Be careful what you wish for
I’m deeply irritated. I’ll tell you why. If Chris Mooney can, I can. If Chris Mooney can single out PZ Myers for a damn good scolding not once but twice in his (and Kirshenbaum’s, but he’s the one with the PZ-vendetta) short book, then I can single out Chris Mooney for another in the privacy of this little place.
I know it’s futile. G ignores him, Josh says he should be ignored, and I’ve been ignoring him ever since he went all Matthew Nisbet on everyone’s ass. No bad things resulted from my ignoring him all this time, as far as I know, and I could have just continued to ignore him. But then he started up with the hectoring.
Religion is a very private matter, and given that liberal religionists support church-state separation, we really have no business questioning their personal way of making meaning of the world. After all, they are not trying to force it on anybody else…In a recent New Republic book review, [Jerry] Coyne took on Kenneth Miller and Karl Giberson, two scientists who reconcile science and religion in their own lives. Basically, [Barbara] Forrest’s point was that while Coyne may be right that there’s no good reason to believe in the supernatural, he’s very misguided about strategy. Especially when we have the religious right to worry about, why is he criticizing people like Miller and Giberson for their attempts to reconcile modern science and religion?
I pointed out why that is stupid: since Miller and Giberson had written books on science and religion, to that extent their religion was not a private matter at all, and since Jerry Coyne had written a review of their books for a respected magazine, it’s beyond absurd to rebuke him for doing just that.
That was more than a month ago. Then Mooney sent me the book. Then I read chapter 8, and said what I thought about it, including the fact that it starts by singling out PZ for a scolding. Then several people read the book and lots of people wrote posts or posted comments on the Mooney/Kirshenbaum blog to try to get Mooney to see a few things. We pointed out that he offered no evidence or argument for the claim that atheism causes Americans to be hostile to science. We noted that he kept misdescribing what atheists said. We observed that he kept ignoring what everyone said while he went right on doing posts that went right on misdescribing what atheists said. People pointed out that he was quoting favorable bits from reviews while not mentioning the other bits. People said ‘will you please engage with the arguments?’ People made a stink when he did a post about a comment at Pharyngula that had a Naughty Word in it, without saying that it was a comment rather than a post by PZ – and then failed to fix the post until many people made more and more stink – and even then didn’t apologize.
And so on and so on and so on. Tawdry stuff. Bad behavior. Vain, obstinate, belligerent behavior – from a guy whose whole schtick is giving everyone instructions in how to be ‘civil’ and how to bridge divides between people.
Today in yet another display of petulant shunning, he fell on the neck of one commenter (who in fact disagreed with him about much but is apparently a friend, probably one with a Name) – and trotted out one point that is in fact one that I have been attempting to get him to acknowledge for days – as if it had been his view all along. (What point? That atheists don’t dispute that it is possible to combine religion and science [as he put it yesterday when talking about Francis Collins] ‘in one’s life’ but that that is not the same thing as compatibility, it’s just brute force. Mooney put it this way – ‘It seems to me that Scott is just making the blunt empirical point that a lot of people reconcile the two in some way–which is undeniable.’ I have never seen him admit that or phrase the matter that way before, and I don’t think he has, because it undercuts much of what he keeps saying. And that ‘blunt’ is a giveaway – that’s my word – I vary between ‘brute’ and ‘blunt.’ He got that from my comments, but never had the minimal decency to admit as much – and here he’s actually absorbed it and regurgitated it, still without ever so much as saying ‘yes that’s a point.’)
I said so, and also pointed out yet another misdescription of what atheists say. Other people, such as Peter Beattie, also said useful things. Mooney ignored us in order to single out two posts that he considered ‘civil.’
Boring, right?! Unbelievably boring. Yes but here’s what’s interesting – it’s the same as what was always so interesting (in a boring way) about Matt Nisbet. Nisbet is supposed to be a professional in ‘communication’ – yet he is stunningly, conspicuously, unmistakably terrible at it. Not just below average; terrible. It’s the same with Mooney – he claims to be centrally concerned with civility and respect and behaving decently – while he is conspicuously, strikingly, energetically rude, and belligerent, and unfair, and deceptive. He behaves horribly – day after day after day! With people protesting at him the whole time! It’s hilarious, in a way. ‘Be nicer, doggone it – be like me! Misrepresent what people you don’t like say – then ignore them when they try to set you straight – then do the misrepresenting all over again, right after people have just told you you’re misrepresenting them – then do some more ignoring – then take over some of what they tell you but pretend it’s your idea not theirs – then call them uncivil – then do it all over again!’
I wonder if there is a lesson here. Don’t try to set yourself up as an especially nice, respectful, civil, decent, bridge-building person – because it will turn out that you’re just as rude and hostile and ego-protecting and pugnacious as everyone else, and maybe even worse than some. Then you’ll look silly. Silly and not at all nice or respectful or civil. Sic transit gloria.
I feel ever so much better!
I once said this before, but I’ll repeat it. Most people are exactly the opposite of what they advertize themselves as. So, Mooney, the advocate of building bridges, is an intolerant bigot, and Ophelia, the fanatic, tries desperately to communicate with everyone. Always look for the most apparently unpleasant person in the room, because he or she tends to be the kindest one.
