By their fruits Feb 2012

[Ron O]

Nothing really noteworthy about this edition. I basically create this
thread to keep track of the anti-science posters. I post this thread
about 3 times a year. I've only been doing it for a few years and I
wish that I had done it before. It is a simple means of keeping track
of these posters. A search using "By their fruits" will pick up a lot
of the older threads but a lot of other junk. I link back to them in
series below. Anyone can use the links to the posts and Google to
view the poster's profiles and get all the posts that they can stand
to read from these posters. These are the fruit of the creationist
anti-science movement. I went back to Jan 19 and looked at threads,
and Glenn seems to be missing. I hope that he is OK and doing well.

The usual disclaimers. These are mostly a select set of creationists
that are what is left after banging their heads against the wall for
years. I do not hold them up as the average anti-science know
nothings that are out there. I picked these posts at random and if I
pick a post that is really stupid I pick another so that I can't be
accused of stacking the deck, so if you want to get a feel for what
these posters are really like you will have to use Google to look up
more of their posts. It has been pretty boring. Vowel Howler was
single handedly effective in generating over half the content of TO
(mostly responses to his posts and threads that he started) but he has
gone MIA and is off doing battle with the Ukranian mob.

Religiously minded folk that don't want to make the list can look up
other creationists that wouldn't make the list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clergy_Letter_Project

There were a couple of threads about how the intelligent design
creationist scam is dead, and it is pretty much dead here on TO.
There just aren't that many IDiots posting or that are willing to
admit that they are IDiots. Nyikos hasn't tried to defend the ID scam
since his Insane logic thread, and that must be around 3 or 4 months
ago.

Links back to other By their fruits threads can be found in the Oct
2011 by their fruits with links back to others found in that thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/1b79ab72833a2e4e?hl=en

By their fruit ye shall know them:

Herman:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/2359cb106cf5e7e3?hl=en

Nando:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7170764b1933dc12?hl=en

Gladys Swager:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/4eb9cb29d2e94f01?hl=en

Kalkidas a Hindu creationist and one of the few remaining IDiots:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/c4e5d96e653b4722?hl=en

Bibleacheology:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/d159a17777eb8ce3?hl=en

Backspace:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/3d88803850e1fd68?hl=en

Ray Martinez:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/33ac43afccf9b923?hl=en

JacobSmith IDiot?:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/b14c532ca9d73d67?hl=en

Pagano our resident geocentrist and IDiot:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/3a350fc076b99531?hl=en

Alan Kleinman MD PhD:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a15914c936007416?hl=en

Ted Holden gets cited by Backspace (sort of a return to TO). There
was a time when the anti-science side tried to make their junk
believable;-)
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/c0cebd107f4d5343?hl=en

Anthony022071:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/da341ffa967a31e5?hl=en

Suzanne:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/6c431106e690a474?hl=en

pnyikos IDiot:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/08d4efe0b1925c1b?hl=en

Iaoua iaoua Vowel Howler is off to battle the Ukranian mob again, but
he left a few posts behind. There was some speculation on what Vowel
Howler was capable of, and I would like to note that one possibility
that didn’t make the list was just as possible as anything else, and I
put it forward before he went off to battle the Russian mob. My guess
was that he would claim to have become the supreme leader of the
Russian mafia. I will note that this was before he made the claim
that he was going to stop posting for a while because he was going to
be doing battle with the Ukranian mob. So my bet looks like the front
runner at this time.
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/934b364abe1f1a75?hl=en

Nashton:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/aa961cea737bf6e2?hl=en

[Frank J]

On Feb 5, 11:51 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
> Nothing really noteworthy about this edition.  I basically create this
> thread to keep track of the anti-science posters.

By all means keep doing it, but what I'd *really* like to see is
someone keeping track specifically of the simple questions they evede
or reply to with a cutesy non-answer.

For example I often ask their opinion on the age of life - a question
that "evolutionists," YECs and OECs have no problem answering
promptly. Yet most of the ones on these boards simply evade the
question and concentrate on critics who let them keep the topic about
"weaknesses" of evolution instead of strengths of their "theories."
Curiously, when they do reply, about half the time they give me their
opinion of the age of the *earth*. Either they lack reading
comprehension, or have some reason to stall.

> believable;-)http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/c0cebd107f4d5343?hl=en

[Frank J]

On Feb 5, 11:51 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:

Wait, you're not calling the clergy "creationists" are you???

It's bad enough that ID peddlers exploit the difference between
critics' definition (obsessive evolution-deniers who may or may not be
Genesis literalists) and the public's definition (honest Genesis
literalists). Those clergy are as *anti*-creationism as one can get,
given that they risk alienating their congregation.

>
> There were a couple of threads about how the intelligent design
> creationist scam is dead, and it is pretty much dead here on TO.
> There just aren't that many IDiots posting or that are willing to
> admit that they are IDiots.  Nyikos hasn't tried to defend the ID scam
> since his Insane logic thread, and that must be around 3 or 4 months
> ago.
>
> Links back to other By their fruits threads can be found in the Oct
> 2011 by their fruits with links back to others found in that thread:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/1b79ab72833a2e4e?hl=en
>
> By their fruit ye shall know them:
>
> Herman:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/2359cb106cf5e7e3?hl=en
>
> Nando:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7170764b1933dc12?hl=en
>
> Gladys Swager:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/4eb9cb29d2e94f01?hl=en
>
> Kalkidas a Hindu creationist and one of the few remaining IDiots:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/c4e5d96e653b4722?hl=en
>
> Bibleacheology:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/d159a17777eb8ce3?hl=en
>
> Backspace:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/3d88803850e1fd68?hl=en
>
> Ray Martinez:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/33ac43afccf9b923?hl=en
>
> JacobSmith IDiot?:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/b14c532ca9d73d67?hl=en
>
> Pagano our resident geocentrist and IDiot:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/3a350fc076b99531?hl=en
>
> Alan Kleinman MD PhD:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a15914c936007416?hl=en
>
> Ted Holden gets cited by Backspace (sort of a return to TO).  There
> was a time when the anti-science side tried to make their junk

> believable;-)http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/c0cebd107f4d5343?hl=en

>
> Anthony022071:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/da341ffa967a31e5?hl=en
>
> Suzanne:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/6c431106e690a474?hl=en
>
> pnyikos IDiot:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/08d4efe0b1925c1b?hl=en
>
> Iaoua iaoua Vowel Howler is off to battle the Ukranian mob again, but
> he left a few posts behind.  There was some speculation on what Vowel
> Howler was capable of, and I would like to note that one possibility
> that didn’t make the list was just as possible as anything else, and I
> put it forward before he went off to battle the Russian mob.  My guess
> was that he would claim to have become the supreme leader of the
> Russian mafia.  I will note that this was before he made the claim
> that he was going to stop posting for a while because he was going to
> be doing battle with the Ukranian mob.  So my bet looks like the front

[Ron O]

Just being accurate. You don't have to be a YEC biblical literalist
to make the list. Kalk is a Hindu creationist IDiot. Nyikos claims
that he has an unconventional view of God, but that doesn't make him
not a creationist. Guys like Behe would make the list that claim that
it might have all started with the original lifeform or Big Bang and
all unfolded. This isn't about religion or science so much as
politics and how much you are willing to deny. There are plenty of
creationists that are willing to let the chips fall where they may,
but we aren't talking about them making the list. Ray claims that he
is the only true Christian posting to TO so you can't pigeon hole
these guys.

Ron Okimoto

[Frank J]

Of course not. But to my understanding one has to at least object to
evolution, and those clergy emphatically do not.

The word "creationist" is almost meaningless already. Do you want to
make it completely so?

>  Kalk is a Hindu creationist IDiot.  Nyikos claims
> that he has an unconventional view of God, but that doesn't make him
> not a creationist.  Guys like Behe would make the list that claim that
> it might have all started with the original lifeform or Big Bang and
> all unfolded.  This isn't about religion or science so much as
> politics and how much you are willing to deny.  There are plenty of
> creationists that are willing to let the chips fall where they may,
> but we aren't talking about them making the list.

Your list is what I would call "amateur anti-evolution activists."
Rank and file evolution-deniers who don't wish to challenge anyone,
and Omphalists (two sets whose intersection I think is larger than
most people believe) would not be on the list, but would be
"creationists" by virtue of their evolution denial.

> > > Nashton:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/aa961cea737bf6e2?hl=en- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Ron O]

No, it is not meaningless. Anyone that believes in a creator or
creators is a creationist by definition. They might all have various
views, but that just make them different types of creationists.

>
> >  Kalk is a Hindu creationist IDiot.  Nyikos claims
> > that he has an unconventional view of God, but that doesn't make him
> > not a creationist.  Guys like Behe would make the list that claim that
> > it might have all started with the original lifeform or Big Bang and
> > all unfolded.  This isn't about religion or science so much as
> > politics and how much you are willing to deny.  There are plenty of
> > creationists that are willing to let the chips fall where they may,
> > but we aren't talking about them making the list.
>
> Your list is what I would call "amateur anti-evolution activists."
> Rank and file evolution-deniers who don't wish to challenge anyone,
> and Omphalists (two sets whose intersection I think is larger than
> most people believe) would not be on the list, but would be
> "creationists" by virtue of their evolution denial.

You are just being too narrow. A lot of these guys on this list are
far from rank and file. I make a point to say that these are a select
group of posters. These guys object to a lot more than just
evolution. To make this list, you not only have to be a creationist,
but you have to deny reality in some way. Most of the rank and file
just do not know any better.

People can argue what is reality, but when you have a geocentric IDiot
in the group you sort of get the idea.

Ron Okimoto

[Burkhard]

So do you agree then with Ray that only atheists can accept the ToE,
or do you sue a definition of creationists that does not imply any
issues with the ToE, in which case it is indeed meaningless for TO
purposes.

[chris thompson]

Jumping in. While the people who signed the Clergy Letter might
rightly be called "creationists" I believe they accept that the
Creator used evolution as the mechanism for creating life on earth.

Chris

[T Pagano]

On Sun, 5 Feb 2012 08:51:38 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>
wrote:

>Nothing really noteworthy about this edition. I basically create this
>thread to keep track of the anti-science posters.

Yet this blowhard has never proved anything about anyone. The same is
He has a history of posting almost nothing but ad hominem diatribes.
Okimoto rarely offers anything substantive in the forum. His posts
are largely ad hominem. This one is no different. He posts a number
of links but never offers a single argument proving anthing.

> I post this thread
>about 3 times a year. I've only been doing it for a few years and I
>wish that I had done it before. It is a simple means of keeping track
>of these posters. A search using "By their fruits" will pick up a lot
>of the older threads but a lot of other junk. I link back to them in
>series below. Anyone can use the links to the posts and Google to
>view the poster's profiles and get all the posts that they can stand
>to read from these posters. These are the fruit of the creationist
>anti-science movement.

Yet neither he nor any of his atheist brethren have been able to prove
that anyone is anti science let alone creationists. Creationists
dispute the verisimilitude of a handful of theories and not science in
general. To criticize and offer reasons against a theory is an
integral part of science. It is how science progresses.

Yet Okimoto and his fellow atheists treat these same disputed theories
as sacrosanct which is counter to the practice of science. If
anything this is evidence of Okimoto and his ilk converting
provisional theories into religious-like dogma. This is anti-science.

> I went back to Jan 19 and looked at threads,
>and Glenn seems to be missing. I hope that he is OK and doing well.
>
>The usual disclaimers. These are mostly a select set of creationists
>that are what is left after banging their heads against the wall for
>years. I do not hold them up as the average anti-science know
>nothings that are out there.

Okimoto's usual ad hominem nonsense that he couldn't prove if his life
depended upon it.

> I picked these posts at random and if I
>pick a post that is really stupid I pick another so that I can't be
>accused of stacking the deck, so if you want to get a feel for what
>these posters are really like you will have to use Google to look up
>more of their posts. It has been pretty boring. Vowel Howler was
>single handedly effective in generating over half the content of TO
>(mostly responses to his posts and threads that he started) but he has
>gone MIA and is off doing battle with the Ukranian mob.

Even if this blowhard could prove anything he asserts here, it can
hardly be taken in isolation. For every creationist post he
characterizes as stupidity one could find at least an equal number of
his fellow atheists who post with at least an equal inanity.

>Religiously minded folk that don't want to make the list can look up
>other creationists that wouldn't make the list:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clergy_Letter_Project

The letter essentially argues nothing more than that they accept the
opinion of secular scientific authority. The letter says which band
wagon they've jumped on to. As a matter of logic it is irrelevent to
whether the band wagon is on the correct path or not.

Furthermore I can produce a letter by a list of credentialed academics
from around the world who, like creationists, doubt the efficacy of
neoDarwinism:

http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/

If proves no more or less than the Clergy Letter. That is, it is
proof of almost nothing.

>There were a couple of threads about how the intelligent design
>creationist scam is dead, and it is pretty much dead here on TO.

The ID discussion is pretty much dead here because almost none of the
atheists have ever bothered to actually educate themselves about the
actual theories. Virtually every atheist criticism in this forum
against ID addresses some straw theory.

I should also report that Okimoto hasn't laid a glove on ID.

>There just aren't that many IDiots posting or that are willing to
>admit that they are IDiots. Nyikos hasn't tried to defend the ID scam
>since his Insane logic thread, and that must be around 3 or 4 months
>ago.

Nyikos is hardly representative of any group and he can hardly be
called a creationist. Furthermore he's repeatedly shown that Okimoto
is usually incapable of offering a compelling argument about anything
substantive.


These links shown below are proof of absolutely nothing. Okimoto is
incapable of actually producing quotes and proving anything about
anyone. And I'm going to put him to the test in the forum.

Regards,
T Pagano

[Frank J]

IIRC *you* believe in a creator. And David Berlinski (anti-evolution
activist at the DI) is not sure.

So that makes you a "creationist", and Berlinski not.

I get it now.

>  They might all have various
> views, but that just make them different types of creationists.
>
>
>
> > >  Kalk is a Hindu creationist IDiot.  Nyikos claims
> > > that he has an unconventional view of God, but that doesn't make him
> > > not a creationist.  Guys like Behe would make the list that claim that
> > > it might have all started with the original lifeform or Big Bang and
> > > all unfolded.  This isn't about religion or science so much as
> > > politics and how much you are willing to deny.  There are plenty of
> > > creationists that are willing to let the chips fall where they may,
> > > but we aren't talking about them making the list.
>
> > Your list is what I would call "amateur anti-evolution activists."
> > Rank and file evolution-deniers who don't wish to challenge anyone,
> > and Omphalists (two sets whose intersection I think is larger than
> > most people believe) would not be on the list, but would be
> > "creationists" by virtue of their evolution denial.
>
> You are just being too narrow.  A lot of these guys on this list are
> far from rank and file.

Yes, and that's pretty clear from "Rank and file evolution-
deniers ...would not be on the list." Your examples are on the list
because they're activists, *not* rank-and-file.

And BTW, I give it 50/50 that at least one on the list is "making this
stuff up."

> I make a point to say that these are a select
> group of posters.  These guys object to a lot more than just
> evolution.  To make this list, you not only have to be a creationist,
> but you have to deny reality in some way.  Most of the rank and file
> just do not know any better.
>
> People can argue what is reality, but when you have a geocentric IDiot
> in the group you sort of get the idea.
>
> Ron Okimoto
>
>
>
>
>
> > >  Ray claims that he
> > > is the only true Christian posting to TO so you can't pigeon hole
> > > these guys.
>

> > > Ron Okimoto- Hide quoted text -

[Frank J]

Many theistic evolutionists, particularly those without a detailed
knowledge of the anti-evolution movement, say that they're "a
creationist and an evolutionist." So if we define the word by every
definition that has ever been used, then yes, that makes them - and me
- "creationists." But if we do that, all those criticisms of
"creationists" becomes lame at best, self-defeating at worst.
Especially since the critic rarely identifies which "kind" of
creationist up front. Invariably they mean an anti-evolution activist,
not a theistic evolutionist. But a casual read might miss that.

The way I see it, unlike "creationists" (anti-evolution activists), we
don't have the luxury of multiple definitions, even if we do make it
clear from context which one we mean. The people we need to convince,
and are able to convince, usually don't have the time or interest to
get the definitions from context. Last time I checked, that's about
half of the public - the difference between the ~1/4 that is
irreversibly in denial of evolution (or in on the scam) and the ~3/4
that thinks it's fair to "teach the controversy" in science class.

> Chris- Hide quoted text -

[Ron O]

Where did you get that idea? These guys do not make the list because
they are creationists. They have to be a certain breed of
creationist. They have a broad range of religious believes, but all
of them are into denial about one aspect or another of science. I
tend to refer to them as the anti-science creationists. The guys that
signed the Clergy letter are not that type. Limiting creationist to
the fundy types is stupid and would leave out guys like Kalk and
Nyikos. If you do that you play into the hands of the scam artist
like they have at the Discovery Institute that claim that they are not
creationists to scam the rubes. They are obviously doing what they do
because they believe in a creator, they just have different religious
reasons than other creationists.

These guys do not make the list because they are creationists. They
make the list for the things that they do because they are
creationists. A lot of creationists do not do the things to make the
list.

Ron Okimoto

[Burkhard]

From your sentence above:

"Anyone that believes in a creator or
creators is a creationist by definition"

As far as I can see from the below, you opt for the second alternative
in my analysis.

 These guys do not make the list because
> they are creationists.  They have to be a certain breed of
> creationist.  They have a broad range of religious believes, but all
> of them are into denial about one aspect or another of science.  I
> tend to refer to them as the anti-science creationists.  The guys that
> signed the Clergy letter are not that type.  Limiting creationist to
> the fundy types is stupid and would leave out guys like Kalk and
> Nyikos.

I'd be quite happy with a definition that says a creationist (for TO
purposes) is someone who believes that the ToE is fundamentally (as
opposed to : in details) wrong because it does not allow for a
supernatural creator who created in ways different from those inferred
by the empirical evidence, that is, through evolution

Should cover Kalk, and if it does not cover Nyikos, then I can live
with that without loosing any sleep. .

[Ron O]

I don't know what Berlinski is. He claims to be an agnostic. The
guys at the Discovery Institute lie a lot. That is just a fact. This
is from the mission statement of the Discovery Institute when
Berlinski joined up.

QUOTE:
Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture
seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its damning
cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural
sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center
explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive
science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-
opened the case for the supernatural. The Center awards fellowships
for original research, holds conferences, and briefs policymakers
about the opportunities for life after materialism.
END QUOTE:

I got it from Wayback 1998-1999:
http://web.archive.org/web/19980114111554/http://discovery.org/crsc/aboutcrsc.html

These prevaricators are going to constantly throw any claim that they
are creationists back in your face, mostly due to the way people apply
the term to hardcore fundies. They are obviously talking about a
supernatural designer in their mission statement and if you use
wayback you can see that they had the God and Adam painting up on
their web page representing the institute.

>
> >  They might all have various
> > views, but that just make them different types of creationists.
>
> > > >  Kalk is a Hindu creationist IDiot.  Nyikos claims
> > > > that he has an unconventional view of God, but that doesn't make him
> > > > not a creationist.  Guys like Behe would make the list that claim that
> > > > it might have all started with the original lifeform or Big Bang and
> > > > all unfolded.  This isn't about religion or science so much as
> > > > politics and how much you are willing to deny.  There are plenty of
> > > > creationists that are willing to let the chips fall where they may,
> > > > but we aren't talking about them making the list.
>
> > > Your list is what I would call "amateur anti-evolution activists."
> > > Rank and file evolution-deniers who don't wish to challenge anyone,
> > > and Omphalists (two sets whose intersection I think is larger than
> > > most people believe) would not be on the list, but would be
> > > "creationists" by virtue of their evolution denial.
>
> > You are just being too narrow.  A lot of these guys on this list are
> > far from rank and file.
>
> Yes, and that's pretty clear from "Rank and file evolution-
> deniers ...would not be on the list."  Your examples are on the list
> because they're activists, *not* rank-and-file.

Beats me why that would be the case. They don't have to be posting
too long to make the list. They just need the same attitude about
denial and have the same misconceptions.

>
> And BTW, I give it 50/50 that at least one on the list is "making this
> stuff up."

You can't tell. That is one of the reasons what they are doing is so
bogus.

Ron Okimoto

[Ray Martinez]

I am honored to make it on Ron's list once again. I am also happy and
relieved to be rejected by a person who thinks nature produced itself,
including apes morphing into men over the course of millions of
years.

Ray (Paleyan IDist-species immutabilist)

> JacobSmith IDiot?:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/b14c532ca9d73d67?hl=en
>
> Pagano our resident geocentrist and IDiot:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/3a350fc076b99531?hl=en
>
> Alan Kleinman MD PhD:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a15914c936007416?hl=en
>
> Ted Holden gets cited by Backspace (sort of a return to TO).  There
> was a time when the anti-science side tried to make their junk

> believable;-)http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/c0cebd107f4d5343?hl=en

>
> Anthony022071:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/da341ffa967a31e5?hl=en
>
> Suzanne:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/6c431106e690a474?hl=en
>
> pnyikos IDiot:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/08d4efe0b1925c1b?hl=en
>
> Iaoua iaoua Vowel Howler is off to battle the Ukranian mob again, but
> he left a few posts behind.  There was some speculation on what Vowel
> Howler was capable of, and I would like to note that one possibility
> that didn’t make the list was just as possible as anything else, and I
> put it forward before he went off to battle the Russian mob.  My guess
> was that he would claim to have become the supreme leader of the
> Russian mafia.  I will note that this was before he made the claim
> that he was going to stop posting for a while because he was going to
> be doing battle with the Ukranian mob.  So my bet looks like the front

[Ron O]

So what do you call the creationists that have no problem with the
basic science?

>
> Should cover Kalk, and if it does not cover Nyikos, then I can live
> with that without loosing any sleep. .

Nyikos claims that he has an uncoventional view of God. He is an
IDiot, but claims that he believes in panspermia. The intelligent
designer is somewhere in the mix, but he doesn't say where.

Ron Okimoto

[Burkhard]

Darren, Ronan or Mary? I don't need a collective noun for any
arbitrary selection of people. For TO purposes, I might call them
evolutionary biologists (or evolutionists, i don't have problems with
that term), that's really all I care about. If you want to discuss
theology then they can come in lots of flavours, according to their
specific religion (Christian, Hindu, Muslim etc eb's), and according
to their preferred method to combine the two (deist, pantheist etc)
but ultimately, that's about as relevant for the science issue as
their preferred theory of science (realist, constructivist, arealist
etc) or their preferred football club. And I don't need a special term
for Bologna supporters who do not have problems with science
either.

>
> > Should cover Kalk, and if it does not cover Nyikos, then I can live
> > with that without loosing any sleep. .
>
> Nyikos claims that he has an uncoventional view of God.

So have I. So what?

> He is an
> IDiot, but claims that he believes in panspermia.  The intelligent
> designer is somewhere in the mix, but he doesn't say where.

I killfiled him for obnoxious posting behaviour, but even from what
I glimpsed when cited by others, it seemed to me quite clear and
simple and he said it reasonably explicitly: a genetic engineer from a
alien culture, who designed the most basic forms of (pre) life and
then for some reason send them to earth billions of years ago.
Whatever tickles his fancy I'd say, but the problem with that idea is
merely that it is stale and does not result in anything interesting
or new.

[Ron O]

Creationist and everyone else even other creationists, but if we don't
talk about religion then why call them creationists? The only thing
that matters is if whoever reads your posts understands what you are
talking about. The added problem will continue to be that the IDiots
will take advantage of the use to make their stupid denials about
being creationists when they would be creationists by your definition.

>
> > > Should cover Kalk, and if it does not cover Nyikos, then I can live
> > > with that without loosing any sleep. .
>
> > Nyikos claims that he has an uncoventional view of God.
>
> So have I. So what?

Just a statement of fact that goes with the next statement.

>
> > He is an
> > IDiot, but claims that he believes in panspermia.  The intelligent
> > designer is somewhere in the mix, but he doesn't say where.
>
>  I killfiled him for obnoxious posting behaviour, but even from what
> I glimpsed when cited by others, it seemed to me quite clear and
> simple and he said it reasonably explicitly: a genetic engineer from a
> alien culture, who designed the most basic forms of (pre) life and
> then for some reason send them to earth billions of years ago.
> Whatever tickles his fancy I'd say, but the problem with that idea is
> merely that it is stale and does not   result in anything interesting
> or new.

Space aliens aren't the intelligent designer that he is most
interested in supporting the existence of. Space aliens are only the
middle men as far as I can tell. This is the guy that started
spouting Bible verses to defend himself. His ultimate intelligent
designer is in there somewhere. He has been as clear as mud on the
issue.

Ron Okimoto

[jillery]

On Sun, 5 Feb 2012 13:28:43 -0800 (PST), Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

Obviously there is more than one way to define what is a creationist.
ISTM the important distinction to make among them is how they view the
process of natural history, as opposed to an event of initial
creation. Do they see natural history as a series of miraculous
events, as described for example in the Bible? Or do they see natural
history unfolding as a series of interacting causes and effects, and
described by science?

[Ron O]

On Feb 5, 3:49 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Feb 2012 08:51:38 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>

> wrote:
>
> >Nothing really noteworthy about this edition.  I basically create this
> >thread to keep track of the anti-science posters.
>
> Yet this blowhard has never proved anything about anyone.  The same is
> He has a history of posting almost nothing but ad hominem diatribes.
> Okimoto rarely offers anything substantive in the forum.  His posts
> are largely ad hominem.  This one is no different.   He posts a number
> of links but never offers a single argument proving anthing.

Says the boob that changed the thread title to what? I rest my case.

>
> > I post this thread
> >about 3 times a year.  I've only been doing it for a few years and I
> >wish that I had done it before.  It is a simple means of keeping track
> >of these posters.  A search using "By their fruits" will pick up a lot
> >of the older threads but a lot of other junk.  I link back to them in
> >series below.  Anyone can use the links to the posts and Google to
> >view the poster's profiles and get all the posts that they can stand
> >to read from these posters.  These are the fruit of the creationist
> >anti-science movement.
>
> Yet neither he nor any of his atheist brethren have been able to prove
> that anyone is anti science let alone creationists.  Creationists
> dispute the verisimilitude of a handful of theories and not science in
> general.  To criticize and offer reasons against a theory is an
> integral part of science.  It is how science progresses.

Pags knows that I am not an atheist, but he has to lie like this to
make himself feel better about being someone that could write his type
of post.

