In a post in which I beefed about readers’ lack of comments on my science pieces (you remember that, right?), I said this:
The lack of comments on science posts, leads me to wonder if people even read them, or read them but have nothing to say, or just skip them as seeming “too hard”…If it’s the latter, what’s the point of writing about science? But if I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t want to run this website. I could turn it into the Daily Mail of atheist sites, but there’s already an entire blog network devoted to drama, rage, and recrimination.
This was pointed out by a commenter on an “open thread” on the blog Pharyngula, part of the Freethought Blogs network. In response, P. Z. Myers, proprietor of Pharyngula, said this:
Words fail me.
Wow, This coming from the Rush Limbaugh of atheism.
Don’t make me click on the link over to the cesspool, I don’t want to have to take another shower.
“Rush Limbaugh of Atheism” — Guffaw!
The stink you get used to. It was the incessant wading of the growing pool that did me in.
I think I have the perfect word for that: Meh. Maybe that’s not ragey enough though.
+1
Meh … also
It is, however, indifferent enough, and that is all that’s needed.
+ 4
MEH!
🙂
Yeah, so much drama here… What can you say? Since PZ now mostly writes about things he can’t (and won’t) think critically about, what’s the point of even reading that sort of comment?
Words fail me
No, words are your friends because you treat them with respect.
Words aren’t doing Myers any favours though because they are tired of the abuse they have received at FTB.
For any visitors from the Horde, “Words fail me” translates roughly to “I can’t. I just can’t.”
I can’t, even
That’s reprehensible. He clearly hasn’t read Da Roolz! or he would know this isn’t a “blog”.
Just further affirmation for why I gave up on Pharygula quite a while back.
I, too, got tired of PZ’s ‘pungent’ prose long ago. I can’t imagine wading through the comments on his unmoderated posts.
I also got tired of the fact that posts by PZ on actual science became so rare. I come to WEIT because of the science posts, because the atheism posts are so thoughtful, and because I can go through civilized comments on whatever posts Jerry has made.
Oh yea, and because of the kittehs.
Same here … except for the kittens part. I vote for more d*gs!
Same here and I haven’t looked back.
Is Pharyngula still a thing? I deleted my bookmark over a year ago, when it devolved into a mosh pit of internecine warfare.
Careful though, you’re likely to get added to the same list they have Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Sam Harris and others on — people who think incorrect free thoughts and must be attacked.
I’d be honored! 🙂
That’s a good list to be on 😛
Next they will be going after Bill Cosby… Oh wait… Never mind. 😁
Do they really keep such a list and are those three on it? I don’t want to go back there to confirm.
“Incorrect free thoughts.” Well put.
Wait — Sagan is on the shitlist, too?
Damn. Is nothing sacred?
b&
If he weren’t dead, he’d be an old white male, of course he’s on their shitlist.
I gave up on Pharyngula years ago out of boredom with the posts, and disgust with the comments; too many teenage boys being arseholes, and not enough thoughtful discussion.
Agreed. I did however attend a fairly scientific talk given by PZ in Glasgow a few years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed his presentation. There were several YECs in attendance, with pre-prepared questions which they hoped would catch him out, but he was polite and firm in his put downs. Since then his blog has degenerated to the stage where, like you, I had to give up on it.
All of the commenters are delightful. Trust me.
With some fava beans and a nice chianti.
I’m not!
What is so appealing about this blog is the calm and thoughtful manner in which some pretty incendiary topics are handled. Plus some of the commenters are really first-rate and it’s really enjoyable to go to that section and see what they might be saying. Overall, it is both the fine writing and superb thinking that is what draws so many to this site. Lastly, it is striking how often passion is mistaken for rage. Jerry and most commenters could hardly be accused of rage or recrimination; passion, yes, but anger, no. It’s not clear why PZ Myers (and both JAC and Myers’ books are in this house) is going after Jerry in this way.
It’s not clear why PZ Myers (and both JAC and Myers’ books are in this house) is going after Jerry in this way.
The list of people they aren’t going after wouldn’t cover a postage stamp*
For the benefit of younger readers, a ‘postage stamp’ is what people in Olden Times stuck to ‘envelopes’ when ‘posting something’ meant what was ‘posted’ was worth something.
There! See what I mean? Comments that bring any good reader back for more, especially when humor is just what the doctor ordered for help facing challenges!
(Doctors: The people whom people used to see before insurance economics demanded physician extenders.)
“(Doctors: The people whom people used to see before insurance economics demanded physician extenders.)”
Talk about laughing while it hurts! That is an exceptionally sore subject with me.
Also–first thing I thought of after “physician extenders” was Hamburger Helper.
And these doctors made “house calls”.
Mine still does.
I think it shows my age when I remember doctors making house calls. My doctor can to see me when I was a little kid & had the flu. I distinctly remember that!
I actually used to make housecalls.
Yes – they were called “letters” I believe. Think of them as papery blogs.*
Are you all talking about paper texts?
Paper texts are more like telegrams, I think.
Telegrams would be more like paper tweets. Newspapers as blogs, perhaps?
I tend to think of them as emails, dead tree edition.
I agree. The comments here are often of higher substance and quality then those found on other sites.
PZ read the comments – just not very well.
That particular thread was a model of civility.
Civility, yes, and a major outpouring of support for Jerry. Maybe that’s what irked PZ. His characterization of that thread is off the rails.
PZ must have stopped reading the comments at his own blog. He doesn’t seem to know what drama, rage and recrimination really look like.
I’m sure he did read the comments. At this point I find it difficult to believe that he isn’t trolling because he has shown a rare talent for starkly misconstruing unambiguous writing and “doubling down” with invective when the complaint comes. I find it unlikely that a man used to reading scientific texts can have such comprehension issues. My armchair psych explanation is that he has given up on the wider community and is going nuclear from the bunker.
Poor Pharyngula. Truth hurts, doesn’t it?
JAC, your science posts are amazing, often challenging, as good education should be, and your enthusiasm for knowledge and learning is contagious. Plus, the commentors, here, add breadth, depth, and so often great humor! I rarely comment only because I rarely comment. That’s all.
I feel the same; I have learned a lot from the science postings.
Agreed. I usually like the science posts but I typically only comment on philosophical topics where I think Coyne’s expertise is as low as my own, and where I have something to disagree about.
Crist-amity, that fellow has thin skin.
Is PZ becoming another Deepcrap Chokya?
To be fair to PZ, his science is — or, at least, was when I was still there — quite sound. If he gave up the whole Angry White Man schtick, he’d be worth keeping an eye on for the science posts.
b&
As Jerry has pointed out, the science posts are more difficult to write and are time consuming. Invective is generally quick and easy.
If Pharyngula were a restaurant, you’d find the following statement on the menu:
Good food takes time to prepare. Yours will be ready in a minute.
😀
Damn, that’s funny!
I’m less sure of that. The last science post of his I read was his article on oncogenes ages ago, and while there was nothing really objectionable the material was well-worn and one could likely find a more informative and interesting treatment elsewhere.
Unfortunately as Myers is no longer involved in active research within his field and seems to spend more time reading Twitter than the relevant journals he seems to be falling behind the times. A Biology 101 textbook may be “sound,” but it’s not where I’d turn for interesting new developments in the field.
Deepak would be quite a low point.
I don’t comment often, but I quite prefer my quiet corner of this party to whatever you’d call it over there.
cesspool?
slime pit? (OK, that was tongue in cheek!)
Better be. The Slymepit is a thousand times more welcoming and civilized than your average Pharyngula comment thread.
I see it as much as more of a snake-pit, with everybody biting and getting bitten largely at random.
Hey, snakes aren’t like that at all, or not normally.
What I’m reminded of instead is the school of young piranha (Serrasalmus nattereri) that I saw on their first weekend on display in the aquarium at Taronga Zoo (1976?). I think I was told they’d been intercepted when someone tried to import them illegally (it’s Australia, we have quarantine and stuff). There was a cloud of tiny scales drifting about the tank, and every one of them had at least one clean semicircular chunk removed from fin or flank. Must have been a stressful trip, and many hadn’t survived.
Anyway, when there’s blood in the water over at PZ’s place (and not creationist blood), it’s time to get out.
Me too. That’s why I opted to faint onto my divan, then shake my fists in the air, then flagellate myself for overreaction.
In some countries that could get you a 5-15 year prison sentence.
You forgot to clutch your pearls.
“This, just this.” Ewww.
Lol- and put the back of your other hand against your brow.
Ironic, coming from the proprietor of a blog that I abandoned because of the constant drama.
Ditto.
Yep, me too.
same here
Same here…
me too. I used to like the cephalopods but it’s not worth the trip
I still like cephalopods, but not enough to pay attention anymore. Too much nonsense. I can find octopi elsewhere.
The other site has not been visited by me in years. Abandoned and forgotten….and so it shall remain.
I still skim his blog in an RSS reader, but have long since stopped visiting the blog itself.
He still has some useful things to say, but his commenters brook no dissent. Even a cogent, well-reasoned rebuttal of a contentious point will earn you a swarm of retribution such that you might think you just beheaded someone’s moggie and shat down its neck.
Me too. A shame really. I used to visit that particular blog on a regular basis but rarely bother nowadays.
Same.
Well I might as well add my own endorsement to this subsection. Pharyngula got too toxic for my taste with its hysterical baying mob-mentality.
Yeah, me too.
Discovered WEIT and haven’t been back.
+ 13
+14. This is becoming a sort of Converts Corner.
