Reflectorites
On Thu, 13 Jan 2000 16:07:24 -0600, Chris Cogan wrote:
[...]
>SJ>If Chris has any *arguments* let him make them. And if I reply, let Chris
>>address my *replies* (if he can).
>CC>>I've presented on this list many arguments, nearly *all* of which Stephen
>has misrepresented ...
As promised, every time Chris (or anyone else) claims I have misrepresented
him, I am going to delete the rest of their post, and request he substantiate
his claim before we go any further, as follows:
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It is always possible that I have honestly misunderstood something that
Chris has written. The relevant part of Webster's Dictionary's definition of
"misrepresent" is: "1 : to give a false or misleading representation of
usually with an intent to deceive or be unfair <misrepresented the facts"
(http://www.m-w.com/cgibin/dictionary). Therefore it is technically
possible to misrepresent someone *unintentionally*. In such cases, all Chris
needs to do is clarify what he meant and if it was just a misunderstanding it
should be resolved.
But I take it that when Chris says I "misrepresent" what he says, he means
it is "with an intent to deceive or be unfair". But how Chris could possibly
know this is beyond me. In each instance he would need to show that:
1) I was representing the facts different from what they objectively were
(i.e. it is not a matter of our different metaphysical worldviews interpreting
the facts differently);
2) I was not *unintentionally* misrepresenting his position, (i.e. due to lack
of clarity in his explanation or my lack of understanding of it); and then,
3) I was *intentionally* intending in my own mind to represent falsely what
Chris had just written, and send my intentional misrepresentation to a
mailing list on which Chris himself is a member!
If Chris wants to make his claims that I am *intentionally* misrepresenting
what he says, then he would need to work through those steps from 1) to
3) proving each one of them to be true.
Until he does that, his claims of *intentional* "misrepresentation" are just
that: *claims*.
Of course if Chris was willing to do that, natural justice would mandate
that Chris himself could not be the `prosecution', `sole witness', `judge',
`jury' and `executioner' in such a `trial'!
From now on, if Chris keeps claiming that I am misrepresenting him, and
until he works through steps 1) to 3) to prove his case, I am going keep
posting this challenge to him. In Australia we have a saying: "Put up, or
shut up"! I challenge Chris to either prove I am intentionally
misrepresenting him, or stop making the allegation.
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In addition to the above, I will rename the thread "Re: Misrepresentation?
Put up or shut up!"
I have previously posted this request, that Chris substantiates his repeated
claims that I have misrepresented him, *three times* as follows:
13 Dec 1999
13 Dec 1999 (same day, different thread)
17 Dec 1999
Therefore this today 16 Jan 2000 makes the *fourth time* Chris has alleged I
misreprented him and I have in reply requested that Chris substantiate his
allegation.
I will leave it to List members to decide who is misrepresenting whom!
Steve
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"No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It
seems never to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags,
minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of
changeover millions of years, at a rate too slow to really account for all the
prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do
see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a
bang, and often with no firm evidence that the organisms did not evolve
elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on someplace else. Yet that's
how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to
learn something about evolution." (Eldredge N., "Reinventing Darwin: The
Great Evolutionary Debate", [1995], Phoenix: London, 1996, p95).
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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