Is a full time job.
At which the current batch of admins has dismally failed.
But then, it was never their job in the first place. They’re admins not baby sitters.
So why don’t they restrict themselves to administration and stop pretending to be moderators?
No. I think the site does a good job being clear about what can get someone banned. I would call those the site rules.
The others I would refer to as principles, as does Elizabeth. Its’ the way you’d like people to behave and hope they will behave, knowing full well people will on occasion fail to live up to them.
I am in favor of a liberal interpretation of the principles (or would it be conservative)? Let stuff go unless it’s egregious. You all have a life outside TSZ. You’re even going to miss things that are egregious. So don’t make it harder on yourselves than you need to.
This is where E-prime is helpful. Who, specifically, is doing the “accepting” here, in your view?
And whose “mindset” are you talking about?
But certainly I agree that blocs of people should not be “treated with disdain”. I don’t think people should be treated as blocs, anyway.
Neil Rickert,
As yes, the September that didn’t end.
What I like about the Usenet model is that all the control is in the hands of each user (moderated newsgroups excepted). My newsreader allows me to create my own killfiles, based both on participants and topics, but no one is able to block anyone else from posting. My newsreader also supports threading, so that I can come back to a discussion the next day and easily see only the new comments. No web-based forum software comes close.
I’d love to see forum software backed by NNTP so that commenters could use either the web interface or their favorite newsreader. That would eliminate a lot of the meta-discussion, aside from those who have some compulsion to control what others can say. If I thought there was money in it, I’d probably hack it together myself.
Aren’t you an evolution denier, Mung?
And here I thought you were accusing me of being a climate change denier. Wasn’t that the context of your original allegation? That William and I were both climate change deniers?
As far as conspiracy theories, I grew up during the house assassinations hearings. I deny that LHO acting alone assassinated JFK. Does that make me a denier?
If you think I am a “climate change denier,” make your case. Don’t just toss out allegations you’re not prepared to support.
If you think I am an “evolution denier,” whatever that means, make your case. Don’t just toss out allegations you’re not prepared to support.
In case you haven’t been paying attention, I am no YEC. So now take that and think about it and what it might mean with regards to my views on evolution.
And I suppose you have likewise missed the fact that I am not a Biblical literalist. I in fact reject the very hermeneutic that leads to YECism in the first place.
So no, I don’t think the account in Genesis of God forming man from the mud is to be interpreted literally. I don’t think God took some mud and shaped it into a human-like figure and made it become alive. So now pause and think about how that might impact my views on evolution.
You must be thinking about that other Mung. Don’t be a Gregory.
Mung,
I asked a simple question Mung. I got a Gallienesque non-answer.
Richardthughes, You have no case. Let me know when you think you have one.
If you’re expecting me to recite some specific words in order to confirm my orthodoxy to your religion at least share your dogma with everyone. Who knows, there may be all sorts of “deniers” in your midst. Best you go off now and flush them out.
Rich
You should consider the possibility that people can change their views and opinions in the light of persuasion and presentation of evidence. Maybe Mung is still on the fence regarding evolutionary theory and how good a model it is as a predictor of reality.
I also like the Daily Kos system, SCOOP. I looked into trying to set it up, but it is no longer supported.
One comment sent to Guano.
I can quote you. I just don’t care to. It achieves nothing and everyone already knows what I’m talking about anyway.
Now, we don’t actually know that do we? As AFAIK Mung has never actually explained why or if Mung is an ID supporter or not.
Moved one post to Guano.
You see Gregory, Mung is not an “evolution denier”. You have to hit on the single, specific combination of words that Mung has never told anyone but is what Mung actually believes before you stop being “wrong”.
This is their game. They never say what they think. Mung posted on my bodyplan thread to bitch about moderation, nothing else. http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=27324
It’s a pretty ‘fool-proof’ system, Lizzie. Atheists dictate the rules. “Don’t be a Mung.”
Alan Fox said:
Or, maybe the term “evolutionary theory” , much like the term “materiailsm”, is so vague that to call one an “evolution denier” really doesn’t mean anything more than some form of vague, supposedly negative characterization.
What does it mean to “deny” evolution? What would one be denying, specifically?
I guess people who’ve put some actual effort into studying it rather then repeating the talking points of others would have a different opinion.
For example, you believe that random mutations cannot be called random at all as they have been not shown to be actually random. At a simple level mutations create variation that can be selected.
If mutations are guided, as you seem to be claiming, that’s not evolution as generally understood.
