Baying for blood? Moi?
Are the few people who commented on JK’s post on the Toxic Sock affair really (though metaphorically) “participants in [a] witch-hunt” and “the 21st century, virtual-world, equivalent of a medieval mob baying for the blood their latest victim”?
No.
I can see why they (we – I was one) look like a crowd, because there are quite a few comments and they are critical and sometimes hostile. On the other hand, there are only (if I counted correctly) 23 people total, not counting Jean, and a few of them are friendly; there’s a total of 63 comments. So a rush of mostly-critical comments, yes; a mob baying for blood, no.
But more to the point: are we the Bad People? Are we the bashers, the demonizers, the bayers for blood, the pitchfork-wielders, in contrast to the kindly peaceable loving villagers who want only to be left alone to raise their raspberries and kiwis?
No.
No; I seriously don’t think so. I think the issue here is that we “new atheists” think we are allowed to be openly critical of religion, and that we think haters of “new atheists” are wrong and illiberal to keep throwing merde at us for doing so. We think that when it’s Ron Rosenbaum throwing, and we think it when it’s “William/Tom Johnson” and we think it when it’s Chris Mooney.
So we tend to push back when people throw merde at us for doing something that is not and should not be seen as wrong. We pushed back at Mooney and Kirshenbaum when they threw merde at us in their book, and the result was that they banned some of us from their blog while allowing their pets to call us liars. That’s the backstory in a nutshell. M&K have chosen to spend a lot of time demonizing a minority that in the US is already thoroughly despised. That would be reasonable if the minority in question were Child-torturers United; but we’re not, so it isn’t.
So no. We’re not the witch-hunters here.
Yes, it is amazing MK can go around bashing so-called New Atheists without evidence, then when we call MK out on their lack of critical thinking skills, using evidence, we get accused of going on a witch hunt.
It’s perfectly simple. Religious believers can say that people whose philosophical opinions and sexual tastes they do not share will be tortured for ever by a just and merciful god in a hypothetical afterlife and should be foircibly silenced or killed in this and we can say that people who believe this are a bunch of disgusting and contemptible maniacs. It’s called “a full and frank exchange of views” when diplomats do it.
I see McCarthyism is still alive and well in America.
And lets not forget this whole situation could be easily diffused by Mooney apologising or at least showing a tiny bit of contrition.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by zooey, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Baying for blood? Moi? http://dlvr.it/2VbNZ […]
@Steve #4
Yep. That is all it would take. I’m betting he is incapable of admitting error and showing contrition.
But that wold go against Frank Luntz-style framing!!! So I have a hard time picturing it happening…just like I can’t imagine Mooney ever being on the level…and I’m not going to hang around waiting for it… :-p
My “curious case” post has been updated (I might tweak the wording):
While I think you are highly credible I think the time for secret correspondence and for trusting people’s second hand accounts in this situation is over. It is time for openness and transparency, primary evidence, un-redacted records, correspondence, full details, sunshine, not “vouching” for people or stories based on secret evidence.
I find it extremely weird that one of the people who is supposed to “vouch” for the accuracy of Mooney’s account (“TB”) is anonymous, and both “vouchers” can hardly be construed as objective people who take no sides.
I’m not sure Mooney was really looking for “vouchers.” It seems more like he wanted to park his dirty laundry somewhere else by including more people in this mess. Why Jean accepted his dirty laundry is beyond me – she certainly didn’t wash it for him.
Well the point is that I am somewhat unique because Mooney has nothing to lose by contacting me. I’ve already kept my trap shut about William, as William himself can confirm.
I’m not sure will really help much. While your personal curiosity may be satisfied–which I suppose I would wish to satisfy if I had access to Sekrit Evidence–you won’t really be able to convince the skeptical public at large (aka me :-) )given what an opaque mess the Clusterfock of lies, “trust me, I have secret evidence’s” and unverifiable second hand accounts are.
Time for the opacity go. Openness, transparency and un-redacted primary evidence please.
Strange, in a way, that “William” opted to talk to you but no one else. Oi, William, you owe other people some explanations too! Me for one. What’s preventing you from commenting here? Nothing.
I wanted to post this on Jean’s blog, but the comments are closed, so here it goes:
“Jean, what the fuck???!!!”
Scote, whether or not Mooney contacts me is a boolean value, a data point. You’re only considering the implications of a true boolean value. A false boolean value has meaning, too.
Tea, that would go well on Jeremy’s blog too, but comments are closed there as well! Funny, isn’t it.
I also have no idea why my bending-over-backwards-to-be-nice response to Chris Mooney (over on his blog), in which I rather gently asked him to think about his biases led to an aggressive, mocking response from Jean. There are many mysterious things in this world. Or at least many muddles.
It’s also mysterious why Jeremy Stangroom thinks he has a dog in this fight. Well, maybe not mysterious to Ophelia – but his entire reaction to someone who was supposed to be a friend is mysterious. As is the motivation from Mooney for stabbing PZ in the back in Unscientific America.
It’s one thing to disagree with a friend about something. That happens all the time. It’s another to declare war over it, when there’s a million other things you can do that day which might be more productive.
I also posted this on Pharyngula; apologies to anyone reading it twice.
From what I’ve just read at The Intersocktion, it appears that Mooney, via this Jean person, is trying to imply that, while William lied about a whole bunch of things, he isn’t lying about the incident that ‘Tom Johnson’ described and therefore is lying when he says the ‘Tom Johnson’ incident didn’t happen.
Good grief. I thought only the religious could exercise this kind of confirmation bias and special pleading.
This is Mooney’s SOP, Russell. Look at actions the past two years. He attacks people without letting them defend themselves, builds straw man arguments, and refuses to debate his critics. At least PZ has a popular bog where he can rebut Mooney’s attacks.
I have also been put on Mooney’s blacklist. I tried to post a critical but nonconfrontational comment on Mooney’s blog. It never appeared. Mooney does not even recognize that he is making himself appear as an insecure ass in this entire affair.
My prediction: Mooney’s science writing career will implode withing five years and he will spend the rest of his career as a token atheist for the Templeton Foundation.
Oh it’s mysterious to me all right, Russell. I know what the stated reasons are (they’re the ones in the post), but as for understanding them – no Mystery was ever deeper.
But then, I really don’t understand the rabid hostility to “New” atheists from other atheists. I really don’t. I understand disagreement, distaste, lack of interest, all that – but this frothing, raging, slit-eyed hostility, no. I think it’s wildly irrational, and…slightly scary.
Ophelia,
Actually, no, that would not go well on Jeremy’s blog – I’m used to his spewing bitter, uninformed drivel by now, so nothing new there. But while I’ve had my disagreements with Jean in the past, I always respected her “pathological fair-mindedness” (courtesy of A. Norcross), which is suddenly nowhere to be found:
Acting like devoting a whole blog to an anonymous slandering of a very real person, using extremely vulgar, insulting, hurtful, and, above all, false accusations, is nothing but a stupid little prank, whose author’s career (and therefore identity) must be protected by all means??
Wondering how the Belkar Bitterleaf defence (courtesy of B. Gorton) doesn’t make the perfectest sense to everyone, especially after they’ve already read the indecipherable and contradictory post written by the almighty science communicator??
Arguing that it’s perfectly understandable that one would prevent a real person from defending herself from vile anonymous accusations by banning *her* (because of her ungodly doggedness, apparently) AND deleting all posts that ever mention her AND refuse to *ever* answer any of her questions, even the basic one: “why have I been banned”??
What the fuck, Jean????
Except it isn’t math if you don’t show your work, it is only an unverifiable anecdote. If you and Mooney confer over secret evidence and announce a finding you’ll just be adding another unverifiable second-hand account to the whole mess of lies, obfuscations and anecdotes. More like an unverifiable “anecdote point” than a data point.
Please, please, no more hearsay, no-more unverifiable second hand accounts, no more “trust me, I have secret evidence”. Instead we need openness, transparency and un-redacted primary evidence.
Well, thanks, Tea. Naturally that’s pretty much how I see it, but I figure the fact that I’m the one seeing it that way could be skewing my perceptions just a tad. And just think: you’re not even my sock puppet!
Thanks for the hat-tip, Ophelia. No, you’re not the witch-hunter. There are other candidates for that position.
Folks asking for a reasonable explanation for why they’ve been vilified unfairly shouldn’t have to justify their position; that’s just justice, isn’t it? I’m exasperated that so many great minds have to be distracted by this injustice. But unfortunately, your opponents see this as just another example of your meanness and snark. One has to wonder, what response to such calumny would be appropriate? I’m honestly baffled to what else you could do.
I get the impression that he is just scared into silence since the last confession brought so much hostility. He was talking while he was getting a lot of reconciliatory gestures in return. Now that the pitchforks are out again and, especially, now that there are increasing calls to have his real identity outed to his academic superiors and the scientific community at large, I suspect we’ll never hear from him again.
And he must be terrified to say the wrong thing, either in attitude or in factual detail because everything he says can be, has been, and will be used against him in the court of atheist blogosphere opinion. Moral of the story is probably that we should have kept being nice to him until we had gotten everything but his mother’s maiden name out of him.
Scote, if Mooney claims to have contacted me while I say he has not, he need only produce the full message header to prove me wrong.
At Intersocktion Brian Schmidt noted that Mooney seemed to post “William’s” confession without explicitly noting that his “confession” was at odds with what Mooney claims to know about his true identity. Mooney responded say that he did, sorta, kinda:
Note how deliberately vuage Mooney was. There is no way you’d know what the “deception” was unless you’d read the whole background from other sources. That is pretty darn weasely of Mooney. But what I’d really like to know is why he thinks “William”/”Tom” would learn any kind of lesson from his months-long sh*t storm of defamation and lies other than he get can away with it in the long run because Mooney and Zazez will continue to protect him and his identity even as he **continues** to lie. With a complete absence of real world consequences I don’t see anything he can learn other than there is no reason for him as a seeming pathological liar not to do it again.
