At issue here is the oversimplification of a complex issue, and the subsequent wholesale dismissal of debate using strawmen.

This is a trend that is becoming very common. There are now certain areas of "political correctness" that have infected scientific debate itself.

For example, the "anti-vaxxer" name now translates to: science-denying-crackpot. And the community liberally tosses this term around when confronted with even the most basic query about something relating to vaccines. There's a dramatic difference in the science behind the efficacy of something like MMR verses the annual flu shot, but the community lumps it all together. If you question whether or not the annual flu vaccine's efficacy warrants its cost and large-scale deployment, you're lumped in with people who question MMR and all other vaccines. That's an inaccurate, sweeping generalization. And it happens all the time in many of these online forums.

The same thing happened in the thread that sparked this controversy. One argument was made, and then a wave of people came in arguing against a different argument and dismissing anyone who disagreed. They are free to do that. I'm also free to prune the subreddit and curtail that kind of activity in order to address a concern myself and other mods have over the changing nature of so-called "scientific debate." Can that be argued as ironic or hypocritical. Obviously. Is my response heavy-handed? That argument could also be made. But myself and other mods have watched for the last several months as certain topics that really would benefit from a non-emotional, objective scientific analysis be impossible to debate because others hold rather fundamentalist attitudes towards others even questioning a small aspect of certain hot-button subjects. It's not the way /r/Freethought was meant to be.

I am not "anti-GMO." I'm not "anti-Science." But what I am intolerant of is stifling of debate by using "anti-GMO" or "anti-Science" and other strawmen, attacking the messenger while ignoring the message. There's a whole new array of POEs going around now.

Using those labels pretty much guarantees that among certain, heavily polarized groups, no further investigation and debate takes place. You just dismiss people as crackpots. Perhaps in some circumstances they are not worthy of consideration, but in some they are. I'm rallying against a trend to deploy this dishonest debate tactic. So if people want to call me "anti-Science" they have indicated they're part of this trend of condemning people without due process. That's the kind of mentality that we just don't want to be pervasive in a subreddit designed around discussing and debating issues with a de-emphasis on dogmatism. And those that dogpile on the wholesale dismissal are exhibiting the exact same kind of attitude that we feel has caused the subreddit to fail in its original design. I sincerely apologize if this bothers people. I am sorry if people feel a certain way and have decided that I'm simply a horrible person, facist, hypocrite, whatever. In the end, we are a group of people who are trying something different to change the tone of debate and related understanding and consideration in a forum we've created expressly for that purpose. Maybe it's the wrong way to go about it, but in the big picture, this is a tiny experiment and a part of a larger attempt to address issues that are of concern that we feel are impeding more qualitative discussion.

So that's where I'm coming from. I don't feel like a facist or that I'm on some emotional power trip. Could this have been handled better? The answer to that will probably always be yes, but there's no way to change something without annoying others, but it's our choice to address this concern our way as moderators of the sub - we've all discussed it. Since I'm the founder, even though it's a group decision, I'm taking responsibility for it. It's kind of funny that the act of me, the creator of a subreddit, arbitrarily deciding another user isn't adding to the conversation -- for whatever reason, legitimate or not -- should spark such a vindictive, heated tirade as to be cross-posted on a half-dozen muck-raking subreddits from SRD and beyond, in my mind, seems to justify the validity of the decision. Is it really that big a deal? To try and destroy a moderator because he doesn't think you add to the conversation on his forum? Is that a mature attitude to take? I find that puzzling.