+15
Irony? You haven’t seen irony until you have read this comment from a few posts further down that thread:
We are saddened to see a once great science blog, like Coyne’s, go all to shit on account of rabid unchecked faux-outrage and manufactured drama. As the blog owner, Coyne owes a duty of care to the rest of society, and would be doing himself a good turn, to keep his commenters in line and get his blog back to producing relevant high quality science content.
Apologies for the bad language (referring to this web site as a blog).
Right, so quote tags are not the way to do quotes here…
The whole second paragraph is not my words but a quote from a post on the Pharyngula thread. Sorry for the confusion.
Use (blockquote) (/blockquote) but substitute the parentheses with greater than/less than signs.
Like this:
<blockquote>…stuff goes here…</blockquote>
That becomes:
And to get the greater than / less than signs?
< => < > => >
And how did I get the ampersand? Well, a guy’s gotta keep some secrets secret, right?
b&
P.S. Note to self: check the site after sending the email to make sure I didn’t fuck anything up. b&
Not bad…the demonstration of the greater than / less than signs was supposed to be two lines, but hopefully it’s still clear what to do….
b&
Ben, how did you get WP to ignore your html tags?
To get an ampersand to display, type:
&
b&
I thought WP would eat my empty tags. Cool.
Nice, but you should just admit when you’re the type of character who posts this stuff looking for an escape.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI….
b&
A HEX on you for your puns!
I try, but the catch often fails. Finally….
b&
I take exception to that…
ISO prefer international standards…
Now, that’s good. All these years and you’d think I’da heard it before!
I’ve never been one for Smalltalk but what can I say, sometimes it works.
C? It really is turtles all the way down!
As a PostScript, don’t try programming with a Lisp. It’s just a Scheme that’s all set to Snobol out of its control loop, so be sure to csh out quick, sort it all out. And, if anybody awks, tell ’em I sed so! Just another Perl of wisdom.
b&
We should probably stop this yaccing before someone bashes us for not keeping this Basic. An awful proposition, considering I’m not yet through my morning Java. I’ve made my statement, time for a break.
I usually just try to bash it into shape.
I’ve become a bit paranoid in forums. I try to always use regular quotation marks even when I’m using a blockquote tags – especially on forums that don’t have a preview feature such as this one. I’ve typed the tags incorrectly too often. :-0
Wow, really?
I left FTB years ago because of the tone of both the articles and comments. It was, nonetheless, an interesting introduction for me to the authoritarian left. Thank Ceiling Cat and Basement D*g for sites like WEiT.
Oh, and while I’m here – this is unrelated but my be of interest to WEiT readers:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/12/01/367699124/does-it-matter-who-accepts-evolution
P.Z Myers reads our comments!
*swarn*
An action loosely related to a *swoon* but applicable to moments like this.
+1
I do love neologisms!
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Is it Opposite Day already?
Yes it isn’t.
You beat me to it. Either “opposite day” or “I know you are, but what am I?” This is what PZ has become.
The irony is that up to now Jerry has been very good about not letting people derail comments with mentions of PZ, FTB, and “deep rifts.” Now with that comment, PZ has driven Jerry to finally open the floodgates (even if just on this one post). It’s worth noting, however, that no one here seems to find it necessary to use vulgar language in every comment.
Pharyngula’s comments section is the blog equivalent of the kids’ table.
LOL kids’ table. I have to say if my kids were as crappy to one another at an actual kids’ table as Pharygulites are with their comments, there would be no dessert for them.
Well it’s more of a kids’ table in the midst of a Two Minutes Hate.
Nobody needs vulgar language because we just don’t care that much, PZ is yesterday’s blogger for most of us. I have met PZ twice, at both Global Atheist Conventions. The first time he was pleasant though reserved, the second time he had obviously started to believe his own publicity, and stared at me as they though I’d crawled out from under a rock. I would not bother to greet him again.
Apparently you are too frivolous for those folk as well, what with the emphasis on cats, boots and food. In their humble opinions there are more important things to discuss.
You would think that if they felt that strongly about it they would scurry off and start their own websites.
Funny you should mention that – I might have thought the frivolity would be the slam from FTBistan and would be more congruent with the differing styles. I love the sweetness of this website, so I think the cats, boots, food, and nightjar-finding are something to be proud of! The kettle-pot-calling just leaves me scratching my head.
I second that opinion. Jerry often says we should think of this site as his living room and that is just how it feels. If a man has a few cats in his living room and a pair of fabulous boots, who would not stop to admire them?
Not to mention fabulous noms in the dining room.
You know, PZ is far from stupid. It’s the way he misuses his brain that astounds me.
I think he’s been buttressed by an ever more extreme base of his rabid fans and sycophants, and has lost sight of what it means to be reasonable.
He knows what it means. It means whatever he say it means.
WEIT: Come for the well explained science, thoughtful no-nonsense atheism and cats, stay for the thoughtful, civil discussions.
Pharyngula: I can’t think of anything…I can say that PZ can be a good writer, and can be quite funny at times, but these days his critical thinking takes second place to his outrage.
Pharyngula used to be one of my favorite blogs back in the day, then it started to fester and the comment section became a place to shout down discussion and dogpile on people under heaps of angry invective, all encouraged by PZ, rather than a place for reasoned discourse.
WEIT, and it’s proprietor, is a much better fit for my ethos. It’s like being able read articles by a smarter, better educated me. I love that when a new evolution or atheism related story comes out I can check WEIT for thoughtful reporting, analysis and discussion.
PZ Myers peaked in 2008.
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=jerry%20coyne%2C%20pz%20myers
His much touted book turned out to be nothing more than lightly edited old blog posts. Jerry’s books are the real thing. I’m looking forward to buying and reading the Albatross when it comes out next year.
I never knew about this Google Trends bit. I put in my own name (same as my user name here) to compare and found I have been awesomely consistent since 2004!
PZ who?
Oh — that archetypal caricature of a social justice warrior who started that whole A+ joke?
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s still blearghing. But does anybody but his Horde still read him? I mean, aside from those who get their kicks by watching train wrecks in progress….
b&
He didn’t actually start the whole A+ debacle, that was Jen McCreight IIRC. But he was a large part of the machinery after its inception.
What was the A+ thing?
*ignorant*
‘A’ is for Atheism, and ‘A+’ is for Atheism-plus. It is a category of atheists who are also humanists. I personally think the whole idea was actually pretty nice, but then of course there was some push-back about it, and that got things all heated.
Thanks for the info!
Folks adding humanism to atheism is all well and dandy, there is nothing new about that, but PZ tried to say that atheism has to be about something, that the idea that atheism is “lack of belief in a god” is false. There was a whole, weird, divisive “you are either with us or against us” push by Meyers.
In a sense, PZ tried to make humanism (and *his* take on other social issues) a mandatory part of atheism, turning atheism into dogma, and giving ammo to the theists who claim atheism is a religion.
Actually, it wasn’t really humanist, it was rabid social justicist. It was a safe space for a clique of vicious precious special flowers who’d tear you to ribbons for not anticipating their triggers and failing to use their special language. Basically, if you weren’t them, you were (are?) wrong whatever you said. I’m talking about the A+ forums as the most of the rest of the SJWs have quietly dumped the whole thing.
Very precisely on target. Pharyngula became a place for such people to let loose their angers and frustrations with no restraint, self imposed or otherwise. I am sure many of those people have, by any reasonable measure, been dealt an extra shitty hand by nature and or society, and deserve to be able to do that. But I don’t have any urge to let them chew on me, or to watch them chew on others. I do wish them peace and happiness.
I identify as a humanist – as does Dawkins who is a leading member of the British Humanist Association – and did not really see humanism at the core of the A+ movement. I think SQuiller pretty much nailed it.
I agree. I think humanism is a good thing. I also think social justice is a good thing.
The trouble is, that there are some people in whom humanism / social justice has festered and gone toxic, to the point where they’ve lost all sense of proportion and see anyone who is less fanatical than they are as hypocrites or enemies. And they seem to have congregated at Pharyngula.
“I personally think the whole idea was actually pretty nice”
The basic idea behind A+ was an attempt from the FTBers to get their hated enemies like Michael Shermer, DJ Groethe, Thunderf00t, etc. excluded from the atheist community.
To quote Jen’s blogpost that started A+ up:
“… I want Deep Rifts. I want to be able to truthfully say that I feel safe in this movement. I want the misogynists, racists, homophobes, transphobes, and downright trolls out of the movement …”
Consider that anyone who bothered follow the FTB drama knew that they absolutely hated several prominent atheist profiles within the community and wanted them gone, and at the time had spent a year attempted to smear various people as “misogynists”, “homophobes”, “racists”, etc.
Most had no trouble putting 1 and 1 together and figuring out that A+ wasn’t so much about real “Social Justice” or humanism as it was a cheap ideological power grab.
The majority of the pushback however wasn’t very heated, since the majority didn’t keep track of the petty twitter/blog-drama. Instead the majority just went “We already have humanism? Why would we bother with A+, esp. when we’ve spent years hammering in the message ‘Atheist is just the lack of belief in a God’? This looks like a rather bad idea”.
It also didn’t help that the A+ forums were/is run by people that make creationists look reasonable, and anyone who was on the fence quickly found themselves banned for the weirdest of reasons when they tried to interact with the A+ers.
(Here’s a fairly recent example of how they lay into a new forum member who makes the mistake of calling the A+ forum member intelligent: https://archive.today/tmRDV )
That’s just, um, wow. Words fail me. It’s a “how to” of how to take a laudable goal of inclusivity and turn it into a “polite” mob’s bludgeon of submission.
