Poor Charlie! Being
another one of numerous people called Anonymous, his comment was filed in the
spam directory. Never mind, it has been
extracted, cleaned off and put back where it should be. However, I am going to call him Charlie rather
than Anonymous, just for the sake of the on-going discussion. (I did toy with calling him Peewee, because
he's the "Poisoning / Pimping the Well" guy, but he
might have thought I was just insulting him. We don't want that.)
Anyhoo, here's his comment:
I am the anonymous who reviewed
and confirmed that this author resorted to fallacies in the previous blog post.
Since I am partially the subject of the author's blog post here, let me lay out for the reader the context of this discussion.
Everything starts with an innocuous Barnes blog post, where, in the comment section, a seemingly animated commenter going by 'neopolitan sokare', and later 'n30p0litan' investigates Barnes' background, and upon finding him supported by a Templeton grant, becomes agitated by it.
The unfortunate odor of atheist fundamentalism becomes pronounced at that point. This type of atheist, as you know, is deeply angered by and prejudiced against academic work that might possibly be construed as sympathetic to theism, and 'Templeton' is one of their dog whistles.
The more moderate atheists among us have no problem with Templeton because Templeton provides valuable support to a diverse set of initiatives and does a good job of affording research independence.
So how does n30's hostility come to bear at this point? He demands that Barnes explain himself for accepting Templeton support given his neutrality on the question of the theological value of fine tuning.
To n30 and fundamentalists like him, you're not allowed to take Templeton support if you are neutral on the theological question. That's forbidden. To do so, in his own words, is to "act from a covert position as a theist with apologetic leanings". Thus n30 demands Barnes state his public commitment to the fundie line, and promise he's not "one of them".
It's easy to see how atheist fundamentalism poisons academia with such overbearing and paranoid Orwellian demands and pressures to commit to their ideology, which is where I repudiate this kind of extremism. It hurts academia, is totally unnecessary, and ends up making atheists look like lunatics!
But the real issue here is the well-poisoning charge. Why do I think n30 is well-poisoning? Because of n30's absurd Templeton rage.
I don't think taking Templeton money on its own says anything about your allegiance to theism or atheism, nor is it, on its own, a mark against your scholarship. Plenty of atheists I know have taken Templeton money. None of them have seen or spoken of undue influence or produced compromised scholarship.
As I've pointed out, only fundamentalist atheists have this problem. Given the paucity of evidence for it, the only basis for arguing such a point is on faith (of a slightly unusual sort, given the atheism of its proponents).
I stand by the view that charging that someone's work is tainted on the basis of their funding or personal views alone, with no further evidence or engagement with their claims is well-poisoning.
Stop embarrassing the rest of us with this silly ghostbusters witchhunt. Let us, both atheists and theists, get to work in peace.
Since I am partially the subject of the author's blog post here, let me lay out for the reader the context of this discussion.
Everything starts with an innocuous Barnes blog post, where, in the comment section, a seemingly animated commenter going by 'neopolitan sokare', and later 'n30p0litan' investigates Barnes' background, and upon finding him supported by a Templeton grant, becomes agitated by it.
The unfortunate odor of atheist fundamentalism becomes pronounced at that point. This type of atheist, as you know, is deeply angered by and prejudiced against academic work that might possibly be construed as sympathetic to theism, and 'Templeton' is one of their dog whistles.
The more moderate atheists among us have no problem with Templeton because Templeton provides valuable support to a diverse set of initiatives and does a good job of affording research independence.
So how does n30's hostility come to bear at this point? He demands that Barnes explain himself for accepting Templeton support given his neutrality on the question of the theological value of fine tuning.
To n30 and fundamentalists like him, you're not allowed to take Templeton support if you are neutral on the theological question. That's forbidden. To do so, in his own words, is to "act from a covert position as a theist with apologetic leanings". Thus n30 demands Barnes state his public commitment to the fundie line, and promise he's not "one of them".
It's easy to see how atheist fundamentalism poisons academia with such overbearing and paranoid Orwellian demands and pressures to commit to their ideology, which is where I repudiate this kind of extremism. It hurts academia, is totally unnecessary, and ends up making atheists look like lunatics!
But the real issue here is the well-poisoning charge. Why do I think n30 is well-poisoning? Because of n30's absurd Templeton rage.
I don't think taking Templeton money on its own says anything about your allegiance to theism or atheism, nor is it, on its own, a mark against your scholarship. Plenty of atheists I know have taken Templeton money. None of them have seen or spoken of undue influence or produced compromised scholarship.
