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Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne is getting mugged by reality

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Again, it would seem. Yes, the author of Why Evolution Is True has enemies. No, they are not us:

In this case it’s the hostage situation in Texas, where a devout Pakistani/British Muslim named Malik Faisal Akdram took four worshipers (including a rabbi) hostage in a synagogue. …

And, like Weiss (click to read below; I think it’s free [as of 5:00 pm PST yes]), I’m angrier than I am about previous attacks on Jews, though less sorrowful since nobody was murdered. Why? Because I watched the media in real time (except for the right-wing media) do its best to whitewash the story, arguing that it was not an attack targeting Jews (sure—the guy was walking down the street in a small Texas town with guns and saw a synagogue and thought, “Hey, that’s a good place to take hostages!”), and it was not motivated by anti-Semitism. Even some on this site have tried to exculpate the left-wing media for its timorous coverage of the situation, even though papers like the New York Times have a long history of distorting the news to favor Palestinians and to demonize Jews.

And even Joe Biden, at the time when his own National Security advisor said that the attack was one of terrorism and anti-Semitism, was arguing, despite all the known facts, that there was no evidence for anti-Semitism

Jerry Coyne, “Bari is back: Weiss on the Texas hostage situation and what the reaction means” at Why Evolution Is True (January 17, 2022)

But Jerry, you helped build this world. You could also help take it down and build a better one.

All: Unplug the TV. Those people can no longer afford to be friends of truth in any meaningful sense. That includes anything to do with evolution controversies.

Comments
Sev, and clear and present dangers of a given time need to be faced. Which, was my explicit point. Nowhere have I argued for a golden age, not since Nimrod the first strong man empire builder. KFkairosfocus
January 20, 2022
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There have always been clear and present dangers. We delude ourselves if we think that there was some "golden age" in the past when there wasn't.Seversky
January 19, 2022
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Sev, nope, but there is a clear and present danger that needs to be faced. KFkairosfocus
January 19, 2022
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seversky:
Everything that’s wrong with the world is caused by the leftist, progressive, socialist, atheist, materialist, Darwinist mainstream media.
Everything that’s wrong with the world is caused by the leftist, progressive, socialist, atheist, materialist, Darwinist and the mainstream media. Fixed it for you.ET
January 19, 2022
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Don't pull your punches. Everything that's wrong with the world is caused by the leftist, progressive, socialist, atheist, materialist, Darwinist mainstream media. You are lucky to have WND and Fox News.Seversky
January 19, 2022
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"Jerry Coyne Is Getting Mugged By Reality" But how can something that, by Coyne's own admission, does not exist in reality, (namely Jerry Coyne himself), possibly be 'mugged by reality'?
The Confidence of Jerry Coyne - Ross Douthat - Jan. 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) Prometheus cannot be at once unbound and unreal; the human will cannot be simultaneously triumphant and imaginary. https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/
bornagain77
January 18, 2022
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Yes indeed. I now blame the mainstream media for just about everything that is wrong with the world.Fasteddious
January 18, 2022
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Polistra, Yep. Everyone who lived here in the area when and where the Branch Davidian siege occurred knows the news about it was entirely, 100% wrong. I was interviewed on PBS McNeil-Lehrer news hour at the time about the event which was still unfolding, and they deceptively edited my comments to make it sound as if I was saying exactly the opposite of what I said.William J Murray
January 18, 2022
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There's no such thing as "known facts" in the news. Long before media bias became a famous concept, everyone KNEW that the newspapers got EVERYTHING wrong. Anyone who has been involved in a real news story of any scale has seen that the media account is intentionally wrong every time.polistra
January 17, 2022
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