DISQUS

Patrick · 3 years ago

Let me echo Adam on this one. Hance is a well-respected, informed and erudite communications policy player. If any TLF reader will actually pay attention to his contributions here, I suspect they'll find them engaging, enlightened and provocative, just what a blog entry should be. For those wishing to see more of his writing, I've been reading him for some time at the Disco Tech blog, www.disco-tech.org.

As for intelligent design, I too have strong thoughts on the subject. But I also don't see TLF as the place to debate the subject and I won't share them here, as they're not relevant to technology policy. Anyone wishing to engage in a discussion of ID is welcome to e-mail me.

Amy Phillips · 3 years ago

While I think that some of the comments on the other post are a bit over-the-top in their alarmism, I think that several commenters have attempted to draw a crucial distinction between people who disagree with particular policy positions and people who disagree about the way that debates over those issues ought to be conducted.




I'm happy to build single-issue coalitions with people who disagree with me on other issues I hold dear, and I think that TLF is well-served by featuring such people. I do not, however, support alliances with groups that regularly practice deception, nor do I think that we benefit from building coalitions with groups that seek to undermine the norms of rational debate and scientific inquiry. If Mr. Haney is willing to denounce the Discovery Institute's practice of obscuring scientific truths and muddying the waters about the way scientific study is conducted, I'm willing to take at face value his declaration that he opposes such practices. But in the absence of any statement to the contrary, I think it's reasonable to assume that he agrees with the positions of his employer on scientific inquiry, and I don't think it's unfair of your readers to object to him on those grounds.

Richard Bennett · 3 years ago

Amy's right. Adam tries to paint DI as just another player in the public policy field, which is exactly how they want to be viewed. But their ID advocacy isn't simply a matter of promoting a different hypothesis, it's an assault on the Western values that grew out of the Enlightenment.

So how far do we extend the assumption of tolerance and rational debate, all the way to support for those who seek to destroy our cultural framework?

ID isn't simply one view among many, it's a deceptive attack on science and rational inquiry.

At bare minimum, Mr. Haney needs to explain why he thinks he can associate with such a vile movement without losing credibility.

MikeT · 3 years ago

Not 3 comments in and we have a secularist simultaneously bemoaning the loss of pluralism while attacking him for holding different beliefs. How do you do it, Richard? How do you keep such a straight face while posting something like that? Great way to practice what you preach. If ID is so vile, maybe you want to start living like you live in a world driven by/built on natural selection. I suggest reading a little Nietzsche beforehand.

MikeT · 3 years ago

(Like Adam, I am not interested in an ID or evolution debate. I could care less about this issue as I have no dog in this race.)

Luis Villa · 3 years ago

Read the argument, Mike. Richard is not bemoaning the loss of pluralism. He's bemoaning the loss of rational inquiry as the basis for political and policy discussion- as he says, the core of post-Enlightenment Western values. I realize it suits your purposes to conflate those two radically different arguments, but that deliberate mis-construance of your opponent's position to suit your is exactly what Richard is talking about and exactly what bothers most of the commenters in the previous thread about DI.

eee_eff · 3 years ago

I understand that this is a techology and tecnology law blog, however:

1. The position of the Discovery Institute, as well as its methodology, call for a response. For too long we, as a country and our media especially, have been too lenient in the interest of presenting 'both sides' of issues.

2. Where, pray tell, would you draw the line with this 'guilt by association' metaphor? It is not as if, say Hance's brother had been a noted advocate of Intelligent Design, I wouldn't even bring it up. But it is Hance Haney, and Hance Haney alone, who has, of his own volition, chosen to associate himself with the Discovery Institute.

Isn't it fair to question a politician regarding his choice of political party? Then I say, it is fair to expect those here to have reservations about Hance. I do myself.

Although one item, I would like to say is troubling me much in this issue. I had recently watched the debate between William Buckley and Noam Chomsky from 1969, and one thing I was struck by was how very civil they both were to each other in the debate. Today, we have pundits like Ann Coulter calling for those she disagrees with to be tried, and executed. Even hosts are rude to their guests now, as in this example.

So please turn down the volume, and try not to be so disagreeable when disagreeing...

Richard Bennett · 3 years ago

I've read most of Nietzsche MikeT, what do you suggest I should re-read, "Will to Power", "Beyond Good and Evil", "Thus Spake Mr. Z", or should I just peruse some collected works and look for slams on scientific method? Binion's "Frau Lou" on Lou Salome, the girlfriend of Rilke, Nietzsche, and Freud was illuminating from a cultural history standpoint, and then there's all the progeny like Heidegger. I generally prefer the Kaufman translations, do you?

My comment on pluralism apears to be too subtle for you, and I run into that a lot with fundamentalists. We live in a culture that values reason and open debate. Now there's a little bit of a paradox in allowing those who don't believe in reason and open debate into the debate, because they actually seek to destroy our cultural system.

So do we let them do that, or do we modify our view of tolerance to say we tolerate everything except intolerance. Either way, some fool can shout "Hypocrite" as you do.

We're all used to that by now, so you've simply branded yourself an unserious person.

MikeT · 3 years ago

Well, I can think of worse things than not being taken seriously.

Luis Villa · 3 years ago

And now having read Adam's post :) Adam, I don't think the problem is ID; the problem is the tactics DI has used to advance ID, and as Richard put it, the implicit attack those tactics make on core Enlightenment political and philosophical values.

To put it another way: I don't care what TLF posters (or DI) believe; I care about what methods they use to advance those beliefs. One of the reasons I like TLF is that I find that by the standards of our current political environment TLF does an admirable job of advancing its point of view without resorting to methods that I find insidious with regards to our rational democratic norms. Even when I don't agree with TLF, I come back, because I find myself edified and challenged when I come here. I have no faith that anyone who can tolerate assocation with DI's methods will uphold (generally) those same democratic Western norms of conduct or (specifically) the high quality of discourse I expect to find at TLF.

I of course welcome Mr. Haney to prove me wrong. If he actually is an honest, well-meaning discussant*, I look forward to engaging him on telecom policy, as well as persuading him how insidious DI's methods are to the common goals we all share, and how he should really look for work elsewhere :)

* as I said earlier, I don't find his second post persuasive on that count.

dimitris · 3 years ago

There's nothing wrong with pluralism, and it's true that ID and technology issues are almost completely unrelated.

Besides, the ID issue has been settled already.

Anono · 3 years ago

Interesting that none of the holier-than-thou types are willing to go on the record with teh same wholesale condemnation of Cato for the same guilt-by-association offense. If Julian Sanchez, for example, really believed his own words, then Cato has "surrendered any claim to be taken remotely seriously."

Good going, guys. After you're done with the Stalinist purges, you can have a nice little soiree with the two or three libertarians in the country that haven't soiled themselves by associating with anyone that disagrees with them on one issue or another.

Richard Bennett · 3 years ago

Cato should dump Gilder and Rahn, in my opinion. But this isn't Cato's blog, so that's a bit tangential to the present controversy, Anono.

And you just might be a little off the mark with that "Stalinism" charge; this is more like an Inquisition, don't you think?

Anono · 3 years ago

You mean that you and several others are trying to punish heretics? Nay, not heretics directly. Rather, you're trying to punish a blog that publishes someone who, in another aspect of his life, belongs to an organization that, as to a completely different issue, takes a heretical position.

Richard Bennett · 3 years ago

Yup, that's about right.

Gary McGath · 3 years ago

I've often dealt with people who are (in my judgment, anyway) quite good on some issues and stark raving lunatics on others. I might want to check Mr. Haney's facts more skeptically than I would other people in some cases, but I'm willing to judge him on what he says here.