# 1 | John Scalzi | April 10, 2008 9:25 AM

"Curse you, Scalzi, for getting me to even look at that."

I have the power to drag your eyes across something against your very will? Interesting.

No, I'm not ashamed. Vox Day sold the book to a non-religious publisher; the book is out in the real world, not just jammed into the corner of some religious bookstore. And I suspect you know very well there are lots of folks sympathetic to his views. I knew people wouldn't like me giving it or Vox Day a slot in "The Big Idea" and would be pissed off about it, but I figured the resulting conversation in the comment thread would be instructive and useful, in a number of ways. Also, I don't mind throwing people the occasional curve ball. You are free, of course, to disagree with the both the choice and the utility therein.

# 3 | Kate Nepveu | April 10, 2008 9:43 AM

Since you responded, John (and since you shut comments down on your own post before I'd decided whether to say this):

Possibilities, as the steerswomen say, are three.

Either you knew that Vox Day was a flaming idiot (by which I refer to the *quality* not the content of his argument), or you realized it during the thread, or you never realized it.

I find the last two extremely difficult to believe. Therefore I find it hard to take you seriously when you claim that you thought the inevitable fish-barrel-blam would be "instructive and useful." Therefore I am measurably less likely to engage in serious discussion on your blog.

I absolutely do not expect that my opinion will matter to you or change your view of your decision in any way, which is why I hadn't decided whether to say it before; but in the event that this was an unanticipated and undesired consequence, now you know.

# 5 | Hank Roberts | April 10, 2008 9:59 AM

Unless I've mixed up his metaphor, a "curve ball" is by definition recreational --- for the bystanders watching.
It's an occupational challenge for the pitcher and the batter.

Sorry to disagree with your feelings this shouldn't have appeared, but there are so many lunatics out there publishing that seeing one more hauled up into the light to laugh at isn't something I think merits this kind of serious distress.

I mean, this is the framing argument all over again --- don't talk about THAT, leave it to the professionals.

# 7 | Kate Nepveu | April 10, 2008 10:13 AM

John: because of your past and present references to your mother, I am unable to continue this conversation past what I've already said without violating my personal standards of civility.

# 9 | John Scalzi | April 10, 2008 10:19 AM

Kate Nepveu:

Why?

If you think I'm employing my mother as a shield to ward off complaints, you're *seriously* wrong. My point is to use her as a personally-known proxy for that portion of Whatever's readership who has views on atheism more in line with Vox Day's than my own.

# 11 | nepenthinator | April 10, 2008 10:28 AM

Anyone else think Scalzi might be a little bit disingenuous when it comes to denying recreational intent? I can't really imagine that one could hand-select a more ridiculous advocate for those ideas than Vox Day. What, was Ann Coulter unavailable?

If Scalzi's mother really finds Vox Day to be representative of her position on religion, then I am forced to wonder if Scalzi was, in reality, adopted.

Oh, and the sentence, "I have no idea why John posted that, unless he had a bet with some other author that he could make 20,000 people dumber by three IQ points in the course of an afternoon," just made my day.

# 13 | Kate Nepveu | April 10, 2008 10:32 AM

I think it would be a little hypocritical of me, don't you, considering the bit where I said unable to continue this conversation past what I've already said without violating my personal standards of civility?

# 15 | John Scalzi | April 10, 2008 10:38 AM

Nepenthinator:

"Anyone else think Scalzi might be a little bit disingenuous when it comes to denying recreational intent?"

If you read my preface to Vox Day's Big Idea piece, it's pretty clear I'm well aware of the "recreational" possibilities of it, so I don't think I can be accused of being disingenuous about that. However, I didn't do it merely to chum the waters. I had other reasons too, which have been noted.

As for why Vox Day, it's simple: I put up a call for authors to participate in "The Big Idea," and he responded, and I thought for various reasons it would be interesting to post and see what happened. There are perhaps better people to argue his position, but they didn't respond to my call for authors, and for The Big Idea, I let the authors come to me.

# 17 | Hank Roberts | April 10, 2008 10:43 AM

Or, if you want to truly appreciate the musical joke, go directly to the .mp3
http://www.dansdata.com.nyud.net:8080/files/farnam_toccata.mp3
Have that playing in the background as you read this thread and the original one.
_Then_ read what Dan says about the organ catching fire.

