News from elsewhere
I’ve been commenting on that thread at CFI. The moderators want it to go away, but I think they shouldn’t want that, because the underlying issues are entirely relevant to CFI. They think it’s all personal, but it isn’t. It really isn’t. The truth is I don’t care about Chris Mooney as a person at all. Of course I don’t. I care about what he’s saying and doing; I care about the ideas and their consequences. It’s not personal. (I admit it seems personal, while it’s going on, but when I think about it, I realize it isn’t, at all.)
So here’s some of what I said.
He has still never explained what he thinks Jerry Coyne should have done differently, and by extension, what everyone should do differently.
It’s an important question, especially for people who are fans of inquiry. It’s an important question for anyone who reviews books about religion or religion-and-science or related subjects. I, for instance, wrote a review of such a book for the April/May edition of Free Inquiry. I thought it was a pretty bad book, and I said so. If I had been following Chris Mooney’s advice, presumably I would have done something else – but even if I had wanted to follow his advice, I wouldn’t have known exactly what it was. Pretend I thought the book was good? Refuse the invitation to review it in case I thought it was bad? Decide not to review it after all once I had read it, because I thought it was bad? I don’t know.
Mooney could answer that question right now. He could answer it here, where he is among friends – he works for CFI. It really is a question worth answering. He wants us – us “new” atheists – to be more civil, but he won’t explain exactly what he means by that. I don’t see why not. I also think the unwillingness is an uncomfortable fit with support for free inquiry.
I’m back. Well, I do think that. I also – still, after all this – think it’s odd that CM doesn’t think that. I still think it’s odd that he’s comfortable with this level of silencing and stonewalling, given his other commitments.
It’s not personal for you, but it seems to be very personal to Mooney. For him, just as for many religionists, criticism, or even just discussion of the issues, seems to equal personal attack.
If CFI had not hired Mooney for POI (for reasons that I can’t fathom), then this discussion would be out of place on CFI forum. When you hire someone for a discussion post, you take on his liabilities as well as his strengths. A good boss would let the new hire know how things are done in the organization.
Well, went back and read the whole thread. I’m a little baffled that the OP has ignored the substance of his post and decided that Chris was right all along and owes apologies to no one, in spite of his Mooney’s banning of you with no right of reply to people who slandered you, in spite of Mooney going so far as to ban even **mentioning** Ophelia’s name in comments at Intersection, in spite of Mooney’s use of, and endorsement of, falsehoods by a serial liar to smear “New Atheists,” in spite of Mooney’s deliberate use of obfuscation in his subsequent not-a-mea culpa, in spite of Mooney creating a whole post to smear Ophelia with comments closed from the outset so **nobody** could criticize his allegations or reasoning, in spite of all that and more DarronS and Mooney are all hugs and kisses, Mooney says that by the grace of Mooney that now DarronS is unbanned at Intersection (sound of trumpets blowing, or something blowing) so long as he “if [DarronS is] willing to take this spirit over [to the Intersection] and participate.”
What is especially disappointing is for both DarronS and a Center for **Inquiry** forum mod to then take the position that since Darron’s mind has been changed that the issue is settled and people should stop posting in the thread. OMFG!!!!! What utter codswollop…
In case any more needs to be piled on, has anyone seen his latest post on the Intersection regarding moderation there? Getting past its smugness (which takes some effort), he basically says “only allowing comments I like is a lot of work, but it makes me enjoy the conversation so much that I’ll deign to converse with you unwashed masses!” I’m exaggerating and painting him in a bad light, but really only a little (by my reading).
Regarding this being personal, I’ll admit that I’m having a hard time getting past my growing dislike of Mooney and looking at this situation objectively. But, in my defense, he’s been acting like a total jerk, no? You have to deserve the slack before expecting someone to cut you some, right?
Functionally, what is the difference between the fundamentalist denial of science (esp. ToE and AGW), and the liberal theology that seeks to embellish it by trampling on parsimony and null hypothesis? Is evolution+fine tuning+miracles+quark diddling+IC+Cartesian dualism+human inevitability, etc., somehow preferable to the outright denial of scientific consensus? Maybe, but it seems a pretty cheap price for our integrity and silence.
