Don’t be a phick
Phil Plait is disappointing some very long-term fans. They’re telling him so in comments.
He did a post yesterday saying congratulations to Chris Mooney on being appointed to the Board of the American Geophysical Union
to advise the AGU on how to better and more effectively communicate with the public and lawmakers in Washington.
Comments came in saying skeptical things about Mooney and effective communication. Phil asked for evidence that Mooney “isn’t above banning reasonable dissent from his own blog.” Evidence came in from commenter after commenter. That was more than 24 hours ago, and as recent comments have pointed out, Phil has yet to acknowledge it. What kind of science communication is that?
What sort of science communicator demands people do something and then just ignores them when they do? I would consider most people who do that to be dicks, honestly. You don’t enter a discussion, demand people provide facts to back up their case, and then just vanish when people actually do so. That behavior is typical of creationists, denialists of all stripes, and various proponents of woo. It is the absolute last thing I would expect from a skeptic.
I stuck my nose in yesterday, because Sigmund told me my name had been mentioned, and I found that it had appeared in three separate comments, so I thought I should corroborate what the comments said; so I did.
From this far away, it could look as if I planned and intended all this. It could look as if I set out to goad Mooney into banning me and thus looking like someone who bans reasonable dissent from his blog. But I didn’t. I asked my questions repeatedly, but I always thought Mooney would answer them. Each time, I thought (however fatuously) “this time he’ll answer.” I didn’t intentionally set him up. What happened to him is not my fault. I bother to say that because one or two people who used to be friends of mine think it is. They’re mistaken.
I guess I also bother to say it because…well because it clearly did work out badly for Mooney. Those comments on Plait’s site make that obvious. They’re by people I don’t know, so it’s not just a matter of groupthinky loyalties. There is a big segment of the skeptical and pro-science “community” that knows about Mooney’s short way with dissenters, and does not admire it. He gets exciting gigs all the same, so perhaps it doesn’t matter, but I suspect he cares what that “community” thinks of him.
It’s pretty disturbing to see how far Plait is being lead down the part of Framing (I think – I’ven’t read him that long). Perhaps this is how people felt after M**ney took up with N*sb*t. Is it like vampirism or more of a VD?
Too bad for them both. I had hoped for better.
I saw Phil’s article, and immediately skipped over it because I am still irritated by Mooney’s behavior.
I still read Phil, in spite of his “Dick” article, but the whole Mooney sock puppet brouhaha is still a vibrant example of not being honest with the readers.
Hey, we all screw up. But when you act like Mooney did, you lose credibility and readers.
Exactly. We all screw up – and when we do it’s vital to say so. Stonewalling and unreasonable banning are suicidal (figuratively speaking).
Huh.
I left a comment at Phils place, and it didnt show.
I didnt expect that.
Phil’s behavior is so easily explained by his Adam Savage complex. He want’s to be Adam Savage and be loved by all. No more being angry and taking a stand. Easy going, positive science promotion on TV and fans that adore him.
To bad he is alienating many of his core fans with this change. The Mooney comments on his blog the last couple of days are not smart.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Barbara K, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Don’t be a phick http://dlvr.it/9rncf […]
Especially when we turn out to be credible buffoons!
I was initially on Mooney’s side. Then I saw how his approach to science communication works, and I read UA, and met/talked to him in person. Now I have a different opinion, and I take pains to spread that opinion in every appropriate venue — blogging, in classes on knowledge transfer/management, in administrative meetings, on RationalWiki (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Unscientific_America), and so on.
One fun bit of trivia: a post by Phil Plait (at Badastronomy) is used as a citation in the opening Plutonian chapter of UA. Plait, unlike M&K, provides an argument. It is not a good argument, and by now it is an obsolete argument, but there you go.
Anyway. If anyone is interested in actual research on knowledge mobilization, I recommend “The Honest Broker” by Roger Pielke. From what I have read, it is informative and interesting.
I still read Phil because I’m willing to grant him the benefit of the doubt and think simply that he is mistaken. But it seems to me Mooney and Kirschenbaum have become morally bankrupt to the point of intellectual dishonesty. Too many people correct their errors for them to be ignorant of them, and too many people have politely pointed out to them the flaws in their thinking for them to not be aware of them. This is even without mentioning the Templeton Fellowships….
Calling for more active science communication and then balking when those communicators insist what they’re saying is true is no way for a supposed “communications authority” to conduct his business. I just wish they had other people for Point of Inquiry; I’m tired of the accomodationist tripe and biased moderation when I’m trying to listen to Hemahnt or PZ talk about atheism. I’m certainly disappointed in Phil for endorsing it.
Ironically, I started reading BA when PeeZed linked him as an example of how to apologise after having made a cock-up.
I thought Phil was starting to wake up after his anti-science post, apparently not.
Plait is not the best at argumentation. In fact, for a blogger-who-is-also-something-of-an-academic, he’s shockingly hamhanded at it.
He probably assumed the evidence wasn’t there, that his perception of Mooney as a blogger who “doesn’t do that kind of stuff” was accurate. I guess now that he’s (presumably) seen the evidence he has to go through all the stages—what are they again?–denial…anger…depression…acceptance? Might take 24 hours, I guess.
Phil now says he’s in the process of digesting Tom Johnson and will comment later. I guess it’s worthwhile to wait until he does so, but it’s hard to believe he’s come out swinging like Joe Frazier on behalf of Mooney when he’s completely ignorant of that whole mess.
Phil Plait has a good blog to read for interesting stuff about astronomy, but ever since he started doing the Bad Universe stuff for Discover, its like he’s really gone back from hitting out at anti-science and pseudoscience. Maybe its just a function of doing the Blog vs the old website that had some pretty extensive debunking of various topics. And that’s fine, but it would be nice to see him able to do both.
I must admit, I don’t take criticism too well, but I’m trying to change that for the sake of ‘the cause’ because I really think that enemies of science are bad enough, without the bickering and mistrust from within.
Although I am puzzled by Mooney, whom I consider an intelligent person, I think someone who claims to espouse some kind of accommodationism, and yet fails to actually accommodate, and not only fails but does the reverse, is possibly a tiny bit insane. Insanity happens to intelligent folks, even geniuses, but it is like there is an escape from reality and no communication can bring them back.
Ultimately, this is a communicate problem, and we can’t have communication problems derailing ‘the cause’ can we? And so yeah, I would rather take a lot of criticism, admit defeat or generally acknowledge that I’m an ignoramus, than allow things that I consider important–like science and education–to fail.
And so please, no groupthink, no communication problems and no insanity! Let’s clear out the cobwebs and determine who is for ‘the cause’ or for helping and who is most definitely not helping.
I was about to comment over here, and then realized that what I was saying was more effective over at Bad Astronomy. Unfortunately mine posted very soon after Phil finally recognized the way the wind was blowing and promised to “look into it,” so the timing was bad, but hey, I still twisted the knife a little ;-)
I actually came to Butterflies and Wheels because of both the stink around the Tom Johnson/Sock Puppet Theatre debacle, and seeing your (Ophelia’s) comments on Why Evolution is True. I hadn’t seen the original comments that earned the banning, but I find it exceptionally hard to believe, in light of how you are on your own blog, that you could possibly have said something even remotely offensive. I’m twice as offensive as you when I’m being nice…
I have the sneaking suspicion that Discovery Blogs has some influence in pushing their bloggers, since I’ve seen Ed Yong promoting Mooney’s posts too. I don’t care whether it’s actually happening or not, but it does seem odd that someone who’s as inept about communicating as Mooney, and who’s been in the midst of several contentious issues now, should receive any kind of support or positive recognition.
What’s amusing about all this is that Phil’s post supporting Mooney just added a significant Google-load of both posts and comments against him ;-) With friends like that…
This is my cue to remind your readers of this l’il post: http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-comment-that-has-not-appeared-let.html.
Sorry about the hold on your comment, Ben! I was away from the desk, out where the swat teams play. (Not really, but apparently there was one nearby…)
Al – well one version of why I deserved banning, from the Friends o’Mooney, is that I was persistent. I kept asking these questions, and I wouldn’t stop.
That’s true – I didn’t stop. But that was because I kept thinking that he would answer, and also because he kept making new claims and accusations, so I was replying to them. In the one that got me banned, for instance, he said (or they said: it was a co-written post, hence the third person)
That was an outrageously false statement, so it motivated me to ask some questions again. So yes, I was “persistent,” but I was persistent in response to false assertions of that kind. (How is it false? Mooney did a post accusing Dr Coyne of being “uncivil” in writing a book review for The New Republic, and then stonewalled all attempts to get him to explain what he meant and what he thought Dr Coyne should do differently. That was the attempt to engage in a civil debate. He wouldn’t know a civil debate if it bit him on the ass.)
It pleases me to see that several people have pointed out on Phil’s thread that actually Jerry is a very nice guy and also a terrific science communicator – a vastly better one than Mooney. Thwack!
It’s okay… THIS TIME.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJFHVRDHqd8
[Mooney] gets exciting gigs all the same, so perhaps it doesn’t matter, but I suspect he cares what that “community” thinks of him.
Actually, he strikes me as the kind of person who only listens to his fans and considers his critics to be just “too angry” to have any validity to their arguments. I’ve met plenty of people like that. They’re used to praise and feeling infallible, so they see every critique of their words and actions as the inconsequential rumblings of incompetent peons.
As for exciting gigs, I’ll take my research and the occasional guest spot on Skeptically Speaking over sitting in a meeting and pretending like I know what I’m talking about, throwing out worlds like “framing” and “educational efforts” any day. Call me crazy if you will.
Oh no, not the scary chipmunk!
Greg, well yes – what I really meant was “prestigious” gigs, which is not entirely a compliment but would probably sound like one, so I elected not to say it. That’s me being offensive. :- )
Boy, things are not going well for Phil and Mooney on that thread. Where’s the other side?!
I’m loving the comment you left over there Hamilton:
On a smaller scale, yeah, it is kind of like that. Plait continues to mystify me…
@23 Ophelia
They are taking their licks, aren’t they? But it’s mostly valid criticism, especially in the case of Mooney.
Another prominent atheist blogger just posted a short comment on Phil’s thread defending Phil.
Dare you to guess who it is before looking.
@ Rieux
Ah, PZ has chimed in, and in an odd way, warning folks not to confuse Plait with Mooney. Problem is that the way people become Mooney is by doing what Plait has started doing, such as telling people how to communicate (Plait’s DBAD speech) without evidence that his suggestions are either necessary or efficacious and by refusing to ever define his argument, such as what being a dick consists of or who is doing so to the harm of science, and Platt continues down the Mooney path, in his new congrats to Mooney thread, by letting friendship get in the way of objective evaluation of someone’s professional behavior (as Mooney did with Nesbit), and by ignoring (so far) contradictory evidence.
Now that Plait has a TV general audience deal, he may feel a need to be less confrontational, and more like Mooney. Mooney’s egotism and self-confidence are very TV friendly, and I’m sure the lure is there. I worry that Lars Karlsson is essentially correct, and that Plait is trying to be like other people.
Good heavens! Don’t you know your place, woman? If you didn’t receive an answer, it was because Mooney was too busy communicating. You can’t interrupt that with requests for information and clarification!
I did catch most of the details, and I think you might have even reposted some of your comments at Pharyngula or WEIT. I also caught the “putrid something” bit too. I’m very good about trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, and Mooney has blown his chance each time. He’s too far gone to recover himself in my eyes, unless he dies saving a busload of handicapped children from a fire. Even then he might just break even.
Scote:
True, Plait has not produced a very well developed argument. But his argument is not nothing, either.
There are two points to his speech that are worth emphasizing. First, his initial emphasis was on people who act like assholes instead of providing reasons. So mere dickishness is not (supposed to be) the point — rather, it’s supposed to be a commentary against being an unreasonable dick. Second, he doesn’t set the bar of dickishness too high. As he says: “I was very clear that anger has its place, that we need to be firm, and that we need to continue the fight.”
Looking back at the chronology so as not to get confused, Phil’s DBAD talk had probably been prepared before the TJ business exploded, so benefit of the doubt there is not such a hassle, even if many question marks remain about the content. Mooney has done too much promoting of false narratives and clamping down on reasonable dissent to qualify for doubt. What will be interesting is what Phil says after he’s up to speed on TJ.
Benjamin: yeah, I remember at the time he said something about ‘being a dick’ specifically not referring to PZ. PZ is about the most ‘offensive’ of the prominent atheist bloggers (which is part of his charm, IMO). Which brings the question: Who/what is Phil even talking about? Just a vague ‘anger is okay, but don’t be a dick’ can be interpreted pretty much however you want, as everyone has their own idea of an acceptable level of ‘dickishness’. The result is people argue about their own interpretation of where the line is, and demonize those guys who are over it.
It’s just not helping.
What he said was:
As far as I know, he hasn’t identified any of those examples specifically yet (please correct if I’m wrong), which is one of the biggest problems with the whole thing.
@31 Stewart
No, he has not identified any such examples. He absolutely refuses to.
As I feared. It’s not just whether a phenomenon is worth a whole talk without a single example making the cut to be held up for scrutiny. It’s that the side Phil declares himself to be on is the side that doesn’t just pass judgements without evidence.
It has struck me that, although Phil may very well have missed the exposure of the TJ hoax, he may have been influenced by a ripple effect emanating from the waves of Mooney’s originally giving the hoax so much prominence. What Mooney did was far more damaging than some honest atheist “being a dick” and it behooves Phil to realise that.
Oh, and before someone says that it was the TJ-impersonator who stung Mooney: “TJ” quite correctly recognised the atmosphere Mooney had created as one that would permit him to get away with what he did. In other words, TJ could have tried pulling that stunt at all kinds of blogs (well, he even started his own, didn’t he?), but only one was run by someone who not only didn’t challenge the story, but elevated it to special prominence. Mooney is as much a victim as anyone who repeats any slanderous lie without first verifying it, i.e. not enough to make one feel sorry for him.
Stewart:
Well done Stewart. This subtlety of the whole brouhaha is easily missed. In some sense, Chris Mooney created “Tom Johnson.”
Phil is good for science, but when it comes to skepticism and arguments….I have no respect for him or his ideas. His complete lack of evidence and his discussion with Matt (I believe) of The Atheist Experience, as well as some other stuff recently…I can’t respect him or his opinions. His promotion of that complete hack and moral waste Mooney…sorry, no respect. My money is on Phil either defending Mooney over the TJ fiasco, or else Phil will not say another word. That would fit what I have seen him do. If he does finally give an answer, it will have to be forced out of him. I may be wrong, and it would be a pleasant surprise if I am, but I won’t bet any money. Plait has his TV to consider, and he needs to maintain that “friend to everyone” attitude, and since a blog is public…he won’t bite the hand that feeds him.
Yeah, I’m a cynical bastard, aren’t I?
