Please use this thread for alerting admins to moderation issues and for discussion or complaints arising from particular decisions.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Please use this thread for alerting admins to moderation issues and for discussion or complaints arising from particular decisions.
Well Patrick you have all of the power to refute what I said. You can ante up and present a way to test the claim that it arose via physics and chemistry- or admit your position’s claims cannot be tested. Show us your methodology so we can compare.
So the first step of the EF asks if ATP synthase arose via law or it was inevitable-
Nothing in peer-review that says it is. Does anyone have a clue how to test this claim?
The second step asks if it arose due to necessity and chance (ie natural selection)
Nothing in peer-review that says it is. Does anyone have a clue how to test this claim?
The third step asks if there is a specification present
Everything in peer-review says it is a highly specified multiprotein machine. I can’t find one peer-reviewed paper that disputes that.
So, from what is and is not in peer-review, we can safely infer ATP synthase was intelligently designed.
Hi everybody!
Thanks Patrick for getting in touch!
And thanks to Alan, Patrick and Neil for keeping TSZ going. A few preliminary points:
Yes, I continue to pay for the hosting, and I am happy to do so. However, I do understand that this is now a community with its own evolving culture, and I am not up to speed on recent (or even not-so recent) issues. No, I have not even been lurking, I’m afraid; life considers to be horribly busy for me, and I have a habit of being more ostrich than penguin when it comes to dealing with challenges that won’t be disastrous if I don’t deal with them. So I plead guilty to irresponsibility on that front, and apologise.
I’m going to think a little about this over the next week or so – it may be a good idea to pass on responsibility for the whole site to someone else ,or a group. On the other hand, I am inclined not. Partly because I would really like to be more involved again, and for the first time have actual plans in place to scale down my undoable life to something that has space in it for this place 🙂
And partly because one of the motivations for starting TSZ was the idea that I’d like to have a discussion forum that was basically a place that would foster discussion between people coming from very different assumptions as rationally (heh) with as few rules as possible. But having been involved in a board (Talk Rational) where we tried to devise such a set of rules collectively, I figured that there was some merit to a place where the ultimate arbiter was a single site owner. Almost the complete opposite of TR in fact. But the inspiration was actually Daily Kos, which is still Markos Moulitsas’ blog (although I notice that he calls himself a “publisher” now), with nonetheless a vast army of commenters and posters. And occasionally Kos comes in and in a somewhat arbitrary and high-handed fashion simply lays down the law.
It’s not a recipe for government, but it may be (as I thought) one for a blog.
This is why I have resisted moving to forum software, although I have been tempted. I am still inclined to think that benign (I hope) autocracy may have its merits in this context. So why I wanted banning to be rare, I was not ever against banning posters absolutely. And while I was very happy to give people posting rights on request, I did not make it an automatic right of membership.
So right now, my inclination is to side with Alan and Neil in the matter of principle: i.e. that not all OPs should be automatically published. And I think the decision should probably rest with majority vote amongst active admins.
There are two reasons for this: one is that I am ultimately responsible for what appears on this site, and there are some things I am simply not prepared to host, just as a publisher (and I can see Kos’s point here) is not obliged to publish anything, and by being selective is not denying free speech. I am a free speech advocate, but I remain of the view that there is a fairly clear line between regimes that ban publication and publications that select what they will publish.
But I won’t adjudicate myself on the specific issue here, as I do not have time to even start to find out what the issue is or otherwise put myself in a position where I could judge it fairly. And I am just about to fly to the states for a few days (to catch up with my son, who is studying in New York, and my sister, who lives in Colorado, but whose family by marriage are celebrating Thanksgiving near Boston. So it will be my first American Thanksgiving, and also my first trip to that part of the US (I’ve been to NYC once before, but managed to be ill, and saw very little of it).
Anyway, having got my ostrich head out of the sand (snow?) I will try to keep it out. Things slacken off for me in about three weeks (actually even now, hence my trip, although the trip itself is bunching stuff up either side at the moment), and I’ll come back and think further about this.
Shorter response: I’m going to go with Neil and Alan on this for now, but will be delighted to hear views from the opposing side when I return!
Cheers
Lizzie
Hi, Lizzie. Nice to hear from you. I’m kind of hoping Patrick will resign in a huff over your decision on this. Maybe, you know, start his own libertarian place where anything goes.
But I suppose that’s too much to wish for. 🙁
walto,
I don’t think we want non participation from anyone. We’ve even hit some of the braver IDists visiting.
