The first step is getting the facts right
Mooney and Kirshenbaum have struck again. They’ve written a piece on their blog telling some entity unattractively called ‘the New Atheist blogosphere’ why TNAB is wrong and M&K are right. It’s a repulsive read, because (as usual but more so) it’s so willfully blind, so obstinately determined not to heed reasonable objections but instead to ‘frame’ them as irrational outbursts from Declared Enemies.
They’ve created this bind for themselves, of course. They spent a large chunk of their very short book blaming ‘New Atheists’ for American ignorance of science, and then labeled all criticism as coming from ‘New Atheists’ and therefore (in ways not always specified) tainted and wrong and thus safe to ignore. The problem there is that they’re getting criticism from some very clever and knowledgeable people, so they’re ignoring criticism that they really (for the sake of their cognitive health, though perhaps not for the reputation of their book) should pay attention to.
But they’re not, and in the process of not, they are misrepresenting both themselves and their critics – which causes their critics to think even less of them. This is not because of some ‘New Atheist’ cognitive distortion.
For several months, Chris tried to engage in a civil debate with Dr. Coyne about the merits of “accommodationism.”
Chris did no such thing. ‘Engage in a civil debate with Dr. Coyne’ is exactly what Chris did not do. Chris made arbitrary random assertions about the need for greater ‘civility’ and cited Coyne as someone who needed to be more civil.
Forrest eloquently defended this view in the first half of her talk; but in the second, she also challenged the latest secularist to start a ruckus–Jerry Coyne, who I’ve criticized before. In a recent New Republic book review, Coyne took on Kenneth Miller and Karl Giberson, two scientists who reconcile science and religion in their own lives. Basically, 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?
Many people asked what exactly he meant, and he never replied. That is not ‘trying to engage in a civil debate’ – it’s accusing someone of something and then refusing to elaborate or justify the accusation.
He became concerned a few weeks back, though, after posting (along with a few supporting words) a video of Eugenie Scott talking about science-religion compatibility. Merely for posting this video, Coyne accused Chris of “dissembling” and “using authority arguments.” Scott was also accused of dissembling—simply for making an argument she believes in.
Coyne did no such thing. Coyne wrote a long and considered post pointing out that Mooney was simply repeating the old accusation without having taken in the intervening objections. That does not remotely translate to ‘merely for posting this video.’
And so on. Needless to say, things don’t improve as they go on. This is why a lot of people disagree with M&K – it’s not because we all live in a box with ‘New Atheists’ painted over the door.
Would not or should not a good editor nix a section like their chapter 8 attack on PZ and the new atheists (any need a name for their band?) – seeing it as personal animus and not based on evidence?
There is so much projecting in that post at the Intersection that I’m amazed that the server didn’t collapse under the load of irony (I posted a comment there given an example, so I won’t repeat it here).
Michael, I think that the book would have been vastly better if it were published under another editor. And, for that matter, another publisher. (The publisher, by the way, is named “Basic Books”; evidently, they live up to their name.) Case in point is the “trailing phrase notation”. As M&K tell it, this style of notation was done at the advice of their publisher. It cut down the content of the book to a large extent, scrapping supporting evidence or forcing it to be included at the back, out of reach of superscript. Of course, if evidence were front and center, then it might have encouraged the authors to pay more careful attention to the substance behind the topics. And surely those same venerable wizards of the publishing world didn’t blink at the idea of having The Great Pluto Desecration as a lede.
Well I’m a good editor and I would have nixed chapter 8!
I guess that answers that question.
Hee hee hee.
Maybe they should hire you for their next book!
Absolutely they should! But needless to say, they’re not going to. I’m firmly in that wrong-by-definition New Atheist box.
Seriously, they used the “must have struck a nerve” defense… Can they get more juvenile and trollish?
I hope this box that we all live in has a lot of room in it. Perhaps it’s like the TARDIS and has space inside for all kinds of stuff that you’d never think from the outside. Otherwise, it could get awfully crowded.
I’m in two minds about whether I even want to read this book. My curiosity is piqued, and I don’t want to comment on the book without actually reading it carefully. I’d still like to treat it fairly, of course. However, I wasn’t sent a review copy, and I’m not keen to add to the royalties, given the way Chris and Sheril have been behaving of late.
Some people have been reading it at bookstores, and carefully telling M and K that, which is kind of funny.
Chris came in from the wilderness just now so that he could take a swipe at none other than Mr. John Kwok. Coincidentally, this was right after Kwok admitted that he had just begun to read Unscientific America and found it surprisingly superficial, and how he thought the mention of the Great Pluto Demotion was goofy.
It follows that John Kwok must be one of those shrill new atheists that Mooney is warning us about.
Russell, I’ll send you my copy if you pay for postage. :P
New Atheist Blogosphere
The latest album from New Atheist Noise Machine, described in Rolling Stone with typical pretentiousness as “post-Postmodern electronica infused with the in-your-face aggression of 80s garage punk,” is an aural and intellectual adventure quite unlike anything else you’ve ever heard. We caught up with NANM songwriter and keyboardist Richard “DJ Tricky Dick” Dawkins at a new music festival in Maresy-Dotes-on-the-Green, Kent to ask him about it:
US: Dick, what was your inspiration for the new album.