# 19 | Dennis Howard | April 10, 2008 10:48 AM

#8 "Wasn't Vox Day the person who once wrote that women cannot write hard SF"

Yes. And he (Ted Beale) is a member of SFWA's 2007 Nebula Novel jury. I am astonished that he was appointed to the jury a second time.

# 21 | Geoff Arnold | April 10, 2008 10:51 AM

Let me rewrite John's original intro to the Vox Day crap, to show how I felt about it:

Busy day, not a whole lot of time for me to hang about here at the moment. But you know how I like to leave you all something to talk about listen to amongst yourselves while I'm away. And I was thinking, hmmmm, what do I have in the cupboard MP3 collection that will precipitate a lot of conversation while I'm busy? Then I remembered I had this: A Big Idea piece from Vox Day, talking about his latest book, The Irrational Atheist this mash-up of a dentist's drill, fingernails on a blackboard, and "It's A Small World After All". And I thought, yes, well, that should just work just about fine. Enjoy.

# 23 | Ellen Asher | April 10, 2008 10:58 AM

What I find fascinating is how many people find themselves obliged to reply, at length and with considerable emotion, to what they consider an utterly stupid, useless and otherwise valueless post -- at last count there were over 450 comments to the Vox Day piece. Why bother? Unless, of course, you think the other readers of John's blog are too stupid to see what is obvious to you, and you must therefore enlighten them. (I'm not taking any position here on the piece itself; merely on the extent and anger of the commentary.)

# 25 | stoolpigeon | April 10, 2008 11:05 AM

I'd never heard of Vox Day before seeing his stuff at Scalzi's blog. I haven't read anything he's written still, though I do find it interesting here that I find no rebuttal of his content but rather name calling only. It is unfortunate.

# 27 | Spherical Time | April 10, 2008 11:17 AM

John, I assume that Kate has personal standards against internet comments concerning people's mothers, even when invited to do so. If that is indeed the case, I respect her for it. It isn't easy to maintain high ideals on the internet.

As far as the Vox Day article, I happen to think that criticism of Scalzi is unwarranted. I certainly don't agree with Day: my beliefs run somewhere in the vicinity of Christopher Hitchens (past Dawkins, at the very least), but exposing Vox Day's opinions doesn't require endorsing them.

In fact, for some of his readers who were unfamiliar with Day's opinions (such as myself), it can be a sort of mental inoculation against him to encounter him in place that is relatively neutral.

Even if he has readers that agree with those positions, I can easily see that I don't, and my beliefs are unaffected by exposure to contrary opinions lacking substantial rhetoric or evidence. I certainly don't think that it makes me dumber to encounter opposing opinions, even badly constructed ones. Day doesn't appear to be at the level Gene Ray, anyway.

# 29 | Kate Nepveu | April 10, 2008 11:21 AM

John: Fine. This will also serve as a response to all the new people who are willfully misreading Chad's post.

I think you knew that Vox Day was an idiot who couldn't present a coherent argument in favor of the utility of sliced bread. I think you knew that your commentors would rip his logic to shreds. I think that you knew that the inevitable outcome was that your mother would see a position she agrees with be represented poorly and mocked mercilessly. I think that calling that "salutary" is a perversion of the English language almost as bad as Vox Day's.

In short, I think you should be ashamed of the way you deliberately treated your mother.

# 31 | Badger3k | April 10, 2008 11:26 AM

Stoolpigeon: you haven't been looking very hard. Most of what Beale posts and writes has been rebutted completely, and the thread in question has some rather complete ripping apart of Beale's "arguments". Beale's ignorance and misogyny is rather legendary. Search this website for "Vox Day" (that is, the Scienceblogs site) and you'll find quite a few posts about him and his bizarre world. Another post here at sciblogs has some links to more complete debunkings. Heck, read a good philosophy text, or any book by an actual biblical scholar (apologists like Strobel or Craig do not count) and you'll see many of the arguments he makes falls apart like paper mache in a thunderstorm. Do some research and see what you come up with.

