Louis wrote:Sorry for the delay, work was required to assuage my guilt. So now to 2).
(Does it show that the lab is shut for the day because of the snow {pa-fucking-thetic} and so I am stuck at home doing paperwork and trying like a motherfucker to procrastinate the day away and not do it? Don't worry, I'll do my work, I just thought a little fun with coffee might amuse me. Is that really such a sin?)
a) Poor presentation of pitter posters:
I can understand that if the Pitter Posters on Pharyngula (try saying that 3 times fast after 20 pints) are a self selecting bunch of arseholes, or if PZ and his Wicked Ways are making them look like arseholes when they are really paragons of virtue and wonder, then sure, GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). I'm not sure that I know if either is the case, or if something else is the case. I'm here aren't I? Believe it or not I'm willing to be convinced of a wide variety of things. I will confess that the majority of my...."welcome"....has been disappointingly dull, mostly pointless, and exactly what I would have expected if PZ's characterisation was correct. You might not like that, but hey, it's MY lived experience! ;-) (I did like that joke by the way! Who made it? I hope it was you, I laughed.)
Sorry, sorry, I'll be serious.
I'm here for my own benefit, to sate my curiosity. I saw some post about acid throwing on the side bar at FtB, clicked out of curiosity, read, posted something sarcastic, read PZ's post, thought to myself "I wonder if the pit people are really gloating away?" so I came for a look. I then went back to Pharyngula and posted some rambling comment, which I think I'll stand by for now, and deliberated about creating an account here under my real ID (can't be bothered with sock puppets) and see if my initial impressions were correct. So far....hmmm....they seem to be somewhat correct in some cases, not so much in others. Pretty much what any sensible person would have guessed, right?
As for which 'pitters I have a low opinion of, which a higher opinion of, and the same question as applied to Pharynguloids, I won't say. Not because I'm afraid to, or above that, but because I think it is irrelevant and childish. I can do irrelevant and childish if I want to, but I don't want to. Is that really such a crime? Oh and I have fuck all clue about Renee or probably most of the gripes. Not because I'm some hideous blinkered fool, but simply because I don't have unlimited time/effort to expend on following every tiny thing in what I see (perhaps wrongly, perhaps rightly) as tiresome interblog drama. So I skip 90% of it. I am, however, exceedingly keen and willing to look at evidence. As opposed to being exceedingly NOT keen and willing to be vilified for not immediately sharing your party line upon entry...wait, isn't that another criticism you chaps and chappesses have of FtB? Oooops! Physicians heal thyselves it seems!
I'd rather find out if this claim that 'pitters are horrendously caricatured by PZ et al is true for myself, best way to do that? Jump in and see. It might amaze you to know that, yes, whilst I am an Evil Horde Member Pharynguloid Wicked Person and All Round Bad Egg, and yes, whilst I like plenty of the posters that most upset many of you, I'm okay with deciding things for myself thanks. I haven't posted on Pharyngula about my Sooper Sekrit Mission To Convert Teh Heathens because that's not what this is, I'm satisfying my curiosity whether anyone wants to believe that or not. When that's done, we'll see. I might post again, I might not. It's not that big a deal to me. Sorry if that offends you for some reason. It's not that big a deal to me that some benighted fools like soccer not rugby or that they go to church. I really don't care. I do care if they tell me I should like soccer or die, or I should obey the strictures of their church in my private life. They're free to criticise me for being ignorant of the beautiful game (I am) or that I am, by their standards, a terrible wicked heathen (I am), that's the joy of free speech, they get to disagree with me and I with them.
Should I bold that last bit? I'm pretty sure, based on a number of posts from a variety of people that that point escapes a lot of folk here. Hell it escapes a lot of folk everywhere! It used to escape me until I had it beaten into me with a clue by four.
b) ZOMG evil slymepitter and misrepresentations on FtB/wherever as being THE issue/muzzling of dissenting opinion/critique:
Since this seems closely tied to what ThreeFlangedJavis is talking about, I'll skip it for now and deal with it in that post.
c) PZ banning folks quickly/pre-emptively:
I don't have a blog and probably never will have one. I've helped moderate the odd message board in the dim and distant past, but work etc. Yadda yadda yadda. So my views on how to manage a million+ hits a whenever blog are probably not very insightful. Would I manage Pharyngula the same as PZ? Well *I* am not PZ, so trivially and obviously probably not. Do I like his particular policies? I think he's reasonably lenient in places, strict in others, to be frank it doesn't bother me. It doesn't affect me much because I'm unlikely to go on a racist/sexist/homophobic/trolling/creationist/whatever rant, i.e. I am unlikely to do the things he typically bans people for. But that's hardly the controversial bit now is it?
