Comments that seem to me to be in violation of the game rules will be moved here, and closed to further comment. Do not regard having your post moved here as a reprimand, merely as a referee’s whistle. 🙂
Feel free to comment on them at any other peanut gallery of your choice.
Robin,
You make a good point. Miserable people, like chris, are very likely to need and turn to a crutch, like booze, drugs, or religion.
Chris Doyle,
Everything you say is meaningless nonsense, and irrational.
It’s great to see Elizabeth back and clarifying issues again at Uncommon Descent – especially in the “Rabbi pleads with Darwinian atheists” thread.
Will her feminine wiles entice the blowhard Chris Doyle to engage her? Or will Elizabeth pop him one? I’m at the edge of my monitor.
I’m waiting for Chris to ask what happened to his post here, and all the comments in it.
I think this is an investigation he should lead.
It would fit right in with the thread.
Was the erasing culprit an atheist, who just “felt like” deleting something, or a theist who felt obligated to by his “objective” moral code?
Stay tuned for Chris’s ruling.
Toronto:
Since it seems you are intent on continuing the mischaracterization of my argument by claiming that I am “asserting” that a god exists, even after multiple corrections, I conclude you are not really interested in meaningful debate.
I appreciate your time.
WJM, “meaningful debate” is obviously not what you’re interested in. Your assertion that a god exists is plain to see and you’re being dishonest by denying it. Your smugness is also plain to see.
GilDodgen,
Gil, isn’t your proselytizing and constant self promotion on UD enough? Must you clutter up this blog with it too?
Brandon Ward, once I saw your UD user name I wasn’t surprised that you support genocide, and I’m also not surprised that you’re defending Gil Dodgen’s blatantly obvious hypocrisy, dishonesty, and self promotion.
Dodgen and the rest of you have been attacking, insulting, ridiculing, and falsely accusing Dr. Liddle for months, and yet you actually expect anyone outside of your ID clique to believe that any of you are genuinely friendly and genuinely interested in honest, fruitful discussion with her either here or on UD?
The only reasons any of you hope that she will keep posting on UD is because the traffic on UD went up dramatically shortly after she started posting there, you want to bring what you consider to be a lost soul back into the fold, you want to keep what you consider to be a weak female pigeon to pick on and convince yourselves that you’re big men, you think that you’re showing the world that you have and can continue to intellectually and morally conquer a lettered but evil “Darwinist” and atheist in a fair fight, and because if she’s gone you’ll have to do a lot more work yourselves to see what’s going on in real science.
What you won’t face and admit is that it has never been a fair fight since UD won’t allow many others who would agree with and support Dr. Liddle to comment on the site, that you desperately don’t want traffic on the site to decrease, that you get a kick out of picking on what you perceive to be a weak, submissive, abusable woman, that you won’t be able to falsely and egotistically continue to convince yourselves that you are her intellectual and moral superiors, that you won’t be able to continue to feed your inflated egos by believing (falsely of course) that most or all of the increased visitors to UD see you as God inspired superiors who are easily kicking her misguided and uninformed “Darwinist”, atheist ass, and that you won’t be able to ride on her coattails and benefit from her obviously extensive scientific knowledge that you publicly ridicule and deny even exists.
The mistakes Dr. Liddle has made are assuming that any of you are genuinely interested in learning anything about science and reality, that you really do want to provide a scientific, working hypothesis and test your ID claims, that you are willing to follow scientifically accepted methods of producing and scrutinizing your alleged evidence, that you are decent, unselfish, honest people who strive to live up to your grandiose claims of morality and intellectuality, that you will admit when you are wrong or could be wrong, that you have even a shred of humility and common sense, and that you actually want fair, open, and honest discussion. A bigger mistake would be for her to ever comment on UD again. I have a feeling that she is going to make that mistake, so you guys may still have her to arrogantly kick around at times in your heavily moderated, safe haven at UD.
Same old stuff from WJM. Same old stuff, with the same old flaws which he dismisses/ignores in the same old way he’s dismissed/ignored it in past threads hereabouts.
Bored now.
Arguing logic with SB on UD? Why bother?
Here’s a guy who believes in something akin to witchcraft, ghosts, his own bent moral rules and a male god knows what.
You only have to Google creationist logical fallacies to see how the only ‘laws’ and thus morals they respect are really some xstain version of Sharia lore.
