Paul Gans demonstrates his talents and his modesty

[pnyikos]

On a "Bill Nye" thread, Paul Gans showed how talented he is at certain
things, while on the "Strange Logic..." he showed how modest he can
be. Let's take the talent show first.

On Sep 15, 4:07 pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> [major snip]
>
> >Gans is nowhere near as relentlessly garbage-spewing as you are, but
> >even he has done his share. He alleged that he wanted to discuss
> >physics with me, and instead I got:
> >1. A snow job about how panspermists are unlikely to hit their
> >targets because planetary orbits are "chaotic".
>
> You think this isn't a physics question? You don't believe
> planetary orbits are chaotic? Or what?

It takes *talent* to ignore "unlikely to hit their target" in such a
creative way.

[Chaos theory is a sophisticated *mathematical* research area, and
I'll explain why Gans's use of the word "chaos" in that context was a
snow job to any sincerely interested inquirer.]

>I did notice that you offered nothing in return for my statement.

What Gans actually noticed was corrections by me of his snow job from
several angles, but he apparently figures he won out because I
couldn't get him to cry out "Stop! Uncle!"

> >2. A snow job about how the solar wind would blow a spaceship bigger
> >than the Saturn V off course.
>
> I don't believe I ever said that. I could be wrong, in which
> case I shall apologize. But I don't think I ever referenced
> a Saturn V.

It takes *talent* to ignore "bigger than" in such a creative way.

[I was actually referring to the Daedalus spaceship, mentioned in my
next point.]

> >3. A comment that I suspect was an attempt at a snow job about
> >Project Daedalus, but could have been due to ignorance about both it
> >and Project Orion, even though I had specifically told him to google
> >Project Daedalus earlier and he seemed to have gone ahead and done so:
> > "Uncontrolled fusion is a bomb, a very very deadly bomb.
> > I doubt such a reaction could power a rocket."
>
> Others handled the response to you on this.

It even takes a bit of talent to refer to J. J. O'Shea in this way.

> The Project Daedalus
> stuff was all *very* speculative. There are serious doubts that
> it would work at all.

"There are" is Gans's talented way of referring to himself and
O'Shea. At least, I don't recall anyone else expressing any
skepticism about this nearly decade-long project in planning by many
members of the British Interplanetary Society.

> >4. Trolling about how he couldn't understand how microbes could build
> >a spaceship.
>
> You call it trolling, but you kept going on about microbes on some
> other planet so I assumed that you had microbes as the builders.

It takes *talent* to parlay this intelligence-insulting trolling into
an accusation that I demand that everyone read everything I post.

You can read a parable on how that parlaying happened here:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/d74b4e76492d6563

The sequel to that may also be worth reading:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/2db84812c1758ece

> As I've pointed out, over and over again, you'd rather insult
> people than restate your original premiss

"people" here means "people who indulge in such utterly asinine
notions, as the assumption Peter really meant for the microbes to be
the senders rather than the sent"

I'll respond to the rest of this post on the original thread. Now I
turn to Gans's modesty, which may be immortalized soon if John Wilkins
doesn't retract his nomination of the post where it appeared for
September's PoTM.

> I will end by stating that I do not rule talk.origins, I have no
> special powers here, and that I have my share of folks who don't
> love me, just like most others. I do which Peter would stop
> pretending that I am important.

Gans is being excessively modest, IMO. I do believe many in this
newsgroup are in awe of his talent for obfuscation, so much so that
they treat him with respect even when he makes a complete idiot of
himself.

Peter Nyikos

[Ray Martinez]

All this entire topic says is that Paul Gans has gotten under your
skin.

Ray

[pnyikos]

You're 17 years late. Already in 1995 I got under Gans's skin, and
after a lot of effort by him, he got under my skin later that year or
maybe a bit later, as the second most cunningly dishonest person I've
ever encountered in my life.

Number one was a long-time talk.abortion regular who actually visited
this newsgroup briefly a year and a half ago, on the heels of another
invader, the regular of that other newsgroup who most resembles O'Shea
in his posting habits.

Looks like a case of similar people (Category A) being closely allied
to similar people (Category B) without the people in the two
categories having all that much in common.

Peter Nyikos

[John S. Wilkins]

I thought, and still think, that the post was a candidate for PotM. It
raises one of the basic objections to a claim you often make on this
forum for panspermia. It is on-topic and relevant.

Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard). I nominated him on merit and not
because he bought me a coffee at the AMNH.
--
John S. Wilkins, Associate, Philosophy, University of Sydney
http://evolvingthoughts.net
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre

[Paul J Gans]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>> >Gans is nowhere near as relentlessly garbage-spewing as you are, but
>> >even he has done his share. He alleged that he wanted to discuss
>> >physics with me, and instead I got:
>> >1. A snow job about how panspermists are unlikely to hit their
>> >targets because planetary orbits are "chaotic".
>>
>> You think this isn't a physics question? You don't believe
>> planetary orbits are chaotic? Or what?

>It takes *talent* to ignore "unlikely to hit their target" in such a
>creative way.

>[Chaos theory is a sophisticated *mathematical* research area, and
>I'll explain why Gans's use of the word "chaos" in that context was a
>snow job to any sincerely interested inquirer.]

Chaos is far more than a "sophisticated mathematical research area.
I suggest you do a bit of googling before your smugness rises up
and bites you.

And I suggest that you stop referring to things you don't understand
as a "snow job".

Here, for free, is a reference to conference proceedings:

<http://www.springer.com/astronomy/astronomy,+observations+and+techniques/book/978-3-540-75825-9> The title is "Chaos in Astronomy". Thats just
for starters.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

[pnyikos]

It is a great rarity for me to post on weekends, but if jillery's
cheerleading for Wilkins in reply to the same post that I am
documenting below is any indication, the PoTM is a very important
institution.

On Oct 5, 6:54 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

[snip to get to the only part of my post that Wilkins addressed]

> > I'll respond to the rest of this post on the original thread.  Now I
> > turn to Gans's modesty, which may be immortalized soon if John Wilkins
> > doesn't retract his nomination of the post where it appeared for
> > September's PoTM.
>
> > > I will end by stating that I do not rule talk.origins, I have no
> > > special powers here, and that I have my share of folks who don't
> > > love me, just like most others.  I do which Peter would stop
> > > pretending that I am important.
>
> > Gans is being excessively modest, IMO.  I do believe many in this
> > newsgroup are in awe of his talent for obfuscation, so much so that
> > they treat him with respect even when he makes a complete idiot of
> > himself.
>
> > Peter Nyikos
>
> I thought, and still think, that the post was a candidate for PotM. It
> raises one of the basic objections to a claim you often make on this
> forum for panspermia.

Wrong. If anything, it strengthens my case, as I pointed out to you
on the thread where you made that nomination a minute ago:

________________________

> Feel free to continue the debate. It doesn't change my mind that the
> nominated post qualifies, even if it includes context not from him or
> you.

What debate? You are burying your head in the sand about the real
gist of my post, which is the fact that Gans did not undermine my
directed panspermia at all, but actually gave it a very small
strengthening. [Very small, because although his kind loves to
pontificate about "life as we don't know it," they implicitly disavow
it as soon as it starts being pursued to a logical conclusion that
they don't like.]
=================
--from reply to http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/796e8335a0159276

> It is on-topic and relevant.

And so sketchy, it does not include documentation, and it does not
even name the person whom he used earlier as his authority for the
"small molecules" hypothesis for "life as we don't know it". He only
spoke vaguely about them as "colleagues...[see excerpt below]

And here is the part of my reply to the PoTM nominee that you are
burying your head in the sand about [see above excerpt]:

> > My only contribution directly to the abiogenesis discussion is
> > to note that some of my collegues, and others in the field as
> > well, think that abiogenesis may well have been easier than many
> > now think. The reason that it is quite likely small molecules
> > were involved with the first proteins not even dimly on the
> > horizon.

I've addressed this before, in direct reply to a post of Gans in
which
he gave a very revealing link to a Scientific American article. That
article actually criticized RNA world as being even more difficult to
arrive at than most people think, but gave ZILCH in the way of ideas
of how that these small molecules are supposed to either

(A) evolve into the first prokaryotes, or

(B) evolve into the RNA-based life, complete with a big variety of
ribozymes that is still the top contender for a series of
intermediate
stages between Urey-Miller and the first prokaryotes.

And even before Gans made this his baby, I concocted, half
jokingly,
the scenario I called the 3M hypothesis for directed panspermia,
whose
latest wording goes:

Life as we do not know it and cannot imagine it,
built from very simple ur-cells [on the order
of complexity of the ones in Musgrave's
FAQ article] that easily arise
abiogenetically, evolved an intelligent creature
with technology a little in advance of ours,
which they used to produce a variety of
(relatively speaking) very
complex unicellular creatures, with which
they seeded earth and myriads of other planets.


So far from undermining directed panspermia, Gans's little
contribution to abiogenesis only strengthened, however slightly, my
case for it.

> > This is very very difficult chemistry. Why? Mainly because we
> > have little idea as to what the atmosphere of the early earth was,
> > what the surface structure was, and what the undersea structure
> > was. We don't know if life originated (or festered, if it came
> > from elsewhere) on the surface of the ocean, under the ocean, at
> > deep vents, or whatever.

Gans has barely scratched the surface of "Why?" here. The real
reason it is very, very difficult chemistry is that it is wrapped up
in very, very complicated biochemistry, so complicated that no one
has
the foggiest idea of how to bridge the gap between his simple idea of
"life" and "life as we know it."
==================== end of excerpt

> Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard). I nominated him on merit

The "merit" is nothing like what the draft for the PoTM website says
it is. I'll have to attend to that today, too, much as I dislike
posting on weekends.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Oct 5, 9:49 pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> >Gans is nowhere near as relentlessly garbage-spewing as you are, but
> >> >even he has done his share.  He alleged that he wanted to discuss
> >> >physics with me, and instead I got:
> >> >1.  A snow job about how panspermists are unlikely to hit their
> >> >targets because planetary orbits are "chaotic".
>
> >> You think this isn't a physics question?  You don't believe
> >> planetary orbits are chaotic?  Or what?
> >It takes *talent* to ignore "unlikely to hit their target" in such a
> >creative way.
> >[Chaos theory is a sophisticated *mathematical* research area, and
> >I'll explain why Gans's use of the word "chaos" in that context was a
> >snow job to any sincerely interested inquirer.]
>
> Chaos is far more than a "sophisticated mathematical research area.

Yeah, it has applications to the sciences. That does not change the
fact that it is based on pure mathematics.

> I suggest you do a bit of googling before your smugness rises up
> and bites you.

...glass houses...stones.

> And I suggest that you stop referring to things you don't understand
> as a "snow job".