Revert it back to an echo chamber! Let Alan decide what questions the evolutionists get to avoid.
Appoint Mike Pence as your strategist.
Mine is an approach based on objective distinctions.
You see no distinction between a comment and an opening post. That would make this place a flat forum.
I see a distinction between a comment and an opening post. This means I see this place more like a blog where members have to show some merit to earn the right to be a co-blogger.
Lo and behold, this place happens to be more like a blog, not a forum. Lizzie decided correctly, even though not firmly enough.
That’s an unworthy sentiment, walto. There’s certainly no need for Patrick to do any such thing. It would be a bad day for communication if we couldn’t amicably express a difference in view and suggest solutions and compromises.
This is a typical IDCist dodge. If you want your non-theory to be considered scientific, it must stand on its own. All you really have is a bunch of complaints about how science refutes your religious beliefs.
If you’re trying to follow Dembski’s summary of the EF you’re not doing very well. The part about law refers to processes. There is plenty of work being done on the evolution of ATP synthase. A quick Google search turns up several papers like this. I suspect we have some experts in the field reading here, I hope one will contribute.
So right from the start the EF fails to conclude that ATP synthase is designed, contrary to your claims.
Regarding Lizzie’s point on OPs
Just a quick recap on how I saw the issue of Frankie’s comments and OP. Frankie/Joe made several comments on the lines of “there is no theory of evolution”. I and others pointed out the theory – starting with Darwin’s Origin – is well documented and explained and there is a huge resource on the theory and evidence for it on the web.
Rather than discuss the merits of the theory of evolution, Frankie continued to make the assertion that “there is no theory of evolution”. I consider repetition of refuted claims and assertions to amount to spamming and warned him accordingly.
Frankie then asks us to publish an OP repeating the assertion. I was not prepared to publish the OP as it stood. Of course he can modify the content of the OP and criticize the theory for being vague, ambiguous, incomplete, wrong, whatever. Claiming a theory of evolution does not exist is a complete nonsense. And claiming it in an OP after being warned about spamming in comments seems to me gaming the system.
I think that OPs should, at the very least, be held to the same standard we hope for in comments.
No, it is an approach based on a desire to control others.
No, it would allow new topics to be easily created, rather like Usenet.
Lizzie is far more committed to the ethos of freedom of expression than you are.
Welcome back, Lizzie! I hope you stick around for a while.
Thanks for the clarification of the rules. For the record, I’ll be voting to approve any post that doesn’t include the bannable offenses or otherwise puts you as the site owner at legal risk. That’s based on my personal ethics. The fact that it means that Alan and Neil will have to deal with all the lobbying and complaints is purely secondary. 😉
ETA: I will, of course, abide by Lizzie’s other rules such as keeping discussion of moderation issues in Moderation Issues.
I’m not sure why you took walto seriously there. It seemed obvious that it was intended as snark, rather than as a serious comment.
What theory? Can he claim “the theory” is incoherent? There is no Grand Unified Theory of Evolution. There is, however, a great deal of special pleading.
If he takes that approach would that resolve the “defects” in his OP?
Lizzie, nice to see you commenting here. I hope you’ll find time soon for a greater level of participation.
This is an obvious point where mod/admin must act. He was compounding his contempt. If he had his way, he would have demonstated that admins take no care in protecting the system. That would have been a general letdown for the entire atmosphere.
When dictating motives to me, you of course have no desire to control me. Of course.
I offer a simple rule that makes YOUR life both easier and more structured, which happens to be also the way Lizzie decided, but you just won’t have it. Fine. You’re not going to get it.
The solution to bad speech is good speech. There is nothing that anyone can write in a post that can’t be addressed in the comments. The only thing that needs protecting is each participant’s ability to express himself or herself freely.
I’d be more reassured if walto himself were telling me his comment was intended as irony.
Actually, the solution to failures of democracy are more democracy. Additional speech can sometimes make things worse.
I’d be more reassured if walto himself were telling me his comment was intended as injury.
Oho!
And I pointed out to you, that if there are MULTIPLE theories of evolution, then there is no “theory of evolution.”
You of course ignored this and continue to claim there is a theory of evolution that you can’t point to. AND THIS is why there is a contention, and why there should be a post about it, and why if we only accept YOUR claim that something has been refuted, that doesn’t make it so at all.
If there’s at least one “theory of evolution” then it is not the case that there is not at least one “theory of evolution.”