OK… Now I have to ask. Is that forum link real? It seems to me that something very like Poe’s Law is operating here. Is it a parody?
(He asks, fearing that the answer is “No”.)
It’s all very real. Or perhaps surreal would be a better description. 🙂
Here’s a video about the greatest moment in Atheism Plus history:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C_11laqbvM
Fantastic LOLS
Well bugger me. ‘Ableist’ language? (The crazies of the SJW world just committed another crime against the English language, by the way).
It’s bizarre. When I made my comment just above about social justice having gone toxic, it’s this sort of thing I had in mind, where even the most innocent comment can spark off a lynch mob.
One of the things I like about WEIT is, I can say stupid things at times (as can everybody else) and the atmosphere is reasonably forgiving. But mostly, I like the INTELLIGENT posts made by the mostly INTELLIGENT people who frequent this site. Anybody got a problem with that? 😉
Oh, dear sweet Jesus Tittyfucking Christ on an eternal pogo stick, but that is some weapons-grade batshit crazy there.
We’re not permitted to compliment people on the intelligence of their ideas because it might hurt the feelings of an hypothetical idiot?
[LAST BIT REDACTED BY PROFESSOR CEILING CAT FOR INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE]
b&
As to that last bit, could we not go there? I kind of like the civility and lack of invective we have here. It’s a nice contrast to “the other place…”
Scote – you must remember that every once in a while, Ben also goes off the rails 🙂
“As to that last bit,…”
Yeah, why invoke Pharyngula to disparage it? That ‘metaphor’ sucks badly enough over there…
I’m going to have to redact the last two lines of the comment, Ben. It’s simply unseemly and I hope you recognize that it doesn’t belong on this site.
Sorry, guys. Seems my attempt at ironic turnabout was ill-conceived….
b&
>
…and it died a horrible death…
…dare I suggest, an abortive attempt?
b&
Nicely done Ben….just another example of why this site is light years beyond PZ’s
Could Monthy Python possibly improve on that “Welcome, David Vitrogen”?
Way to make a guy feel welcome!
The guy has 10^6 times more forbearance, tolerance and patience than I do. After about the second exchange I think I would have had enough and succumbed to the temptation to politely apologise for ever suggesting there was any intelligence to be found at that site, deleted it from my bookmarks and found somewhere else to go.
What, sarcastic? Moi? Surely not…
Welcome to our group. You will, of course, understand the need for interrogation lights.
Well, it’s kinda like Cthulhu – it’s actually better not to know.
Still reading? OK, It was an attempt to roll the atheist “movement” into a bunch of other causes by a group of authoritarians. The fact that this movement already existed – in a much more inclusive and benevolent form – as secular humanism didn’t seem to deter the creators and supporters for some reason.
Anyway, they started the movement in the worst possible way with the leaders stating “you’re with us or against us”. At this point it became a kind of a “quo warranto” thing – and most people dismissed the movement – these people instantly became targets of the A+ movement and magically became misogynists and other bad things.
That’s kind of the beginning – Noel Plum has an excellent youtube video about it. One of the big ironies here is that many of us, as liberals, are 95% in agreement with these people – it’s just their tactics and toxicity to which we object – in a big way.
Many thanks! That all must have happened after I departed Pharyngula; I was blithely unaware of it!
The A+ side of the conflict had (and have) their narrowness problem, but I I recall that the loudest ‘push-back’ was from various honest-to-gosh misogynists and other unsavory characters that have always lurked among the atheists. They really came out of the closet then! Their commentary was very ugly. So I think that those trying to elevate the A+ movement were, on the whole, fighting the good fight.
I’m sure they thought of it that way, “we are against misogyny, so everything we do is Just!” One of the problem is that leads to mob thinking and mob justice, as they were painting *any* dissent as being “other”, crying “Misogynist!”, “Slymepit scum”, etc., and dismissed dissent out of hand rather than on the basis of any actual, rational analysis and discussion.
While I’m for equal rights and many, probably most, of the stuff in the A+ litany, the boards, and PZ, were on a self-righteous witch hunt as sloppy and thoughtless in its accusations as similar campaigns by theists. It was, and remains, an example that religion is not the only source of damaging group think and that other causes can encourage lock step, low effort black and white thinking and callousness towards others.
I don’t remember it that way, not saying you’re wrong. I don’t doubt there were some bad apples – all sides have their fair share of those.
I just remember suddenly everyone that wasn’t on board with A+, people that in my experience seemed quite reasonable, were part of the “evil” group.
I don’t think it’s a good fight, or rather it’s not a feasible fight: you can’t lump all atheists into one group. And again we already have secular humanism, so we’re good to go.
“I don’t remember it that way, not saying you’re wrong. I don’t doubt there were some bad apples – all sides have their fair share of those.”
I could provide quotes from the posts and comments sections, including PZ calling me out, but I didn’t mean to make it seem like everybody was doing that.
The idea of creating a *group* of atheists to espouse human rights and atheism was fine. Go A+. A specific group of people with an agenda of their own making, one that I largely agree with. It’s a group. It’s a choice. It isn’t entailed by atheism, but it is compatible with it. Yea.
The issue that lead to much of the group think was that PZ insisted, while saying he isn’t insisting, atheism needs be about social justice, saying “what I find infuriating are atheists who refuse to derive any meaning from atheism.” Declaring a whole host of social implications he claims necessarily arise from atheism.
“And again we already have secular humanism, so we’re good to go.”
Absolutely. We have a very proud and lengthy history on that front, one we should embrace, not deny.
IMO PZ merely got a grotesquely swelled head from all the attention & adulation of Pharyngula’s early success, and from the fawning of its diehard sycophants, and threw a hissy fit when his rep began to lose some of its burnish. Does anyone see a piqued narcissist here?
Narcissists always seem to implode. If PZ is one, he will experience a lot of unpleasantness as they have no self awareness. I’ve met so many of them, I did a lot of soul searching recently to figure out why I found myself around them so much. It is hard to watch them self destruct sometimes.
In response to those up there who think that the A+ movement was merely some sort of hypersensitive reaction of the type that we are talking about now, I need to mention that it was not an over-reaction by any means. The A+ thing grew as a reaction against some very very ugly commentary against feminism of a sort that would make any decent person feel ill. There was (and is) a reservoir or MRA types that are also atheists, and their brand of cyber-bullying is not something you would want to experience.
Here is a summary of the sordid story.
Yes, definitely – that kind of bullying is terrible. But I don’t have high expectations of the people who do that kind of thing.
I did have high(er) expectations of those FTB folks however, my reaction was more focused on their behavior. So, when they started their movement by essentially saying “join us or you’re evil” – that’s what I don’t understand.
Indeed? Are you aware of the Matt Dillahunty debacle that demonstrated quite clearly some of the negative features and attitudes at atheism +?
Mark,
I agree. The wheels came off pretty quickly, but what instigated A+ was indeed some nasty stuff, and there are plenty of those nasty atheists still around certain places.
Micheal,
Yes, very much Indeed. Did you read somebody in this thread saying that the A+ movement doesn’t have negative features? I haven’t. I thought Mark’s 1st sentence clearly communicated that he is not trying to defend what A+ is now. He was commenting about things that instigated it. Like many movements A+ was instigated by some bona fide nasty stuff that any decent person would be against. And also like many such movements, as time went on it turned into a cess pool.
It took about 2 weeks before accusations were made all over the place.
MRA types? The first time I saw that acronym, used as a slur (on Pharyngula, naturally, before I ditched it as a lost cause), I had no idea what it meant, even in context. So I looked it up.
When I then discovered what a Men’s Rights Activist was, and did some research on their positions and goals, I was left puzzled as to why that was suitable as an insult. Perhaps you can explain it to me, with the understanding that all the evidence available suggests there are several orders of magnitude more misandrists among feminists than misogynists among MRA’s.
In all the comments floating around all the blogs during the Elevatorgate debacle, I saw only one frequent contributor who was clearly a genuine misogynist. Every other person tarred with that brush was guilty only of disagreeing with feminist dogma. And as you no doubt well understand, being hostile towards feminism is in no way the same as being hostile towards women.
I disagree, that’s not how I remember it. Many of the criticisms were valid and from valid sources not just evil MRA’s.
Some of the criticisms of which the
Matt Dillahunty situation exemplifies were present before and during the start of atheism +, it was typical, not just what it became.
Blearghing – will have to remember that
I’m having a hard time understanding the permission part of PZ Meyers comment. Maybe he does not read enough comments. Jerry has rules and he kicks most of the nut jobs off.
It is the open internet Meyers and you sometimes have to take the bad with the good.
Purely conjecture on my part, but I suspect it is in reaction to the support for Sam Harris’s and Richard Dawkins’s “Islamaphobic” statements. Not that the statement fits, just I think that’s something he’s pissed about.
Who is PZ Meyers?
Winner for best comment on this thread!
I don’t know if it’s possible but you could add a counter, or an up and down vote selection to the science posts.
I think I represent most people when I say your science posts are the best of the site. It’s just that they are so good and thorough that I don’t feel I can add anything to it. Non-science posts are just as well written, but there is more disagreement on interpretation and hence more discussions.
PS I used to admire PZ greatly but he has jumped the shark with the rage blogging and his obsession with gender.
I don’t think P.Z. is in a position to speak about drama, rage and recrimination in blog comments.
lol.
I used to regularly peruse the Pharyngula website (2010-2011).
As time went on I realized P Zed has a giant squid size ego to him.
They really don’t take kindly to anyone who disagrees with the party line over there at Pharyngula.
