Fox News humanists

My issue with Fox News isn't one of philosophy. I don't mind that Fox News is conservative, or that it wants to get its conservative point of view out to the public. The problem with Fox News is that it uses dishonest tactics. For example, it frames issues in misleading ways, and it distorts the statements of its opponents. Fox News appears to care more about winning than about the truth.

Similarly, my issue with "Fox News humanists" like Greg Epstein and Duncan Crary isn't philosophical. It couldn't be -- we share the same philosophy. The problem with Fox News humanists is that they use dishonest tactics. They frame issues in misleading ways, and they distort the statements of their opponents. Fox News humanists appear to care more about winning than about the truth.

I will support these claims and the characterization "Fox News humanists" with examples.

They frame issues in misleading ways. Two examples are instructive here. The first and clearest example of a truth-free approach to issue-framing is, of course, the press release that started this whole brouhaha:

A group of renowned Humanists, atheists and agnostics will gather at Harvard in April, to take on an unlikely opponent: atheist "fundamentalists."

The framing is "reason vs. dogma." Even though Epstein, by his own admission, does not believe that his "unlikely opponent[s]" are actually dogmatic. If it is possible to frame an issue more dishonestly, I don't know how it would be done. And, as Fox News would do, Epstein has doggedly stood by his dishonest approach and seems to intend to keep on using it.

A second example of misleading framing is in the response to the criticism Epstein received. The central objection raised against Epstein was not that he shouldn't be criticizing atheists at all. However, Epstein has framed this dispute as if that is what this is about. He wants to promote the false notion that his critics are angry that Epstein criticized them at all.

And Duncan Crary has helped him out with this framing. Crary asked me in an email interview if I thought a "softer" approach to activism than mine had value. I responded, basically, Yes, it does have value, and I have no intention of criticizing people just for taking a softer approach.

Crary's boneheaded takeaway from this: Brian Flemming says Epstein should not have criticized atheists at all. That distortion is in the basic structure of his article, where he directly follows a statement by Epstein criticizing Harris and Dawkins with my statement that "I don't go out of my way to attack" other atheists, a statement that was made in a different context. This juxtaposition helped Crary deliver the false impression --promoted throughout his article -- that Epstein's opponents have an issue with criticism itself, which we do not.

But "Should atheists have the right to criticize other atheists?" is the framing that the Fox News humanists prefer, so that's the framing they pursue, no matter what the facts are.

They distort the statements of opponents. Greg Epstein engages in so much distortion that I have not been able to keep up. For example, back on March 31, I wrote this:

I understand that Epstein has a desire for an argument about the bluntness of Dawkins and Harris. Fair enough. But if his idea of launching that argument is throwing the other side on the defensive by employing the term "fundamentalist" (ironically or otherwise), then he doesn't deserve to be taken seriously. It would be like Dawkins and Harris trying to open a dialogue with Epstein by calling him an "appeaser."

In his response, Greg Epstein characterized my comments in this novel way (emphasis mine):

I don’t have a problem with "rocking the boat." I don’t have a problem with us speaking out and telling the world what we don’t believe in, and why. I encourage it. I don’t even have a problem with all the people who are blogging about me right now and slamming me as some kind of representative of “appeasement,” as Brian Flemming put it.

It's rather obvious that by equating "fundamentalist" and "appeaser," I was saying that "appeaser" was a false characterization -- an example of the kind of accusation that shouldn't be leveled. Yet, if you had only relied on Greg Epstein's characterization, you would think that I (and a gang of others) had in fact directly accused him of "appeasement."

It is not hard to imagine Fox News doing something similar to mischaracterize a statement by its ideological opponents.

They appear to care more about winning than about the truth. If Epstein was not trying to win a cheap advantage at the expense of the truth, he would not have invited the media to allege that Dawkins and Harris are intolerant and dogmatic. If Epstein believed that characterization about Dawkins and Harris, that would be a different matter. It would be a sincere difference of opinion.

But Epstein doesn't believe that allegation. He just wanted it to be made in the media, even though it is false. I think it's safe to say that this behavior demonstrates a desire to win even at the expense of the truth. And certainly Epstein's apparently steadfast intention to keep promoting this false characterization indicates that the original offense was no honest mistake.

Why have I focused on this issue so much? Because I think it should matter to our side whether things are true or false. When it comes down to it, that's what we're about. We don't believe in supernatural tales specifically because we care whether things are true or false. We care enough to investigate. We care enough to form an accurate understanding of our opponents' point of view. We care enough to represent every fact -- including ones that may be inconvenient to us -- in an honest manner.

Because our ultimate goal is the truth, not victory.

Greg Epstein abandoned this principle. And given his position of influence, that matters.