Thursday, October 8, 2009 | Reason : Commentary | print version

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My regrets on your traumatic brain damage!

by PZ Myers - Pharyngula

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/my_regrets_on_your_traumatic_b.php

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I was looking for a Hallmark card with that on the cover (and also, preferably, a sad-eyed puppy dog) to send to Josh Rosenau and Chris Mooney, but they didn't have one, so I had to settle for a blog post. Here's the sad puppy, at least.
Oh, Internet, you are like a giant greeting card store that is always well-stocked with lovely cliches.

What seems to have scrambled their brains is that Richard Dawkins said, in an interview for Newsweek, that "there are many intelligent evolutionary scientists who also believe in God" and accepts that "there is that compatibility". Shock! He must have changed his mind! He's coming around to thinking like an accommodationist!

Actually, I suspect the damage must have occurred earlier, caused by all that masturbatory wacking away at a straw man. The real shock to both of them ought to be that they haven't been paying any attention to what all these New Atheists have been saying all along. Dawkins didn't say anything at all different from what we've all been saying all along — his position is practically the party line among the New Atheists.

For instance, Jerry Coyne was very clear:
...
Continue reading
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/my_regrets_on_your_traumatic_b.php

Posted: Thursday, October 8, 2009 | Permalink

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1. Comment #422559 by Sally Luxmoore on October 8, 2009 at 11:51 am

Brilliant! Very funny - and I want that picture (with caption) on a T shirt...

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2. Comment #422560 by ods15 on October 8, 2009 at 12:14 pm

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/06/i_am_often_confused_it_is_true.php

It's actually less relevant to this article, but still hilarious

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3. Comment #422579 by squinky on October 8, 2009 at 1:45 pm

Chris Mooney is an asshole. That's all there is to it. He has bent over backwards to try to paint Dawkins as an accomodationist when RD has been constantly, vigilently, tirelessly, and consistently saying not only why he is not but that it is weak philosophical argument and that the magisterium of science is impinged upon by religion which is always corrosive to religion (like a universal acid I believe he said).

Mooney is beyond dishonest, he's a bold-faced liar who is intent on trying to publicly discredit Dawkins using tortured logic and deception which he himself cannot possibly believe! If the Bush Administration was toxic to science (Mooney's thesis) then Mooney himself is as toxic to science as well because he is willfully misrepresenting scientists to satisfy his vapid political agenda. Got that Mooney--you're worse than Bush. At least we knew what to expect from Bush. Lastly, Mooney is not even a scientist, he's a confused critic who has been thoroughly discredited.

*minor edits to make sense*

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4. Comment #422591 by IworshipRD on October 8, 2009 at 2:27 pm

That puppy pic is now my new computer background!!

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5. Comment #422600 by bethe123 on October 8, 2009 at 2:45 pm

It is tremendously interesting to try to understand exactly why or how a world class scientist can hold a religious world view. It is neither trivial (Coyne) or irrelevant (Myers), and to call it that just to win a debate, is to perhaps also miss an opportunity to learn something about how the human brain works.

At least Sam Harris has understood this, with his brain scan studies of subjects holding religious beliefs. I suppose one could take the cynical view that Sam Harris also believes these questions are trivial and irrelevant, and so he is just churning out trivial and irrelevant research papers to pad his CV…but I will not take that position. I would think it is actually much more likely that Myers is turning out trivial and irrelevant blog posts.

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6. Comment #422605 by Sonic on October 8, 2009 at 3:03 pm

bethe123, have you somehow missed this point?

Chris Mooney is a quote miner in the intellectual gutter with Creationists.

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7. Comment #422610 by Amunhotep on October 8, 2009 at 3:15 pm

I am looking forward to Richard coming to Australia in March and do not consider a Religious Figure. I accept the biological evolution science as it is quite possible to be true. So I think the worst religions are the fundamentalists, and of course they are the ones leading the battle against Evolution in Science Classes across the USA today. people like Richard Dawkins give evidence and ammunition to deal with the false claims by them.

Clifford M Dubery, Australia

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8. Comment #422617 by root2squared on October 8, 2009 at 4:05 pm

Mooney's behaviour is as simple as this - an accommodationist stance is more profitable than a non accomodationist one.

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9. Comment #422618 by squinky on October 8, 2009 at 4:06 pm

IworshipRD
Now THAT is the funniest avatar I have ever seen! Tears (of joy and laughter) are streaming down my cheeks.