Been there, got the banning. Not for being uncivil or saying bad things, either. PZ went into a rage and accused me of things he imagined. His rage vision stuffed me into a massive straw man, and he was really angry at the straw man, so he banned it, then swore at it and stomped on it some more, just to prove how right he was. If he swears enough he has to be right, right? Clear thinking just didn’t enter into it.
I’d already stopped being a regular reader before that, but the rage banning really drove home that PZ’s outrage often outstrips his critical thinking, which made me rethink my earlier support of some of his positions.
I like that turn of phrase, “rage vision”. I wonder if you can go on a vision quest, have a bad trip & experience a rage vision instead of something enlightening. 😉
[comment redacted by Professor Ceiling Cat]
I can’t support this. I have many complaints about PZ, but even so I think your insinuation is over the top.
It was indeed over the top. I’ve just seen it and have removed it, something I am loath to do.
@eightyc: DO NOT do that again.
Thanks Jerry, I saw that one and went … ummm, you’re pretty much doing what we don’t like about PZ’s blog there.
I think PZ’s problem is that he spent the first 50 years of his life in complete obscurity, then accidentally rocketed to fame beyond his wildest imaginings when an unassuming little blog about biology, which he wrote for his students, unexpectedly took off. His personality is not an outgoing one, and he was completely unprepared for all the attention. The result is the unbalanced lunacy that nowadays emanates from Pharyngula. It’s quite sad.
Something to also consider about Myers is that he did participate in many a Usenet group devoted to dubious subjects, like alt.astrology and alt.paranormal. There were plenty of people back then who were staying up late because Someone Is Wrong On The Internet, and Myers was definitely one of them.
I think it’s a shame what’s happened to Pharyngula. It used to be a good read. PZ has turned into a caricature of his former self. His recent blast at Sam Harris was full of straw men, as were the excerpts of Glenn Greenwald’s essay that he quoted.
To be fair, a lot of what PZ posts is still good stuff, but his animosity towards people who don’t think exactly the same way as him is really off-putting.
Like I said, a shame.
Is it still good stuff? When I go over there to see if there may be anything worth reading I don’t find it any more. I would never comment because that’s just asking for trouble.
I cannot as yet add anything that has not been said here already. I am just very much enjoying this is all.
Me three. Nice to see that the entire universe doesn’t subscribe to upside-down Orwell la-la land.
23 comments and not a single f*****g! I would be snowed under on Pharyngula where it seems to be the only known adjective.
To be fair, “fucking” is one righteously fucking awesome adjective. It deserves a place of fucking honor in fucking everybody’s vocabulary.
b&
True, the difference being that the Horde uses profanity in place of an argument, not to enhance one.
Yes, it’s an adjective (in this usage) not a noun or a sentence.
I don’t know the linguistic term (Pinker??), but “fucking” is best used mid-word, as in “Evo-fucking-lution is true, Bitches!”
Ah, yes! A perfectly aligned and supported fracture is called “AFT” in orthopaedic circles — short for “ana-fucking-tomic!”
That is called “tmesis”
Thanks. Now lets start a whole nother thread about t-fucking-mesis!
That was just too-fucking-perfect!
OMG, I just might be dyslexic, after all! I thought you wrote “tzimmes” and started wondering what carrots had to do with all this!
You must’ve read GBJames’s post about carrots on the other thread & were primed. If not, then cool, I wonder why you thought of carrots.
Quite a few mentioned, here, that noms are one of the highlights of Professor Ceiling Cat’s website. Tzimmes is a sweet carrot dish, of European Jewish background. I think there are other versions of tzimmes, but in my family, carrot was the only version I recall anyone ever making. Hence, the tzimmes leading to the carrots because of tmesis. And, now, I’m hungry for carrot tzimmes. I think the sweetness came from the carrots, the raisins sprinkled in there, and honey.
OK when used as a verb in its rightful context but perhaps shows a lack of imagination when strewn around like confetti.
I came out as ‘Honed’ in my comment above. My mistake.
There was one, from Ben at #22, and it was a good one.
It’s also a favourite of mine. But I think the point is, it’s used sparingly around this site and so is probably more effective.
Personally, I find the judgmental accusatory language of the mob at FtB far more offensive than a few swearwords, any day.
There’s a very good reason I stopped reading him a long time ago and yet continue reading you almost daily.
If intended to simultaneously discredit both liberalism and atheism in the eyes of the uninitiated, I’d ask them to read PZ Myers.
That’s spot on!
+ a large number
Like infinity + 1
I think it’s an overstatement to say FTB is “devoted to drama, rage, and recrimination.” The comments section at Phayngula overflows with these, certainly, and worse. The blogs I follow at FTB mostly direct the rage at creationists, but there is certainly lots of bile for certain Horsemen and other notables with whom FTB bloggers have beefs. There is however also some very fine science blogging to be read there.
So, an overstatement with a significant nugget of truth.
It is by contrast a baseless fabrication to say WEIT exhibits either rage, drama or recrimination. The host is civil, the topics are thoughtful, the commenters are respectful of the host and one another, the humor is without vitriol … if FTB is The Daily Mail of atheist websites, WEIT is PBS.
“I know you are but what am I” is not a response worthy of a person as intelligent as Prof. Myers.
I’ve seen some decent other stuff over at FTB. I wonder how much traffic is lost to such authors because of the poisonous reputation that the platform has accrued. I used to let FTB posts show up on my Facebook news feed but ended up blocking it because there was no way to differentiate authors I was interested in from the more characteristic stuff.
Yes, mild-mannered readers are lost, and a whole host of a-holes are attracted who contribute to the rancor and pick fights with one another.
Mano Singham has an excellent blog over at FTB. I read him daily, and he manages to cover sensitive topics without the invective of some of his co-bloggers.
I should hasten to add that WEIT is one of the best websites on the internets! I thoroughly enjoy the science posts, and the commenters are first rate and quite informative. I enjoy the laid back atmosphere, and though I do not comment very often, I realize that I would not face a backlash if I put forth an uninformed opinion. The same cannot be said for Pharyngula. I wouldn’t dare try to ask a question in those comments. Nasty business.
I gave up on Pharyngula a couple of years ago as well. Too many rants, not enough clear thinking. Seems like this website draws a better class of people, and the science is more interesting.
The word ‘irony’ doesn’t do this justice. It’s like Al Capone complaining about people breaking the law.
You sure it’s not like raaaaaaaaiiiiiaaaaaaaan, on your wedding day?
b&
Ironically, most of the things in that song aren’t ironic, they’re just kind of unfortunate.
Do we grade pop-stars on a curve?
I think you’ll find that none of the lines in the song are ironic, making the song itself the ultimate irony.
If one doesn’t insist on taking song lyrics as absolutely literal, it’s quite easy to find genuine irony in the situations described therein.
WTH is PZ’s problem?
Maybe he’s just jealous because this website is more edifying and entertaining than his.
lol.
They certainly have tons of jealousy issues on that website.
For some reason, they’re fixated with women and minorities being at the forefront of what they want the “atheism” movement to be about.
Well, I’m a minority but that doesn’t mean I have anything meaningful to say about anything simply because I am a minority.
You’re right. I noticed that about Pharyngula too.
I read the WEIT science posts. I don’t generally comment on them though.
I like the ones where Jerry asks us a question (like the dog morphology thing) and there is some discussion.
I have my own cats, I skip the cat posts mostly.
I am a very, very rare visitor to PZ and, franky, I am just so much happier here. I think it is the cat posts …..
I guess people read into written comments the tone of voice they want or expect, so their own rage or vitriol or what-have-you seems to be in some quite innocent comment. That seems to be what has happened with PZ Myers.
I agree Sarah. I am often mystified about people’s accusations of rage, vitriol and hatred in what people have written and all I can see usually is another viewpoint. People place too much personal identity into what they think/believe and can’t step back to see other viewpoints without feeling threatened.
+1, to comments above…
A quote from the Discworld novel “Maskerade” comes to mind…
“The kicking and punching stopped only when it became apparent that all the mob was attacking was itself. And, since the IQ of a mob is the IQ of its most stupid member divided by the number of mobsters, it was never very clear to anyone what had happened.”
As sure as day follows night, expect PZ and/or his Horde to now accuse you of giving aid and comfort to members of the Slymepit.
You mean the Slymepit isn’t the Horde? I always thought those terms were synonyms….
b&
Not sure if joking….?
No, I’m not…isn’t it the Horde who inhabits PZ’s Slymepit?
Perhaps not, from your reaction….
b&
No, think of it this way. The Slymepit is like Communism in the 50’s, and of course PZ is McCarthy. So if anyone disagrees with PZ or his ilk, they are surely a member of the Slymepit, which is really just a Web site set up to poke fun at Peezus et al with funny photoshops and the like. But to Peez, being a member of the Slymepit is the worst thing you can be. Kinda like being a Communist in the 50’s. Get it? Yeah, me neither.
I don’t know anything about the Slymepit, or whether the people there are good or bad, but I can say that there is at least some truth to your analogy. Back when I still tried to have a actual discussions in the comment section at Pharyngula, PZ came down into a thread, seething with wrath, and told me off for being a member of the Slymepit – a site I’ve never visited and don’t even know the URL to. And with that dog whistle to the hoard, the command to dogpile was clear. Actual reasoned discussion? Gone.
For someone who claims to be against discrimination, stereotyping and irrational argumentation, PZ sure does a lot of it.
“For someone who claims to be against discrimination, stereotyping and irrational argumentation, PZ sure does a lot of it.”
I think he’s gone Post-modern. Reason, logic, and intellectual consistency need to be taken down a few pegs after all the privilege they’ve enjoyed.
