Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

Why do the ID perps run the bait and switch scam on their own creationist

431 views
Skip to first unread message

RonO

unread,
Sep 10, 2014, 7:53:12 AM9/10/14
to
Glenn's, and other posters such as Nyikos, Kalk and Steady Eddie's
perpetual denial of the reality that the bait and switch scam has been
going down for over 12 years, got me wondering what the ID perp's
excuses for their actions are.

Has anyone seen the ID perps at the Discovery Institute put out a
straight forward explanation for why they only give the creationist
rubes a switch scam that doesn't even mention that ID ever existed
instead of the wonderful ID science? Posters such as Glenn are quick to
put up the Discovery Institute propaganda that kept claiming that they
had the scientific theory of intelligent design to teach in the public
schools long after the Discovery Institute had been running the bait and
switch. Glenn did this when the ID perps dropped the paragraph stating
that they had a scientific theory of ID to teach in the public schools
from their education statement last year. He did it to claim that the
ID perps still supported teaching the ID junk. So what is the excuse
that the ID perps give to the IDiots for never putting up the ID science
when it is needed? There are obviously guys like Glenn that believe
that the ID perps have some ID science worth teaching, but no one ever
gets any when they need it.

I don't recall the ID perps ever putting forward an explanation for
their actions. They just started doing it and kept doing it. My guess
is that if such an explanation exists it is so stunningly inane that
even the ID perps don't like to talk about it. The IDiots just accept
what the ID perps are doing and no one ever tries to support the bait
and switch, they just go into denial that it is happening. No one
except Nyikos has tried to deny that every creationist rube school board
or politician that ever claimed to be able to teach the science of
intelligent design always has the bait and switch run on them and all
they ever get is the bogus switch scam with nothing about intelligent
design since Ohio in 2002. At best most IDiots run and pretend that
such events never happen when they always do.

So there has to be something that the ID perps give to the IDiots as
reasons for running the bait and switch, but what are those excuses?
Are IDiots so far into denial that they do not need an explanation for
what has been happening for the last 12 years?

Can any IDiot put up any explanation by the Discovery Institute for
running the bait and switch scam? They keep selling intelligent design,
but all any rube ever gets is junk that doesn't mention that ID ever
existed.

Ron Okimoto

Tim Norfolk

unread,
Sep 10, 2014, 11:17:53 AM9/10/14
to
On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 7:53:12 AM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:
<snip>

Because it affirms their beliefs, so it works?

Alan

unread,
Sep 10, 2014, 4:52:56 PM9/10/14
to

"Tim Norfolk" <tims...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:b53830fc-973f-4f7e...@googlegroups.com...
> On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 7:53:12 AM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:
> <snip>
>
> Because it affirms their beliefs, so it works?
>

Exactly. The essence of propaganda. Give the folks what you know they
want. They'll never bother looking for supporting evidence.


Steven L.

unread,
Sep 10, 2014, 7:10:41 PM9/10/14
to
On 9/10/2014 7:53 AM, RonO wrote:
> Glenn's, and other posters such as Nyikos, Kalk and Steady Eddie's
> perpetual denial of the reality that the bait and switch scam has been
> going down for over 12 years, got me wondering what the ID perp's
> excuses for their actions are.
>
> Has anyone seen the ID perps at the Discovery Institute put out a
> straight forward explanation for why they only give the creationist
> rubes a switch scam that doesn't even mention that ID ever existed
> instead of the wonderful ID science?

My guess is that the people that the DI is trying to reach, wouldn't sit
still for real ID science even if it existed.

Suppose that somebody like Behe actually wrote a genuine DI paper with
all the trappings of biochemistry, evo-devo, transposons, whatever.

You think Steady Eddie would sit down with a few biology and
biochemistry textbooks and study them so he could understand Behe's
paper? I doubt it.

You think that the folks who always ask evolutionists to debate
creationists would want to hear an abstruse lecture on transposons and
evo-devo for themselves? I doubt it.

Such folks only seek reassurance that such "DI science" exists somewhere
out there. They don't care to check it out for themselves.

And why should they?

To do science, appeals to authority are worthless.

*But* for the layperson to take advantage of science, appeals to
authority are all he has to go on.

When my doctor diagnoses me with some illness and prescribes some
medicine, I don't demand to see the medical science and studies and data
behind it. Because *I trust him* to know that stuff so I don't have to.

For laypersons, it's a matter of trust, that's all.


--
Steven L.

nyi...@bellsouth.net

unread,
Sep 10, 2014, 11:49:49 PM9/10/14
to
On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 7:10:41 PM UTC-4, Steven L. wrote:
> On 9/10/2014 7:53 AM, RonO wrote:
>
> > Glenn's, and other posters such as Nyikos, Kalk and Steady Eddie's
> > perpetual denial of the reality that the bait and switch scam has been
> > going down for over 12 years,

Ron O has never posted actual "bait" that has been used since Dover
(2005) and I've never seen anyone except Ron O accuse the DI of
a bait and swich scam. He will deny the truth of this, but I'll
explain below why I am "in denial" of something that no one has
ever shown me.

> >got me wondering what the ID perp's
> > excuses for their actions are.

I've told Ron O many times, but he is in massive denial about it.

> > Has anyone seen the ID perps at the Discovery Institute put out a
> > straight forward explanation for why they only give the creationist
> > rubes a switch scam that doesn't even mention that ID ever existed
> > instead of the wonderful ID science?

> My guess is that the people that the DI is trying to reach, wouldn't sit
> still for real ID science even if it existed.

Why do you assume that Ron O is asking a legitimate question? He nowhere
spells out where one can find "the Discovery Institute propaganda that
kept claiming that they had the scientific theory of intelligent design
to teach in the public schools" which allegedly was only dropped this year.
I have NEVER seen one that appeared later than the Dover 2005 trial. More on
this below.

Anyway, in response to what you wrote: my guess is that the DI folks
are telling the creationists who teach in the high schools about a way
that they easily can avoid being attacked by people who believe and actively
promote the canard that ID is creationism and that teaching it is tantamount
to teaching religion.

These people can be counted on to show high school principals
such juicy propaganda as a statement by 38 Nobel Laureates in science that
conflates ID methodology with the personal beliefs of 99% of ID theorists.
Even if the high school teachers can counter such propaganda logically,
they cannot be expected to fare any better than reason and logic can be
expected to prevail here in talk.origins.

> Suppose that somebody like Behe actually wrote a genuine DI paper with
> all the trappings of biochemistry, evo-devo, transposons, whatever.

The paper will be popularized by the likes of Casey Luskin. High school
teachers can read these popularizations, and they have a constitutional
right to teach the scientific side of ID, but for reasons given
above the DI does not encourage them to avail themselves of this right.

Ron O has this silly notion that a statement by the DI
that teachers DO have this right is THE "bait" that the DI actually
uses to promise teachers that it has a scientific theory of ID
ready to teach in the public schools
as a rival to evolution.

He has called me a liar and insane for not agreeing with him about
this, but when the debate gets hot and heavy he will omit what you see in
the last line or the last two lines of the preceding paragraph, so that
rubes reading what he writes will not see how stupid his claim is.

> You think that the folks who always ask evolutionists to debate
> creationists would want to hear an abstruse lecture on transposons and
> evo-devo for themselves? I doubt it.

You think that more than 1% of the anti-ID participants in talk.origins
would want to read such difficult books as _Darwin's Doubt_ or
_Darwin's Black Box_? Harshman says he has read the former, but I wonder
whether he has read the 38 pages of endnotes that are chock full of
scientific information in addition to references.

I don't know of anyone here besides myself who has read _DBB_. I doubt
that I will ever see the end of misrepresentations as to what even
the first 50 pages contain.

> Such folks only seek reassurance that such "DI science" exists somewhere
> out there. They don't care to check it out for themselves.

Anti-ID folks almost all seek only reassurance that the term "ID creationism"
has been shown to be redundant somewhere out there.

> When my doctor diagnoses me with some illness and prescribes some
> medicine, I don't demand to see the medical science and studies and data
> behind it. Because *I trust him* to know that stuff so I don't have to.

When Donald Prothero posts a "review" of _Darwin's Doubt_ that misrepresents
all the figures (three) that he mentions, and shamelessly defames Meyer
by his fiction of what Meyer wrote on p. 73 (the ONLY page whose number
Prothero mentions), almost nobody actually looks at those figures or that
page.

The anti-ID folks *trust him* or don't care whether he is telling the truth,
while pro-ID folks never suspect that Prothero would lie about something
that he makes so easy to check.

Documentation on request.

Peter Nyikos

nyi...@bellsouth.net

unread,
Sep 11, 2014, 12:06:59 AM9/11/14
to
On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 7:53:12 AM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:

> No one except Nyikos has tried to deny that every creationist rube
> school board or politician that ever claimed to be able to teach
> the science of intelligent design always has the bait and switch
> run on them...

I've snipped the rest of your statement. Do you also claim that
what I've left in is true?

More to the point: can you actually document my ever having DENIED
what you claim I denied, in either form--the original, or the shortened
form above?

I say you cannot. All you can ever point to is my denial that you
have proven that every creationist rube school board or politician that
ever claimed to be able to teach the science of intelligent design
always has the bait and switch run on them. Pay special attention to
the "bait and" part.

By the way, I can also say that I have never seen anyone but you
CLAIM that every creationist rube school board or politician that
ever claimed to be able to teach the science of intelligent design
always has the bait and switch run on them.

Can you name anyone besides you who HAS claimed it?

I expect you to slap a lot of crud on everything I've written here,
but never to answer my questions unequivocally.

I've posted the reasons for my having denied what I have ACTUALLY
denied, in my reply to Steven L. You already know those
reasons, but you keep feigning amnesia about them.

It will be interesting to see whether Steven L. has the courage to
compare what I wrote to him with the voluminous torrents of abuse
that you will unleash on me if you run true to form.

Good night.

Peter Nyikos

Glenn

unread,
Sep 11, 2014, 12:17:54 AM9/11/14
to

<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:0c961554-ed3c-4f21...@googlegroups.com...
> On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 7:10:41 PM UTC-4, Steven L. wrote:
>> On 9/10/2014 7:53 AM, RonO wrote:
>>
>> > Glenn's, and other posters such as Nyikos, Kalk and Steady Eddie's
>> > perpetual denial of the reality that the bait and switch scam has been
>> > going down for over 12 years,
>
> Ron O has never posted actual "bait" that has been used since Dover
> (2005) and I've never seen anyone except Ron O accuse the DI of
> a bait and swich scam. He will deny the truth of this, but I'll
> explain below why I am "in denial" of something that no one has
> ever shown me.
>
I don't know why you take the time with Ron. He's mentally unstable,
paranoid, and appears incapable of reason. Check out the second to
the last post in the thread "Now that you mention Bill Nye".