>
> Yet Okimoto and his fellow atheists treat these same disputed theories
> as sacrosanct which is counter to the practice of science.  If
> anything this is evidence of Okimoto and his ilk converting
> provisional theories into religious-like dogma.  This is anti-science.

This is from the guy that refuted himself in his own post when he
tried to deny that he was anti-science. Hey Pags, just put up your
views on science again and demonstrate that you are not anti-science.

>
> >  I went back to Jan 19 and looked at threads,
> >and Glenn seems to be missing.  I hope that he is OK and doing well.
>
> >The usual disclaimers.  These are mostly a select set of creationists
> >that are what is left after banging their heads against the wall for
> >years.  I do not hold them up as the average anti-science know
> >nothings that are out there.
>
> Okimoto's usual ad hominem nonsense that he couldn't prove if his life
> depended upon it.

What gets to me is how if something is negative and true that it is an
ad hominem, but lies like calling me an atheist are not. I guess that
if it is true you must mean what you say and that is bad for some
reason.

>
> > I picked these posts at random and if I
> >pick a post that is really stupid I pick another so that I can't be
> >accused of stacking the deck, so if you want to get a feel for what
> >these posters are really like you will have to use Google to look up
> >more of their posts.  It has been pretty boring.  Vowel Howler was
> >single handedly effective in generating over half the content of TO
> >(mostly responses to his posts and threads that he started) but he has
> >gone MIA and is off doing battle with the Ukranian mob.
>
> Even if this blowhard could prove anything he asserts here, it can
> hardly be taken in isolation.  For every creationist post he
> characterizes as stupidity one could find at least an equal number of
> his fellow atheists who post with at least an equal inanity.

Pags could try to demonstrate that anything that I wrote is not true,
but you won't see him do something rational like that. The fact that
it is all true may be one of the reasons he doesn't even try.
"Boring" is pretty subjective, so you'd think that he could at least
take me to task about that one and try to demonstrate how nonboring it
has been.

>
> >Religiously minded folk that don't want to make the list can look up
> >other creationists that wouldn't make the list:
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clergy_Letter_Project
>
> The letter essentially argues nothing more than that they accept the
> opinion of secular scientific authority.  The letter says which band
> wagon they've jumped on to.  As a matter of logic it is irrelevent to
> whether the band wagon is on the correct path or not.
>
> Furthermore I can produce a letter by a list of credentialed academics
> from around the world who, like creationists, doubt the efficacy of
> neoDarwinism:
>
> http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/
>
> If proves no more or less than the Clergy Letter.  That is, it is
> proof of almost nothing.

Uh, Pags, what was the Clergy letter example supposed to prove? I
only used it as an example of an alternate way that religious people
approach the problem.

Your web link is to the Discovery Institute's scam list that they
started in 2001. About the best excuse someone could have for signing
the thing would be that they were duped and didn't know what they were
getting involved with. What kind of alternative is that?

>
> >There were a couple of threads about how the intelligent design
> >creationist scam is dead, and it is pretty much dead here on TO.
>
> The ID discussion is pretty much dead here because almost none of the
> atheists have ever bothered to actually educate themselves about the
> actual theories.  Virtually every atheist criticism in this forum
> against ID addresses some straw theory.
>
> I should also report that Okimoto hasn't laid a glove on ID.

I haven't had to because you have never been able to put up the ID
science that anyone worth jack is willing to teach in the public
schools. Just put up the ID science that everyone thinks that they
can teach in the public schools. What ID science did the ID perps
ever give you that they have supported teaching to school kids?
Pretty soon the bait and switch will have been going down for 10
years. March 2002 and what did the Ohio IDiots get to teach from the
guys that sold them the teach ID scam? What has any IDiot legislator,
schoolboard or teacher gotten from the the guys that sold them and you
the ID scam? How many such IDiots have come forward and wanted to
teach the ID science, and not gotten any ID science to teach?

Put it forward and we can discuss it. Since the answer is nothing,
there hasn't been anything worth discussing in the last 10 years about
ID.

Pags can get his local school board to voluntarily teach ID and see
what he gets to teach. The ID perps are still claiming that they have
the scientific theory of ID to teach on their web page, but who has
ever put it forward? The plain and simple fact is that the bait and
switch would go down and all Pags would get is an obfuscation scam
that doesn't even mention that ID ever existed. That has happened to
100% of the iDiot rubes that have tried to teach the junk. The ID
perps are not running the bait and switch scam on the science side.
They are running the scam on their own creationist support base and
have been for the last 10 years.

The fact that there are people like Pags that can't accept that
reality just tells anyone how bogus the whole deal is at this time.

>
> >There just aren't that many IDiots posting or that are willing to
> >admit that they are IDiots.  Nyikos hasn't tried to defend the ID scam
> >since his Insane logic thread, and that must be around 3 or 4 months
> >ago.
>
> Nyikos is hardly representative of any group and he can hardly be
> called a creationist.  Furthermore he's repeatedly shown that Okimoto
> is usually incapable of offering a compelling argument about anything
> substantive.

You could give it a try. Put up the ID science and demonstrate that
anyone is willing to support it when it is time to put up or shut up.
Why won't the ID perps support the ID science when it is time to put
up or shut up? Why does the switch scam, that they give the rubes
instead, not even mention that ID ever existed, and the switch scam is
being run by the same guys that sold the ID scam? Shouldn't any ID
supporter be able to answer those questions?

>
> These links shown below are proof of absolutely nothing.  Okimoto is
> incapable of actually producing quotes and proving anything about
> anyone.  And I'm going to put him to the test in the forum.
>
> Regards,
> T Pagano

What a bonehead. These links aren't supposed to demonstrate
anything. They provide the opportunity for anyone to use the links,
get the poster's profile and read as many of the posters posts as they
can stand to make up their own minds about the anti-science side.

Ron Okimoto

[jillery]

On Sun, 5 Feb 2012 16:31:53 -0800 (PST), Ray Martinez
<pyram...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[...]

>I am honored to make it on Ron's list once again. I am also happy and
>relieved to be rejected by a person who thinks nature produced itself,
>including apes morphing into men over the course of millions of
>years.

They certainly didn't do it overnight.

[Burkhard]

On Feb 6, 4:51 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Feb 2012 16:31:53 -0800 (PST), Ray Martinez
>

> <pyramid...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >I am honored to make it on Ron's list once again. I am also happy and
> >relieved to be rejected by a person who thinks nature produced itself,
> >including apes morphing into men over the course of millions of
> >years.
>
> They certainly didn't do it overnight.

The opposite direction however just takes a few beer and can indeed be
accomplished over-friday-night :o)

[Burkhard]

On Feb 6, 2:39 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Feb 2012 13:28:43 -0800 (PST), Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk>

I fully agree with you that this is the important distinction. I just
can't see any good reason to call the larger group "creationists" when
"religious" does as well, and it seems to deviate unnecessarily from
the common use of the words, from Darwin in his letters to the
academic literature (e.g. Philip Kitcher's abusing science - the case
against creationism) to variants of the clergy letter project (the
rabbi letter project and the U letter e.g. both use "creationism"
exclusively for the non-science view and as a term of derision, where
in Ron's usage, they should apply it to themselves)

Nor do I think Ron is using this consistently, and frequently uses the
non-modified "creationist" for evolution deniers only. Quite sensibly,
as writing every time "creationists-who-also-do-deny-evolution" would
be quite tedious for a NG that discusses them a lot.

[Roger Shrubber]

I'm certainly getting to know you by your fruits here which, although
perhaps easily confused with sour grapes, actually seem like they may
be more bitter and perhaps mind altering. I'm thinking peyote is
the likely fruit, except I've not known it to produce such zealotry.

I'm just dealing with the facts here, in particular the facts that
your posting behavior and word usage focuses more on demonization of
individuals than in their arguments. Thus your favorite terms of IDiots
et cetera are clearly more focused on people than ideas.

[jillery]

On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 02:22:08 -0800 (PST), Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

Ron can speak for himself, but I can speak of my understanding of what
he wrote. From the OP and from his replies, I understand that Ron
does make the distinction of the type with which you concur above. For
example, Ron wrote the following, which was deleted from the post to
which you asked your question of him:

***************************************

I make a point to say that these are a select
group of posters. These guys object to a lot more than just
evolution. To make this list, you not only have to be a creationist,
but you have to deny reality in some way. Most of the rank and file
just do not know any better.

***************************************

I agree with you, and apparently Ron as well, there are creationists
who do not have any issues with the ToE specifically, or with
scientific materialism generally, and their views are not being
challenged here. ISTM the focus is on the other group, those
individuals who use their creationist beliefs as the basis of, and a
rationale for, their rejection of ToE specifically. And I agree with
Richard Norman when he wrote elsethread (paraphrasing), that a
rejection of ToE is inherently a rejection of science generally.

If there really is any confusion between the two kinds of creationists
described here, I try to use the label "fundamentalist" for the
relevant group, as their objections are based on a fundamentalist
literalist interpretation of their favored religious text, which they
assume to have primacy over material evidence. That may not be the
exact standard that Ron uses, but ISTM the overlap is sufficiently
wide to include all the players he identifies in his list.

[jillery]

On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 02:08:57 -0800 (PST), Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

And in the case of some, it can be done in the time it takes to post a
fundie anti-science argument.

[Ron O]

If you knew the history you might not have the same impression. I did
not regularly refer to ID as a scam or the rubes IDiots until a couple
of years after the bait and switch had been going down on all the
IDiot rubes, and a lot of the rubes were into denial or bending over
and taking the switch scam from the guys that had perpetrated the ID
scam. Do you know of a single legislator, school board or teacher
that has ever gotten the promised ID science to teach? How many have
come forward in a public manner since 2002 and what did the guys that
sold them the ID scam do to them? I do not call ID a scam because of
the dishonest political poly, but because the perpetrators are running
the bait and switch scam on their own creationist support base. Lying
in politics is normal and as bad as it may seem, acceptable. Running
a science fraud on the ignorant and incompetent is another fish. Can
you expect any ID supporter to be anything but ignorant, incompetent,
and or dishonest by this time. It doesn't take a genius to realize
that something is wrong when the bait and switch keeps going down and
has gone down for 10 years. Anyone can still go to the Discovery
Institute's web site and see them continuing to claim that they have
the scientific theory of intelligent design to teach in the public
schools. It is in their official statement on the subject. Anyone
can also observe what happens to any IDiot rube stupid enough to try
to teach the science of ID in the public schools. It hasn't been the
science side that has kept ID out of the public schools for the last
10 years. The guys that sold the scam are among the first involved in
any such incident and they give the rubes the switch scam that doesn't
even mention that ID ever existed. They even tried to run the bait
and switch on the Dover rubes but the Dover IDiots obtained their
"free" legal service and decided to test the scam in court. That is
today's reality.

If you could check my posts from around 2003-2004 you would see that
transistion. The ID scam had been going on for years by that time,
and I had been posting since around 1998. I do not view it so much as
demonizing as hitting the IDiots up the side of the head and forcing
them to face reality for just a second. At least enough time to
flinch and think up some lie or dodge. That is all that they can do.
No matter how stupid or dishonest someone is if they have any sanity
left at all, just the few seconds that it crosses their minds that
they should counter should get them to realize what they are stuck
with. Nyikos is the only IDiot to try to defend the bait and switch
scam in 10 years and look what he was reduced to doing. I don't make
any of the stuff up. Reality is as bad as I claim that it is. If you
want to claim that it is counter productive, what is productive in
this case? I don't see anything that is productive. Has pretending
that it is not a scam changed anything in the last 10 years? Really,
has the majority had any impact at all? Pretty much the biggest
impact has come from the ID perps themselves. The IDiot rubes don't
really listen to the science side no matter what, but they do take
notice when the guys that sold them the scam tell them that what they
are doing isn't such a good idea.

Ron Okimoto

[Steven L.]

"T Pagano" <not....@address.net> wrote in message
news:apagano-72sti71n1gp1u...@4ax.com:

> Yet neither he nor any of his atheist brethren have been able to prove
> that anyone is anti science let alone creationists. Creationists
> dispute the verisimilitude of a handful of theories and not science in
> general. To criticize and offer reasons against a theory is an
> integral part of science. It is how science progresses.

Science progresses by resolving open issues. Often there are competing
hypotheses, but the weight of evidence eventually lets us decide which
hypothesis best fits nature.

One problem with creationists is that only very rarely do they ever
consider anything resolved.

Some of their arguments have been refuted, again and again and again,
over a period of *decades*. Yet they keep coming back with the same
worn arguments as if those arguments are brand new.

It's extremely rare for a creationist to admit they were wrong about a
particular point.

It took them half of the 20th century to finally stop citing the Paluxy
footprints as "evidence" that humans and dinosaurs co-existed. Long
after the footprints had been refuted, and even after schools started
taking students on field trips to show them what the footprints were all
about.

A good scientist knows that when his evidence has been refuted, he must
either retract his claim or modify it significantly.

Creationists just don't know how to take "no" for an answer.

Another problem with creationists is their heavy use of special
pleading.

When mainstream scientists point out to Young Earth Creationists that
the universe must be very old because the light we receive through our
telescopes takes millions of billions of years to get here from distant
celestial objects, they reply "Well, maybe the speed of light was very
different in Biblical times."

They keep pulling a rabbit out of a hat to patch up their failed
hypothesis.

An all-powerful God can make any miracle happen.
But that means that we can't trust any evidence we observe.

Ultimately, all creationism leads logically to either nihilism or
solipsism or Omphalism. But those can be rejected on theological
grounds, which doesn't help creationists much.



-- Steven L.

[Frank J]

I hate to answer a question with a question, but I still don't know
what you mean my "creationist".

In your reply to my post indicating that your definition might maye
you a creationist and Berlinski not, you answerd about Berlinski (with
an "I don't know") but not about yourself. I agree that Berlinski
could be faking his agnosticism, and neither of us can read his mind.
But you can read yours.

So please let me know. Do you consider yourself a "creationist" or
not?

>
>
>
> > Should cover Kalk, and if it does not cover Nyikos, then I can live
> > with that without loosing any sleep. .
>
> Nyikos claims that he has an uncoventional view of God.  He is an
> IDiot, but claims that he believes in panspermia.  The intelligent
> designer is somewhere in the mix, but he doesn't say where.
>
> Ron Okimoto
>
>
>
>
>
> > > If you do that you play into the hands of the scam artist
> > > like they have at the Discovery Institute that claim that they are not
> > > creationists to scam the rubes.  They are obviously doing what they do
> > > because they believe in a creator, they just have different religious
> > > reasons than other creationists.
>
> > > These guys do not make the list because they are creationists.  They
> > > make the list for the things that they do because they are
> > > creationists.  A lot of creationists do not do the things to make the
> > > list.
>

> > > Ron Okimoto- Hide quoted text -

[Ron O]

I've mentioned it several times that I am a creationist. By the
standard definition of someone that believes in a creator. There
aren't very many Christians that are not creationists. That is just a
fact. I do not know of any exceptions, but that doesn't mean that
there aren't any. You can add things to the definition, but the
original is good enough for most people. You can have a specific
meaning in mind, but that doesn't make other creationists any less
creationists.

Why would someone stop being a creationist if they agree that the
science makes sense? Really, what is someone that believes in a
creator? By some of the definitions kicked around here they would be
noncreationist creationists. No tag is going to fit everyone.

Ron Okimoto

[Ray Martinez]

Evidence??????????

Waiting.....

(This should be good.)

Ray

[jillery]

On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 15:44:52 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>
wrote:

And just to put the final nail in the coffin, the kind of creationist
you consider yourself to be is *not* the kind of creationist that your
list includes, as it requires additional qualifications besides being
a creationist, specifically that of being anti-science. Correct?

Is is worthwhile to raise the question, are there any groups of
anti-science types whose anti-science arguments are *not* based on
religious dogma?

[Roger Shrubber]

On Feb 7, 3:04 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 15:44:52 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>

Crystal power, dedicated hemp fans, other neo-spiritual people.

Frankly, homeopathy fans are anti-science but follow a path that
is intended to look like science, perhaps even follows what they
think science is. I'm not aware of any authoritarian source that
underpins their bias so I'd say no to it being dogma based. It does,
however, share a distrust of authority-not-of-our-choosing with some
of your evangelicals. Somebody surely has better descriptors for
the archetype.

I'd guess it's innate to the human psyche in the sense that there
are almost always some who will feel compelled to go against the
grain, reject the dominant group, cast out on their own.

There's likely a survival advantage in that over the long haul due
to being able to found new populations removed from the most
ruthless of all competitors --- other humans.

[jillery]

I accept any personal experience you may have, and any expertise you
can demonstrate. I can offer only anecdotal experience, that those
who believe in pseudo-science and alternate-science as you describe,
are also very much into the spiritual and/or theological. My
impression is for these people the one reinforces the other.

[Rolf]

Hold your laughter; who says YOUR creator is the right one?

Your God, your creator, in fact everything you have is wrong.

Everything you belive is wrong. Have your brain replaced with chicken soup.
That would be a great improvement.

[Ron O]

On Feb 6, 11:04�pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 15:44:52 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>

I've consistently said that it takes more than being a creationists to
make the list. These guys do not make the list because they are
creationists, but because of what they do because they are
creationists. Not all creationists are like that, and I even gave an
example.

AIDs deniers probably do not have any religious reasons for being
recalcitrant on the subject. The new age crystal power junk doesn't
require religious belief, but obviously something like it when they
disavow any failed attempts to confirm the junk. These examples get
closer to the line of what is acceptable skepticism. People can
disagree, but if a scientist gets ticked off about something he has
the option of trying to figure out some way to demonstrate that he is
the one that could be right. When they stop making the attempt to do
the science to back themselves up they are a lost cause. Some people
just mistrust science. They probably understand at some level that it
works, but they get upset when it surprises them and messes up their
preconceived notions. Scientists live off of finding out that they
were wrong about something. If we knew everything, science wouldn't
exist. We'd just have librarians and teachers.

Ron Okimoto

[Frank J]

Then please be clear that your definition is uncommon among critics of
anti-evolution, and that your objection is not with "creationists" but
with *anti-evolution activists.* The "perps," if you will.

I know that when you see common article titles like "Creationists
introduce anti-evolution legislation" you know from experience that
they don't mean "creationists" like you, or even people on the street
who do doubt evolution. But most casual readers won't, and your
"liberal" definition will confuse them even more, resulting in
possibly even more counterproductive reactions of "what's the harm,
let them believe?"

[Frank J]

On Feb 7, 12:04 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 15:44:52 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>

Yes, though they're very rare in the area of evolutionary biology.
Schwabe and Senapathy proposed "naturalistic" alternatives to
evolution and common descent. But aside from that, their approach is
strictly pseudoscientific.

To me, what unites all anti-science is not religion, but an insistence
to "support" their ideas not on their own merits but on perceived
"weaknesses" of the explanations that are actually being supported.
That religion - more accurately *fundamentalism* - is amost always the
motivator where evolution is concerned does not, and ought not,
detract one bit from the faults of the pseudoscience and
"pseudoskeptic" tactics, and the dogged insistence of the peddlers to
avoid playing by the rules that *work*. If anything, dewlling on the
religion gives the scam artists more public sympathy than they
deserve.

[jillery]

On Tue, 7 Feb 2012 07:09:39 -0800 (PST), Frank J <fc...@verizon.net>
wrote:

Fair enough. I agree with you, Ron and Burkhard, and all who
apparently disagree with Ray on this point, that religion in general,
and even creationism specifically, is not the actual issue but
anti-science is. Since there exist other, non-religious and
anti-science motivations, I agree it's important to not lose sight of
them. So, rather than interpret "anti-science creationism" as an
emphasizing redundancy, I interpret it as a differentiating feature
set, which is the sense I understand the OP.

ISTM those with POVs accepting self-evidence, Revealed Truth, and
Faith in Authorities, seek out, and are sought by, fundamentalist
religions. And since fundamentalist religions are currently the
largest and best organized sources representing these POVs, it would
be economic to focus the largest and best organized efforts against
the anti-science dogma coming from them.

[Frank J]

On Feb 7, 12:48 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Feb 2012 07:09:39 -0800 (PST), Frank J <f...@verizon.net>

IMO, the fundamentalist religions - and I'm glad you didn't just
single out fundamentalist Christianity - are the biggest *victims*.
The anti-evolution activists may be themselves mostly fundamentalists,
but they're a small minority exploiting the majority. If I may steal
DI Fellow Michael Medved's phrase, we need to "focus like a laser
beam" on the activist organizations. AiG may be the one best known to
the "masses" but the DI is mostly "behind the scenes" courting the
fringe scientists who are willing to sell out to pseudoscience. The
DI's "don't ask, don't tell what happened when or how" strategy tells
me 2 things. That tells me that (1) they know that YEC and OEC are
failed science, but (2) they are committed to making the public
believe them anyway, failures and contradictions be damned, At the
very least they want people to deny evolution and not think about what
the alternative might be. Their audience already thinks that God did
it. If they start to ask what God did, when or how, most would become
theistic evolutionists. And to the DI that's worse than being an
atheist.

>
>
> >> >> > > Should cover Kalk, and if it does not cover Nyikos, then I can live
> >> >> > > with that without loosing any sleep. .
>
> >> >> > Nyikos claims that he has an uncoventional view of God.  He is an
> >> >> > IDiot, but claims that he believes in panspermia.  The intelligent
>

> ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -

[Ray Martinez]

On Feb 7, 9:48 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Feb 2012 07:09:39 -0800 (PST), Frank J <f...@verizon.net>

Could one expect Darwinists to say anything else about an anti-
evolutionist? Since we already know (and could predict) what
Darwinists think of persons who reject their theory, what's the point,
Jill?

Ray (species immutabilist)

> Since there exist other, non-religious and
> anti-science motivations, I agree it's important to not lose sight of
> them.  So, rather than interpret "anti-science creationism" as an
> emphasizing redundancy, I interpret it as a differentiating feature
> set, which is the sense I understand the OP.
>
> ISTM those with POVs accepting self-evidence, Revealed Truth, and
> Faith in Authorities, seek out, and are sought by, fundamentalist
> religions.  And since fundamentalist religions are currently the
> largest and best organized sources representing these POVs, it would
> be economic to focus the largest and best organized efforts against
> the anti-science dogma coming from them.
>
>
>
> >> >> > > Should cover Kalk, and if it does not cover Nyikos, then I can live
> >> >> > > with that without loosing any sleep. .
>
> >> >> > Nyikos claims that he has an uncoventional view of God.  He is an
> >> >> > IDiot, but claims that he believes in panspermia.  The intelligent
>

> ...
>
> read more »

[Roger Shrubber]

Is that a rather circular statement?
Those that reject scientific explanations have alternative belief
systems
that can be described as "spiritual" or "theological" in nature. What
other sorts of terms could you use to describe their 'go to' source
for
knowing something about the world? Wikipedians?

Meanwhile, consider how many have little to know competence at
evaluating scientific theory and data but are die-hard supporters of
their perception of scientific answers. We often see those who seem
to think they understand evolution ready and willing to defend it even
though they don't really get it. Their basis for believing in
evolution is
what? Seems like religious faith in whatever authorities they happen
to like. You get this with various atheists who overstate the virtue
of models of abiogenesis or early cosmology. You get it with various
Chicken Littles who are infatuated with the idea with climate
change as another example of the evil that humans do to the planet.
By this, I mean their moral conclusions precede and supersede
anything science has to say on the topic.

Most of what anyone believes is only superficially grounded in
empirical study of the world (AKA science), and even then, it
is seldom based on rigorous study. Creationists are not that far
away from most people when it comes down to patterns of
accepting and rejecting various sources of information about the
world. Authentic empirical rationality is a rare and tenuous thing.

[jillery]

On Tue, 7 Feb 2012 13:58:49 -0800 (PST), Ray Martinez
<pyram...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[...]

>> Fair enough.  I agree with you, Ron and Burkhard, and all who
>> apparently disagree with Ray on this point, that religion in general,
>> and even creationism specifically, is not the actual issue but
>> anti-science is.
>
>Could one expect Darwinists to say anything else about an anti-
>evolutionist?

I'm not describing any anti-evolutionist here, but anti-science. Try
to keep up.

>Since we already know (and could predict) what
>Darwinists think of persons who reject their theory, what's the point,
>Jill?

You would have known what is my point if you bothered to read my
entire post.

[jillery]

If your argument above is that most people are unfamiliar with the
details of specific scientific evidence, I agree. OTOH and given that
most people have lives that don't directly involve those details, I'm
not sure that is a relevant observation.

ISTM a relevant point is on what basis people believe or disbelieve
particular arguments, the ones they have taken the time to actually
think about, in contrast to those arguments which invoke a reflexive
reaction due to their novelty. Do they make a decision based on the
merits of the argument, however superficially the might understand it?
Or do they make a decision based on the word of some authority they
previously accepted? Or based on the decision of the group they
previously joined?

I pretend no expertise here, so I only have my personal impressions to
go with on these points. My impression is that most people use a mix
of different reasons for accepting or rejecting specific arguments. So
the distinction I use between one type of person and another, between
one group and another, is what basis they claim to use more often than
others. When some one or some group says they accept X and reject Y
because they were convinced by the evidence, it's possible they didn't
really understand the evidence. It's possible they were fooling
themselves. It's possible they're only going along with their crowd
or deferred to some authority. OTOH when some one or some group says
they accept Y and reject X because the Bible says so, and I see that
claim explicitly made many times, that leaves little room for doubt.
ISTM that is an important distinction.

[jillery]

On Tue, 7 Feb 2012 13:41:13 -0800 (PST), Frank J <fc...@verizon.net>

Me too, especially since my point is the problem under discussion is
literalist fundamentalism, not religion per se.

>are the biggest *victims*.
>The anti-evolution activists may be themselves mostly fundamentalists,
>but they're a small minority exploiting the majority. If I may steal
>DI Fellow Michael Medved's phrase, we need to "focus like a laser
>beam" on the activist organizations. AiG may be the one best known to
>the "masses" but the DI is mostly "behind the scenes" courting the
>fringe scientists who are willing to sell out to pseudoscience. The
>DI's "don't ask, don't tell what happened when or how" strategy tells
>me 2 things. That tells me that (1) they know that YEC and OEC are
>failed science, but (2) they are committed to making the public
>believe them anyway, failures and contradictions be damned, At the
>very least they want people to deny evolution and not think about what
>the alternative might be. Their audience already thinks that God did
>it. If they start to ask what God did, when or how, most would become
>theistic evolutionists. And to the DI that's worse than being an
>atheist.

