His hand slipped
Jen Phillips pointed out another item from Wally in October 2009. A spot of quote-mining.
What PZ wrote:
“I have zero sympathy for intelligent people who stand before a grandiose monument to lies, an institution that is anti-scientific, anti-rational, and ultimately anti-human, in a place where children are being actively miseducated, an edifice dedicated to an abiding intellectual evil, and choose to complain about how those ghastly atheists are ruining everything.
Those people can just fuck off.”
What Tom Johnson chose to quote:
“I have zero sympathy for intelligent people who stand before (religion)…Those people can just fuck off.”
(Yes, we saw that quote again a few days ago, in another “oh sweet jesus the new atheists” jeremiad.) Wally said oh gosh sorry, I took it from another source. Sigmund (yes, our friend Sigmund) said really, because I’ve searched for it and can’t find it, Wally said how dare you, I said I was sorry, grow up. Yes really.
Two apologies from me should be more than enough to clear up the ambiguities for others reading this post. It’s done, Sigmund. I made a mistake by posting a second-hand quote without checking its original source (there’s a third!). Grow up.
Wally also, in the very act of “apologizing,” said “but I could find plenty of quotes of PZ bashing religion.” Yes really. Twice.
I wonder if he’s busy doing that even now, inside his own spooky head. “But it is all completely totally true, even though I did make it all up.”
Well, PZ does bash religion too, and with good reason in my opinion. Religion deserves to be bashed.
I remember reading that when it happened. Sigmund laid out a beautiful trap and “Tom Johnson” walked right into it. For anyone wondering, Sigmund didn’t believe Tom for a second; he was just sweetening the trap with a little bit of honey.
The worst part of these “X bashes religion!!!!!!!!!!” comments is the way they just ominously dangle random quotes, outsourcing the explanation of their relevance to those who would criticize their irrelevance. I think sometimes the vacuousness contributes to its effectiveness, in a Big Lie sort of way.
The tsunami of basically irrelevant complaints about tone is a pretty incredible social phenomenon. People feel threatened, come up with any number of reasons & defense mechanisms to cope with their primal anxieties.
But there are hundreds of millions of people doing this simultaneously, so it’s inevitable that some of these coping strategies will find expression in public space, and will overlap with others. And when religious people hear one another saying “atheists are mean” that alone is enough to give them confidence in the reality and relevance of an unreal and irrelevant phenomenon. Before you know it you have a sacred history with “facts” about the meanness of atheists embedded deep & unreflectively in the dialogue.
No, I’m not necessarily going anywhere with this. Just, it’s necessary to pay attention to the “atheists are mean” claim because so many people repeat it, and allow themselves to believe it and allow their belief of it to prevent understanding of other things. And sometimes the fact that we pay lots of attention to a claim serves gives off a false signifier that the claim worth considering or has some truth or depth or weightyness to it that makes it equal to the attention it has been given, or that the proper response to it is a searching philosophical exposition. Or that we should have to do a lot in the way of persuading to detach someone from it.
It would seem that Tom Johnson is agreeing that
(religion) = a grandiose monument to lies, an institution that is anti-scientific, anti-rational, and ultimately anti-human, in a place where children are being actively miseducated, an edifice dedicated to an abiding intellectual evil
p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }
The problem with the Gnu atheists are mean meme is that in the news tomorrow (every tomorrow.) there will be so many atrocities commited by the religious that you have to ask yourself are these people even human. I wouldn’t even build a bridged to meet them half way, yet we’re suppose to build a bridge all the way to their turf. As far as I’m concerned the blood is on the hands of the acommadationists as much as it is on the moderate believers. It seems like the fanatics don’t care and even enjoy it. You make your bed and then you lie on it, scumbags.
I agree with Polly O
Re-reading all the Wally posts there again is surreal.
Oh god, not a link to Strangroom again. Let’s just tiptoe away. The “badnewatheists” tag at the bottom of each whiny little screed and the “Comments Off” tag at the top create an incivility dipole that’s physically dangerous to approach.
Hey, I thought the trap worked perfectly!
Wally had posted a comment that contrasted a quote from a ‘good’ atheist (Chris Mooney – talking about bridge building) with a quote from a ‘bad’ atheist (PZ). The PZ quote had an ellipse within it and Wally had added “(religion)” right beside the ellipse. It completely stank of the sort of quote mining you see on creationist sites.
Bruce Gorton was the first to trace the original quote demonstrating some serious mining of PZs quote.
I realized that this was a perfect opportunity to lay a trap for Wally and catch him out.
There were two possibilities for the quote
(1). An innocent explanation – that he had taken it from another site without checking it properly
or
(2). A guilty explanation – he had taken the original quote and altered its meaning completely just to create evidence of bad atheist behavior towards those nice religious people (remember that it wasn’t “religion” that PZ was telling to fuck off, it was Michael Ruse!)
Wally couldn’t, of course, admit possibility (2) as that would destroy his credibility.
Google searching with Wallys version of the quote gave zero hits so it was either on some obscure website or it didn’t exist.
