It seems hard to believe, but there are incorrigible admirers of PZ Myers who still refuse to accept that
The Happy Atheist is little more than a copy-pasted pile of old blog posts. Like creationists who cannot be swayed to change their mind by even the most wonderful fossils, some Peezists will simply deny that the reviews are sufficient evidence.
They demand to be shown actual textual comparisons.
Isn't it ironic that those who like to complain the most about hyperscepticism engage in such genuine hyperscepticism? Nevertheless, it is perhaps useful to have some actual quotes from both the book chapters and the corresponding blog posts. This may provide a convenient reference the next time one of those denialists shows up in a commenting thread.
Now, of course, I didn't waste any money on Myers's rubbish, nor could I find a pirated copy on the web. So we will have to make do with what's visible on
Amazon preview.
But first, let's have a look at the Acknowledgements, because in the light of recent developments in Myers's relation with Richard Dawkins, the following quote is rather amusing.
For inspiration, I must express appreciation to those notorious atheists who blew open the doors for public recognition of a self-respecting community of the godless: Richard Dawkins, Susan Jacoby, Daniel Dennett, David Silverman, and so many others. Loud and proud, people!
Next we go to page 31. We find a chapter called
It's So Easy to Be Outraged!
It begins as follows:
Sacrilege can get people killed. It can cause riots and economic mayhem. People die when their sense of propriety is offended. And whose fault is that?
You know what I’m talking about. Almost all religions have odd proscriptions that their followers take with extraordinary seriousness— they are markers for who belongs in the group and who is the outsider. Violate them, especially knowingly, immediately marks you as The Enemy and justifies taking any action against you.
Now look up a blog post, titled
Sunday Sacrilege: Flaunting our disobedience.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010 ... nting-our/
Sacrilege can get people killed. It can cause riots and economic mayhem. People die over a sense of offended propriety. And whose fault is that?
You know what I’m talking about. Almost all religions have odd proscriptions that are taken with extraordinary seriousness by their followers — they are markers for who belongs in the group, and who is the outsider. Violate them, especially if you knowingly violate them, immediately marks you as The Enemy, and justifies taking any action against you.
Content-wise this happens to be a rather interesting quote. The second paragraph is a decent description of the tribal behaviour of the SJWs, with their signalling and stock phrases that separate the group members from the outsiders. There are parallels with the behaviour of a troop of baboons too.
What we also observe is some pretty shitty writing, especially that last sentence, which is slightly different in the two versions. The book has: "Violate them, especially knowingly, immediately marks you as The Enemy and justifies taking any action against you," whereas the original blog post has: "Violate them, especially if you knowingly violate them, immediately marks you as The Enemy, and justifies taking any action against you. " Yes, the original was worse, but the book version is still poorly written ("Violate them (...) marks you").
In any case, it is blindingly obvious that this book chapter, in spite of its new title, is just a copy-pasted blog post.
"But, but, but...," our Myers fanboy protests, "there's a chapter in the book called
The Great Desecration, and I compared it with the blog post of the same name and it is, like, totes different. Gotcha, evil lying Slymepitter! You people cannot be trusted."
O, really? Let's see. Yes, the first few pages are different, because in them Myers recounts the history behind that blog post. But the new content soon runs out, and Myers is seen hitting the copy-paste keys again hard. This time it's even worse than in the chapter we just examined, because the text is not
almost identical, it is
exactly identical.
This is from the book:
Ah, what a beautiful illustration of the complete open mind — utterly undiscriminating, lacking any criteria for acceptance, simply blissfully and uncritically according every idea his full respect. Although, of course, it’s also a lie: Isaac does not regard every idea as equally deserving, since he clearly considers the atheist idea that the sacraments of his faith are empty foolishness to be an outrage. Rather, what he loves is the idea that everyone else must respect his beliefs, no matter what they are, and that any disagreement is an insult. This is exactly the kind of uncritical, unskeptical, nonjudgmental idiocy all religions seek to promulgate, because they all know that if we tore off the blinders of tradition and artificiality and mindless etiquette, we’d see right through their lies. Respect every idea! Especially mine! And if you find the idea that this cracker is a god stupid, why, you must be disrespectful and no gentleman!
And this is from the blog post:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... secration/
Ah, what a beautiful illustration of the complete open mind — utterly undiscriminating, lacking any criteria for acceptance, simply blissfully and uncritically according every idea his full respect. Although, of course, it’s also a lie: Isaac does not regard every idea as equally deserving, since he clearly considers the atheist idea that the sacraments of his faith are empty foolishness to be an outrage. Rather, what he loves is the idea that everyone else must respect his beliefs, no matter what they are, and that any disagreement is an insult. This is exactly the kind of uncritical, unskeptical, nonjudgmental idiocy all religions seek to promulgate, because they all know that if we tore off the blinders of tradition and artificiality and mindless etiquette, we’d see right through their lies. Respect every idea! Especially mine! And if you find the idea that this cracker is a god stupid, why, you must be disrespectful and no gentleman!
Spot the differences! No, don't bother. There aren't any. This is just copying-and-pasting at its laziest.
Anyone who still believes that THA is not a self-plagiarized collection of blog posts is deluded and in need of help.