Gee where have we seen this before? Chris Mooney issues a press release on his upcoming publication, then he wonders why people aren’t accepting it because the real publication isn’t done yet and all we have is a cover and some fluff.
It’s BEST practice.
Apparently, given his defense, it was not the reaction he was looking for.
Here’s his defense over at the paid PR shill website DeSmog blog.
On Monday I announced my new book The Republican Brain, which will be due out next spring. And I provided a brief description, as well as layering on plenty of nuance, like a good liberal, to make sure it wouldn’t be misinterpreted.
So much for that!
Beginning with Roger Pielke, Jr. (not technically a conservative, but, well…), and then spreading to climate “skeptic” blogs like Watts Up With That and Marc Morano’s Climate Depot, conservatives are claiming that the book is a form of “new eugenics” and that it describes them as “genetically/mentally/psychologically inferior,” and so on.
All of this is completely without foundation, and in fact, contradicted by my own book announcement, which discusses the many strengths (as well as weaknesses) of the conservative psychology, and describes the left-right difference as a kind of necessary yin and yang.
And none of the people saying these things (including over 100 commenters at Watts’ site) have read the book because it isn’t out yet, and won’t be for 6 months. In fact, it is still being edited.
So, pre-release, “with nuance “…to make sure it wouldn’t be misinterpreted.“? Heh. Even worse than Muller’s PR mess.
I loved the comment from Hank there:
Hank_ – Thu, 2011-11-10 11:20Maybe you should consider delaying the release even longer, or maybe change the title? Doesn’t look like the reception is what you expected.
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Oh, it’s not out yet? Cool, then I hereby announce that I deny the existence of Chris Mooney’s Republican Brain.
“which will be due out next spring.” What’s he waiting for? The end of the primary season?
Why does Mooney keep posting at a shill site?
The Truth about DeSmogBlog
“DeSmogBlog is a smear site founded by a scientifically unqualified public relations man, James Hoggan and funded by a convicted money launderer, John Lefebvre. The irony here is their favorite tactic is to attempt to smear those they disagree with as funded by “dirty money”. Since it’s creation in 2006 the site has done nothing but post poorly researched propaganda with a clear intent to smear respected scientists, policy analysts or groups who dares oppose an alarmist position on global warming. Their articles frequently reference unreliable sources such as Wikipedia and Sourcewatch since they are unable to find any fact based criticisms of those they criticize in respected news sources.”
Why are they censoring comments? Are they afraid of debate?
Wings, flies.
Some dis-assembly required.
I’ve converted to solid fuel heating just to piss off my greenie neighbours, i look forward to using the bulk bin rejects of 10 cents a copy to fuel that fire
We apparently do not even have the cover anymore. The link now 404s at his site.
This bloke churns out such puerile drivel. Look here chaps, I’m a convinced sceptic, convinced by the evidence, both on religion and the agw cult, suspicious of politicians, bankers, snake oil salesmen, you name it. But I’m neither American, nor Republican, nor a creationist and in fact my political background is as an old UK Labourite (before the grinning sociopath and his thieving, troughing, lying mates took the party over). Where in hell do I sit in all this? How will this Mooney characterise such as me? Mooney …. now there’s a name to conjure with when thinking of gullible believers willing to give their all to their divine leader.
Hey Eric & John A:
Ann Coulter is the ‘skeptic’ in politics
making reasoned and objective political argument
against the very-same Demo-Lib-Commie loonie-bin of “idiots and/or crooks”
that concocted AGW out of pure lies.
I bet you believe her anti-AGW articles were ‘deliciously hyperbolic rants’ too.
The sheer magnitude
of the daily outrages leftism inflicts upon humanity,
comprise acts of insane statism that are so horribly deleterious
that accurate description and analysis
are necessarily as ‘hyperbolic’
as a scientific description of the Black Plague.
Disagree with Coulter all your want,
but putting her alongside this tendentious, ultra-prejudiced hack lightweight
manifests the same utterly corrupt moral-equivalence that equated USA with USSR.
Counter book:
http://www.lowellgreen.com/
Pat Frank says:
November 10, 2011 at 1:43 pm
“The point for this thread, of course, is that these NGOs with Mr. Mooney’s active collusion, are waging a left-wing war against science that has been far more corrosive, far more pernicious, much more widespread, and enormously more successful, than anything ever achieved by organized right-wing know-nothings.”
The ruling ideology can tolerate neither dissent nor counter example. Genuine physical science is a counter example to all versions of Marxist ideology. Genuine physical scientists might or might not choose to dissent.
He’s had TWO bites at the cherry already, enough. Ignore him.
Yes, really. Hitler’s policies were leftist and socialist from the very start to the very tragic end and were all carried out on the premise of creating a new, egalitarian socialist state. Sorry you have to learn that now, but it’s true – he was praised by progressives in his day, who even thought his ideas on eugenics were rather nifty and worth emulating. The reason he’s decried as right-wing now is because he couched his socialism in a nationalist cloak but it was socialism nonetheless.