Perhaps if they were willing to give up patriarchy, tax-exempt status, homosexual persecution, claimed moral authority, opposition to abortion rights and stem-cell research, references to god in pledges and on currency, the emotional manipulation of children through induced fear and guilt, claims of the US being a christian nation, and so forth, then we might want at least to listen to the offers.
We won’t sell, of course, but our current, self-appointed negotiators/shushers haven’t yet given us a bargain worth framing.
I went thru the entire thread and DarronS is either a plant, a sock puppet or he got assimilated by the pod people mid thread.
The moderator is as evasive and shifty as Mooney, which is saying a lot.
If this is where my CFI membership dues are going I’m not very impressed.
That moderator is also playing unfairly – he’s caricaturing criticism of Chris Mooney and acting as though we (the critics) are trying to stifle Chris’ freedom of expression. It’s beyond galling – can you imagine? I’ve left a response at that thread.
And mods at large forums like CFI shouldn’t be active participants in threads they have the power to pull the plug on, and for which they have threatened to do, in spite of being unable to articulate any rule violation.
Keep it up, you are exactly right, Tom Johnson was significant because it really was “exhibit A” … as Mooney said.
This is fantastic: I have been banned at the Intersection as well. For asking this question.
Another interesting bit from Mooney’s latest post about moderation policy: “anything I’d say would be pored over, twisted, bent, attacked, and so on”. One almost feels bad about having to let the ridiculous whining pass, since it’s much more illuminating to observe that Mr Scientific Literacy himself is so oblivious to what he is saying that he doesn’t even notice that he is describing science. That’s exactly what you to with other people’s ideas: you pore over them, twist and bend and attack them—all of that to see if, when, and where they will yield. (Philosophy of Science 101: this ‘critical attitude’ is Popper’s solution to the problem of induction.) But Mooney would probably reply to that … hang on, he would probably not reply to that, but he would probably be thinking: ‘I can’t believe they would want to tell the author of Unscientific America that he is “scientifically illiterate” in any sense of the term’. God forbid.
I have been to one CFI event. Christopher Hitchens a few weeks ago here in DC. Needless to say, I feel very, very lucky to have seen him in action. CFI made that happen.
My wife and I had high expectations, not just about Hitch, but also about the people we would meet. The organization of the event itself was not very professional (long story, many problems). OK, I can live with that. This dustup has given me pause though, should I support this organization? I was on the verge, and now I am uncertain. The thread there was very disappointing and CM continues to seem sleazy to me.
Anyone care to comment, offer an opinion, or point me to resources other than CFI?
Thanks
Oh, by the way, this IS a real world example of what ‘reputation’ means. I hope CFI and CM can figure this out.
Good grief, Peter! Banned for that!?
I don’t know – why doesn’t he just go to work for Fox News? Surely he would feel much more at home there.
Feel free to post the comment here, by the way.
One thing I noticed about the whole thing is how “tone” came up.
When the topic comes to “tone” generally speaking everything is already gone way off the tracks. I’ve met quite a few people who make a big deal about “tone”, however they can’t understand that often it’s not the tone that people find offensive, but the content itself. And this problem is, you really can’t (and you shouldn’t!) change most content because some people are offended by it. (There are exceptions for things like racism of course).
To put it shortly, hiding behind “tone” says nothing good about oneself. It’s a way to shut down debate, often times without rhyme or reason, as we see here. The only thing Mooney has to go on, is the same thing anybody who makes a big deal of “tone” goes on:
I know it when I see it. Hardly fair nor objective.
Peter, you brute! I had to hang on to the edge of my desk in order to finish reading that comment, and I may yet have nightmares about the way in which you hurled those Carl Sagan quotes like cinderblocks against Mooney’s fragile mind. *shudder*
I am extremely disappointed with the Skeptivet moderator on the CFI thread. He’s learned a thing or two from CM about missing the point, it seems. Sigh. I have been a CFI supporter for years, but I’ve stopped listening to PoI since Mooney took the helm and I’m not encouraged by the lack of response to these legitimate concerns about representation.
I’ll just reproduce a comment I posted in the CfI thread, if you’ll indulge me. I think it may contain a couple of points that are pertinent to the discussion here.
