Dr Elizabeth Liddle conceived, created and grew this website to the success it is today. It was a new idea. Many other sites can be found where a particular worldview is being promoted or a particular sphere of interest draws people of like interest. TSZ was intended to address the problem that Lizzie saw first-hand at other sites I and many others watched her participate in. Her being turfed from one well-known ID blog was partly the catalyst to trigger this venture.
However Lizzie’s inclusiveness, readiness to put all her energy into taking all at face value in an attempt to achieve real understanding must have sapped her enthusiasm and she has been an elusive figure her in recent times. A huge distraction, I believe is that some participants don’t share her optimism that listening can be as effective as talking when promoting ideas. Dialogue has always been Lizzie’s aim; attempting to see and understand a different viewpoint.
To that end she framed a mission statement, supported by rules of engagement to facilitate productive discussion between people of widely differing opinion. She decided to be a benevolent dictator, inviting participation from anyone with an opinion to voice, news to bring for discussion, scientific discoveries to announce and explain, philosophical arguments to popularize, even religion to promote or criticise. Personally, I think this was a brave and worthwhile effort in view of the increasing polarisation that pervades modern politics and that entrains extremism, insult and ad hominem rather than reasoned argument.
During Lizzie’s absence there has been some dilution of these ideals and the signal to noise ratio has declined. I hope that Lizzie returns soon to reaffirm the ideals she set out originally. I suspect that the wrangles over moderation, argument over moderating decisions, enforcement and non-enforcement of rules don’t encourage her return. So I’m proposing a solution.
I invite ideas from anyone who shares Lizzie’s ideals on dialogue (or who doesn’t) to propose in the comments any suggestions that they think would help to improve how TSZ operates. The rules could possibly benefit from being collated in one place, as later amendments are scattered over several threads. What about a competition for the most concise and elegant summary of the aims, rules and guidelines? On her return, Lizzie could pick a winner, or she could cherry-pick from the best efforts and this would also save her time and hassle that she could better spend setting the World to rights.
So, ideas please!
My first plagiaristic attempt at a rules summary:
Attack ideas and not the people who hold them!
Another idea that Neil has suggested is to add a forum format. I also think this would be good to try. In fact I already did set up a forum using the Elkarte template to act as a demonstration. I invite all interested members to play around with the functionality. Anyone wanting to tweak it, just PM me for the permissions.
Edited 26/01/2018 17.41 CET to add an on-line poll:[democracy id=”2″]
When have you ever used those?
That’s the problem, you think you know something when you don’t.
Glen Davidson
If you could tell the difference it would help.
Glen Davidson
Oh, you didn’t understand the issues?
How unsurprising.
If it was up to you, the ignorant would just stay ignorant.
Glen Davidson
In what way? I’m an atheist and I have had more comments guano-ed than the creationists I chat with. Is this what you mean? That they’d guano more atheist comments than creationist ones because they don’t want to be perceived as biased? I doubt that. I think that the issue is that creationists have learned to be insulting in the way they surround their ignorance with an aura of arrogance, while we tend to be much more direct. except for some creationists I’d rather not mention, who seem inclined to insult as if that made their ignorant points any more compelling.
I’ll just note that the amount of guanoing could be greatly reduced, by means of permanently banning keiths from the site.
Angry old fat man
The prisoner’s dilemma with the exception personal attacks are not required for survival.
Hi Alan Fox,
In terms of time, how onerous would my responsibilities be? I ask because I usually leave home around 8:30 a.m. and get home around 10 p.m.
Nobody saved the archive? What are you talking about?
Here’s Telic Thoughts.
And here’s The Design Matrix.
Here’s ISCID.
Here’s the new Access Research Network. But if you want to see the old one, go here.
You just need to know where to look, and not take “No” for an answer when the Wayback Internet says it can’t find something. There’s always a way.
Well, it would mean you do get to spend eternity in heaven, so there’s that…
No fixed hours. No fixed pay either. Seriously, if you could spare any time, I’m sure Lizzie would be happy to take you up on it. She always intended to have 6 or 7 admins so there would be enough cover and an antidote to individual bias.
Oh, OK. I thought wayback just took the odd snapshot. Does it preserve all the comments too?
Good point. The theists here (and the atheists, deists and apathiests, for that matter), are a self-selecting sample, and it shows.
I can see from your photo that you are many years from retirement!
That’s good to hear.
Well, if you change your mind…
Neil Rickert,
With the added benefit that it would provide keiths with the free time to set up his own discussion board and test out his “no guano” moderation theory.
