Sandbox (2)

For general discussion that would be off-topic in other threads!

757 thoughts on “Sandbox (2)”

  2. My tablet will thank you. For some reason, when the thread gets above several hundred posts, it takes several seconds for each typed character to appear. Corrections become impossible.

  3. I don’t see a reason not to close the previous Sandbox thread now. And plenty of reason to.

  4. No relevant thread but William said this on UD:

    Can’t you just see Mark F and Graham2 being dragged before the court at Nuremburg?

    “Evil acts? Define evil!”

    “Obviously, the court here is refusing to define “evil” or any other terminology pertinent to these proceedings!”

    “Illegal? By what standard? Morals and laws are social norms. We were just going along with the social norms and laws of our peer group!!”

    “It’s all relative. You say potato, I say Zyklon B.”

    What I don’t understand is that his example demonstrates it’s all relative.

    Would there have been a Nuremburg had the social norms and laws of the Nazi peer group conquered the world? Of course not.

    The court defines “evil” as “breaking the law”. That’s kind of the point.

    “Illegal? By what standard? Morals and laws are social norms. We were just going along with the social norms and laws of our peer group!!”

    His lack of imagination is somewhat amusing. How do you suppose laws change? They track social norms. That is, again, the point of them.

    And before there were laws? Social norms were all there were.

    Pathetic.

  5. OMagain,

    And a subtle argumentum ad hitlerum. These individuals would of course be among those put on the stand at Nuremberg, stands to reason. Wouldn’t carry the same insinuation if he just talked of a generic court.

    Adopting absolute standards of morality does, of course, explain why every religiously-motivated jurisdiction has precisely the same definitions of ‘evil’ and ‘lawful’ … oh, hang on … Nothing relative going on in the religious world, no sirree bob.

  6. Allan Miller: Adopting absolute standards of morality does, of course, explain why every religiously-motivated jurisdiction has precisely the same definitions of ‘evil’ and ‘lawful’ … oh, hang on … Nothing relative going on in the religious world, no sirree bob.

    I don’t know how the others at Uncommon Descent would deal with this, but I suspect that they would follow William Murray’s thinking on this matter. And as far as Murray goes, he can always invoke his notion of “free will” (in the libertarian, incompatiblist sense) — so what he ends up saying is that there are self-evident, necessarily and absolutely true principles which anyone can freely deny for no reason whatsoever.

    Having put it this way, I think I’m in a better position to articulate what I find frustrating about Murray’s epistemology. The absolutism and the libertarianism are each there to mitigate the other; neither posit is required to account for the data of human experience, but each posit is required to make the other posit fit the data of human experience.

  7. Kantian Naturalist,

    Mmmm. One has the ‘freedom’ to deny the self-evidence of a particular proposition – or that self-evident truths exist at all outside of the analytic. Aside from the existence of such disagreeing and disagreeable individuals rendering the claim to ‘self-evidence’ moot, it is a curious kind of freedom that the exerciser is not even aware of. I might have felt free to turn left or right, but I do not feel that my beliefs derive from an analogue of such dichotomous ‘choice’. My not believing in absolute morality derives from my finding the proposition unsatisfactory, not because I choose to, but because I do.

    Further buttresses of the absolutist – statements dismissive of the existence of actual thought processes in opponents, such as ‘those who wilfully deny the obvious’, ‘whether they realise it or not’, or thought itself being a ‘stolen concept’ – serve to truss up the worldview like a Thanksgiving turkey. Whether they realise it or not 😉

  9. petrushka
    Here’s the convo, starting with the first comment yesterday:

    OMagain on October 30, 2013 at 10:41 pm said:
    No relevant thread but William said this on UD:

    Can’t you just see Mark F and Graham2 being dragged before the court at Nuremburg?

    “Evil acts? Define evil!”

    “Obviously, the court here is refusing to define “evil” or any other terminology pertinent to these proceedings!”

    “Illegal? By what standard? Morals and laws are social norms. We were just going along with the social norms and laws of our peer group!!”

    “It’s all relative. You say potato, I say Zyklon B.”

    What I don’t understand is that his example demonstrates it’s all relative.

    Would there have been a Nuremburg had the social norms and laws of the Nazi peer group conquered the world? Of course not.

    The court defines “evil” as “breaking the law”. That’s kind of the point.

    “Illegal? By what standard? Morals and laws are social norms. We were just going along with the social norms and laws of our peer group!!”

    His lack of imagination is somewhat amusing. How do you suppose laws change? They track social norms. That is, again, the point of them.

    And before there were laws? Social norms were all there were.

    Pathetic.

    ___________________________________________________________________
    Allan Miller on October 31, 2013 at 7:43 am said:
    OMagain,

    And a subtle argumentum ad hitlerum. These individuals would of course be among those put on the stand at Nuremberg, stands to reason. Wouldn’t carry the same insinuation if he just talked of a generic court.