However, Wally had not paraphrased PZs quote, it was a definite copy and paste. In other words he had recently been to the original source of the quote, either the unaltered Pharyngula version or a quote-mined version on a creationist site. In that case he must be able to point us back to this source to confirm where he found it. If he refused to point us to a site with the altered quote then the most obvious conclusion is that there is no site.
What I did, therefore, was offer him an apparent out (did you get it from a creationist site?) which if he took the bait (yes, why yes I did!) allowed me to spring the trap (OK then, which site was it?)
I didn’t believe for a second that he had an innocent explanation but the trap was needed to confirm what I suspected – that he had doctored the quote himself.
Well-done, Sigmund. Well-done. One almost feels bad for poor Wally.
Almost.
This has probably been said many times, but I just wanted to offer my two (euro)cents. I’ve following the atheist blogosphere since Obama was elected* more or less actively. I hardly ever comment mostly because a) someone usually says exactly what I think but much more succinctly than I would and b) my English is a bit clumsy. I don’t remember how I found these blogs, but I think I went to Dawkins’s site first.
I have my own hypothesis on the venom, nastiness, snarkiness, distortions and obsessiveness that some bloggers and commenters that call themselves accommodationists cultivate. (Really, it’s unbelievable that they would complain about tone with vitriolic things they write. They may not use naughty words, but the meanest things said are usually not openly hostile but rather passive aggressive.) I think it’s a combination of jealousy and not getting it.
What I see here, on Jerry Coyne’s blog and especially on Pharyngula is a subculture of smart and science orientated people with a sense of humour, who are passionate about the things they find important, who call a spade a spade, are open about what they value and who take serious things seriously but sometimes have fun too. I just don’t see that on accommodationist blogs.
I think accomodationists want to have their own subculture that would be regarded as the nice and inclusive one, the one that even the liberal and scientifically orientated believers would find welcoming. It would also be the one the American mainstream culture would welcome with open arms, and the one that later generations would thank for championing scientific literacy and liberal values.
But for some reason all the cool kids are at the other party and that’s the party all the new kids in town want to join. So the accommodationist party just became more of a ”not New Atheist party” and the subculture, if there is one to speak of, became basically being scornful of everything any New/Gnu Atheists did or said. To make news in the accommodationist camp the New/Gnu didn’t even need to be a prominent figure. Any anecdote or even innuendo was accepted.
Wally’s motives may have been quite different than those of accommodationist bloggers and commenters, but it doesn’t matter. He was contributing to the subculture and brought so many new friends to the party that no one complained. Mooney could call his blog a ”high traffic blog” and there was a generic consensus that New/Gnu Atheists were the nasty ones.
And I think accommodationists misunderstand what the New/Gnu Atheist subculture is about. They think it’s about ridiculing believers, saying fuck a lot, demonizing religion and basically having a steamroller approach in every situation. I think they just don’t get (or refuse to get) what New Atheism is about. Wally thought his characters that said fuck a lot where exactly like Pharangyla commenters and real accomodationists thought so too.
So the doctored quote – no difference to them really. All they hear anyway is ”zero sympathy … lies … evil … fuck off.” And dash for the moral high ground.
Hertta,
Nothing wrong with your English. You write more intelligibly than many accomodationists whose first language is English.
Thank you, Matt.
I see forgot the asterisk about the election, but it’s off topic and not that important anyway.
Hertta,
I agree with what you’re saying and I love the way you say it. It seems a problem of attitude. Gnus are serious about the cause, without being humourless. Accommodationists are not serious about the cause at all, they’re only playing, and yet they’re utterly humourless.
I can only conclude that people with a genuine moral attitude are thus sincere, while those without any such moral attitude are insincere, and the pretence can’t last indefinitely.
PZ Myers seems to strike the best balance of being both passionate, sincere while retaining a necessary playful humour, which probably prevents him from feeling overworked.
Is Wally trying to push back? Or is it another exercise in pointing out the rank stench of hypocrisy that emanates from, at least some of the accommodationist camp, with an added dose of irony vis the creationist-like quote mining?
Wow, what a douche. Even if you wanted to strip out all of PZ’s description of what is wrong with religion, and just replace it with the word “religion”, the quote as rendered can not even be argued to be a paraphrase of what PZ said. Here is what I would consider a disingenuous paraphrase:
“I have zero sympathy for intelligent people who stand before [religion] and choose to complain about how those ghastly atheists are ruining everything.…Those people can just fuck off.”
That obviously neuters the quote, by stripping out all of the implicit justification for why PZ is telling those people to fuck off. But at least one could argue that it summarizes PZ’s conclusion, if not the overall point he was making.
That’s really key, because no matter how you render that quote, PZ wasn’t saying religious people could fuck off, he was saying people who complain about nasty atheists in lieu of religion could fuck off. There’s a world of difference.
Maybe Wally, Tom Johnson, and their ilk have joined a 12 Step Accomodationist program. Step 3 is to apologize to your victims and make amends. Step 4 is to create a sock-puppet to continue bashing Gnu’s. Step 5 is quote-mine. Not sure where they stand on the Higher Power thing.
Thanks, Egbert.
I wonder if that’s the reason why political comedies are liberal (at least the funny and witty ones). Passion+humour vs. calculation+humourlessness. The latter combination doesn’t make good comedy or good blogs.
