Maybe Conan would like to do it?
The Center for Inquiry has announced that there will be three new hosts for its popular podcast, Point of Inquiry. Joining the podcast are Chris Mooney, Karen Stollznow, and Robert Price…Mooney is expected to host about half of the approximately 50 new shows per year.
DJ Grothe, who was the host, left in December for a job as President of the James Randi Foundation. I was pleased at the time for DJ and for JREF, but worried for Point of Inquiry. DJ was a very good host.
Chris Mooney seems to me to be a very peculiar choice for that job. (He and Matthew Nisbet were both protégés of Paul Kurtz’s – Nisbet in particular used to make a great point of this, and for all I know still does.) Mooney is not: Thoughtful enough. Inquiring enough. Reasonable enough. Fair enough.
He’s especially, I think, not inquiring enough. He doesn’t even seem to get what it is to be inquiring – it’s not his thing. His thing is advocacy. Now advocacy is very useful, and it’s good that there are people who do it, but that doesn’t mean they’re the right people to host podcasts about inquiry. Mooney is if anything hostile to inquiry – he’s a results guy. I can’t see him having the right kind of curiosity and open-mindedness to do a good job with PofI.
And then the fairness issue I think is a major stumbling block. Since the recent regrettable events, I wouldn’t trust Mooney to be fair to anyone who had disagreed with him in the last eight months or so – and that covers a hell of a lot of people, many of whom are naturals for PofI. That’s a huge change from DJ. It really seems like an odd choice – and not in a good way.
Addition: here’s the Point of Inquiry I did in 2007. And here’s Russell’s from last October.
Yes, Mooney is a very poor choice. I would not go on Point of Inquiry to be interviewed by Mooney (as I was by Grothe last year) as I don’t believe I’d be treated fairly. We should be protesting about this.
Exactly – I wouldn’t go on, and I imagine that applies to a long list of people, many of them stars.
Are they clueless, or perverse, or what? I’m baffled.
Russell, Ophelia and other stars and potential guests – why not get together on writing a letter to the CFI expressing these opinions and preferences. I agree that Mooney is a very poor choice.
What a wonderful understatement. Reminds me of what the Irish call “the troubles”.
The fact that three hosts have been announced (to replace only one) indicates that the powers-that-be might be a little unsure if any of them will be wholly right for the job. It looks like they’ll be attempting to match host to interviewee, so maybe we should give them a chance to try. Condemning the choice before they’ve aired even one interview could be premature.
The fact that three hosts have been announced (to replace only one) indicates that the powers-that-be might be a little unsure if any of them will be wholly right for the job.
Well, since Mooney is slated for the lion’s share of podcasts, he’s the one they seem most sure about.
Condemning the choice before they’ve aired even one interview could be premature.
Mooney has done several wide publication interviews and articles doing the exact opposite of honest inquiry. There’s nothing premature at all about the reaction, unless they’re going for a Faux News style ironic title.
See that’s where the understatement comes in! I haven’t unequivocally condemned it – there’s a lot of cautious hedging. That’s because I realize I don’t know. But I also gave reasons for thinking he is on the face of it a very odd choice – not to say a crappy one. (To drop the hedging for a moment.) I mean after all one does choose people for reasons, and the ‘reasons’ for choosing Mooney are somewhat enigmatic. He’s radioactive, as far as a lot of people are concerned – so why him of all people?
He’s radioactive, as far as a lot of people are concerned – so why him of all people?
Could it be that they want sparks to fly? A bit of controversy?
I suppose, but the ‘controversy’ is so contrived and so badly distorted that it seems like wanting Glenn Beck for the sake of controversy. And I really think it’s true that a lot of people just won’t do it because they won’t trust him not to sandbag them.
Well it’s more than that though – it taints it. I really kind of resent that, because it was good, and utterly taint-free. It’s as if they’ve pushed it into the mud. It’s theirs, but I find that annoying.
Yeah, my head turned into a giant question mark as soon as I read the e-mail about this change. Then (after regaining standard noggin shape) I came right over here to see if you had anything to say about it.