RonO

unread,
Sep 11, 2014, 7:13:03 AM9/11/14
to
This is sort of blaming the victims. There may be a constant supply of
rubes, but do you have to take advantage of them.

You can see what the Discovery Institute puts out in public, but what do
they tell the rubes behind closed doors. In both instances where the
IDiot rubes tried to implement the switch scam what did Louisiana and
Texas both do within a few months of each other. When the IDiots were
initiating the switch scam you heard the public claims that ID nor
creationism had anything to do with the switch scam, just like the ID
perps at the Discovery Institute claim, but what happened when both
groups of IDiots tried to implement the switch scam. They both put up
supplements for textbooks. What did they try to put in those
supplements (different ones for each state)? Both IDiot groups put junk
about intelligent design and creationism into switch scam supplements
that they had claimed did not have anything to do with intelligent design.

It has been two years since any other IDiot group has tried to implement
the switch scam since those abject failures.

So what message do the IDiot rubes actually take to heart when they hear
the lies coming out of the ID perps?

Ron Okimoto

RonO

unread,
Sep 11, 2014, 7:56:10 AM9/11/14
to
On 9/10/2014 10:49 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 7:10:41 PM UTC-4, Steven L. wrote:
>> On 9/10/2014 7:53 AM, RonO wrote:
>>
>>> Glenn's, and other posters such as Nyikos, Kalk and Steady Eddie's
>>> perpetual denial of the reality that the bait and switch scam has been
>>> going down for over 12 years,
>
> Ron O has never posted actual "bait" that has been used since Dover
> (2005) and I've never seen anyone except Ron O accuse the DI of
> a bait and swich scam. He will deny the truth of this, but I'll
> explain below why I am "in denial" of something that no one has
> ever shown me.

Are you going to start lying about finding such evidence convincing?
When did it become after 2005? They have been putting out the bait that
there was ID science to teach in the public schools since they started
the scam outfit. It used to be what they were most known for when you
were still posting on TO before 2002. You know that for a fact. They
just dropped it as their major scam once they started running the bait
and switch, but they still kept lying about having the ID science to
teach in the public schools.

Not only that, but Glenn keeps putting up their 2007 propaganda piece
that I put up to show that they were still claiming to be able to teach
the ID science after the Dover fiasco. Glenn uses that propaganda piece
as just that, evidence that the ID perps are still claiming to be able
to teach the bogus junk.

Just recall how well the Scottish verdict misdirection thread went for
you after you were shown to be such a liar in the Dirty debating thread.
Wasn't it somewhere in the Dirty debating thread that you finally
admitted that the evidence was convincing? The Scottish verdict quote
came from Glenn's pamphlet.

Why try to lie about all of this years after the fact?

>
>>> got me wondering what the ID perp's
>>> excuses for their actions are.
>
> I've told Ron O many times, but he is in massive denial about it.

Tell me again.

>
>>> Has anyone seen the ID perps at the Discovery Institute put out a
>>> straight forward explanation for why they only give the creationist
>>> rubes a switch scam that doesn't even mention that ID ever existed
>>> instead of the wonderful ID science?
>
>> My guess is that the people that the DI is trying to reach, wouldn't sit
>> still for real ID science even if it existed.
>
> Why do you assume that Ron O is asking a legitimate question? He nowhere
> spells out where one can find "the Discovery Institute propaganda that
> kept claiming that they had the scientific theory of intelligent design
> to teach in the public schools" which allegedly was only dropped this year.

Allegedly? I had the material before and after and what was missing?
It was over a year ago, now. What was missing was the quoted paragraph
that you always had to lie about. Glenn obviously believed that that
paragraph meant exactly what it said. He put up the 2007 propaganda
pamphlet as evidence that the ID perps were still supporting teaching ID
in the public schools even though they had deleted that paragraph.

> I have NEVER seen one that appeared later than the Dover 2005 trial. More on
> this below.

QUOTE:
Has ID Been Banned from Public Schools?
No. Science teachers have the right to teach science.
Since ID is a legitimate scientific theory, it should be
constitutional to discuss in science classrooms
and it should not be banned from schools. If a
science teacher wants to voluntarily discuss ID,
she should have the academic freedom to do so.
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=1453
END QUOTE:

This comes from Nyikos' own Scottish verdict thread, and it is part of
the evidence that he claims he never saw, but he must have seen it
unless he is unaware of what he posts.

This comes from a summary portion of the propaganda pamphlet where they
are going over the major points. This quote states specifically that
the ID perps are talking about public schools. There is no question
about that. This quote also states that ID is a legitimate scientific
theory that can be discussed in the classroom.

What is there to miss? Glenn obviously does not miss it. Not only
that, but in other parts of this pamphlet they claim that it is still
legal to teach ID in schools outside the Dover area because the ruling
only applies to Dover. The pamphlet also includes a copy of their
education statement at the time that included the paragraph about
teaching the scientific theory of ID that they later deleted just last year.

This is the type of lying that Nyikos has had do for years.

>
> Anyway, in response to what you wrote: my guess is that the DI folks
> are telling the creationists who teach in the high schools about a way
> that they easily can avoid being attacked by people who believe and actively
> promote the canard that ID is creationism and that teaching it is tantamount
> to teaching religion.

Some of the ID perps have been lying about that for decades, so what?
What did the IDiots put in the switch scam supplements? One example and
it could be chance, but two examples and what do you think?

>
> These people can be counted on to show high school principals
> such juicy propaganda as a statement by 38 Nobel Laureates in science that
> conflates ID methodology with the personal beliefs of 99% of ID theorists.
> Even if the high school teachers can counter such propaganda logically,
> they cannot be expected to fare any better than reason and logic can be
> expected to prevail here in talk.origins.

ID just became a stupid and dishonest bait and switch scam. No IDiot
rube that has ever needed the ID science to teach in the public schools
has ever gotten the ID science to teach. You know that for a fact, so
why keep lying about it?

>
>> Suppose that somebody like Behe actually wrote a genuine DI paper with
>> all the trappings of biochemistry, evo-devo, transposons, whatever.
>
> The paper will be popularized by the likes of Casey Luskin. High school
> teachers can read these popularizations, and they have a constitutional
> right to teach the scientific side of ID, but for reasons given
> above the DI does not encourage them to avail themselves of this right.

If such a paper is ever written. It could be popularized. Where is the
ID lesson plan to demonstrate that there is a scientific theory of ID
that can be taught in the public schools? Why couldn't Luskin ever
write one up?

>
> Ron O has this silly notion that a statement by the DI
> that teachers DO have this right is THE "bait" that the DI actually
> uses to promise teachers that it has a scientific theory of ID
> ready to teach in the public schools
> as a rival to evolution.

Lie to yourself all you want to, but you know how the ID perps sell ID
to the rubes.

>
> He has called me a liar and insane for not agreeing with him about
> this, but when the debate gets hot and heavy he will omit what you see in
> the last line or the last two lines of the preceding paragraph, so that
> rubes reading what he writes will not see how stupid his claim is.

Look at the Scottish verdict quote above and the entire pamphlet from
2007. I recall that you even deleted the question "Has Has ID Been
Banned from Public Schools?" and the answer of "No." from the quote in a
post where you were continuing your denial. How did that work out for
you? Insane? Possibly, but more likely just your own projection of
pathological or habitual liar.

>
>> You think that the folks who always ask evolutionists to debate
>> creationists would want to hear an abstruse lecture on transposons and
>> evo-devo for themselves? I doubt it.
>
> You think that more than 1% of the anti-ID participants in talk.origins
> would want to read such difficult books as _Darwin's Doubt_ or
> _Darwin's Black Box_? Harshman says he has read the former, but I wonder
> whether he has read the 38 pages of endnotes that are chock full of
> scientific information in addition to references.

With the bait and switch still going down, why would anyone bother to
read any of the ID perp's junk?

>
> I don't know of anyone here besides myself who has read _DBB_. I doubt
> that I will ever see the end of misrepresentations as to what even
> the first 50 pages contain.

It obviously never amounted to anything or the bait and switch would
have never gone down in Ohio in 2002 and on every IDiot rube since. Has
any IDiot rube ever gotten the wonderful ID science to teach in the
public schools.

>
>> Such folks only seek reassurance that such "DI science" exists somewhere
>> out there. They don't care to check it out for themselves.
>
> Anti-ID folks almost all seek only reassurance that the term "ID creationism"
> has been shown to be redundant somewhere out there.

If it exists somewhere why don't the ID perps put it forward when they
need it?

>
>> When my doctor diagnoses me with some illness and prescribes some
>> medicine, I don't demand to see the medical science and studies and data
>> behind it. Because *I trust him* to know that stuff so I don't have to.
>
> When Donald Prothero posts a "review" of _Darwin's Doubt_ that misrepresents
> all the figures (three) that he mentions, and shamelessly defames Meyer
> by his fiction of what Meyer wrote on p. 73 (the ONLY page whose number
> Prothero mentions), almost nobody actually looks at those figures or that
> page.
>
> The anti-ID folks *trust him* or don't care whether he is telling the truth,
> while pro-ID folks never suspect that Prothero would lie about something
> that he makes so easy to check.
>
> Documentation on request.

Who cares? Does Darwin's Doubt have any good ID science in it?

Ron Okimoto


>
> Peter Nyikos
>

RonO

unread,
Sep 11, 2014, 8:15:10 AM9/11/14
to
On 9/10/2014 11:06 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 7:53:12 AM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:
>
>> No one except Nyikos has tried to deny that every creationist rube
>> school board or politician that ever claimed to be able to teach
>> the science of intelligent design always has the bait and switch
>> run on them...
>
> I've snipped the rest of your statement. Do you also claim that
> what I've left in is true?

Yes, no one else has ever tried to deny it. Put up a single example.

>
> More to the point: can you actually document my ever having DENIED
> what you claim I denied, in either form--the original, or the shortened
> form above?

The bait and switch has obviously been going down. You first denied
that the Discovery Institute was involved in the Ohio bait and switch.
When the evidence was put forward demonstrating that you were wrong, you
literally ran away and would not address that post again.

You then claimed that the ID perps never claimed to be able to teach ID
in the public schools. This morphed into your current claim about since
after Dover since you can't deny how the ID perps were selling ID before
they started to run the bait and switch. Just ask Glenn what that 2007
pamphlet is saying.

>
> I say you cannot. All you can ever point to is my denial that you
> have proven that every creationist rube school board or politician that
> ever claimed to be able to teach the science of intelligent design
> always has the bait and switch run on them. Pay special attention to
> the "bait and" part.