    Adopting absolute standards of morality does, of course, explain why every religiously-motivated jurisdiction has precisely the same definitions of ‘evil’ and ‘lawful’ … oh, hang on … Nothing relative going on in the religious world, no sirree bob.
    ___________________________________________________________________
    Kantian Naturalist on October 31, 2013 at 1:07 pm said:

    Allan Miller: Adopting absolute standards of morality does, of course, explain why every religiously-motivated jurisdiction has precisely the same definitions of ‘evil’ and ‘lawful’ … oh, hang on … Nothing relative going on in the religious world, no sirree bob.

    I don’t know how the others at Uncommon Descent would deal with this, but I suspect that they would follow William Murray’s thinking on this matter. And as far as Murray goes, he can always invoke his notion of “free will” (in the libertarian, incompatiblist sense) — so what he ends up saying is that there are self-evident, necessarily and absolutely true principles which anyone can freely deny for no reason whatsoever.

    Having put it this way, I think I’m in a better position to articulate what I find frustrating about Murray’s epistemology. The absolutism and the libertarianism are each there to mitigate the other; neither posit is required to account for the data of human experience, but each posit is required to make the other posit fit the data of human experience.
    ___________________________________________________________________

    Allan Miller on October 31, 2013 at 1:34 pm said:
    Kantian Naturalist,

    Mmmm. One has the ‘freedom’ to deny the self-evidence of a particular proposition – or that self-evident truths exist at all outside of the analytic. Aside from the existence of such disagreeing and disagreeable individuals rendering the claim to ‘self-evidence’ moot, it is a curious kind of freedom that the exerciser is not even aware of. I might have felt free to turn left or right, but I do not feel that my beliefs derive from an analogue of such dichotomous ‘choice’. My not believing in absolute morality derives from my finding the proposition unsatisfactory, not because I choose to, but because I do.

    Further buttresses of the absolutist – statements dismissive of the existence of actual thought processes in opponents, such as ‘those who wilfully deny the obvious’, ‘whether they realise it or not’, or thought itself being a ‘stolen concept’ – serve to truss up the worldview like a Thanksgiving turkey. Whether they realise it or not

  10. Thanks, Alan, for moving today’s comments from old sandbox to this thread.

    Although that does render my quote-filled comment, just above, superfluous now 😀

  11. I suppose they put so much energy into preparing answers to “why can’t you just list these objective things you claim exist” that it’s become a thing in it’s own right, it’s own art.

    They lost track of the original task. Agreeing/finding out what they actually are…

    And they laugh at the lack of grounding they perceive in others while being worse off themselves then those they are pillorying.

  16. How bad is it? It’s this bad:

    The Discovering Intelligent Design curriculum is designed for educational use by home schools and private schools rather than public schools. When this subject of intelligent design is forced into public schools, it tends to generate polarization, transforming the topic from a scientific investigation into an emotional, politicized debate.

    BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

  18. The book seems to have been published at the same time as Darwin’s Doubt. I assume they were intended to reinforce each other.

  22. I would like to post an OP. Would it be possible for me to be assigned that privilege? Alternatively I’m happy to write and have someone who can, post the OP.

  25. As things are quiet, I have just tried re-opting for displaying recent comments rather than having to wait for the whole lot to load. Seems to work OK for me. Please advise any problems and I can switch back to loading entire threads.

  26. Check out Denyse O’Leary’s assault on TSZ in her capacity as News at Uncommon Descent. She has an endless capacity to astonish. Something about us being 16-year-olds who don’t have a real job, which somehow connects to Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed legislation against large containers of soda pop, and that connects to a compulsion to consume Oreo cookies.

    I didn’t make this up: I couldn’t be that imaginative.

  27. If you reverse the digits in the age and reverse the job status between O’Leary and us, you would have a pretty accurate picture.

  28. Just looked at the UD post.

    Why would it surprise anyone at UD that we comment on their threads?

    This site was founded in part because many of us were banned at UD. Some more than once.

    There’s hardly anything left of the ID movement. TelicThoughts is dead and gone. The only sites still updating are ENV and UD.

  31. There is a link to this thread, on the second line. Perhaps Sandbox2 would have been preferable for space considerations.

  33. petrushka:
    There is a link to this thread, on the second line. Perhaps Sandbox2 would have been preferable for space considerations.

    Woops, you’re right, there it is! Still, would have been better to have the two adjacent.

  34. Joe Felsenstein,

    I did my patented [Blink. Blink. Blink], particularly at comment #10 by one jstanley:
    “a couple of cliches spring to mind. “Too much time on their hands,” obviously. “Get a life,” for another, although in some unknown number of specific instances it may be more precisely a matter of, “Get a job,” as cozy as mom’s basement may be after straining ones’ brain for so long post-graduate.”

    Given the volume and length of output by many of UD’s prime suspects, that is hilariously rich.

  35. Allan Miller,

    … and the ever-reliable BA77, having established with some glee that America continues to be dominated by creationist thinking:

    Will you atheists start shooting people if the numbers continue to go against you? Actually that is what I’m afraid of if atheists ever grow in numbers and gain real political power in this country!

