Another vituperative demand for civility
Josh Rosenau has an unpleasant and in places inaccurate post about Mooney and his critics. In places it’s also just badly thought through, like here:
…we’ve had Chris Mooney winning a grant so he can write a book. In this day and age, any science writer or journalist of any stripe who can stay employed and be funded to do research deserves praise and congratulations. But because Mooney’s funding comes from the John Templeton Foundation, a group dedicated to promoting a particular view on the compatibility of science and religion, that praiseworthy achievement has won opprobrium.
What, any science writer or journalist of any stripe who can stay employed and be funded to do research deserves praise and congratulations no matter what, no qualifications or stipulations, no matter what the source of the funding is? So any science writer or journalist of any stripe who can stay employed and be funded to do research deserves praise and congratulations even if the funding comes from the Tobacco Institute, or the oil industry, or a cabal of climate-change denialists? I really doubt that he means that – but if he doesn’t mean that, then his claim falls apart. If he does mean that, I disagree with him. I don’t think any science writer or journalist of any stripe who can stay employed and be funded to do research deserves praise and congratulations no matter what the source of the funding is. I think that’s a ridiculous claim.
Some of the inaccuracy has to do with things he claimed I said. I commented on that and other things there, but my comment is being held in moderation, so I’ll repeat some of what I said here.
Ophelia Benson picked up not on that post but on Jerry Coyne’s bribery charges. Not, alas, to chide Coyne for his absurd double standard, but to pile on Chris. The question she poses is whether “Chris Mooney is a man more sinned against than sinning.”
That’s not true. I did not ‘pick up on’ ‘Jerry Coyne’s bribery charges’; my post has nothing to do with Jerry Coyne’s post; I neither linked to it nor mentioned it; my post was in response to one by Sheril Kirshenbaum, and that’s the post I linked to. I wasn’t ‘piling on’ Chris, I was stating my own view.
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s wrong to equate getting a grant with taking a bribe. Maybe it’s wrong to demonize your critics just because they demonized you.
Maybe. But then again maybe it does matter, maybe it is worth asking who funds particular grants, and criticizing sources that seem to have a particular agenda or bias, maybe doing that does not equate to demonizing your critics.
I would say it’s the kind of thing Chris Mooney himself has done, and done well, and done usefully. I would say it’s an important and valuable thing to do. I would say Josh’s casual dismissal of it is deeply wrong-headed.
Ophelia is right that there were criticisms offered of their ideas as well, but the notion that their critics were focused only on the intellectual merits of the claims advanced in the book and at Chris’s blog is laughable in its revisionism.
Maybe it would be, but I didn’t say that. What I said was that Sheril ‘should consider the possibility that the personal attacks are actually not baseless – that people accuse Chris of saying things that he really has been saying.’ That doesn’t imply that there’s no personal anger, it states that the personal attacks are not baseless.
Whoever started it, it’s fair to say that Chris and Sheril have gotten their just desserts. Endlessly picking on them because they wrote a book, or criticized a book review before that, is unspeakably petty.
But they have gone on making their personal accusations against people, by name, with exaggeration and weak arguments and (to use Josh’s word) ‘demonization.’ Chris, in particular, keeps returning to the issue and his same old claims. We get to reply.
Ophelia argues (as PZ does implicitly as quoted above) that “Chris picked a fight.” But the idea that he originated the fight is, again, patent revisionism. It’s a fight that’s raged for a long time.
That really is very sloppy. I said Chris ‘picked a fight’; that is not the same thing as saying he originated the fight. Obviously. Of course I don’t think he’s the origin of the whole conflict, but he did pick this particular fight, so it is pretty whiny to claim now that he’s the one being picked on. Josh also fails to mention the huge advantage Mooney has in relative access to media – he fails to mention the fact that Mooney’s been (to use Josh’s language again) ‘piling on’ the ‘New’ atheists in mass media while the ‘New’ atheists have been replying on blogs. The advantage is his, not ours.
And if you aren’t capable of having a civil conversation with people you disagree with, you have no warrant to present yourself as arbiter of “science in its purest form” (sorry Ophelia).
I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.
“I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.”
The more people who get namedropped, the more this can be portrayed as some kind of organized smear campaign by the New Atheist Noise Hivemind or whatever they’re calling it this week.
I can’t believe you slogged through that whole mess. Rosenau is a terrifically bad writer; even if I were inclined to agree with him, I’d have an impossible time understanding what he meant to say. He can be counted on to use 1,000 words for an idea that requires only 10.
In addition, I find him just plain intellectually dishonest. He’s got an emotional attachment to defending people like Mooney against bad mean New Atheists. He will not acknowledge when facts and logic contradict the position he dearly wants to be true. It’s so bald-faced I’m surprised anyone take the time to engage him. He’s got an agenda, and he’s sticking to it, no matter what. He’s just exactly the same as Mooney.
I couldn’t make my way through the whole thing. But for someone who works in science and the teaching of science, the author’s comments suggest innocence about the way science works, at least at the academic level. In a field that advances through disproof, endless picking on is not difficult to find. Some write kindly, others bitterly. Some reviews feel very much like being picked on. I’ve got a file of them, all directed in my direction. It’s called the review process. Also, it’s called public discourse. No one promised it would be civil. No one promised that it would overlook obvious inaccuracies. No one promised that the odd strong metaphor, like bribery, would not crop up.
Publishing a book is a request for a response. It’s silly for anyone to pretend that it’s not. If the responses range from accepting to critical, well, that should not be a surprise. If the book author responds gracelessly to the response, oh well. That’s when things start to become endless, if you ask me.