I don’t generally try to use reason to convince Atheists to become Christians if that is what you mean.
I think things like atheism are much more about feelings and desires than reason and logic.
When it comes to ID on the other hand I’ve spent some time working on a tool that I think will be useful.
It definitely won’t convince Atheists that God exists but it might be helpful in improving our models.
peace
?
LOL
peace
Surely youv’e heard of it.
I get a ton of grief about it from folks here. It’s about recognizing patterns in data and then adopting Dennett’s Design Stance.
I will share a very informal “paper” as soon as the a p-value of my latest data sets is below .05 .
It takes a while because weather reports only come out once a day.
peace
Game V 2.0?
Probably V 1.7
😉
peace
While I don’t care about keiths’ comments, as 99% of the times I have him on ignore, by banning him could definitely improve the quality of this blog…
It could also attract more people to comment and post… although he could probably find his way through the “back door”…
Say what?
You’ve just invalidated your data.
Please learn what a p-value is, pre-specify your analysis, and start over.
How about banning commentators for a week after 5 of their comments are sent to guano within a week?
For those addicted to blogging, it would be a great punishment…
I can already imagine keiths biting his nails, “…weeping and gnashing his teeth…”lol
My analysis was pre-specified.
I hypothesized that I could distinguish real weather data from forecasts. So far I’ve done that with 100% success.
I’m using the P-value to show that not only can I recognize the difference but that we can cash that knowledge out in terms of improvements to the model.
The improvements I’ve made are worth between .25 and .5 mean absolute deviation. There is a lot of fluctuation in the short term
The lower P value shows that improvement is stable over time and not just a statistical blip.
You can bring up any criticisms you want when I share the results.
peace
Sure, it is A-theism that is about feelings and desires.
I think most theisms are about those things as well.
Let’s face it, what we value in life is usually not a calculated choice
peace
I see, you don’t really understand any of these issues.
No change, then.
Glen Davidson
I think that TSZ has been a very interesting psycho-social experiment and, in that regard, the data are in.
Three things about the TSZ environment:
1) The ‘park your priors’ exhortation. It’s a nice idea, but turns out to be rather difficult to achieve. I’ve only ever managed to do it on occasion and (obviously, by definition) only partially. A number of commenters here don’t even try.
2) The “address the post, not the poster” exhortation. That’s a fairly common exhortation in discussion groups and it turns out that there is a fairly massive grey area. I have often taken advantage of that grey area.
3) The “assume good faith” rule. This is the interesting and clever part. I think it is pretty clear that internet discussions often go pear-shaped because interlocutors fail to assume good faith. I think this is the novel part of the TSZ experiment, and I think the results are promising.
As noted previously, item 3 and to some extent item 2 reward dishonesty. But I think there is a solution in the form of recognizing the dishonesty, even if one cannot necessarily call it out.
The ruleset is also open to endless trolling. The solution there is DNFTT. Something I find almost impossible to achieve.
So the question is, whither?
I like this forum, I enjoy the contributions of many participants here, and I would love to see things continue. An expansion of topics beyond the inanity of current incarnations of ID would be good, I think — I would be curious as to what the regulars here would write with regard to broader political themes (we’ve had some discussions along these lines, I know).
Perhaps what you think is “understanding” is really just your own biased opinion of what the real “issues” are.
peace
Alan Fox,
“Regarding religious belief, I don’t I think I could imagine what it would be like to have one.”
Anomalies can be found, of course. Yet religious belief and experience is ubiquitous globally. It is even a so-called ‘evolutionary universal.’
Just as U2 says: “Hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one.”
Are you the kind of chap who discounts prayer as well, Alan the Fox, or just the religiously unimaginative, unthoughtful and probably lazy type?
Said the presuppositionalist.
Is there anything more clueless?
Glen Davidson
Yes, recognizing that unexamined bias and opinion can hide in our conclusions is pretty much what presupositionalism is all about.
Someone who did not know that is what presuppositionalism was about, perhaps?
peace
Getting better. Still most theisms? Which ones are not?
Yes, so you say, without evidence and understanding.
Someone who could write something that stupid, for sure.
If you ever evinced the slightest self-awareness, that would be a great breakthrough, presuppositionalist.
Glen Davidson
It’s in the name presupposition: to suppose beforehand
Does that count as evidence?
Do you understand?
😉
peace
Yes, this is an interesting suggestion as the pro-con sides do not necessarily split the same way across different topics. That may discourage the tribalism somewhat.
