> >>FMAJ: Nice strawmen and non sequitor.
> >
> >DNAunion: Hello again Mr. Brainless. I was providing you with
> "evidence to
> >the contrary" as anyone with half a brain would be able to figure out by
> >reading your statement and my reply. Are you really so simple-minded that
> >you can't follow a simple four-sentence, one-idea exchange?
> >
> >>FMAJ: Do you have evidence that the assumption of non natural origins of
> >life is supported by evidence?
> >
> >DNAunion: Nice strawman and non sequitur. Look peabrain, here is what you
> >said, "So far the assumption of a purely natural origins of life is quite
> >reasonable absent any evidence to the contrary". And that is what I
> replied
> >to.
>
>[...]
>
>On Mon, 16 Oct 2000 03:51:22 EDT, DNAunion@aol.com wrote:
>
> >
> >DNAunion: Nope, idiot - and you're an underhanded one at that. First,
> stop
> >stuffing your stupid ass words into my mouth. Your underhanded
> distortion is
> >obvious - it is not "according to you [DNAunion]", but rather "according to
> >me, FMAJ, who is doing nothing but merely parroting Elsberry, who claims to
> >have reached a valid conclusion from Dembski's statements". See how
> >unbelievably manipulating and dishonest you are. Perhaps if you stopped
> your
> >outright lying and deceit, and underhanded tactics, our exchanges could
> >progress. But since your entire post follows this trend of yours, I doubt
> >you and I will ever be able to get back to civil discussion.
>
>On Mon, 16 Oct 2000 04:02:10 EDT, DNAunion@aol.com wrote:
>
> >DNAunion: Okay stupid. You said, "We do not have evidence of inteligent
> >design as it applies to biology." Nucacids provided you with valid
> examples
> >of intelligent design in biology. You rejected his valid counter
> examples to
> >your ludicrous claim, and changed the subject to asking about evidence -
> >apparently empirical - of intelligent design in the past. That much is
> >obvious - you were outright, plainly, no one can deny, purely,
> unequivocally
> >wrong: and you attempted to divert us all from this fact by playing a
> typical
> >sleight of hand trick, hoping no one would notice or at least not comment.
Stephen
>I have just read these and I wish to disassociate myself from DNAunion's ad
>hominems above (and any others).
>
>It is one thing to say that FJ/Pim's *posts* are "mindless one-liners" as
>I have
>myself done in the past.
>
>It is another thing entirely, and an ad hominem, to say this of FJ/Pim
>*himself*. On behalf of the ID movement I wish to apologise to FJ/Pim.
>
>I would encourage DNAunion to not let some (not all) evolutionists drag
>him down into the gutter with them. In the case of some (not all)
>evolutionists, that may be just what they want.
>
>I make it a rule to assume that the problem is not any lack of intelligence,
>but the corrupting influence of a mindless (literally) materialist-naturalist
>*philosophy*:
>
> "Now I quote all this not merely because Gould holds a chair at
> Harvard and I do not; although this made the target all therefore
> tempting, but because Gould represents a charming intelligence
> corrupted by a shallow system of belief. (Berlinski D., "Good as
> Gould," in "Black Mischief: Language, Life, Logic, Luck," 1988,
> p.294)
Chris
As regular readers of my post know, I don't often agree with Stephen. But,
this is the third time in just a few months. I hope it's not setting a trend.
This little to-do has prompted me to consider some of my *own* past posts.
I have never outright called anyone stupid. However, I have come
embarrassingly close on occasion.
But, more importantly (and less embarrassingly), I have talked about and
analyzed and critiqued what I consider to be stupid mental behavior:
Willfully holding onto "concepts" so woozy and fuzzy and ill-defined that,
when one tries to pin them down, they effectively disappear, the rampant
conclusion-jumping that could have been avoided by a mere moment's
reflection, the repeated and consistent failure to mentally follow through
for even a few cycles on what the two main claims of evolution actually
mean in practice, the practice of believing whatever, by sheer accidents of
personal psychology, *happens* to "appear" or "feel" true (i.e., plausible
if not examined for a few seconds), and so on. These are all stupid
activities, or based on stupid activities, and are almost one-hundred
percent *guaranteed* to cause one to accept and to hold false beliefs on
important topics.
I've written whole posts on a few of these activities in order to help
people be aware of them and to shy away from them. Conceptual blind spots
*can* be corrected by awareness and practice and effort. I've also made
much of these activities to show that the arguments that involve them are
unsound because of the incoherence of premises, trading on connotations
instead of objectively definable meaning, trading on shifting meanings
(such as shifting meanings for "intelligent design"), and so on. Thus, if
you see Bertvan trotting out another of her mush-based claims, you need to
do a lot more than say, "Well, that sounds nice. It must be true."
For that matter, *Bertvan* needs to do a lot more than whatever she does
before she makes these claims, but my effort is more aimed at warning the
too-casual away from intellectual sink-holes because I don't think (at this
point) there's much that anyone can say that would enable Bertvan herself
to see the vaporousness of her claims and the mental processes that support
them; these claims and mental processes are too much *her* in her mind, and
she doesn't seem to care enough to really bother.
Although I may refrain in the future from using examples from members of
this list, I will, I suppose continue to critique the persistently bad
thinking habits I see here (and elsewhere, including even among Darwinists
and naturalists, I'm afraid).
Related topic:
People who believe that Darwinism is "implausible" should test their
understanding by writing a computer program to simulate it, in Basic or
FORTRAN or JavaScript (etc.). Then, they should publish their programs for
criticism. Implementing a theory in a computer program is one of the surest
ways of *precisely* formulating *some* theory. It is also one of the
*clearest* ways, because, in general, computer code is not subject to the
shifting-sands effect of verbal and even written communication. Bertvan and
Jones could perhaps co-develop such a computer program.
It would not, despite Schutzenberger's claims, show that evolutionary
theory was false, unless it was first shown to accurately reflect
evolutionary theory. But it would *objectively* formulate their current
*understanding* of the theory, and thus make it subject to examination and
correction.
Just thinking about Bertvan trying to write a meaningful computer program
may keep me amused for a long time.
--Chris
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