Here's a little clue as to why it is a snow job: almost two centuries
before the advent of computers, Adams and Leverrier independently
calculated the approximate location of the unknown planet Neptune by
observing small deviations in Uranus's orbit from that predicted from
Kepler's laws of planetary motion, EVEN AFTER all perturbations by the
much larger and closer planets Saturn and Jupiter (and maybe even
Mars, etc. -- I don't know the details) had been taken into account.

And all this is true even though the motion of a mere THREE bodies is
"chaotic" except in a few very special cases like the Trojans in orbit
60 degrees to each side of Jupiter in Jupiter's orbit.

Now think of what we can do with computers at our stage of technology,
and extrapolate a thousand years to what they might be like once Homo
sapiens starts thinking seriously of sending microorganisms to other
planetary systems, if they find no signs of life in systems where the
earth-like planets are still in the prebiotic soup stage several
billion years after they were formed.

> Here, for free, is a reference to conference proceedings:
>

>    <http://www.springer.com/astronomy/astronomy,+observations+and+techniq...>   The title is "Chaos in Astronomy".  Thats just
> for starters.

And this "starter" is about all I expect from you-- a reference to
something whose contents will probably remain a mystery to you.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
nyikos @ math.sc.edu

[pnyikos]

On Oct 6, 8:54 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> almost  two centuries
> before the advent of computers, Adams and Leverrier independently
> calculated the approximate location of the unknown planet Neptune by
> observing small deviations in Uranus's orbit from that predicted from
> Kepler's laws of planetary motion, EVEN AFTER all perturbations by the
> much larger and closer planets Saturn and Jupiter (and maybe even
> Mars, etc.  -- I don't know the details) had been taken into account.

Correction: it was almost exactly one century before the advent of
computers.

And here is a little extra tidbit: according to one of my astronomy
textbooks, it took only half an hour for two young German astronomers
to locate Neptune using Leverrier's calculations--and it may have
taken far less than that if Bode's Law hadn't been used to simplify
the calculations. The distance from the sun was way off, but the
direction was close enough.

[J. J. Lodder]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> On a "Bill Nye" thread, Paul Gans showed how talented he is at certain
> things, while on the "Strange Logic..." he showed how modest he can
> be. Let's take the talent show first.

Please don't break threads,

Jan

[Paul J Gans]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>On Oct 6, 8:54?am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>> almost ?two centuries

>> before the advent of computers, Adams and Leverrier independently
>> calculated the approximate location of the unknown planet Neptune by
>> observing small deviations in Uranus's orbit from that predicted from
>> Kepler's laws of planetary motion, EVEN AFTER all perturbations by the
>> much larger and closer planets Saturn and Jupiter (and maybe even

>> Mars, etc. ?-- I don't know the details) had been taken into account.

>Correction: it was almost exactly one century before the advent of
>computers.

Pedantic note here. The calculation of orbits that led to the
discovery of Neptune (but not exactly at the calculated point)
involved integrating equations of motion for a very short period
of solar system time.

Nobody is surprised at that. I can compute the position of the
moon at midnight, universal time, tomorrow on my pocket calculator.
Nobody will be surprised at that either.

The solar system is thought to be (relatively) dynamically stable
with relatively excellent Lyapunov stability. We can know that
because we can make accurate measurements on the bodies in the
solar system. This is very hard to do from 500 light years away.

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Fri, 5 Oct 2012 15:58:57 -0400, Ray Martinez wrote
(in article
<7f5f64dc-b633-4435...@p5g2000pbs.googlegroups.com>):

Well, yes, it does.

--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

[pnyikos]

On Oct 6, 3:24 pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >On Oct 6, 8:54?am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> almost ?two centuries
> >> before the advent of computers, Adams and Leverrier independently
> >> calculated the approximate location of the unknown planet Neptune by
> >> observing small deviations in Uranus's orbit from that predicted from
> >> Kepler's laws of planetary motion, EVEN AFTER all perturbations by the
> >> much larger and closer planets Saturn and Jupiter (and maybe even
> >> Mars, etc. ?-- I don't know the details) had been taken into account.
> >Correction: it was almost exactly one century before the advent of
> >computers.
>
> Pedantic note here.  The calculation of orbits that led to the
> discovery of Neptune (but not exactly at the calculated point)
> involved integrating equations of motion for a very short period
> of solar system time.

Yes, but with modern computers, a "very short period of time" is in
the millions of years:

even the most precise long-term models
for the orbital motion of the Solar System
are not valid over more than
a few tens of millions of years.[2]

The Solar System is stable in human terms,
in that none of the planets will collide with
each other or be ejected from the system
in the next few billion years,[3] and the
Earth's orbit will be relatively stable.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stability_of_the_Solar_System

> The solar system is thought to be (relatively) dynamically stable
> with relatively excellent Lyapunov stability.

Yes, and directed panspermia projects don't take more than about
10,000 years according to my hypothesis.

>  We can know that
> because we can make accurate measurements on the bodies in the
> solar system.  This is very hard to do from 500 light years away.

The general pattern of panspermia would take planets in a reasonable
sequence, so that telescopes could be operating from no more than 50
light years away in a galaxy as endowed with stars as ours. 8000
telescopes could cover a cube 20 x 50 = 1000 light years on a side
with that kind of dispersal, and my hypothesis is satisfied if they
cover a sphere with a radius of no more than 1000 light years, 4/3 pi
times as large.

That's only a first approximation: the average distance between
target planetary systems is only going to be about 10 light years, and
telescopes going into orbit would naturally accompany the probes that
actually land on the planets. These would monitor both the planets in
the system and also study nearby planetary systems.

Your comments do raise one valid point: it is advantageous for a probe
to go into orbit around the star of the target planetary system well
before the panspermy probe gets there, to see the current location(s)
of the target planet(s).

This would happen anyway in the initial stages of the project, before
the panspermists are sure that abiogenesis is a great rarity. If
they are prudent, and respectful of indigenous life, they would first
have to be convinced that at least a thousand likely candidates for
abiogenesis aren't going to have it, before arriving
at this conclusion. And this can only be done by actually landing
instruments on the planets to radio back information.

Also, "aren't going to have it" would mean using samples of planets at
least a billion years old, and that cuts down drastically on the odds
that these planets are going to have their orbits seriously
compromised.

Once a thousand or so planets have been seeded, and the panspermists
convinced that any promising planet is going to be lifeless, they can
be a little less careful about testing the planets for life.

And they should by then have a good idea of how likely planetary
systems are to be *seriously* chaotic, on the average, and to adjust
the extent of their preliminary observations accordingly. A few bum
systems here and there aren't going to matter much in a project
involving over a hundred thousand planets.

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

[pnyikos]

On Oct 7, 9:34 pm, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Oct 2012 15:58:57 -0400, Ray Martinez wrote
> (in article

> <7f5f64dc-b633-4435-9b17-575a66d32...@p5g2000pbs.googlegroups.com>):

You are two days late. See my reply to Ray for how superfluous your
comment is.

Peter Nyikos

[Mitchell Coffey]

On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:

Paul is a scary man, Dude!

> I nominated him on merit and not
> because he bought me a coffee at the AMNH.

That MoFo bought you a *coffee*? Sheesh, the bastard owes me!

Mitchell Coffey

[Paul J Gans]

I still intend to appear one day in Washington where I will
buy you a cup of coffee also.

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2012 14:36:52 -0400, pnyikos wrote
(in article
<755c6249-74c1-4f2a...@z8g2000yql.googlegroups.com>):

I reply to posts when and how I want to, oh liar of liars.

> See my reply to Ray for how superfluous your
> comment is.

Son, it's USENET. No-one cares about your opinion... and that goes triple for
me.

>
> Peter Nyikos
still the single most dishonest creationist currently posting on t.o.

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2012 15:47:21 -0400, Paul J Gans wrote
(in article <k51v09$g26$3...@reader1.panix.com>):

Don't buy Peter any, the caffeine isn't good for him.

[pnyikos]

On Oct 9, 4:14 pm, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> On Tue, 9 Oct 2012 15:47:21 -0400, Paul J Gans wrote

> (in article <k51v09$g2...@reader1.panix.com>):

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
>
> >>> Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard).
>
> >> Paul is a scary man, Dude!
>
> >>> I nominated him on merit and not
> >>> because he bought me a coffee at the AMNH.
>
> >> That MoFo bought you a *coffee*? Sheesh, the bastard owes me!
>
> > I still intend to appear one day in Washington where I will
> > buy you a cup of coffee also.
>
> Don't buy Peter any, the caffeine isn't good for him.

This looks like projection on your part: one of us looked like he was
overdosed on caffeine in the following exchange, and it sure isn't me:

____________________ begin excerpt________
> > I cleared it up shortly after resuming posting here in December 2010,

> Is that so? Would you have 'cleared it up' the same way that you out-and-out,
> with malice aforethought, barefacedly, and with every evidence of glee, LIED
> about me in Message-ID:
> <80ac38b2-0850-4c12-8966-664c7d405...@a14g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,

Returns error message in Google Advanced Search:
Your search - - did not match any documents.
Suggestions:
Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
Try your query on: Web Search

Additional note to those reading this in Google Groups: the three
symbols immediately preceding the @ in the message-id are 680

> posted
> at Sat, 25 Aug 2012 03:54:52 +0000 (UTC)?

No post by me is dated like that.

> You really are the most despicable liar.

Did it make you deliriously happy to post the above crap about me?

Peter Nyikos
============== end of excerpt
from http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/ffd62bdd4832d512

In response to the above, you actually reposted something by me in
which I told no lies, and the only thing in it that I cannot prove
outright is that you obviously like Ron O and dislike me; but all
your behavior since I've encountered you is eminently consistent with
that, and nothing you've said or done undermines it. [I don't count
such silly `denials' as "I don't dislike you, I despise you." as
undermining it.]

Wait, it gets better: you also tried to "refute" what I wrote about
dating:

_______________begin excerpt____________
> > No post by me is dated like that.

> Liar. Here it is

False. The post you are reposting immediately below was done on Fri,
24 Aug 2012 23:17:33 -0400. No difference in time zone can account for
the discrepancy between the time you gave and the actual time the post
was done.
===================== end of excerpt
from http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/e1f2b59e433d9996

Your lame response to that was to the effect of "would you like me to
repost the full headers?"

And I responded with something to the effect of "will it be consistent
with
24 Aug 2012 23:17:33 -0400
or Sat, 25 Aug 2012 03:54:52 +0000 (UTC)
or some third time incompatible with both?"

I never did see a reply from you about that. Perhaps you were badly
in need of a caffeine fix when you saw that last post of mine.

Peter Nyikos

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2012 17:16:37 -0400, pnyikos wrote
(in article
<94e261aa-2cff-47bb...@x14g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>):

Peter, thou are the single most dishonest creationist currently posting on
t.o. And you really, really, REALLY should ease off on the coffee.

