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15 Nov 2005
Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams has a blog that I was pointed to by a cow-orker a couple weeks ago. Half-surprisingly, he's very well written, funny, and intelligent; so it makes a pretty good read. And he posts quite regularly.
The other day, he posted about the Evolution versus Intelligent Design debate. He didn't debate the issue, mind you (he says "I’m not a believer in Intelligent Design, Creationism, Darwinism, free will, non-monetary compensation, or anything else I can’t eat if I try hard enough"), he decided instead to discuss the discussion.
As if that wasn't meta enough, he focused on how both sides of the debate mischaracterize the other side's arguments. As I was reading it, I thought "man, he's not doing a very good job here; I've never heard any of these points that he's complaining about." And then I realized that was the whole point. He was either using his own misrepresentation as a meta-joke, or he was just interested in stirring up trouble. Or probably both.
He then got 300 angry comments from both sides.
Today, Scott posted a follow-up. He essentially verified my theory, but apparently he had taken it a step further. "I was waiting to see how many people fell into the irony trap and misrepresented my blog entry and then attacked it." (The answer is "a lot".) He links to one blog post in particular, but the page is currently down. He reiterates his point, and at the end leaves the whole thing open for more recursive straw men.
I applaud his willingness to be stung by hornets just for the sake of a joke. But what's more amazing is that, in the end, his joke was proven correct by those who were trying to refute it. It's also more than a little disturbing. Can't we engage in intelligent dialogue anymore?
Snotty McShot says:
There are plenty of intelligent discussions available about the ID/evolution issue. What’s not amazing is that when someone starts a discussion on such a wilfully fraudulent premise people get annoyed. I honestly do not see what’s that’s so clever about Scott’s post. In fact, I think it’s one of the the stupidest pieces of bullshit I’ve seen in a long time.
Imagine I’m someone with a fairly large audience, and I start a conversation about medicine vs. shamanistic healing by deliberately misrepresenting the claims of medical doctors and suggesting that the two “methods” are somehow equivalent and that there are no credible doctors to tell me what’s what. Should I be surprised if the reaction is somewhat hostile? Hells no. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t intelligent, reasoned discussions going on elsewhere, it just means that I’m too much of a dick to start one.
Your comment box is shagged, by the way.
Plutor says:
He wasn’t suggesting the two methods are equivalent. He’s suggesting that the both sides of the debate are often argued using equivalently dishonest methods. I know that you’re right; there are a lot of inteligent, reasoned discussions going on. It’s easy to stir up trouble on the Internet, since perceived anonymity makes people more willing to speak loudly.
I know you were trying to come up with a good metaphor, but I’d like to point out that your example ends up in people possibly making bad decisions and maybe some dying as a result. This is a cartoonist talking on the Internet about the history of life. No one’s going to die if they take him seriously. And he’s a (to repeat myself) cartoonist talking on the Internet. Who’s going to change their world view based on that?
(The comment box looks fine — if ugly — to me, even in Internet Explorer. Is it really broken for you?)
Snotty McShot says:
Yeah, when I start typing it slides out the side of the screen and I can’t see what I’m doing.
Sure, my metaphor was bollocks, but you get the point. If I want to have an intelligent discussion with someone a perceived controversy involving their discipline, it doesn’t do me much good to pepper my opening gambit with irritating misconceptions and ill-informed opinions that those professionals have been exhaustively rebutting since day one, and then come over all “I told you so” when people are less than patient with me. It’s made all the worse when I reveal that I was being purposely imbecilic in order to try and prove that the protagonists in such discussions are dishonest. It’s entirely disingenuous and, as it happens, dishonest. And dishonesty is dishonesty, no matter how you slice it post-facto.
Yeah, he’s just a cartoonist, but have a look at the comments he’s receiving. He has an audience - if he genuinely has an interest in reasoned debate then he’s made it that little bit harder with this routine. Why not actually start an intelligent debate rather than this duplicitous attempt to make a scientist look bad? And those hundreds of people on his site are that little bit less likely to listen to the opinion of a scientist as a result of his baiting.
Seriously, what’s his point here? Has he really established that both “sides” deliberately or dishonestly misinterpret the other? I can’t see that he has. How have the scientists mischaracterised the ID position? What strawman have they built? Scott claims this is the case without giving us any specific examples of any foul play by scientists - are we simply to infer from his succesful attempt to piss off a scientist that this is so?
As far as I can tell, all he’s shown is that if you make a mockery of a man’s profession - a profession that is already under sustained attack in the US from fundamentalist think tanks and PR groups - then that man is apt to lose his patience. And to be honest, that isn’t really news.
kevin lyda, co. galway says:
I agree with Mr. Snotty. :)
Adams is trying to be all cool and above the fray but the reality is that he wrote a shoddy article devoid of facts with the rather ironic point that he’s apathetic on the debate because the people in the debate make shoddy arguments.
He writes an OK cartoon, but that doesn’t mean he will opine intelligently in other areas. In this case he didn’t.
Plutor says:
I don’t disagree. I guess I just didn’t take the whole thing as seriously as you guys. Fair enough.
Plutor says:
Also, how did you people find my blog? It’s not like it’s high-visibility, and I didn’t comment in the thread..
Snotty McShot says:
Technorati, dude.