I couldn’t make my way through it either. It’s really quite offensive, quite aside from the misrepresetations and the poor argumentation.
But there’s a funny side to this whole thing. It’s hard to imagine a more uncivil campaign in support of civility. But when those they accuse of being uncivil go on being themselves – and its not easy to see what they mean by incivility – is saying that science and religion are incompatible uncivil by definition? – they get all huffy and accustory again. As Claire says, that’s when things start to go endless.
But, really, Josh is behaving like a kid. So was Sheril. And Chris has, perhaps wisely, desisted for the time being – or is he the puppet master? It’s strange to think of this triumvirate representing the future of science writing in the US. Sends a cold chill down the spine. This whole thing is theory driven, however, that’s why it could go on forever. They’re wrong, of course!
Well I’m not promising I read every word of it – but I read the inaccurate stuff about me carefully, so that I wouldn’t misrepresent it.
He is a terrible writer though – this one was actually less terrible than his endless meandering posts on ‘different ways of knowing’ a few months ago.
Anyway – he’s apparently not allowing my post at all. Jeezis, Rosenau – that’s slimy.
True about the funny side though, Eric. I’ve said it before – it’s funny how these people who set up for Guardians of Civility and Exemplars of Good Niceness – Mooney, Bunting, Rosenau – are in fact quite vicious themselves. Me, I don’t pretend to be nice, but I’ll be damned if I’m as loose with the facts as any of them are.
Just for the record, I just said this there:
‘So you’re disallowing my post, Josh? That’s very tawdry. You said inaccurate things about me. You should let me say so.’
It baffles me that he can in his next post make very uncivil comments about the people from Discovery Institute. In a post a day or so before he made fun of Denyse O’Leary. I guess one only needs to be civil to those who accept evolution, but his job is to get people to accept evolution. We all know that many religious people are on nominally on the DI side and the DI will use his mockery to promote the nastiness of Darwinists. Doesn’t he keep telling us we should be nice to religious people? Can he be this blind?
Eesh, what’s wrong with Rosenau? Preventing you from commenting on an article that makes claims about you is not fair play in any circle. Why would he even want to do that?
To be fair, Ophelia’s long comment has now appeared there.
Yes – I now realize it must have been held automatically because there are links. I withdraw the accusation, with apologies.
“Yes – I now realize it must have been held automatically because there are links. I withdraw the accusation, with apologies.”
Unlike you to go off half-cock like that Ophelia …
Half-cock? Is that a phrase? Isn’t it ‘half-cocked’? I consider myself neither half-cock nor quarter-cock; I consider myself not cock at all!
Anyway sure it’s like me to judge too hastily. I did have reasons – I thought at first that Josh was simply away (as in fact he was) but then a later comment appeared, so I thought he was holding mine back. I forgot about the links possibility. I don’t have that capability myself so I’m not automatically aware of it. But it was bad, and I apologize.
In the spirit of civility, I apologize for my earlier satirical post against Josh (removed). It’s hard to be be cheeky over the internet without seeming heavy-handed.
Though I should also like to add my amusement that a post instructing people on how to be grown-ups is littered with cartoons.
The NCSE’s policy of trying for a politically pragmatic approach to religion has created a rather tangled web for themselves. This results in a dichotomy between those religions one must tip toe around and make sure one never offends, and the other sort that is free for whatever level of mocking they deem fit.
As Josh Rosenau describes it in a former post:
“Some religion is bad, some is good. I oppose the bad parts and wish more people would switch from bad religions to good ones.”
There is nothing scientific in this way of thinking, its a straight-forward theological point of a rather sectarian nature.
Catholics – yes!
Baptists – no!
Because the Baptists insist on treating the Book of Genesis as historical when science shows us it could not have occurred.
At the same time both the Baptists and the Catholics believe in plenty of other things that science has shown to be physically impossible (virgin birth, resurrection etc).
The reason these are not held up to a similar level of mocking to the genesis stories is simply down to numbers and political clout. If they were as few in numbers as the Scientologists the NCSE wouldn’t waste its time sucking up to them.
Oh that was you! Sorry Ben – I thought it was a troll.
Picking up on what Sigmund has said, the NCSE seems to be willing to sacrifice too much in their attempts to improve the teaching of evolution in the US.
It is true that the Catholic Church is “on side” when it comes to evolution, but there are plenty of other reasons for taking strong exception to the Catholic Church. Evolution is not the only issue that matters. Indeed it is far from being the most important issue in the secularism vs religion wars.
Is Rosenau still claiming that he’s so disinterested in religion he’s barely even agnostic? I doubt that could possibly be true given the amount of time he devotes to being offended by the Nu Atheists and supporting their opponents.
If you are really concerned about being civil and not demonising your critics you could begin by not using the offensive term ‘deniers’ when referring to climate change sceptics. It has become increasingly clear over the last six months that the major proponents of AGW are at least as good at ‘denying’ the obvious as their critics: so let us refer to ‘proponents’ and ‘sceptics’ and try to keep the debate on an impersonal level.
JonJ, lets make a deal. If those who oppose the current scientific consensus on climate change will stop abusing the term “sceptic” then I will be willing to use a different term for the word “denier”.
Deal?
JonJ, but by ‘denialists’ I meant ‘denialists,’ not skeptics. It’s at least possible that both types exist, no? I meant to pick out the ID-like branch for the purpose of that question.