new book. In other words it could be that one reason Dawkins is ‘frankly annoyed’ that reporters insist on talking about the old book instead of the new one is because of the role played by mischief-makers and scapegoaters like Mooney and Kirshenbaum.
That’s certainly a huge part of my annoyance. That’s because I think the whole thing is illegitimate, and underhanded, and somewhat dangerous, and irresponsible, and fundamentally unfair and unreasonable. It’s dressed up as a tactical thing, to do with reaching the Silent Majority, the excluded middle, the good normal everyday common sense Folks who just wanna blurghurghurgh, but behind that it seems to tap into a much deeper well of anger and hatred. I have absolutely no idea why Mooney apparently hates overt atheists so much, but I do think that’s what’s going on. Why? Because if it were just pragmatic, there wouldn’t have been all the stonewalling of critics and the serial misrepresentation of same. At least I don’t think there would. Disagreement over tactics doesn’t seem worth it, and doesn’t seem likely to motivate it either.
If Dawkins wants to change minds about evolution, and break down barriers, it makes a heck of a lot of sense to move to the center on religion, and not alienate religious believers or the U.S. media any more than he has to. Dawkins’ followers may complain that the master is being misrepresented, but the truth is that Richard Dawkins may be something else: a savvy, adaptable communicator.
There speaks the true scapegoater and marginalizer and shunner and minority-punisher – ‘it makes a heck of a lot of sense to move to the center on religion’ – and on everything else, of course, because ‘the center’ is where all decent people are, because anything outside the center is by definition evil and weird. Gotcher stones ready?
What does ‘the center on religion’ even mean? The land of split the difference? But different people have different differences to split. In any case…what’s at stake with this disagreement – atheism v vague woolly whateverism – is basically epistemological, and that’s not about what is or isn’t in the center. It’s not about majorities, it’s not about polite conformity, it’s not about not alienating people. That’s what Mooney always refuses to get, or else to accept, or else to care about – that there are principled reasons not to compromise or split the difference or ‘move to the center’ on epistemic issues, and we bristle at being told to treat truth claims the same way we treat campaign promises or votes on highway bills.
What a sneaky piece of yellow journalism this is. Mooney begins by saying that Dawkins said something that seems to suggest a more moderate stance, goes on to accept that that is not what his words say, though continuing to suggest that his words are misleading, and perhaps he wasn’t given enough time to finesse his views, and then ends with the suggestion that he has a communications problem.
And the headline completely misrepresents the whole thing. It’s not a surprise that evolution and atheism are not the same thing, though Chris and the other toothy one tried their damndest to make that connexion in their LA Times piece. And in the Newsweek interview it’s quite clear what Dawkins meant to say and does say, that you can be a Christian and an evolutionary biologist, though, to his mind, they are strictly speaking incompatible. How much clearer would Mooney have liked it?
I don’t know what Chris Mooney is like face to face, but in print he’s a slippery customer, and you always have to check his sources. For example, Dawkins doesn’t, as Mooney says, ‘cast aspersions on “the weakness of the religious mind”.’ Which would be a funny thing to do, since speaking of the wekaness of the religious mind is already to asperse it.
And then, in his description of Dawkins’ idea of the Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists, he isn’t talking about people like the Catholic biologist Ken Miller, who advocate good science in school while going easy on religion, he’s talking explicitly about those who espouse Gould’s NOMA theory, the idea that science and religion are separate magisteria, indeed, independent ways of knowing. And this is very different to going soft on religion. It’s giving religion a blank sheet to write on, and with good reason Dawkins doesn’t want to do that. And I assume he still wouldn’t want to do that. And his Newsweek interview shows no evidence that that is what he is saying, though he rightly excludes liberal Christians from the scope of his condemnation in The Greatest Show on Earth, because they do not, in fact, deny evolution. So there is absolutely no respect in which Dawkins has indicated a change of mind, even though Mooney works very hard throughout his article to indicate that he has, and that he has done this for what might be termed commercial reasons, because he’s got a new book to sell.
Of course, the bit about communications problems is thrown in because Mooney is an expert at that, isn’t he? How come he gets so messed up when he trie?
You can’t really take Mooney at his word unless you check everything that he says against his references. They’re almost always ‘framed’ in a way that backs his point of view, which is, in fact, skewed.
Mooney criticising others for their inability to communicate clearly?
Pot, kettle, black.
According to Chris and Josh good Christians are those who accept evolution. Beyond that single condition, Christians can believe anything they want no matter how repugnant. They really are trying to dictate what is theologically correct, but they don’t see this. C & J know a few Christians who accept evolution, but since C and J know next to nothing about Christianity, they can’t understand why every Christian doesn’t. They are just reasoning from anecdote rather than evidence. I think this is the most frustrating; they haven’t produced one study to back their view that atheists are harming the acceptance of evolution.
Bah! What a fucking tosspot. Can I revoke his Internet privileges yet?
Eric, I don’t think I’ve seen a post of your with spelling errors in it before. It’s a little jarring.
I stopped reading Mooney’s posts on Intersection as soon as I saw his Pluto post. He’s entrenched in a delusion, therefore uninteresting. I don’t mean that in a condescending way, I just mean that he’s not even trying anymore (to the extent that he made any effort before).
I still read/respond to Sheril’s posts, though, mostly because it appears as though she has a life beyond Pluto.
A life beyond Pluto! That sounds exotic!