”PZ’s post reads like it was written by an intemperate teenager in the midst of a hormonal rage. Among other things, he calls De Dora “witless,” “wanker,” “wishy-washy,” and “sloppy-thinking”; he accuses Michael of engaging in “cowardly intellectual dishonesty” and of using a “quisling” approach. So that we are crystal clear on just how low these ad hominem (a logical fallacy!) attacks go, let me refresh your memory about the dictionary definitions of some of these terms:And,
Quisling = a traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country;
Wanker = a person who masturbates (used as a term of abuse);
Wishy-washy = feeble or insipid in quality or character, lacking strength or boldness;
Witless = foolish, stupid, to such an extent that one cannot think clearly or rationally.
If PZ thinks that this sort of language belongs within any thoughtful writing about rational discourse, he really needs to look up the dictionary definitions of rational, thoughtful and discourse. Then again, it is precisely this sort of theatrics that apparently makes him so popular, as nothing gets people’s attention on the internet so much as shouting as LOUDLY as possible, regardless of the vacuity of what one is actually saying.
And speaking of content, what was so witless, wanky, wishy-washy, and witless about De Dora’s post? Oh, he dared question (very politely, and based on argument) one of the dogmas of the new atheism: that religious people (that’s about 90% of humanity, folks) ought (and I use the term in the moral sense) to be frontally assaulted and ridiculed at all costs, because after all, this is a war, and the goal is to vanquish the enemy, reason and principles be damned.”
”In yet another example of his sledge-hammer approach to discourse, PZ states that De Dora’s contributions in several recent writings have been “notable only for their fuzziness and willingness to accommodate any nonsense from religious BS artists.” If by fuzziness one means subtle reasoning, well PZ can certainly not be accused of that. But nothing I have seen written by Michael in any way “accommodates” religious nonsense, on the contrary, he is very clear in his rejection of religion in general and creationism in particular. It is the principle of Church-State separation that is at issue, as well as the ethics of insulting people’s beliefs for the sake of scoring cheap rhetorical points with one’s own converts.”More,
Finally,”“Somebody says the universe appeared magically a few thousand years ago, I guess that has to be a valid answer on the test question, ‘How old is the universe?’. To actually state that it is about 14 billion years old, and make such an answer a necessary part of the student's grade...why, that is philosophy or theology, and not to be discussed in science class.”Wow, I counted at least four gross mistakes in just this one paragraph, a pretty high rate for a self-appointed defender of evidence-based rationality: 1) in the course of this discussion De Dora never said or implied that young-earth creationism is a valid answer to a test question; 2) he has also never argued that a student who gave that answer instead of the scientifically grounded one should somehow get a pass; 3) Michael has never said that this is a philosophical or theological issue (PZ is referring to a different statement by De Dora, about the epistemological boundaries of science, see comment above, but that statement cannot reasonably be construed in the way PZ unreasonably construes it); and 4) of course these issues should be discussed in a science class (here I do disagree with Michael), but no discussion is helped in the least by referring to what half of your students deeply believe as “myth.”
”But this to me represents the latest example of an escalation (downwards in quality) in the tone and substance of the discourse on atheism, and I blame this broadly on the rhetoric of the new atheism (the only “new” aspect of which is precisely the in-your-face approach to “reason”). With few exceptions (mostly, Dennett), what we have seen in recent years is much foaming at the mouth, accompanied by a cavalier attitude toward the substance, rationality and coherence of one’s arguments. And now we have seen a new low consisting of childish insults to a fellow atheist and writer who is clearly fighting the same battle as the rest of us.”
It took until now for Massimo to take on the “tone” of the New Atheists, now being when one of Massimo’s own gets the lashings. Admittedly the subject was tolerance and why Atheists are not, yet should be, an admirable topic for intra-Atheist discussion. But why did they expect a tolerant reply from PZ, who has had zero tolerance for as long as I have been aware of him and his hate rants? Massimo comes close here, but fails to nail down the hate-mongering of PZ and his crew. Still, to call out PZ on his “cavalier attitude toward the substance, rationality and coherence of one’s arguments”, is a major step, perhaps a step toward actual examination of his own issues with regard to substance, rationality and coherence.
The times I have provided a refutation for Massimo’s lack of coherence, etc. in the comments of his blog, it was totally ignored, a complete blackout; no response, radio silence. Massimo doesn’t want to discuss or to search for rationality, he dogmatically preaches Materialism just like PZ, only less rudely.
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