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.
First quote-mined post about Krauss:
You mean because he said it was directed by natural selection?
Clearly not.
Soon after:
Yeah, breaking news, Krauss thinks evolution was directed by natural selection. Wow, what a scoop. Then one of the usual hideous IDiot lies, we all know that evolution is directed, without any qualifier.
Then:
Complete fabrication, he took nothing back. Mung clearly was telling us that what Krauss said was breaking news, bullshit already, then that Krauss took back what he said, as if he did or had any reason to do so.
How is anyone supposed to engage with such a slimy liar? Even now he’s demanding that we make an argument about what is obvious to anyone except the egregiously stupid and the egregiously dishonest, and pretending that a clearly misleading quotemine is “just what he said.” About as convincing as Murray’s endless bullshit about what quotemining is, and just as indicative of character flaws.
Glen Davidson
You did Mung as has been amply demonstrated.
Maybe some good will come out of this latest display of Christian morality by Mung. Maybe we’ll get a rules clarification that stops dishonest assholes from trying to game the system by looking for loopholes to spread their dishonesty.
Based on the context and your previous history here, it is not at all unreasonable to conclude that you were.
If you weren’t, the proper behavior would have been to include the rest of Krauss’ statement: “by natural selection.” If you couldn’t do that, an apology for providing a misleading excerpt would have been in order.
Instead, we get you in high umbrage about being called out on your dishonesty. I’m not buying it and I’m not feeding your trollish appetite any further on this topic. Do enjoy what remains of your attempt to turn TSZ into the “All Mung, All The Time” channel.
I’d like to see that. This is similar to an earlier discussion I had with Lizzie about the “assume good faith” rule. It’s a great ideal, but it shouldn’t be a suicide pact. Sometimes people really aren’t posting in good faith. It should be within the rules to call them on that behavior.
Lizzie disagreed. Her site, her rules.
I know you want to make this about quote-mining, but what needs to be shown is that the quote from Krauss made it appear as if a) he does not hold the position that evolution is directed or that b) he does hold the position that evolution is guided by God. What are you going to do, take a poll?
Sadly, due to your actions we’ll probably never know what I intended to suggest because it’s pretty much moot at this point. OMagain at least asked the question “directed by what,” but before I got around to answering it I saw your decision to allow clear violations of the rules to go untouched.
Patrick reads what he wants to see into what Mung wrote, therefore Mung is a dishonest quote-miner. That’s what you’ve got, Patrick.
Or at the very minimum, simply dropping the matter instead of continuing the bullshit attacks on all of us.
The fact that Mung is continuing to attack is, for me, the strongest evidence that Mung was dishonest to begin with, not merely mistaken or careless with words.
The best defense …
Oh, poor baby.
Deterred from your wonderful intended suggestion by the big bad bullies who were so mean to you.
Sticks and stones, Mung.
It is about your dishonest quote mining Mung no matter how much squid ink you keep squirting.
If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If the facts aren’t on your side pound the table.
Looks like Mung learned his argumentative style from Barry Arrogant at UD
Okay, I’m done too.
Feel free to swat me if I let myself get involved again today.
It’s sunny out and the weeds are begging to be pulled up. Catch y’all on the flip side.
I doubt that.
I cannot rule that out.
And I cannot rule that out, either.
You misunderstood the question. That’s your argument, cobbled together after the fact. I’m asking what evidence you have, if any, that anyone else in that thread made the argument you’re now making.
Perhaps if they had made that argument, rather than just accusing me of being dishonest, you wouldn’t find yourself in the position of having to resign over something you arrived at by way of assumption rather than actual evidence.
Now wouldn’t that just be ironic.
I don’t actually want you to resign. I want you to admit you were wrong. That you jumped to unwarranted conclusions. That you have no actual evidence that I was trying to make Krauss appear to be saying anything beyond what I quoted him as saying. That rule breaking posts belong in Guano and there actually is a good way and a bad way to resolve differences that don’t involve charges of dishonesty.
And that’s why we have the rule against accusing people of being dishonest, to encourage people to seek that better way. Unfortunately, you can’t see that. You’ve lost your vaunted objectivity.
It’s fun to second-guess other people’s motives. It’s fun to give mung the rôle of Iago. But…
Does it help in Lizzies aim to encourage rancour-free discussion? Do we need to escalate in response to perceived less-than-perfect behaviour?
I think trying to communicate across wide differences is a worthwhile objective, still.
No one invited all of you to stick your noses into the moderation thread. I still think comments from the peanut gallery don’t belong here.
I made that argument to you right here Mung, way back at the start of your bullshit.
Adapa: “It doesn’t take mind reading skills to see you omitted the context and quote-mined a scientists whose stated position is 100% the opposite of what you portray. “
Go ahead and keep lying about how no one brought that up to you.
I think it’s simpler than that. Mung thinks he’s a wit, and thought it clever to put in what he most likely realized was a misquote. He might have owned up to it under the right circumstances, but wanted to get a response, maybe something that could be used against someone here. Trolling of a sort, true, but for Jesus and all of that.