Benjamin – I don’t think Roger Pielke has such a good track record as an honest broker either. See Joe Romm’s round up: http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/28/foreign-policys-guide-to-climate-skeptics-includes-roger-pielke-jr-meanwhile-andy-revkin-campaigns-for-him-to-be-an-ipcc-author/
There was an interesting discussion about the DBAD subject in the comments of John Wilkins blog a few weeks ago (I think the post was titled ‘The Tone Wars’). Two points emerged
1. It is important, when discussing how skeptics are being Dicks on the internet, to NOT give specific examples of this behavior. The reason for this should be self evident – calling someone a Dick is Dickish itself!
2. When really cornered and forced to name names that illustrate Dickish behavior the examples provided are almost invariably sourced from comments of Pharyngula threads (not from PZ himself but from people reading his blog and posting comments.)
I’d also like to echo Stewarts point about TJ.
TJ didn’t just turn up one day and trick Mooney. He’d been a regular since that blog started, just using a string of other names. You couldn’t post anything critical of the Mooney strategy without one or more of these sock puppets heaping invective on you. TJ was simply another of these puppets and whose comments were not that different from the others. The accusations TJ made would have disappeared with little or no effect if Mooney hadnt both highlighted them and, critically, claimed to have verified TJ.
Mooneys idea of verification, it turns out, was almost so inept as to be laughable – he sent an email to TJ and asked him was he telling the
truth! Not exactly the Woodward and Bernstein of scientific journalism, is it… Although we only learned of this after TJ was exposed. The one person who could have exposed him in a second was Mooney himself since the shared IP addresses would have shown clearly that TJ was one and the same with the Intersection anti-atheist sock puppet herd. Apparently Mooney only understood about IP addresses when dealing with those who asked awkward questions.
Three points.
1. Andy knows he was overstating with Mooney creating TJ, but it’s not an exaggeration to say Mooney created the environment in which a TJ could flourish. If I very demonstratively never lock my car, I could be contributing to the creation of a car thief where none previously existed. Maybe Mooney placed temptation in the path of someone with an agenda and I’ll grant Mooney that it was probably unintentional.
2. There have been comments (at Phil’s) implying that he owes answers about Mooney or Ophelia, etc., with understanding expressed that he can only do one thing at a time. It’s silly to think anyone owes answers to every question or issue put to them and of course it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the volume, especially if one has a life outside cyberspace. But, and this touches the issue of Mooney and Ophelia even more than the current Phil/Mooney/TJ issue, if certain questions do touch upon one’s own credibility in a serious way and they emanate from putative allies, rather than outspoken opponents, ignoring them completely or pushing them into memory holes is not a solution. If one adopts that attitude one ought not to expect complaints about damage to reputation to be listened to sympathetically. Mooney created the negative aspects of his reputation by the way he reacted or avoided reacting to certain questions. It is in Phil’s hands, by his actions now, to affect the way he is perceived.
3. I was struck by the amusing thought that, by his refusal to get more specific about dicks, Phil is becoming to them what Karen Armstrong has become to god.
Stewart:
I was struck by the amusing thought that, by his refusal to get more specific about dicks, Phil is becoming to them what Karen Armstrong has become to god
I disagree. Being a Dick is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence, whose existence cannot be proved but is only intuited by means of dickish exercises and a lifestyle of assholery that enable us to cultivate new capacities of mind and heart.
Clearly, the definition is sound.
Oh, great. That’s just what we need: Apophatic dicks. Apophalluses?
From Wikipedia:
Hmm, after all that fooling around with Wikipedia it seems that grung0r beat me to it. What a dick.
On the subject of DBAD I should perhaps mention that Phil’s speech was not the worst on this subject. Rebecca Watson (who I usually like on the Skeptics Guide) gave a DBAD speech in the summer thst was so bad it was actually promoted on The Intersection. Rebeccas mistake was to actually try to give examples but it just came off sounding silly (if someone says “Oh God!” when at the heights of passion the it is Dickish to stop and try to tell them that there is no evidence for the existence of any deity!)
And that was one of her better examples!
One important distinction must, of course, be made. One the one hand, the very existence of dicks is not, in and of itself, the subject of intense and impassioned debate. On the other hand, the main message Karen Armstrong wishes to get across is not, as far as I’ve understood it, “Don’t be a god.”
Sigmund:
I thought that Rebecca ‘s point in those videos was “don’t make mountains out of molehills and choose your battles”, not “Religion and science are compatible, and if you disagree shut up or you’ll put off the proles” in the style of Plait and Mooney.
Perhaps I’m being too generous, but I liked them. I thought they were pretty funny and not at all in the vein of typical accommodationism.
I think there may be a place for a talk like hers – at a TAM event perhaps, but this particular talk was at an international atheist convention. I think people there felt they were being short changed with a talk that simply pointed out the flippin obvious. It was pure deepity.
As I said, I like Rebecca, but I think she can do a lot better than this.
You know, when I first read about the idea ‘Don’t be a Dick’ I thought, this was a reasonable enough idea, because I was one! At least I felt the need to use a certain train of expletives usually with the word ‘idiot’ attached when confronted with crazy people online. And so yes, I was not nice, and it probably wasn’t helping the person I was attempting to reason with, but it sure helped me overcome my frustration.
And so I started watching Phil Plait’s video, and I have to say, now I’m not so keen on the idea, because the idea is rhetorical nonsense. Here are the reasons why:
(1) As most people understand, it’s self-refuting. The very term “Don’t be a Dick” is dickish.
(2) The evidence doesn’t support the arguments. How many sceptics literally shout in a person’s face or insult people in real life? Clearly, an awful lot of insults take place on the internets, some of them in video form, but such catharsis is most often done with humour and ridicule. And if people are getting offended by that, then they’re beyond help. Claiming there are lots of cases is not evidence either. We can all select evidence to build an argument, that’s not objectivity.
(3) It’s an ought or a should and therefore a moral idea, or a moral lecture. It’s not rational criticism. If the idea was worded in a more boring but rational way, the message wouldn’t be so heartfelt or have the same persuasive effect. Because effectively, it is only rhetorical.
(4) Sorry to say this Phil Plait, but you’re a dick; a passive-aggressive variety, but nonetheless, you’re one of us dicks. Embrace your dickishism, because it’s better to recognise you’re only human than to deny it. You’re frustrated, and so am I, and being a dick, whether aggressively or passive-aggressively, is a way of ridding ourselves of it. Both you and Mooney are excellent presenters, both on radio and TV, but you’re still both dicks and you’re doing dickish things that aren’t helping.
(5) When a person becomes certain they’re right, and no longer listens to criticism, then they’re no longer a dick, they’ve becoming insane. Be careful of becoming another David Icke, and listen to criticism, even if someone is shouting in your face calling you a brain-damaged retard, because they might be right.
(6) Scepticism is criticism, and criticism is not necessarily a benevolent activity, designed to help humanity in a loving way reach enlightenment. No, criticism (and therefore scepticism) is a selfish activity for those who refuse to accept the authority of others. Instead, we use object standards such as our senses, or axiomatic standards such as logic or language. Scepticism or criticism is not about persuation, but about whether something is true or meaningful. Rhetoric is about persuation, and so you’re doing rhetoric and not objective criticism. While anger is not rational, it is human. We all get angry and frustrated, but if you don’t express it, but instead turn it inside, then you’re only in denial, becoming the very thing you’re supposedly arguing against.
(7) Watch your own video, and see how you’re frustrated, angry and irritated (as you claim) because you’re internalising your emotions. Your speech is passive-aggressively an argument against the wrong people. You’re criticising critics, but not in a rational way, although I fully understand your frustrations, anger and irritation when things don’t go your way.
And so, I conclude that you’re only human, and I feel for you bro, but you’re not helping and you’re criticising the wrong people. So I’m criticising you back, and it’s not nice being criticised, but that’s the point. Telling people not to be a dick, is not very nice, and is the same as telling people not to criticise. And if you don’t like people who criticise, then you stop listening to criticism, you become insane. We all need to listen to criticism a bit more, even if it’s not nice. We need to harden up and take it all ourselves a bit more, because we are indeed dicks sometimes, only because we’re human dicks.
Didn’t see what Rebecca Watson said. Is it online as video or transcript?
If Phil’s speech had been about praising the way we do things, no problem with being so non-specific. At worst, a few undeserving people would think he meant them. But Phil was talking about something that was being done wrong, without saying who was doing it. You can’t spend a whole half hour outlining a problem that specific people are causing and make exhortations to change things and then keep the offenders’ identities a deep dark secret. Ok, maybe I’m over-dramatising, but to whom was DBAD really addressed?
Just a bit of off-topic live science blogging. I’m now standing outside the 2010 nobel prize in medicine lecture! Robert Edwards will give his speech in a few minutes. Unfortunately I have a meeting to go to on the other side of the Karolinska so I wont see it. I think its webcast live if anyone is interested.
Over and above Phil Plait’s weasel dicked weasely dickishness; does this appointment mean that Mr Mooney might actually have to start demonstrating competence in communication , or is this just another title he can put at the foot of yet more internet articles?
More live nobel blogging! And an ethical dilemma! Apparently Robert Edwards is not present and his talk is being given by a colleague from England. To be more accurate there is no Nobel Prize Speech this year (its a tradition that the winner gives a talk which is held in the official records of the nobel organization). What is happening instead is that there is a speech in honor of Robert Edwards. It seems likely that Edwards is unable to even write a speech and may not even be fully aware that he has won (he is 84). Its all very sad. The question around the Karolinska is whether one should give the prize to someone in such a state. The prize winners are usually ambassadors for science and the award is meant as a reward for their achievement. Should one not require a functioning consciousness in order for the reward to register (remember that deceased researchers are not eligible no matter how great their achievement)?
Its a pity Edwards didnt get the prize ten years ago.
Aj:
1. No
2. Yes
A monk asked Joshu; “does chris mooney have ability to communicate science?”
Joshu replied: “mu”
Sigmund,
Having a look down the winners of the Nobel Peace prize (I know this is different to the Nobel prize for medicine) and I’m afraid it’s not a group that I would be happy to be among.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/
Among such peace lovers are: Barack Obama, Al Gore, Yasser Arafat, Nelson Mandela, The 14th Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Henry Kissinger (I kid you not!), and Martin Luther King, among many others.
And so prizes are nice and provide approval and recognition and a sense of authority, but otherwise totally worthless. I heard that even George Bush and Tony Blair were nominated for the peace prize, fortunately they didn’t get it.
I was impressed enough by David Silverman’s recent performance on Fox to spend nearly an hour I didn’t have listening to the future of atheism discussion he did with Hemant Mehta and Chris Mooney. One thing that came across clearly, yet was not properly pursued, was a bit similar to the non-answering of Ophelia’s question to Mooney about what Jerry should have done. Silverman was making it clear that nobody is out to deconvert anybody, to which Mooney countered with the atheist bestselling books of the last few years. While Silverman reiterated that nobody is exposed to the message in those books unless they pick them up, open them and read them, Mooney retracted nothing about his insinuation that they were a kind of assault on believers and therefore, in keeping with the rest of his line, something we shouldn’t be doing. Unfortunately, nobody squeezed Mooney for a direct response to the question of whether those books (that have been liberating to many closeted non-believers) should have been published at all. I haven’t yet seen Mooney come straight out and say that he thinks the right of believers not be offended trumps atheist freedom of expression, but that’s the slant of almost everything he says and he needs to be called on it till he gives a clear answer.
Stewart said:
Good point; almost by definition the genuine dicks would conclude he was talking about someone else, and, conversely, some perfectly respectable, but sensitive, critics would assume he meant them!
Luckily I’m below his radar, so I don’t have to take that test.
I don’t think that’s actually true. Dawkins has explicitly said that he writes as he does in part to convince those wobbling on the fence of faith to come down.
And, more fundamentally, I don’t understand what would be wrong with trying to deconvert people. Can anyone argue that successful deconversion would lead to less acceptance of science? Yes, yes, it may turn off the faithful, etc. etc., but what is the evidence that this is actually true, that such an approach doesn’t improve things for science and rationality in the long term?
Rebecca Watson’s talk had the same title as Phil Plait’s but predated it and was not on the same subject.
I would have no problem keeping my mouth shut if religious people taught the whole truth about the history of their religion, texts, and the world. But they ignore the real history of the Bible, their religions, even the troublesome parts of their own theology, anything to keep as many people coming back as possible. Put Dawkins against a culture not just of ignorance about evolution, but outright lies not just about its implications, but whether it exists at all. The recent spate of books is less of a push to deconvert people, but just to redress the endless stream of lies that comes from the pulpits. And if a person’s faith is shaken or lost by knowing that there was no Adam, Eve, Noah, Moses, or any of the other things science (or just good history) disproves, was it ever really that useful in the first place?
Its the religious people that under-teach and lie that are the real dicks here, not the people who get legitimately frustrated by their misrepresentations.
Always the way, isn’t it. Mooney stonewalls such questions on his blog, and somehow escapes them in public. I would still like to know what he thinks Coyne should have done instead of writing “Seeing is Believing.” I would still like to know what he means by saying it was uncivil. I would still like to know what he thinks it is permissible for atheist writers to write.
Very good live science-blogging, Sigmund. Thanks for the chance to eavesdrop.
Sigmund, your comment to Ouelette made me lol really hard this morning.
Ophelia– Like Phil wont say who is a dick, Mooney wont say who is a good communicator. He wont say what is good communication. Mooney only loves Mooney.
Also, OMFG at the comment Phil just left on his blag. OMFG. We are through the looking glass, people.
Oy veh.
Oh, Phil, you’ve Moonied. There is so much wrong with his “not mea culpa” post, but I’m especially disappointed that he suggests that he would have banned Ophelia, too:
So much for PZ’s post saying we shouldn’t confuse Plait with Mooney. Plait confuses himself with Mooney.
Plait’s comment about me is pretty misleading. He leaves out crucial bits of information – like the fact that I called Mooney’s blog a slum after and because a comment of mine replying to Tim Broderick’s announcement that I was lying, got held in moderation. Yes: I think that’s bad behavior: to let a fan call one of your critics a liar and then prevent that critic from responding to the libelous accusation.
I don’t like kids.
This is sad, that’s strike 2 for Phil Plait for making my mental ignore list. Somehow there seems to be a bubble where some science communicators live it, where everyone that is also in that bubble is doing the same great job for humanity and thus should be endorsed by “our people”. Unfortunately, that ends in very asymmetric communication that (apart from Mooney) really does an excellent job communicating to the public, but somehow assumes that “their people”, that is scientists and skeptics, can be treated like buddies, that is talking down on them, lecturing them in a self-defeating way or just feinting astonishment if they disagree about someone (like Plait now apparently does concerning Mooney, like: What you don’t support Mooney, but he communicates science???!?!?!!). Sad that Jenniffer Ouelette also stuck her head into that bubble. There’s no “our people”. There’s no collective goal. Just because we also like science and also want to bring it to the public doesn’t mean that we you can assume we will support you. Support also had to be earned, like respect.
