So, Ed Clint torn apart Rebecca Watson‘s Skepticon talk and the Atheist blogosphere started to see Watson for who she really is, and what she’s after.
Of course, so-called Freethought Bloggers couldn’t take it. First, Stephanie Zvan jumped in and said Watson was talking exclusively about pop EvPsy and media reports, which was clearly not the case, but OK, at least she had an argument (a crappy one, a straw man, but that’s something).
On the other hand, we’ve got PZ Myers, who has written two posts so far on the subject. The first one, was an eight-paragraphs long ad hominem fallacy (nothing new there). If I was Watson, I’d sure hate to see this white old privileged, cisgendered, middle-class, able-bodied man coming to my rescue with such an ‘answer’ (if we can call it that) – even Ken Ham could have done better.
His second post was even worse: he goes on to say you don’t need to be an expert to do science or to criticize science. D’uh! But that’s not the point. If you want to do science or criticize it, you don’t need any degree in order for your claims to be taken into account. You need evidence!! And no, cherry-picking evidence is not evidence. It’s bad science, whether you’re Andrew Wakefield, Gilles-Eric Séralini, Rebecca Watson or PZ Myers.
Funny thing -besides he being a scientist and taking this utterly unscientific stance-: he’s planning on writing more on the topic. Looks like Myers can’t get enough of being ignored or laughed at. Have at it, dude. We looooove to read your red herrings!
