Tag: Chris Mooney

  • Baying for blood? Moi?

    Are the few people who commented on JK’s post on the Toxic Sock affair really (though metaphorically) “participants in [a] witch-hunt” and “the 21st century, virtual-world, equivalent of a medieval mob baying for the blood their latest victim”?

    No.

    I can see why they (we – I was one) look like a crowd, because there are quite a few comments and they are critical and sometimes hostile. On the other hand, there are only (if I counted correctly) 23 people total, not counting Jean, and a few of them are friendly; there’s a total of 63 comments. So a rush of mostly-critical comments, yes; a mob baying for blood, no.

    But more to the point: are we the Bad People? Are we the bashers, the demonizers, the bayers for blood, the pitchfork-wielders, in contrast to the kindly peaceable loving villagers who want only to be left alone to raise their raspberries and kiwis?

    No.

    No; I seriously don’t think so. I think the issue here is that we “new atheists” think we are allowed to be openly critical of religion, and that we think haters of “new atheists” are wrong and illiberal to keep throwing merde at us for doing so. We think that when it’s Ron Rosenbaum throwing, and we think it when it’s “William/Tom Johnson” and we think it when it’s Chris Mooney.

    So we tend to push back when people throw merde at us for doing something that is not and should not be seen as wrong. We pushed back at Mooney and Kirshenbaum when they threw merde at us in their book, and the result was that they banned some of us from their blog while allowing their pets to call us liars. That’s the backstory in a nutshell. M&K have chosen to spend a lot of time demonizing a minority that in the US is already thoroughly despised. That would be reasonable if the minority in question were Child-torturers United; but we’re not, so it isn’t.

    So no. We’re not the witch-hunters here.

    Mark Jones finds the whole idea quite ironic.

  • Fix the radar

    So now we know all about “Tom Johnson,” except that we don’t. We also don’t have a frank account of how it all went so terribly wrong.

    It was just a blog post, and I had no reason to think there was anything fishy going on. And I did note that the story was “one individual’s experience and point of view, and nothing more.”

    He did though. He did have reason to think there was anything fishy going on. He had – what to call it – he had an ear. He had his skeptical faculty. He had reasonable sensible journalistic caution. He had an acquaintance with human beings and the way they talk and behave. He had any reason to think Tom Johnson’s story sounded fishy for the same reason I did: because it sounded fishy!

    It did. It sounded stupid. It sounded like a childish caricature. It had that stupid, childish note of exaggeration – the bit about atheists screaming in believers’ faces for instance. Come on! Yes, Virginia, that does sound fishy.

    It sounded fishy in just the way the story that William told on YNH sounded fishy; the story about being a woman and “a scientist” (that itself sounds fishy) and an atheist, who saw the error of her ways when her young son came home from school with a tale of having called a goddy schoolmate “stupid.” Our scientist atheist mother realized she had taught her son this behavior, and she was stricken with remorse.

    Yeah, right.

    That’s it, really – Tom Johnson’s story was a “yeah, right” story. Chris Mooney is a journalist, or at least he used to be. (He’s more of a commentator now.) Surely journalists are supposed to have some ability to spot fairly obvious implausibility of this kind? Isn’t that just part of the job?

    I had no reason at the time to suspect he was beginning an increasingly elaborate career of sock puppetry.

    He did though. Just as before, he did. He had the same reason – there was too much of an echo effect in the comments at The Intersection. Not just agreement, but an echo effect. I noticed it at the time – though I don’t think I thought of sock puppets, I just thought (rather disgustedly) that there were a lot of brainless sheep all going “baaaaaaaa” at the same time. But then it wasn’t my blog. If I had a lot of commenters all going “baaaaaaaaaa” I hope I would have the sense to wonder if they were sock puppets, even if they agreed with me. I do in fact have one regular longstanding commenter who does go “baaaaaaa” and I don’t like the bleating any more because it agrees with me. In fact I may like it less, because it so often sounds like a parody of me. (No it’s not you, this guy knows who he is.)