And really? Mooney for the AGU? I’m going to the AGU meeting next week, I hope he isn’t there, that will ruin my week. Couldn’t they get Randy Olson? I don’t agree on some stuff he says or some of his manners, but I don’t know anyone more engaging and full of ideas about communicating environmental science!
As I suspected, Phil Plait is a dick. But being a dick is not a problem, not realising you’re a dick, that’s a big problem. Best solution is to admit to being wrong, or at least be prepared to listen to criticism. Not listening to criticism, especially from people who are the loudest voices of reason (Ophelia, Dawkins, Hitchens, Coyne, PZ Meyers), especially when you ban them or dismiss them, that’s being a huge dick!
Oh dear Ophelia! See you’ve gone and shown your torch on the squalid truth and that’s not nice! And now PZ wants to limit the damage too. Oh no, Phil is not a non-dick like Mooney, he is a non-non-dick like us! Turns out, he’s not only a non-non-dick but a great big dick!
But wait, we’re all dicks here, but we must recognise it! I am a dick and proud of it! Now, let’s not delude ourselves and pretend we’re listening to criticism when we’re not, or banning criticism, or selecting what sounds nice. That’s insanity! That’s not objective scepticism, that’s not great communication, stop deluding yourself. It’s time to end this nonsense, because it really is insane.
Phil, admit to being a dick and let’s move on, let’s work together. If you’re going to stick your fingers in your ears and shout lalala! I’m not a dick, then bro, you’re out there with the theists.
Well, Plait’s response is exactly what we thought it would be: After closely examining the evidence, I have determined that I was right all along, even back when I wasn’t aware of the evidence and was talking out of my ass. Commenters have rightly pointed out that he evaded most of the central criticisms (e.g., it’s not that Mooney was duped by “TJ,” rather, it’s how he handled the fallout).
I’ll sorta-kinda-partly defend not naming names when discussing dickishness, in that doing so will inevitably and quickly (this being the internet) lead to a mud-slinging match between the speaker and the accused dick, who will assert that what he said was actually perfectly polite and/or the target deserved it anyway. I think that was what motivated Wilkins’ (for whom I have a great deal of respect and affection, without necessarily agreeing on everything) vagueness the other week.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. Sans a case study or three, it’s impossible to know with any great precision what behaviour is being chastised.
Well, that was very disappointing and cannot but lower our esteem for Phil quite a lot. The one bright note in all this is that, while one prominent face seems to be lost to our side, the comments on BA demonstrate how many of us are not taken in and are keeping score, i.e. will not have the wool pulled over their eyes. And that’s who we are in all this.
@Tulse #57:
Sure, but what was under discussion was the fact that he wrote a book, as opposed to going around ringing doorbells or showing up announced at churches and heckling preachers. Silverman does draw a sharp line between the fact that he thinks we’d be better off without religion and his absolute insistence that all who want/need it have a right to it. Mooney was nudging it in the direction of “Dawkins is free not to believe in god, but ought not to publish it.”
Listening to Mooney and the way he was always the dissenting voice, it’s easy to imagine a briefing from Templeton about the red lines he’s not allowed to cross if he still wants the money. Something like “you’re still allowed to call yourself an atheist, in fact we insist on it if you’re to have any value to us, but you always have to side with the believers.”
Mooney as a communicator is truly risible. He’s done nothing to bring any believers closer to acceptance of science and he’s made a lot of atheists angry. Must be what Templeton wanted.
I’m not quite sure if Plait is revisiting the TJ fiasco himself or is being given a quick tour by the Great Communicator himself. Either way, he has been supercilious in his own defense.
If I were suddenly inundated with criticism of someone I considered a friend, on a matter about which I knew too little, would I refrain from any public reaction until I had had been able to get my friend’s take on it? Very likely. And would my reaction be heavily influenced by the way said friend described the incident to me? In my case, I would hesitate before saying “ditto,” but I fear I may be the exception.
I doubt I will be able to forget Phil using the word “strident” to describe Ophelia’s tone. That’s not something atheists are supposed to do to one another, except in jest.
One quite funny thing about Phil’s comment, which I didn’t notice the first time I read it, is –
Really?! He doesn’t come right out and say “I will ban people for their opinions.” Stone the crows!
No of course he doesn’t say that, he says he will ban people for only the most high-minded reasons, thus implying that I wasn’t civil or substantive or accurate and that I engaged in attacks.
He also, don’t forget, closed comments on that particular post, so that no one could say it was bullshit.
Mooney wanted to assert without being questioned. It’s an honorable tradition, going back at least to the mediaeval church. The solution back then was burning at the stake. Mooney just used a different method of making you disappear and the real reason would have made him look openly bad, so he waited for a different one. The main thing is not to engage questioners who might get at the truth.
Yup, as a friend of Mooney, it seems Plait just can’t consider the idea that Mooney would flat out lie.
Yes, I’ve tried the same thought experiment, of course, but it always falters before it gets started, because I would have already been following what that friend wrote in his book and on his blog and in the media, and I already couldn’t be friends with him. In other words the imagination can’t really get to work because it’s already stymied by the idea of being friends with someone who thinks and argues and berates so crudely and unfairly. It’s not even moral, it’s taste, and intellectual. (What’s the adjective for taste? I don’t mean aesthetic, I mean taste. Tastual. Tasteual. It’s not even moral, it’s tasteual.)
He can’t consider the idea that Mooney would lie—and he can’t even consider that maybe, just maybe, the majority of people commenting on his post have, in aggregate, something that resembles a legitimate point about the character of his buddy.
I’m reminded of that great scene in Frost/Nixon, when David Frost suggests to Nixon that perhaps his mistakes were more than just “mistakes.” Perhaps, Frost suggests, there was deliberate wrongdoing, and perhaps some actual contrition is in order—an apology that goes beyond the narcissistic move of “I’m sorry it happened.”
Ophelia,
Tasteful? Also: be prepared for an onslaught of sock puppets and tone trolls on your blog.
No tasteful isn’t what I mean – I need a word that means “on grounds of taste.” I think there is no such word; I had to coin it.
Pretty disappointed by Phil Plait, but two things came up here that might explain (though not excuse) it.
The “Adam Savage complex” idea is interesting, even though it’s probably armchair psychoanalyzing. If he’s hoping to get/stay on TV, I doubt that a blog post publicly tearing a colleague (his and M&K’s blog are on the same blog network) to shreds wouldn’t endear him to network execs, even if said colleague deserved it. Someone should see if he stopped “be[ing] a dick” towards the paranormal since getting a show on a network that runs a stupid ghosthunting show.
Also, if he is good friends with Mooney, of course he’s going to bend over backwards to give him the benefit of the doubt. (Does anyone know how good of friends they actually are, or are we just assuming that they are?) I really dislike Mooney at this point and I spent more time reading about this particular pooch-screw of his than I’d care to admit, but I still have to admit that this looks like internet srs bsns on the surface. So, I don’t think this is going to change the opinion of one of Mooney’s friends, unless they’re also cognizant of and bothered by the other red flags he’s been raising for the past few years.
Well, that’s all a little disppointing.
Sadly for Phil, he didn’t help me find scepticism. That seems to have saved him some ire from some people. I have seen in dispatches kind words for Bad Astronomy, and I’m still happy enough to suggest he’d be a good source for info on that, but his stocks have plummeted for me before they even got to rise and the two things I now know him for are “Don’t be a Dick” and this.
To be honest, I think admitting errors and/or admitting limitations of personal knowledge is the absolute acid test of how far I should trust a source/blog/book/article etc.
PZ has gained as many browny points with me for correcting himself and his sources as he has for some of his regular posts.
Ophelia is fastidious with links, clarifications and “to be fairs…”
Jerry Coyne has recently handled things very well with Massimo Pallugi (and vice versa).
And as the blog post before this one with the quote from The Moral Landscape highlights, acknowledging the limits of one’s own knowledge is a quick way to gain trust and sway people to what you are sure of and are trying to communicate.
It’s certainly what’s struck me again and again in reading The Greatest Show on Earth, Moral Minds and even going back to the Language Instinct by Pinker. Dawkins is forthright and to the point when he’s discussing something he is sure of, but also not shy in mentioning when he doesn’t know something, or that science doesn’t know something. Houser, in Moral Minds, spends a lot of time pointing out that the research he’s relying on is far less advanced than the language research that Pinker’s book is based on.
Anyhoo, slight tangent.
I wonder if Phil is going to manage to undig some of this hole.
I doubt it.
Ophelia, you looking for repugnant? Consider: I find it repugnant to my imagination the idea of being Mooney’s friend.
Or not.
Also, LOL @ Phil not reading his ‘friends’ blog. At all. LOL!
Unfortunately, there are far more important things going on in the world. I didn’t become a more active atheist to listen to tone trolls. We (or science and reason) have real enemies out there doing much harm, and this diversion of drama energy isn’t helping.
After reading Phil’s response, I think PZ’s concern was misplaced. It is unlikely anyone would think Phil and Chris are the same. They might, however, wonder if Phil has been possessed by the ghost of Jean Kazez.
Abbie, ha – that’s true! I hadn’t thought of that.
Well not reading it would make it a lot easier to be his friend.
Hey give my regards to Feynman, Hamilton! :- )
Dick says hello, and keep up the good work.
Maya, thanks for the heads up. I had in mind the excerpts I had read of his book, which I thought were helpful — but I may have been wrong. I’ll have to look back into it.
Wow. I was pretty disappointed that Phil turned out to be a huge
pussywith his “Don’t be a Dick” fiasco (apparently he doesn’t realize that if a religious person wants to be, they’ll be offended by your very existence no matter what you say or do). Discovering that he’s unaware of what a hugedoucheMooney is comes as no surprise.Both of you dumbasses can go gargle donkey balls.
Ophelia at 74 – didn’t you get banned first, long before Kwok and the other vile folk were (if they were, I haven’t gone back to that sewer in a long time)? Doesn’t that expose a big lie/hypocrisy in the whole “not substantative, etc” point? You getting banned for questioning, while a whole lot more insulting posters were consistently left alone since they supported Mooney?
I’m sure Phil will explain that away, just like he has explained everything else (not!). From reading here, it sounds like Phil has responded as I expected, but since I don’t want to give him any traffic, I’ll keep my visit away from his place.
I do think the passive-aggressive description fits Phil to a T, though.
I check in over at The Intersection from time to time. No signs of kwok (banned), McCarthy, TB or Jon in a while. The posts are inane as ever and the comment sections are very lean. CM and MK are finally getting the attention they deserve.
Well, I never look at the Intersection, but I just did because of all this and it seems so tame and sanitised. I’m not quite sure how best to describe it, but a look at one comment thread made me think of some exaggeratedly formal tea party, where the host/ess tells a little vignette and then all the guests give a little reaction, each trying to outdo the other for sheer blandness. Just like in real evolution, I guess that’s what’s left when everybody with a reaction of some substance is done away with. Chris Mooney’s eco-system, where survival is strictly for the blandest. Very weird and artificial.
I just realised what it was dredging out of my subconscious: Stepford Wives.
One of the few congratulations for Mooney at the Intersection was issued by Jeremy Stangroom, which led me to this blog of his, and a curious comments thread, which descends into more back-slapping, new atheist bashing. I would say they are oblivious to the irony of what they do, but in fact they seem to revel in it! People are strange.
My word. “Parallel universe” doesn’t do it justice. Such hatred masquerading as indifference and occasionally peeking through anyway.
Never mind the strong flavour of having been personally hurt by someone involved in it (which I suspect I would guess from the tone even if I knew absolutely no background). It’s the atheist internet presence that has surely made the biggest difference in the current emancipation. That that is singled out as the worst of it – I suppose it’s deeply reactionary and defensive of the state of affairs that existed when atheists didn’t go around ruffling anyone’s feathers. Maybe some people have gotten so used to being second-class citizens because of beliefs they don’t hold that they don’t want to leave the security of that status, even if the change is to full equality.
@ Mark Jones,
I took a quick look at the blog, and it looks like a supreme example of projecting. Tone trolls like to project that other people are smug, arrogant, condescending, strident; which makes them appear to be somewhat lacking in self-awareness and possibly insane. And so I’m going to lump the accommodationists together with the same pathology: namely some kind of mental disorder that turns them into emotional vampires, where they seemed to have turned against their own, sucking as much life force out of people as possible for an irrational dramatic payoff rather than a genuine criticism.
Amos is flirting with Jeremy too? OMG, what a slut. I thought he and Jean were going steady. I bet she breaks up with him as soon as she hears about it. I’m gonna pass her an anonymous note in homeroom, and then sit back and watch the sparks fly.
But what if they’re having a threesome? Maybe I should tell the teacher instead…
Stewart, speaking of old sci-fi movie analogies, the situation of Phil Plait reminds me of the famous final scene of ‘Invasion of the Bodysnatchers’ when one of the protagonists of the story, in hiding for several months from the aliens, meets the character played by Donald Sutherland. She greets him only to find out in horror that Sutherlands reaction is not of a human but of a ‘pod’ person’s squeal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IQxMp3iXBY
Mooney used to be a decent skeptic. If only he hadn’t fallen asleep at Nisbets house next to that strange looking plant (and I don’t mean Matthew). And now Phil Plait? Listen folks, if any of you get a parcel containing a strange pod like plant with the instruction to place it on your pillow when you sleep, just get rid of it. Return it unopened to the Templeton foundation. And wash your hands afterwards.
“Invasion of the Skeptic snatchers”?
It is truly bizarre. This last thing that Amos says:
Just because we won’t keep our mouths shut, we are being compared to literally murderous figures. We have a problem with Mooney (and now Plait) and we say so. Never in terms even remotely approaching the above. Are we so frightening that we have to be turned into boogiemen? Do the accomodationists tell their children the Gnu Atheist will come and get them if they don’t behave?
I just skimmed the BA thread again. There is nothing even vaguely threatening towards Mooney in there. People say he’s dishonest, cowardly, a lousy communicator who has the effrontery to lecture others about how to do it right and that he does not deserve any promotions for the way he’s behaved. If you look at the Stangroom thread, I think one of the things that’s happening is that the sheer volume of people complaining about Mooney is being interpreted as a “mob,” which is taken to mean baying mindlessly for blood. Rather than what it actually is, a very large number of perceptive and informed people disappointed that someone they had largely appreciated seems to be unable to see what is staring them all in the face and that he has apparently sacrificed reason for friendship.
What it’s come to is this: Gnu atheists raise their voices for their rights and have no problem with accomodationists wishing – themselves – to refrain from any attacks on religion. Against that we now seem to have Militant Accomodationists (MAs), who don’t seem to care what gets sacrificed as long as they don’t antagonise any believers and who are demonising the Gnus in ways that are… well, that’s a direct verbatim quote up there.