[hersheyh]

On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:

Boo!!! Just thought I would scare you.

[John S. Wilkins]

Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

Just watch to see if he puts anything in it...

[pnyikos]

On Oct 9, 5:49 pm, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> On Tue, 9 Oct 2012 17:16:37 -0400, pnyikos wrote
> (in article

> <94e261aa-2cff-47bb-9776-c7f143752...@x14g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>):

> > fromhttp://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/ffd62bdd4832d512

>
> > In response to the above, you actually reposted something by me in
> > which I told no lies, and the only thing in it that I cannot prove
> > outright is  that you obviously like Ron O and dislike me; but all
> > your behavior since I've encountered you is eminently consistent with
> > that, and nothing you've said or done undermines it.  [I don't count
> > such silly `denials' as "I don't dislike you, I despise you." as
> > undermining it.]
>
> > Wait, it gets better: you also tried to "refute" what I wrote about
> > dating:
>
> > _______________begin excerpt____________
> >>> No post by me is dated like that.
>
> >> Liar. Here it is
>
> > False.  The post you are reposting immediately below was done on Fri,
> > 24 Aug 2012 23:17:33 -0400. No difference in time zone can account for
> > the discrepancy between the time you gave and the actual time the post
> > was done.
> > ===================== end of excerpt

> > fromhttp://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/e1f2b59e433d9996

>
> > Your lame response to that was to the effect of "would you like me to
> > repost the full headers?"
>
> > And I responded with something to the effect of "will it be consistent
> > with
> > 24 Aug 2012 23:17:33 -0400
> > or Sat, 25 Aug 2012 03:54:52 +0000 (UTC)
> > or some third time incompatible with both?"
>
> > I never did see a reply from you about that.  Perhaps you were badly
> > in need of a caffeine fix when you saw that last post of mine.
>
> > Peter Nyikos
>
> Peter, thou are the single most dishonest creationist currently posting on
> t.o. And you really, really, REALLY should ease off on the coffee.

This is just the latest item in your never-ending torrrent of Truth by
Blatant Assertion (TbBA), including your almost invariable repetition
of the "most dishonest creationist" double slander.

One hundred repetitions three nights a week
for four years, thought Bernard Marx, who was
an expert on hypnopaedia. Sixty-two thousand
repetitions make one truth. Idiots!
--Aldous Huxley, in _Brave New World_

Do you think people are dishonest if they frequently document what
they say? If so, that would explain your allegation about "most
dishonest" as well as your addiction to TbBA.

And maybe to caffeine. ;-)

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Oct 10, 7:04�am, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>

> > Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
>
> > >> Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard).
>
> > >Paul is a scary man, Dude!
>
> > >> I nominated him on merit

That "merit" is looking more and more threadbare all the time, and it
never was anything like what you could see in the draft for the
website on PotM winners. What appears there now is:

"Paul Gans concisely explains why it is more likely that life began on
earth rather than being imported from elsewhere in the universe."

A much more accurate description would be:

"Paul Gans concisely summarizes a theory about how life (as distinct
from `life as we know it') could begin much more easily than most
people think."

Friar Broccoli balked at such a radical rewriting, pleading a lack of
the requisite scientific background for judging which wording is
better, so I suggested adding "he thinks":

"Paul Gans concisely explains why he thinks it is more likely
that life began on earth rather than being imported
from elsewhere in the universe."

The following is the latest step in this discussion:

___________________
> I am pretty sure that this is almost the exact wording I used in one of
> my initial drafts. I deleted "he thinks" because EVERY post (unless
> someone is arguing as Devil's advocate) represents what the author
> thinks. So "he thinks" belongs in all descriptions or none.
>
> So basically it's just adding extra empty verbiage.

Ah, but this time the "he thinks" is preceded by the word "why" and
the "why"s have nothing to do with actually arguing FOR the "more
likely" but just with telling us about unspecified "colleagues" and
"others" agreeing with him that abiogenesis is easier than most people
think.

But the connection with "rather than being imported from elsewhere in
the universe" is nonexistent, except in Gans's mind.
=======================

Did YOU suggest that benighted original wording, John?

> > >> and not
> > >> because he bought me a coffee at the AMNH.
>
> > >That MoFo bought you a *coffee*? Sheesh, the bastard owes me!
>
> > I still intend to appear one day in Washington where I will
> > buy you a cup of coffee also.
>
> Just watch to see if he puts anything in it...

Yeah, there were a few times when I actually thought of attending a
Howlerfest, when those were better attended than nowadays. However,
with so many of the regulars defaming me on a regular basis, I didn't
want to risk the possibility of someone slipping a Mickey Finn into
something I was drinking.

I expect a few people to drool all over their keyboards at how
"paranoid" I was, but those people will conveniently claim, or at
least imply, that all that defamation was no big deal, and perhaps
even nonexistent.

Some might even be amoral enough to suggest that I brought the
defamation on myself by not being sufficiently polite to the
regulars.

Of course, that would include a lot of the Howlerfest regulars, but
amoral critics can't be expected to draw the obvious conclusion that
someone who virulently defamed me might at least be tempted to slip me
a Mickey Finn.

Peter Nyikos

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:33:15 -0400, pnyikos wrote
(in article
<b9dea3c3-42c9-484c...@b15g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>):

Peter, I pointed out that you said, exactly, what you claimed, falsely, that
Gans had said. You have not addressed that, because you cannot. You are, as
usual, attempting to obfuscate and blather and generally bury the truth under
a ton of verbage. It will not work. You're a liar. Period.

>
> And maybe to caffeine. ;-)

Nah. I can quit any time.

>
> Peter Nyikos
Still the single most dishonest creationist currently posting on t.o.

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:02:35 -0400, pnyikos wrote
(in article
<1ab20978-e79b-44c6...@q16g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>):

> Yeah, there were a few times when I actually thought of attending a
> Howlerfest, when those were better attended than nowadays. However, with so
> many of the regulars defaming me on a regular basis, I didn't want to risk
> the possibility of someone slipping a Mickey Finn into something I was
> drinking.

Paranoid, much, Peter?

[jillery]

It's a silly phobia anyway. Nobody would waste a Mickey on him.

[John S. Wilkins]

hersheyh <hers...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:

...

> > Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard).
>
> Boo!!! Just thought I would scare you.

Gahh! Now I have to change my jeans. Do you know how hard that is when
your leg is in a splint?

[Paul J Gans]

John S. Wilkins <jo...@wilkins.id.au> wrote:
>Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

>> Mitchell Coffey <mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
>>
>> >> Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard).
>>
>> >Paul is a scary man, Dude!
>>
>> >> I nominated him on merit and not
>> >> because he bought me a coffee at the AMNH.
>>
>> >That MoFo bought you a *coffee*? Sheesh, the bastard owes me!
>>
>> I still intend to appear one day in Washington where I will
>> buy you a cup of coffee also.

>Just watch to see if he puts anything in it...

I'm not going to have him with me. It is the new thing in
America. I'll buy two cups of coffee and put one in front
of an empty chair.

[Paul J Gans]

John S. Wilkins <jo...@wilkins.id.au> wrote:

>hersheyh <hers...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
>...
>> > Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard).
>>
>> Boo!!! Just thought I would scare you.

>Gahh! Now I have to change my jeans. Do you know how hard that is when
>your leg is in a splint?

Now that you mention that, how is it all coming? I trust that
you are not in pain any longer and can hobble around, philosopher-like
to various disputations here and there.

[John S. Wilkins]

Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

I am in constant unremitting pain, which the meds barely keep down. I am
also trapped in my apartment as I cannot go anywhere. Consequently I am
not earning, so I may be relieved of the necessity of having an
apartment before long. No jobs are forthcoming either apart from the
casual work I now do. So, shit.

[Mitchell Coffey]

Go ahead, make my day.

Mitchell Coffey

[John S. Wilkins]

Mitchell Coffey <mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, October 10, 2012 6:59:19 PM UTC-4, Paul J Gans wrote:
> > John S. Wilkins <jo...@wilkins.id.au> wrote:
> >
> > >Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > >> Mitchell Coffey <mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >> >On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> >
> > >>
> >
> > >> >> Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard).
> >
> > >>
> >
> > >> >Paul is a scary man, Dude!
> >
> > >>
> >
> > >> >> I nominated him on merit and not
> >
> > >> >> because he bought me a coffee at the AMNH.
> >
> > >>
> >
> > >> >That MoFo bought you a *coffee*? Sheesh, the bastard owes me!
> >
> > >>
> >
> > >> I still intend to appear one day in Washington where I will
> >
> > >> buy you a cup of coffee also.
> >
> >
> >
> > >Just watch to see if he puts anything in it...
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm not going to have him with me. It is the new thing in
> >
> > America. I'll buy two cups of coffee and put one in front
> >
> > of an empty chair.
>
> Go ahead, make my day.
>

That is simultaneously good, bad and ugly.

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:42:23 -0400, jillery wrote
(in article <canb78lao7aqnqf0n...@4ax.com>):

Not to mention a slur on the Irish. Why, if _I_ were going to criminally
assault the Professor Doctor, I'd actually do something to make the jailtime
worthwhile.

The massively paranoid, impossibly egomaniacal, completely dishonest blowhard
just accused _all the other regulars_ in t.o of being willing to _commit
direct criminal assault_ on his skanky ass. He is _slime_.

Peter, you paranoid twit, _Ted Holden_ went to at least one Howlerfest. If
_Ted_ could go and escape un-assaulted, what makes _you_ so important that
_you_ would be drugged?

[Paul J Gans]

Mitchell Coffey <mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Wednesday, October 10, 2012 6:59:19 PM UTC-4, Paul J Gans wrote:
>> John S. Wilkins <jo...@wilkins.id.au> wrote:
>>
>> >Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> >> Mitchell Coffey <mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >> >On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >> >> Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard).
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >> >Paul is a scary man, Dude!
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >> >> I nominated him on merit and not
>>
>> >> >> because he bought me a coffee at the AMNH.
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >> >That MoFo bought you a *coffee*? Sheesh, the bastard owes me!
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >> I still intend to appear one day in Washington where I will
>>
>> >> buy you a cup of coffee also.
>>
>>
>>
>> >Just watch to see if he puts anything in it...
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm not going to have him with me. It is the new thing in
>>
>> America. I'll buy two cups of coffee and put one in front
>>
>> of an empty chair.

>Go ahead, make my day.

Want me to pull a Romney and accuse you of having sock puppets
made out of real socks? You'll go the way of Big Bird.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <1krsmp0.1iij6xj1ot2vsqN%jo...@wilkins.id.au>,

jo...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:

> hersheyh <hers...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> ...
> > > Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard).
> >
> > Boo!!! Just thought I would scare you.
>
> Gahh! Now I have to change my jeans. Do you know how hard that is when
> your leg is in a splint?

