The appearance of the ordinary in three tweets

It could all be in jest, I hope it is, but it has all the appearance of the same old pattern repeated over and over.

Dude writes article.

Gnu dude disagrees in an engaging fashion.

Dude reacts…

(Jesse Bering, 2011)

Gnu dude responds…

(PZ Myers, 2011)

Dude replies…

(Jesse Bering, 2011)

Like I said, it could be in jest. Punch-in-the-arm. Slap on the back. Wink, wink.

But if it isn’t…

The most personal thing PZ said in his original post about Bering’s article was ‘Jesse Bering disappointed me recently.’

I’m not exactly clutching at pearls on reading this.

If there isn’t a good deal of candor going on between the tweets, then what we have here is a distillation of the ordinary, trite, vexatious ‘you just hate me Mummy/Daddy’ response that for some reason has coinage amongst the ‘anti/non-Gnu’ atheists. A great deal of such argument, especially between ‘Gnus’ and Templeton funded ‘anti/non-Gnus’ (perhaps in this case including Bering who is a co-principal investigator on a major Templeton-funded project), can be reduced to this childishness.

It’s become ordinary.

***

It’s not impossible that Bering could convince me of his original argument, the one in contention (I’m yet to look at the detail so I can hardly dismiss it) but cripes, what a way to interact with your critics.

The Twitter spat continues as I speak, with increasing vitriol, Bering indicating that he’ll respond to PZ’s criticism in a more substantial format – we’ll have to see how the invective pans out. Also, it’ll be interesting to see how Bering’s evolutionary psychology in respect of homophobia, and the rigor behind such argument, can be viewed in light of the Templeton Foundation’s funding of homophobic projects; just-so stories to legitimize the exercise?

PZ directs attention to more detailed criticism by Jeremy Yoder here. I’ll be reading this very soon, and will await Bering’s rejoinder.

(I’m not anti-evolutionary psychology by the way – at a glance, I think Yoder generalises about evolutionary psychologists a bit much).

~ Bruce

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