Where their self projected version of their deity, filtered through an ancient Abrahamic mythology, gets to decide what is true and false; good and bad.
They are not accountable for their bastardisation of science education because they are not in the least bit interested in a truth best tested by the most perfect test for truth known to modern man, the scientific method aka ‘Darwinism’.
That is why they hate Darwinism. It proves them to be liars. Just ask Judge Jones
Their hyper objective bibliophilic fetish with their so called god scripts aka the xstain bible belies a deep distrust in humanity. Their reactionary conservative values disable their ability to appreciate the ancient poetry of a slowly civilizing bunch of goat farmers and cattle thieves.
Mono-theism mediated through cheap paper and mega deity barons controlling the collective moral market space. Sex and money, the root of all evil.
Just ask SB.
SB if you have a better test for truth than Darwinism….. feel free to read us the Chapter and Verse. Ring the vatican if you get stuck.
One can hardly fault the host for banning those who refused to abide the explicitly defined rule.
It would be a false case. It makes more sense to say that there are people at UD who are not interested in open debate, and who are banning debaters in order to prevent open debate.
The latest Arrington post begins with “If one believes A = A only some of the time, and that A = !A is true for some circumstances, whether they’re referring to logical propositions or a construct of physical reality, then that person is either deluded or devious.” I don’t believe that describes a claim made by any of the people banned. Perhaps people at UD wrongly suppose that some made that claim.
In my world, when somebody appears to make a claim that seems obviously wrong, I assume that there is probably a miscommunication and I try to ask questions to help clarify what is being said.
Which “explicitly defined rule?”
If you mean the rule that they must buckle under and assert something that they know to be false, in order to appease Barry Arrington – if you mean that, then you have just said more about your own view of morality than in all of those many earlier posts at this site.
The explicit rules were:
If you do not accept the LNC, you are not welcome at UD.
If you do not answer the LNC question with one word “yes” or “no”, you will be banned.
I hope it does show my morality, because I seek to obey the rules of the host, wherever I am, and if there is some aspect of my views that disqualifies me from participating, I should respectfully leave.
Honoring the rules of the host in their own house is hardly “appeasement”. Mr. Arrington doesn’t owe you, or anyone, a platform from which you can espouse things he doesn’t wish his platform to be used for.
And that’s fine. I have no problem with that condition. And I don’t see that anybody violated it.
And that’s the problem. For the question asked was not an LNC question at all. And people were banned for simply pointing out that it was not an LNC question.
When the host demands that you tell a lie as a condition for remaining in their house, you should refuse to tell that lie and expect to be ousted.
When WJM supports that outrageous behavior by the host , WJM is saying something very clear, very direct and very ugly about WJM’s own morality.
William J Murray,
The banned weren’t asked about the LNC, they were asked about whether the moon exists and/or not.
Logic works with assertions, something you do constantly and you should have every right to do it.
A lot of your arguments have hinged on “IF X”, whether X is actually true or not, and for the logic layer, that is a very valid and acceptable thing to do.
What Barry suggests, is that only physical reality can be asserted for the purposes of logic, which would not allow your or anyone elses “IF X”.
What Barry has implied, is that it is acceptable for bricklayers to rule whether welders know enough about welding to weld.
We see this in Barry’s acceptance of a lawyer, himself, determining whether scientists know enough about science to engage in a scientific debate.
Joe G,
Very true, but don’t say that to Barry or you’ll be on the “expelled” list.
Even if we accept that Mr. Arrington made such a demand, it is his right to do so, and the moral obligation of those visiting to acquiesce to that demand or leave. If you can’t see than an answer other than “yes” or “no” violated the specific rule requiring a “yes” or “no” answer to the question, I can’t help you.
You either answer the question “yes”, or “no”, or leave, regardless of if you think the question can be appropriately answered via one of those two answers or not. Those are your options. If you don’t think the question can be appropriately answered via those answers, you’re not welcome in his establishment.
If at the entrance to my establishment I ask you the question “Are you over the legal drinking age, or not, answer with only one word, yes or no, or you cannot come in, and if you answer no, you cannot come in” and you start off your response with .. “Well, it kind of depends on what you mean by “age” …”, then you cannot come in.
I’m not requiring you to lie to come in; I’m requiring that you answer my question one way or another. You can lie to come in or not, that choice is yours.