I cannot do what? Do you deny what I claim above? Your stupid claim in
denying the bait and switch was to try to claim that the ID perps did
not claim that they had the ID science to teach in the public schools.
These are the guys that used to claim that ID was their business, but
business is bad at the moment. Why even try to lie about it at this
late date. How many posts could I put up with your denials?

>
> By the way, I can also say that I have never seen anyone but you
> CLAIM that every creationist rube school board or politician that
> ever claimed to be able to teach the science of intelligent design
> always has the bait and switch run on them.
>
> Can you name anyone besides you who HAS claimed it?

Do you deny the reality of it? Even you found the evidence convincing
so why start to lie, again? If what I claim is actually happening why
would it matter that not a single other person mentions it? What
happens every single time? What will happen in the next presidential
election if anyone is as stupid as Michele Bachmann was and claims to be
able to teach the ID science in the public schools?

Some people do call it the bait and switch over at the Panda's Thumb,
but that could be my influence. For some reason most people think that
calling the scam what it is, isn't a nice thing to do, but sometimes you
have to tell it like it is. Just put up a single example where an IDiot
rube school board or legislator ever got the ID science to teach. Who
sold them the teach ID scam? Who ran the bait and switch on them?

>
> I expect you to slap a lot of crud on everything I've written here,
> but never to answer my questions unequivocally.

The truth hurts only because all that is left of you is a twitching
sphincter, and that has been true for years.

>
> I've posted the reasons for my having denied what I have ACTUALLY
> denied, in my reply to Steven L. You already know those
> reasons, but you keep feigning amnesia about them.

So you lie a lot, what has changed?

Ron Okimoto

Mark Isaak

unread,
Sep 11, 2014, 12:49:07 PM9/11/14
to
On 9/10/14 9:06 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> [...]
> By the way, I can also say that I have never seen anyone but you [Ron O]
> CLAIM that every creationist rube school board or politician that
> ever claimed to be able to teach the science of intelligent design
> always has the bait and switch run on them.
>
> Can you name anyone besides you who HAS claimed it?

The very name "intelligent design" is a large part of the bait. It has
a techy engineering sound, and most importantly, it does not say
"creation." Ergo, every school board or politician that claimed ability
to teach intelligent design under that name has had the bait pulled on
them. And when (as must be the case) they are given nothing beyond
creationism and anti-evolution, they get the switch.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Keep the company of those who seek the truth; run from those who have
found it." - Vaclav Havel

Alan

unread,
Sep 11, 2014, 3:43:34 PM9/11/14
to

"RonO" <roki...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:lus047$5pl$1...@dont-email.me...
My point DID NOT blame the victims. What it did is show the reality that
people who are ignorant of basic science are easily taken in by people who
cynically manipulate their emotions. That is what the IDiots do. And that
is why their message is so effective.

If you want to decrease support for ID (and any other creationism) then
improve science education in the US. It won't fix things overnight. But it
will result in an improvement - eventually.

Alan


Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Sep 11, 2014, 3:46:37 PM9/11/14
to
Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote in
news:lusjq5$v75$1...@dont-email.me:

> On 9/10/14 9:06 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>> By the way, I can also say that I have never seen anyone but you [Ron
>> O] CLAIM that every creationist rube school board or politician that
>> ever claimed to be able to teach the science of intelligent design
>> always has the bait and switch run on them.
>>
>> Can you name anyone besides you who HAS claimed it?
>
> The very name "intelligent design" is a large part of the bait. It
> has a techy engineering sound, and most importantly, it does not say
> "creation." Ergo, every school board or politician that claimed
> ability to teach intelligent design under that name has had the bait
> pulled on them. And when (as must be the case) they are given nothing
> beyond creationism and anti-evolution, they get the switch.

In order to demonstrate that ID is a bait-and-switch, one would need to
provide evidence that a school board or a politician somewhere has
actually been fooled into thinking that 'Intelligent Design' has no
religious component. It seems to me that effectively all school boards
and politicians that have embraced 'Intelligent Design' have known quite
well that they were trying to sneak God into the classroom.
--
S.O.P.

TomS

unread,
Sep 11, 2014, 5:10:55 PM9/11/14
to
"On Thu, 11 Sep 2014 19:46:37 +0000 (UTC), in article
<XnsA3A5815C7DD15sn...@78.46.70.116>, Sneaky O. Possum stated..."
*But* the ID advocates shy away from admitting that God (that is,
the Christian God) is the "Intelligent Designer". A politician who
was looking for backing for introducing God is going to be
disappointed by the help that ID advocates are willing to offer.
Today, the ID advocates seem to be backing away from even the scant
substance in ID ("something did something, sometime" - it is amazing
how skillful they are in rooting out substance where nobody else had
noticed it).


--
La trahison des images, Ren� Magritte ("Ceci n'est pas un pipe")
"the map is not the territory", Alfred Korzbyski
Design is not production.
---Tom S.

RonO

unread,
Sep 11, 2014, 6:17:41 PM9/11/14
to
That is why I said "sort of." IDiots like Glenn have to tell us what
they expected compared to what they actually got, and why the switch
scam that doesn't mention that ID ever existed is acceptable.

Ron Okimoto

RonO

unread,
Sep 11, 2014, 6:44:44 PM9/11/14
to
This is the exchange between a Discovery Institute scam artist and
Richard Thomas, one of the lawyers that tried to defend the Dover school
board.

http://ncse.com/news/2005/10/discovery-institute-thomas-more-law-center-squabble-aei-foru-00704

Thomas put forward the booklet that claimed that ID could be taught in
the public schools authored by three Discovery Institute fellow. Meyer
was the director of the ID scam wing of the Discovery Institute and
deWolf was head of legal at the time the booklet was written.

You can argue that the creationist rubes always knew that it was a
creationist scam, but does that excuse the bait and switch? Even if ID
was a scam the rubes obviously expected to get the ID science that was
claimed to exist.

If you read past the point where the lawyer demonstrates that The
Discovery Institute rep was lying about the Discovery Institute never
supporting teaching intelligent design in the public schools, you come
to a section where the lawyer vents about what the Discovery Institute
did to their case.

This is Thomas' way of calling what the Discovery Institute did
basically the bait and switch scam, but he called it a strategy instead
of a scam.

QUOTE:
Now, Stephen Meyer, you know, wanted his attorney there, we said because
he was an officer of the Discovery Institute, he certainly could have
his attorney there. But the other experts wanted to have attorneys, that
they were going to consult with, as objections were made, and not with
us. And no other expert that was in the Dover case, and I'm talking
about the plaintiffs, had any attorney representing them.

So that caused us some concern about exactly where was the heart of the
Discovery Institute. Was it really something of a tactical decision, was
it this strategy that they've been using, in I guess Ohio and other
places, where they've pushed school boards to go in with intelligent
design, and as soon as there's a controversy, they back off with a
compromise. And I think what was victimized by this strategy was the
Dover school board, because we could not present the expert testimony we
thought we could present
END QUOTE:

He was ticked because the Discovery Institute ran away late in the
process when they could no longer add more witnesses. So at least one
of the rubes thinks that the Discovery Institute led them astray with
their efforts to push ID onto them.

All any IDiot has ever gotten from the ID perps is a switch scam that
doesn't even mention that ID ever existed.

Ron Okimoto

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Sep 12, 2014, 3:53:43 PM9/12/14
to
TomS <TomS_...@newsguy.com> wrote in
news:420469855.000...@drn.newsguy.com:

> "On Thu, 11 Sep 2014 19:46:37 +0000 (UTC), in article
> <XnsA3A5815C7DD15sn...@78.46.70.116>, Sneaky O. Possum
> stated..."
[snip]
>>In order to demonstrate that ID is a bait-and-switch, one would need
>>to provide evidence that a school board or a politician somewhere has
>>actually been fooled into thinking that 'Intelligent Design' has no
>>religious component. It seems to me that effectively all school boards
>>and politicians that have embraced 'Intelligent Design' have known
>>quite well that they were trying to sneak God into the classroom.
>
> *But* the ID advocates shy away from admitting that God (that is,
> the Christian God) is the "Intelligent Designer".

Of course they do. As I said, they were trying to sneak God into the
classroom: the last thing they would do was admit that. Their continuing
failure to do so is no more remarkable than a convicted criminal's
continuing to insist on his innocence.

> A politician who was looking for backing for introducing God is going
> to be disappointed by the help that ID advocates are willing to offer.

I doubt it. The politician would have presumably been aware of the fact
that the Establishment Clause blocks any direct introduction of God,
which was of course the whole point of disguising him (God, not the
politician) as an 'Intelligent Designer'.

> Today, the ID advocates seem to be backing away from even the scant
> substance in ID ("something did something, sometime" - it is amazing
> how skillful they are in rooting out substance where nobody else had
> noticed it).

It is rather comical that, having failed to convince the courts that
'Intelligent Design' was anything other than religion, the IDolators
apparently decided to try to convince *themselves* that there's no
religion in their ID. As Mr. Santayana said (paraphrasing), a fanatic is
someone who redoubles his efforts when he has forgotten his goal.
--
S.O.P.

nyi...@bellsouth.net

unread,
Sep 12, 2014, 9:40:39 PM9/12/14
to
On Thursday, September 11, 2014 8:15:10 AM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:
> On 9/10/2014 11:06 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

<snip and cut to the chase>

> > By the way, I can also say that I have never seen anyone but you
> > CLAIM that every creationist rube school board or politician that
> > ever claimed to be able to teach the science of intelligent design
> > always has the bait and switch run on them.
> >
> > Can you name anyone besides you who HAS claimed it?
>
> Do you deny the reality of it? Even you found the evidence convincing

This is a brazen lie. I NEVER found the pathetic thing you call
evidence for "the bait" anything but laughable.

You even reposted this "evidence" in your reply to my follow-up to
Steven L. I have added an extra > in the margin so that it will
be in harmony with the above:

_______________ begin repost ____________________
>
> > Why do you assume that Ron O is asking a legitimate question? He nowhere
> > spells out where one can find "the Discovery Institute propaganda that
> > kept claiming that they had the scientific theory of intelligent design
> > to teach in the public schools" which allegedly was only dropped this year.

<snip for focus>

> > I have NEVER seen one that appeared later than the Dover 2005 trial. More on
> > this below.
>
> QUOTE:
> Has ID Been Banned from Public Schools?
> No. Science teachers have the right to teach science.
> Since ID is a legitimate scientific theory, it should be
> constitutional to discuss in science classrooms
> and it should not be banned from schools. If a
> science teacher wants to voluntarily discuss ID,
> she should have the academic freedom to do so.
> http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=1453
> END QUOTE:
>
> This comes from Nyikos' own Scottish verdict thread, and it is part of
> the evidence that he claims he never saw, but he must have seen it
> unless he is unaware of what he posts.
============= end of repost========================

So far from denying its existence, I have repeatedly said that
this is EXACTLY what your diseased mind takes to be overwhelming
evidence for the "bait" part of the alleged scam. A simple
statement of constitutional right morphs in your sick mind
into a claim by the DI in its "propaganda"
to have the scientific theory of intelligent design
in a form ready to teach in the public schools
as an alterative to Darwinism.

