Bronze-level articlePZ Myers

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PZ on his Aug 09 visit to the Cretin Museum. Here he can be seen tipping his nice-looking hat while violating an important rule: only children are allowed on the saddled dinosaur.
I also don't believe that being godless is sufficient to be a good, wise person, nor that people afflicted with superstition must be evil and stupid. That does not mean, however, that we shouldn't vigorously oppose stupid ideas…like religion.
—PZ Myers [1]

Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers is an associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris. [2] He is better-known as a popular atheist blogger. His primary blog is Pharyngula ("Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal"), where he criticizes creationism, advocates for the popularization of science, and gushes about cephalopods.

He occasionally blogs for the Panda's Thumb, a group blog devoted to dissecting creationist claims. After the site that was hosting Pharyngula was acquired by National Geographic, he and Ed Brayton founded Freethought Blogs.

He is also the author of The Happy Atheist.[3]

Contents

[edit] Atheism

You may have needed a book of rules and a master to put on the shackles of faith, but you don’t need a guidebook to live a life of liberty. Do you know why atheists are so happy? Because they’re the freest people on Earth, and their only responsibilities are to their fellow human beings, not phantasms.
[4]
PZ Myers on creationism.

Myers at one point considered himself a New Atheist[5], but appeared to naturally gravitate towards Atheism+ as time went on, which he saw as a natural extension of New Atheism (New Atheism highlighted the importance of science to atheism, Atheism+ highlighted the importance of social justice).[6] This may have been hastened by several ongoing and public disagreements between Myers and both Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins.

[edit] Courtier's reply

See the main article on this topic: Courtier's reply

Myers coined the term "courtier's reply" to describe the argument that only clergy and theologians are qualified to comment on questions of faith.[7] Many people [Who?] are quick to suggest that someone like Richard Dawkins, who was trained as a biologist, does not have the authority to criticize religion. Myers suggests this is like telling the child in Andersen's fable to study haute couture before judging if the emperor is naked.

[edit] Pharyngula

Pharyngula, named for the pharyngula[wp] stage of embryonic development, gets roughly 2.5 million hits each month. The blog focuses on many topics: biology, evolution, creationism, atheism, liberal politics, squid porn,[8], non-squid cephalopod porn, the shortcomings of Intelligent Design, conservative wackos, squid porn, etc.

Pharyngula was initially an independent blog, but it was, for a time, hosted at ScienceBlogs, Seed Magazine's blogging collective, where it was one of the major generators of traffic for the site. Around 2011, ScienceBlogs started to decline and was acquired by National Geographic, leading to some concerns that the more uptight nature of NatGeo will interfere with Pharyngula's tone and content.[citation needed] As a result, PZ Myers and Ed Brayton founded their own blogging collective, Freethought Blogs, and cloned both their blogs there. The FtB version of Pharyngula remains Myers' main blog, while only science-related material is posted to the old blog at ScienceBlogs.[9]

[edit] The Eternal Thread and its descendants

The Eternal Thread—also known as the 'undying thread', 'the undead thread', 'The Thread', 'the endless thread', and by some "90% of my social life" (sadly)—is an ongoing thread at Pharyngula. Myers usually opens a new subthread with a YouTube clip from a cheesy, B sci-fi movie. The thread began when a creationist by the name of Alan Clarke debated the then recent discovery of Titanoboa, a large, prehistoric extinct snake[10]. He claimed the Bible made mention of this snake, and his argument generated a prolonged discussion. Eventually Myers decided to close the thread and ended it with the remark: "Alan Clarke, you are an idiot. Yes, this thread is dead."

Clarke wanted to continue the conversation, and hijacked a thread about the movie Watchmen[11] to debate the geological evidence indicating a recent global flood. Myers would often get annoyed with Clarke and another creationist who was supporting Clarke and would threaten to ban them. While all agreed that they were silly, many enjoyed the informative and entertaining responses they inspired. The term 'collateral wisdom' was used to describe it.

Clarke's ultimate banning however was a result a comment he made about his desires for a teenage girl[12] This admission of pedophilia was too much, and users called for his immediate banning. Myers obliged them.

The discussion continued even after Clarke was banned. Pharyngulites actively tried to recruit other creationists to the thread. At one point they settled for a new ager high on cannabis, LSD and an inflated sense of his own intellectualism.

The Thread however became more of a social club for Pharyngulites, in which anything can be discussed. Examples of regular topics of discussion: bacon, lesbians, odd pieces of news, politics, bad jokes, an obsession over the life of a certain Oxford undergrad, how a fight between Buffy and River Tam would go down, etc.

In summer 2012, the original name was abandoned in favor of The Lounge, which is a heavily moderated thread for any topic, as was The Eternal Thread. This was accompanied by rebranding The Zombie Thread, a far less heavily moderated recurring thread where users prohibited from posting in other threads can post, as The Thunderdome, and bringing back The Dungeon, a list of banned users.

