The link you provided to the article at the very end of your post no longer works. Just tried it and found that it is an invalid link. You may wish to make a note of this.

Sincerely,

John

You have my condolences. I am sorry that our latest Militant Atheist troll, Paul W., has opted to hijack yet another Intersection thread.

@ Chris -

I suppose I have to read Cory Dean’s book ASAP. Am a bit surprised that she would concur with yours and Sheril’s observation that scientists need to be better communicators, simply because I thought she had more faith that such communication did exist within the scientific community. If nothing else, hers is definitely a clarion call for better communication that scientists ought to heed, especially given her long experience as a first-rate scientific jourtnalist.

P. S. In the past I would occasionally talk to her about such matters, especially when we were both active members of our NYC undergraduate alumni book club.

Shorter version: you got nothin’.

Of course you leave out the part where I say that even with qualifiers that rule out the most likely incorrect interpretations, and an and always making it clear people shouldn’t jump to conclusions, you still shouldn’t use such words most of the time.

For example, I pointed out that I was happy to use the term “accommodationist” rather than “appeaser,” because even though the latter term is technically correct, it is unfair in practice for several reasons. (And even here, I’m leery of even using that term as an example, because it should be toned down more than I’m taking the time to do.)

So you take something that I justify

1. only under certain appropriate circumstances and
2. only when taking great pains to explicitly deny most the unfair negative connotations and
3. only when it’s useful for making a clearly restricted but informative point, and
4 even so, only rarely

and you turn it into

I’d be totally justified in calling religious people child molesters, because out of all those millions that fall under that vague label, there are bound to be quite a few. The rest should just understand that “not all of the connotations actually apply.”

It was my point that you can’t be expected to just understand such a word without all the painstaking context and qualifiers above, and that you should never do it otherwise, and that it’s rarely worth the trouble to do right.

So, as usual, the thing you latch onto and vilify me for is not something I said, but more nearly the opposite of what I said.

Gee, thanks.

Your response is an exercise in missing what I was actually saying. I was saying that you should NOT do that, and that in fact I DON’T do that.

Please see the post that just appeared about Collins and what he says in The Language of God.

He says the same things about himself that I say about him—acknowledging that he could be called a creationist, and that would be technically correct in a sense, the terms are loaded and fraught.

He also says pretty much what I say about abuse and proper use of such loaded words. He makes the same distinction I do, which you keep on missing, that the presence of proper qualifiers and disclaimers matters a lot, and if you’re going to leave them out (as in calling New Atheists “fundamentalists,” full stop) you should not use those words.

If you don’t believe me, go read his words which I quoted in the other thread. (Let’s not have that discussion here, but yes, please let’s have it.)

By the way, one reason my posts are so long is to make things excruciatingly clear, so that any misunderstandings on your part are demonstrably not my fault. If you weren’t so prone to jumping to incorrect conclusions about what I mean, I wouldn’t have to be so long-winded.

But I did find this interesting (you could have really just said the following and you wouldn’t have needed the other rambling 30 paragraphs):

I think it is legitimate—in particular it is cooperative and honest—to use vivid, loaded terms carefully, making it explicit that not all of the connotations actually apply.

Did you just say what I think you said? That sounded a lot like a fancy way of saying “You’re right, bilbo. Most of my terms really are loaded and aimed a poorly-defined group. That’s OK as long as at least one out of this group of millions fits that characterization.” Silliness, anyone?

By that standard (the shotgun approach to criticism), I suppose you won’t mind me saying that “Paul W. is largely ignorant.” Sure, that sounds loaded. I mean, you may not be ignorant on most topics, but who knows? I bet you’re ignorant on the finer points of particle physics. I bet you’re stupendously ignorant when it comes to knowing how to build a steamboat from scratch. You just need to remember when it comes to how ignorant you are: “not all of the connotations actually apply.”

If I lived by that approach, I’d be totally justified in calling religious people child molesters, because out of all those millions that fall under that vague label, there are bound to be quite a few. The rest should just understand that “not aall of the connotations actually apply.”

Really. Give me a break.

gillt, there’s a difference between being anti-science and being cognizant enough to understand that simply being a scientist (or an atheist, or a religious believer, or a college graduate, or any number of other labels, for that matter) doesn’t give you carte blanche when it comes to problems that affect science. Willful ignorance is no excuse for holding yourself blameless.

But oh how I wish we could just lock our lab doors and pretend we play no role in the world’s problems. If that were true, there we be no need for science blogs (or blogs on scientific topics) to exist.

Speaking of taking heat and denialism, please don’t bail on the accommodationism thread.

You’ll be interested in this post, where I address some of your claims:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/11/05/new-statesman-on-accommodationism/#comment-35767

I’ve got another post in moderation, and if I get the time, another one to finish off that discussion (of Collins vs. The New Atheists, and whether their differences with him are justified, implying that Mooney et al are wrong on Straw Man #1.)

But it still is reaching a limited circle of already science aware people and their somewhat science aware acquaintances.