He told us in a comment on the “omigod there are sock puppets here!!” thread yesterday that he had figured out what is going on and would write more soon. He didn’t do it soon, but he did it. He did say more.
He said yesterday “was quite a day.” Yes, it was. What made it quite for him, do you suppose? Was it realizing quite how many people hold him in contempt? Was it seeing all his efforts at concealment and carrying on as if nothing had happened, just turn into more blog fodder and more contempt? Well yes, probably. Other than that, there wasn’t anything particularly quite – unless of course his car broke down, but he didn’t mention that. Yes, probably he didn’t much enjoy seeing his continued stonewalling of me and his frantic deletion of comment after comment after comment bring him no satisfaction other than scorn and indignation.
To those legitimate commenters who were annoyed by bad behavior—and had reason to be!–I’m sorry we didn’t catch on to what was really happening before now. And I want to emphasize: That apology goes out to ANY commenters who may have encountered a sock puppet on our site.
No it doesn’t. That’s pure bullshit. Why? Because he’s still deleting posts for no good reason apart from the fact that they mention me. He’s still banning me – so the apology does not go out for instance to me, because you can’t apologize to people while still doing arbitrarily unreasonable things to them.
Now in a sense people’s blogs are their blogs, and they can delete anything they like and ban anyone they like. But in other senses it’s not so simple. Mooney and Kirshenbaum have made a specialty of telling off various named people, so in a sense they have a certain obligation to allow disagreement for the sake of fairness.
A big reason they should not have banned me, or should have lifted the ban soon after imposing it, is the fact that some members of their fan club – some of them William’s sock puppets – asserted that I was lying, then repeated it, then repeated it several times more. The ban meant that I had no ability to reply. M&K obviously liked it that way. That’s dirty.
Some people think “Chris, The demands for apologies are absurd….You were duped and he should apologize to you…But you apologize? Nonsense. These folks would have you apologize for having 10 fingers and 10 toes.” But those people are wrong. Mooney has been determinedly demonizing atheists as a group for more than a year, and in one post he relied on an obvious fraud to do so; yes he should apologize.
So we’re looking into ways of doing more, starting now. And because of that, commenting here may become a bit more challenging than before, at least temporarily…(For now, rest assured that if your comment is substantive, thoughtful, not an attack, etcetera, then it will appear fairly promptly, although not instantly of course.)
No it won’t; not necessarily. That’s a falsehood. Plenty of comments that fit that description have been deleted; many have been posted on other blogs for safekeeping.
In short, Mooney has learned nothing.
Comments
143 responses to “Mooney says what he has figured out”
In fairness, he hasn’t gotten to the Tom Johnson affair yet.
Maybe he won’t apologize to those who that story was designed to discredit.
Maybe his third post will be an apology to those who he has unfairly censored.
Maybe his fourth post will be a love poem for Dawkins.
*speculating in order of the increasingly speculative.*
Zach, you are a kind, but innocent soul. :-) Stick around longer, and you may become less so. From long experience, I don’t think Mooney will cop to his culpability. I’ll be happy to be publicly wrong and acknowledge that (irony) if that turns out not to be true.
/been around the block with Mooney disquistion
I’m afraid that I’m starting to agree, Slocum. I’ve been poring over the history of this entire thing with Mooney in the last few hours. He just flat out doesn’t like New Atheists. End of story.
Mind you Voch (I didn’t know we were on a last-name basis. . just kidding. . . I know why, and I don’t mind “Slocum”!!), I’m not criticizing your approach. You’ve been level-headed, you’ve investigated, and you’ve reserved judgment until you’ve had enough time to look at the circumstances. I wouldn’t expect anyone to jump on a tribal bandwagon without that. Would that other commentators took the same care.
And my typos are getting downright embarrassing. I do know the English language, and I do know the proper (if increasingly neglected) forms of the subjunctive. Ahem:
Chalk it up to posting while captivated with The Drama.
Seems to me that Mooney’s unsupported claims that New Atheists might have been equally guilty of sockpuppeting are not only a fallacy of false hypothetical equivalency but also possible cover for him to memory hole more comments that are already currently posted.
I also see that my comments to the housekeeping thread are not only out of moderation but they are just plain out. Chris Mooney wisdom: New Atheist Scientists are the enemy of science. The War on Science is Peace. We have always been at war with Oceania. Etc. With his frequent memory holing I’m beginning to think of Mooney as a Little Brother.
Thanks for the compliments : D
I’ll still be reading The Intersection, but I might refrain from commenting there in the future, at least as far as topics related to `New Atheists’ are concerned. Even with the Williams Family away on vacation, the neighborhood is still a little rough. There is still Jon, and J.J. Ramsey, and David, and several others who seem to lack any seriousness; they are open and committed partisans. TB is a hit and miss… We’ve recently done well with conversation, but his treatment of Ophelia (along with Ramsey and Kwok) is the lead up to her ban from The Intersection. He appears to side with Mooney on about everything, which is a little discouraging. Apparently, Mooney “shared evidence” with him as well. They must be on very good terms, so as far as criticism of Mooney goes, I can not take TB too seriously, either.
The insistence on productive dialogue by Mooney has had few effects outside of irony. There are fewer serious ethical issues around Crackergate than the Sockpuppet/Tom Johnson affair. Add in the more serious charge of selective censorship and dismissal of critics while allowing terrible (yet agreeable) behavior by the “regular(s),” and I have to ask, Crackerwhatnow?
I’ll stop there for now. I wait until Mooney’s next post at least for my epic rant.
Yeah, the implication that those posting to be critical of him were also sock-puppets is pretty poor. If there are examples, though, I’d like to see them; if he just keeps on insisting that there ‘must have been’ without presenting specific names/threads then he’s going to continue to lose credibility – and readership.
That would be quite ironic – the one who pushes communication as the most important aspect becomes the one no-one listens to.
It is already quite ironic that “the one who pushes communication as the most important aspect” listens to no one, if the comments are in any way critical.
Zachary (or, may I call you Voch?) @4:
I’ll reiterate the props for taking time to paw through the ‘dustbin of history’ and come to your own conclusions. I’m assuming from what you’ve posted that you have only backtracked as far as the events surrounding the release of the CM/SK opus ‘Unscientific American’ last summer. I’m not suggesting you waste more time on this, but if you have both the time and the inclination to waste it, there is more…much, much more, going back to ‘Crackergate’ the year before, and even before that the now infamous ‘Framing Wars’, in which scientists (like me) were excoriated for being so, so wrong about the way we communicated science to the public. It was ugly and sad–I and many of my colleagues who care passionately about science literacy, and who agree wholeheartedly that science communication and education can and should be better were completely turned off. Basically, Chris, along with his erstwhile co-framer Matt Nisbett, alienated the lot of us with the now all-too-familiar ‘othering’ and ‘I-know-better-than-you-ing’, again, without presenting a single viable alternative, without responding to any of the earnest questions or critiques of his ideas. *Sigh* It still galls me to think of it.