I think it is PZ’s passion, sincerity and humour what make his blog so popular. That and the commenters, because everybody knows it’s the people that make the party. I come here as much for the comments as Ophelia’s posts. Both bloggers also engage in the discussions. PZ perhaps less but he makes it up by being super prolific. He made eight posts yesterday, some of them quite long.
I know this is unnecessarily mean, but this http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2011/03/want_2.php post by Josh Rosenau reads to me like:
”Now that we’ve called the police and alerted the neighbourhood watch on the party down the street twice, let’s have some fun! Jelly shots, anyone?” But alas, at his party the folks don’t really care about the booze. The fun is calling the police.
Are you sure you’ve linked to the correct story Hertta?
All I get is a joke product that looks like a shower product holder shaped like an octopus.
As for Josh, he’s not attacked the gnasty gnus for a couple of days now but he did post a very strangely titled post a couple of days ago that he and I had some disagreement regarding its meaning (specifically the meaning of the term “anti-hijab”). He thought my objection was too nuanced for his title!
http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2011/03/imam_gets_death_threats_over_p.php
That’s the post I meant. I thought it was a feeble attempt at humour and trying and failing to do something PZ does on his blog.
I have too short an attetion span to read Rosenau’s posts. I go there only when he’s said something about Gnus and even then I usually skip to the comments half way through the post.
Yep. Ophelia quote-mined PZ too. :-)
It’s not at all clear from the “full” quote that he’s talking about (a) a particularly over-the-top batshit crazy talking-snake people-lived-with-dinosaurs fundamentalist museum, rather than, say, religious institutions in general, and (b) people who not only should know better but already do know better—in particular, Michael Ruse and Andrew Brown, who are themselves entirely aware of just how bogus the Creation Museum is, but choose to whine about nasty atheists who point that out.
Without that context, somebody might still think PZ said something more inflammatory than he did.
What’s inflammatory about it is that it is all too easy to interpret “a grandiose monument to lies”, etc. as referring to a typical church, and “those people” as referring to random religious types who complain about atheists without knowing better.
That’s awkward, because typical churches sorta are grandiose monuments to falsehoods, if not lies, and intelligent, educated religious people sorta ought to know better.
PZ is inflammatory partly because it’s pretty obvious that he does believe that—that typical religion is largely built on falsehoods, and systematically promotes falsehoods, and that intelligent, educated people “ought” to know better than to believe it or respect it. (For some interesting senses of “ought.”)
The accommodationist atheists mostly can’t criticize that truly inflammatory idea, though, because they agree with it. They have to find or manufacture some particularly vivid case where PZ seems to be saying what they think in a gratuitously mean way, rather than admitting that what they don’t like is mainly that he speaks the awkward truth, which they agree with, and that’s “inflammatory” in itself.
Great comment, Hertta.
So do I!
Oy. That post of Rosenau’s is so typical…
The “anti-hijab” one, that is –
http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2011/03/imam_gets_death_threats_over_p.php
Notice the fourth hyperlink in the text. Notice that unlike all the others, it’s just one word. Notice what the word is. Notice that it’s “ignorance.” Notice where it goes.
DBAD.
And that business about the headline! Yes, he admits to Sigmund and Ben6, “antihijab” is not the right word for someone who says hijab should be a choice as opposed to mandatory, but a better word wouldn’t fit in the headline.
Then don’t using the fucking headline. If all you have room for in a headline is a misleading and inflammatory word, then say something else.
Keep in mind that this imam has had death threats. Here’s Rosenau tossing a little fuel onto the fire, and doing it knowingly, because he wants a grabby headline, without regard to the danger to someone else.
Unbelievable.
I’m just amused that he was apparently fine with substituting “a grandiose monument to lies, an institution that is anti-scientific, anti-rational, and ultimately anti-human, in a place where children are being actively miseducated, an edifice dedicated to an abiding intellectual evil” as “(religion)”.
Yes, the substitution is intended by PZ, but I’m surprised mr. Gnice phrased it as such.
What – you folks actually read the comments on pharyngula? You must be demon speed readers or something. If I tried that, I’d never get anything done. How do you do it?
Oh, and I whole-heartedly agree with Polly-O!
It’s not actually intended. PZ doesn’t tell religious people in general, or intelligent and educated religious people, to “fuck off.” He doesn’t gratuitously alienate them that way, as the accommodationists like to clearly imply.
He also doesn’t call religious people “demented wackaloons,” etc., as accommodationists like to quote mine him to say. He doesn’t think that they’re demented wackaloons, just humans who have been misled by religion and by accommodationists into give knee-jerk respect to religion. They’re mistaken, mostly more or less forgivably given the prevailing (anti-)intellectual climate.
The main point of PZ’s article is that he doesn’t think that typical religious people, even most intelligent and educated ones, are despicable. He doesn’t call them demented wackaloons, or tell them to fuck off.
He reserves that kind of contempt for the dangerous pious frauds like Ken Ham and for the hypocritical atheist weasels like Michael Ruse, who even when faced with an actual grandiose monument to actual wackaloon lies, choose to emphasize the nastiness of the terrible atheists who point out that’s what it is.