Hence you deny evolution as it’s commonly defined, as it has no telic component traditionally.
I think the trouble you and your ilk often have is if something cannot be provided spoonful by spoonful it’s a “literature bluff”.
For example,
Do you suppose after reading that you’d have
A) A better idea
B) A worse idea
Of what “evolutionary theory” actually is?
What actual books have you read that you think entitles you to ask if “evolutionary theory” actually is something that exists or not?
Why don’t you ask the folk at UD? They do it every day. Sure, they’ve not yet come up with an alternative but they will, one day, they will….
*growl*
I think that is a good point, William. One of the things that frustrates me about UD “news” articles is the broadbrush tarring of “evolution” or, as she prefers “Darwinism”.
It’s pretty meaningless. Most people (including and indeed especially YECs) accept that Darwinian evolution works really well over variously defined ranges. The Grants’ finches pretty well put paid to any idea that it doesn’t, and so, indeed, does the use of EAs for knotty design problems.
People who argue for ID from what is essentially (despite protests) a “gaps” arguments vary in the “gaps” they see as critical. For some, it’s only OoL. For others it’s the odd feature like the bacterial flagellum. For yet others it’s the Cambrian not-explosion.
So to accuse someone of being an “evolution denier” is as foggy as claming that “evolution” is a failed theory.
It’s a habit I’ve picked up from UD. Use their tatics against them I say
https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&q=site:+http:%2F%2Fwww.uncommondescent.com+ilk
Moved another post to Guano. I remind members that accusing another member of dishonesty is against the “good faith” rule.
Of course, if the person you are accusing of such never actually takes a position other then “you are wrong” it’s a reasonable label I think.
It’s one of my pet hates.
Mine too. That’s why I use it. If I hate it, hopefully they do too.
Good faith, Mung?
Mung, you promote & support one of the kookiest ideologies of the past 30-50 years in IDism. There is not a single IDist who has made themselves clear on what ‘evolves’ and what doesn’t (who, George Gilder, Michael Behe, John West, Jay Richards?). They just dance and ask people to clap, donate and laugh.
Dembski, for example, believes in ‘technological evolution. P. Johnson even believes he ‘evolved’ into the leader of the IDM. Behe, totally unqualified and philosophically ridiculous, pontificates about “all humane studies”. What a joke is that?
The fact is, Mung, that you don’t respect or properly confront theists who reject IDism and you fail to distinguish IDism from lowercase ‘intelligent design’, which *all* Abrahamic theists accept. Why? Because doing so would crush the movement you have allied yourself to.
You live in a very strange country to say such things amidst denominational Protestant sectarianism. It is hard to believe you, Mung, not only for the sarcasm and play you regularly demonstrate. If that’s true, then show some courage at UD & say the same things against the funding base of ignorant, undereducated YECists who make the IDM possible by funding the Discovery Institute. You are apparently supporting the taking of money from your opponents (tell the DI to stop!) & acting as if you are on the level. You are not on the level, Mung. You are an IDist ideologist. And it frankly stinks.
I guess I just had to change that one word ‘honestly’ to conform to nit-pick TSZ standards, while others are intentionally ‘rude, mean and insulting’ without moderator rebuke? Asking a person to be honest of course does not necessarily imply that they are being dishonest. Though, I don’t expect Lizzie’s relativist worldview to see the difference.
Elizabeth,
“Darwinism”, at least for many ID advocates, is a more specified subset of the broad brush of evolutionary theory. It specifically is meant to identify the position that the origination and development of biological diversity can be sufficiently and entirely modeled – ultimately – by reference only to unintentional/non-teleological properties like natural selection and random mutation..
I’m skeptical of that claim; that doesn’t mean I deny it.
On what basis are you skeptical of that claim? What is the counter-evidence that leads you to think telic forces are in play?
Is it just your personal incredulity or something more sophisticated then that?
That’s a perfectly legitimate position and indeed how science proceeds and self-corrects.
The difference between you and an actual scientist is that you will never generate the required data to move away from that position one way or the other.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that being skeptical is achieving something with that additional work. It’s not. You’ve not.
OMagain said:
I don’t think it’s appropriate to characterize a thing as “random” in scientific literature unless that thing has in fact been shown to be random.
Sure it is. it isn’t, however, “Darwinism”. If biologists in a lab deliberately move a gene from one species to another, or if dog breeders and owners deliberately keep mutated populations alive that couldn’t survive without them, that isn’t “Darwinism”, although it is still “evolution”. Darwinism precludes intentionality and teleology. We know for a fact that at least some biological phenomena are not the result of Darwinian evolution – modern corn and the Pekingese, for example.