The really important thing to note is that the Gnus are not hassling any other atheists who don’t feel like speaking up. The MAs do not extend this courtesy, but will resort to rhetoric far more vitriolic than anything employed by Gnus in their impotent rage that the Gnus haven’t bowed down to their message, which is: STFU.
The Militant Accomodationists are not skeptics. Their approach is not based on evidence but is rather a political stance. Much like any party political scene the objective is simply one of power and in such situations the enemy of your enemy becomes your friend. Why else would you have the likes of Kwok McCarthy and the legion of Tom Johnson socks guarding the walls of the Intersection. Its not because they ‘add’ anything to the conversation – nobody can believe that. It is simply because they attack those you may wish to attack (but don’t want to be so rude as to do it in person). I think Plait has chosen a route of media friendly muggery that necessitates a non-confrontational stance and as such he has allied himself to Mooneys approach. Lets face it did anyone seriously think Phil would say anything differently to what he did? I certainly didn’t. Apart from Phil and Jennifer Ouellette, both personal friends of Mooney, almost every one of the 150 posts on that thread are from people critical of Mooneys approach and sharing valid reasons for their criticism. Its funny visiting the Intersection now – its really become like ‘Uncommon Descent’ in terms of censoring posts and banning criticism, but with Tom Johnson gone from the scene and Kwok banned the number of posts are less than 10% of what they were previously (while I suspect that Kwok and McCarthy made up about half the previous total posts, did Tom Johnson really post the other 40% on his own? – I guess he probably did!
@ Sigmund,
I think the analogy is hilarious and partially accurate. But it is symptom of our growing paranoia, when what appears to be otherwise ordinary rational people turn insane. I would use the analogy of any zombie movie (or the new TV series The Walking Dead) where one bite from a zombie is fatal, and you too will turn into a zombie, and if I get bit, you better shoot me before I turn. Of course accommodationism is going to make the rest of us paranoid, because it’s like atheist zombies, no longer driven by their higher functioning brain, but only seeking their next victim (gnu confrontationists).
I think it’s important that we self-criticise, or that atheists don’t blindly follow other atheists, but there is legitimate criticism and then there is bogus criticism. And when atheists make bogus criticisms, they sound like trolls, believers or just insane.
Exactly so.
Yes, I think we have a problem whenever groups of people are labelled based on their opinions on a particular issue; there is a danger of attaching other attributes to that group that simply don’t belong. So on that thread Amos is suggesting that the group has various attributes because they are the new atheist online community – it’s an identifying mark that goes with that opinion and approach. If I’m a ‘new atheist’, or a ‘gnu’, and I’m online, it follows that I would issue fatwas if I could, that I lack self-awareness and am hypocritical (LOL!).
And there is a similar danger if we address a group we might call ‘gnu accommodationists’ and assign them false attributes. The truth is more that some people would issue fatwas if they could, some people lack self-awareness and are hypocritical, as Stangroom and Amos demonstrate so well, in their hypocrisy. They think these are identifying attributes of the new atheist online community, when they’re not.
So I dare say some gnus act like dicks at times, but issuing such edicts aimed at this section of the community tars them with this attribute unfairly and it’s intentionally divisive. It’s saying ‘I’m not like them, because they do this.‘ while doing this.
<blockquote> Listen folks, if any of you get a parcel containing a strange pod like plant with the instruction to place it on your pillow when you sleep, just get rid of it. Return it unopened to the Templeton foundation. And wash your hands afterwards.</blockquote>
Na it won’t be a plant, it will be a painting. Throw away the frame, keep the painting.
Consider this analogy: fundamentalist Christians have a presupposition that the Bible is historically accurate. It is of no use to simply point at the Bible and say, “But read it!” The thing is big, complex, and ambiguous enough to support any presupposition out there.
Phil knows Mooney. His presupposition is that Mooney is OK. The huge blogging clusterfuck surrounding Mooney is enormous and complex. You can’t just point to these reams of virtual paper and say “But…look!” You have to distill your knowledge into concise points with concise data that address concise questions. If you want to convince Phil of anything, that is what you need to do.
Badger (# 92) – yes I was banned early. I don’t remember if I was the first or not – and I probably wouldn’t know that anyway. But certainly I was banned long before Kwok was…almost a year before, I think.
Yikes! That post on that other site..I don’t know if it’s more funny than creepy or the other way around.
Nigel,
Nicely put. Reputation has some importance, and when anyone begins to attack the reputation of someone, no surprise the attacker’s reputation must be scrutinised too. Mooney decided to take on ‘New Atheists’ by attacking their tone, their goals and reputations, and that’s damaging. No surprise then that Mooney’s reputation is scrutinsed too. None of this is rational, which is the failure of the accommodationists, who have chosen to attack the wrong people and are getting burned rightfully so for making irrational and personal remarks towards good people making good rational arguments.
I do want to make one thing clear though, in all fairness. #97 –
That’s not how it was. It was the other way around. He abruptly severed relations with me, not at all because he was personally hurt, but because he thought I was morally wrong about Mooney and that I’m morally wrong broadly speaking. It was as it were an altruistic anger. I don’t think the altruism was properly directed or that the anger was justified, but it was other-directed as opposed to ego-directed.
Yes; at times he literally did. I had to count some last summer when I was collecting evidence for his university’s investigation, and there really were patches where he was that ubiquitous.
Yes, Ophelia, I was aware (though not in the details) that it had been the other way round with Jeremy. The flavour of it is detectable nonetheless. The attitude is that of someone who has been wronged. Maybe your difference of opinion is seen as treachery. That could fit with the feelings on show there.
Could be, Stewart. Needless to say, it’s a mystery to me.
I don’t have any obligation to be silent or circumlocuitous* about amos though, so I can just laugh noisily. As you indicated – that last comment of his is just fall-down funny. “Oh and another thing – new atheists are so rancorous. They’re murderers, they would issue fatwas if they could, they’re the kind of people who want to kill Rushdie.” HAhahahahahahahahahahahaha.
*No that’s not a word.
Was that really necessary?
I had to see those amos comments to believe them.
Is this a New Atheist impersonating amos for a little giggle? If not will amos realize his/her foolishness and say that a New Atheist was impersonating him/her? Did amos write it as a joke in order to show that New Atheists don’t understand sarcasm? Did a New Atheism detractor post that comment in order to claim that a New Atheist is impersonating amos with the intent of making anti-New-Atheists look stupid? Was the comment written by someone who hates both New Atheists and anti-New-Atheists, who aims to incapacitate his enemies with an infinite regression bomb? (There was a Star Trek episode based on this idea.)
Well no; not only not necessary, but in violation of my unwritten but absolute ban on sexist epithets. I left it alone for the moment because the commenter clearly has a schtick of using lots of body-parts language and it’s tricky separating that from sexist…but I’ll get to it now.
Jon – ha – no, not at all; amos has been making comments like that for months, on Jean Kazez’s blog and on the Talking Philosophy blog; he has form on this subject.
Sili wrote:
“December 8, 2010 at 10:51 am
Was that really necessary?”
I’m not a fan of misutaaa’s needlessly invective post, but I think the juxtaposition is instructive. If we call out misutaaa over the use of body part pejoratives we have to call out Phil Plait as well for the pejorative use of the term “dick.” It would be sexist and inconsistent to do otherwise.
Thanks Mark for that enlightening link. Jeremy is lazy in his lack of research into what he is writing about and his unwillingness to provide examples for his statements.
He can’t bother to look it up – google books only a click away…
Names please – I am sure there are online reviews..
But then is only too willing to second all that amos says…
Stay classy, my friend, stay classy.
Scote – well 1) there’s no shortage of calling out Phil Plait here. 2) Phil Plait didn’t use the word “dick” as a pejorative here. 3) Sexist epithets necessarily has to mean epithets that degrade women. Sexism is about inequality between the sexes, so words like “dick” aren’t properly sexist. By the same token, “honky” is not as vicious as “nigger.”
Amos and Stangroom, huh?
What a car wreck.
I don’t care about the two one bit, but I still kind of wish Jean would come around. As I wish for Plait.
Yeh amos – he’s a real peach. Notice this, in particular –
The West Coast? Huh? Why that? Dawkins is in Oxford; PZ is in Morris; Jerry is in Chicago. Why single out the West Coast?
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh right.
:- )
You should feel flattered – in Slovenian, we use the 3rd person plural only when talking about a person we reeeeally respect! :)
Right. We go door to door with TGD in hand, asking everyone ‘Do you want atheism to save you?’ or ‘Dawkins loves you’ or ‘Hitchens is going to die for your sin (of not being a non-believer)’. It’s all preaching and proselytizing.
Nigel:
That sounds tiring. A lot of the evidence is incidental. For example, TJ unintentionally admits Mooney didn’t vet him before elevating his anecdote to a post. See, this was the evidence Mooney needed to make his case–Myers, Coyne and Dawkins hurt science education–and what was lacking behind all the finger-pointing in his book, Unscientific America. Now he had it in spades and in the form of an evolutionary biologist from a major research university. How perfect!
TJ said:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/10/22/exhibit/#comment-33904
Mooney assured everyone that he had already corroborated TJ’s identity beforehand, when it appears he did it only retroactively and was only covering his ass. And instead of acknowledging the skeptics for keeping him honest, despite all the sock-puppets (Mooney let Bilbo’s F-bombs slide without comment), he calls us the New Atheist Comment Machine. It’s all very underhanded stuff.
1) Plait hasn’t, to my knowledge, been called out here for the use of the word “dick” in and of itself but for his unsupported arguments and for his unqualified support of Mooney.
2) Plait did use it as a pejorative in his speech, just not directed at a specific person–he won’t say what qualifies as being a dick or give any real world examples of people doing so, making his argument rather suspect and useless.
3) Claiming sexism for women only is sexist in the broader meaning of the word.
While sexism usually is applied to women it is not strictly limited to that use. I didn’t, BTW, say that “dick” is sexist. I said that to call someone out for calling someone a “pussy” but not for calling someone a “dick” would be sexist. (And, actually, the etymology of “pussy” to mean weak is non-sexual.)
I don’t really think there is much of an issue here. I was merely caught by the juxtaposition of two pejoratives and about the inconsistency of calling someone out one one of them but not someone else on the other. Not really a big deal, but I thought it interesting to consider.
Scote, sure, but the two situations really aren’t parallel. Someone used a sexist epithet here, in a comment, and I really don’t want people doing that. Phil Plait didn’t say “don’t be a dick” here, so there is no real juxtaposition.
For the record, I have several times stipulated that I don’t use “dick” as a pejorative, for precisely the reason you cite. I don’t think the two words are comparable (for the reasons I cite), but I err on the side of caution (though I may have used it lately in a Plaitian context; I’m not sure).
The other thing though is that I kind of hate it when a bit of straightforward sexism is censured and someone pops up to say “what about sexism against men.” Men are not the subordinated sex.
Agreed. I look forward to the day when such worries may be legitimate :)
Well, I should add that I don’t mean that I look forward to men being discriminated against, just to the day when men are equal with women such that discrimination claims if brought would be just as likely to be against men as women. I just wish I thought such a day will be in my lifetime. I can hope. But religious repression of women and the education of women makes that especially unlikely in many areas of the world. (Would it be fair to Phil Plait to suggest that it should be fine to “be a dick” to such religious positions?)
Yes, and then when we get bored with that, we start killing people. It’s all very unfortunate.
I could look at amos’s whole list and point out how wild the accusations are, but I have to rush off at the moment. Maybe later.
Meanwhile you could read his comments on this old thread.
http://kazez.blogspot.com/2010/09/apostasy-now.html
There’s more wild listing, and also a shy confession of motivation:
A bit farther down, he links to the terrible place where the fingers were smashed by the ruthless she-monster:
Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!
Unfortunately, it seems that when an issue gets divisive enough, people drop behind certain lines and once they’ve really done that, they seem mentally to arm themselves against being budged anymore. I notice that, not too long ago, Jean felt able to write:
Rather bizarrely, it was none other than J.J.Ramsey in the comments who issued the mild corrective:
before vitiating it utterly by continuing:
There may, however, be hope for Jeremy. It seems he has recognised how absurdly and sycophantically his commenters have merely parroted his opinions and has added below the last and most over-the-top of Amos’s rants a link to a video of sheep bleating in a field.
Who said the art of interpretation is dead?
I criticized Phil’s dick speech and I also let him know what I think of Moo-ey, but I think Phil’s getting a lot of undeserved criticism in his congratulatory thread at the moment. Even PZ posted to say hey, don’t expect *everyone* to know about the imaginary Tom Johnson. You can tell that the BA has been thrown off by all the sudden and unexpected criticism. I suspect he has a lot to take in – and how do you expect him to respond? Retract his congratulations? After all, who likes to be told that their buddy is very much disliked by a lot of intelligent people – and how often does such a situation arise?
So how did he “revenge himself”?
Comparing us to Khomeini wasn’t enough? The shock nearly unraveled my turban!
:D
Well, it looks like the BA took his time to read through ancient posts. Naturally he can’t really see much solid evidence – mostly anecdotes posted by people. After all, he wasn’t on that site reading comments several times a day. I’m reminded of Randi’s frequent reminders that scientists are easily fooled – we can all be fooled.
However, I know the claims made by strangers on the BA’s blog are true – I’ve read some of the disappeared posts and noticed their absence later. Some of my own posts in other threads have mysteriously disappeared too (though I suspect it wasn’t always Moo-ey doing the deleting) and I could never understand why. I wasn’t insulting anyone – simply pointing out mistakes and not agreeing with what was claimed in the original post.
I’m not sure what he had in mind – it’s not as if I take his taunts all that seriously! But maybe he thinks I do; maybe the Ayn Rand taunts were his “revenge.”
Somebody doesn’t get it. Amos had to add:
Sorely tempted to ask him for his current address so the film crew would know where to go.
Smirks aside, though, I find it hard to see where anyone gets the idea of us being the fanatical and (some seem to think) powerful purveyors of some kind of rigid atheist orthodoxy (yes, I mean us, the least trusted group in society, which by the way, does not exclude accomodationists – why doesn’t that piss them off?). When it’s done this way, it no longer feels like the cynical strawmanning we know is sometimes employed. Is it possibly the case that in the minds of those who have decided to accomodate, which means their atheism must never be expressed in a way that could be taken as an attack on religion, anyone who puts their own freedom of expression first must be a reckless demagogue who will stop at nothing to deprive the masses of their comfort?