(I posted a similar comment to Intersocktion, but I think all my posts go straight through to the memory hole without warning or notice…)
My pleasure, Mark – I enjoyed the piece. Not surprisingly!
Ophelia,
Are you absolutely sure that I’m not your sock puppet? I mean, it *is* 3 A.M.in the country where I’m *supposed* to be, so how come I’m not asleep, hmmm?
Well, we know that the message we’re eventually going to get from Mooney and the other self-hating atheists is going to be the same as it’s always been: if you have the temerity to be an atheist, it doesn’t mean you’re allowed to criticise any aspect of religion because some of them claim to accept science when it suits them.
Or he could just claim he did and you’d have a hard time proving him wrong, since proving a negative can be very difficult. Note the issue you bring up, though, that he could provide primary evidence and that primary evidence would be excellent proof rather than mere second hand claims based on secret evidence. I think that is a great idea. Everybody who has primary evidence about Mooney’s Johnson Affair should publish it in un-redacted form so we can all evaluated it for ourselves rather than having to take people’s word for it.
Time for openness, transparency and un-redacted primary evidence. Sunshine is what we need. Not more opacity and unverifiable anecdotes.
It’s understandable that most comments are about the fallout from this scandal, but Ophelia’s post also did the important service of reminding us where this all started: our right to criticise religion openly. We are a despised minority painted as a powerful and evil antagonist (for a little reminder: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/an_honest_peek_into_the_brain.php) and before a few of us started opening our mouths our situation was even worse. It’s very easy to get lost in the details of just when TB knew that Mooney had “proof” of TJ’s identity, but the real issue hasn’t changed. There is a group of people claiming to be atheists (some of their behaviour makes me wonder) who say we should be a lot less vocal. If we agree to that we not only lose game, set and match, we also give up the only right that, when exercised, can gradually improve our visibility and help many others who thought they were alone to pluck up the courage to join us openly. It’s not a negotiable right, but when the Mooneys of this world are showing their most reasonable face (which is by no means the only one they have), they are urging us to do exactly that: negotiate, with their self-assertedly wise mediation, the degree to which, if at all, we do exercise that right.
I view what has been occupying us lately as part of Plan B, because Plan A never had much of a chance among those who really understood the score. It’s quite simple and includes fabricating inter-atheist rifts along with the evidence that could produce some real ones. It’s “divide and rule,” it’s “divert from the real subject at hand,” it’s “sap the NAs’ communication strength with mind-numbing squabbles about when TB knew what Mooney already claimed to know.” Our being vocal will be deflected to arguments with others claiming to be as atheist as we are, lending credence to all their talk of disunity. We know that a lot of lies have been told in this effort. We know that they keep on going back further than we thought. We know that the same people seem to have been involved again and again. And the explanations we’re getting now are causing us to be insulted on yet a new level, because we won’t simply accept (on faith, of course) that something so fishy, wherever along it one sniffs, actually ties up all remaining loose ends.
I am by no means suggesting that we drop this investigation before we have an idea of the dimensions of Plan B. But we must not let Plan B succeed in its aim of weakening us in our original resolve to fight those manifestations of religion which infringe on our right to be free of it. Full steam ahead on both fronts.
Scote, if Mooney claims to have contacted me while I say he has not, AND Mooney does not produce the full message header—thereby passing up the opportunity to destroy my credibility—then that’s also data.
Stewart wrote:
There are several posters on the Mooney blog who make me wonder as well; a few of them like to imply they are atheists, but the way they talk about religion sounds far more like reverence than description. This is why I’m now referring to people who identify as atheists but who want to make other atheists sit down, shut up and give special privilege to religion and keep it immune from criticism as ‘self-hating atheists’; they mightn’t believe in any gods but for some unknown reason they wish they did.
Potentially telling but certainly not dispositive. Far better would be if you and Mooney would publish un-redacted primary data so we can all evaluate it for ourselves rather than trying to second guess second hand accounts or guess at negative evidence based on what would be your virtually unprovable negative **claim** of not receiving an email. Yes, Mooney could contradict you with positive evidence, but you couldn’t do the contrary.
Sunshine time. No more second hand anecdotes about secret evidence. Everybody who has it should publish all the un-redacted primary evidence in the Mooney’s Johnson Affair.
At the Intersection Jean wrote
comment 85: I think it behooves “William” to return to that Buddha blog and come clean about the lie he told about Tom Johnson. I hope he will do this. It does bother me that his reputation is staying pristine while mine is being tarnished.
It bothers her?! Now, it bothers her. The complete narcisism – it is staggering.
p.s. Ophelia, thankyou for B&W. It has been a very important place to me over the last few years.
Scote, I never claimed to deliver what you wish, but you keep responding as if I did.
I’m only saying what I think should happen, and what I think is the only way to clear this mess up: full open transparency and the release of un-redacted documents related to Mooney’s Johnson Affair. Sunshine is needed, not more second hand anecdotes based on secret evidence.
Ophelia,
What’s going on between you and Jeremy? Staring at his post on TP, I simply can’t comprehend he actually co-wrote Why Truth Matters with you.
I’ve been sporadically looking at a few older things that might look different in the light of what we now know and this one, from Jean Kazez at the end of October last year suddenly amused me:
The main reason for the amusement is that it was just a few days after Mooney’s “Exhibit A” post, which featured a different Exhibit A.
I think this story is pretty much over now. “Tom/William/” and a loud chunk of the commentariat at the Intersocktion have been totally discredited. Chris Mooney is exposed as a poor writer and a lazy journalist willing to peddle lies if it will further his agenda. Phwoompf, complete implosion.
All that’s left is to wonder how many of his supporters will be sucked into the black hole of Mooney’s online reputation.
And I’m not even that interested in that, either. Making excuses for Mooney now is a marker for gullibility, little more.
PZ is probably right, provided there are no new far-reaching new exposures in the offing. I’d prefer it if there weren’t, but the last few weeks have made me come to expect them.
Thank you PZ and Stewart,
As a relative newcomer to the atheist digital domain, I like you guys better than the other guys. There must be others like me who are just joining the debate and, if those newcomers see what is happening here, they will be wary of the weasely wording of the accomodationistas. Being honest, straightforward, and fairly reasonable is what you (we) do here. I think it works better on every level.
Part of the purpose here is to ‘fight fashionable nonsense’ and nonsense is what ‘the intersection’ has been promoting. What I have seen here over the past days has been a group of people asking firm but reasonable questions to another group of people who do not, or cannot, answer straightforward questions. Everything is slippery and so obviously defensive rather than telling the truth as best they know.
I hate to admit it, I was once a very scared, self-deceptive, self-satisfied, spoiled rotten liar too.
Not to put to fine a point on it, but keep doing what you are doing. You will keep gaining allies.
Just wondering.
Moses came with the 10 commandments he had direct from Jehovah. I mean, Moses talked with Jehovah, verified his existence, knew where Jehovah came from and told the Jewish Tribes that since Moses had the word direct from God – and here he thumps the 10 stone tablets as proof if any of us questions the existence and veracity of Jehovah – and so the Jewish tribes had to accept the Word of Jehovah.
Just as we have to accept the word of various people simply because they’ve been in touch with the Source. And who are we to question the word?
It’s precisely because, unless we can question God (or whoever) directly we refuse to take the words of a priest who says he’s been in touch but won’t let us get in touch, we prefer to be atheists. And unless we can directly question the truthfulness of various witnesses, we refuse to become convinced.
The whole affair perfectly illustrates the attitude of “You’ve got to believe us because we have seen the truth, and you can’t see the truth because you’re just not holy enough”
Thank you, Dean (can I say that in your name, too, Ophelia?). You call yourself a newcomer and I don’t know to which age group you belong and it really isn’t very important, because even those of us who can truthfully say we’ve been atheists for 30, 40 or 50 years must also be considered recent arrivals in the context of “digital atheism,” because it is all so relatively new.
Presumably, when one arrives at a consciousness of one’s atheism, it’s at least partly due to a process of comparison between what is being said or claimed by theists and by non-believers. The internet has made it possible to realise how many of us there are, even if not in one’s immediate geographical vicinity. I can certainly say that discovering the like-minded in cyberspace was a pleasant and liberating experience. As one learns to distinguish between the various online approaches to the subject, one also picks up on alliances between, say, various bloggers and can easily extend a measure of trust to someone one doesn’t “know” that well yet because of an apparently cordial relationship with someone who has almost always made a great deal of sense. You are coming in here at a time when certain of these relationships are coming apart and surprising decisions about which side to take have been made and, once made, are being adhered to quite ferociously. At moments like these, when one can think “I thought these guys were in basic agreement, even if lively discussion had often taken place, and now there seems to be nothing but bad blood,” I find myself somehow repeating the process with which atheism began. Which of the arguments, regardless of who seems to be “nice” or not, is the one that’s making more sense? Which one is sticking more to the subject and which one is avoiding answering tough questions, bringing up sidetracking irrelevancies or shutting down comments for the same blog entries in which they make sarcastic and hyperbolic accusations? Which one has actually been caught red-handed peddling a lie, or relaying one without ever giving a satisfying excuse for having done so? Which one lays out all arguments for anyone to see and which tries to tell you it has the evidence to back up its version, but has great reasons for not letting anyone see it? Which one deletes entire blogs and which one archives them in unaltered form so that all can see what has been discussed, how and by whom? As I said, we’re right back to the original divide between believers and nons. “Show me the evidence.” “You need to have faith.” So I find it rather hard to sympathise with the backers of the accomodationists.