–
What an interesting thread. The OP raises entirely reasonable questions, Chris Mooney flies in completely ignoring the questions and blustering about how anybody dare question him and his account of the story, Mooney gets an apology that is completey absurd since none of the relevant claims by the OP was in fact false, and to top it off the moderators, threatening to delete comments, shake their ham-shaped fists at people they say have not broken a single forum rule.
I’ll try and keep it short:
1. The OP’s accusation of “a humiliating journalistic error of judgment” on the part of Chris Mooney and him owing a number of people an apology still has not been addressed. It is absolutely relevant to Chris Mooney’s role as a journalist on his Discover blog and on POI. Mooney has also demonstrably refused to address civil and substantive questions about his ideas re science communication. One piece of evidence is, incidentally, that I was just banned at his blog for this question. For anyone associated with CfI and actually hosting POI, that’s a disgrace.
2. The OP’s accusation about “allowing sock puppets and anonymous posters to spread lies about a particular person, then banning that person for defending herself” is factually accurate, except for the “sock puppets”. Mooney’s explanation of Ophelia’s banning points to this thread and cites her e-mail to Mooney asking that libellous remarks be deleted as the reason for her banning. Nowhere in that thread does Ophelia engage in any activity that even remotely matches Mooney’s own criteria for banning people. She was bluntly accused of lying by an anonymous commenter, who demanded she be banned for it. She was then in fact banned, citing as the reason her demand that the anonymous commenter’s accusations be deleted. If that is not the most blatant case of unfairness and hypocrisy on Mooney’s part, I don’t know what would be.
3. Mooney’s assertion that the Uncompromising Atheists are harming the cause is still waiting for a single piece of actual evidence in its favour. Incidentally, that is the same thing Ophelia asked for on the thread that got her banned, and she has never received an answer. In this thread here at CfI, Mooney similarly gives not a single straight answer and instead blusters about how Darron is not “in the position to make a charge like this” and how could he know what really happened, anyway? Well, easy: Mooney said so himself in his explanation of Ophelia’s banning. That’s how we know that the accusations, except for the sock puppet part that Mooney now uses as a convenient red herring, are actually true in every respect. And honestly, when you have to answer substantive accusations with ‘You cannot know that’, your credibility has hit rock bottom. It would have been easy to state two or three verifiable facts to counter the accusations. Mooney chose to evade. Sadly, for him, that’s par for the course.
4. And the moderator thing speaks for itself. If you have to admit that no rule was broken, then your lofty admonitions just sound like you have control issues. Which shouldn’t be a welcome trait in a mod.
Hoo-boy – that moderator is (sorry to say it) really stupid.
I’ve encountered him before, and he seemed thick then too. Dear oh dear – who made him a moderator, and why?
Ophelia: Good grief, Peter! Banned for that!?
I’m afraid so. Hinting that other people might not apply the same standards to their heroes as to people they critisize apparently is very uncivil and immoderate. And since the Intersection is now a moderate and civil place (Christ, is it just me or does that sound like the crazy aunt who will have things exactly her prim, bigoted way?), they won’t stand for that kind of language.
But in a way, that’s alright. The latest posts by Mooney were so sickeningly smug and self-congratulatory—especially about how he can comment on his own blog again because nobody will be allowed to question him now—that I don’t think I’ll ever notice the difference. :)
Ah, Peter, welcome to the club.
Good grief, Peter! Banned for that!?
Banned for the same reason as the rest of us. He’s a “bad actor.” Mooney: “we ruthlessly banned a lot of bad actors”
Check out this somewhat similar exchange between the perpetually clueless Josh Rosenau and Jason Rosenhouse over at Jason’s blog.
“Bad actors”? How bad are we talking, here? Are we talking Nicholas Cage bad, or Keanu Reeves bad? Roberto Benigni? Steven Seagal? Hopefully we aren’t talking P. H. Moriarty bad, because that would call for UN sanctions of some sort, not just banning from a blog. (I know that last one is obscure, but I happen to be a fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune series, and what that “actor” did in the role of Gurney Halleck in the 2000 Dune miniseries and the 2003 Children of Dune follow-up oughta be a crime.)
Incidentally, this comment reflects exactly how seriously I know take anything having to do with Chris “I used to be a journalist, now I’m a Templeton-funded hack” Mooney.
