SeN isn’t obsessed with Christopher Hitchens

[drumdude]

It only mentions Hitchen’s name at the end of almost every single blog post. A running joke that wore thin the second time he used it.

DP: By the way, one of the very many egregious factual errors in the late Christopher Hitchens’s regrettable 2008 bestseller god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is his supposition that Sir Fred Hoyle was a religious believer whose famous resistance to Big-Bang cosmology was motivated by his (Hoyle’s) anti-scientific theistic creationism.

Your obsession with Hitchens's book is fascinating. Every time I come across you telling us what is written in this National Book Award Finalist, I check the reference. Unsurprisingly, Hitchens does not claim Hoyle believed in "anti-scientific theistic creationism," much less claim that this was his motivation for his resistance to Big-Bang cosmology.

In the three sentences that mention Hoyle (two of which are parenthetic), he makes the following claims:

1- Along with Sir Isaac Newton, Doyle is an example of a scientist that has "sometimes been religious, or at any rate superstitious."
1- Hoyle was an ex-agnostic
2- Hoyle became infatuated with the idea of "design"
3- Hoyle was a Cambridge astronomer
4- Hoyle coined the term "big bang"
5- Hoyle came up with the term "big bang" as an attempt to discredit the idea

That is literally everything the book says or implies about Hoyle. In context, Hitchens's point is that the theories of science work "while dropping (or even, if you insist, retaining) the idea of a god. But in either case, the theory works without that assumption. You can believe in a divine mover if you choose, but it makes no difference at all, and belief among astronomers and physicists has become private and fairly rare."

It's an excellent point, and I can see why someone would have to make up egregious factual errors about what the book actually says in order to discredit it.

BS: "Your obsession with Hitchens's book is fascinating."

I have no such obsession, BS. I simply regard it as a terrible book by a witty fellow (whom I once met and whom I actually rather liked, in a way) that provides a very easy target by which to make points against sloppy atheistic arguments.

My supposed "obsession" with Hitchens's polemic is perhaps illustrated by the fact that I haven't so much as laid eyes on my copy of the book for several years now.

I certainly don't have it with me at my current location, so I can't consult it. But I've managed to locate this handy list that highlights some of his almost innumerable errors: https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/com ... itchens_a/

And this passage from the list is particularly relevant:

This one is just incredible. Hitchens classifies the great (agnostic) physicist Fred Hoyle as a "creationist" for supporting the "Steady-State" theory that was the main rival to the Big Bang theory... When it reality Hoyle opposed the Big Bang Theory partly because of its implied confirmation of Genesis 1:1 (According to Hoyle, it was cosmic chutzpah of the worst kind: “The reason why scientists like the ‘big bang’ is because they are overshadowed by the Book of Genesis.”)! The Big Bang Theory which was first hypothesized by Georges Lemaître... a Catholic priest!!! Not only was the Steady-State theory perfectly legitimate and respected in its time (before it was disproven by Hubble), but Hitchens has somehow taken an agnostic physicist opposing a physicist priest's theory because it sounded too theistic, and turned it into a creationist's dogma-fueled denial of the "true" science! It would have been impossible to be more wrong had he actively tried to be! (p.65) [Keating, Brian. (2019). Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393357394.]

It's surpassingly odd that the author of the list seems, quite independently, to have misrepresented Hitchens in precisely the way you say that I misrepresented Hitchens. Weird!

BS:. "Every time I come across you telling us what is written in this National Book Award Finalist, I check the reference."

And I've never, to this point, checked yours. (As I say, I haven't seen the book for a long time, and don't know where it is.) This instance, though, makes me think that I should check your claims.

DP: My supposed "obsession" with Hitchens's polemic is perhaps illustrated by the fact that I haven't so much as laid eyes on my copy of the book for several years now....

It's surpassingly odd that the author of the list seems, quite independently, to have misrepresented Hitchens in precisely the way you say that I misrepresented Hitchens. Weird!

