A look at reasons not to have open and honest dialogue (Comments open)
KF has picked up on my previous thread here:
And to his credit he highlights my reasons why I think closed comments monologues do not represent an open and honest way to explore an issue.
I cannot find any of the points refuted but he instead suggests that “The central problem with this is that it (tellingly) brushes aside highly relevant context of abusive threadjacking and insistent accusations/insinuations in response to a thread here at UD that began: “Let’s discuss . . . “
Here is the link to that:
KF claims that “An article that, from the opening words, was an invitation to civil discussion. Which, was met with a threadjacking stunt.”
That’s an interesting take. “…an invitation to civil discussion.”
I hold, as I think does EL and other objectors, that a fair venue is a prerequisite for a fair discussion. A place where people’s comments will not be altered and deleted. Discussions represent an investment of people’s time and UD has, shamefully in my opinion, broken trust with its participants by editing, shouting over and completely deleting the entire history of posters.
This is something that when we see it in history that most people find abhorrent:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union
And UD as ID’s premier website does itself and its readers a disservice in engaging in it, without acknowledgement.
Having a good debate is helped by having the best venue possible and this is now clearly TSZ as it has a transparent and honest moderation policy, one that has very recently protected KF’s pseudo-anonymity. There is nothing stopping KF posting here unless he fears an honest playing field where he can’t arbitrarily control dialogue. It is the best venue for the reasons above.
If KF finds comments ‘not on topic at’ TSZ, he can simply ignore them. I think many people find massive holes in his FSCO/I concept (Dr. Ewert clearly being one of them) and this would provide him a forum to put his ideas to the test.
Should other entities in the world or on the ‘net be giving KF a hard time then he has TSZ’s sympathies and a statement that we do not endorse or support that sort of thing. There is no reason to try and link those events with TSZ unless you’re looking for an excuse not to have open dialogue.
So the ball’s in your court, KF. FSCO/I, or any other topic you choose.
Rich:
True, and the evidence to date suggests that he very much fears a level playing field.
I’d be pleased to see him honor his Scottish forebears by summoning the courage to post here, however.
KF:
Unfortunately, comments such as the above do not promote fair and honest discussion. If KF could avoid these types of statements, as well as his “corrective” statements, I would be willing to discuss his arguments in a civil fashion. Until he is willing to behave as a mature adult, I am afraid that I will simply ignore him. As everybody else does.
I encourage all IDists to engage their opponents in some venue. If not at TSZ, in a civil way at university.
When creationist university science students come to me, I encourage them to politely ask questions of their professors. Regarding OOL, biological evolution, they can be polite, non-confrontational and gain knowledge.
I have great confidence, if they ask the right questions and study the matter carefully, they’ll realize at the very least evolutionary theory and OOL have gigantic gaps in knowledge relative to what they advertise as settled science. Same with paleontology, and with great difficulty some things in cosmology.
Whether that convinces them of creation or ID is up to them, but they’ll know the score.
KF should come here to TSZ to sharpen his debate skills.
If KF thinks he communicates well and argues his case well, he should look forward to facing the opposition and winning debates in their home field on occasion. This will be good medicine for what I view as a pathological inability to be clear in his arguments.
I have to credit the anti-IDists on their determination. They’ll at least show up on ID websites, and even if all they have is trash talking and illogic and distortions and stress on irrelevancies, they at least show up. On occasion, they have accurate criticisms, but not very often. The few times I find their arguments correct, I’ll agree, which isn’t very often, however, but I will agree and defend their position vigorously.
Here is the conflation. Who is saying that the origin of life is settled science?
Please, be specific. If you can’t be specific, withdraw the claim!
And you are right, evolutionary theory and OOL have gigantic gaps in them. Nobody disputes that.
But the more important point is that YEC/ID is all gap!
So if it’s a problem for you that evolutionary theory and OOL have gigantic gaps in them then why is it not also a problem that YEC/ID has even more gaps?
Given a choice between something with gigantic gaps and something that has many many many more gaps then that, you choose the latter.
Unless of course it’s your position that YEC is better supported then evolutionary theory?
Ironic. Therefore I look forward to you addressing this comment from Allan on the YEC thread:
What say you?
Sal’s YEC can’t even survive the acid test of tree rings, let alone isotope dating.
KF has at least driven traffic to TSZ. Thank you for the free-of-charge advertisement.