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10. Comment #422619 by gos on October 8, 2009 at 4:16 pm

5. Comment #422600 by bethe123

It is tremendously interesting to try to understand exactly why or how a world class scientist can hold a religious world view. It is neither trivial (Coyne) or irrelevant (Myers), and to call it that just to win a debate, is to perhaps also miss an opportunity to learn something about how the human brain works.

Context, please!

It is trivially true that wold-class scientist can hold religious world-views, in the sense that we have observed it repeatedly.

That this is so is irrelevant to the argument whether a religious world-view is inconsistent with a scientific one (whatever that may mean).

I agree that it is interesting to try and understand how different and inconsistent world-views can coexist in a brain, and neither Jerry Coyne nor P.Z. Myers have said otherwise. Do not misconstrue or misrepresent them.

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11. Comment #422622 by alaskansee on October 8, 2009 at 4:19 pm

squinky, just one more little accomodist, just one more.........

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12. Comment #422633 by Sigmund on October 8, 2009 at 5:21 pm

What on Earth has happened to Mooney?
He used to be one of the good guys but now he's somehow managed to transform himself into the Lady Hope of accomodationism.
By the way, there's been a setback for the anti-accomodationist side at the NCSE headquarters.
http://sneerreview.blogspot.com/2009/10/dawkins-at-ncse.html

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13. Comment #422643 by MrPickwick on October 8, 2009 at 6:15 pm

What happened to Chris Mooney? Well, now that he has been defeated and everybody has seen how shallow is his thinking he sees no other exit than trying to become one of RD's fleas.

And I agree, it's a pity seeing the guy raytardizing himself so badly.

Edit: RD often says that he will have a tape recorder running by his death bed. After seeing what Moonie et al are doing I can only say that he'd better start recording right now.

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14. Comment #422645 by Koreman on October 8, 2009 at 6:18 pm

Off topic, didn't see anything about it.

In Holland a scientist discovered that Genesis in the bible is wrong. This scientist investigated translations and original texts. God did not create heaven and earth, he just took it apart. He divided it. In the original texts and context of scripture there was a huge ocean with life and monsters. God was a god of this sea who made dry barren land a new place to live. He did not create sea life, the ocean, heaven and land.

"Bara" is translated to 'create' while it means 'shift' or 'divide' in the right context.

(use translation)
http://news.google.nl/news/search?um=1&cf=all&ned=nl_nl&hl=nl&q=genesis

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15. Comment #422647 by j.mills on October 8, 2009 at 6:35 pm

That last puppy is so cute! What a monster Mooney must be, to disappoint such a sweet little animal!

Koreman: So the sea was divided by god? But division by zero is a fatal error...

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16. Comment #422653 by jcs on October 8, 2009 at 7:55 pm

Comment #422645 by Koreman

'Separate' is a better translation then 'divide'.

So the bastard separated the earth from heaven. Another unloving action by him.

And now we still don't know who created the earth. Even the creationists can't tell. And it is even worse. When God separated heaven and earth there were already sea monsters, so he didn't even create all the live on earth.

So who did that. Maybe one of the other Gods did, because the professor also says that in God's own book it is written that he is not the only one.

EDIT: Short piece in English: Dutch News

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17. Comment #422654 by dumbcountryhick on October 8, 2009 at 8:01 pm

We should all have seen this one coming. Count on creationists and their allies to conflate atheism with evolution that way. (They have done something similar with Alan Feduccia trying to make his disagreement concerning the theropod origin of birds out as an attack on the theory of evolution itself.)
So now the message "Look here you creationist dolts even a lot of big name religious folks believe in evolution so you should too." has now been twisted into "I now believe in God because I have new theistic evolutionist buddies."
The evidence for evolution is enormous enough without the need for theistic evolutionists to support it. In hindsight it was probably a bad idea to do so.
As a side note I think accomodationists are worse than creationists. At least the creationist has ignorance as a defence. What does the theistic evolutionist have?

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18. Comment #422657 by flying goose on October 8, 2009 at 8:29 pm

Koreman

I have just checked out the article in google translation. Then I realised I already knew this.

I checked out it out in Gesenius and the word Bara means to cut or carve or form by cutting.
Or to separate. So Gen 1.1 could read 'In the begining God (that is elohim, not YHWH) separated the heavens from the earth.'

The God of Gen 1 begins with a chaos which is gradually ordered by the separation of one things from another, light and dark, day and night etc.

This God does this with pre existent matter.

The idea that God created everything is much later Christian notion. It arose, if memory serves, in the 2nd Century CE for reasons of logic that would not have concerned the writer of Gen 1. Namely that if God is all powerful, then nothing could exist without God having willed it to happen. Put another way if God exists along side some thing that God has not created then God is not sovereign over everything that exists.
Hence the Christian doctrine of creation from nothing (creatio ex nihilo).

