How tacky. I’ve disliked everything I’ve read by John Haught, and it turns out he’s a sore loser, too.
John Haught is suppressing the video of the debate he had with Jerry Coyne. He signed off on permission before the debate, but has now reneged, claiming he did poorly because of the presence of “Jerry’s groupies”, and that the event “failed to meet what I consider to be reasonable standards of fruitful academic exchange”. He got his ass kicked, in other words.
Bad, bad, very bad.
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AJ Milne
November 2, 2011 at 6:13 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Well, y’know, my sympathies to the poor guy, ‘n all.
Sure. I mean, y’know when you go to the formal debate society championship and it’s these two guys who draw cards and they just have to argue whichever position they get on whichever point comes up…
… and it turns out the topic is ‘Sticking Your Hand in a Running Blender: Pro and Con’… and you look at the guy who draws the card which says he has to argue for the health benefits of such an action, and his face is in his hands and he’s looking kinda piqued before even beginning the endeavour, well…
Well I begin to feel a similar sort of sympathy for theologians, in these things. ‘Cept they’re like the guys who actually carry around the ‘blending your hand will improve your tennis grip’ card, and actually volunteer to take that position every time for some reason.
It can’t be easy. Perhaps Haught has just finally tired out, after a lifetime of creating such artificial challenges for himself, realized he’s perhaps getting too old for such masochistic rhetorical exertion. What can ya do.
It’s all good, guy. Just time to move onto something a little less perversely difficult, maybe. Like maybe doing PR for the asbestos industry or somethin’.
Why is John Haught an intellectual coward? « Questionable Motives
November 1, 2011 at 8:51 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
[...] This raises the question of why. Coyne has responded to this, as has PZ Myers, MacDonald, and Benson. By the few accounts I have read of the debate, Coyne who was well prepared was particularly [...]
Under pressure from blogosphere, Haught explains and relents « Why Evolution Is True
November 2, 2011 at 6:03 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
[...] was the support I received from the skeptical blogosphere. P.Z. Myers posted on this, as did Ophelia at Butterflies and Wheels (twice), as well as Eric MacDonald and erv. It’s heartening that, despite our differences, we [...]