Easier than changing your genes.

So your leg is still in a splint; aside from that how is the recovery
coming?

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <1krsssq.tgphxvodosrpN%jo...@wilkins.id.au>,

jo...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:

> Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > John S. Wilkins <jo...@wilkins.id.au> wrote:
> > >hersheyh <hers...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > >> On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> > >...
> > >> > Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard).
> > >>
> > >> Boo!!! Just thought I would scare you.
> >
> > >Gahh! Now I have to change my jeans. Do you know how hard that is when
> > >your leg is in a splint?
> >
> > Now that you mention that, how is it all coming? I trust that
> > you are not in pain any longer and can hobble around, philosopher-like
> > to various disputations here and there.
>
> I am in constant unremitting pain, which the meds barely keep down. I am
> also trapped in my apartment as I cannot go anywhere. Consequently I am
> not earning, so I may be relieved of the necessity of having an
> apartment before long. No jobs are forthcoming either apart from the
> casual work I now do. So, shit.

Glad to see you are taking it philosophically.

[John S. Wilkins]

J.J. O'Shea <try.n...@but.see.sig> wrote:

> Peter, you paranoid twit, _Ted Holden_ went to at least one Howlerfest. If
> _Ted_ could go and escape un-assaulted, what makes _you_ so important that
> _you_ would be drugged?

Mind you, Ted was a big biker :-)

[John S. Wilkins]

I will be in a splint for the next six months. Ligaments take much much
longer than bones to heal.

[John S. Wilkins]

You mean stoically. I am not a stoic. I am an Epicurean. We take things
on balance and in good measure, but when shit happens, we don't pretend
it hasn't.

[Paul J Gans]

John S. Wilkins <jo...@wilkins.id.au> wrote:

>J.J. O'Shea <try.n...@but.see.sig> wrote:

>> Peter, you paranoid twit, _Ted Holden_ went to at least one Howlerfest. If
>> _Ted_ could go and escape un-assaulted, what makes _you_ so important that
>> _you_ would be drugged?

>Mind you, Ted was a big biker :-)

Yeah, but they made him leave it outside the museum. The only
gear he had with him was his helmet.

IIRC, in person he was not a bad guy. Friendly, non-insulting, and
willing to talk about a number of things.

[Mitchell Coffey]

That would only be a Romney if, the previous week, you'd accused me of not having sock puppets - and that the sock puppets I didn't have were fake.

Mitchell

[Mitchell Coffey]

On Wednesday, October 10, 2012 8:24:18 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > John S. Wilkins <jo...@wilkins.id.au> wrote:
>
> > >hersheyh <hers...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
>
> > >> On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
>
> > >...
>
> > >> > Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard).
>
> > >>
>
> > >> Boo!!! Just thought I would scare you.
>
> >
>
> > >Gahh! Now I have to change my jeans. Do you know how hard that is when
>
> > >your leg is in a splint?
>
> >
>
> > Now that you mention that, how is it all coming? I trust that
>
> > you are not in pain any longer and can hobble around, philosopher-like
>
> > to various disputations here and there.
>
> I am in constant unremitting pain, which the meds barely keep down. I am
> also trapped in my apartment as I cannot go anywhere. Consequently I am
> not earning, so I may be relieved of the necessity of having an
> apartment before long. No jobs are forthcoming either apart from the
> casual work I now do. So, shit.

This really upset Lorraine when I told her about it.

Mitchell

[John S. Wilkins]

I strongly suggest you don't tell her about these things. I do not want
her upset. But tell the dog. He won't mind.

[pnyikos]

On Oct 10, 3:19 pm, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:33:15 -0400, pnyikos wrote
> (in article

> <b9dea3c3-42c9-484c-8913-bb9476e1a...@b15g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>):

> > On Oct 9, 5:49 pm, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> >> On Tue, 9 Oct 2012 17:16:37 -0400, pnyikos wrote
> >> (in article
> >> <94e261aa-2cff-47bb-9776-c7f143752...@x14g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>):

If you were to quote it here, people would know that you are playing
fast and loose with the facts.

But you don't--you don't even tell people here where your "pointed
out" happened--and it was NOT on this thread that I've set up here.

You've even failed to give a single hint as to what this "he said/you
said/I said" crap is all about--are you hoping to keep everyone else
in the dark about what this is all about?

Note to readers who care about this issue: this has to do with
various statements about [sometimes hypothetical] people who are
either insane or have low IQs. With that hint, you should be able to
find it in the old Google, with the help of the advanced search page
that the old Google Groups still maintains:

http://groups.google.com/advanced_search?q=&

If you can't find it, I'll gladly provide an url.

And indeed, everyone who does wrong
hates the light and avoids it,
for fear his actions should be exposed;
but the man who lives by the truth
comes out into the light...
--John 3:20-21

>You have not addressed that, because you cannot.

I certainly can address it, and did. The fact that you cannot deal
with the way I addressed it seems obvious from the fact that you don't
even hint here at what you had said, nor what I had said to Gans, nor
what I said when I addressed your allegation directly.

> You are, as
> usual, attempting to obfuscate and blather and generally bury the truth under
> a ton of verbage. It will not work. You're a liar. Period.

Is projection a way of life for you? It certainly seems so.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Oct 10, 3:24 pm, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:02:35 -0400, pnyikos wrote
> (in article

> <1ab20978-e79b-44c6-a776-108bdd810...@q16g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>):

>
> > Yeah, there were a few times when I actually thought of attending a
> > Howlerfest, when those were better attended than nowadays. However, with so
> > many of the regulars defaming me on a regular basis, I didn't want to risk
> > the possibility of someone slipping a Mickey Finn into something I was
> > drinking.
>
> Paranoid, much, Peter?

You deleted a prediction of mine which was essentially on the money,
and I suspect that you are softening your response to a question
because you read it before you deleted it:

________________ repost __________________

I expect a few people to drool all over their keyboards at how
"paranoid" I was, but those people will conveniently claim, or at
least imply, that all that defamation was no big deal, and perhaps
even nonexistent.

Some might even be amoral enough to suggest that I brought the
defamation on myself by not being sufficiently polite to the
regulars.

Of course, that would include a lot of the Howlerfest regulars, but
amoral critics can't be expected to draw the obvious conclusion that
someone who virulently defamed me might at least be tempted to slip me
a Mickey Finn.

===================end of repost================

Peter Nyikos

[Paul J Gans]

And now I'm ahead in the popular vote projections. See what a
little bravado can do? Who needs facts?

Wasn't it the greatest Republican President of the 21st century
who said "We make our own facts". Or did he say "reality". Or
whatever. What ever happened to him anyway? Did he defect?

[Paul J Gans]

Yeah, well it upset me too.

[Mitchell Coffey]

On Friday, October 12, 2012 2:09:16 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> Mitchell Coffey <mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Wednesday, October 10, 2012 8:24:18 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
>
> > > Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > > > John S. Wilkins <jo...@wilkins.id.au> wrote:
>
> > > > >hersheyh <hers...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > > >> On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
>
> > > > >...
>
> > > > >> > Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard).
>
> > >
>
> > > > >> Boo!!! Just thought I would scare you.
>
> > >
>
> > > > >Gahh! Now I have to change my jeans. Do you know how hard that is when
>
> > > > >your leg is in a splint?
>
> > > >
>
> > >
>
> > > > Now that you mention that, how is it all coming? I trust that
>
> > > > you are not in pain any longer and can hobble around, philosopher-like
>
> > > > to various disputations here and there.
>
> > >
>
> > > I am in constant unremitting pain, which the meds barely keep down. I am
>
> > > also trapped in my apartment as I cannot go anywhere. Consequently I am
>
> > > not earning, so I may be relieved of the necessity of having an
>
> > > apartment before long. No jobs are forthcoming either apart from the
>
> > > casual work I now do. So, shit.
>
> >
>
> > This really upset Lorraine when I told her about it.
>
> >
>
> I strongly suggest you don't tell her about these things. I do not want
>
> her upset. But tell the dog. He won't mind.

So much you know. Izzie's inconsolable.

Mitchell Coffey

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:k5a5rd$858$2...@reader1.panix.com...

Who needs facts. Is this what you are talking about?

"Over the weekend, Jesse Eisinger, a colleague of Suskind's at the Wall Street
Journal, now at Pro Publica, tweeted, "I've always thought the 'reality-based'
line was piped. At the WSJ, Suskind was brilliant but his stuff was a little too
perfect."
He was referring to Suskind's reporting that a Bush aide had told him that guys
like him were "in what we call the reality-based community," later adding, "That
's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we
act, we create our own reality." That quote has since been widely attributed to
Karl Rove.

On Fox News on Saturday, Rove said, "I'm not certain how much of this book is
true and accurate. My personal experience with him is that he tends to
exaggerate" - a quote that was later tweeted, in a slightly surreal moment of
bipartisan White House alumni solidarity, by Pfeiffer."
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63991_Page3.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?_r=0

[pnyikos]

On Oct 10, 8:24�pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>

> > John S. Wilkins <j...@wilkins.id.au> wrote:

> > >hersheyh <hershe...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > >> On Friday, October 5, 2012 6:54:34 PM UTC-4, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> > >...
> > >> > Paul does not scare me (unlike Howard).
>
> > >> Boo!!! �Just thought I would scare you.
>
> > >Gahh! Now I have to change my jeans. Do you know how hard that is when
> > >your leg is in a splint?
>
> > Now that you mention that, how is it all coming? �I trust that
> > you are not in pain any longer and can hobble around, philosopher-like
> > to various disputations here and there.
>
> I am in constant unremitting pain, which the meds barely keep down. I am
> also trapped in my apartment as I cannot go anywhere. Consequently I am
> not earning, so I may be relieved of the necessity of having an
> apartment before long. No jobs are forthcoming either apart from the
> casual work I now do. So, shit.

I'm very sorry to hear this, and I'm glad I cut you a lot of slack on
your nomination for PotM of an amateurish post of Gans.

I'm not even going to ask whether you composed the description that
Friar Broccoli put for that Gans post, to spare you any more
unpleasantness.

I hope that you get well soon, or at least that your pain becomes
manageable, and that your job outlook improves.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Oct 11, 5:49 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:

> J.J. O'Shea <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> > Peter, you paranoid twit, _Ted Holden_ went to at least one Howlerfest. If
> > _Ted_ could go and escape un-assaulted, what makes _you_ so important that
> > _you_ would be drugged?
>
> Mind you, Ted was a big biker :-)

I doubt that he was subjected to defamation 1% as bad what as I
endured in those 1995-2001 years.

There was no need for it. Ted was a creationist, and a bit of a kook,
easily discredited without any recourse to defaming him.

Also, there was no point in Gans badgering Ted to put him on the
Howler Monkey list, the way Gans kept begging and pleading with me to
put him on the bandar-log list.

