In Defense of Jim Manzi against Jerry Coyne
Jerry Coyne has, in his words, “deigned” to respond to my post criticizing an assertion he made in his TNR review of Robert Wright’s book, Evolution of God. In this response, Professor Coyne calls me a “flea”; makes fun of my last name by crossing out “Ponzi” and replacing it with “Manzi”; reviews the resume of another person, and asserts that it is mine; and describes my post as “tedious”, while responding to it with 1,500 words. His tone, in other words, is somewhat intemperate. I have found it to be an almost universal rule of debates and negotiations that when the guy on the other side of the table starts calling you names, it means that he doesn’t have much of an argument. I certainly think so in this case.
Before getting to what I see as the meat of our disagreement, I should clear up what I believe to be a couple of material misrepresentations of my post by Professor Coyne.
Read the rest over at The Daily Dish.
I’d actually read the TNR review after picking up but before reading the book. I was a bit worried I’d made a mistake, I’m less worried now. Thanks!
— Greg Sanders · Sep 8, 01:20 AM · #
Jim, I think you’ve done yourself something of a disservice by titling your original post “In defense of Robert Wright”. You’re less defending Wright, it seems, and making a focused point about the logical relationship between evolutionary theory and theism.
Coyne’s review gives a series of arguments largely unrelated to whether evolution strictly disproves the existence of God (of course it doesn’t). I see two options: either Coyne is an extremely mendacious reader or Wright’s book is an absolute waste of time.
Shame that you’re not the founder of Lotus. I’m always on the lookout to add to the number of people with wikipedia pages with whom I’ve communicated.
Now for a claim I can’t really substantiate: I think by focusing on the questions of what logically implies what, you’re ruling out a lot of the truly interesting questions about scientific practice and scientific rationality that arise. Too much Popper would be my armchair diagnosis (though I admit I’m no philosopher of science).
— Justin · Sep 8, 02:14 AM · #
Jim,
Thanks for fighting the good fight. I think the view that Darwin has made orthodox theism untenable is pretty much indefensible. It would be great to see someone put the argument from Darwinian evolution to not-orthodox theism in premise and conclusion form.
John
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