Coyne vs. Nahmias

Jerry Coyne has posted a criticism of Eddy's recent attempts to undermine the arguments put forward by scientific skeptics about free will like Coyne, Harris, and others.  I encourage everyone to take a look and chime in.  Both Tom Clark and I have added our two cents to the mix (although my comments have not yet been approved).  It would be helpful if others took a few minutes to add theirs!  

Comments

[Eddy Nahmias]

Thanks for the heads up Thomas--I would not have noticed as I don't check his blog regularly. I'll have to think about how best to respond, if at all. He's a bit vitriolic.
--Apostle Namiah

[Tamler Sommers]

It's an interesting meta-question whether it's worth the time and energy responding to such a preposterous post. Thomas's take-down in the comments was pretty decisive and Coyne didn't seem like he budged an inch. It reminds me of people like Sarah Palin--all Coyne hears from his followers is how brave he is cutting through all the philosophical gobblygook (i.e. sophisticated analysis)and telling the "truth" about free will to people who are afraid of it.

By the way: We talk about Coyne and Harris quite a bit on the first episode of our podcast--we're not fans.

[V. Alan White]

I've made two posts there. The first showed why it is wrong to think that belief in dualism is either necessary or sufficient for incompatibilism. The second tried to criticize bloggers for continuing in their insistence that compatibilism entails the belief in determinism. (E.g., they think all compatibilists adhere to PvI's Ethics form of that view, ignoring the Mind views.) I've been ignored of course. I'm done with that crap.

[Neil Levy]

The only philosophically interesting questions here concern the epistemology of blogging. Philosophy blogs work (when they do) by tightly constraining the range of people who can comment (this can be done without actually having moderation, simply by making the discussion technical). Signed comments help too. When you relax these constraints, it seems that the blog usually becomes absolutely useless, and the kind of arrogance and pigheadedness that Coyne exhibits here is encouraged. However there are counterexamples: Crooked Timber is one. Perhaps it helps if people keep strictly to topics in which they are knowledgeable. In any case, I think it is not useful for anyone to try to engage with these people. There is an empirical literature suggesting that it will actually increase their confidence in their nonsense.