At least DJ’ll be podcasting for JREF!
My jaw is dropping. Chris Mooney, of all people? The one person best known for consistently expressing the viewpoint that atheists should sit down and shut up? That’s who’s going to be hosting Point of Inquiry from now on?
This is a real shame, and I mean that sincerely. I have enough trouble finding good atheist podcasts as it is.
I’m very disappointed with the Mooney position but I’m excited to see how Bob Price will fare. He’s a great speaker and I have high hopes that he’ll translate into being a good interviewer.
Yes – and I’ve just looked at the current Free Inquiry, and it features
“Do the New Atheists Make America More Unscientific? A Conversation with Chris Mooney”
I think it’s a fucking slap in the face. There are 90 million places in America falling all over themselves to say how eeevil atheists are, and about 2 that don’t – and now one of the two is piling on. And in the person of whining mewling puking relentless finger-pointing Chris Mooney, whose assertions are unargued and worthless. It pisses me off.
“I have enough trouble finding good atheist podcasts as it is.”
Exactly. The Center for Inquiry was one of the few places where atheists weren’t pariahs – why does it think it needs to join the god damn majority in atheist Hate Week?
I’m actually not shocked by the choice of Mooney. He and Grothe are friends, and Grothe has consistently taken his (and Nisbet’s) side in the various controversies ever since the original “framing” fiasco.
I’ll be deleting my POI bookmark now…
If Mooney were — aside from this highly unfortunate tic about how Atheists Are Ruining Everything — a really good journalist, I’d basically get it, though I’d still question the choice. I’d have some hope that his professional pride would restrain the lousy impulses that have been on display in his blog. But he’s not a great journalist. I gather he’s supposed to be some kind of science journalist, but he seems to be making his name on various kinds of politics. (Now, I haven’t read Storm World. Perhaps it’s got some scientific meat to it. Though, again, the reviews I’ve read have concentrated on the internal politics angle.) As far as I can tell, he’s sure not doing the work of a Natalie Angier, say, or an Elizabeth Kolbert.
Nope, from here it looks like he’s just this guy who yips and yips. And then he tries to shame scientists for not doing more of the communicative work that is exactly what a good science journalist is supposed to do. And then he whines some more about how out atheists are bad bad bad and have to shut up shut up shut up. And that’s it. Unimpressed here.
I don’t see why he’d be chosen except to ruffle feathers, and I have gotten bored with feather-ruffling for its own sake.
I’m glad you wrote about this. It’s such a disappointing move on CFI’s part. And I’m saddened (sounds silly, I know, but it really is sad) to hear that he’s featured in the new Free Inquiry. Meh. Ugh. Why??
I’m torn. Because I really, really want to listen to Bob Price hosting PoI, and I really, really don’t want to listen to Mooney.
Any truth in the rumor that the title is being changed to “What’s the point of inquiry – just do what I say!” ?
The schedule has already been leaked,
Week 1 Sheril Kirshenbaum
Week 2 Randy Olsen
Week 3 Sheril Kirshenbaum
Week 4 Randy Olsen
Week 5 Sheril Kirshenbaum…..
On a more serious note, what experience has Mooney got as an interviewer? I’ve heard him as an interviewee on a few occasions (in his favor he doesn’t come across as obnoxious as he does on his blog) but never as an interviewer.
He has never seemed the type that is particularly receptive to new information that challenges his beliefs – witness his avoidance of questions about Unscientific America and the framing approach.
More worryingly he has been absolutely credulous in accepting information with no validation that happens to confirm his own prejudices. I am thinking here of the hilarious instance last year when he promoted a false story made up by one of his blog commenters as being proof of the nasty atheist hypothesis. In that case the commenter told a tale of how he was an atheist researcher who went to a climate meeting organized by a church group. The researchers colleagues, including his boss, accompanied him happened to be ‘new atheists’ and proceeded to laugh in the face of the religious people while quoting Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins, causing the religious groups to decide to have nothing to do with scientists in future.
