According to Objectivist philosopher Charles Tew, "the Atlas Society are skeptics pretending to be Objectivists. Their view is that some parts of Objectivism may be wrong, and so we have to say that 'Objectivism is an "open system;" it's not all interrelated. It doesn't stand or fall as one.'

"Because if you're a skeptic and you think some parts of Objectivism are probably false statistically (which is how skeptics think) then in order to save the whole you have to violate it by saying: 'Well, it really isn't a system, it isn't really all interrelated, we can get rid of some parts of it and keep the rest.'

"This is just George Bush's 'violated the free-market in order to save it' idea. This is just, 'we're going to treat this as something other than integrated because we're skeptics.'

"So here's an integration you may have never thought of before: The connection between skepticism and disintegration. Skepticism motivates disintegration. If you think you might always be wrong about something, then you're not going to put things together. You're not going to interconnect things, because then if one thing falls, the rest falls over. So you disintegrate habitually to save yourself from the constant overturning that's taking place (or that you expect to take place as a skeptic). And this is exactly what the Atlas Society does: 'No Objectivism isn't a system, it's just a collection of different ideas, and it's really whatever we want to believe it is. It's really a synonym for truth. So if Ayn Rand was wrong about free will, then we can throw out free will and keep the rest.'

"Now that is not necessarily a dishonest position. [You] could believe that some part of Ayn Rand's philosophy is wrong. But to believe that and then promote yourself as an Objectivist, as an advocate of her philosophy, is dishonest and immoral. Because one position of her philosophy (you could call it a meta-position) is that the philosophy is a whole, it all goes together, it all stands or falls as one.

"Now, you can disagree with that. That doesn't mean you're dishonest, it just means you're not an Objectivist. There's nothing inherently immoral about that although I do believe you are wrong philosophically if that's your belief. But the Atlas Society is more than mistaken. They are immoral and dishonest. And you can see the cash value of their ideas:

"They promote nihilistic libertarians; they associated with Nathaniel Branden (I think they still have a quote by him on their main page). It is clear that these people's desire is to smear Objectivism by claiming to be part of it, and then being as awful as possible.

"Now that may be hard for you to relate to, it certainly is to me, but there is no other explanation for what they're doing. They are subjectivists and skeptics pretending to be Objectivism, going out and spouting subjectivism and skepticism in the name of Objectivism in order to smear Objectivism. That's what they are, and that's what they're doing. And that's why they're evil and not Objectivists."