When you write about "victims", I can't tell if you're referring to
the fundamentalist organizations or the fundamentalist individuals
within the organizations. Any human organization will have a
percentage of individuals within itself who are there only to exploit
the resources for personal gain. And some of them may be highly
placed.

But IIUC what you describe is an overall dichotomy between the leaders
and the laity within fundamentalist religious organizations. My
impression is that's not the case wrt evolution and its relevance to
their beliefs. Those who join fundamentalist organizations do so
precisely because they actively believe in fundamentalist doctrine; a
personal God, who is directly involved in their daily lives, an
acceptance of the literal truth of their religious text, and an
acceptance of the power of faith and prayer. They reject evolution
specifically, and science generally, on its conclusions, its methods,
and its philosophy. That their affirmative and collective rejection of
science flies in the face of their acceptance of the world around them
seems not to matter to either the leadership or the laity.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <f635j7906980ara9l...@4ax.com>,

jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> When you write about "victims", I can't tell if you're referring to
> the fundamentalist organizations or the fundamentalist individuals
> within the organizations. Any human organization will have a
> percentage of individuals within itself who are there only to exploit
> the resources for personal gain. And some of them may be highly
> placed.

Why else would most people take jobs?

--
It is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant
and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting. -- H. L. Mencken

[Frank J]

On Feb 8, 10:48 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
(snip)

> When you write about "victims", I can't tell if you're referring to
> the fundamentalist organizations or the fundamentalist individuals
> within the organizations.  Any human organization will have a
> percentage of individuals within itself who are there only to exploit
> the resources for personal gain.  And some of them may be highly
> placed.

Given that I'm to the right of everyone on some issues, I use the word
"victim" rather "liberally." Meaning that I don't think we have an
obligation to help them, but that it's sometimes good to go the extra
mile (Golden rule and all). That said, I would estimate that ~90% of
the congregations are victims, and many-to-most leaders are too. Bill
Buckingham, of Dover is a rather pathetic figure. Sometimes I feel
sorry for him, sometimes all I can think is "you asked for it."

>
> But IIUC what you describe is an overall dichotomy between the leaders
> and the laity within fundamentalist religious organizations.

Yes, I realize that. I'm often frustrated by the fact that words are
discrete and nature is continuous (quantum mechaniscs
notwithstanding). Probably no one despises "kind" thinking more than I
do, but sometimes there's no way to avoid it.

> My
> impression is that's not the case wrt evolution and its relevance to
> their beliefs.  Those who join fundamentalist organizations do so
> precisely because they actively believe in fundamentalist doctrine; a
> personal God, who is directly involved in their daily lives, an
> acceptance of the literal truth of their religious text

But *which" literal truth? At some point many people realize that
there are mutually contradictory versions, in which case their 3
options are:

1. Pick one, stick to it, and admit that one's belief overrules any
conflicting evidence (Omphalos)
2. Give up the "literal" quest and just take St. Augustine's advice,
which today means to become a theistic evolutionist.
3. Sell out to the "don't ask, don't tell" strategy.

#3 is the first step from "rube" to "perp"

>, and an
> acceptance of the power of faith and prayer.

As many "evolutionists" do.

>  They reject evolution
> specifically, and science generally, on its conclusions, its methods,
> and its philosophy. That their affirmative and collective rejection of
> science flies in the face of their acceptance of the world around them
> seems not to matter to either the leadership or the laity.

I would like to think that many (most?) join fundamentalist
organizations more because of the "ought" issues than the "what
happened when" issues. If God gave us free will it ought not matter
how we got here, or what even happened 5 seconds ago. Unfortunately
many (most?) people don't think that way. Even after they outgrow the
man in the red suit.

[Craig Franck]

I think this may simply mean most people are not very good at
justifying their own beliefs. Personal justification in
believing any scientific theory you yourself are not an expert
on is derived mostly from there being a consensus of experts in
the field. This is why no reasons need be given for believing
in helio-centricity: if > 99% of astronomers believes it's true,
that's why the average person should believe as well.

Fred Hoyle's contrarian positions were only considered legitimate
because he was an expert. Contrast Pagano's attempts to "keep
the establishment honest" by pretending some questions are open,
when why are not, and focusing in like a laser on specific points,
as if French cafe society was still doing cutting-edge astronomy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Portrait_(Voyager)

Craig

[*Hemidactylus*]

On 02/05/2012 07:31 PM, Ray Martinez wrote:

>> There were a couple of threads about how the intelligent design
>> creationist scam is dead, and it is pretty much dead here on TO.
>> There just aren't that many IDiots posting or that are willing to
>> admit that they are IDiots. Nyikos hasn't tried to defend the ID scam
>> since his Insane logic thread, and that must be around 3 or 4 months
>> ago.
>>
>> Links back to other By their fruits threads can be found in the Oct
>> 2011 by their fruits with links back to others found in that thread:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/1b79ab72833a2e4e?hl=en
>>
>> By their fruit ye shall know them:
>>
>> Herman:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/2359cb106cf5e7e3?hl=en
>>
>> Nando:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7170764b1933dc12?hl=en
>>
>> Gladys Swager:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/4eb9cb29d2e94f01?hl=en
>>
>> Kalkidas a Hindu creationist and one of the few remaining IDiots:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/c4e5d96e653b4722?hl=en
>>
>> Bibleacheology:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/d159a17777eb8ce3?hl=en
>>
>> Backspace:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/3d88803850e1fd68?hl=en
>>
>> Ray Martinez:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/33ac43afccf9b923?hl=en

>>
>
> I am honored to make it on Ron's list once again.

It is like the t.o. version of the Oscars.

> I am also happy and
> relieved to be rejected by a person who thinks nature produced itself,
> including apes morphing into men over the course of millions of
> years.

Humans are apes.

> Ray (Paleyan IDist-species immutabilist)

Hemi (happy to be an ape)

[*Hemidactylus*]

On 02/05/2012 04:49 PM, T Pagano wrote:

[snip]

> Nyikos is hardly representative of any group and he can hardly be
> called a creationist. Furthermore he's repeatedly shown that Okimoto
> is usually incapable of offering a compelling argument about anything
> substantive.

As much as I disagree with you on most things, I'm not sure it's fair to
put Nyikos on a list. He could use his advanced math skills to take on
Dr. Dr. (= MD PhD). One can only hope he joins the "hershey" alliance,
putting bad blood aside.

[*Hemidactylus*]

On 02/05/2012 11:51 AM, Ron O wrote:

[snip]
>
> pnyikos IDiot:
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/08d4efe0b1925c1b?hl=en

This is Nyikos and Harshman arguing about some arcane systematics. How
is that representative of him deserving to be included on your list. I
think you are too close to this one. Sorry. Given the rest of the slate,
especially vowelboy, Nyikos is just a run of the mill poster.

[*Hemidactylus*]

On 02/05/2012 08:19 PM, Burkhard wrote:

> On Feb 6, 12:52 am, Ron O<rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>> On Feb 5, 6:16 pm, Burkhard<b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Feb 5, 11:37 pm, Ron O<rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>>

>>>> On Feb 5, 3:28 pm, Burkhard<b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>>> On Feb 5, 8:53 pm, Ron O<rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>>>>>> On Feb 5, 2:32 pm, Frank J<f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>>>>>> On Feb 5, 1:40 pm, Ron O<rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>>>>>>>> On Feb 5, 11:38 am, Frank J<f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>

> Darren, Ronan or Mary? I don't need a collective noun for any
> arbitrary selection of people. For TO purposes, I might call them
> evolutionary biologists (or evolutionists, i don't have problems with
> that term), that's really all I care about. If you want to discuss
> theology then they can come in lots of flavours, according to their
> specific religion (Christian, Hindu, Muslim etc eb's), and according
> to their preferred method to combine the two (deist, pantheist etc)
> but ultimately, that's about as relevant for the science issue as
> their preferred theory of science (realist, constructivist, arealist
> etc) or their preferred football club. And I don't need a special term
> for Bologna supporters who do not have problems with science
> either.

>
>>
>>> Should cover Kalk, and if it does not cover Nyikos, then I can live
>>> with that without loosing any sleep. .
>>
>> Nyikos claims that he has an uncoventional view of God.
>

> So have I. So what?

>
>> He is an
>> IDiot, but claims that he believes in panspermia. The intelligent

>> designer is somewhere in the mix, but he doesn't say where.
>

> I killfiled him for obnoxious posting behaviour, but even from what
> I glimpsed when cited by others, it seemed to me quite clear and
> simple and he said it reasonably explicitly: a genetic engineer from a
> alien culture, who designed the most basic forms of (pre) life and
> then for some reason send them to earth billions of years ago.
> Whatever tickles his fancy I'd say, but the problem with that idea is
> merely that it is stale and does not result in anything interesting
> or new.

I kinda like the scifi aspect of Nyikos' previously expressed ideas. At
least it's kinda interesting (vs. most t.o. personal theories like being
pursued by an Ukrainian mob or the universe revolving around the
Earth)). I think calling him an IDiot not nice.

Sad part is he cannot get nice, friendly treatment due to previous
history and he tends to not let things go so is easily goaded into
escalating conflicts. This problem is not entirely his fault, but he
could probably manage that aspect better by not going down those roads
toward conflict escalation.

When he's on point intellectually he's interesting to read, but when
he's overloading posts with interpersonal details of who said what when,
it gets tedious. But his attackers aren't being fair either.

[jillery]

On Wed, 8 Feb 2012 14:18:15 -0800 (PST), Frank J <fc...@verizon.net>
wrote:

>On Feb 8, 10:48 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>(snip)
>
>> When you write about "victims", I can't tell if you're referring to
>> the fundamentalist organizations or the fundamentalist individuals
>> within the organizations.  Any human organization will have a
>> percentage of individuals within itself who are there only to exploit
>> the resources for personal gain.  And some of them may be highly
>> placed.
>
>Given that I'm to the right of everyone on some issues, I use the word
>"victim" rather "liberally." Meaning that I don't think we have an
>obligation to help them, but that it's sometimes good to go the extra
>mile (Golden rule and all). That said, I would estimate that ~90% of
>the congregations are victims, and many-to-most leaders are too. Bill
>Buckingham, of Dover is a rather pathetic figure. Sometimes I feel
>sorry for him, sometimes all I can think is "you asked for it."

That wasn't what I was confused about, but I'll let it go.

>> But IIUC what you describe is an overall dichotomy between the leaders
>> and the laity within fundamentalist religious organizations.
>
>Yes, I realize that. I'm often frustrated by the fact that words are
>discrete and nature is continuous (quantum mechaniscs
>notwithstanding). Probably no one despises "kind" thinking more than I
>do, but sometimes there's no way to avoid it.

??? Are you asserting there exists a substantial difference of opinion
between fundamentalist organizations' leadership and their members,
about the merits of evolution specifically and science generally?

>> My
>> impression is that's not the case wrt evolution and its relevance to
>> their beliefs.  Those who join fundamentalist organizations do so
>> precisely because they actively believe in fundamentalist doctrine; a
>> personal God, who is directly involved in their daily lives, an
>> acceptance of the literal truth of their religious text
>
>But *which" literal truth? At some point many people realize that
>there are mutually contradictory versions,

My impression is those who are members of fundamentalist organizations
do not accept there are multiple versions of literal truth. ISTM they
believe there is a single, immutable, absolute truth, as revealed in
their chosen religious text, and if there are apparent differences of
opinion what is the literal truth, it is due to either an honest
misunderstanding or the work of evil forces. Depending on which side
that coin falls, appropriate action is taken.

>in which case their 3
>options are:
>
>1. Pick one, stick to it, and admit that one's belief overrules any
>conflicting evidence (Omphalos)
>2. Give up the "literal" quest and just take St. Augustine's advice,
>which today means to become a theistic evolutionist.
>3. Sell out to the "don't ask, don't tell" strategy.
>
>#3 is the first step from "rube" to "perp"
>
>
>>, and an
>> acceptance of the power of faith and prayer.
>
>As many "evolutionists" do.
>
>
>>  They reject evolution
>> specifically, and science generally, on its conclusions, its methods,
>> and its philosophy. That their affirmative and collective rejection of
>> science flies in the face of their acceptance of the world around them
>> seems not to matter to either the leadership or the laity.
>
>I would like to think that many (most?) join fundamentalist
>organizations more because of the "ought" issues than the "what
>happened when" issues. If God gave us free will it ought not matter
>how we got here, or what even happened 5 seconds ago. Unfortunately
>many (most?) people don't think that way. Even after they outgrow the
>man in the red suit.

My impression is fundamentalists reject evolution and science not just
on the technical "what happened when" issues, but also on the
philosophical "oughts". IIUC free will gives you the ability to
choose right from wrong, but choosing wrong doesn't make it right. The
sacred text still defines *what* is right and wrong. Anything that
challenges the literal truth from the sacred text is by definition
wrong. IMO science in principle can't work with that axiom.

[pnyikos]

This is weird--most of the posts I made late last night went to t.o.
in a jiffy, but I'm still waiting for the two afternoon posts of mine
to this thread to appear here. Looks like I'd better try to repost
it.

Let's see how this one fares.

On Feb 5, 3:32 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Feb 5, 1:40 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Feb 5, 11:38 am, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:

> > > Wait, you're not calling the clergy "creationists" are you???

As you found out, Frank, he most definitely is, because he uses the
HIGHLY nonstandard definition "anyone who believes in a creator."

Where the particular clergy who signed that statement are concerned,
it is a fair assessment according to this idiosyncratic private
definition of the word "creationist".

What is unfair is Ron O not putting his private definition in each and
every time he calls someone a "creationist" when that person does NOT
fit the usual definition of "creationist" here in t.o.

> > > It's bad enough that ID peddlers exploit the difference between
> > > critics' definition (obsessive evolution-deniers who may or may not be
> > > Genesis literalists) and the public's definition (honest Genesis
> > > literalists). Those clergy are as *anti*-creationism as one can get,
> > > given that they risk alienating their congregation.

Absolutely.

> > Just being accurate.

......to Ron O's private definition. And even there, he is hoist with
his own petard, by all the evidence available to me. I have NEVER
seen Ron O post any evidence that he is a creationist. For all I
know, he might have a SECOND private definition according to which he
is one, but keeps that second definition strictly to himself.

Ray Martinez appears to be in the same boat I am. He demanded
evidence of Ron O that Ron O is a creationist and said "this should be
good."

But Ron O has alleged that Ray is insane, and has hypocritically used
that as an excuse for running away from one challenge after another by
Ray, so it is up to us to keep Ron O's feet to the fire on this one.

And if Ron O runs true to form, he will just slap any old crud on any
direct challenge from me, such as his utterly worthless "I am a
Methodist" [hell, I've known a number of atheistic Methodists in my
day] so it may be up to you to hold his feet to the fire. Do you have
the guts to do it?

> >You don't have to be a YEC biblical literalist
> > to make the list.
>
> Of course not. But to my understanding one has to at least object to
> evolution, and those clergy emphatically do not.
>
> The word "creationist" is almost meaningless already. Do you want to
> make it completely so?

He seems to be tending that way.


> >  Kalk is a Hindu creationist IDiot.  Nyikos claims
> > that he has an unconventional view of God,

False. My view of who God is, if God exists, is rather conventional,
not far from C.S. Lewis's view, but that's a huge "if". If I had to
lay odds on what the evidence available to me shows, I'd have to ask
for at least 100 to 1 odds against "God exists".

Yet I continue to hope it is true, because the alternative is very
grim as far as the future of humanity is concerned, IMHO.

> Your list is what I would call "amateur anti-evolution activists."

Then I should never have made it. I am a pro-evolution activist, all
the way back to the first prokaryotes. And I am a very ardent one
where the vertebrates are concerned, because I know a great deal about
their evolution.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

Well, a post I did less than half an hour ago [as of the time I began
this post] showed up, so if this one has smooth sailing too, I'll try
to repost at least one of the posts I tried to post yesterday
afternoon.

On Feb 6, 7:38 pm, Ray Martinez <pyramid...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Feb 6, 3:44 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Feb 6, 5:11 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > On Feb 5, 7:52 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > > On Feb 5, 6:16 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > > > On Feb 5, 11:37 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > > On Feb 5, 3:28 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > On Feb 5, 8:53 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > On Feb 5, 2:32 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > > On Feb 5, 1:40 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > > > On Feb 5, 11:38 am, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:

> > > > > > > > > > > Wait, you're not calling theclergy"creationists" are you???

As Frank found out, he most definitely is, and it is a fair assessment
according to Ron O's HIGHLY nonstandard use of the word

"creationist". What is unfair is Ron O not putting his private

definition in each and every time he calls someone a "creationist" who
does not fit the usual definition of "creationist"

And here is Ron O's public [in the sense that he has made it public],
private [in the sense "idiosyncratic"] definition:

> > > > > "Anyone that believes in a creator or
> > > > > creators is a creationist by definition"

Referring to the clergy who signed a statement, Ron O continued:

> > > > >   These guys do not make the list because
> > > > > > they are creationists.  They have to be a certain breed of
> > > > > > creationist.  They have a broad range of religious believes, but all
> > > > > > of them are into denial about one aspect or another of science.  I
> > > > > > tend to refer to them as the anti-science creationists.  The guys that

> > > > > > signed theClergyletterare not that type.  Limiting creationist to

> > > > > > the fundy types is stupid and would leave out guys like Kalk and
> > > > > > Nyikos.

Ron O's definition leaves me out, period. To say that I "believe in a
creator" is to mangle the word "believe" since my sober assessment of
the situation is that, on the available evidence, the probability a
supernatural creator of the universe or anything in it is less than
1%. Hence my loose talk of laying odds in response to Frank J.

> > > > > I'd be quite happy with a definition that says  a creationist (for TO
> > > > > purposes) is someone who believes that the ToE is fundamentally (as
> > > > > opposed to : in details) wrong because it does not allow for a
> > > > > supernatural creator who created in ways different from those inferred
> > > > > by the empirical evidence, that is, through evolution

That is not a fair assessment of the *scientific* ToE which is
agnostic as to whether such a creator exists, as long as common
biological descent from unicellular organisms is upheld.

And by "common biological descent" I mean each organism alive today
can trace its physical ancestry back that far, at least in principle.
But that still allows for tweakings such as Loren Eiseley's little
speculation in _The Immense Journey_:

Perhaps there also, among rotting fish heads and blue,
night-burning bog lights, moved the eternal mystery,
the careful finger of God. The increase was not much.
It was two bubbles, two thin-walled little balloons at the
end of the Snout's small brain. The cerebral hemispheres
had appeared.

Of course, that "Perhaps" is beyond the reach of the methodology of
science to resolve.

> > > > So what do you call the creationists that have no problem with the
> > > > basic science?
>
> > > I hate to answer a question with a question, but I still don't know

> > > what you mean [b]y "creationist".

>
> > > In your reply to my post indicating that your definition might maye
> > > you a creationist and Berlinski not, you answerd about Berlinski (with
> > > an "I don't know") but not about yourself. I agree that Berlinski
> > > could be faking his agnosticism, and neither of us can read his mind.
> > > But you can read yours.
>
> > > So please let me know. Do you consider yourself a "creationist" or
> > > not?
>
> > I've mentioned it several times that I am a creationist.  By the
> > standard definition of someone that believes in a creator.

I note the absence of the word "supernatural". And I wonder whether
Ron O has a nonstandard meaning for the words "believe in". See
above.

> Evidence??????????

"I am a Methodist" is the only answer I got from him that even
PRETENDED to be evidence. And I told Frank J how worthless that
response was.

> Waiting.....
>
> (This should be good.)

I expect silence from Ron O in (non)response to you, and obfuscation
from him in response to me, and so I hope Frank J or someone whose
questions Ron O can't ignore will hold his feet to the fire.

> Ray

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 7, 12:04 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 15:44:52 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
> wrote:

> >Why would someone stop being a creationist if they agree that the
> >science makes sense?  Really, what is someone that believes in a
> >creator?  By some of the definitions kicked around here they would be
> >noncreationist creationists.

By the standard talk.origins definition, they would be non-
creationists. By Ron O's definition, they would be creationists.

Stalemate.

> And just to put the final nail in the coffin, the kind of creationist
> you consider yourself to be

...is an impenetrable mystery to me. Can you tell me which creation
account he believes in:

The Deistic version?

The Islamic version?

The Hindu version?

The Manichaean version?

[That last one had it that an evil Demiurge created the world, and
Jesus was a Savior from the realms of the true God, sent to liberate
us from bondage to our physical bodies.]

My guess is, "none of the above, and he's playing this one with the
cards held so tightly to his chest, they might as well be
prosthetically fused to his chest."

> is *not* the kind of creationist that your
> list includes, as it requires additional qualifications besides being
> a creationist, specifically that of being anti-science.  Correct?

Do you know Ron O's definition of "anti-science"? [I don't.]

Do you have the guts to ask him if you do not know it?

> Is is worthwhile to raise the question, are there any groups of
> anti-science types whose anti-science arguments are *not* based on
> religious dogma?

Fred Hoyle comes to mind, by Ron O's strange concept of "anti-
science".

> >> > > Should cover Kalk, and if it does not cover Nyikos, then I can live
> >> > > with that without loosing any sleep. .
>
> >> > Nyikos claims that he has an uncoventional view of God.

False, see my reply to Frank J.

> >> > He is an
> >> > IDiot, but claims that he believes in panspermia.

I do believe the odds favor directed panspermia by panspermists who in
turn were the result of home-grown abiogenesis.

At least, I believe they favor it over "Mother Earth did it." I'm not
sure they favor it over Hoyle's and Wickramasinghe's undirected
panspermia. [I haven't made a careful study of it.] I do think they
favor it over the Arrhenius variety.

> >> > The intelligent
> >> > designer is somewhere in the mix, but he doesn't say where.

Because I think like a scientist, while Ron O thinks like a one-
dimensional ideologue who cannot be content with alternative
hypotheses.

I have posted before on three alternative hypotheses. Google
"Xordaxian", "Throomian" and "Golian" if you are interested.

Here is a fourth: "life as we do NOT know it, using far simpler cells
whose structure we cannot at this point even imagine, but which are
almost inevitable given pre-biotic conditions like those on earth,
evolved into an intelligent technological species that seeded earth."

We might call this "the para-3M hypothesis" after Mark, Mitchell, and
Michael [Isaak, Coffey, Siemon] who seem to subscribe to all of the
above, except for "using" and "that seeded earth."

I believe they would substitute "namely, Homo sapiens sapiens" for the
latter, remove "using" and put "evolving into prokaryotic cells"
after "imagine"

If they were candid, they would probably add "by means that we cannot
imagine, but aren't the least bit interested in finding out about"
after "cells".

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

This post still hasn't come through, so I am trying to repost it now,
with a few minor changes.

On Feb 5, 11:51 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
> Nothing really noteworthy about this edition.  I basically create this
> thread to keep track of the anti-science posters.

...by your private definition of "anti-science", which is a mystery to
me. See below.

> Vowel Howler was
> single handedly effective in generating over half the content of TO
> (mostly responses to his posts and threads that he started) but he has
> gone MIA and is off doing battle with the Ukranian mob.

Give credit where credit is due: your expression "Vowel Howler" made
me chuckle, as did the conclusion of your sentence. This despite the
fact that a long gone, long-running regular of t.o., Ted Holden, kept
a list of "Howler Monkeys" which had nothing to do with the likes of
Vowel Boy.

> Religiously minded folk that don't want to make the list can look up
> other creationists that wouldn't make the list:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clergy_Letter_Project

Not being a creationist, I have reservations about the bit where they
hold the Bible "to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice"
and also doubts about the unspecified eternal truths it is supposed
to convey; but what it says about evolution is spot on.

That's assuming it means "biological evolution," meaning evolution
of biological organisms. There is also the astronomical concept of
stellar evolution, but I doubt that they had that in mind.

> There were a couple of threads about how the intelligent design
> creationist scam

ID is not creationism; the DI theorists maintain that the question of
whether the designer is supernatural or natural is beyond
the reach of science; and so the DI takes no official position on it.

Granted, almost all of them do believe that the designer
is supernatural, but they keep that out of their public
reasonings.

> is dead, and it is pretty much dead here on TO.
> There just aren't that many IDiots posting or that are willing to
> admit that they are IDiots. Nyikos hasn't tried to defend the ID scam
> since his Insane logic thread, and that must be around 3 or 4 months
> ago.

I have never tried to defend what you call "the ID scam"; after a
couple of months I finally figured out what you meant by
"the bait and switch scam" and since then, all my
efforts have been directed at finding out whether the bait part of the
scam [and hence the scam itself] exists.

Right about the time you mention, you finally came through with
an old dangling of the bait by some members of the DI;
but you never gave credible evidence that the bait has been
dangled since the Dover decision.

Having read the Dover decision, [which takes
up less than a page of the voluminous Opinion of the Court]
I now see more clearly than ever why the DI posted on
the constitutional right of teachers to teach about ID.

The statement that the Dover School
Board forced teachers to recite was so radical, just about any
student hearing it could be expected take it as saying that creation
is totally at odds with all evolution, and the decision rightly
prohibited this statement.

The decision did not say teaching intelligent design is
unconstitutional, it said that it is unconstitutional to teach it AS
AN ALTERNATIVE TO EVOLUTION. And given the context,
I take this to mean "as an alternative to there being any
evolution at all".

[snip names that don't ring a bell with me]

> Ray Martinez:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/33ac43afccf9b923?hl=en

I'm trying to argue with him on the very topic of the linked post,
viz., the concept of natural selection, but it's a rather slender peg
on which to hang a verdict of "anti-science"

[...]
> Pagano our resident geocentrist and IDiot:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/3a350fc076b99531?hl=en

He's too much of a hit and run artist for me to take much interest
in him.

> Alan Kleinman MD PhD:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a15914c936007416?hl=en

He's quite a character, all right. I did a reply to him yesterday,
but it still hasn't shown up yet, so I'll try again after posting
this.

[...]

> pnyikos IDiot:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/08d4efe0b1925c1b?hl=en

Whoa. Are you calling me "anti-science" because I am in favor of a
dual classification scheme [analogous to the Dewey Decimal and Library
of Congress classifications coexisting] and, in the absence of any
willingness of the cladophiles to compomise, I keep posting on the
merits of the traditional Linnean classification?

