Oh yes you did, oh no I didn’t
Curious incidents on the Open Letter to the NCSE and BCSE thread at Jerry Coyne’s. 428 comments at present and counting. A guy called Roger Stanyard, who works for the BCSE and has lately been telling Jerry and co. to stop dissing religion because, tried to explain about how the UK is different from the US. This was entirely beside the point, as several people tried to explain in return, but Stanyard doesn’t listen good.
Those of us that run the BCSE have no mandate or freedom whatsover to back New Atheism. A goodly number of our members are religious, or indifferent to religion or are uncomfortable with New Atheism.
If we limited membership to New Atheists we wouldn’t have any activists.
Ya…that’s super super interesting, but it’s not relevant, because oddly enough Jerry’s open letter doesn’t say “Dear BCSE please back New Atheism and please limit your membership to New Atheists.” What it says is: you keep heaping invective on New Atheists and tarring people like Richard Dawkins with opprobrium, and you’re losing allies as a result.
I for one tried to clear things up for Stanyard, more than once. I also tried to pin down the essence of his confusion.
What Roger Stanyard, and other accommodationists, seem to be saying is “because we at the N/BCSE have to avoid criticizing religion, therefore we want all scientists and friends of science also to avoid criticizing religion.”
This is not reasonable. That “therefore” makes no sense. It’s like asking that nobody who votes Democratic in preference to voting Republican ever criticize any Democrat.
His cogent and civil reply began
When are you going to get it into your thick skull that the United Kingdom is not the United States.
Nobody here gives a stuff about Democrats and Republicans or your culture wars.
The BCSE has no option but to take a radically different position from you.
Yes, thank you…Meanwhile and a good deal more significantly, he also attributed a surprising statement to Richard Dawkins; Dawkins turned up and asked him to substantiate it since he (RD) did not remember saying such a thing and found it highly unlikely; Stanyard said he got it from Larry Moran; Jerry asked Larry Moran; Larry Moran said Nope, I don’t remember saying that, I remember telling you not to bash atheists…and Stanyard demanded apologies all around. Go figure.
That’s not even all of it. It’s high-class ructions, I tell you what.
You have a greater patience than I to keep plugging away at this, trying to make the case be understood. I’ve mostly stopped trying to argue a defence of Gnu Atheism now, not least because in responding to people like Roger Stanyard I find it hard to remain kind or civil, and I don’t want to let it turn me into someone unpleasant.
Still, the accommodationists still really aren’t coming out of this well.
Oh it’s not patience, I haven’t got the patience of a hummingbird. It’s…tribalism, the gnu-haters would say, perhaps accurately but fer sher ironically; it’s obstinacy and combativeness; it’s…principle. At the core it’s principle. I find it ceaselessly surprising that people are so eager to silence atheists at this late date. The surprise never ceases so I keep fighting back.
This is sad. I think Roger has good intentions. I have known of him on RichardDawkins.net for years. I think he’s just over his head with this situation, and he should have shut up for a while and let things cool. Instead, he has dug deeper and deeper. I have never heard of the BCSE other than through him, and I don’t know if it has any importance. But he has not served it well with this behaviour.
There might be something good to come out of this though, which is Jerry’s letter to the NCSE.
Stanyard’s reply was so off-topic, that I can’t figure out whether he meant it to be a serious reply or not. Bizarre. Is it really so strange to think that a science education organizations shouldn’t be making statements about religion and its compatibility with science? Is it really so strange to think that their employees shouldn’t attack evolution advocates who happen to be atheists and/or incompatibilists? Are there any two evolution advocates alive today who have had a bigger impact than Dawkins and Coyne? No one is asking these organizations to advocate atheism or incompatibilism. We’re asking them to take no position on religious matters. It’s very simple, but time and again it’s misconstrued and I’m just getting sick of it.
I was wondering why the number of replies kept jumping.
He seems to be all over the place. He’s obviously frustrated with gnu atheism but unable to articulate properly what it is about us that infuriates him.