The whole thing was ludicrous and, as expected, the story fell apart on questioning. It was obvious that it was someone making it up and yet Mooney proceeded to call it “Exhibit One” in his case against new atheists and their effect on the publics approach to science. What’s more, once the story was exposed as a lie he didnt retract ‘Exhibit One’, he simply ignored it!
Some inquiring mind we have here!
FWIW, Ron Lindsay, the CFI President, commented on the Mooney decision at Russell Blackford’s site: http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2010/02/mooney-goes-to-point-of-inquiry.html
Sigmund,
I wasn’t aware that that story about the atheists mocking the faithful at a meeting had fallen apart, though I always thought it was dubious. Has it really been exposed as a lie?
Jerry, the guy was pressed for details and proceeded to change the story (which was very specific at the beginning) such that it ended up being so different from his initial accusations it sounded like an entirely different incident. He further dropped the ball by quotemining to back up his argument and then claiming he had got the quote from a creationist site earlier that day and hadn’t bothered to check the facts to see if it was correct. When politely asked for a link to the creationist site he proceeded to freak out and refused to do so.
Liar? Mad? I can’t be sure but hardly believable and not an ideal case to use as exhibit A of anything (apart from, perhaps, “dubious claims”)
Its all in a couple of threads on Mooneys blog starting with his “Exhibit A” post. I’ll see if I can dig it out when Ive got some time later.
In most other cases, I’d say you’d be judging too quickly. But in the case of Mooney? Considering how he deals with criticism and people who disagree with him on his own blog, I don’t see how that could ever work.
There is at least an upside to this.
Point of Interest is sound only, so we will be spared the sight of Mooney’s hair and teeth.
Another aspect to the blog commenter story was that said blog commenter was anonymous. Furthermore, at one point (scrabbling for a new low) Mooney expressed relief at the commenter’s anonymity, implying that otherwise the evil atheists would…do something bad to said commenter.
Argh, that comment of Ron’s is appalling.
Yes, it is appalling, O, especially since it was Ron Lindsay himself who so eloquently put Paul Kurtz in his place when Kurtz pulled the same “new atheists are uncivil” nonsense. What gives? What’s going on at CFI?
I have no idea. I’m baffled. (I suggested on Russell’s post that Ron perhaps just hasn’t been following what Mooney has been up to. But if not he should have, dammit!)
Ron’s comment on Russell’s blog post certainly is appalling and confusing. Excellent rebuttal to it, Ophelia.
Mr. Lindsay briefly responded, Ophelia. He did not state if he was familiar with any of Mooney’s articles in the last several months, though.
Thanks Paul – I replied.
At least Mooney apparently won’t have the atheism beat, so perhaps he just won’t be in a position to use PoI to jump up and down on atheists some more. One can hope.
I just responded to Lindsay on Russell’s blog, and posted the same comment on the CFI forums related to this topic. I hope others here who are also concerned about Mooney’s appointment will voice that at CFI, too.
I received an email about the appointment, and wrote an immediate response, to which Nathan Bupp responded in turn. I answered that, and then he replied again, suggesting that I was being uncharitable. Me – uncharitable! Then I read Russell’s blog, and commented there. And only now – believe it or not – I find it here on B&W. The news of the pope’s popery really got to me so I didn’t scroll down. Don’t ask me what is going on at CFI, but they all seem to be eating of the insane root which takes the reason pris’ner. The pope’s tower is perhaps too tall. He won’t hear what we have to say. Doesn’t mean we shold say it. But CFI should, so write them. Ron Lindsay’s response is really pretty thin. And even if Chris Mooney is not on the atheism beat; whatever beat he’s on, he’ll go astray, if the past is any indication of what the future will be.
I do think that the comment by Ron that Mooney is not on the atheism/religion beat is reassuring. Of course, it’s not totally reassuring, but it helps. It’s not totally reassuring because Mooney interprets the “science policy” beat very broadly, so he may continue to do so, and to do so in a way that’s detrimental. But the idea of Price handling all the criticism of religion aspect of PoI is both interesting and helpful.
At this point, though, we really do just have to wait and see.
