Owing to their fragile makeup, nerds rarely come to blows (although when they do, it is supremely entertaining), so they tend to release their tension online. Typically, these outbursts take the form of comment-thread flamewars—you know, garden-variety “get cancer and die” stuff. Quite tame. Only when conditions are just right does a conflagration erupt to the level of full-fledged blog posts. When the rage reaches that point, you’ve got a blogfight on your hands, and spectators can drink in a heady cocktail of posturing, bravado, and general verbal loutishness.

The great thing about a blogfight is that self-awareness plays no part in the proceedings. Take the first great blogfight of 2008, in which Gizmodo blogger Brian Lam came under fire for turning off a bunch of TVs at CES, the annual gadget expo. The stunt was so puerile that even a grade-school kid who squeezes out armpit farts in the back row would consider it beneath his purview, yet by the time the whole flap was over, Lam had deemed his prank a noble act of “civil disobedience.” Bonus points: He made this statement on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.

You may someday find yourself in the throes of a blogfight. I hope that day never comes, but you must prepare yourself nonetheless. Observe today’s blogfight case study, which concerns the origin of species. Or glowing green checkmarks. It’s hard to tell. Let’s go to the breakdown.

The Fighters:

• Casey Luskin, intelligent design “scientist,” Discovery Institute fellow
• Mike Dunford, actual scientist, author of “The Questionable Authority” blog

The Charge: Dunford, an evolutionary biologist, got upset when Luskin posted an intelligent-design argument to the Discovery Institute blog with a special “Blogging on Peer-Reviewed Research” icon attached. This icon was designed by BloggingResearch.org, which is leading a burgeoning movement to unify scientific discussion on the web through the power of a 5-kilobyte PNG graphic.

Anyway, Luskin used the One True Science-Dork Icon without permission, an offense that appears to have initiated the collapse of modern science, as Dunford explains: “When he slapped the icon on a post that does not meet the standards of the project, [Luskin] made it harder for the project to gain a reputation as a way to find reliable information about peer-reviewed papers.”

The Evidence: Here’s the icon in question, which Luskin did indeed place on his site without proper attribution.

So, right off, you can see where the people behind this image would be worried about illegitimate copying. The drop shadow, the glowing green checkmark, that coy curl in the corner, the barely legible text—I could go on. Point is, that’s some painstaking Photoshop wizardry. You can’t just give that away.

The Blow-Up: Luskin, the make-believe scientist, removed the icon and, as if to parody the original effort, replaced it with an even shittier graphic.

Great touch. Luskin then updated his original post to say, essentially, that he’d never heard of ResearchBlogging.org in his life, and you kids get off his lawn or he’s calling the cops, he means it.

This infuriated biologist Dunford, who threw up a post unironically titled “Luskin and the Peer-Reviewed Research Icon - the Saga Continues.” After noting that it said “ResearchBlogging.org” right on the damn icon, casting doubt on Luskin’s version of events, he concluded, “If [Luskin] really wants to come up with an excuse, he’s going to need to do better than willful ignorance.”

Dude, Luskin’s a creationist; willful ignorance is his shtick. And you fell right into the trap. Luskin’s final word on the ordeal delivered the deathblow:

People commonly make unjustified personal attacks against me, and my response is not to get mad or even get upset. Rather, my response is that it is to feel that this kind of behavior is saddening because it does damage to what might otherwise be a fruitful, friendly, and objective scientific debate.

Today’s Lesson: Identify your opponents’ weaknesses. For instance, scientists love facts. Luskin knew this, so he lied, and when Dunford predictably called him on it, he shifted to the “high road.” Aloof, then condescending: a one-two punch that will often win the day.