Of course that’s an exaggeration, but how can there not be a funded game plan to combat us? Ok, so we have Todd Stiefel and others and they have Templeton and others. Of course both sides have game plans. Ours is pretty transparent; we don’t need Wedge Documents. And, unlike Templeton, we are not simply itching to get our hands on anyone from the other side who will play ball with us. Giberson, Miller, Collins – we are up front about their pros and cons, as we ought to be if honesty is important to us. Religion wants the sheen of science to make it look less anachronistic, but science does not look better with the cobwebs of religion clinging to it. If they were not in conflict… well, there wouldn’t be conflict, would there? If religion were true, scientific discoveries would merely have strengthened it every step of the way and without any contortions or NOMAs necessary. If the discoveries of science didn’t go in the opposite direction to what religion had been preaching, why would anyone even have thought something like NOMA were needed?
I do not trust people who think questions like the above can simply be sidestepped or glossed over in the real world.
Sure; but he was very quick to say “how about some evidence?” and then very slow to acknowledge the torrent of evidence. Yes, he’s busy, but it just is somewhat annoying to challenge people rather rudely and then ignore their responses for a longish time. He could have simply skipped the challenge, if he didn’t have time to deal with replies.
amos’s addition of the self-righteous angry sheep was in response to the video. Did you see the video? Very adult. [eye roll]
Stewart @ 139
Yes, that Templeton thing. Actually I think Ophelia and others (I’ve certainly tried) have gone out their way to issue caveats to the whole Templeton thing. I think Templeton have every right in a free society to work the agenda their way. I just think we also have the right to call it out when we see abuses of science. For the most part, I think they’ve been pretty open about it; but I’m concerned when there is a hint of fifth columnism. That would be nefarious.
And if their efforts are aimed at undermining science, that is something everyone should know about.
I looked, because Jeremy had provided nothing but the link to the video and I wondered whether he thought he was offering something profound or idiotic….
… herding cats… who is it who is said to have a “flock?”
They’re quite right, of course. We could not have arrived at similar viewpoints only through our own intellectual exertions. If we agree with each other, the only possible conclusion is that we have determined to sacrifice our individuality to follow our Gnu Atheist prophets. Anything else is not only logically but statistically impossible, as I’m sure Bill Dembski will happily confirm. The arrival at a similar viewpoint without mindless “ovinity” (not a word, is it?) could only be possible under one condition: that the viewpoint in question be a militantly accomodationist one.
I’m not sure how grateful I am for that insight into “the making of amos.” I feel a bit queasy now.
Previously I just thought he was a prat, and Jean’s tolerance of him was amusing, sort of like when you see a friend who is unaware she has a big booger hanging off the end of her nose.
But now it seems that she is fully aware of his motivations; she has plumbed the depths of his suppurating mind. I can’t see how she can let him keep hanging around under the circumstances.
If I were her, I probably would not be able to sit down and decide rationally, “Should I ban him, or should I get a restraining order first and then ban him?” My reaction would be more visceral, like here I am chatting over coffee with Sigourney Weaver by the rear pod-bay doors and AAAARRRRRGGGGHH GET IT OFF ME GET IT OFF ME GET IT OFF MEEEEEE……
So, judging from this thread, they think we’re fundamentalists and we think they’re something out of a 50s or 60s sci-fi/horror movie. Can we finally use this opportunity to replace “accomodationists” with something simpler? Like triffids. There’s gotta be something good we can find.
Hamilton, you think it’s amusing when you see a friend who is unaware she has a big booger hanging off the end of her nose? You…you…you bastard.
That reminds me, Stephen Law has a funny bit in The Philosophy Gym that has something to do with boogers, complete with cartoon of him with a booger hanging off the end of his nose.
Hmm. “The Gamma People” (1956) might be an amusing choice.
Well, Ophelia, you know of course that none of us, your adoring sycophantic mindless drones, would laugh if we saw you with a booger on your nose. (We’d just post the video on YouTube.)
Can we qualify that a little, to bring it more in line with reality? Of course we wouldn’t laugh, unless you told us to.
You say that now, but I know you say other things when I’m out of the room. You don’t fool me!
I’m always tempted to call them the gnice atheists. All the more so because they don’t think “gnu” is a bit funny.
Stewart,
I like zombies because their higher brain functions cease, and then they go and seek someone to bite and attack. That’s all I ever see accommodationist’s doing.
Frankly, I don’t think there’s much benefit to be had from lumping The Other into some supposedly homogeneous category and inventing denigrating names for them. That’s where New Atheist came from. If we have to have a convenient label for communication purposes, I prefer “accommodationist” over such things as “faitheist” because it is at least approximately functionally correct and has less of an element of a sneer in it.
Well yes but I suspect Stewart was joking. :- )
Mind you, “accommodationist” isn’t always the right word. amos is way beyond an accommodationist. amos is more like phobic.
Yes, the range of human variability is sometimes startling. Jean seems truly nice and very thoughtful in most regards, just curiously blinkered in some areas. But amos appears to be trying to dethrone Andy Serkis with his Gollum impersonation.
How about gneiss atheists?
’nuff about amos already – can we talk about kwok instead? Then again if I really wanted to hear from them I’d just go to Moo-ey’s blog.
I’ll go peek at Phil’s post and see if he’d taken ERV’s advice and put down the pick and shovel. I suspect it’s the last time I’ll look at that post though – it’s pretty boring.
As for the accommodationists, I still find it hard to believe that some are godless as they claim so I prefer the title of “Atheist Butt”, which can also be written “Atheist ()()” or for the pedants: “Atheist ();()”
I just peeked again myself.
Looking over the thread, and noting the conspicuous lack of Mooney/Plait defenders, I’m reminded of how Mooney is fond of saying that he “shares 99% of intellectual DNA” with his confrontationalist critics. The implication is that, save accommodationism, we’re pretty much simpatico on everything else. But I wonder how true that even is. His critics, after all, don’t merely disagree on “strategy,” rather, they seem to have a radically different conception of what constitutes ethical behavior. And ethics has to be a big part of one’s intellectual DNA, I would think. “99%” feels just a tad high nowadays…
I loved the line from Tea to Phil.
“Who’d have guessed that you’d be such a Mooney hoax denier.”
Why thank you, Sigmund! I’m very proud of that.
Not to change the subject, but has anyone encountered this yet? http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155 A real, live journal article defending straight marriage! I’m worried it’s going to start making the rounds. I’m currently mired in a Facebook debate about it.
Which one was that?
That was Tea’s line? Hahaha. I didn’t read the original Mooney hoax denier post but it’s obviously a favorite.
@Andy#157: Well, we can at least see that the BA is honest and sticks to his policy on posts even if it’s uncomfortable. Unlike a certain blog which I avoid and in which any substantive disagreements are deleted after the fact and claimed as a “probable victim of the SPAM filter” among other things. Of course the inconvenient fact of the posts showing up before they disappear (some SPAM filter eh) can be overcome by requiring approval for every single post,
Yes, we should not ignore that difference. There is a lot of criticism of Phil and the way he deals with Mooney, but it can at least be read in the comments of his own blog. He said something to the effect that he might have cut Ophelia more slack than Mooney did. Background knowledge can be important. Compare comments on Phil’s and Mooney’s blog and you might think people only hate Phil and have no problem with Mooney. Looks a bit different once you know that Mooney axes most dissent and that a lot of what is on BA is spillover by those frustrated that Mooney won’t let the criticism appear on the Intersection. So, yes, by all means credit Phil where he does deserve it.
Saying that one is not as bad as Mooney hardly counts as giving one credit.
Overton window!
Srsly. Mooney has created a big Overton window effect whereby just doing what one obviously should, i.e. allowing criticism and disagreement, not closing comments whenever anyone disagrees with you, not doing posts on specific people with comments closed, etc, becomes deserving of credit because it’s better than not allowing criticism and disagreement, closing comments whenever anyone disagrees with you, doing posts on specific people with comments closed, etc.
Fine, both of you are right. And why does Mooney have to do what he does? Because he’s pushing a line that runs into difficulties. On certain levels it sounds great, but when you get down to many details, such as one’s own honesty in glossing over the very real problems in being pro-science without rocking religion’s boat, he ends up having no choice but to evade the discussion. Why he has that line, I don’t really know, but he’s clearly figured getting a reputation as evasive is what he prefers to having to say “sorry, what I was preaching is not a workable way of going about it.”
Mind you, Stewart, I didn’t mean to imply that therefore Plait is a really bad guy. I don’t think he is. Despite the Overton window thing, I do think there’s a very significant difference between the way Mooney carries on and the way Plait does.
@Andy #157
That bit about the 99%…
I’m not a long-time Mooney-watcher; he was relatively low on my radar till the big scandals broke and has also returned there with some exceptions. When I listened to him with Mehta and Silverman what you mention was one of the things that struck me. He contrives to separate his big take on the situation from the details, which incessantly contradict his big picture. So there was this repeated mantra of the 99% identical intellectual DNA (i.e. his headline is that we’re almost completely united), followed by his specific response to individual questions, in which he was almost always opposed to the others. I think I detect a system here. The man is an opponent who has declared himself to be a leading light of the camp to which he is opposed. He makes big statements that sound conciliatory, is opposed on all details and saves the evasion tactics for those who insist on clearing up the contradictions.
Sure: there’s a difference between being the bad guy and being the guy who’s prepared to let the bad guy get away with it.
If we share 99% of our intellectual DNA, which of us are the intellectual chimps?
(yeah, it’s actually slightly more than 1%, but couldn’t resist)
Mooney, the Obama of advocating for science and reason?
@ Stewart 168-9
I think that’s a fair assessment.
The Supreme Court Justices are (Justice Breyer, in particular) rather fond of telling the public that the “divisions” (Breyer would probably approve of the scare quotes; I don’t) on the court are overblown by the press. 90% of the time, he likes to say, we’re in total agreement—the cases are decided 9-0. The point, as stated, is true: most cases are totally unanimous or nearly unanimous. But the point also sweeps under the rug the very real—and very big–differences in philosophy amongst the justices. So while those men and women agree on much, their differences are not at all minor. So to point out that they “agree on most cases” can be misleading. I feel like this is kind of what Mooney does. He wants to suggest that this dispute is Freudian—the narcissism of small differences—but it’s not. These are big differences. As you put it, “He makes big statements that sound conciliatory, is opposed on all details.”
Andy,
The Supreme Court and the delicate balance of power there was one of the issues discussed in that conversation and Mooney was completely pooh-poohing the idea (in direct contradiction to Silverman) that there could be any danger even if the scales did tip (he was saying there are too many existing precedents for separation of church and state for the wall ever really to fall). But he made it very clear that he saw nothing wrong with real power being in the hands of religion.
To put it another way, if you listen only to the details of what he says, it’s all pro-religion. But the headline saying “I’m an atheist” is always above them.
Well if Mooney really wants to suggest this is the narcissism of small differences…then what was chapter 8 of UA all about? He and SK certainly seemed to think the differences were big enough to be worth belaboring and getting heated about there! And in most of his journalism and much of his blogging since.
If he thinks the differences are teeny-tiny, why did he jump up at the AAAS meeting last spring to say “What about the New Atheists?”
Um, guys? Pussy, when used as a pejorative, actually is a short-form of the somewhat obscure word ‘pusillanimous’, as in to be lacking courage and resolution. It actually has nothing to do with sexuality aside from coincidentally also being the slang term of a vagina.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pusillanimous
The more you know! <3
But if it makes you feel better, it was pretty amusing (not to mention ironic) seeing you all complain about me being ‘sexist’!
@ 173
That’s the thing. I doubt he really thinks the differences are small. He just says so at opportune times in order to pull the rug from beneath others who criticize him—Oh look how petty they’re being….we agree on nearly everything!—but when he’s criticizing others, telling others how misguided they are, well then yeah, the differences are big enough for him to pounce on. It’s part of The Big Narrative he’s trying to establish: His point-of-view is universally temperate and pragmatic, with an eye toward productive outcomes, while those who critique his point-of-view are stubborn, angry, and fundamentally unserious, not at all interested in “helping.”
Is this camp the atheist camp or the science literacy camp? I agree he’s an intentional opponent of atheism and perhaps an unintentional opponent of improved science literacy. Mooney’s very political, meaning that no rhetorical tactic is off limits. Which necessarily leads to hypocrisy.
Productive outcomes = self-promotion.
“I doubt if the word really needs explaining. IMHO, it would be like preaching to the choir, so to speak. I could be wrong, though.”
The problem is the word as a slang term for a cat or woman’s genitals might have came about around the same time that the word was changed to a noun and used as a short form of pusillanimous (the though origin of the word’s uses have separate roots) thus causing the whole ‘pussy is a sexist word’ confusion. Folk etymologists aren’t totally certain that’s how the pejorative noun usage came about, but there’s no reason why pussy can’t be used by women (or men for that matter) as a short way of describing a pusillanimous person and not as a sexual slur like everyone assumes. Language is fun! <3
It’s not a confusion. The word is pervasively used as a sexist insult in the US. (And we’ve had this discussion before, exhaustively. I don’t want to have it all over again.)
Yep, common usage is what matters here.
Just type “pussy” into the search box to find the previous discussion.
The “pusillanimous” derivation is wrong.
The word is more ambiguous in the UK, but the UK is not the entire world. It’s not at all ambiguous in the US. I’m a woman, and I don’t allow “pussy” or “twat” or “cunt” here. That’s it. It’s not up for negotiation.
And just to be clear – I really really really hate it when people try to argue this point. If there’s ambiguity at best, then don’t use the fucking epithet! Nothing is at stake – nothing is lost if one uses a different word – and nothing significant is gained by using it. No bitch, no pussy, no twat, no cunt. No “edgy” sexist put-downs.
Wow, I can’t believe you got so bent out of shape originally due to a comment on a webcomic. Take a chill pill, Ophelia, seriously! Language is constantly evolving and adapting, it’s not something that stays static, so please stop acting like a damn feminazi any time someone uses a word that’s just too naughty for your ears to handle.
While we try to take back words like ‘cunt’ and ‘twat’ and be more open about celebrating our sexuality in the name of progressive feminism, prudes like you who feel the need to act overly offended (not to mention like a pompous bitch like how you were on that webcomic’s page) are not helping our cause. Honestly, all you’re doing is making us feminists look bad. Stop it, kthx. <3
misutaaa, our hostess has just asked you not to smoke in her house. The appropriate thing to do is to stub out your cigarette and say, “Sorry, it won’t happen again.” Either that or STFU.
Wow, pure Mooneyism! Nice!
And
A term coined by that paragon of good sense, Rush Limbaugh. Again, nice work…
For all we know, it could be Rush Limbaugh himself.
Notice that misutaaa has already posted using three different email addresses, all in one thread.
Right. Go away now misutaa.
That “making us feminists look bad” thing – that is so reminiscent of YNH/TJ/William/I know his real name’s sock puppets.
Misutaa must be one of those accommodationist feminists, you know the ones who embrace hatred and subjection of women as compatible with feminism.
I seriously doubt that misutaa is either a woman or a feminist. I think misutaa is playing silly games.
When I talked to him he definitely didn’t think it was a small difference. I’ve finally finally gotten an mp3 audio of the conversation so I can sort of transcribe the relevant part here.
