PZ on the hunting of the snark

PZ has his own robust take on it all. :)

More on Hazel.

A story in The Australian, and a brief note on the ABC site.

Ophelia and others on snark hunting

This is a good thread (with one glaring exception so far). I especially like Stewart at #14 and Chris Lawson at #16.

Death of Hazel Rowley

This is very sad news - I've heard today that acclaimed biographer Hazel Rowley has died. This story is now out of date but tells of how she had a massive stroke (or, if I've understood correctly, it may have been more than one) a few days ago. I'm told that Hazel's passing has been announced on Facebook, but I haven't seen any other public announcement so far except for someone updating her Wikipedia article.

I can't claim to have known Hazel well, and we hadn't been in any contact for many years. But I did know her somewhat when she was part of my social circle in Melbourne a couple of decades ago - enough to feel some real shock and grief at this, and particularly sorrow for her loved ones. They have my deepest sympathy. Hazel was still relatively young (59, I believe ... The Australian seems to be wrong saying she was 55), and, as far as I know, still in general good health at least until very recently.

It's not for me to say more on an occasion like this. Others who knew her better will have their say. But this is a horrible, and horribly premature, loss for all concerned and for the wider literary world.

Jerry Coyne on snark hunting

And a longish thread.

Jason Rosenhouse on, "What can you say?"

Even more on the hot topic of the week - a nice post by Jason.

Eric MacDonald on theocracy and all sorts of stuff

Eric contributes to the current debate about "What can you say?"

Too risky for the public square?

Should the public be protected from metaethical debate?Another take on this issue, over at Camels with Hammers.

Just a reminder

Just reminding us all of this. Just sayin'.

What can you say?

Jason Streitfeld has an in-depth post on the question of what people of reason ought to say in the public square. For the moment, at least, I just want to say that it's healthy for this to be brought out into the open. What should be said in an academic journal? What should be said in, say, The New Republic? What should be said in, say, USA Today?

Jason is right to stress that there is something offensive about the view Jean Kazez has been putting: i.e., that there are some things that should not be said to a popular audience. That is, Jean's views is likely to cause offence, and the taking of offence is understandable and not unreasonable by our ordinary standards of how a reasonable person reacts. But he's also correct that this does not make her wrong. While taking offence at Jean's claim may be understandable, inevitable, even reasonable, there's still a question as to whether, on reflection, it is justified to remain offended (and as it happens, I don't feel offended at all).

It's possible that Jean is, herself, offering a disconcerting truth about the capacity of most people to understand difficult concepts, and about how difficult concepts can be distorted and simplified before they are acted on. Even if she's wrong about this in when the concepts in question relate to such things as moral error theory and science/religion, I welcome an open, honest debate. I think one of the things that was annoying about an earlier phase of all this discussion of accommodationism and related issues was Chris Mooney's unwillingness to engage in any substantial way.

Enough for now. Check out Jason's analysis and see what you think. This, in particular, needed to be said:

For atheists like me, there is one issue that matters most in all of this: the role of religious authority in society. I'm not saying atheists are concerned with this issue above all else. Not at all. They might be more concerned about global warming, say, or human rights violations in third-world countries. What I am saying is that, for many atheists, atheism is first and foremost about the rejection of religious authority. Public atheism is first and foremost about putting religious authority in its proper place. For us, to be a public atheist just is to deny that there is any objectively valid moral authority which religions could claim and to deny that religious authority is similar to, equal to, or in any methodological or philosophical sense compatible with scientific authority. If we cannot argue these points in public, then we cannot be public atheists in the way that is meaningful to us.