While we’re talking about Scott, this “piece on John Derbyshire”:http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/29142.html is the best example of how to do intellectual garbage pick-up that I’ve seen in some considerable while. The lede:

bq. Few things are quite so instructive (if not quite in the sense he intends) as watching John Derbyshire pretend to wrestle with what he supposes to be deeply transgressive thoughts about matters of politics, culture, and morality. The topics vary. The method does not. “Why, it is shocking to find myself considering things from this angle!” he says sotto voce. “Yet one must be brave, and consider the possibility that I am, in fact, completely correct.”

Click through to read the rest.