Welcome.
Jan, we cross-posted there with almost identical messages, just formulated differently (I like yours, too). It really does boil down to that in the end, doesn’t it?
That’s an excellent observation, Jan.
Oh, yes, and it is, I might add, the reliance of certain people on “trust me, I know, even though you can’t be shown” that makes me doubt whether they are atheists in the sense that I understand that term. How can an atheist use a method like that? Isn’t it the antithesis of atheist thinking? But, as Jean Kazez pointed out on the Talking Philosophy blog over a year ago, “… there are people who really think the whole obstacle to theism is the problem of evil.”
Personally, I can think of quite a few others.
I think it is not unreasonable to call such people atheists if they do not believe in the existence of gods, but you are right in that they clearly not atheists of the sceptic variety.
I do know of atheists who dislike being be atheists and would much rather believe in god but for whatever reason cannot. I suspect Mooney may be well be one those type now.
And did Kazez really say that ? Well it is true the problem of evil is not the WHOLE problem with theism but it is a dammed significant one. No theologian I have across has ever given a decent answer to the problem although some write so obscurely it is possible I simply did not realise it.
You are quite welcome Stewart!
More sense vs. communicating effectively (being nice?). This seems to be the accomodationist frame. I have been convinced by the former which means that More sense = communicating effectively. Of course there are situations that call for different communication strategies regarding atheism, science education, pseudo-sci/med, and others, but I have yet to see where honesty is not the best policy. The skeptical stance of question everything but accept evidence helps remind me that honesty is a big part of communicating effectively.
Matt, the problem of evil is a huge problem if one is already inclined to accept the existence of a god/gods on the basis of something one considers evidence. But that’s already a big hurdle to get across. Should an absence of evil, on its own, were it ever to manifest itself, be evidence of god?
No, the absence of evil is not evidence of a god. However that is not the argument theists make. They instead explain away the presence of evil in the presence on an benevolent, omnipotent and omnipresent god using arguments so pathetic it is a wonder any sane adult could bring themselves to make them.
If there is a god, and that is benevolent, omnipotent and omnipresent then the presence of evil becomes a very real problem.
Right and it’s how they get to the god you describe in the first place with which I have enough of a problem.
Got you. Yeah, there are a whole load of other problems with existence of god apart from the problem of evil. Although the problem of evil does seem to create some spectacularly idiotic reasoning. Or Waffle: I once heard the Archbishop of Canterbury talk about the problem of evil for 30 minutes. I have no idea what he said. The words were in English, and put together in sentences that were well formed but there was no content at all.
my attitude a few days ago was that this whole Mooney thing was a distraction from the Mohler story of the century … in which the BioLogos crowd, who really are the “locus classicus” for the “accommodation” debate – have been attacked by the leaders of the evangelical church – and are causing a mighty row.
After reading a lot of the original three posts by Mooney though, my opinion of this has changed and I see how the Mooney story is really a plotline in the bigger story, of which Molher is also part.
Mooney is the “locus classicus” of the argument that a few rude blog comments demonstrate a real world pattern of incivility that make atheism a dangerous and socially toxic world view.
This is really the same as saying that “truth” is a dangerous and socially toxic world view. Which is may be – as Ricky Gervais I think playfully gets at in “The invention of lying”.
However, Mooney was the one that made this exhibit A – and his commenter was the one in this case who “invented” lying to make his side (shut up you mean atheists, can you see you are hurting good people) look good.
I really hope this story moves out of the niche blog territory and really becomes Mooney’s “exhibit A” in the wider public debate.
I think anonymity is fine, but in no way should the “respect” for anonymity extend to the kind of conduct that Mooney’s poster was engaging. The principle of pseudonymous anonymity, which we rightly value, is to protect people who wish to say “unpopular things” … not to protect people who wish to engage in slander.
We really have a broken moral compass, and perhaps a bit of Stockholm Syndrome when we feel that the identity of Tom Johnson, and his TRUE story don’t matter in this specific case, because the WHOLE point of Tom Johnson was to character assassinate Jerry Coyne, and PZ. Both these men were the original target of Johnson – who repeated said that he saw people who personally knew them, and were personally inspired by them to do things that were “not helping”.
My feeling is that JC and PZ are doing everyone a huge service (helping) – don’t get me wrong, I disagree with them sometimes, but I don’t for a second think it is OK to lie to discredit them. It is fine to anonymously call them names, and to anonymously argue with them, but that is not at all what happened.
Johnson, used Mooney to advance a lie to support his thesis that Coyne and PZ were ENEMIES of science and reason – and a mirror form of “fundamentalism”.
If evidence like this exists, it is very important, and as scientists we should take it on board.
Mooney needs to own these lies “in the real world” … and Tom Johnson, if he is going to slander people “in the real world” needs to pay a price for that, “in the real world”.
That is not baying for blood, that is not revenge. That is justice, and, as Mooney says, that is exhibit A.
If you are going to introduce “evidence” into the public court of opinion, the opposition has every right to that evidence to exonerate itself.
We have a moral issue here, Zach, Oedipus – that is what I have to say to your sympathy for the slanderer.
All of the other stuff, the who insulted who and who banned who, in the blog comments is just a distraction from the original slander – that the free speech of two named individuals (coyne and PZ) was “hurting” the real world conduct of scientists.
Go read the Dover transcript and judgement again if you want to see who comports themselves with dignity and respect, and who lies and dissembles …
Please, don’t balance the reputation of a conniving, slandering, mendacious individual against the reputation and courage of men like Myers and Coyne (not to mention OB and the others).
Mooney must answer in the place he presumes to speak for … the real court of public opinion. This ain’t bean bag, or high school favoritism … this is real.
Tea
:- )
Well I know that you know that I know you’re not. We both know that we both know that we’re not each other. Nobody else knows that, of course, but my comment was addressed to you, and one thing I can say with great confidence – I would say certainty except that I’m leery of the word, and anyway what if it’s all the evil demon, or the Matrix – is that you know that you are not a sock puppet of mine.
:- )
Catching up, here. (Good morning.) One at a time. I’ll get there.
Stewart, sure, you can say thanks for me too. Dean, thanks.
There; that’s one small bit caught up. Heehee.
Stewart @ 33 – exactly.
Mind you, there’s little danger that we’ll back off. That’s one of the many ironies of all this nonsense – the more the Mooneys and Pigliuccis and Browns shout at us and accuse us of baying for blood when all we’re doing is arguing – the more obstinate we will get. The more they exaggerate, and fabricate, and extrapolate from 3 comments on a blog post to “All New Atheists are insane and savage and murderous,” the more we will think they are unreasonable and mendacious and malicious and that they have no real case, because if they did, they would offer it, instead of all this exaggeration and fabrication and absurd extrapolation. The more we think that, the less likely we are to be politely silent about religion.
The key to this issue is that Tom Johnson, and Mooney, aren’t just making general statements about “the New Atheists” … they are slandering real people.
Mooney seems to be trying to play this by saying, that Tom Johnson, is a despicable liar, and I shouldn’t have “elevated” him out of the nothingness of the blog commentary, but doing this puts no burden on me to defend the truth of the claims.
Read this last comment Mooney makes, has hasn’t recanted one bit that he and Johnson deliberately slandered Coyne and PZ, by saying that their behavior was causing others to undermine science in the real world … he’s saying what Johnson said, “might still be accurate”!!!!! Which is like saying that, PZ and Coyne might still be hurting science … Oedipus, Zach, don’t let this be Mooney’s last word on this … this is wrong:
Remember, I’d been given details about a very real person. If that person was not our “Tom Johnson,” it didn’t simply mean I’d been deceived. It also meant I had a responsibility to let the real person know that someone was going around using his or her name and identity.
Well, I waited to post this until I was confident that this last fear–thankfully–isn’t true. Further confirmation reaffirms that “William”/”Tom Johnson” is indeed who he originally said he was. And this was always the most likely reality by far–although I understandably found myself questioning it for a while this week.
I sincerely hope the claim above from “William”/”Tom” was his very last deception–and that he has learned a deep, deep lesson from all of this.
* * * * * *
In light of all this, there’s no reason to trust the story that “Tom Johnson” originally told on this blog. It might still be accurate, and it was never any more than one person’s perception anyway. But one cannot trust its source in light of subsequent behavior.
That is why, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had not given the comment any added attention–even in a blog post, and even after ascertaining (correctly) the author’s true identity. And I apologize for this mistake–I wish I had been more skeptical, though I don’t see how I could have suspected what was coming.
morgan @ 37 – thank you back.
I saw that comment at the Intersection. I had the same thought. She seems to be a little blind to other people whose reputations were tarnished by the toxic sox.
Smith @ 40
No, I can’t comprehend it either. In a nutshell, what’s going on is that he severed all relations with me last summer because of my serial criticisms of Mooney. He’s now what one might call a hostile witness. It’s all very awkward.
Is it not time Mooney realised that, whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation (and you all know where I stand), he is now part of the problem ?
Or to put it another way, the journalist has become the story and that is never going to end well.
Jan
Exactly. This was the main point of my essay in 50 Voices of Disbelief – that the god is hidden so it is unaccountable so it is not reasonable to expect us to obey it. Even if it exists it’s still not reasonable to expect us to obey it. It’s just another form of tyranny or dictatorship. It has no business hiding and still expecting us to believe in it and obey it.
Scott, I suspect you misunderstand as Scote and probably others do. My above conversation with Scote is basically this,
I never claimed that I could deliver Y and—more importantly—I never claimed to oppose Y. Is that clear?
Scott, you’re right about Mohler though. I was looking at that when Wm’s new revelations interrupted – I’ve got to get back to it. On the other hand I’ve also kind of been waiting for Jerry Coyne’s debate with Karl Giberson to be posted, because that’s part of the picture. It’s all way interesting.
