Sandbox (4)

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Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.

I’ve opened a new “Sandbox” thread as a post as the new “ignore commenter” plug-in only works on threads started as posts.

5,860 thoughts on “Sandbox (4)”

  1. Gregory: Why is he so loud in his anti-theism & at the same time accepted as a “scientist” authority figure by some?

    Personally, I don’t accept him as an authority figure. However, he seems to do good science.

    It is possible to be good at science, while being a terrible human.

  2. phoodoo: He is just a gross person in my opinion. For one thing, just his whole premise of God doesn’t exist, is so intellectually vapid. Fine, you can say you don’t believe or you don’t know, but that is pretty much as far as anyone with any academic honesty should be able to say. But no, no, Jerry has all the answers.

    The same goes for all the pastors, ministers, and priests of the world. their whole premise is that God exists all the while failing to acknowledge that this is just their belief while failing to announce that they really don’t know if that is true or not and that they have no means of demostrating the veracity of their claims. But no, no, they have all the answers. Too funny phoodoo that you think it only worlks one way.

    phoodoo: Secondly, he is this smarmy little letter writing, fascist, who thinks its his job to complain to every academic institution on the planet, if there is someone teaching something he doesn’t agree with

    Free speech just shouldn’t exist except for folks I agree with Is that it phoodoo?

    phoodoo: His personal attacks against a Chicago colleague are so unprofessional I don’t know the institution doesn’t reprimand him. Who the fuck is Jerry Coyne to be writing that James Shapiro, a Harvard trained microbiologist, who works at the same university as him, doesn’t know what he is talking about. Fuck you Coyne, he should be fired.

    I’d have to ask ‘who the fuck is phoodoo to question what Jerry Coyne does and doesn’t know? but for phoodoo it appears to be all about the ‘burn the witch’ mentality.

    phoodoo: I have never heard of another professor, talking about someone else in their own science department that way.

    phoodoo has never heard of therefore it must not exist! However, whatever the case may be lets ban Jerry Coyne and have him censored because….well phoodoo doesn’t like him and what he says. What a snowflake.

  3. PeterP,

    A preacher can believe that he has heard directly from God. You don’t have to believe him, but that’s his story. So what’s Coyne’s story, he knows there is no God, because no God has spoken to him. That’s stupidity.

    Secondly, if you are hired by the University of Chicago, you shouldn’t be going around claiming other professors who were also hired by the same university are idiots. Imagine doing that if you worked at GM. I wonder how long you would last.

    Furthermore, its not just an isolated case with Coyne. He has a problem with every professor who doesn’t teach what Coyne wants him to teach. He is the self-anointed educational board. Its quite clear he has some deep seated issues with is God-fear, that he totally panics that everyone isn’t as much of an atheist pastor as he is. Why do you think he bans anyone from his site who doesn’t agree with him? Because he is an open minded academic? He is a little twit, that’s angry God may him gay, and wishes he could have been born a cat.

  4. phoodoo: A preacher can believe that he has heard directly from God. You don’t have to believe him, but that’s his story.

    So its ok if someone makes a claim they heard directly from god, or perhaps the neighbors dog, that tells them to pursue some path or action and that this claim somehow makes it an ok venue for free speech. You don’t have to beleive them also applies to Jerry Coyne or anyone else for that matter.

    phoodoo: So what’s Coyne’s story, he knows there is no God, because no God has spoken to him. That’s stupidity.

    Why is it stupidity? what if he said he heard from Satan would that make his claims ok in phoodoo censor world?

    phoodoo: Secondly, if you are hired by the University of Chicago, you shouldn’t be going around claiming other professors who were also hired by the same university are idiots.

    Why should that be the case? It might be true after all.

    phoodoo: Imagine doing that if you worked at GM. I wonder how long you would last.

    does GM have tenure for their employees or might it be that they be intimidated that speaking freely might get them fired? GM, unlike academia, is a censored environment something you advocate for, phoodoo.

    phoodoo: Furthermore, its not just an isolated case with Coyne. He has a problem with every professor who doesn’t teach what Coyne wants him to teach.