No, the Slymepit is not the Horde and is very much anti Myers, and has been documenting his behaviour, and that of his fellow travellers, for years.
In fact Myers has something of a fixation about the ‘Pit. Take a look at Michael Nugent’s recent posts for a flavour of this
The Slymepit is an off shoot off Abbie Smiths blog. After she took issue with some of the behaviour back at elevator gate.
The name is an anatomical reference from a slur by PZ.
Ah…thanks for that. Did not know.
b&
I looked up the RationalWiki page on Slymepit and it’s pretty embarrassing — hardly encyclopedic and not really rational. I thought RationalWiki was supposed to be impartial?
I think they are a bit biased, having checked some articles on other people and issues.
I just took a quick look at that page on RationalWiki and guess what? – Rationalwiki just got written off as far as I’m concerned. I know very little of the Slymepit but that Rationalwiki page is just a rant.
RationalWiki is not an encyclopedia, it has a decidedly SPOV (snarky point of view). The problem is that some parts reflect a narrow range of ideas. As a long time member of RW I can assure you that certain parts of the project do not receive universal approval, particularly where the the site has expanded into socio-political topics rather than science and ant-woo. The unofficial RW Facebook group has sadly suffered a similar fate to Pharyngula’s comments section.
Anti-woo, not ant-woo. 🙁
Perhaps “ant-woo” is perpetuated by this sneaky spider.
“No really guys, I’m an ant, we can hang out. I have this many legs because of a birth defect! Come back! Why are you running away?! I’m an an….awww forget it.”
http://bugguide.net/images/cache/PZKLGZSL9ZGHJHPHVHXH1H5H5ZGHGZXLAZ6HJHUHRR4HRRMLUZ9HUZML9Z4LJH7LGZ0LTHIHTHWHAZ0LEZZLVHEH.jpg
That is one amazing creature/picture!
Thanks for the clarification. I’ve used RationalWiki from time to time and been moderately impressed by the (few) entries I’ve consulted; so, thanks to you folk for the good work on those!
The Slymepit one, though, is as if by an adolescent — and not a particularly bright adolescent at that: the atheist equivalent of Conservapedia.
@Genghis
Thanks for the (very rational) response. Maybe I was too quick to write off the whole of Rationalwiki based on that one page. I do recall being entertained by RW pages in the past.
That page, though, really did strike me as very biassed in its tone (and I know nothing of Slymepit, but I don’t need to to conclude that).
RationalWiki is the negaverse Conservapedia. Basically the same psychological dysfunctionality but in a different wrapper.
Same here.
Unfrickkinbelievable! PZ runs the most toxic “science” blog on the whole Interwebs. Is he joking? (Of course not, he is a humorless scold). I’ve given up on him long ago.
Professor Coyne, please be aware that even though I rarely comment, your blog is required reading every day. I enjoy it and the thoughtful comments from your many intelligent readers. I find it refreshing that you rarely, if ever, have to request people keep things civil, as the discussion is always just that, even when people disagree.
Michael Nugent probably feels the same way. Atheist related posts 10 to 20 comments or so, posts with the name PZ (drama) in the headline, 300+ comments.
At least he is not calling your visitors rapists.
Yet.
dang, forgot that word (yet)
Nice video. I have always pictured PZ as being the Chairman of the People’s Republic of Freethought Blogs.
♬ ‘Tis the season to be snarky
fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la ♬
Dear Mr. Coyne,
This is my experience about reading the posts:
I read some of them entirely.
Others I only read superficially.
The reason being, in my case, is that I have too many science books in my library that I am reading at one time (I started reading about science later in life, in part thank to you) so I have a long way to catch up, and I don’t read much in my pc.
I noticed that if the articles are short, I tend to read them entirely. If they are long, I save them for later times. But eventually I get to read them, and then is maybe too late to comment. You are a great teacher and writer.
I am not a lazy reader, as I read daily and finish at least one science book every month. But in my pc I can only read a little.
Thank you Mr. Coyne, and I hope you never stop writing because then I will not know what to do.
One more thing, if the posts are about debating creationism or religion in general, and if they include graphs, I usually finish them right there.
The commenters here are great! Frankly, the comments and the posts on science is what makes me read your *blog* at all. I read some of your posts on atheism/religion, but would stop doing that if there was no science. Anybody can write about cats – to me that adds nothing. Jerry, you’ve done great things in evolutionary biology, and that is what you should capitalize on, imho.
I’ve included one post by you from the last two months in today’s Carnival of Evolution.
The lack of drama, rage etc is one of the things I like about this website. It’s got the most mature comments I’ve seen online, not that I really go looking for internet comments much.
PZ Myers is… well, he’s not what he used to be. I finally stopped following his blog last week after about three years. I’d been thinking about stopping for a while but he’d every now and then he’d post something really good. The last straw was when he did two posts on Ferguson, supposedly a justice issue, but didn’t bother to call out the people burning the businesses of innocents.
Actually it was longer. I had been following him for four years, maybe four and a half.
Did you contribute that point in the comments for discussion? No-one is obligated to provide a complete nuanced discussion of an issue giving all points of view and ramifications in everything they choose to write about in blogs. That’s what the comments section is for.
He’s not obligated but I’m pretty sure he didn’t mention it because that wouldn’t help his narrative.
He’s developed a huge double standard where if he doesn’t like something he will constantly pick out the tiniest flaws. If he does like it then he will ignore glaring ones.
That one point about the riots is not special, it was just the last of a long list of problems.
I cannot for the life of me understand what PZ was getting at, but perhaps it is this:
On occasion we will be commenting on things about Dawkins or Harris, and then someone of course will bring up the views coming from Pharyngula. What will then follow will be a series of anti-PZ comments like 👎 and 💩 . So that might be the drama he was referring to.
What’s funny is Jerry usually tells everyone to stop it when that happens.
Yes. I thought I noticed that too. And was even a bit surprised.
I don’t even understand the comment. I have never got that vibe from the comments on this site!
Also, I too enjoy the science posts!
I thought I’d missed something, so you are not the only one. I’m not sure what he’s going on about?
PZ projects … just a wee bit. 🙂
Rage is what I associate with yelling “Allah u akbar”, and blowing yourself and innocent people up because they don’t agree with your religion. Now that’s “rage”.
I think it telling that PZ assumed it was FTB being referenced instead of say, Skeptic Ink Network or Patheos, as both of those also discuss controversial issues and drum up some sound and fury on occasion. Likely FTB would be more insulted if it were one of the others being referenced.
FTB wants to be the centre of attention and works hard to be the TMZ (rather than the Daily Mail) of atheist networks, and yet won’t own it with pride. They know on some level that notoriety has a shelf life and always try to keep that one foot in the camp of respectability to move back to when their 15 minutes are up.
Other than that I am a WEIT fan clean-to-the bone, words fail me too!
Over the past few weeks, PZ has been conducting negative campaign against Sam Harris. A week ago, he reached a new low by quoting Glenn Greenwald on Harris. I’m not going to link to the post but Greenwald, is a leading apologist for Islamic fundamentalism. I would point out that, apparently, it bothers Greenwald, a gay man and an atheist, not at all that he would be subject to beheading by these same fundamentalists for these “infractions”.
Ugh. I thought the whole “Sam Harris is bad because of x” had started to calm down.
I’d like to think that Jerry, or any other reasonable person, would be far happier with the result of the “tacit permission” he gives his commenters than the results of the tacit permission that Myers gives to his Horde
“tacit permission that Myers gives to his Horde”
There is nothing tacit about it in Myers case. Myers routinely gives direction to the hoard, whether it is for poll crashing or who to dogpile on in the comments, when PZ Himself wades into the muck of his comment section to fling around invective laced tirades against commenters.
The comment Jerry posted in the OP seems like a real non-sequitur. I really don’t know what PZ is basing it off of, if anything.
Indeed. For Myers to talk about “tacit permission” when referring to comments on someone else’s web site really takes the biscuit. But of course he has the golden override rule: “it’s ok when we do it”
All’s fair in love and social justice warring.
I think we should seek Jerry’s tacit permission on everything.
“Hmmmm should I pick red or white wine? I think Jerry tacitly permits me to have both.”
“Should I buy this outfit in navy or black? I think Jerry tacitly permits me to buy both.”
🙂
Should I snack on some cashews before heading out? I think Jerry gives me his tacit permission.
b&
That’s the great thing with tacit permission! It’s tacit!
I visit this site by following the Twitter links that Dr. Coyne posts, as well as links from Richard Dawkins, Steve Pinker, Michael Shermer, and Sam Harris to specific Dr. Coyne posts but I missed the Proprietor’s Beef Of The Week post.
The science posts are one of the main reasons I log ong. I read the science posts without commenting more often than I read them and comment. Therefore, the comment rate is not a reliable index of the readership rate.
Sometimes I type a response to a science post but don’t post it either because I happen to notice that someone else posted essentially the same thing while I was composing my post or because, upon reflection prior to hitting the POST COMMENT button, I decide that what I wrote wasn’t worth posting.
I don’t follow PZ Meyer’s tweets nor visit his website.
PZ, as the outraged OUTRAGED boy who cried wolf and then people got tired of the rant.
Just like the GOP: Any sort of lie and self-deception will do — as long as you say it loudly and long enough.
I haven’t clicked on the squidly site in years except to occasionally follow up on something like this post. The only thing I was learning there was how not to behave on the internet.
This all reminds me of a story:
Once upon a time (i.e. 1826), the now famous and back then already well known german author Heinrich Heine included in a work of his a “guest post”, verses by one of his friends, lampooning the work of another well known writer, August von Platen.