I understand that you don’t consider the question or the list of potential answers legitimate, but because you don’t consider them legitimate is entirely irrelevant. Mr. Arrington does, and it’s his house.
So? It’s still Mr. Arrington’s right to utilize whatever entrance exam he wishes, whether others consider it valid or not.
Taking that to be a fair analogy for what happened at UD is beyond despicable.
It’s still Mr. Arrington’s right to utilize whatever entrance exam he wishes
No, there’s no right. It’s a privilege of moderating, and it’s being used to bully and coerce. Arrington says that he can call anyone to account for themselves, via the question, “at any time. Basically, he’s looking to be the sheriff of UD’s one-horse town.
That such a policy comes from the people who cry about being “expelled” is both amusing and troubling. Not only is ID not science, but ID proponents expect to be able to set the rules for everyone else: “You answer my question in my way — or get out.”
We know UD by their fruits, and arbitrary banning is one of these fruits.
Taking that to be a fair analogy for what happened at UD is beyond despicable.
I envy your life that you can consider a potentially erroneous analogy about a blog entrance test “beyond despicable”.
I certainly agree that Barry has the right to do exactly what he wants on his own site, just as I do on this one. And actually I applaud the fact that he has made this rule explicit.
However, I think it is profoundly foolish, for the simple reason that there is no non-nuanced answer to his question that would be reasonable. The “Law of non-contradiction” holds at human time and space scales. It does not hold at quantum scales, and is meaningless at astronomical scales. It’s de facto true of an object the size of Jupiter, but only because the probability is not true is vanishingly small.
Taking that view that the LNC is only applicable at human scales is not de facto evidence of irrationality, and certainly does not disqualify one to discuss any other matter rationally. It is merely evidence, at worst, of a pedantry borne of some kind of understanding what Relativity and Quantum Mechanics mean for the way we model reality.
William J Murray,
This is the sort of thing that irritates me about those who claim an absolute moral code.
The Christian moral code contains a “Thou shalt not lie” directive.
Would Barry be happier with a liar or a scientist who honestly disagrees with a lawyer about science?
Mr. Arrington’s entrance exam only asked a human-scale question about the LNC. As such, it could have been answered, reasonably, with a simple “no” by anyone not driven by ego or the ideological compulsion to stick in a caveat about some possibility so remote that to consider it is a waste of time.
IMO, banning people that refuse to answer a reasonable question with a reasonable answer as requested simply out of ego (their own need to qualify every answer with an escape-clause caveat regardless of how remote the possibility, or their own need to just not submit to Mr. Arrington’s specificied simplicity) is a good way of separating out the chaff.
William J Murray,
So true, William! Soon all you will have left at UD will be a big pile of chaff. Or do really believe that “intelligent design” was ever any more than a catchy title for a vacuous concept?
No you don’t.
You already know the truth; you had an “extraordinary encounter with Jesus Christ” if you remember?
All you’ve ever wanted ,Gil, in your posts at UD and elsewhere is to talk about yourself. And this post is no exception. Your entire shtick is to assert that Darwinism is transparently in its logical, evidential and cultural death-throes. You happen to know this because you used to be a militant atheist, you work with computer simulations and are in fact a “proper scientist” not like that Dawkins swine!!
Yet invariably whenever you’re challenged to actually back up your assertions with, you know, an argument, you disappear in the blink of an eye…..only to re-appear a few weeks later with yet another post declaring the imminent collapse….blah….pianos….my dad, great physicist…..blah…..LS-DYNA….blah…..transparent nonsense…..blah….blah….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Chicken, Gil?
You have already proven that you are incapable of learning anything wrt ID. And you sure as heck will never ante-up anything in support of your lame-ass position.
olegt- you have already proven that you are incapable of learning anything wrt ID. And you have also proven that you can’t support your position.
Test post due to go to Guano
Elizabeth,
Moved post to Guano
So if it’s only “it happened naturally” without stating “it only happened naturally” then ID is Darwinism. If you state that “it only happened naturally” then “it didn’t happen unnaturally” is perfectly correct and certainly less ambiguous. Reading comprehension, people.
Another mental deficient self identifies. Of course this is correct. And you’ll find that I stated to Sachs in another thread that I found it a necessary and inseparable part of the process. I’d sorely like to see the person who would argue that you didn’t first think of an experiment before performing it purposefully.
