Pay attention, debaters

Eight years ago, Bill Nye and Ken Ham met to debate evolution vs. creationism. They engaged in the Creation Museum, which was a big mistake — never willingly give the home court advantage to your opponent. Nevertheless, if you ask any biologist how it went, they’ll mostly agree that Nye kicked Ham’s ass. The low point for the creationist was when he proudly declaimed that no amount of evidence could ever convince him he was wrong, because the Bible was absolute truth.

However, even now Ken Ham brags about the debate. He and his followers think he trounced Nye, and specifically think his testimony about the infallibility of the Bible was a clincher. Ham isn’t hiding in shame, he still trumpets the debate regularly.

He didn’t learn a thing, but neither did many people on the other side. I’m still seeing people lining up to debate Kent Hovind, or Standing For Truth (if you don’t know him, he’s a fraud on YouTube) or the “Great” Debate Community, or any of these yahoos whose ticket to traffic on social media is to host debates on “controversial” topics, which usually means putting up an idiot on equal standing with someone supporting conventional science. The more absurd their position, the more inane their response, the more conflict they generate and the more traffic they get.

The loser is always the person who gives respectability to the kook at the other lectern. Learn from this. It doesn’t matter how slick, professional, and clever you are in your side of the debate — at the end of the day, the winner is going to be the one who praises Jesus the most.

Debate as a tool for misinformation and propaganda

David Gorski rips on all those quacks and debate-me bros. It’s good stuff.

Challenges to “live debates” from science deniers are challenges that scientists should, with only the rarest of exceptions, generally decline. Nothing good comes of them, as they are theater, not science. Their purpose is not even really to persuade anyone. Rather, it is to represent pseudoscience as being worthy of being on the same stage (or Zoom meeting) as science, quacks as worthy of having their beliefs presented as being of similar credibility to science-based medicine presented by real doctors, pseudoscientists as worthy of being considered equally with scientists, and conspiracy theorists as worthy of being considered equally with real experts in a field. They are a tool of propaganda and almost never a tool to get at valid science. That’s exactly why cranks love “live public debate” so much, even when faced with criticism from an even crankier crank, and, even better for them, these forums allow them to puff up their egos by convincing themselves that they’ve bested a real expert.

If that doesn’t demonstrate why scientists should politely decline such requests, I don’t know what will. To paraphrase Scott Weitzenhoffer, such debates are like trying to play chess with a pigeon; it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory. Depriving them of that opportunity not only drives them up the wall, but it prevents them from using you, as a scientist, physician, or science communicator as a tool to foil to use to spread their misinformation.

Maybe we ought to have some kind of pledge where we all agree to not give those people oxygen. David has been more consistent than I have in spurning the debate-me bros, but I’d sign it, too.

I have to disagree with him mildly on one thing, though.

I can’t resist spoiling the answer to this question by saying right away that the answer is no. All truth does not come from “live public debate.” I won’t say that it’s always a bad idea for a science advocate to agree to a debate like the sort in the “challenges” by Dr. Oz and Steve Kirsch. After all, Steve Novella showed me how it’s done back in 2012 when he accepted a challenge of convenience to debate Dr. Julian Whitaker about vaccines at FreedomFest in Las Vegas in 2012. (The Amazing Meeting was being held the same weekend in Las Vegas; so he and I were there already.) However, it turns out that Dr. Whitaker was very bad at the deceptive debate techniques that cranks use, but also Dr. Novella was very, very good at anticipating and responding to common antivaccine arguments. Even though Dr. Novella basically mopped the floor with Dr. Whitaker, I still had misgivings, as I did when Bill Nye similarly wiped the floor with creationist Ken Ham in a debate of science versus pseudoscience with respect to evolution. Basically, I view these examples as the exceptions that prove the rule that scientists really shouldn’t debate cranks…

Floors were neither mopped nor wiped in those debates. They’re still filthy. I agree with Novella and Nye, so I agree that they did a fine job of presenting their position, but no, the “loser” of those debates did not see the error of their ways, and the majority of their fans did not change their minds. I don’t pay any attention to this Whitaker person, but I do check in on Ham now and then — and he brags about his debate. He believes he triumphed, and his followers slavishly agree with him. See also Kent Hovind, who claims to have been in 260 debates, and to have won every single one of them with half his brain tied behind his back. He even claims to have won a debate with me, which didn’t occur!

