NYT Night
It looks as if the NYT has canned Nicholas Wade. Another stereotype conspicuously un-busted.
John Derbyshire, who know a thing or two about the social consequences of exorbitant truthiness, rounds up the reviews (prior to the axe falling).
ADDED: Wade says the DC is lying about trying to contact him (i.e. this crucial assertion: “Neither Wade nor his former employer returned requests for comment”). Since that’s the key evidence for the DC article, it makes the whole thing go away.
Wade: “I retired from the Times about two years ago. There’s a stupid story you may have seen in the blogosphere. It is completely untrue. The writer just made that up. The fact that he saw the words ‘former Science editor’ in the piece I did in Time. He assumed that I had been fired by the Times. There is nothing to the story at all. I myself wrote the word ‘former’ in because I saw that the Time editor in putting the tag line on had said that I was Science editor of the Times. Since that was some time in the past, and is no longer true, I inserted the word ‘former’ and the writer in the Daily Caller just made the story up out of thin air. He made absolutely no attempt to contact me and not a word of it is true.”
To the precise extent that an apology is due to the New York Times, curse the Daily Caller. (Thanks to commentators below for clueing me in — although Twitter got there first.)
Wasn’t he supposed to retire anyway?
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Posted on May 11th, 2014 at 4:07 pm | QuoteThis was entirely predictable. Religions under assault are always going to be ruthless with heretics.
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Posted on May 11th, 2014 at 4:14 pm | QuoteCharles Murray says this is a canard: https://twitter.com/charlesmurray/status/465541496843026432
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admin Reply:
May 11th, 2014 at 11:19 pm
Ironically — to say the least — it looks as if the Daily Caller has been making stuff up. Sheesh.
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[…] By admin […]
Posted on May 11th, 2014 at 7:41 pm | QuoteIt’s a total canard. It’s a nice story, “truth-teller kicked out of cathedral”, but tt’s wrong on its face. Even a 2007 NYT article -http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01… – was already referring to “Nicholas Wade, a former science editor at the paper”. He will still be writing articles for them.
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Posted on May 11th, 2014 at 8:44 pm | QuoteActually, it seems that the Daily Caller just invented the entire story out of thin air.
See updates: http://occamsrazormag.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/roundup-of-book-reviews-of-nicholas-wades-a-troublesome-inheritance/
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Posted on May 11th, 2014 at 10:05 pm | Quote‘Truthiness’? Is that really the word you wanted to use there?
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admin Reply:
May 11th, 2014 at 11:03 pm
‘Truthiness’ is an interesting word. Doesn’t it basically mean an explicit attachment to honesty, beyond the threshold of social awkwardness? It’s Will Wilkinson anticipating the dark Enlightenment, and advising against it (on popularity grounds).
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easytolo Reply:
May 12th, 2014 at 12:56 am
As far as I’m aware its most widespread meaning is the Colbert coinage, something that feels true in your gut but not in fact.
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admin Reply:
May 12th, 2014 at 4:04 am
Could be. I had no idea a “Colbert coinage” even existed.
Wyrd Reply:
May 12th, 2014 at 2:36 am
“‘Truthiness’ is an interesting word.”
Yeah, but Colbert is a Cathedral weenie.
“Doesn’t it basically mean an explicit attachment to honesty, beyond the threshold of social awkwardness?”
Colbert around the time of advocating Truthiness urged his viewers to storm Wikipedia in order to fudge-up articles related to Africa. Hmmm….
“It’s Will Wilkinson anticipating the dark Enlightenment, and advising against it (on popularity grounds).”
That dude needs far more eye-related superpowers to impress.
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@easytolo
I thought it was a Colbertism that meant “plausible but unconfirmed rumor”.
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admin Reply:
May 12th, 2014 at 4:12 am
Unconfirmed, or unapproved?
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[…] Nicholas Wade purged? OK, maybe “preemptively auto-purged” is more like it. I was kind of hoping for an […]
Posted on May 16th, 2014 at 4:03 pm | Quote