Meaningful ideologically. Despite that, if you don’t have a metaphysical theory of computers you nonetheless are typing on one. If you wish to state that if we are strictly within the framework of occupational science then I agree with you. We should focus on slaying the wrong-headed nonsense. But that then means that we should be putting efforts into ID rather than producing knuckle bone the Saints (Lemurs?) for the faithful. That is, there should be opposed advocates to keep the whole process honest.
Well I should hope it wasn’t a creationist critique; I’m not a creationist. But perhaps you could tell me what the ‘proper’ scientific understanding of ‘evolution’ is. We are here talking about the entirety of every mutually inconsistent theory that falls under the theological umbrella of evolution after all.
Oh, I suppose we won’t see those “simple probability calculations” after all. That’s too bad.
I suppose they’re so intuitively obvious they need not be performed. Not to mention actual performance requires descending to a pathetic level of detail.
Gil,
Your failure to support your position is just pitiful. I hope you’ll remember this the next time you’re tempted to run your mouth off about how “transparently ridiculous” Darwinism is, and how this can easily be demonstrated with “high school math”.
What was asked for was actual, empirical demonstration. What was provided was bafflegab and doublespeak. Again.
I’m reminded ot Doonesbury’s introduction to Duke, who is so stoned he thinks he’s arguing with a lizard. And he wonders why he bothers. The philosophical assumption of rationality here is, uh, not always met.
What was requested was, if not an actual demonstration of ID, at least a sufficiently operationalized description that somone COULD do a demonstration. What was provided, as usual, was bafflegab and evasion. By now, this is pretty well explained, of course. There IS no “there” there.
You can, as always, stick your tail between your legs and run back to your prayer group.
Why such hatred and intolerance? Your posts, and those of those like you, are the main reason I no longer have any interest in participating here.
In my opinion you’ve offered a superb example of emotion-based irrationality, which is impervious to reason. You have immeasurably reinforced my conclusion that I am wasting my time on this forum.
You post in their group, they ban you. They have freedom to post in your group, they run away.
Gil,
You’re awfully thin-skinned for someone who habitually denigrates “Darwinists”, refers to the “transparent idiocy” of materialists, and claims that materialists have “lost their minds”.
Feel free to run away without defending your position, but don’t expect us to respect you for doing so.
And I’ve no actual, empirical demonstration of evolution. Will you provide what doesn’t exist or engage in bafflegab and doublespeak?
That’s your call certainly and you ought keep your conscience on the matter. No matter the case I applaud both you and Elizabeth for at least giving it a go.
No, I’m quite happy with it and look forward to your sophistries.
Gil was here to witness, nothing more. He’s accomplished that task and now he’s returning to UD where his preaching will bet met with murmurs of approval rather than awkward questions.
It was ever thus.
It won’t be long before a new ‘article’ appears at UD authored by Gil lamenting the fact that ‘Darwinists’ just don’t want to understand.
aiguy,
I don’t think it’s quite so dire. You can press an argument here at TSZ; you just need to be willing to do it on your own, without counting on the other side to cooperate. They may flounce out like Gil, or obfuscate like Maus. They may try to change the subject or to push your buttons with a personal attack. If you just keep making your argument despite these obstacles, your point will get through. As a bonus, occasionally someone will actually engage your argument, and you can have a genuine debate.
Onlookers — at least the open-minded ones — can see who is arguing in good faith and who is looking for excuses to evade questions. Everyone who witnessed Gil’s departure knows that it was motivated by fear. If he actually had a strong argument, or if he could lay down a few lines of “simple probability calculations” that would demonstrate the “transparent absurdity” of Darwinism, he would do so, instead of fleeing in disgrace.
Sure, it would have been better if Gil had been brave enough to present an argument. But by fleeing the scene, he demonstrated the weakness of his position just as clearly as if he had stuck around and given us the opportunity to dismantle his “simple probability calculations.” The message to the audience is the same either way: Gil has no effective argument against “Darwinism”.
This is a no-brainer. As in anyone that believes in IDC has not learned to use their brain. ID IS creationism in a cheap tuxedo, and most sane people realize that it was “designed” just to try and slip by US courts and sneak creationism back into school. That’s it. The entire science of ID in a sentence.
Sorry Elizabeth, I don’t see any point in pandering to the brain-dead. I have to call it as I see it, and what I see is religion disguised as science. It’s what IDC is all about. Dembski and Behe can obfuscate all they want, and possibly fool the faithful with “IDC” and “Information Theorey” all they want, but at the end of the day, there is no there there.
