Lying for Reason and Science

[sifaka]

Funny... Timonen finally got sacked because he mixed funds that should have gone to the foundations with his own money... and that that character does the same, apparently with the blessings of RD? (or at least his absentminded assent, which is bad since after the first scalding he should be shy of that kind of shenanigans)

Indeed, it seems that Dawkins has a knack for choosing his staff....

LP, as a past donor to RDF, thank you for this information. I won't be a future donor.

[JimC]

I think this is a good place to vent your feelings on this, but it's like the Zimmerman thread, only two or three read these anymore. I only open the thread to see if you changed your avatar.

I agree with Tero - if this thread helps you vent your feelings about the possibly duplicitous and most probably hypocritical conduct of others, go for it!

[Robert_S]

I don't think this is a good place for uncensored venting. It is public.

Although this forum is relatively obscure most of the time, you can occasionally hear the fart of a something or other from inside of a different thing, which has been shoved up something else entirely. You can occasionally hear these things all the way to the pages of The Guardian. I have a feeling that venting and presenting evidence of shenanigans ought to be two distinct things. Or at least do the public part of the latter thing away from the former.

[Calilasseia]

Well, if LP can find out various, shall we say, interesting things (such as has already been presented here) with a few mouse clicks, I somehow don't think professional journalists at The Guardian will have much trouble finding out those same interesting things, and probably a lot more interesting things LP hasn't found out, without having to sniff around here. If la merde is going to hit the fan big time, I suspect our assorted musings will play a minor role at best therein, if said merde is of a particularly pungent and steaming variety.

Furthermore, if LP does happen to alight upon an epic dungheap, she'll probably keep that away from here, not least because said epic dungheap would probably involve sub judice issues once uncovered, and I think LP has more sense than to put the forum at risk by dumping material of that grade in here. For one thing, I think she's aware that her popularity here would drop somewhere below that of rabies, if she posted material here that would more properly be kept out of the forums and instead forwarded to the heavy metal brigade of the Serious Fraud Squad. Not least because the boys in blue are a bit sensitive about such matters, ever since the hoo-ha over Milly Dowling's phone being hacked blew up, and would probably arrange for the forum admins to experience some heavy-duty unpleasantness as a consequence. Policemen tend to have ways of making their displeasure felt very keenly if they find out that one of their criminal investigations has been jeopardised by the public release of material that properly belongs in the hands of the CPS.

Of course, at the moment, we're just looking at the spectacle of RD looking like a prize prat, courtesy of his woeful staff choices, and his tendency to assume that those around him are behaving in accordance with the unspoken and unwritten rules of Oxford dons. He needs to wake up to the fact that without proper vetting procedures in place, without proper internal policies designed to keep financial transactions robustly on the right side of legislation, and without one or two other measures in place, the scene is set for the development of a serious clusterfuck, and as the man at the top, the buck will stop with him.

At the very least, RD should be aware of basic political realities, namely, that if he screws up, he hands on a plate ammunition to lying scumbags like Ken Ham, who would be frotting their ideological cocks until they dropped off, if RD was found to be up to his neck in the sort of monkey business that has previously been the exclusive preserve of the likes of Cunt Hovind. Having seen first hand the manner in which creotard pond life are prepared to traduce the reputations of individuals with no skeletons in their closets, simply because the work of those individuals happens to stick the middle finger to their mythology-based masturbation fantasies (see the hatchet job Areswater in Genesis tried to pull on Willard Libby, for example, which I exposed over at RDF), and indeed having seen this sort of crap being hurled in RD's direction before the forum meltdown (courtesy of some suitably oleaginous ad hominems erected by professional liar for doctrine Jonathan Sarfati of the Duplicity Institute), I find it disappointing in the extreme that RD is apparently blissfully unaware of this. For crying out loud, the piece I've just linked to is on the archive of his own forum - didn't he bother to read any of the handiwork of the unpaid volunteers who were tirelessly dismantling creationist lies and bullshit on his forum? Or did he just assume that viewing the actual hand to hand combat was something for the lower orders, whilst he sat comfortably back at General Staff HQ?