Obviously you don't actually read Hitchens, much less make an effort to actually understand him. But you do refer to him and to this book on your blog multiple times a month, and have been doing so month in and month out, for years and years. Perhaps you misrepresent Hitchens in the precisely the same way as this blogger because you read the same anti-Hitchens material? In any case, in the book in question, Hitchens doesn't say anything about Hoyle that this blogger claimed.

For your reference, here is everything that god is Not Great says about Hoyle. Literally every single word. In context:

It is true that scientists have sometimes been religious, or at any rate superstitious. Sir Isaac Newton, for example, was a spiritualist and alchemist of a particularly laughable kind. Fred Hoyle, an ex-agnostic who became infatuated with the idea of “design,” was the Cambridge astronomer who coined the term “big bang.” (He came up with that silly phrase, incidentally, as an attempt to discredit what is now the accepted theory of the origins of the universe. This was one of those lampoons that, so to speak, backfired, since like “Tory” and “impressionist” and “suffragette” it became adopted by those at whom it was directed.)

Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great (pp. 109-110). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition.

DP: And I've never, to this point, checked yours. (As I say, I haven't seen the book for a long time, and don't know where it is.) This instance, though, makes me think that I should check your claims.

I hope you do.

BS: "Obviously you don't actually read Hitchens, much less make an effort to actually understand him."

I read him with exceptional care, back in the day. With much more care than his careless and poorly thought-through polemic deserved. And I read no secondary sources about it, because, at that time, there weren't any.

As I say, I can't check my copy of Hitchens's diatribe right now, but my lack of reverence for it obviously troubles you very, very deeply. I apologize, though I can't really help it.

I note that you essentially dismiss the comment from the list that I supplied to you, as well as its reference to a 2019 book by Brian Keating about Sir Fred Hoyle and his views. In any event, I suggest that you re-read your own quotation from Hitchens, which does say essentially what the "blogger" and I say it says. It was positively hilarious to see Hoyle listed among "religious" and even "superstitious" scientists for his rejection of the Big Bang, and it's even richer to see you attempt to defend it.

Here's a fun little passage, from https://www.csueastbay.edu/philosophy/r ... -brix.html

Hoyle, Bondi and Gold, expounded this theory of cosmology in 1948 in order to counter the idea of the “big bang”, which was first “introduced in the 1920’s by Georges LeMaitre, a priest and cosmologist. When evolution theory had been a problem for the Catholic Church, the ‘big bang’ was not – partly because it strongly supported the idea of creation” (Liukkonen 2003). Hoyle was actually the person who gave the “big bang” theory its nickname. He mentioned it during a radio interview one time, and it stuck. Bondi’s and Gold’s arguments were more general in nature, but Hoyle’s model was more specific. In it, he introduced a negative pressure C-field into Albert Einstein’s equations (Rees 2001). It was already widely believed at the time that the universe would essentially look the same regardless of what direction you looked at it, which is known as the cosmological principle. But what set Hoyle’s idea apart, was that he believed it looked the same at all times as well, making it eternal (Guth 1997, p.57). This is known as the perfect cosmological principle, and it implies that there never was a “big bang”, no moment of creation, and therefore, no Creator.

Hoyle did not want to believe that the universe was created from a big bang, because that would imply that there was a creator, and to him, that idea wasn’t a possibility becaause he was an atheist. He believed that, “religion is but a desperate attempt to find an escape from the truly dreadful situation in which we find ourselves…No wonder then that many people feel the need for some belief that gives them a sense of security, and no wonder that they become very angry with people like me who say that this is illusory” (positiveatheism.org). His belief, in his own words, was that “‘every cluster of galaxies, every star, every atom...had a beginning, but the universe, itself, did not’” (Willick 2003). This is why he proposed that the universe has been around forever, and that we were not created from some all powerful deity, but from the right combinations of heavy elements that were fused through the nuclear reactions that take place in the center of stars, a process that he named “nucleosynthesis”.

Billy has also seemed to force Dan to reveal the source of most of his lazy blog posts. Dan simply peruses Reddit and paraphrases those posts for a couple of dollars in ad revenue on SeN.

