…the noyau, an animal society held together by mutual animosity rather than co-operation
Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
…the noyau, an animal society held together by mutual animosity rather than co-operation
Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative.
That sounds good. If I can get my thoughts together — if — I’ll do that.
Gregory remarked:
Academia.edu stats:
Gregory: 342 followers; 16,599 total views; 1,501 views for one paper.
KN: 508 followers; 19,865 total views; 2,405 views for one paper.
God, Gregory certainly is being a filthy-minded clot lately.
It’s always nice to have confirmation that he’s also a self-defeating fool.
Kantian Naturalist,
My point revealing lack of scholarly interest in walto’s work at academia.edu was general, non-traceable. KN’s use is quite specific, which I intentionally avoided due to site rules. (And of course, given KN, it’s self-inflationary.) Either this post should be deleted or KN will use his real name & e.g. indicate his low h-index (which is more significant for scholars than academia.edu views, though it doesn’t appear walto has an h-index, no surprise; he doesn’t even deserve note as a ‘philosophist’ being an ex-bureaucrat now obscurely teaching philosophy). Thanks. It’s not the comparison I mind, but the specificity.
For example:
“Academia.edu stats:
Gregory: 342 followers; 16,599 total views; 1,501 views for one paper.
KN: 508 followers; 19,865 total views; 2,405 views for one paper.”
– according to KN’s research
Elizabeth Liddle: 8 followers; 43 total views; 7 views for one paper.
Lizzie does have a better h-index than either KN or I, all from co-authored papers; cudos to her.
I expect this post will be deleted as well. My point to walto (which KN butted himself in on) was not meant as a scholarly pissing contest. He should just realise sometimes to shut up.
Wow is this TA/SZ place boring! 🙁
good lord
Elizabeth,
Capitalise the ‘L’, Lizzie, and we agree! 🙂
It just struck me after I hit “post comment” that Gregory would say “you didn’t capitalise the L”….
I did check to see where on earth you’d found my “h-index”, and investigated academia.edu, which I didn’t think I’d signed up for. And lo and behold, the only person who seems interested in it is …Gregory!
sheesh what a terrible site. Even ResearchGate is better than that.
Lizzie, You are public on Google Scholar Citations. So is ‘KN’. I am not, but I have a profile and stats there.
Lizzie is a flattening, atheist apostate. Philosophically stunted and immature. But hey, she’s active with natural scientists doing research, so she must be an ok person, right? 😉
Claiming “ResearchGate is better than that” is subjective. Lizzie’s pseudo-Quaker, quasi-Buddhist, atheist sometimes pantheist confusion seems to relish such a chaotic ‘identity’ position.
Lizzie is a co-author of papers that are cited by scholars (reflected in h-index). Does that mean she is in any way innovative? Unclear.
KN is a low-scoring h-index socialist, pro-Marxist disenchanted atheist Jew. Simple facts.
walto is uninteresting (no h-index, low views, publishing failure, etc.), but his arrogant asinine anti-theism so far seems just righteously welcome at TA/SZ. Lizzie has created an anti-theist blog here. Does anyone have evidence (other than Steven Schaffner’s theist denialism) to suggest otherwise?
There is a discussion among scholars of which site is better: academia.edu or researchgate.net. No ‘winner’ is yet clear. Lizzie is a researchgate proponent. But to say “Even ResearchGate is better than that” is self-serving subjective. Their Alexa ranks are similar, while academia.edu has more users.
Again, Lizzie’s work is cited as a co-author, but not as a sole author. She might simply be coat-tailing on people who do the work for her. It doesn’t appear, from her contributions here, that she is taken seriously or even noticed by anyone in global science, philosophy and theology/worldview discourse.
This all started with ‘walto’ haranguing me (in bad faith and attitude) without evidence. So I showed the public evidence that ‘walto’ is a nobody, non-scholar, philosophist, atheist like the kind of person that TA/SZ likes to promote.
This site is so un-inspiriing because of such people. And Lizzie, confused as she is spiritually in her worldview as an ex-Catholic apostate, has no definitive reply. What else anti-IDism really needs to be said? This place is stale backwater, with KN pumping himself up as an atheist Jewish philosophist to ‘guide’ you 😉
Well, Lizzard, you have an ‘edit’ feature on your Blog which enables you, in just a few seconds, to capitalise. Either you are lazy or stubborn. It shows that you don’t care or are not accurate…on purpose.