Haha just as you said that to me, Jen… I was looking at this, comment #36 by Chris Mooney back in October:
Yeah, my other nick of choice would have been the “varchivist”. I’m an infophile.
Well then, varchivist, without further ado, I present:
The Motherlode
http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/04/onestop_shopping_for_the_frami.php
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2009/be-careful-what-you-wish-for/
There you go, Jen.
Oh, this is very delicious indeed. C&K are no longer letting my comments through at their place–I had one on the ‘housekeeping’ thread earlier that hovered in moderation forever before disappearing completely, (QED). BUT, the current first comment on the latest ‘explanation’ is from someone else copy-pasting (with credit) a comment I made on Pharyngula yesterday. Ha! Thank you, Trojan Horse named ‘grungor’, whoever you are. Mwahahahaha
He doesn’t have #4 as a serious option, so we’ll see if he goes to #5. The “part 1” didn’t accomplish anything novel outside of speculating that “both sides” were up to sockpuppetry. I guess newer isn’t always better.
I don’t have high hopes for the Tom post, or for admission of error generally. I hope that Oedipus was already told what William did to fool Mooney so that whatever Mooney says can be fact checked to some degree. Unfortunately, the only two really in-the-know are partisans.
This is odd. He’s very circumspect about what he’s doing to stop sockpuppetry; to me, it sounds like the only immediate changes are going to be in the direction of moderating based on content, not checking IPs or anything. But the comments from William’s socks were fairly substantive–maybe not thoughtful–and Mooney, at least, probably wouldn’t recognize them as “attacks” because of their civil tone and their Mooney-friendly ideological correctness (New Atheists = mean). They were exactly the sort of comments that would get approved quickly under this new system of moderation. So how is this “substantive, thoughtful, not an attack” thing going to help him guard against sockpuppets?
(FWIW, I appear to have had a comment rejected just for referring to Ophelia, not even by name, but by description. My comment was something like: “YNH was You’re Not Helping, where William both wrote and commented with sockpuppet attacks on well-known New Atheists, including PZ, Jerry Coyne, and a blogger whose name is verboten here (for reasons I find incomprehensible).” Guess they didn’t like that.)
I just read a couple of comments on my blog from Oedipus in which he tells me that I called it right last year when I told Chris, literally, “There’s one born every minute.” This was regarding the spurious and implausible Tom Johnson story.
Look, there have been times when I’ve said things to or about Chris Mooney in moments of anger or frustration, or whatever, and later felt bad about it. It’s not normally my style, and I don’t think he’s an evil person, although I do think his treatment of PZ in his book was pretty damn treacherous … but anyway, there but for the grace of Zeus go I. We can all misjudge situations from time to time. I just hope he will learn from this experience. One thing to learn would be that his judgment is imperfect and that some of the dreaded New Atheists may call it better than he does in certain kinds of situations. This was a good example.
How about it, Chris, if you read this (and I expect you will)? Are you now prepared to accept that your judgment on these things is contaminated by a pervasive bias? Surely your confidence must be shaken to some extent, and we’d think more highly of you if you were open about it.
And I must say that I’m now LMAO reading the attacks by “Luke Vogel” on my brief comment to Mooney back during the Tom Johnson trainwreck. :D
If Mooney had time to type his “Housekeeping Note”, as well as this longer message, why didn’t he have time to simply type up an explanation and apology and get it over with?
There are also at this time only 7 comments on the housekeeping thread, and only 13 on th “More on sockpuppets” thread. I doubt there really were that few submissions. That’s not “making it more challenging to comment”, that’s “making it near impossible to comment”. Although I have to admit I’m amazed there are any comments at all. For quite a while, it looked as if “full moderation” meant “all comments will be rejected”.
Anyone remember how, a while back, Mooney promised us a multi-part re-evaluation of framing ? And how multi-part turned out to be two parts before Mooney got fed up with criticism he could not answer ?
Anyone want a bet this could go the same way ?
<blockquote>Thank you, Trojan Horse named ‘grungor’, whoever you are</blockquote>
You’re welcome. Your’s was a truly prophetic comment, and I suppose it’s possible that Mooney even read it. But I somehow doubt it. I have never, pre or post sock-puppet gate, gotten a comment through moderation at the intersection, save that one. One where I rather lamely copy/pasted someone else’s comment. Oh well, I guess that’s pretty much par for the course over there.
You’re being very generous about this, Russell. I presume you’ll be saying something a little less tentative when the long-awaited post regarding TJ actually appears.
I wonder what I would do if my career rested on the claim that certain people are wrong and then incontrovertible evidence surfaced that would prove they had been right on an important issue about which we had clashed and they had warned me I was falling for a scam.
For a person who merely makes a mistake, it’s not such a big deal to say so, apologise, and do better in future. Mooney did a lot more than make a mistake, and he has a lot more riding on this than just acknowledging one. I mention all this merely in case anyone is actually laying money on what the reaction will be and when it will come.
Mr. Mooney might start to feel somewhat uncomfortable at PoI. After all, don’t people at CfI tend to think “inquiry” as something else than collecting anecdotes to confirm bias?
I would have thought so. At the very least I doubt they would consider asking someone if they are telling the truth to be a rigorous method of enquiry.
Stewart, the comment last year in which I mocked him for believing the Tom Johnson story wasn’t at all generous – though it’s turned out to be correct (not that I was the only one who thought it was wildly implausible). I’ve also been slower to absolve “William” than some – as you saw over on Oedipus’ blog – and I think he’s still hiding something. Maybe even something important.
Chris Mooney has a lot to answer for. His treachery to PZ is part of it, likewise his ongoing ban of Ophelia (you just don’t ban an interlocutor as serious as Ophelia if you have such a prominent blog; I can be arbitrary in my little private club, but Mooney has Discover magazine behind him and as certain standard to meet), and much else. I blame him for setting off the current phase of the distracting accommodation wars and wasting much of our time.
But, yeah, I’m willing to ask him in a civil way to reflect on this experience and work out what he learns about himself.
They’re throwing up xkcd comics that are over a month old now. Are they trying to distract us now? The title is “Worst case scenario”, and when I saw it before seeing the comic, I couldn’t help but wonder if they were talking about the worst case scenario for their credibility…
Right, Russell, I’m familiar with the comment from then and I did mean right now when I mentioned generosity. It was a non-facetious acknowledgement that you were being much more restrained than the circumstances would demand of you. A lot of damage was done here (not all of it visible on the surface) and there are some adjustments to make now that the smoke is clearing. Whether or not any basic goodwill exists should become evident by what those adjustments are.