Roger has always been dead against alienating the religious, I presume because of his evolution fixation; and he’s always frowned on gnu behaviour. Sadly many folk like Roger are in positions of responsibility in British society, which leaves us overwhelmingly accommodationist. I’ve always considered it better to be science fixated, and the evolution will take care of itself. But consider this typical science and religion piece from the BCSE website:
Patent nonsense, as we’ve often discussed. And look where this nonsense leads the writer:
I mean, really. Religious beliefs ‘may very well provide those colleagues with the moral guidance which makes them better scientists’? Like how women are inferior and homosexuals are sinful and abortion is murder?
It’s incredibly simplistic idiocy (and there’s more of the same), but surprisingly prevalent among the great and the good in the UK.
It’s not scones and clotted cream on the lawn with the vicar. It’s not Emily. It’s not cricket. There’s flower arranging to be done, tea to sip. *shudda*
What really surprises me is the surprising content of the statement Roger Stanyard claims to have accidentally misremembered:
WTF? Forget the fact that nobody was or is calling for any science organization to attack religion. He thought Richard Dawkins made his support for an organization conditional on it “not attacking religion?” That would have raised an eyebrow or two. That it be neutral, yes. But an expressed special concern that the religious not be offended?
I suppose it’s rather refreshing, in a way. One of the anti-gnus is misattributing an excess of respect for religion to the gnus. Usually they accidentally remember wrong the other way.
I think NCSE has deniability on this. They point to such statements but, organizationally, have no such position. This isn’t to say that they bear no responsibility for the perception.
What really gets me is that the BCSE seem to think that the evolution in schools fight is some sort of major battle in the UK and that all of the other intolerance generated by the “liberal religions” is secondary to this. Yes, we need to keep an eye on the creationists to ensure that they don’t get their tentacles into our schools, but there are some of us who think there are other, more pressing battles to be fought.
The Church of England, despite allowing gay priests, still has official policies discriminating against those very priests. We still have 26 bishops in our legislature, solely because they are bishops. Those same bishops also publish letters proclaiming their outrage when their members are brought to task for discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.
In Scotland, we have to put up with crap like this, driven by religious sectarianism which is supported, in part, by our religiously divided school system.
In the UK, many atheists see these as much more important and urgent fights than the unlikely scenario of creationism gaining a toehold in our education system. Stanyard expects us to ignore CofE homophobia; Catholic misogyny, homophobia and child rape; and the religious apartheid in our schools because it might make his part of the fight harder. Stanyard can, to borrow PZ’s favourite expression, fuck right off.
Accommodationism, on some definitions, means being able to work with people who you disagree with on a whole bunch of stuff. Tactically, it’s the right approach, some of the time.
Since some accommodationists have raised accommodationism to the level of a fundamental principle, rather than just a tactic, could I enter a plea for a little bit of accommodationism towards outspoken atheists? Thanks.
After all, you might need us as allies in the battle against fundamentalism. I think that’s how the argument goes.
Dan
I vaguely remember the BCSE starting up. Looked quite interesting, though I recall some early eruptions over science and religion which made me wonder how long it would last. There has been some good work from them, particularly in monitoring creationists. It’s a good letter head for missives to government.
But it’s a small group. Apparently not even registered at Companies House. The website is registered in Roger Stanyard’s name. I’m baffled by his behaviour towards Coyne et al.
What I particularly don’t get is how “not attacking atheists” is constructed as “alienating the religious”. All they have to do is leave the theology to the theologians and nobody will mind about them carefully avoiding religious controversy. Division of labour.
I don’t like saying this, because I don’t like giving ammunition to the enemies of proper science education, and BCSE do have some useful resources. But it seems like the BCSE is now an enemy of proper science education.
Dan
@KenPidcock You don’t have to look around the NCSE website for long to find accommodationist statements in the voice of the organization.
<blockquote>
The Clergy Letter Project was initiated in 2004 by Michael Zimmerman, now Dean of Butler University in Indiana, as a response to the common misperception that science and religion are inevitably in conflict, especially around the question of evolution.