No, I’m not. Did you miss the word “even”?
lol
It was an expression, Gregory. It was not referring to any specific lord.
“strewth” would have been an alternative.
No, co-author ignorant lady, I didn’t. Those are the top 2 academic social network sites on-line globally. Do you not recognise this or are you simply posturing foolishness?
You are active on 1, but not the other (“what a terrible site”). Reality check. Sorry if you don’t call that being a ‘proponent’. I’m a ‘proponent’ of the other site – academia.edu.
I guess it just means I communicate more clearly, openly and honestly than apostate Lizzie. No surprise. She’s now become a flag waving skeptic atheist propagandist, who few could trust.
FWIW, I put some of my stuff up on academia.edu only quite recently. Much of it was available on my scribd page longer. (That site used to be free and remains free for those who upload, but now is subscription for others.) And, while a few of my papers have been up on philpapers for some time, others were only put up within the last few months.
How often and at how many sites are people supposed to “view” this stuff do you think?
I thought counting “views” was more of a Beyonce thing, but apparently it’s also important to a certain variety of wannabee nimrod.
I took walto’s point to be that Gregory should sometimes just shut up.
I keep waiting to hear exactly what YOUR claim to scholarly abilities is supposed to consist in. You’re whacking everybody else around here for their mediocrity, but you yourself have basically no publications at all, plus what little you HAVE written seems quite stupid and nearly as adolescent as your posts here.
I mean, I get that you’re a wannabe–that you have aspirations to be either Mary Kate or Ashley (just not sure which one yet), but is that, like, a good thing where you’re from? Are we supposed to be impressed with this longing of yours for lots of “views”?
And as I said, I’m betting you can jack that number if you just start posting pics of yourself wearing a clown nose. And don’t worry, you don’t even have to credit me. Go for it!
Neil Rickert,
walto’s depressing trolling is noted. It’s pretty much all ad-hom towards theists based on his despairing hyper-atheism. Yet, very few people in academia pay him any attention (bottom dwelling, journal rejected, insecure, unclear atheist) – which is a good sign! 🙂
Neil Rickert is a flaming atheist moderator at TA/SZ. But spiritual reality seems to pass him by.
You may find my posts “depressing” for any number of reasons, Gregory. After all, their regular point is to clearly demonstrate that you are an adolescent dunce. Why wouldn’t you find them depressing?
And, why wouldn’t you also want to turn them into an attack on theism–as you obviously think you are some sort of champion in that arena. Well, I have news for you, Gregory–my “depressing” attacks are on YOU alone. See if you can refute a single one of them instead of hiding behind Abraham.
No, walto. Just your mediocrity (data cited above). I honestly cannot fathom the depraved state of USA colleges if you are employed as a teacher. Actually, mediocrity seems to be a compliment to you. You seem to be simply a selfish atheist black hole of unintellectual idiocy. Iow, the ‘perfect’ skeptic follower of TA/SZ!
Why should anyone pray for your soul to be saved? May God help the USA overcome such people.
Well, this is Noyau, I guess, but you really are an extraordinarily aggressive person.
I’ve never claimed any standing in the academic world, and it’s not something that interests in the slightest. Sadly, it does interest people with the power to give me grants or promotion, but I wouldn’t (not allowed) to use any of those sites to calculate my “h factor”. And obsessing about citations and impact factors doesn’t seem to me to be terribly compatible with doing good work.
Though senior in years, by starting late I sit on the most junior rung of the academic ladder. Whether I’ll make it to associate prof status before I retire is doubtful, but not something I worry about. There are a couple of problems I’d like to have a shot at solving, and something I have a passion for teaching, but fame and fortune aren’t the reason for wanting to do any of those things, not that they are on offer anyway.
However, I’m sufficiently miffed by one thing you wrote to want to correct it: in my field, being a “single author” of a paper isn’t an especially meritorious thing, unless you are a very senior academic writing some authoritative review. Empirical science these days is very much a team effort, one of the reasons I enjoy it so much, especially cross-disciplinary collaborations. So no, I am not “coat-tailing on people who do the work for her”. While it’s true I’m no longer the doctoral student or post-doc at the coal-face, I, together with my co-authors, work bloody hard. Obviously contributions from different authors vary, and usually we try to put the people who made the biggest contribution either near the front of the author list or backstop at the end. But everyone contributed something important, or they wouldn’t be on the paper.
Wait, Gregory, what are your own credentials again? What is it that you’ve accomplished? Any important theses, arguments. discoveries (I mean other than KN’s religious background)?
