…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.
Mung,
Unrequited love can do that to a person. Every affront, real or imagined, feels ten times worse.
If not flowers, how about quoting his “always linked”? You’ll be back in his arms in no time.
Your comment is what’s scary. But I’m sure you’re sincere. Not.
You love with unrequited love Glen and Richarthughes and Alan and …
Any lie they spout you are on board with. Got it.
keiths, not a skeptic.
THE SKEPTICAL ZONE, favored haunt of THE NON-SKEPTIC!
Mung truley is Boxer from ‘animal farm’
Mung,
And I always hoped my threesome would be me and two ladies 🙁
keiths and Glen. Two fair ladies. What more could you want?
How does this demonstrate that you’re not fixated on Barry Arrington’s testicles?
Awwww, that’s sweet. Mung is now describing his testicles as ‘Barry’s’. Total gelding subservience.
Maybe that’s the problem, Mung. KF is unsettled by your divided loyalties, and wants your testicles all to himself.
Well, the ones that are sincere are scary because – who could be ignorant or blind enough to nod approvingly at the words of lying scum like Luskin, Meyer, Wells? And the ones who aren’t sincere are scary because – who could stand to waste even a moment associating themselves with those scum if they don’t sincerely believe it?
stcordova,
From what you are saying here, you are badly mixing up science and religious faith when you are teaching. Would it not be better to try and separate these subjects as much as possible? Has hundreds of years of scientific progress not shown that people of any faith can do science, and that this is a real strength of the method?
In fairness to the kids, it would be better to limit what you teach them at a young age to stuff we know, stuff that everybody agrees on, and also, why not, point to things that we do not (yet) know. None of that will limit their personal development by steering them towards any particular faith beliefs before they have had the chance to grow into such themselves.
Once they are old enough to understand the difference between objective empirical science and personal subjective beliefs, you can discuss your beliefs with them in the context of religion, ID or whatever you like, and make it clear to them that ID is not science. Just as you do to us.
Six year olds don’t understand the distinction between science and faith. If you really believe that ID is not science you should not be mixing up the two when you teach such young kids. Pretty simple, really.
fG
I will do that, I have no problem doing that.
Even though we disagree on many things, that is something I feel very comfortable doing.
Thank you for your advice and criticisms.
Sorry we have to be on opposing sides of the ID/YEC issue so frequently. I’m sure we’d get along very well otherwise.
PS
Fortey’s book is on it’s way from Amazon. I bought it on your recommendation. Can’t guarantee I’ll get to it any time soon as I’ve just started again a new set of graduate studies.
Keiths to Mung:
WHAT! When did this happen to Mung?
If it’s not too much trouble, fill me in on the dirt.
stcordova,
Well, you’re right, and hence, as I have said, I don’t buy ‘proteins-first’ – which is what your source was on about too. The energy of condensation is unfavourable, there is no opportunity to build a replicating molecule, and there is no obvious source of repeat specification to produce consistent catalysts in bulk.
I would suggest to your source the same issue as I did to you: I can’t envisage any acid-specific condensation scenario that could repeatedly place (say) alanine and threonine at specific sites in the chain, and yet could not distinguish the L isomers from the D. Alanine and threonine are distinguished by the side chain. In a D acid, that position is always occupied by hydrogen, and so the D isomers (or, in opposite-world, the L isomers) must be distinguishable by the same mechanism that promotes specificity.
If you think of the 4 tetrahedral carbon vertices as points on a globe, and fix the carboxyl and amino vertices on the Greenwich meridian, the other two vertices are on the equator in the Indian and Pacific Oceans respectively. So if there is a side chain in the Indian Ocean, and you can identify it, you won’t be fooled by anything that has hydrogen there, which includes all D acids. It doesn’t matter if there is a side chain in the Pacific. You can’t see it; you are looking at the Indian site. And vice versa for any specificity at the Pacific.
I think chirality of amino acids is a bit of a red herring; there certainly is an issue of specificity, but if you have it at all, enantiomers are excluded for free.
Cheers!
Sure, but it wouldn’t be much of a discussion!
This issue (petrushka’s and other’s erroneous idea of what constitutes quote-mining) and the comments in that thread clearly, overtly demonstrate why the idea that honest, meaningful debate at this site is virtually impossible. I’m sure Glen, Liz and KN know, and I would think at least a couple of others know, that petrushka is absolutely, obviously, 100% wrong about what constitutes quote-mining. Glen even went so far as to tentatively agree earlier – but where is he now? I know at least a couple more of you must know that he is utterly wrong, but why do you say nothing?