As I've pointed out, only fundamentalist atheists have this problem. Given the paucity of evidence for it, the only basis for arguing such a point is on faith (of a slightly unusual sort, given the atheism of its proponents).
I stand by the view that charging that someone's work is tainted on the basis of their funding or personal views alone, with no further evidence or engagement with their claims is well-poisoning.
Stop embarrassing the rest of us with this silly ghostbusters witchhunt. Let us, both atheists and theists, get to work in peace.
I'm not entirely sure why WordPress sometimes lists me as "neopolitan
sokare" and sometimes as "n30p0litan", the latter was chosen
merely because "neopolitan" wasn't available (perhaps for the same
reason that it was not available at BlogSpot, hence the use of
"wotpolitan", which is just a little play on words). I have put, at the bottom of various
comments, the name I go by (neopolitan) and this blog is titled "neopolitan's
philosophical blog", so it should be easy to work this out. If, on the other hand, you want to refer to
me as n30p0litan or n30 or wotpolitan or wot, then I guess you can. I even accept neo, but I must stress that
I've been using this nick (and before that one similar to it) for almost two
decades, well before the Matrix came out and almost forced me to abandon it. No matter which nick you use, I'll probably know
who you are talking about.
So, to the crux of your complaint. Am I unreasonably "agitated" by
Barnes' association with Templeton? I am
clearly "agitated" to some extent, although I would characterise it
as "being motivated to act". I
don't think this level of "agitation" is unreasonable though, nor do
I think that my "agitation" warrants labelling me as a
"fundamentalist atheist", whatever that is supposed to mean.
I do have to turn the spotlight on you for a moment,
Charlie. Where are you coming from? What's your motivation in this? Why does Barnes deserve or need your
protection? If I have, as you seem to
imply, significantly wronged Barnes, why is he hiding behind your skirts and
not speaking out? (He's currently
putting a lot of effort into skewering Richard Carrier who is a much bigger
fish, so either I am not important enough or he doesn't have the time, either
of which is okay. Especially if he has
lapdogs like Charlie to yap at small fry like me.)
You, Charlie, seem to imply once or twice that you are a
"moderate atheist", or at least to allow the appearance of such an
implication – "the more moderate atheists among us" and "(s)top
embarrassing the rest of us". Which
"us" is this precisely?
You make a claim that there is some sort of fundamentalist core
within academia, one that demands that everyone toe the line with respect to some
sort of atheist ideology. I'd like to
see evidence of that. I agree that it's
built-in as far as engineering and maths goes and, I would argue, proper physics. You can't design a building and have the load
bearing structure be supported by your god, you'll get the sack pretty quickly
if you did that. Your design must have
an inherent presumption of the lack of a god.
A mathematical proof has no need of a god hypothesis. Actual physics doesn’t call on god to explain
phenomena, although it is true that some physicists (say cosmologists and
astronomers, for example) call on theology to fill the gaps in knowledge that
normally would be covered by the phrase "we just don't know". NASA engineers trying to build the craft for some
future manned mission to Mars won't put up with advice from an astrophysicist
that includes references to divine intervention.
But none of this is ideology. It's pragmatism. The god that Barnes seems to believe in (and
the one that I suspect that you believe in, Charlie) doesn't ever intervene. It is effectively non-existent,
and very likely actually non-existent. Pondering this god while there are real issues
to contend with is a massive waste of time.
Treating it as if it were real is worse.
Templeton is a god-bothering organisation. We both know it. I don't think you have even tried to deny it. It preferentially hands out money to people
who are furthering its god-bothering agenda – and note that assistance by the
recipient doesn't have to be intentional.
You say you know "plenty of atheists (who) have taken
Templeton money" none of whom have "seen or spoken of undue influence
or produced compromised scholarship".
Hopefully, you'll forgive me if I find this apparently partisan anecdote
to be unconvincing. I don't know who you
are, I don't know how many people you consider "plenty" and I don't
know in which field(s) these atheists you know work. There are plenty of people around who do
object to the involvement of Templeton (Jerry Coyne, John Horgan, Richard
Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, for example).
Note a competing anecdote from John Horgan:
One Templeton official made what
I felt were inappropriate remarks about the foundation's expectations of us
fellows. She told us that the meeting
cost more than $1-million, and in return the foundation wanted us to publish
articles touching on science and religion. But when I told her one evening at dinner
that – given all the problems caused by religion throughout human
history – I didn't want science and religion to be reconciled, and that I
hoped humanity would eventually outgrow religion, she replied that she didn't
think someone with those opinions should have accepted a fellowship. So much for an open exchange of views.
As to getting to work in peace, feel free to not read what I
write. So, what sort of work were you
doing again?
