Why PZ Myers Won't Debate

Where is your god now???

Just a few weeks ago David Marshall, author of Christ The Tao, challenged PZ Myers to a debate over whether or not Christianity has uplifted, or oppressed, women.

David Marshall has not gotten a response, as predicted, but another popular Christian blogger has. Myers has responded to the invitation of Vox Day to debate the exact same topic.

Myers reasoning can be read here, but basically sums up to Myers finding Day morally reprehensible, and not wanting to give "the other side" any more credibility.

What's curious to me is that this is becoming an identical situation to Dawkins refusal to debate with Craig.

Marshall thinks that Myers has chosen to respond to Day, and ignore him, because Day is the easier target for Myers typical tactic of using slander and mockery (rather than logic and reason) to provoke his readers to rage against Christianity. Marshall says,

"Instead of implying that he won't debate because we're all racist, women-hating savages ..., or because PZ Myers owns this vast stockpile of credibility and doesn't want any of it leaking out to nourish undead believing memes, PZ might just admit, 'My whole schtick involves pretending that we atheists are a breed apart, and that the solution to religion is to mock it, deride it, and slander those who believe it.  I would lose credibility with my crowd if I were found on stage reasoning -- really reasoning, thinking and discoursing and looking at evidence and trying to really understand, rather than just slandering and dancing and posturing -- with the other side.'"  

PZ Myers vs. David Marshall

David Marshall,
author of Christ the Tao

David Marshall, author of the blog, Christ the Tao, has issued a challenge to PZ Myers. David would like to debate with PZ Myers as to whether Christianity has liberated, or oppressed, women throughout history. David would take the position that Christianity has liberated women, while PZ Myers would obviously be of the opinion that it has been a source of oppression. On his own blog, PZ Myers has expressed his opinion on this topic before:

"Whenever I hear that tripe about the beneficial effects of religion on human cultural evolution, it’s useful to note that the world’s dominant faiths all hardcode directly into their core beliefs the idea that women are unclean, inferior, weak, and responsible for the failings of mankind…that even their omnipotent, all-loving god regards women as lesser creatures not fit to be intermediaries with him, and that their cosmic fate is to be subservient slaves to men, just as men are to be subservient slaves to capital-H Him. 

David Sloan Wilson can argue all he wants that religion helped promote group survival in our evolutionary history, or that his group selectionist models somehow explain its origins, but it doesn’t matter. Here and now, everywhere, those with eyes to see can see for themselves that religion has for thousands of years perpetuated the oppression of half our species. Half of the great minds our peoples have produced have lived and died unknown and forgotten, their educations neglected, their lives spent doing laundry and other menial tasks for men — their merits unrecognized and buried under lies promulgated by religion, in cultures soaked in the destructive myths of faith which codify misogyny and give it a godly blessing. 

Isn’t that reason enough to tear down the cathedrals — that with this one far-reaching, difficult change to our cultures, we double human potential?"

PZ Myers

It will be interesting to see what response, if any, come from Myers. Myers, a paragon of reason and rationality, never seems terribly interested in earnest discussion on his blog, Pharyngula. His tactics seem more along the lines of ridicule, ad hominem attacks, and trolling until the dissenter gives up and leaves. Because of this, I'm not sure the debate will even happen.

The Courtier's Reply

PZ Meyers

The Courtier's Reply is a sort of antithesis to the Argument from Authority. The main point of the Courtier's Reply is that a person does not have to be an authority on a topic to make a valid point.

This concept is very old, allegedly going back to Sir Isaac Newton, who supposedly said to a skeptical Edmund Halley regarding astrology - "I, sir, have studied it; you have not." It was popularized under its current name by biologist/blogger PZ Meyers.

Meyers says:

I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk. Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.

In other words, Richard Dawkins is like the boy at the end of the story who points out that the emperor is naked, but the courtier replies that hes not naked. The boy is simply uneducated in "Imaginary Fabrics."

