FOR RECORD: An explanatory note to KF of UD

Re this:

The principles on which this site is run are summarised here and here.  The key rule is: “assume other posters are posting in good faith”.

That does not mean that you have to believe that they are posting in good faith, simply that you should make that assumption for the purposes of discussion.

I will not “correct” posts – people are responsible for their own posts, and for any errors they contain.  I will not delete posts, although I may move posts to a different thread, or to the Sandbox or to Guano.  They remain publicly viewable. I will however, delete links to porn or malware, and posting such links or material are the only grounds on which I will ban anyone.  Posters are complete free to disagree with me, with each other, and to be mistaken.

UD is run on different lines.  Fine.  I prefer mine.

283 thoughts on “FOR RECORD: An explanatory note to KF of UD

  1. To break the rules a little, I’m afraid I find that UD piece to be unbearably pompous, and not a little hypocritical. Associations between ‘Darwinism’ and the Nazi party are a routine part of the stock-in-trade of Uncommon Descent, as are slurs of mental and moral deficiency among opponents. I don’t wish to indulge tu quoque too much, of course. Any community will produce diverse opinions, expressed with varying degrees of tone and ‘rightness’/’wrongness’ according to one’s own opinion. But that’s what free speech is all about, as M Voltaire kind of said.

    The idea of a blog owner choosing not to censor posts is simply beyond his comprehension (someone who himself has what I regard as the deplorable habit of editing directly into someone else’s comment). That they should continue to make that choice after he has told them off for it…! Splutter, for shame, do better, etc etc etc.

  2. That’s not breaking the rules. I quite agree about UD. People are banned not for being “uncivil” (or Joe G wouldn’t still be there) but for expressing views that the management consider “unreasonable”. As a result posters there, if they don’t venture on to sites with a wider range of opinions, simply don’t know what the counter-arguments and counter-evidence is to their own position.

    That is precisely why I don’t do that here. Anyone is welcome to post here, no matter how objectionable I personally find their opinions, or how unreasonable I find their logic, or how flakey their evidence. As a result, we remain exposed to the possibility that we are mistaken.

    I hugely value my right to remain uncertain.

  3. Lizzie – I should like to add that your policies and management work really well. You have created an outstanding on-line debating environment. For the most part:

    * Anyone is free to contribute
    * Everyone treats everyone else with respect
    * People stay on topic and are reasonably concise
    * There is a remarkably little personal stuff

    Obviously there are exceptions to all these, and you had to ban one person, but compared to the vast majority of internet discussion it is a model. Long may you continue.

  4. If KF were a poster here, and, during a discussion, OMagain had told him he was a Nazi, I would have moved the post to Guano.

    However, KF was not posting during that discussion, and OMagain did not tell him he was a Nazi. What he did was to note that Nazis and KF shared the view that that homosexuals are immoral and deviant. KF apparently does not dispute that he considers homosexuals to be immoral and deviant, but notes that that does not make him a Nazi.

    This is true. OMagain did not say that it did; however even if he had said that his views resembled Nazi-ism, that would not have been against the rules of this site, just as it is not against the rules of this site to for William to say that some of us lack libertarian free will.

    What would be against the rules would be for OMagain to imply that KF was stupid, or lying.

    For myself, I think, as KF thinks about “evo-mat”, that the idea that homosexuals are immoral and deviant and dangerous, is itself dangerous.

    I think it is profoundly dangerous to think that whole swathes of people are dangerous. And while I agree that some ideas are dangerous, to me the way to tackle an idea you think is dangerous idea is to expose the dangers, not suppress the idea.

    Kairosfocus thus remains welcome to post on this site, and even welcome to post his ideas about the dangers of homosexuality. But he must be prepared to meet with posters who consider him profoundly wrong, and that such ideas can lead to nazi-ism, just as he seems to think that Darwin’s ideas let to nazi-ism.

    So discussion is likely to become robust. But as long as people stick to the rule that they must assume that their opponent is posting in good faith, that’s fine.

  5. Thanks – I don’t claim to be completely consistent, partly because I have times when I’m not around much, but the style of discourse I had in mind seems to have become self-perpetuating, which is good.

    And I’d rather err on the non-interventionist side.

  6. I really don’t understand the issue with the free will thing. The only people I’ve ever directly implied do not have libertarian free will are those who themselves claim it doesn’t exist. Should an atheist be offended if I tell them that I think they do not have a God? Should a physicalist be offended if I tell them there is no afterlife waiting for them?

