PZ Myers fail: "Maybe this will finally drive the libertarians out of atheism"

[BlameThe1st]

Oh boy, look who's targeting Stefan Molyneaux yet again: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/06/27/molyneux-makes-no-sense/

And big surprise: he's equating libertarianism with sexism!

[BreadGod]

Oh boy, look who's targeting Stefan Molyneaux yet again: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/06/27/molyneux-makes-no-sense/

And big surprise: he's equating libertarianism with sexism!

So many strawmen, so little time.

I'm surprised anyone takes PZ Myers seriously anymore.

[evensgrey]

So many strawmen, so little time.

I'm surprised anyone takes PZ Myers seriously anymore.

Does anyone know if his public irrationality is affecting his professional life yet?

[MrBogosity]

Does anyone know if his public irrationality is affecting his professional life yet?

If it ever does, I'm sure he'll just consider himself a martyr. Those horrible Libertarians who've taken over the world...

[BogosityForumUser]

I suppose it depends on what you mean.  My understanding is that he is tenured, which means he is given a much bigger leash to begin with.  Plus, he comes from the evolutionary biology department, which is a lot "harder" a science, which means that in his actual academic work would be judged by its data.  Additionally, a lot of hard sciences are filled with kooky people who don't use Alder's razor (they constantly say that is the only way to get knowledge) consistently when they get outside their narrow field.  -- The reason may be because they don't want to admit that they would have to admit that to do so would render them either noncognitivists (in the epistemological sense, not meta-ethical)-- So they expand what "proof" is to include all sorts of things, like personal anecdotes. --  Therefore, no personal beliefs, except for maybe the outright insane, would not hurt him.  Just look at Duesberg, he may have seriously harmed every part of his career but he still has a job, still gets published and invited to different conferences.

[Travis Retriever]

If it ever does, I'm sure he'll just consider himself a martyr. Those horrible Libertarians who've taken over the world...

Yeah, the great Libertarian conspiracy--we want to take over the world so we can leave you alone...*chortle*

[evensgrey]

I suppose it depends on what you mean.  My understanding is that he is tenured, which means he is given a much bigger leash to begin with.  Plus, he comes from the evolutionary biology department, which is a lot "harder" a science, which means that in his actual academic work would be judged by its data.  Additionally, a lot of hard sciences are filled with kooky people who don't use Alder's razor (they constantly say that is the only way to get knowledge) consistently when they get outside their narrow field.  -- The reason may be because they don't want to admit that they would have to admit that to do so would render them either noncognitivists (in the epistemological sense, not meta-ethical)-- So they expand what "proof" is to include all sorts of things, like personal anecdotes. --  Therefore, no personal beliefs, except for maybe the outright insane, would not hurt him.  Just look at Duesberg, he may have seriously harmed every part of his career but he still has a job, still gets published and invited to different conferences.

I believe it is necessary to point out that personal anecdotes are useful and valid in an argument, when one is using them to disprove an absolute claim, by showing that the claimed thing is in fact NOT absolute at all.  Like anything with a limited range of applicability (which is almost everything), you need to understand the range of applicability and only apply them where applicable.

Personal anecdotes are also a perfectly valid basis for constructing a hypothesis to be tested, but generally not a valid means of testing it.  (Mind you, almost everything is a valid basis for constructing hypotheses.  The origin of a hypothesis is usually irrelevant to the question of validity, which can only be assessed scientifically by testing the predictions of the hypothesis against reality, usually by statistical means.)

Back to the subject of PZ, if he starts behaving in scientific meetings the way he operates on his website, he's going to go down fast.  Recall that one of his criteria on Freeethought for being 'rational' is 'agrees with me'.

[BlameThe1st]

Once again, PZ Myers pulls a "No True Atheist" by insisting that only progressive liberals like himself are the "True Atheists" and everyone else is just imitating:

Silverman also made the case that while he opposed social conservatism, he had no problem reaching out to fiscal conservatives. I do. Republican economic policies are disastrous, doing great harm to the poor and underprivileged, and serve mainly the wealthy and corporations (although the Democrats are only slightly better...but they are better). A Republican atheism is a wealthy white atheism. We need to reach further, to a more representative American community, and approvingly proselytizing at CPAC does us no favor.

Also, the one wing of American conservatism that has a large contingent of atheists is the libertarians. No, thank you. We've got plenty of them in atheism already, and in fact, they seem to be a prominent source of atheist opposition to social justice issues. Again, not a religious cause of that problem, unless you want to call worshipping the Invisible Hand of the Market as a kind of culty religion. Perhaps I should have asked my question with a hypothetical atheist Rand Paul as our president.