Mooney’s new moderation policy would be perfectly at home at places like Uncommon Descent, as would his smug, condescending tone.
Well, this will do as a first post on this excellent blog.
I have been reading through this whole shooting match over the last few weeks, and have read through that thread today, and I am reminded starkly of an argument between PZ, Michael De Dora and later Massimo Peluggi.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/witless_wanker_peddles_pablum.php
That’s the follow up blog from PZ.
I’m trying to find the follow ups from the other side of things, because the comments section at Massimo’s blog really does remind me of this whole fiasco.
Like this situation, the argument seemed to end up with one side being so concerned with tone that the facts and honesty came in a (distant) second. Amongst all of the back and forth about how the teacher should have behaved, De Dora made the amazing claim that it would be Ok for a teacher to tell a class that the world was 4.5 billion years old, but it WOULD NOT be ok to tell them it wasn’t 6000 years old. It was somewhere around that point that I decided that the accomodationist stance, at it’s heart, fails.
I don’t disagree that tone is of some importance, I don’t disagree that politeness is possibly preferable, but taking your defense of those tactics to the point that they are more important than the substance of an argument or the truth of a truth claim seems demonstrably silly and unproductive.
If I find the rest of the links, I’ll post them.
Ah, firstly, let’s get the spelling right:
Massimo Pigliucci.
Secondly, here’s his repsonse to PZ:
http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2010/04/pz-myers-is-witless-wanker-who-peddles.html
The comments section is surprisingly interesting. It’s long, and a little all over the place, as comments sections tend to be, but the tone obsession is easy to see.
And PZ fires back:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/i_shall_be_no_friend_to_the_ap.php
Ophelia, This was a great post over at CFI, and why I admire your writing so much :
I’m saying that as someone who has been encouraging a more positive evaluation of BioLogos, it made me glad that Darrel Falk, read my comments, and recognized that he and I disagree about religion, but that I at least “understood” what he was trying to do, and that I characterized him in a way he thought was fair.
The discussion here about whether BioLogos is hurting science, is good … and stuff to think about. I still think though, that we must accept that BioLogos is “the enemy of our enemy” … and not only that, but that they hurt our enemy (and lets not forget just how wicked a person Albert Mohler really is) in ways that we actually make him look good. All mullahs like him benefit from “outside” enemies … but BioLogos is an “internal threat” and a cause of great distress “in the camp” of the American Taliban.
To me it seems wise for us to take the effort to point out, that BioLogos is an effective enemy of a much worse form of religion … and we can say that while still disagreeing with BioLogo’s form of religion. To recognize that there are species of religion, and some carry more virulent kinds of pathogens.
I really hope Mooney realizes just how dishonest and divisive his writing is, and how much aid and comfort he gives to the Albert Mohlers by not being specific about what he wants to “praise” in religion, rather than blast people as thoughtful and respectful as Coyne, who takes the position of incompatibility, especially in the way that he endeavors to do it.
And lastly, I really want to know if the Tom Johnson liar, is actually an actively religious person … like the defendants in Dover … liars. Please god, let Tom Johnson be a member of Albert Mohlers church.
Does this explain the CFI Moderator’s apparent hostility to criticism of Mooney?
The self same moderator, mckenzievmd, started a thread Are Science and Religion Compatible? and stated:
Clearly mckenzievmd has taken up the Accommodationalist mantle which seems to deliberately equivocate the meaning of “compatible”. The question has never been can a person be religious and do science, the question has always been are the two methods epistemologically compatible, is the methodology of science compatible as a way of knowing about the real world with just making stuff up and asserting it to be true as a way of knowing about the real world. And as many, including Jerry Coyne, have patiently pointed out, if you don’t have a way to objectively test the validity of truth claims then you don’t actually have a “way of knowing,” just a way of asserting. So, no, in the meaningful context of the word “compatible”–the question of epistemology about the real world–science and religion are not compatible.
What I posted:
#29
On CFI. I got banned from Mooney’s place a while back.
