Yeah Greg, maybe in your sciency sounding world it does. Where I come from though, it’s just another fucking excuse for wrongheaded behavior. Cause where I come from, people really think about things – even when those things conform to and confirm their worldview. Where I come from, people don’t rely on dubious, sciency sounding bullshit – we rely on good old common fucking sense, to know we’re RIGHT!!!1!!1!111!!

But as far as we now know he was the dude he claimed to be, even though the story was bullshit. So…

Indeed. Fits the definition of confirmation bias perfectly.

I mean “confirmation bias?” Seriously? You aren’t going to try to tell us that actually fucking means something? Geez Greg, fucking try again, why doncha?

Chris seriously fucked up by not working really hard to figure out who this character who totally fed his worldview really was. Especially when people who disagree with his worldview and defend their own from him, told him the story being told was bullshit. It was so obvious from the getgo, that this dude was really not the dude he claimed to be, because his story was such obvious bullshit.

Note I do not align myself with any side. But it’s extremely frustrating how the rhetoric works. But I’m fed up. Greg, I’m also not happy how you handled this. You basically stirred up hysteria to get people to stop asking questions. That’s not OK either.

Chris could have very easily ended the discussion, both protecting Williams identity and keeping his face. But he chose to protect a line of arguing that is very clearly improper now.

But reality is that perhaps people have started making a career over pecking at certain groups. Maybe the “New Atheists” are right and that them being stereotyped is part of the plan here. I certainly cannot shake that impression coming to it as an outsider. But alas, what do I know.

Anywhere here is my post:

“Jeremy Stangroom has a blog post up that summarizes whatâ??s wrong with the debate:

â??Basically, thereâ??s this fella called Chris Mooney, and he tortures kittens. Not literal kittens, but metaphorical kittens that have something to do with framing and accommodation and communion wafers. Anyway, torturing kittens is a bad thing, especially if you get paid by the Templeton Foundation to do it, and this really, really, really upsets those righteous defenders of all that is good and true â?? the New Atheists.â?

The rest of the article again proceeds to pull the most extreme statements and make the examples of the whole.

My exception from the beginning with YNH was exactly this. This is not proper and fair arguing. It has but one ultimate goal: to paint a group, the nebulous word â??New Atheistsâ? in a bad light.

Sadly nothing has changed. There are still plenty of people who would to the same.

Letâ??s evaluate Jeanâ??s post. She closed comments with this remark:

â??Looking over these comments one last time, Iâ??ve noticed two interesting things:

(1) Boy, there are a lot of juvenile people who dropped by here to insult me.

(2) Yâ??all are really gullible. Your problem is that you fell in love with William. You really, really want to believe everything he told you, even though you have no independent corroboration. He saidâ??â?I made up Tom Johnsonâ? and you think that must be true. â?

Well I looked over the comments, and there are few insults far and between, people ask for clarification and I was among those who said that her corroboration was not credible as phrased. And being in doubt over the facts does not mean that one is â??in love withâ? a certain personâ??s statements.

But again, exaggeration to paint critics as worse than they are. Jeanâ??s post stated out that way talking about â??anti-Mooney blogsâ? and â??schadenfreudeâ?.

But asking for clarification is not victimization. But playing the victim card is one old trick to stop critics, one of many rhetorical devices out there.

I fear nothing will change. It apparently is necessary and quite sufficient to keep labeling groups in certain ways!

Sad, because all this could have ended quite nicely and easily, by simply acknowledging the realities that did happen and anybody can go back and read, namely that people not only deserved an apology for the sock puppetry but also for falling of deaf ears when they early on said that the way a group was painted here was not fair and proper.

But painting a group in a certain way is â??OKâ?, so donâ??t expect an apology for that! I guess.”

Part of my mistake was to assume that Mooney’s initial post contained as much information about the situation as he could give without revealing any real details about the person(s) involved.

Further confirmation reaffirms that â??Williamâ?/â?Tom Johnsonâ? is indeed who he originally said he was. And this was always the most likely reality by farâ??although I understandably found myself questioning it for a while this week.

Part of my mistake was to assume that Mooney’s initial post contained as much information about the situation as he could give reavealing any real details about the person(s) involved.

Because he didn’t state that Johnson was Will’s real identity in that post, I assumed that Will was impersonating Johnson. A bad assumption in hindsight, but it’s an important detail and seems like a strange one to omit, even if further verification of Will/Tom’s identity was desirable. To his credit, Mooney probably omitted it in an effort to avoid making further mistakes.