Gans probably got warning via the grapevine that I could back up my
putting of people on lists, as shown by the Lynda Wilson debacle in
talk.abortion.

Cunning b***ard that he is, Gans may have decided on his own that the
best strategy was to pretend that it was an honor to be put on my
lists--or he may have been told that via the grapevine also, possibly
by his closest counterpart in talk.origins, Chris Lyman.

Lyman had supported Lynda Wilson for a short while but beat a retreat
when I warned everyone that anyone who sided with Lynda on her threat
to sue me would be named as an accessory in any countersuit I would
launch against her if she went through with her threat. Lynda had
threatened publicly to sue me if I did not remove her from the list of
"Pro-Choice Loose Cannons."

Lyman disappeared for a number of years during my 7-year break from
Usenet posting, then re-emerged as "Spartakus", a name that might be
familiar to DIG and a few others due to a very minor invasion of
talk.origins last year by him and a few other regulars of
talk.abortion.

Peter Nyikos

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:41:40 -0400, pnyikos wrote
(in article
<d73c7ff9-97e1-415d...@n16g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>):

>>> ￜ ￜ One hundred repetitions three nights a week
>>> ￜ ￜ for four years, thought Bernard Marx, who was
>>> ￜ ￜ an expert on hypnopaedia. ￜSixty-two thousand
>>> ￜ ￜ repetitions make one truth. ￜIdiots!
>>> ￜ ￜ ￜ ￜ--Aldous Huxley, in _Brave New World_

>>
>>> Do you think people are dishonest if they frequently document what

>>> they say? ï¿œIf so, that would explain your allegation about "most

>>> dishonest" as well as your addiction to TbBA.
>>
>> Peter, I pointed out that you said, exactly, what you claimed, falsely, that
>> Gans had said.
>
> If you were to quote it here, people would know that you are playing
> fast and loose with the facts.

Bullshit. You stated, flat out, that anyone who disagreed with you had to
have an IQ of less than 50 and also had to be insane.

>
> But you don't--you don't even tell people here where your "pointed
> out" happened--and it was NOT on this thread that I've set up here.

Son, they know. I've pointed it out numerous times.

But here it is again:

"My words would have produced understanding in a sane person with an IQ
of 50."

>
> You've even failed to give a single hint as to what this "he said/you
> said/I said" crap is all about--are you hoping to keep everyone else
> in the dark about what this is all about?
>
> Note to readers who care about this issue: this has to do with
> various statements about [sometimes hypothetical] people who are
> either insane or have low IQs. With that hint, you should be able to
> find it in the old Google, with the help of the advanced search page
> that the old Google Groups still maintains:
>
> http://groups.google.com/advanced_search?q=&
>
> If you can't find it, I'll gladly provide an url.

I just quoted you.

>
> And indeed, everyone who does wrong
> hates the light and avoids it,
> for fear his actions should be exposed;
> but the man who lives by the truth
> comes out into the light...
> --John 3:20-21
>
>> You have not addressed that, because you cannot.
>
> I certainly can address it, and did. The fact that you cannot deal
> with the way I addressed it seems obvious from the fact that you don't
> even hint here at what you had said, nor what I had said to Gans, nor
> what I said when I addressed your allegation directly.
>
>> You are, as
>> usual, attempting to obfuscate and blather and generally bury the truth
>> under
>> a ton of verbage. It will not work. You're a liar. Period.
>
> Is projection a way of life for you? It certainly seems so.

Nope.

>
> Peter Nyikos
Still the single most dishonest creationist currently posting on t.o.

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:44:07 -0400, pnyikos wrote
(in article
<8189e9ba-830a-41e9...@b15g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>):

Nah. I just quoted the relevant bit.

You're slime.

[pnyikos]

On Oct 13, 12:59 pm, "J.J. O'Shea" <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:41:40 -0400, pnyikos wrote
> (in article

> <d73c7ff9-97e1-415d-a0bb-1302d22f7...@n16g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>):

> >>> One hundred repetitions three nights a week

> >>> for four years, thought Bernard Marx, who was

> >>> an expert on hypnopaedia. Sixty-two thousand
> >>> repetitions make one truth. Idiots!

> >>> --Aldous Huxley, in _Brave New World_
>
> >>> Do you think people are dishonest if they frequently document what

> >>> they say? If so, that would explain your allegation about "most

> >>> dishonest" as well as your addiction to TbBA.
>
> >> Peter, I pointed out that you said, exactly, what you claimed, falsely, that
> >> Gans had said.

The following prediction of mine came true in an unexpected manner:

> > If you were to quote it here, people would know that you are playing
> > fast and loose with the facts.
>
> Bullshit. You stated, flat out, that anyone who disagreed with you had to
> have an IQ of less than 50 and also had to be insane.
>

There are few people who have the chutzpah to utter bare-faced lies,
like you have just now done, and to actually post something that helps
readers prove they are lying. You did it earlier too: in fact, anyone
can scroll up and see what went on between us earlier, for another
example.

[people reading in the old Google Groups may need to click on "-Show
quoted text-"]

Even in talk.abortion, such people are rare. I can't think of any
offhand besides a handful of talk.abortion regulars who briefly
invaded talk.origins about a year and a half ago, and were warned off
by DIG himself.

And I'm not sure any of them posted LIBEL that may be legally
actionable, as you have done just now, and then given information to
readers that helps to disprove that libel.

> > But you don't--you don't even tell people here where your "pointed
> > out" happened--and it was NOT on this thread that I've set up here.
>
> Son, they know. I've pointed it out numerous times.

On how many threads where I have never participated?

This past week, I saw you libeling me behind my back on one thread. I
haven't dealt with that behind-the-back libel, and I haven't even
posted to that thread yet, but the other shoe will drop there before
long.

> But here it is again:
>
> "My words would have produced understanding in a sane person with an IQ
> of 50."

Yup. And the context shows just how egregiously you've been lying up
there:

_________________begin excerpts__________
> >Gans made up that ridiculous notion about microbes being the
> >panspermists off the top of his head. NOTHING I ever wrote could
> >possibly have suggested it to him.
=========end of 1st excerpt, begin second=============
[......]

> Your correction of me was, IIRC, the simple word "wrong!".

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you are in an early
to medium stage of Alzheimer's.

My words were "No, you insufferable twit! They SENT microbes."

> That
> was hardly conducive to understanding.

My words would have produced understanding in a sane person with an IQ

of 50. Your talk of Ph.D. exams below is thus full of unintended
irony.
======================== end of excerpt
from http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/062af0395eefdab5

Do you really think that "No, you insufferable twit! They SENT
microbes" takes MORE than an IQ of 50 in a sane man?

Even if you do, that does not stop you from having libeled me up
there.

> > You've even failed to give a single hint as to what this "he said/you
> > said/I said" crap is all about--are you hoping to keep everyone else
> > in the dark about what this is all about?
>
> > Note to readers who care about this issue:  this has to do with
> > various statements about [sometimes hypothetical]  people who are
> > either insane or have low IQs.  With that hint, you should be able to
> > find it in the old Google, with the help of the advanced search page
> > that the old Google Groups still maintains:
>
> >  http://groups.google.com/advanced_search?q=&
>
> > If you can't find it, I'll gladly provide an url.
>
> I just quoted you.

And I provided the url, and quoted the context besides, to show people
just how hypothetical those low-IQ people are-- a lot more
hypothetical than LCA's, which Harshman keeps calling "hypothetical".

> >    And indeed, everyone who does wrong
> >    hates the light and avoids it,
> >    for fear his actions should be exposed;
> >    but the man who lives by the truth
> >    comes out into the light...
> >       --John 3:20-21

Peter Nyikos

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Tue, 16 Oct 2012 16:37:10 -0400, pnyikos wrote
(in article
<eba9320b-d849-4ed0...@b8g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>):

> There are few people who have the chutzpah to utter bare-faced lies, like you

> have just now done, and to actually post something that helps readers prove
> they are lying. You did it earlier too: in fact, anyone can scroll up and
> see what went on between us earlier, for another example.
>
> [people reading in the old Google Groups may need to click on "-Show quoted
> text-"]
>
> Even in talk.abortion, such people are rare. I can't think of any offhand
> besides a handful of talk.abortion regulars who briefly invaded talk.origins
> about a year and a half ago, and were warned off by DIG himself.
>
> And I'm not sure any of them posted LIBEL that may be legally actionable, as
> you have done just now, and then given information to readers that helps to
> disprove that libel.

I quoted you directly and exactly. It ain't libel when I use your own words,
you lying mofo.

[jillery]

What's up with Rockhead's obsession with talk.abortion? He mentions
that newsgroup regularly here, as an off-topic aside, as he does here,
and has even accused me of posting to it.

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:38:13 -0400, jillery wrote
(in article <80kt78thqor9nttrl...@4ax.com>):

He's despised there, too. I've never posted there, but I have made a few
visits. Peter's posts here are _sane_ compared to his stuff there.

[Paul J Gans]

Peter's postings sometimes allow one to think that he feels that there
is a giant conspiracy between J.J O'Shea, Hemidactalys, me, you, and
several others including people from talk.abortion to *get* him.

Such postings usually result in someone pointing out that this is
a bit paranoid. He seems to take this as verification of the truth
of his feelings.

[jillery]

So, no matter the newsgroup, if rockhead doesn't like it, he tosses
them all into the same stewpot.

Makes perfect sense now.

[jillery]

On Thu, 18 Oct 2012 01:05:44 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

If I may ask a follow-up question: Out of all the tens of thousands
of newsgroups on usenet, what did talk.origins and talk.abortion do to
deserve this?

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Wed, 17 Oct 2012 19:56:25 -0400, Paul J Gans wrote
(in article <k5ngj9$e0j$3...@reader1.panix.com>):

Why should we go to all that trouble when he does such a good job of doing
that all by himself?

>
> Such postings usually result in someone pointing out that this is
> a bit paranoid. He seems to take this as verification of the truth
> of his feelings.

Yep.

[Paul J Gans]

Hard to answer. I believe he was in talk.abortion prior to being
in t.o. Back then (1995 or so) things were often crossposted
between them.

But again, IIRC, when he first got here it was to push his idea
that there had not been enough time for life to evolve to its
present state on earth and so it had to come from elsewhere.

Others may recall those days better than I.

[Paul J Gans]

You want my personal opinion, based on my observation and
prejudices?

You got it.

Professor Nyikos is a mathematician and, I am told, a fairly
good one at that. I believe his specialty is topology, but
I've not checked and can't be sure.

Math is very different than science. That's why it is almost
always kept separate from science, as in "math and the sciences".
One reason for this is that math is not (normally) experimental,
though computers have changed that somewhat. Another is that
many things in math can be proven and the concepts behind that
proof (the axioms, if you will) can be stated.

