Does PZ Myers have Asperger's syndrome?

Look, I really tried to stay out of it. When Myers made his infamous post identifying Michael Shermer as the subject of a rape accusation, I pretty much knew how it would go. It has been quite clear for some time that Myers is increasingly losing his sense of perspective, not to mention various other useful senses such as decency, fair play, scepticism and even-handedness. Those of us unfortunate enough to have followed the guy's activities, both on Pharyngula and elsewhere, have seen with varying degrees of regret (or satisfaction depending on our sympathies) how his ego, fed by the fawning of his frequently frenzied and abusive fan club, has turned him into an arrogant and proudly divisive gobshite who now seems happier slagging off, misrepresenting or slandering a fellow sceptic than going after a creationist or a religious fundamentalist. So I fully expected him to play this as a white-knighting, no-smoke-without-fire, just-protecting-other-potential-victims act of self-sacrificing honour. And he has, only laced with his usual unpalatable dressing of shameless hypocrisy, unhinged venom, and raging censoriousness and demonisation towards those with the temerity to question his actions.

I also fully expected that the inevitable cease and desist letter from Shermer's lawyers would be largely ignored. Myers' monumental ego and massive self-righteousness made that entirely predictable. He knows he is correct. He knows Shermer's accuser is telling the truth, even though all he has is her word and the fact that, well, he knows and trusts her. Why, he probably knows and trusts her every bit as much as I knew and trusted my ex-wife, and how she would never hide an affair from me. Ahem. Moving on...

I don't want to do a post about the many levels of sheer fractal wrongness and wickedness that Myers and his demented pack of screeching jackals are perpetrating here. It would take far, far too long, for one thing, and it's a subject that needs someone to do a really thorough job on it. Not that there isn't a wealth of source material. To collect examples of Myers' unfairness and hypocrisy would now be like hunting for a needle in a needle stack, but man, it's a depressing and wearying task, and ploughing through the Pharyngula comments section is like being simultaneously attacked by fleas and hyperactive four-year-olds.  You say one word that even hints at less-than-total compliance with the doctrine of the hypersensitive über liberal and you're instantly damned as a misogynist and a rape apologist before you have time to say "I'm not saying she's lying or that Shermer didn't do it but...". Those people don't need a trigger  warning, they need a hair-trigger warning.

So yeah... not that.  I hope some patient, rhino-skinned individual does do it, because Myers and his nest of vipers really do need to be taken down big style, but I just don't have the sort of  patience necessary to work him over like he needs to be worked over. There are numerous other blog posts and videos where folks are taking him on over this, but most suffer from the same sense of exasperated impotence and justifiably outraged spluttering in the face of such shockingly bad behaviour from someone who used to be considered one of the leading lights of the atheist blogosphere and convention circuit.

Instead I will remark on just one aspect of  Myers that was highlighted with particularly shocking force by a quote referenced in this Thunderf00t video.  One hapless commenter made the following remark:

I’ve read enough of these 3000+ comments to convince myself that Michael Schermer is being lynched on this blog. 

PZ's response to this?


Infiniteartsupplies has been banned for not knowing what the word “lynch” means.

Yes, you read that correctly. I'd wager a large sum that  Infiniteartsupplies knows very well what the word "lynch" means but PZ, it seems, does not know what the word "metaphor" means. This is very far  from the first time I've noticed Myers do this: either stupidly or disingenuously refuse to recognise when a word or phrase is being very obviously used in a non-literal, metaphorical or ironic sense. The mob took the same line with those who described this as a "witch hunt". They sneered about witches not being real so, duh, what a stupid comparison! Back in the days before I was banned from Pharyngula I noticed this over and over again: in order to launch easy attacks on dissenters Myers and the mob simply refused to recognise the possibility of using words in anything but the most slavishly literal way.  Oh, except, of course, when they did it. If they described something as, say, a clusterfuck they would have laughed their hypocritical arses off had one of us tried to insist they were literally talking about an occurrence of group sexual intercourse.

So, is PZ suffering from Asperger's? Of course not. He's suffering from being shamelessly disingenuous and highly selective about when he chooses to recognise non-literal, ironic or hyperbolic speech, and about whom he chooses to recognise it from. He's being, amongst many other dirty and dishonest things,  a hypocrite who applies the double standard with all the unfettered abandon of the worst creationist or religious accommodationist.