You may be wondering which controversy are they talking about?
You may be wondering whose behaviour initiated this controversy they just mentioned?
They’re not saying. [eta: But since I have no reason to make it hard for people googling “Ron Lindsay” to find this post, I’ll point out that the controversy was initiated by his astoundingly unprofessional and condescending opening speech at #wiscfi in May 2013.]
Every Weasel Wordsmithing award in WeaselWorld is being polished with the exhalations of a billion vapid platitudes in anticipation of the gala WeaselWorld Word Wizards mass presentation to the CFI Board before retiring the awards in perpetuity since nothing will ever top that.
Some reactions: SkepChick, Lousy Canuck, Brute Reason, Pharyngula, Almost Diamonds, Pandagon
More reactions: Greta Christina, Butterflies and Wheels
Categories: ethics & philosophy, gender & feminism, social justice
Pamela Denoon Lecture 2016: Nelly Thomas 
Feminist burnout: the toll of continually responding to the news cycle 
Quicklink of the Day #2: #DestroyTheJoint excludes voices of women with disabilities 
Friday Hoyden: Gillian Triggs 
Hoyden About Town 
The link to Pharyngula is broken – it’s picked up a spare “http://” at the end, which makes it come up 404.
Further comments: reading the statement, I find myself glad you provided the link to the core reason for its necessity, because from that statement about the only things anyone could deduce is that something may have happened somewhere at sometime, and someone was possibly slightly upset by aspects of it, although this last might be debatable. Clearly the person(s) responsible for writing it have had a lot of practice speaking underwater through wet concrete in a corporate or legal context. They have less practice using plain English to communicate with other human beings.
Really, the phrases “we fucked up; we’re sorry; we’ll try to avoid fucking up in the same way in future” aren’t that hard.
Broken link fixed – thanks Megpie!
I’m continually amazed at how many people just can’t stop digger deeper down these holes.
I wish to express my unhappiness about most of the Howard era, but that’s probably just about as effective as this non-announcement from the Center for Inquiry is.
It strikes me as bizarre to attempt to “apologise” without acknowledging what you believe your mistakes were in the first place.
Also, “expressing unhappiness with controversy” is horribly worded if an apology is your intent, since I could choose to read that as “we’re sorry you all got so worked up about it, I never meant it like that, honest! You were totally oppressing me, and I don’t see why I can’t say so!”.
There was nothing I could see about that apology that seemed apologetic or seemed to eliminate the prospect of further stuff ups in future.
Ooh that reads to me very much like a ‘ur doin it rong’ getting upset about this we know better and you should too type of statement.
oh yes. It’s basically using a bag full of rhetorical tricks to evoke the hazy outline of the framework of an apology without containing any apologetic substance whatsoever, attempting to read to all parties as if it’s “the other side” who are the controversy-stokers, and insultingly anticipating they’ll get away with it without anybody spotting their rhetorical sleight of hand when addressing an audience of sceptics and freethinkers.
Would you like cream or ice cream with your waffle?
@Megpie71 – these guys apparently want both…