    Update: Really – if I haven’t told you it’s you, it’s not you. I haven’t told you it’s you. So it’s not you!

    So no, M&K aren’t quite the innocent victims Mooney wants to pretend. They have seriously bad radar. Their radar tells them to ban me, and then as the months and years roll on, to ban lots and lots of other reasonable people too, while they keep people like “bilbo” and “MiltonC” and Kwok. That is some malfunctioning radar.

  • How to do dialogue

    Chris Mooney is in praise of dialogue again.

    The fact is, journalism (and dialogue) about science and religion are pretty difficult to oppose.

    Case in point: Last week, here in D.C. (my old, new home), I attended an event at the American Association for the Advancement of Science to reintroduce its Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion…At the close of the session, I rose and posed a question. One can never remember exact words, but in essence, it was this: “I’m glad you’re trying to foster dialogue between scientists and the religious community, and I’m sure you’ll succeed. But here is a harder question–how will you foster dialogue with the New Atheists?”

    Oh that dialogue about science and religion – the one where everybody gets together and hates on “the New Atheists.” And if they’re slow to get around to that, fortunately, Chris Mooney is there to remind them to get down to it – Mr Communication, Mr Framing, Mr Can’t We All Get Along himself. Chris Mooney is a friend to everyone – except the evil marginal non-mainstream people he insists on calling “the New Atheists” as if that were a known classified species rather than a sloppy journalistic catch-all pejorative.

    Good to have you back Chris. You’re a real piece of work.

  • More lessons in civility

    Backlash against “new” atheists, chapter 479,811.

    We were initially surprised that our co-authored book, Unscientific America, was so strongly attacked for observing that scientists should strive to improve their skills at public communication–and that this probably includes not alienating potential religious allies or mainstream America. But in a sense, the attacks made a kind of sense. Mostly, they came from those for whom this advice ran contrary to their particular project of denouncing much of America and the world for alleged ignorance and superstition–the New Atheists.

    That’s “backlash” because it’s untrue, and distorted, and misleading. It’s dishonest and unreasonable, and those qualities make it backlash as opposed to disagreement or criticism. It is of course entirely possible to disagree with “the New Atheists” or “new” atheism in a reasonable and truthful way. It’s noticeable and interesting, though, that the vast bulk of the unfavorable reaction to “new” atheism is not like that, but is, rather, untrue, and distorted, and misleading. There has been a torrent of unfavorable reaction to “new” atheism, and I have seen very little of it – to tell the truth I don’t recall any, which of course is not to say that there isn’t any – that is not hostile and dishonest.

    The quoted passage is untrue and distorted in several ways. One is that it doesn’t say who “the New Atheists” are, which means it leaves the impression that anyone and everyone that someone might consider a “new” atheist fits that hostile and dishonest description.

    That’s an ugly trick. And the description itself is ugly – typical, and ugly. It’s typical of the shameless hyperbole that backlashers permit themselves to indulge in, as if it were simply self-evident that “new” atheists are on a moral level with Nazis or child-raping priests. I’m often considered and labeled a “new” atheist, and I consider myself to have a lot in common with people who are so labeled (and so I consider the label a compliment), so I’ll give my position on this description. I have no “project” to “denounce” much of the US and the world for alleged ignorance and superstition. That doesn’t describe me, and it doesn’t describe the “new” atheists I’m familiar with, either.

    It’s a curiously anti-intellectual and paranoiac description of people who make arguments in books and articles and blog posts, too. It makes us sound as if we lead Nuremberg rallies against the majority of human beings.
    In that, of course, it is simply typical of backlash rhetoric, which seems to be hell-bent on stirring up as much hatred of avowed atheists as it possibly can. It never stops surprising me how cheerfully willing the backlashers are to play with this kind of fire.

  • Dissent

    For the record – the (critical but reasonable) comment I tried to post on Chris Mooney’s post on science and communication yesterday has now been deleted. Yesterday it was showing up (for me only) as being held in moderation, and today it’s gone.

