Sunday, November 28, 2010

Too bad PZ Myers can't write an unbiased poll

In his parting shot about whether a convention called Skepticon should be about skepticism or atheism (such a convention could discuss, of course, how many atheists came to their state of disbelief via skeptical reasoning) he skews the works with a false-answer poll.

The only thing fully accurate is the "so-called" in the first sentence:
How much of a so-called skeptic convention can be about religion?

None 0% (0 votes)
No more than 25% 0% (0 votes)
No more than 50% 0% (0 votes)
Just so long as it isn't all of it 25% (3 votes)
All of it, why not? 75% (9 votes)

First, he implies that a skeptics' convention, according to some "straw man skeptical purists," can't discuss religion at all.

No, we so-called "purists" object instead to the unskeptical promotion of atheism, or the claim that only atheists are real skeptics, being promoted at a so-called skeptic convention, about which phrase you are right.

Then, with this:
There's only one choice that isn't arbitrary and incoherent and unjustifiable; I'd like to see the complainers confront the specific details of their position.

He of course implies that people who question him and other hyperatheists are "arbitrary and incoherent and unjustifiable."

Well, I'm not going to confront any "specific details" in a post on your blog; given the way rabid Pharyngulacs are, that would be like debating Ken Ham or his ilk at a fundamentalist college.

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