THAT is the full description of the "bait" whose
existence you keep insanely alleging to have been proven by the above
excerpt from the DI webpage.

But it is nice to know that you cannot name a single other
person who shares this mad fantasy of yours about "the bait,"
nor anyone who shares your allegation of the existence of
a bait and switch scam by the DI.

Peter Nyikos

nyi...@bellsouth.net

unread,
Sep 12, 2014, 10:32:29 PM9/12/14
to
On Thursday, September 11, 2014 3:46:37 PM UTC-4, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote in
> news:lusjq5$v75$1...@dont-email.me:

> > On 9/10/14 9:06 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> >> By the way, I can also say that I have never seen anyone but you [Ron
> >> O] CLAIM that every creationist rube school board or politician that
> >> ever claimed to be able to teach the science of intelligent design
> >> always has the bait and switch run on them.

> >> Can you name anyone besides you who HAS claimed it?

Mark might think he is claiming this very thing below, but what he
writes does not match what Ron O has always maintained to be the
bait in the alleged bait and switch scam.

> > The very name "intelligent design" is a large part of the bait. It
> > has a techy engineering sound, and most importantly, it does not say
> > "creation."

Of course it doesn't, and rightly so. The methodology of ID is
distinct from the personal beliefs of such leading ID theorists
as Behe and Meyer. Similarly, the atheism of Stephen Jay Gould
and Carl Sagan had nothing to do with the methodology used by
Gould in his research nor by Sagan in his.

> > Ergo, every school board or politician that claimed
> > ability to teach intelligent design under that name has had the bait
> > pulled on them. And when (as must be the case) they are given nothing
> > beyond creationism and anti-evolution, they get the switch.

> In order to demonstrate that ID is a bait-and-switch, one would need to
> provide evidence that a school board or a politician somewhere has
> actually been fooled into thinking that 'Intelligent Design' has no
> religious component.

You are very far from a description of the "bait and switch scam"
that Ron O has been sometimes harping on, and even from the "switch scam"
about which he endlessly writes in post after post.

I keep telling him that without bait, the term "switch scam" loses all
meaning, but he is addicted to it, perhaps because he realizes,
deep down inside, that his evidence for "the bait" is so much
pig swill.

To see what HE is referring to with these endless repetitions, see
my reply to him less than an hour ago, above. There might not
even be an intervening post between this one and that one.

> It seems to me that effectively all school boards
> and politicians that have embraced 'Intelligent Design' have known quite
> well that they were trying to sneak God into the classroom.

Actually, the Dover school board knew that and even forced
teachers to make a statement to their classes which was
ruled unconstitutional by the court.

What almost no one knows is that the ruling of Judge Jones
only forbade the teaching of ID as an ALTERNATIVE TO EVOLUTION,
but not as e.g. a supplement to evolution, meaning that some
structures may well have been designed (like the bacterial
flagellum) while others may have evolved (like the eye, as
acknowledged by Behe) from much simpler structures.

Jones's claim in the far longer Opinion of the Court
that intelligent design is necessarily a religious
belief isn't worth the electrons that are used to
transmit it from various webpages.

Peter Nyikos

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Sep 12, 2014, 10:37:44 PM9/12/14
to
RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lut8l5$p1b$1...@dont-email.me:

> On 9/11/2014 2:46 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
[snip]
>> In order to demonstrate that ID is a bait-and-switch, one would need
>> to provide evidence that a school board or a politician somewhere has
>> actually been fooled into thinking that 'Intelligent Design' has no
>> religious component. It seems to me that effectively all school
>> boards and politicians that have embraced 'Intelligent Design' have
>> known quite well that they were trying to sneak God into the
>> classroom.
>
> This is the exchange between a Discovery Institute scam artist and
> Richard Thomas, one of the lawyers that tried to defend the Dover
> school board.
>
> http://ncse.com/news/2005/10/discovery-institute-thomas-more-law-center
> -squabble-aei-foru-00704
>
> Thomas put forward the booklet that claimed that ID could be taught in
> the public schools authored by three Discovery Institute fellow.
> Meyer was the director of the ID scam wing of the Discovery Institute
> and deWolf was head of legal at the time the booklet was written.

Yep, Thomas did that. And it proves a whole bunch of nothing.

> You can argue that the creationist rubes always knew that it was a
> creationist scam, but does that excuse the bait and switch?

Excuse it? It doesn't even demonstrate it. Do you even know what a
bait-and-switch scam is? The words actually do mean something. As the
*Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society* puts it, a bait-and-switch
'typically involves an advertiser luring customers into the store by
offering a product at an unrealistically low price (the bait). The
customer is then told that the advertised goods are (1) not available or
(2) of inferior quality and/or not suitable to the customer's needs. The
goal is to "switch" the customer to another, more expensive product or
one that has a higher profit margin...'

Disguising Creationism as 'Intelligent Design' doesn't even qualify as a
metaphorical bait-and-switch. The thing is, as scummy as the scam is, it
requires a higher degree of shrewdness than anyone involved in the
'Intelligent Design' fiasco ever demonstrated: to accuse them of running
a bait-and-switch actually gives them more credit than they deserve.

> Even if ID was a scam the rubes obviously expected to get the ID
> science that was claimed to exist.

IMO, your distinction between 'scam artists' and 'rubes' is spurious. I
see no evidence that anyone involved in the attempt to smuggle
Creationism into the classroom under the name 'Intelligent Design'
expected any actual science to be involved. (I concede that Nyikos may
actually think it's a legitimate scientific endeavor, but Nyikos is,
well, an outlier.)

> If you read past the point where the lawyer demonstrates that The
> Discovery Institute rep was lying about the Discovery Institute never
> supporting teaching intelligent design in the public schools, you come
> to a section where the lawyer vents about what the Discovery Institute
> did to their case.
>
> This is Thomas' way of calling what the Discovery Institute did
> basically the bait and switch scam, but he called it a strategy
> instead of a scam.

You are misrepresenting Thomas's words.

> QUOTE:
> Now, Stephen Meyer, you know, wanted his attorney there, we said
> because he was an officer of the Discovery Institute, he certainly
> could have his attorney there. But the other experts wanted to have
> attorneys, that they were going to consult with, as objections were
> made, and not with us. And no other expert that was in the Dover case,
> and I'm talking about the plaintiffs, had any attorney representing
> them.
>
> So that caused us some concern about exactly where was the heart of
> the Discovery Institute. Was it really something of a tactical
> decision, was it this strategy that they've been using, in I guess
> Ohio and other places, where they've pushed school boards to go in
> with intelligent design, and as soon as there's a controversy, they
> back off with a compromise. And I think what was victimized by this
> strategy was the Dover school board, because we could not present the
> expert testimony we thought we could present
> END QUOTE:
>
> He was ticked because the Discovery Institute ran away late in the
> process when they could no longer add more witnesses. So at least one
> of the rubes thinks that the Discovery Institute led them astray with
> their efforts to push ID onto them.

The 'strategy' of pushing school boards to take on intelligent design
and backing off with a compromise when challenged is *not* a bait and
switch. If you're trying to run a bait-and-switch scam on someone, the
*last* thing you want to do with back off and offer a compromise.
--
S.O.P.

deadrat

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 2:50:23 AM9/13/14
to
He could name me. Or anyone who can read. The bait is the claim that
IDiocy is a "legitimate scientific theory" suitable for discussion in
science classrooms. It's not.

The switch is for credulous rubes who try to mandate teaching IDiocy and
find only religious texts like _Pandas_. See Dover.

Glenn

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 3:05:41 AM9/13/14
to

"deadrat" <a...@b.com> wrote in message news:Q5CdnVe1RaetdI7J...@giganews.com...
How?

deadrat

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 3:38:01 AM9/13/14
to
How now?

Glenn

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 4:16:09 AM9/13/14
to

"deadrat" <a...@b.com> wrote in message news:F9SdnYIt4q_EaY7J...@giganews.com...
No, how could he have.

Rodjk #613

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 4:24:46 AM9/13/14
to
Because the rubes don't care. They are not interested in the honesty of the DI one way or another,
they just don't want any science that may go against their religious beliefs taught and will try to neuter it any way possible.
If the Discovery Org offers a possible way to do so, they will jump at it.

Whether or not it includes an actual science or even field of study is not a concern.
To their view, anything that stops science that contridicts their religion is a good thing.

They only have to continue to make the claims for people to think that the fight is scientific, and that
a field is controversial means it should not be taught. Whether it is evolution or tobacco or global warming,
the aim in just in making the issue controversial is enough. Too many administrators will back down instead of facing upset parents.
Then, ignorance wins.

So no, the rubes are not going to be upset and you are wasting your time thinking that they will be/can be/want to be educated.
They are not upset that their money goes to con men like the DI. They are fighting the good fight wherever they can.

You are going about and seeing this all wrong.

Rodjk #613

Rodjk #613

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 4:26:18 AM9/13/14
to
You just explained in 8 words what it took me a page to do...

Rodjk #613

deadrat

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 4:41:41 AM9/13/14
to
How no?

Rodjk #613

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 4:39:45 AM9/13/14
to
They didn't need to say anything behind closed doors.
There is no need, no reason, and nothing that needed to be said.

Worrying about what a Glenn or Nyikos character says in a newsgroup does nothing to help you or make this clear.

The people who pull in the DI are not interested in the 'science'. They don't care about YE vs OE vs ID.
They don't want any science or any subject taught that may contradict their religion. They are not interested in any of minutia of details brought out in a court case. Do you get it?
They don't care.

They don't care that the DI lied their butts off in the trial and that Judge Jones called them on it.

The DI are not out there fleecing the rubes. The rubes are out there trying to find someone like the DI. If it wasn't the DI, it would be some other group.

The rubes don't want to be educated. They don't care to learn, they don't want to learn, they won't learn even if you had the resources to try to reach them.
Get it?

Even here, I have been watching/reading/lurking in this group since 1996 or so. No one has learned anything. Nothing.
These people have been taught the TRUTH since they are kids and are unable to hear or understand anything but what they have been told.

Guys like Glenn play you for fools. They have no intention of learning, they keep repeating the same nonsense over and over, and they play word games and talk in circles. You are not reaching them, do you understand? They have no intention of being reached.

So if it is OE or YE or ID or whatever, anything that opposed heathen/atheistic science is good. They don't care if it is scientific. They don't care if it makes any sort of logical sense. They don't care if their side has legitimate degrees, or make any type of sense at all. They don't care if they or their court case is shown to be nonsensical or full of holes or based on a hidden desire to have their creation account taught in schools.