If so, I think a case could be made for YOU being anti-science.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
nyikos @ math.sc.edu
Specialty: set-theoretic topology
Ph.D. Carnegie-Mellon University, 1971

[John Stockwell]

On Feb 10, 9:49 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> On Feb 7, 12:04 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 15:44:52 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
> > wrote:
> > >Why would someone stop being a creationist if they agree that the
> > >science makes sense?  Really, what is someone that believes in a
> > >creator?  By some of the definitions kicked around here they would be
> > >noncreationist creationists.
>
> By the standard talk.origins definition, they would be non-
> creationists.  By Ron O's definition, they would be creationists.
>
> Stalemate.

If Ron O is considering anybody who believes in a creator of any
variety to be a "creationist" then he is playing into the hands of
such
miscreants as Phil Johnson, the black pope of the ID movement, who
seek to create a "big tent" of creationism and make intelligent design
(creationism) the philosphical
tent pole.

>
> > And just to put the final nail in the coffin, the kind of creationist
> > you consider yourself to be
>
> ...is an impenetrable mystery to me.  Can you tell me which creation
> account he believes in:
>
> The Deistic version?
>
> The Islamic version?
>
> The Hindu version?
>
> The Manichaean version?
>
> [That last one had it that an evil Demiurge created the world, and
> Jesus was a Savior from the realms of the true God, sent to liberate
> us from bondage to our physical bodies.]
>
> My guess is, "none of the above, and he's playing  this one with the
> cards held so tightly to his chest, they might as well be
> prosthetically fused to his chest."
>
> > is *not* the kind of creationist that your
> > list includes, as it requires additional qualifications besides being
> > a creationist, specifically that of being anti-science.  Correct?
>
> Do you know Ron O's definition of "anti-science"?  [I don't.]
>
> Do you have the guts to ask him if you do not know it?
>
> > Is is worthwhile to raise the question, are there any groups of
> > anti-science types whose anti-science arguments are *not* based on
> > religious dogma?
>
> Fred Hoyle comes to mind, by Ron O's strange concept of "anti-
> science".

Fred Hoyle was attempting to use uncertainty in the origin of life
as a last-ditch support for his defunct Steady State universe
hypothesis. So that the odds of abiogenesis are super-astronomical
and that bio-material is raining down on the Earth, then it would take
the infinite age of a steady state universe to produce life.

>
> > >> > > Should cover Kalk, and if it does not cover Nyikos, then I can live
> > >> > > with that without loosing any sleep. .
>
> > >> > Nyikos claims that he has an uncoventional view of God.
>
> False, see my reply to Frank J.

It is hard to figure out what Nyikos believes. I suspect that he is
a modern Catholic who really believes that the Paul Erdos'
"Supreme Fascist" is listening in on his every brain wave, and
doesn't want to allow himself the unthinkable that his Deity is
really a fantasy. Or it may be closer to home. He might be doing
heavy couch time if the ball and chain is a die hard believer and
caught wind of any doubt coming from her hubby.

>
> > >> > He is an
> > >> > IDiot, but claims that he believes in panspermia.
>
> I do believe the odds favor directed panspermia by panspermists who in
> turn were the result of home-grown abiogenesis.
>
> At least, I believe they favor it over "Mother Earth did it."  I'm not
> sure they favor it over Hoyle's and Wickramasinghe's undirected
> panspermia. [I haven't made a careful study of it.]  I do think they
> favor it over the Arrhenius variety.

No. Peter isn't an idiot. Far from it. However, he is sort of a
frustrated
physical scientist who isn't satisfied with his work in mathematics
(work that would be the envy of many a math professor).

>
> > >> > The intelligent
> > >> > designer is somewhere in the mix, but he doesn't say where.
>
> Because I think like a scientist, while Ron O thinks like a one-
> dimensional ideologue who cannot be content with alternative
> hypotheses.

Actually, no Peter doesn't really think like a scientist. He thinks
like a mathematician. A scientist would find a theory that would
generate hypotheses to be tested, not create hypothesis heavy
scenarios that read like sci-fi stories.

Compare the Nyikosian hypothetical civilization scenarios with
Fred Hoyle. Fred Hoyle operated on the notion that the universe
is an infinitely old steady state, so panspermia "according to
Hoyle" isn't a scenario generator, it is an hypothesis generator, with
with the hypotheses being that given steady state there should
be all manner of evidences of stuff that would require infinite time
to be generated, so panspermia becomes the hypothesis generated
by Steady State. Find strong evidence of panspermia and we
find strong evidence of an infinite age of the universe, supporting
Steady State, and dealing a blow to Big Bang.

>
> I have posted before on three alternative hypotheses.  Google
> "Xordaxian", "Throomian" and "Golian" if you are interested.
>
> Here is a fourth:  "life as we do NOT know it, using far simpler cells
> whose structure we cannot at this point even imagine, but which are
> almost inevitable given pre-biotic conditions like those on earth,
> evolved into an intelligent technological species that seeded earth."
>
> We might call this "the para-3M hypothesis" after Mark, Mitchell, and
> Michael [Isaak, Coffey, Siemon] who seem to subscribe to all of the
> above, except for "using" and  "that seeded earth."
>
> I believe they would substitute "namely, Homo sapiens sapiens" for the
> latter, remove "using" and put  "evolving into prokaryotic cells"
> after "imagine"
>
> If they were candid, they would probably add "by means that we cannot
> imagine, but aren't the least bit interested in finding out about"
> after "cells".

Nope. Same sort of hypothesis heavy scenarios.


-John





>
> Peter Nyikos

[Rolf]

Let me guess, that anti-science is the point?
What's yours?

Rolf

[Ron O]

On Feb 10, 2:51 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> This post still hasn't come through, so I am trying to repost it now,
> with a few minor changes.
>
> On Feb 5, 11:51 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > Nothing really noteworthy about this edition. I basically create this
> > thread to keep track of the anti-science posters.
>
> ...by your private definition of "anti-science", which is a mystery to
> me. See below.

Beats me why these distinctions matter. It is what the posters
actually are that matters, not what you call it. The fruit are a
diverse group. There is no denying that and trying to pigeon hole
people and make some stupid claims about specifics just doesn't work
unless you want to produce a novel. Nyikos should know because he was
stupid enough to try to make a big deal about teach and taught, and
things like what a teacher was doing when they discussed something in
class (he claimed that it wasn't teaching). I don't make this junk
up. In fact stooping to ploys like this is a hallmark of this group
of posters because their options for any type of sensible argument is
so limited.

>
> > Vowel Howler was
> > single handedly effective in generating over half the content of TO
> > (mostly responses to his posts and threads that he started) but he has
> > gone MIA and is off doing battle with the Ukranian mob.
>
> Give credit where credit is due: your expression "Vowel Howler" made
> me chuckle, as did the conclusion of your sentence. This despite the
> fact that a long gone, long-running regular of t.o., Ted Holden, kept
> a list of "Howler Monkeys" which had nothing to do with the likes of
> Vowel Boy.
>
> > Religiously minded folk that don't want to make the list can look up
> > other creationists that wouldn't make the list:
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clergy_Letter_Project
>
> Not being a creationist, I have reservations about the bit where they
> hold the Bible "to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice"
> and also doubts about the unspecified eternal truths it is supposed
> to convey; but what it says about evolution is spot on.

Anyone that wonders why I have my definition of creationist can just
look at how Nyikos is trying to deny what he is. A creationist is
just simply someone that believes in a creator. It doesn't matter
what religion the the person belongs to or if he even claims to belong
to a religion. I did not make up that definition. Usage on TO is
usually for Biblical literalists, but non literalists and people of
different religions can still be creationists and perform their
various antics because they are creationists. Nyikos didin't make a
fool of himself trying to defend the ID perps for over a year because
he was not a creationist. One of the reasons that he did it was
because he is a creationist. He even admitted that he was one, just
not the fundy type.

Guys like Nyikos and most of the ID perps use the fundy definition of
creationist as a dodge. They use it to dishonestly deny their
motivations. That is just a fact. Anyone can look it up. Nyikos
knows what the mission statement of the Discovery Institute was for
years when the ID perps started the ID scam. There is no doubt that
nearly all or all (If Berlinski isn't telling the truth, he did join
the Discovery Institute under that mission statement) are
creationists. Creationists in just the way that matters, not in the
way that doesn't matter.

Anyone can use this wayback link to view the Discovery Institute's
official mission statement back in the late 1990's and view their logo
of God and Adam and know that they are creationists.

http://web.archive.org/web/19980114111554/http://discovery.org/crsc/aboutcrsc.html

There is a reason that I use a standard definition for creationist and
not the fundy definition. Nyikos is just demonstrating why it is
necessary. It wouldn't be needed if we were dealing with honest
people.

>
> That's assuming it means "biological evolution," meaning evolution
> of biological organisms. There is also the astronomical concept of
> stellar evolution, but I doubt that they had that in mind.

ID perps like Behe would agree with you. That doesn't make Behe less
of a creationist or the Clergy that signed the letter
noncreationists. On the one hand you have an honest attempt to put
forward your views on creation and on the other you have the guys that
don't care very much about honesty and integrity? Did Behe resign
when the Discovery Institute began to run the bait and switch on their
own creationist support base? Can you name any ID perps that did
resign when the bogus scam started to to down?

>
> > There were a couple of threads about how the intelligent design
> > creationist scam
>
> ID is not creationism; the DI theorists maintain that the question of
> whether the designer is supernatural or natural is beyond
> the reach of science; and so the DI takes no official position on it.

Hair splitting stupidity is just stupidity. Trying to deny that ID is
creationism is just another dishonest dodge. Name a single ID perps
that supported the ID scam that is not a creationist. Berlinski may
not count because he has claimed that he never bought into the ID scam
junk, and that he was just in the scam for the philosophical dissent.
Really, go for it. Name a single ID perp that does not believe that
the ultimate creator is some god.

>
> Granted, almost all of them do believe that the designer
> is supernatural, but they keep that out of their public
> reasonings.

So what does your denial mean? Nothing. Keeping the facts out of
their public reasoning is part of their dishonest scam. Do you really
think about what you write before you write it? Why do the ID perps
forget that they are creationists when they are running the ID scam?
Why did Kenyon and Thaxton (the two Discovery Institute fellows
responsible for the Pandas and People ID/creationism fiasco) swap out
intelligent design for creationism after the Supreme court ruling?
Why do transitional fossils like "cdesign proponentsists" exist in the
drafts of that intelligent design book?

>
> > is dead, and it is pretty much dead here on TO.
> > There just aren't that many IDiots posting or that are willing to
> > admit that they are IDiots. Nyikos hasn't tried to defend the ID scam
> > since his Insane logic thread, and that must be around 3 or 4 months
> > ago.
>
> I have never tried to defend what you call "the ID scam"; after a
> couple of months I finally figured out what you meant by
> "the bait and switch scam" and since then, all my
> efforts have been directed at finding out whether the bait part of the
> scam [and hence the scam itself] exists.

Hair splitting dishonesty again. What do you call denial that the ID
perps ran and are running the bait and switch scam? What do you call
the denial that the ID perps never claimed to teach ID in the public
schools? What do you call your present denial of what is in their
current official statement about claiming to have the scientific
theory of ID to teach in the public schools? What do you call your
pathetic attempts to defend irreducible complexity?

What is sad about your denial is that you are admitting that you lied
about not understanding what the bait and switch was for months. It
was probably more than half a year of denial about that topic. You
kept lying that I never gave you a description of the bait and switch,
and now you claim that you knew what it was after a couple of months.
How sad is that admission? How many times to you get a description of
the bait and switch after denying that you had ever gotten one? You
should count them up and report back and tell us how long that couple
months actually was. The last denials may have been as late as July
and you started the denial in December over a year ago. We are
probably talking about over half a year of bogus denial.

Nearly all your efforts on this issue have been directed at
misdirection and lying about the issues. You have never presented
your own evidence to support your version of reality. Not a single
time that I recall. Put it up if you think that you ever have. You
have run from the evidence and even lied about never getting the
evidence. Why did you have to start the Insane Logic thread? Wasn't
it sad that you were caught lying about not getting additional
evidence in September when I had given it to you in April, multiple
times. Why should I have given you even more evidence when all you
were doing was running from the evidence that I had put forward? You
even tried to claim that the older evidence wasn't equivalent to the
evidence you got in October or November when part of that old evidence
was an entire book on teaching ID in the public schools by the same
authors that you found their quote convincing, and the quote was just
out of a journal article. The only way that the evidence wasn't
equivalent was because the older evidence was even better. Not only
that, but you tried to deny the newer evidence by claiming that the
authors were not associated with the Discovery Institute, when the
beginning of the cited article stated that Meyer was the director of
the Discovery Institute's ID scam wing and that DeWolf was a fellow.

You are trying to rewrite history for what purpose?

>
> Right about the time you mention, you finally came through with
> an old dangling of the bait by some members of the DI;
> but you never gave credible evidence that the bait has been
> dangled since the Dover decision.

Near the very begining of Nyikos' denial over a year ago, I told
Nyikos that he could just check out the Discovery Institute's official
statement on the issue up on their web page. Nyikos never did it, or
if he did he never admitted to it. I finally put up a link and quoted
from the official statement last July. There was no doubt that the
Discovery Institute was still claiming to be able to teach the
scientific theory of intelligent design in the public schools. The
bait and switch is still going down because the ID perps are still
using ID as the bait, but all any IDiot rube ever gets from the ID
perps is a switch scam that doesn't even mention that ID ever
existed. Nyikos dithered about the statement and could not bring
himself to address it no matter how many times that I put it forward.
Ultimately, around October he started to lie and claim that I had
taken the quote out of context, but ran when I posted the entire
statement and asked him for the context that he was talking about.
This is how it has been for over a year.

Lying about the events now is stupid and senseless.

>
> Having read the Dover decision, [which takes
> up less than a page of the voluminous Opinion of the Court]
> I now see more clearly than ever why the DI posted on
> the constitutional right of teachers to teach about ID.

Is this about the Dover propaganda pamphlet where the ID perps claimed
that the decision only applied to Dover, claimed that ID had not been
banned from the public schools, and continued to lie about having the
scientific theory of intelligent design to teach to school kids? How
many months did you like about that? Didn't you even resort to
manipulating the quote and removing the "Has ID been banned from the
public schools? No." part of the quote in order to lie and claim that
the statement was not about public schools and that the ID perps were
not claiming to have the science of intelligent design to teach?

The quote that Nyikos has been in denial of for about a year.

QUOTE:
Has ID Been Banned from Public Schools?
No. Science teachers have the right to teach science.
Since ID is a legitimate scientific theory, it should be
constitutional to discuss in science classrooms
and it should not be banned from schools. If a
science teacher wants to voluntarily discuss ID,
she should have the academic freedom to do so.
END QUOTE:

http://www.discovery.org/a/4299

The current official statement on teaching ID in the public schools.

QUOTE:
Although Discovery Institute does not advocate requiring the teaching
of intelligent design in public schools, it does believe there is
nothing unconstitutional about voluntarily discussing the scientific
theory of design in the classroom. In addition, the Institute opposes
efforts to persecute individual teachers who may wish to discuss the
scientific debate over design in an objective and pedagogically
appropriate manner.
END QUOTE:

http://www.discovery.org/a/3164

>
> The statement that the Dover School
> Board forced teachers to recite was so radical, just about any
> student hearing it could be expected take it as saying that creation
> is totally at odds with all evolution, and the decision rightly
> prohibited this statement.

The sad thing is that the board was forced to come up with that
pathetic statement because the ID perps would not give them the
science of intelligent design to teach and the ID perps were trying to
run the bait and switch on the Dover board at the time that the
statement was produced. The last thing that the ID perps wanted was
to have the science if intelligent design put forward for evaluation.

>
> The decision did not say teaching intelligent design is
> unconstitutional, it said that it is unconstitutional to teach it AS
> AN ALTERNATIVE TO EVOLUTION. And given the context,
> I take this to mean "as an alternative to there being any
> evolution at all".

Does anyone understand where Nyikos is going with this hair splitting
prrevarication? Has anyone heard this interpretation of the decision?

>
> [snip names that don't ring a bell with me]
>
> > Ray Martinez:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/33ac43afccf9b923?hl=en
>
> I'm trying to argue with him on the very topic of the linked post,
> viz., the concept of natural selection, but it's a rather slender peg
> on which to hang a verdict of "anti-science"

So what? Are you making a judgement on one issue? Ray has years of
posts on TO and so do you even if most of them are a decade old.
Remember, you were posting when the ID perps were running the ID scam
full tilt at the turn of the century.

>
> [...]
>
> > Pagano our resident geocentrist and IDiot:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/3a350fc076b99531?hl=en
>
> He's too much of a hit and run artist for me to take much interest
> in him.

This is pathetic. Pags and Nyikos are twins cut from the same cloth.
Just check out how Nyikos changes thread titles and makes up bogus
threads to run from what he gets caught doing. The Monty Python
knight antics are just the same. How many posts is Nyikos running
from, by his own definition of running? I didn't set the standard.
If a post goes wanting for around 50 days the person that didn't
respond is in danger of having a nervous break down about responding.
Nyikos accused me of doing this for one post and he had to start a
whole thread to do it, while just in the last bogus thread Nyikos had
started Nyikos was "running" from 10 times as many posts, just in that
thread. The sad thing is that I probably advanced Nyikos' panspermic
theory by years in my responses to that lame thread. There is
obviously a lack of any intellectual rigor in the effort.

Right now Pags is claiming that I have to meet some bogus challenge
when he was the one that got caught lying about the issues. Sound
familiar, Nyikos? Pags is just more prolific than you are. If you
posted as much as Pags, my guess is that you would give him a run for
his money on bogus threads.

>
> > Alan Kleinman MD PhD:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a15914c936007416?hl=en
>
> He's quite a character, all right. I did a reply to him yesterday,
> but it still hasn't shown up yet, so I'll try again after posting
> this.

Nyikos calling someone else a character.

>
> [...]
>
> > pnyikos IDiot:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/08d4efe0b1925c1b?hl=en
>
> Whoa. Are you calling me "anti-science" because I am in favor of a
> dual classification scheme [analogous to the Dewey Decimal and Library
> of Congress classifications coexisting] and, in the absence of any
> willingness of the cladophiles to compomise, I keep posting on the
> merits of the traditional Linnean classification?

If the shoe fits. Lying about everything that you have done to defend
the ID scam is stupid and pointless.

>
> If so, I think a case could be made for YOU being anti-science.

You have never put up an instance of where I have lied or manipulated
a post in a dishonest fashion to defend any type of bogus anti-science
scam, or even defended a stupid anti-science scam. I have multiple
examples of you doing those kinds of stupid and dishonest things. Go
for it Nyikos. There is no doubt that you belong on the list.

>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

> nyikos @ math.sc.edu
> Specialty: set-theoretic topology
> Ph.D. Carnegie-Mellon University, 1971

One of the saddest things is that at one time Nyikos claimed that he
was a professor of mathematics and had no reason to lie about
anything. He even lied about lying when he made the statement. It
doesn't matter if your motives are stupid and dishonest, you still
have the bogus motives even if you are a professor of mathematics.

Ron Okimoto

[Ron O]

On Feb 10, 10:49 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> On Feb 7, 12:04 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 15:44:52 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
> > wrote:
> > >Why would someone stop being a creationist if they agree that the
> > >science makes sense?  Really, what is someone that believes in a
> > >creator?  By some of the definitions kicked around here they would be
> > >noncreationist creationists.
>
> By the standard talk.origins definition, they would be non-
> creationists.  By Ron O's definition, they would be creationists.
>
> Stalemate.

No. My definition is appropriate in this instance as you demonstrated
in your previous post to this thread. If you use the more specific
definition of creationist that allows dishonest liars to try to
pretend that they are not creationists in order to pretend that they
are arguing about the science. The ID perps use this ruse and so do
you. Why should you be allowed to get away with that?

>
> > And just to put the final nail in the coffin, the kind of creationist
> > you consider yourself to be
>
> ...is an impenetrable mystery to me.  Can you tell me which creation
> account he believes in:
>
> The Deistic version?
>
> The Islamic version?
>
> The Hindu version?
>
> The Manichaean version?
>
> [That last one had it that an evil Demiurge created the world, and
> Jesus was a Savior from the realms of the true God, sent to liberate
> us from bondage to our physical bodies.]
>
> My guess is, "none of the above, and he's playing  this one with the
> cards held so tightly to his chest, they might as well be
> prosthetically fused to his chest."

Says the guy that denies being a creationist and won't say what type
of creationist that he is when he admits that he is one.

I probably have the standard Methodist view on creation. It just
isn't important and we don't care how it happened just that it did.
I'm willing to go with whereever the evidence leads and see where that
gets me. Just check it out. We don't have an official stance on the
subject except to say that we are for separation of church and state
so that it never becomes an issue that we have to worry about.

>
> > is *not* the kind of creationist that your
> > list includes, as it requires additional qualifications besides being
> > a creationist, specifically that of being anti-science.  Correct?
>
> Do you know Ron O's definition of "anti-science"?  [I don't.]

Well make one up. You are good at that.

>
> Do you have the guts to ask him if you do not know it?

Do you? What about having the guts to address all those posts that
you are "running" from by your own definiton of running? Guts? More
like spineless in your case.

>
> > Is is worthwhile to raise the question, are there any groups of
> > anti-science types whose anti-science arguments are *not* based on
> > religious dogma?
>
> Fred Hoyle comes to mind, by Ron O's strange concept of "anti-
> science".

Hoyle would have probably made the list if he kept denying things like
archy was a fake when he didn't have a clue.

There is a sliding scale on the issue, you just fall off one end a
lot.

>
> > >> > > Should cover Kalk, and if it does not cover Nyikos, then I can live
> > >> > > with that without loosing any sleep. .
>
> > >> > Nyikos claims that he has an uncoventional view of God.
>
> False, see my reply to Frank J.

I don't care what you are telling people now. What did you tell me
when you first tried to defend the lie that you were not a creationist
by my definition? Remember my definition included guys like Kalk and
Behe. You claimed that you had an unconventional view of God, but
didn't state how it was unconventional. Not to me.

>
> > >> > He is an
> > >> > IDiot, but claims that he believes in panspermia.
>
> I do believe the odds favor directed panspermia by panspermists who in
> turn were the result of home-grown abiogenesis.

What about that thread? Belief is the right word for what you have.
Where does your designer come in and how is that not unconventional?

>
> At least, I believe they favor it over "Mother Earth did it."  I'm not
> sure they favor it over Hoyle's and Wickramasinghe's undirected
> panspermia. [I haven't made a careful study of it.]  I do think they
> favor it over the Arrhenius variety.

Who is "they?"

>
> > >> > The intelligent
> > >> > designer is somewhere in the mix, but he doesn't say where.
>
> Because I think like a scientist, while Ron O thinks like a one-
> dimensional ideologue who cannot be content with alternative
> hypotheses.

I can't tell what your views on the subject are until you tell me.
This statement doesn't tell me much except that you are likely lying
again.

>
> I have posted before on three alternative hypotheses.  Google
> "Xordaxian", "Throomian" and "Golian" if you are interested.

You give bogus names to these things, but where is your designer in
the mix? Didn't you tell me that these were the names that you gave
these things? Point me to the post where you tell where the
intelligent designer fits in. The ultimate one that is the real
reason why you have gone on a stupid and dishonest program of denial
for over a year.

>
> Here is a fourth:  "life as we do NOT know it, using far simpler cells
> whose structure we cannot at this point even imagine, but which are
> almost inevitable given pre-biotic conditions like those on earth,
> evolved into an intelligent technological species that seeded earth."
>
> We might call this "the para-3M hypothesis" after Mark, Mitchell, and
> Michael [Isaak, Coffey, Siemon] who seem to subscribe to all of the
> above, except for "using" and  "that seeded earth."

What is this about and how does it address where your designer fits
in?

>
> I believe they would substitute "namely, Homo sapiens sapiens" for the
> latter, remove "using" and put  "evolving into prokaryotic cells"
> after "imagine"
>
> If they were candid, they would probably add "by means that we cannot
> imagine, but aren't the least bit interested in finding out about"
> after "cells".
>
> Peter Nyikos

I can't make sense of why this was in the post. You seemed to be
addressing what I wrote, but didn't address it.

Ron Okimoto

[jillery]

On Sat, 11 Feb 2012 07:23:28 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>
wrote:

For those who argue that Ron O's definition of creationist, as
identified in the OP, is somehow fatally flawed, there is this to
consider:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creationist

1.A proponent or supporter of creationism.

and:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creationism

1.(Christian theology) The doctrine that each individual human soul is
created by God, as opposed to traducianism.

2.Any creationary belief, especially a belief that the origin of
things is due to an event or process of creation brought about by the
deliberate act of any divine agency, such as a Creator God (creator
god).

3.The belief that a deity created the world, especially as described
in a particular religious text, such as the Book of Genesis.

According to the above, a creationist is someone who believes in *any*
creationist doctrine, the particular one being entirely irrelevant to
the definition of the term. According to the above, "creationist" is
derived from "creationism". Of the three meanings given for that, 1.
is entirely irrelevant to anything involving science, 2. refers to
initial origins, not process, and so may be strictly axiomatic, and is
arguably relevant depending on which origin is under discussion, and
3. is relevant to the degree a particular religious text supercedes
material evidence.

[*Hemidactylus*]

I have a perhaps too rigid ostensive definition of "creationist" as the
folks who attack evolution and its teaching in schools and who try too
hard to forcefit the Bible into the realm of factual evidence. Thus the
battleground of creationist vs. evolutionist. Somewould limit the label
of evolutionist to those professionals with advanced degrees in
biological science.

But perhaps there's a broader umbrella for both, some fitting into an
overlap area of being both creationists and evolutionists. Theistic
evolutionists (creo-evos) might fit there.

The problem is that threads like this devolve into semantic word games
and way too much digital ink gets spilled. And there's an obvious
conflict of personality that doesn't look like it will be resolved
anytime soon. I'm Switzerland. Outta this one. Peace.

[Ray Martinez]

On Feb 10, 8:24 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Well, a post I did  less than half an hour ago [as of the time I began
> this post] showed up, so if this one has smooth sailing too, I'll try
> to repost at least one of the posts I tried to post yesterday
> afternoon.
>
> On Feb 6, 7:38 pm, Ray Martinez <pyramid...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Feb 6, 3:44 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > On Feb 6, 5:11 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > > On Feb 5, 7:52 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > On Feb 5, 6:16 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > > > > On Feb 5, 11:37 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > On Feb 5, 3:28 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > On Feb 5, 8:53 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > > On Feb 5, 2:32 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > > > On Feb 5, 1:40 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > > > > > On Feb 5, 11:38 am, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > > > Wait, you're not calling theclergy"creationists" are you???
>
> As Frank found out, he most definitely is, and it is a fair assessment
> according to Ron O's HIGHLY nonstandard use of the word
> "creationist".  What is unfair is Ron O not putting his private
> definition in each and every time he calls someone a "creationist" who
> does not fit the usual definition of "creationist"
>

Yeah, Ron is certainly using a stipulated or ad hoc definition.

