Schism time

In what lazy journalists will refer to as another schism in the atheist community, Richard Dawkins has been on the receiving end of criticism for his botched handling of a forum "migration" which has left a membership some 85000 strong homeless and upset. (An excellent summary of the situation is posted at: http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/locked-entry-will-open-soon/)

Basically, his system admin team lied repeatedly to the moderatorship of the largest atheist community on the Internet regarding a transition to a new format, and when the mods took issue, the admins maliciously deleted accounts, prevented communication between the members, and generally destroyed said forum. Some tens of thousands of posts have now been lost to the Internet ether, posts which contained sound scientific knowledge, point by point deconstructions of religitarded bile, and a general love and appreciation of the very ideals which Dawkins has become famous for. It was, in short, a travesty.

There's far more to it than that, of course, but my concern is not with the forum but with Mr. Dawkins' reaction TO the situation. In a quote-mine filled "screed," the professor bemoaned the behavior of the upset denizens of his forum, utterly ignoring the source *of* the grievances - the malicious acts of his system admins - through ignorance that seemingly bordered on willful.

Yes, argument from tone. From Richard Dawkins. Wow.

It's frustrating and disheartening, yes, for a personal hero to commit such an egregious faux pas, but at the same time it's comforting to realize that he is above all else, human, and prone to the same errors of judgment as the rest of us. Our "leaders" are not above reproach, and it's to the strength of the skeptical community that no punches were pulled in his condemnation.

I hope that Richard Dawkins makes amends with the very community which he helped to foster, and I look forward to the next few days to see where he goes from here. Perhaps I'm naive, but I'm not quite willing to write off the man and his accomplishments quite yet.