Tag: PZ

A portrait in epistemic closure

I found the Fowl Atheist’s response to his sole dissenter to be more than a little amusing.  He genuinely doesn’t see the irony in it.

PZ I ask you – given the footfall of Pharyngula; the contentious
nature of the subjects in question; the substantial number of people who
disagree with your position; the way in which you are regarded as a
lead figure in many of these things; given all of this, is it really
credible for you claim you don’t mind reasonable dissent when you
appear, for all the world, to not have a single regular dissenter who
has not been banned?



You may think I am a troll but please don’t mix up trolls with idiots.
If you had a good couple of dozen REGULAR dissenting posters on these
issues your arguments would look more convincing. In my couple of months
before being banned I never encountered a single one. Not one. Nada.
Zilch.

Why don’t I tolerate dissent, from a dissenter who posted here for
over 4 months, making 168 comments. I have to say, this is a remarkably
stupid question….  But all right, I’ll just assume that he’s not very bright and explain
the obvious. There are a number of reasons why you aren’t ever going to
see mobs of angry dissenters here.

This is a self-selected community. Look at the header on the
blog: liberals, atheists, science-minded people will congregate here.
It’s a successful center for that kind of person, and that means that
people with different views — well, those that have a speck of
self-awareness — will know that they are going to be a tiny minority in a
swarm of opinionated, outspoken, ferocious liberals. Venturing here
will be daunting. The mirror of community is that there will also be
self-selected avoidance….

One last remark: sometimes there is no such thing as reasonable dissent on certain issues. Sometimes trolls are idiots.
NoelPlum99 lasted as long as he did because he didn’t come right out
and shout some intolerable stupidity; I will, for instance, ban racists
on sight, because their arguments are not in any way scientifically or
ethically defensible, and in fact are simply odious and evil. NoelPlum99
was smugly privileged and dense, but there was some faint hope that he
might actually wake up and recognize his own blinkered view, a hope that
faded fairly rapidly.

But otherwise, there are views that I find insufferably stupid, that
only idiots would hold, and I’m happy to make this environment as
hostile as possible to them. There are no rational grounds, no context
for reasonable dissent, for being anti-feminist, for instance, or
denying that our culture is deeply patriarchal and sexist. I can see
reasonable argument about how we ought to deal with this fact of life,
but denial (or worse, the kind of inane argument so many make that “why,
calling someone a ‘cunt’ is not a reflection of de facto
sexism!”) is going to be fired upon with all ferocity and anyone holding
such a view is going to find interacting here intolerable and
infuriating, leading to them lashing out and trying to turn the whole
blog into a brawl over some really idiotic issues.

And then they get banhammered.

Because really, how do you express “reasonable dissent” from the view
that women are people, and that our society institutionalizes
discrimination of all sorts?

Wow, 168 comments in four months from one dissenter!  I think Tad and Asher, just to name two dissenters here, have it in them to beat that on a single post if they were given even the slightest encouragement.  What I find amusing here is that PZ drives a second nail in the coffin of dh’s case concerning how the Left won’t have any problem with realizing that there is an increasing amount of scientific evidence supporting what it considers “racism”.  The fact that PZ is a professional biologist in denial of both genetics and the logic of natural selection only makes the situation all the funnier.

I’ll draw your attention to these two statements:

  1. “[T]here is no such thing as reasonable dissent on certain issues.”   
  2. “There are no rational grounds, no context
    for reasonable dissent, for being anti-feminist….”

This is why PZ twice ran away from the challenge of a debate with me.  It’s not because he’s too busy.  It’s not because I’m a crackpot.  It’s not because he has a reputation worth protecting.  It is, at least in part, because his ideology is his religion and he can’t bear to have his faith questioned, much less risk seeing it demolished in public.  He has no dissenters because he lacks the confidence in his ability to defend his arguments against them.

But there is no reason to debate him any longer.  We can safely leave him to preach to his angry and anti-intellectual choir, secure in the knowledge that his moment has passed and he no longer even merits the attention of trolls.