Acartia,
To be fair to Sal, he’s here arguing his case.
I wouldn’t call C&Ping every YEC PRATT he can find then ignoring all counter-evidence and running away from all questions “arguing”.
Exactly. Making a case really doesn’t mean merely picking away (to little meaningful effect) at the evidence that the other side produces. There’s a place for that, if it actually works, but the science side actually has a coherent picture to present, and Sal simply does not.
Of course I don’t know how creationism could actually present a real case. The point is that there is no meaningful discussion when Sal just throws out generally incompetent criticisms of geology/evolution while he ignores the masses of evidence that are contrary to his beliefs. If he’d at least try to deal comprehensively with the evidence there could be frank discussion, but he seems afraid to lose (as if it’s ever been anything but a losing proposition) and avoids the many facts about the earth that would militate against the young earth even were some of his criticisms correct.
OK, I don’t know what to do about it, but it does at least seem appropriate to point out what a meaningless exercise this really is. If he were the prosecution in a court case, the whole useless mess would have been thrown out long ago. To be sure, that’s not what should happen here, but it’s annoying to churn through endless dull PRATTs when very basic contradictory facts are ignored.
To be reduced to arguing about whether fossils in undisturbed rocks are substantially different in age from those rocks* is to reduce what should be a discussion of real issues to a ridiculous sideshow. It’s like arguing over whether the knife sticking out of the murder victim’s back (blade in to the hilt) really did the victim any harm.
Glen Davidson
*Barring the odd exception, like a fossil being reburied. Of course.
Nicolas Steno, 1669.
I didn’t mean it as a criticism of Sal as a person. I am glad that he is here presenting his case. I just don’t see how he can ignore the preponderance of evidence that exists suggesting that life is extremely old. Even dendrochronology, an easily understood and well accepted process, can demonstrate an unbroken chain that extends back well over 10,000 years, predating the time at which SAL proposes that all life was created.
Sal’s case rests on his interpretation of the noise at the edge of instrument resolution. It is the equivalent of arguing the earth is flat because local measurements are flat. Ignoring the conscilience of hundreds of years of geology. Simple willful ignorance.
But it is nice to have him around to remind everyone of how intellectually vacuous creationism is.
Sal’s argument regarding fossils was blown away in1669, long before Darwin.
Given the breadth, depth and accessibility of the data against YEC, it has to be classed as a conspiracy theory I think. Enough Sal, go and argue on his thread! 😉
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kairosfocus
June 10, 2015 at 11:47 am
Folks, a WP bug, my login expired without notice and a comment vanished. KF”
I imagine that’s frustrating.
30,000 words down the drain.
And we’ll never know what it contained.
We can only guess, from a list of “Lewontin!”, fishing reels, red herrings soaked in ad hominem, and a litany of the evils of materialists. A rehash of baseless claims and accusations, judging by the past 8 million words.
Come to think of it, we can probably do quite all right without it.
Glen Davidson
I corrected your statement for you.
Acartia, given that the words were lost, I think it follows that they are incomprehensible.
FYI/FTR, when you were most recently banned from UD, why were you banned?
Were all your posts deleted?
From the OP:
The assertion that Dr. Ewert found “massive holes” in the FSCO/I concept is quite without substance. It should be rejected by any self-respecting skeptic if offered as a true premise.
Do try to do better. Especially if you really do want to attract other ID supporters or theists to this site.
For the record, I don’t post here because it’s a great place for the free exchange of ideas. I primarily post here to correct the constant and seemingly unending misrepresentations of ID and theism.
That’s not something this site can be proud of.
Mung,
We know. You post here despite that fact.
LOL! Sure Mung, we’re just so lucky to have you here to explain the science behind ID for us. Like giving us that list of testable hypotheses we can use to test for ID. And telling us when the Designer did her work. And explaining how ID can be falsified without making assumptions about the Designer. And providing all the supporting evidence for WJM when he claims “intent” is the physical force the Designer used to move matter.
So very, very lucky. 😀
Mung,
“Aurelio Smith:
Is FSCO/I something you’ve heard of?
If you have, do you (and as spokesman for DEM) endorse it?
Winston Ewert:
I’ve seen posts about it. I’m not inclined to take it seriously until I see it published some place more serious then a blog.
kairosfocus:
I have pointed to the antecedents for the descriptivce summary in Orgel, Wicken, Dembski and Meyer from 85 on above: http://www.uncommondescent.com…..ent-562213 These will handily meet the more serious than a blog criterion.
