By Wendy Onofrey

Webmaster for the Bolingbrook Babbler

For some reason, Skeptic decided to post a review of Milo Yiannopoulos’s new book Dangerous.  Let’s just say that if Michael Shermer’s Moral Arc bends towards Milo, then count the staff of the Babbler out.

PZ Myers rightly condemns this favorable review.

Of course, this ‘review’ cites all the usual crap: Christina Hoff Sommers, there is no such thing as rape culture, except that when there is it comes from Islam, the police are the greatest defenders of the black community, and of course, political correctness, identity politics, and cultural Marxism. It’s a totally mindless recitation of the nonsense you get on Reddit and in YouTube comments.

Even Hayley Stevens has problems with the review and what its publication says about the skeptical movement.

Something like skepticism, as an approach to assessing claims and being proactive about tackling harmful misinformation, should be as free from ideologies as possible, and yet certain sections of organized skepticism (read: American, male, rich, and famous) seem to specifically target feminists, “identity politics” and some areas of the LGBTQ community – namely trans* people while writing fond reviews of problematic public figures such as Milo.

When Hayley and PZ agree, that’s a sign that maybe you’re doing something wrong.

To add insult to injury, Phil Torres writes for Salon about what he sees as the descent of New Atheism.

Although the new atheist movement once filled me with a great sense of optimism about the future of humanity, this is no longer the case. Movements always rise and fall — they have a life cycle, of sorts — but the fall of this movement has been especially poignant for me. The new atheists of today would rather complain about “trigger warnings” in classrooms than eliminate rape on campuses. They’d rather whine about “safe spaces” than help transgender people feel accepted by society. They loudly claim to support free speech and yet routinely ban dissenters from social media, blogs and websites.

All in all, it hasn’t been a good week for New Atheism.

Time for me to back to work on the next issue of the Babbler.  The staff on a big story that I plan on posting on Monday or Tuesday.