“Seems to me that Mooney’s unsupported claims that New Atheists might have been equally guilty of sockpuppeting are not only a fallacy of false hypothetical equivalency but also possible cover for him to memory hole more comments that are already currently posted.”
He can’t place an outright ban on sockpuppeting because the appearance of a “grassroots” anti-“New Atheist” movement suits his purposes. At this point I am forced to assume that he is acting as an astroturfer for Templeton and other moneyed religious interests.
I think that’s a bit too generous, Russell. Sure, we can all misjudge situations from time to time, but Mooney has been 1) bashing “the New Atheists” and 2) ignoring all criticism, disagreement, fact-checking, advice etc etc etc for more than a year. If you start counting from the Nisbet period it’s what, three years? This isn’t an occasional temporary misjudgment, it’s a sustained campaign combined with sustained stonewalling of opposition. He’s a Name journalist, so he’s in a position to do a lot of damage, and he’s using it. I think that stinks.
No need for accusations of financially motivated impropriety, dzd: cognitive biases are quite adequate as an explanation. No doubt in Mooney’s case the fact that he is financially invested in his position through his books, his professional reputation, his alignment with the Templeton Foundation etc etc help to reinforce his cognitive blind spot (which is the size of New South Wales), but accusations of astroturfing take that to another level and really need to be supported by evidence.
Is that really Jean Kazez replying to my comment on Mooney’s blog? Jean is usually smarter than that … and it’s going to be even harder for Chris Mooney to learn from this experience if he’s got otherwise-smart people telling him that of course Johnson’s story was plausible, blah, blah. It was never plausible and we told him so. We were right.
Regarding my comment (#35) on the previous B&W thread, it appears that I’ve now joined the chorus of Mooney critics whose comments have been censored at The Intersection. No longer awaiting moderation, my submission for the “More on Sock Puppets” thread is just gone.
Ah, well.
Apparently Mooney’s stricter moderation is intended only to prevent criticism of himself. Even nice criticism. If you look at the comments under the aforementioned post they only talk about the fact that sockpuppets were present, not the actual issue. The following comment did not make it past the moderators:
“I think the issue here is not whether there were sock puppets posting in threads; this could happen in the comment section of any blog. I think the important issue here is the use of unmoderated and unverified comments for the furthering of an ideological argument posited under the facade of journalistic integrity. Nobody has the time to check the references of everything that they read, that is part of the reason that journalists are valuable; they do it for us. I would hate to believe that I have to treat stories from sources which I believed reputable in the same way as stories from sources such as FOX news.”
Well, part two is up now. It does contain the words “apologize” and “sorry”, but I’m not quite sure he understands what he should be apologizing for.
Yes, that really is Jean Kazez. She told me on her blog last summer (when I pointed out that Mooney had banned me at The Intersection) that I had been “beating the drum very loudly” – with the implication that the ban was therefore quite reasonable. She also said on her blog – more than once – that it doesn’t matter that M&K left out some of the facts in their account of Crackergate (facts that explain why PZ did it) because their point was to say that PZ is naughty and he really is naughty. As you said – “No wonder I lose patience with you accommodationists.”
So-called! That from the guy who loses no opportunity to throw mud at “the New Atheists”!
I posted a brief comment there. It won’t appear of course, so here it is for the record.
Yes you did, actually. You had ample reason to suspect there was sock puppetry going on here, because of the echo chamber effect. There was too much echoing going on – people sounded more alike than they do on normal blogs.
And now Mooney has memory-holed his post thanking TJ, which Oedipus has fortunately archived and will make available.
Just checked the Inter-sock-tion, and saw that Mooney’s next Part is up: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/07/09/sock-puppets-and-tom-johnson-part-ii/
Only skimmed it, but I’m confused. He claims he “correctly” verified the identity of “Tom Johnson,” but he also believe that “William” made up the story of being a grad student. I don’t see how Mooney was correct, but the TJ story was made up. It sounds like Mooney verified that “Tom Johnson” was real, but didn’t verify that he was actually conversing with the real “Tom Johnson.” Which, of course, means he was completely *wrong*!
Can’t spend much more time on this at the moment, but hopefully I’ve alerted our crack team of skeptical investigators to Mooney’s latest obfuscations!
It’s confusing. First he says “Tom” gave him lots of details about his work, what he’s published, etc. Then later he says “Tom” isn’t a case of identity theft and really is who he said he was then. Then he says he’s very young. ? If he’s very young then he couldn’t have the career and publications etc etc that he told Mooney he had last year. So I’m confused. That doesn’t add up.
Also – this guy couldn’t really have much in the way of publications, because his writing isn’t good enough. His thinking isn’t good enough. He’s credible as a not very talented student, but he’s certainly not credible as more than that.
It’s confusing.
Heh! You and me both, Joe.
This is what I posted (and what will probably never show up either):
Also posted, likewise prob won’t be approved. Though I’ve tried not to be too antagonistic (to the point of being disingenuous myself).
Wow, Mooney’s conclusions were brilliant. He didn’t have to memory hole the posts, though.
And Stewart, I updated my post to include the first comment you sent me.
Greetings Ophelia, this is my first time posting here, though I’ve looked in in the past.
I’ve been attempting to post on several of the Intersection threads in the last couple of days, but everything of mine has been black-holed and then disappeared from the moderation queue.
If you ask me, I suspect any posts from authors that are not automatically approved (the last time I posted there was in March, so presumably that’s long enough to lapse) are being summarily deleted if they appear to be from the New Atheist Comment Machine – and Pharyngulites such as myself are thus simply not welcome, whether we have anything helpful to suggest or not.
In response to the poster upthread, Deen at #20, it is safe to say that the comments on most of the recent threads should be quite a bit more numerous – but Mooney has retreated into the bomb shelter and is blocking stuff out willy-nilly. The only stuff that’s getting through are from posters who have gotten over the moderation hurdle in the recent past.
Regards, Philip
@outeast: nope, yours came through. Mine’s gone now, but maybe that’s just because I hit refresh, and it’s now hidden from me like it’s been hidden from everyone else. We’ll see.
I’ll add that I’m finding it hard to reconcile William’s own description of himself from his fulsome mea culpas with what Mooney seems to be implying about who he really is. OTOH, maybe if he’s some youthful prof from Bob Jones University or some other similarly prestigious and intellectually rigorous institution? That would fit the admissions that he has no professional experience and so on, after all…
So Mooney’s latest says that William gave him *his* details as ‘Tom Johnson’, so he possibly did check that ‘Tom Johnson’ existed, by contacting, er, William, I guess? Little suggestion that he understands the serious consequences of his actions, though.