Do I support his blanket 'pitter ban? Yes, in the sense that it is his blog and he can do what the fuck he likes. No, in the sense that it
probably wouldn't be how I would handle it, but then I don't know how I'd handle it, I've never been there. I don't look at a blog like someone's living room, or a wide open field where anyone can do whatever, I look at a blog rather like a pub. PZ is the landlord of the Pharyngula Tentacles (can't be Arms can it?). He gets to run his pub his way. If the majority of his punters were Manchester United fans (and remember I know nothing about soccer, so I am picking two teams with a local derby at random) and the majority of the Manchester City fans who came in were bothersome, or excited the more....intemperate....Manchester United fans who were regulars in the pub, I might ban openly obvious Man City fans. Just for some peace and fucking quiet and not having my pub bust up every two minutes. I sympathise with PZ a bit because he doesn't have a team of helpers to clean the shite of the ceiling in his blog, he's got a job, a family, a side-effort as a prominent public speaker etc, managing the blog is an added (voluntary) burden. I'm not worried about him managing it his way, posting what interests him (some of which intersects with what interests me) and going about his day.
Now PZ is not stopping anyone drinking in other pubs, he's not banning people from alcohol, he's not saying that other landlords and landladies cannot have Manchester City only pubs, or pubs where the fans mix or pubs dedicated to advanced lesbian basket weaving. He makes the rules for his pub.
"But aaaaaaahhhhhh!" I hear you cry, "The Pharyngula Tentacles is a BIG pub, and PZ an influential landlord in the town, and I don't like Manchester United or their brand of football. I want to have my brand of football represented, and when PZ throws his weight around other pubs start putting in No Man City policies.", fair enough. What's stopping you set up your own pub? Or one of the deliberate fan clash pubs? PZ didn't parachute into the Pope of Atheism chair or something. He's not the fucking pope of atheism for starters, there isn't one. He can't stop you doing anything. He has precisely zero power outside of Pharyngula to stop you saying exactly what you want.
Anyone in any prominent position is going to get critics. Are you really saying that every critic is worth engaging with the same degree of intellectual effort? REALLY? I think we all know that's just not true. I don't need homoeopaths at chemistry conferences with me. It might make them feel all warm and cuddly and included and isn't that special, but what they do is effectively raise the noise to signal ratio in the bad way. So applications from homoeopaths to speak at chemistry conferences will get (politely) refused. Homoeopathy is well refuted dreck. Utter bullshit. Why treat it any differently? So if I was to set up a blog (unlikely) about chemistry and homoeopath commenters came along and started berating me for not dealing with their criticisms, I'd say "Damn right. Homoeopathy is well refuted dreck, if you don't know that by now it's not my problem.". If I was feeling kind I might engage a few and provide them with the basic tenets of a chemistry lesson or explain a dose response curve to them. Not ALL critics are worthy of attention.
Now SOME critics ARE worthy of attention, and you all obviously feel you fall into this latter category. Fine and dandy, I'm genuinely pleased you do feel that way, I genuinely hope it's the case. That way I get to deal with a GENUINE controversy and not the endless playground politicking that I think I've made clear bores me fucking stiff. So, to pick an antique chemistry controversy, if we were talking, 60 or 70 years ago, about
non-classical carbocations and someone came up with some data, and somebody else had some other data, that would be an interesting and genuine controversy, until the data fell one way or 'tother and the matter was settled.
Pick another example, to do with evolutionary biology, the relative importances of selection and drift in the fixing of a specific phenotype within a population, this would not be an issue settled by getting some creationists in. Evolutionary biologists need only apply.
Be aware that creationists think their criticisms are valuable and worth listening to. I'm not saying yours aren't, but that
even as sceptics we have to be aware of our own biases. I'm here challenging mine to some small degree, even though in days gone by I might have had much more sympathy with you than with the Pharynguloids. I changed my mind though. Why? It might be because I am {insert some wickedness here} or because they introduced me to writers etc that made a compelling case or because of something else. But change my mind I did.
Annnd this is getting close to ThreeFlangedJavis' point and b) so I'll halt THIS teal deer in its tracks and start on that one.