As always, I welcome any dissenting opinions.  Make your case… if you can.  Unless you’re Tad, in which case you’ll have to make your case in five comments or less.  Being open to dissent does not mean that either monologues or monomania are welcome, however, and I advise that if someone demonstrates that you are wrong, you should have the good sense and the good grace to admit it.  Here’s a little secret: the state of being incorrect does not hinge upon one’s willingness to own up to it.

Still sniping, still running

It would appear PZ Myers is now too delicate to respond to me directly, so he’s responding to someone else quoting what I wrote, which totally doesn’t count as responding:

I don’t do debates anymore. One reason is that they give the other side far too much credibility; another is that the format rewards rhetoric, not honesty. But the other big reason is sheer disgust at the spectacle these loons can put on.

Imagine this metaphorical situation: you’re at a debate, and your opponent stands up and in the first round, starts punching himself in the face. Punching hard, until the blood spurts in great red rivers out of his nose. You’re aghast, but when your turn comes up, you try to make your points; in rebuttal, he pulls out a knife and starts gouging out one of his eyeballs. You just want to stop the whole debacle, call an ambulance, and have the poor warped goon hauled away. But then afterwards, he crows victory.

That’s a bit of hyperbole, but not by much. Theodore Beale, aka Vox Day, has leapt upon my post in which I used the status of women as evidence that religion does harm to humanity, and eagerly tries to rebut me in a spectacular act of self-mutilation. I won’t link directly to poor sick Theodore Beale — he needs psychiatric help — but fortunately Dave Futrelle quotes him extensively, so you can get the gist without feeding Beale’s pathology directly.

Right, that’s why the man whose intellectual courage inspired me to dub him “The Fowl Atheist” doesn’t debate anyone. It’s not because he can’t argue his way out of a paper bag and knows that he’ll get his pudgy ass exposed to the public before it is kicked all over the place, it’s because he’s too much of a humanitarian. You’d think he would know no one is going to buy that excuse, he’s a high-AQ militant atheist after all. He’s a fierce and focused hunter, with hunter’s hands and hunter’s eyes, not Sister Mary Margaret feeding the poor at the homeless shelter! I find it a little ironic that a man who openly admits to being closer to having Asperger’s Syndrome than being neurotypical is attempting to claim I need psychiatric help.

I never cease to find amusing how quickly these inept atheists resort to accusations of mental illness whenever their illogic is publicly illuminated and dissected. Why, one might almost begin to suspect they are projecting!

But there’s enough bile to make you wonder. I was arguing that many features of religion clearly don’t benefit women, so I asked:

How does throwing acid in their faces when they demand independence from men benefit women?

So Teddy rebuts that in the most appalling way.

[F]emale independence is strongly correlated with a whole host of social ills. Using the utilitarian metric favored by most atheists, a few acid-burned faces is a small price to pay for lasting marriages, stable families, legitimate children, low levels of debt, strong currencies, affordable housing, homogenous populations, low levels of crime, and demographic stability. If PZ has turned against utilitarianism or the concept of the collective welfare trumping the interests of the individual, I should be fascinated to hear it.

Say what? So his answer to how this benefits women is to say it’s bad for society for women to be independent, and that honor killings, stonings, and mutilation of women is a small price?

I think he just made my case for me.

Yes, that is precisely the answer. But this doesn’t make his case for him, instead, his response to my scientific answer only confirms Wilson’s original case against him, in which he claimed that PZ doesn’t act or think in a scientific manner. And while Wilson is correct and PZ truly doesn’t think like a scientist in any way, shape, or form, it’s actually worse than that because it’s clear that he also doesn’t understand what he reads. I not only provided an answer to his question that can be empirically and objectively analyzed, it was a scientific answer that was entirely in keeping with PZ’s own previously expressed statements on the subject. Consider what PZ wrote about the Taliban’s oppression of women only two years ago:

I also think that the desire for a successful society is not a scientific premise…it’s a kind of Darwinian criterion, because unsuccessful societies don’t survive. Can we use science to determine whether that is a good strategy for human success? I think we can, but not in the way Harris is trying to do so: we could ask empirically, after the fact, whether the Taliban was successful in expanding, maintaining its population, and responding to its environment in a productive way. We cannot, though, say a priori that it is wrong because abusing and denigrating half the population is unconscionable and vile, because that is not a scientific foundation for the conclusion. It’s an emotional one; it’s also a rational one, given the premise that we should treat all people equitably…but that premise can’t claim scientific justification.