Science is very different. It is primarily based upon observation
and deductions made from those observations. It is subject to
revision and change. Ideas can be incorporated into different
frameworks, such as Newtonian mechanics becomes a part of the
theory of relativity. Ideas can be discarded, such as the notion
of "caloric" as being the substantial manifestation of heat.

Prof. Nyikos is a teacher and is used to having students follow
his lead. When he tells them to look something up, they do that.
When he tells them that he's investigated a problem and concluded
something about it, they believe him. They may press him for
details, but bare knucked fighting, never.

Now translate all that to a newsgroup environment. He has
considered the scientific issues behind abiogenesis and has
determined that the odds are against it happening here are
exceptionally low. He'll even give you his estimated
probabilities and allow you to dispute them to an order of
magnitude or so. But he remains adamant about the general
conclusion.

Then folks on t.o., as they often do, challenge his basic
assumptions. How can they? They are mathematical and he
is the mathematician. They have the gall to raise *technical*
issues when he has papers (often from the past) stating that
those are ignorable issues.

It is in this area that the differences between science and
math become major. As we all know, a 40 year old scientific
paper may not, today, be worth the paper it is written on ---
not because it has been falsified, but because so much more
is today known that the 40 year old approach misses most of
today's issues.

The mathematician has a hard time grasping that, and finds
that a group of people keep harping on the same technological
problems. How can that be? Clearly they don't really believe
all that but are simply cooperating to "get" him.

So conspiracies are seen. QED.

[John Harshman]

On 10/18/12 1:22 PM, Paul J Gans wrote:

> They have the gall to raise *technical*
> issues when he has papers (often from the past) stating that
> those are ignorable issues.

I find it extremely rare to encounter a paper from the future. Is your
experience different?

[Burkhard]

I thought so too. But in a number of CVs I had recently to read for
job applications, there were remarkably papers from 2013, 14 and even
further into the future listed...

[Mitchell Coffey]

My impression was that that he came into T.O. to advance Behe, the ID cause, and his own extraterrestrial hobby horse. He soon got into a six month mud wrestle with you on, if I recall correctly, your characterization of something Pat Buchanan had said. Vaguely I recall thinking - once I was able to tease out what exactly had been said - that Buchanan had said as you'd quoted him, but there was ambiguity in his words, and you resolved the ambiguity on the side of assuming that Buchanan meant the most extremist position that could legitimately drawn from what he said.

Peter thought as I did, but where I wondered if you weren't being a tad unfair to Buchanan (I have since learned that one can never go wrong assuming that Pat Buchanan meant the most extremist position that could legitimately drawn from what he's said), Peter thought you were being grossly dishonest. It seemed after that, Peter became addicted to calling you out on your ceaseless depravity, and commenced to follow you about like a demonic puppy with early-onset incontinence.

Mitchell

[John Harshman]

Hmmm...does the job market become so bad after Romney's election that
job-seekers resort to time travel?

[John S. Wilkins]

"The're tekkin err jerbs"

[Paul J Gans]

The apposition was meant to be with papers from the present. I
do encounter those on rare occasions... ;-)

[Paul J Gans]

Mitchell Coffey <mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Thursday, October 18, 2012 4:03:53 PM UTC-4, Paul J Gans wrote:
>> jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Thu, 18 Oct 2012 01:05:44 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
>> >wrote:

I'd forgotten all about that. But being true to my ceaseless
depravity, I had no choice. Besides, Buchanan would have had
my head for making a benign interpretation of *his* deathless
prose.

I also have to note, Mr. Starbucks, that the line "commenced

to follow you about like a demonic puppy with early-onset

incontinence." is totally fabulous and that I intend to
steal it.

[John Harshman]

I think that if you look, you will find that in all cases those papers
were published in the past. If not, look again in a few minutes to confirm.

[Paul J Gans]

What papers are you talking about? I'm talking about the 50 year
old studies on space ships and panspermia and so on.

Apologies, I should have made that clear.

[John Harshman]

I'm talking about every paper ever published. All of them were published
in the past. Granted, some were published before others. Does that make
the older ones invalid? (That last sentence was actually a serious
point; up to now I've just been messing with you.)

[John Harshman]

On 10/18/12 3:00 PM, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> John Harshman<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>> On 10/18/12 1:41 PM, Burkhard wrote:
>>> On Oct 18, 9:33 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>> On 10/18/12 1:22 PM, Paul J Gans wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> They have the gall to raise *technical*
>>>>> issues when he has papers (often from the past) stating that
>>>>> those are ignorable issues.
>>>>
>>>> I find it extremely rare to encounter a paper from the future. Is your
>>>> experience different?
>>>
>>> I thought so too. But in a number of CVs I had recently to read for
>>> job applications, there were remarkably papers from 2013, 14 and even
>>> further into the future listed...
>>>
>> Hmmm...does the job market become so bad after Romney's election that
>> job-seekers resort to time travel?
>
> "The're tekkin err jerbs"

They have South Park in Australia? This is the age of miracle and wonder.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <k5ngj9$e0j$3...@reader1.panix.com>,

Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

Becoming paranoid is a great way to make people be out to get you.

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[pnyikos]

On Oct 18, 4:03 pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Thu, 18 Oct 2012 01:05:44 -0400, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com>

> >wrote:
> >>On Wed, 17 Oct 2012 23:56:25 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans
> >><gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>

> >>>jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>On Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:20:07 -0400, "J.J. O'Shea"
> >>>><try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>
> >>>>>On Tue, 16 Oct 2012 16:37:10 -0400, pnyikos wrote
> >>>>>(in article

> >>>>><eba9320b-d849-4ed0-8be3-af755391f...@b8g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>):

>
> >>>>>> There are few people who have the chutzpah to utter bare-faced lies, like you
> >>>>>> have just now done, and to actually post something that helps readers prove
> >>>>>> they are lying.  You did it earlier too: in fact, anyone can scroll up and
> >>>>>> see what went on between us earlier, for another example.
>
> >>>>>> [people reading in the old Google Groups may need to click on "-Show quoted
> >>>>>> text-"]
>
> >>>>>> Even in talk.abortion, such people are rare.  I can't think of any offhand
> >>>>>> besides a handful of talk.abortion regulars who briefly invaded talk.origins
> >>>>>> about a year and a half ago, and were warned off by DIG himself.
>
> >>>>>> And I'm not sure any of them posted LIBEL that may be legally actionable, as
> >>>>>> you have done just now, and then given information to readers that helps to
> >>>>>> disprove that libel.
>
> >>>>>I quoted you directly and exactly. It ain't libel when I use your own words,
> >>>>>you lying mofo.

I showed how brazenly deceitful O'Shea is being here, in direct reply
to the post where he wrote this. The libel was in his hideously
dishonest description of what those words were all about.

Naturally, he did not want the libel to appear in the same post as his
outrageously deceitful words about it above, not with "jillery"
hanging on his every word in this series of posts.

> >>>>What's up with Rockhead's obsession with talk.abortion?  He mentions
> >>>>that newsgroup regularly here, as an off-topic aside, as he does here,
> >>>>and has even accused me of posting to it.

I have no idea, none whatsoever, of where jillery got that idea. All
I said was that I suspected that 'e was an abortion rights zealot,
partly because 'e labeled UC a "baby killer," and I got the impression
that 'e did this to get UC's hackles up, just as O'Shea gets my
hackles up by saying I am the exact opposite of what I really am.

Of course, I would not have suspected this if I had not seen other
indications that jillery is a typical feminst. After all, in the
1990's I encountered a similarly dishonest person who was anti-
abortion (in fact, the most dishonest anti-abortion person I've ever
encountered on the internet), Steve LaBonne.

> >>>Peter's postings sometimes allow one to think that he feels that there
> >>>is a giant conspiracy between J.J O'Shea, Hemidactalys,

Get Hemidactylus off that list. He is one of the most reasonable
people here, AFAIK. He had a disastrous lapse back in the 1990's but
he seems to have really cleaned up his act since then. And Howard
Hershey has cleaned up his act so thoroughly that I tentatively class
him among the reasonable people here now.

Other reasonable (AFAIK) people here include Dana Tweedy, Glenn,
Inez, Richard Norman, Arkalen, "Bill," and Steven L. Arkalen got
quite angry with me when I revealed Hemidactylus's real name, but she
seems like a sincere person so I did not, and do not, hold it against
her. Even John Harshman is reasonable most of the time.

I mention all these people because jillery, and O'Shea are cravenly
hiding behind the general membership of talk.origins all through this
post, with Gans playing "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"
where they are concerned. He has played this role ever since he ended
his boycott of me.

> >>> me, you, and
> >>>several others including people from talk.abortion to *get* him.

Wrong. There are no "several others" in talk.origins AFAIK, only one
other: Ron O.

> >>>Such postings usually result in someone pointing out that this is
> >>>a bit paranoid.

Not nearly as paranoid as Hemidactylus and others were back in the
1990's of a conspiracy between me and Joe Potter. Potter was
regularly accused of "sucking up to me" when he agreed with me on some
issue, and so was any other creationist in the same boat.

The same "sucking up to" kind of image was invoked by "jillery" and
O'Shea when they saw signs of me agreeing with UC on ONE issue: the
proper use of the word "ape" in everyday life as opposed to biological
shop talk. By their and Gans's highly dishonest use of the
term"conspiracy theory", they were far more afraid of a conspiracy
between UC and me than I am of a conspiracy between such a small group
as Gans, jillery, O'Shea, and Ron O.

In fact, much to my surprise, Ron O generally stays aloof from the
other three where defaming me is concerned. He seems to work best as
a loner.

> >>>  He seems to take this as verification of the truth
> >>>of his feelings.

> >>So, no matter the newsgroup, if rockhead doesn't like it, he tosses
> >>them all into the same stewpot.

"them all" means highly dishonest, hypocritical people like Gans,
jillery, O'Shea and Ron O. They are the ONLY people in talk.origins
that I have labeled highly dishonest since I resumed posting here in
December, and so it would be amusing, if it weren't so sad, to see
them hiding behind the vast aggregate of non-creationists. [Gans
isn't doing it here, but he has done it elsewhere, in spades.]

> >>Makes perfect sense now.
> >If I may ask a follow-up question:  Out of all the tens of thousands
> >of newsgroups on usenet, what did talk.origins and talk.abortion do to
> >deserve this?

talk.abortion has always been dominated by abortion rights zealots,
and as time went by, the honest, decent pro-choicers left one by one.
That newsgroup has become a hellhole because four people, close
counterparts of the four of you, formed a nucleus for many years
around which lots of other dishonest people, coming and going,
swarmed.

> Hard to answer.  I believe he was in talk.abortion prior to being
> in t.o.