Considering the waste of time and disruption it causes, sometimes I think accommodationism is an elaborate ruse maintained by a mysterious religious world order, whose tentacles stretch across the world from a mysterious mini-state, immune to national laws and morality, massively wealthy, with long corridors in ornate palaces from which to plot. Can’t think of any candidates though.
It seems I might have joined Ophelia in being banned from commenting at The Intersection. If I have been, it is an honour to be in such company.
He still does not get it does he ?
Thanks, Zach, for whatever it’s worth.
Mooney is being confusing, but I think he is trying to tell us he knows William/Tom’s real identity. Every time a question mark seems to disappear, its disappearance calls a bunch of new ones into existence. Almost every aspect of this story smells of lying oneself into ever deeper holes.
Interesting, Deen. I wonder what the criteria are? (It may be relevant that I’ve never commented at the Intersection, at least not since the early days of the Framing Wars; so I won’t have been marked as a footsoldier in the New Atheist Crusade.)
My question for Mooney is simple…
The first thing that came to mind that should have been foolproof is the university email for the grad student William sent him.
Hahahaha Mark.
@outeast in #54: I have no clue what criteria they use. I’ve not posted there for a long time either (I gave up when I found out that Mooney’s most vocal supporters are trolls, but nevertheless appeared to get a lot more leeway than the other commenters), so that can’t be it. It’s also not disrespectful or foul language, which used to be their usual excuse for moderation. It seems like almost random now.
Uhm, that was at outeast in #52 of course.
Well, there’s still sawdust leaking from every pore.
Mooney:
“William” on July 7
Those two items are radically incompatible. Not even the Templeton Foundation could bring them together.
I won’t even say it…
I have been trying to comment at The Intersection to ask just how Mooney manages it. He is not letting my comments through.
If I am correctly interpreting the vague mush of Mooney’s “explanation”, Mooney is claiming that the identity Tom gave him was actually Tom’s. That is, he’s is saying there was no identity theft, and that the personal details he received were accurate:
As others have pointed out, this claim doesn’t completely line up with other things Mooney has said about “William”, or with what “William has said about himself. Of course, all this would be clearer if Mooney simply said something like “I checked the email address Tom sent me correspondence from, and it tallied with the university address for the person he claimed to be.” This vagueness simply makes things all the more suspicious.
Reading PtII I can only come to the conclusion Mooney is not being entirely honest.
Granted, “Johnson” was on my side of the so-called New Atheist/accommodationist issue. However, after some questioned his original story, I took the step of confirming his identity, as this individual provided great detail about who he was, where he worked, what he’d published, and much else.
Tom Johnson admitted to lying about his background:
When Chris contacted me, I made up a story about being a grad. student as an explanation about where the story came from because I didn’t want the Tom character to get exposed as false. As Paul W. said above, some of the stuff I said as Tom and how I said it should make it glaringly obvious in hindsight that I have no experience with anything in the professional world, and that the story and “Tom” character are both caricatures. That’s probably why no one took the story seriously anyway when I said it months ago.
Mooney now claims to have verified Tom Johnson’s identity, yet if Johnson provided him with who he was, where he worked and what he had published… you see the problem.
Mooney claimed to have been given details, details which I am assuming he checked far enough to note that the published work was in fact published and had the right name on it, yet here Johnson is saying he has no experience in the professional world.
Ah, the Tom Johnson post is up. Mea Culpa? Not so much. More of the Typical Mooney Mash, where the only thing he did wrong was to be too trusting and be victimized by a liar whom he forgives because the liar has been hurt enough. Awwww pooor frickin’ babies. It’s not like Mooney is an internationally known science writer or experienced journalist or anything.
I’ve posted this to Intersocktion. We’ll see if it get’s through:
Shorter Chris Mooney: I’m sorry I was victimized.
Yes, yes, because blogposts, even at Discover Magazine’s site by an internationally known science journalist, are just blog posts–no need for them to be based on facts or anything. You are taking Greg Laden’s line on this, the “it’s just a blog post” excuse. A blog is a format, not an excuse for posting and **endorsing** the veracity of fallacious material, then excoriating those who continued to disbelieve the fallacious material after you falsely “confirmed” the identity of the poster. Note how you are utterly vague about what, exactly, you did to confirm his identity other than read what he directed you to. Did you write him at his university email? Or call him via his departmental phone? It would seem you did no such thing, yet you continue to play the outraged victim of a mess that you are an active party to.
Well, in non-revisionist reality, “Tom Johnson’s” story was fishy from the outset and **immediately** questioned by commenters and bloggers **before* you “elevated” it to a post. There was every reason to suspect it. And if you really posted it as being “one individual’s experience and point of view, and nothing more” without any evidence that it was in any way representative then there was no point to your blog post other than a prejudicial attack on New Atheists for being so mean, nasty and counter productive to science.
And by “tak[ing] the step of confirming his identity” you mean believing whatever he told without checking to be sure he was who he said he was. Did you call him at his departmental phone number or email him at his departmental email or the mailto at the website he may have directed you to? You know, standard fact-checking methods that aren’t based on the assumption that a person is already telling the truth? Obviously not, or you’d have said so in your not so mea culpa.
Wow, quite the opposite of a mea culpa. It could still be true. You were deceived. But don’t hold it against you or “Tom Johnson,” he’s been hurt enough. (Lying to falsely smear New Atheists is hard work., don’t ya know….) Why not get back to us when you can see beyond your own hubris and can **actually* apologize for your own biases and irresponsible journalism used in your campaign to falsely smear overt atheist scientists.
I posted the following to Mooney in the hopes he reads it in moderation just to be fair to him – you know, give him a chance to clarify that post because so far all I see on the comments to him are sycophants who may tell him what he wants to hear, but not what he needs to.
@Ophelia Benson in #58: no, it doesn’t add up at all. Of course, William/Tom is a known and admitted straight-faced liar, while Mooney is more the misrepresent-and-ignore kind of guy, so (as much as I hate to say it) I’m willing to give Mooney the benefit of the doubt here.
He still has a lot of explaining to do, though.
I find it very hard to accept the excuse “it is just a blog”, especially from Mooney who has made much of blogs as a new Web 2.0 form of communication that may well partially replace conventional journalism. If we do not expect people to have standards when blogging then what use are they ? Would a scientist be allowed to get away with fabricating data on a blog for example ? I am sure Mooney would rightly criticise any scientist who did so.
Another attempt at commenting:
Given the fact that there are so many questions, and only ten comments have appeared so far, I’m not holding my breath.
@Matt Penfold in #66:
It’s even worse due to the fact that Mooney doesn’t appear to appreciate what makes blogs more interesting than other forms of journalism: reader interaction. He pretty much admits to hardly giving the comment section any attention.
Deen
I am inclined to trust Tom’s version, he is gloating over an accomplishment. I mean the phrase should have been glaringly obvious…
He just called Mooney an idiot.