Get it? You are going about this in a way that is guaranteed not to work and will only make them sink their heels in harder.

The solution? Realize that there is no solution.
Period.

Rodjk #613

Rodjk #613

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 4:44:02 AM9/13/14
to
Do you really think the rubes care?

Rodjk #613

Glenn

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 5:16:09 AM9/13/14
to

"Rodjk #613" <rjk...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:abbe3f6e-6f22-4315...@googlegroups.com...
Do you regard me as an IDiot because Ron says so? If not, you have no real cause to say "guys like Glenn". Aren't you really explaining your own behavior above?

Rodjk #613

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 5:33:47 AM9/13/14
to
I think that talking to you is a waste of time...

Rodjk #613

Glenn

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 6:28:39 AM9/13/14
to

"Rodjk #613" <rjk...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:ffeb36ea-fdec-4b27...@googlegroups.com...
There you are.

Burkhard

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 6:46:18 AM9/13/14
to
How now brown cow! Know how to pow wow, bow.

Roger Shrubber

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 7:27:21 AM9/13/14
to
I disagree. Some fit your description but I think it's a vocal
minority. They are vocal because they view this as a fight. But
there is a larger group that are fence sitters who want a justification
for what they want to believe AND are rather anxious and willing
to accept rationalizations. It's the standard formula for becoming
gullible.

It actually works both ways. There are some who want to "believe"
in evolution but also don't understand the science. They can be
a problem too, especially if they are teachers.

If I'm right, and there are many people who are mostly honest,
somewhat ignorant, and do at some level want to or are otherwise
inclined to accept evidence that supports their religious inclinations,
that has implications. One of those implications is that ranting
about rubes and scams and IDiots does more harm than good. It's
going to be very counter-productive. It is the behavior of a
polemicist, not a scientist.

There is no legitimate science behind the claims of the discovery
institute or its principals. They have advertised their motives
in The Wedge Document. Their enemy is "materialism" and to them
that means science that disregards supernatural causation. And
everything that follows is apologetics in support of that beginning.
But this point can be made calmly and without sounding like a
slavering lunatic spewing forth about "rubes" and "IDiots".


RonO

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 8:25:20 AM9/13/14
to
On 9/12/2014 9:37 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lut8l5$p1b$1...@dont-email.me:
>
>> On 9/11/2014 2:46 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> [snip]
>>> In order to demonstrate that ID is a bait-and-switch, one would need
>>> to provide evidence that a school board or a politician somewhere has
>>> actually been fooled into thinking that 'Intelligent Design' has no
>>> religious component. It seems to me that effectively all school
>>> boards and politicians that have embraced 'Intelligent Design' have
>>> known quite well that they were trying to sneak God into the
>>> classroom.
>>
>> This is the exchange between a Discovery Institute scam artist and
>> Richard Thomas, one of the lawyers that tried to defend the Dover
>> school board.
>>
>> http://ncse.com/news/2005/10/discovery-institute-thomas-more-law-center
>> -squabble-aei-foru-00704
>>
>> Thomas put forward the booklet that claimed that ID could be taught in
>> the public schools authored by three Discovery Institute fellow.
>> Meyer was the director of the ID scam wing of the Discovery Institute
>> and deWolf was head of legal at the time the booklet was written.
>
> Yep, Thomas did that. And it proves a whole bunch of nothing.

Why? The ID perps were obviously selling the rubes the scam that they
had the ID science to teach in the public schools. It doesn't mean that
Thomas did or did not know that they were lying.

>
>> You can argue that the creationist rubes always knew that it was a
>> creationist scam, but does that excuse the bait and switch?
>
> Excuse it? It doesn't even demonstrate it. Do you even know what a
> bait-and-switch scam is? The words actually do mean something. As the
> *Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society* puts it, a bait-and-switch
> 'typically involves an advertiser luring customers into the store by
> offering a product at an unrealistically low price (the bait). The
> customer is then told that the advertised goods are (1) not available or
> (2) of inferior quality and/or not suitable to the customer's needs. The
> goal is to "switch" the customer to another, more expensive product or
> one that has a higher profit margin...'

What were the ID perps selling the rubes? Did the rubes ever get what
they were selling? What did they get instead? If the ID perps were
selling TV sets instead of a dishonest political scam it would be a
crime. Do you doubt that? Why isn't Best Buy or Walmart not allowed to
do what the ID perps did? In the Discovery Institute's example they
never had the ID science to sell the rubes in the first place. ID was
something that the rubes were never going to get, and what did the ID
perps push off on them instead? Every single time that a legislator or
school board wanted to teach the science of intelligent design, what did
they get instead from the guys that sold them the scam?

What do you not get? You are describing exactly what the Discovery
Institute has been doing for the last 12 years. They sell ID and all
the rubes get from them is a switch scam that doesn't even mention that
ID ever existed. When all those school boards and legislators claimed
to be able to teach the science of ID was it the bait or not? They did
not claim to teach the switch scam did they? What did they get stuck with?

>
> Disguising Creationism as 'Intelligent Design' doesn't even qualify as a
> metaphorical bait-and-switch. The thing is, as scummy as the scam is, it
> requires a higher degree of shrewdness than anyone involved in the
> 'Intelligent Design' fiasco ever demonstrated: to accuse them of running
> a bait-and-switch actually gives them more credit than they deserve.

Even though ID was creationism in disguise the rubes did not get
creationism in the switch scam. The switch scam does not mention that
creationism nor ID ever existed. No matter how you explain it the bait
and switch went down.

I don't know about more credit then than deserve. Whether they did it
because they ran into a wall and could do nothing else or they planned
to do it from the start means what? What they are doing is what matters.

>
>> Even if ID was a scam the rubes obviously expected to get the ID
>> science that was claimed to exist.
>
> IMO, your distinction between 'scam artists' and 'rubes' is spurious. I
> see no evidence that anyone involved in the attempt to smuggle
> Creationism into the classroom under the name 'Intelligent Design'
> expected any actual science to be involved. (I concede that Nyikos may
> actually think it's a legitimate scientific endeavor, but Nyikos is,
> well, an outlier.)

Do the rubes all understand that the ID science never existed? My guess
is that the answer is no. Whether that ignorance matters is another
question. You obviously have guys like Kalk and Eddie where nothing
matters except their religious beliefs. Even though that is true they
could have believed the ID perps and expected that there was some ID
science somewhere. Here again you are blaming the victims. The ID
perps sold them the science of ID, but what did they get? Did they all
expect to not get the science of ID?

>
>> If you read past the point where the lawyer demonstrates that The
>> Discovery Institute rep was lying about the Discovery Institute never
>> supporting teaching intelligent design in the public schools, you come
>> to a section where the lawyer vents about what the Discovery Institute
>> did to their case.
>>
>> This is Thomas' way of calling what the Discovery Institute did
>> basically the bait and switch scam, but he called it a strategy
>> instead of a scam.
>
> You are misrepresenting Thomas's words.

How?
The "compromise" is a euphemism just as "strategy" is a euphemism for
what actually happened. It is more lawyer speak than reality. The ID
perps sold the rubes the science of ID, but all the rubes got was a
switch scam that doesn't even mention that ID ever existed. That is not
a compromise, that is a total loss for the bogus ID science. If the ID
perps were selling TV sets it would be like the rubes coming in and
expecting to get an HD wide screen and only getting incomplete
instructions on how to build cardboard dioramas. Really, the ID perps
don't even give the rubes the whole plan they only tell them that there
are problems out there and the rubes have to make up the switch scam
themselves.

Look what happened when the Ohio rubes tried to implement the switch
scam. Look what happened when Texas and Louisiana tried to implement
the switch scam. What did the ID perps tell Texas and Louisiana what
they did wrong? Didn't they reiterate that the switch scam had nothing
to do with intelligent design or creationism? To call that a compromise
is so sad that it isn't even laughable. The rubes obviously thought
that they were getting something that they obviously were not getting.

Ron Okimoto

RonO

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 9:13:23 AM9/13/14
to
On 9/12/2014 8:40 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Thursday, September 11, 2014 8:15:10 AM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:
>> On 9/10/2014 11:06 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> <snip and cut to the chase>

why lie? You are just running from what you can't deal with.
Demonstrate that isn't true. Go for it instead of run from your own
stupidity.

>
>>> By the way, I can also say that I have never seen anyone but you
>>> CLAIM that every creationist rube school board or politician that
>>> ever claimed to be able to teach the science of intelligent design
>>> always has the bait and switch run on them.
>>>
>>> Can you name anyone besides you who HAS claimed it?
>>
>> Do you deny the reality of it? Even you found the evidence convincing
>
> This is a brazen lie. I NEVER found the pathetic thing you call
> evidence for "the bait" anything but laughable.

Why lie at this late date? Why was that part of the argument dropped by
you if you did not find it convincing after claiming that it was
convincing? It was no longer an issue after you claimed that the
evidence was convincing, was it? What did you start going on about instead?
This isn't the evidence that you found convincing. You snipped and ran
from this quote multiple times (broke your two post doing something
stupid and running limit and snipped it out 3 times, remember? You had
to put it back in to hide that personal boondoggle. Frankly, I think
that you doing something stupid and dishonest twice is more than
enough.) and then started to lie about it in any way that you could.
Demonstrate otherwise.

The evidence that you found convincing is the material that Eddie had to
run from recently. The law review article and the Discovery Institute
booklet on teaching ID. The Discovery Institute used to give that
booklet to the rubes along with their stupid ID video (you might have
had to donate or pay for it, but it was part of what the rubes got from
the ID perps. ARN still has the booklet available). It is the booklet
that the Thomas More lawyer had. It was the Discovery Institute ID
perp's claiming that they could teach ID in the public schools and could
use Pandas and People to do it. No one can deny that evidence so you
didn't try after lying about never getting the additional evidence that
you got multiple times months before.

>
> So far from denying its existence, I have repeatedly said that
> this is EXACTLY what your diseased mind takes to be overwhelming
> evidence for the "bait" part of the alleged scam. A simple
> statement of constitutional right morphs in your sick mind
> into a claim by the DI in its "propaganda"
> to have the scientific theory of intelligent design
> in a form ready to teach in the public schools
> as an alterative to Darwinism.

Why keep lying? You know that you are lying because you forgot to put
in "after" Dover, so your above statement is an obvious lie.