By the way Eric – look on the Letters page. There’s a letter about yours to the archbish, from Ray Moscow.
Yes, thanks, Ophelia. Saw it. (Just dropped a note to him.) I’d rather people didn’t think of me as courageous so much as very angry and wanting things to change. The Archbishop of York has been saying silly things about assisted dying too. He’d rather listen to people in wheelchairs, he says. Never mind the people suffering intolerably while they die. What the hell! They won’t be around anyway to complain. And the people in wheelchairs will still be there. That’s how you get known as compassionate.
Which reminds me that Chris Mooney plays typical ‘theological’ games, pretending to deal with things, and not really doing it. Perhaps that’s why he finds the ‘new atheism’ strident and noisy. He’s found out the secret of religion. First, you twist language up into knots to get it to say what you want it to say. Then you fuliminate against those who disagree, even though it’s hard to know what you really mean. And then, when all else fails, you just brand your opponent a heretic with nothing to say (what the pope dismisses as a dissident, immature and marginal). I guess he figures that, since it’s worked for religions for thousands of years, there’s still some mileage in it, and you never know, it might even get you preferment of sorts.
Yes, I know, it’s sick, isn’t? But that’s what the ABC said in his letter to me. He had to be concerned about the disabled people who were worried that someone might try to off them, if there were a law allowing people to choose!
It’s really a put-up job. Here’s how you do it. You oppose assisted dying, so you go around warning disabled people that their lives would be in danger. So the disabled people get all upset and express their concerns whenever assisted dying is brought up, and you help them organise, so their voices will be heard over all the rest. And then you say: See, what did I tell you? Disabled people would be in danger of a law supporting assisted dying! And the whole thing was created, in the first, place, by religious opponents of assisted dying. See why I’m angry? Dog, I hate these guys!
Oh I see why you’re angry all right.
And the wheelchair bit is a put-up job, so then the question becomes ‘what is the real reason for the opposition?’
If their real reason isn’t strong enough to make their case…then they should stop being obstructionist. If their real reason were strong enough to make their case, they wouldn’t bother working up a bogus reason. The fact that they work up a bogus reason is a strong indication that their real reason is feeble.
What is their real reason? Some rather vague worries about usurping God’s role? But they should have the decency to realize that their reasons are feeble rather than resorting to working up bogus ones.
It’s so typical, this callous frivolity – as if the real misery of real people simply didn’t count and vague worries about an unreal god did. Bastards.
Not least – why can’t they simply have enough imagination to think ‘if God does exist and is as benevolent as we say – surely that God won’t be angry with people for doing what seems best to them when they are suffering.’?
How do they manage to convince themselves that a compassionate god wants people to continue suffering until this compassionate unreachable god sees fit to release them? I really don’t see it – how they manage it.
How do they manage it? The same way the mythical Abraham was said to manage the command to sacrifice his son. You just do it. It’s a matter of obedience to the absolute laws of god, for which there is not the slightest evidence – that’s where the callous frivolity comes in. Everyone except the pope knows that they can’t use purely religious reasons in the democratic conversation, so they become consequentialists by default. But when you show that the consequences won’t be serious, they say that there are already consequences: all those people in their wheelchairs terrified that they’re going to be on a hit list.
It’s a sad charade that takes the place of reasoning, but the religious mind is like that. If you can’t prove it one way, well, you’ll just have to prove it another, because you’re stuck with the beliefs. They come from god after all. But, even so, you see, their god is compassionate, because he’s (and it is most definitely a he) going to make it all come out right in the end. Besides, people’s suffering brings them closer to god – after all, even god’s son approached him through suffering (there are some problems of reference here!) – and, in addition to that, it is so valuable in bringing out all our compassionate feelings, and concern for others. (Remember the redoubtable Sacks.) So, suffering is best, and god’s law, of course, is better. I can get stirred up over this! The picture of the smug AB of York was enough to turn my stomach!