- - - - - - -- - - - - - -

I don't see this as an issue of censorship. We should be allowed to laugh at all the ignorant and stupid people out there (and they don't have to be both, one can be ignorant without being stupid). I think exposure is needed to show how vacuous people like him actually are. As was said, there are a lot of ignorant people who think as he does, and if he isn't exposed to the light of day, his fungal ideas can spread and endanger us all more than they already do.

# 33 | Spherical Time | April 10, 2008 11:34 AM

Huh. Whatever appears to be gone for me at the moment, so I can't point out to Jay D that there were several links to counter arguments in the comments of the "Big Idea" post.

I didn't look at them that closely, but I don't doubt that from Jim's position, what he says is a statement of fact, not needing a citation.

# 37 | Crom | April 10, 2008 11:45 AM

@26 JimC posted the following: "It's been shredded in numerous places."

Links, or it did not happen. Posting "Vox sucks" in many colorful different ways does not shred his arguments. Shouting "straw man straw man" is not a profound refutation of his arguments.

Are you all so sensitive that your personal distaste for the man's politics completely robs you of the ability to form a coherent response to his statements?

The man is inviting you to kick his ass. The book is free, there is a website that he posts and discusses all substantial arguments made to his book, he can and does engage all serious debaters.

So to paraphrase the words of Morpheus, stop trying to hit him and hit him. If you can.

# 39 | Vox | April 10, 2008 11:48 AM

Another post here at sciblogs has some links to more complete debunkings. Heck, read a good philosophy text, or any book by an actual biblical scholar (apologists like Strobel or Craig do not count) and you'll see many of the arguments he makes falls apart like paper mache in a thunderstorm. Do some research and see what you come up with.

Yes, do. And you'll find nothing of the sort. False claims of attacks on strawmen and empty assertions are not debunkings. It's interesting to see how the details are always - always - omitted.

And since Mr. Orzel is a Real Smart Atheist or whatever he happens to be, then he should have no problem disproving the arguments of this "fucking lunatic". I'll give him the chance to defend his favorite of the three New Atheists:

1) Defend Sam Harris's Extinction Equation or Red State/Blue State argument.

2) Defend Daniel C. Dennett's claim that a scientific division of doxastic labor is moral while a religious one is not.

3) Defend Richard Dawkins's self-described central argument of The God Delusion.

Or, as I expect, he can demonstrate his intellectual cowardice by flinging a few more safely general metaphorical feces

# 41 | Jonathan Vos Post | April 10, 2008 11:50 AM

My Bias #1: I am a big fan of, and frequent commenter on the blogs of, both John Scalzi and Chad Orzel.

My Bias #2: I became an active member of SFWA circa 1980, and was involved in the Science Fiction community since the 1950s through my father (a noted editor).

My Bias #3: My mother was a woman. My wife is a woman and a Physics professor and a Science Fiction author.

My Bias #4: I have been professionally published in Mathematical Biology since 1974, and other branches of Sciences ("hard" and "soft") many hundreds of times.

Having now warned you of my biases, here are my thoughts on this thread, as compactly as possible before the first cup of coffee kicks in.

(A) First Amendment Free Speech is extremely important, to the extent of my willingness to fight for the right of people to say or write opinions that I find personally repulsive; hence John Scalzi should not be overly castigated for practicing it at a secondary level, in citing "Vox Day" at a primary level.

(B) Not withstanding the above, I basically agree with Chad about the quality of "Vox Day" as to trollery, and lack of rationality; specifically that "Vox Day" (Ted Beale) insists that women "can't hack" the Physics of Hard Science Fiction (as my wife and former SFWA President Dr. Asaro and others have done superbly), and in the blogosphere has demonstrated to me that there are essentially no meritorious ideas about humans individually, humans in groups (politics), nor the universe at large (Science).

(C) It pains me that Chad and John and Kate show such anger at each other (in various permutations). Admiration, like friendship and love, is nontransitive. It often is true that one admires person A who admires person B, and you can't stand person B. Tragedy in literature has a basic trope: A loves B, but B does not love A (noncommutivity), or A loves B who loves C but A does not love C. The main problem with table seatings at dinner parties, or panels at Science Fiction conventions, is that A likes B who likes C, but A does not like C.