That is very odd from someone who is so keen on dialogue. Or is Mooney using dialogue to mean he speaks and everyone else listens ?
Reading this makes me feel better:
From Why Truth Matters (Continuum: 2006) by Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom, Chapter 8, ‘Why Truth Matters’, pp. 178-181.
Dean,
:- )
@Bruce Gorton: I wouldn’t trust Tom/William if he said that the sky was blue without looking outside to check. I’m not saying that Mooney’s trustworthy, he’s just not an admitted bald-faced liar yet. Mooney at least still thinks he’s telling the truth as he sees it – which I think might even be worse, in a way. As they say, at least the liar cares about what the truth is.
I’ve noticed how uninvolved Mooney is in the comment threads. I remember him stating in a thread last year that he would comment more if the conversation was as civil as this one (which had Tom Johnson in there for irony’s sake).
Actually, he’s just unresponsive in general. Critics make specific arguments, and he sends them a friendly review or endorsement that doesn’t answer the argument. Alternatively, “read my book.”
And if you’re persistent, you might find yourself banned.
He just doesn’t strike me as remotely interested in anything anybody has to say unless it supports his thesis.
As for the frustrated critics, they vainly flop around in the comment section, dealing with trolls, and formerly, William, but not much else.
He is interested in other blogs (even the comments) when they appear to prove his point. Apart from that…
I have an idea, and it would explain a lot. Does everybody remember comment #34, by TB? He gets inside information from Mooney? He is a long timer there at The Intersection, is he not? Just prior to Ophelia’s ban, it was his accusations against Ophelia to which she was unable to respond. I think he might be a moderator at The Intersection.
Anybody know where/when TB first showed up?
Deen,
Yes, but I think William’s point that it’s obvious he doesn’t have the professional experience he pretended to have is pretty convincing. Yes, it is obvious. The guy is not a published writer.
I’m not claiming that Mooney is being dishonest here though, I think he might just have been incoherent.
@Zachary Voch in #74:
From the few times I’ve gotten involved in threads over at Intersection, I’ve gotten the impression that TB is a sycophant that is only slightly less trollish than Kw*k and McCarthy.
Deen
I am more inclined to trust liars gloating over a con than bullshitters out to save face. The thing is that as Ophelia puts it, it really was obvious.
I am probably being hasty though, possibly born of a distinct dislike of Mooney’s spin-doctoring. Lets see if he ever clarifies.
Oh, by the way everybody, when this all dies down how about we refer to this as the case of the rock’em sock’em accomodationists?
About 3 months after The Intersection moved to Discover, posting under his actual name for awhile before switching to TB.
Pharyngula has pretty much settled on Toxic Sock Syndrome (as suggested by trey.cheotomy). You are of course free to come up with your own, but I still think it wins the internets.
Win!
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/07/27/some-more-words-to-the-new-atheist-blogosphere-on-unscientific-america/#comments
Interestingly, TB called for Benson to be banned @104:
“Benson is a troll – she’s added nothing to the conversation and deliberately misleads people about the content of the book. She has her own site to do that on – ban her here. She is a guest and has grossly abused the privileges of a guest. You owe her and the rest of the trolls nothing except contempt (which, to your credit, you have not chosen to employ.)”
July 7th, here, is where I first find TB; http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/07/06/lessons-from-dawkins-vs-degrasse-tyson/#comments
He doesn’t appear in May or June 2009. His first act seems to have been defending UA, and his second act seems to be defending the treatment of critics by Mooney.
Was he active on other blogs prior to July 2009?
Ah, thanks Paul.
Looks like Mooney has removed the two “Tom Johnson” posts from his site. I hope somebody has saved them. If so, please note that here.
Thx.
@Jerry Coyne in #83: according to comments on The Budda is Not Serious, Mooney just included broken links. The pages are still there. Nonetheless, several people have archive these pages just in case.
Bruce Gorton
The word *published* is loosely used by grad students as far as I know. Some of the work you do as an RA or TA is *published* – need not necessarily be a professional publication and grad students also use the term *worked* to refer to an assistantship. Of course I’m being charitable here.
I still find it surprising he says
Instead of
He’s more interested in justifying what happened , rather than making an apology , admitting to his biases and moving on.
And immediately before the Toxic Sock entry, we get one that made me shriek with laughter –
The Science of Kissing the Last Shred of Your Credibility Goodbye.
@Deepak Shetty in #85: don’t forget keeping those darn uncivil comments of their site. No new comments have appeared for hours now.
Heh, just as I was typing the previous comment, they allowed another ten to be released from moderation.
Ophelia
Accomodationism: We, ourselves and I.
Deen
I gave up on the comments part, much before this incident , after I found it to be completely arbitrary. Even reasonable comments sometimes didn’t sometimes make it, way before this incident.
Since I also happen to believe that you can do whatever the heck you want on your blog, I’m not complaining about the comments.
My latest attempt at posting on Mooney’s blog has gone into oblivion. I really tried to be civil, but I’m beginning to suspect Mooney will never let me post on his blog again. This is what I wanted to tell him:
Darron – exactly. I said that here last October! One source – anonymous – on a contentious subject – red flag after red flag! It is so Journalism 101. And thus by extension, it’s basic epistemology. He had every reason to remember what an editor would think about that story.
I said it here and if I hadn’t been banned I would have said it there, and if he had paid attention he would be looking like less of a dishonest hack now. But nooooooooooooooo.
Mooney sez:<blockquote>People seem very confused about what happened (though TB gets it).While I cannot publicly show the evidence in my possession, I can share it with trusted people who also respect the need to keep it private. Jean Kazez is one, and she also understands the storyhttp://kazez.blogspot.com/2010/07/truth-about-tom-johnson.html</blockquote>Really? He really thinks that PZ Myers or Ophelia Benson would publicize the information? No, he gives it to Jean Kazez because she already was on the Intersection defending how reasonable Mooney was <b>before</b> he shared the Tom Johnson information with her.
I swear I clicked HTML editor style before entering the above, FWIW.
Also, note that Mooney’s correction still doesn’t include what types of verification he performed, just that he “checked him out”. He doesn’t even say that he did any verification independent of the information Tom Johnson provided for him.
(sorry for the comment flood, I should have paused and collected thoughts first)
Where’s this, Paul?
Mooney’s post.
And good god, I just read Jean’s post. The highlight, for me:
Really? All that is needed is to confirm you were at a location to be believable when you say something unreasonable has happened. If I say there was a UFO over Salt Lake City, confirming I was in fact in Salt Lake City makes it clear I could have witnessed it?
I am going to add something here – if anybody posting here can post at Mooney’s blog because I haven’t seen this highlighted:
Which is to say that William admitted to that story specifically being a lie but Mooney and his following are still acting like it could be true.
