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News Briefs 31-03-2009

Thanks to Greg for the few links with colourful language at the end.

Quote of the Day:

Bravo to that thin-skinned lying wanker.

Greg Taylor on his arch nemesis P.Z. Myers winning twat of the year.

  1. Ahem
    For those that may have missed the context of the “thin-skinned, lying wanker” comment, I have to confess to plagiarising P.Z.’s eloquent description of myself:

    http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/02/hey_is_the_blog_still_here.php#comment-1433211

    For those that may misconstrue the above statement as ‘whining’, it’s not. I just find it all very funny. Especially this:

    Humanism is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people.”

    or perhaps…

    “As Kurt Vonnegut succinctly described: being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.”

    Finer descriptions of Pharyngula I have not seen…
    ;P

    Kind regards,
    Greg
    ——————————————-
    You monkeys only think you’re running things

    1. It goes beyond Irony
      Seems that the people who give awards are too busy to read blog comments.

      Sooooooo…. have you congratulated Myers yet, Greg old boy?? 😛

      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

      1. True that
        “Seems that the people who give awards are too busy to read blog comments.”

        People often give awards to those who have already gotten awards. It’s safe, they’ve already been vetted. No need to re-vett.

        Is beyond irony Post-Irony? Hey we could get awards for that idea! Quick, get a blog going, I’ll write a paper! (Ow stop throwing stuff!)

  2. I must confess that I
    I must confess that I haven’t followed the PZ Myers vs Greg ‘debate’ in its entirety. However, I did read the link to Myers’ blog. I can’t believe he threatened legal action! For an Associate Prof. he evidently has FAR too much time on his hands, and FAR too little common sense. At least, as an arch nemesis, he provides you with plenty of material Greg 🙂

  3. Narcissistic Personality Disorder
    God help me, I’ve worked for a narcissist for the last 8 years. It hasn’t been easy. At all.

    I suppose the only reason I’ve managed to survive this long, is because I’m something of a narcissist myself 😉

    —–
    It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
    It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

    Red Pill Junkie

    1. hi greg and all at
      hi greg and all at dailygrail. a little update on the sleazy myers situation…

      a bunch of my friends have been pz-spotting since he unwisely chose to keep hundreds of insults, all aimed my way, up on his site. well here’s an email i got from one of the lads yesterday. y’all enjoy now – it certainly put a smile on my face 😉

      “Hey mate! Have you been keeping tabs on this? I think you’ll find it very interesting.

      At the Pharyngula blog on March 3rd 2009, Myers announced some thrilling personal news:

      http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/this_might_be_the_start_of_a_m.php

      Apparently he was off to write for The Guardian newspaper, which should be financially quite lucrative for him, right?

      He then didn’t mention this again, a little time passed, and something very interesting happened shortly afterwards.

      On March 19th 2009 the UK philosopher Julian Baggini published an article in Fritanke magazine critical of ‘the new atheism’ and Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett. The link for that is here:

      http://www.fritanke.no/ENGLISH/2009/The_new_atheist_movement_is_destructive/

      Which prompted this response at the Richard Dawkins forum:

      http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,3662,The-New-Atheist-Movement-is-destructive,Julian-Baggini

      And this one:

      http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=76379&start=0

      And also this one at The Friendly Atheist:

      http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/03/20/what-do-you-dislike-about-the-new-atheists/

      Plus this one at Santifarella:

      http://santitafarella.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/philosopher-julian-baggini-on-strident-evangelical-atheism/

      To say nothing of a correction made to Baggini’s own wiki listing! That can be found here:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Baggini

      Now, none of this passed unnoticed by Baggini himself. He complained on his blog that he was being ‘burned as a heretic’ at the Dawkins forum. You can read this at his website found here:

      http://julianbaggini.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-atheist-movement-is-destructive.html

      So what did all of that have to do with PZ Myers? Well strangely, the answer is absolutely nothing…at least at first pass.

      While Myers is always quick—and as we both know, he’s bullet quick—to fire back immediately at any public criticism of atheism, particularly from any respected figure, he oddly said zero about Baggini’s article, as if the thing just didn’t exist! Now is this the PZ Myers that we’ve all come to know and love? I think not so I started to wonder why.

      Then this occurred to me. Do you know which newspaper Baggini has been contributing to for many years?

      How about this one:

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/27/philosophy-religion-hume

      Oh yeah. It’s The Guardian! The very same paper that Myers is shortly to be writing for.

      So I got a bit peeved about this, detected the stench of hypocrisy and emailed Myers about it rapid time.”

      i’m not at liberty to share that email as myers’ responded to it quickly (what a surprise!), but i can say that good old pz seems to be fully aware of the article but apparently regrets – due to the time required to respond to the piece LMAO – that he simply hasn’t chosen to say anything yet.

      well, we’re all still waiting, myers. the days are ticking by and we’re going to make sure that this debacle just doesn’t go away.

      best to you all

      jb

      1. Well…
        I’m the most unlikely Myers apologist, but maybe the reason he didn’t choose to address Baggini because, maybe, he didn’t have the time or inclination to do so—yes, I’m willing to give Myers the benefit of the doubt here!

        I mean, The Guardian doesn’t discourage dissent and criticism among their columnists. And I do not know how much they pay to their writers, but hardly believe it’s enough to force Myers to moderate himself, and in doing so lose all his ‘atheist cred’ among his supporters 😉

        Nevertheless, I thank you jonny-boy for the link to Baggini’s article. I think I’ll quote him on tomorrow’s News Briefs 🙂

        —–
        It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
        It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

        Red Pill Junkie

        1. Silence is Goldacre

          I mean, The Guardian doesn’t discourage dissent and criticism among their columnists.

          I don’t know, the Guardian’s regulars sometimes seem to be pretty, um, collegial. I mean, George Monbiot is stridently anti-GM, while Ben Goldacre is anti-anti-GM and generally eager to decry bad science, but I don’t think I’ve seen either of them having a go at the other about it.

          1. A possible explanation for the congenial dissent:
            They’re British 😛

            —–
            It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
            It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

            Red Pill Junkie

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