Winston:
You really think a comment on a blog that quotes other people and calls them idea-roots for FSCO/I qualifies as a serious presentation of the idea of FSCO/I?
KF:
WE, I think I need to note that my point has always been that all I have provided by using the abbreviation FSCO/I is an acronym for a descriptive summary of the functionally specific subset of complex specified information.
Winston:
My apologies. That’s what I get for commenting on something I know nothing about. I was under the impression that you were trying to do something more novel then applying an acronym to the ideas of other people.”
The hole that is new content provided by FIASCO is so big it consumes the content altogether. The substance is so small it cannot form a perimeter for a hole to fill. Is your point that hole is too small a concept for the missing details?
Yes, and you post stuff like this at UD because…
Please, explain a little more. See if you can do it without misrepresenting atheism.
You are right. He did not say the words “massive holes”. So, once again, you are merely technically right as opposed to actually right. As Dr. Ewert dismissed out of hand the FSCO/I concept, as shown by Richards quote, he did not even bother to find any “massive holes” – at a glance he saw it was but a hole and rightly dismissed it.
You want to talk like you are in a courtroom, but never seem to present the case for the prosecution. When will you be getting around to that?
Mung, what do you think of FSCO/I? Think it is useful? Think it can be applied and FSCO/I calculated?
Mung, if you think there are no “massive holes” in the FSCO/I concept then why not try calculating FSCO/I for this comment?
But of course you won’t do that, as per WJM it’s all wordplay and about “winning” with words rather than actual substance.
I have been banned so frequently, I don’t remember all of the details. But the last couple were bannings before the first comment of a new sockpuppet even made it out of moderation. I was once called a lying troll and banned by Barry after I claimed that I was an atheist and an ID supporter. I was once banned for requesting that KF stop making libellous claims against Elizabeth.
I have had numerous comments either deleted, or edited by both Barry and KF.
And he’s still at it:
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sean samisSeptember 2, 2015 at 6:26 am
I will reply to kairosfocus’s comment #139, but later today. KF clearly put a lot of feeling into it and I want to respond appropriately. I will note the somewhat cowardly way he double-posted his reply to me, putting it prominently on a site-headline and then blocking any response there. It shows that for all KF’s passion, KF lacks confidence in his argument. As he should.
Until later.
sean s.”
Cowardly, KF.
I wouldn’t call quote mining arguing.
And Barry Arrington and KairosFocus continue to massacre self-evidence and Agrippa’s Trilemma, respectively. If Kant aimed to restrict knowledge to make room for faith, the philosophers at Uncommon Descent aim to destroy knowledge for the sake of faith.
I can;t wait for Mung to get started on correcting the misrepresentations of ID and theism.
Regarding theism, Mung has expressed a metaphorical or poetic view of religion that cannot be falsified. One might compare it with a postmodern approach to texts. As such, it avoids criticism by not asserting anything.
Regarding ID, I don’t recall Mung defending anything specific.
Does Mung wish to defend the common practice of quote mining? The most recent example provided by Sal in his own thread?
About the misrepresentation of ID:
Is it a misrepresentation to say that IDists tend to conflate evolution and origin of life?
Is it a misrepresentation of ID to say that IDists tend to argue that features of the current genetic code must have been present in the first reproducing things?
Is it misrepresentation of ID to say that IDists tend to interpret unsolved problems as unsolvable?
Is it a misrepresentation of ID to say that IDists remain silent when fellow IDists disagree on such substantive claims as the age of the earth? Or disagree on common descent? Or whether speciation happens?
Is it a misrepresentation of ID to say there are still people at UD who can’t grasp how the WEASEL program works, or grasp that it doesn’t latch? And that fellow IDists don’t correct them?
How about Cornelius Hunter?
http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2015/08/idiots-promote-twenty-two-falsified.html?m=1
Is it a misrepresentation of ID to call Hunter a representative IDist?
petrushka,
In the interest of intellectual fairness, I think we should distinguish between what the major theorists of ID say and what is widely accepted in the ID movement. Uncommon Descent is entirely the latter — there’s no interesting engagement with the ideas of Behe, Dembski, or even Meyer anymore. It’s all the culture-war politics with Berlinski, Hunter, Pearcey, etc. The crusade against “materialism” is entirely a culture-war project and has nothing to do with science.