So while the desire for a successful society is not a scientific premise, determining the way in which a society can become successful is. Note that Myers admits that one cannot say throwing acid in a woman’s face when she demands independence is wrong from the scientific perspective. He even acknowledges that science could support, on the basis of the Darwinian criterion, horrific actions in support of societal success and survival. This is not to say he supports such actions, only that his opposition to them is based on entirely non-scientific reasoning. In that previous post, he adds:

I agree with Harris entirely that the oppression of women is an evil, a wrong, a violation of a social contract that all members of a society should share. I just don’t see a scientific reason for that — I see reasons of biological predisposition (we are empathic, social animals), of culture (this is a conclusion of Enlightenment history), and personal values, but not science. Science is an amoral judge: science could find that a slave culture of ant-like servility was a species optimum, or that a strong behavioral sexual dimorphism, where men and women had radically different statuses in society, was an excellent working solution.

So, we see that Wilson was correct. PZ is not thinking as a scientist about these matters, by his own words he is clearly thinking about them according to his biological predisposition, his culture, and his personal values. Of course, the biological predisposition, the culture, and the personal values of those who throw acid in women’s faces to keep them in their place are not only different than PZ’s, but may actually be superior to them in both scientific and moral terms. PZ hasn’t even begun to attempt to make any case for the superiority of his own biological predisposition, culture, and personal values, in fact, he has devoted considerable effort over the years to demonizing the Christian culture in which he was raised.

But how about this: Beale has not made the case that destroying women’s lives is a necessary price to pay for social stability. I reject his bargain; I say we can have a more stable, healthier, stronger society if human beings live in mutually loving and respectful relationships. I do not have to hover over my wife with a threatening jar of acid in order for both of us to live together happily; in fact, a life where I had to compel a partnership with terror would be a horror and a nightmare.

One more. I also asked this:

How does letting women die rather than giving them an abortion benefit women?

Here’s his answer.

Because far more women are aborted than die as a result of their pregnancies going awry. The very idea that letting a few women die is worse than killing literally millions of unborn women shows that PZ not only isn’t thinking like a scientist, he’s quite clearly not thinking rationally at all. If PZ is going to be intellectually consistent here, then he should be quite willing to support the abortion of all black fetuses, since blacks disproportionately commit murder and 17x more people could be saved by aborting black fetuses than permitting the use of abortion to save the life of a mother. 466 American women die in pregnancy every year whereas 8,012 people died at the hands of black murderers in 2010.

A fetus is not a woman. I’m used to hearing those wacky anti-choicers call the fetus a “baby”, with all those emotional connotations, but this is the first time I’ve heard them called “women”.

The racist tirade is just sickening. So now Beale wants us to lump all black people together as “murderers” to justify forced sterilization, as a logical consequence of my values? I’ve heard of that tactic somewhere else before.

Again with the logical fallacies. Here’s a hint: the death of women in back-alley abortions can be directly addressed by legalizing abortion and providing responsible medical treatment; the socioeconomic conditions that create an environment of crime are not addressed by racially-defined forced abortion. If we want to end murders by any population (yes, please), the answer is not the extermination of that population, but the correction of social and economic inequity and providing opportunity for advancement.

Of course I haven’t made the case that destroying women’s lives is a necessary price to pay for social stability. I didn’t need to make that case in order to make my point, which is that the scientific case could be made and that in refusing to consider it, PZ was proving Wilson right about his failure to think like a scientist about it. He can say whatever he likes, but his position would be no weaker if he had instead declared that we can have a more stable, healthier, stronger society if human beings began the day by pledging their loyalty to Yog-Sothoth and committing seven deadly sins each morning before breakfast.