If those are our best examples of victories, I’m going to go ahead and say it: it’s always a bad idea for a science advocate to agree to a debate.

The bit about Matt Powell

Last night, I did a livestream on YouTube. YouTube tends to bury these things, so I’m doing an experiment: I yanked out a 20 minute segment (it’s shorter! That helps) and reposted it. That also meant I could go in and edit and add an endtitle that gives credit to my Patreon supporters.

This is a bit where I talked about Matt Powell’s latest clueless video. I guess he hates pop culture almost as much as he mangles science.

The complete livestream is here, about an hour long, if you want to hear my exasperation at Jordan Peterson, and a bit about a recent paper on bat evolution.

Oh, also, I guess you get to see my graying Zappa.

Dear god, Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson are such pompous know-nothings

Behold, two idiots talking.

There is no such thing as climate. Climate and everything are the same word. That’s what bothers me about the climate change types. It’s like — this is something that bothers me about technically, it’s like climate is about everything. OK. But your models aren’t based on everything. Your models are based on a set number of variables. That means you reduce the variables, which are everything, to that set. Well, how did you decide which set of variables to include in the equation if it’s about everything? That’s not just a criticism, if it’s about everything, your models aren’t right. Because your models do not and cannot model everything.

  • Climate is not about “everything”. Let’s look it up on Wikipedia, since Peterson didn’t even do that much.

    Climate is the long-term pattern of weather in an area, typically averaged over a period of 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorological variables that are commonly measured are temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, and precipitation. In a broader sense, climate is the state of the components of the climate system, which includes the ocean, land, and ice on Earth.

    So not “everything”.

  • Yes, climate is modeled. The relevant variables are assessed by knowledgeable experts, not muscle-bound blatherers or disgraced freaky Jungian psychologists.
  • Models are constantly assessed against ongoing observations and measurements. Predictions are made and tested. That’s what we use to measure their validity.
  • No model can include “everything”. That’s why it is a model. You can’t just make a blanket dismissal of all models solely because they’re models. That’s like throwing out psychology because it doesn’t account for every neuron and every variable in physiology.

Remember: Spotify paid Joe Rogan $100 fucking million dollars to broadcast on their network. Peterson was getting paid $200 fucking thousand per month for just his clinical practice, which I presume he gave up because he’s earning more from his speeches and books.

Fuck both of these guys.

Kent Hovind wacked me again!

Hovind responded to my challenge, which was to leave me out of his rigged debates and just go read a good book, by making me the subject of his “wack-an-atheist” show and most obviously, not reading a single goddamned book. I should have expected that.

I’m beginning to suspect he’s a liar, a fraud, and a fool. Just beginning.

Only a decade behind us

A bit over ten years ago, a bunch of us faced a dilemma: National Geographic had taken over hosting of our blogs, and they were sending not-at-all subtle signs that they did not like people who criticized religion, and they were going to start imposing new restrictions on what we could write. That’s why you’re reading this on freethoughtblogs.com — Ed Brayton and I decided to set up this independent site and move our blogs here, and host other godless bloggers. Others, like David Gorski, just set up their own independent blogs. A few were seduced away by the giant group blog, Patheos, who swore on a stack of Bibles that, while they were primarily a religious site, they’d allow atheists to have their own subdomain, with no severe restrictions on their content. They also had money and could provide a reasonable revenue to their bloggers.

I was never invited to join Patheos (I guess I was too atheist for them) and wouldn’t have been at all tempted to go under the wing of such a site — I wouldn’t like the company I’d have to keep, and I didn’t trust them at all. I’m not surprised at all that now, after a decade of tolerance, Patheos management has decided to change the rules on everyone.