</blockquote>
http://ncse.com/religion/clergy-letter-project
Judging incompatibilism to be a misperception is equivalent to accommodationism.
OK, and that’s what I meant by point to.
It’s Mooney’s Law, Ophelia. The degree to which an interlocutor portrays him or herself as nice and accommodating correlates precisely with the degree of substantive vitriol they display toward gnus. If the interlocutor is a fellow atheist, the probability that he will have a meltdown complete with vicious insults approaches 1.
I hope Stanyard doesn’t think he’s presenting himself as a nice guy. I hope he’s not that confused!
Accommodationists are the enemy from within. They certainly are not helping and won’t be able to, because they’re just as in the dark as their religious bed partners.
And I think we may have to face an inconvenient truth: some atheists are more enlightened than others.
I’ve been trying to follow the Stanyard comment thread over at WEIT and get stuck on this comment of his.
Coyne, as far as I can tell, never accused him of lying–he asked Larry Moran if there was any truth to the extraordinary claim. Afterward Stanyard only descends further into incoherence.
Oh, but we should always hold out an open hand to accommodationists, whose attitudes are subject to change. Not so much the ones we talk about most, who have taken accommodationism as a public position. It is they to whom Leo Tolstoy was referring.
But our world is filled with quiet atheists who regard accommodation as the appropriate, civil, position. (I know this not only as a former accommodationist, but as a fucking Christian atheist.) What will bring them around is repeated exposure to the inanity of accommodationist gibberish. Personally, I will always be grateful to Terry Eagleton.
Teacher says that every time Michael Ruse says something really stupid, an atheist gets her nerve. That’s right, that’s right.
Ha! Eagleton, Ruse and Stanyard winning recruits for atheism. Poetic justice!
Roger does seem to be incapable of understanding analogies of any kind. He also seems to share with the Nick the inability to admit error. To err is human – are Nick and Roger not human?
gillt @ #18
I also keep rereading the comment you refer to. I read Larry’s statement, “I don’t recall saying any such thing to you,” as “I didn’t say that” because Larry goes on to say what he does recall.
I love Roger’s spelling of your as yourr. It’s as if he is so angry he is stuttering.
#18 gillt wrote, “Coyne, as far as I can tell, never accused [Stanyard] of lying–he asked Larry Moran if there was any truth to the extraordinary claim. Afterward Stanyard only descends further into incoherence.”
Well, this is Coyne calling Stanyard a liar:
Needless to say, the party broke up
As I said over at PZ’s place, I find it astonishing that two seemingly intelligent men (Stanyard & Matzke) should show themselves so extraordinarily incapable of hearing, let alone understanding, the really rather simple things that those they have chosen to regard as their opponents are advocating. The incapacity is so great, that the misunderstanding and misrepresentation truly seem willful.
I might have been ignoring this whole thing as just some tedious organisational infighting, if the accommodationists hadn’t actually lied about me, personally. They sure know how to make enemies.
I don’t know if they know how to make friends. Is there any evidence that their attempts at making friends with the moderate religious is actually working?
It must be tougher to be an accommodationist than I had suspected until recently. Why have so many of their spokespeople had nervous breakdowns in public, and why can’t they simply discuss their differences with fellow atheists without freaking out, telling lies, censoring blogs (while helping themselves to the uncensored comment privileges on the blogs of people they attack).
And why do they ignore questions that demand answers? I have to admit that this move drives me nuts. Taken together it’s a remarkably ugly picture, and I can’t help thinking that our opponents know they are coming off badly but don’t know what to do about it.
Oh but, you know, we’re different from the US.
Apparently.
It’s sad that Stanyard has enough clout to be taken seriously. In everyday situations, he wouldn’t be worth anybody’s time.
He’s just a brat.
Cath – I know what you mean!
ernie – that made me laugh. Why indeed.
ernie again
Exactly. Me too. That’s why I could not stop asking Chris Mooney those questions, thus prompting some of his commenters and then him to tell lies about me on his blog where I can’t dispute them.