(D) There's little point in complaining about any given SFWA officer or volunteer.

(E) The best reaction to bad speech is good speech. Those who detest the words oozing from the infected brain of "Vox Day" onto the comments of blog threads, or even alarmingly onto bookshelves, may be most productive in calmly, rationally, framing the specious nature of said words; and ensuring that one's own speech has positive content regarding the key questions to which we so strongly feel that "Vox Day" has mishandled:
(i) What is a human being? (hint: the majority are female);
(ii) What is the universe? (hint: Science has helped us more that any other magesterium to understand it)
(iii) What is the role of a human being in the universe? (hint: to quote my Altadena neighbor whom I quote less often that Richard Feynman, namely Rodney King: "Can't we all just get along?")

# 43 | Chad | April 10, 2008 11:52 AM

Vox, I have a prediction that the comments that follow yours will not even attempt to refute any of the points you brought up. Instead I forsee more screaming and crying.

Let's see what happens.

# 45 | StephenC | April 10, 2008 11:56 AM

Jonathan Vos Post -- As a really really smart guy, I take it you are quite aware that nothing you have written above has anything to do with the arguments put forward in The Irrational Atheist.

# 47 | Cubik's Rube | April 10, 2008 12:03 PM

I was just about to delurk to make much the same comparison to the Monique Davis issue as Kelly @ 36 did. I certainly don't want to draw any significant parallels between the appallingly bigoted diatribe she (Davis) went on and anything that Chad has ever posted - there's nothing nearly so offensive going on here, and I'm a big fan of this blog, as I am of the Whatever.

But the paragraph in the original post about Scalzi's readers "who had never encountered Mr. "Day" before", even with the obviously tongue-in-cheek war-crime remark, made me wince a little. I see now that it seems to have been made more in jest than I first realised, but it's still worth saying that I don't think there can be anything really wrong with allowing people to be aware of what this particular lunatic has to say. Vox Day and his tribe of ID apologists are often quoted at length in many ScienceBlog posts - the only difference in this case being that Scalzi refrained from personally eviscerating his blather line by line, leaving it all to the comments discussion. And it's not like his opinions on the likes of Day are hard to uncover - he's already mentioned here some pieces like the Creation Museum write-up which make things very plain.

# 49 | Simon Owens | April 10, 2008 12:04 PM

Vox says:

"Yes, do. And you'll find nothing of the sort. False claims of attacks on strawmen and empty assertions are not debunkings."

I think he just adequately explained his own attempts at debunking atheist arguments. I especially found it humorous in the Whatever comment thread when he claimed that there is ample evidence for many events in the bible while ignoring the mountains of evidence contrary to the events of the bible, especially its very first book.

He likes to claim that he debunked 36 different arguments made in the atheist books, when in reality he *responded* to them, a big difference. A response does not a debunking make. In one instance he tries to debunk Dawkins's mention of an incredibly complex god by making ill-conceived, far-fetched real world analogies that don't really compare to the popular conception of god. He also likes to change the goal posts for a definition of god so that he can try to slip it through the cracks of atheist arguments. It's silly.

# 51 | Vox | April 10, 2008 12:05 PM

That is to say, I'm really wondering where the rebuttal that shreds "The Irrational Atheist" may lie. The reason I wonder this is because I'd really like to read such a rebuttal.

There is no such animal as yet. Atheist reviews have either been grudgingly positive or, not unlike the majority of comments here, demonstrably beside the point. Most atheists appear to be frustrated that I am not arguing a positive case for God's existence, virtually none have attempted to defend any of the 42+ specific atheist arguments I have addressed in varying degrees of detail.

Here is a detailed chapter-by-chapter "debate" with Kelly of the Rational Response Squad, which is long, but just getting rolling.

Here is the response by Sam Harris to seven of my questions, along with my comments on his response.

# 53 | Craig | April 10, 2008 12:08 PM

In post #3, Kate Nepveu, speaking to Scalzi about his posting of some writings of Vox Day, said:

"Possibilities, as the steerswomen say, are three.

Either you knew that Vox Day was a flaming idiot (by which I refer to the *quality* not the content of his argument), or you realized it during the thread, or you never realized it."