    Liz and others have implied that this view indicates that I see them as “less than” human, or as “less than” what I am, so it is a condescending view. I don’t see it that way at all; if someone insists there is no god, libertarian free will or afterlife, I don’t see how agreeing with them at least as far as they are concerned is condescension on my part. That’s apparently what they want to be accepted as – godless, without libertarian free will, and with no afterlife awaiting.

    Why should it offend others if I do not accept that perspective for myself, but am still willing to accept it as true for them?

  7. I accept, William (and did, explicitly, earlier), that you do not mean to imply that those without “libertarian free will” are “less than human”.

    I find your view odd (that those who don’t think they have it, haven’t got it), and I would point out that calling someone something that they agree that they are, can nonetheless be insulting (“gay” can be used as an insult, and is no less insulting it’s true), so I understand that being told you lack libertarian free will by someone who appears to think that (libertarian) free will is something worth having can be perceived as insulting.

    But I do accept that you do not mean it to be. I hope that you might now understand, however, how it could be perceived that way.

    Consider the difference between those who believe that only Believers are Saved and those who think that All are Saved, whether the Saved believe it or not. Even to someone who doesn’t believe in Salvation anyway, the former is far more insulting than the latter.

  8. William J. Murray,

    I don’t think you’ve actually offended people here, William. Annoyed some, perhaps. Confused some. Amused some, maybe.
    But the point is that you can disagree with others, and as long as you stay within the rules (which is easy enough here, for goodness’ sake), you won’t be censored or banned.
    The advantage of this is that everyone can see everyone else’s arguments, think about them, hone their own arguments – even 😮 change their opinions as a result.
    What the heck is the point, or utility, of a “public” forum where views contrary to those of the forum “owners” are routinely – and sometimes on a spurious pretext, to boot – suppressed?

  9. Certainly I was banned on an utterly spurious pretext. When Barry finally gave a “reason” it was for something I said here, and after my ban!

    Violation of the Laws of Right Reason right there….

  10. I think another point worth making is that views are very frequently misunderstood, as you yourself know, William – cf your irritation when I try to paraphrase your views in the hope of clarifying them, and invariably get them wrong! That is not dishonesty on my part, but the reverse – an honest attempt to understand what you are saying.

    I find KF’s position extremely difficult to understand – literally. I try to read his posts, and simply cannot make sense of them. He uses words I know, but appears to mean something different from them than the meaning I ascribe to those words (“contingent” is one example). And it is certainly easy to form the impression that KF thinks that the views that I, for example hold, lead to fascism, while homosexuality leads to the breakdown of society. However, when anyone appears to accuse KF of thinking that Darwinists are Nazis he shouts “slander!” While if anyone accuses him of thinking that he, as someone who thinks homosexuality is an evil, as the Nazis did, is a Nazi, he also shouts “slander!”

    I don’t think he is aware of this double standard, but double standard is undoubtedly what it appears to be, and, I think, simply is.

    I don’t even dislike KF – I had some quite friendly conversations with him on UD, and I was genuinely sympathetic when he felt threatened by some comments that had been made on his blog. I’ve been there, and been very scared, myself, whether justifiedly or not. I think he’s profoundly mistaken about all kinds of things but I think he posts in good faith, and has the best interests of his fellow human beings at heart.

    I just wish he’d credit those of us who disagree with him with the same motivation.

  11. The point is to discuss ID, not endlessly reiterate rebuttals to talking points long since addressed, and not to attempt to demonstrate the obvious to the willfully blind – or to those incapable (by physics) of seeing it.

    Just because a forum is public doesn’t mean it should let anyone say whatever they want for as long as they want, regardless of the content of their posts.

  12. William J. Murray:
    The point is to discuss ID, not endlessly reiterate rebuttals to talking points long since addressed, and not to attempt to demonstrate the obvious to the willfully blind – or to those incapable (by physics) of seeing it.

    Just because a forum is public doesn’t mean it should let anyone say whatever they want for as long as they want, regardless of the content of their posts.

    No, it doesn’t. However, the point of this site is to discuss things in the absence of the assumption that rebuttals “have been addressed”. It seems to me worth having a site where that assumption is relaxed. After all, if I thought my rebuttals of ID had “been addressed” I’d be an IDist!

    I also think that dismissing the opposing view as “talking points” is pointless, if you want to have a discussion. Hence my rule that we assume the other is posting “in good faith”.

    In other words, that posters actually believe what they post to be true and/or reasonable and are not simply regurgitating “talking points”.

