{"id":3493,"date":"2015-02-17T20:44:52","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T03:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/?p=3493"},"modified":"2015-02-19T19:00:08","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T02:00:08","slug":"the-rise-of-ad-hominem-and-the-decline-of-everything-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/the-rise-of-ad-hominem-and-the-decline-of-everything-else\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of Ad Hominem (and the decline of everything else.)"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Title gleefully lifted with apologies to Hugh Nibley.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Sadly, the Mormon faith has become a place that incentivizes the survival of the least fit. Since strict obedience is demanded and harshly enforced, only the least talented, least articulate, least nuanced thinkers, least likely to take a stand against abuse, and the least courageous people thrive in the Church today. <\/p>\n

– Kate Kelly, former Mormon and current leader of Ordain Women, writing for the UK Guardian<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So there! <\/p>\n

As one of the untalented, inarticulate, nuance-free, abuse-tolerating cowards who remains in the church, I obviously have no standing to answer this charge. Which, ultimately, is Kelly’s purpose here. Once you accept her premise that all Mormons are knuckle-dragging Neanderthals, you can save yourself the aggravation of listening to anything they have to say. <\/p>\n

If not \u201cskeptic,\u201d what should the opponents of climate science be called? … The dissenting scientists have been called \u201clukewarmers\u201d by some… It is perhaps no surprise that many environmentalists have started to call them deniers. <\/p>\n

The scientific dissenters object to that word, claiming it is a deliberate attempt to link them to Holocaust denial. Some academics sharply dispute having any such intention, but others have started using the slightly softer word \u201cdenialist\u201d to make the same point without stirring complaints about evoking the Holocaust.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The above is from a column in the New York Times<\/a> devoted to finding the appropriate ad hominem label with which to utterly dismiss people who notice the earth hasn’t warmed at all in 17 years and that all the alarmist climate models have been wrong by a factor of 300%, and so maybe a regressive tax on the poorest of the poor that even alarmists admit won’t lower global temperatures might not be a good idea. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written about Shakespeare denialism many times before… and I\u2019ve started to feel like I\u2019m running around in circles while simultaneously banging my head against a wall (do not try this)… When the media use false balance in stories about the \u201cauthorship question,\u201d they also bestow undue legitimacy on a discredited notion. Shakespeare deniers have received sympathetic treatment in surprising places for a long time.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A recent article on skeptic.com<\/a> from an orthodox Shakespeare scholar that maintains the best way to deal with the myriad of problems with the conventional wisdom about Shakespeare’s authorship is to call those who ask questions “deniers” and refuse to create the “false balance” that comes from letting them speak. <\/p>\n

“And lest we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”<\/p>\n

– President Obama, February 10, 2015<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rather than be concerned about the barbarism being perpetrated in 2015 in the name of Islam, Christians should recognize they are disqualified from passing judgment because other Christians committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ a thousand years ago. <\/p>\n

To sum up:<\/p>\n

Contrary opinions no longer need to be refuted; they only need to be disqualified. And disqualifying opinions these days is remarkably easy to do.<\/p>\n

Heaven help us all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Titlegleefully lifted with apologies to Hugh Nibley.<\/a>)

Sadly, the Mormon faith has become a place that incentivizes the survival of the least fit. Since strict obedience is demanded and harshly enforced, only the least talented, least articulate, least nuanced thinkers, least likely to take a stand against abuse, and the least courageous people thrive <\/blockquote> ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3493"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3498,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3493\/revisions\/3498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}