Efforts to reach Patheos’ management team were unsuccessful, but the departing bloggers and their channel manager, Dale McGowan, said that about a year ago, Patheos decided to change its editorial direction. Bloggers were advised they could stay at Patheos so long as they stopped writing negative or critical posts on religion or politics and instead focused on how to live a good life within their own worldview.

All my suspicions are confirmed, and the temptation is great to say, “I told you so!”. We were snookered too, though — for many years we hired Patheos to provide our ad services here. You don’t see any ads now, do you? That’s because their ads were so obnoxious and intrusive that we finally canceled them altogether. So the bloggers that are now departing en masse have my sympathy, and I wish them the best of luck at their new site, OnlySky.

Well, except maybe Heman Mehta, who has been sticking his foot in his mouth for a while.

There aren’t any media outlets that cater specifically to atheists,” he said. “All the other atheist specific blogging networks are run by volunteers and people who are passionate about the subject but don’t do business-savvy anything, so they falter and die. This one has digital expertise.

Oh, really? No other atheist media outlets? Freethoughtblogs is a media outlet, it’s also explicitly atheist/humanist. What about The Orbit?

We are “volunteers and people who are passionate about the subject”, but I’ve never considered that a negative.

We “don’t do business-savvy anything”, because we’ve worked on being independent of any capitalist control, whether it’s NatGeo or Patheos ad services. I presume OnlySky has learned the same lesson we accepted years ago.

What’s this about “falter and die”? We’ve been doing well for over ten years, and even weathered a $2 million lawsuit, with the assistance of our most excellent readership. It’s rather foolish to declare that all other atheists networks have died off, when a) we’re standing right here as a refutation, and b) you’re about to start a new atheist network in what you’ve declared to be such a hazardous and infertile field. We aren’t going to disappear just because Hemant Mehta doesn’t think we exist.

Good fortune, OnlySky, but I hope Mehta isn’t your spokesperson in the future.

Maybe reserve your hope that anyone “falters and dies” for Patheos.

The Kent Hovind Challenge!

I got tired of Kent Hovind constantly demanding that I, and other people, debate him, so I offer an alternative.

If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, you can get the gist from the title screen: I tell him to go read a book. Or you can read the script, down below.

Dang, he beat me to it. Hovind issued his own challenge this morning: it’s to have a debate, with idiotic creationist YouTuber Standing For Truth as the moderator. In other words, the same as he always does.

Forget it, my challenge is better.

[Read more…]

Hello, your name is Kent Hovind, prepare to be laughed at

Kent is back, begging for attention. Here are a couple of comments he left on my YouTube channel. I’ll respond to them here and be done with him.

Of course you don’t recall, Kent — but I’ve got the receipts. Also, it’s Coyne, not Coyan, so I think it’s safe to assume you haven’t already read Why Evolution is True, which doesn’t surprise me at all. You don’t read anything about the science you disparage, let alone even popular summaries. You’re a know-nothing.

Why should I “debate”? I can talk about evolution and science without asking you to jump in and provide commentary from an ignorant point of view. You’re adding nothing to the discussion.

I accepted an invitation to debate in my callow, foolish youth five or six years ago, when you were getting out of prison for tax dodging. You didn’t accept my insistence that you couldn’t profit one-sidedly from it, and it was you that refused.

Again, you can’t respond in a debate on evolution. I’ve seen you at work. You’ve got nothing to offer other than mischaracterization (“you believe you evolved from a rock”, for instance), incredulity (“how can you believe you’re related to a mosquito?”…because the molecular evidence shows that we are, I’d say), and ignorance and stupidity. You have nothing to add. Nothing.

Fuck off, you vapid, clownshoe-wearing racist, misogynist, criminal fraud.

Hey, Kent, crazy idea here: you don’t need me, either. Go read Why Evolution is True all by yourself, and go through it, all by yourself, chapter by chapter, making video rebuttals. You know, kinda like how Aron Ra went through your videos chopping ’em up. Do it!