Pink Sasquatch's Festivus for the Rest of Us...

For some reason when people are making nice with each other a thread comes crashing down faster than when insults are being hurled. Go figure. Anyway Pink Sasquatch wrote something to me that I should respond to. For others other than Pink read the bottom portion...FOR PINK... I agree. I wasn't trying to suggest I you had to apologize either.I got miffed that it was starting to become an off topic pile-on about something I felt was an erroneous assumption about my position, but even that doesn't require an apology. I do believe your second post which described me as posing as an expert then getting facts wrong was insulting. Its hard to believe being caricatured as Cliff Clavin is not an insult. Still no need to apologize for that either. Okay that's fair enough, I do write long responses that cover a lot of ground. Except then it's wrong to say I set myself up as an expert and then get my facts wrong. This suggests you give up before finding out whether I got them right or not. I can't read minds and know why you leave a discussion.In the future, if you have a problem like that you could just say to shorten a response, or somehow flag the important point you particularly wanted addressed. You could even say that's all you want addressed.People can't read minds... or at least I can't. Once again, I will state that you owe me no apology for what you think about me or my style, or stating it. If you don't like reading my posts that's fine too.But in the spirit of Festivus I will say this... While I do not have any problem with your style of writing, this explanation sort of takes you down a peg in my eyes as a serious debater. Its kind of weak to me to not review what a person says whether they address the point you want or not, and weaker still not to just come out and state how you want posts tailored to your needs, and instead blurt it out at an unusual moment.Still no harm no foul. I'll take what you said into consideration in the future, and hope you'll take my suggestions into consideration. Perhaps we can get a better relationship going in the future.FOR THE REST OF US...Okay why NOT have a Festivus? Maybe not in the style of Frank Costanza, but something a bit more civil. People surely have some outstanding issues with other posters. Indeed it was surprising to see them pour out in several threads for no reason, so the pot must be boiling over for some.Pick a single poster who you have an issue with, and give them CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. That is suggest how they can improve their writing, whether in style or just general debate/analysis. Please don't carry in specific arguments because that is for those threads. Just let people know how they can improve their work in your eyes.Those being criticized, don't whine and moan. If you disagree and want to explain why you think the criticism is not accurate to what you are doing, that is fine. However you should restrict yourself to explaining what your intention is, and why you might be doing something that seems to be a failure in the eyes of others.Just keep in mind that while not everyone has an accurate view of everyone else, and so some complaints may not be valid, if there is a perception it is something to keep in mind for yourself.

Glad you saw my post and responded. But that doesn't follow - I told you that I pointed out to you what I thought were misstatements, so I obviously read them. You are far from Cliff Clavin, and I'm sorry that's what my description brought to your mind. I think you do exude an 'expert attitude' in your posts, and others in the forum have referred to you as an 'expert' (often in POTM nods, so others seem to enjoy your posting style quite a bit).If I was engaged in discussion with you and you got a point incorrect (in my mind), I pointed it out. There was other cases where I read one of your posts and thought you had something ass-backwards, and declined to enter the discussion because I didn't want to make the effort. I think the latter is fine - if I researched and responded to everything I thought was questionable in the forum I would never leave. Hell, last week I would have never left the forum just reponding to all of Carico's endless misstatements.This brings to mind (I think his name is) Bill Birkeland (though I'm not saying the two of you are similar). He used to post these superlong posts (often cut-n-paste the same post) every week or so with a hundred assertions and two hundred references for those assertions, and would often get POTMed for it. Did anyone ever check all of his points? Did anyone ever check all of his references? Is that why any of us are here in the first place? Were his posts even constructive? Yet he was considered an expert, and seemed to be put on a pedestal of sorts...I've been trying to do the opposite lately - concise referenced posts focusing on a single concept that could make or break the discussion at hand. (Though you wouldn't tell that from this post...) Thus I think you and I have very different styles - you try to expand the discussion and I try to contract it - so it makes sense that our styles would clash. Except for the 'blurting' I don't think I'm guilty of the above. I spent a lot of time wading through your posts and trying to respond appropriately and refocus discussion before I just decided to not engage you anymore. So this simply isn't a continuing problem. When was the last time we had a discussion? A year ago, or more?At the same time, if you find my (lack of) responses as a weakness, that is fine; and I also take your criticism as constructive. Often how others see our replies/behavior in the forum is very different than our intended expression. I was thinking the same thing - we'll see what the future brings.