> And here is Ron O's public [in the sense that he has made it public],
> private [in the sense "idiosyncratic"]  definition:
>
> > > > > > "Anyone that believes in a creator or
> > > > > > creators is a creationist by definition"
>

I would like to ask Ron where he obtained the idea that a Creator
exists?

> Referring to the clergy who signed a statement, Ron O continued:
>
> > > > > >   These guys do not make the list because
> > > > > > > they are creationists.  They have to be a certain breed of
> > > > > > > creationist.  They have a broad range of religious believes, but all
> > > > > > > of them are into denial about one aspect or another of science.  I
> > > > > > > tend to refer to them as the anti-science creationists.  The guys that

> > > > > > > signed theClergy letter are not that type.  Limiting creationist to

> > > > > > > the fundy types is stupid and would leave out guys like Kalk and
> > > > > > > Nyikos.
>
> Ron O's definition leaves me out, period.  To say that I "believe in a
> creator" is to mangle the word "believe" since my sober assessment of
> the situation is that, on the available evidence, the probability a
> supernatural creator of the universe or anything in it is less than
> 1%.  Hence my loose talk of laying odds in response to Frank J.
>

Yeah, you're an Atheist, Peter.

Ron has lotsa love for the Clergy Letter Project because these
"Christians" bow to Darwin. That is the dividing line: bowing to
Darwin & Dawkins (evolutionary science). Ron's God is evolution. It
has preeminence. He is a classic idol worshipper as portrayed in the
Bible. And he hasn't the slightest fear of Jehovah (which is the tell-
tale sign that he is horribly deluded, rejected by God).

Ray

> Peter Nyikos- Hide quoted text -

[Rolf]

What do we have to fear from Jehovah, Yahweh? Don't you know he is the
tribal god and warlord of the Israelites? That's what the OT says. Haven't
you read it, how he leads them in warfare and genocide?

(BTW, interesting how Ray avoid almost all of my replies - because I go for
the core of his miserable and laughable viewpoints.)

[pnyikos]

On Feb 10, 4:27 pm, John Stockwell <john.19071...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 10, 9:49 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Feb 7, 12:04 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Mon, 6 Feb 2012 15:44:52 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
> > > wrote:
> > > >Why would someone stop being a creationist if they agree that the
> > > >science makes sense?  Really, what is someone that believes in a
> > > >creator?  By some of the definitions kicked around here they would be
> > > >noncreationist creationists.
>
> > By the standard talk.origins definition, they would be non-
> > creationists.  By Ron O's definition, they would be creationists.
>
> > Stalemate.
>
> If Ron O is considering anybody who believes in a creator of any
> variety to be a "creationist" then he is playing into the hands of
> such
> miscreants as Phil Johnson, the black pope of the ID movement, who
> seek to create a "big tent" of creationism and make intelligent design
> (creationism) the philosphical
> tent pole.
>

Correct, except for your illogical, baseless idea that ID =
creationism. You and Ron O are completely wrong about that, although
for opposite reasons.

Give it up, John. Your concept of me is pure fantasy, always has
been.

Peter Nyikos

[Frank J]

On Feb 9, 2:53 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Feb 2012 14:18:15 -0800 (PST), Frank J <f...@verizon.net>

Sorry, lost track of this...

There's a range of beliefs even there. In general the leadership has
given it more thought than the members, so on average they must be
more aware that they're wrong about many things.

Sure, and *mainly* on the "oughts." But many, especially the leaders,
must be aware of the "is/ought" fallacy. Certainly the producers of
that garbage "Expelled" did. Peddling doubt of the "what happened
when" (& completely ignoring the "how") is a cheap (& wrong) way to
reassure people that they don't have to become the next Hitler or
Columbine murderer.

To me it all reduces to people refusing to "grow up." If many self-
described evangelicals can "get over it" and just accept evolution,
all but the most seriously emotionally disturbed people can. Put
another way, if they can reconcile death and suffering, what's so bad
about being related to last night's dinner? Nevertheless, there's
intense pressure to keep the "masses" thinking like children. There's
no way to really know who actually believes the fairy tales, and who's
just telling them to "protect" the "childern." The latter will never
admit what they're doing. But when they make excuses for differences
in such "details" as whether life existed for billions of years before
H. sapiens *and* pretend that their objection is only about the
science, it's hard not to get suspicious.

>  IIUC free will gives you the ability to
> choose right from wrong, but choosing wrong doesn't make it right. The
> sacred text still defines *what* is right and wrong.    Anything that
> challenges the literal truth from the sacred text is by definition
> wrong.

And yet the DI's silent "challenge" is given a free pass, other than
the occasional minor complaint by the more literalist anti-evolution
activist organizations.


> IMO science in principle can't work with that axiom.- Hide quoted text -

[pnyikos]

CC: Hemidactylus, since ten days have elapsed since he posted this.

On Feb 11, 12:45 pm, *Hemidactylus* <ecpho...@hotmail.com> wrote:

...replying to the same post to which I replied a few minutes ago. I
have nothing to add to what I said there at the moment, so I only keep
his addition in:

> I have a perhaps too rigid ostensive definition of "creationist" as the
> folks who attack evolution and its teaching in schools and who try too
> hard to forcefit the Bible into the realm of factual evidence. Thus the
> battleground of creationist vs. evolutionist.

Yes, and I believe that is the best working definition for
talk.origins. And it is my impression that the vast majority of
people posting here use it that way.

>Some would limit the label

> of evolutionist to those professionals with advanced degrees in
> biological science.
>
> But perhaps there's a broader umbrella for both, some fitting into an
> overlap area of being both creationists and evolutionists. Theistic
> evolutionists (creo-evos) might fit there.

From what I've seen of them (including the archetypal Kenneth Miller)
a better term would be "neo-deistic evolutionists." That is, they
believe that God kept his hands off the workings of our world until
Biblical times, if then. [If it weren't for the "until" clause, I
would leave off the prefix "neo-".]

> The problem is that threads like this devolve into semantic word games
> and way too much digital ink gets spilled. And there's an obvious
> conflict of personality that doesn't look like it will be resolved
> anytime soon. I'm Switzerland. Outta this one. Peace.

As long as people can agree on what a word means in a given context,
you are correct. What I was objecting to was the fact that Ron O not
only gives a different meaning to the term than is usual for
talk.origins, he refuses to tell what his particular creation belief
is, so we cannot really tell whether he is leveling with us when he
claims to be a creationist.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 11, 12:35 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Feb 2012 07:23:28 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>

...and he continues in the same vein below:

> >Says the guy that denies being a creationist and won't say what type
> >of creationist that he is when he admits that he is one.

This is utter garbage. I never admitted to being a creationist, not
even according to Ron O's expansive definition. And, unlike Tony
Pagano, I was able to divine what he meant by it within a few weeks
after I resumed posting to talk.origins in December 2010 after having
been gone from it for almost a decade.

> >I probably have the standard Methodist view on creation.

There IS no standard Methodist view on creation AFAIK. Like I said,
I've encountered Methodists who have denied the Resurrection and
agreed that death is the end of everything for everyone. I have in
mind the two Methodist ministers who ran the Blue Gargoyle on the
University of Chicago campus in 1993-4.

If Ron O believes there IS a standard Methodist view then he should
say what he thinks that is, and explain why he only wrote "probably"
up there.

> For those who argue that Ron O's definition of creationist, as
> identified in the OP, is somehow fatally flawed,

I don't. My main point here is that Ron O needs to tell people what
definition he is using every time he calls someone a creationist in
talk.origins. Otherwise people who don't know that his definition is
not the usual one in talk.origins is apt to get the wrong impression.

What's more, Ron O thinks it is a "ruse" for me to deny that I fit any
the following definitions:

> there is this to consider:
>
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creationist
>
> 1.A proponent or supporter of creationism.
>
> and:
>
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creationism
>
> 1.(Christian theology) The doctrine that each individual human soul is
> created by God, as opposed to traducianism.
>
> 2.Any creationary belief, especially a belief that the origin of
> things is due to an event or process of creation brought about by the
> deliberate act of any divine agency, such as a Creator God (creator
> god).
>
> 3.The belief that a deity created the world, especially as described
> in a particular religious text, such as the Book of Genesis.

> According to the above, a creationist is someone who believes in *any*
> creationist doctrine,

I am not a believer *that* any of the above is true. Here you are
using the expression "believes in" rather than writing "believes
*that* some creationist doctrine is true. I've said several times now
that my sober estimate of the probability of any of the above is <1%.

However, the expression "believe in" is more squishy. As I've said
to Ray Martinez, the only way Ron O can defend his allegation that I
am a creationist is to interpret "believe in X" in a very expansive
way. It would have to include "hope that X is true despite a sober
assessment of the evidence that it inclines towards X being false."

>the particular one being entirely irrelevant to
> the definition of the term.

Fine, let's go with that. I've already gone with it above.

> According to the above, "creationist" is
> derived from "creationism".  Of the three meanings given for that, 1.
> is entirely irrelevant to anything involving science, 2. refers to
> initial origins, not process, and so may be strictly axiomatic, and is
> arguably relevant depending on which origin is under discussion, and
> 3. is relevant to the degree a particular religious text supercedes
> material evidence.

Digression: the generally accepted spelling is "supersedes" and it is
easy to keep in mind because it is the only common English word which
ends in "sedes" as opposed to "ceeds" or "cedes".

Peter Nyikos

[Ron O]

How many times have I caught you lying about me to other posters? Why
not respond to my posts? You even directed me to the lies that you
told Bill when you had to run from your original posts in the dirty
debating thread. There are so many posts that you could deal with,
and all you can do is this.

QUOTE:
I am a Christian out of commitment and hope, rather than out of
conviction that Christianity MUST be true, which I've lacked since
the age of 23. And, like St. Augustine, I do not take the opening
chapters of Genesis to be more than a myth.
END QUOTE:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7819f32dfadd8961?hl=en\d106b63c89963

This from the original thread (over a year ago), and sounds like you'd
fit in pretty well with the Methodists too. If Nyikos does not
believe in a creator what does he believe in? He knows the basic
definition of creationist, but can't accept that there are many
different types of creationists in order to make his denial. A denial
that is only necessary to perpetrate that part of the ID scam.

>
> > >I probably have the standard Methodist view on creation.
>
> There IS no standard Methodist view on creation AFAIK.  Like I said,
> I've encountered  Methodists who have denied the Resurrection and
> agreed that death is the end of everything for everyone.  I have in
> mind the two Methodist ministers who ran the Blue Gargoyle on the
> University of Chicago campus  in 1993-4.

What is most bogus about you is how you cut up a post to make a bogus
point. This is what Nyikos SNIPed up:

QUOTE:

I probably have the standard Methodist view on creation. It just
isn't important and we don't care how it happened just that it did.
I'm willing to go with whereever the evidence leads and see where that
gets me. Just check it out. We don't have an official stance on the
subject except to say that we are for separation of church and state
so that it never becomes an issue that we have to worry about.

END QUOTE:

What don't you understand?

What does belief in the resurrection or life after death have to do
with belief in a creator? Do you even know what you are arguing? Why
even bring it up when you had the rest of the paragraph to deal with?

>
>  If Ron O believes there IS a standard Methodist view then he should
> say what he thinks that is, and explain why he only wrote "probably"
> up there.

What do you think the paragraph means? There is no standard about
creation among Methodists. We even have a YEC Biblical literalist
faction. Methodists likely run the entire spectrum of different types
of creationists. There hasn't been a splintering because no one makes
it an issue.

>
> > For those who argue that Ron O's definition of creationist, as
> > identified in the OP, is somehow fatally flawed,
>
> I don't.  My main point here is that Ron O needs to tell people what
> definition he is using every time he calls someone a creationist in
> talk.origins.  Otherwise people who don't know that his definition is
> not the usual one in talk.origins is apt to get the wrong impression.

I did tell you, but you snipped it up so badly in that original thread
that you couldn't tell what I said. I included YECs and Behe as well
as a Hindu creationist (Kalk) in my definition. You are only
prevaricating for some bogus reason. What was not clear about my
original definition that you took exception to? Right now you are
admitting that there was nothing wrong with it because all those
people are creationists.

>
> What's more, Ron O thinks it is a "ruse" for me to deny that I fit any
> the following definitions:
>
>
> > there is this to consider:
>
> >http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creationist
>
> > 1.A proponent or supporter of creationism.
>
> > and:
>
> >http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creationism
>
> > 1.(Christian theology) The doctrine that each individual human soul is
> > created by God, as opposed to traducianism.
>
> > 2.Any creationary belief, especially a belief that the origin of
> > things is due to an event or process of creation brought about by the
> > deliberate act of any divine agency, such as a Creator God (creator
> > god).
>
> > 3.The belief that a deity created the world, especially as described
> > in a particular religious text, such as the Book of Genesis.
> > According to the above, a creationist is someone who believes in *any*
> > creationist doctrine,
>
> I am not a believer *that* any of the above is true.  Here you are
> using the expression "believes in" rather than writing "believes
> *that* some creationist doctrine is true.  I've said several times now
> that my sober estimate of the probability of any of the above is <1%.

You do not believe in any type of creation? What about where your
aliens come from or where the universe came from? What about the soul
that you may think that you have? I have never met a Christian that
did not believe in a creator so you may be the exception.

>
>  However, the expression "believe in" is more squishy.  As I've said
> to Ray Martinez, the only way Ron O can defend his allegation that I
> am a creationist is to interpret "believe in X" in a very expansive
> way.  It would have to include "hope that X is true despite a sober
> assessment of the evidence that it inclines towards X being false."

Hair splitting and saying "hope" instead of faith is just how you lie
to yourself about so many things.

How are you lying to yourself now? Is there a creator in your hope?

What is a teacher doing when she discusses something in a public
school class? Most people call that teaching, but not Nyikos.

Respond to my posts and don't expect me to know that you responded to
someone else. It is bad enough reading the junk that you post to me.

Why not respond to the original post? Why don't you respond to this
one in the same thread?

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a6e2d224da17d799?hl=en%01b79ab72833a2e4e

You make the bogus claims why not defend them?

Ron Okimoto

[jillery]

On Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:41:25 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>
wrote:

What an incredible, unreadable mess pnyikos has wrought. I'm not sure
what his complaint is with me, but his Miss Priss imitation needs a
lot of work.

[Earle Jones]

In article <59j8k7dlfui3h6bs7...@4ax.com>,

*
Careful, Ron. Nyikos has an advantage here. He is educated.

earle
*

[Ron O]

On Feb 24, 12:19 am, Earle Jones <earle.jo...@comcast.net> wrote:
> In article <59j8k7dlfui3h6bs7eh6jbhfv7odsuo...@4ax.com>,
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:41:25 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>

> > >http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a6e2d224da17d799?hl=e...

> > >b72833a2e4e
>
> > >You make the bogus claims why not defend them?
>
> > >Ron Okimoto
>
> > What an incredible, unreadable mess pnyikos has wrought.  I'm not sure
> > what his complaint is with me, but his Miss Priss imitation needs a
> > lot of work.
>
> *
> Careful, Ron.  Nyikos has an advantage here.  He is educated.
>
> earle
> *

One of the most bogus things is Nyikos actually tried to claim that I
had no business arguing with him because he was a professor of
mathematics and I was a pretender. It is even sadder that I caught
him making these claims to other posters behind my back. I may not
have the greatest pupublication record, but my guess is that it is at
least average or maybe above average, and I have been out of academia
and in industry since 2005. It all doesn't matter because what
matters is that Nyikos is the only IDiot that ever tried to contest
that the bait and switch has been going down for a decade and he has
had to stoop to bogus and dishonest behavior to try to support his
lame position. That in itself should tell anyone how bogus
intelligent design science is.

Nyikos has to deal with the fact that the only IDiots left that
support the ID scam are the ignorant, incompetent and or dishonest.
By now he likely hates the ID perps more than just about anyone. I
recall that he was bad mouthing Philip Johnson in a recent thread in a
post to another poster, but I can't recall what thread. Johnson is
credited by the other ID perps as being the main guy that got the ID
scam rolling in the 1990's. Nyikos may have been ignorant about the
bait and switch, but he has been incompetent and dishonest since
admitting that he has understood what the situation is. The post that
I was responding to is a case in point. I don't make this junk up. I
don't have to. The situation really is that bad.

Ron Okimoto

[jillery]

>Careful, Ron. Nyikos has an advantage here. He is educated.

So is Ron. The difference is you can tell from his posts.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 21, 9:10 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:41:25 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>

> wrote:
>
> >On Feb 21, 10:02 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> On Feb 11, 12:35 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > On Sat, 11 Feb 2012 07:23:28 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
> >> > wrote:

> >> > > pnyikos wrote:

> >> > >> jillery wrote, addressing Ron O:

> >> > >> > And just to put the final nail in the coffin, the kind of creationist
> >> > >> > you consider yourself to be
>
> >> > >> ...is an impenetrable mystery to me.  Can you tell me which creation
> >> > >> account he believes in:
>
> >> > >> The Deistic version?
>
> >> > >> The Islamic version?
>
> >> > >> The Hindu version?
>
> >> > >> The Manichaean version?
>
> >> > >> [That last one had it that an evil Demiurge created the world, and
> >> > >> Jesus was a Savior from the realms of the true God, sent to liberate
> >> > >> us from bondage to our physical bodies.]
>
> >> > >> My guess is, "none of the above, and he's playing  this one with the
> >> > >> cards held so tightly to his chest, they might as well be
> >> > >> prosthetically fused to his chest."
>
> >> ...and he continues in the same vein below:
>
> >> > >Says the guy that denies being a creationist and won't say what type
> >> > >of creationist that he is when he admits that he is one.
>
> >> This is utter garbage.  I never admitted to being a creationist, not
> >> even according to Ron O's expansive definition.  And, unlike Tony
> >> Pagano, I was able to divine what he meant by it within a few weeks
> >> after I resumed posting to talk.origins in December 2010 after having
> >> been gone from it for almost a decade.
>
> >How many times have I caught you lying about me to other posters?

Never.

[additional irrelevant questions and alllegations by Ron O deleted
here; if jillery wants me to answer the questions and/or address the
allegations, I'm willing]

> >QUOTE:
> >I am a Christian out of commitment  and hope, rather than out of
> >conviction that  Christianity MUST be true, which I've lacked since
> >the age of 23.  And, like St. Augustine, I do not take the opening
> >chapters of Genesis to be more than a myth.
> >END QUOTE:
>
> >http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7819f32dfadd8961?hl=en\d106b63c89963

This statement by me still applies, and I've clarified it further: I
estimate the probability that there is a creator of our universe is <
1% given the evidence that has been available to me since the age of
23.

> >> > >I probably have the standard Methodist view on creation.
>
> >> There IS no standard Methodist view on creation AFAIK.

And Ron O confirmed this:

[...]

> >What do you think the paragraph means?  There is no standard about
> >creation among Methodists.

The following was posted by jillery, whom I will be addressing
directly below.

> >> > For those who argue that Ron O's definition of creationist, as
> >> > identified in the OP, is somehow fatally flawed,
>
> >> I don't.  My main point here is that Ron O needs to tell people what
> >> definition he is using every time he calls someone a creationist in
> >> talk.origins.  Otherwise people who don't know that his definition is
> >> not the usual one in talk.origins is apt to get the wrong impression.

Ron O replied with something that is irrelevant to my "every time"
above. Deleted.

jillery continued:

> >> > there is this to consider:
>
> >> >http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creationist
>
> >> > 1.A proponent or supporter of creationism.
>
> >> > and:
>
> >> >http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creationism
>
> >> > 1.(Christian theology) The doctrine that each individual human soul is
> >> > created by God, as opposed to traducianism.
>
> >> > 2.Any creationary belief, especially a belief that the origin of
> >> > things is due to an event or process of creation brought about by the
> >> > deliberate act of any divine agency, such as a Creator God (creator
> >> > god).
>
> >> > 3.The belief that a deity created the world, especially as described
> >> > in a particular religious text, such as the Book of Genesis.
> >> > According to the above, a creationist is someone who believes in *any*
> >> > creationist doctrine,

I thought I'd made things clear with the following response:

> >> I am not a believer *that* any of the above is true.  Here you are
> >> using the expression "believes in" rather than writing "believes
> >> *that* some creationist doctrine is true.  I've said several times now
> >> that my sober estimate of the probability of any of the above is <1%.
>
> >You do not believe in any type of creation?  What about where your
> >aliens come from or where the universe came from?

A corollary of my < 1%, repeated above, is that the big bang either
was uncaused or had a purely natural cause. And, given the age of the
universe, I believe the panspermists were the one-in-a-galaxy (or less
likely, maybe much less likely) case of an abiogeneis event
culminating in an intelligent species.

I deleted further questions by Ron O here; if jillery wishes, I will
answer them. And so I turn to jillery's closing comments:

> What an incredible, unreadable mess pnyikos has wrought.

I submit that it is Ron O's almost invariably irrelevant comments and
questions that made the post to which you are replying an unreadable
mess. I hope that I have been able to partially rectify that.

> I'm not sure
> what his complaint is with me, but his Miss Priss imitation needs a
> lot of work.

What is "Miss Priss" about what I wrote above? Or are you referring
to disputes between you and me elsewhere? Compared to the disputes I
have with Ron O, they are next to nothing, and if you refrain from
attacking me on this thread, I most certainly will refrain from
attacking you here.

Peter Nyikos

[Ron O]

Once Nyikos starts lying about something he can't stop even when he is
lying about lying. You can't make this junk up. Nyikos can go back
to the Insane logic thread and demonstrate that he didn't lie about me
to other posters, but you won't see him do that. He could go back to
the Dirty Debating thread where he based the whole thread on a lie
about me and then ran and started the Scottish verdict thread when his
lying became untenable. Not only that, but those are probably the tip
of the iceberg. I can't imagine listing all the times that I caught
him at it and I don't really read much of anything that he writes
except his direct responses to my posts. My estimate for the
mathematician is that I have likely read less than 10% of his posts to
other posters (most of those just partially), probably less than 5%.
It is sad when anyone can likely go through just some Nyikos posts and
understand what I am talking about. The Dirty debating thread is
really stupid because he would have gotten away with all his lies, but
he started ragging on me in other threads that I was running from
posts in that thread. A thread that I wasn't participating in and
didn't even know what he was talking about.

What Nyikos needs to do is address my posts directly instead of
pretending that he is somehow refuting the facts when he lies to other
people that most likely don't even know what he is lying about.

Anyone that wants to understand how Nyikos bogusly manipulates posts
and lies about them has to keep several windows open. Just take my
original response to Nyikos that he is currently going on about. My
post showing how he bogusly manipulated that post and then this post
to see how he bogusly manipulated that post to go on as if what he did
never happened.

The post that Nyikos was bad mouthing me about in his response to
Jillery:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/83a0a1914fd6374e?hl=en

I demonstrate what a bogus blowhard Nyikos is:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/d1ffdecb2a546063?hl=en

Now read this post and try to figure out what Nyikos is trying to do.

>
> [additional irrelevant questions and alllegations by Ron O deleted
> here; if jillery wants me to answer the questions and/or address the
> allegations, I'm willing]

What did I tell you? For some reason this material is irrelevant when
it applies directly to what Nyikos was being bogus about, and his lie
about never lying about me to other posters. You can't make this junk
up.

>

> > >QUOTE:
> > >I am a Christian out of commitment  and hope, rather than out of
> > >conviction that  Christianity MUST be true, which I've lacked since
> > >the age of 23.  And, like St. Augustine, I do not take the opening
> > >chapters of Genesis to be more than a myth.
> > >END QUOTE:
>
> > >http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7819f32dfadd8961?hl=en\d106b63c89963
>
> This statement by me still applies, and I've clarified it further: I
> estimate the probability that there is a creator of our universe is <
> 1% given the evidence that has been available to me since the age of
> 23.

Why make this inane statement and not address what the quote was
demonstrating. Anyone interested (I don't expect anyone to be
interested and this is just for Nyikos' bogus benefit) should try to
go back and figure out what Nyikos is trying to deny with this inane
statement about the quote. They will have to figure out why I put up
the quote in the first place and that won't be easy because of how
Nyikos has manipulated this post and made stupid and inane statements
instead of facing reality. What you will find if anyone makes the
effort (failure is likely) is that Nyikos is doing this to perpetuate
some past lie. I'm not kidding. The quote demonstrates that Nyikos
was misrepresenting reality and his inane response doesn't address
that issue.

>
>  > >> > >I probably have the standard Methodist view on creation.
>
>
>
> > >> There IS no standard Methodist view on creation AFAIK.
>
> And Ron O confirmed this:

Really, you have to go to my original post and understand that I
confirmed this in the same paragraph that Nyikos took my above
statement (basically out of context) and misrepresented in order to do
what? Now his "And Ron O confirmed this:" statement is about my
demonstrating that I had already confirmed it and that there was no
reason for Nyikos to make a big deal about it because of what was in
the rest of the paragraph that he chopped up and snipped out the
relevant material from.

>
> [...]

This is Nyikos snipping out the intact paragraph that I have reposted
demonstrating how he bogusly manipulated the post in order to make
stupid statements and look like he had an argument when he had none.

What does "And Ron O confirmed this:" mean in this context. Nothing.

I am not making this junk up. Just go up to the orignal posts and see
what Nyikos snipped out. As I have said before you really do need
several windows open in order to address a bogus Nyikos post.

>
> > >What do you think the paragraph means?  There is no standard about
> > >creation among Methodists.

For some reason Nyikos doesn't mark his snips and removed the relevant
material, but then likely thought better about lying about it and went
off in another direction. He obviously wanted to respond to this
paragraph, snipped out most of the paragraph and then decided to run
instead. Even if he had left in the rest of the paragraph no one
would know what the argument was about because Nyikos had already
snipped and run from most of the argument earlier in the post.
Manipulations like these are just stupid.

>
> The following was posted by jillery, whom I will be addressing
> directly below.
>
> > >> > For those who argue that Ron O's definition of creationist, as
> > >> > identified in the OP, is somehow fatally flawed,
>
> > >> I don't.  My main point here is that Ron O needs to tell people what
> > >> definition he is using every time he calls someone a creationist in
> > >> talk.origins.  Otherwise people who don't know that his definition is
> > >> not the usual one in talk.origins is apt to get the wrong impression.
>
> Ron O replied with something that is irrelevant to my "every time"
> above.  Deleted.