(If the Creation Museum isn’t a “grandiose monument” to wackaloon “lies,” committed to “mis-educating children,” what on Earth would count? And if that is an accurate description, is it really so awful to simply say so? Isn’t it a bit disingenuous to make it sound like the New Atheists are at fault?)
PZ is contemptuous of religious ideas, but is far less contemptuous of typical religious people than the accommodationists make him out to be. He’s far more contemptuous of accommodationists, who do know better than typical religious people, but choose to suppress that knowledge, and largely function to protect contemptible ideas from contempt.
I’m only here for the beer………oh!
I’m only here for the beer…….oh!
Sorry, I must be very thirsty tonight.
I’ll add only: that’s always been my impression.
… oh, right. And this, too: me, too.
As in, re contempt for the religious themselves: I absolutely don’t think believing in something (or saying you believe in something) stupid necessarily makes you generally stupid. There are a million reasons people get sucked into this nonsense, and people of a wide range of intellectual abilities do get so sucked in. And you can be stupid about certain things, still have one hell of a head on your shoulders more generally.
And hell, if I’m telling you it’s stupid, you may also take it as implicit that I think there’s a (expletive deleted again) point to saying as much to you. Which you may take as a form of (possibly somewhat qualified) flattery, if you wish…
I mean, if I thought you had the intellectual gifts of a fencepost, it’s very likely I wouldn’t bother. So hey: count yourself lucky. It could be worse.
I’ll add also, tho’ this may be unfair, that I often get overtones of exactly the opposite attitude ‘mongst the accomodationists. Like they’re saying, look, unbelief is for bright people, like moi. The dim great unwashed, ah, well, what can ya do. Let ’em have their stupid superstitions. Ya can’t help ’em anyway, and who really cares.
(That’s Ophelia speaking in regards to Rosenau’s “anti-hijab” post)
Holy shit! I saw the anti-hijab post, didn’t read it because I assumed — and boy, this tells you something — I assumed that Rosenau still was enough of a committed secularist that he would just be talking about how shocking the death threats were and leave it at that, and I’d already read about that from bloggers I have far more respect for.
That “ignorance” link is just so… so fucking wrong. What a total dick. I used to think Rosenau was one of the more respectable uber-accomodationists, somebody who maybe was worth listening to on occasion and pondering what he had to say. I had pretty much jettisoned that opinion of Rosenau a few months ago, but this just puts the nail in the coffin. That’s just… just… wow, what a fucking dick.
I think from now on any time I need to use the word <a href=”http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/”>ignorance</a> in a blog comment or post, I’ll just link it to Rosenau’s blog. He agrees with Polly-O!
I’ll add also I think Hertta’s observation points to something else accommodationists just aren’t getting, too:
Which is: yes, gnus’ critiques of religion, apart from being relatively direct, do very frequently employ ridicule…
… but this, in that culture, doesn’t necessarily imply quite the level of personalized contempt some critics of the gnus seem to think it does.
The point being: gnus laugh a lot, and a lot of things. They (we) can’t so much help it, I’d expect…
… but they genuinely do find it funny, even when it’s also scary, even when they also realize the very real harm they can do. And they laugh at themselves, too, rather readily, in my experience…
Seriously, if you can’t see the bizarre humour in a squad of (nominally) celibate old farts pontificating solemnly on reproductive medicine, quoting iron age tracts’ opinions thereof, nor the humour in an imam declaring nudity during sex is terribly sinful, I’m not sure I can help you…
More seriously: I think the hope, when people who identify as being amongst the gnus are thinking about it at all, is that the targets of said ridicule will also laugh at least a little, as they should. Failing that, bystanders may laugh. There’s the oft-quoted line about colossal humbugs and what really blows them to bits at a blast…
But it’s not just about that calculation. The thing is: these things have always been pretty bizarrely hilarious, in their yes, sometimes rather dark ways. The outrageous presumption of the gnus is really just that when they find it funny, they will laugh, rather than let old notions that one must not stop them from doing so.
So no, o defenders of the hushed tone, we’re not laughing just because we’re mean…
We’re laughing because honestly, it is pretty damned funny sometimes.
You want us to stop, mebbe you should stop giving us so many reasons.
James: really. That’s exactly what I thought. Just beneath contempt.
I’m getting a bit tired of this whole thing. Yes, sure, OK, gnu atheists are mean. And feminists are man-haters, and black people who are not content to be second class citizens are uppity, and gays are perverts demanding special rights, and unionists are communist or mafia criminals. And some people who you might naively expect to be on your side are instead pandering to the powerful. Phyllis Schlafly, Uncle Tom, Log Cabin republicans, corrupt union leaders taking kickbacks from management. Blah blah blah, yawn, heard it all before.
It’s the same old, same old story. I’m starting to think that some people are just a wee bit sheltered. It’s totally obvious what’s happening, if you’ve ever been involved in any social justice movement ever. I don’t mean that the quislings don’t deserve the call-outs, but how is anyone at all surprised by them?
@James .. @Ophelia, You guys still bother to look at Rosenau’s posts? Good grief!