Or am I reading that wrong?
Mooney did everything he ought to have done under the circumstances. He explained it to us, in a way that confused the hell out of us, because of all the apparent contradictions with what he told us before and William/Tom told us subsequently. But fortunately, we still know it’s ok and above board because, although there is no way to release any of the communications involved to a wider audience, even with identifying details obscured, Mooney has made at least two people privy to the evidence, TB and Jean Kazez, and they have vouched for it and are unimpeachable in this regard because their attitude to Mooney thus far completely eliminates the slightest possibility of bias in his favour.
Case closed.
I’m so glad that’s finally over and done with.
I’ve archived the “Tom Johnson” posts and the cached versions of them (Google cached one of them on July 1st and one on July 2nd), if anyone wants them (although it sounds like plenty of people have already done the same thing). If Mooney has removed any comments, etc., in the past few days, comparing the current pages to the cached ones should reveal that.
I think that the fact that Mooney published this story in the first place – that it didn’t trigger his BS detector, and that he found the levels of ‘proof’ he was given to be adequate – may provide a real insight into his stance in the Great War generally.He seems to have really found the description of agressive, mocking, spitting atheists credible on the face of it. It’s not, of course – isolated incidents possibly; there are arseholes everywhere. But a pattern of such behaviour is implausible on the face of it because most people, no matter how stongly they feel, remain civil in face-to-face communication.But that he saw it as so believable suggests he really, truly sees the ‘New Atheists’ as that agressive, as that out of control, as that pathological. Frankly if I thought that was the behaviour being evinced then I would be aligning with him…I still think his position arises from cognitive biases – especially from a kind of irrational escalation of commitment – but he does seem convinced that the New Atheists are loud and obnoxious in a way that goes far beyond assertive blog posts and provocatively-titled books and well into the realms of antisocial behaviour. (That’s assuming he elevated that anecdote in good faith, of course; but I see no cause to doubt that.)I find it interesting to speculate that Mooney’s now-evident vulnerability to cognitive bias escaped scrutiny earlier in his career because his thesis (the war on science jazz) appealed to our own (liberal, pro-science) confirmation bias. There were certainly criticisms from those on the Dark Side: perhaps in some cases those were right (I’m not interested enough to go back and check, though).
Yes, I just read Jean’s post too. I could vomit. Her retort to Russell was bad enough, but this…
Greetings, Philip (comment 47). Your comment was delayed for a bit. Maybe your name?! hahaha
Ophelia, trust you’ve seen Jean’s direct reply to your comment. I’m not convinced.
And, on the earlier matter where she seems to be trying to clarify (this is kind of what I thought Mooney was trying to say, but he was lousy at it – communicator!), even if showing the evidence would ruin a career, that still doesn’t explain why absolutely not the tiniest snippet has been shown. Go ahead, withhold what could identify, but showing zilch, saying, in essence, there’s evidence, but you have take that fact on faith (where have I heard that before?) and these two apostles have witnessed the evidence and the rest of you will not be given even enough to believe my hands aren’t completely empty…
Surely this is important enough to them to put in the few minutes it would take to remove the identifying details from a few convincing pieces of correspondence. Doing it the way they are simply creates more suspicion. Wouldn’t they want to avoid that, if they could?
Thanks Miranda! Very useful. :- )
You know what? I don’t care if it messes up his career! I’m not a bit sure it shouldn’t do exactly that. This level of sustained lying and abuse? Singling out a woman for obscene and malicious sliming, day after day? This is an academic? I don’t think his identity should be protected for the sake of his career!
Ophelia,
Your feelings are (more than) understandable, but I don’t feel that this event should be a defining moment in William’s career.
Echoing what I’ve already said, his personal information isn’t necessary for determining whether or not Mooney made any serious effort to find out the truth. I’m not sure of what is to be gained by outing him.
Ophelia
I would string it together but I think you could do it better: Does the following remind you of anything? Because it sure reminds me of what is going on with Jean, TB and Mooney.
“The Scientific Impotence Excuse“
Zach, it’s not that I’m outing him, it’s that I don’t think Mooney and Kazez get to say “Trust us, it’s all true, but you have to trust us, we have all this evidence but we can’t show it to you because we don’t want to mess up his career.”
If his career is as an academic it damn well should be defining because all this stuff is totally inimical to being a decent academic. Period. I thought he was a student, and then I favored identity protection. But if he’s Mr Bigshot Academic – that’s a whole different thing. He’s sick in the head; he shouldn’t be teaching. He has a pathological hatred of women. He’s a dedicated liar. That’s not academic material.
I don’t think people are getting what you are talking about, not viscerally anyway. If you could quote some of those instances you might be able to convince some of the pro-cover up crowd that “Tom Johnson” needs to be held accountable for his own entirely voluntary actions.
outeast,
If you try and actually visualise the TJ anecdote it becomes still less plausible. Do I think two or more atheists together might discuss theists disrespectfully? Absolutely. Could they be ruthless in their criticism of theists in a public forum? Well, we’ve all seen this happen, haven’t we, and a damned good job some of them do, too. But that anecdote reduces grown-ups to the level of kindergarten children. Here, I fished out some bits, though one of the most important things TJ emphasised was not so much the alleged incident (which did a bit of metamorphosing), but the fact that the perpetrators were so explicitly inspired by the hated NA bloggers who are so intemperate in their scorn for religion. Oh, yes, and this delicious turn-about, where TJ, after telling an anecdote that accuses NAs of childishly bad behaviour and being told it doesn’t sound plausible, maintains that:
So, what do we have here?
Top of one’s lungs is pretty difficult to stop lots of people noticing, but shortly after that, it’s:
however, despite all the top-of-lungs stuff,
We are in good hands, because:
People noticed the metamorphosis, however:
And just so it’s clear how many other inconsistencies were picked up and addressed back then, here’s:
Oh, and do atheists laugh at things believed by theists? Well, how the hell can they help it? A lot of it is simply risible, period. But loud, forced laughter, like TJ described? (“… mock the religious to their face, shout forced laughter at them…,” “They do, however, make it a habit of guffawing (in an overly loud and obviously forced nature) when believers make a comment they don’t agree with…”). Oh, right, the one-time recalled anecdote about that is also a “habit.”
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Chris Hallquist, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Mooney says what he has figured out http://dlvr.it/2RXlQ […]
I agree that Mooney and Kazez and TB don’t get to decide that the evidence would convince a skeptic. I’ve pointed out examples of things which should have been failsafes if the context of “grad student” is correct, and they would have been easy to do, and by all appearances, Mooney bought William’s story rather credulously. His idea of verification was “ask him in different ways,” and it was silly.
The point is that the above judgment doesn’t require the publication of the complete correspondence.