PZ then reveals that in addition to his demonstrated inability to think like a scientist, he’s not even able to think logically. If “a fetus is not a woman”, then obviously “a black fetus is not a black adult”. It’s simple multiplication by zero. If there is no harm done in aborting one fetus, there can be no harm in aborting all the black fetuses in America, plus there will be a net benefit that will save 17 times more lives every single year than merely permitting abortions to save the lives of pregnant women. The logical consequences of PZ’s position on abortion are inescapable. If it is worthwhile to utilize abortion to save 466 pregnant women every year, then it is clearly worthwhile to utilize it to save 8,012 murder victims, as either way, the cost is trivial, since according to PZ, the fetus is not a baby, a woman, or a black adult meriting protection of the law. The appeal to socioeconomic conditions is irrelevant, as PZ is wrong and murders committed by blacks can be directly addressed by utilizing abortion; nonexistent people cannot murder anyone. That there may or may not be other ways of addressing the same social ill does not change that simple and undeniable fact.

I further note that I am not a supporter of abortion for any reason, including the elimination of crime and the life of the mother. I am merely explicating the logical consequences of PZ’s reasoning. Nor is it racist to cite the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report; one could make precisely the same case, although it would be a less effective and efficient one, for the abortion of white fetuses. If PZ doesn’t like the inescapable logical implications of his reasoning, then I suggest he should consider rethinking his assumptions. And if he doesn’t like scientists and non-scientists alike pointing out the obvious fact that he does not reason or behave like a scientist, perhaps he should start trying to actually think like one rather than like an irrational, emotional, atheist propagandist.

And with that, I’m sufficiently repulsed not to want to continue. Beale/Day has apparently been whiningly demanding to debate me for the last few years; now you know why I won’t even consider it. Getting his words as second-hand text is nauseating enough, I’d rather not have to deal with the poisonous little scumbag directly.

Still sniping and running. After all these years, still sniping and running. The thing is, as anyone who has ever fired a gun knows, it’s a lot easier to hit your target if you stand still and take the time to aim at it. Of course, then you have to take the risk that you’re up against a much better marksman who will blow you away before you can even get a shot off….

A scientist beats up PZ

As if the Fowl Atheist didn’t have enough trouble with all the religious people methodically exposing his rank idiocy whenever he opens his mouth, now even atheist scientists are calling him out on his clueless nonsense. David Sloan Wilson points out the obvious, which is that PZ Myers doesn’t act or think in a scientific manner where religion is concerned.

In the spirit of science as a process of constructive disagreement, Evolution: This View of Life is pleased to feature a critique of my previous article “The New Atheism and Evolutionary Religious Studies: Clarifying Their Relationship” by evolutionist and prolific blogger PZ Myers, titled “You Want Evidence that Religion is Bad for Our Species? OPEN YOUR EYES.” Unfortunately, Myer’s critique raises the issue of whether he is functioning as a scientist at all on the subject of religion.

Imagine Myers teaching a class on his academic specialty — evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) — and telling his students that all they must do to understand the topic is to open their eyes. This would be absurd. The whole point of science is to understand topics that are too complex to be self-evident. I have written about the problem of scientists who use their reputation in one topic area to hold forth on other topic areas without doing the same homework that a good science journalist would do, and even without functioning as a scientist in any way at all. PZ Myers has a fine reputation as an evolutionary developmental biologist, but on the topic of religion he is defrocked.

As longtime readers here know, it’s not just the subject of religion concerning which PZ is hapless, but pretty much every subject he attempts to address outside of his own professional specialty. He’s equally incompetent with regards to philosophy, politics, and economics, just to name three more. And even with regards to his scientific specialty, he hasn’t mastered it sufficiently to be confident of winning a debate on evolution by natural selection with me. But for the purposes of both amusement and edification, consider PZ’s inept response to Wilson, especially the specific questions he poses:

Rather than condescendingly telling us about evolutionary dynamics, I’d like Wilson to get specific.