He does stuff like that at UD, which really likes anything that puts down “Darwinists,” without in the slightest caring about legitimate arguments. There a quotemine is fine if it makes a “Darwinist” look stupid, at least among the UD lackwits. Even if a quotemine is caught, it’s always, well, that’s how it really comes out anyway, if they’d just admit it, so who really cares? Put-downs are generally the way that anti-evolutionists “counter” evolution, which is evident to those of us who were raised in that form of denial.
Mung thought he was being clever. It’s no excuse, but he probably didn’t so much see it as a misrepresentation as a clever use of Krauss’s words. Of course in the real world it really is a misrepresentation, and its “cleverness” isn’t very evident. But if you think you’re clever, and it’s against the foes of goodness and all, you think it’s legitimate to do. The trouble is, it really isn’t legitimate, it’s just all too much the usual among the apologetics crowd.
Glen Davidson
I wish that Mung did.
Glen Davidson
It’s just not possible that I am being falsely accused. Let’s just take that right off the table up front as not being even remotely plausible.
You’re second-guessing! None of us are mind-readers. I find it intensely annoying when people (I’m thinking of forays into other fora) attribute motives to me rather than accepting what I write or asking for clarification. I know mung has the unfortunate habit (elsewhere – and perhaps not so much these days) of hurling LIAR accusations with gay abandon. But we hold all the cards here. Can’t we persuade and demonstrate that rancour-free communication is possible?
Elizabeth Liddle
I’m suggesting your truncated quote of Krauss misrepresented his actual view on what acts as “designer”. He says it is the process of natural selection. Am I wrong to suggest that?
Were you there?
Geez, it’s not like we make inferences about others all of the time–or need to do so. Next time you get an email that will lead you to giving your bank account number over to someone promising you millions, remember that you’re no mind reader.
I’ll remember that I’m not a mind-reader when I’m on jury duty, and realize that the murderer’s excuse could be the truth. Or better, I’ll state during the selection process that I was told that I’m not a mind reader so I have no business making the routine judgments that humans make about motives, and will have to acquit. They’ll think I’m an idiot, but I expect I’ll not have to go through jury duty, anyway.
Yes, I suppose we could take a blatant quotemine as if it were the truth. Play Mung’s little games, indeed.
Whatever. Has it ever worked?
What that policy has always missed is that your typical IDist really has the idea that we’re simply acting in bad faith due to our great desires to avoid responsibility for our actions. Mung and those like him make many false accusations based on this utterly dishonest mischaracterization, because what else would they do? Engage in good faith? Mung certainly doesn’t do that on the big issues.
What is supposed to be discussed when an egregiously false quotemine is put up for discussion? Then further false claims made about it? Are we supposed to take it all as if it were done in good faith?
Glen Davidson
This is an issue that perhaps needs addressing. It has cropped up before over someone repeating old and oft-refuted Creationist claims.
I still think attempting to communicate across gulfs of misunderstanding is worthwhile. Second-best is walking away. Third-best is escalating rhetoric.
I understand you probably don’t have time to watch the video. The section under discussion had nothing to do with natural selection acting as a designer. Meyer had used an analogy of a lock and trying to find the combination that opens the lock and the difficulty of doing so by random search. Krauss responded that evolution isn’t like that. That evolution is directed.
The charge here is that I deliberately misquoted (quote-mined) Krauss to make it look like holds a position he does not hold. If people think that snippet I quoted has Krauss taking the position that goddidit (as opposed to natural selection) I think they suffer from an overactive imagination. I think they are seeing what they want to see.
And accusing people of dishonesty is still against the rules. It’s against the rules when Frankie does it and it’s against the rules when Adapa does it.
The concept of selection continues to baffle some people. They think, either a process is ENTIRELY random, or it is somehow “guided”. With the implication that guidance means there’s a guide, and guides have goals.
But evolution is guided in the same sense that the course of a river is guided — that is, neither environmental pressures nor gravity have any goals in mind.
Yes, that’s probably right. But I count that as a form of trolling.
I tend not to watch video debates even if I have time. Text is a vastly superior medium. But Larry Moran was there and found it entertaining so maybe I’ll have a look.
And I agree that the selection element of evolution is non-random and the environment acts as designer.
“Deliberately” is the issue. The missing out of “by natural selection” changes Krausses intended meaning, in my view. Ii’s hardly surprising that it was picked up on.
Yup. Lizzie’s rules are clear on that.
It’s not a misquote, it’s what Krauss said. Everything else is people trying to tack on to that quote their misguided attempts at mind-reading. The fact that people fail at mind-reading doesn’t make me dishonest.
There’s absolutely no reason to think that Krauss meant to convey that natural selection is the designer. A designer wasn’t even part of the conversation. So there was no changing in meaning.
Your claim is that by leaving out “by natural selection” that I have Krauss saying that evolution is directed by a designer. That’s based on what? How does some designer enter into the quote in the space vacated by natural selection?
