Skeptics Are Human Too...

[Christopher O'Brien]

[I've noticed over the years that skeptics will gleefully expose the foibles of targeted "true believers" and practitioners of fuzzy logic, but with the latest spate of exposed shenanigans of those who practice skeptical attacks, I wonder if turnabout is fair play? —chris]

Daily Grail Post HERE:

Posted by Greg 11 Aug 2013:
"I've critiqued the demagogic tendencies of a number of the 'leaders' of the modern skeptical movement (see the bottom of this post for some links). I've often faced resistance (and sometimes hostility) from card-carrying skeptics for pointing out the foibles of these so-called champions of science, and the dangers of having such people as figureheads of a movement dedicated to truth and reason - but I had no inkling that in the space of just a few short years the reputations of a number of them would begin coming undone at their own hands.

"The first tremors began, perhaps, two years ago with the 'Elevatorgate' scandal within skepticism, in which Richard Dawkins outed his 'drunk uncle' persona to those within skepticism by entering a controversial argument he didn't need to engage in, and making comments that were always going to set off a firestorm.

"Just a few months later, the previously Teflon-coated James 'The Amazing' Randi was caught at the center of his own scandal when his partner of more than two decades, Jose Alvarez, was caught and pleaded guilty to identity theft, after overstaying his visa in the 1980s. Though many felt sympathy for both Randi and his partner's dilemma, there were also questions over how much Randi knew or was involved in the crime - a not-particularly-good look for the much celebrated champion of truth and honesty.

"Randi's credibility devolved further earlier this year when Will Storr's book The Heretics brought Randi's Social Darwinist-like philosophies into the spotlight, as well as Randi's own confession that he sometimes lies to win his arguments.

"A few months later, prominent skeptical voice Brian Dunning (of the popular Skeptoid podcast)pleaded guilty to one charge of wire fraud for his part in a scheme to 'hack' eBay's affiliate marketing porgram which netted millions of dollars for the group.

"This week, Richard Dawkins once again put his foot it with a provocative tweet about the lack of Nobel Prizes in the Islamic world (if you want to understand why it was a stupid tweet, swap 'Islam' for 'women' in the tweet and his later 'reflections' on the matter). This time, it seems that Dawkins may have put the final straw on the camel's back: Owen Jones wrote that Dawkins could no longer "be left to represent atheists"; Martin Robbins wrote that atheism "will leave Dawkins behind"; Tom Chivers asked him "to please be quiet"; and Nesrine Malik said Dawkins himself was as irrational "as an Islamic extremist".

"There's a fair feeling of chickens coming home to roost in these incidents, but this week flocks of previously hidden fowl seem to have emerged from every dark shadow in the world of skepticism. Some two years on from the 'Elevatorgate' incident, skeptical speaker and writer Karen Stolznow used her blog at Scientific American to note that she herself was a victim of sexual harassment by "a predator" within the skeptical movement. This individual, a well-known media commentator and editor of one of skepticism's flagship publications was subsequently named by P.Z. Myers on his blog (after what Myers said was a flood of corroborating emails). A former JREF employee then spoke out about continuous unethical behaviour at Randi's foundation. Then another blogger named yet another high-end skeptic/atheist and well-credentialed scientist of acting improperly, before withdrawing his name(though again that hasn't stopped P.Z. Myers). And if all that wasn't enough, at the end of the week P.Z. Myers followed up with testimony from someone he knows regarding what the victim describes as her 'rape' by one of the most prominent of all skeptics during a skeptical conference (a blog post that has generated some 2000 3000 comments now)...."

REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE:

 

[Muadib]

Nobody on either side of the issue is perfect, we are all, at the end of the day, merely human. While I do appreciate some of the work of some of the people named, many of them can often be just as dogmatic as the believers. For me, it all comes down to evidence, what do you claim to have and are you willing to back it up? If you aren't willing to back up your claims with evidence at the time that you make them, then why should anyone listen to a word you have to say? If you aren't ready to provide proof, keep your mouth shut and nobody can call you on it, it's simple really. (This isn't directed at anyone, just a general statement that applies to so many in this paranormal sandbox we all inhabit.)

I don't get the furor over the comments of Richard Dawkins, what he said is true, Neal DeGrasse Tyson has often said the same thing and nobody gives him shit about it. It is an indisputable fact that before the rise of what we would now refer to as Islamic Fundamentalism in the ancient world, that it was a haven of scholarly pursuit, and progenitor of many of our fundamental concepts of mathematics and other fields, that is until one prominent cleric came out and said that working with numbers was the "work of the devil" and this then became the official adopted position over time. This launched them into a Dark Age that they have yet to fully emerge from, imo. I think Dawkins point still stands, religious fundamentalism is anathema to scientific progress, period. This isn't a phenomena that is limited to Islam either, one only needs to look at the modern anti science movement to see the shadowy hands of religious fundamentalists pulling the puppet strings.