Another Reply to Dean Esmay's Comments

Mr. Esmay replied to my last post. His reply can be found here. I am moving this up here because it will be fairly long and detailed and deserves to be its own post. He writes:

Argh. Because you still choose to hash these out as public arguments on your front page, here is my response:

Perhaps it's just me, but I thought that was the purpose of having a blog, to put your thoughts out for the public to see and comment on, leading to a sort of multi-way conversation among people. Sometimes those thoughts are responses to things other people say. When you posted your thoughts - publicly, of course - and included a question for those of us who are active opponents of ID in public schools (along with some rather nasty rhetoric thrown at us as well), one would assume that this was a public question inviting public responses. If the fact that you get public responses bothers you, I suggest that blogging is the wrong activity for you to engage in. Perhaps knitting would be more appropriate.

1) That you would PRESUME that such lack of response says something about my character rather than my lack of time.

Except that I didn't presume that. I said "I'm beginning to wonder if....". And that was based not only on the fact that you didn't reply to me, but also because after asking the question, you didn't bother to engage anyone in a civilized and reasoned conversation on the subject, preferring instead to throw nasty rhetoric at them (ironically, you then react as though you're a victim of horrible persecution when I responded with far, far less harsh language in reply). Instead of having a calm and gracious discussion with those who disagree with you, you called us "censors" who go to "hysterical extremes" to "ban free thought and discussion." You referred to those of us who actively oppose the teaching of ID as "scared puppies" with "weak sister arguments", who are "intolerant" and "highly illiberal" and "no better than book burners", people who are afraid of getting "God cooties". All of those phrases come directly from your posts on the subject and represent the kind of rhetoric you have thrown at those who disagree with you consistently.

In your comments and responses, you said several times "I'm still waiting for someone to give me a good response" to your question. And I gave you one. But instead of engaging in a serious discussion, you ignored it and posted more inflated rhetoric like that above. So it wasn't merely because you didn't respond to my post, it's also because in lieu of a response, you continued to be quite nasty to people like me (and the fact that you didn't do it by name, as you said on your own blog, is absolutely irrelevant. Your rhetoric is aimed at all those who disagree with you on this, and I am one of those people, so it is aimed at me just as obviously). The fact that, despite that nasty rhetoric, I still took the time to answer you in a very calm and gracious manner the first two times suggests that your feigned outrage and cries of persecution are highly contrived.

2) Your publicly speculating about my my character in such a way solely because I did not respond just to your very own special self

Again, my public speculation about your character was justified by your behavior (and is even more justified by your continued behavior) and was far milder than the nasty accusations you have regularly thrown at the character of those of us on the other side. You're behaving very much like Casey Luskin in the article about Nazi analogies that you "couldn't help yourself" from both linking to and mischaracterizing - you point the finger and howl in outrage at your opponents while engaging in far worse behavior of the very sort you are reacting to toward them. Again, it seems quite contrived and hypocritical. For crying out loud, I've had more pointed arguments than that aimed at me by people I consider my friends (if you don't believe me, do a search for Timothy Sandefur on my blog and look at some of the back and forth between us during the presidential campaign; it was harsher than that "public speculation" you're so bothered by, and he's a friend that I respect enormously).

3) The fact that by doing so as a public article on the front page of your web site, you practically invited a bunch of pathetic assholes who have nothing better to do but take cheap potshots at me to have at me (and my wife!) on your blog

This is absurd. You have a blog. You write public articles that also frequently involves pointing out why you think someone else is wrong. Are all of those invitations to people to call other people names? Are your posts slamming us anti-IDers invitations for people to leave comments and call us assholes? Or is that just part of the natural flow of things when you have open comments? No one accused you of being a pedophile or made false accusations against your character, they gave their opinion of you and offered reasons why they formed that opinion. Such opinions are allowed, and you are of course allowed to respond to them and point out why they're wrong. You think I'm a book burning scared puppy who needs to take a valium, drink a beer and get a life; there are some people who think you're a nut and an idiot. Hey, there are some people who think I'm a nut and an idiot too, and have said so publicly many times over. I don't whine and cry about how unfair it is, I point out why they're wrong. You are of course free to do the same thing.

4) Your weak-sister response to such vile comments directed at me and my family. Oh, you wouldn't want this to turn into an attack-thread on Dean? So why post it that way, and why allow these people to continue with their vile comments?

Because their comments are no more vile than the words you use to describe me and my friends and colleagues. You know, geese and ganders and all that.

Note that if someone did this to you in my comments I would either delete the posts, publicly castigate those doing it, or write you a note immediately to let you know people were slandering you. Or all three at once. I would consider failure to do so on my part to be an endorsement of those vile comments, unless it was just something I managed to miss.

Again, you aimed comments at least as vile at me and my friends as those a couple of people who are completely unconnected to me aimed at you. Perhaps you're just too thin-skinned to take this kind of public give and take. I might also note that there is irony in the fact that you encourage censorship here while accusing others of wanting to "ban free thought and discussion", but perhaps it's just a question of whose ox is being gored.

Take a hard look at how many comments and trackbacks I get in a week, Ed. I can't say I don't try to read everything but I'm not able to. Kindly refrain in the future from speculating about my motives. If you thought your response was that much above the fray and contained points that you badly wanted me to respond to, a far more effective way of doing it would be to drop me a polite note saying so. Not merely, "I responded to you here," since I'd already gotten a lot of responses (obvious to anyone who looked) but more along the lines of, "Hey Dean, I'd really like to read any response you have to this here essay I wrote about what you said, do you have time to give it a look?" Either in the comments or as an email.