Maybe Melanie Griffith bad. He’s certainly starting to remind me of Sigourney Weaver’s character here:
http://www.slashcontrol.com/free-tv-shows/working-girl/3092387517-get-your-bony-ass-out-of-my-sight
***
I’m perplexed and annoyed. First, the Wall Banger about-face of DarronS. Now this business with McKenzie, who has taken umbrage at people suggesting he’s trying to discourage inquiry after he told people to stop posting on a topic and threatened to delete their comments. Nerve. What’s truly baffling, though, is this insistence on trying to lead the discussion away from what people wish to talk about in favor of some more general conversation: “As I’ve said, now for the third time, I’m happy to discuss underlying issues of strategy [sic] public discourse.” Um… OK… Here are my concerns:
1) You said that’s what you’re willing to discuss, but then, oddly, you set up a thread about the question of the compatibility of religion and science (a discussion of which has been ongoing for years, in which you’ve made no original, insightful, or useful intervention, I may add) . But this is not at all the same question as those of strategies of public discourse around which the other conversation revolves and which you’ve said you wish to discuss.
2) Public discourse about religion and atheism takes place in a global context in which religion has great institutional power and atheists are marginalized. This should not be ignored in favor of a falsely individualized presentation of people from these groups engaging on equal terms in the political arena.
3) In this context, it is worthwhile to note that the history of social movements is one in which movement participants have often been charged with rudeness, excessive aggression, and incivility. It isn’t necessary to argue that atheists are as oppressed as antislavery, civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, landless, etc., activists to make this point. It was true for the activists of the FSM at Berkeley in the ’60s (I’ve quoted a speech by the university president in response to free-speech activism in the past). Definining and requiring civility has long been a weapon of those who wish to maintain an unequal status quo. Setting the terms of engagement in this way has been used in attempts to muffle criticism. This, too, should be kept in mind.
4) If we’re going to debate strategies and their effectiveness for or harm to the project of achieving certain goals, we have to come to some understanding concerning which goals we’re talking about. It’s quite possible that, while there’s significant overlap, your primary goals are not mine. In this case, we’ll be talking past each other.
5) Even if you ignore all of this, it is simply ludicrous to suggest that people can debate questions of strategy and approaches to public discourse in purely abstract terms. It’s not even necessary to note that Mooney’s writings on the subject have been highly personalized, as this is expected. People aren’t surprised at that. What they are asking is that when claims are made about the usefulness or harm of a particular individual’s or group’s approach or rhetoric, that this approach or rhetoric be specifically identified and documented, that the proposed alternatives be elaborated, and that evidentiary support be provided for the argument being made. If these conditions are not met, no discussion can proceed. There’s simply no way to discuss social questions without reference to the concrete actions of people. Mooney certainly hasn’t denied this. He’s simply refused to speak in anything but the vaguest terms about actual people, mischaracterized and inconsistently decribed their actions, failed to provide support for his arguments about how they’re acting while continuing to argue that their (ill-defined) actions and rhetoric are harmful or even to define the central terms of his argument, and sought via extreme measures to exclude his own actions and rhetoric from critical challenge. That is not consistent with a spirit of open inquiry, or ethical more generally. (And the notion that it’s none of your concern how he behaves but it is your role to comment disparagingly on his critics is laughable, as is your suggestion that other people shouldn’t have discussions that you personally don’t wish to be involved with even if these don’t violate forum rules.)
Oh, and your little mention that hiring Mooney may have been worth it since it’s bringing in new people is extremely short-sighted. People may have been unhappy or neutral about CFI’s hiring him but let it slide. When they read that thread skeptical people will lose respect for the organization.
Where do most car crashes happen?
The Intersection
My apologies
SC – actually it was a different moderator who threatened to delete comments. I went back and checked that yesterday, because I too was thinking it was McK, but it was Occam. Which is confusing. Occam popped in to say shut up or I’ll delete all your comments, then McK took over to misunderstand everything anyone said. Ho hum.
I agree, OB. The framing of this debate keeps shifting over to the personal rather than around the issue of legitimate criticism of CM’s unsupported and negative conclusions (new atheists, meaning those other atheists who criticize my conclusions must be poor communicators and are intentionally rude because they fail to show proper deference and simply misunderstand why I am correct). Try as you might, your efforts like the rest of us have to be interpreted by CM to fit into his incorrect conclusion in order to keep the conclusion true (Ophelia, because she criticizes my conclusions, must be one of them… them consisting of anyone who criticizes me, so they must all be poor and rude communicators worthy of being banned because they support her criticism). That approach makes it personal in Mooney’s mind.