People using their imagination. People seeing not what was actually written but what they think I was hoping to convey. Mind reading. Projection. Fantasy.
No, that isn’t the issue. Accusations of dishonesty are against the rules, period. They don’t get better if someone claims they don’t think the dishonesty was deliberate. Unintentional dishonesty?
Alan,
We’ve been over this already:
keiths:
Your desire for a “safe space” at TSZ is misguided and counterproductive.
Patrick’s judgment was good. The rules allow, but do not require, rule-violating comments to be moved to Guano. Patrick saw that moving the quote-mining accusations to Guano would amount to punishing the truth-tellers and rewarding the dishonest, so he wisely declined.
Mung’s still trying to wriggle out of his dishonesty by crying those who called him on his dishonesty did so illegally.
Go Christian morals go!
It’s a conundrum: If the rules forbid one to point out blatant dishonesty when it occurs, what can one do in response to said dishonesty? Perhaps Mung might present his views regarding that question. Or perhaps not.
My own view is that if the rules do indeed forbid one to point out blatant dishonesty when it occurs, the downstream consequences of that rule include degradation of discourse as a result of blatantly dishonest actors being blatantly dishonest. If one wishes to promote fruitful intellectual interactions, blatantly dishonest behavior simply must impose some negative consequences upon the blatantly dishonest actor. Online forums being what they are, there are very few negative consequences which, as a practical matter, can be imposed on blatantly dishonest actors, and the calling-out of blatant dishonesty is one of that small set of negative consequences.
I solve the conundrum simply by skipping over most of Mung’s posts and all of Joe G’s. I can tell from the responses whether anything interesting is being discussed.
The Rule is against accusing another poster of deliberately lying.
There is no rule against pointing out that a post is a lie, only against attributing motives.
There is no rule against speculating that a poster is simply to stupid and ignorant to recognize a falsehood.
Nor is there any rule against noting that a poster habitually engages in apologetics and word lawyering rather than in rational discourse.
If there’s doubt about what Krauss meant by the phrase “design by natural selection”, I’m sure he would be happy to clarify if someone were to email him. I don’t think it matters much. I tend to agree with Larry Moran regarding Krauss (a physicist who is neither a professional nor trained in biology) getting into a debate with Stephen Meyer (whose biology credentials are not much better).
Well, there is the noyau thread where the rules against personal attacks don’t apply. I’d suggest those that wish to make accusations of dishonesty can make them there without infringing the rules.
Another storm in a teacup. Point it out and move on. I do have a general beef about the excessive use of other people’s words in a discussion forum – it’s lazy, one can’t discuss the matter with the actual author, and it does seem pointless to quote as authority someone with whom one fundamentally disagrees. But … [shrug].
First clue that a quote mine is in the works.
Your attempt to re-write history is noted.
I don’t see anything wrong with someone saying something is a quote-mine. It would be better of they actually gave an argument as to why the alleged quote-mine actually is a quote-mine rather than just declaring it to be so and expecting people to take it on faith. (Yeah, I’m looking at you.)
The issue is the direct accusations of dishonesty. That’s clearly in violation of the site rules. Patrick knows it. Everyone knows it. And it should be blatantly obvious that it’s the accusations of dishonesty that I object to.
Exactly. Noyau is there if people want to break the rules. Patrick’s case for allowing accusations of dishonesty to remain in regular threads is pathetic. That’s why we have Noyau.
Mods, I mistakenly created a post in the wrong thread and immediately afterwards sent a request for deletion of that post. Is there some reason that request has not been honored?
I restored a comment of yours, thinking it was caught in moderation. There’s no clue to indicate why a comment is in the moderation queue so it helps if you can add an edit such as “please delete”.
If you PM me the comment permalink, I’ll delete it.
The problem with that is that it concedes the original thread to those behaving dishonestly. The opprobrium that cubist mentioned is far less effective in a different location.
The rules as written put honest participants at a disadvantage. That’s not aligned with the goals of this site.
petrushka,
Sure, but people here are astute enough not to be misled. In fact it is such a pattern with IDists in general, I habitually Google a segment of any text presented for wider context. It’s an entire sub-genre.
In this case, though, I don’t think the intent was to mislead, simply to score a point.
Message sent. Thank you.
There are numerous ways that fall within the rules to express opprobrium. If people don’t want to post within the rules they have Noyau.
I asked Elizabeth to try to talk you out of resigning over this silly manufactured incident. It truly is a case of people making a mountain out of a molehill. But that’s exactly the sort of thing that happens when people refuse to follow the good faith rule.
Thank you. There was a thread here on whether science can show that evolution is guided. I am watching the debate and hear Krauss (a science guy) say that evolution is directed. So bam, I post it.
There was no malice intended and no intent to mislead or deceive anyone. Hate to ruin the witch-hunt with the facts.
Natural selection is non -random in a trivia sense- not all changes have the same probability of being eliminated. Evolution by natural selection is guided by whatever survives and reproduces. And that is a big whatever
Allan,
The intent was to score a point by misleading. It was a classic quote-mining job.