(Cross posted at God is for Suckers!)Get this: recently, there was a flap about the director of Texas' science curriculum was fired for forwarding an announcement of a talk by Barbara Forrest. William Dembski responded with a bet-hedging post, claiming the details of the case weren't clear, but agreeing that if the the director (Chris Comer) had been fired "solely for supporting Forrest," it would have been wrong. Rather than challenge that, he opted for some derisive remarks about Forrest that Ed Brayton aptly exposed. But then yesterday, he came up with a post with the eye-catching title Chris Comer's Actual Email, revealing the shocking fact that... the Center for Inquiry ("a virulently atheistic organization") sponsored the talk. So, it's wrong to fire someone just for telling people about a talk by someone you disagree with, but okay to fire someone for telling people about a talk sponsored by an organization you disagree with? WTF? I'm also not sure what Dembski means by "virulently." CFI is indeed an atheist organization, but they hardly spend all their time giving fiery denunciations of religion. I went to a CFI-sponsored talk by Forrest this summer, and the focus was entirely on the details of the Dover trial. She even showed Dembski's famous "farting Judge Jones" video for him! And we appreciated it! Thought it was hilarious! (Though I admit we weren't exactly laughing with Dembski there...)
Now on to the kicker: a week before Dembski's first post on the subject, PZ Myers had already made the text of the e-mail public, complete with sarcastic comments along the lines of "Oh no! CFI was involved!" Bill, it ain't a good sign when your enemies crack jokes about you and you quickly go do what they imagine you doing in the jokes.
4 comments:
Have pity on poor Dembski (not) -- he's trying to promote a ridiculous, overinflated, nonflyer, so he has little choice other than to resort to derision.
>>>>>> So, it's wrong to fire someone just for telling people about a talk by someone you disagree with, but okay to fire someone for telling people about a talk sponsored by an organization you disagree with? <<<<<
Dembski never expressly said that he thinks that it is "okay to fire someone for telling people about a talk sponsored by an organization you disagree with."
As for Ed Brayton, you should pay no attention to him -- he arbitrarily censors comments that he disagrees with. He has no credibility.
I am quite aware of the contents of Dembski's post. My point was that if you try to come up with a principled reason for his hysterics, you quickly dead-end in absurdity. Given your first post on Dembski's thread was to dismiss the significance of the CFI connection, I'm not sure why you'd dispute that point.
As for Brayton, I find his points very frequently good ones, as see that as sufficient reason to read his posts.
>>>>> Given your first post on Dembski's thread was to dismiss the significance of the CFI connection, I'm not sure why you'd dispute that point. <<<<<<
What I am disputing is your claim that Dembski said that it is "okay to fire someone for telling people about a talk sponsored by an organization you disagree with." He came close to saying it but did not actually say it. I posted a comment on his blog asking for a clarification.
>>>>> .As for Brayton, I find his points very frequently good ones, as see that as sufficient reason to read his posts. <<<<<<<
I read his posts too -- they are often a good source of information. However, I recommend that you take what he says with a grain of salt. He often glibly rattles off long strings of unsubstantiated information and he arbitrarily censors comments that he disagrees with.
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