Mooney: “I’m sure that some people are getting engaged [because of New Atheism] — I’m sure some people are learning, some people are thinking [about science] — but I think it’s also clear that a lot of people are not getting engaged or are being negatively polarized. So it’s a difference of goals, in part, that explains the debate I think.”
As a poster pointed out above, it’s politics.
@gillt #177
More or less what you say, though I could be a little more precise as to how I meant it. He’s crowned himself king of science literacy advocates, but that is the secondary problem. I wouldn’t permit myself to call him an intentional opponent of atheism, for the simple reason that he’s careful never to do that explicitly. He’s always self-identified as one (an atheist, that is, not an opponent of atheism), but what he does is give potentially offended believers the right to determine how outspoken we are about it. There’s a status quo of offense being a one-way street: religion must be defended from it and offense that might be felt by atheists is not something that needs to be considered at all. Mooney consistently sticks up for that status quo. To put it ridiculously simply: Mooney’s concerns are more for the well-being of believers than of atheists. He sees a need to be sensitive to believers (as if they were the threatened minority), but not likewise towards atheists (as if they had all the societal advantages actually enjoyed only by believers). I see nothing wrong with trying to be even-handed and expressing concern for the rights of those who don’t share one’s opinion, but when one is consistently against the group to which one claims to belong, I can’t help but speculate as to what’s really going on.
On the scientific literacy business, it’s a disagreement, one which causes Mooney to bring out his biggest guns – of evasiveness. He is unable or unwilling (well, more like the latter because of the former) to explain how resolutely defending a set of false ideas from attack will eventually result in those holding them switching to a different set that does not conflict with observable reality.
If one postulates that the two attitudes in question might have common roots, an overall strategy begins to be detectable and it’s one that is helpful neither to atheism nor to scientific literacy.
I shan’t reopen the part of the discussion Ophelia wanted left alone, but she’s not going around trying to impose her standards of what’s offensive on the rest of the world. She is asking firmly that the little bit of cyberspace she runs not become home to language she finds offensive. What is unreasonable about that? That said, I can’t put it better than Hamilton Jacobi at #185.
Oh, Mooney’s certainly not the only one who cuts out all comments which he doesn’t like. There are many blogs like that and I simply don’t read them because those people obviously only want to tell the world what they believe and don’t care to discuss anything. I don’t see any “Overton Window” nor do I see any spillover on the BA’s blog. People are just telling the BA that he’s wrong, not abusing his blog to whine about Mooney.
@Benjamin#192: That’s such typical Mooney – “It works, it really works! Screw evidence – who needs that?” I wouldn’t say it’s politics – it’s “bestseller management practice”. Have a look at any of that tedium from the likes of Jack Welch and you’ll see how he advocates that sort of thing – promote yourself, screw everyone else. Or for another example, try Ben Stein. It’s just standard egomaniacal drivel.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth.
To my recollection, I’ve not seen Mooney champion atheism or godlessness since that Slate article years ago, which he has essentially disowned since. I think Mooney hurts the cause of atheism by defending the status quo, plain and simple. Of course it’s because he sees vocal atheism as a threat to public acceptance of evolution, whereas gnu atheists see religion as the hindrance.
That’s ok, no apology necessary. The precision of expression was my concern; when I said I wouldn’t permit myself to say it, it didn’t mean I thought it wasn’t true. To all intents and purposes Mooney is functioning in opposition to an atheism that does not accept the status quo that it is something negative that ought to be excluded from polite society (and let’s face it, when one wants to limit the freedom of atheism to the degree that Mooney does, he pretty much forfeits the right to say he’s in favour of it). Is that an accident? I doubt it. Whatever doubt I do have is more in the area of what motivates Mooney.
Even if Templeton money does have something to do with it, I find it difficult to swallow that Mooney would let himself be bought if he had strong principles leaning in the other direction. So the question for me is more whether there’s something about the atheism he professes that he really doesn’t like or is it more the result of wishing to defend religion? Is he a non-believer in gods who nonetheless believes passionately in religion as something necessary for society? One of the things I can’t believe is what he would like everyone to believe: that he’s doing this out of genuine concern for science education, because the problems in his approach to it are marked by his greatest evasiveness. He can’t not consciously know that it doesn’t add up.
Yes – it seems pretty obvious to me that Mooney has a visceral dislike of atheism and atheists, despite his protestations about being an atheist himself.
This could be a CFI thing, actually. A product of the CFI version of humanism, which has in recent years become increasingly (and viscerally) hostile to atheism. This may be Kurtzian, or it may be broader than that…I really don’t know, but it’s something – a school of thought, a tendency, even a Movement.
Actually I am trying to impose my standards of what’s offensive on the rest of the world – or rather, not my standards of what’s offensive, but my (and other people’s) standards of what’s harmful and illiberal. I think certain kinds of group epithets are harmful, and I think people should not use them. Words like nigger, kike, towel-head, faggot, chink, wetback – and the four already cited that denigrate women. (And, granted, I’m not trying to impose them, but I am trying to argue for them.)
But here, of course, I can simply rule them out.
MadS, I think that Mooney’s face-value argument is something like what you suggest — sort of a self-help, educating the masses about strategy type of thing.
But when I talked to him, he was clear that he recognizes that there’s some utility in New Atheism, but he thinks there’s lots of disutility as well. And he admits that it’s a “difference in goals” that characterizes the divide.
Putting an emphasis on that “difference of goals” might be helpful. Although I can’t speak on his behalf, and don’t want to, he seems to value the following, in this order:
1. American progressive politics
2. Scientific literacy
3. Atheism
If I were to figure out what the world looks like from his point of view, I would say that he thinks Gnu Atheists have shown their preferences to be ranked like this:
1. Atheism
2. Scientific literacy
3. American progressive politics
While New Atheists avow these preferences:
1. (Tie) Scientific literacy
1. (Tie) Atheism
3. American progressive politics
To be clear, by the third list, I mean something like “What New Atheists avow in reality”.
And “American progressive politics” should not be (3), but undetermined, since a fair number of new atheists are incompetent deluded neocons.
I think I would put the third list slightly differently. I think I would replace scientific literacy with something broader which would subsume it – something like a willingness to think carefully.
I think that precedes even a willingness to think critically. I think the first step that counts is just paying attention. I say that partly because I’m so aware of past sloppy thinking of my own – of just taking received wisdom out of the aether and not thinking carefully enough about it. (When I say “past” I don’t mean to claim that I never do that now.)
I think that’s the first hurdle for theism, and why I dislike it so much. It’s so often just taken at face value, as if there is not even any reason to question any of it.
Sigh.
The latest philosophy experiment features a sadistic scientist, one Dr Coine.
Honestly.
Yeah, true. I suppose I modelled the list on Coyne’s philosophy of science, since he views science as continuous with critical thinking. In his view, they have to be tied. If I’ve understood you correctly, you seem to think that there’s a distinction of some kind between scientific competence and critical thinking. In a sense, critical thinking is to scientific literacy as crawling is to walking. And you can be scientifically literate while being an uncritical thinker. So on that view, if they’re tied, it’s only because they’re preferred equally.
I completely agree that step one is “pay attention you silly hobbits”. A lot of what I said to Mooney in that mini-interview is about that, roughly. (I have the mp3 if you wanted to listen.) This is a point that doesn’t really seem to be on his radar.
Regarding Dr. Coine. At first I was concerned as well. But after doing some research, I’ve discovered that Dr. Coine received his degree from New Miskatonic University, which is the top Ivy league school in Ophcoynistan. His degree is written in the blood of kittens. So it’s all on the up-and-up.
I think this is a great example of Mooney’s belief that Gnu atheists need to be very, very quite in order for greater public acceptance of science. And if he has to misrepresent and character assassinate to silence their message, he will.
In a HuffPo article Mooney defines Gnu Atheism in negative terms and credits Dawkins:
In an interview for the The Greatest Show on Earth, atheism was brought up and Dawkins responded in what Mooney took to be textbook accommodationism. Mooney turned this into a conflict to showcase how atheism and better science communication can’t mix.
At this time Mooney hadn’t read TGSoE. Also, Dawkins called his interpretation “utterly ridiculous.”
At some point Mooney convinced himself that you can only communicate successfully about science or atheism. Not both. Never both. And Mooney decided that he wants to only talk about science communication. Now it’s no secret that he really dislikes Gnu atheist who are also scientists, like Coyne, Myers and Dawkins. Their success and popularity (heck, their existence) runs counter to what he wants and what he believes. For example, what happens when a prominent scientist and Gnu atheist, Coyne, mixes pro-science and atheism in a book review? Mooney, without reason or justification, tells him to be quite. Obviously, Mooney bit off more than he could chew with Coyne and things went poorly for him.
Notably, in the comments section to a post Mooney did on TGSoE at The Intersection is where the sock-puppet Tom Johnson dropped his bullshit story. The fantastical tale about a colossal and embarrassing failure of science communication, where atheist scientists were the barbarians and the religious were townsfolk, and all the blame was laid at the feet of the most notorious Gnu atheist-scientists in the land, Coyne, Myers and Dawkins. TJ repeatedly insisted that it was those guys alone that inspired all the bad behavior. Mooney’s next post was the infamous Exhibit A.
Wow, that’s… that’s incredibly petty (Dr. Coine). Reminds me of the Hitchkins (or whatever) character from that Eagleton book PZ read on an airplane.
It will always amuse me how he titled that post “Exhibit A,” which suggests it is the primary piece of evidence for his indichment, the smoking gun as it were.
…And it turned out to be wholly fraudulent.
Wouldn’t you reevaluate the merits of your case at that point? But no, he just doubled-down.
Maybe so, but you go about it a lot more peacably than some who would impose their standards.
The Mooney thing has gotten so silly that I’m getting silly ideas, like a rewrite of the Spanish Inquisition sketch for Gnu Atheists. “Nobody expects… Our first weapon is…” etc. and of course we have an almost fanatical devotion to Richard Dawkins and nice red “A”s with horns on top. Also thinking of Mooney’s favourite books, things like “All Quiet on the Gnu Atheist Front” and “The Silence of the Gnu Atheists.”
Sorry.
Ha, Stewart, that sounds like a good game! Like that game Hitch has with his pals where they change “love” for “fuck” in popular songs, novels, movies etc, except this one is funny. :- )
I see gnu atheism as contemporary atheism, whereas I see accommodationism as character assassination, although the only character assassinations so far have been the accommodationists themselves.
It’s not just “Coine”, it’s the “Zach” part too. (Think Paul ____ Myers.) It really is Ditchkins v2.0.
Next up: Dick Bendsome. See, it needles two of those despicable new atheists at the same time, and it’s semi-pornographic too! Funny, isn’t it?
We gneiss atheists are so nice, and we have the best jokes too. Kind of unfair, that.
Ohhhhhhhh I couldn’t figure out the Zach. Oh gawd.
This is so embarrassing.
I can’t believe you used to work with the guy. He’s pathetic.
Neither can I. Hence the embarrassment.
And is there a touch of Dennett in the mad professor’s ideas?
It’s not a very good thought experiment, either. It asks if I’d be “reassured” by the prospect that my thoughts and feelings will be exchanged for someone else’s before I (my body) is tortured. But if I think that “I” am eradicated in this process (at least in the first scenario) that is hardly reassuring compared to torture.
Hoo-boy – there’s more on that bizarre post about the evil gnus now. A commenter says (paraphrasing) “Well you two are pretty obnoxious yourselves, so what’s the idea, you get to be obnoxious but other people don’t? How does that work?”
Because it does, he (it’s a male name) is told. Oddly, this ends up convincing him. Hmmm.
Anyway, as I said a few days ago, I don’t have any obligation to be silent or circumlocuitous about amos, and he is right in there as usual, explaining why he is so central to everything.
Yeah right. He announced firmly that he had, on Kazez’s blog some months ago. It looks like it, doesn’t it. Obsess much?
The really attractive and grown-up bit is “especially in one that is well known to Jeremy and myself.” That’s this one, of course: mine: Butterflies and Wheels, run by the evil gnu atheist OB. amos of course knows perfectly well that Jeremy and I used to collaborate. He obviously delights in the fact that Jeremy terminated that collaboration with extreme prejudice, and the fact that the two of them enjoy discussing how loathsome I am. He’s an impressive character, isn’t he.
Yes, I saw that and thought “no, I’m not going to be the one to start stirring that cauldron again.” But since you did…
Surely you can see what I mean by Jeremy playing the hurt card. He’s saying that some pretty awful things happened, but doesn’t say he did them. Therefore he must be the wronged one.
Jeremy has some rather convoluted non-specific explanations up there, but Amos is a riot. Typical goonish henchman, agreeing maniacally without knowing what he’s standing up for (should he be Cardinal Fang in a reverse-Inquisition sketch?). If only he were able to write the following with some glimmer of humour:
Yup I did. When amos stirs the cauldron, I stir in the other direction. :- )
Oh sure, I do see what you mean. I was just clarifying that one thing the other day.
It’s a pretty bad joke, really, all this pretending not to discuss it while in fact constantly discussing it. Over and over and over again: new atheists did terrible things, but I won’t say what they were. Constantly tracking what I write about, and using it to do more “new atheists did terrible things”ing. Constantly smearing people who wouldn’t even be on the radar if they weren’t friends of mine. Then when anyone asks a pointed question – it’s time to get all highminded and refuse to discuss it in public.
To be fair though, surely that last item was humor! I even thought it was funny.
amos has always simultaneously hated me and (for some reason I’ve never understood) wanted to “fit in” (his words) here. So he was always oscillating between smarm and aggression, neither of which I found particularly appealing. I don’t know why he couldn’t just settle for “fitting in” at Talking Philos and at Kazez’s blog, I don’t know why he thought it had to be a package deal.
I’m afraid I never found him an addition here, because of the way he couldn’t talk about anything at all without talking about himself. Absolutely everything was always about him. I’m allergic to self-obsession.
Taken on its own, I would have to agree with you. The problem is, when someone writes that and intends it humorously, they also have to be aware that it’s a crude exaggeration. But everything else Amos has written, at least on that thread, makes out the Gnu Atheists to be such villains that absolutely everybody else enjoys a kind of moral perfection simply by not being one. What I’m missing is any sense that Amos doesn’t really perceive it the way he writes it.
Ah well that’s true. It is funny, but amos is the last person to have any business making that particular joke. Whither ironic distance, eh?!
I think, by the way, that the very fact that a bunch of us can take off from the New Atheist label applied to us by others and call ourselves Gnu Atheists ought to be enough of an indication that we do not lack the ability to laugh, including at ourselves.
Oh tut tut, Stewart, you still don’t get it. It can’t possibly be the case that we do not lack the ability to laugh at ourselves, because we are the people who brought it about that a whole terrain has been polluted by aggression, snark, bad manners, and rhetoric. We are The Wicked; end of story.