I couldn't find an email address on your page, and it wouldn't let me leave a comment for several hours. But I did find a "contact the author" link that said it went directly to you. Seemed reasonable to think you would see it. And the funny thing is that what I wrote was very much like what you said I should write. I don't have it verbatim because it didn't save me a copy as an email would, but it went something like this: "Dean, I saw your question regarding why we should not teach ID in science classrooms and I've taken the time to write a long and detailed response, as I am one of those people actively involved in combatting attempts to do so. Thank you for the excellent question, and I hope I gave it the compelling and serious answer that it deserves." And I gave you a link to it. But again, the fact that you didn't respond to it or acknowledge it was not the only reason I began to wonder if you really wanted a serious discussion about it; the other part of it was that you then continued to post overheated rhetoric thrown at people like me.

I find condescending speculation about my character and my motives on the front page of someone's weblog, particularly someone I've never heard of, to be more than a little impolite, no matter how calm or well-reasoned.

But you ignore polite responses, and don't find anything impolite about the harsh rhetoric you throw at others that you don't know. That says a lot, doesn't it?


If it helps you to understand my position, I have been at this weblogging game for a good long time, and if you look at those pathetic cretins posting in your comments about me and my wife, it should give you an inkling of what I see on a regular basis. I get several trackbacks a week from people who write snotty things about me and things I've said. It's incredibly tiresome, but I don't even bothere deleting most of them anymore. One of the reasons I have comment registration is precisely so I can show such fuckwits the door...

So while you may not yet be so fortunate as to have a coterie of people obsessing over you and your blog, regularly leaving you nasty comments or sending you trackbacks to say how stupid, evil, shallow, or dishonest you are, if you stay at this long enough it'll happen to you more and more and more.

Wow. You accuse me of being condescending, then you say, essentially, "when you get to be a big popular blogging God like me, you'll understand". All it's missing is a patronizing pat on the head. Dean, seriously, get over yourself. Not only do I get plenty of nasty comments aimed at me, and other bloggers responding to me, I've had two people who started blogs for the sole purpose of repeatedly calling me names (as well as anyone who comments here). You can go visit my latest pet troll, the amusing Mr. O'Brien. I've been accused of being stupid, evil, shallow and worse, just like you have. Unlike you, apparently, I don't whine about it. Hell, I even link to them so I can point out why they're wrong and sometimes make fun of them.

Get bent dude. Seriously.

No, it seems one of us is already plenty bent for the both of us.

It has been my impression for some time now that the view of mutation as the primary driving force behind evolution was not in favor, that most viewed mutation as a secondary force driving most evolutionary change and that gradual change over time through natural selection was sufficient to explain most evolutionary change, and that mutation could only be a part of things over a very long period of time since most mutations are contra-survival. It was further my impression that these researchers (the original article is here had found a way to show how mutation could invoke evolutionary change much more quickly and over shorter periods of time than previously thought. If I am wrong about all that, feel free to correct me.

Okay, I will. You're wrong. You're not only wrong, you're flagrantly wrong in a way that betrays an amazing ignorance of evolution for someone who makes claims on the subject. You've set up a false dichotomy between "mutation as the primary driving force behind evolution" and "gradual change over time through natural selection". It's false because not only are those two things not contradictory, one is dependent on the other. Natural selection can't occur without genetic variation within a population to work upon, and mutation is one of the primary sources of genetic variation (though not the only one, of course). The article you linked to, but did not understand, was not talking about whether mutation is a major mechanism of evolution (that is a given in evolutionary theory) but about whether a specific type of mutation (tandem repeats) drives a specific type of change in morphology (change in snout shape and facial structure in a particular type of organism).

I would also note that you are changing your response on that particular issue. Your initial response was to ask me if I had considered whether or not you had merely misspoke or had written careslessly when you made the claim that the article's findings "flies in the face of evolutionary theory". I said that I didn't see how that was possible, and it turns out that I was right in that conclusion. You didn't misspeak or write carelessly, you really do not understand evolution at this very basic level (honestly, this is high school level evolutionary biology). And I pointed that out.

Was it harsh or unfair to point out that, despite making bold (public) pronouncements about what does and doesn't contradict evolutionary theory, you obviously don't understand evolutionary theory at all? Well, if you're going to make ignorant statements in public, people who know more than you will be prone to pointing out why such statements are ignorant. There are two ways to avoid that: stop making ignorant statements, or only make them in private to those who don't know more than you about said subject.

Enough. You either udnerstand where I'm coming from or you don't.

I think I finally do understand where you're coming from. After giving you the benefit of every doubt, I think it is now entirely justified for me to conclude that A) I was right to wonder if you really wanted (or were capable of) a reasoned conversation concerning an answer to your question; B) you are quite hypocritical in feigning outrage at how unfairly you've been treated when you have said worse things yourself about those who disagree with you, as well as being quite patronizing while accusing others of patronizing you; and C) you are indeed intellectually dishonest due to the traits listed above.

More like this

most viewed mutation as a secondary force driving most evolutionary change and that gradual change over time through natural selection was sufficient to explain most evolutionary change, and that mutation could only be a part of things over a very long period of time since most mutations are contra-survival.

I have absolutely no idea what he is babbling about there.

If this were on an exam, I'd put a big red slash through it, make a note to the effect that he is clearly being vague and garbled because he doesn't understand any of the concepts, and give him a zero.

There's an idea: anyone who wants to criticize evolution really ought to be able to pass a simple, dumbed-down exam on the topic. I don't think Esmay could do it.