Alan thinks that because he can point to “a theory of evolution” it logically follows that it must be “the theory of evolution.” Perhaps it’s the only “theory of evolution” that he knows of.
Does that work for the Bible too?
yes
There is only one “authorized” interpretation of the Bible. That is the that one God holds to. Problems and disagreements happen when people start to think that they can do a better job than him instead of just letting him reveal what he thinks.
peace
pred
So there’s no Bible. Good to know
I haven’t said or implied that there are multiple theories of evolution. I maintain that the essential element of Darwin’s original idea remains central to the theory. Given a population of organisms (in some particular environment) that reproduce with some variation, and given more offspring are produced than there are resources for, competition among individuals will result in differential reproduction rates resulting in bias towards more individuals with traits that benefit their survival and reproduction in that environment.
Darwin did not know about genes, so was unable to account for the mechanisms of variation. This was rectified when genetics was incorporated into the theory with the “Modern Synthesis”. More recently, molecular phylogenetics (and evo-devo) have been incorporated with no need to change the basic concepts of variation and selection.
If you seriously want to present an argument that there is no theory of evolution by arguing that there are multiple theories then feel free to do so.
That’s a bit too inscrutable for me. I certainly insist there is a theory of evolution, originally expounded by Charles Darwin, and later expanded and improved to incorporate advances in our knowledge of genetics and molecular biology.
I’m not familiar with other theories that can also be described as theories of evolution. Please enlighten me if you would.
The kerfuffle with Frankie/JoeG was his bald assertion that there is no theory of evolution. This is plainly wrong as Darwin’s original ideas are still going strong with the additions of genetics ad molecular biology reinforcing the original concept. If you are aware of other theories which can be described as theories of evolution (presumably giving an alternative explanation for the pattern of nested hierarchies that we see in organisms and their genomes) please enlighten me.
Though I fail to see how the existence of another scientific evolutionary theory would support JoeG’s assertion that “there is no theory of evolution”.
Well, since his OP won’t be published, we may never know. 🙂
Frankie,
The usual comedy gold from Joe. The EF – which has more than one step, let us note – depends, at every step, on something which Joe avers cannot, even in principle, be established either way! My first ‘HA!’ was followed in quick succession by many more.
So is THIS the “Theory of Evolution?”
Its more mysterious than a Masonic lodge.
Could someone please delete Just Doing My Duty?
@WJM: your duty would be to check at least the plausibility of an item which you wish to post on this site. Otherwise you are just another pimp for fake news.
Here’s my thoughts and suggestion regarding William Murray’s innuendo OP.
I propose copying it as a comment into the “Noyau” thread and moving the comments in that thread to the “Noyau” thread too. Then I will delete the OP. It is unfortunate that neither I nor a fellow admin saw the OP soon enough to deal with it prior it accumulating comments. I think the relaxed régime that applies in Noyau is the place for members to discuss the issues, if there are any to be discussed.
I’ve suspended Murray’s ability to publish OPs. He’s welcome to take issue with me here regarding my actions.
ETA, in the mean time, I’ve changed the date stamp so it is not so annoyingly obvious.
DiEb,
Unfortunately we don’t have 24 hr moderation but I hope my proposal to move the content of the offending OP as a comment to the Noyau thread will balance between freedom of speech and censorship.
That’s fine. Guano would have been OK too, IMO.
walto,
I considered that but using Noyau does allow others to comment if they wish.
Normally I would object to this decision because I don’t think the admins should be exercising authority over the topics people choose to discuss here. It is possible to apply the tools of skepticism to claims like those that WJM posted. It could even be a valuable process.
However, this venue and our gracious hostess are resident in England, a country known for libel tourism. It appears that this is the kind of material that could cause harm to the site and to Lizzie personally. I reluctantly agree with your proposal to move it and the comments to Noyau.
I note that Trump (who you’ve suggested was the lesser of the two evils) has expressed support for the British libel laws.
Here’s a nice story on our glorious president-elect from today’s Boston Globe:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/11/28/donald-trump-president-elect-foreshadows-whoppers-from-oval-office/pU7rGDFw7y9ZESFcqpuS1L/story.html
I didn’t watch any of the videos. What can i say, I have better things to do with my time. If there is real concern over libel laws then delete the thread.
I don’t have any problems with this. Maybe walto’s suggestion of guano is better, precisely because it does not allow further comments. But I’m okay either way.
