Kudos to Ed…

Ed Brayton, from Dispatches from the Culture Wars and The Panda’s Thumb, is to be commended for his quick and decisive denunciation of a commenter on TPT recently. The comment appeared to make fun of Intelligent Design proponent Phillip Johnson at the expense of physical limitations brought on by Johnson's stroke. Ed responded with,

You know, sometimes I wonder why we haven’t just banned you from leaving comments here. More often than not, you offer nothing but vitriol and insults and are an embarrassment to our side, but this one is unnecessarily vicious even for you. The completely pointless reference to Phil Johnson and a “drool cup” is just totally uncalled for, and especially repulsive given the fact that he recently suffered another stroke. We can argue forcefully against the arguments of our opponents without demeaning and dehumanizing them. Consider this your first, last and only warning. Keep up this sort of nastiness and you will no longer be commenting here.

Bravo, Ed. The commenter later claimed he was unaware that Johnson had a stroke. Inspired by Ed’s integrity, I offer him an apology, carte blanche, for a post I wrote last year in which I maligned two acquaintances of his, Eugenie Scott and Ken Miller. I was attempting to make a point regarding how theistic evolution doesn’t square with naturalistic evolution and it is clear that my choice of just how to illustrate this was a poor one. I insulted Ed, and maligned his friends, and that was wrong. Ed, I'm sorry, and I apologize.