    That applies to both sides of any issue btw. I see the same perfunctory dismissal on both sides of the ID divide.

  13. I’ve never found it insulting – even when I was an atheist – that a Christian thought I was going to hell, or wasn’t saved. I’ve never found it insulting when someone thought they had, or actually had, any characteristic that could be perceived as qualitatively superior to my own repertoire of qualities or characteristics.

    In this forum, somewhere, someone stated or implied that I was either psychopathic or sociopathic because I’m not in any way altruistic – should I have taken that as an insult? As being called non-human? Are sociopaths and psychopaths “non-human”?

    People here claim to have a commodity that I assert that I do not have – altruism. Should I be insulted, then, when they call me “non-altruistic”? Should I take offense when they say that I see everything as a cost/benefit equation – which I do?

    I accept it when they say they have this commodity I do not have, and I take no offense at the ramifications of “not having altruism” vs “having altruism”. I’ve also never been a good father. Should I take offense when others say I’m not a good father? What difference does it make if they “mean” it as an insult? Why should I care? Why should the truth be insulting, even if someone means it as an insult?0

    IMO, being “insulted” by others who claim to have, or who actually have, a commodity you do not even claim to have in the first place is rooted in some psychological, ego-driven issue. For example, I’ve been lambasted here about my lack of scientific and mathematical training; so what? I readily admit I’m not qualified to make scientific or mathematical arguments on merit, and so will only go as far as to argue what can be argued logically based on assumptions of if one party or the other is correct.

    When someone says, “You don’t have the scientific knowledge/training necessary to understand X,” …. should I feel insulted? It’s true, for crying out loud, and I never claimed to have it in the first place.

    It seems to me that those who feel insulted when someone makes a point about them not having libertarian free will haven’t owned up to (fully accepted) their own position about not having it in the first place.

  14. My only objection to KF posting here is that he is rather long winded, and this server tends to be slow. But in general, the more widely his ideas are published the better.

  15. When my contract with the current webhost expires I’ll move to a server with more bandwidth.

    But yes, I do wish he’d post here. The loudhailer communication system is very unsatisfactory. I really appreciate those from UD who come over.

  16. What I do think is true is that many ID discussions are circular, which must be frustrating for all. I’m pleased to see that perhaps as a result of discussion here, Dembski’s notion of Specification has been analysed critically at ID and, rightly IMO, found wanting. Dembski (contra Eric Anderson!) did attempt to define Specification mathematically, but it just doesn’t work, and that seems now to be a consensus view at UD. So perhaps the discussion has ratcheted forward.

    On the other hand, if Specification only really words for “function” as a specialisation, it also really means that the CSI argument only works for biology.

    But perhaps that’s OK. After all, even the “fine-tuning” argument is biological.

  17. Not that I think the CSI argument works at all 🙂

    But Specification isn’t, IMO, its biggest problem.

  18. I agree that it’s good to have a site where, as you say, the position that the “talking points” and reiterated “rebuttals” have been addressed is still discussed. I wouldn’t post here otherwise.

    I don’t think that site should be UD. UD serves the intelligent design community, not the anti-ID community, and I consider their policy appropriate for that site. If it were me running that site, I’d have banned everyone Mr. Arrington did, and more, and far sooner.

    If I was running this site, I don’t think there’s much I’d do differently than the way you are operating the site. I actually like the whole “guano” concept and think you do an excellent job of differentiating guano from non-guano. I’ve been to many sites run by atheists/materialists/anti-theists, and frankly you’re the most ethical administrator/moderator of any such site I’ve ever been on.

    I understand KF’s position and his outrage, and I admire his passion. He is free to speak out against what he feels (and I agree are) scandalous associations that attack his character and misrepresent his views. In his view, you are aiding and abetting character assassination by allowing the association to stand by claiming “it didn’t happen” on this blog, or that his view that the character assassination by comparison to Nazis is “an outrageous” claim, as you said.

    It’s not an outrageous claim; it’s a reasonable inference given the evidence he presented. And, whether you like it or not, Liz, you are responsible for the content of the blog site you own. If someone is slandering someone else from your blog, and you have administrative control, then you have both legal and ethical obligations – same as if I post illegal, copyrighted material here. Sure, I am responsible, but after someone points it out to you, you cannot hide behind a policy of allowing people to post whatever they want as long as it isn’t porn or malware. You have an obligation of due diligence both under the law and ethically.

    Your stated policies do not absolve you of legal, moral or ethical obligation.