[edit] Pharyngula Wiki

Pharyngulites have started their own wiki, hosted on Wikia,[13] mostly covering the various ideas and memes that get repeated on the blog and comments, from "Cupcake Bingo" to "Goats on Fire". But it also covers much of the same science and pseudoscience remit as RationalWiki, with articles on New Atheists and peer review, plus such delicacies as PZ's distaste for libertarians and love of evo-devo. It's not terribly active.

[edit] Expelled

See the main article on this topic: PZ Myers "expelled" from screening of Expelled

In a bizarre mixup, Myers was prevented from attending a screening of the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed while Richard Dawkins, standing next to him, was allowed to attend. After a quick blog post to mention how funny it was that Dawkins wasn't blacklisted from seeing the film (despite being the better-known critic of creationism and religion) the two discussed the movie in an informal manner online.[14]

[edit] Crackergate

On July 24, 2008, PZ desecrated a consecrated host, along with pages from the Koran, Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion, coffee grounds and banana peel. This was in response to the assault on Webster Cook, a student who kept a host in his mouth to show to a friend later, rather than eating it at a celebration of the eucharist at the University of Central Florida, and (according to some) an attempt to draw fire. In that, it succeeded, sparking a feud between Dr. Myers and William Donohue. (See also Iconoclasm.) The extent of the “hysterical” reaction surprised Myers who had hoped intelligent Catholics would see Jesus was in no way harmed and Myers feels those who hold supposed sacred objects dear can endanger the liberty of other people.[15]

[edit] John Kwok

In March 2009, the professional troll John Kwok stalked PZ. After Kwok posted many annoying, name-dropping comments on his site, Myers made him compete against other trolls in a mock game show. The losers, determined by commenter vote, would be banned from the site. At one point Kwok threatened Myers with Facebook retaliation:

@ PZ - If I am bounced off Pharyngula, then you may find yourself losing some friends over at Facebook.
[16]

After this lame threat there was a huge upswing in the Kwok vote and the game ended with Kwok being banned from the site. Kwok then started an email campaign to try to coerce PZ into buying Kwok an expensive camera (specifically, a used Leica M7 rangefinder) to avoid a lawsuit against Myers for "stalking" Kwok (the irony of which was not lost on Pharyngulites), simply for posting his emails to Myers's website.[17] Kwok has also threatened to include Myers as an Irish terrorist in a novel Kwok is working on, and to email CAIR to put a fatwa on PZ.

Kwok was not the only problematic Internet troll. Dennis Markuze (aka David Mabus) stalked and repeatedly threatened Myers and other prominent atheists; an online petition that Myers organised probably helped get Mabus arrested. [18] [19][20]

[edit] Politics

Myers is an outspoken liberal.

He argues that global warming denialism is comparable to evolution denialism. [21]

Myers takes a feminist stance in debates about the role of women in the skepticism movement, and advocated for a woman who complained about sexual abuse and gender discrimination at the James Randi Educational Foundation.[22] [23] Myers claims some people in the skeptical movement are guilty of covering up the sexual exploitation of women. [24]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

  • Pharyngula on Freethought Blogs, the latest incarnation
  • Pharyngula, the older ScienceBlogs incarnation, now running in parallel as a "lite" version. After the transfer to National Geographic the comments on many older posts seem to be missing.
  • About PZ (The Mad Scientist. Biologist and blogger PZ Myers speaks out on the war on science, intelligent design, and the sexual habits of giant squid)
  • Pharyngula Wiki.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Oh, no! The New Atheists are getting attacked again! (Ellipses are in the original quote, rather than a redaction of part of it).
  2. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=any&as_sauthors=%22PZ+Myers%22&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23
  3. The Happy Atheist
  4. An atheist’s guide to the good life Myers explains how he makes ethical decisions.
  5. Comes a Horseman, Myers' acceptance speech for the Humanist of the Year award for 2009.
  6. Nice Article on Atheism+ in the New Statesman Myers, PZ. Pharyngula, 23 Aug. 2012.
  7. PZ Myers, "The Courtier's Reply", Pharyngula, 24 December 2006.
  8. Tentacle Sex
  9. Welcome to the new digs!, PZ Myers welcome message on the new incarnation of Pharyngula
  10. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/02/titanoboa.php
  11. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/02/science_of_watchmen.php
  12. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/06/bride_of_the_thread_that_will.php#comment-1712915
  13. It’s a lens to concentrate the weirdness
  14. PZ Myers: Expelled from Expelled! - Richard Dawkins
  15. Setting the Koran on fire, vs. setting personal liberties on fire
  16. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/survivor_pharyngula_day_one.php#comment-1473866
  17. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/john_kwok_sends_email.php
  18. Case Study: How a notorious spammer was brought down via Twitter
  19. VICTORY! Montreal Police Begin Formal Investigation of “David Mabus”
  20. Montreal police investigating alleged threats made against atheists
  21. Prime snide kookrant
  22. I’m ready to be divisive
  23. Carrie Poppy tells all
  24. Painfully close to the truth
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