Of course it is doctrine that creates the interpretive framework that guides translation. It should not but it does.

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19. Comment #422660 by GBile on October 8, 2009 at 9:12 pm

Separation of dark and light is obvious nonsense. Absence of light is called 'dark'.

No omnipotence required.

EDIT: Like the puppies though!

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20. Comment #422665 by Koreman on October 8, 2009 at 10:05 pm

Yes thank you, of course 'separated' is the right term.

A creationist guy was interviewed for national radio. The finding was not very alarming: the bible should not be read that literary. Yep. God of Blur.

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21. Comment #422672 by prolibertas on October 8, 2009 at 10:32 pm

Looks like there's no point arguing with Mooney. I can't believe that he hasn't heard our argument by now, and so if he's not answering it and is just repeating his same old argument then he is being deliberately dishonest. Therefore, ridicule and mockery is all he deserves at this point. I wonder if he feels just a little ashamed of himself at night... I mean, I just couldn't live with myself KNOWING that I was dishonestly promoting a wrong view. How do these people do it?

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22. Comment #422690 by TIKI AL on October 9, 2009 at 2:25 am

I just hope that when Conservapedia rewrites the bible they go back to the basics and replace that liberal Jeebus with Ares, Athena, and Mars so we might win one of the many wars that they like to start.

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23. Comment #422704 by Sigmund on October 9, 2009 at 5:30 am

The interpretation of Genesis that makes the most sense to me is the one done by Ricky Gervais
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_EXqdJ4L7I
On a serious note I think there is a mistake being made by Mooney, Rosenau and the other accomodationists in treating the word 'evolution' as an equivalent way of saying 'science'. They are not the same things. 'Evolution' is a subset of science in the same way electromagnetism is a subset. It is absolutely possible to believe in a subset of science without accepting another part (for instance creationists generally have little problem with electromagnetism). In this way it is possible to say creationists accept electromagnetic theory while simultaneously saying that they do not accept science as a whole - or more specifically the scientific method.
Similarly, to suggest that theistic evolutionists accept evolution says nothing about how the rest of their beliefs are compatible with the scientific method.

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24. Comment #422705 by Sonic on October 9, 2009 at 5:30 am

Speaking of conservative, the former U.S. Presidential candidate Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. is so conservative, he believes music should be tuned back down to C=256 cycles per second (from the present standard A=440 back down to A=432) because proponents believe it is grounded in the physical laws of our universe!

My apologies to RightWingAtheist on this web site because, seriously, I agree, our rationalism is neither right nor left -- but I couldn't stop myself from posting this musical in-joke.

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25. Comment #422711 by Raiko on October 9, 2009 at 6:55 am

Sigmund, I think this is the NCSE's most important weapon: talking about evolution explicitely when claiming it is compatibility with (certain forms of) theism, but not about science as a whole. This would be appropriate if their function was explicitely linked to evolution. It's not, though - they should be concerned about ALL of science, and religious belief is incompatible with scientific thinking. In other words, I don't think the lack of a clear distinction between science and evolution is a 'mistake' - it's probably deliberate.

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26. Comment #422712 by Aquaria on October 9, 2009 at 7:06 am

Mooney is a dishonest scumbag. I'd say intellectually dishonest, but that would presume there's any intellect to begin with. Check out the brouhaha yours truly became a part of when he tried to attribute my scathing words for him to PZ Myers. He was exposed for the lying hack he is. He never did apologize to PZ, or to myself, for the mixup. Just a, "Oh, if I didn't make it clear..." Notpology.

My pet speculation is that he's pissed that RD stole his thunder about communicating science and atheism to the rubes, getting to hang with Colbert on TV and the like. I mean, Looney even went to the trouble of adhering to his teeth whitening schedule, which must be an enormous expense considering where he keeps his mouth when a theist is anywhere near.

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27. Comment #422717 by Roland_F on October 9, 2009 at 8:48 am

A proper translation of Genesis 1-3 provided from Hector Avalos ("The end of biblical studies"):

When Elohim began to shape the heavens and the dry land – the dry land being formless and empty and darkness on the face of the waters and the breath of Elohim blowing over the waters – Elohim said: “ Let there be light”.

So no creation from nothing. Beside light before stars of course and all the other nonsensical statements following.