IMO, the reason is that you’re so committed against IDists and creationists that you’d rather support, make excuses for or simply ignore it when one of your own demonstrates a gross lack of understanding about something and is corrected by one you are ideologically committed against.
What reasonable expectation could anyone have of having a meaningful debate about any meaningful subject matter when you guys won’t even an admit an obvious, glaring misconception by one of your own when it is pointed out, and they keep repeating it? If you won’t even admit that rather minor error by one of your own but would rather attack who points it out and find some way of defending that error, what kind of credibility do you think you have when you are actually talking about scientific evidence and research?
The fact that you guys are defending petrushka’s obvious ignorance about what constitutes quote-mining clearly demonstrates you’re not intellectually honest or credible.
Which is largely why I don’t bother much interacting here. You guys have an ideological and tribal commitment that biases you to the point of not even being willing to correct a glaring error by one of your own.
And that’s the charitable reading. I’d hate to think you’re all just so freaking stupid that you don’t understand what “quote-mining” means. If so, that also doesn’t bode well for meaningful debates/discussions either.
No idea what Mung is talking about here. I certainly did, without prior discussion, completely on my own initiative without a by-your-leave from anyone, create the thread formally known as “the wine cellar”. The fact that I did it should be demonstration enough that admins here are able to. I have, to my pretty certain knowledge, never denied it either.
Is there something in prior discussion I have missed?
You may not be aware of the special status of this thread – Noyau. Normal rules of civility are suspended here and only the basic rules of no spam, no porn and no outing apply.
William J. Murray,
Stupid it is, then.
The tu quoque is rather tempting. I see nary a word of rebuke or correction on fact or interpretation from one IDist to another, on anything. It’s only a bad thing when you perceive the others doing it.
That said … there is an asymmetry in the use of quotes, regardless whether one is correct in interpreting the usage as ‘mined’. By and large, you find people don’t use other people’s words to do their arguing for them on the ‘evo’ side. And actually it’s that that I find aggravating coming from the ID/Creationism side, regardless whether the quote is a ‘true’ quote mine or not: “typing words is far too much trouble, so here’s something someone else said. Pick the bones out of that”. Argue with someone who isn’t here. One finds it with political Facebook shares as well. Share-post, and it’s on to the next one.
Mung,
Your complaints seem sincere and deserve a sincere response.
I agree with you that both posting private email and encouraging others to do so is unethical, absent the need to prevent any immediate harm. I don’t think that it is aligned with the goals of this site and it seems to violate the spirit of some of the rules.
If I were making the rules here I wouldn’t delete that kind of thing, but I also wouldn’t have rules that suggest better behavior is expected.
Discussion of moderation issues belongs in the Moderation Issues thread. That’s not censorship, it’s housekeeping. No posts or comments were deleted and obviously the discussion is still going on.
As I’ve repeatedly pointed out to you, my response was not a suggestion to censor but to understand how to apply Lizzie’s rules in that situation. The post seemed to me to violate those rules. This is Lizzie’s experiment, she’s the sole person who can provide a binding interpretation.
If I were making the rules that post would not have violated them so it wouldn’t be an issue.
What censorship? Have any posts or comments been deleted?
William J. Murray,
Typical Williamesque dishonesty.
William came in all hot and bothered about the Quote Mine Project because John Wilkins had never said or implied that Gould “rejected evolution,” completely misunderstanding that Wilkins wasn’t IDist/creationist, bollixing the whole matter up in the first instance. Then he faulted the Quote Mine Project for not proving quotemines, when their whole point was to be a resource in general for rampant quotemining. Meanwhile, he made a host of false charges against “Darwinists” based on his incomprehension of just about everything involved.
When corrected, he faulted the Quote Mine Project for not being what he had stupidly assumed that it was. He doesn’t apologize or back down from his many false claims, and only blames others for not conforming with his cerebral failings.
But hey, the guy who failed utterly even to comprehend what the Quote Mine Project was doing, complained the evolutionist John Wilkins had never said or implied that Gould rejected evolution, and went off on yet another bigoted tirade about “Darwinists” based on his own many errors, is the expert on quotemining. Yup, because he says he is.
Chutzpah I see, thought and the like I do not.
So he’s got another bigoted rant at UD going, the usual bullshit and arrogant ignorance. We’re sinners because we’re all prejudiced, like he always knew without even needing evidence for it. Yet this whole episode provides evidence for him, because although he was pathetically wrong about Wilkins and the Quote Mine Project and ranted false charges against “Darwinists” based on his own dull incomprehension and presumption, we haven’t, uh, been the internet cops that he demands.