I mean, we can all see you’re a wannabe –that you’ve got Mary Kate or Ashley in your sights for “view” totals, but what else is there again? When you die, do you want to be remembered for calling Lizzie, KN and me names? Will that get you to your “heaven”?
I’m not the one looking to have his “soul saved” Gregory–I think that’s all nonsense–but YOU who are, what will be YOUR legacy? The duncehood you’ve exemplified here? Views?
Lizzie, your attitude is admirable. There are reasons for engaging in scholarly work that people like Gregory may never comprehend.
Well, you’re wrong, Lizzie. I’m not writing aggressively, just factually here. If you don’t like the facts, it doesn’t mean you can create a new reality and change them. You and I should speak by voice one day, Lizzie. It seems you still have hope in something more than yourself; or your apostasy is eternal. This site, however, is disgustingly infested by hopeless, angry, anti-theists. Simple fact.
Yeah, after visiting 2 UK universities for research, I can understand your ‘junior’ position better, given your interdisciplinary background.
OK, for your field. But not for others. Understand please that I’ve studied this more closely than anyone who’s ever posted on your pet blog.
This scholar pomp started with walto (ignorant USAmerican low-life who you still haven’t scolded publically!) and KN, who are both ‘philosophers’ (I call them ‘philosophists’). Anyone who’s studied the field ‘sociology of science’ knows that people sometimes gain citations for work they don’t deserve. Cf. the Matthew Effect.
Maybe you are legit, Lizzie, and maybe you aren’t. I’m not your judge. Either way, it says nothing about the aggressive poser anti-theists you seem happy to celebrate on your blog, no matter how many disparaging or untruthful things they say. TA/SZ is a disgusting unenlightened den of thieves, with a few brave bright lights trying to talk sense to the atheist depravity.
Poor poor Gregory. He insults people here, then when there is return fire, he hides behind Abraham, sits in Erik’s lap, and whines to the site owner.
A baby as well as an adolescent dunce.
walto,
Yes, I oppose atheists. Sorry, walto, it is hard to imagine a more disgusting, shallow or pitiful human being than you, based on your communication here. Do you really see no light or hope or transcendence in your life or in humanity?
As I’ve said before, Gregory, to the extent you believe something, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the opposite is true. So….thanks! 🙂
And I really do hope that your legacy of “nothing but insults, 24-7” will get you your virgins in heaven. You’re a great advocate for a religion of hatred and know-nothinghood. And, btw, I’m glad (but not at all surprised) that it turned out you were lying about not responding to my posts anymore.
So thanks for that too. And please keep ’em coming!
Oh, but I forgot. What are your own credentials again?
And hey–it’s Sunday morning. Shouldn’t you be in church? Or is this your version of weekly prayers, crapping all over yourself and others on the internet?
Well, I’d like to think it was admirable, but it is also pragmatic. I celebrated my 50th birthday in my first year of PhD. I didn’t get a tenured post until my late fifties (which was actually not bad going – at that stage I thought a few post docs would see me out). So I’ve always thought of my science “career” in terms of what I can find out and get done rather then in terms of my position on a ladder.
Right now things are looking a bit interesting though! I’m just not sure if what I’m on to can be demonstrated within the time I’ve reasonably got left. If I can keep going until 70 maybe 🙂 (Turning 64 next year)
Most of what you write is speculation and subjective opinion, not facts. And where you did attempt to cite facts in this instance, they were wrong.
“Facts” don’t come in pejorative analogical terms, Gregory. Those things there are opinions.
I don’t think you do. I’m more or less in the expected position given my PhD graduation date, It’s just that I’m also only a few years off retirement age! (In fact, I’m actually drawing my state pension….)
Again, that is opinion, not fact.
That is true of all fields. I’d say it is most true of senior authors tbh.
Of course I’m “legit”. I work, much of my work is research, in collaboration with colleagues, and we do our best to get stuff published. Our best is quite well cited because it’s in an empirical field where it’s de rigueur to search (and cite) the existing literature before you publish something new. And there are a few papers I’m quite proud of. I am quite proud of the fact that my most cited paper is one on which I am first author, and did the key work for, although I think my best paper (also one on which I am first author) is a different one – it’s not so well cited though, because it made a theoretical, rather than a primarily empirical, contribution, and it’s empirical studies on the whole that drive the citation index up.
whatever.