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28. Comment #422721 by Sigmund on October 9, 2009 at 10:10 am

Raiko, I agree there has been a conscious decision on the part of the NCSE to treat 'acceptance of evolution' as 'compatible with science'.
The anti-accomodationist position has always been to treat the word 'science' as meaning 'the scientific method' (the method we use to figure out whether an idea about the natural world is incorrect).
While we are clearly arguing over different things there does seem to be a conscious effort on the part of accomodationists to not 'get' the point.
It's been explained to them from the very beginning of this whole kerfuffle what is the issue (the incompatibility of science and religion as mechanisms of examining truth claims) and yet they still refuse to discuss this point.
I think the best explanation is related to a point that an accomodationist once said to me. He was referring to the standard argument that the evidence backing up biblical miracle stories (resurrection, virgin birth, walking on water, etc) was comparable to that of myths about Zeus and even stories of Santa and Leprechauns. His point was that while this argument was quite valid and he agreed with it, he thought it should never be used in a debate against a theist for the simple reason that they get offended by it because they feel it implies that they are stupid.
Asked for an alternative way to approach this point (which is a prime argument against theism) he suggested that there was no obvious alternative but for political purposes it is better not to say things, even though they might be true and valid, that might upset potential allies.
I think a similar situation applies here with accomodationism. Mooney and Eugenie Scott, being atheists, probably believe much the same as PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins about science and religion. However, having chosen the road of political 'moderation' they are forced to stay silent and even to ask others to do the same, about these same points.

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29. Comment #422724 by Lev-CapeTown on October 9, 2009 at 10:38 am

http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/universcale/index_f.htm

I know this is off topic, but check this amazing size scale out..>>

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30. Comment #422726 by TIKI AL on October 9, 2009 at 10:45 am

If the earth starts to wobble on its axis after the moon version of shock and awe, anyone with me in a class action suit against NASA?

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31. Comment #422730 by weavehole on October 9, 2009 at 12:27 pm

Nice vid Lev-CapeTown, but for those with less time on their hands:

Height

and

Depth

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32. Comment #422732 by Sally Luxmoore on October 9, 2009 at 1:17 pm

Comment #422724 by Lev-CapeTown
and
Comment #422730 by weavehole

Thank you, both of you!
I really LOVE these kinds of things. Both have now been added to my 'favourites' and sent to friends.

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33. Comment #422737 by weavehole on October 9, 2009 at 1:40 pm

Well, seeing as you were so nice Sally, have a headfuck.

and just because I have to post it somewhere at least once a month:
Pale Blue Dot

Erm, just to remain on topic:

I like goggies?

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34. Comment #422739 by Sally Luxmoore on October 9, 2009 at 1:48 pm

Comment #422737 by weavehole

WOW.
- So amazing that I had to laugh and swear all the way through!
Fantastic.

The god botherers know nothing about REAL awe and wonder.

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35. Comment #422740 by squinky on October 9, 2009 at 1:53 pm

Sigmund
You are correct but Coyne outed the NCSE for actually advocating for religion on their website rather than staying mum on the subject. At least Eugenie Scott is not trying to make RD an accomodationist when he is not like Mooney who is a lying, dishonest shit. I really do sense in Mooney that his books aren't selling, having been excoriated by the New Atheists, and when Dawkins writes a bestseller he is red with envy (a deadly sin mind you) and lies for publicity. He's not even debating anymore in the blogosphere (he lost), he's pulling a Rush Limbaugh and just inventing conspiracy theories to get attention. It's Mooney who is the sad puppy.

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36. Comment #422764 by Raiko on October 9, 2009 at 8:53 pm

EDIT: No matter what I try, the comment I wrote in this space didn't wish to post.

Most of what I was saying was just - thank you for putting this so well, Sigmund. That's what I meant :)

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37. Comment #422823 by JordenM on October 10, 2009 at 9:54 am

There's cutie stuff in that post! Well, traumatic damages are irreversible! Ever heard of a tonsilith? No, it isn't a monument to tonsils. A tonsilith is a deposit that forms on the outside of your tonsils, typically it will be food particles and dead cells in general that build up, but they give you a sore throat. It's sort of a far more benign version of gall stones or kidney stones. (They just aren't anywhere NEAR as painful!) Removing them is simple. Usually they will just drop off on their own, or you can have your doctor remove them as a simple outpatient procedure – where they stick their hand down you're throat and remove them.

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38. Comment #423094 by ivo on October 11, 2009 at 6:08 pm

JordenM: are you an alien, or just the new generation of spambot?

---

And yes, the Pale Blue Dot is a classic which deserves to be posted and reposted forever all over cyberspace. And so are the xkcd...

... what was the topic again? Oh, I don't care, this other stuff is so much more interesting.

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