Great gig if you can get it.

[Alphus and Omegus]

Seems like Dan is going to be arguing against a book written almost two decades ago by a dead man right up until he himself kicks the bucket.

He's so totally out of touch with real philosophy and secular thought that he continues to beat his dead horse and recycle fundamentalist propaganda from the 19th century about "design."

The "God debate" was settled decades ago in philosophy and it's why almost none of them are religious. Debating people who believe in creationism is of no interest to the vast majority of philosophers, anymore than they want to have debates about whether the earth is flat.

It's over, Dan. You lost. Just accept it and move on.

[Doctor Scratch]

He’s reacting so stridently to the accusation of “obsession” because that’s one of his most-used insults that he hurls at critics: he calls this board the “Peterson Obsession Board”. And yet it’s quite revealing: he is, to put it mildly, an “obsessive” individual. How else do you explain his unrelenting, Ahab-like devotion to apologetics? You can call it something else if you like: “ambition” or “drive” or “energy” or whatever else, but those terms all call into question what one means by the term “obsession.”

There is nothing inherently wrong with “obsession” in and of itself—it has arguably led to some of the greatest achievements in human history. But DCP’s particular brand of obsession is a function of his “Pip”-like insecurities—which he recently openly admitted to—and the trouble is that he copes with these insecurities by trying to tear down others. If Billy Shears, or Christopher Hitchens, or the Bible-basher from Switzerland can be shown to be completely idiotic morons, then that means that he’s not a middle-class, mediocre loser, right? This is a scenario that has been repeated over and over and over again in his life—very publicly—such that it defines who he is.

That said, it needs to be pointed out that there is a huge problem with trying to use your psychiatric issues as an excuse for your horrible behavior, and Dan Peterson is, ironically, someone who has repeatedly attacked people in sickeningly insensitive ways in this vein: telling them to “take their meds” or “get help.” Uh, maybe he should take his own advice and see a therapist about this “insecurity problem”? (The fact that he tries to cast it as “Dickensian” shouldn’t be hilarious, but it is on account of how cruel he’s been to people over the years.)

One wonders if there will be any legitimate redemption for him in the last act of his life. I guess traveling a lot? Merely getting the Mopologetic movies made, regardless of how bad they are?

[Dr Moore]

He’s reacting so stridently to the accusation of “obsession” because that’s one of his most-used insults that he hurls at critics: he calls this board the “Peterson Obsession Board”. And yet it’s quite revealing: he is, to put it mildly, an “obsessive” individual. How else do you explain his unrelenting, Ahab-like devotion to apologetics? You can call it something else if you like: “ambition” or “drive” or “energy” or whatever else, but those terms all call into question what one means by the term “obsession.”

There is nothing inherently wrong with “obsession” in and of itself—it has arguably led to some of the greatest achievements in human history. But DCP’s particular brand of obsession is a function of his “Pip”-like insecurities—which he recently openly admitted to—and the trouble is that he copes with these insecurities by trying to tear down others. If Billy Shears, or Christopher Hitchens, or the Bible-basher from Switzerland can be shown to be completely idiotic morons, then that means that he’s not a middle-class, mediocre loser, right? This is a scenario that has been repeated over and over and over again in his life—very publicly—such that it defines who he is.

That said, it needs to be pointed out that there is a huge problem with trying to use your psychiatric issues as an excuse for your horrible behavior, and Dan Peterson is, ironically, someone who has repeatedly attacked people in sickeningly insensitive ways in this vein: telling them to “take their meds” or “get help.” Uh, maybe he should take his own advice and see a therapist about this “insecurity problem”? (The fact that he tries to cast it as “Dickensian” shouldn’t be hilarious, but it is on account of how cruel he’s been to people over the years.)

One wonders if there will be any legitimate redemption for him in the last act of his life. I guess traveling a lot? Merely getting the Mopologetic movies made, regardless of how bad they are?

