On Sat, 11 Sep 1999 09:21:01 +0000, mortongr@flash.net wrote:
>SJ>Similarly with Glenn, on a personal level I have forgiven him (as I forgive
>>*everyone* who wrongs me). But that does not mean that I would
>>advocate that Glenn's wrong be not put right, or worse still, that a wrong
>>somehow becomes right over time by the wrongdoer doing nothing. I
>>believe (and Christianity is based on it) that wrongs are wrong *forever*
>>until they are put right.
>>
>>And this wrong of Glenn's will not be put right until either Glenn: a)
>>publicly defends his allegation or b) publicly retracts it.
>>
>>This is *entirely* up to Glenn. If Glenn replies, publicly retracting his
>>allegation, well and good. If he doesn't, I won't chase him up on it. I have
>>forgiven Glenn his wrong against me, and I will now waive my right that I
>>had previously reserved for me to bring it up again if Glenn made ad
>>hominems against Christian apologists. I won't bring it up again, unless
>>someone else does first. Otherwise, for me the matter is closed (again!).
GM>Stephen, you are correct that my apology was for having hurt you. And I am
>sorry that I said privately what I should have said publically. I still
>stand by what I said.
I thank Glenn for clarifying that I was correct in my assumption that he has
*not* apologised for having said that: "But he [Stephen] is the one I really
think drove most of the real thinkers away from this list....There used to be
some really powerful thinkers on the list and within about 3 months of
Stephen coming aboard, they all left."
So what was all the "forgiveness" bit about then? I had already said many
times that I had not been "hurt" by Glenn. Why should Glenn be asking for
my forgiveness for something he thought was true and was not apologising
for?
GM>You continually claim that the my assertion that
>powerful thinkers left this list because of you is false.
Yes. And I also thank Glenn for at long last defending what he said, so it
can be debated.
GM>Your claim is
>erroneous. I would cite Steve Clark, whom I do believe is a powerful
>thinker (in spite of his protestations to the contrary). I miss his
>contributions tremendously as I learned a lot from his corrections of my
>positions. He is the only one to publically state what I had been told
>privately by others. To demonstrate that your claim about the falsity of
>the story is indeed erroneous, I quote from Steve Clark's post.
>
>At 09:08 AM 09/07/1999 -0500, Steve Clark wrote:
>
>SC>In defense of Glenn, not long after you joined the reflector, I complained
>>about the nature and argumentiveness of your posts. While I wouldn't
>>include myself as one of the "powerful thinkers" here, I leave your
>>messages largely unread because you seemed more fond of rhetoric than
>>reasoned argument. Your messages detracted from my enjoyment of the debate
>>on the reflector. Indeed, you and a few others contributed to my reduced
>>participation here. So, Glenn was not far off at all. For some reason,
>>last week I was curious about whether you were still making contentious and
>>presumptuous posts. The message I chose to examine was the one that
>>contained your whining about Glenn but that offered little substance.
>>
>Q.E.D.
>glenn
Well, there is a couple of minor problem in Glenn's argument above in that:
1) Steve Clark is only saying that "Glenn was not far off at all", which
means that even Steve Clark who Glenn looks to for support of his claim
states that Glenn is "off" the mark;
2) Steve Clark says that it was not only my posts he didn't like: "Indeed,
you and a few others contributed to my reduced participation here"; and
3) Steve Clark is *still* on this List! Glenn's claim is that I "drove most
of the real thinkers *away* from this list" (my emphasis), not that they did
not like my posts but stayed.
Indeed the latest list of members of this list still shows the following *seven*
"powerful thinkers" who from memory were originally on the Reflector when I
joined, still on it: Howard Van Till, Brian Harper, Steve Clark, Terry Gray,
Art Chadwick, Glenn Morton, and Loren Haarsma. There were other "powerful
thinkers I have left off because I was not sure if they were on the list when
I joined.
Since Glenn's claim is that "most" of the "powerful thinkers" left the List
because of me, I invite Glenn to specify *by name* a number *greater than
seven* "powerful thinkers" who left the list *saying* they left because of
me.
Also Glenn has failed to address another test of his argument which I
posted previously:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Wed, 18 Aug 1999 06:08:30 +0800, Stephen E. Jones wrote:
[...]
>>GM>But he is the one I really think
>>>drove most of the real thinkers away from this list.
>
SJ>This is news to me! It is a fascinating example of Glenn revising history in
>his own favour. Here are the facts:
>
>When I joined the Reflector in early 1995, the list was run from a Berkeley
>University server and moderated by Phil Johnson, who approved who joined
>and kept discussions on track. Then in mid-1995 Phil relinquished control of
>the list to Terry Gray, then of Calvin College, and it became effectively an
>unmoderated list open to all-comers. When the change was proposed, there
>was a lot of concern by members that opening up the list would mean it
>would become like talk.origins, and some indicated they would leave if
>that happened.
>
>After the changeover was made, more people did join and discussions grew
>more numerous, longer, and more heated. The upshot was that many of
>those who Glenn calls "the real thinkers" did leave the list. But they all left
>quietly and none of them complained they were leaving because I, or
>anyone else, "drove" them "away".
>
>But here is the interesting bit which refutes Glenn's revisionist history.
>Some of those eventually started another private list, and in
>late 1997 I was asked to join that list (which I did not even know
>existed).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Glenn needs to explain why: 1) many of the TE/EC "powerful thinkers"
stayed on the Reflector; and 2) why the non-TE/EC "powerful thinkers" who did
leave the Reflector invited me to join their new list.
And I emphasise that I was *invited*--I did not even know the new list existed. And
I also emphasise that I play an active role on this list, and although there is plenty
of disagreement we all get on very well together.
Unless Glenn can answer these points above, his claim that I am "the one
[who] ...drove most of the real thinkers away from this list...within about 3
months of ...coming aboard", remains unsubstantiated and therefore *false*.
Steve
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"To suppose that the evolution of the wonderfully adapted biological
mechanisms has depended only on a selection out of a haphazard set of
variations, each produced by blind chance, is like suggesting that if we
went on throwing bricks together into heaps, we should eventually be able
to choose ourselves the most desirable house." (Waddington C.H., "The
Listener", London, 13 November 1952, in Koestler A., "The Ghost in the
Machine", [1967], Arkana: London, 1989, reprint, p127).
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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