Mooney (or whoever is doing the moderation) allows this to be posted at me:
But won’t allow me to respond with a simple:
Tells you a lot, doesn’t it?
Jean claims there really was a “conservation conference” where such events happened. She says she does not offer the details because it would reveal “William” / “Tom Johnson”‘s identity.
William can attest that I know about him and that I’ve kept quiet about him. Therefore Mooney has nothing to lose by revealing this information privately to me, allowing me to vouch on Mooney’s behalf. William never mentioned to me the truth or falsity of this conference.
Let A be the proposition that such a conference occurred. We can’t disprove A. But if A implies B, and we can disprove B, then we’ve disproved A.
What is B? It is the proposition that Mooney would provide these details to me. Why should he do this? Because (1) I know about William already, and (2) I would be an asset to his credibility. Now we wait to see if B happens.
re: the “evidence”
Only a person with access to it can use it. The Mooney camp is using it, or claims about its existence and nature, to make its point that no one did wrong except TJ. They are insisting this is so, the “evidence” is their proof, but the other side is forbidden to see the “evidence” and is therefore unable to offer any opinion as to whether it is being correctly interpreted. But they’re arguing as if we do have access to it, through them (it’s there, right?), therefore can have no complaint. Kafkaesque.
Well, we’re back to “god exists, and he spoke to me, not to you, so I get to decide what he said.”
Yet Mooney does not make that claim. He hints at it bit, saying what William, as Johnson, said might be true but he makes no claim to have evidence to that effect.
Even the people who say Mooney has let them in on the secret cannot stay consistent. This lack of consistency, plus the refusal to reveal any information makes me dubious. Now I can understand why Mooney might want to keep William’s true identity a secret. I am not sure I agree but there is some validity in the case he makes for that. However it surely is possible to reveal details of what Mooney did by why of fact checking without revealing William’s identity.
OB, it isn’t clear but that is OK, this is all a very imprecise way of talking … and it is hard to keep all the various pieces in order.
I actually think that Tom Johnson made some fair points, as does Mooney, and we want to talk about these points, but they are clearly proceeding in bad faith. In the case of Johnson, it was just the relatively minor violation of lying in a place where everyone is a dog.
In Mooney’s case, his “it still might be accurate” comment is lying in a place, where reality counts.
Mooney needs to say, I was wrong, I heard what I wanted to hear, and that led me astray, because there is no evidence that all these books by the new atheists, and all this smack talk on blogs, is really moving our country in the wrong direction.
That is what I want to hear from Mooney … and I ain’t heard it.
Stewart,
You forgot to add that we are all big meanies for doubting the story they are telling us.
Matt, but Mooney endorsed what Jean said; in response to questions he pointed us to Jean’s blog entry. If that was a mistake then he hasn’t said so.
Clearly I am not entirely up to date then. I had missed that.
To be honest I have stopped reading The Intersection as it only makes me cross. I only have myself to blame if I miss things said there.
If you were to become party to the information Mooney shared with Kazez and others then that would add some credibility. I do not expect Mooney to respond favourably to your suggestion though.
Scott @ 71 – OB? You mean Oedipus?
I disagree. My take was that you offered to compare your secret evidence with Mooney’s secret evidence–in secret. And I say the time for secret evidence and second hand stories is over. It is time for openness and primary evidence. No more secrets. No more protection for a proven serial liar who, it seems, is still lying.
Oedipus, even if Tom Johnson was invited to a church sponsored information session, that would not make his claims that Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers’ are causing people to act uncivilly in such meetings, true.
The whole point here is that Mooney is WRONG, not that PZ isn’t occasionally boorish, not that Jerry Coyne doesn’t occasionally say rude things … and not that Dawkins isn’t upsetting religious believers by saying “god probably doesn’t exist” (how strident) … but that their OPINIONS are causing people to turn science education seminars into scream-a-thons to glorify the evil leaders of the NA movement – and to advance ideology over effectiveness and results oriented behavior (in the real world).
Mooney can opine all he wants … we’re asking him for evidence … and as we can see he’s eager to show us that when he’s got it … but he ain’t got it. He’s got Tom Johnson, who, at this point, would be instructive for everyone to know ALL about as “exhibit A”.
Mooney chose to call this “exhibit A” because to him, he was entering it as evidence into a public trial which he is litigating.
No one should respect the use of anonymity for the purpose that he employed it: to defame, deceive and distort. He’s not using his right to speak anonymously to participate in a discussion that he wants to keep private from other parts of his life, he’s using it for slander and character assassination.
Read his comments, it was slander against real people (who were not even part of the discussion), he serially goes after Coyne and PZ, by saying that they are directly doing harm …
Mooney and his socks are the ones doing the harm … they want exhibit A, well so entered. Now, we want X and we want Y, and the remedy we seek is Mooney’s admission that “the evidence is a hoax” … and he has to write “Richard Dawkins is a reasonable, intelligent and gentle man” 1000 times on the blackboard.
Specifically, I’d really like to know if Tom Johnson is a practicing Christian, who, like the practicing Christians at the Dover trial, perjured themselves. Time and time again, devotion to a higher truth seems to make you oblivious to the minor ones.
I want to know if Christians sock puppet Atheists for Jesus.
I just took it all the way to its logical conclusion and realised: they’ve deified Tom Johnson. They claim he exists, they have the evidence, he’s spoken to them, he’s not going to speak to us and we can’t see the evidence and they want to use these “facts” to regulate our behaviour, such as who we ought to be apologising to. Although, maybe it’s less of a religion they’ve founded than a mystery cult.
@Scott #77 has it right, I think.
If this were a trial in open court Mooney’s ‘witness’ would be well and truly discredited; the jury would be instructed to ignore everything he said and Mooney would be directed to answer the question – “Just where is your evidence that all the New Atheists are turning the world against science?”
It’s entirely reasonable to expect proceedings to unfold in this fashion without the likes of Stangroom trying to turn it into further evidence that Mooney is right.
How could I neglect to point out above: Tom Johnson has suffered untold agonies and we crucified him.
Scott, I can’t tell if you are arguing against me about something, but if you are then you misunderstand. All I’m doing is conducting a simple test. If Mooney’s story is true then he should rush to contact me. That’s all.
Great, so now we have to be new ajohnsonists too?
It’s funny that one of Jean’s numbered points was that her critics are in love with William. In love with William??! This is the little sod that called me names not suitable for a meeting of drunken truck drivers and is still too shy to tell everyone what his real name is. Yeah I’m not much in love with William.
Assuming that Dean Buchanan (#44) is not OB posting under an alias, I would like to say ‘Baa’ to his request that OB remains dogged and relentless in fighting fashionable nonsense, especially the nonsense that we should be polite about religions. I take as self-evident that we should be courteous to individual believers.
For example, what is now known about how life-forms have evolved on this planet is utterly incompatible with an interventionist compassionate deity, and I think it essential that we should say so clearly. We should also be relentless in attacking (for example) Ayala’s evasions on that point.
It seems to me (though I may be wrong) that there are many people who accept the intellectual case for atheism, but remain deeply attached to mystery and superstition. They dress this up as ‘science can’t explain why I love my cat / why Beethoven’s Op 130 gives me goose-pimples / why we should avoid causing suffering /’. Or by saying, correctly, that it is nonsensical to assert that ‘you, dear boy, with your twenty-five impartial years,/Can perform the judgment of Paris,/Can savour, consider, and award the apple/With a cool hand. You will find an apple/ Over there by the spectroscope.’ (Christopher Fry)
In accordance with the Principle of the Gapingly Incomplete Parallel, they gloss over that none of the big religions can throw any light on Op 130 (etc), and that the big religions cannot in principle, and do not in practice, provide any foundation for human morality.
I suspect Mooney and Stangroom of belonging to this mysterian camp. I recall Stangroom asserting that he had had a premonition of a mechanical fault in his parent’s car, and being discourteously dismissive of the simple reminder that (a) people often have premonitions (b) sometimes one such premonition will occur a short time before an unwelcome event.
I can tell that I’m not Dean under an alias, Nicholas, because I just checked both IP addresses.
Hahahahahahaha!
Ok, I’ll carry on being dogged and relentless and tedious and like a mob baying for blood. It’s my vocation, Hal, as Falstaff remarked.
Here’s the Stangroom post on his premonitions. The car one he said could easily be explained; it was another one he was mysterian and discourteously dismissive about.
Ah, OB, but when you posted as Dean, you were in that Starbucks in your Amy Pond disguise, about to be chatted up by Mooney …
Oedipus, @82, I’m not arguing against you, I don’t understand your perspective well enough. I’m under the impression that you know things about Tom Johnson that would lead to us not just exposing his puppetry but the “truth”. I’m also under the impression that you are saying to Mooney that you are an honest broker an that he can trust you, and that you will then vouch for him.
If that is your view, I respect it, but I don’t really understand it. This whole “protect poor Tom Johnson” is so strange.
If you are the kind of coward who goes on witch hunts, you better make darn sure you pick out a defenseless old crone, and don’t go kick down the door of someone who is going to be totally justified in grabbing your own pitchfork and sticking it in you … and can.
So, I don’t want revenge, I want the truth. If PZ Myers desecrates a cracker and that causes sophomore chemistry students to go all kristallnacht on catholics and tie them to barbed wire fences out on the prairie because they are catholic, you are damn right I want to know about it, and want them to consider the consequences of their free speech … and be held account for it.
But what SEEMS to be developing here is that you and others chased this bastard down, caught him, and somehow, like the Normallstorg victims, have these positive emotions and concern about the “future” of Tom Johnson … I share none of these positive feelings.