Addiction. Like an alcoholic or gambling addict passing the saloon door. (His analogy, from 2011)

[Marcus]

Peterson points out how 'coincidental' it is that he writes the same complaint as the person he lifted it from. The irony. And Peterson uses Reddit as a source?! Now i am doubting if Peterson even read the book. But it wouldn't be the first time, by far, that he simply lifted someone else's thought and tried to pass it off as his own.

[drumdude]

Peterson points out how 'coincidental' it is that he writes the same complaint as the person he lifted it from. The irony. And Peterson uses Reddit as a source?! Now i am doubting if Peterson even read the book. But it wouldn't be the first time, by far, that he simply lifted someone else's thought and tried to pass it off as his own.

I wonder if he can even find a publisher willing to publish his new book that will consist mostly of plagiarism.

[Billy Shears]

In case anyone is interested, about 48 hours ago I posted a response to Professor Peterson's last comment on the thread about Christopher Hitchens. However, as-of now (Sunday morning) the comment is still in a pending status and isn't publicly displayed. Normally I wouldn't care, but I felt Professor Peterson was gaslighting his readers about what Hitchens actually says about Hoyle. For the record, here is the comment that is in pending status.

_____________________________________________________

DP: I note that you essentially dismiss the comment from the list that I supplied to you.

Since you insist...

Blogger: Hitchens classifies the great (agnostic) physicist Fred Hoyle as a "creationist"...

This is false. Hitchens does NOT classify Hoyle as a "creationist." He classifies him as somebody who is "religious, or at any rate superstitious." He does not call him a "creationist."

Blogger: ...for supporting the "Steady-State" theory that was the main rival to the Big Bang theory..

This is false. Hitchens doesn't mention "Steady-State" (do you think it is honest to use quotation marks in the manner he does? The words in quotation marks are not actual quotes from Hitchens). Hitchens's actual criticism against Hoyle is for becoming "infatuated with the idea of 'design'." (Note my honest application of quotation marks).

Hitchens does parenthetically mention that Hoyle coined the term "Big Bang." He calls the term "silly." All he actually says about the Big Bang debate is that the "big bang" lampoon was "an attempt to discredit what is now the accepted theory of the origins of the universe." (emphasis added) He doesn't criticize Hoyle for not accepting then "what is now the accepted theory of the origins of the universe." (emphasis added)

Blogger: Hitchens has somehow taken an agnostic physicist opposing a physicist priest's theory because it sounded too theistic, and turned it into a creationist's dogma-fueled denial of the "true" science!

Another dishonest quotation, how shocking! Hitchens doesn't say or imply anything about "a creationist's dogma-fueled denial of the 'true' science!" The only type of science Hitchens mentions in this context is what is "now" the "accepted theory."

Note that the blogger doesn't say anything about how Hoyle allegedly "became infatuated with the idea of 'design.'" which is the actual point.

DP: I note that you essentially dismiss the comment from the list that I supplied to you, as well as its reference to a 2019 book by Brian Keating about Sir Fred Hoyle and his views.

I'm sure Keating wrote a fine book, and I have no reason to believe it would contradict anything that Hitchens actually said.

DP: It was positively hilarious to see Hoyle listed among "religious" and even "superstitious" scientists for his rejection of the Big Bang, and it's even richer to see you attempt to defend it.

I'm not defending Hitchens's choice of words here. I'm merely pointing out what they actually are.

Again, Hitchens did not criticize Hoyle for his reaction of the Big Bang--at least not in god is Not Great. He does call him "religious, or at least superstitious." But this is because of his infatuation "with the idea of 'design,'" not for his views on what only later became "the accepted theory of the origins of the universe."

[Morley]

Thank you for this, Billy.

[Philo Sofee]

"Indeed, it appears that DCP evinces a rather idiosyncratic preoccupation with the misuse of Christopher Hitchens and the subject of atheism, does he not?"

[Tom]

Billy, you’re one of the few worth reading in the CHOB’s comment section. I would simply make a short comment over there asking Dr. Peterson to release your earlier comment from the filter.