Mark Senior continues to be eager to let everyone know that he’s not going to pay any attention to any statements on the merits of disagreeing without being abusive about it. Hell no! Nobody tells Mark Senior not to act like an asshole!! Mark Senior will act like an asshole as much as he wants to, thank you very much!!!
Description: a tweet sent by Mark Senior to Richard Dawkins and to me with a photoshop of PZ with a clown’s read nose and, underneath, a putative quotation from Diogenes of Sinope saying “that which cannot withstand criticism or mockery is false.” The attribution is a lie, of course – if you Google the phrase the only results are the slime pit and Justin Vacula. Diogenes they are not.
This quote (also not Diogenes) appears to be mighty close:
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/768385-how-much-truth-is-contained-in-something-can-be-best
In any case, I more or less agree with that statement. There’s a difference between observing that robust ideas should be able to withstand ridicule vs. pointing out that certain types of mockery are just not cool. How hard is it to understand that distinction???
Also: Ideas vs. people. The joint statement didn’t say anything about crudely photoshopped images that mock a certain idea, did it?
In fairness, only Diogenes was Diogenes.
Diogenes was awesome. These eminently mockable clowns, not-so-much.
Nice of them to steal Peter Sloterdijk’s quote then misattribute it to someone else! Also on that basis feminism must be, 100%, true. It carries on withstanding mockery since its inception, mainly by douchebags, so no change there then.
What they mean is do the people withstand the disdain, mockery and harassment they subject them to. They then get confused and somehow think the ideas a person believes are intrinsically linked to the person, so when the person crumples that means the ideas have too. Hence their disgusting displays of glee when they harassed Jen out of the picture. Sorry to say that is a total fallacy, clearly, so I guess it fits well with the anti-FTB ideology.
Yes, the Cynics are interesting. Diogenes sounds like a pretty good stand-up comedian.
Very hard if you have your head buried deeply where the sun doesn’t shine (to quote my prudish mother). They don’t hear the distinction because they don’t hear anything but their own noise.
Why would you expect him to stop? Is there some kind of connection between him and Dawkins?
…so I said to the ancient Greek playwright, “Euripides? Then you PAY for dese!”
/wah wah wah wahhhhhhhhhh
If one does a web search, especially on the U tube, it is interesting to search for this phrase:
“red nose day rowan atkinson”
There, one might find a video about 3 minutes long in which he pretends to be an archbishop in honor of a charity event in which people wear a red nose. Nobody in this process seems to be destroyed by wearing a red nose.
On what basis does Senior even hypothesize that wearing a red nose would be a challenge to PZ?
“Mark Senior can suck an egg.”
-Socrates
Even if it were Diogenes, it wouldn’t then have meant the same as today, as the version of Photoshop available in his time was extremely primitive.
I do not accept the authority of Diogenes or Vacula or whoever.
But that clown nose…what a devastating argument. I am crushed. My ego is shattered. I WAS WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING! My god, if only I’d seen that card 50 years ago, I wouldn’t have wasted my life.
There’s only one thing to do to save my dignity. Does anyone have a picture of Mark Senior? I need to photoshop a clown nose and a funny hat on it. That’ll teach him. And everyone will respect my masterful riposte.
Ol’ Clown Nose @12:
Everything? But that means that you weren’t just wrong about feminism, but also atheism and evolution!
Praise Jesus! Where’s Ken Ham? I want to give some money to his legal defense fund AND his museum!
I mean, remember what Diogenes also said: “Clown nose in unum, Clown nose in omnibus”
Just a guess, but mocking PZed is not the best way to be Richard Dawkins’ new “It boy.”
that which cannot withstand criticism or mockery is false.
So what do they think you have been doing till now? sitting down?
I thought Diogenes was a club were misanthropes hung out.
Well, I was going to say that even if it was Diogenes, that’s essentially an argument from authority. But PZ already alluded to that problem. That one would resort to a false attribution — knowingly or not — is also a good indication that the point is not true. And this point really is not true. James would seem to address this @2: What is “that”? It seems that “that” is a person in this case. So…PZ is false if he cannot withstand criticism or mockery?
Really, this seems to be a problem I’ve noticed amongst some atheists. They seem to have it in their heads that if the person presenting an idea cannot handle criticism or mockery, that somehow means that person’s idea is therefore false. That’s just not logical.
Senior appears to exist in a bizarre alternate reality. Trying to answer this question might lead you down a quantum rabbit hole.
Wow, if that fake Diogenes quote is true, then I can fully refute any argument by repeating the argument verbatim in a whiny or silly voice. Or by just appending “herp-derp”. This is useful! This will definitely make Philosophy much easier–maybe easy enough for a semi-literate scientist like me.
Hmmm…they ARE Diogenes, in that they won’t find an honest man – not with the company THEY keep…
@Eric: Euripides? Eumenides!
Red nose day in Australia is about fundraising for research into SIDS and other causes of infant death. So PZ is fundraising for a good cause here? Hahah LOL what a loser? Umm wha?
“The vast majority of quotations you encounter on the Internet are completely made up.”
–Jesus of Nazareth
It doesn’t even make sense. First of all, there’s a distinction between criticism and mockery, and the joint statement said nothing about criticism. It didn’t disavow all mockery, either.
Secondly, what does “withstand” mean, in this context? And how would that have anything to do with the truth value of the mocked-or-criticized claim?
Incoherence capped with a pretentious appeal to authority. Which turns out to be false.
The Slymepit. Answering Voltaire’s prayer since 2011.