And speaking of no sense of humour, I just realised who Chris Mooney’s favourite atheist must be, in fact the only one he could possibly not hate: Penn’s partner, Teller.
Of course, Mooney doesn’t want to kill all the Gnu Atheists. On the contrary, he’s been intensively lobbying Templeton to fund the pilot project for an idea he hopes will take off in a big way, in which whole Gnu Atheist communities would be gathered together with their own grounds and buildings, in a self-sustaining manner, free from the necessity to interact with environments hostile to their ideas. Those receptive to these plans would then be renamed “Trappist Atheists.”
Funny you should mention it – I just happened to read an oldish (September) comment on Edmund Standing’s article on atheist criticism of Islam, in which someone says “why can’t you fundamentalist atheists leave the rest of us alone.” As if we’re not leaving the rest of us alone! As if Edmund writing an article for an obscure website amounts to interference with The Great Majority. They really would like to quarantine us.
I checked (I usually do) and I think you meant this line:
which is the teeniest bit more evenhanded than what I take to be your paraphrase. I think we seem worst to those “moderates” to whom religion in society is a given, a necessary background noise and any attempt to tamper with it is below the belt. They’re not capable of finding a more neutral starting point. Have been checking out Silverman more and he had another nice one where he explains that there is nothing atheistic about wanting god off the money and out of the pledge (which is not even what he’s pushing for). Wanting god out of there is neutral (and secular). An atheistic attempt would be to replace them with “In God we don’t trust” or “One Nation Not Under God.” It’s not easy to comprehend if the presence of religion is accepted as the default.
Non-vocal atheists can’t change anything; that’s why it isn’t necessary to quarantine them. Conversely, the attempt to shut us up is evidence enough for me that we’re the ones that can change things and they know it.
I myself am beginning to collect my own ‘stalkers’ who personally attack me, calling me a hater and a fundamentalist on par with some kind of terrorist neo-nazi. I’ve always been rather angry and abrasive in my posting style, which does not represent me as a person at all. And so I’ve always managed to be both liked and disliked, but the haters are the ones who appear to be suffering from some kind of mental disorder.
Now I don’t really care much for approval or for popularity, but I do passionately care about reason and science and the dangers of irrationality and religion.
And so I have to distinguish between my cause, the cause of reason and science, and the cause of people who only set out to harass, discredit, smear, defame other people. I think the difference is fairly clear that one set of people have a personal irrational vendetta approaching a mental disorder and those with a fairly straightforward set of causes: science, reason, secularism, etc.
From my experience so far, I see the likes of PZ Meyers, Ophelia Benson, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, AC Grayling, Daniel Dennett, Victor J. Stenger, Jerry Coyne, Sam Harris are all passionate about science, reason, human rights, secularism, and all are oppossed to religion, suppression of tyranny, etc.
None of these ‘gnu’ atheists are radicals or extremists at all. And while some of their language is scathing, colourful and intelligent, it’s not nasty or spiteful, vindictive or full of hate and resentment. But their critics (and also mine) are full of nasty, spiteful, vindictive and hateful language. Their critics also display only a singular goal: personal attacks against people rather than a genuine positive and rational approach to promoting science and reason and condemnation of irrationality and religion.
To sharpen that last point made by Egbert a tad, Gnu Atheists are for certain ideas and opposed to certain others. They are not against any people per se, even though some may be their opponents. What is worrying about the accomodationist camp is that they claim to be for the same ideas as the Gnus, preach against expressing opposition to the opposing ideas and do express an exaggerated hostility to certain people, i.e. the Gnus.
Which is why I’m always annoyed to see accommodationists (like Giberson) characterize their accommodationism as something akin to “a pox on both your houses,” some kind of brave “middle ground” that eschews extremist positions in favor of moderation and fairness to all. Puh-leese! At its core, accommodationism favors one “side” of this debate over another: Religion is not to be criticized directly because to do so would either be illiberal and unnuanced and unenlightened (a la Giberson) or “not helping” the cause (a la Mooney).
Straight talk about religious stupidities is something accommodationists will not tolerate. Talking smack about the (supposed) excesses and “intolerance” of atheists is, on the other hand, always de rigueur.
Or would be
a la amos.
:- )
And, thanks to the Internet (without which, I suppose, very little of this would be happening), just as we are privy to see the hate-fest against us, without our participation, at places like Jeremy’s blog, so all accomodationists can see us over here, being pretty bloody civilised in trying to analyse the campaign against us. Sure, we’re derisive of Mooney, but given stuff like Ophelia’s banning and the Tom Johnson affair, it’s hardly unjustified (and we don’t have to resort to any excuses like Jeremy’s “an incredibly convoluted story” to get out of explaining it, either).
I think it’s pretty telling that Mooney never answered Ophelia’s questions about his attack on Jerry Coyne and that his “Exhibit A” was a hoax and the whole YNH blog was a sock-puppet farce. Jean tried listing “real” problems with us here http://kazez.blogspot.com/2010/10/atheist-kids-in-north-dakota-with.html, which I already quoted above, but when you weigh a few genuine beefs against a mountain of faked accusations, you get a picture of what the intentions are and how important it seems to be for some people to besmirch our name by hook or by crook.
And this, and Andy’s concluding sentence, raises the question that we have pondered before, often, but it still baffles me – it at least baffles me that the perps can’t see it. The question is, how do people manage it? How do they manage to pitch such fits in aid of instructing other people in how to be more Civil? It happens over and over and over and over again. Chris Hedges is the classic example, but lots of other people do similar mote/beam performances. Like this business of saying “new atheists are really terrible and I have lots of examples but I’m not going to discuss them in public.” How can anyone think that’s a good way to scold other people for being uncivil?
It’s an enigma. I do not get it.
Oops, cross-post! But making much the same point.
Well the really relevant point about Mooney is that he’s an ongoing force. He’s a campaigner, and one of the things he campaigns about is gnu atheists. He has an ongoing project to portray explicit atheists as harmful and evil, so explicit atheists just do have good reasons to resist his efforts. He has been blackening our reputations for at least the last year and a half (I date it from the “incivility” post at the end of May 2009, because I think there was a lull before that, even though I know the “framing” stuff started much earlier), and I don’t see what we can do in response except try to counter him. So it’s not a matter of revenge or “retribution,” even if vindictive feelings get mixed up in it; it’s a matter of self-defense.
Actually, before I saw your “oops,” I thought you were reacting to my post as well.
In a sense, what I feel I’m against is, more than anything, unnecessary complication (a la Ockham’s razor):
Scientist: The universe exists. Let’s find out whatever we can about it.
Theist: God did it, but he doesn’t need to be explained.
Atheist: I’m with the scientist; the theist’s answer is not backed by any evidence and has only raised more questions.
Accomodationist: I know the atheist is right (I’ll even – very quietly – say that I am one), and I’m 100% for the scientist, but I think we’ll never bring the theist around to the scientist’s point of view unless we avoid telling him he’s wrong. In fact, I will demonise any of my co-atheists who go against this attitude.
The back and forth between scientist, theist and atheist is quite enough. The accomodationist adds nothing but complications; the other three may at least be credited with honesty (at least in theory), whereas what the accomodationist does add is intrinsically bound up with a certain level of dishonesty, no matter they try to cast it as nothing but diplomacy.
Just saw your latest, Ophelia, and I agree that this is not about any of that retribution stuff. We are open about what our lack of belief implies and we have a right to defend ourselves against what have become serious character slurs.
Well, if the examples are trivially easy to find, why should one list them?
Indeed, how do they manage it? I’ve wondered myself.
Was thinking as I wrote, later realised what a strong point is in there and wanted to phrase it more incisively. While there are certainly dishonest scientists, theists and atheists out there, it is possible to be a scientist, a theist or an atheist without being at all dishonest. The same cannot be said of an accomodationist.
A certain kind of theist can accept the findings of science without conscious dishonesty, but when the science-promoting accomodationist feels it necessary to play down his/her atheism to lull the believer into feeling science doesn’t threaten belief…
It feels like we’re back in sci-fi territory (“no, it won’t turn you into a pod-person”). If the accomodationist is correct, it’s not science so much as atheism that the believers find frightening, that accepting science will increase their chances of losing their faith. Giberson, Miller and Collins might be worth something there, but Mooney? How is an atheist trying to reconcile them with science going to allay their fears? Does he really think he’s better in their eyes than a Gnu Atheist who will at least give them nothing but straight talk? If they’re so frightened of atheism that science has to be rejected to keep it at bay, I’ll bet they think Mooney is going to the same hell as the rest of us infidels.
Yes, he does. He believes it is self-evidently true that people are less likely to be persuaded by someone who is adversarial, someone who “just tells the other person s/he’s flat-out wrong.” The superior approach, Mooney feels, is his approach.
Of the plethora of things I find faulty here, the foremost is that, in making the assumption that “nicer = more persuasive,” Mooney misses what is right in front of his nose—the huge number of religious believers who are religious or became religious because of what can fairly be called “adversarial” persuasion techniques. Fire & brimstone, you are are a sinner who must repent; the way you are living your life is all wrong and you must come to Jesus immediately. These are some of the tried and true methods of evangelism, and they work on lots and lots of people. Recall Billy Graham’s old revivals—in which he told fottball stadiums full of people that they had been living in darkness and sin their whole lives and must now “come into the light.” Graham, throughout his life, converted hundreds of thousands of people this way—by telling them their whole lives were dead wrong and that the he literally held the absolute truth (the Bible) in his hand. But, somehow, Mooney thinks gnu-style straight talk about the realities of of science and the cosmos will be ineffective on the very same people who were guilt-tripped and/or bullied into “coming to Jesus”!
Yikes, that’s a good point, Andy. I don’t think I’d thought of that before (duh).
I suppose the short form is that passion is persuasive. Well yes, it is.
Well, there’s framing for you. I daresay one reason Andy’s excellent point is not out there a lot more is that religion is considered a comfort. The victims of that kind of (verbally) violent proselytising are seen as having been saved; they have been brought back from the brink. And framing yet again: society still refuses to accept as comforting the idea that there might be no such thing as eternal damnation. It’s a very uneven battle.
Yes, well—and what would The Great Moondog himself say in response? At this point, I know my man pretty well: He would either evade or equivocate. He would never concede the point, or even acknowledge that the analog is apt.
Wow, comment 181 (signed by someone named DBAD) on Phil’s blog is so deliciously ironic it hurts.
Oh, I was just going to paste it in here when I saw Tea’s mention of it and now it feels silly to do so. Whoever DBAD is, s/he doesn’t seem to have posted on that thread before. I disagree with DBAD; Mooney is sure as hell not saying it’s ok to tell people they’re wrong because that’s the way the evidence points. If he were, none of this would ever have erupted.
I just love it how he doesn’t think Phil’s “dicks” are strawmen. Yeah, the world is just full of angry atheist dicks yelling at poor old priests – lucky we have so many Tom Johnson’s to let us know of all the many occurrences.
It’s starting to feel like a conspiracy theory, or is it a new religion? You don’t need evidence of Gnu Atheist bad behaviour, it’s enough to have faith that they indulge in it.
Ugh. “DBAD” describes the criticism of Mooney as a “vendetta.” But as I read it, most of the criticisms of Mooney on that thread have been temperate, specific, and proportional to the shit Mooney has actually done (not to mention his attitude).
@ Stewart — It is a kind of “faith position,” isn’t it? I’ve said in the past that the story of new atheism has, so far, really been the story of the backlash against the new atheism. Part of that story is this “faith” that gnus are illiberal and mean and horrible. (Never mind the fact that, if they were, there’d be no need for fictions like Tom Johnson. I mean, the moment-to-moment demeanor and behavior of “the four horsemen” could not undermine this stereotype more; people call Dawkins “uncivil,” then you observe him interacting with people—like the Muslim schoolchildren in that recent BBC documentary—and you think, “Are these people on drugs?!)
Hmmmmmmmm…
DBAD sounds just a bit like ol’ YNH/Tom Johnson/William/W[ ]. He liked to accuse The Enemy of whining, and he was obsessed with PZ and your humble servant. I wonder if ol’ W[ ] just couldn’t restrain himself. Just one little post…on Phil’s blog…after the thread has fallen silent, so maybe no one will notice…
This sounds particularly YNH/W[ ] like:
That’s a flat lie. I do not do “exactly the same thing” as Mooney when it comes to banning, and neither does PZ. That was something W[ ] just loved to say – his puppets said it multiple times in multiple threads. It is not even close to true.
I did ban that “misutaaa” a few days ago after it called me a bitch…but I needn’t have bothered; it hasn’t been back.
Boy that sounds like him.
@248
It wouldn’t be surprising if it was him.
Remember the old Bible passage: “The fool hath said in his/her heart, ‘There is no Tom Johnson.'”
It’s not just that, Andy. I think we all realise that these fictions are being concocted because our approach is having results, in complete contradiction of the Mooney line, and this is scaring people into doing whatever they can to blunt this effectiveness (do you remember when Dawkins, as a quote, said that line about “science is interesting and if you don’t think so, you can fuck off” – and how the video was circulated minus his intro that he was quoting someone else?).
No, let’s look at it the other way round. If we were the way they try to portray us, or if the “horsemen” were not the well-spoken types they actually are, well, just think about it. They and us would simply be laughed away and shrugged off. Who needs to waste time even being offended by people who express themselves as crudely as that? And, in all likelihood, any offense we do feel about the warped portrayal of us is nothing more than collateral damage. We’re not the target audience, even if we’re hated. The target is more those who don’t really know us, those who can be swayed against us by stories told against us.
BTW, that business of Jeremy coming down on Russell for saying we don’t go around calling ourselves Brights was simply bizarre. I actually was a very early Bright, because it emerged before Gnu Atheism had hit its stride and I was in favour of any step that would give us more strength in numbers. They (Geisert and Futrell, not Dennett and/or Dawkins) were trying to come up with a name that would do for atheists what “gay” had done for homosexuals. I’m happy that it has been eclipsed, not because it was so terrible in itself, but because it has been eclipsed by the more positive phenomenon of atheism coming out of the closet under its own name, which seemed much less likely back then. It’s somewhere in the background, still, isn’t it, but not really on our radar. Anyone who comes here, or to Pharyngula, or to Jerry’s blog, simply doesn’t encounter the term. For Jeremy to imply that it’s still current as something self-congratulatory (which it never was in the first place) shows that any claims that he is acquainted with the community of which he is so critical are not to be taken seriously. What’s next, accusations of secret (cyber-) handshakes?
Nah, I expect something more like accusations of making atheist brownies out of the blood of theist babies.
Surely you mean babies of theist parents?
Not from the accusers I don’t!
And just so we don’t stop laughing, here is a voice from further to the political right on Mooney’s AGU appointment:
It’s from Lubos Motl (search for him on Pharyngula if your memory needs refreshing).
That’s a great quote. A “fanatical atheist”! What does that make me?