I don’t deny it. I’m skeptical of Darwinistic claims. Skepticism is not denialism. For all I know, entirely non-teleological properties can account for the origination of life and its evolutionary history and diversity. To my knowledge, however, this has not been shown.
So, now ‘science’ has a ‘self’?
The Lederberg experiment. It seems you are not familiar with it.
And it never will be, as that’s not how science works. Thanks for demonstrating that you don’t understand how science works.
Your attempt to conflate multiple issues together is noted.
Evolution directed by humans does not speak to or relate to the direction of evolution by non-humans via Intelligent Design, as is the claim of ID.
William J. Murray,
Which of the 5 or so meanings of ‘random’ do you have in mind? Are you sure they and you mean the same thing?
The gestalt hive-mind of all humans, yes. No humans, no “science”.
Hence my questions about dice to William. He’ll accept a die is random “enough” to play a game of chance with but apparently biology has to meet a higher standard.
I’m skeptical to some degree of all claims other than “I experience”. My skepticism comes in a gradient. I’m least skeptical of that which I directly, personally experience. I’m most skeptical claims that (1) contradict my direct experience, (2) come from sources I have no personal knowledge of, (3) are not supportable via logic, (4) contradict other sources I’ve come to trust, and (5) have little apparent consilience.
I’m highly skeptical of Darwinism (not “evolution”) primarily because, to my knowledge, it’s entirely unsupportable via a rather simple application of logic. That doesn’t make it false, it just makes it as yet unsupported. Even the proponents of Darwinism admit it is unsupportable because they admit there is no means by which to determine if non-teleological properties are necessary aspects of sufficiently explanatory models.
They don’t often admit this directly, but they agree to it ipso facto when they insist there is no “ID metric” that can determine if a biological phenomena is designed (teleologically/intentionally egineered/developed/constructed). It would necessarily be the same metric; the metric that could determine the non-teleological nature of a process or artifact (in terms of explanatory sufficiency) would the same metric that would determine the necessity of teleology in the model.
IOW, unless ID is a valid science, and unless such a metric exists, Darwinism (a subset of “evolutionary theory”) cannot (logically) be anything more than an ideological characterization of evolutionary theory. It might be true, but unless the discerning metric exists, it’s logically unsupportable.
Which raises my skepticism about it, since they insist that metric doesn’t exist. IOW, they insist that the only metric that could support their claim doesn’t exist. Any position like that is, IMO, worthy of heightened skepticisim.
But, that’s just one part of my skepticism. I have other reasons to be skeptical of Darwinistic claims.
Allan Miller,
By random I mean by chance, meaning non-teleological and non-intentional.
As far as I know, IDists do not make that claim. They claim that evolution is in some way directed by intelligence, but they don’t assert that intelligence to be non-human. It appears to be non-human because it appears to have been originated and developed long before humans existed, and it appears to be well above our current pay grade in terms of ability, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that humans are not the ones who did the designing.
It all depends on the conceptual framework one is using to make their models with. It’s certainly not my personal assertion that it was not humans that did the designing.
Citation please. Oh, you don’t do those do you. Sorry.
So humans might be responsible for designing humans?
Your position is incoherent.
William J. Murray,
Are you sure that’s what they mean? Why can air molecule movements be random (non-intentional) without further ‘proof’, but mutations not? Was it random or intentional when my friend got cancer, a mutagenic disease – must we prove it was random rather than assume it? Do you know anything about random genetic drift and its relation to sample error?
Heads ID wins, tails ID wins. Whatever.
Oh, I see — in a million years, humans evolve into Time Lords, travel back in time to create life in order to guarantee their own evolution. I think I saw that episode!
Note the role of “doesn’t necessarily” here. Once the bar for rational acceptability has been lowered to include all logical possibilities, there’s nothing left to distinguish science from science fiction.
William,
Simple question. Is there an “ID metric” that can determine if a biological phenomena is designed (teleologically/intentionally engineered/developed/constructed)?
If so, what is it and can you give an example where it was used to determine design/not design?
OMagain:
I said:
You replied:
Then I said:
Then you ask:
Good grief, Omagain. You yourself just agreed that not only is there no such metric to support the non-teleological claims of Darwinism, you go on to say those non-teleological claims will never be shown because “that’s not how science works.”
As if you can’t provide one it seems those people who “insist” it does not exist are correct.