At UD:
That is effectively a lie (unless he didn’t read that, but he has the obligation to do so), because I wrote:
“I differ” typically means (and does here) that I consider the other to be wrong about the matter in question. Oh, but I wrote thoughtfully and somewhat diplomatically (petrushka’s a good guy and I agree with most of what he has said, just think he went too far a time or two), so he falsely claims on that thread that it was apologetics. I don’t think I needed to disagree with petrushka at all, in fact, not being any internet cop, and I routinely ignore lots of things from both sides that I might not fully agree with, but I thought that there might be some value in going over the matter, and, in doing so, disagreed on how far petrushka went in theory, while noting that in practice it’s pretty much as he said–IDists/creationists do ignore particularly the wider context of Gould’s writings, which isn’t using Gould correctly.
William apparently believes that when he’s blundered horribly the only thing to do is to blunder on. He’s the expert on quotemining, never mind how stupidly he misunderstood everything else. He’s ranted about the evils of “Darwinists,” so clearly we’re evil, and all of this just proves it. Everything proves William right, every lie he tells, every last prejudice that colors his world.
Is it any wonder that he’s bought into the IDist “Darwinist”-demonizing pseudoscience?
Glen Davidson
IMO, Alan, you’re dancing around the issue because you just don’t want to publicly admit Petrushka is laughably wrong about what constitutes quote-mining.
Just because a creationist quotes a mainstream biologist to support a creationist conclusion does not mean the creationist is quote-mining.
Disagree with that, and you’re either hopelessly stupid or being dishonest. Full stop. Period.
Richardthughes,
Two words Richard;
Butt Hurt. WOOHOO, YEAH!
Oh, man I LOVE THAT! It just never gets old. Sweet Jesus that is funny! Man!
How do you do that, how did you ever come up with that crazy prose? Whew!!!
Butt Hurt! Even when I know its coming, it still gets me every time. Doggone, that stuff is funny. Oh boy!
What is your secret man? Share brother share.
Ooh, I can hardly find words to express how tickled I am to look in guano and see a comment from WJM.
Thanks for today’s little bit of entertainment, Billy boy!
In theory, not.
In practice, yes, because the normal modus operandi of the creationists is to rip the quotes out of context, ignore any qualifiers present in the original, not engage with the overall argument in which the comment was originally made, and draw conclusions from the quotes that are uninformed, simplistic, and often diametrically opposite from the author’s overall meaning.
For an example, Gould’s quote discussed earlier. By quoting him as saying that documented transitions between species are rare, and then pretending this means there are no documented evolutionary transitions full stop, they are being dishonest or stupid. Gould has pointed out why, but the creationists don’t take note of his objections and carry on trotting out the same quote time and again, totally ignoring his objections
You know this happens, you even said so.
At some point the creationists simply lose the benefit of the doubt. As the saying goes, reputation is like virginity, you can only lose it once. Deal with that, instead of going QQ about someone’s wording.
fG
hotshoe_,
A few more will be following shortly! 🙂
faded_Glory,
But maybe they are using Gould’s quote of “transitions between species are rare”, to show that transitions between species are rare.
phoodoo,
That thing you’re feeling? One word: Butthurt. You can’t get anything right.
phoodoo,
That implies that those are Gould’s actual words. I’m assuming it’s this:
“Very rarely can we trace the gradual transformation of one entire species into another through a finely graded sequence of intermediary forms.”
Which is a very different statement.
faded_glory said:
If they quoted him as saying that such transitions are rare, and then pretend what “rare” means is “nonexistent”, then yes, they are being dishonest or stupid, because “rarity” simply doesn’t indicate “nonexistent”; it in fact directly contradicts any claim or implication of “nonexistence”.
I seriously doubt that someone would present that quote and then pretend that “rare” means “non-existent” and pretend that the quote supports the idea that such fossils are “nonexistent”, but considering what I’ve just witnessed here, I don’t put rule out any level of stupidity.
Your inability to charitably read those you disagree with because of admitted bias doesn’t excuse advocating for ipso facto charges of “quote-mining” against those you disagree with, and as much as you would like to make this about something other than the painful, laughably incorrect understanding of quote-mining by petrushka and flint, that’s what it’s about.
EDIT: Just figured out what you meant by: “In theory, not.” IOW, “Petrushka is wrong, but let me try to construct some apologetics for him and divert attention away from this fact.”
Why would they need to do that?
Okay, I get it. That’s because ID isn’t real science. It is apologetics. If it were real science, they would have a substantial body of evidence that they could refer to, and would not need to quote Gould.
Hilarious, William.
