From: David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu
>[BTW, I fail to understand the depth of the reaction that Stephen has had
>to my use of the term 'bogus'. I still can't follow Stephen's reasoning
>about the term having "emotional" connotations and implications of
>"immoral" motives, etc. I truly didn't see my explanation of my choice
>of the word as being any sort of "damage" control". Maybe the word has
>more a more sinister and depraved connotation down under than it has
>here. In the US the term is not so *personally* perjorative. It is used
>more in an impersonal sense about things, not about people or their
>motives. Since Stephen seems to have (for whatever reason) taken its use
>so personally I apologize for having chosen the word. (It just seemed
>such an apt characterization of these arguments.) So, Stephen, please
>accept my apology here for any offense my characterization caused you.
>This apology *is* an attempt at damage control.]
David is being *extremely* conciliatory here. I consider it quite reasonable
to use the word "bogus" regarding the arguments I've seen against evolution
based on the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, when those arguments are false and
their flaws have been pointed out many times. The word does not necessarily
imply dishonest intent. My dictionary defines the meaning as "spurious _or_
counterfeit" (my emphasis), and "spurious" is quite applicable here.
However, if David wants to avoid any ambiguity in future, may I recommend
the word "specious".
And I find Stephen's self-righteous indignation over David's use of the word
"bogus" quite amusing, coming from a man who thinks that Dennet was
"protest[ing] too much" when he objected to being misrepresented.
I think also that David has hit the nail on the head in his assessment of
Stephen's position. It seems to me that Stephen is trying to use innuendo to
imply that the 2nd Law is some sort of a problem for evolution, while
refusing to state precisely the nature of this supposed problem, and
equivocating by claiming that he is not arguing that "evolution violates the
second law of thermodynamics" after all! I think it's time for Stephen to
put up (state his argument) or shut up.
I apologise to other subscribers for adding to the noise level by
responding to Stephen's nonsense (when I said I wouldn't), but I find it
very hard to keep quiet in the face of this sort of thing. And I can't even
take it up with Stephen privately, because he threatened to post my emails
to the reflector if I sent any more to him!
Richard Wein (Tich)
See my web pages for various games at http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~tich/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Apr 08 2000 - 10:12:22 EDT