    So he has opinions and expresses them. Don’t like that much do you, phoodoo? Ban him…censor him….phoodoo says.

    phoodoo: He is the self-anointed educational board. Its quite clear he has some deep seated issues with is God-fear, that he totally panics that everyone isn’t as much of an atheist pastor as he is.

    Your concern trolling is duy noted, phoodoo.

    phoodoo: Why do you think he bans anyone from his site who doesn’t agree with him?

    It is his site, phoodoo. Are you saying that there should be rules for anyone choosing to run a website that they must conform to ‘phoodoo rules’ or cease existing? I think he can run it any way he wishes. If you, or anyone, doesn’t lke it don’t go there but stop the fucking whining.

  5. PeterP,

    So that’s how he can know there is no God, because he heard it from Satan? Is there any other way he could know?

    If he didn’t hear it from Satan, will you then admit its stupid?

  6. Neil Rickert: It is possible to be good at science, while being a terrible human.

    Yes, surely. Or at art, or sports. Any area of one’s life. Those are moral terms there, right Neil?

  8. stcordova: I found him saying that to a young girl pretty offensive, even if he supposedly was kidding.

    What a coincidence. Most of us find the constant lies you tell about evolutionary theory to be quite offensive but that hasn’t stopped you at all.

  9. phoodoo: If he didn’t hear it from Satan, will you then admit its stupid?

    Perhaps you should write your own book and start your own blog and see how your ‘ideas’ do in the marketplace?

    After all, if your ideas cannot beat ‘stupid’ ideas what does that say about you?

  10. stcordova: I found him saying that to a young girl pretty offensive, even if he supposedly was kidding.

    Probably best not to go there Sal. The internet never forgets. And I’ve certainly not.

  11. stcordova,

    Were you offended? Oh. I am sorry about that Sal? Does it hurt? Do you want to talk about it? Do you feel like a victim?

    Support the #Saltoo movement. Solidarity bro, I mean human who is sensitive.

    Does cuddling a soft MAGA hat feel better?

  12. Trump wins the Republican Iowa Caucus 97% to 3% and the New Hampshire Republican primary by similar margin.

  13. stcordova:
    Trump wins the Republican Iowa Caucus 97% to 3% and the New Hampshire Republican primary by similar margin.

    When does he get to be God-emperor?

  14. When does he get to be God-emperor?

    Well he can’t become God, but emperor (ahem President) for another 4 years would be nice.

    The guy is clever. He was able to get an Einstein visa so his lady friend could Immigrate to the USA. Who says Trump is against immigrants?

    Melania was granted an EB-1 Visa in 2001 which gave her path to citizenship
    The EB-1 is known as the ‘Einstein Visa,’ and reserved for ‘persons with extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics’

  21. stcordova: Perhaps the matter needs more investigation.

    I dunno. As we’re all off to hell in a handcart with climate change, it hardly matters.

  24. I would add it’s worse for us atheists. This is the only life we get and the Donald is screwing it up for us. Oh wait!

  26. This is from a left-wing magazine, the New Yorker, but I really liked it:

    https://outline.com/m8U9bX

    China’s “Iron House”: Struggling Over Silence in the Coronavirus Epidemic

    A century after Lu Xun imagined the suffocations of the iron house, China is besieged by a modern crisis of body and spirit, an epidemic that has threatened its people and underscored the perils of a suffocating politics. By Wednesday, the coronavirus had sickened more than forty thousand people there and killed more than a thousand. The disease had spread to at least twenty-four countries, sparking fears of a global scourge, as well as an economic chain reaction, as China’s economic behemoth fell silent. By the first week of February, home sales in China had fallen by ninety per cent compared with last February; car dealers predicted that the month’s sales would fall by up to eighty per cent, compared with last year. Half of China’s four-thousand-plus Starbucks were closed.