AIUI, your complaint is with petrushka’s statement
Petrushka did not say that it was ipso facto quote-mining. However, as fG notes, it is our (near-) universal experience that that is the case. So your indignation is wonderfully misplaced, and your comment re “Your inability to charitably read those you disagree with because of admitted bias…” would have broken my irony meter, if I did not take the precaution of turning that sucker OFF whenever I read your
effluentoutput.This point has been raised frequently, and ignored by the quote-mining community exactly that many times.
WHY BOTHER TO QUOTE GOULD? About anything. It’s not like Gould did all the original research and wrote in peer reviewed publications. His information was at best from secondary sources, and was available to all. If someone needed the FACTS, rather than Gould’s reputation, he could go straight to the primary sources.
As always, the goal is to imply Gould’s agreement (through tacit support) of a position Gould is known to have rejected vehemently throughout his career. That is the ONLY reason even to mention Gould at all.
Anytime soon would be good! WJM looks to be getting worse as we go along.
Not to mention sophistry, cheap debating tricks, a deep and incurable misunderstanding of science in general and biology in particular, and a loose collection of culture war anxieties.
🙂
Quite. Well, I think that a Gould quote might make a good summary or some such thing if done properly, but really it’s not about quotes at all.
The problem is that it is apologetics against the demonic evolutionary theory. So that many aren’t even aware of why there should be a problem with their quotes sans context. If you get an admission against the evil evolutionists’ interests, that’s what’s important to them. But it’s not that at all, normally it’s just some scientists wrangling over interpretations, rates, those sorts of things. There aren’t supposed to be “interests” in science at all, and even though it’s true that there often are (surprise, scientists do want their own research and interpretations to matter), that doesn’t change the fact that overall Gould and others are simply arguing about the details, and most of their scientific audience would probably be persuaded by solid evidence plus good argumentation to the side with the better understanding of the phenomena in question.
Your typical apologist, though, thinks that Gould admitted some dark secret that had been locked in the Darwinist conspiracy, when he “admitted” that transitional fossils are rare. But he wasn’t there even talking about what most anti-evolutionists consider to be “macroevolution,” rather it was about speciation, which most anti-evolutionists consider to be “microevolution” (against the biological meaning, to be sure). The ignorance of most creationists is such that they don’t really know what Gould was discussing there, even if most biologists could figure out what probably was at stake, sans context. Something is wrong about evolution is what the average creationist gets, along with the strong suspicion that it’s basically a conspiracy against the Truth.
That’s why such quote-mining is so egregious. In fact it really isn’t all that easy to quote biologists within context when dealing with more nuanced aspects of their science, because so few layfolk really understand what’s going on. Rather than actually explain what is going on, IDists/creationists typically quote an expert like Gould (chosen because the expert said something they liked), either say or imply that something nefarious was going on that the expert confessed to, and then move on to the next false claim. Many really only think that it’s all about evil evolutionists who care only about destroying religion while doing a bit of science on the side, so why even bother with Gould’s “apologetics” designed to save such blasphemy? He confessed, now move on.
Quotemines only reinforce such bigotry, which is why the creationists here are so defensive about them. The IDEA Center quote mines about the fossils begin with a couple of quote mines from Darwin (one not even a true quote), reinforcing the idea that Darwin is what it’s all about, not the science. That is partly how they deceive with quotemines (knowingly or not, same effect anyhow), by ascribing a false sense of authority in science, which ideally would be without that sort of authority (expert authority is different from founder’s authority), but which at least ends up noticing the clay feet and errors of most such authorities over time.
They don’t do quotes right because they’re fundamentally wrong about evolutionary science altogether. It doesn’t care about creationists, save their nuisance factor, and it doesn’t admit or confess the problems in science, it deals with them (often, but not always, well). Gould had his problems with ideologic commitment and certainly his ego (there’s too much of the sense of a desire for the revolutionary overthrow of gradualism in his writings, when evolutionary theory wasn’t wedded to it by that time–if ever), but he certainly wasn’t exposing any dirty secrets like most IDists/creationists present him as doing.
The problem is that ID/creationism is doing apologetics, while Gould and others frequently quote mined are discussing science. The former don’t even understand the context of scientific statements, and only in that sense do they have any excuse for their many quote mines.
Glen Davidson
William J. Murray,
No, I simply don’t share your petrushka-obsession. I didn’t even bother to find out what I was being ordered to chastise him for, initially. I consider the wider issue I mentioned more important than what one person on a blog thinks.
Correct. Context matters.
Oh well, thank fuck I’ve avoided that pratfall then. It would be awful to have you think less of me.
Just curious, Do you claim to have a deep understanding of science and biology? Or is this not necessary in order to criticize others knowledge of biology and science?
Because its posts like this of yours that keeps me from feeling bad when I make fun of your philosophy.