Hmm. I don’t agree, Cath. I reserve the right to be surprised.
Saikat – no, I don’t, but that one came up, so I did.
I second the encouragement to Hertta; please do continue to contribute ideas. The humour issue is quite fascinating, because of its relationship to truth. And, speaking of humour, in the earlier thread Ophelia said:
I have had a raging fever and the following lines can be credited more to my second Iboprufen than to my conscious self. The challenge was irresistible. I have a 20s-style melody running in my head with this (32-bar format, so be aware of the different structure of the bridge just after the halfway mark in each refrain), lively rhythm, the kind of thing for which someone might accompany themselves on the banjo. Two verses, two refrains. Here goes (the preview is showing me that any double-spacing I put in to help with structure has gotten lost, but you guys’ll manage, right?):
“I Agree With Polly-O!”
Verse 1
The atheist in-fighting
Is going to make them lose;
It’s nice accommodationists
Against those horrid Gnus
Yet notwithstanding dischord
And incivility
There’s one accommodationist
With whom all agree…
Refrain 1
I don’t agree
With Milton C.
And Petra’s views are not for me
But I agree with Polly-O!
That Philip Junior
Gets my goat
And Brandon strikes a grating note
But I agree with Polly-O!
That Seminatrix,
Bilbo, too
Around our heels they’re yelping
Their message comes through
Loud and clear
They think we are not helping!
Tom Johnson lied –
You wanna bet?
So my agreement he won’t get
But I agree with Polly-O!
Verse 2
If you think Gnus are people
Who don’t just want to fight
The omnipresent Wally Smith
Is going to set you right
And if you ever need him
He surely can be found
For his IP addresses
Are Alabammy bound…
Refrain 2
If William says
That he’s contrite
Well, you and I know
That ain’t right
But I agree with Polly-O!
When Hammill came
He rang a bell
So, frankly
He can go to hell
But I agree with Polly-O!
That YNH blog
Was a home
To any lonely puppet
I’ve got ideas
About that blog
And what they can stick up it!
Patricia was
Bewitching but
Compared to Polly…
She’s a slut
‘Cause I agree with Polly-O!
We really mean it
We agree with Polly-O!
Oops, word missing from last line of verse 1:
With whom we all agree…
That’s gold.
Stewart, I expect to see a YouTube video, complete with banjo and all the trimmings, by tomorrow morning. Do it now, before the Ibuprofen wears off.
Sorry, too late, I can barely type this now and I unfortunately don’t play the banjo. I’ll be back when I’m either better or feel so lousy I took drugs again. Glad you like it.
I had this great idea to clue everyone in to more Wally/Tom Johnson commentary on yet another blog. However, I could not remember the name (written by someone named Smith) but it was linked to at The Intersection by Milton C who touted it and frequently commented there. The post he linked to was about–what else?!–a conservation effort between scientists and a religious group that went swimingly. The effort was dubbed “Collaborationism.” I finally found the link but the website was shut down. It’s name was atagahi.wordpress.com
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/01/19/what-should-science-organizations-say-about-religion-answer-a-lot/#comment-46284
Btw., some intelligent things are said by Paul W. in that thread. Also Julie might have been one of Wally’s sock-puppets.
Hey Olivia, maybe I’m in a cynical mood today. But yes, surprise about the general pattern seems unwarranted. Although surprise about individual cases may well make sense.
Gillt,
I found this on the natureblognetwork page-
Ohhhhhh that’s lovely, gillt – Milton quoting Philip Jr pointing to “another blog” – Wally quoting Wally pointing to Wally. Just beautiful.
And Julie is obviously Wally. Julie has “Wally” stamped in big billboard letters all over her.
“Position pinning” was one of Wally’s proudest inventions at YNH a few months later.
More Wally plugging Wally later in the same comment –
Note that “she” disses bilbo in passing. Wally citing Wally and dissing Wally, all in one sentence. He’s such a joy.
Wow, that thread’s a blast from the past. Eurgh.
What a stellar display of pathological lying and weapons-grade hypocrisy.
I especially like the comments where he
1. falsely accuses me of misrepresenting him in other threads, when in fact he was quite determinedly and ruthlessly misrepresenting me in both instances (the former threads and the current accusation)… and the ones where
2. he goes on to do a collective sock puppet version of the Gish gallop to avoid any important point I’m making clearly, derailing any possibly productive line of discourse, combined with the ones where
3. he then complains that I won’t let go of points that were 200 comments ago—when naturally that’s because he’s polluted the threads with a shitload of comments by a bunch of derailing socks to in order to evade those good points.
And I love the hypocrisy of him accusing me of quote mining and making shit up, and going off just ridiculously making up stuff about how I would respond to things if he said them. All falsely, of course.
Gotta give him a big A for the sustained level of effort though, not just in that thread but for months and months.
What a prolific shit spewing crap artist this Wally H. Smith is.
Yeah, Wally Smith of Gainesville GA, (biologist, herpetologist and sometime writer and poet), I’m the dishonest one who just won’t let it go. Sure. Whatever.