1. How does depriving girls of an education benefit women?

2. How does raising girls with the expectation that their purpose in life is to bear children benefit women?

3. How does throwing acid in their faces when they demand independence from men benefit women?

4. How do honor killings benefit women?

5. How does stoning rape victims benefit women?

6. How does female genital mutilation benefit women?

7. How does letting women die rather than giving them an abortion benefit women?

What is amusing here is the way that PZ throws out these questions as if they are at all difficult to answer, as if he is making some sort of cogent point simply by asking them. Now, I’m sure Wilson would come up with some different answers, but as will be seen by the answers I provide, by asking some of them, Myers is doing little more than demonstrating the very unscientific attitude of which he is accused! It’s important to understand that one need not find these answers to be absolutely conclusive or even convincing to recognize that they are scientifically valid answers, which is to say that they can be used to generate hypotheses and then subsequently put to the scientific test, at least to the extent that social science can reasonably be considered science.

1. Because educating women is strongly correlated with reducing their disposition and ability to reproduce themselves. Educating them tends to make them evolutionary dead ends. “Germany now has the highest number of childless women in the world. This trend has been going on since at least the 90s. What we also know is that the higher the level of education, the more likely a woman is to remain childless.” -Professor Norbert Schneider, Mainz University. 40% of German women with college degrees are childless. Does PZ seriously wish to claim that not reproducing is intrinsically beneficial to women? Does he really find it hard to understand how not reproducing is evolutionary disadvantageous?

2. Because raising girls with the expectation that their purpose in life is to bear children allows them to pursue marriage at the age of their peak fertility, increase the wage rates of their prospective marital partners, and live in stable, low-crime, homogenous societies that are not demographically dying. It also grants them privileged status, as they alone are able to ensure the continued survival of the society and the species alike. Women are not needed in any profession or occupation except that of child-bearer and child-rearer, and even in the case of the latter, they are only superior, they are not absolutely required.

3. Because female independence is strongly correlated with a whole host of social ills. Using the utilitarian metric favored by most atheists, a few acid-burned faces is a small price to pay for lasting marriages, stable families, legitimate children, low levels of debt, strong currencies, affordable housing, homogenous populations, low levels of crime, and demographic stability. If PZ has turned against utilitarianism or the concept of the collective welfare trumping the interests of the individual, I should be fascinated to hear it.

4. Because female promiscuity and divorce are strongly correlated with a whole host of social ills, from low birth and marriage rates to high levels of illegitimacy.

5. I don’t see how this benefits women in any way. The effect in dramatically reducing the number of false rape accusations would, of course, benefit men, but since there is no reliable penalty for false rape accusations in modern society, reducing it would be of little benefit to them.

6. By reducing female promiscuity, which is strongly correlated with a whole host of social ills, from low birth and marriage rates to high levels of illegitimacy. But it may not even do so, in which case there wouldn’t appear to be any case for it, since female genital mutilation tends to make health matters worse, unlike male genital mutilation, which appears to improve health matters somewhat.

7. Because far more women are aborted than die as a result of their pregnancies going awry. The very idea that letting a few women die is worse than killing literally millions of unborn women shows that PZ not only isn’t thinking like a scientist, he’s quite clearly not thinking rationally at all. If PZ is going to be intellectually consistent here, then he should be quite willing to support the abortion of all black fetuses, since blacks disproportionately commit murder and 17x more people could be saved by aborting black fetuses than permitting the use of abortion to save the life of a mother. 466 American women die in pregnancy every year whereas 8,012 people died at the hands of black murderers in 2010.

The scientific attitude would be to develop a hypothesis and test it as best one is able. But it’s quite clear that PZ doesn’t want to consider the possibility of anything beyond his philosophical commitment to the unicorn of so-called “equality”. Wilson is right to observe that PZ’s behavior with regards to these matters is entirely unscientific, indeed, one might even surmise that it is outright anti-scientific.