decius wrote:I agree that it neither looks good from the outside, nor it is pleasurable from the inside.
However, it is pure application of skepticism to expose manufactroversies and tantrums for what they are.
To see one's skeptic badge revoked by Drescher, so to speak, on account of one's lack of acquiescence to Watson's disinformation campaign is hardly an acceptable stance.
There seems to be a requirement for those who seek prominence in the US Skeptics movement (in order to receive invites to TAM, CFI events etc) to portray themselves as 'moderates'.
In practical terms this seems to entail choosing two visible outlying positions and publicly distancing oneself from both - acting out the xkcd cartoon "the important thing is that you've found a way to feel superior to both".
This is a standard political maneuver that works on the basis that the general population tend to accept the argument that the correct, or fairest, answer must lie somewhere in the middle point between two opposing views.
So the Pharyngulite/Skepchick position is one point and the other is, what?
If there actually existed the kind of opposition that Myers, Benson, Svan and Watson claim (organizing rape threat campaigns, supporting the right of atheist men to be able to grope women without censure etc) then there would a good reason to seek the middle ground.
The trouble is, of course, that the threatening harassing opponents are to a large extent a fantasy concocted in the minds of Myers and friends. There may be rare loonies who do agree with that behavior but there is no basis to presume that significant numbers of atheists support it.
We know that it is advantageous for Myers and friends to overstate the case in that way.
But it's also advantageous for others, not necessarily on Myers side, to go along with this fiction, for the simple reason that it gives them the opportunity to play the xkcd card.
Drescher certainly does this but she is far from alone in using this tactic.
