There is little for me to comment on regarding Stephen Jones' last long
message of 1 APR 2000 on this thread because he has chosen not to answer
my request for a straightforward explanation of his position on the
matter of the relationship of evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics
(for either the cosmic or earth-based arguments). Instead, he has mostly
complained about how unfair it is for me to expect him to explain himself
without a barage of quotes from others, accused me of posting without
permission the private message I wrote to him back in Aug 96 which
pointed out to him why the earth-based argument contra the 2nd law is
bogus and why no "energy conversion mechanism" needs to be supplied,
accused me of "using intimidatory tactics" (and language), accused me of
trying to "bully his (my) opponent into submission", accused me of ad
hominem argumentation, accused me of "hot button" immoderation with "a
violence" in my posts, and has introduced a new batch of obfuscations
and unexplained contradictions in his apparent positions on the matter.
Most of this post can be seen for what it is by any knowlegable and
quasi-objective reader reading it, and any further comment by me would
be just adding to the noise therein. One such April Fools post is (more
than) enough. However, there are a few loose ends that ought to be
addressed anyway because the errors in the relevant statements might not
be so blatantly obvious to the reader as most of the others probably are.
Concerning the issue of my posting to the reflector the reply message of
20 AUG 96 that I had I sent to Stephen reponding to a post he made to the
reflector:
I understood Stephen to have *already granted* me permission to do this
in his message to me of 27 MAR 00 acknowledging the message I sent to him
which reminded him of that earlier private reply. In his message Stephen
thanked me for bringing the earlier message to his attention, granted me
permission to bring this up to the reflector, and said that if I did
so he would acknowlege his error in the matter. In my reply to him of
28 MAR 00 I thanked Stephen for granting me this permission and said that
I expected that he would do the right thing in this matter regardless of
whether or not I chose to respond publically to the reflector about this
earlier message. In his reply to me about this Stephen then said that he
decided that the matter wasn't important enough to bother making a such a
post acknowledging his error. But he then did assure me that should I
bring the issue up to the reflector he would "prominently and publicly"
acknowledge his error. Why am I not surprised that he hasn't actually
followed through on his promise? Instead, he has tried to suggest that
I pulled some breach of internet ethics by posting the 20 AUG 96 message
without seeking his prior permission--in spite of his having already
granted such permission without my ever asking. Along these lines
Stephen wrote (1 APR 00) to this forum:
SJ>David here just posts to the Reflector a private post he sent me in 1996,
>without seeking my permission. The problem is that my reply to David was
>private also and Internet ethics forbid me from posting it to the Reflector
>without seeking David's permission. Before I can proceed to answer the
>points in this post, I therefore ask David's permission for me to quote
>from that private reply to him either wholly or in part.
Stephen, I do not know what you are talking about here. I cannot give my
permission for you to post a message that I have never seen. I believe I
have never received any private response from you responding to my
message of 20 AUG 96. I do remember waiting for such a response from you
after I sent the message to you, but no response ever came to me. I
should mention that our campus email server here was down for upgrading
and repairs from 28 AUG 96 until 06 SEP 96. So if you had tried to
respond to me during that interval I suspect that your message would have
been returned to you as undeliverable. So since I haven't seen such a
message, and think I may like to know what response you have to the
arguments of my message, I invite you to post whatever information you
want concerning the arguments in my message. However, I would hope and
ask that any quoting of any other outside sources would be pared down to
a reasonable level though.
Regarding my choice of the word 'bogus' as characterizing the earth-based
and cosmic arguments against the 2nd Law, I believe the characterization
*is* apt. Let's just use the definition provided by Stephen:
SJ>Moreover "bogus" has a specific meaning of "not genuine" in the sense of a
>"counterfeit" or "sham" (http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=b
ogus)
Both the earth-based and cosmic arguments are incorrect. And not only
that they can and do deceive many people because their errors are
*subtle*. These arguments are not obviously false. They are *subtly*
false. These arguments are not genuine, and are counterfeit, and are
shams in the sense that they actually do not demonstrate what they seem
to demonstrate on a first glance based on a superficial
(mis)understanding of entropy and the 2nd Law. These arguments are not
what they may seem to be on a superficial level. I certainly did not
choose the word to impune anyone's morals or to accuse anyone of fraud.
I chose the word because the arguments are deceptive to the unsuspecting
layman regardless of any motives of anyone who might happen use the
deceptive arguments. It is entirely possible for a person to be duped by
the bogus arguments and innocently pass them on to others just as much as
it is possible for one to innocently pass counterfeit money on to others
if the person doesn't notice that the bogus bills are indeed counterfeit.
SJ>I suspect that David's real target is the YECs, ....
No. My target (when I happen to choose to criticize someone's claims on
some issue) is anyone who uses incorrect physics arguments no matter who
they happen to be or what the issue is. This assumes, of course, that I
would have the time, expertise, and motivation to actually say something
useful in a particular instance. I think my record on this reflector
bears out this claim.
Again, instead of continuing to repeat the refrain:
SJ>Second, David has simply not understood my "cosmic argument". His
>explanation of why he thinks it is incorrect therefore simply misses the
>point.
I would again ask Stephen to explain *himself* better if he thinks I
have misunderstood any argument of his and missed his point(s). I also
want to know any points that I may have missed. Simply repeating the
claim that I have misunderstood an argument does not make it magically
understood, nor does it make any missed points become points taken.
BTW, I'm both surprised and sorry if Stephen thinks I have abused him
in my responses to his posts. I would try to be more circumspect and
polite in the future. I'm just not sure that I could find a way to do
so. I actually thought that I had shown a great restraint in my posts.
In any event the readers of this reflector can judge for themselves
just who has been abusive and out of line in this matter.
David Bowman
David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 04 2000 - 01:32:55 EDT