All three possibilities assume that Vox Day is a "flaming idiot", and her choice of grammar eliminates consideration that there could be more than three possibilities (for example, that Vox Day is not a flaming idiot but fits a different classification).

So her statement is based on flawed assumptions that there are only three possible logic states, unless some scientific evidence is presented (not simply hyperbole) that Vox Day meets some objective criteria that defines a "flaming idiot".

So my question to Kate is, "How does such narrowmindedness (refusal to consider other reasonable possibilities) and name calling (non-scientific and arbitrary classification) advance the cause of science?"

Thanks to Prof. Orzel for providing the opportunity to post,

Craig

# 55 | T-Boy | April 10, 2008 12:13 PM

@ 51: Just to point out to both of you, but this particular thread isn't about refuting Vox Day. It's about castigating Scalzi for giving him a speaking platform. As such, I don't expect to see many arguments refuting Vox's above points or criticizing The Irrational Atheist.

Either I'm missing the joke here (which I think Orzel was doing, but now I no longer am sure), or truly the Internet is srs bzns and I missed the memo.

# 57 | Kate Nepveu | April 10, 2008 12:16 PM

Craig et al.: To paraphrase what I said on Scalzi's blog (I'd quote but it's not loading for me just at the moment), Vox Day is someone who seriously asserts that the Bible would be admissible in U.S. federal court to prove the truth of its contents.

As a lawyer, I assure you that this is such utter and patent nonsense that "flaming idiot" is, if anything, an understatement. Engaging with such a person is not worth my time.

* * *

John, glad we've got that cleared up. (Also, if I'd realized that everyone would assume that I was trying to avoid insulting your mother, rather than you, I'd probably have been less reticent.)

# 59 | WATYF | April 10, 2008 12:16 PM

If you're looking for those things, I would suggest trying elsewhere.

Where, then? The issue is not that people aren't using THIS THREAD to refute his arguments. The problem is that people are SAYING that the arguments have been refuted, but are not providing any EVIDENCE for such. So if Vox's arguments have been so thoroughly refuted, then someone should easily be able to provide a link to an article where this has occurred.

I'd frankly be very interested in reading a refutation of the arguments in TIA. I've read several attempts to do so, none of which went past chapter two of the book, and all of which mischaracterized the purpose and content of the book (which they hadn't finished reading yet).

I don't give a shit if Vox is a misogynist or a communist or Hitler himself raised from the dead... someone should be able to counter these arguments. It can't be that hard.

.

# 61 | Onkel Bob | April 10, 2008 12:25 PM

In response to #51, a poster on PZ's entry on this chumming exercise suggested this site.

# 63 | StephenC | April 10, 2008 12:28 PM

Spherical Time: "I don't expect to see many arguments refuting Vox's above points or criticizing The Irrational Atheist."

Nor do I.

Cheers

# 65 | StephenC | April 10, 2008 12:37 PM

#54 Jonathon Vos Post
(1) "Nonoverlapping Magisteria" by Stephen Jay Gould. Google it, please.
--------------------------
OK, but only if you google the Encyclopedia Brittanica first.

# 67 | John Scalzi | April 10, 2008 12:41 PM

Kate @ 57:

I'm likewise glad it got cleared up. Thanks!

Spherical Time @ 62:

No idea why it's down. It's a server-side issue with the host, not something I did. For once.

# 69 | Simon Owens | April 10, 2008 12:44 PM

For those of you who keep wanting examples of debunking of Vox Day's book, Evangelical Realism is currently shredding the book to pieces:

http://realevang.wordpress.com/category/tia/

I spend a good half hour reading through the posts there, and it really picks apart Day's logic bit by bit. The blogger there is an excellent writer.

# 71 | Vox | April 10, 2008 12:50 PM

This is too funny for words, given the argument we just finished having, about how I've written most of the "New Atheists" off as irredeemably childish...

I have to admit I was not expecting that, not being familiar with this blog. I don't consider the New Atheists to be childish myself, except for perhaps Hitchens, I merely consider some of the arguments to be factually wrong, others to be logically fallacious, and some to be both factually wrong and logically fallacious.

Of course, you may still find my refutations/responses to their childish arguments to be insufficient.

Your Two Minute Hate may now continue as previously scheduled.