Christianity is specifically about God completely overriding our desires and feelings.
It’s called regeneration and it’s the only way someone becomes a Christian.
At that point we desire what God desires so you could say that even Christianity is about desires and feelings just not our own subjective desires and feelings
peace
“An expansion of topics beyond the inanity of current incarnations of ID would be good, I think — I would be curious as to what the regulars here would write with regard to broader political themes (we’ve had some discussions along these lines, I know).”
Not good thinking. That’s the problem with this place.
Block the topic of ID &/or creationism for 1 month & you’ll come up with little more than scraps that you ‘skeptics’ can agree on.
Those who visit this site but who have never been ‘one of them’ (i.e. skeptics) are all here for the ID &/or creationism discussions. Lose that & they’ll leave.
Do you think Vincent will talk sweet to you about BioLogos when he soon becomes a community-servant moderator at TAMSZ? Perhaps his pearls are just picgled enough for this place.
There is no ‘unifying’ power here with this ragamuffin band of fizzled Lizzie could’ve beens (coherent academically, rather than driving the evolutionism ideology into brain research theories and philosophistries of ‘mind’) defending the citadel of Science and Reason against silly Amur’can creationists & IDists.
Anti-religious attitudes are what primarily ‘unite’ the crew here, the ones that flocked to Elizabeth Liddle’s quasi-mystical call to arms after she got tossed (like more than a few have) from what is probably still the main IDist forum on the internet. Why kid yourselves about that? The cling-ons who came over from that site are the Cordovas & other deceptive creationists who feed off your sincere interest in scientifically educating them for their charity.
The more balanced discussion that involves science, philosophy and theology or worldview engages the terms ‘theistic evolution’ or ‘evolutionary creation.’ And the non-creationist majority of religious people aren’t saying things like ‘creation science,’ the kind of thing that got people here burning upset in the first place.
The anti-religious ‘skeptics’ + slimy IDists + recovering creationists combination thrust me away from this node. Well, if that’s not your thing…
Perhaps much of the universality of religious belief stems from our survival instinct, the promise of continued existence after death. Added to that, encouragement of religious beliefs can have benefits for the encouragers.
Sorry for the derail
The Pinker thread for instance
What God desires for the improvement of structure of TSZ might be helpful.
God ultimately gets what he desires.
I mostly desire that we don’t monkey with a good thing
😉
peace
Ah, I should have guessed. Christianity is the theism that isn’t about feelings and desires but based on reason and logic. How very convenient.
And do you want to desire what God desires?
On my very best days.
quote
for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
(Php 2:13)
end quote:
that certainly was not always the case
quote:
in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
(Eph 2:2-3)
end quote:
peace
I’ve been called a few things in my time, but an anomaly? Oh come, now! 🙂
I think there are very convincing reasons that the propensity for religious belief could be linked to some evolutionary trait that was beneficial and heritable such as children and adolescents reacting unquestioningly to instructions from parents and authority figures. “Don’t stroke the lion”. Perhaps I’m an outlier. “Why not? Arrrgh!”
What might be significant is my father was outwardly undemonstrative about religion, never discussed it with me, never went to church. Other members of my family went to church but that seemed to be all that was involved. Religion is cultural in pattern. If you don’t get the signals early, maybe you never catch the bug.
Well Greg the Ory, I think I just don’t get it. I have two very good friends who are Quakers and, whilst they don’t push it, we have had some interesting discussions. Is Quakerism really Christianity though?
newton,
Ah, I see I’ve been Ninja’d!
That’s exactly the opposite of the real moderation. IDists and other theists get far more of a pass here than the people correcting those commenters. That’s why I originally delurked — the bias will result in more of you and less of quality comments. That’s bad for the site.
ALurker,
So we are looking to the future. I’m hoping for suggestions, ideas that would improve this forum and encourage rational discussion.
The same for an ID proponent. All we see from the anti-evolution side is uneducated attempts to criticize the science. None of them are able to provide evidence for an alternative.
You don’t need to look any further than the Common Descent/Common Design thread to see that your statement is grossly inaccurate. There are numerous comments where people who understand the science patiently explain it to people like you who refuse to understand it and do nothing but misstate what is being said and mock from a position of ignorance.
If the goal is to improve the site, the rules should allow moderators to move that kind of crap to a thread like Guano.
Another recommendation to improve the site: Ban people who are only using TSZ to improve their own ability to make money from misleading other people about science and who will never reconsider their own positions.
In other words, enforce “park your priors by the door” and “participate in good faith”.