A Correction Not Of My Making

In my long post Sunday, I quoted several passages of PZ Myer's outrageous and, I would imagine, libelous blog post,  "What do you do when someone pulls the pin and hands you a grenade?"   One of them is mentioned on page 3 of  a letter from Michael Shermer's lawyers to Myers, noting that the version I copied from Myer's blog was a version that differs from the one Myer's originally posted.   There is a crucial difference in that the first version says

“The anonymous woman who wrote to you through Carrie is known to me, and in fact I was in her presence immediately after said incident...." 

The version I copied from Myer's apparently revised post reads

“The anonymous woman who wrote to you is known to me, and in fact I was in her presence immediately after said incident....”

Apparently Myers may not have even had the accusation directly from the woman he says made it.  His claim of how he learned of it is certainly deceptive if that's the case

So I’ve been given this rather…explosive…information. It’s a direct report of unethical behavior by a big name in the skeptical community (yeah, like that hasn’t been happening a lot lately), and it’s straight from the victim’s mouth. And it’s bad. Really bad.

So the charge may well have been third hand by the time Myers' posted what he did.   The lawyer's letter indicates that the "Carrie" in the version of the "confirmation" e-mail is Carrie Poppy another person involved in and around the "Free Thought" Blogs, which a number of commentators have said has sort of been sniping at Michael Shermer for a while, now.

In a more recent post Myers' asks "Are We Having Fun Yet?"  discussing what apparently are charges being made against CFI, a  "skeptic"-atheist organization I've been critical of in the past but which, unless they are actually guilty of anything in regard to sexual harassment, aren't guilty of that.  My first temptation was to sit back and watch people and groups I don't especially like fighting among themselves to their mutual and self-inflicted harm - I have been extremely critical of the James Randi "Educational" Foundation that Carrie Poppy makes accusations against a the link above.   But this entire thing has gone far beyond where that would be either ethical or especially edifying.  CFI was mentioned by some, speculating that it was the "organization" charged with sweeping the accusation under the rug on Myers' comments.

That Myers' apparently classifies these charges as "fun" is pretty disgusting.  He does get in what seems to be becoming a habit, issuing preemptive self-pity based on precognitions of future negative consequences for himself and taking the opportunity to get in a final dig.

And now Chris Clarke spurns CFI-LA. The informal offer he mentions was the result of a conversation I had with CFI-LA; they were considering bringing me out for a Darwin Day event, and also snagging Chris to share the stage, which would have been excellent.

It may all be moot now, anyway. I suspect I’m on the CFI blacklist along with a few other speakers whose names you can probably guess…but they won’t be the well-known men who have reputations for womanizing. Funny how that works.

While I'm certainly opposed to what is generally covered under my rather old-fashioned conception of "womanizing" - a word which one might suspect Myers' chose due to its less actionable ambiguity - it's a new one on me to have "free thinking," "skeptical," religion-bashers standing up for old fashioned sexual propriety. In my understanding of the term, it most definitely and absolutely doesn't cover rape, even cads of my and earlier generations would not do that.  Though it definitely covers philandering, and fooling around and even seduction of the willing,  something I'd always thought was one of  the more popular attractions of the "free thought" set.  But these are murky and frequently brackish waters.  If you're going to dip into them, you'd better be careful to point out exactly what you mean and have first hand evidence to back it up or you may find yourself opening long letters from law firms if not the police.   I'd definitely think that the use of alcohol should be avoided before swimming.  Let me put in another plug for acting like an adult instead of a teenager.

But what Myers' did certainly doesn't count as fun and rape isn't anything to center the PZnut gallery fun-time around.

Update:   For any of you who read through large numbers of the comments at PZ's blogs before,  here's his condemnation of .... well.....

Here’s another challenge for the growing atheist movement: can we avoid the trap of charismatic leadership and the cult of personality?

Can we avoid the trap of charismatic leadership and the cult of personality?

Um, PZ?   Or should I say that   PZ?

You really don't get why, from you, that's kind of ironic to about the 60th power?