Nyikos is lying again. Just go up to the posts and see how irrelevant
it is.

What Nyikos deleted. It was just demonstrating that he was lying
again about the definition of creationist.

QUOTE:

I did tell you, but you snipped it up so badly in that original thread
that you couldn't tell what I said. I included YECs and Behe as well
as a Hindu creationist (Kalk) in my definition. You are only
prevaricating for some bogus reason. What was not clear about my
original definition that you took exception to? Right now you are
admitting that there was nothing wrong with it because all those
people are creationists.

END QUOTE:

Nyikos faces reality and runs and lies. There seems to be a pattern
here.

This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of where his aliens come from in
order to deny that he is a creationist. You can't make this junk up.

>
> I deleted further questions by Ron O here; if jillery wishes, I will
> answer them. And so I turn to jillery's closing comments:

Running is a way of life for Nyikos.

>
> > What an incredible, unreadable mess pnyikos has wrought.
>
> I submit that it is Ron O's almost invariably irrelevant comments and
> questions that made the post to which you are replying an unreadable
> mess.  I hope that I have been able to partially rectify that.

Nyikos can't admit that he manipulated my post so drastically that no
one could make sense of what he was actually arguing. You do need
multiple windows open in order to determine what Nyikos is doing to a
post.

The rest seems to be Nyikos the bogus liar and pretender requiring
clarification (and being snotty about it) for something that is
obvious. Can anyone figure out what Nyikos is arguing without having
several windows open to multiple posts?

Ron Okimoto

[jillery]

On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 06:13:36 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>
wrote:

>On Feb 24, 8:49 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> On Feb 21, 9:10 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

>> > What an incredible, unreadable mess pnyikos has wrought.
>>
>> I submit that it is Ron O's almost invariably irrelevant comments and
>> questions that made the post to which you are replying an unreadable
>> mess.  I hope that I have been able to partially rectify that.
>
>Nyikos can't admit that he manipulated my post so drastically that no
>one could make sense of what he was actually arguing. You do need
>multiple windows open in order to determine what Nyikos is doing to a
>post.
>
>The rest seems to be Nyikos the bogus liar and pretender requiring
>clarification (and being snotty about it) for something that is
>obvious. Can anyone figure out what Nyikos is arguing without having
>several windows open to multiple posts?
>
>Ron Okimoto

The post to which you replied appears to be intelligent designed with
that purpose in mind. Of course, appearances can be deceiving.

[Ron O]

On Feb 26, 2:50 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 06:13:36 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>

I guess intelligent design can explain everything.;-)

Ron Okimoto

[jillery]

On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 05:48:04 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>
wrote:

That must be why Iintelligent Design appeals to those who choose to
explain nothing.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 25, 9:13 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
> On Feb 24, 8:49 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Feb 21, 9:10 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:41:25 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
> > > wrote:
>
> > > >On Feb 21, 10:02 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > > >> On Feb 11, 12:35 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:

On this thread, I have been trying to stick closely to the original
theme: who is a creationist, and who is anti-science. Jillery was
focused on the latter, showing how Ron O's definition is quite
standard in the big outside world:

> > > >> > there is this to consider:
>
> > > >> >http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creationist
>
> > > >> > 1.A proponent or supporter of creationism.
>
> > > >> > and:
>
> > > >> >http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creationism
>
> > > >> > 1.(Christian theology) The doctrine that each individual human soul is
> > > >> > created by God, as opposed to traducianism.
>
> > > >> > 2.Any creationary belief, especially a belief that the origin of
> > > >> > things is due to an event or process of creation brought about by the
> > > >> > deliberate act of any divine agency, such as a Creator God (creator
> > > >> > god).
>
> > > >> > 3.The belief that a deity created the world, especially as described
> > > >> > in a particular religious text, such as the Book of Genesis.
> > > >> > According to the above, a creationist is someone who believes in *any*
> > > >> > creationist doctrine,
>

I thought I'd made clear where I stood with the following response:

> > > >> I am not a believer *that* any of the above is true.  Here you are
> > > >> using the expression "believes in" rather than writing "believes
> > > >> *that* some creationist doctrine is true.  I've said several times now
> > > >> that my sober estimate of the probability of any of the above is <1%.

Ron O was skeptical of the above, and so he asked:

> > > >You do not believe in any type of creation?  What about where your
> > > >aliens come from or where the universe came from?

And I answered what I *thought* was the question with:

> > A corollary of my < 1%, repeated above, is that the big bang either
> > was uncaused or had a purely natural cause.  And, given the age of the
> > universe, I believe the panspermists were the one-in-a-galaxy (or less
> > likely, maybe much less likely) case of an abiogeneis event
> > culminating in an intelligent species.
>
> This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of where his aliens come from in
> order to deny that he is a creationist.  You can't make this junk up.

Ron, I thought you remembered that I had said that, according to my
theory, the panspermists never visited earth themselves, but sent far
less expensive probes to earth and other promising planets. They need
never have left their home "solar system" at all.

Hence I understood "where they came from" as an informal way of asking
HOW they arose, not where their home planet was. The latter question
seems completely irrelevant to whether I am a creationist or not.

But, just to satisfy your curiosity of their whereabouts, I'll add
something that is more or less implicit in the sum total of what I
have posted about my hypothesis a number of times.

I estimate there being over 99% probability that their planet was
within 3000 parsecs of ours when the seeding of earth took place.

I estimate there being over 90% probability that their planet was
within 1000 parsecs of ours when the seeding of earth took place.

I estimate there being over 50% probability that their planet was
within 300 parsecs of ours when the seeding of earth took place. That
seems to be a reasonable upper bound to how far unicellular eukaryotes
can be sent by a probe at 1/10th the speed of light, the highest speed
that seems feasible with our present knowledge of science.

Those earlier estimates apply to the sending of prokaryotes. As Crick
was fond of writing, "prokaryotes travel farther."

> > I deleted further questions by Ron O here; if jillery wishes, I will
> > answer them. And so I turn to jillery's closing comments:
>
> Running is a way of life for Nyikos.

Why don't you persuade jillery to ask me to answer them? [s]he seems
to be quite fond of you.

> > > What an incredible, unreadable mess pnyikos has wrought.
>
> > I submit that it is Ron O's almost invariably irrelevant comments and
> > questions that made the post to which you are replying an unreadable
> > mess.  I hope that I have been able to partially rectify that.
>
> Nyikos can't admit that he manipulated my post so drastically that no
> one could make sense of what he was actually arguing.

On the contrary, deleting mountains of verbiage on other issues by you
should have made it very clear that I was explaining to jillery where
I stood on creationism as you and [s]he define it.

After all, I was replying to jillery, not to you.

> The rest seems to be Nyikos [...] requiring

> clarification (and being snotty about it) for something that is
> obvious.

If so, would you mind telling me the "obvious" meaning?

[rehash of "manipulated" complaint deleted here]

> Ron Okimoto
>
> > > I'm not sure
> > > what his complaint is with me, but his Miss Priss imitation needs a
> > > lot of work.
>
> > What is "Miss Priss" about what I wrote above?  Or are you referring
> > to disputes between you and me elsewhere?

Would you mind telling me the "obvious" answer to this last question?

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 28, 3:59 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> On this thread, I have been trying to stick closely to the original
> theme: who is a creationist, and who is anti-science.  Jillery was
> focused on the latter,

Oops, I meant the former. The sequel made that obvious, but some
people just look at little bits of posts and then decide whether to
read the rest.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 26, 2:22 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 05:48:04 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>

> wrote:
>
>
>
> >On Feb 26, 2:50 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 06:13:36 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
> >> wrote:
>
> >> >On Feb 24, 8:49 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> >> On Feb 21, 9:10 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> [...]
>
> >> >> > What an incredible, unreadable mess pnyikos has wrought.
>
> >> >> I submit that it is Ron O's almost invariably irrelevant comments and
> >> >> questions that made the post to which you are replying an unreadable
> >> >> mess.  I hope that I have been able to partially rectify that.
>
> >> >Nyikos can't admit that he manipulated my post so drastically that no
> >> >one could make sense of what he was actually arguing.  You do need
> >> >multiple windows open in order to determine what Nyikos is doing to a
> >> >post.
>
> >> >The rest seems to be Nyikos the bogus liar and pretender requiring
> >> >clarification (and being snotty about it) for something that is
> >> >obvious.  Can anyone figure out what Nyikos is arguing without having
> >> >several windows open to multiple posts?
>
> >> >Ron Okimoto
>
> >> The post to which you replied appears to be intelligent designed with
> >> that purpose in mind.

Literally true ("without having several windows open"), as I explained
to Ron O less than half an hour ago: I cut out mountains of verbiage
by Ron O having nothing to do with the issue of which (if either) of
us is a creationist, and focused exclusively on that issue -- except
for answering one question with "Never" and offering to elaborate if
you wished me to.

So far, you have not expressed any such wish.

And did you notice how Ron O confirmed something that made hash out of
his only attempt at letting us know something about what sort of
creationist he was? His only attempt came when he said he believed
that his position was the standard Methodist position, then he
confirmed that there WAS no standard Methodist position.

When I pointed this out, he posted another mountain of verbiage
complaining about my belaboring the obvious. Can you figure out why
he was so miffed about this?

> Of course, appearances can be deceiving.
>
> >I guess intelligent design can explain everything.;-)
>
> >Ron Okimoto
>
> That must be why Iintelligent Design appeals to those who choose to
> explain nothing.

In that case, it should appeal to you: you chose to explain nothing
about your "Miss Priss" comment, having never replied to the post
where I asked you two questions about it:

___________begin repost_____________

> I'm not sure
> what his complaint is with me, but his Miss Priss imitation needs a
> lot of work.

What is "Miss Priss" about what I wrote above? Or are you referring
to disputes between you and me elsewhere?

========= end of repost
from http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a4e1b0d6a235bcac


My best guess is that you are referring to another thread on which
someone did a post strongly suggesting that Werner Von Braun was an
anti-Slav bigot who was bent on genocide against Slavs, specifically
those in the Soviet Union; thus wanting to continue Hitler's own
genocidal policies against them.

In your reply, you ignored these accusations but chose to focus on him
giving Von Braun too much credit for anti-communism. Meanwhile you
had a long running feud with someone else about much milder statements
by him about Von Braun. I guess my asking you why you were barking up
what I thought was the wrong tree was a "Miss Priss" imitation in your
book.

Did I guess right?

Peter Nyikos

[John Stockwell]

On Feb 10, 1:51 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> Nyikos:

> ID is not creationism;  the DI theorists maintain that the question of
> whether the designer is supernatural or natural is beyond
> the reach of science; and so the DI takes no official position on it.

ID is most definitely creationism! It is phoney science that is
generated for the express purpose of supporting a religious agenda.

>
> Granted, almost all of them do believe that the designer
> is supernatural, but they keep that out of their public
> reasonings.

What reasonings? It's not reasoning, it is apologetics.

>
> Having read the Dover decision, [which takes
> up less than a page of the voluminous Opinion of the Court]
> I now see more clearly than ever why the DI posted on
> the constitutional right of teachers to teach about ID.
>

> The statement that the Dover School
> Board forced teachers to recite was so radical,  just about any
> student hearing it could be expected take it as saying that  creation
> is totally at odds with all evolution, and the decision rightly
> prohibited this statement.

Let's not forget Dr. Stealth Cdesign Proponentist, that these "ID
science
teaching teachers" were using Of Pandas and People as their textbook.
When the leading textbook of "ID science" is a warmed over
and redacted scientific creationist propaganda book, that makes
ID= creationism.

>
> The decision did not say teaching intelligent design is
> unconstitutional, it said that  it is unconstitutional to teach it AS
> AN ALTERNATIVE TO EVOLUTION.  And given the context,
> I take this to mean "as an alternative to there being any
> evolution at all".

Teaching ID as science in a science class is the same thing as
teaching creationism. It's a duck test.

> I'm trying to argue with him on the very topic of the linked post,
> viz., the concept of natural selection, but it's a rather slender peg
> on which to hang a verdict of "anti-science"

creationist = pseudoscience
The political position of teaching pseudoscience as science in a
public school is anti-science in the service of an agenda.

At best, Nyikos is a stealth fellow traveler the ID-creationist anti-
science
anti civilization movement. Maybe he is an innocent dupe, softpedaling
ID because one of his family members or buddies are into it.

Or he is just mentally ill. The
fact that he debates with Ron O could be evidence of the latter.


>
> Peter Nyikos

-John

[pnyikos]

On Feb 28, 5:19 pm, John Stockwell <john.19071...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 10, 1:51 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > Nyikos:
> > ID is not creationism;  the DI theorists maintain that the question of
> > whether the designer is supernatural or natural is beyond
> > the reach of science; and so the DI takes no official position on it.
>
> ID is most definitely creationism! It is phoney science that is
> generated for the express purpose of supporting a religious agenda.

The motivation most of its practitioners may be that, but you are
committing a mild approximation to the mirror image of the Martinez
fallacy that evolution is an atheistic theory, generated for the
express purpose of destroying belief in God.

>
>
> > Granted, almost all of them do believe that the designer
> > is supernatural, but they keep that out of their public
> > reasonings.
>
> What reasonings? It's not  reasoning, it is apologetics.

Do you even know what "It" is? Let's see you find a bunch of
apologetics in the following website:

http://www.discovery.org/a/2640

Disclaimer 1: I haven't had a chance to read most of the above site,
much less verify what it says.

Disclaimer 2: Despite a lot of scuttlebutt you may have read, I am
not in the business of defending most or all of what any of the
following have done: Behe, Dembski, Johnson, the Discovery Insitute
(DI). I am a foe of creationism in any of its usual forms, because I
am convinced of the truth of common descent of all earth organisms
from a few kinds of unicellular organisms.

I am, however, in the business of counterbalancing some of the rabid
and often unjust attacks being made on Behe and the DI (and also on
myself) here. I am not sufficiently familiar with the works of either
Dembski or the creationists to do anything except ask for
clarifications of negative comments about them.

Disclaimer 3: I am not a fan of the scientific side of ID except where
it has to do with directed panspermia.

> > Having read the Dover decision, [which takes
> > up less than a page of the voluminous Opinion of the Court]
> > I now see more clearly than ever why the DI posted on
> > the constitutional right of teachers to teach about ID.
>
> > The statement that the Dover School
> > Board forced teachers to recite was so radical,  just about any
> > student hearing it could be expected take it as saying that  creation
> > is totally at odds with all evolution, and the decision rightly
> > prohibited this statement.
>
> Let's not forget Dr. Stealth Cdesign Proponentist,

Yes, IIRC that was in a preliminary draft of _Of Pandas and People_
[not to be confused with _The Panda's Thumb_] that was leaked to the
internet, to the delight of numerous people including, I believe,
yourself.

If my recollection is correct, it stands to reason that it was
corrected in the actual published book.

> that these "ID science
> teaching teachers" were using Of Pandas and People as their textbook.

False, again assuming my recollection is correct.

> When the leading textbook of "ID science" is a warmed over
> and redacted scientific creationist propaganda book,

Is it? Have you compared it with the original version?

> that makes ID= creationism.

Your logic is far from impeccable here.

> > The decision did not say teaching intelligent design is
> > unconstitutional, it said that  it is unconstitutional to teach it AS
> > AN ALTERNATIVE TO EVOLUTION.  And given the context,
> > I take this to mean "as an alternative to there being any
> > evolution at all".
>
> Teaching ID as science in a science class is the same thing as
> teaching creationism. It's a duck test.

Not necessarily. See Disclaimer 3 above.

> > I'm trying to argue with him on the very topic of the linked post,
> > viz., the concept of natural selection, but it's a rather slender peg
> > on which to hang a verdict of "anti-science"
>
> creationist = pseudoscience

Since Okimoto defines "creationist" as one who believes in a creator,
you are either disagreeing with him here or else you are a knee-jerk
atheist.

> At best, Nyikos is a stealth fellow traveler the ID-creationist anti-
> science
> anti civilization movement.

Utter bilge, see Disclaimers 2 and 3 above.

> Maybe he is an innocent dupe, softpedaling
> ID because one of his family members or buddies are into it.

Like I told you last time, Stockwell, your concept of me is pure
fantasy, always has been.

>  Or he is just mentally ill. The
> fact that he debates with Ron O could be evidence of the latter.

Does that knife cut both ways in The World According to John
Stockwell?

Peter Nyikos

[Ron O]

On Feb 28, 2:59 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> On Feb 25, 9:13 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > On Feb 24, 8:49 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > On Feb 21, 9:10 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:41:25 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
> > > > wrote:
>
> > > > >On Feb 21, 10:02 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > > > >> On Feb 11, 12:35 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On this thread, I have been trying to stick closely to the original
> theme: who is a creationist, and who is anti-science.  Jillery was
> focused on the latter, showing how Ron O's definition is quite
> standard in the big outside world:

Anyone that thinks that Nyikos is responding to my post in an honest
manner can go to the original post and check out what he is supposed
to be responding to. There is no indication for most of the snips.

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/60c5e5b6d3a3f2e9?hl=en&

This is likely another post where I will need multiple windows open
just to see what the heck I wrote.

>
> > > > >> > there is this to consider:
>
> > > > >> >http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creationist
>
> > > > >> > 1.A proponent or supporter of creationism.
>
> > > > >> > and:
>
> > > > >> >http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/creationism
>
> > > > >> > 1.(Christian theology) The doctrine that each individual human soul is
> > > > >> > created by God, as opposed to traducianism.
>
> > > > >> > 2.Any creationary belief, especially a belief that the origin of
> > > > >> > things is due to an event or process of creation brought about by the
> > > > >> > deliberate act of any divine agency, such as a Creator God (creator
> > > > >> > god).
>
> > > > >> > 3.The belief that a deity created the world, especially as described
> > > > >> > in a particular religious text, such as the Book of Genesis.
> > > > >> > According to the above, a creationist is someone who believes in *any*
> > > > >> > creationist doctrine,
>
> I thought I'd made clear where I stood with the following response:

Jillery wrote what you are responding to.

>
> > > > >> I am not a believer *that* any of the above is true.  Here you are
> > > > >> using the expression "believes in" rather than writing "believes
> > > > >> *that* some creationist doctrine is true.  I've said several times now
> > > > >> that my sober estimate of the probability of any of the above is <1%.
>
> Ron O was skeptical of the above, and so he asked:
>
> > > > >You do not believe in any type of creation?  What about where your
> > > > >aliens come from or where the universe came from?
>
> And I answered what I *thought* was the question with:

Nyikos manipulated what I wrote by snipping out the part of the
paragraph that he didn't want to deal with. I will put it back in so
you can see how bogus Nyikos' response was.

QUOTE:

You do not believe in any type of creation? What about where your

aliens come from or where the universe came from? What about the soul
that you may think that you have? I have never met a Christian that
did not believe in a creator so you may be the exception.

END QUOTE:

These are standard examples of why people are called creationists.
There are various forms. Some are YEC so called Biblical literalists
and other believe in creation of the universe or creation of immortal
souls etc. Nyikos snipped out material so he could run in denial.

>
> > > A corollary of my < 1%, repeated above, is that the big bang either
> > > was uncaused or had a purely natural cause.  And, given the age of the
> > > universe, I believe the panspermists were the one-in-a-galaxy (or less
> > > likely, maybe much less likely) case of an abiogeneis event
> > > culminating in an intelligent species.
>
> > This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of where his aliens come from in
> > order to deny that he is a creationist.  You can't make this junk up.

Exactly right and what does Nyikos claim?

>
> Ron, I thought you remembered that I had said that, according to my
> theory, the panspermists never visited earth themselves, but sent far
> less expensive probes to earth and other promising planets.  They need
> never have left their home "solar system" at all.

What does this have to do with what you are dodging?

>
> Hence I understood "where they came from" as an informal way of asking
> HOW they arose, not where their home planet was. The latter question
> seems completely irrelevant to whether I am a creationist or not.

Hence you manipulated the post so that you could pretend that this is
some sort of valid argument.

You did understand the paragraph, you chose to dishonestly manipulate
it so that you could continue to lie.

>
> But, just to satisfy your curiosity of their whereabouts, I'll add
> something that is more or less implicit in the sum total of what I
> have posted about my hypothesis a number of times.
>
> I estimate there being over 99% probability that their planet was
> within 3000 parsecs of ours when the seeding of earth took place.

So what? Does this change what you believe about where your Christian
soul came from or where the universe came from?

>
> I estimate there being over 90% probability that their planet was
> within 1000 parsecs of ours when the seeding of earth took place.

So what?

>
> I estimate there being over 50% probability that their planet was
> within 300 parsecs of ours when the seeding of earth took place.  That
> seems to be a reasonable upper bound to how far unicellular eukaryotes
> can be sent by a probe at 1/10th the speed of light, the highest speed
> that seems feasible with our present knowledge of science.

So what?

>
> Those earlier estimates apply to the sending of prokaryotes.  As Crick
> was fond of writing, "prokaryotes travel farther."

So what? You wrote all of this out so that you could continue to lie
about being a creationist.

>
> > > I deleted further questions by Ron O here; if jillery wishes, I will
> > > answer them. And so I turn to jillery's closing comments:
>
> > Running is a way of life for Nyikos.
>
> Why don't you persuade jillery to ask me to answer them?  [s]he seems
> to be quite fond of you.

Why should I? You should do the right thing on your own. Why do you
need someone to be your moral guide?

>
> > > > What an incredible, unreadable mess pnyikos has wrought.
>
> > > I submit that it is Ron O's almost invariably irrelevant comments and
> > > questions that made the post to which you are replying an unreadable
> > > mess.  I hope that I have been able to partially rectify that.
>
> > Nyikos can't admit that he manipulated my post so drastically that no
> > one could make sense of what he was actually arguing.
>
> On the contrary, deleting mountains of verbiage on other issues by you
> should have made it very clear that I was explaining to jillery where
> I stood on creationism as you and [s]he define it.

Anyone can check out the lies. I guess a couple inconvenient lines
from a paragraph is mountains when you can't deal with reality.

>
> After all, I was replying to jillery, not to you.

Why is that? Why lie to other posters about me and make false
statements about what I have written while bogusly manipulating my
posts? Why not deal with my post directly?

>
> > The rest seems to be Nyikos [...] requiring
> > clarification (and being snotty about it) for something that is
> > obvious.
>
> If so, would you mind telling me the "obvious" meaning?
>
> [rehash of "manipulated" complaint deleted here]
>
> > Ron Okimoto
>
> > > > I'm not sure
> > > > what his complaint is with me, but his Miss Priss imitation needs a
> > > > lot of work.
>
> > > What is "Miss Priss" about what I wrote above?  Or are you referring
> > > to disputes between you and me elsewhere?
>
> Would you mind telling me the "obvious" answer to this last question?
>
> Peter Nyikos

What is weird is that Nyikos even manipulated what he wrote deleting
parts to make it look like he was just asking the questions. You

can't make this junk up.

QUOTE:

> > I'm not sure
> > what his complaint is with me, but his Miss Priss imitation needs a
> > lot of work.

> What is "Miss Priss" about what I wrote above? Or are you referring

> to disputes between you and me elsewhere? Compared to the disputes I
> have with Ron O, they are next to nothing, and if you refrain from
> attacking me on this thread, I most certainly will refrain from
> attacking you here.

> Peter Nyikos

END QUOTE:

What wasn't miss priss about it? Did you have a valid point in your
entire response? Where you being snotty while lying about everything?

Ron Okimoto

[Ron O]

On Feb 28, 4:57 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> On Feb 28, 5:19 pm, John Stockwell <john.19071...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Feb 10, 1:51 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > Nyikos:
> > > ID is not creationism; the DI theorists maintain that the question of
> > > whether the designer is supernatural or natural is beyond
> > > the reach of science; and so the DI takes no official position on it.
>
> > ID is most definitely creationism! It is phoney science that is
> > generated for the express purpose of supporting a religious agenda.
>
> The motivation most of its practitioners may be that, but you are
> committing a mild approximation to the mirror image of the Martinez
> fallacy that evolution is an atheistic theory, generated for the
> express purpose of destroying belief in God.

No, just stating the reality of the situation. Atheism doesn't have
anything to do with the ID perps running the ID bait and switch scam
on their own creationist support base for the last 10 years. The only
IDiots left are the ignorant, incompetent and or dishonest. Nyikos
knows this to be a fact. Where is the ID science worth teaching to
school kids? Who is still claiming to be able to teach the junk in
the public schools? Who runs the bait and switch on anyone stupid
enough to have believed that they do have the ID science? You have
been in denial of the facts for over a year and you likely hate the ID
perps worse than anyone posting on this group, and all you can do is
prevaricate about the issue. How sad is that?

>
> > > Granted, almost all of them do believe that the designer
> > > is supernatural, but they keep that out of their public
> > > reasonings.
>
> > What reasonings? It's not reasoning, it is apologetics.
>
> Do you even know what "It" is? Let's see you find a bunch of
> apologetics in the following website:

ID was just a bogus scam. They never had the science to back up their
claims and you have even admitted that Philip Johnson got it right
when he finally bailed out of the ID scam and quit, admitting that
there was no ID science worth teaching.

>
> http://www.discovery.org/a/2640
>
> Disclaimer 1: I haven't had a chance to read most of the above site,
> much less verify what it says.

You should have read their mission statement from the late 1990s (I
did give it to you). You should have read their bogus claim about
having the scientific theory of inteilligent design to teach in the
public schools in their official statement up on their web site. You
did claim that I took the quote out of context, so you must know the
context, at least, enough to lie about it. Why did you run when I
posted the entire statement instead of point out the context that you
were talking about?

>
> Disclaimer 2: Despite a lot of scuttlebutt you may have read, I am
> not in the business of defending most or all of what any of the
> following have done: Behe, Dembski, Johnson, the Discovery Insitute
> (DI). I am a foe of creationism in any of its usual forms, because I
> am convinced of the truth of common descent of all earth organisms
> from a few kinds of unicellular organisms.

Nyikos means lie number two. This is the guy that has denied that the
bait and switch has been going down for a decade. The guy that never
put up any evidence for his contentions, and only prevaricated about
the evidence that was put forward. This is the guy that was defending
IC when he first came back to TO a year ago. This is the guy that got
all hot and bothered about Claims about Behe. He even claimed that I
was lying about things like what Behe had testified about and had
clarified after the Dover trial. Nyikos trying to rewrite history
because he was caught trying to defend a bogus scam, and was so
dishonest about the effort that all he can do is lie at this point in
time.