If his problems are as serious as they appear to be, they should manifest themselves in person before he is placed in a trusted position. I’m fairly sure that they will, personally. If they never do, then this issue isn’t relevant to his career.
He has a pathological hatred of people who disagree with him, and he’ll descend to sexism (and also outing of others) if it suits his purposes. Those traits will be pretty obvious if they show up down the line, so again, I don’t think that revealing his personal details is necessary.
I know it’s much easier for me to say than it would be for you, and if I had been in your position, I would probably say the same (actually, probably worse).
And I’ve seen the stuff, Josh.
Also, if he is revealed, we can expect a followup story (true or not) similar to this:
“Oh, the NAs harassed me and my family and emailed administration and professors and ruined my social life.”
Which will be transformed in a few months by those who weren’t here to something like:
“NAs routinely out and ruin critics who cross them. They want blood.”
We have to weigh these concerns against whatever it is that can be gained by full disclosure.
What did I just write up there?
“there’s evidence, but you have take that fact on faith (where have I heard that before?)”
And that was before I saw Jean’s:
“You have to just imagine what I mean, because I can’t give details.”
No, Jean, you’ll have to give details, because I just can’t imagine what you mean.
All this, to prevent any damage being done to the career of an honest, upstanding youth, who would be unfairly hurt if anyone were ever to get the false idea that he is not 100% trustworthy. Such a thing might – I dread even to think it – someday prevent him from attaining a position in which a spotless record of trustworthiness is essential. Maybe even a position that could prevent catastrophe from overwhelming an entire nation. Such an extreme overreaction to a mere youthful folly is unworthy of us, my friends. And now, let us pray…
And the winner is… whoever’s prayers come true.
Yeah, Zachary, that **could** happen. So what? I hold transparency, truth and accountability of people caught lying more important then concealing the identity of a lying liar for the sake of hypotheticals.
TB now seems to be claiming that ‘Tom Johnson’s’ claim (in his mea culpa) that he is not in fact a grad student at all is false. The plot thickens…
I wonder if it is simply that TJ really is seriously unwell – a pathological liar, and still lying now? It’s plausible, I guess.
Scote,
I don’t feel that my scenario is very unlikely, and it’s only one of many concerns that have to be weighed here. And if the outcome yields more false impressions than true ones, then no, it’s not a simple case of transparency/truth vs. obscurantism.
Here’s my question: What is to be learned from revealing his identity that is not likely to have been learned or discovered otherwise? What actions could be taken that otherwise could not have been?
Once you have, weigh the likely results.
The most serious “pro” I have read concerns his potential position of trust in academia. However, as I stated before, if his past tendencies are translated into his work, they should be easily spotted. If they are not, then “William” fails to be the issue. Else, his case reduces to the case of any unknown in academia.
I have to agree with Russell here. (a) If Mooney’s “newly verified” information is correct, then “William” is in fact still lying, even in his “new, contrite, genuine” confession. (b) If Mooney’s information is wrong, then Mooney himself is lying when he says he’s verified it.
Now, Chris Mooney is an accommodationist cause-head extraordinaire, and he’s naive about a number of things, but I think he genuinely believes most of the things he says, and I think he’s a genuinely well-meaning person. “William,” on the flip side, has a long history of falsehoods, shielded by other falsehoods when the first set is exposed — and a history of nasty, low attacks on people as well. I’m thinking that “William” is nothing more than a sock, created as a new front now that YNH and the Intersection Socks have been outed, and now actively telling everyone what they want to hear, true or otherwise. So why is Mooney going out of his way to shield the guy behind “William” ? Like I said, I think Chris is a nice person. (Certainly he tells everyone else to be nice. Quite possibly he is sometimes TOO nice.)
Is this making sense?
Zachary,
Transparency about the names of people caught publicly engaging in the deception of hundreds, probably thousands, of people to falsely smear a group and specific individuals is a general principle that exceeds you hypothetical “costs/benefits” calculation for a specific instance or any issues about academia.
Scote,
I’m not weighing “William” overall, and I’m not overly concerned about him getting fried over this in the future. I just don’t think it’s necessary. Again, he, as a nutty individual, is unimportant.
The relevant bits to what you said are out in the open. There was massive deception and lying to serve an agenda. It’s been admitted. Everybody who cares to know can know. The history has been picked through again and again and been put out in the open.
And most importantly, he didn’t do it <i>as a known professional</i>.
It’s about what we stand to gain from outing him, not revenge. If revenge is a motive of yours, as it appears to be, let me know and we’ll have determined where our fundamental disagreement lies.
Also, if full release would make Mooney more culpable than he is already considered to be, don’t expect him or his in-the-know partisans to help us out.
Pushing for the contrary would be painted up as (and I think would be) revenge. Again, I don’t see the point.
Zachary, what we gain by being open and honest about **all the facts** in the circumstances is real clarity, not the morass of contradictory vagueness that Mooney has unleashed through his own post and via his confidants/sympathetic proxies he sent the “secret” details to. This isn’t merely about “outing” a liar who’s lies have had a significant effect on the dialogue but about openness and transparency, which forms the basis of a real, constructive investigation and discussion about what went on. We’ll never have clarity so long as you and other continue to protect “Tom Johnson.” PZ posted this in the comments at his blog:
Keeping “Tom Johnson’s” identity secret is part of Mooney’s framing. By keeping the details secret I think he hopes to be able to control the conversation, and frame it with his deliberately vague “I’m a victim” posts. The opposite of his framing is revealing all the details. Your position helps prop up Mooney’s framing.
Scote,
I don’t believe that my position helps “framing” generally. Of course, we are stuck with what they have disclosed, like it or not. However, my position remains, as it was before, that all of the relevant details which make Mooney culpable are known and are hard to dispute.
I think Mooney could (and maybe should) publish the correspondence while erasing identifying information and summarizing the nature of the item erased, for example. I think that we could push for that with some success.
And no, I don’t think that any “real clarity” will result from publishing “William”‘s identity. Can I propose the previous as an alternative?
Uh, I do. A big part of these stupid debates was Coyne, Myers et al decrying the NAAS’ adoption of an explicitly accomodationist (instead of neutral) position, to which Mooney replied essentially:
“This is stupid. Obviously science and religion are compatible. There are religious scientists.”
Does anyone actually think that Mooney is stupid enough to think that Dawkins, Coyne, and Myers are oblivious enough not to realize there are such things as religious scientists? How could Mooney possibly be so stupid to keep pushing this line after being corrected as to the new atheist argument against the policy?
He’s not. As far as I can tell, he only corrected this misrepresentation when secular bloggers who aren’t explicitly in his crosshairs happened to mention that he was missing the point rather spectacularly.