In fact, I posted there regularly in 1992-96 except for a semester of
sabbatical leave in 1993 and the first three months of 1994. I never
posted to t.o. to my knowledge until 1995. If I did before then, it
was because I wasn't paying much attention to crossposted newsgroups.

> Back then (1995 or so) things were often crossposted
> between them.

Not to my knowledge, except when there was a massive invasion of a
Christian homeschooling newsgroup by dishonest zealots from both
newsgroups in 1995. I got involved briefly in that newsgroup, but
when I realized where the invaders I hadn't seen before came from, I
started participating in talk.origins for a number of reasons, which
I'll mention some other time.

> But again, IIRC, when he first got here it was to push his idea
> that there had not been enough time for life to evolve to its
> present state on earth

Completely false. I was very much a "Mother Earth did it
[abiogenesis] easily" person like almost everyone else here, until
after I'd been here for about a year, and was also what I am now:
accepting of common descent from the first modern unicellular
organisms on earth.

>and so it had to come from elsewhere.
>
> Others may recall those days better than I.

Yes, Paul, you were too much the political animal to pay much
attention to where I was coming from, scientifically, in those days.

Has anything changed in that respect?

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Oct 18, 4:58 pm, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:

> My impression was that that he came into T.O. to advance Behe,

Even more off base than Gans. I never even HEARD of Behe until well
over a year after I started posting here.

> the ID cause, and his own extraterrestrial hobby horse.

See my reply to Gans about how off base this is.

> He soon got into a six month mud wrestle with you on, if I recall correctly, your characterization of something Pat Buchanan had said.

Huh? I don't recall anything like that. So six days is probably more
like it, if it happened at all.

> Vaguely I recall thinking - once I was able to tease out what exactly had been said - that Buchanan had said as you'd quoted him, but there was ambiguity in his words, and you resolved the ambiguity on the side of assuming that Buchanan meant the most extremist position that could legitimately drawn from what he said.
>
> Peter thought as I did, but where I wondered if you weren't being a tad unfair to Buchanan (I have since learned that one can never go wrong assuming that Pat Buchanan meant the most extremist position that could legitimately drawn from what he's said), Peter thought you were being grossly dishonest. It seemed after that, Peter became addicted to calling you out on your ceaseless depravity, and commenced to follow you about like a demonic puppy with early-onset incontinence.

AFAIK, that last sentence is Mitchell's highly skewed description of
me becoming a regular in soc.history.medieval for a year, where Gans
enjoyed more prestige than he does here but was even more dishonest
there than here.

I guess Mitchell saw a dozen too many crossposts between that ng and
talk.origins for his own good.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Oct 18, 7:08 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> On 10/18/12 3:37 PM, Paul J Gans wrote:> John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>  wrote:

I suspect that in a lot of cases where CV's use 2013 or 2014, the
manuscripts had been approved but the backlog is so great that the
editors could only promise one of those years for the paper to
actually appear.

In the references section of set theoretic topology articles, it is
common to put the infinity symbol for the last two digits if no such
promise has been tendered--or the manuscript is still "work in
progress".

Well...it was common in the 20th century. Unfortunately, in some
cases where the first two digits were 19, the papers still haven't
appeared.

And that may have put a damper on the practice. :-)

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

[Mitchell Coffey]

On Oct 19, 12:48 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> On Oct 18, 4:58 pm, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > My impression was that that he came into T.O. to advance Behe,
>
> Even more off base than Gans. I never even HEARD of Behe until well
> over a year after I started posting here.

Fair enough, I stand corrected about you supporting Behe on T.O. so
early on.

> > the ID cause, and his own extraterrestrial hobby horse.
>
> See my reply to Gans about how off base this is.

Fair enough, I stand corrected about you supporting either ID, your
extraterrestrial hobby horse, or both on T.O. so early on.

> > He soon got into a six month mud wrestle with you on, if I recall correctly, your characterization of something Pat Buchanan had said.
>
> Huh?  I don't recall anything like that.  So six days is probably more
> like it, if it happened at all.

It happened. Perhaps you're intentionally pretending to forget details
of a trivial event sixteen years ago, just like Actinium227, the
scumbag who terrorized into obedience the participants of of
alt.cobol.humor in the early 1990's, conveniently "forgot" the exact
language of a conversation he had reported in 1983 in
soc.lord.buckley, using the name "Francium223", between him an a red-
haired Shackmanite in Palo Alto in 1971. Actinium227/Francium223 knew
that if I could force him to quote the 1971 verbatim it would blow the
cover off the finally structured scams that kept the good citizens of
alt.cobol.humor in cowed submission. I'm told he still pops up in
talk.cassiterite every once-in-a-while, under the name Astatine210.
Tell him I say Hi and Suzie's still got his turtle if he wants it
back.

> > Vaguely I recall thinking - once I was able to tease out what exactly had been said - that Buchanan had said as you'd quoted him, but there was ambiguity in his words, and you resolved the ambiguity on the side of assuming that Buchanan meant the most extremist position that could legitimately drawn from what he said.
>
> > Peter thought as I did, but where I wondered if you weren't being a tad unfair to Buchanan (I have since learned that one can never go wrong assuming that Pat Buchanan meant the most extremist position that could legitimately drawn from what he's said), Peter thought you were being grossly dishonest. It seemed after that, Peter became addicted to calling you out on your ceaseless depravity, and commenced to follow you about like a demonic puppy with early-onset incontinence.

> AFAIK, that last sentence is Mitchell's highly skewed description of
> me becoming a regular in soc.history.medieval for a year, where Gans
> enjoyed more prestige than he does here but was even more dishonest
> there than here.

I don't take back a word of it. To fill in some detail, the puppy was
a grey schnauzer with some pink around the bottom right nostril.

As I recall, Paul's dishonesty extended to fiendishly devious
sophistries purporting to prove that the Battle of Hasting went on
after sundown, as well as casuistries of a metistophelian character to
dupe the weak minded into believing that the "surfeit of lampreys"
Henry I of English was said to have died of was really an excess of
eels.

> I guess Mitchell saw a dozen too many crossposts between that ng and
> talk.origins for his own good.
>
> Peter Nyikos

Your concern for my well-being is noted and appreciated.

Mitchell Coffey

[jillery]

A good an explanation as any, although IMO a bit over-analyzed. ISTM
rockhead is just a megalomaniac who can do no wrong. That makes him
an easy target when he is obviously wrong but won't admit it.

[John Harshman]

In biology, and I think in most sciences, the accepted practice is to
put "in press" for papers that have been accepted but not yet published,
"submitted" for those that are in review, and not to mention anything
not yet submitted.

[Paul J Gans]

Seriously, most older papers are wrong in terms of what we know
today. I believe that's well-known. Of course old is a relative
term here, the newer the old paper is, the more chance it has of
being correct in terms of today's science.

[Paul J Gans]

I've noticed that.

[John Harshman]

It is indeed, but it's still wrong, like a lot of well-known things.

> Of course old is a relative
> term here, the newer the old paper is, the more chance it has of
> being correct in terms of today's science.

I suppose that's true in a very rough sense. But the variance is huge,
and that doesn't allow you to intimate that a paper must be wrong
because it's old, the way you're doing. So Peter cites old papers. Are
they wrong? You would have to show that.

[John S. Wilkins]

Same in the humanities.

[Glenn]

"John Harshman" <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:E7qdncpZ6vE...@giganews.com...

What do you all mean by "wrong"?

[Paul J Gans]

Be real. Everything Newton wrote was wrong from today's point
of view. Maxwell has done a bit better. Biology changes so
rapidly that textbooks can't even keep up. And biochemistry,
as I've heard collegues say, is obsolete even before you think
it up.

You are thinking to rightness or wrongness in terms of science
at the time the paper was written. I'm looking back from today's
viewpoint.

Consider: could Darwin back then write a proper paper by today's
standards?

And the real situation is even worse:

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

"Why Most Published Research Findings Are False"

Even if we restrict ourselves to references, there is

J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2005;12:225???228. DOI 10.1197/jamia.M1683.

"Accuracy of References in Five Biomedical Informatics Journals"

And there are many more examples.

[Paul J Gans]

In the case of the Orgel and Crick RNA world paper, one only
needs to look at a later Orgel and Crick paper that states:

"We did not seriously consider the possibility that there was
a midwife, a replicating pre-RNA world of quite different
chemistry based, for example, on clays, as suggested by
Cairns-Smith, or an alternative organic polymer..."

Orgel and Crick, www.fasebj.org/content/7/1/238.full.pdf

Today their rather restricted choices for the formation of life
have been greatly expanded. The jury is still out on which, if
any, are the most likely.

I've answered the more general question in a previous post.

[John Harshman]

I disagree. It's understood slightly differently (generally as an
approximation useful at low velocities), but it isn't wrong.

> Maxwell has done a bit better. Biology changes so
> rapidly that textbooks can't even keep up.

Yes, and mostly that's learning new things, not learning that old things
ain't so.

> And biochemistry,
> as I've heard collegues say, is obsolete even before you think
> it up.
>
> You are thinking to rightness or wrongness in terms of science
> at the time the paper was written. I'm looking back from today's
> viewpoint.

No, I'm not thinking that at all.

> Consider: could Darwin back then write a proper paper by today's
> standards?

Pretty sure he could, if someone taught him the standards. He was a
smart guy.

> And the real situation is even worse:
>
> http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
>
> "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False"
>
> Even if we restrict ourselves to references, there is
>
> J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2005;12:225???228. DOI 10.1197/jamia.M1683.
>
> "Accuracy of References in Five Biomedical Informatics Journals"
>
> And there are many more examples.

Note that this has nothing to do with age.

[pnyikos]

On Oct 19, 2:13 am, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 19, 12:48 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Oct 18, 4:58 pm, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > My impression was that that he came into T.O. to advance Behe,
>

> > Even more off base thanGans. I never even HEARD of Behe until well

> > over a year after I started posting here.
>
> Fair enough, I stand corrected about you supporting Behe on T.O. so
> early on.
>
> > > the ID cause, and his own extraterrestrial hobby horse.
>

> > See my reply toGansabout how off base this is.

>
> Fair enough, I stand corrected about you supporting either ID, your
> extraterrestrial hobby horse, or both on T.O. so early on.
>
> > > He soon got into a six month mud wrestle with you

Gans tried to initiate a mud wrestle with me very early on, by begging
and pleading with me to put him on the Bandar-Log list, but I
explained to him repeatedly that I had demanding criteria (apparent
dishonesty, etc.) and I hadn't seen him meet them yet.

It was only after months that I finally decided I had seen enough
evidence of him satisfying those conditions. But I've seen plenty of
evidence since then.

on, if I recall correctly, your characterization of something Pat
Buchanan had said.


> > Huh? I don't recall anything like that. So six days is probably more
> > like it, if it happened at all.
>
> It happened. Perhaps you're intentionally pretending to forget details
> of a trivial event sixteen years ago,

Perhaps you are unintentionally confusing me with someone else. All I
can say is, I have no recollection of such an argument.