CM has already shown his cards when he accuses Jerry Coyne of being critical of his unsupported and negative conclusions about new atheists so therefore Coyne must be just another poor and rude communicator. When pushed, CM has been singularly unable to come up with any evidence to substantiate the categorization of Coyne… other than he’s admittedly an atheist and criticizes CM’s description of those new atheists. No matter how many of us point out politely and in various perceptive ways that CM’s conclusion continues to be wrong, by doing so we are all guilty in CM’s mind of belonging to the same category not because our criticisms have no merit but because they so obviously do.
I described my bafflement at what Mooney is doing to a friend of mine who was aware of the big picture, but didn’t have the details of these recent to-dos, and his response was, basically, “Nobody links to the Intersection and nobody listens to Point of Inquiry anymore, so who cares about Chris Mooney?”
Hahahaha – well how good is your friend’s information about how many people link to the Intersection and listen to Point of Inquiry?
Certainly I know of lots of people who don’t – people who have de-linked and unsubscribed and so on – but then I would, wouldn’t I. But I suspect I don’t know a good sample of Everyone In The World.
Still, I must say – the comments at his place are truly pathetic. He does not draw an interesting crowd, and [glances around modestly] I do, and so do other BadNewAtheists. If the thin gruel he’s getting on that “Get me I’m moderate” thread is what he wants, well, I wish him joy of it.
Hey Ophelia, I listened to your interview with DJ Grothe from the PoI archive. Your way of speaking reminds me of Jodie Foster. (Not exactly a compliment, I suppose.) And you seem to have a decent voice. Have you ever thought about making your own podcast? You know, having a chat with Chris and clearing the air and whatnot.
Dave W.,
The feeling I get from Mooney is similar to those I get from academics/luminaries who have made a “thing” for themselves by talking about the issue in the meta more often than the issue itself. These tend to work in this vein until the issue passes into a complete and tired irrelevance, and following that, pick up a new contentious issue, setting themselves up in the perceived center position, which guarantees by the nature of it some agreement and popularity.
It’s a mediocre way to make a career. The nice thing is that anybody can do it, as it is rooted in appeals to “both sides,” cheap as any painted bipartisan regurgitating “why can’t we just get along” whenever asked about an issue.
They make their careers by taking many broad metapositions, but few positions. The nice part of this approach is that it requires comparatively little research and defense: find some extreme caricatures and spend time criticizing them, drawing boundary lines as to who deserves to be listened to, and etc. It tends to produce a lot of repetition and convention. It isn’t necessarily wrong, but it tends toward the insubstantial.
It’s a parasitic form of scholarship. Again, there is not anything inherently wrong with it, but it is dull and tired.
Hey Smith, oh I don’t know, I’m quite content to sound like Jodie Foster. (I’ve had the same thought myself.)
Er – I think there is zero chance of clearing the air with Mooney, even if he would agree to chat with me, which he would obviously not do. (PZ reported running into him somewhere a few months ago, and offering an affable greeting; the response was sullen. Mooney does not forgive people he has wronged.)
But in any case – I would rather be set on fire. I wouldn’t trust Mooney not to tell a stack of brazen falsehoods, which would cause me to lose my temper and sound more like a table saw than Jodie Foster. It would be a mess.
You just made my day.
Also, PZ and Mooney are both speaking at one of CFI’s October events. If I remember correctly, they may be part of a panel. I’m not ashamed to say I’m looking forward to watching PZ give Mooney a right thrashing in public.
Ha! I would pay handsomely for the privilege of hearing such an interview!
I think Zach at #38 described the Mooney MO pretty well to a point. However, if that were all there were to him, he would be boring and inert and not nearly so capable of eliciting power-tool-like vocal responses from the normally dulcet-toned New Atheist Ladies (and Gents, and all ‘twixt the two). It’s the habitual, willful misinterpretation of other people’s ideas (both his opponents and those he holds up as having supportive points of view), and the general obtuseness, and the propensity for prevarication, all slathered on top of that crashingly boring meta. That’s what brings the angry noises.