>
> I am, however, in the business of counterbalancing some of the rabid
> and often unjust attacks being made on Behe and the DI (and also on
> myself) here. I am not sufficiently familiar with the works of either
> Dembski or the creationists to do anything except ask for
> clarifications of negative comments about them.

By counter balance he means lie in any way that he thinks that he can
get away with.

Just check out the last post that I responded to and how Nyikos has to
manipulate the posts to appear to counter balance reality.
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/e97fe8bb776a936f?hl=en

>
> Disclaimer 3: I am not a fan of the scientific side of ID except where
> it has to do with directed panspermia.

Probably some type of truthful statment, but what did you do when you
found out that IC was nothing but an untestable hypothesis? With its
only use being running the bait and switch scam?

>
> > > Having read the Dover decision, [which takes
> > > up less than a page of the voluminous Opinion of the Court]
> > > I now see more clearly than ever why the DI posted on
> > > the constitutional right of teachers to teach about ID.
>
> > > The statement that the Dover School
> > > Board forced teachers to recite was so radical, just about any
> > > student hearing it could be expected take it as saying that creation
> > > is totally at odds with all evolution, and the decision rightly
> > > prohibited this statement.
>
> > Let's not forget Dr. Stealth Cdesign Proponentist,
>
> Yes, IIRC that was in a preliminary draft of _Of Pandas and People_
> [not to be confused with _The Panda's Thumb_] that was leaked to the
> internet, to the delight of numerous people including, I believe,
> yourself.

I gave Nyikos the links to this at the NCSE, so he should know
better. He even read some of the court transcripts so he had a shot
at it there. Pandas and People was a major reason why ID was found to
be such a bogus scam during the Dover trial. Barbara Forest's
testimony should be read by guys like Nyikos that still don't have a
clue about the extent of the ID scam. Dembski sat in on Forrest's
deposition and then ran. He was editing the third edition of Panda's
at the time, and apparently there was a request for drafts of that
book that were dropped when Dembski ran away. Discovery Institute
fellows Kenyon and Thaxton were responsible for the original Pandas
and People. Apparently, some of the other Discovery Institute fellows
such as Behe (Behe admits that he wrote part of Pandas) were involved
in writing versions of the book, but were not credited. The book was
a reaction to the absurd fact that when scientific creationism went to
court in Arkansas because the creation science law was passed it was
found to be the case in court that there were no scientific
publications to use to teach creationism. There were no textbooks on
the subject that were not laced with religious indoctrination.
Panda's was suppposed to change that. So several drafts of Pandas had
been written by the time the Supreme court heard the Louisiana
creation science court case. When creation science was found to be
bogus and not any type of science that could be taught in the public
schools there was a miraculous change in the subsequent drafts of
Pandas and People. Creationism totally disappeared and was replaced
by intelligent design. They could tell by the dates of the drafts
that this change occurred right after the court ruling. People like
to make fun of "cdesign proponentsists" because it is a transitional
fossil of how creationism became intelligent design. Without changing
the surrounding paragraph they simply replaced "creationists" with
"design proponents."

Nyikos also has been given evidence in the form of a journal article
where the Discovery Institute ID perps advocated teaching intelligent
design in the public schools and were also advocating the use of
Pandas and People as an intelligent design textbook, so he knows how
bogus cdesign proponentsists makes the ID scam.

After all this and being given the Discovery Institute's mission
statement from the late 1990's with the God and Adam logo and the
claims about a creator god, Nyikos can still deny that the ID perps
are creationists.

>
> If my recollection is correct, it stands to reason that it was
> corrected in the actual published book.

Yes that example was corrected in the final book. All mention of
creationism was expunged from the book, with mostly little or no
change to the surrounding text. Nyikos might read Forrest's testimony
to see how extensive the stupid deed actually was. It wasn't just a
few instances, but throughout the entire book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District

>
> > that these "ID science
> > teaching teachers" were using Of Pandas and People as their textbook.
>
> False, again assuming my recollection is correct.

Your recollection is not correct.

>
> > When the leading textbook of "ID science" is a warmed over
> > and redacted scientific creationist propaganda book,
>
> Is it? Have you compared it with the original version?

Forrest did. There were multiple drafts entered as evidence.

>
> > that makes ID= creationism.
>
> Your logic is far from impeccable here.

Even to the ID perps intelligent design was creationism. They just
had to start lying about that fact when the Supreme court said that it
was illegal to teach creationism in the science class.

>
> > > The decision did not say teaching intelligent design is
> > > unconstitutional, it said that it is unconstitutional to teach it AS
> > > AN ALTERNATIVE TO EVOLUTION. And given the context,
> > > I take this to mean "as an alternative to there being any
> > > evolution at all".
>
> > Teaching ID as science in a science class is the same thing as
> > teaching creationism. It's a duck test.
>
> Not necessarily. See Disclaimer 3 above.

There is no ID science to teach, or are you going to claim that you
did not admit to that fact? You did finally claim to agree with
Johnson and you stopped lying about the ID science and started to
concentrate on falsely claiming that the ID perps never claimed to be
able to teach the science of intelligent design in the public
schools. Remember the two lies that you had to decide upon? You took
the later lie to heart. Now you know the facts and all you can do is
abject denial.

>
> > > I'm trying to argue with him on the very topic of the linked post,
> > > viz., the concept of natural selection, but it's a rather slender peg
> > > on which to hang a verdict of "anti-science"
>
> > creationist = pseudoscience
>
> Since Okimoto defines "creationist" as one who believes in a creator,
> you are either disagreeing with him here or else you are a knee-jerk
> atheist.

Lots of people have their own definition of creationist. Some like
yourself and the ID perps just want to lie about something so they
deny that they are creationists. That doesn't mean that my definition
is wrong, but it does tell you something about the liars.

>
> > At best, Nyikos is a stealth fellow traveler the ID-creationist anti-
> > science
> > anti civilization movement.
>
> Utter bilge, see Disclaimers 2 and 3 above.

You lie about so many things that he could be right about this, but
I'll reserve judgement. Even a stopped clock has to be right twice a
day. On this issue you likely are in error more often than a stopped
clock but that is only because you have so many lies to tell by now.

>
> > Maybe he is an innocent dupe, softpedaling
> > ID because one of his family members or buddies are into it.
>
> Like I told you last time, Stockwell, your concept of me is pure
> fantasy, always has been.

You are a liar and prevaricator. You are also an asshole that would
create a whole thread to claim someone else was running from one post
from a troll thread, make up lies about the person and try to pretend
that you did it for some credible reason. That is just the type of
person that you are. At the time that you created that bogus thread
how many posts were you running from (actually running, Nyikos knows
that I didn't even know his example even existed) by your own
definition of running? Around 10 just from the Insane logic thread
that you started because you got caught lying in the Dirty debating
thread that you started so that you could lie about me to other
posters because you were getting your butt kicked in other threads.
How pathetic is this series of events? Just go back to those posts
and justify the Insane Logic thread, the dirty debating thread, the
misdirection thread etc that you started. You only wish that I am
making this junk up.

>
> > Or he is just mentally ill. The
> > fact that he debates with Ron O could be evidence of the latter.
>
> Does that knife cut both ways in The World According to John
> Stockwell?
>
> Peter Nyikos

Nyikos should complement him, but this is all he can do. Nyikos
doesn't debate so much as tell stories and lie a lot. Nyikos could
try to demonstrate that I am wrong, but he would have to address all
those posts that he is running from or has lied about for the last
year.

Ron Okimoto

[Ron O]

This is getting ridiculous. Respond to my posts directly and don't
expect me to read the junk that you write to other posters, and stop
lying in such posts. You are pathetic. Is there some sane reason why
you can't answer my posts directly? It is likely my fault because I
don't read much of anything that you write to other posters and jsut
the few posts that I do read I know how much you get a way with by
spouting off to them behind my back, but does it really make you feel
better to get away with the lies in such a bogus manner?

Ron Okimoto

>
> So far, you have not expressed any such wish.
>
> And did you notice how Ron O confirmed something that made hash out of
> his only attempt at letting us know something about what sort of
> creationist he was?  His only attempt came when he said he believed
> that his position was the standard Methodist position, then he
> confirmed that there WAS no standard Methodist position.
>
> When I pointed this out, he posted another mountain of verbiage
> complaining about my belaboring the obvious.  Can you figure out why
> he was so miffed about this?
>
> > Of course, appearances can be deceiving.
>
> > >I guess intelligent design can explain everything.;-)
>
> > >Ron Okimoto
>
> > That must be why Iintelligent Design appeals to those who choose to
> > explain nothing.
>
> In that case, it should appeal to you: you chose to explain nothing
> about your "Miss Priss" comment, having never replied to the post
> where I asked you two questions about it:
>
> ___________begin repost_____________
>
> > I'm not sure
> > what his complaint is with me, but his Miss Priss imitation needs a
> > lot of work.
>
> What is "Miss Priss" about what I wrote above?  Or are you referring
> to disputes between you and me elsewhere?
> ========= end of repost

> fromhttp://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a4e1b0d6a235bcac

[jillery]

On Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:28:06 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>
wrote:

Ron, I admire your craft to have him hoist from his own petard, but
he's seems interested only in ignoring the elephant in the room, and I
have no dog in this fight, so unless I can come up with another
cliche, I leave to you beat this dead horse.

[pnyikos]

As with Alan Kleinman, I am spacing out my replies to Ron O. He
obviously wants me to reply to posts on his timetable, giving him
priority over everyone else in talk.origins, but I'm not in the
business of catering to his whims.

Right now, my top priority is nailing Alan Kleinman's hide to the
wall. And even with him, I'm on a quota of one
post per day (or less) for the foreseeable future. Since far more
people are interested in my nailing Kleinman than in my long-runniing
feud with Ron O, I'm limiting myself to three replies per week to him,
or less.

And that's still a lot more than he deserves, as I have remarked many
times.

I did, yesterday. I responded directly to you and I responded
directly to "jillery". I also responded directly to John Stockman.

You are responding directly to a reply I did to jillery.

You and I aren't the only people posting here, much as you might like
to think otherwise.

> and don't
> expect me to read the junk that you write to other posters,

I figured you would read it, and even if you hadn't, so what? I
never write things to other people about you (or anyone else for that
matter) that I don't intend eventually to say to their faces.

That reminds me: on threads where you weren't there, I told other
posters that you have an attitude of "le reality, c'est moi".

> and stop lying in such posts.

I was giving my honest opinion of you, and it's a direct paraphrasal
of something a king of France said, "L'etat, c'est moi." Obviously he
didn't mean it literally, and neither do I. But your attitude is
analogous to his.

> You are pathetic.  Is there some sane reason why
> you can't answer my posts directly?

I can, and I do sometimes, like yesterday. But I've got my
priorities, as I remarked above.

I began the process of nailing Kleinman's hide to the wall in earnest
near the end of the following post:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/b4ecacb1256fca9d
[ Excerpt:]
> Peter, you need to go back and review your introductory probability
> theory. Look up the meaning of “conditional” probability which is the
> probability of event B occurring after event A has occurred.

WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!

Conditional probability is totally indifferent to the sequence in
which events occur.
____________ end of excerpt______________

Naturally, he tried to break loose:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/611de5946baaeb69

But he only made his situation worse, as I showed here;

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/2fc5513dfd345f3a

He then got desperate, flinging one demonstrably false accusation
after another:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/73e33d93e26587fb

and I drove in two more nails with:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/5ec13a946747767c

and with:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/1564ad9d86f3a47a

I drove in another nail on Monday, and today I've driven in two more
nails [I skipped yesterday]; urls on request--or you could start
following that thread yourself.

Peter Nyikos

[Ron O]

On Feb 29, 2:51 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> As with Alan Kleinman, I am spacing out my replies to Ron O.  He
> obviously wants me to reply to posts on his timetable, giving him
> priority over everyone else in talk.origins, but I'm not in the
> business of catering to his whims.

Nyikos always comes out with this lie, and there was no time table. I
just clearly stated that if Nyikos reponds to what I write then he
should respond to what I write to me and not lie to someone else and
think that he is getting away with something. I even admitted that I
was partly at fault for Nyikos' bogus behavior because I don't usually
read his posts to other posters, and he has found that out and so it
has become his main outlet for his bogus lies. Nyikos is just that
type of person. Just count up the posts that he could have responded
to instead of making bogus claims to other posters. Not only that,
but I just basically respond to the posts that he posts to me, so if
he isn't willing to defend his bogus lies he just should not post the
bogus posts if he claims to have better things to do.

Nyikos is obviously trying to address the material by posting the lies
to other posters. I had no timetable. I just told him that he should
address my posts directly instead of doing the bogus junk that he has
a bad habit of doing.

Now, Nyikos keeps claiming that he never lies, but what is he doing
with this bogus paragraph? How simple can it be? If he wants to
respond to what I write, then he should respond to what I write.

>
> Right now, my top priority is nailing Alan Kleinman's hide to the
> wall.  And even with him, I'm on a quota of one
> post per day (or less) for the foreseeable future.  Since far more
> people are interested in my nailing Kleinman  than in my long-runniing
> feud with Ron O, I'm limiting myself to three replies per week to him,
> or less.

I could care less about Kleinman. We are concerned with what you post
to me and not Kleinman unless you are lying to him about me in those
posts. Should I check? You take the time to write the bogus posts.
I'm not responsible for the bogus things that you do with your time.
Making lame excuses for running when you claim that running is so bad
(Nyikos' claim not mine. Just ask him what the person running from a
post like he is guilty of for so many posts is in danger of. What a
coward they are etc.). He keeps bring up these limits about 1 post or
3 posts per week and then violates them at will when he wants to, but
not to answer his previous bogus posts, but to create more bogus
posts. The limit that he places on posts just lets him have an excuse
for running when he posts more than that and doesn't take
responsibility for what he writes and runs. Why put a limit on the
number of posts when there obviously is no limit to your lying and you
waste so many post lying about me to other posters. Really Nyikos
knows that this 1 to 3 posts per week limit (it has varied over time)
only started after Nyikos found himself running from a significant
number of posts and needed the lame excuse. It did not stop him from
creating his bogus threads and violating his limit whenever he wanted
to lie in more posts than that. He just uses it to lie to himself
about running away. Just look in this thread and the posts that
Nyikos is not dealing with. He posts the junk he should be prepared
to defend the bogus junk when he gets called on it. Especially when
he is lying about someone else.

>
> And that's still a lot more than he deserves, as I have remarked many
> times.

I basically respond to what Nyikos writes to me. The bogus one is
obviously Nyikos. If he could stop himself from lying he wouldn't
have to make excuses for running away so often. This introduction has
pretty much been one big lie. Nyikos knows this to be fact because he
has been called on these claims before and run away. Running away and
then lying about the same junk in multiple other posts isn't anything
to be proud of. You won't see Nyikos counter with any evidence
because what I claim is all true. I do not have to make this junk
up. Nyikos does have to make the junk up, so he has to pretend that
there is some other reason why he has to run from his bogus deeds.

So stick with it. Don't lie to other people. It is bad enough
reading the bogus junk that you write to me. There is no excuse for
your bogus behavior. You make the claims, you are accountable for
what you write. Making believe that you are arguing with me when you
are lying to someone else is just bogus.

>
> You are responding directly to a reply I did to jillery.

What did you do in that response to jillery? Isn't that what you
should be arguing?

>
> You and I aren't the only people posting here, much as you might like
> to think otherwise.

No, but if you are going to go on and lie about my posts, you should
do it in answer to that post and not behind the person's back to other
posters. What do you not understand? If you are going to take the
time to lie about something why shouldn't you take the time to lie
about it where it it is supposed to matter?

>
> > and don't
> > expect me to read the junk that you write to other posters,
>
> I figured you would read it, and even if you hadn't, so what?   I
> never write things to other people about you (or anyone else for that
> matter) that I don't intend eventually to say to their faces.

You know that I don't or you would likely have at least twice as many
posts to run from as you do now. Why should I have to read junk that
you write to other posters in order to know what you are lying about?
Do you even think about what you write?

>
> That reminds me: on threads where you weren't there, I told other
> posters that you have an attitude of "le reality,  c'est moi".

Underneath it all you are just a twitching sphincter. The professor
of mathematics that has no reason to lie because he is a professor of
mathematics. Have you ever thought of doing the right thing instead
of the Nyikos thing?

>
> > and stop lying in such posts.
>
> I was giving my honest opinion of you, and it's a direct paraphrasal
> of something a king of France said, "L'etat, c'est moi."  Obviously he
> didn't mean it literally, and neither do I.  But your attitude is
> analogous to his.

Lying is just what you do. You know that you are prevaricating, that
is just a fact. If not you would demonstrate that you are not
prevaricating, but you never do that. You just make bogus claims and
run.

>
> > You are pathetic.  Is there some sane reason why
> > you can't answer my posts directly?
>
> I can, and I do sometimes, like yesterday.  But I've got my
> priorities, as I remarked above.

Sometimes, and what to you do all the other times? Isn't that what is
under discussion. If you are going to address what I write address
what I write and don't lie to other people.

And why cut up this paragraph in a bogus Nyikos fashion just so you
can do what? Avoid dealing with the issue in a straight forward
manner?

> I began the process of nailing Kleinman's hide to the wall in earnest
> near the end of the following post:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/b4ecacb1256fca9d
> [ Excerpt:]
>
> > Peter, you need to go back and review your introductory probability
> > theory. Look up the meaning of “conditional” probability which is the
> > probability of event B occurring after event A has occurred.
>
> WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> Conditional probability is totally indifferent to the sequence in
> which events occur.
> ____________ end of excerpt______________
>
> Naturally, he tried to break loose:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/611de5946baaeb69
>
> But he only made his situation worse, as I showed here;
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/2fc5513dfd345f3a
>
> He then got desperate, flinging one demonstrably false accusation
> after another:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/73e33d93e26587fb
>
> and I drove in two more nails with:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/5ec13a946747767c
>
> and with:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/1564ad9d86f3a47a

Only Nyikos knows why he put this junk in. Are you lying about me in
those posts? Should I check?

> I drove in another nail on Monday, and today I've driven in two more
> nails [I skipped yesterday]; urls on request--or you could start
> following that thread yourself.
>
> Peter Nyikos

Who cares? I don't. We are talking about the lies that you tell
other posters about what I write, and not your antics on other
topics. Why do your other posts excuse your bogus behavior? Do you
even understand what you are arguing?

Look at the posts that you do respond to. Is this an honest response
to the issue? Why respond in this fashion and run from so many other
posts. Even the posts that you do respond to are just filled with
bogus denial and lies. If they were not you would take great glee in
nailing me to the wall on anything, but you never can. You have to
keep making the junk up and running. How sad is that? No one could
miss that fact by the stupid and bogus junk that you do lie about. If
you had some real argument why hide it? No matter what you claim you
are the one that produces the bogus posts that I respond to. You are
the one responsible for what you write, and lying to other posters and
thinking that you are somehow responding in some honest and effective
fashion to the posts that you are running from is just lying to
yourself about that.

Ron Okimoto

[pnyikos]

On Feb 29, 10:29 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:28:06 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>

> wrote:
>
>
>
> >On Feb 28, 3:21 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> On Feb 26, 2:22 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 05:48:04 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
> >> > wrote:
>
> >> > >On Feb 26, 2:50 am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > >> On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 06:13:36 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
> >> > >> wrote:
>
> >> > >> >On Feb 24, 8:49 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> > >> >> On Feb 21, 9:10 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > >> [...]

Readers, note the snip above by jillery; I refer to it again below.

> >> > >> >> > What an incredible, unreadable mess pnyikos has wrought.
>
> >> > >> >> I submit that it is Ron O's almost invariably irrelevant comments and
> >> > >> >> questions that made the post to which you are replying an unreadable
> >> > >> >> mess.  I hope that I have been able to partially rectify that.
>
> >> > >> >Nyikos can't admit that he manipulated my post so drastically that no
> >> > >> >one could make sense of what he was actually arguing.  You do need
> >> > >> >multiple windows open in order to determine what Nyikos is doing to a
> >> > >> >post.
<
> >> > >> >The rest seems to be Nyikos the bogus liar and pretender requiring
> >> > >> >clarification (and being snotty about it) for something that is
> >> > >> >obvious.  Can anyone figure out what Nyikos is arguing without having
> >> > >> >several windows open to multiple posts?
>
> >> > >> >Ron Okimoto
>
> >> > >> The post to which you replied appears to be intelligent designed with
> >> > >> that purpose in mind.

And you, jillery, deleted my questions to you from that post -- note,
it was a direct reply to you, and the questions were addressed to you
-- and I'm sure those deletia were very intelligently designed.

> >> Literally true ("without having several windows open"), as I explained
> >> to Ron O less than half an hour ago: I cut out mountains of verbiage
> >> by Ron O having nothing to do with the issue of which (if either) of
> >> us is a creationist, and focused exclusively on that issue -- except
> >> for answering one question with "Never" and offering to elaborate if
> >> you wished me to.
>
> >This is getting ridiculous.  Respond to my posts directly

[snip rest of paragraph, dealt with in detail yesterday]

Ron O evidently is all too happy with your repeated failure to respond
to my replies to you directly, for he took it upon himself to relieve
you of that burden, jillery.

> >Ron Okimoto
>
> Ron, I admire your craft to have him hoist from his own petard,

This "petard" claim is belied by eveything you have done on this
thread since you made that "nail in the coffin" post to which I refer
below.

> but
> he's seems interested only in ignoring the elephant in the room,

"the elephant in the room" is all the old feuds that Ron O wants to
revive, that have nothing to do with who is a creationist. And that
is ALL you showed interest in until Ron O started posting his
mountains of rehashings of irrelevant stuff.

I've been very forthcoming about where I stand on creationism. The
only so-far-unanswered question the least bit relevant to that is one
Ron O asked about the soul. I offered to answer that if you wanted me
to, but you've been silent about that and also about Ron O's phony
accusations about me running away from that question.

Ron O, on the other hand, has left us back on square one after he
demolished his move to square two by admitting that there is NO

standard Methodist view on creation.

Evidently you are bound and determined to ignore THAT elephant, after
alleging a number of weeks ago that Ron O had driven the last nail
into the coffin by sticking to a definition of "creationist" on which
you proceeded to elaborate.

But you are even wrong where that othee elephant is concerned. I was
interested in talking about it as long as you were interested: I
offered to answer any questions you wanted me to answer, and to deal
with any accusation of Ron O's that you wanted me to deal with.

> and I
> have no dog in this fight,

Actually, you have two or three. One is Ron O, of whom you evidently
think very highly. The other is your "Miss Priss" comment. I asked
you what you were referring to, and your hero Ron O claimed it was
"obvious," but he ducked my questions about what the "obvious" answers
were to the questions I had asked you about it.

Would it be fair to say that Ron O is your lap dog where this
"obvious" bit is concerned?

Then too, you did not answer my question of whether I had guessed
right as to what "Miss Priss imitation" was referring to -- whether it
was my butting into your little tiff with someone while the "Von Braun
was a Nazi who embraced Hitler's genocidal plans against the Slavs"
elephant was in the room, completely ignored in favor of the "That
gives Von Braun too much credit for anti-Communism" mouse.

>so unless I can come up with another
> cliche, I leave to you beat this dead horse.

Your admiration for Ron O seems to know no bounds.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

Below, I catch Ron O in a provable lie, used to cover up another lie;
and I give a self-contained proof beyond a reasonable doubt below;

This is something he has never been able to do with his accusations of
my lying: he makes accusations and then posts mountains of verbiage,
often to the accompaniement of urls and quotes; but no discerning
reader could be fooled in thinking that all his spewing amounts to an
actual proof that I have lied in the sense of saying something that I
know to be false.

It is now clear that I did answer these two questions, and so Ron O is
guilty of repeatedly lying below by claming that I "dodged" the second
one.

> > And I answered what I *thought* was the question with:
>
> Nyikos manipulated what I wrote by snipping out the part of the
> paragraph that he didn't want to deal with.  I will put it back in so
> you can see how bogus Nyikos' response was.
>
> QUOTE:
> You do not believe in any type of creation?  What about where your
> aliens come from or where the universe came from?  What about the soul
> that you may think that you have?  I have never met a Christian that
> did not believe in a creator so you may be the exception.
> END QUOTE:
>
> These are standard examples of why people are called creationists.
> There are various forms.  Some are YEC so called Biblical literalists
> and other believe in creation of the universe or creation of immortal
> souls etc.  Nyikos snipped out material so he could run in denial.
>

"run in denial" means "not answering ALL my questions on the spot". I
offered to answer the one that I deleted from the QUOTE above, if
jillery wanted me to. But jillery has made it clear that [s]he is
completely uninterested in the answer, in a post to which I replied
earlier today.

But I will answer it anyway, next week.

> > > > A corollary of my < 1%, repeated above, is that the big bang either
> > > > was uncaused or had a purely natural cause.  And, given the age of the
> > > > universe, I believe the panspermists were the one-in-a-galaxy (or less
> > > > likely, maybe much less likely) case of an abiogeneis event
> > > > culminating in an intelligent species.
>
> > > This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of where his aliens come from in
> > > order to deny that he is a creationist.  You can't make this junk up.
>
> Exactly right

Exactly wrong, and the lie "This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of
where his aliens come from" shows that here, you are lying about
lying. Your "So what"s below make this clear beyond a reasonable
doubt.

>and what does Nyikos claim?

>
> > Ron, I thought you remembered that I had said that, according to my
> > theory, the panspermists never visited earth themselves, but sent far
> > less expensive probes to earth and other promising planets.  They need
> > never have left their home "solar system" at all.
>
> What does this have to do with what you are dodging?

It has to do with what I am NOT dodging -- the question of where my
aliens came from. I explained this very carefully as follows:

> > Hence I understood "where they came from" as an informal way of asking
> > HOW they arose, not where their home planet was. The latter question
> > seems completely irrelevant to whether I am a creationist or not.
>
> Hence you manipulated the post so that you could pretend that this is
> some sort of valid argument.

Translation: "you deleted my third question in the QUOTE up there, and
only answered the first two, thereby making a dishonest person of
yourself in The World According to Ron O."

> You did understand the paragraph, you chose to dishonestly manipulate
> it so that you could continue to lie.

Ron O, like John Stockwell, is evidently convinced that he has proven
that I am a creationist, and so he thinks any honest answer to his
third question in the QUOTE above will confirm that. But he is sadly
mistaken.

I will give my honest answer next week, and then everyone will be able
to see that I am right and Ron O is wrong.