    BOO! There’s one! He’s got a gun! If atheists grow in numbers, ‘the numbers’ can no longer be said to continue going against them, so BA can sleep easy in the face of that particular threat …

  36. My Karma has caught up with me. I’ve made fun of people who start threads and then disappear on the excuse tht real life work has taken all their time.

    So I post a thread, and a server I maintain dies, and all the backups are either old or bad. I have had to drag an old server out of the attic, re-provision it, find ten year old drivers for a SCSI RAID controller, and hope the controller recognizes the array from the dead server. Luck was with me, but it took three days to get back in business.

  38. Alan, may I address you regarding a post awaiting moderation? Is Elisabeth still active here? She didn’t send me her e-mail address, as promised. Wouldn’t mind a communicative link.

  39. … a post awaiting moderation

    I’m not seeing a post from you awaiting moderation. Nor am I seeing evidence that there was a recent such post.

    I generally check every hour or so. But, of course, I can’t do that when I’m asleep nor when I am at work but out of my office.

    If I see a post in moderation that is from a regular member, I normally approve it, unless I see that it has already been reposted (presumably a second post attempt). There was one case (Nov 6) where I moved to Guano while approving.

  41. @ Gregory

    alanfoxATfree.fr

    I am having connectivity problems at the moment so I can’t promise a rapid response. If you have a post that you wish to publish, I (or Neil) can approve it for you. I’m sorry that Lizzie has not yet indicated whether she will reinstate author status.

    PS she spells her name with a Z!

  42. I’m not seeing a post from you awaiting moderation.

    Apparently, I misunderstood. Sorry about that.

    I took you to be talking about a comment that went into moderation, rather than a new topic that needed approval. Hopefully, all is now fine.

  43. there goes one more gap ID proponents.

    http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/11/15/184212/first-lab-demonstration-that-the-ability-to-evolve-can-itself-evolve

    “Research on Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, shows that the capacity to evolve can itself be the target of natural selection. B. burgdorferi can cause a chronic infection even if its animal host mounts a strong immune response — evading those defenses by tweaking the shape and expression of its main surface antigen, VIsE. A series of unexpressed genetic sequences organized into ‘cassettes’ recombine with the VIsE gene, changing the resulting protein such that it escapes detection by the host’s immune system. The researchers studied the molecular evolution of the cassettes’ genetic sequences in 12 strains of B. burgdorferi. They found that natural selection seemed to favor bacteria with more genetic variability within their cassettes, and hence a greater capacity to generate different versions of the antigen. ‘Greater diversity among the cassettes in itself shouldn’t be a selective advantage considering they aren’t expressed and don’t do anything else,’ says lead author Dustin Brisson. ‘But we did find evidence of selection, so the question is: what else could it be for besides evolvability?'”

  44. Lizzie, Neil, Alan,

    What is the tolerance here for commenting on old, or even just quiet, threads? Some blog owners/communities consider it the moral equivalent of being shived in the kidneys. I’ve never quite understood that attitude.

  45. I’d also like to make a suggestion in answer to someone whose name escapes me just now.

    I know why the Sandbox is called that and it is an entirely appropriate name but it isn’t a perfect fit with the penguin theme of the blog. May I offer the alternative of ‘The Iceflow’. This isn’t entirely serious and considering the troubles with the sandbox messing with things is counter-indicated. But I offer the idea with good cheers and humour.

  46. Aardvark: What is the tolerance here for commenting on old, or even just quiet, threads?

    That’s fine, as far as I know. We can turn off comments to an old thread if we want to disallow them. If you are able to make comments, that should be okay.

    Of course, I’d prefer that comments be cogent, relevant and of interest.

  47. Aardvark: I know why the Sandbox is called that and it is an entirely appropriate name but it isn’t a perfect fit with the penguin theme of the blog. May I offer the alternative of ‘The Iceflow’.

    I don’t think you will find any iceflow at Penguin Island though there is probably a lot of sand on the beaches.

  48. Aardvark, would that be “Iceflow” or “Icefloe“? I ask because while the latter seems more appropriate to me, the former is also suitable, albeit perhaps not to the same degree.

  49. At PHV’s behest I came over here to check out this thread.

    Nice little echo chamber you have here. Boring.

    Mark Frank speaking of KN: “As always you are right about almost everything and express it very clearly.”

    KN: “I refuse to engage with the pseudo-intellectuals (in fact anti-intellectuals) at Uncommon Descent.”

    You don’t engage at UD because every time you spouted your sophistry you got your ass kicked up between your shoulders. You would much rather be here in your nice safe little echo chamber with your pet lickspittles (see Mark Frank’s comment above). Your pretense that you eschew a site beneath your efforts is a convenient camouflage for your cowardice.

  50. Barry Arrington,

    Actually Arrington, most everyone here doesn’t engage at UD because you and your predecessors have banned virtually everyone who has shown the slightest bit of scientific acumen. Controlling the audience and banning those whose arguments you can’t answer is the only defense the IDiots know. You personally have banned dozens after they showed you to be a completely ignorant horse’s ass, remember? We sure do. Of course exposing your incompetence and bullying stupidity is not very difficult thing to accomplish.

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