The thing of it is, your argument is powerful and his is wrong. For when you say “brute force” referring to getting on in social life and so on, that is nowhere near saying that it is what has a monopoly over empirical evidence. Yet by contrast when he talks about “blunt empirical point”, he means to talk about social life alone (or to generalize from such) — all the while neglecting to acknowledge that inconsistency, when put into place in psychological theories (i.e., employing cognitive dissonance, compartmentalization, and so on) *is* empirical fact! And if the two ideas play such wildly different roles in the kinds of inferences they support, then they must be distinct.
If that’s true, then in my interpretation, he was likely trying to riff on Scott’s terrible argument by using a rugged tough-minded science adjective.
I don’t that I think you should ignore so much as not expect anything better. If I advised anyone to ignore Mooney, I’d just end up being a hypocrite, because I can’t stop from going back and worrying the scab over, and over, and over.
Hopefully some good comes out of a contingent of commenters persistently pressing him to engage the arguments. If it doesn’t goad him to actually do so, at least other people will see Mooney’s tactics for what they really are.
Many of us – me included – have no hope of Chris ever answering our questions, even when we’re extremely civil . Once you criticize him directly and forcefully, you are ignored. End of story. No do-overs. Having called him intellectually bankrupt on his own blog, I can’t say as I’m expecting him to ever acknowledge any of my questions (besides, I don’t have a Name). But I’m pretty darned surprised he won’t ackowledge you, Ophelia. You’re a Somebody in this conversation. Maybe it’s because you have such a naughty, filthy mouth:))
It is interesting that this all started with commentary on the NAS and NCSE and their accommodationist approaches. Yet NAS publications on education such as “How People Learn” make it emphatically clear teachers must confront student’s misconceptions if learning is to take place. Anyone who tries to inject an act of god into evolution is wrong and needs to be corrected.
The way that Kwok and McCarthy have swamped Mooney’s blog, it’s a wonder anyone can still plow through it.
Well, I used to single out McCarthy, he’s an easy and obvious target to bat around, until my comments started getting held indefinitely for no apparent reason. Now it’s no fun.
Yeah, amos, I was thinking of your observation. Mooney does seem like a stellar example. (Subtle internal pun there!)
Josh – oh right, that is what you said.
The bit about being surprised he ignores me – I am too, frankly – not really because I’m a somebody in the conversation but because he sent me his books, we’ve exchanged a few emails, we hadn’t fallen out, and when I replied to that originating post of his – the one about Forrest’s putative opinion of Coyne – I did it in a reasonable and civil way. He could have simply engaged with me (and others)…and things would have gone much, much better for him. Instead he chose to ignore all opposition. We even exchanged some emails on the subject – he emailed me to express surprise at the irritability of my tone, and I said I was sorry about it and explained that it stemmed from his refusal to reply. He saw what I meant – but said that commenters on his posts seem to want to score points rather than really discuss.
That’s his filter, I guess – and what a bad one it is. I tried to tell him that, but…obviously I had no success. The sad thing is, he’s just dead wrong – many of his critics, including me, really do want to discuss. We don’t agree with him, but that doesn’t mean we’re just there to score points.
Kwok and McCarthy are another reason I wasn’t engaging with his blog much, even after the Forrest post. But then once I read chapter 8 and posted about it – I got pulled in. For a time.
I feel ever so good that I’ve never, ever claimed to be nice or respectful or civil now.
Same here!
Always a mistake to create these expectations…
Amos, I’ve noted and commented on that same phenomenon myself for years. Take, for example, self-professed “nice guys.” Usually, a certain kind of man feels compelled to refer to himself as a “nice guy” only in the context of whining about the way their women friends seem (from their perspective) to prefer assholes to “nice guys” like them. But if the conversation continues, it almost always turns out that there is some particular woman friend that “nice guy” is attracted to who is not attracted to him, and that he is motivated to be friendly and helpful and solicitous towards his woman friend because he wants to get in her pants – which casts considerable doubt on both his claim to friendship and his self-professed niceness.
And people who describe themselves as funny – especially in a direct self-description, as on a dating website – are rarely funny at all. It turns out that funny people say or write amusing things rather than explaining, “I’m very funny.” Similarly, people who talk about their own honesty are never to be trusted – because actually honest people just speak the truth in a direct fashion and don’t feel any need to point out or discuss their honesty.
But the most consistent empirical evidence I have is my experience of people who explicitly say how much they hate “drama.” Each and every one of them has demonstrated a powerful tendency to generate wildly excessive social tension and controversy at every turn, i.e. they’re all drama queens – and kings! – of the worst sort.
Having seen Nisbett & Mooney do their thing for a few years now, I’ll add “I’m an expert in social communication” and “I’m very concerned that we don’t offend people for strategic reasons” to the top of that list with “I hate drama” as a sure-fire indicator for performative contradiction.
Rob, indeed. Jason Rosenhouse has the very good policy of limiting commenters of the Kwok-McCarthy type to one comment per day – if CM/SK would only follow that policy, what an improvment it would bring about.
I confess I have descended into Kwok-goading a few times, which is me being childish like the others. But I’m not too apologetic – everyone needs a little recreation now and then.
G – heh heh heh.
G,
You’ve got a good point.
Add to it one I’ve seen a lot: people who constantly trump their own qualifications. They are usually the people least qualified to comment. A person who’s actually qualified won’t feel the need to list all of his/her degrees and accomplishments before discussing an issue. I grow especially suspicious whenever I see someone include their bachelor’s or master’s degree with their signature. Who, other than a pompous ignoramus, would do something like that? I don’t even know any phd’s who sign “phd” after their names, much less people with bachelors or masters degrees.