More on Spetner's views: Coyne demolished (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, November 02, 2015, 00:23 (3100 days ago) @ David Turell

Ed Fesser takes him apart:-http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/10/red-herrings-dont-go-to-heaven-either.html#more-"You don't have to sympathize with my views to see the awfulness of Coyne's performance. Commenting on Coyne's “diatribe” and my response to it, Coyne's fellow atheist Jeff Lowder concluded, at the Secular Outpost:-"If I were to sum up Feser's reply in one word, it would be, “Ouch!” I think Feser's reply is simply devastating to Coyne and I found myself in agreement with most of his points.-"My onetime sparring partner Eric MacDonald -- who was once an ally of Coyne's and whose advice Coyne acknowledges in his recent book Faith vs. Fact, but who has now distanced himself from the New Atheism -- wrote in response to Lowder:-"I have said very much the same kinds of things about Coyne, and was asked to go elsewhere if I had any criticisms to make (which is not a sign of intellectual honesty in itself), though he did not outright "ban" me…-"I must say that, having left the narrow confines of Coyne's outlook, I have been greatly helped by Professor Feser's careful reading and argument, something that Coyne could not be accused of.-***-"Naturally, Coyne also repeatedly accuses me -- as he ritualistically does absolutely every theist, no matter how many and detailed his arguments are -- of having “no evidence” and of “just making stuff up.” Then absurdly -- and, in good Jerry Coyne fashion, without seeing that he has just contradicted himself -- he admits that in fact I do give arguments for my views, but that they are in an article of mine that he says he will not bother actually to read. -***-"As goes without saying for Coyne readers, this doesn't stop Coyne from leveling various objections to the arguments he says he won't bother reading -- objections I've answered many times in various places, including the very article Coyne refuses to read. But then, this is (as longtime readers will recall) a man who once wrote over 5000 words attacking a book (by Hart) which he admitted he had not actually read -- and in the course of doing so, and with no trace of irony, accused the book's author of having had his “intelligence… blatantly coopted and corrupted to prove what [he] has decided is true beforehand”!-"Yes, dear reader, behold the mind of Jerry Coyne -- of a man who explicitly refuses to read what his opponents have actually said, but will nevertheless attack at length the arguments he guesses they must be giving, and who in the same breath will insist that it is those opponents who refuse to look at actual “evidence” and who “make things up.” -"Well, that is itself evidence for you, though only further evidence of what has already been massively confirmed, viz. that Coyne is a Walter Mitty atheist if ever there was one!"-Comment: This is the Jerry Coyne I referred to, who is in the same university with Shapiro.