And you are a lying, immoral, ruthless headcase who seriously ought to be put away, and who, failing that, IMHO nobody should employ in any position of responsibility, or date, or publish the writings of, or do anything with if they can help it; IMHO they should get the fuck away from you as fast as possible.
What a poor substitute for a human being—much less dozens of human beings—you turned out to be.
—
I’m wondering if it might be worth looking into suing this Walter Smith guy for libel, if only to make sure he ends up with a record that potential employers can find with a background check, and be warned.
He clearly knowingly lied about people, in order to defame them. Whether or not it’s actionable, or the case would be winnable, isn’t that libel?
Would it be actionable? Would it be winnable?
—
And another thing…
Slimy salamander. Poisonous toad. Rattlesnake. Waste of biomass. Human waste. …and other keywords useful for googling Smith, W.H., who went to Piedmont College, and wrote articles for OnEarth and other environmental activist sites: Herpetological Review, Arboreal habitat use in Plethodon glutinosus, Pseudotriton montanus. Range Extension Desmognathus conanti. Habitat. Smith, W.H. 2009. Spotted Dusky Salamander (Desmognathus conanti). In: Outdoor Alabama – Alabama Wildlife and their Conservation Status. Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Montgomery, AL.; Smith, W.H. 2009. Ocoee Salamander (Desmognathus ocoee). Smith, W.H. 2010. Amphibians and Reptiles of the Talladega National Forest. USDA Forest Service; Mapping amphibian contact zones and phylogeographic break hotspots across the U.S. Molecular Ecology. Landscape-scale impacts of ecological restoration on amphibian communities in a threatened ecosystem; fire salamander; Wetland herpetofauna in longleaf ecosystems: establishing long-term monitoring sites in an unstudied ecosystem; Southeastern Slimy Salamander (Plethodon grobmani). In: Outdoor Alabama – Alabama Wildlife and their Conservation Status. Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Montgomery, AL. Establishing a collaborative citizen science network in Alabama through amphibian education. Wilderess. Nonprofit, NGO. Alabama Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation. Keeping Alabama Forever Wild. Herps. Herpetological. Herpes. ABCF, Alabama BCF. Evolutionary biologist. Accommodationism. Atheism. Chris Mooney. Sheril Kirshenbaum, Jerry Coyne. PZ Myers. Ophelia Benson. New Atheism. Religion. Religious. Gnu atheism. Ecology Ecological Green. Swamp, Swampland. Environment. Environmental. Degradation.
(BTW, Viola or Rosamund or Juliet, or whatever your name really is – I just wanted make make sure you got my joke since I forgot to put a smiley and it started it in the previous Wally thread. I mean, you are pseudonymous, right? OK, I’ll stop now.)
Argh. *to* make sure. Poster needs coffee, badly.
Unless someone can demonstrate substantial damages that would result in a large judgment, a libel suit against Wally seems unnecessary. I think a libel suit where there are no substantial damages—in other words, suing to make a point—is not a good idea. A judge who finds the suit tiresome could summarily throw it out in order to make her point. When this happens, the libeler can claim vindication. (I’m not even sure such a civil suit would show up on a routine background check. Doesn’t the standard background check turn up criminal proceedings only?)
Besides, the sweetest (and most poetic) justice would be precisely what you’ve suggested: make sure that when future employers—or anyone—Googles Wallly, they find among the first batch of hits a full account of his fraudulent behavior.
Thanks for piecing that together Sigmund. To what affect did Wally perpetrate this infinite loop of self-referencing bullshit? I suppose it’s an effective form of propaganda on a semi-anonymous forum. But why the theme of environmentalism, why the chronic New Atheist character assassination, especially targeting Coyne then Benson? Others have suggested Coyne somehow personally offended Wally at some point in time. I think that’s likely.
In that Intersection thread notice how Milton C. would play good cop to bilbo’s bad cop while the rest of the sockpuppets varied from semi-coherent to ridiculous cheerleading, like the movie Multiplicity where each consecutive clone is a slightly more unstable version of the previous.
Not sure if anyone else knows this but Walter H. Smith authored two papers with Rissler from the University of Alabama, 2009 and 2010, both herp ecology. I’ll ask some of my herp friends in academia about Mr. Smith.
Paul, no, I don’t think it’s either actionable or winnable.
I’m going to have to prune your comment a bit, I’m afraid.
BTW, lest I be accused of libel myself, I should point out that when I described Wally’s behavior as “pathological lying” I was not using clinical psychology terminology. I don’t know if he’s technically a pathological liar in that sense—just that his chronic lying is pathological in the obvious sense.
Back without further Ibuprofen…
That post gillt linked to is really something. Milton C. plugs Wally Smith not once but several times and we even have this from Julie:
followed by this from Milton C.:
Wally must have been feeling so clever, manipulating the blogosphere so boldly. Looks like we’ll never know just what went on at atagahi, but it’s a serious indicator that the tentacles of this monster were spread even more widely than we knew a few days ago. Julie’s suggestion ” so what if we take that discussion over to the other blog?” sounds a lot like Wally’s socks were also star players at the blog he wrote under his own name. I wonder if they behaved themselves there, or if he had to tell them off occasionally.