And as always, he misinterprets the "invisible hand of the free market" as a god metaphor, even though statists like himself that the government needs to be designed by an intelligent designer through divine intervention--excuse me, planned by a central planner through government intervention.

The irony is that free market capitalism is often slandered as "economic Darwinism." But that implies that there is no god, only natural selection. So which is it, statheists? Is the free market god, or is it Darwinism? It can't be both!

[Travis Retriever]

Once again, PZ Myers pulls a "No True Atheist" by insisting that only progressive liberals like himself are the "True Atheists" and everyone else is just imitating:

And as always, he misinterprets the "invisible hand of the free market" as a god metaphor, even though statists like himself that the government needs to be designed by an intelligent designer through divine intervention--excuse me, planned by a central planner through government intervention.

The irony is that free market capitalism is often slandered as "economic Darwinism." But that implies that there is no god, only natural selection. So which is it, statheists? Is the free market god, or is it Darwinism? It can't be both!

Indeed.

[dallen68]

Once again, PZ Myers pulls a "No True Atheist" by insisting that only progressive liberals like himself are the "True Atheists" and everyone else is just imitating:

And as always, he misinterprets the "invisible hand of the free market" as a god metaphor, even though statists like himself that the government needs to be designed by an intelligent designer through divine intervention--excuse me, planned by a central planner through government intervention.

The irony is that free market capitalism is often slandered as "economic Darwinism." But that implies that there is no god, only natural selection. So which is it, statheists? Is the free market god, or is it Darwinism? It can't be both!

Also, where is he getting this "Libertarians are the source of Atheist opposition to Social Justice" thing? Libertarianism is all about equal opportunity, which is basically all that can be promised, and all that should be asked. Now, there are those on the left who think that should equal equal results, but it don't and it can't no matter how much social justice warrioring one may do.

[MrBogosity]

Also, where is he getting this "Libertarians are the source of Atheist opposition to Social Justice" thing? Libertarianism is all about equal opportunity, which is basically all that can be promised, and all that should be asked. Now, there are those on the left who think that should equal equal results, but it don't and it can't no matter how much social justice warrioring one may do.

"Social justice" is truly an Orwellian term...

[Travis Retriever]

"Social justice" is truly an Orwellian term...

^QFT

[BlameThe1st]

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/10/28/authoritarianism-and-dogma-are-not-the-same-as-morality/

In this post, PZ Myers argues that's you don't need an authority figure such as God to dictate what is moral and what isn't (which I'm sure most atheists on this board would agree with):

"But they don't have a higher authority telling them to be good!" I would think having an autonomous sense of right and wrong would be superior to requiring someone else to tell you what you should do.

But then he concludes on this level of fail:

Unless, of course, you're some kind of libertarian dork. You have the option to be an entirely selfish jerk, and no god is going to stop you, but I think that position is ultimately self-defeating.

Except that I'm pretty sure that most libertarians would agree with his sentiment that "an autonomous sense of right and wrong would be superior to requiring someone else to tell you what you should do."

Of course, I have the feeling that PZ only thinks that he and his ilk are capable of being absolutely moral in the absence of an authority figure, that they don't need anyone else to prevent them from murdering, raping, pillaging and plundering; however, they feel that other people (like those "libertarians") are not as morally superior as them, and thus need brutal force to keep them in line. So, in other words, he and the rest of FTB are authoritarians.

Perhaps someone should challenge him on that in the comments section.

[MrBogosity]

Except that I'm pretty sure that most libertarians would agree with his sentiment that "an autonomous sense of right and wrong would be superior to requiring someone else to tell you what you should do."

Yes, and indeed, we see statists as committing this same fallacy whenever we say there might be other ways of stopping crime.

Perhaps someone should challenge him on that in the comments section.

I would, but I was banned long ago. Someone just link them to this video:

[yt]2O_QdTSi-B8[/yt]

[bp_28]

You might not see this post, but my ancap friend is calling in to the Majority Report tomorrow and debating Sam Seder. This is awesome! I share your frustrations, Shane, with Sam Seder. The first video of his that I saw was "Libertarian wants right to buy any Lightbulb he wants- own slaves." As if being able to buy any lightbulb I want is not my right(why can't the seller just raise the price of the one that hurts the environment or whatever Sam's argument was, and sell the more energy efficient one for less money, or sell them in a 2 pac- one good, one bad- to distribute the costs of energy efficiency or lack thereof. Plus, Sam doesn't even understand libertarianism enough to know that slavery was a government enforced system, the Underground Railroad was a free market, Lincoln never freed a single slave, and most importantly, that slavery violates the NAP!