[snip Mitchell reminisces having nothing to do with me]

> > > Vaguely I recall thinking - once I was able to tease out what exactly had been said - that Buchanan had said as you'd quoted him, but there was ambiguity in his words, and you resolved the ambiguity on the side of assuming that Buchanan meant the most extremist position that could legitimately drawn from what he said.
>
> > > Peter thought as I did, but where I wondered if you weren't being a tad unfair to Buchanan (I have since learned that one can never go wrong assuming that Pat Buchanan meant the most extremist position that could legitimately drawn from what he's said), Peter thought you were being grossly dishonest. It seemed after that, Peter became addicted to calling you out on your ceaseless depravity, and commenced to follow you about like a demonic puppy with early-onset incontinence.
> > AFAIK, that last sentence is Mitchell's highly skewed description of
> > me becoming a regular in soc.history.medieval for a year, whereGans
> > enjoyed more prestige than he does here but was even more dishonest
> > there than here.
>

> I don't take back a word of it. [snip]

And you don't have any intention of documenting anything you say here,
do you?

> As I recall, Paul's dishonesty extended to fiendishly devious
> sophistries purporting to prove that the Battle of Hasting went on
> after sundown,

Actually, it was his nemesis, D. Spencer Hines, who advanced that
theory, while Gans not only sneered at the idea, he feigned amnesia
over someone telling him that the biographer of Charlemagne had
written that the battle of Roncesvalles was fought after sundown.

>as well as casuistries of a metistophelian character to
> dupe the weak minded into believing that the "surfeit of lampreys"
> Henry I of English was said to have died of was really an excess of
> eels.

That's kid stuff compared to Gans's ripping into me for daring to
doubt his claim that devotion to the Blessed Virgin in Western Europe
only started in the 12th century.

I carefully asked him, in a different context, considerably later,
whether he believed that the Book of Kells dated back to the 9th
century or thereabouts. He assented.

But he killfiled me shortly thereafter, so I never could tell him
that there is an illustration in that book of Mary with the child
Jesus in her lap -- and she wears a halo while he does not.

> > I guess Mitchell saw a dozen too many crossposts between that ng and
> > talk.origins for his own good.
>
> > Peter Nyikos
>
> Your concern for my well-being is noted and appreciated.
>
> Mitchell Coffey

Thanks.

Peter Nyikos

[Glenn]

"pnyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:913234ab-38bd-46f7...@y8g2000yqy.googlegroups.com...

There's too many Peters in this thread.

[pnyikos]

On Oct 19, 6:28�am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Oct 2012 20:22:12 +0000 (UTC), Paul JGans
>
>
>
>
>
> <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

> >J.J. O'Shea <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> >>On Wed, 17 Oct 2012 19:56:25 -0400, Paul JGanswrote

> >>(in article <k5ngj9$e0...@reader1.panix.com>):

>
> >>> jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> On Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:20:07 -0400, "J.J. O'Shea"
> >>>> <try.not...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>
> >>>>> On Tue, 16 Oct 2012 16:37:10 -0400, pnyikos wrote
> >>>>> (in article

> >>>>> <eba9320b-d849-4ed0-8be3-af755391f...@b8g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>):


The following is Gans projecting his closed minded nature onto me:

> >Now translate all that to a newsgroup environment. �He has
> >considered the scientific issues behind abiogenesis and has
> >determined that the odds are against it happening here are
> >exceptionally low. �He'll even give you his estimated
> >probabilities and allow you to dispute them to an order of
> >magnitude or so. �But he remains adamant about the general
> >conclusion.

On another thread, Gans claimed about the same time that "we know"
that abiogenesis happened on earth easily.

> >Then folks on t.o., as they often do, challenge his basic
> >assumptions. �How can they?

Gans is projecting his domineering attitude, so often displayed
against me in soc.history.medieval, onto me with this "How can they?"

> They are mathematical and he
> >is the mathematician. �They have the gall to raise *technical*
> >issues when he has papers (often from the past) stating that
> >those are ignorable issues.

I had the gall to raise historical issues in opposition to Gans, and
so he now replaces himself with me, and history with mathematics.

Jeffrey Shallit was the kind of mathematician of whom Gans is speaking
here. Shallit was one of the kindred spirits of Gans back in 1995,
here in talk.origins. He told me that if a student used the wrong
terminology, he would look down on him.

> >It is in this area that the differences between science and
> >math become major. �As we all know, a 40 year old scientific
> >paper may not, today, be worth the paper it is written on ---
> >not because it has been falsified, but because so much more
> >is today known that the 40 year old approach misses most of
> >today's issues.
>
> >The mathematician has a hard time grasping that, and finds
> >that a group of people keep harping on the same technological
> >problems.

Actually, the technological "problems" on which Gans has been harping
are due to him. Not even O'Shea is stupid enough to harp on *those*
"problems." You can read about *them* in the post with which I began
this thread.

But Gans, like jillery and O'Shea, loves to hide behind the general
membership of this newsgroup.

> How can that be? �Clearly they don't really believe
> >all that but are simply cooperating to "get" him.
>
> >So conspiracies are seen. � QED.
>
> A good an explanation as any, although IMO a bit over-analyzed. �ISTM
> rockhead is just a megalomaniac who can do no wrong. �That makes him
> an easy target when he is obviously wrong but won't admit it.

This is a standard dirty debating way of alleging that I have been
obviously wrong and wouldn't admit it, without ever having to give
actual instances.

Actually, I think jillery is just projecting her inability to admit
that she had been wrong about Doolittle and Behe, thinking Doolittle
had a valid criticism of Behe based on some experiments with mice.
But when it became clear that Doolittle had misread an article about
the mice in question, jillery disappeared from the thread.

When I reminded her that she had vanished without answering my last,
very detailed and careful argument, she gave the utterly phony excuse
that she must have tired of my personal attacks in that thread. But
not only were there no personal attacks in that post, there were no
personal attacks by me in the previous one I did. And jillery did
reply to that earlier one, because she still thought she could win the
argument.

See, *I* can and do give actual instances. And I can back this one up
with reposts, if anyone has doubts.

But I am pretty sure that not only will no one express doubts, but no
one will leave these last four paragraphs in when replying to me. The
people here know that jillery has killfiled me, and are very
protective of jillery's feelings, illusions, and outright lies.

[I got tired of using gender neutral language, and have adopted the
feminine gender in describing jillery for the sake of convenience.]

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Oct 19, 11:48 am, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> On 10/18/12 9:52 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Oct 18, 7:08 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>  wrote:

> >> On 10/18/12 3:37 PM, Paul JGanswrote:>  John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>    wrote:

That is standard in mathematics also, but the aforementioned "double
infinity" is usually an *additional* item, done in the kinds of
bibliographies where the works of each author are grouped together,
labeled with a year in brackets.

This often goes with references in the text that go like this: name in
small caps, date in brackets after name. It's a fairly frequent
alternative to numbers in brackets.

Hypothetical example: "The resulting space is sequential NYIKOS
[2007b]." (The b is there because it is the second 2007 paper of
mine being referenced.]

Peter Nyikos

[Paul J Gans]

Sure. Air, Earth, Fire, and Water are an approximation too. I'm
not trying to discredit Newton or anyone else. But the fact is that
Newton's work, hailed in the 19th century as the foundation of the
mechanical universe was wrong. The universe, despite what 19th
century savants may have thought, is not mechanical in the Newtonian
sense.

>> Maxwell has done a bit better. Biology changes so
>> rapidly that textbooks can't even keep up.

>Yes, and mostly that's learning new things, not learning that old things
>ain't so.

Lots and lots of old things ain't so, including early theories of
atomic structure, molecular bonding, and the like.

>> And biochemistry,
>> as I've heard collegues say, is obsolete even before you think
>> it up.
>>
>> You are thinking to rightness or wrongness in terms of science
>> at the time the paper was written. I'm looking back from today's
>> viewpoint.

>No, I'm not thinking that at all.

>> Consider: could Darwin back then write a proper paper by today's
>> standards?

>Pretty sure he could, if someone taught him the standards. He was a
>smart guy.

Sure. But his paper would be rejected for not taking genetics into
account.

>> And the real situation is even worse:
>>
>> http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
>>
>> "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False"
>>
>> Even if we restrict ourselves to references, there is
>>
>> J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2005;12:225???228. DOI 10.1197/jamia.M1683.
>>
>> "Accuracy of References in Five Biomedical Informatics Journals"
>>
>> And there are many more examples.

>Note that this has nothing to do with age.

Sure it does. In the future many of those mistakes will be recognized
for what they really are, the copying (or miscopying) of references
from a previous publication that used them.

But as scientific work ages, it tends to rot. Certainly older stuff
is useful from a historical point of view, but when I consult my
copy of Lavoisier's "Elements of Chemistry" (the Dover reprint of
the first English edition) it is most difficult to read. NOT
because he was stupid in any way, he just didn't know what we
know today.

[Mark Isaak]

> [...]

Sounds like it's time to bring up Asimov's "The Relativity of Wrong",
http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural
honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most
pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." - D. Hume

[Burkhard]

On Oct 19, 7:13 am, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 19, 12:48 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Oct 18, 4:58 pm, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > My impression was that that he came into T.O. to advance Behe,
>

> > Even more off base thanGans. I never even HEARD of Behe until well

> > over a year after I started posting here.
>
> Fair enough, I stand corrected about you supporting Behe on T.O. so
> early on.
>
> > > the ID cause, and his own extraterrestrial hobby horse.
>

> > See my reply toGansabout how off base this is.

But but , but that's... <sputter>.... outrageous! The dastardly so and
so! That line is only pushed by Godwinsonian revisionists and other
supporters of the Wessex (Anglo-Saxon) cause. It is nothing but a
fiendish attempt to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Norman
conquest ("your side never scored in time, mate").
It has obvious massive implications for the legitimacy of the Crown,
and if Gans weren't a colonial anyway (and hence by definition in a
state of rebellion) he should be drawn and quartered by wild
tortoises at Highgate.

[*Hemidactylus*]

By tortoises and not horses? That's inhumane.

[jillery]

Now there's a visual that puts Zeno's Paradox to shame.

[Paul J Gans]

Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

Don't get too worked up. I'm adept at avoiding lynch mobs. And
besides, Peter has it backwards. I was not the person claiming
that the fighting went on after sundown.

'Twas a long time ago and memories shift.

[Paul J Gans]

I don't agree. Tortoises get the crown all worked up because
it takes so long. The villeins will miss dinner, and the
nightly episode of "I am the King" on the Royal Channel.

Horses, on the other hand, get the job done in a reasonable
time.

And you left out the drawn part, which meant that an artist
recorded your expression as you, so to speak, went to pieces.