Your wording suggested (to me) that you got tired of wading through my posts, and so it would be possible you missed something. And also that I never got around to addressing your critical points.That could very well have been a miswording on your part, or a misread on mine.If you read everything then that changes my impression. That said, I find it hard to believe I ever avoided answering a specific point you wanted answered if you specifically pointed it out to me. If I did then it was a total oversight and I apologize. That's a very good analysis and point. I'm actually planning on trying to be more specific and "contract" arguments in the future, so maybe things'll get better... except when my habits take over.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This lead me to do searches for both minnemooseus and Adminnemooseus postings that had "Bill Birkeland" in the message bodies.First, it seems that I have given Bill 12 POTM nominations, they being in 2003 and 2004. I also gave Bill my nomination for "Poster of the Year" in 2004.I also commented on Bills presentations in 2 other messages.From message 16 of the "Why do creationist posters quote so?" topic, I replied to Buzsaw (12/25/03):

quote:

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Buzsaw writes:

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Evos are remiss often in supporting statements and, imo, would do well for the advancement of factual truth to back up some of their own statements with documentation, rather than expecting us all to accept some specific statements at face value, as if they are the authority they consider themselves to be.

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minnemooseus writes:

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I must agree, that this is too often the case. I think that is one of Bill Birkeland's strengths - His backing his statements with links to references.

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From message 8 of the "Who's Held To Higher Standards At EvC? Part II" topic, I replied to IrishRockhound (12/21/04):

quote:

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IRH writes:

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...Also, evolutionists are more likely to be speaking from personal expertise (i.e. I'm a geologist) and so maybe don't back up what they say every time. That is not an excuse, of course, but it is some explanation.

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Perhaps creationists need to be reminded more often to back up what they say, link to reliable sources, etc. - and so it would seem that they are treated more harshly than evolutionists.

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minnemooseus writes:

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You have here hit on something that I've (in admin mode) tried to work on in the past.

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Ideed, many of the evo side are scientific professionals. And often they don't offer up references to back there assertions. Notable exceptions (and I'm sure I'm leaving out some here) are Bill Birkeland and Mammuthus, who are known for providing long lists of references, both on-line and off-line.

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I am sometimes concerned by the demands to those on the creo side, to supply references, while such seems seldom done to those of the evo side.

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I (evo side) of course know that the evo side does have mountains of references at their disposal, while the creo's have vastly slimmer amounts available.

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Both of those topics are still open, if anyone wants to further follow up that discussion.Related messages and topics, with messages from Adminnemooseus: Message 1 of the "Unsupported Assertions" topic (1/7/04). Message 272 of the "Change in Moderation?" topic (11/28/04). Message 88 of the "Soracilla defends the Flood? (mostly a "Joggins Polystrate Fossils" discussion)" topic (3/10/2005). One can check up thread for examples of the Bill Birkeland style. Message 107 of the "Soracilla defends the Flood? (mostly a "Joggins Polystrate Fossils" discussion)" topic (3/13/2005). And The above drew replies at the "General discussion of moderation procedures" topic. My reply is at Message 43 of that topic. I don't know if anyone finds this interesting, but there you have it.Minnemooseus/Adminnemooseusps: Moose cringes at all the misspellings in the above quotes.

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Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham

I do find it interesting, and appreciate the effort you put in to the post.I also appreciate that I was not the only one that thought BB's style was somewhat problematic.I think a lot of stylistic output has to do with what each poster wants to get out of the forum experience. I remember at some point trying to figure out what BB was getting out of the experience. I often felt like BB's posts were a sort of a massive reference material hit-n-run; I may root around in your links to see how often he entered discussions beyond his trademark posts.If someone is arguing from ignorance in the forum, and you actually want to try to inform them, I often think baby steps are in order - and massive, technical, highly referenced posts seem to act more like a brick wall to progress in such cases.I think this also happens en masse, when a dozen evos gang up on someone making outlandish claims regarding science. When Carico was here a week or so ago, I tried a few times just to explain to her that a population of all-black mice could give birth to a white mouse. A baby step. But she was also confronted with a dozen people trying to explain how an ape-like creature evolved to a human-like creature, in a dozen different ways. Too much information, complexity of information, and inconsistency of information/language surely reinforced her ideas that "evos" are a bunch of crackpots.

Bill's listing of most recent messages in individual topics can be found at http://EvC Forum: InformationOne can also get all the most recent messages (even multiples in 1 topic) of any member by going to the search page and entering the members ID in the "Search by User Name" field (leave "Search Words" field blank, and leave the other selections at the defaults). BUT, for reasons unknown, when I do that for "Bill Birkeland" I get zero returns. It seems to work fine for a "minnemooseus" search, and also for other members. Perhaps the search only goes so far back in time (it's not all inclusive) - Bill's most recent posting was on 5/14/05.Moose Edit: Fixed 2nd link. It's just the same link as the "Search" found at the tops of most pages. Usually check links to make sure they work, but not that time.This message has been edited by minnemooseus, 12-20-2005 12:57 PM

Hi, Moose, your search page link gives an error-dispatch table lookup failure.
I went strolling down memory lane by the contents page search button and couldn`t call up Bill or a host of others, Quetzal, Joe Meert, even JaD and Ken deMire. Then I tried Nighttrain (never could stand a bar of him) and got naught. I did learn that Whatever has had all his past posts changed to The Golfer, so it wasn`t a wasted trip.