  19. I’m not sure how one could slander KF. The most damaging thing you could do is link to his posts.

  20. William J. Murray:
    I agree that it’s good to have a site where, as you say, the position that the “talking points” and reiterated “rebuttals” have been addressed is still discussed.I wouldn’t post here otherwise.

    I don’t think that site should be UD. UD serves the intelligent design community, not the anti-ID community, and I consider their policy appropriate for that site.If it were me running that site, I’d have banned everyone Mr. Arrington did, and more, and far sooner.

    Well, it would certainly be possible to run a more consistent policy than Barry does. It’s the inconsistency that is sort of irritating.

    But there are plenty of places, both virtual and actual, where like-minded people can get together and discuss stuff without interruption from people who don’t buy into their basic premise, and this is just fine. The danger of course is that one finds oneself only in echo-chambers, which is why I like to get out a bit 🙂

    If I was running this site, I don’t think there’s much I’d do differently than the way you are operating the site. I actually like the whole “guano” concept and think you do an excellent job of differentiating guano from non-guano.I’ve been to many sites run by atheists/materialists/anti-theists, and frankly you’re the most ethical administrator/moderator of any such site I’ve ever been on.

    Bless you William! Thanks!

    I understand KF’s position and his outrage, and I admire his passion. He is free to speak out against what he feels (and I agree are) scandalous associations that attack his character and misrepresent his views.In his view, you are aiding and abetting character assassination by allowing the association to stand by claiming “it didn’t happen” on this blog, or that his view that the character assassination by comparison to Nazis is “an outrageous” claim, as you said.

    It’s not an outrageous claim; it’s a reasonable inference given the evidence he presented.

    Well, I’m no longer outraged, I agree. I’m not sure I think the inference is reasonable, but it’s probably understandable, by which I mean I guess I understand it a little more.

    And, whether you like it or not, Liz, you are responsible for the content of the blog site you own. If someone is slandering someone else from your blog, and you have administrative control, then you have both legal and ethical obligations – same as if I post illegal, copyrighted material here.

    True. Which is why one of the rules is: don’t post illegal material. But it is not for me IMO to defend the views expressed on this site, or to suppress them, as long as they are legal.

    Sure, I am responsible, but after someone points it out to you, you cannot hide behind a policy of allowing people to post whatever they want as long as it isn’t porn or malware. You have an obligation of due diligence both under the law and ethically.

    Your stated policies do not absolve you of legal, moral or ethical obligation.

    Indeed. And if, for example, someone started posting inflammatory racist material on this site, I would probably put a stop to it. Essentially I draw the ethical line more or less where the legal line in Western jurisdictions is, as I think that that line more or less represents an ethical balance between freedom of speech and information (which I think is extremely important for a healthy and humane society) and freedom to incite hatred (which is antithetical to a healthy society). Fortunately I have not yet had to make any judgement that was particularly tricky. Although IANAL, so I just have to navigate the shoals as my own ethical compass directs me. It’s not too bad a gadget.

    Joe G’s porn link was a doozy. Silly boy.

  21. On KF’s specific point:

    As I see it, KF strongly implied that AF was “like” those Germans who had remained willfully ignorant of what was being done in their name, and had to be “marched through the camps” after the war in order to be made aware of what they had allowed to happen.

    OM (wrongly in my view) interpreted that as KF saying that AF was “like” a Nazi. He furthermore claimed that KF’s views on homosexuality had some things in common with those of the Nazi party (that it is immoral and deviant).

    KF objected that OM had said he was a Nazi. He didn’t.

    Neither KF nor OM accused anyone of being a Nazi.

    KF also objected that:

    AF has openly — on demonstrated false accusation — stated that CSI is “a bogus concept.” In the teeth of simple examples and more sophisticated ones, involving metrics relevant to the origin of life and of major body plans, he has tried to suggest that it is useless for calculation, that it is not measurable, and that it is part of some nefarious Creationist, fundamentalist, right-wing theocratic plot to subvert science and civilisation alike.

    I don’t know whether AF has ever claimed that CSI is “part of some nefarious Creationist, fundamentalist, right-wing theocratic plot to subvert science and civilisation alike”, although he has certainly (as have I) said that it is “bogus”. I do not interpret or mean that to mean “a deliberate fraud”. I think homeopathy is “bogus” in that it doesn’t work and the rationale doesn’t make any sense, but I don’t think homeopaths are fraudulent. Recent discussion of CSI at UD seems even to have elicited some consensus that Dembski’s CSI formula, with his definition of Specification doesn’t work. I think it’s worse than that, as do some others; that it’s not just the Specification part that doesn’t matter, it’s the entirely concept which I think is profoundly fallacious, and the metric impossible to calculate without assuming your conclusion. So for KF to demand a retraction fo that statement is absurd. As I said. good and intelligent people can differ on quite fundamental claims, and in this case, do.