RD: Well, I was in a tiff with some bloke in a pub and he kept accusing me of saying stuff I never said. I suddenly thought, what if I represented that sort of thing – which happens all the time – in some sort of musical form?
US: So is that why so much of the album sounds almost like distorted sampling from traditional music?
RD: Exactly! You can almost recognize the melody – some of these tunes have been around for centuries, see – but only some of the notes are there in the same order, and they just don’t sound quite right ’cause I’ve flattened or sharpened them a bit, and some notes are entirely missing, and the whole thing never quite comes together. Then I throw in the complete and undistorted counterpoint to the original whole melody, representing the side of an argument that actually makes some bloody sense. But then the distorted, half-assed version of the original melody keeps coming back unchanged, repeated again and again as if it will somehow make more sense, but it never does.
US: So would you say you’re trying to deconstruct deconstruction?
RD: No! That would be a bloody stupid thing to say! What’s that even mean? Piss off! Bloody music journalists can’t find their arse wif both ‘ands…
And there you have it: UnSubscribed‘s encounter with DJ Tricky Dick, trailing off into muttered obscenities in an increasingly thick Cockney accent, as all his interviews do. But we thank him for talking to us anyway!
—–
P.S. Can you tell that my days of taking M&K seriously are over?
Like it G.
DJ Tricky Dick?
No, no, no — ur doin it rong.
It’s Dick to the Dawk to the PhD. (He’s smarter than you, he’s got a science degree.)
George, I love you. Laughed me arse off.
G Felis
re ‘New Atheist Blogosphere’
Great band. I remember them when they were still called ‘The Anti-Accommodationists’; track down there seminal album ‘NOMA No More’. Sure, their ideas were just nascent then, but I think you’ll find it more visceral.
G Felis
re ‘New Atheist Blogosphere’
Great band. I remember them when they were still called ‘The Anti-Accommodationists’; track down there seminal album ‘NOMA No More’. Sure, their ideas were just nascent then, but I think you’ll find it more visceral.
Wow, Eric, well said. I think you’ve nailed it.
“Chris came in from the wilderness just now so that he could take a swipe at none other than Mr. John Kwok. Coincidentally, this was right after Kwok admitted that he had just begun to read Unscientific America and found it surprisingly superficial, and how he thought the mention of the Great Pluto Demotion was goofy.”
I know this is lazy and a bit cheeky, but I really cannot face wading through all the crap over at The Intersection. Could you point me to what blog entry the comments are in ?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/07/27/two-new-reviews/#comments
I assume that’s what he was talking about, anyway.
Very well said, Eric. I’ve been whining at them about that same sentence for weeks, but in a much more sketchy way – in fact I think mostly just by pointing out that the religion at issue in that post was in two books and that books are by definition not private (unless they’re self-published and kept in the garage, which these books were not and were not).
I think I’ll put your comment in a post.
Cheers and huzzahs, Eric! If I hadn’t entirely gotten out of the business of taking M&K seriously, I’d have said something along the lines of what you said, but not as eloquently!
By downplaying its importance and using words such as “may” and “we think”, M&K pretty much admit chapter 8 has no business in their book. They were pissed at PZ and had to come up with an excuse to exact revenge. Coyne and others get included as a means of hiding their motive.
I get the feeling Francis Collins would be a full-blown creationist if he hadn’t already concluded evolution were true before he saw his epiphanic waterfall. Notice how he inserts his god into everything outside his narrow expertise. He truly believes his god is active in earthly affairs.
Last, but not least, Eric’s comment is fabulous. Just this morning as I walked through my neighborhood, I confronted a large yard sign exhorting me to “Give your Life to Jesus.” Private indeed.
It’s unanimous – I’d better hurry up and post it.
Ophelia, looks like your post that you said was held up in moderation in the comment thread of Mooney’s latest whinefest was not let through*. Care to turn it into a blog post, or was it just an offhand comment?
*or so it seems, anyway, since they approved a backlog of posts that were held up, but yours is still not present
Here’s another person that disagrees with Mooney. Mooney even unfriended him on facebook. Not that it’s needed, but more evidence that he’s only interested in people that hang on his every word.
http://icbseverywhere.com/blog/2009/07/27/chris-mooney-is-not-my-friend-anymore/
I’ve been visiting my parents in Oklahoma City, and one of their neighbors has a sign in their yard which says “America–Prayer is Our Hope” followed by a Bible verse. Another neighbor, back during the election, had a sign in his yard that said, “Christians for McCain/Palin.”
And this isn’t in some backwater trailer park. It’s in a solidly upper middle class neighborhood where the houses cost $100,000 and more.
Yes, very private, for sure.
Paul, it definitely wasn’t an offhand comment, but I’m not sure I can inflict another M-K post on the readers, especially one in which I would have to do so much ‘and then he said’-ing and other tedious explanation.
I might try to post it again though…