Someone wrote earlier that he might be “23” and therefore too young to deal with like an adult … WTF. Has university mapped to highschool?
I think he’s made some libelous accusations, Mooney is a first tier expert on the subject of accommodation, and, what I really want to know is does Tom Johnson attend Albert Mohlers church … because if he does, I will quit being an atheist, and take up agnosticism.
But, whoever you are, and whoever I am, I stress that I don’t fully understand your views, so please understand if I’ve misconstrued anything …
regards,
scott
Well I did, sort of…but only sort of. I feel more squeamish about saying no he shouldn’t be protected, if he’s 23, than I do if he’s more fully adult. That’s all, really. If he’s old enough that it’s really absurd to claim he’s not fully responsible, that makes a difference. 23 seems to me not quite old enough to claim that. It’s nebulous.
But really…given the things that the Sock wrote, and given the incredibly calculated way he did it…it also seems absurd to claim that he’s not responsible.
An example of the calculation: one of his favorite tricks was to have one sock say something completely disgusting and then instantly have another sock say “Oh I think that’s over the top” but still leave the completely disgusting comment in place. That’s how he did the putrid twat comment. “Julie” said it then “Patricia” instantly said “Too much” but the comment stayed. He’s a calculating lying little shit and doesn’t deserve much concern for his tender youth. (He also had the gall to come here as Patricia right after the putrid twat comment, to harangue me about being too vigilant about misogyny.)
and who do we see time and time again engaging in elaborate deception for reasons other than direct Madoff style personal profit? Why it is the Ted Haggards, and Mohammad Atta’s of the world …
When a person engages in this kind of deception, and they don’t stand to get a payoff, or worse they expose themselves to personal harm, you are dealing with a “True Believer”.
That is why his biography matters …
Because Ted Johnson has a little alcove in my mind where I keep track of the liars for god. He’ll have all kinds of help in his transition from sock puppet to disgraced evangelical.
damn i’m starting to feel like a sock …
It sounds like “William”/”Tom”/whomever has really gamed the system. He could say anything he wanted, whether it was truth, or lies, or insults. Since he’s (apparently) “only” 23 years old, he must be protected for being too young to… what? I’m not clear on this point. Understand the consequences of his actions? His anonymity must be preserved, lest vigilante atheists go after him IRL — and doesn’t this rather feed into the attitude that you just can’t trust those mean, hateful New Atheists? Why should “Tom” ever come forward as himself (whoever that is) to say anything more on the matter? He’s a protected class who gets to enjoy the full benefits of his Internet anonymity.
Can we even make that assumption, when all information claimed as the real truth is being withheld and we have good reason to be suspicious of the information we have been given?
we can assume that Ted Johnson’s lying and elaborate socking, was not deployed in pursuit of personal financial gain … people who do that, at least make sense, they are trying to get something.
The person behind Tom Johnson also has a real position, and I strongly suspect, is a product of the system of faith he says we insult.
Remember, one of the most repeated lines of the Tom Johnson post, was “I’m an atheist”, he understood the value in having the author of the “Republican War on Science” take on Coyne and PZ … just like we understand the value in seeing francis collins take on Albert Mohler … only no one on our side seems to feel that lying is a justifiable way to push our adgenda.
@#84
You’ll just have to trust me on this…
OBI had a feeling that someone was going to say something sort of like that, it is all part of the planHere is a nice quote from Friedrich Glauser’s 1936 novel In Matto’s Realm:
And keep up the good fight.
My purpose is to counter the idea that there exists secret information—known only by Mooney, Jean, and TB—which excuses Mooney in some way. I claim that no such information exists.
I can support my claim by showing that Mooney will not offer the information to me, even though he has every reason to do so. The purported reason for keeping it secret is to prevent “Tom” from being outed. That reason does not apply to me.
I don’t think Mooney foresaw that I would offer this challenge.
Oedipus #97, thanks for presenting this challenge to Chris Mooney and Jean Kazez. I left a longer response at your blog.
Stand down, everyone, the sagacious ‘TB’ has it all sorted out:
<blockquote>A witness who is a professional with pertinent experience gives testimony about an event they could have plausibly attended.Now, almost a year later, that witness is discredited because of activities not connected to his professional capacity nor that event. So that testimony should be disregarded based on those questions of credibility. Aside from that, there’s no evidence to impeach that testimony on it’s face, nor is it worth the time to find others to corraborate the testimony.Things are right and wrong for a reason. But if you want to be in the camp that loves to indulge it’s confirmation bias against Mooney, be my guest.</blockquote>
So in other words, the churlish, screaming new atheist story totally could have happened, but since the respectable professional guy who told it to us turned out to be not so respectable during his internet leisure time, we should probably just forget about that story, even though it totally could have happened. It’d be a waste of time to try to corroborate it from some source that isn’t an unbalanced 23 year old, by the way. So, if you’re still pushing for that, it’s only because of your irrational hatred of Chris Mooney and everything he stands for.
Hope that clears everything up!
Somebody mentioned a while back that when TB first started posting, it was under his real name. Jen’s quote from him above now prompts me to ask: was his real name then “Tuberculosis?”
Jen Phillips,
Wow, the depth of stupidity these people stoop to. In other words, judging from what TB admitted, Chris Mooney, Jean Kazez, and TB have NO, ZERO, NADA, ZIP, ZILCH information about the conservation event other than what Tom Johnson wrote in his original post to Chris Mooney’s blog. Oedipus was right. There is no secret information and Mooney and Kazez are confirmed [fabulists – ed].
TB would make a lousy lawyer. Of course the implausibility of the story on its face would be taken into account by a real judge, or even real jury members – and a real lawyer for the defence would make much of it in cross-examining the witness and in addressing the judge and jury. That was the situation until this week. Now we find, via independent evidence, that the witness is a pathological liar. Yet various people bought the implausible story at the time, even when its implausibility was pointed out.
All that said, I think PZ is right. Barring a further layer of revelations, this has about run its course. Pity, because I have this bullshit detector of mine going off telling me there’s yet more being hidden. But I just don’t see any way we could get at it. And the main point has been made repeatedly and forcefully.
Stewart–if he really is the full name he posted under, then he is a published writer of crime fiction. Make of that what you will.
Also, I think it’s just precious when they use terms like ‘confirmation bias’–it sounds so sciency! *titter*
Aratina–indeed. Chris Mooney’s behavior for lo these past few years makes him untrustworthy, in my view. The veracity of the incident in question is sort of beside the point, because even if every single word of it was dead accurate, it still wouldn’t mean what Chris claimed (and apparently still claims) it means, and it wouldn’t change the chronic distortions and base tactics that Chris has been using liberally since way before he heard of ‘Tom Johnson’.
Russell, your bullshit detector has a much better record of accuracy than the assurances of the folks across the border, so I am wondering when the next shoe is going to drop (as well as wondering whether the eventual number of them will prove we’ve been dealing with a centipede).
Yup, I think this phase is over. Not to put too fine a point on it, it’s getting a little boring!
:- )
Jen, I didn’t trawl back to find his real name, but if he really is a writer of crime fiction, the implications do become rather delicious.
Is there really anything more you could learn that would lower your opinion of Mooney et al. any further? As I see it, further information couldn’t make them look any worse in my eyes, so if they don’t have anything to offer, that’s their problem. I’m happy to let them leave the issue as-is, and think the worst of them.
@Jen Philips: yeah, and Mooney won’t let me respond to this either. My first, short response got rejected almost immediately. The following has been in moderation for hours now:
I have no clue if it will ever be released from moderation. I can’t figure out what criteria they’re using. It seems almost random.
As for “further revelations”, I can’t help but wonder what happened to William’s desire to come clean. I’m sure people would go easier on him again if he just confessed what happened and clear most of this mess up. But he seems to have completely disappeared from the internet.
I doubt that Mooney knows more, or much more, than he’s letting on. I suspect that there is stuff that “William” is still concealing from us. It’s partly a gut feeling, but partly a bit more. Even after his supposedly full and sincere confession, he only gave information when directly asked for it by people who had independent evidence of specifics. It’s unlikely that we just happen to have independent evidence of all his particular shenanigans, so he’s probably still protecting himself over some things that he did in one corner or another of the internet.
But this is just speculation. Since he’s unlikely to open up and admit anything more without specific prompting, we might as well move on to other topics. The point has been made. A day or two ago, I was thinking about blogging about all of this, after all, but I don’t think I will now.
@Russell Blackford: yeah, I was kinda expecting William to return for yet another round of apologies (however sincere they might be), but by this point, I doubt he will.
I wonder if he fears that Mooney might still out him if he does… After all, Mooney did say “He doesn’t need me publishing his identity to the world… (Although if he makes up anything else, or if it turns out that I have been further deceived in any way, I reserve the right to change this position)”, as well as “Now is the time to stay off the internet”.
Actually sounds a little sinister now that I put those statements together like this.
Tulse, yes, the one thing that would make learning more about Tom Johnson worth it all, would be finding out that in his real life, he is an active, vocal and upstanding member of a Christian Church … you know like the BTK psychopath, the guy who snatched Jaycee Durgard, Ted Haggard, 5% of the Catholic clergy, Jim & Tammy Faye, Swaggart … why is it so easy for me to reel off these examples … if you think we are doing a favor to Tom Johnson, think again, as someone said above, “we” are the key to his salvation.
Or, said in terms that he’ll understand: God wanted him to do this, get caught and come to repent … not, as it happening now, come to us stuck to the tar baby and say he is scared of the briar patch.
And Mooney has finally closed out comments on the “Sock Puppet II – Electric Boogaloo” post.
Stick a fork in it — this puppy’s done.
Ophelia, nice edit (better word choice) to my comment @4:28 p.m.