  22. The argument of KF’s the I and many others find offensive is his claim that materialism leads inevitably to political evil.

    What I find most amusing is the attack on social Darwinism.

    Social Darwinism is an extreme interpretation of Laissez-faire economics, an interpretation that conflates description with prescription. What I find amusing is that KF belongs to a conservative political tradition that admires Adam Smith and government non-intervention in the economy. My quick perusal of science websites leads me to conclude that the overwhelming majority of evolution supporters are politically liberal or left leaning, and the very opposite of social Darwinists.

    I am bemused by all this because I tend to think Adam Smith was correct in describing the most productive kind of economy, but I don’t accept his as necessarily the most desirable. Most Western democracies try to find a balance. Which means that activists on both sides are always unhappy.

    What this has to do with the correctness of evolution, I can’t imagine. I’m approaching three score and ten, and in my lifetime I seen a lot of political atrocities, or at least read about them. I’ve seen nothing that I could attribute to ideas or thinking of any kind other than of how to achieve and maintain power. I’ve seen this in religion as well as in politics. The operative meme is not materialism or fascism or socialism, but demagoguery.

    My point is that nearly all of KF’s gloss on science seems to stem from a very confuse set of political ideas.

    I say confused, because they are so transparently self-contradictory.

  23. On a point of detail I can’t see how Lizzie can be legally responsible for the content of material on her blog unless she explicitly condones it. This would imply that she is legally obliged to check everything that is written on her blog and verify that it is legal. This would be extremely challenging – among other things which country’s laws should she check it against? (If she were to write it herself or explicitly condone it then she would be liable under UK law just as if she wrote it and published it in paper form)

  24. Lizzie writes:

    KF also objected that:

    AF has openly — on demonstrated false accusation — stated that CSI is “a bogus concept.” In the teeth of simple examples and more sophisticated ones, involving metrics relevant to the origin of life and of major body plans, he has tried to suggest that it is useless for calculation, that it is not measurable, and that it is part of some nefarious Creationist, fundamentalist, right-wing theocratic plot to subvert science and civilisation alike.

    I don’t know about Alan, but I will openly make exactly the claims that kairosfocus details here.

    CSI is demonstrably a bogus concept by virtue of being uncomputable as explained in this thread among several others on this site. kairosfocus continues to make the false claim that it is not, in the teeth of repeated correction. For shame.

    While I might not use the same purple prose, it is in fact the case that CSI, as used to ostensibly support ID, “is part of some nefarious Creationist, fundamentalist, right-wing theocratic plot to subvert science and civilisation alike.” I support this claim with the following evidence:

    1) cdesign proponentsists When “intelligent design” is completely interchangeable with “creation science” in a book edited by ID proponents, arguing that ID is anything other than the latest incarnation of creationism is futile. See the Dover decision for more evidence of ID’s religious roots.

    2) The Wedge Document The Discovery Institute, home to numerous ID “luminaries”, declares their intention to “replace science as currently practiced with ‘theistic and Christian science.'”

    3) The Discovery Institute is heavily financed by Howard Ahmanson Jr., a Dominionist who openly states “My goal is the total integration of biblical law into our lives.”

    If you disagree, kairosfocus, come over here and make your case.

  25. petrushka:
    I’m approaching three score and ten

    I wonder how many of us are in our 60s? It would be mildly interesting to see if bloggers of a similar age are attracted by the same style of debate.

  26. Mark Frank,

    On a point of detail I can’t see how Lizzie can be legally responsible …

    Yeah, people such as WJM pretending that blogowners are both morally and legally responsible for what other people say is just bullying. Where they don’t have the power to actually ban or censor things that hurt their feelings, they try to trick or bully other people into doing the censoring for them.

    I think KF should be openly mocked for his bigotry. As long as he isn’t ashamed to put his despicable ideas out in public, I will be proud to call them out as the irrational religiously-based prejudice that they are. I think KF should be subject to torrents of speech refuting his speech.

    KF and other bullies think I should be forced to shut up.

    Thank goodness KF and the lawyers he likes to pretend are on his side don’t actually control the world of free speech.

  27. Mark Frank: I wonder how many of us are in our 60s? It would be mildly interesting to see if bloggers of a similar age are attracted by the same style of debate.

