Can’t believe it’s taken this long to get a post in my stupidity category on this subject–changing the subject. Prime example found in “What’s Wrong with Science as Religion” by Karl Giberson in /Salon/. Basically: Giberson criticizes various posts made by PZ Myers, yet if you look at the referenced posts, Giberson has simply ignored what PZ was saying. In the case of the crackergate controversy, Giberson is ignoring the issue of whether death threats and expuslion is an appropriate response to breaking a religious body’s rules for the handling of crackers, and whether putting a nail through a cracker is anywhere near as bad as making a death threat over the mishandling of a cracker.

Giberson also references PZ’s previous criticisms of him, but won’t tell you what those criticisms are. This is Giberson’s account:

When Salon interviewed me about my new book, “Saving Darwin,” I suggested that science doesn’t know everything, that there might be a reality beyond science, and that religion might be about God and not merely about the human quest for a nonexistent God. These remarks got me condemned to whatever hell Myers believes in.

What PZ actually said is that there’s no good reason to think the Bible is even a non-infallible guide to ultimate truth, that he doesn’t want to make science into a religion, and that he wants to scrutinize rather than uncritically accept or dismiss religious experiences. Giberson can’t bring himself to honestly deal with any of those criticisms.

Update: Patrick Appel, who’s guest-blogging for Andrew Sullivan, thinks Giberson is swell.