Well, I don’t think he’s ever mentioned you, but he seems to respect Dawkins. He really loathes PZ, who he has called “nasty and despicable.” For a fuller taste of his love for Myers, here he is on the Scienceblogs-Pepsi affair:
Now he really made me laugh. In a comment on his own Mooney-AGU post, he writes:
Wow!
Laugh. Out. Loud.
There’s something about anti-Communist rhetoric being used in the 21st century—so misplaced and archaic, this knee-jerk paranoia—that makes me feel nostalgic, even wistful for my youth (ah, there I am in 1953, watching Edward R. Murrow report on McCarthy). The people who are really good at it—Glenn Beck, for example—are funny as they are frightening. Add Motl to the list.
For the record, I think Chris would be far better at the job than Kim Jong Il.
Although, The Illustrious Leader does seem to have a penchant for “framing.”
I didn’t want to quote him any more, but then I saw that and I had to share. And now that you’ve answered me, I’ll stick in the end of that same comment. I think to enjoy it to the fullest, you need to reread Phil’s congratulations to CM and then follow it immediately with Motl’s very last sentence:
Geez, someone send Motl a link to the DBAD speech.
I will say this for him—I haven’t seen the word “scum” used that expertly since Jabba the Hut.
Oh, Andy, someone from the opposition came in after Ophelia at Phil’s thread. I felt it needed a reaction and quoted your excellent #237. Just so you know.
Roger that. Thanks Stewart.
Stuman’s comment frustrates me:
The question is, “What about all the views and beliefs you already hold because someone else convinced you? Are you really saying the ONLY people who ever convinced you of anything were people who were unrelentingly nice to you?”
The point is, I think we’ve all, at some point, been “smacked into reality” by someone who cared enough to jettison decorum and get in our face with the facts. “Tough love” is what my father called it.
The other point is, the fact that “aggression” and “confrontation” are not pleasant is a completely separate matter from whether or not people are convinced by those things. People like Stuman make what feels like a rational assumption, which is “If someone’s being ‘confrontational,’ they’re not going to convince anyone of anything.” Once again, in practice, this does not seem to be the case at all. (By this logic, negative campaign ads for political candidates would never work; in fact, they are the most effective ads of all.)
I tried to roger it, but it kept baiting and switching.
Stuman replied, without giving a clear answer to the main point, which I noted.
I see the posts now. This person is just goofy:
Oh for pete’s sake!
I’d be shocked if you got a response that addressed your critiques specifically.
I ran a summary of that thread at BadAstronomy. The results are about as would be expected.
There is a better formatted version of this here, with a commenter-by-commenter breakdown of all the data, since I think this will be converted to a variable-width font after submission:
http://pastie.org/private/p8ra9wfz54zyt6rdhhhdg
Of the 92 unique commenters, 62 were directly critical of Mooney, among them several prominent bloggers, long-time commenters, and champions of promoting science, who agree with the stated positions of both Phil and Mooney, but strongly disagree with his intellectual honesty and/or methods for doing so. Of the remainder, 1 was Phil, 18 were indifferent or having other conversations, 8 were critical of Phil but not (within that comment) critical of Mooney, 2 asked for more evidence, 1 was tone-trolling, and 1 was probably Tom Johnson in disguise.
Of the 202 total comments, 128 comments (68%) are directly critical of Chris Mooney (several others critical of Plait for defense of Mooney were not included in this calculation.) 8 were from Phil, 5 were trackback pings (all critical of Mooney), and 3 were dupes, while most of the others were indifferent or side conversations. There was only one congratulatory post, and it was 1 word (“Grats! :)”, comment #13).
The paste was the best I could do with formatting it; perhaps a more stats- and/or web-savvy person can do a bit more if they’re so inclined. Given the numbers and breakdown, I’m still blown away by Phil’s shrugging off of this entire fiasco.
@266
Those numbers really underscore just how lop-sided things were.
I think he’s simply decided he’s right and the nay-sayers are wrong (if not in an empirical sense, then in a moral sense). All the criticism of Mooney, the criticisms of his DBAD speech—he just chalks it up to gnus being unreasonable, strident, and mean. So he blithely brushes it aside (note that in that thread he never deals with the most substantive, most integral criticisms, even when commenters like “grungor” called him on his evasions). I wonder whether he’s even taken a step back and examined these things with fresh eyes. (Especially his DBAD speech, which he was extremely touchy about when it came to what were some fairly rational criticisms.)
If one actually believes that about Gnus, then the BA thread is a conviction-strengthener. And if one’s base assumption is that Mooney is ok, how many other options are there? Either most of the commenters are stark raving… something, or My Friend Chris is a really nasty piece of work. If the latter has been excluded in advance as a serious possibility… well, try rereading the thread as if your only firm piece of knowledge is that Mooney is a good guy, no matter what. We really are a bunch of big-time SOBs. Maybe even dicks.
Yes but the trouble with that is, I can just never see how it works. The comments are too reasonable for that. I can never see how a reasonable person (which I assume Phil is) can see all of them as crazy-evil. I had the same difficulty with the more demented reactions last summer – the ones that saw reasoned disagreement as baying for blood and the like.
So what is your bottom-line? That Phil’s loyalty is simply such that nothing will budge it, no matter how bad it makes him look?
I think maybe Phil sees the critics of Mooney as basically the same population of people who had serious issues with his speech (he’d be right, from what I can detect). From his point-of-view, the people who were hounding him for clarifications, asking him to explain the vacuous thesis of his speech, were just assholes (or “dicks” in his parlance). So their arguments, whether reasonable or not, are not not to be engaged because, hey, they’re just being assholes. I wouldn’t be shocked if he looked upon the fallout of his speech as similar to the criticism of Chris—both examples of assholes being assholes. The idea that the assholes might have a point is antithetical to their being assholes.
I cross-posted my data to BA. It’s awaiting moderation. I don’t doubt he’ll let it through, as he has indeed allowed all the other critical posts through, even though he hasn’t returned to the post.
I just hope he actually reads and considers it.
Yeah, I’m fairly confident he’ll let it through. We can at least say that for him: he certainly doesn’t seem to be interested in banning reasonable dissent (even when he’s completely outnumbered).
Oh hai dead thread! Sorry, I’m just catching up on my RSS after a month-long romp through the hinterlands and wouldn’t usually bother to comment on something so Internet-old but my name was besmirchified so I wanted to leave this here for future generations.
Sigmund wrote:
Hi Sigmund, if you’re still reading: please refrain from criticizing something you haven’t actually seen. How do I know you haven’t seen my talk? Well for starters, the one example you provide isn’t something I ever addressed in my talk.
And no, I didn’t make a mistake by actually using examples. Every example I used was an actual, real-life example in which an atheist/skeptic was asking for help in certain social situations. I provided the actual emails I’ve received, and even mentioned that two of them represent the most common emails I get.
My talk was given a month prior to Phil’s and like someone else already pointed out, it was on a different topic. Phil was discussing the skeptical community as a whole while I was using very specific examples to discuss interpersonal relationships – i.e., how we interact with “believers” who we happen to like and want to keep as friends.
Apologies for resurrecting the dead but I wanted to put that out there.
Oh hai Rebecca! No problem; it’s always good to have the record corrected. (And for the overall record: Sigmund is usually totally right about everything and piss-yourself funny as well. He’s the genius who did the “Hitler pitches a fit about Chris Mooney” vid in 2009.)
Is there a link to or transcript of the speech, by chance?
@Andy: Yes, I think so . . . I believe the Copenhagen Atheist Conference put videos online . . . a Google or YouTube search should turn it up.
Thanks, Rebecca. Andy, if you find the item in question before I find time to search for it properly, could you post a link? Thanks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktezbfBhdyE&feature=related
It seems to me both Rebecca and Sigmund have described the speech with language that could be more precise. Sigmund said:
To which Rebecca responded (emphasis added):
That’s not true. The videotape reveals that Rebecca did address exactly that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD3G-i9zOI0#t=12m3s
It was not one of the formal examples Rebecca used, so Rebecca is correct there. But what she does very clearly say is that she had intended it to be one of the examples—which took the form of short films—but the only reason she did not include it was because “We couldn’t convince anyone to hop in to bed together and let us film it.”
From what I can detect, Sigmund clearly did watch the speech. But he misremembered Rebecca’s off-hand remark about the botched sex scene as if it had been formally presented as one of the speech’s main examples/films—which it should have been by Rebecca’s own admission during the speech. In order to slightly misremember this detail, Sigmund had to have seen the speech. By all means disagree with his criticism, but the accusation that he was criticizing something he hasn’t viewed, it seems to me, is misplaced. (Indeed, he misremembered the context of the sex scene remark in something like the way Rebecca seems to have altogether forgotten having “addressed” that very same detail.)
@Andy, sorry, but that’s just absurd. I made an off-hand remark that we wanted to make a video about it, but it obviously was not going to be a serious suggestion. The videos are not actual scenarios . . . they are gags that are meant to be funny and set up a particular section of my talk (in which I use real examples of things that actually happened). So, for Sigmund to have seen the talk he would have to both remember that I made that comment and forget that I hadn’t actually made a video about it and forget that I was never actually addressing that point in the first place. Frankly I think it’s more generous to suggest that he never saw the talk then to believe that he could see it and then get so much about it wrong.
Sorry you feel that way Rebecca. I’m a fan (and I’m not just saying that; I love your work); I read your comments and Sig’s; then I watched the speech, and I made an assessment that was fair to you both (I thought).
All I can say is this: Anyone who is interested can simply watch the video and do what I did. I watched the video—particularly the bit I linked to above—and I compared it to the way it had been characterized by both you and Sigmund. Anyone with an Internet connection can do this. I’d be interested to see how many people besides Rebecca think I’ve misinterpreted the evidence to the point of absurdity.
I’m not sure why it’s so important for you to stick with this assertion that Sigmund didn’t see the speech. First, you said he didn’t see it because “the example [he] provide[s] isn’t something I ever addressed in my talk.” Turns out, it was addressed—sure, in an off-handed way (as I made a point of stipulating), but it was addressed. The audience heard it. It was on tape along with everything else. So he was referencing something that very much came out of your mouth during the presentation. But you essentially accused him of making up the detail (and used that accusation as the springboard to dismiss the whole of his critique). Well, a quick click over to YouTube shows that he did not make it up: he had the context wrong. (And what, by the way, is the alternative explanation? How does someone who did not view the speech know about that detail?! Was it a lucky guess? Did he get it from a Magic 8-ball? Come on. We’re supposed to be skeptics. Isn’t the simplest explanation that he did view the speech but merely confused that detail with the formal examples that were provided? ) Nobody reading this should take my word for it: there’s the videotape; there‘s the written comments we’ve all made on this thread. Folks can judge for themselves.
The scenario you spin out there is not nearly as unlikely as the sentence in which it is housed. Actually, all he’d have to do is misremember the bit about the sex scene, skewing its context through the prism of his memory. It happens to all of us. (Those of us who are getting on in our years will testify.)
I was loath to weigh in on this, since I’m not finding time to sit down with the whole presentation, but had looked at the moment in question. I do appreciate what I know of Rebecca’s activities, so I’m definitely not coming at this from a critical or in any way hostile angle.
My two cents worth is that Sigmund probably misremembered some details, but when Rebecca writes “the one example you provide isn’t something I ever addressed in my talk,” well, there’s that little mention in the video. I don’t think anyone’s claiming she made a big deal of it, but there’s enough there to account for whatever impression Sigmund got from it. If I try to be even-handed and impugn no ill-intent to anyone, it seems to me Rebecca mentioned something in passing that to her was such a minor throwaway that she thought she hadn’t, whereas it left a more lingering impression on Sigmund, who, I think, has yet to state where he claims to have seen it, which may explain a little more. One usually knows what one intends to convey, but one can never be sure of success. This may simply be an example of a negligible detail that was magnified in someone’s memory, someone who also stated “I like Rebecca,” so he’s also disclaiming any hostility.
As I said, I am still waiting for time to watch the whole thing; maybe in context I will also think it was absurd to remember especially that. There is a difference between fabricating a detail and magnifying it in one’s memory. To be as fair as possible, while Sigmund may be guilty of the latter charge, the video does let him off the former.
Jerome McButtinski here.
At the risk of being accused of accomodationism myself, what I took from Rebecca’s clips was that she was making a ha-ha-only-serious point about being overly rigid and jumping on any chance to argue, when sometimes it’s just not worth it. This is at an entirely other level than Michael Ruse, Chris Mooney, Karen Armstrong, S. E. Cupps, and the other wankers that tiptoe around not just trying not to offend, but actively placating religious and other True Believers. Even Phil hasn’t quite reached that level yet for me, personally, though I am still quite a bit miffed over the situation this very thread describes.
This may be a tangential point, but I’ve noticed in many online skeptic and atheist communities a kind of applauding each other for jumping on any and every opportunity, no matter how petty, to pedantically argue from the relevant position. When reading blogs, watching shows like the Atheist Experience, or listening to SGU or other podcasts, etc., because of the concentration of material on these topics contained therein, I think it’s easy to get a skewed perspective from this and come to the conclusion that it’s alright to argue in any and every situation that arises, if only just to practice one’s arguing skills. I think her point was: that’s kind of silly. Which may or may not have also been Phil’s point, though I think he took it quite a ways beyond that and persisted with it, despite a lack of evidence.
I wonder sometimes, though, if it’s not an impression formed by reading some pedantic arguments and overly-extrapolating them to the general case… In this case, I think it’s misguided, as while I’ve never met Rebecca, from what I’ve seen and read I don’t think she pulls punches or leans toward accomodationism at all. And I’m not just saying this because she is a “skeplebrity”, or has two X-chromosomes, but because I genuinely don’t think the criticism is fair.
Regardless, everyone, go out and have a happy new year!
What I should have made clear is that I actually think Rebecca’s speech is a million times more useful than Plait’s.
The focus of Rebecca’s speech was etiquette, i.e. how one should properly behave in a given situation. (And etiquette is always a worthwhile thing to discuss.) So when someone says “I’m praying for your sick aunt” or some such well-wish, the atheist should not say “Well why don’t you go and do something useful?”
Agreed.
Etiquette is a two-way street, though. Maybe part of the solution here—as David Silverman, who is married to a theist, has argued—is to respectfully request that religious people not be so quick to insert God/prayer/religion into the conversation if they are unsure of the other person’s affiliation. I’ve sat at a dinner party and watched a Christian tell a Jew “I’m going to ask Christ to bless your whole family.” Face–>Palm. I don’t think, in that scenario, the Jewish person is being a “dick” if she dares to mention that while she very much appreciates the well-wish, for the record, she’s a Jew (i.e., “we don’t do that whole Messiah thing…”). I’d want the same standard for nonbelievers.
I’d say that depends an awful lot on context. Who is the the “someone”, when and why do the say what they do?