I think Pink has raised a valid issue that many citations are left unchecked, especially on the "evo" side.I have been suprised more than once or twice to discover cited studies which I would not have suspected were questionable, to be quite contradictory. Some posters are worse than others on this, but they definitely cross both lines.Just yesterday Rrhain posted what he claimed were several studies proving his claim. On investigation I discovered he likely lifted his citations (he did not find them on his own) and either knowingly or negligently misreported the findings. That was a shock to me as whatever my problems with him were, I actually assumed he'd be giving out correct citations.It is more difficult when someone engages in a wall of citations. BB was a bit difficult for me and I did not review everything he cited. Rei was another one who did the wall of cites, but I was happy to find that everytime I fully checked her cites they were correct.I know creos are roasted for incorrect cites all the time. From now on maybe people should cut them a break and hold evos to the same level of pressure to get their cites straight.This message has been edited by holmes, 12-20-2005 06:54 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I agree that double standard is clear, though I think not ill-intentioned.The science-minded expect the science-minded to adhere to a higher standard, and sometimes take it for granted; of course, this facilitates scientific fraud and error of all sorts everywhere, not just here; similarly, the mututal trust of the religious-minded encourages their acceptance of unfounded whoppers and the predatory among them.So your caution is well founded.I think the most useful citations are those produced in response to a challenge or request. Unless the discussion hinges on a crucial study or other text, I prefer to see the primary assertions and logical derivations first. I cannot check every citation (many are unavailable), and the community, both evo and creo, serves an important function through scrutiny.When an initial post contains a cite link, and the poster's conclusions turn out to depend on selective quote-mining without including the cite's contrary material, we end up wasting a great deal of time in red-faced recrimination. The legal concept of disclosure seems more useful than one of purely adversarial debate--the notion that the prosecution has an obligation to disclose exculpatory material.The most useful discussions are those in which the basic data are not contested, especially when the issue--such as evolutionary theory or ancient text interpretation--involves weighing a large body of diverse evidence rather than something as simple as a numerical table. A single study or article is a bit atomistic in this context and leads to shrugging-off and frustration on all sides.I try to stick with assertions I am confident of being able to support, and I am primarily interested in syntheses and critiques of logical implications. I read a great deal here and follow-up elsewhere in order to increase my knowledge and understanding; I post to test both in a strong community and to help test the assertions and reasoning of others.And to have fun, of course, pricking the purists with smilies .

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Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC!

100% agreement. You better hope Santa doesn't check his list twice this year.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I think this is a hugely important issue. It should certainly be incumbent upon those of us on the evolutionary side of the debate to hold our fellows to at least as high, if not indeed a higher, standard than those in the anti-evolutionary camp.I think the 'Wall of citations' approach is obviously counter-productive in terms of allowing participants in the debate to verify claims, and while this is unlikely to be intentional elephant hurling in most cases it is certainly a barrier to a smooth flowing debate.I try and check out new citations I haven't come across from both sides of the debate, if their are only two, but I have the advantage of access to an academic library with a wide number of online subscriptions to relevant journals.Many people aren't in a position to check citations to the primary literature, except in those cases where the publications are open access or at least freely available online.I think the other side of this equation is that posters using citations to support their claims must have actually read the sources they cite, rather than relying on second hand accounts from reviews, citations in other papers or merely the paper's abstract.This is perhaps the main reason why references to the primary literature are infinitely preferable to references to essays or articles on websites, such web based media rarely present any actual data making the substantiation of their claims virtually impossible without studying their references in depth. To avoid this recursive process people should reference the paper which contains the data they are basing their claim on whenever possible.TTFN,WK

I think this largely already happens. Creos tend to really get burned, though, because they tend to defend their mistake instead of admitting it.Evos are a little better about recognizing their own errors in regards to citations. Of course, nobody's really all that likely to take it seriously when its their opponent who claims that their cite is fake, or misrepresented, etc. And it really sucks when you have to admit your mistake to an opponent you thought you had on the ropes. I guess that's adulthood, though.

I think one step we should all take is to actually read the material we cite and not just some summary, I find it interesting that often, when I read the actual body of the citation, it does not always support what was presented in the summary, Instead, often only a part of the abstract has been pulled out of context and when the full article is read in context, a whole different interpretation becomes apparent.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

There are a couple of existing topics that MIGHT be better homes for the current "references" theme. Then again, maybe not. Unsupported Assertions
Who's Held To Higher Standards At EvC? Part IIPlease link back to this topic, if you take the discussion to one of the above cited. Or maybe this topic is the best place. What do I know? I'm just a pin-head moose.Adminnemooseus

I don't think it is so far off - basically it is handing out criticisms per the thread's intent, without too much finger-pointing. (In other words, all we have to do is throw out some names to get the thread back on-topic... which I don't think is necessary...)Then again, what do I know? I'm just an empty skull...