I didn’t think it would have been an isolated case. Here, from http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/02/03/will-the-vaccine-autism-saga-finally-end/ is bilbo:
Milton C., from
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/02/20/attacks-on-climate-science-now-completely-out-of-hand/:
Looks like Wally nearly did an IAWPO back in Feb. 2010. Bilbo says something about his Catholic mother-in-law. Wally later accidentally has Philip Jr. become her son-in-law, leading to some scrambling about to clarify what must have been a misunderstanding:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/02/27/the-rumors-of-my-fellowship-have-been-greatly-accurate/
Has anyone noticed that the name of his most common incarnation, Milton, is not exactly randomly chosen? It’s the same name as his PhD supervisor, Milton Ward.
By the way I did notice one comment from Wally (well, from one of his socks, maybe one of the Philips) that stated that he was a moderate Christian who accepted evolution.
Ooops, I forgot about Bilbo, by far the most active incarnation. Milton C was not, therefore, the busiest sock.
Sigmund,
I wouldn’t assume that the Milton thing is a connection. Ward is Wally’s new supervisor; at the time, Rissler was his advisor. (I assume that Rissler didn’t want him anymore, and if they didn’t immediately throw him out, somebody else had to take him. I very much doubt Ward actually wanted the job—who would?)
When you use as many names as Wally did, there’s bound to be some overlap with names of people you know, even if you’re just picking random names out a phonebook or baby name book.
I also wouldn’t assume that some of his socks being Christian meant anything much. He had a big sock drawer and clearly wanted to show that everybody is annoyed with and alienated by the nasty New Atheists.
I vaguely recall the “collaborationism” thing, which I thought was terribly funny. They were promoting it as a nicer-sounding alternative to “accommodationism,” but to me it clearly evokes collaborationists in Nazi-occupied France, or in Casablanca. They don’t like being called appeasers, or even accommodationists, but then they want to name themselves after people who actually sold out to the Nazis? Awesome.
I’m happy to be cast as the French Resistance, or maybe Bogie. Oui! Oui! Vive l’athéisme gnu! Strike up the Marseilles!
I guess it could simply be a coincidence due to him having so many socks that one of them is bound to be named similar to a real person. I know Rissler was his first supervisor but Milton Ward would have to have been a teacher or his at the time. It is unlikely that he would have switched supervisors to someone who was unknown to him.
As for the Christian sock, I know it doesn’t prove anything but it at least means that we have various socks claiming different religious motivations (christian or atheist) which means we should hold both as being unknown. I think that this is important because the assumption that Wally was simply a Mooney style faitheist on steroids based on his claims of being an atheist is only one possibility.
In other words there is at least the possibility that Wally was simply an anti-atheist religious bigot who found that the sort of accomodationist preenings of The Intersection as the perfect niche for the expression of his hatred.
There is an implication here that goes far beyond the simple case of Wally Smith and his various socks and exposes one damaging effect of the militant (teehee) accomodationist movement as a whole. They are enablers of old style anti-atheist bigotry. They provide the template for religious bigots to continue denigrating atheists in a way that more recent atheist activism has been making difficult. Nowadays it is difficult for a religious bigot to say something completely derogatory about atheists without bringing on the wrath of the activist atheist movement and that is largely due to the effects of the gnus. On the other hand if the religious bigot simply attacks “extremist atheists” or “militant atheists” or “angry atheists” then they have no problem since the accomodationists, atheists themselves, do the same.
What I’ve been saying all along. Why change the status quo when there are even voices from within the despised minority itself that are opposed to it?
Oh that’s more than a possibility at this point – I thought we already knew that. (Though there is plenty of filling in and nailing down to do, with the dear Intersocktion as a valuable and helpful archive.) The bullshit about being a “fellow unbeliever” and “fellow non-accommodationist” was just that: bullshit. It was a ploy for the sake of being able to say (90 thousand times) “Even I, as a fellow unbeliever, am embarrassed by the antics of the dreadful gnus.” It was his saying that at Rob Knop’s the last time (as far as I know) he posted as Hammill that hardened my suspicion that he might be Our Wally. That comment I did is faintly amusing now – I began by saying I had no idea who Hammill was, then I took another look at that “as an unbeliever” thing and did a 180. Wait just a god damn minute – yes I do too have an idea who you are.
The service Wally Smith performed for Mooney at The Intersection was huge. What kwok and McCarthy and Jon and TB couldn’t really manage Wally with his many sock puppets could: to diminish the impact of pro-science NA commentary on an allegedly free and open Discover Magazine science forum. You could argue, as many accommodationists have, that NAs are over-presented on science blogs “atheist noise machine,” so the sight of seeing many anti-NA voices must have been for Mooney a gratifying thing.
In addition, Wally also used Mooney’s blog as a propoganda platoform from which to slander Mooney’s prominent NA adversaries. Sock-puppets aside, this behavior, I believe, is inexcusable on Mooney’s part. He claims to want civil debate but does nothing to correct character assassination on his own blog. The only time Mooney ever put a leash on Wally was when Wally used his socks to threaten a government employee. As I see it this was likely when Mooney discovered that bilbo and milton c. came from the same source since those two were the only one’s doing the threatening and not later, as he claimed, after the Tom Johnson affair.