He’s framing. He’s developing a narrative and then trying to control which viewpoints get marginalized and which ones get endorsed so that whatever he says, no matter its relation to reality, seems moderate and reasonable and anyone disagreeing with him looks like a prat (like I said, he only responds when commentators he doesn’t already consider marginalized point out his errors — he won’t answer criticisms from OB or Coyne, but he might from Jason Rosenhouse, whose endorsement I’m guessing he still covets). Luckily, he’s pretty bad at it. I would consider giving him the benefit of the doubt as far as being duped by William, except that he’s struggling so hard to justify being duped, and even apparently backpedal against William’s own admissions. As I was just pointing out, we’ve seen this pattern before — he misrepresents until the loose threads start getting attention from bloggers that Mooney wants to be on good terms with and then offers some completely unsatisfying explanation as to how, while he was wrong, he was actually right all along.
As for why, I really don’t know, but since his most egregious (real) example of NA wrongdoing is some biologist throwing unleavened bread in a garbage bin, I find it…hard to believe that he really sincerely believes what he says about NAs. I just don’t see where the NA hijinks he cites constitutes justification for his anti-NA rhetoric — if he really is that upset about the cracker, then he probably needs psychiatric help. Otherwise, he’s making an awful lot of noise about a really small puddle of milk. And that stinks to me of bullshit and opportunism.
I realize that’s all pretty much circumstantial, but Mooney hasn’t shown any signs of actually willing to engage the viewpoints he’s criticizing. When Coyne, Myers, or anyone else responds to his criticisms, he either twists it into an example of NAs being unreasonable (“Come on, now, OBVIOUSLY there are religious scientists. Are these guys stupid?”) or ignores it altogether. That tells me he’s not criticizing them to try to get them to change; he’s criticizing them because it helps create a narrative in which his position is the most reasonable.
Personally I not sure I need anymore “clarity”, as the presented information has already lowered my view of Mooney well-below its previous rock-bottom level. I don’t need any more details or “closure” in this profoundly sordid affair. If Mooney doesn’t feel the need to provide specifics that might mitigate his part, I’m fine with that. Frankly, I feel I’ve already wasted too much mental space on this fatuous idiot, and I’m happy to think the worst of him and see no need to take effort pursuing exculpatory details.
All IMHO, of course, and I can understand others wanting a fuller explanation.
Wow, bravo, Dan L. That comment about Mooney was spectacular. If only Mooney could see it, he’d both understand why people are upset with him and see an example of an anonymous blog comment that’s worthy of being highlighted!
But Mooney can’t see it. He’s been banned from looking at Ophelia’s blog. Right, Ophelia?
Hahaha – yup – I have special invisible bot-things that smack him in the eyeballs if he tries it.
Right, and because they’re invisible, he can’t see them and avert his eyes in time. Hey, makes me wonder, maybe he posted the real evidence of his contacts with TJ, but he did it invisibly.
But he said he wasn’t going to post it, so that would make him guilty of a falsehood.
Then it couldn’t possibly have happened, could it?
Well, in the context of all of this, my suspicious mind now sez: Mooney was at best conveniently gullible in this case.
As in: he probably <i>was</i> suspicious. But he’s a slimeball, and the story gave him what he wanted. So he went through the motions of a confirmation and printed it anyway.
So, in the context, his ‘ZOMG! Sock puppets? Who’da guessed!’ bit comes off as a Captain Renault kinda shocked. Suuure he’s surprised.
And all of what he’s done in the past few days is of a piece. He’s doing what he’s doing here <i>only</i> because it was shoved in his face, and he had no real choice. But it’s all damage control, all limit my own culpability shit. Not a grain of real integrity–or real interest in the truth–to be found in any of it, anywhere. Thus all the muddy ‘explanations’ that aren’t, so much. Thus all the continued evasiveness.
I used to think the guy just wasn’t too bright about certain things. Now, honestly, it is no exaggeration: he’s really begun to disgust me.
You’ve read this before, but it’s appropriate once again:
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/w_k_clifford/ethics_of_belief.html
Good point. My last name is LaVine and I live in Boston, MA, USA. I don’t feel the need to broadcast those facts every time I comment anywhere, but I’m not afraid of owning up to who I am.
By “good point,” I mean the pointing out that I was commenting anonymously, not the “bravo.” cheglabratjoe is not my sockpuppet.
Formatting issues not my fault, sorry.
Apparently, Mr. Mooney posted an explanation of why he banned Ms. Benson from commenting on his blog. Of course, he is not allowing comments on the post. In the course of his statement, he mentions banning John Kwok just to show that he doesn’t only ban people who don’t agree with him. Now I admit to not belonging to the John Kwok marching and chowder society but banning him and allowing a dickhead like Anthony McCarthy to continue commenting doesn’t say much for Mr. Mooney.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/07/12/setting-the-record-straight-on-ophelia-benson/
@138
Kwok @ The Intersection, July 9
That post was ok, apparently.
Kwok, attempted to post to The Intersection, July 11 (was not allowed)
Shall we call this Exhibit A? Mooney isn’t moderating for behavior, or decorum, or propriety. He’s moderating based on whether or not you agree with him. SLC, also note that in 104 of the thread Mooney linked to, TB is right there loyally calling Ophelia Benson a liar when it comes to her critiques of UA. This was something that repeatedly happened leading up to her ban, but Mooney is pretending the behavior Ophelia was complaining about wasn’t there at all among his commenters because it wasn’t William doing it (at least, not before Ophelia was banned).
Re Paul @ #139
He does the same to me. Sometimes my comments are allowed to stand and sometimes they are not. On one thread, Mr. McCarthy, who is far worse then Mr. Kwok who at least has a modicum of intelligence, and I engaged in an acrimonious discussion about Martin Gardner and James Randi, both of whom he smeared and bad mouthed. Mr. Mooney or Ms. Kirshenbaum should have removed all of Mr. McCarthys’ comments on Gardner and Randi.
@SLC, 140
Understand, and I didn’t mean to imply it was an isolated incident. I’ve had several “discussions” with both Kwok and McCarthy. They put up with ridiculous amounts of smears and bad mouthing from certain supporters, whereas critics have a high hurdle if they hope to see their statements posted. I just thought it handy to point out an obvious Exhibit, as it were. Every once and awhile these discussions bring in people who aren’t privy to past scuffles on The Intersection, and they can rarely conceive of how ridiculous and lopsided things can be there.
As to Mooney’s ‘explanation’ for banning Ophelia, he says that was due to her comments on this thread. Go over there and read them. If Mooney hasn’t simply pointed to the wrong thread, his ‘explanation’ looks bat-shit crazy.
It looks less bat-shit crazy if you assume that no one will read the thread. Maybe that’s what he assumed. Maybe he’s right – maybe most people won’t. Mooney isn’t shy about…misleading people in that way.