Aratina – in case you didn’t know, Ophelia’s concerned about the far reach of the English libel courts, which are pretty draconian, esp. when the “l” word is used. I’m confident she’d never edit a commenter’s writing if it weren’t for that.
In closing the thread, Mooney said that he deleted many comments for the crimes of “lacking substance” and “making allegations without merit or evidence.”
[Jaw drops open and begins gently swaying in the breeze.]
Josh Slocum,
Thanks for the explanation. I thought it might be related to keeping everything legal and I’m fine with the edit. I really do think it is a better word in this case anyway.
Hamilton Jacobi, as someone who had a comment moderated out of existence an the Intersection in the last week, I can say Mooney’s reasons are bogus. My comment was substantive, made no unevidenced allegations and most important, was true.
@ #116Thanks for mentioning this, since I’ve given up looking at Mooney’s blog. (It had been six months since I looked at it until this subject came up – his blog is so boring if he’s not declaring war on New Athiests.) I made four different comments there in the last few days, all fairly innocuous, yet I thought they had substance (or I wouldn’t have made them). None saw the light of day – I assumed it was just because they didn’t support Mooney. Now I see they must have been killed by his substance, merit, and evidence editor.
Dave and tomh, he also deleted comments for “etc.” You have to admit he’s got you there.
@120 hehe, good point.
I posted a different angle on it – sort of “What can we take from this.”
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/expensive/2010/07/12/reflections-on-some-online-drama/
Mooney has not covered himself in glory over this episode, though he seems to have covered himself in… something. If anybody still had any qualms about being dismissive of him or not taking him seriously, I can’t imagine this saga hasn’t laid them to rest. And that applies to a number of others, too.
Stewart wrote:
Wads of Templeton cash?
For all of us who made comments over at Mooney’s site that were deleted, the explanation is quite simple: A large number comments were also deleted for lacking substance, making allegations without merit or evidence, etc..
If your deleted comments were anything like mine, the reason is because they fell into the esteemed Mooney-esque category of etcetera, which when properly unscrambled spells ‘critical.’
Remember this post over at WEIT? The one where Jerry quotes “John Horgan, who was once a Journalism Fellow”:
That was the thread that included this comment from our old and trustworthy friend Milton C. Note his tried and true method of starting with criticism of the person he actually wants to back, in order to make it seem that what he says next is so objective that it even runs contrary to his normal opinions:
I could almost write “amazing what hindsight can do,” but I think it was rather transparent back then, even if the sock-puppetry was less evident on a thread with more real commenters.
Aratina (and Josh), yup, that was it, and I marked it, so it wasn’t a stealth edit.
Stewart,
Yikes. Good find. Yes – that opening throat-clear sounds exactly like YNH – it was always saying it totally disagreed with Mooney and then going on to attack exactly Mooney’s critics. So convincing.
So hey, just throwing this out there. Mooney made a veiled threat to out Tom Johnson:
Could this be one reason why he won’t show his face anywhere where he was previously spilling his guts? It could only hurt him, with the Buddha/B&W crowd wanting more information, but Mooney sitting on the other side with his personal information wanting the whole thing to just die like so many of his other blogging faux pas.
Oh, and those of you who are disappointed that your posts are being moderated, rest assured that at least some people get to post. Why, just the other day Kw*k posted:
So obviously they have a low threshold for what they consider constructive and a high threshold for what is considered personal attacks. It just seems so odd that what gets posted seems to adhere so closely to party lines, or even dare I say “labels” of the type Kirshenbaum dislikes so much.
Paul
July 12, 2010 at 8:41 am
So hey, just throwing this out there. Mooney made a veiled threat to out Tom Johnson:
One could see it as a veiled threat, or it could also be seen as a bit of obfuscating bluster, where Mooney lets Johnson off scott free, hides his true identity, tells everybody to”leave “Tom” out of it” and then pretends to act “neutral” or something by adding the bluff that he reserves the right to out Johnson.
It seems to me that Mooney wants to control this conversation and he does so by controlling the information. If we had Johnson’s real world identity we could continue talking about this event in concrete terms for a while, as more and new information was revealed. But so long as Mooney (and Kazez and TB) keeps the truth secret he retains a measure of control over the conversation. And, of course, I think the full details of what happened are probably even more devastating to his credibility than has been revealed. All in all, I think Mooney would only reveal Johnson’s identity if it gave him an edge, and right now keeping it secret gives him an edge–which is just another reason that others who are protecting Johnson’s identity should reconsider and should publish full, un-redacted emails and other primary evidence.
Well quite. And this is – and has been for at least a year – one of the symptoms of Mooney’s non-reliability. He banned me for asking him questions – too “doggedly” according to Jean Kazez – but he didn’t ban people who falsely called me a liar for asking those very questions. He revealed himself to be not an honest broker. That (that and/or other symptoms) is why many people are taken aback to see an apparently reasonable person take him to be more reliable than his critics.
It’s looking-glass world. Or it’s dueling confirmation biases, if you prefer. But the fact remains – explicit atheists are not doing anything wrong in being explicit atheists, but they are the objects of an escalating hate-campaign. I have yet to see anyone who has joined that campaign give anything even resembling a good reason for all that. Just saying we’re tedious doesn’t make the cut.
I know I’m a little late to the party but wasn’t “Tom’s” original story about behaviour at conservation eventS plural (emphasis mine)? So this alleged behavoiur by alleged atheists allegedly witnessed more than once by our alleged grad student/scienist/whatever/liar? Si hi original tale concerned more than one incident. While some could see this as a pattern, most of us see this as one unlikelihood multiplied by another, making it even less likely (with nothing showing up on Youtube either.)
Also, some quick translating of Mooney’s may still be true stance into roughly analogous situations:
Andrew Wakefield’s work has been thoroughly discredited, but vaccines may still cause autism.
Climategate has been thoroughly debunked as a manufactured controversy but Anthropogenic Global Warming is probably still a hoax.
Chris, if you’re reading, that’s what you sound like.
There is a mind-boggling new post over at The Intersection:
Setting the Record Straight on Ophelia Benson
Words fail me. This sentence alone seems to have blown all of my speech circuits:
After recovering from the initial shock, I attempted to enlighten Chris and Sheril with the following morsel of snark, but to my surprise, they seem not to be accepting any comments at all.
@ #133No comments allowed on that one, I see. In the new accommodationism post Mooney mentions, “I’ve had to delete a lot of comments and ban a lot of people in the past few days.” Of course, he doesn’t exactly say why he “had” to ban them, but it’s not hard to figure out. I guess he banned me, though I don’t know why, since I tried one more comment,very mild-mannered, and it never showed. Still, to be on a list headed up by OB is no disgrace.
Good god, it looks like they banned you because you were protesting Kw*k personally attacking you in their comments section (at least, that’s the main time I recall you asking for moderation or at least pointing out inconsistency in it). Better to ban you than to have to clean up their cesspool.
…that says a lot, really.
I just skimmed over that “Some More Words …” post that is supposed to show us why you were banned. I just don’t get it. Am I missing something? I used to think Moooney was just a douchebag, but I’m starting to think he’s mildly delusional.
Oh, and I haven’t reviewed the incidents in depth, but it does appear bilbo wasn’t active back then. The people that were calling you a liar at that time were Kw*k and TB (as Mooney says, check the thread…and it wasn’t the only one by any means). This doesn’t reflect any better on Mooney (and he doesn’t attempt to come clean and note it), but it does mean that William did not call you a liar while you were posting at the Intersection. He did it plenty after you were banned though, something that Mooney disingenuously ignores.
But he completely ignores the complaint that his commenters were allowed to call you a liar without demonstrating it while you were precluded from responding. This is why I call him disingenuous.
It seems that I was banned from the <i>Intersection</i>, presumably for <a href=”http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/holy_crap_we_were_all_played.php#comment-2646177″>this comment</a>.At least I have the comfort of sharing that distinction with OB.I’m also glad they linked to the post that led them to ban OB. Scanning through that comment thread, one can only be astounded that M&K feel that OB’s criticisms justify banning. M&K are worse off than I thought.
That whole Mooney-Kirshenbaum post is beyond pathetic. But here’s one tidbit that still makes me chuckle and shake my head:
Ooh! Ooh! I know this one!
. , , is it because because their comments continued to appear on the blog?
(sorry about the previous html fail. Hopefully this one’s better . . . )
Yes, mind-boggling. Headline says record will be set straight, link to thread shows Ophelia was being reasonable and they weren’t and then comments closed.
My interpretation: they got their big fire down to what they think are manageable proportions and figure they need to throw another bucket of something over Ophelia. They assume more people will read their new post than will go to the thread in question and look at it with an unjaundiced eye. Net result: their supporters will keep thinking they’re doing good work.
I found it most interesting to see Jean Kazez and TB in that thread. I wonder what caused the antagonism to Ophelia (from the more positive attitude on the thread). And TB comes in with all guns blazing against Ophelia, like M&K suddenly decided to release the mastiffs, with Anthony McCarthy no slouch at that either. What the hell is that about? Just excessive loyalty to M&K or is there are another secret here (something involving Ophelia having kept them prisoners in a cellar and feeding them bread and water during the entirety of their childhoods)?
Where did Ophelia suggest that her ban was related to the Toxic Socks? Mooney offers that straw man then sets about refuting it. It’s outrageous.
If I understand her correctly, she was pointing out the sheer irony that the Toxic Socks were spouting lies while, on the other hand, she was banned for repeatedly asking sensible questions. Mooney gobbled up the Toxic Sock lies with a grin while, on the other hand, being dismissive of Ophelia to the utmost extreme of banning her.
Oh gee, I got it wrong about who was calling me a liar at the time. Bad me! It’s hard to keep track of all the people who do that.