Platen didn’t like this, and in one of his next works, outed Heine as an ex-jew. Whereon Heine outed him as gay. The end was that Heine had to leave Germany because he couldn’t find employment, and Platen had to leave Germany because he was shunned.
Since this might be misunderstood: I know you won’t deal up the drama, Professor CC. I mention it because it makes conflicts like these look even more ridiculous.
PZ’s definitions are different than mine, a reason why I read WEIT almost daily and Pharyngula weekly, if that. If you want strident atheism and pretense of science, read Pharyngula. If you want good science, real evolution, and a hefty dose of thoughtful atheism, read WEIT. If you want just science, try the Zimmer or Yong blogs at National Geographic’s Phenomena. What makes WEIT particularly good is its coverage of issues related to the rejection of science and evolution. Of, course, there are embellishments such as cats and, currently, readers’ wildlife photo.
Don’t forget boots! And, come to think of it, we haven’t seen a boots post in a while …
And noms.
I love the noms posts.
Nom posts are some of my favorite. I still plan on trying to make those onion burgers Jerry tried out while hanging out with Abbie. Looks devastatingly yummy.
I have absolutely nothing substantive to add to the many excellent comments above, but just wanted to add my 2p’s worth to the support for Jerry’s science posts, the thoughtful and informative comments on them, and the dismay at the extent to which Freethought Blogs, and PZ’s site in particular, have degenerated into vituperative and often obscene outbursts against anyone who fails to toe the SJW line.
The needless drama is one thing, but sending out an unsubstantiated rape accusation completely oversteps all marks of decency, in my opinion. That is where I finally stopped visiting FTB altogether.
I’m not in favour of libel laws, as these form a dragnet that could easily kill free speech as well, but I would hope that someone who utters such serious accusations is also held accountable for them, and for the consequences.
I prefer the posts with bird pics rather than drama, but then I’m into bird photography.
I don’t posts comments on the blogposts about birds because I have nothing to say except “Excellent!” Perhaps I should post a comment saying, “Excellent!” but I try not to waste people’s time stating the obvious.
Annoyingly repeating myself–IMO the positive feedback to the photographer or author of a post trumps any time-wasting of the readers. It doesn’t take much time to read “Excellent!” 🙂
Since we have to post something in order to follow comment threads, a “well said” or whatever is not much more reading than “sub.”
Sorry, but I don’t attempt to keep up with comment threads, particularly threads like this one. I’m dyslexic, so if I spent the time keeping up with comments threads, (especially ones like this), I wouldn’t get anything else done.
As for providing positive feedback, I don’t think anyone gives a damn about what a complete nobody like me thinks about anything which is why what few comments I do post on the internet largely get ignored. 🙂
And, finally, I don’t know what “sub” means. (And people needn’t bother to tell me to google it because I am aware that I can but don’t care enough to find out. I learned French, Russian, and Chinese when I was young, but I’m afraid I have no interest in learning Internet because it’s not a language I have much use for.)
I’m not sure Googling “sub” would get you an explanation. I don’t think it’s wide-spread enough a practice.
People type “sub” or “/” or whatever to subscribe to comment threads (receive each comment made on a particular thread by email). You have to leave a comment of some kind in order to subscribe, so all Diane is saying is that if someone wants to subscribe to a thread, s/he may as well type “excellent” or “neato” rather than just “sub”.
Thanks for the explanation! Subscribing to comments is something I don’t do (particularly on comment threads like this). My dyslexia prevents me from doing a quick scan to determine the usefulness of reading something in full. I don’t want my e-mail inbox filled with comment notifications. The constant inflow of junk mail I receive about “maximizing my penis size to pleasure my woman” is already more e-mail than I care to deal with. 🙂
Yeah, I, too, usually prefer simply to revisit the thread later in the day to read new comments rather than clean them all out of my inbox.
Fortunately, I’m not particularly sysdlexic, but I’ve been known to swap digits enough times to know just how lucky I am.
By now, pretty much any mail reader should offer the ability to filter messages into their own mailboxes. I have an entirely separate mailbox for WEIT that all new messages automatically go to. Same thing for the other lists I subscribe to.
I find it much more efficient than the Web interface. With the Web, you have to skim past all the posts you’ve already read looking for the ones you haven’t….
b&
No it doesn’t, in fact I looked a while back, and never knew what it meant until now. I previously thought it meant you “subscribe” as in agree with the post, or with the comment preceding the sub post. I guess contrary to the impression that gave some of you aren’t actually neo-nazis,racists, misogynists, homophobes, or bigots. :p
Excellent!
S. Madison, I did not mean to seem to be telling anyone what to do. I was merely sharing a “reframing” that occurred to me, back when I thought my little “attaboy” posts were too trivial or wasting of other people’s time.
One can look at it as if attending a speech. As part of the audience, I think it’s polite to let the speaker know I’m at least paying attention, so a smile or nod now and then can’t hurt. But that’s just my feeling, not any sort of imperative.
By the same token, if I want to subscribe to a post,* if I can at the same time let someone know I’ve appreciated their comment, I’m happy to use “:)” or “+1” instead of “sub.” (Just remember to click the damn box!)
*FWIW, one often subscribes to threads just in case anyone responds to what the subscriber posted; otherwise one can appear to be ignoring them. Though no matter what you do, it’s easy to have conversations fall through the cracks on such a busy website.
I hate it when I am so excited to write a joke or funny emoji that I forget to sub. It’s even worse when I write, “sub” & get so distracted writing “sub” that I forget to check the boxes!
And you realize it a nanosecond after clicking “post…”
The thing I wonder about PZ is whether he is just now showing his true colors or did he gradually transform into the nasty guy he is now. While I generally assume a persons personality is set in stone by age 50 I have reason to beleive that latter. When he first addressed creationist arguments he didnt hold back on how vacuous they were, but he never got nasty. Now he goes straight for the namecalling. I cant blame him too much. Getting 10 emails a day telling you the infinitely loving god is going to burn you for eternity and deaing with the almost deceitful crap from the DI would take its toll on anyones civility after a decade or so…but still…
I like both sites, I read both sites, I comment on both sites, I admire both Jerry and PZ and I have no plans to “choose sides.” I would be astonished if either one of them cares. Neither one strikes me as that dramatic.
Though I was rather relieved to read the post and see that Jerry wasn’t addressing a note to his ‘readers from Pharyngula.’ What? Ah, okay — I see he meant PZ from Pharyngula had sent a note to his readers. Metaphorically speaking. Got it.
Your drama meter has a different set of calibration constants from mine.
Well, my claim is testable. I will continue to comment on both sites as usual and see if either Jerry or PZ kick me off and/or ban me simply because I also comment on the other site. I’m not worried.
No one claimed you’d be banned from Pharyngula for posting here. It’s disagreeing with the Horde-approved consensus that will get you banned. That hypothesis has already been put to the test many times.
I’ve been a regular for maybe 10 years or so and have often disagreed with the majority, as well as with PZ. I think there are a lot of variables involved in disputes which make your hypothesis hard to test.
Oh I’m sure there’s some things you could get by with disagreeing on. But anything to do with gender or feminism, for instance? No, you could not disagree substantially and not get banned there.
Yeah, but you’re a certified part of the in-crowd, which is held to a different standard.
That would give Sastra a few paces beyond the norm out of the starting gate, but he or she would still be banned by contradicting any of the key points of Pharyngula ideology. Try civilly arguing against gender as a social construct for a week or two and see if you’re still standing. Let that be the test of intellectual tolerance. Good money says you won’t make it more than two relevant posts.
Sastra, I think that you established enough well-deserved credibility back in the good days of Pharyngula that the hypocrites there are afraid to subject you to the invective that so many others have received.
Oh, I’ve received plenty of invective over the years. It doesn’t escalate, though (which is the real problem), partly I think because a long time spent in debate chatrooms gradually taught me to focus only on the topic and never be anything but polite. Otherwise, you’re dead. When you’re dealing with religious issues it’s a necessary tactic because the faith framework always attempts to shift to the personal (“why are you atheists being so angry and mean?”) Robo-debater did not hear that. Robo-debater keeps on course of fact-claim-dispute with nice-intelligent-person.
I think that can be a useful habit in general.
Maybe you could do the comment equivalent of Sam Harris’s “desecrate a holy text in front of fanatical believers test?” (The one where he gets to burn a bible in front of crazy christians and Glenn Greenwald or whoever gets to burn a koran in front of crazy muslims). Over there all you’d have to say is that Sam Harris is a really great guy and that they should all pay more attention to what he says, especially regarding Islam, torture, and profiling. Here you could write something nice about Deepockets Chopra, or republicans. Then we measure the responses. It’d be even better to do two versions, one posting as Sastra, and another under a(nother) pseudonym.
It’s been a while but I’m pretty sure I’ve defended Harris over there. I got plenty of pushback … and support. But that’s not a test.
If you look back at my original claim, it was just that neither Jerry nor PZ would ban people from their site simply for reading and commenting at the other one’s site and mentioning that they enjoy both. Fan drift is expected and accepted. It hasn’t reached the point — and in my opinion is very unlikely to reach the point — where it’s not.
Thanks, I love your comments. I often learn from them, which rare on the internets.
By all means, read what you like. But the idea that there is some kind of equivalence is false. I PZ’s rants are his fame. To say he isn’t dramatic, or “that dramatic” is not really supportable.
I like you despite your feet of clay, Sastra!
😀
I agree with Sastra completely. Both have good points to make, even if they disagree in the detail.
