Reflectorites
On Tue, 25 Apr 2000 20:00:42 -0500, Chris Cogan wrote:
[...]
>CC> We fully debated that at the time. Susan was simply wrong. The words I
>> omitted with ellipses were not relevant to the particular argument I was
>> making. I said at the time I would be happy to reinsert the omitted words
>> and debate the point, but Susan declined.
>CC>There was no need; *she* had already given the full quotation, showing how
>his deletions did in fact change the apparent meaning of what Gould had
>said.
This is incorrect. Susan did not give "the full quotation" but still left some
of my omitted words out. And as I said, I was (and am), happy to put *all*
the words back and debate the point, but Susan (and Chris) declined.
CC>And, as she pointed out at the time, Gould was *not* disagreeing with my
>claim that evolution proceeds by a process of cumulative variation (by which
>I mean *any* naturally-occurring genetic change, such as those that
>animal-breeders take advantage of (they do not *induce* change, they only
>*select* changes that occur naturally) Stephen tries to argue, by reference
>to Gould's remarks, that *my* views are controversial among evolutionists,
>but the passage quoted, with the second missing piece put back in, does
>*not* support his claim that my views are controversial (it would not matter
>much if they were controversial, though, unless there were good *reasons*
>for my views to be controversial among evolutionists). Thus, the statement
>he makes above is in fact falsified by the original post and the *correct*
>version of the quotation.
I disagree that Gould believes that "evolution proceeds by a process of
cumulative variation" *simpliciter*. Otherwise there would be no debate
between Gould and Dawkins. The latter devoted a whole chapter entitled
"Puncturing Punctuationism" in his book "The Blind Watchmaker",
attacking Gould's Punctuated Equilibrium position. But as I said, if Chris or
Susan wants to resume the debate where we left off, I would be happy to
do so.
CC>I don't think Stephen would like it if we gathered up *all* of the posts in
>which he has done this or similar things. If the reader goes back and reads
>the posts, he or she can clearly see that Stephen's deletions *do*
>significantly change the meaning of what is quoted. I think Stephen could
>only claim that they weren't relevant if he is claiming to have been arguing
>for some very technical point that itself was not relevant to the issue of
>whether naturalistic variation-and-selection evolution occurs. But, even if
>he were thus to escape from charges of dishonesty in this one case, the
>overall *pattern* of his manipulations of quotations and of opposing views
>demonstrates amply that Susan is right. A few instances could be innocent
>mistakes. Even *many* instances of it could be innocent (but extremely
>biased) mistakes. But Stephen has gone on doing it for at least a *year*
>now since I saw my first post pointing this out to him -- and it had clearly
>*not* been the first time these "innocent" mistakes had been pointed out!
>And he is *still* doing it!
As I have said before, and I say again, it is simply *irrelevant* whether
Chris or Susan thinks I am "dishonest". Their perception is along the same
sort of `party lines' one sees in politicians, and has as much truth value. I
regard it as primarily a rhetorical device to avoid dealing with the *real*
issues. So I am not going to waste my time responding to such accusations
and in future I am just going to ignore them. What matters is the truth or
falsity of what I say, not Chris or Susan's opinion of my character.
CC>He has, thankfully, ceased responding to my posts, if only because he
>filters them out, in yet another act of preventing information from getting
>through and triggering thought. Now, he is filtering Susan's posts as well.
>If we could *only* get him to cease responding to posts altogether! It
>might then be possible to make considerably more progress, because there
>would then be no need to spend so much time pointing out Stephen's
>misrepresentations and "innocent" mistakes.
As Chris notes at the end of his post, I had in a previous post said I had
lifted all my filters (including Chris' and Susan's).
CC>I suggest that *everyone* who has recognized Stephen's pattern of
>misbehavior *call* him on it.
That's fine by me. But I will just delete out such allegations post without
comment as irrelevant. The issue is not my alleged "misbehavior" (in
evolutionist's eyes) but the truth or falsity of evolution itself. The more the
evolutionists try to `shoot the messenger' the more I (and I am sure
uncommitted lurkers) will assume that evolution has major problems and
the allegations of "dishonesty" etc, are just a diversionary tactic.
CC>Make a big point of it. Perhaps then he'll either *get* the point (that we
>do not appreciate such intellectual dishonesty, even if it's "only" the
>dishonesty of failing to compensate for his automatic mental distorters by
>paying extra attention to what his opponents (and, for that matter,
>non-opponents, whose views he also misrepresents to make them seem to be
>supporting his views strongly when they support them either weakly or not at
>all) -- *or* he'll withdraw and let *honest* design-theorists have the
>field.
Chris' motive is obvious from the above " or* he'll withdraw" comment! He
evidently hopes that by his mudslinging he will force me to withdraw from
the debate. But it only makes me more determined to stay!
[...]
I have deleted the rest of Chris's lengthy post, since it is mostly ad
hominems, except this:
CC>P.S.: Damn! I just retrieved my e-mail, and I see that Steve, "as a mark of
>good faith," is removing all his filters. I hope that he will at least do as
>he exhorts *us* to do: Stick to the issues. Would that he would, rather than
>distorting both the issues and what people say about them. Oh well, let's
>wait a day or so and see how he behaves. But, from now on, if he resumes his
>"normal" career path, perhaps we should simply point out his
>misrepresentations but not bother to deal with them otherwise, not bother to
>try to explain, for the billionth time, what evolutionary theory *actually*
>says and implies. On those (rare?) occasions in the future when he actually
>properly quotes someone or responds to a post as it was actually written
>instead of to some weird twisted and deformed version that exists only in
>his mind, I see no harm in treating such responses civilly, even if his
>response does not adequately answer our points. It will be miracle enough to
>get him to "stick to the [actual] issues," I think.
I am glad that Chris wants to "stick to the [actual] issues". But if Chris (or
anyone else) starts again alleging unsupported "misrepresentations", "out-
of-context quotes", and making other ad hominems, I am simply going to
cut them out of his/her posts and try to debate what's left. That will have
the advantage of exposing any arguments for what they are. But if there is
nothing left, or if the ad hominems are too hard to delete out, then I am just
going to ignore the whole post.
Steve
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"The first rule for any scientific hypothesis ought to be that it is at least
possible to conceive of an observation that would contradict the theory.
For what good is a theory that is guaranteed by its internal logical structure
to agree with all conceivable observations, irrespective of the real structure
of the world? If scientists are going to use logically unbeatable theories
about the world, they might as well give up natural science and take up
religion. Yet is that not exactly the situation with regard to Darwinism?
The theory of evolution by natural selection states that changes in the
inherited characters of species occur, giving rise to differentiation in space
and time, because different genetical types leave different numbers of
offspring in different environments. ... Such a theory can never be falsified,
for it asserts that some environmental difference created the conditions for
natural selection of a new character. It is existentially quantified so that the
failure to find the environmental factor proves nothing, except that one has
not looked hard enough. Can one really imagine observations about nature
that would disprove natural selection as a cause of the difference in bill
size? The theory of natural selection is then revealed as metaphysical rather
than scientific. Natural selection explains nothing because it explains
everything." (Lewontin R.C., "Testing the Theory of Natural Selection,"
review of Creed R., ed., "Ecological Genetics and Evolution," Blackwell:
Oxford, 1971, in Nature, Vol. 236, March 24, 1972, p.181)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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