Yes it was Kwok I was protesting about – he kept calling me a bitch when he wasn’t calling me a liar, and vice versa.
That post…that’s the one where Mooney says he’s been trying for months to engage Dr Coyne in a civil debate. That is such a falsehood. He did the opposite of that. He told Dr Coyne his New Republic review was uncivil and then never explained exactly what kind of thing he would allow Dr Coyne to write instead.
There it is – at comment 32 I note that I’ve been asking (not demanding – asking) M&K to delete a post saying I was lying. It was TB who said that, not bilbo. Bad me!
In “Exposed” I had missed it when Ophelia said bilbo called her a liar “after I posted a list of questions for M and K.” I knew the Toxic Socks called Ophelia a liar on several occasions, so I took this to mean that she was pointing to the irony of it all, as I mentioned above. That she confused TB and bilbo there is a mistake, but it’s not essential to the issue.
Well you see I have so many people calling me a liar…it’s hard to keep track of them all.
Yes, and can’t you see it from Mooney’s point of view? Should he have told his long-term sycophant to cut it out with the unfounded abuse? Clearly, “[h]e had a better solution”. He banned you so he could keep the one that unconditionally supports him, and get rid of a critic. Two birds with one stone! It makes perfect sense.
I should just let the statement go, but it’s just so glib about such a ridiculous way of handling people misbehaving (and I don’t mean you, of course). Commenters being inexplicably rude (and occasionally openly sexist)? It’s ok, simply ban the person they’re doing it to so they can’t defend themselves. For bonus asshole points, frame the person asking to be treated fairly as unreasonable, shrill, strident, and <b>demanding</b>.
Ridiculous.
Okay, I’ve reviewed the thread that led to Ophelia’s banning at The Intersocktion.
First some throat clearing and some honesty. On my own blog, I will quite arbitrarily ban people who piss me off in any way, though enforcing it is difficult with Blogger’s limited functionality (and it’s no use banning Dave Mabus who will just turn up with another throwaway account). I have a relatively small blog that often gets few comments and was originally intended as little more than a place for friends and colleagues to hang out on the net. It’s morphed into something rather different and gained a certain following, and ironically my closest friends don’t actually look at it … or very seldom. Still, it remains an extension of me, a personal thing, and is not backed up by Discover magazine or Seed or whatever. I consider it mine to run on whim (though I don’t actually get pissed off easily just by being opposed … e.g. I’ve never banned David Heddle).
I’d take a totally different attitude if I ran The Intersocktion or Pharygula, which play a very different role from a small personal blog, even a moderately popular one.
If Chris took the same arbitrary attitude as I do, he would ban not only Ophelia but anyone else whom he simply came to dislike. But then again if I had a blog that played the sort of role his does, I would not be banning people just for being my opposition or for grating on me. Ophelia’s comments weren’t even especially dogged or repetitive, when you look at them, and they were all reasoned and considered. Once she made her point, which took three comments or so, she then engaged in a reasonable and substantive way with other commentators who addressed her. The worst that she did was get upset when comments were being held up in moderation at a time when emotions were high and she was itching to respond to whoever was calling her a liar (Kwok and/or TB, or whoever it was). Nothing there was a banning offence on a large commercially-backed blog with long threads and an expectation of much debate. She was engaging like everyone else, and in a more civil style than her interlocutors.
She evidently did ask for some earlier comments about her that called her a liar or a bitch to be deleted. That was within her rights. Mooney even complied with some of her requests, apparently, so I don’t see how he can now complain that they were unreasonable.
If Chris Mooney wants to run the show in arbitrary way, banning people whom he doesn’t like or who drain his energy or whom he simply finds annoying, that’s absolutely fine. I’ve done that and he gets to do it, too. I don’t think it’s appropriate for his kind of blog, but it’s not a crime. He just shouldn’t pretend it’s something more noble. That’s the problem with his latest post.
It was Sheril who complied with the first request, I think – which was the one where Kwok was calling me a bitch, repeatedly. She was nice about it – it was a friendly exchange, if I remember correctly. That was before everything went so very sour.
I don’t entirely agree about what people get to do. Formally, legally, sure; he gets to do anything he likes. Ethically, not so much. I wouldn’t say it’s absolutely fine, under the circumstances. He campaigns energetically against the hated New Atheists; given that, I don’t think he should seal himself off from disagreement. He can, but he shouldn’t. That’s my view.
Well, it sure wouldn’t be an appropriate policy under the circumstances. But “appropriate” is a weaselish word, of course. If he wants to adopt a policy that I consider inappropriate for his circumstances, I don’t think there’s much more I can say to him. There’s quite a bit to say, though, given that that isn’t how he’s justifying it.
The honest thing for him to say to the rest of us would be: “I banned her because I don’t like her and find her annoying.” People could then make up their own minds about how “fine” that approach is for a blog like his and an agenda like his.
Hahahaha – well the rest of us already know that, so it would be futile to say that (in the sense that it wouldn’t shut me up). I would just say, like a five-year-old (annoying, just as you say), “Yes but besides that?”
I’m curious, too; that’s why I’m so annoyingly persistent. I’m curious how ostensibly liberal-minded people justify all this hate-mongering to themselves. The reasons they give never seem adequate, so I keep looking for better ones, or an admission that there are none.
Yuck. That post about Ophelia is exactly why I despise *framing*. Mooney claimed that you wanted to be unbanned “based on the Tom Johnson affair,” and then quoted you talking about their shoddy work in Unscientific America. There’s misdirection number one. He then focused on a mistake you admittedly made, claiming that their sockpuppet was insulting you when really it was their sycophants (TB, Kwok, McCarthy, etc). He then *frames* the discussion around this mistake, rather than the larger issue: that people who agree with M&K get treated completely differently than those who disagree. He’s even gloating about it over on the CFI boards!
Please, feel free to tell me if I’m overreacting, but I found this terribly off-putting. As far as I can tell, these explanations were deviously crafted to make him look innocent and to continue making his critics look bad, by any means possible (obfuscation, deleting comments, withholding info, etc). He’s shameless.
I think I’m done with Mooney. For awhile now, I haven’t seen his appeal. I didn’t think he was particularly good at communicating, particularly with people who disagree with him. I also thought he was stubborn and a fuzzy thinker (such as how he apparently still doesn’t understand that the existence of religious scientists doesn’t imply that science and religion are fundamentally compatible). Now, I can’t help but think he’s fully aware of the situation at hand when he’s vague or when he ignores criticisms. It’s all part of the *frame*.
Yes, very ignoble of him. And again, it raises the issue of what the CFI – an organisation that I support very strongly as y’all know – thought it was doing when it hired Mooney.
Politics, politics, of course, but surely there were plenty of other people who could have done it, and I didn’t ever see the job advertised to test the labour market. Maybe some of us would have liked to have applied. I don’t actually mean me: I’m in another timezone, which is awkward, and podcasting isn’t the kind of thing that I’m good at, but maybe others who comment here might have had the skills and the availability. I don’t know why the “movement” gives so much support to Mooney’s career when he’s more an opponent than an ally.
This will be my first and last post. Those who expect apology or contrition will never find it. Chris may be a good “turner of the phrase” but only for trivial matters will he admit error. He is simply arrogant, possibly suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. Those that disagree with him are children of a lesser god. He is self-promoting to a fault, holds grudges, feels victimized by criticism, and delights in praise. All part of the disorder. He is damaged, but so are we all.
After several years of Mooney-watching, I find it frustrating that it is still not entirely clear whether he is (a) crafty and malicious or (b) completely oblivious and rather dimwitted.
If it had been me who wrote a long diatribe on the absence of “bilbo” in the thread that originally led to Ophelia’s banning, I would have inspected the thread rather carefully to make sure that it contained no evidence of anyone else slagging her either. But he seems not to care — and maybe even not to notice — that such evidence is out there in plain sight for all to see.
A similar pattern seems to recur frequently in many of the controversies he has been involved in (e.g., the compatibility debate).
Perhaps he is a complicated nonlinear combination of (a) and (b), sometimes with (b) appearing in pure form, and sometimes with (a) leading him to adopt (b) as a ruse.
Yes. They’ve lost the respect of anyone who cares about character or clear writing, and should be left to obscurity and their pathetic clutch of blithering sycophants. Every time someone links to them and I read those two whingeing wifflebrains it’s, well, not good for my health. The response to the recent post about the paperback release of his “book” was perfect – they should all be like that.
Re #153, though, I can’t find anything on the CFI site. Can we be given directions?
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/8213/
The title of the CFI thread has changed from “Mooney owes the world an apology” to “Mooney (does not) owe the world an apology”.
There are different senses of being done with something, that’s the problem. I think most reasonable people who know anything about it are done with Mooney in the sense of expecting him to be reasonable himself, but there are good reasons not to be done with him in the sense of paying attention, because he still has a lot of media clout and he is still intent on marginalizing non-closeted atheists.
Re #159, the titled was changed for other reasons by the person who started the thread. Consider all implications retracted.
Anyway – I think Darron retracted more than Mooney’s post warranted, so I asked him about that.
Heh, Mooney defriended Kw*k. The irony! Although apparently Kirshenbaum still has him friended (I recall there being some drama there before with you, Ophelia — was the question whether they were friends, or whether certain information was passed on via facebook that Kirshenbaum acted on? It’s been so long, and that was before the major “rusty knife” arguments that overshadow it in my head).
Oedipus, CFI didn’t change the title of the thread I don’t think. If you read it, it’s highly likely the original poster Darren changed it himself. He bought the “there were no proven sockpuppets posting when Benson was banned, therefore Mooney shits sunshine”, which is odd since he also didn’t take any action to stop normal sycophants from trashing her and calling her a liar for asking questions, when Mooney’s position all along is that he had no reason to suspect the sockpuppets were sockpuppets in the first place (so if he should have banned them, he should have banned normal posters behaving in the same manner).