    In the epicenter, Wuhan, a quarantined city of eleven million people, the disease has been met with courage and stoicism. At least five hundred doctors and nurses have fallen ill, and patients and hospital staff struggle with a shortage of beds, oxygen bottles, and other supplies. In a nighttime video of a residential neighborhood, where people have been confined for weeks, residents in modern apartment towers cry out to one another through open windows: “Wuhan, stay strong!”

    The government has fought to shape the perception of the epidemic, even after the death of Li Wenliang, a heroic ophthalmologist who was one of the first to sound the alarm about the coronavirus. The police had accused him of spreading rumors, warning, “If you keep being stubborn, fail to repent, and continue illegal activities, you will be brought to justice.” But Li was unbowed. He told Caixin, an investigative magazine based in Beijing, “I think a healthy society should not only have one kind of voice.” When Li contracted the virus, and then died, on February 7th, state censors panicked; in a grim charade, they blocked news of his death for hours. In the following days, they tried to stifle the public grief and outrage, by allowing online commenters to praise his heroism but striking down comments that linked his ordeal to China’s tightening constraints on speech.

  29. Alan Fox,

    Is Mendelssohn saying there that the law firm that represented the creationist school board, intentionally screwed them up? woah!

  31. Alan Fox:
    dazz,

    I read him as saying they were incredibly incompetent, especially with the summary dismissal manoeuvre.

    I see, looks like I read too much into the whole Thomas More thing

  32. Alan Fox:
    Just read through this thread at Peaceful Science. Excellent stuff from newcomer Puck Mendelssohn.

    Puck Mendelssohn:
    “I am available, should anyone have questions about Kitzmiller, to let you know whatever I can about it. I do find that there are a number of very strange misconceptions about it which find expression in forums where ID is discussed, some of which, regrettably, are spread by people like Michael Behe, who should know better.”
    Perhaps we should start an OP and invite Mr Puck here and ask him a few questions about how ID differs from evolutionary theory?
    I happen to like the law and I can tell the difference between science and science fiction…

  34. Alan Fox:
    dazz,

    I read him as saying they were incredibly incompetent, especially with the summary dismissal manoeuvre.

    Many affiliated or friendly to the Discovery Institute despised both the Dover Board and their legal team. I certainly did for the dishonesty, stupidity, and the disgrace they brought on Intelligent Design.

  35. Mung:

    BruceS: A noble goal, but I suspect most IDists won’t attempt to understand your math and logic, but will instead trust Eric’s claim of expertise over yours.

    I await your scientific anaysys and results.

    You want my scientific analysis to justify my suspicions that no ID supporter changes their mind based on eg Tom’s or Joe’s arguments?
    Quick attempt: count number of posters who have changed their minds about ID over all these years at TSZ and PS and PT.

    Survey says: zero.

    But maybe your reply was just a Mung-style flyby one-liner.

    I’m glad to see you are back and I hope you will contribute some OPs.

  37. stcordova: Yes, that is the John Sanford I work for.

    John has had several researcher associates/assistants work for him or with him, Rob Carter being one of several.

    I’m one of Dr. Sanford’s junior research assistants/associates.His senior associates were Cornell Professors like him.

    That’s a pretty good review of Swamidass’ book…
    I could add a thing or two to this review… I might do an Amazon one 😉

  39. I found out Mike Bloomberg graduated from the Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University!

    Hey, I graduated from there too!

    Even though I like Trump, I like Mike Bloomberg too. Go Mike! Go Bluejays:

  42. J-Mac: You like baseball?

    The Johns Hopkins Bluejays (lacross), not the Toronto Blujays (baseball).

    I like baseball, Orioles and Nationals.

  50. Gregory:
    Live Stream celebration of life for Kobe & Gianna Bryant youtube.com/watch?v=4K5O3p9UiQE

    It’s quite a cultural shock for some attending the celebration of life in comparison to some other traditions in Africa, and possibly the Mediterranean, where paid mourners do all the weeping, especially needed, if the diseased was an abusive alcoholic, a bully or an extortioner…

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