If RD isn't aware of the fact that his enemies are fighting an all-out, dirty ideological war, to seize hegemony for their masturbation fantasy of a doctrine at all costs, and are prepared to lie, cheat, and quite possibly in some cases, even kill to secure their objectives, then he needs to step aside for someone who does realise the nature of the ideological war being fought by the stormtroopers for doctrine, and the degree to which they will connive, scheme and conspire to rid themselves of inconvenient obstacles.

[lordpasternack]

Cali - with respect - I think Richard first has to come to terms with the fact that some of his own staff are willing to lie and cheat to secure their own objectives - and recognise the degree to which they will connive, scheme and conspire to rid themselves of inconvenient obstacles.

And before he gets to that stage, I'd say he probably has to start by going cold turkey on some blowjobs - and stop employing people he's fucking, and fucking people he's employing - and stop discussing allegedly dubious dealings to do with his charity's business, behind closed doors via cheesy pseudonyms and 'secret email accounts', while having the gall to lecture us hoi polloi about jeopardising his charitable status.

And yeah - he really, really has to stop walking around with a sign stamped on his forehead reading: "GULLIBLE, NEGLIGENT, MANIPULABLE AND NAIVE BASTARD: PLEASE TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF ME."

[lordpasternack]

Or more succinctly...

[Robert_S]

Don't traumatize the man! Remember what happened last time he was on South Park? :shudder:

[Pappa]

Don't traumatize the man! Remember what happened last time he was on South Park? :shudder:

They got the accent wrong?

[Robert_S]

Don't traumatize the man! Remember what happened last time he was on South Park? :shudder:

They got the accent wrong?

that too!

[Calilasseia]

Cali - with respect - I think Richard first has to come to terms with the fact that some of his own staff are willing to lie and cheat to secure their own objectives - and recognise the degree to which they will connive, scheme and conspire to rid themselves of inconvenient obstacles.

This comes under the heading of "proper vetting procedures" I mentioned above. Namely, put in place ways of minimising the chance of employing such people in the first place.

And before he gets to that stage, I'd say he probably has to start by going cold turkey on some blowjobs - and stop employing people he's fucking, and fucking people he's employing - and stop discussing allegedly dubious dealings to do with his charity's business, behind closed doors via cheesy pseudonyms and 'secret email accounts', while having the gall to lecture us hoi polloi about jeopardising his charitable status.

This comes under the heading of "one or two other measures" I mentioned above.

And yeah - he really, really has to stop walking around with a sign stamped on his forehead reading: "GULLIBLE, NEGLIGENT, MANIPULABLE AND NAIVE BASTARD: PLEASE TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF ME."

I'm almost tempted to think that some of the people he's hired are secretly working for the opposition. [/tinfiol hat mode]

[lordpasternack]

I'm almost tempted to think that some of the people he's hired are secretly working for the opposition. [/tinfoil hat mode]

Heh… The funny thing is - in the past, Richard has confessed in as many words that he is "easy to take for a ride"… ( - but well, he's apparently easy that way, too, anyway.)

One then wonders whether someone who is self-confessedly gullible and easily manipulated, really is the right sort of person to be at the top of an organisation purportedly devoted to promoting reason and critical thinking. In what way can a credulous, negligent and naive fool provide good leadership to such an organisation - except to serve as a shining example in a "watch this man, and learn from his mistakes", sort of way?

[Svartalf]

And this is coming from people who were willing to feel legitimately aggrieved at being rick-rolled and lied to during forumgate, so willing to feel pissed off at OBC's nonsense back at TAF, and quite willing to indulge the schadenfreude when it was announced that Timonen was being sued back in the day...

The difference is that we decided that RD was a lost cause and a failure as a poster boy for rationalism. His apparently considerable mental powers are misused, he's such an ivory tower stuffed shirt that he's got no idea of how to make his foundation idea work (or how to make sure the people he delegates to make it work properly)... we were angry at his conduct during the forumgate, then that anger passed, and we felt contempt and disinterest.

He and that bitch deserve each other, it's not my money (well, beside the sum I poured into a copy of the God Delusion, a book I find singularly flawed).

I don't know what your stakes in that game are, but I feel you are "throwing good money after bad" as it were, and devoting time, attention and genuine care to things that deserve them not. Then again, it's your life, I hope you feel fulfilled.