This post by Meyers was later reposted on Richarddawkins.net where Dawkins was the first to comment:

 Congratulations to P Z Myers on this brilliant piece of satire. It applies not just to Allen Orr's review in NYRB, but to all those many reviews of TGD that complain of my lack of reading in theology. My own stock reply ("How many learned books of fairyology and hobgoblinology have you read?") is far less witty.
Richard

On another occasion, Dawkins commented on his lack of scholarship, saying,

 "Most of us happily disavow fairies, astrology, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster without first immersing ourselves in books of Pastafarian theology."

Ironically, I'm actually grateful for Meyer's argument. It allows sites like this to exist. However, even though I  agree with the principle, I also think that whenever one presents an argument on any topic, that argument has to be based on an accurate understanding of that subject.

For example, I could not say that Richard Dawkins is not a human because he has a tail and no human has a tail...

By the way, I'm counting this as a tail...

...because that argument is not based on an accurate understanding of the human anatomy, what a tail is as opposed to a coccyx, or even what a human is. A doctor or biologist who hears this argument may be inclined to ask, in exasperation, whether I've ever read Grey's Anatomy, Aristotle's Biology, or even a more rudimentary book on human anatomy. For crying out loud, even Eyewitness Books will do. Would I be able to cite the Courtier's Reply and go on asserting that Richard Dawkins is not a human? No. It's an ignorant argument.

An example of this sort of thing in Dawkins works occurs in the central argument of The God Delusion, in which he implies that Christianity should not be accepted because Evolution is a much more "ingenious" explanation of life. However, evolution does not conflict with Christianity or anything in the Bible. It may be the opinion of many Christians that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, etc, but this is not a part of the dogma.

As Charles Darwin said, a man "can be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist."

Dawkins argument seems to based on the understanding that Young-Earth Creationism is an inherent part of Christianity, but it is not. This, among other things, causes the argument to fall apart.

In addition, just as I am not free to interpret a coccyx as a tail, Dawkins is not free to interpret Christianity in any way he likes, either. His understanding of a topic must be in accord with the current, accepted, mainstream interpretation. The understanding of those he hopes to convince that his argument is valid. This does not require that he read a bunch of esoteric texts on deep, mystical spiritualism, but he must work with the mainstream interpretation, not his own, or else he is just calling a coccyx a tail, and he is simply wrong.

For example, Dawkins would ask us, "How many learned books of fairyology and hobgoblinology have you read?" I would say that I have never read any. Nevertheless, I do have a correct understanding of what is meant by "Fairy" and a correct understanding of why it is impossible. In addition, my understanding of a "Fairy" is in accordance with that of those I would like to convince, presumably the general public. I would not write a book saying "Fairies are hover-cars and hover-cars do not exist for these reasons, therefore fairies do not exist," because even if fairies are fictional, that's not how they are portrayed, so it's a faulty argument.

Another example of why this is important is in the writings of Plato, in which Socrates goes around questioning individuals who paint themselves as experts in various fields and showing them to be false. He does this by asking questions, then using the answers given to him by the experts as the basis for further interrogation until an inconsistency is revealed. He worked with the understanding of the individual he hoped to convince.

Dawkins, however, asks questions, but does not allow us to answer. He provides his own answers, then points out the inconsistencies.

In other words, while it is true that he does not have to personally go out and read some ancient texts on various religions throughout history, it is still required that his arguments be based on an accurate understanding of what is meant by "God," or whatever the topic may be, and that understanding must be the one held by whoever it is he hopes to convince that his argument is valid.

This is not the case when dealing with empirical evidence, such as the effect of religion on society, etc. These observations fall within the domain of science and necessarily require interpretation as part of the scientific method, but take the following quote,

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

He is not working with anything empirical here. No data, just his interpretation, but this interpretation holds no weight with well-read believers, because they simply assert that his interpretation is false because there were reasons for Old Testament events which Dawkins is not taking into account. They would not be able to do that if Dawkins had attempted to show the inconsistencies of a God who was infinitely loving, rather than a bully.