As for the tragic end I mentioned, he was merely following in the footsteps of Marx and Engels.
(And yes, it is written by Ray, no need to point that out and no need to claim that’s a reason not to read it either. Who better to defend the position than the man who promoted it?)
“The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Don’t Believe in Science (or Many Other Inconvenient Truths)”
Gee, how many layers of nuance would it take to wind up interpreting that title as anything but calling Republicans stupid people who are incapable of understanding science? Are layers of nuance and layers of total b*llsh*t the same thing?
I’m betting Chris Mooney is reading this thread. An ego that size just can’t stand knowing he’s being talked about and not knowing what is being said. Even worse, he’s so wrapped up in his own world view, that he’ll read every negative comment about him as proof in his own mind that he’s right, those right wingers are just too dumb to understand what he’s explaining.
Well Chris my boy, I’ve got a couple of pearls of wisdom for you. There’s a very old saying that if, at the age of 20, a man is not a liberal, he has no heart. If, at the age of 40, he is still a liberal, he has no brain.
Here’s the corollary of that Chris. It isn’t possible for a liberal to write a book about how conservatives think. Do you know why? There is actually a name for liberals who come to understand how conservatives think. They’re referred to as “ex-liberals”.
….LOL
A minority writes a book about how the majority thinks….
…….and justifies it by trying to establish why they don’t believe in science
For the same reason we get second opinions from doctors, shop insurance rates, and no longer believe the media…..you dolt
John A says:
November 10, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Fabulous stuff from the same person who thinks that General Pinochet was a hero of freedom and that Hitler was left-wing. No really.
I suggest you try reading some of the NAZI Economic and Industrial Policy documents. Very Corporatist, not at all unlike Stalin’s USSR or Mao’s China!
Note to self:
Politics is an arena that should not be entered into lightly, the stakes are so high that one never knows who is friend or foe.
Now, about this Chris Mooney………..(note to self).
Vaporware.
David Jones says:
I suggest you try reading some of the NAZI Economic and Industrial Policy documents. Very Corporatist, not at all unlike Stalin’s USSR or Mao’s China!
====
Hell, if you look at the Nazi 25 point plan and remove the racial German-specific stuff (relating to possession of the Rhineland, etc), it basically reads like the NDP’s last election platform.
A Mooney bird is an awkward albatross.
I made the monetary mistake a while back of purchasing the Chris Mooney / Sherill Kirchenbaum book “Unscientific America.”
I did not have the stomach to get through many chapters…as there were so many logical tricks twists turns and fallacies that I had to put it down after each section and write a critique.
I emailed both of them that I was reading their book, and told them that I would be sending chapter-by-chapter critiques, which I did…for a while.
Neither one of them had the courage to respond, even once.
Chris Mooney is a pompous, whiny, and most untalented “science” writer who does not know how to write the truth if his life depended on it.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
“On Monday I announced my new book The Republican Brain, which will be due out next spring. And I provided a brief description,….”
Here is an excerpt from said brief description:
“From climate change to evolution, the rejection of mainstream science among Republicans is growing, as is the denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy and much more. Why won’t Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why are they constantly fighting against the facts?”
==========
In a nutshell, it comes out like this.
Considering the “economy, American history, foreign policy and much more” you mention, I don’t trust anybody anymore.
The people I trust least of all, are those that say they have easy answers.
John A here is a complete dissection of “national socialists” aka fascists you might want to check out the prior post on this sight too.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/nationalist-socialists/
O/T, but in the same liberal genre.
No pressure, but did Michael Mann ever walk the Second Mile when teaching school? As we now know, there were a few miles of opportunity if desired.
That same school not that long ago commissioned two reviews that cleared Mann of allegations of ethical misconduct arising out of other things he did.
cromagnum,
Good point. Check this out:
http://climateaudit.org/2011/11/10/penn-state-president-fired
Bryan A says:
November 10, 2011 at 12:23 pm
To a certain extent, Republican and Conservative are as synonymous as Democrat and Liberal.
Perhaps Chris Mooney just finished reading Michael Savage’s book “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” and decided that a rebuttal book was needed.
Thus proving Savage’s point. 🙂
I hope Mooney has a chapter in his book about how Old Conservative White Men are supermen.
Because the non-OCWM people claim to have the science, they claim to have the consensus; they have the money and the media; they have the UN, the EU, the IMF, the WB, and yet they are still being beaten hollow in the court of public opinion by a bunch of old fools who lounge around in bathrobes doing jigsaw puzzles.
Watch us race to the nearest phone booth to cram on our toupees and put in our teeth, as we transform into That Vicious Well-Organised Denialist Machine