He certainly did call him a liar.
Thanks Dave. Jerry Coyne posted that upstream I think. A con to embedded comment threads I guess.
This, what seems like, trend of communication train-wrecks the accommodationists appear particularly susceptible to had me wondering if it’s not only the message that is problematic but also the authoritarian, arrogant, superficially temperate, glad-handing personality type often associated with the message. By example, consider Mooney’s recent exchange with Matt Nisbett at the Intersection. Mooney’s replies to Nisbett’s persistence are largely self-satisfied assertion and aneccdote.
Wo, that post is really interesting…and funny.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/04/21/false-balance-in-matthew-nisbets-climate-shift-report/
Yes that’s annoying, isn’t it! Remind you of anything?
:- D
Nisbet to Mooney
Oh lordy it’s too funny…
I take it back, it’s not really funny. It’s kind of tragic in a way.
We two of science’s greatest self-promoting communication experts talking past one another (aka, staying on message) and belittling one each others’ work, and not accommodating one anothers’ viewpoint (or even acknowledging that it has merit) and doing it out in the open, as it were. It’s almost unseemly considering the extent both go to control perception.
In summary: the lack of self-awareness is astounding.
U r framing rong!
No u r!
No u!
U!
U!
etc
Wait…seriously?
(I haven’t read it all yet – damn multitasking…)
Nisbet to Mooney:
But – that’s what you’re supposed to do! That’s framing! It’s not supposed to be evil.
Wow. Physician heal thyself.
Since Coyne has closed the thread for further comments, I post a link here instead. Stanyard is still bloody livid with Dawkins, Coyne and, well everybody:
by Roger Stanyard » Tue Apr 26, 2011 8:07 am
“I have never in my life seen such a mob baying for blood. Not a single one of the hundreds of posters had even the slightest courage or balls to defend Nick Matzke. He has done a huge amount for sound science but, no, lets get him and call him to account for slighting Richard Dawkins. Guess who whinged about being slighted – Richard Dawkins. Guess what, he turns out to be a thousand times more offensive than Nick Matzke. Didums takes offensive and then starts screaming.There’s not a milligram of balls between the lot of them.”
http://www.forums.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2629
Stanyard is also wrong about caring about USA Culture Wars. Lessons are being learned by the UK based fundies, Australian PM John Howard learned a lot from George W, and the US religious right. Now almost every school in Australia has a Govt employed Chaplain. NO, not a youth worker, a Chaplain.
US Evangelicals are influencing policy in African countries and leading to the murder to people just because they are gay.
BCSE must have a low profile as I had never heard of them, as I have about Sense about Science. So far the impression is not a good one.
Roger is displaying two very different faces. There’s his slagging off of New Atheists, as Harry quotes, including RD, who’s now a lifelong enemy, apparently, and this after emailing RD to say:
…which Richard agreed to, despite the fact that it was his name Roger had taken in vain. That whole BCSE forum thread is a miasma of misunderstanding. Apparently one is only allowed to criticise them if one has spent the last five years on the specific mission of stopping creationism in schools. Nothing else. Stopping creationism would be going too far. There really are far too many holier-than-thou atheists knocking about the UK establishment.
I’m sorry, I keep reading BCSE as Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis. I try not to.
Rog has an unhealthy and unattractive obsession with balls.
I do not like him.
Whee – Rog is a piece of work. Richard Dawkins explained at Pharyngula:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/04/the_bcse_blows_up.php#comment-3719021
What a guy!
The BCSE, by the way, is just Roger with a website, along with a few people sending letters now and then. It’s not any kind of equivalent of the NCSE.
» Ophelia (#16): I hope Stanyard doesn’t think he’s presenting himself as a nice guy. I hope he’s not that confused!
Well, judge for yourself:
Oh dear, HTML fail. Could you just close that blockquote tag for me, Ophelia? Thanks! :)