I like both sites, as well. I don’t comment very much on either, as I rarely have something of value to add, but I enjoy the differing perspective on things. I feel that the dialogue is more civil here as a whole. There are some commenters on Pharyngula that I just find obnoxious (even when I agree with them in principle) due to their apparent need to insult the people they disagree with. At the same time I sometimes chafe at “Da Roolz!” even though I know PCC has put them there for a good reason. I feel that I learn things from both of them (good and bad) and that’s ultimately what’s important to me.
I cheer your presence here. I always look forward to a Sastra comment.
PZ Myers: the best argument against atheism.
Well, at least the best argument against being an arrogant, gracelessly rancorous know-it-all atheist; that is not the best way to positively influence the thinking of intellectual foes OR friends.
I discovered the website via PZ a good few years ago.
I keep an eye on the main stories over there but I can’t be dealing with the turned-up-to-11 drama since FTB was set up. Good luck to them.
FWIW there are certain things that I fundamentally disagree with Prof CC over (and am closer to PZ on) but the whole conversation is generally less stressful in the comments.
I mean the comments on this website. Damn lack of edit.
Oh, and cats.
Your comments would ring true for another Chris, the one who likes coyotes!
Please tell us those things. It could be an interesting discussion (or boring).
I vote no. Sycophancy need not be a WEIT requirement. It would be surprising if an eclectic bunch like us were 100% on the same page.
You, maybe…;)
I’m almost always 100% on the same page as myself.
😀
Well, someone has to be…
😀
Non-scientific.
I think that Prof CC has a far too lenient view of Israel. I agree about the massive problems with the Palestinian govt, but think that Israel has to shoulder a lot of the blame too.
I keep out of those discussions because I have problems biting my own tongue sometimes. It gets me in enough trouble in real life… 😉
I totally left pharyngula and came here too. PZ is a drama queen.
I’ve always had the impression he was quite laid back. He does allow a drama queen quota in the comments, but that just adds to the community. Everyone needs a little passion in their lives, else they become boring.
Doxxing and defamatory smearing go far beyond any supportable “drama queen quota” and actively detract from the community.
Myers still owes Michael Nugent a retraction and apology, but lacks the integrity to do the right thing.
So when these readers from Pharyngula get here, what do you suppose they’ll think when they see that the post which has garnered far and away the most comments is not about science, or cats, or even free will, but is in fact entirely about PZ Myers?
It’s a little awkward.
I read Myers’ blog for many years, probably close to a decade. I thought his articles about biology (the one major science I never really studied) were very interesting at times, and I think I learned some things about evolution.
But he has completely gone off the rails since June 2011. What the heck happened? I don’t think I’ve ever had my impression of someone drop so drastically, and I now find his behaviour to be completely unhinged and loathesome. I am very careful to avoid giving him (or anyone else at FTB) any income from clicks.
PS Does Jerry allow the posting of images in comments here?
Interesting you should date the “going of the rails” to June, 2011. That would coincide with the Rebecca Watson and the Elevator Guy incident at the World Atheist Congress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Watson#Elevator_incident
This incident led to a significant tussle between the FTB bloggers and a bunch of misogynist libertarian a-holes. The tussle was a healthy thing and much of the reaction to Watson’s story was spiteful and obnoxious. I trace the subsequent trashing of the Horsemen to that event. I sympathize generally with their pro-feminist sentiment, but the tarring of Dawkins and Harris is uncalled-for.
I wonder if that is the offing-of-the-rails to which you refer?
Yes
Try a simple experiment. Disagree with party line. Don’t recant. Record outcome in a notebook.
I visit WEIT nearly everyday, and although I don’t post that often, I really enjoy the science and cowboy boot postings.
I rarely visit Pharyngula (and a lot of FTB) anymore because I feel like I need to take a shower or two after reading. They need to clean that place up.
I think that selective pressure of constant use of ban-hammer by PZ created the low quality environment which was one nice place.
I’m sorry, but I read both Pharyngula and this site daily, and I have only rarely seen PZ ban anyone. Do you have references to all these bannings I seem to have missed?
Your joking, right? Ever heard of Myers’ “dungeon”? Ever seen his announcements of someone’s bannination in huge red letters?
If not, I shall conclude that you do not, in fact, read Pharyngula daily. Or weekly, monthly or even yearly. There’s also, of course, the option that you might just be disingenuous.
In some parts of the internet, it’s called “lying for Peezus”.
(prof. CC: in advance, sorry if I overdid it with this comment, but this nonsense revisionism on the part of Pharyngula commenters is quite getting on my nerves lately.)
First they came for the creationists, and I didn’t speak out, because I was not a creationist.
Then they came for the trolls and spammers, and I didn’t speak out…
Then they came for those who didn’t carefully observe the ‘trigger alert’ protocol, and I was out of there.
I am with Phil on the idea that if you actually read Pharyngula daily, then, unless you have been reading it for only a couple of weeks, to not be aware of Myers regular, frequent, and capricious bannings is either some kind of self-confirming bias, or just Myers-defending mendacity. Over the last 4 years or so, Myers has banned hundreds of people. Your claim to be unaware of this is simply not believable at all; not at all.
Katkinkate said:
“Do you have references to all these bannings I seem to have missed?”
This is either a deeply disingenuous question or just naive. In most instances Myers’ bans are instantaneous, surreptitious, and mostly unannounced, or only peripherally and passively remarked on as in “I’ve had enough of this”. It is common editorial policy at Pharyngula to just silently ban someone, and delete all of their posts so that their existence, and the fact that they more often than not did not in fact break any sort of commenting rules whatsoever, is memory holed, and therefore, Hazah! unproveable.
It is a shame that PZ and his blog fell so low. I was quite good one upon the time. Around time of elevator-gate I have abandoned regular checking of his blog, I was entirely disappointed with PZ’s behavior.
Just recently, after many months of break, I came to check his blog and started reading some comments randomly. I have noticed that he bans frequently commentators who provide sane rebuttals. One of them provided arguments and PZ banned him calling him a racist and bigot. That was just completely insanely sad to witness, how PZ, once brilliant, became incapable of parsing and understanding one rebutting sentence (which was entirely OK) without uttering invectives and brutally removing person from conversation.
Does anyone know why PZ has remained at the Associate Professor level for quite some time? Non-promotion to Professor is usually a sign of under-performance in either teaching or research.
It COULD be that he chooses to not have a full load, but that is pure speculation.
Possibly; he has been at the Associate level since 2003 – likely because he spends way too much time ranting.
Now, now, we’re trying to look comparatively high-minded here…
The reason people discuss the “drama” more than perhaps science or atheism might have to do with several factors:
Controversy: The more controversial a subject, the more reasons to comment and discuss, reply and rebut.
Competence: the more competence and insights someone believes to have, the more they feel to contribute something.
Relevance: subjects that affect someone more personally are perceived as more relevant and will garner more attention.
It should surprise nobody yet we constantly dismiss the “drama” as if it was some unimportant diversion. There is now a faction of what is often called “social justice warriors” and there are many highly volatile (and serious) areas of conflict with them that shake the foundations. Just a few examples:
The belief Teh Patriarchy International Eternal™ is the bigger issue and (patriarchal) religions are merely an offshoot undermines atheism. Post-modernist double think and obscurantism is directly at odds with scientific skepticism and empiricism. Strong belief in speech codes and taboos, and “safe spaces” that are meant to displace adversarial community cultures threaten our means to root out bad ideas with robust debate.
Instead, they favour a view that some ideas should be declared unthinkable and unexpressable because they trigger or offend someone. On what grounds do we oppose blasphemy laws then?
They think people can be declared sewer dwellers and made an example by “burning” them on social media and its unimportant if the poor schmuck even thinks the unthinkable or expressed the unexpressable as long as the point is brought across that some ideas are off limits. Social justice warriors are happy to sacrifice someone for their cause and just don’t care whether allegations are true. The end justifies the means. They themselves only care about their own status within their peer group.
The personal is the political. But only if the person hasn’t adorned itself with the right plumage. PZ Myers gets away with everything, others are figuratively put to the torch for less or nothing.
The “white man” is seen as the problem and is to blame for the underrrepresentation of women in STEM, terrorism and sour milk and that women won’t flock to atheism (according to PZ Myers) which shades into Islam accommodationism and science wars (humanities are less misogynist than STEM). Underlying beliefs can be linked to the SSSM and there we have the conflict with Evolutionary Psychology… et cetera
This doesn’t even scratch the surface. On top of it all and consistent within general high authoritarianism …
The general view that this is just some “drama” is false. The substance of the conflicts and the influence of these people is underestimated. After all, they feed into a new social media landscape where they find influential allies.
If the mythical “movement” even exists, it would be a first step to accept that some problem exists and that it won’t go away. Then we might think about a solution that doesn’t ruin everyone’s favourite
blogssites.I think you’re proving PZ’s point with those straw men. Blasphemy laws? Come on! As if anyone is advocating jailing people for their political beliefs.
The argument was that PZ Myers and the faction around him have declared large areas as taboo zones where any trespassing is seen as splendid reason to tar and feather the perpetrator on social media. There is now a culture of trigger warnings, censorship and the right to not be offended which gels very well with the insistence of Muslims to not be offended either (which they see as blasphemy).
And indeed, in recent controversies the alleged liberals (PZ Myers is a dye in the wool authoritarian) can be seen teaming up with Muslims. The dish washing (or comet landing) guy is excoriated for a tasteless joke (or shirt), but critique of Islam — not exactly known to be feminist — is declared as Islamophobia or even racism. I’m sure you have heard from it.
