Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
petrushka,
The fine structure constant times the Douglas Adams constant. 🙂
Neil Rickert,
Grazie again. You have been most accomodating. I have been known to screw up cornflakes.
We really need to move on to something new, or at least not about morality.
I suggest we start a thread on Smilodon’s Retreat and the extended review of Darwin’s Doubt. There are a number of reviews, but Smilodon is committed to an extensive section by section review, including the references.
I’d like to write a post about the use of “a priori” in that much used/abused Lewontin quote (you know the one . . . ), but I can’t figure out how to embed URLs in the post. When I write out the tags in the posts, the tags show up as text — though they work as expected in comments. What’s the trick?
The normal method is to select the text with your mouse. Then click on the chain-link at the top of the edit window. That should open a popup where you can enter the url and perhaps a title (that shows as mouse-over text).
The broken chain-link is for undoing that link.
It is also possible to click the “Text” tab of the edit window, and type in the html directly. Then you can go back to the “Visual” tab for other editing.
Can anyone think of a valid reason to not automatically send every one of Mung’s comments to Guano?
Yes indeed.
cubist,
Weeeeelll … everyone’s right to an opinion? 😀
Yes. There’s an excellent reason. Namely —
The software does not support it.
And another: it would violate the assumption that is a rule of this blog 🙂
Does wordpress have any tools or are there any third party tools that I can install that will let me block Mung’s comments? That seems to me the best way to avoid him. I can only guess his purpose is to be so obnoxious he gets banned eventually and makes Lizzie look the hypocrite. Until then he will be as big a parasite as he can be. As long as that hasn’t happened he has the satisfaction of knowing his coprolites will long stain the carpet here.
Aardvark:
Another “true skeptic.” Lizzie would be proud.
There is a tool that you can use to ignore me, but alas, you choose not to avail yourself of that tool. Apparently the cost is just too high.
A Mung filter would be an excellent addition to the board. He’s made it apparent his sole mission here is to shit in and disrupt as many conversations as he can.
Here’s another example he just posted.
It’s also apparent he’s playing a game of “let’s see how far I can push and get away with it”.
Mung seems quite happy filling the role vacated by the departure of JoeG, just without the porn links. Maybe the Truth Lover could just be confined to his own thread much like ATBC did with Dave Hawkins when DH did nothing but obnoxious drive-by trolling.
Take a look over at Pharyngula in the lefthand sidebar: link to the pharyngula wiki. They use a wordpress platform and someone created a killfile to block obnxious commenters – maybe only works on FtB ? and certainly only works on specific browsers – but you could ask for help in the open Thunderdome thread, since there are a lot of horde members who are into working on that sort of thing.
It’s a greasemonkey script. If the Pharyngula one doesn’t work here at TSZ, someone else has probably written one that would work here.
Meanwhile, over in the Darwin’s Doubt thread, I chose to ignore the obvious trolls who had not bothered to read the book and who had no intention of reading the book. I didn’t cry out to the “wordpress gods” to save me. I exercised judgement and discipline. Mind over matter.
There is an ignore button. It’s the one you don’t press to respond to trolls. No responses, no problem.
Noww could we pleasewe have a new sand ox thread. I can’t load this one.
Right.
And right.
1762 responses is plenty for one thread. There don’t seem to be any pressing issues that must be completely discussed before closing this one and starting a new one.
While I’m sure your tactics amuse you, I’m also quite sure there is a part of you that hates what you do.
After all, the alternative is to be productive and contribute. You know, like most of the people on the reality based community do. Like most here do. Write papers, develop theories. You know, “science”.
But, like William, you don’t appear to have the ability to compete and produce original work. So you just snipe and disrupt. And “ask questions”.
Carry on my Dear Mung! Carry on! It keeps you out of schools!
OMagain,
Are you are a “Meyer critic” who has not actually read Darwin’s Doubt?. I am probably ignoring you in the relevant thread, so you, like thorton, think you can resurrect your “skepticism” without actually exercising any skepticism.
Lizzie would be proud.
You don’t have to read Darwin’s Doubt to criticize Meyer’s ideas. He’s offered the same unsupported bullshit for years now in Darwin’s Dilemma and Signature in the Cell and in numerous posts at EV&V and other Creationist sites. Darwin’s Doubt has also has numerous publicly available critiques of it done by professional paleontologists outlining Meyer’s blunders and misunderstandings.
You won’t discuss any of them because you’re just here to troll.
Folks, please move the conversation to the Sandbox (cont’d)
thread as this thread is too long to load on some devices.
Thanks!
Have moved recent comments to Sandbox (cont’d)
Comments are now closed here as the thread has become unwieldy.