Here is one of the quotes that you found convincing. It is from the
booklet that you can still get at ARN.

http://arn.org/docs/dewolf/guidebook.htm

QUOTE:
9. Conclusion

Local school boards and state education officials are frequently
pressured to avoid teaching the controversy regarding biological
origins. Indeed, many groups, such as the National Academy of Sciences,
go so far as to deny the existence of any genuine scientific controversy
about the issue. 160 Nevertheless, teachers should be reassured that
they have the right to expose their students to the problems as well as
the appeal of Darwinian theory. Moreover, as the previous discussion
demonstrates, school boards have the authority to permit, and even
encourage, teaching about design theory as an alternative to Darwinian
evolution-and this includes the use of textbooks such as Of Pandas and
People that present evidence for the theory of intelligent design.

The controlling legal authority, the Supreme Court's decision in Edwards
v. Aguillard, explicitly permits the inclusion of alternatives to
Darwinian evolution so long as those alternatives are based on
scientific evidence and not motivated by strictly religious concerns.
Since design theory is based on scientific evidence rather than
religious assumptions, it clearly meets this test. Including discussions
of design in the science curriculum thus serves an important goal of
making education inclusive, rather than exclusionary. In addition, it
provides students with an important demonstration of the best way for
them as future scientists and citizens to resolve scientific
controversies-by a careful and fair-minded examination of the evidence.
END QUOTE:

Read it and be convinced again. Not much room for doubt is there?

>
> THAT is the full description of the "bait" whose
> existence you keep insanely alleging to have been proven by the above
> excerpt from the DI webpage.
>
> But it is nice to know that you cannot name a single other
> person who shares this mad fantasy of yours about "the bait,"
> nor anyone who shares your allegation of the existence of
> a bait and switch scam by the DI.
>
> Peter Nyikos
>

Why start lying about this junk years after you gave up on it? How sad
and pathetic can anyone be?

Here is one person over at Pandas Thumb:

QUOTE:
The Ohio Science Standards affair

In 2002-3. when the Ohio State Board of Education was considering the
addition of �critical analysis of evolution� language to the state
science standards for 10th grade biology, the Discovery Institute was
much in evidence. Jonathan Wells and Stephen Meyer of the Disco �Tute
participated in a 2002 panel discussion before the Board that was
originally set up to examine whether Ohio should include intelligent
design creationism (IDC) in the state science standards (Kenneth Miller
and Lawrence Krauss argued the contra side). In the discussion Meyer
pulled a bait and switch, retreating from arguing that IDC should be
included and suggesting that the so-called �scientific controversy�
about Darwinism be taught instead.
END QUOTE:

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2012/03/the-disappearin.html#more

Why keep lying about reality? Has it ever done you any good?

In Ohio both Wells and Meyer at first claimed that ID could be taught in
the public schools. In one of the articles that I gave you a link to
Wells said that intelligent design could be required to be taught in the
public schools, but the Ohio board never got any ID science to teach.

Ron Okimoto

RonO

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 9:15:49 AM9/13/14
to
Again this is blaming the victims, and I agree that many of the
"victims" likely knew that they were being lied to, but not all of them.

Ron Okimoto

RonO

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 10:25:58 AM9/13/14
to
On 9/13/2014 6:27 AM, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> Rodjk #613 wrote:
>> On Friday, September 12, 2014 1:17:41 AM UTC+3, Ron O wrote:
>>> On 9/11/2014 2:43 PM, Alan wrote:
>>>
>>>> "RonO" <roki...@cox.net> wrote in message

SNIP:
What you are describing is the difference between a polemicist and
salesman and not a scientist. A scientist tries to be as direct as he
can be. Most scientists are not salesmen. The public doesn't really
understand, or in this instance, for many, care about the actual science.

Obviously being nice does nothing. It has done nothing since the time
of the scientific creationists. Telling it like it is, is long since
something that should be done.

If they don't like being called rubes, then can demonstrate that they
are not rubes, and they can demonstrate that the bait and switch scam
has not been going down. If they claim that they are not IDiots, let
them put the ID science forward for evaluation. If they just want to go
into denial why be nice to them?

The situation has been the way it is now for over a decade in terms of
ID and it has not gotten any better. The clueless and dishonest like
Eddie are all that is left. The only IDiots left are the ignorant,
incompetent and or dishonest and it has been that way since the ID perps
started running the bait and switch scam on their own creationist
support base over 12 years ago.

I can't change that reality, and I see no reason to sugar coat it at
this time because the ID perps are the ones putting down the creationist
rubes. The science side doesn't have to do anything at this point in
time. It is always the ID perps that have to tell the rubes that what
they are doing isn't the smart thing to do. They have run the bait and
switch 100% of the time since Ohio in 2002. No IDiot rube that ever
claimed to teach the science of ID in the public schools has ever gotten
the ID science to teach, and it is the Discovery Institute that has done
it each and every case. The science side has not had to keep
intelligent design out of the public schools because it is the ID perps
that do that. It has been that way for over a decade. The science side
just has to keep the IDiots from eroding science education.

Look at the creationist efforts for the last decade. The failure in
Dover, the failure in both Louisana and Texas a couple years ago for the
implementation of the stupid creationist switch scam, and who got the
creationist IDiots to back down? It wasn't the science side, it was the
ID perps at the Discovery Institute coming down on the rubes telling
them that they were doing something stupid. These types of creationists
have long since stopped listening to the science side. If the ID perps
hadn't told the IDiots in Texas and Louisiana to drop the issue we would
have already had the switch scam before a federal court, and it would
not have been good for the creationist IDiots or the ID perps.

That is today's reality.

Ron Okimoto

Mark Isaak

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 12:06:07 PM9/13/14
to
You know (or should know) that nobody has a scientific theory of
intelligent design which they are willing to publish, much less that is
ready to present in school classrooms.

You know (or should know) that the people who make the most noise about
"intelligent design" have religious views which they would like to
spread under that rubric. You know that some of them have, in fact,
tried to do so in public schools.

I don't see how you can fail to connect the dots and agree with Ron
about the bait and switch, except via a pigheaded determination always
to disagree with him whether what he says is true or not.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Keep the company of those who seek the truth; run from those who have
found it." - Vaclav Havel

Mark Isaak

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 12:39:14 PM9/13/14
to
On 9/12/14 7:37 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lut8l5$p1b$1...@dont-email.me:
>
> [...]
>> You can argue that the creationist rubes always knew that it was a
>> creationist scam, but does that excuse the bait and switch?
>
> Excuse it? It doesn't even demonstrate it. Do you even know what a
> bait-and-switch scam is? The words actually do mean something. As the
> *Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society* puts it, a bait-and-switch
> 'typically involves an advertiser luring customers into the store by
> offering a product at an unrealistically low price (the bait). The
> customer is then told that the advertised goods are (1) not available or
> (2) of inferior quality and/or not suitable to the customer's needs. The
> goal is to "switch" the customer to another, more expensive product or
> one that has a higher profit margin...'

The basic definition of "bait-and-switch" includes two essential
elements: (1) Offering one thing for sale, and (2) selling, or trying to
sell, something else which is either more expensive or inferior.

What the Discovery Institute offered for sale was a legal way to teach
creationism. They don't phrase it that way for legal reasons, but
everybody on both sides (possibly excepting Nyikos) knows that is what
they meant.

What the customer got was an illegal way to teach watered-down
creationism, i.e. an inferior product.

I think "selling a lemon" would be a better description than
"bait-and-switch", because it is not obvious that a switch was made.
But the customer obviously did not get what they expected, because they
expected something that worked. And in the Dover case, at least one
customer noted that he expected some customer support which was
conspicuously absent. So I think "bait-and-switch", if not the best
term, might still be applied.

deadrat

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 2:10:22 PM9/13/14
to
Do I have access to the rubes' interiority so I can tell whether they
"care"? No, but I'm making the ordinary assumption that people care
about the enterprises they undertake in the sense that they'd rather see
them succeed than fail.

(There are obvious exceptions like the people who run your cable and
wireless providers. And Glenn.)

So, yes, I think the rubes would like to see IDiocy taught as science.
It would allow them, the weak of faith, to take comfort in the fact that
investigations in the world support their mythology rather than throw
doubt on it; they would be pleased to be able to indoctrinate the young.

Dover was an expensive failure, and I'd guess if you asked the former
board members of the DCSD, they'd say they'd rather have won than lost,
and in that sense, I think at the time they cared to have scientific
evidence rather than the garbage they got.

But does this matter? They were offered gold and their received dross.
That's the definition of B&S. I suppose you'd have a point if you can
show that they knew they were offered dross and took it anyway. Is that
your claim?

deadrat

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 2:11:19 PM9/13/14
to
Where?

deadrat

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 2:12:06 PM9/13/14
to
Exactly.

Glenn

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 2:39:43 PM9/13/14
to

"deadrat" <a...@b.com> wrote in message news:X6KdnY5Hm_FaFYnJ...@giganews.com...
You know.

deadrat

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 3:21:02 PM9/13/14
to
I don't. No.

Glenn

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 3:44:36 PM9/13/14
to

"deadrat" <a...@b.com> wrote in message news:xISdnXZqqfaDBInJ...@giganews.com...
So sad.

deadrat

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 5:53:31 PM9/13/14
to
Too bad, no sad.


Glenn

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 6:55:23 PM9/13/14
to

"deadrat" <a...@b.com> wrote in message news:O9GdnT3_Y7VBIYnJ...@giganews.com...
You really don't realize you make a fool of yourself, do you.

Roger Shrubber

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 7:46:27 PM9/13/14
to
Do you see your own reflection in a mirror? It was a rhetorical question.

Tim Norfolk

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 8:13:08 PM9/13/14
to
On Saturday, September 13, 2014 9:15:49 AM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:
<snip>
> Again this is blaming the victims, and I agree that many of the
> "victims" likely knew that they were being lied to, but not all of them.
>
>
>
> Ron Okimoto

Read the letters to the editor in any newspaper. Many are convinced that there actually is evidence against evolution, and for intelligent design.

deadrat

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 8:11:55 PM9/13/14
to
Bwahahahahahaha! Oh, Sparky, thanks for the laugh.

You really don't realize that there were two Glenns in that subthread,
do you?

Tim Norfolk

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 8:09:27 PM9/13/14
to
On Saturday, September 13, 2014 4:26:18 AM UTC-4, Rodjk #613 wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 6:17:53 PM UTC+3, Tim Norfolk wrote:
>
> > On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 7:53:12 AM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:
>
> > <snip>
>
> >
>
> > Because it affirms their beliefs, so it works?
>
>
>
> You just explained in 8 words what it took me a page to do...
>
>
>
> Rodjk #613

I'm a mathematician. We try to be concise when expressing ideas.

TomS

unread,
Sep 13, 2014, 10:39:13 PM9/13/14
to
"On Sat, 13 Sep 2014 17:13:08 -0700 (PDT), in article
<e92224ca-78b5-41e0...@googlegroups.com>, Tim Norfolk stated..."
And lots of letter writers assume that there is something to ID,
something that there can be evidence or reasoning for, and that it
coincides with their own opinion.