I would certainly never claim to have it.
I would say that it’s difficult to make a VALID criticism without knowledge of the subject matter.
My goal here is to learn how biology works, in as much detail as I’m capable of understanding without diving into the study of biology full time. My take is that extremely complex chemical and physical interactions drive biology, rather than philosophy doing the driving. I find the technique of deriving plausible explanations from existing evidence, and then testing them, to be interesting.
If biology does NOT work the way biologists think it does, what experiment can you suggest to provide support for this possibility? Philosophical pontification doesn’t generate interesting observations or other evidence.
I have a BA in biology, I’ve done field-work and lab-work in paleontology and archaeology, and I keep up with current developments in evolutionary theory and use it in my work. I have a solid grasp of the history and philosophy of science and regularly discuss it with leading specialists in those fields. I don’t claim to have “deep” understanding of science and biology, but I have a pretty solid grasp of the fundamentals of both theory and practice.
You should feel bad when you make fun of my philosophy, because I’m an expert in professional philosophy. I’ve published ten articles, one book, four book reviews, and one encyclopedia article. There was a panel devoted to my book at the most recent national conference in my field. Your criticisms of my philosophical competence are like watching a dog trying to walk on its hind legs. And even that is only when your causal acquaintance with grammar and spelling renders your posts sufficiently intelligible for me to understand anything that you are saying. That you lack the basic awareness to realize how comical you are only makes you more amusing to me.
phoodoo,
Compared to you, everyone is an expert on everything.
Kantian Naturalist,
Well, KN, actually I am well aware that I am comical-so you are wrong there-does that make you less amused? Sorry for that.
Now, about your deep “professional” philosophical position that creationists use sophistry, cheap debating tricks, have a deep and incurable misunderstanding of science in general and biology in particular, and are a loose collection of people with culture war anxieties, let me ask you, were they born that way do you think? Is it in their genes?
Because clearly you feel that people who believe in evolution never use cheap debating tricks, and they certainly have a “curable” misunderstanding of biology and science, and they have no anxieties over any culture wars.
So, is your position a scientific one? Did you study this? Have did you determine that evolutionists use expensive debating tricks? How many debates have you researched to come up with your determination that evolutionists don’t use sophistry?
Because here is what I think. I think ANYONE can and does use sophistry (like you right now for instance). I think lots of people have culture war anxieties (again, like you perhaps). I think cheap debating tricks is not limited to any particular worldview of how life arose. But most importantly, what I think is that anyone who claims that it is their particular side of a philosophical viewpoint that debates honestly, and another side by definition doesn’t, is frankly not only a poor philosopher and incredibly unscientific, but also an incredible imbecile.
Now, if you have a hard time understanding this English, perhaps I can put numbers in front of each point for you, as you seem to struggle without them.
fifthmonarchyman,
I and others have been repeatedly asking you for detailed examples of how to play your game. In this comment you said:
And immediately after you posted this gem:
This deliberate obtuseness and repeated refusal to explain how your game works with detailed examples leaves little doubt that your goal here is not to engage in good faith discussion but only to waste the time of other participants. Your only purpose seems to be to get people to respond to you. Basically, you’re trolling.
If you had any real interest in communicating and testing your claims, you could easily provide several step-by-step detailed examples of how you sort strings using your game. Instead of doing that, you’ve spent countless hours and hundreds of comments providing no content of value.
The fact that your religious beliefs lead to this kind of dishonesty, ignorance, and rudeness is yet another reason to celebrate the fact that those beliefs are dying out.
This is a lame excuse if ever there was one. This “rule” does not exist in the site rules and is a “request” of very recent origin. How convenient that a new unpublished “rule” pops up just when most needed.
When asked why my thread was shut down that’s not the answer I received from Elizabeth. When you lobbied to have the thread closed that’s not the reason you gave.
This is nothing more than an after the fact rationalization that doesn’t stand up under scrutiny.
You still not fixed UD’s moderation, or even spoken up about it Mung? Why is that?
Butthurt and Barry’s testicles. I admire how you manage to remain focused on the objects of your affection.
LOL! Mung still refers to his shriveled testicles as belonging to Barry. Talk about being completely emasculated. 😀
Mung,
You can’t get anything right you dipship. YOUR testicles are in BARRY’S purse, because you’re a tragic footsoldier.
Thanks.
Jesus, you two sexist bigots. No, not Mung, you Adapa and you RichardHughes.
Will either of you ever wake up and recognize that testicularity is not a measure of worth of a human being?
I agree. Mung could be a worthwhile human being despite the fact his testicles are kept in Barry’s purse. Mung just chooses not to be.