I just don’t know what you’re talking about. What censorship? No one has ever asserted a right not to be offended. Yeah, Sam Harris comes in for a lot of stick, and I usually don’t agree with it, but he’s hardly been silenced.
When you use words like “censorship” and “blasphemy” and “authoritarian,” you make it sound so scary, but what you’re really talking about is just people arguing on the internet. It’s not scary at all.
In order to comprehend the original post by JAC and the bulk of the comments you would already need to understand more than you pretend you don’t know about — I’m not really buying it. If you don’t know at all what’s going on, you don’t seek out a jargon filled, crammed summary of a flurry of keywords and topics. Does “feeling muzzled” ring a bell? Brandeis and Hirsi Ali? Maher on Liberalism? Campus and trigger warnings and all that? None sounds familiar? Well, the internet is at your fingertips. Feel free to use it.
I’m familiar with all of those things, and none of them has anything to do with censorship. That is my point. The examples you cite do not support your claims. Pile on all the overheated language you like, you’re still just complaining about people disagreeing with you and saying so.
Incidentally, do you see nothing odd about Dawkins complaining about “feeling muzzled” in a magazine interview he subsequently tw***ed to his more than 1 million followers? I have no idea why Dawkins feels muzzled, but it certainly isn’t because he’s been muzzled.
I am not sure what your contention is. In the first reply you asked what was meant with the blasphemy laws and contested that. I explained what I meant by it.
Now you are interested in the word “censorship” and I could again refer to a culture that imposes taboos, perhaps as part of a manufactuversy that pretends we need some taboos on things that aren’t challenged anyway.
Which is it? Other than that I am well aware my comment is barely comphrensible with little background information on what’s going on and as such isn’t useful for everyone and doesn’t have to be.
“I have no idea why Dawkins feels muzzled, but it certainly isn’t because he’s been muzzled.”
Perhaps Dawkins feels muzzled because when he pointed out that a very politely-worded invitation to coffee was not actually tantamount to misogyny or a prelude to rape he was declared a misogynist and rape-enabler.
And when he pointed out that the opinion – that a very politely-worded invitation to a cup of coffee was indeed misogyny – is a curiosity of the Western world and not as serious as the misogyny suffered by women in the Islamic world, it engendered a maelstrom of fevered hatred, calls for blackballing his speaking engagements as well as a boycott of his writings.
Indeed, it engendered a years-long campaign to marginalize him which continues to this day, fed by never-ending uncharitable blog posts. Perhaps that is why he feels “muzzled”? I wonder if Sam Harris and Michael Shermer just might feel the same way?
Yes, this!
Yet another reminder of why I no longer read his stuff.
Talk about rage, recrimination, and drama — just visit PZ’s site. I used to peruse it from time-to-time but stopped a few years ago owing to the over-the-top PC SJW BS going on over there. It was along about then that WEIT became my go-to site. It boasts some of the best thinking and reasoned argumentation I can find. (But I still think PZ’s “emperor has no clothes on” satire is one of the best ever.)
Yes, The Courtier’s Reply is a brilliant repost to Sophisticated Theologians™.
FWIW I agree fundamentally with most of the issues that “SJWs” raise.
However, not being the most entirely PC of people, and also appreciating a certain amount of nuance I can’t be dealing with folks going full all-or-nothing.
And Atheism+? The supporters are/were (is it still a thing?) it’s own worst enemies.
Depressing.
Me too. I thought I was a socialist and a womens rights sympathiser until I read FTB and found out what a misogynistic dinosaur I really am.
I didn’t even know what a “sister punisher” was until FTB & realized I too must be that. 🙂
With an apparent magnitude of 6-7 with regards to Internet visibility on the best of days, I have to thank both Dr Coyne and the Author (J+M) for their kindnesses in answering questions and providing support to the rest of us. Jerry has been very generous in those times when I’ve needed a clarification on a point of biology. Maybe there are others, but I don’t know of other accomplished authors who take the time to patiently correct the odd misconception.
I occasionally comment here, even though I don’t like cats.
Actually, that’s not strictly true, I do like cats. But I live in an area with lots of native birds and I don’t like cat owners who let their cats run wild and then excuse it by saying “Oh, my little moggie won’t kill wildlife, he’s too well fed.” This really shows they don’t understand the animal they are responsible for.
So I don’t like some cat owners.
But I appreciate the work Jerry does on his website, both science and personal. The boots are always awesome.
On the cat thing – there can be valid excuses. We lived in an area with lots of native birds and our cat was free to roam – she had long lost all interest in birds, instead devoting her energies to killing rabbits. She was doing the native (Australian marsupial) fauna a favour.
Yikes.
Looking forward to more wonderful science and nom posts!
*tip-toes back out of thread…*
I read both WEIT and Pharyngula daily. I learn more from the conversation here, but I see the underlying rationale of the horde. The fine line is whether the person taking offense has control over the subject of a slur, joke, attack (e.g., religion vs. gender). It’s not as bad as the “intelligent” forum discussion linked upthread, but all too often the reaction seems overly sensitive. I miss the days of arguing with creationists (and the three comment rule).
One of the charms of WEIT is its good & civilised comments section. So different from many other sites, let alone twitter.
And I like the science sections best (something I failed to comment upon on the ‘original’ beef), thank you for those, Jerry.
NOT
A
BLOG!
This tweet from Michael Nugent was posted last night:-
@pzmyers “Another month, another opportunity for you to apologise for your false smear that I defend rapists.”
On the plus side – this photo was featured on Pharyngula yesterday
http://imgur.com/MMrYXxd
I frequent both blog…err web sites. I agree the comment section at Pharyngula is a good place to get tar and feathered, I will read the first few comments until it devolves into a tit for tat war. Then move on.
I like the atmosphere much better here. That all said I still think PZ is good for the cause. As is our fine host here. I regret that there can’t be a more amicable
association between the two. I think the cause, that is science/atheism, is better off having both of these guys taking their turn at the plate. Both have hit plenty out of the park, and will probably share a place in the atheism hall of fame.
I understand that while there are a lot of us atheists out there, we are all different people, with different opinions. We aren’t always going to see eye to eye, but the cause is still a good one. And these two guys are at the top of the class.
Aye, there’s the rub. While most here aspire to a secular future and are prepared to make common cause the A+/SJW crowd (not just confined to PZ’s sycophants) insist that it must be done their way. It’s almost Pythonesque in the Social Justice Warriors turning on the Workers for Social Justice.
Yep, that’s just PZM being his hyperbolic self. I know he can be passionate on issues he’s into; however, I had to move on when he called Michael Schermer a “rapist.”
As someone who first knew of PZ Myers through ye olde Usenet and Talk.Origins and was an early reader of his Phrayngula.org blog, I now think he’s basically a crank. Sure, he can be the mild-mannered professor in person and I’ve met him a few times over the years and will vouch for that. But his internet persona is verbally abusive and just plain mean towards anyone he loses patience with. Myers’ example also is aped by most of his followers, as anyone who has ever read his comments section there well knows. I’m not a religious person myself, but I sure don’t think Myers is doing me any favors with his antics as he acts out being the angry atheist.
Yes, the tone is set by the example of the host, as well as the modding policy. I’ve enjoyed a few of his curse laden rants to creationists, they seemed funny at the time, especially given that science and the facts were on his side. Or that was my thinking years ago. Since then, as PZ has moved from proven science vs. unproven religious assertion to “my opinion on this social justice issue is right and yours is inherently wrong if you disagree with me.” I think in many cases he’s lost the fact vs. opinion part of his arguments and is left with just the cursing and outrage – all seemingly without him noticing the difference, or if he does, without caring that there is a difference.
I remember Myers once commenting about the problem with Usenet being that you couldn’t just the shut nonsense down and that the ranters and cranks (of which there were plenty) ruined the debate. So my take on how he runs his blog is that he shuts down what he likes, period, end of discussion. But instead of having a place where spirited but open debate takes place, it’s become an echo chamber policed not only by Myers but by his followers, who are pretty vicious when responding to anyone who is deemed to be trouble.
I appreciate but cannot always comment on your science posts. They matter to me…
Congratulations Prof. Coyne. You have now officially been slimed by PZ using his infamous “raging imbecile” icon. This must be a rite of passage of sorts. I fear that PZ is going to find himself increasingly isolated from his peers.
I remember well the time I ventured onto his site with what I thought to be a reasonable question, and didn’t know what hit me. I wasn’t used to being called an “f***ing moron”, “lying crank” and such. My question wasn’t at all unreasonable, given my background. What might have been a chance to enlighten someone turned into a pummel session.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/12/02/jerry-coyne-is-trying-to-defend-evolutionary-psychology-again/#more-21657
“How the mighty have fallen…”
Seems like evo psych offends PZs social *values*, so must be false, kind of the same reason creationists reject science. That PZ would use his Troll Blockquote to cite/disparage a fellow evolutionary biologist’s scientific oppionion shows that PZ now often argues based his offended values, like a theist, rather than based on dispassionate science.
The faux outrage and dog-piling on Pharyng*la did me in. Good riddance to that bookmark, and please keep up the more thoughtful content generation on your website Jerry, it’s much appreciated.
I meant to add, I used to read Myers’ blog for the scientific content – there’s obviously more $$$ in click-baity trollfests though. Sadly.
When Prof Coyne wrote that my first thought was skepchick.org not Pharyngula. It doesn’t always have to be all about PZ does it?
Well, PZ is skepchick.org’s White Knight, so even if it were clear I think he’d still wade in.