But back to the alleged "dodging" of where "my" aliens came from: I
decided to take Ron O's question literally, just in case that was what

he was really after, and so I wrote:

> > But, just to satisfy your curiosity of their whereabouts, I'll add
> > something that is more or less implicit in the sum total of what I
> > have posted about my hypothesis a number of times.
>
> > I estimate there being over 99% probability that their planet was
> > within 3000 parsecs of ours when the seeding of earth took place.
>
> So what?

So, with this question, you have confirmed that you did NOT have a
literal meaning to your question about aliens in mind, and you have
thereby confirmed that you lied about me dodging that question.

> Does this change what you believe about where your Christian
> soul came from or where the universe came from?

What does this question have to do with your lie, "This is Nyikos
dodging the questoin of where his aliens come from"?

But, to better explain what I meant in my answer to where I believe
the universe came from: I estimate a > 99% probability that either the
big bang was a completely uncaused event (a "quantum fluctuation" on a
gargantuan scale) or had natural causes (perhaps it originated from a
black hole in another universe).

> > I estimate there being over 90% probability that their planet was
> > within 1000 parsecs of ours when the seeding of earth took place.
>
> So what?

So you lied when you said "This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of
where his aliens come from," and so you also lied when you said
"Exactly right".

>
>
> > I estimate there being over 50% probability that their planet was
> > within 300 parsecs of ours when the seeding of earth took place.  That
> > seems to be a reasonable upper bound to how far unicellular eukaryotes
> > can be sent by a probe at 1/10th the speed of light, the highest speed
> > that seems feasible with our present knowledge of science.
>
> So what?

Answered as before.

> > Those earlier estimates apply to the sending of prokaryotes.  As Crick
> > was fond of writing, "prokaryotes travel farther."
>
> So what?  You wrote all of this out so that you could continue to lie
> about being a creationist.

If anyone here is lying about being a creationist, it is you: you have
utterly failed to explain what sort of creator you believe in.

Ron O, you have made a very serious blunder (from your POV) above.
You neglected to throw in mountains of verbiage to obscure the fact
that you lied, like you so often do. Then when I clear away those
mountains to lay bare the essence of your lies, you lie that I am
dishonestly running away from the context of what was written.

Fortunately, I didn't have to delete ANYTHING in the post to which I
am following up. Of course, I didn't comment on a lot of it, but I
will do so starting next week. I've even left everything in below, so
readers may see that you made no effort whatsoever to prove that I was
dodging your question about aliens.

I expect you to do damage control in the usual way: puking all over me
in mountains of verbiage in between the various parts of the proof of
your dishonesty above, and lying your head off about what a liar I
(allegedly) am.

And jillery will eat all that puke up, and tell you how awed [s]he is
by how you are hoisting me by my own petard, if [s]he runs true to
form.

Peter Nyikos

[Ron O]

On Mar 1, 3:01 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Below, I catch Ron O in a provable lie, used to cover up another lie;
> and I give a self-contained proof beyond a reasonable doubt below;

If Nyikos could ever demonstrate something like this he wouldn't be
lying and manipulating posts.

>
> This is something he has never been able to do with his accusations of
> my lying: he makes accusations and then posts mountains of verbiage,
> often to the accompaniement of urls and quotes; but no discerning
> reader could be fooled in thinking that all his spewing amounts to an
> actual proof that I have lied in the sense of saying something that I
> know to be false.

This is such a bogus lie by now that I can't conceive of being the
type of person that would lower themselves to such behavior. I have
said several times that if I had been as bogus as Nyikos has been in
the last year that I would likely never post again. I would have quit
long ago if all that I could come up with were feeble lies and abject
denial.

Anyone can just use the links in the first thread in this post to get
back to the last by their fruits thread and read the Nyikos section.

Here is the link so Nyikos can follow along.
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/1b79ab72833a2e4e?hl=en

You will find this link:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/75f4c1af25c978cf?hl=en

It is where Nyikos is lying about never getting additional evidence
that the ID perps claimed to be able to teach the science of
intelligent design in the public schools. There are two other links
with the same Nyikosian lie. These posts are the reason that Nyikos
had to run from that thread and start the Insane logic thread. I do
not make this junk up. It was a lie that he repeated at least three
times, probably more to other posters that I am not aware of. It is a
stupid lie and the only reason why Nyikos made the claim was because
he was still trying to deny that the ID perps had claimed to be able
to teach the science of intelligent design in Sept when he had the
Discovery Institutes own current statement continuing to claim that
there was the scientific theory of ID to teach in the public schools
and the stupid propaganda pamphlet and the evidence provided in the
April posts that Nyikos lied about.

I don't make any of this junk up.

The sad thing is that the dirty debating thread that the above link is
to was where Nyikos got caught starting the whole bogus thread based
on lies about me. When he found out that he had made the whole thing
up he ran and started the Scottish verdict thread.

QUOTE:
Nyikos finding out what a liar he is when I put up the unmanipulated
post material that I had actually written and demonstrated that Nyikos
was just making up a story about me.

Nyikos confronted by his stupidity:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a995034f6931eba4?hl=en

Nyikos snipping and running:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a492a4c2a42f5484?hl=en

Nyikos getting called on snipping and running:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/2a9eb8898289a07f?hl=en
END QUOTE:

This is all gone over in more detail in the by their fruits link from
above.
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/1b79ab72833a2e4e?hl=en

We know what Nyikos means when he lies about never. It means
perpetually.

So now that anyone that wants to check out the facts knows what a liar
Nyikos is what can we expect in the rest of the post?

I never said that you did not answer these two questions. You
bogously manipulated the post to make it seem that you were answering
when you were dodging. What did you not deal with? What did you snip
out with no indication that you had manipulated my statement in that
fashion? What was the issue that you yourself made an issue in this
thread?

>
>
> > > And I answered what I *thought* was the question with:
>
> > Nyikos manipulated what I wrote by snipping out the part of the
> > paragraph that he didn't want to deal with. I will put it back in so
> > you can see how bogus Nyikos' response was.
>
> > QUOTE:
> > You do not believe in any type of creation? What about where your
> > aliens come from or where the universe came from? What about the soul
> > that you may think that you have? I have never met a Christian that
> > did not believe in a creator so you may be the exception.
> > END QUOTE:
>
> > These are standard examples of why people are called creationists.
> > There are various forms. Some are YEC so called Biblical literalists
> > and other believe in creation of the universe or creation of immortal
> > souls etc. Nyikos snipped out material so he could run in denial.
>
> "run in denial" means "not answering ALL my questions on the spot". I
> offered to answer the one that I deleted from the QUOTE above, if
> jillery wanted me to. But jillery has made it clear that [s]he is
> completely uninterested in the answer, in a post to which I replied
> earlier today.
>
> But I will answer it anyway, next week.

So Nyikos realizes that he bogusly manipulated the post and dodged,
but claims that he did not have to answer the whole statement then and
will get to it next week. What? He dodged. There is no question
about that and he had to bogously manipulate the post to make it look
like he wasn't dodging. I do not have to make this junk up because
Nyikos knows what he did and why he did it. There is no excuse for
such dishonesty.

How many times has Nyikos claimed that he would continue and then
run? Nyikos should count up the list of those cases. Why didn't you
answer when you should have instead of trying your bogus dodge?

>
> > > > > A corollary of my < 1%, repeated above, is that the big bang either
> > > > > was uncaused or had a purely natural cause. And, given the age of the
> > > > > universe, I believe the panspermists were the one-in-a-galaxy (or less
> > > > > likely, maybe much less likely) case of an abiogeneis event
> > > > > culminating in an intelligent species.
>
> > > > This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of where his aliens come from in
> > > > order to deny that he is a creationist. You can't make this junk up.
>
> > Exactly right
>
> Exactly wrong, and the lie "This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of
> where his aliens come from" shows that here, you are lying about
> lying. Your "So what"s below make this clear beyond a reasonable
> doubt.

You were dodging. There is no question about that. You even admit
that you will get around to answering next week. Doesn't that mean
that you haven't gotten around to it yet? that is dodging if you
don't know it.

>
> >and what does Nyikos claim?
>
> > > Ron, I thought you remembered that I had said that, according to my
> > > theory, the panspermists never visited earth themselves, but sent far
> > > less expensive probes to earth and other promising planets. They need
> > > never have left their home "solar system" at all.
>
> > What does this have to do with what you are dodging?
>
> It has to do with what I am NOT dodging -- the question of where my
> aliens came from. I explained this very carefully as follows:
>
> > > Hence I understood "where they came from" as an informal way of asking
> > > HOW they arose, not where their home planet was. The latter question
> > > seems completely irrelevant to whether I am a creationist or not.

This was obviously a dodge because we were talking about creationism,
so what could Nyikos have thought the question was about, what about
where the soul came from or who created the universe? These are all
forms of creationism and Nyikos was just pretending to not understand
the question when he knew what the topic was. Not only that, but
Nyikos made creationist an issue, so how could he not know what the
issue was?

>
> > Hence you manipulated the post so that you could pretend that this is
> > some sort of valid argument.
>
> Translation: "you deleted my third question in the QUOTE up there, and
> only answered the first two, thereby making a dishonest person of
> yourself in The World According to Ron O."

You deleted the question so that you could deny what you were supposed
to be answering and wanted to dodge what you did not want to deal
with. You know that I have consistently claimed that there are all
kinds of creationists. Some only believe there is a creator for your
soul, some believe in a creator of the universe, some have very
specific beliefs about what they think the Bible says about a 7 day
creation etc. You were dodging because you are a creationist and just
had to be dishonest about that fact for some reason.

>
> > You did understand the paragraph, you chose to dishonestly manipulate
> > it so that you could continue to lie.
>
> Ron O, like John Stockwell, is evidently convinced that he has proven
> that I am a creationist, and so he thinks any honest answer to his
> third question in the QUOTE above will confirm that. But he is sadly
> mistaken.

Well, you claimed to be one unless you are the only Christian that I
know who isn't one.

Do you or do you not believe in a creator? It is that simple and you
have to prevaricate about it because you were caught doing stupid and
dishonest things.

>
> I will give my honest answer next week, and then everyone will be able
> to see that I am right and Ron O is wrong.

Why next week. "Yes, I believe in a creator" or "No, I do not believe
in a creator of any kind" is all that you have to state.

>
> But back to the alleged "dodging" of where "my" aliens came from: I
> decided to take Ron O's question literally, just in case that was what
> he was really after, and so I wrote:

You decided to dodge the real questoin because it was about whether
you are a creationist or not and your answer dodged that question. It
was s stupid dishonest ploy and no more than that. Anyone with half a
brain and who understands what the issue was knows that. What was the
issue that you were dodging when you answered in that fashion? It is
just a fact that you were dodging the real issue. To continue to
dodge you have to lie about me again. What kind of loser would do
that? You know for a fact that I did not lie about you dodging the
issue because you did dodge the issue. You even claim that you will
finally answer next week. Do you know what that means?

>
> > > But, just to satisfy your curiosity of their whereabouts, I'll add
> > > something that is more or less implicit in the sum total of what I
> > > have posted about my hypothesis a number of times.
>
> > > I estimate there being over 99% probability that their planet was
> > > within 3000 parsecs of ours when the seeding of earth took place.
>
> > So what?
>
> So, with this question, you have confirmed that you did NOT have a
> literal meaning to your question about aliens in mind, and you have
> thereby confirmed that you lied about me dodging that question.

You know that, that was not the meaning of the question because you
knew what the issue was. You can only deny and lie about that. You
made your being a creationist an issue, so how could you claim to not
know what the issue was?

>
> > Does this change what you believe about where your Christian
> > soul came from or where the universe came from?
>
> What does this question have to do with your lie, "This is Nyikos
> dodging the questoin of where his aliens come from"?

It was not a lie because you even admit that you dodged the issue and
will get to it next week. Do you even understand what you have
admitted to? Your only claim is that it was an honest mistake on your
part, but anyone with any sense and who knew that it was you that was
making creationist and issue would know that you were just lamely
dodging the issue. It was you that made it an issue, what a bonehead.

>
> But, to better explain what I meant in my answer to where I believe
> the universe came from: I estimate a > 99% probability that either the
> big bang was a completely uncaused event (a "quantum fluctuation" on a
> gargantuan scale) or had natural causes (perhaps it originated from a
> black hole in another universe).

There is no lower limit to the probability of something when it is
believed by faith. Nyikos is trying to dodge what he believes about
creation with numbers that don't mean jack as to whether he believes
in a creator or not. I don't even know why he tries junk like this
and then claims that he will answer next week. I can make the claim
that the probability of there being a creator could be infinitely
small, but I could not claim that it was zero, and that would have no
bearing on my faith because this type of faith is irrational. It may
be that most of the IDiots and ID perps are like Nyikos and can't face
reality and have to lie to themselves about it for some reason.

>
> > > I estimate there being over 90% probability that their planet was
> > > within 1000 parsecs of ours when the seeding of earth took place.
>
> > So what?
>
> So you lied when you said "This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of
> where his aliens come from," and so you also lied when you said
> "Exactly right".

It has nothing to do with the issue and why the question was asked.
Remember it was your issue and you chose to dodge rather than answer
honestly.

>
> > > I estimate there being over 50% probability that their planet was
> > > within 300 parsecs of ours when the seeding of earth took place. That
> > > seems to be a reasonable upper bound to how far unicellular eukaryotes
> > > can be sent by a probe at 1/10th the speed of light, the highest speed
> > > that seems feasible with our present knowledge of science.
>
> > So what?
>
> Answered as before.

Bogus as before.

>
> > > Those earlier estimates apply to the sending of prokaryotes. As Crick
> > > was fond of writing, "prokaryotes travel farther."
>
> > So what? You wrote all of this out so that you could continue to lie
> > about being a creationist.
>
> If anyone here is lying about being a creationist, it is you: you have
> utterly failed to explain what sort of creator you believe in.

Go back to my statement on the subject that you manipulated and
demonstrate that. You know the parts that you snipped out and did not
deal with. If you require clarification state what needs to be
clarified.

>
> Ron O, you have made a very serious blunder (from your POV) above.
> You neglected to throw in mountains of verbiage to obscure the fact
> that you lied, like you so often do. Then when I clear away those
> mountains to lay bare the essence of your lies, you lie that I am
> dishonestly running away from the context of what was written.

Anyone with a brain knows that you are the dishonest one in this
episode. Not only did you start off this post with lies, you
continued to dodge the issue and claim that you will finally get to it
next week.

>
> Fortunately, I didn't have to delete ANYTHING in the post to which I
> am following up. Of course, I didn't comment on a lot of it, but I
> will do so starting next week. I've even left everything in below, so
> readers may see that you made no effort whatsoever to prove that I was

> dodging your ...
>
> read more »

Google ends the post here. It was nice of you to not manipulate the
post in your usual fashion, but that doesn't absolve you of your bogus
deeds to create the post that I responded to, does it?

The issue of you being a creationist is your issue. Pretending that
you did not understand what was being argued is so bogus that only a
IDiot would think that he could get away with it.

Ron Okimoto

[pnyikos]

The post to which I am replying has been a "bird in the hand" for
almost two months, but now that it is the next to last day for direct
replies in Google, I am doing the first of several replies to it.

On Mar 2, 12:24 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
> On Mar 1, 3:01 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > Below, I catch Ron O in a provable lie, used to cover up another lie;
> > and I give a self-contained proof beyond a reasonable doubt below;
>
> If Nyikos could ever demonstrate something like this

There is no "If" about it. I have demonstrated this very thing, right
in the post to which you are replying, and you've made no effort to
show otherwise.

The lie, analyzed again below, was:

"This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of where his aliens come from"

...in response to my replying in detail to this very question.

> he wouldn't be
> lying and manipulating posts.

I never did that, except that you've arbitrarily redefined the word
"manipulated" to include "deleted irrelevant details from," as I am
doing here:

[snip to get to the relevant documentation:]

> > On Feb 28, 7:56 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > On Feb 28, 2:59 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > > On Feb 25, 9:13 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:

[new snip to get to the relevant text:]

> > > > > > > >You do not believe in any type of creation? What about where your
> > > > > > > >aliens come from or where the universe came from?
>
> > It is now clear that I did answer these two questions, and so Ron O is
> > guilty of repeatedly lying below by claming that I "dodged" the second
> > one.
>
> I never said that you did not answer these two questions.

The lie consisted of alleging that I had dodged the *first* part of
the *second* one, viz.:

"What about where your
aliens come from or where
the universe came from?"

> You
> bogously manipulated the post to make it seem that you were answering
> when you were dodging.

Here you are just piling one lie on top of the other.

> What did you not deal with?

The third question, which had to do with the human soul. But I did
offer to answer it if "jillery" requested it, and I did answer it
three days after this March 2 post of yours, on another thread.

> What did you snip
> out with no indication that you had manipulated my statement in that
> fashion?

Nothing fits the above description, inasmuch as I explicitly said I
had deleted something that "jillery" could get me to deal with.

[snip to get to a repost of all three questions]

> > > QUOTE:
> > > You do not believe in any type of creation? What about where your
> > > aliens come from or where the universe came from? What about the soul
> > > that you may think that you have? I have never met a Christian that
> > > did not believe in a creator so you may be the exception.
> > > END QUOTE:

[snip to get to my reply to the second half of the second question:]

> > > > > > A corollary of my < 1%, repeated above, is that the big bang either
> > > > > > was uncaused or had a purely natural cause. And, given the age of the
> > > > > > universe, I believe the panspermists were the one-in-a-galaxy (or less
> > > > > > likely, maybe much less likely) case of an abiogeneis event
> > > > > > culminating in an intelligent species.

And now we come to your bare-faced, shameless lie:

> > > > > This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of where his aliens come from in
> > > > > order to deny that he is a creationist. You can't make this junk up.
>
> > > Exactly right
>
> > Exactly wrong, and the lie "This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of
> > where his aliens come from" shows that here, you are lying about
> > lying. Your "So what"s below make this clear beyond a reasonable
> > doubt.

You did not deny this, nor did you attempt to refute it; instead, you
changed the subject:

> You were dodging.

You are a master of equivocation, and of counterfeit responsiveness.
You are pretending that the words "of where his aliens come from"
played no part in your offending sentence.

> There is no question about that. You even admit
> that you will get around to answering next week. Doesn't that mean
> that you haven't gotten around to it yet? that is dodging if you
> don't know it.

I never denied that I dodged your third question, but it was the most
responsible and innocent of "dodges".

Next, we see me giving you every benefit of the doubt by guessing that
you perhaps meant a more literal interpretation of "where his aliens
come from"; it was only after you made it clear that this was NOT what
you had in mind that I formally accused you of lying:

> > >and what does Nyikos claim?
>
> > > > Ron, I thought you remembered that I had said that, according to my
> > > > theory, the panspermists never visited earth themselves, but sent far
> > > > less expensive probes to earth and other promising planets. They need
> > > > never have left their home "solar system" at all.
>
> > > What does this have to do with what you are dodging?
>
> > It has to do with what I am NOT dodging -- the question of where my
> > aliens came from. I explained this very carefully as follows:
>
> > > > Hence I understood "where they came from" as an informal way of asking
> > > > HOW they arose, not where their home planet was. The latter question
> > > > seems completely irrelevant to whether I am a creationist or not.
>
> This was obviously a dodge

"of where his aliens come from"

No, it is not, you shameless equivocator.

> because we were talking about creationism,
> so what could Nyikos have thought the question was about, what about
> where the soul came from or who created the universe?

I knew you were playing the role of KGB interrogator-analogue, and
were asking me one question after another in the hopes of tripping me
up and getting me to say something that would confirm your insane
certainty that I am a creationist.

But that does not change the fact that I directly answered your
question of "where his aliens come from."

Remainder deleted, to be replied to later.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

pnyikos wrote:
> The post to which I am replying has been a "bird in the hand" for
> almost two months, but now that it is the next to last day for direct
> replies in Google, I am doing the first of several replies to it.

Say what? What's Google doing now?

[pnyikos]

After 60 days, the "Reply" button in Google Groups disappears from the
bottom of any post. It is still possible to jury-rig replies that
look like direct replies to the post, but if they are done in Google
Groups then they will not be shown as direct replies if one uses the
"View as tree" displays.

This has been my consistent experience for the last two years. So it
does not represent anything new as far as GG is concerned.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

Yet another reason to avoid GG. As if one were needed.

[Ron O]

The limitation that Nyikos is talking about no longer exists. I don't know if it ever existed because I am not in the habit of answering posts from several months back, and have never encountered the limitation though I have been using Google groups for around 7 years. Nyikos can use Google to just go up to the first post in this thread to determine that for himself.

It is sort of ironic that you answered this post because I am pretty sure that this is the post that Nyikos claimed that he would get to "next week" but ended up responding not to me, but to you on the topic. I am not making this junk up. Try to figure out what Nyikos is supposed to be addressing in this post with all the Nyikosian manipulations. Most of the time I can't even tell what I am supposed to have written.

He claims that he will continue in his second post so I haven't given up hope that he may eventually get to the issue that he himself made an issue so all his lame excuses above are just that, lame excuses. Even in his response to you he did not really address the issue. He just rambled on about his probability that doesn't matter to what you believe by faith. That was pointed out to him in these posts but he has snipped out that in his response above. He should have addressed that point, but he clearly has not. Why he is doing this is a mystery because in another thread he has basically admitted that he is a creationist, just not my type of creationist. Can you name a creationist that is not my type of creationist? Behe, Kalk, Miller etc? You just have to believe in a creator to be my type of creationist. It doesn't matter how low the probability is if you believe something based on religious faith. You can believe in the impossible.

I'm going to wait until Nyikos finishes with his bull pucky (supposedly today) to see if it is worth going back through half a dozen posts to set the bogus whiner straight.

Really, can you detect any trace that Nyikos is answering this post because it is the one he should have addressed months ago? What issue is he still avoiding?

Ron Okimoto

[pnyikos]

In this piggybacked reply to Ron O's long post, I leave in a bit of
what I snipped near the beginning, and then repeat a bit of my first
reply to establish continuity with what comes where my first reply
left off.

Many other things I snipped the first time around will have to wait
until tomorrow or later. Ron O may think he is the most important
regular in talk.origins, but I do believe almost everyone would think
that such a perception is really off the wall.

On Mar 2, 12:24 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:

> On Mar 1, 3:01 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> > Below, I catch Ron O in a provable lie, used to cover up another lie;
> > and I give a self-contained proof beyond a reasonable doubt below;

The lie, which you will see in context again below, was:

"This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of where his aliens come from"

[snip of some things I left out in my first reply, to get to some
others:]

- Show quoted text -

And here comes the documentation by Jillery:

- Show quoted text -

Now watch this brief exchange:

> > > > I thought I'd made clear where I stood with the following response:

> > > Jillery wrote what you are responding to.

Ron O acts later on as though he never saw what I wrote next:

> > > > > > > >> I am not a believer *that* any of the above is true.
Here you are
> > > > > > > >> using the expression "believes in" rather than writing "believes
> > > > > > > >> *that* some creationist doctrine is true.

Since jillery wrote "according to the above," I took it as a sign that
[s]he meant them to mean exactly the same thing, but was hoping for
confirmation. IIRC it never came, and Ron O either treats the two
expressions differently below or is totally ignoring what I wrote in
the three lines quoted last.

> > > > > > > >> I've said several times now

> > > > > > > >> that my sober estimate of the probability of any of the above is <1%.

> > > > Ron O was skeptical of the above, and so he asked:

Here is the question which Ron O lied about:

> > > > > > > >You do not believe in any type of creation? What about where your
> > > > > > > >aliens come from or where the universe came from?

And I pointed out the lie here:

> > It is now clear that I did answer these two questions, and so Ron O is
> > guilty of repeatedly lying below by claming that I "dodged" the second
> > one.

This claim appears right after the completion of my reply to the
second question:

[snip of intervening material, some of which I dealt with in my first
reply:]

> > > > > > A corollary of my < 1%, repeated above, is that the big bang either
> > > > > > was uncaused or had a purely natural cause. And, given the age of the
> > > > > > universe, I believe the panspermists were the one-in-a-galaxy (or less
> > > > > > likely, maybe much less likely) case of an abiogeneis event
> > > > > > culminating in an intelligent species.

And here is how the claim was worded:

> > > > > This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of where his aliens come from in
> > > > > order to deny that he is a creationist. You can't make this junk up.

> > > Exactly right

> > Exactly wrong, and the lie "This is Nyikos dodging the questoin of
> > where his aliens come from" shows that here, you are lying about
> > lying. Your "So what"s below make this clear beyond a reasonable
> > doubt.

[snip something dealt with in my first reply]

> > >and what does Nyikos claim?

> > > > Ron, I thought you remembered that I had said that, according to my
> > > > theory, the panspermists never visited earth themselves, but sent far
> > > > less expensive probes to earth and other promising planets. They need
> > > > never have left their home "solar system" at all.

> > > What does this have to do with what you are dodging?

And I reminded you, Ron, of your lie above:

> > It has to do with what I am NOT dodging -- the question of where my
> > aliens came from. I explained this very carefully as follows:

> > > > Hence I understood "where they came from" as an informal way of asking
> > > > HOW they arose, not where their home planet was. The latter question
> > > > seems completely irrelevant to whether I am a creationist or not.

> This was obviously a dodge because we were talking about creationism,

> so what could Nyikos have thought the question was about, what about
> where the soul came from or who created the universe?

Note that I DID answer the second question ("or who created...") even
before you wrote it:

QUOTED from above:

A corollary of my < 1%, repeated above,
is that the big bang either
was uncaused or had a purely natural cause.

END of QUOTE.

Are you intelligent enough to realize that the answer to that second
question was, "probably nobody"?

[snip some things to be dealt with in my third reply, tomorrow]
.

Now we finally come to the point of why I was talking about "believe
in" to jillery:

> Do you or do you not believe in a creator?

If by that you mean, "Do you believe there is a creator?" then you've
had a "No" answer for some time now, in the form of:

QUOTE from above:

I am not a believer *that* any of the above is true.

END of QUOTE

> It is that simple and you
> have to prevaricate about it

The prevarication is all in your mind.

> because you were caught doing stupid and
> dishonest things.

The only "stupid and dishonest" thing was not reading your mind about
what you mean by "believe in a creator". If you mean something other
than "believe that there is a creator" I cannot answer your "simple"
question untll you tell me what you mean.

Continued in another piggybacked reply using my first reply to Ron O's
March 2 post, done yesterday. The old Google Groups, which I am still
using, has removed the "button" allowing a direct reply to Ron O's
March 2 post.

Peter Nyikos