We’re contemporaries, Lizzie. My sitch is a bit different though. I got my doctorate from Brown at 24. At the time only about 1 in 250 philosophy Ph.Ds got academic jobs, and, while I did get one, it was a two-year appointment, filling in for someone on leave. When that person came back, my wife was still in grad school, positions were still very scarce, and (for good or ill) I didn’t want to take a job far away from her, just because it was in my field. So I gave academia up and did something else.
I remained interested, though, and occasionally published stuff over the years. As I got closer to retirement age, I intensified my writing with the hope that I’d have something to do rather than eat, watch tv, and respond to nitwits on the internet during my “golden years.” I got a few more things in print, and maybe that’s why I was able to start teaching again–in a region that is absolutely flooded with Ph.Ds from great departments.
Sadly, I’m what’s called a “hobby prof”–an entity considered problematic both by unionized faculty and adjuncts alike. I have no interest in a full-time position with benefits, but I’m not living in my car either, and am seen as stealing work from those who are. And, of course, on behalf of their membership and growth potential, unions are cracking down on visiting lecturers and adjuncts too, so I can only teach when the need is great. The good thing is that I have no particular aspirations to academic triumph. I’m now mostly focused on two papers I’m circulating being published, since I’m kind of proud of them.
Gregory should not have whacked you for your career choices, but he doesn’t know any better. He’s ambitious, arrogant, angry and not terribly bright, but he’s also young and may grow out of at least some of those conditions. His character and behavior have obviously not been improved by his religion, but age (and maybe occasional industry) may do the trick. One can hope, anyway.
ETA: I said I got my Ph.D. at 21. That would have been molto impressivo, but alas……
Corrected it.
Hey, walto 🙂
Yes, age can do the trick. Here’s hoping!
For a long time I was badly irked by Gregory’s insistence on calling me a “philosophist,” since I do think that Plato’s critique of the Sophists is both correct and still relevant to contemporary culture and politics. But then it dawned on me that Gregory’s favorite philosophers, based on what he’s said here, are Christian Russian mystical philosophers (Solovyev and Berdyaev, he’s mentioned by name several times).
There is a long and (I think) honorable tradition of thinkers who use empiricism and/or rationalism against mysticism — a tradition that includes Epicurus, Spinoza, Locke (at times, when he’s cautioning against “enthusiasm”), Kant (sort of), Hegel (except for the Absolute Spirit), Marx, Nietzsche, Dewey, Adorno, Deleuze, and many others. If all of these philosophers are “philosophists” by Gregory’s lights because they reject Christian mysticism, then I am proud to be numbered among them.
keiths. How interesting. I hope he is well.
Perhaps he’s taking a sabbatical in order to prepare his follow-up post on moderation here at TSZ. It’s starting to gain Paul Nelson status.
Yes.
Hasn’t the guide for the perplexed been done already?
My don’t we just love putting people in boxes around here!
😉
I guess. Not sure it’s exclusive to TSZ, though.
Wouldn’t that be Erik’s bosom?
It’s not, by any means. We all do it, don’t we?
Yes. Important not to shut the lids though.
Well, that’s understandable because Gregory didn’t ‘whack’ Lizzie for her career choices. Now I’ll go back to ignoring a fool.
Lizzie’s degrees in music, architecture and psychology don’t make her a competent philosopher (that’s too obvious here) and it is a fact that she is a Catholic apostate, at least, according to what she has said here.
And I don’t claim to be one.
Gregory: it is a fact that she is a Catholic apostate
There are many things I used to think were true, and don’t any more. Can I be an apostate of those things too?
Given your penchant for making words mean whatever you’d like them to mean, I don’t see why not.
Well, what do you think “apostate” means? Am I an Anglican apostaste, in your view? A Christian apostate? A theistic apostate? Or just a Catholic one?
This place is boring all right. The above post is a great example of why. Dumb, adolescent insults, and nothing more.
Elizabeth,
Is this a case of Lizzie not *wanting* to be an apostate, while actually being one?
Gregory,
A “fact” that has no bearing on any argument I’ve seen her make and that is of especial interest only to you. Aside from demonstrating something unpleasant about your personality, what possible reason is there to bring up others’ personal backgrounds?
“Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same. Leave it to the police and bureaucrats to make sure our papers are in order” — Foucault.
A true philosopher is not interested in checking boxes on a demographic survey.
Kantian Naturalist,
An uninspiring philosophist speaking of ‘a true philosopher’ (using Foucault). That’s funny! : ))