Thanks Patrick and Neil.
I thought Noyau would allow an opportunity for closing remarks. I’m not expecting a protracted discussion and hoping for the reverse!
This comment really ought to be a PM to Dr. Febble, but for some reason, the PM function doesn’t seem to want to believe that the string “Elizabeth” identifies a valid PM-recipient…
Dr. Febble, your ideals are fine, but the way you’ve chosen to implement those ideals in TSZ is an abject failure. Any online forum which lacks active moderation will degenerate into a troll-infested cesspool, sooner or later… and TSZ’s moderation is far from ‘active’.
Look at WJMurray’s recent OP, [ http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/just-doing-my-duty/ ]. Exactly how does that sort of bullshit contribute to the intellectual discourse you wish to promote?
Look at Frankie, the current sockpuppet nym of JoeG. What’s the friggin’ point of even pretending to ban someone if the banned person can just sock up with a fresh nym and keep right on trolling along?
Look at fifthmonarchyman, the one-trick presuppositionalist pony. He’s never displayed any indication that he’s even capable of the sort of discourse you intend TSZ to promote. He just friggin’ repeats himself, endlessly.
Look at erik and gregory… or better yet, don’t…
If a forum tolerates blatant Nazis, the only people who will contribute to that forum are Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, and people who can stand those two groups. What is TSZ tolerating? What groups of people choose not to bother participating at TSZ, as a result of the garbage which TSZ demonstrably does tolerate?
At this point, I see no reason to participate at TSZ any more. My absence will not be noticed—I was never particularly active, after all—but the question you might want to ask yourself is, how many other people have chosen to give TSZ a miss, based on the garbage which TSZ is currently providing a home for?
Bravo.
Been saying much the same thing for years. It’s like coinage, the shit takes over.
Dr Liddle’s PM address is indeed “Elizabeth”. As you type in the “recipient box, you get offered matches in a green box. You need to select the desired recipient rather than type it in.
Abject failure? I think that is an exaggeration. There have been peaks and troughs. Lizzie always intended this site to be an experiment, with nothing being written in stone. Troll-infested? Moderation here is reactive, not proactive.
It doesn’t . Which is why its content has been deleted and the comments moved.
I don’t think Lizzie believes in life-time bans. However we do try to keep Joe on a tight leash. Moderation here is voluntary and is never going to operate on a 24 hour basis.
There’s no specific rule against endless repetition, though I’m in favour of some kind of specific sanction against PRATTs ( claims that have been previously refuted a thousand times). Lizzie is on record recently as planning to overhaul the site rules on her return from her States trip.
One of Lizzie’s aims was to encourage discussion across wide gulfs of difference of view. I’m not sure what you expect, here.
I’m sorry but this is hyperbole.
Lizzie will be back in charge soon by her own account. Why not wait and see.
Usenet is an existence proof to the contrary. It was very active for many years because it gave the individual participants the technical capabilities to control their own experience. I would love to see a WordPress plugin that provided the equivalent of a threading newsreader with kill files for people and topics maintained by each person.
Too much moderation leads to echo chambers. Everyone should be their own curator. Without that functionality, it falls on the participants to be the change they want to see.
I don’t really agree with that.
Usenet was fine when the Internet was mostly confined to the universities and research institutes. But as the Internet became more widely available, usenet became a cesspool.
Without waste purification, EVERYTHING becomes a cesspool.
Some newsgroups, yes. Even after the Endless September, though, the tools built into newsreaders kept many groups usable. There are some of us throwbacks still using it today.
My core point is that we should look for solutions that empower individuals and support the ethos of freedom of expression rather than going down the road of increasing censorship.
Going down the toilet is actually worse than going “down the road.”
Just my 2 shekels Cubist:
I agree with pretty much everything you write here. I’ve drastically cut back my commenting here because I find interacting with FMM, Erik, Phoodoo, and Joe (in particular) pointless and irritating. That said, I really do enjoy reading other people’s interactions with them. Some of the discussions are just plain hilarious and highly entertaining!
The fact is, if we banned all the trollish individuals, I don’t think there’d be any “here” here. Without the likes of the clown car gallery noted above, what would anyone have to comment on? As an example, while I greatly enjoy the work I do in wildlife photography and ecology, I don’t think either of those subjects would lead to any ripping discussions here. And while I’m fascinated by a number of topics KN has brought up (as an example), they don’t generally garner that much discussion. Just sayin’…