Jen,
That’s not all that there is to Mooney, of course, but up to New Atheism/accommodation issues, I feel that it is a fairly accurate description. This is still sufficient to generate reactions. Again, such self-described moderates generate flak by carelessly labeling large groups as extremist. The point is to be perceived as in the safe middle, then, explicitly or implicitly, critics from any firm side can be placed in the “extreme” category. It’s classic framing.
The misrepresentation need not be deliberate because accurate representation isn’t required for the metapositional, so it just naturally tends to be that way.
Josh [squealing] oh I know, I am so looking forward to that.
Jen, all that plus the obdurate refusal to answer the simplest questions.
Ophelia wrote:
I’m sure his info was no better than yours, but it’s much better than mine. He pays a lot more attention to the “podcastosphere” than I, and talks to more of the “big name” people at CfI than anyone else I know. Doesn’t mean he’s got a seven-billion-person sample size, and “nobody” was certainly hyperbole, but he’s got a better sense for the big picture than I (I get lost in the details, like reading thousands of comments over dozens of posts).
On the other hand, his “who cares?” didn’t make me stop caring, either. Not that I care – I’m not losing sleep over Mooney’s antics – but he is a dangerous enabler of “William” (who lied to me and about me and turned my comments into psychosis), and he’s also clearly actively working against things that I’m working for, so I feel a need to keep an eye on the guy, at least a little bit.
Zachary Voch wrote:
Actually, it is in that particular scenario where Mooney has made his choice perfectly clear. He’s nowhere close to the middle, and he’s not dabbling in the meta. He directly and purposefully demonizes the “New Atheists,” often. And while he says he dislikes the “accommodationist” label, he didn’t actually describe himself as anything but one. Accommodationists, after all, are tolerant and pragmatic. Overly so, since that position is a politically pragmatic toleration of nonsense.
Dave W,
It’s about framing oneself as being in the center and opponents as the extreme, not about holding any meaningful `middle’ position. Yes, he appears to have a position on the accommodation issue, but his overwhelming focus is not in arguing for that position but in arguing <i>against those who disagree</i>. Against <i>those</i>, not so much against <i>their position</i>.
Zachary Voch, what I’m saying is that Mooney has framed himself as an accommodationist, and not in the center. Within the accommodationist/”New Atheist” debates, I’ve never seen him argue against any “extremist” accommodationist, he only argues against the “New Atheists.” He’s not even trying to look like he holds a reasonable “middle” position.
Dave W.,
Accommodationism is almost by definition a “center” frame. The implicit spectrum here includes creationists. And yes, he has maligned IDers and creationists as well.
Zach – reminder – use the html tools! Most of your comments are messed up because you don’t.
Dave – oh ah, your friend talks to CFI people – that’s very interesting. I keep wondering if he’s an embarrassment to them, and if he isn’t, why not. He’s no friend of inquiry, and he’s not careful with the truth. One would think that would embarrass CFI.
blegh
Well done!
:- )
CFI is tarnished by its having hired and protected a ped-ophile.
In my defense, Ophelia, I post across several blogs and the standard comment format recognizes most HTML tags automatically everywhere else. With familiarity, I think I would come to prefer this visual/HTML changeability, just as it is featured in the blogspot posting format. Unfortunately, my mind is still set to HTML default through force of habit.
Anyways, I think I should clear up some of my comments to Dave here.
Unlike YEC, ID, theistic evolution, or unguided evolution, accommodationism is inherently a metaposition. It does not imply acceptance of any of the above positions. Yes, it is certainly true that those described as accommodationists almost always tend toward the TE/UE positions, but accommodation does not necessarily imply that this is the case. It is possible to be a creationist accommodating UE, for example.
It’s not a stance on the issue. It’s a stance on stances on the issue. With atheist accommodationists, UE is the stance we find, but accommodationism describes how that stance is held and treated.
On substantial matters, there might be a disagreement over the tenability of TE or whether or not a given “harmonizing” is successful. Between TEs and NAs, this is a substantial matter of active disagreement. For the accommodationists, the matter of disagreement is this active disagreement.
This is why the scuffles between the NA blogosphere and the accommodationist blogosphere come down to matters of tone, of rhetoric, of tactics, or whatever. The main items of contention are metapositional with respect to stances on evolution.