    61 here.

  28. On the matter of forcing people to shut up, I find myself in disagreement.

    Freedom of speech is essential, even when we don’t like what’s being said. Moreover, I would rather have the likes of Mullings and Arrington out in the open

  29. Lizzie:
    I think you, like I, misread that.

    boomers need glasses

    Oh, bugger, so I did.

    The point stands, though – if there are people spreading (what I consider to be ) vileness, then I would rather know about it. And if anyone wants to shut me up, I want to know about that, too.
    It still rankles a little that I was thrice banned at UD, before I even got a chance to be uncivil. Although I did poke a little mild fun at KF by taking “Bydand” as my identity. He was quite pompous about that.

  30. Lizzie:
    Yes, well, this blog wasn’t set up for mockery – there are plenty of blogs that are

    Lizzie, I understand that, and I do my best to comply while I’m here (nor do I grouse when my mistakes get moved to sandbox/guano)

    My point is that KF – if he were to succeed in getting his theocratic way – would never allow any place for mockery nor any other form of dissent. Never questioning. Never free speech. Only the speech approved by the right-thinking dictator of right-reason.

    He’s wrong to desire that.

    I can state that flatly (without mockery at all). He’s just plain wrong. Thank our forebearers who fought and died for western civilization – we have the right to say “He’s wrong” and “The dictator has no clothes” – at least we can in some places in our world.

    And thank goodness there are indeed other spaces set up for mockery.

  31. This would be extremely challenging – among other things which country’s laws should she check it against?

    I suspect KF’s ranting against homosexuals could be considered illegal hate speech under UK law, and I assume KF lives under UK law.

    It’s a bit difficult for me to tease out the differences between actual speech laws and caricatures of them.

  32. Oh, I agree 🙂 And I appreciate the effort, hotshoe! I have no moral objection to mockery!

    Indeed I have no right to. I’m not exactly a model of non-mockery myself.

    But I do think we have a potentially valuable space here.

  33. I don’t care how sites conduct themselves, but it does say something about ID people that with the glorious exception of Cornelius Hunter, they seldom allow open debate.

    Perhaps Barry Arrington would like to practice law in a society where you are only allowed to defend an accused if you are willing to concede their guilt.

  34. WJM:

    UD serves the intelligent design community, not the anti-ID community, and I consider their policy appropriate for that site. If it were me running that site, I’d have banned everyone Mr. Arrington did, and more, and far sooner.

    I believe you, William.

    I think it’s fine that Barry wants UD to be a pro-ID support group, an echo chamber, and a propaganda machine. I just wish he’d be honest and admit it instead of pretending that UD is a forum for open debate.

    Fortunately, I don’t think he’s fooling anyone.

    Barry’s frequent bannings are a direct consequence of the poor quality of the pro-ID arguments on offer at UD. If UDers were able to defend their views effectively, then it would be in Barry’s interest to welcome dissenters instead of banning them.

    The same goes for the reluctance of the UD regulars to lower the drawbridge and venture out of the castle. As KF would say, it’s sad — and sadly revealing.

  35. I said, after she is made aware of something that may be slanderous or otherwise illegal when posted on a public site), then she may be legally culpable. I don’t know (and don’t think) that anything posted here by anyone – that I’ve seen – rises to the level actionable material.

    If you know something illegal is going on at a place that you have legal control over, you are culpable – at least, here in the states, and, I suspect, in the UK as well.

  36. No, but then I’m too dumb to pour piss out of a boot with the directions printed on the heel.

  37. WJM:

    The point is to discuss ID, not endlessly reiterate rebuttals to talking points long since addressed, and not to attempt to demonstrate the obvious to the willfully blind – or to those incapable (by physics) of seeing it.

    I confess my left eyebrow raised fully one millimiter on reading that. Talking points long since addressed – such as endless recycling of Hoyle’s Fallacy, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the supposed ‘impossibility’ of whale evolution, protein evolution, above-species evolution, or whatever else tickles the fancy – rear their head over and over again. If ‘discuss ID’ is the brief, and ID’s claims to scientific legitimacy are sincere, petulant suppression is not consistent with either. You don’t want to hear why you’re wrong? I guess I can understand that! 😉

    If it were me running that site, I’d have banned everyone Mr. Arrington did, and more, and far sooner.

    You’d have banned little ol’ me? What did I ever do? 😯

    You seem to suggest you would remove every anti-ID commenter. Go science! The bind is that page hits are a revenue earner. Comments (and site hits) drop substantially following each purge.

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