Wally Smith was the embodiment of accommodationism on that site. Wally was everything Mooney needed in the comment section times the number of sockpuppets he had.
Ophelia,
What do you take to be the clear evidence?
It seems clear that he was lying when he claimed to have been raised atheist, and it seems likely that he was a Christian when he went off to a Christian college (Piedmont), but it seems plausible from what I’ve seen that he lost his religion after that, maybe losing the belief but still being a cultural Christian who thinks that liberal Christianity is A Good Thing even if none of the myths are true.
When I asked Cathy Newman about his religion, she said “At one point a few years ago, his Facebook said “non-denominational Christian” and he used to joke that he needed to change that.” (And that she didn’t really know or care what he actually thinks now.)
From that, it seemed likely to me that he was a Christian most of his life, but stopped actually believing it college—not unusual, and especially unsurprising if he was studying evolutionary biology and exposed to a bunch of atheists—and didn’t update his facebook page accordingly because there were relatives and old friends and acquaintances who he didn’t want to know he’d stopped believing.
Right now he could be desperately prevaricating to his Mom, trying to explain that he’s still a Christian despite what those evil atheists made him say on web sites—he was just lying for Jesus! (Oh, hi, Wally’s mom!)
I’m morbidly curious whether he did lose his religion but had an drawn-out, unpleasant time of it, and resents fellow students who weren’t such slow learners and made him feel stupid. :-/
Or maybe he was/is a Christian in some sense all along, but didn’t like being a sore thumb among biologists, and his odd comment to Cathy was misdirection. (Given his propensity for lying and for concealing his true position, how could we know?)
P.S. A few more handy keywords for people looking for our beloved psycho Wally Smith: Alabama Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, a.k.a. Alabama PARC, a.k.a. ALAPARC. Elachee Nature Science Center. Snakes, turtles, and frogs. Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake. Herp, Herpin’. Herping, Herped. Hooray for Herps! Amphibians of North Georgia. Chicopee Lake. Slimy, slithering ectotherms. Southeastern slimy salamander.
Paul, well I can’t say everything I know, but anyway the bracketed bit isn’t exactly what I said, or at least not exactly what I meant. I meant we know it’s more than a possibility that Wally is a Christian; it’s more like a probability. But I forgot that I’m drawing on some background knowledge.
We can simply assume that he was misdirecting people in real life all over the place. He certainly didn’t act or talk like Tom Johnson or YNH to Cathy! Naturally not; Tom Johnson’s first starring role involved telling Great Big Lies about none other than Cathy.
[…] was inspired by the new levels of Wallyism we dug up yesterday so I thought I would dig up a little […]
@Paul – I think you misread. Note the sentences I quoted, as opposed to the full original next. I made no mention of the fucking off.
It is the “grandiose monument to lies, an institution that is anti-scientific, anti-rational, and ultimately anti-human, in a place where children are being actively miseducated, an edifice dedicated to an abiding intellectual evil”, that refers religion, and the people who complain about ghastly atheists while standing before it that can fuck off.
*”full original TEXT”
What, no edit button?
Svlad, I think you’re misreading PZ. The article is about the Creation Museum, and about atheists talking about the Creation Museum. That is the specific context in which I’m interpreting the stuff about people standing before a grandiose monument to lies.
PZ may think that religion in general is a grandiose mess of lies and collusion and powermongering and so on, but I think that when he says “a monument to” he’s referring to the Creation Museum. It’s clear how the Creation Museum—a specific expensive fancy building full of elaborate stuff—is a grandiose monument to the lies that the elaborate stuff communicates. (E.g., that the earth was created exactly as it says in the bible, in six days, a few thousand years ago, and all the subsidiary lies about geology and biology needed to make it seem even remotely plausibe even to the gullible.)
Don’t get me wrong. I’m pretty sure that PZ thinks that religion is “grandiose” in a important sense, as I do—it is generally quite self-aggrandizing, taking credit for stuff it doesn’t actually do, like making people moral, and denying stuff it actually does, like deluding people and protecting its own interests.
But it would be a bit weird to call religion a monument. (I suppose you could, but there are much better and more interesting things to say about it, and I’m pretty sure PZ wouldn’t settle for “monument.” He’s simply too good a writer to settle for that lame and misleading characterization.)
Irrespective of what PZ actually thinks of religion and religious people in general, I just don’t think that’s what and who was being referred to in the quoted text. If you present that particular piece of text as being about religion in general and religious people in general, it’s a quote mine.
Do we know who “rrt” is? (S)he was doing an excellent job singlehandedly holding off the Secret Sock Army, and almost seemed as if (s)he was going to catch on to the relationship between the different “posters” at one point. That’s a person well worth knowing, I should think.
No idea.
Good catch, Paul.
I’m still amused that Stangroom abbreviated it as (religion), though.
Or was it Tom? I’ve already forgotten most about this, actually. :P
That was bilbo, I think. Definitely Wally, at any rate.
It was Wally Smith lying as Tom Johnson, here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/10/28/what-would-bridge-the-nasty-new-atheistaccommodationist-divide/#comment-34529
Ah, thank you.