I meant to say thanks for referring us to Lisa Bauer. Amazing story. I downloaded the first and third parts this morning and read it. And now I get to read the middle part. It’s a good description of how religion looks from the inside. When you’re in it, it all makes perfect sense; the belief system is all contained within a self-reinforcing circle, and very few people want to step outside the charmed circle, because there be dragons there. Just look at the way people like Mooney (who purports – purports, I say – to be an atheist) respond to a bit of plain speaking about religion – exactly like an apologist, almost word for word. Anyway, thanks. Wouldn’t have heard about the (very troubling) story otherwise.
Yin & Yang.
Mooney & Stollznow could be more opposed in their styles if they tried.
Karen S. is a fantastically good if not great skeptic, of the no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners, give-no-quarter zero-accomodation variety. (My kind, and I suspect Ophelia’s kind too).
Whereas Chris M. is…
I’m damn sure that Karen won’t let Chris get away with too much bullshit.
We should be heartily congratulating POI for taking on Kern!
Edit: “…could NOT be more opposed…”
“Kern” -> “Karen”
(Typed in anger before my first cup of tea for the morning!)
I’m damn sure that Karen won’t let Chris get away with too much bullshit.
It’s not as if all three of the new interviewers will be on simultaneously. They will each be hosting their own podcasts. There won’t be opportunity for babysitting.
While Ron Lindsay (CfI President) has said that Mooney won’t be in charge of the religion beat, Mooney has gone out of his way to swipe at new atheists in the name of science advocacy and public policy (which is the topic he will be handling in his podcasts). So while it is a small salve that he will not be in charge of the subject of religion, it is something to be concerned about.
Of course, I think Mooney is hardly likely to invite new atheists to be on his podcasts, so I doubt Ophelia and Russell need to worry about a hostile interviewer situation. Our biggest concern is likely to be that he will go off the rails and bash NAs while talking policy with other like-minded folks, as he’s spent several months doing in other venues.
We probably don’t need to worry about a hostile interviewer situtation, but then there’s the worry about PoI suddenly becoming a media outlet that’s 50% less open to atheists than it was – which is weird. It’s just bizarre that CFI has become partly hostile to atheists.
I mean by this time I think of Chris Mooney as the schoolyard bully who is always waiting to jump out of a hiding place and start punching. He’s always popping up somewhere with yet another belligerent article about atheists – yet now he’s at CFI. It doesn’t compute.
Cross-posting here what I just left on the CFI forums:
Re: Coyne
Not only was his testimony dubious, but the events surrounding it were as well. Tom Johnson, atheist and evolutionary biologist at a major university, appears out of thin air one day at the Intersection with this damming story about self-described New Atheist colleagues of his without provocation shrilly cussing and swearing and mocking moderate religious people at a conservationist meeting they were invited to.
Mr. Johnson assured us that this wasn’t the first time these scientists colleagues of his had rudely disrupted a peaceful event with religious people, but that they specifically and repeatedly quoted Coyne, Myers and Dawkins as inspiration for their behavior. Ha!
The oddest part wasn’t that Tom Johnson eventually backtracked on his story because frankly nobody bought it. Tom admitted that Mooney hadn’t even asked for verification before using his story as evidence–“Exhibit A”–that outspoken atheist scientists were harming the cause.
Mooney relied on an anecdote (from an anonymous source on the internet) as evidence not that accomodationism works but only that NAs are doing it wrong.
If Mooney prays, I think an evolutionary biologist and atheist at a major University riding into town with a story that beautifully supports Mooney’s entire argument, all the while casting NAs as the evil bad guys, would be a miraculous answer to those prayers.
Sadly, even when the subject is not atheism or religion, Chris Mooney seems to be going increasingly out of his way to “be nice” to non-scientific movements. Read his latest article about the need to “build bridges” toward “the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement”, for instance! Orac made a fine job of deconstructing his argument:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/02/building_bridges_to_the_leaders_of_the_a.php
If Mooney uses his POI appointment to give, unwittingly, more fuel to this made-up “controversy”, talk about the science and reason camp scoring a goal against their own team…
Argh. Thanks, Irene.
Jerry Coyne has a response too:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/solution-to-anti-vaccination-controversy-build-bridges/