Robert Wright has an article that you can stop reading as soon as you’ve seen the title: Why the “New Atheists” are Right-Wing on Foreign Policy.
Uh, we aren’t.
Well, that one was easy.
Mooney and Kirshenbaum have been so stung by my criticisms of their book that they have launched a multi-part rebuttal to my review. Here’s my reply to their reply.
We didn’t get personal, and we didn’t attack atheism in general! Hmmm. Here’s a sampling of what they do say: “Myers’ actions were incredibly destructive and unnecessary”. I “set the cause backward”. New Atheists believe that “religious faith should not be benignly tolerated”. The “New Atheists” are “nasty bullying”. They’re “shrill”. In last year’s voting for best science blog, I was the “devil’s choice”. Blogging brings out the “loud, angry, nasty, and profanity-spewing minority”. When he refers to Pharyngula, he refers to it as a “science” blog — in quotes. It’s the “most alienating” of the blogs.
Sure, you can call it just “criticism”. But the peculiarity here is that the only people he targets are me particularly, and “New Atheists” in general. If you’re making an objective case for a genuine problem, just hammering on one example is peculiar. If I’m representative, you’d think he’d marshal lots of examples; if I’m an outlier, he’s building a case on an exception. Which is it?
But the biggest problem here is the uselessness of the critique, that word I used before to summarize his whole book. He provides no solutions in chapter 8, other than a general complaint that the “New Atheists” are bad. What does he propose to do about Pharyngula? Shut it down? Others will take its place. He doesn’t seem capable of recognizing that it is popular because it fills a popular niche.
Myers doesn’t grasp our point about Pluto! This is true. I don’t. I spelled out my complaints about this section in my previous review.
Well, Chris and Sheril, what should the astronomers have done? Should they have had a binding referendum delivered to the public to get their say? Are there other scientific matters that should be decided by popular vote? (Let’s put the truth of evolutionary biology up for decision in a poll!) Should scientists take the time to explain with a little wit and humor and sound scientific reasoning why they made that decision? If so, they missed the boat: they should read Neil deGrasse Tyson’s The Pluto Files for exactly that. How about some discussion about exactly why they think that failed?
Those questions have been ignored. The Pluto section of the book is available online, go ahead and look. You won’t find them saying anything about what ought to be done in the future, or where the astronomers went wrong. Again, useless.
Myers fails to say what the point of the whole book was! Exactly. What is it? I said the first chapter was symptomatic, and it was. Mooney and Kirshenbaum grumble about those insensitive scientists and those uppity atheists, but their proposals are either absent or so general as to be pointless, like…let’s give more media training to scientists! I agree that would be a good idea, but it’s not going to resolve any of the issues they are so bitter about.
Do they really think that will address their complaints? I’ve had no media training at all. Imagine how nuts it would drive Mooney if I were slick and polished and skilled at using a variety of media, because it wouldn’t change my message at all!
Richard Dawkins is no Carl Sagan! Nope, he’s different. Woo hoo. So? That’s just the thing: we are not going to clone Carl Sagan, or raise him as a zombie. What we’re going to have is a collection of voices: a Dawkins, an Attenborough, a Tyson, a Suzuki, a Miller, and many others, all with different tones, different emphases. My objection here is that instead of diversity, Mooney and Kirshenbaum appear to want only one voice, and it’s got to be one that is conciliatory and deferential to religion and the public opinion in general.
Once again, I am unimpressed — they seem to think that I am a significant problem here, which misses the point. They’re supposedly writing about an American problem of a lack of scientific literacy. If they think I’m the root (or perhaps, the flower, even) of the problem, you can tell that they’re going off on the wrong track already.
But most importantly, they don’t answer the questions about the substance of their book. What next? Where are the answers in their book? If they really want to dig into the substance of the solutions they provide, they should try answering Ophelia Benson’s questions. I predict he won’t even try; they’re much harder.
Ultimately, this whole exchange illustrates the failure of Mooney/Kirshenbaum’s arguments. The demotion of Pluto, the rise of the “New Atheism”, PZ Myers, and blogging are all recent phenomena — they do not deal with the causes of the disconnect between society and science, and treating them is a distraction from dealing with the real problems. This book is more like a collection of poor rationalizations for complaining about stuff they don’t like than a serious and scholarly attempt to address a significant social problem. To useless, I must also add the adjective lightweight.
(I do have to wonder if they are going to feel compelled to make a reply to my reply to their reply to my review. And how are they going to cope with other critical reviews that will be coming down the pipeline? This could get fun!)
First, California is hit with a small earthquake (that never happens, does it?) and then…the squid appear.
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
It’s sweet how the Californians try to throw them back in the sea. Have they no knives, no garlic, no pans with hot oil? Because if the squid did, we know what they’d do.
We’re in big trouble on our trip to the Creation “Museum”, people. We’re going on 7 August, and on that very same day, they are planning to present…
THE ULTIMATE PROOF OF CREATION!!!
What is the Ultimate Proof of Creation, you might ask?
There is a defense for creation that is powerful, conclusive, and has no true rebuttal. As such, it is an irrefutable argument–an “ultimate proof” of the Christian worldview. This presentation will equip you to engage an unbeliever, even a staunch atheist, using proven techniques.