How many of the letter writers are aware that there are differing
opinions under the "big umbrella" of ID?

Indeed, how many realize that, officially, ID does not entail the
existence of God, or even does not reject the human ancestry as a
primate?


--
La trahison des images, Ren� Magritte ("Ceci n'est pas un pipe")
"the map is not the territory", Alfred Korzbyski
Design is not production.
---Tom S.

RonO

unread,
Sep 14, 2014, 9:28:05 AM9/14/14
to
The people that write letters to the editor about intelligent design are
not fooling anyone. The creationists and the science side know what
they are talking about, so it is just pretending. Even Nyikos claims
that space alien designers are consistent with a literal reading of the
Bible. Can anyone name a single ID perp at the Discovery Institute that
does not think that the intelligent designer is their God? They only
claim that it doesn't have to be. They are only fooling themselves and
people incompetent and or so into denial that they do not understand
what the creationist had to do after the failure of scientific creationism.

So at that level, the dishonesty at this point in time is stupid.
IDiots like Santorum have gone back to calling it creationism and have
dropped the ID scam. There is no advantage to them to keep lying to
themselves.

This does not mean that IDiots do not believe the scam artists when they
claim to have the ID science to teach in the public schools. They may
understand that it is a creationist scam that they have to play along
with, but a lot of them are ignorant enough to not understand that there
never was any ID science worth teaching. They really believe that there
is some science that supports their religious beliefs. It doesn't
matter what you call it, but to them it has to exist. So they may
understand that they are being lied to about the difference between ID
and creationism, but they do not know that they are being lied to about
ID science that never existed.

Ron Okimoto

RonO

unread,
Sep 14, 2014, 9:57:17 AM9/14/14
to
On 9/13/2014 9:39 PM, TomS wrote:
> "On Sat, 13 Sep 2014 17:13:08 -0700 (PDT), in article
> <e92224ca-78b5-41e0...@googlegroups.com>, Tim Norfolk stated..."
>>
>> On Saturday, September 13, 2014 9:15:49 AM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> Again this is blaming the victims, and I agree that many of the
>>> "victims" likely knew that they were being lied to, but not all of them.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Ron Okimoto
>>
>> Read the letters to the editor in any newspaper. Many are convinced that there
>> actually is evidence against evolution, and for intelligent design.
>>
>
> And lots of letter writers assume that there is something to ID,
> something that there can be evidence or reasoning for, and that it
> coincides with their own opinion.
>
> How many of the letter writers are aware that there are differing
> opinions under the "big umbrella" of ID?
>
> Indeed, how many realize that, officially, ID does not entail the
> existence of God, or even does not reject the human ancestry as a
> primate?
>
>
In general IDiots aren't very aware of much of anything at all. At
least the ones that are still IDiots after the bait and switch and the
loss in Dover. We have all experienced that many times over the years.
This doesn't mean that they do not believe that there is ID science to
teach, but their opinion isn't based on much if anything.

If you discount Nyikos' chittering about space alien designers, there
hasn't been an IDiot since Sean Pitman that seriously tried to defend
and explain the nonexistent ID science. Did Eddie understand it enough
to defend it? Does Kalk ever try to defend it? How worthless were
Paganos attempts?

I've sat here for around 5 minutes and tried to remember anyone since
the bait and switch went down in 2002 that has seriously tried to defend
the ID claptrap, and I can't come up with anyone that I recall except
Pitman. We've had people come in with IC or specified information, but
they are just parroting the claptrap and usually do not even understand
the junk themselves.

Pitman hung around for a couple years after the bait and switch went
down, but didn't last until Dover made the ID scam officially a scam.
Pitman was so far gone that he claimed (after the bait and switch went
down in Ohio) that even though the ID perps would not put forward the ID
science when they needed it that he could. He once claimed that his ID
science was on his web site, but he would never say where or what it
was. He never put his ID science up and ran from that claim until he
finally left TO.

What kind of creationists are still IDiots?

Ron Okimoto

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Sep 14, 2014, 3:12:47 PM9/14/14
to
RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lv1d3p$bq$1...@dont-email.me:

> On 9/12/2014 9:37 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>> RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lut8l5$p1b$1...@dont-email.me:
[snip]
>>> http://ncse.com/news/2005/10/discovery-institute-thomas-more-law-cent
>>> er-squabble-aei-foru-00704
>>>
>>> Thomas put forward the booklet that claimed that ID could be taught
>>> in the public schools authored by three Discovery Institute fellow.
>>> Meyer was the director of the ID scam wing of the Discovery
>>> Institute and deWolf was head of legal at the time the booklet was
>>> written.
>>
>> Yep, Thomas did that. And it proves a whole bunch of nothing.
>
> Why? The ID perps were obviously selling the rubes the scam that they
> had the ID science to teach in the public schools. It doesn't mean
> that Thomas did or did not know that they were lying.

I don't think that's obvious at all. A scammer deliberately deceives
someone for personal gain. If Thomas, Meyer, DeWolf, et al. were
knowingly providing bogus material to 'rubes', what do you think they
hoped to gain from it?

>>> You can argue that the creationist rubes always knew that it was a
>>> creationist scam, but does that excuse the bait and switch?
>>
>> Excuse it? It doesn't even demonstrate it. Do you even know what a
>> bait-and-switch scam is? The words actually do mean something. As the
>> *Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society* puts it, a
>> bait-and-switch 'typically involves an advertiser luring customers
>> into the store by offering a product at an unrealistically low price
>> (the bait). The customer is then told that the advertised goods are
>> (1) not available or (2) of inferior quality and/or not suitable to
>> the customer's needs. The goal is to "switch" the customer to
>> another, more expensive product or one that has a higher profit
>> margin...'
>
> What were the ID perps selling the rubes?

You haven't demonstrated any difference between your supposed 'perps'
and your supposed 'rubes'. A scam requires at least one individual who
knows what's actually going on and hopes to profit from the ruse.

You keep repeating variations on your assertion that 'ID perps were
selling rubes the scam that they had the ID science to teach in the
public schools' as though mere repetition will eventually validate it.
In fact, you have no case at all that any kind of scam was going down
unless you can demonstrate that the 'perps' (a) knew that ID wasn't
science and (b) knowingly misrepresented ID for gain to people who (c)
accepted their claims at face value and (d) gave the 'perps' something
of benefit in exchange.

> Did the rubes ever get what they were selling? What did they get
> instead? If the ID perps were selling TV sets instead of a dishonest
> political scam it would be a crime. Do you doubt that? Why isn't
> Best Buy or Walmart not allowed to do what the ID perps did? In the
> Discovery Institute's example they never had the ID science to sell
> the rubes in the first place. ID was something that the rubes were
> never going to get, and what did the ID perps push off on them
> instead? Every single time that a legislator or school board wanted to
> teach the science of intelligent design, what did they get instead
> from the guys that sold them the scam?

None of your bluster provides evidence that anyone at the Discovery
Institute knew that 'Intelligent Design' is bogus or attempted to
deliberately deceive anyone else into believing that it was legit.

> What do you not get? You are describing exactly what the Discovery
> Institute has been doing for the last 12 years. They sell ID and all
> the rubes get from them is a switch scam that doesn't even mention
> that ID ever existed. When all those school boards and legislators
> claimed to be able to teach the science of ID was it the bait or not?
> They did not claim to teach the switch scam did they? What did they
> get stuck with?

Where'd you get the idea that the Discovery Institute provides 'a
switch scam that doesn't even mention that ID ever existed'? ID is all
over the DI's website:

https://www.discovery.org/csc/intelligentDesign/

http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/category/csc/intelligent-design/

'What Is the Science Behind Intelligent Design?'

http://www.discovery.org/a/9761

>> Disguising Creationism as 'Intelligent Design' doesn't even qualify
>> as a metaphorical bait-and-switch. The thing is, as scummy as the
>> scam is, it requires a higher degree of shrewdness than anyone
>> involved in the 'Intelligent Design' fiasco ever demonstrated: to
>> accuse them of running a bait-and-switch actually gives them more
>> credit than they deserve.
>
> Even though ID was creationism in disguise the rubes did not get
> creationism in the switch scam. The switch scam does not mention that
> creationism nor ID ever existed. No matter how you explain it the
> bait and switch went down.

It seems the only actual victim of this notional 'bait and switch' is
you. --
S.O.P.

deadrat

unread,
Sep 14, 2014, 4:36:26 PM9/14/14
to
(a) I take as dispositive Behe's admission that for science to include
IDiocy it must include astrology. But it's not necessary to demonstrate
that IDiots "knew" that IDiocy wasn't science. The capacity of people
to fool themselves has no demonstrable limit. It's sufficient to show
that IDiots claimed to have a curriculum suitable for public school
science classes but didn't.

(b) It's not necessary to show that money changed hands. IDiots have a
goal that I call undermining science education with religious dogma and
that they call changing the definition of science enough to include
astrology. It's sufficient to show that their misrepresentation was an
attempt to advance their agenda to achieve their goal.

(c) Here's a statement given under oath by one of the rubes, Bill
Buckingham, at the Dover trial on 10/27/05: "I'm not an expert on
intelligent design. I don't know everything about intelligent design. I
just know that it's another scientific theory that we thought would be
good to have presented to the students." Now Mr. Buckingham's
credibility isn't all that great when it comes to describing some of his
actions, but on what he accepted about IDiocy, I don't know that we can
do any better than his sworn statement about his thinking on the topic.

(d) It's not necessary to demonstrate that the perps got anything of
benefit. At Dover, in fact what they got was a thrashing. It's
sufficient to show that the perps attempted to get something of benefit.
And the attempt at Dover was to get recognition that their nonsense
achieved the status of science and to win a political victory for their
religious dogma.

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Sep 14, 2014, 5:02:28 PM9/14/14
to
Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote in
news:lv1rvj$7il$1...@dont-email.me:

> On 9/12/14 7:37 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>> RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lut8l5$p1b$1...@dont-email.me:
>>
>> [...]
>>> You can argue that the creationist rubes always knew that it was a
>>> creationist scam, but does that excuse the bait and switch?
>>
>> Excuse it? It doesn't even demonstrate it. Do you even know what a
>> bait-and-switch scam is? The words actually do mean something. As the
>> *Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society* puts it, a
>> bait-and-switch 'typically involves an advertiser luring customers
>> into the store by offering a product at an unrealistically low price
>> (the bait). The customer is then told that the advertised goods are
>> (1) not available or (2) of inferior quality and/or not suitable to
>> the customer's needs. The goal is to "switch" the customer to
>> another, more expensive product or one that has a higher profit
>> margin...'
>
> The basic definition of "bait-and-switch" includes two essential
> elements: (1) Offering one thing for sale, and (2) selling, or trying
> to sell, something else which is either more expensive or inferior.