This is why Mooney throws out those evasive apologies. The vast majority of people don’t care for the drama, and simply take him at face value.
I was trying to remember that yesterday, Paul – it was tangled up somehow with that business of Kwok calling me a bitch and the (friendly) discussion I had with Sheril about it. I think I was surprised shortly after that when someone told me Sheril had had some exchange with Kwok about me at Facebook…but that’s almost all I remember. I don’t think it was hugely important in the great scheme of things. :- )
Well, clearly the wonder twin powers have been deactivated for quite some time.
I missed yesterday’s developments (someone has to get some work done), and am even more disgusted than I was previously, particularly at the closed comments. Although that is, at least, probably more honest than the moderation “policy” they’ve been operating under.
I, at least, am now ready to bury them at the bottom of my corner the internet, until they publish another article attacking the wrong people. But then I’ll just comment wherever they happen to get published, not in their little bubble-blog. Or possibly point and laugh from a distance.
Paul, yes, see #161.
Mya, yes – all this business of talking smack about people while closing comments – it seems to be a fashion among the Twins and their fans, and it’s really extraordinarily unattractive. “We normally have open comments but just this one time we want to smear someone so we’ll close comments down for just this one post while we do the smearing.” Now why would anyone think that’s devious or unethical?! I can’t imagine.
I don’t think I’ve ever posted here before (though I may have years ago and forgotten). I’ve been a regular TPM reader for a long time and remember you from your comments there.
I just wanted to come here to say that I didn’t know about any of this Chris Mooney/Tom Johnson business (in fact, I’d never even heard of Chris Mooney) until I read that post by Jeremy at TPM. At first I thought it must have been some sort of satire. I mean, “Either support your claims or withdraw them” as an example of “vindictiveness and viciousness?” Really? So I read more about the issue, and I couldn’t find any vindictiveness or viciousness or medieval mob behavior directed towards Chris Mooney or Jean at all. Just a lot of reasonable, justifiable criticism, none of which they’ve responded to appropriately. Now Jeremy’s made another post that’s in some ways maybe even more distasteful than the first, and I’ve removed TPM from my bookmarks. I’m not sure I ever want to read anything that guy writes again. I’d post this there, but of course neither of his posts allow comments, so I’m posting it here in your support.
Ophelia, you’re right. There are definitely good reasons to continue paying attention to Mooney so that you can call out his nonsense, particularly if you’re a known name and you have a visible platform (like you and Russell are and do). I hope you guys continue doing so. I was only speaking for myself. I get no joy from reading M&K’s blog; the entries either annoy me or don’t interest me (even if the topic is interesting, I don’t find their views or their writing compelling). And, now, I couldn’t critically comment on the entries even if I wanted to.
As for Mooney hosting PoI, that might technically be a different matter (since I do subscribe to CFI’s magazines and donate a little bit), but I feel pretty powerless there as well. There seemed to be quite a bit of complaining both when Mooney accepted the hosting gig and when his Templeton fellowship came to light, but nothing changed. On the contrary, the company line was “look at this controversy, we must be doing something right!” (Which, in hindsight, sounds like a positively Mooney-ian somewhat-dumb-sounding half-lie.) There’s also the separate issue that he and Bob Price have been generally awful at hosting PoI (especially in comparison to DJ Grothe), but that doesn’t seem to be leading to any changes either.
Ben – thanks. I’ve seen that second post that you mention, and I found it absolutely horrifying, on more than one level. Like you, I find all of this very puzzling.
Here is what one veteran journalist says about keeping the name of a lying source secret (in a different context):
http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2010/07/21/sherrod/permalink/fa637c692aaa141b0260981bd6e5b7bb.html
The that Mooney is actively protecting the name of his “source” shows that Mooney is not journalist with journalistic ethics.
Ah…that took a bit of parsing..He means if the sources use the journalist to perpetrate a fraud, I take it? The “they” is sources not journalists? Interesting if so. You’re right. If that’s understood among journalists, then Mooney is violating a particular norm that I at least wasn’t aware of.
which is why PZ and Coyne, need to not live and let live.
Mooney used this to specifically defame THEM.
and by association, whoever the NA were. His source constantly used PZ and Coynes name, and said they specifically were involved in the alleged events.
Thats why they should press it. It wasn’t about the NA, it was about them.
I asked myself for a moment whether Mooney would be so protective of his source if the story had contained the opposite message and then I woke up and realised he would never have highlighted the story in the first place if it hadn’t been of that nature. There may be many anti-secular religious people and many vocal atheists who are completely civil to believers, but Mooney is only interested in writing about the phenomenon supposedly illustrated by Tom Johnson’s made-up story. One would think one invented story wouldn’t be such a drawback if the phenomenon is so real, but I haven’t seen Mooney replace the fictive Exhibit A with any less fictive Exhibit B.
Well, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. The contract between a journalist and an anonymous source is broken if the source lies to the journalist, and even more so if the source uses the journalist to perpetrate a hoax. Responsible, ethical journalists are all about **exposing** hoaxes–especially if they were tricked and used to deceive the public and if they have the information needed to expose the fraud and make things right. Of course, responsible journalists also check facts before publishing potentially defamatory content to help avoid being tricked. This is especially true when using anonymous sources who, by their anonymity, are unaccountable. Unethical journalists, on the other hand, would keep the name and complete story of the fraud secret. We can see this playing out in the case of the wrongfully smeared Shirley Sherrod, who was smeared by deceptively edited video posted on the web by Andrew Breitbart, who now, after the video was exposed as deceptive, claims the video was edited and supplied by an anonymous source who he refuses to name. Andrew Breitbart’s credibility based on his past attempts to perpetrate deception using videos is zero, and it is highly possible that he was responsible for the video. At the very least he is now complicit by concealing the identity of a source who falsely defamed Sherrod to the point she was forced to resign for something she did not do, for a video edited to make it seem she was saying and doing the opposite of what she fully said and did. This is the kind of “journalistic” company that Mooney joins by keeping the identity of “Tom Johnson,” admitted serial liar and confirmed fabulist, secret.
I know. That’s exactly – almost word for word – what I said at the time. Mooney, a journalist, used a single anonymous source who told a facially implausible story. Any editor would throw him out of the office for that – it’s just rank incompetence.
Cross-posted from my blog:
I’ve passed along William’s info to a handful of recognized individuals. The aggrieved parties will be able to contact his school, if they choose.
My promise to protect William was made before the Tom Johnson connection was known, and that case actually involves defamation to some degree. Mooney says that the Tom Johnson story “might still be accurate”, though he has not contacted me. TB and Jean hint that it may be accurate, too, while William has not responded to my queries. So I took this next step.
Yes. I’ve just been taking yet another look at those two posts of Mooney’s, and some of “Tom Johnson’s” comments on them. The fraudulent “Tom Johnson” does indeed take advantage of Mooney’s imprimatur to talk smack about Jerry Coyne. Mooney uses both posts to talk smack about “the New Atheist comment machine” and similar demons – all based on a pyramid of lies. Mooney is a journalist; “Tom Johnson” is a fraudulent source who told a great many lies by using Mooney as a megaphone; Mooney (and Tim Broderick and Jean Kazez) are anxiously protecting the secrecy of the fraudulent source; “the New Atheists” are called witch hunters baying for blood because we are not convinced this is ethical. So it goes.
The next step? Why would the “next step” be to continue to keep “Tom Johnson’s” identity secret from the public he perpetrated the hoax on? I wouldn’t call that the next step. And you can’t use the claim that you are following an agreement to keep his identity secret since a) he broke the foundation of any such agreement by continuing to lie to you, and b) you broke the agreement by passing his name on to others. The agreement is dead.
Why do you continue to conspire to keep the identity of this admitted serial liar secret? Do you have any sound reason to think that he won’t do something similar in future? You are the one who, essentially, caught him. But what good is that so long as he is utterly unaccountable and free get away with similar actions in future?
I expect that his lies are likely un-actionable, and that he is more than unlikely to be sued nor disciplined by his school–especially for actions that took place utterly outside his school on an webforum, actions that are not directly related to his schoolwork. But, the public at least deserves a chance to give his future actions and claims careful scrutiny. So long as you continue to conspire to keep the identity of this proven and self-admitted serial liar secret we won’t be able to do that.
This is kind of a box Mooney has put us in, I think. We can’t disclose the fraud’s identity, because if we do we’ll be called witch-hunters baying for blood, or worse. We’ll be called rabid vindictive litigious “New” atheists – as we already have been. It’s a lose-lose situation.
Perhaps, but I don’t think the solution is to let the opposition dictate what we should do, nor should we let fear prevent us from doing the right thing. That is what happened when the Obama administration, in fear of criticism from Fox News and the right wing, forced the resignation of Shirley Sherrod. Instead, we should act on sound principles regardless of whether shrill critics may rant and rave. They will do that in any case, even if they have to make stuff up, as we well know from this very kerfuffle. And keep in mind that principles are the things you stick to even when it is hard, not things you do only when it is easy and convenient. I think sticking to our principles is a win for us. The identity of “Tom Johnson,” self-admitted serial liar and confirmed fabulist, should be made public. It is a principled stance to take.
Er – no. I’m not the Obama admin forcing Shirley Sherrod out of her job. I’m not one of the agents here. I’m one of the objects of the lies, not one of the perps.
I’m sorry if I gave that impression. That is not what I think. I do not think you are the Obama administration in my analogy. Rather I think it is those saying we should protect “Tom Johnson” lest we be criticized for outing him are the ones suggesting reactionary strategies based on fear of criticism, people such as Dan L.