Holy crap! It’s a trap! I’m going to be bringing along a whole mob of young atheists from the Secular Student Alliance, and this speaker, Jason Lisle, is going to be like Darth Vader among the younglings. I might be able to put up a fight against Emperor Ham, just like Samuel Jackson, but then his apprentice will show up and zap, blam, zowee, I’ll be chopped up and blown out a window. We’re doomed. DOOOOOOOMED.
At least I insist on being informed before going to my ignominious fate. The first chapter of the Ultimate Proof of Creation is available online, so I read it cautiously, fearing that I would see science demolished with an irrefutable argument.
Wait a minute.
This thing is complete garbage. It’s the same old routine that Answers in Genesis always trots out: “We’re using the same evidence,” they say, “only we’re just interpreting it differently. We’re just as sciencey as you are!” Only they aren’t. They’re leaving out all the evidence that contradicts their views, and twisting the bits they want in inappropriate ways. And then they make stuff up! Here’s an approach I’ve been seeing a lot from creationists lately: they invent scientific “laws” and then declare that evolution is unscientific because it violates those “laws”. The most common one is the so-called “law of biogenesis” that dictates that life can only come from other life, but here’s a pair that Lisle pulls out of his butt:
There is no known law of nature, no known process, and no
known sequence of events that can cause information to originate by itself in matter.When its progress along the chain of transmission events is
traced backward, every piece of information leads to a mental
source, the mind of the sender.
These are quite simply false. Chance can generate new information in genetics, so we know the first law is bogus, and since we can trace a useful piece of genetic information back to unguided mutations, we know the second is yet more baloney.
I don’t think I’m too worried about the Ultimate Proof of Creation anymore. I suspect it is going to be more like this.
And it’s a strange thing. It’s a law that slaps anyone who offends “a substantial number of the adherents of a religion” with a €25,000 fine — which is equal to most of my yearly salary, and also means I’m one of the few people that one could make a good case for having committed blasphemy. I guess I won’t be vacationing in Ireland any time soon.
Fortunately, some people are speaking out against the law, especially Atheist Ireland. Join in if you can, work to repeal this medieval nonsense.
It’s rather familiar, I’m afraid. But funny.
I’m feeling a bit uplifted at the word from the other side of the Atlantic: some doom and gloom from the Anglican church.
A long-serving Church of England bishop has predicted that the Church of England will cease to exist within a generation. In an article in the Sunday Telegraph, the Right Reverend Paul Richardson said declining church attendance and the rise in multiculturalism meant that “Christian Britain is dead”.
The Church is rapidly declining, with attendances at its services in freefall, a proposal on the table at the next General Synod meeting to cut the number of bishops, and huge holes in its finances due to the economic downturn and a lack of congregants to donate to the collection plate.
Richardson said that the Church had lost more than one in ten of its regular worshippers between 1996 and 2006, with a fall from more than one million to 880,000.
The only concern would be that some other, more malevolent church could rise to take its place. Maybe the next step would be for the state to declare that the official state religion was atheism, just to preclude any nastier replacement.
How often have you seen this? An affectionate couple are walking along holding hands, and one gives the other a kiss on the cheek.
The only way you might have missed seeing that fairly often is if you are legally blind. It’s common, it’s harmless, and it’s rather sweet — and we normally approve of such mild public expressions of affection.
Unless, of course, the couple consists of two young men, and especially if it is in Utah.
A gay couple says they were detained by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints security guards after one man kissed another on the cheek Thursday on Main Street Plaza.
“They targeted us,” said Matt Aune, 28. “We weren’t doing anything inappropriate or illegal, or anything most people would consider inappropriate for any other couple.”
Aune and his partner, Derek Jones, 25, were cited by Salt Lake City police for trespassing on the plaza, located at 50 East North Temple, according to Sgt. Robin Snyder.
I know exactly where that is — it’s near the huge office building that is headquarters for the Mormon Empire. Good work, Matt and Derek! If there is any place on the planet that most needs some demonstration of gay endearment, that’s one of the best (oddly enough, all the others that I can think of are also centers of established religion…). Maybe a few hundred loving couples of all sexes ought to descend on the place and show the Mormon security guards that they can’t quell people’s feelings for one another.
Mr Aune did show a little naivete, though.
The kiss happened on a former public easement given up by city in 2003 in a controversial land-swap deal. The easement became private property, allowing the church to ban protesting, smoking, sunbathing and other “offensive, indecent, obscene, lewd or disorderly speech, dress or conduct,” church officials said at the time. In exchange, the city got church property for a west-side community center.
Aune said he was one of those who protested the transfer at the time.
“They claimed in 2003 this would never happen, they were never going to arrest anyone,” he said. “It’s clear now they do have an agenda.”
It’s clear now? Trust me, when a church lobbies for the right to police offensive behavior in any place, they’ve got some very specific stuff in mind, and the people who don’t fit into their narrow fundamentalist pigeonhole should know it doesn’t matter what you do — they’re going to get you. You probably don’t even want to bend over to tie your shoelaces when some straitlaced repressed Mormon authority figure with a nightstick is standing somewhere behind you.
