Big Brother Tactics

I'm glad to see that this guy was prepared to eschew the tactics of intimidation:

Daniel Morgan has posted several items at his blog attempting to figure out the real life identity of "Mike Gene", a pseudonymous ID advocate who blogs at Telic Thoughts. Mike Gene has been a staple in the evolution/ID debate for many years. He's not really a Discovery Institute-type of ID advocate, he's more of an "ID evolutionist" than an "ID creationist", or at least that is my reading of him which is admittedly not too thorough (unlike many of my Panda's Thumb colleagues, I never took part in the discussion boards at ARN where Mike Gene has been a major figure for a long time debating these issues). Many people over the years have tried to discern his real identity and none have succeeded.

My message to Daniel Morgan is this: please stop. Actions have consequences, both positive and negative, and deciding on a course of action usually means weighing those consequences against one another. In this case, what could possibly be achieved that is positive for our side? You might succeed in figuring out who he is, and because he is apparently a junior faculty member at a university and does not have tenure, it may well cause some trouble for him. But that will not defeat his arguments, nor will it do anything to stop the political maneuvering of ID proponents or to resolve the disputes over this issue.

On the other hand, you can do a lot of damage here. You can do a lot of damage because you may well succeed in creating a martyr. The ID crowd has a lot of what I consider to be fake martyrs, Richard Sternberg most recently. They have a real tendency to whine about the "Darwinian priesthood" seeking to "destroy" anyone who advocates intelligent design and most of the time they have to exaggerate and distort in order to make those complaints sound more credible than they are. But you may succeed in creating a real martyr, one with a genuine and non-exaggerated case to make for being victimized by people seeking to enforce an orthodoxy of opinion at universities, where academic freedom should be nurtured and protected.

Of course, Sternberg really was a martyr to the cause of academic freedom, but I am pleased to see Ed Brayton disapprove of this tactic.

What I find interesting, however, is some of the other admissions from Ed Brayton:

I say this to you as someone who, many years ago, participated in the outing of a prominent creationist, John Woodmorappe (that is his pseudonym, not his real name). It's something I regret now, though I think the circumstances made it more justified than your actions here (Woodmorappe was, while writing under his fake name, citing articles written under his real name that appeared to contradict his creationist views). Quite frankly, it was mostly a matter of ego for me then, and the desire to stick it to someone I viewed as the enemy.

Enemy? There are people with whom I disagree, but enemies I limit to totalitarians, racists, supporters of gun bans, child molesters, and people that make, distribute, or sell child pornography, and those who defend any of these as being good things. (If you are upset that your group isn't included on my enemies' list, too bad.)

Look, this whole evolution, Intelligent Design, "Creation Science" dispute is a question about the most effective and honest way to teach science. I am disturbed that Ed Brayton regards people that disagree with him as an "enemy."

A little later on that page, Ed Brayton responds to comments by observing:

I know for a fact that there are folks on "my side" (and by that I only mean those who advocate for evolution and against ID/creationism) who would make an effort to prevent a junior academic from getting tenure if they were known to be an ID advocate, regardless of any other factor. Do I think they represent the "Darwinian orthodoxy"? Absolutely not. But they do exist and I have no doubt they would agitate by writing letters to MG's bosses if they had proof of who he was, in an attempt to smear him to them.

This is the sort of Stalinist/medieval Church stuff that demonstrates the religious fanaticism of some of the folks on Brayton's side (but without Brayton's decency).