james_nicoll

What, a social movement inspired by the excesses of Anglo-American Protestantism and promoted by middle-aged blowhards is not terribly inclusive, caring, or supportive itself?

Why, you're trying to sneak in theistic morality into our rational society!

There was a lot of overlap among freethinking, feminism, socialism and abolitionism. Obviously not perfect, but still.

Strikes me that a good candidate for "middle-aged blowhard inspired by Anglo-American Protestantism" could be P. Z. Myers... who's on the other side of this.

Other side?

Other side from the people you were presumably criticizing, the commenters who earned the MPR tag.

I really can't tell them apart by their behavior. I'm glad one is marginally more tolerant than the others, though I'm a little surprised to hear that it's Myers, since I've seen him be a misogynistic bastard.

Even "misogynistic bastards" can object to the behaviour that started this mess off, which was direct suggestions that contributers to a feminist atheist web community should be raped to teach them a lesson.

Who does that? Jesus fucking Christ, are these people raised in a barn?

Hey now. Jus' cuz some folk is raised in barns, don' mean they ain't got no manners.

For anyone interested in where "these people" came from, see here for the "Elevatorgate" incident that began the current festivities, and here for the recent events re: harassment policies.

Those are just timeline summaries, but major, major MPRs on the underlying discussion threads. There was a lot of nasty hiding under the rocks.

Myers once tried to claim from BIOLOGY that women who had abortions and felt physiologically unsettled from the experience were full of shit and probably were brainwashed by theistic propaganda because women have "undetected" miscarriages all the time and they're just fine, amirite?

I hope he was slapped down, pulled up again, slapped down, pulled up again, and repeat for that.

This leaves me rabidly shaking and nearly incoherent.

Many /miscarriages/ are traumatic.

I thought he was too rabid for my taste. Now I know my discomfort was from something deeper. oy.

Do you happen to have a link to that, Carlos? It's not that I don't trust you, but I'd like to see his words as written.

No, and it's a pity, because I don't like making unsourced claims. But my reaction was much like Will's, and it's stuck with me for over seven years. It's possible that I misinterpreted a more innocuous comment -- but then you have to imagine Myers making an innocuous comment about those topics.

It's not that I disbelieve PZ Myers would say something awful, I'd just be surprised to see him be awful in that way.

Ten minutes' Google failed to turn anything up that matched your description (whatever it was, it was a very long time ago; Pharyngula has moved on again from ScienceBlogs, and is now at FreethoughtBlogs).

From limited information, it sounds like it may have been a mistargeted attempt to counteract anti-abortionist claims that abortion is inevitably physically damaging and traumatic? Or suggesting that certain types of post-abortion maladies are primarily psychosomatic rather than physiological in nature?

Some of both. I have a good idea of what a decent human being with Myers' opinions would have meant to say. Life is too short to make allowances for that level of assholery, though.

Really? When was that?

A few seconds before I decided never to pay positive attention to him again.

More, or less than twenty years ago?

Before his site migrated to the ScienceBlogs platform.

Has he improved regarding women's reproductive health? Stopped saying self-serving nonsense about what women do and don't feel? Made a contrite and sincere apology? I'm guessing no.

He's actually stopped telling women what they think and signal boosted colleagues like Rebecca Watson and Ophelia Benson. But he's still a spectacular dickweed.

I think this shows how terrible the people who are against him are, that they're so horrible about women that ol' PZ comes off as a total heroine of the revolution.

From Myers' response to the Nugent article:

"But judging by the comments already on his article, he hasn’t convinced the smug anti-progressives that maybe they should embrace a wider scope for atheism, and he really hasn’t tried yet to convince the people on the other side that maybe the angry sexists and racists and sneering self-satisfied libertarians are worth bringing on board. I’m inclined to say they’re not, until they grow up and change."

He's generally been in the right in these matters, though as ICE says above that's not a challenging task when your antagonists are obnoxious mouthbreathers who cry fat tears at the idea that perhaps there might be some anti-sexual harassment policies at atheist conventions.

Some terrible stuff, sure.

I think he tries to be anti-sexist and anti-racist. When he has erred, in my experience, it's because he chose to pontificate instead of listening.

I do think he has done better with this since ElevatorGate than he had before.

Dunno about an apology, but he has flamed and banned people for expressing opinions that he himself had stated in times past. Probably the best we're likely to get from him.