It’s not science – just ask Kairofocus, BA^77, Barry A and some of the other denizens of the UD Dump. I am sure that they pray every day to The Baby Jesus that they can indeed fool enough of the people, enough of the time, to get their strange, wierd religion taught as science in schools.
I can appreciate your attempt to build a bridge from science to the credulous, but attempting to hold a rational discussion with the religiously insane is truly a bridge to nowhere.
You’re forgetting the past tense. Apologies that it took me so long to remember who you are. It’s good to see you’re doing well and that you’re as enthusiastic as ever.
Fisher, you’ve been pulling this exact stunt with the same exact wording of ‘hopeful monster’ for the entire time we’ve known each other. That’s what now, four years?
Your manner of trolling is neither new nor novel, though I imagine it must work with others as you keep performing it. So before we play this nonsense game again where you require your opponent to defend the position you require they hold?
Then let’s stay with ‘true & accurate’ statements: Demonstrate for the class where I claimed anything to do with hopeful monsters.
Or you can do the honest thing and provide the terms you would prefer I use, since I’m well aware you object to ‘macroevolutionary event’ on moral and religious grounds. If you are still the troll you have always been then we both know that you will not. Nonetheless I’m still hopeful that you can turn over a new leaf and help make Elizabeth’s dream a reality.
William J Murray,
Yes, and I think this division is deeper than just choosing sides based on family or friends.
It’s almost like the brains are wired differently.
Maus,
//————————————————————–
//——————————-
“If it did not happen…..”, “then it is impossible for it to happen..”.
Those were your words.
It doesn’t even help you as it is not impossible for you to have won a game of “Snakes And Ladders” even though you lost. You just lost that time.
Does every time I fail to win a lottery indicate that it was impossible for me to have won indicating that the game was somehow rigged?
Who are you?
Maus. For the last time of telling you ~ we do not have ANY shared history. Although I’ve followed the biological sciences for decades I have only just recently started to comment on blogs that discuss the subject. My first post on richarddawkins.net was 15 months ago in Nov 2010 & for whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com it is this month last year.
Post a link here to any back-and-forth we’ve had in the [recent or distant] past on any subject. Post a link here to any thread anywhere where I’ve used the term “hopeful monster”
If you click or hover on my Gravatar you will see that I’m a Brit “Michael Fisher”. There are many of us out there including a “Michael Fisher, ET1/SS USN ret. law student” who [according to Google] did indeed use the monster term back in ’97 ~ well that ain’t me kiddo
Then let’s chalk it up to a case of mistaken identity between you and someone that used the same name and engaged in the same sophistries. It’s a happy accident in either case as I wouldn’t have sorted out who Toronto was until your ‘no habla’ had me wonder where your doppleganger’s sidekick got off to. Toronto’s good for red herrings but a great guy and an endless ball of fun.
Speaking of red herrings I see you have caught a sudden allergy to statements that are ‘true & accurate’. It seems you’ve moved on from “I have this idea you are referring to “hopeful monsters”, …” to “Even Gould wasn’t contemplating a giant one-step “macroevolutionary event” for his punctuated evolution idea.” despite that I never made any such statement as ‘one-step’ at all.
Indeed your inference chain seems to be no more than: “My opponent means completely banal thing X or possibly evil Y. Because I am ignorant, therefore my opponent is evil. And so means Y.” Despite that this is Not Even Thinking in the same sense of Not Even Wrong you have now moved onto: “My opponent meant X. Therefore he still means Y.”
If this was the doppleganger I had you mistaken for this could continue for days. Right up until he started making claims that “He read it in the original German” to excuse his errors. But as you’re not such a desperately soft-headed individual as the fellow I had you mistaken for then I’m certain you’re more than happy to clear up the misunderstanding in terms you continue to introduce.
For certainly if you know that ‘hopeful monsters’ are an inappropriate representation of a entirely commonplace idea then it is beyond question you can inform me as to the terms you will accept that represent the entirely commonplace idea to you in a manner that you find suitable and unambiguous. Indeed it seems that we can get nowhere if, at any time I provide a completely obvious definition, you start bolting on modifiers such as “one-step” in an effort to accurately portray statements I have not made.
And as you are not your doppleganger we can take comfort in knowing that you are more than happy to involve clarity rather that definitional sophistries.