    It is possible of course to think that no matter how reasonable one particular comment may be, the person behind it is not. Mooney doesn’t delete all dissent on his posts, so clearly he does think something along those lines – that I am myself inherently unreasonable and unallowable, even if I do manage to fake up a reasonably mild comment at some particular moment.

    I think he’s wrong. I can easily see why he would resent my criticisms, but the fact remains, I think he’s wrong. I think I’m not so unreasonable as all that. I think I’m a more honest and forthright disputant than he is.

  • Hau tu komyewnikate

    Chris Mooney has explained about the need for science communication, or as he calls it, Sci Comm Training.

    Science needs both to create new knowledge and also to disseminate it effectively so that that knowledge has an impact–so that it changes the world in a positive way. Why on earth would these two important ends be set in opposition to each other?

    Yes of course it does, but disseminating knowledge is not necessarily the same thing as “framing,” nor does it necessarily need to know about “framing.” Framing is more closely related to public relations and political campaigning than it is to education, and that’s one major reason scientists and fans of science don’t all think Mooney is the ideal person to give “boot camps” in how to disseminate scientific knowledge.

    I said something like that, and a bit more, in a comment that I tried to make at The Intersection, thinking perhaps after all this time the ban on me had expired, or rusted, or been lifted. I thought I would see, at any rate. But my comment has not been posted, so clearly the ban is still fresh and vigorous. So I’ll drop it off here.

    The problem continues in this post – the “communication” here includes misdescribing at least some of the disagreements around all this.

    I, for one, have nothing against “science communication” as such. I do however have doubts that you are the right person to teach science communication, Chris, for the simple reason that you’re not very good at it yourself. That’s not meant as an insult – it’s not a crime not to be good at a particular thing.

    One part of being good at communication is surely an ability to predict the effect of your communications on your audience. You don’t seem to have that: you were surprised by the reactions to your “civility” post a year ago. You were surprised by my reaction, for instance – you may remember we had a (reasonably friendly) email exchange about it. It’s odd that you were surprised, and the fact that you were surprised hints to me that you don’t have full control of your communications – you don’t entirely know what you’re doing. This would seem to be a disqualifier for teaching the subject.

    You don’t seem to be able to grasp why the concept of “framing” is not welcomed with cries of delight by people whose vocation it is to try to get at the truth. That to me seems to be another disqualifier for teaching communications. Your overall refusal to engage with critics seems like another.

  • Those who can’t, give a “boot camp”

    Hmm. I see where Chris Mooney says he is

    giving a four hour “boot camp” on science communication to a group of graduate students and other interested parties. The session begins with an overview of the “theory” of science communication–why we must do it better, what the obstacles are, and how a changing media environment makes it much tougher…Then, the session goes into a media “how to”–rules for interacting with journalists, media do’s and don’ts, and an overview of various key communication “technologies,” such as framing.

    Interesting, but one question that occurs to me right away is what makes anyone (including Mooney) think Mooney is the right person to teach anyone how to communicate? He’s strikingly bad at it himself. Really he is. Yes I know I’m not an impartial observer, but all the same – he is.

    He could so easily have done a better job of “communicating” and “framing” last summer – he could have answered questions instead of ignoring them, he could have taken critics seriously instead of repeatedly trashing them, he could have admitted it when he absorbed other people’s arguments and began regurgitating them, he could have dropped the petulant whining about bloggers he dislikes in the national media. He could have said basically the same things (minus the trashing and whining) but done a better job of it – a less alienating job of it – a less piss everybody off job of it. But he didn’t. He just kept pouring more gasoline on the fire, instead. So in what sense is he an expert on “communication”? In what sense is he even good at it?

    He does please the Templeton Foundation, of course, but then the Templeton Foundation is not what you’d call hard to please. They’ll lavish money on anybody who shouts that science and religion are best friends.

    Update: link fixed! Sorry – was late in the day when I did this yesterday.

    Update 2: Abbie has a very funny post on the subject, with a lot of very funny comments (which eventually become all-Pluto all the time, at which point I recommend ceasing to read).