Now, if an accommodationist is arguing for the tenability of a form of TE, then whether or not she holds that position, that is a positional stance. This occasionally occurs, but it is not the essence of accommodation, a tactical and rhetorical stance. This is why I said the following @42:
If this is still not clear, or else if you feel that I am mistaken, please let me know. My active involvement is fairly recent, so my impressions might be too restricted.
@smith#37
I just listened to that too, and I found it impossible to imagine Ophelia as anyone other than Jodie Foster.
It was a great interview, IMO.
———————————————-
I’m not actually surprised by Mooney’s recent behaviour. Does anyone remember the “Expelled a Box Office Success” mess at the old Intersection blog?
http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2008/04/expelled_a_box_office_success.php
Classic Mooney. Say something retarded and downright wrong, then desperately try and ignore dozens of substantive comments pointing out the errors. Finally, instead of coming clean, change the issue to one of tone, cry persecution, and then say that the subject is closed.
http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2008/04/for_pointing_out_the_obvious_i.php
It is a shameful modus operandi.
I do kind of remember that, but I looked away for most of it, as one might look away from a car crash. But once the “Jerry Coyne is so rude and bungling to have written that brilliant review in The New Republic” mess got going, looking away was no longer an option.
Reading that second thread – I see you there, MH. Haha – Orac said
Hoo-boy, does that sound familiar.
Seerusly, the guy must be made of wood. He takes nothing in.
Zachary Voch,
When you speak of the “‘New Atheist’/accommodationist debate,” you’re speaking about a debate between two meta positions. The “New Atheism” (which isn’t new) isn’t just being atheist, but instead a position on how atheists should engage in the “Culture Wars.” Accommodationism is much the same, insisting that for short-term gains in the larger fight against encroaching theocracy, we have to accommodate “moderate” religious positions or else the scientists who hold such positions will turn against us (which really means that they’ll forgo science in favor of religion out of spite against atheists, an unbelievable assertion to begin with).
Thus, creationists and other extremist theists don’t even appear on this particular spectrum. Accommodationism is the one extreme, and “New Atheism” is the other. The “middle” is very small – almost non-existent. I mean, I can’t think of anyone who fits the bill. I know people who wish that both the accommodationists and the “New Atheists” both would just shut up already, but they’re not in the middle, they don’t want a place on the spectrum at all.
And
It’s déja vu all over again.
Ok Dave, I think our confusion was that I was referring to “accommodationist middle” as relative to the “acceptance of evolution” spectrum, not as a “middle metaposition.” These vague, value judgment-produced geometrical notions are worthless (for reasons like this confusion), but the point is that we think that way and many of our bias operate in that manner. So, with respect to the relationship between position and metaposition on the evolution issue, accommodationists are arguing to moderation.
My objection is that it’s a cheap, rather lazy position which is used to generate vacuous careers.
Zachary Voch, I see where you’re coming from. I think that because I watched the rise of accommodationism as a reaction to “New Atheism,” I think of it in those terms, and not as any sort of independent position on the “acceptance of evolution” spectrum. And really, if there were no “New Atheists,” there’d be no accommodationists.
But as you note, these distinctions aren’t nearly as useful as paying attention to what people actually do.
Dave,
I think that we’re on the same page, however I do not feel that “if there were no “New Atheists,” there’d be no accommodationists” is true. Historically, there have been “New Atheists” around, so this is a speculation on my part, but I feel that the general phenomenon of creating these false metamiddles would have occurred in this case anyways.
Zachary Voch, if nobody were standing up and saying “I’m an atheist and that’s okay,” and “pandering to religious sentiments in order to get people to accept science is morally wrong,” then there’d be no motivation for other people to stand up and say, “your militant atheism is scaring people away from science.” Instead, everyone involved in the public debate would be a theistic evolutionist, a creationist, or hiding (or simply not admitting) their atheism.
I have no doubt that there have always been and will always be people who create and try to profit from dodgy metamiddles, and perhaps they’d even be called “accommodationists,” but the extreme(s) they’d be arguing against would be completely different from the one(s) they’re attacking now.
Here is my new big-picture summary of Mooney.
In the same way I hope the general public becomes skeptical of religion, I also hope non-believers become skeptical of egotism (or at least learn to identify the phenomenon).