No. Your first 'essential' element is grossly inadequate: it isn't
enough to offer one thing for sale: you must offer it for sale with the
full knowledge that you aren't going to sell it, and the prospective
buyer must not know that. Your second element is only half right: the
item the scammer is trying to sell is either more expensive or *has a
higher profit margin* than the original item. There's no reason why an
item with a higher profit margin should also be an inferior item.

> What the Discovery Institute offered for sale was a legal way to teach
> creationism.

No. A sale is an exchange. What were the supposed 'buyers' offering in
exchange for the DI's claims that it was Constitutional to teach ID in
public schools?

> They don't phrase it that way for legal reasons, but everybody on both
> sides (possibly excepting Nyikos) knows that is what they meant.

I don't think that is what they meant: I don't think anything was being
'offered for sale.'

> What the customer got was an illegal way to teach watered-down
> creationism, i.e. an inferior product.

There were no 'customers' and no 'sellers'. The Creationists who tried
to convince school boards to teach Intelligent Design, and the
Creationists on the few school boards that approved it for the
curriculum, knew as well as the 'perps' at the DI that 'Intelligent
Design' was Creationism. If anyone was being scammed, it was the
students - which was the conclusion Judge Jones came to, of course.

I don't think the 'sellers' anticipated that their arguments for
teaching 'Intelligent Design' would be thrown out of court in 2005 when
they issued their 'legal guidebook' in 1999. The *Kitzmiller* decision
was as humiliating to the 'sellers' as it was to the 'buyers' - arguably
moreso, in that some of the 'sellers' were more widely known than any of
the members of the Dover Area School District. Both Michael Behe and
Michael Richard Baksa, the Dover Area School District Assistant
Superintendent, appeared for the defense at the Kitzmiller trial: whose
public humiliation is better-remembered, do you think?

> I think "selling a lemon" would be a better description than
> "bait-and-switch", because it is not obvious that a switch was made.

It's not obvious that anyone was metaphorically 'buying' anything,
either.

> But the customer obviously did not get what they expected, because
> they expected something that worked.

I don't think there were any customers.

> And in the Dover case, at least one customer noted that he expected
> some customer support which was conspicuously absent. So I think
> "bait-and-switch", if not the best term, might still be applied.

The fact that you're referring to one of the Thomas More Law Center's
lawyers as a 'customer' demonstrates that the distinction between
'sellers' and 'customers' is invalid. Lawyers from the TMLC spent years
looking for a school board willing to be an ID test case: they struck
out in West Virginia, Michigan, Minnesota, and elsewhere before they
convinced the Dover Area School District to add ID to the curriculum,
with the full awareness that the district would be sued and the
understanding that the TMLC would represent the district at no charge.

Dicky Thompson, the 'customer' in question, is no rube - he was the
Chief Assistant Prosecutor and then Prosecuting Attorney of Oakland
County, Michigan, over a period of 24 years before hooking up with the
Thomas Morons. Nobody duped him into believing that ID was legit, and
he's never acknowledged its bogosity, either. He thinks he could have
won if the DI 'experts' had testified as planned.

Unsurprisingly, Meyer, Dembski, and the other 'experts' who withdrew
from the case claim that it was the TMLC's fault. It doesn't look like a
vendor-customer relationship to me: more like two officers of the same
battalion blaming each other for a humiliating defeat.
--
S.O.P.

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Sep 14, 2014, 5:46:19 PM9/14/14
to
deadrat <a...@b.com> wrote in
news:QYCdnTXyZM7WYYjJ...@giganews.com:
> On 9/14/14 2:12 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
[snip]
>> You keep repeating variations on your assertion that 'ID perps were
>> selling rubes the scam that they had the ID science to teach in the
>> public schools' as though mere repetition will eventually validate
>> it. In fact, you have no case at all that any kind of scam was going
>> down unless you can demonstrate that the 'perps' (a) knew that ID
>> wasn't science and (b) knowingly misrepresented ID for gain to people
>> who (c) accepted their claims at face value and (d) gave the 'perps'
>> something of benefit in exchange.
>
> (a) I take as dispositive Behe's admission that for science to include
> IDiocy it must include astrology.

Do you think Behe knows that astrology isn't science? I don't.

> But it's not necessary to demonstrate that IDiots "knew" that IDiocy
> wasn't science.

Yes it is. No knowledge = no scam.

> The capacity of people to fool themselves has no demonstrable limit.

Scammers don't fool themselves about their scams. If you pretend to be a
deposed Nigerian politician with a million bucks in a secret bank
account, you're a scam artist: if you actually think you're a deposed
Nigerian politician, you're a few cards short of a deck.

> It's sufficient to show that IDiots claimed to have a curriculum
> suitable for public school science classes but didn't.

No it isn't. If you can't show that they deliberately misrepresented their
claims, then you don't have a scam.

> (b) It's not necessary to show that money changed hands. IDiots have
> a goal that I call undermining science education with religious dogma
> and that they call changing the definition of science enough to
> include astrology. It's sufficient to show that their
> misrepresentation was an attempt to advance their agenda to achieve
> their goal.

I never said it was necessary to show that money changed hands. I said,
correctly, that it's necessary to show that 'IDiots' knowingly
misrepresented ID for gain: that gain need not have been monetary, but it
had to have been present, and it had to have come from the 'rubes'.

The people you characterize as 'perps' and the ones you characterize as
'rubes' were both attempting to advance the exact same agenda to achieve
the exact same goal. Thus, there was no scam.

> (c) Here's a statement given under oath by one of the rubes, Bill
> Buckingham, at the Dover trial on 10/27/05: "I'm not an expert on
> intelligent design. I don't know everything about intelligent design.
> I just know that it's another scientific theory that we thought would
> be good to have presented to the students." Now Mr. Buckingham's
> credibility isn't all that great when it comes to describing some of
> his actions, but on what he accepted about IDiocy, I don't know that
> we can do any better than his sworn statement about his thinking on
> the topic.

Nice to see that you're just as good at quote-mining as any Creationist.
Let's look at the context of Bucky's remark:

'Q. Fair enough. Now, Mr. Buckingham, when we use, I'd like to just make
sure that we're talking about, we'll be talking about some terms today and
I want to make sure we're on the same page. The word creationism, you
understand that to mean essentially the Book of Genesis?

'A. Pretty much, yes.

'Q. And you personally believe in a literal reading of the Book of Genesis,
isn't that right?

'A. Yes, I do.

'Q. That's one of the foundations of your faith?

'A. Yes, it is.

'Q. And in contrast to evolution you believe that the theory of intelligent
design is not inconsistent with your personal religious beliefs, isn't that
true?

'A. I'm not an expert on intelligent design. I don't know everything about
intelligent design. I just know that it's another scientific theory that we
thought would be good to have presented to the students.'

In context, it is blindingly obvious that Bucky was merely trying to evade
an uncomfortable question by changing the subject. There is no indication
that he na�vely took someone else's characterization of ID at face value:
quite the contrary. Note that counsel didn't fall for it:

'Q. My question is a little different, Mr. Buckingham. I'm asking you it's
your understanding that intelligent design is consistent with your personal
beliefs, isn't that right?

'MR. GILLEN: Objection. Foundation. He just said he doesn't have a detailed
understanding of intelligent design.

'THE COURT: Well, the question is different. It has to do with whether it's
consistent with his personal belief. So I'll overrule the objection. You
can answer the question.

'A. I can't answer that because I don't know everything about intelligent
design. I don't know.'

Counsel proceeded to cite chapter and verse of Bucky's previous testimony,
in which he demonstrated that he had in fact answered the question
affirmatively. It's rather comical that you're pretending to take his
pathetic attempt to plead ignorance at face value.

> (d) It's not necessary to demonstrate that the perps got anything of
> benefit. At Dover, in fact what they got was a thrashing. It's
> sufficient to show that the perps attempted to get something of
> benefit.

That's not how a scam works, deady. The perpetrator of a scam exchanges
something worthless for something of benefit. If nothing is exchanged, then
there is no scam.

> And the attempt at Dover was to get recognition that their nonsense
> achieved the status of science and to win a political victory for
> their religious dogma.

Calling them 'perps' who were running a scam on 'rubes' tends to conceal
that fact.
--
S.O.P.

Glenn

unread,
Sep 14, 2014, 6:08:54 PM9/14/14
to

"deadrat" <a...@b.com> wrote in message news:QYCdnTXyZM7WYYjJ...@giganews.com...

snip

> (a) I take as dispositive Behe's admission that for science to include
> IDiocy it must include astrology. But it's not necessary to demonstrate
> that IDiots "knew" that IDiocy wasn't science.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day11pm.html

>The capacity of people
> to fool themselves has no demonstrable limit.

You got that right.


RonO

unread,
Sep 14, 2014, 6:17:34 PM9/14/14
to
On 9/14/2014 2:12 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lv1d3p$bq$1...@dont-email.me:
>
>> On 9/12/2014 9:37 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>>> RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lut8l5$p1b$1...@dont-email.me:
> [snip]
>>>> http://ncse.com/news/2005/10/discovery-institute-thomas-more-law-cent
>>>> er-squabble-aei-foru-00704
>>>>
>>>> Thomas put forward the booklet that claimed that ID could be taught
>>>> in the public schools authored by three Discovery Institute fellow.
>>>> Meyer was the director of the ID scam wing of the Discovery
>>>> Institute and deWolf was head of legal at the time the booklet was
>>>> written.
>>>
>>> Yep, Thomas did that. And it proves a whole bunch of nothing.
>>
>> Why? The ID perps were obviously selling the rubes the scam that they
>> had the ID science to teach in the public schools. It doesn't mean
>> that Thomas did or did not know that they were lying.
>
> I don't think that's obvious at all. A scammer deliberately deceives
> someone for personal gain. If Thomas, Meyer, DeWolf, et al. were
> knowingly providing bogus material to 'rubes', what do you think they
> hoped to gain from it?

No. You are obviously wrong. Just look up the definition of scam. One
of the definition is simply that a scam is a dishonest scheme. Look it up.
https://www.google.com/webhp?tab=ww&ei=BVnLUq_jOoybigLDu4CQBw&ved=0CBQQ1S4#q=scam

>
>>>> You can argue that the creationist rubes always knew that it was a
>>>> creationist scam, but does that excuse the bait and switch?
>>>
>>> Excuse it? It doesn't even demonstrate it. Do you even know what a
>>> bait-and-switch scam is? The words actually do mean something. As the
>>> *Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society* puts it, a
>>> bait-and-switch 'typically involves an advertiser luring customers
>>> into the store by offering a product at an unrealistically low price
>>> (the bait). The customer is then told that the advertised goods are
>>> (1) not available or (2) of inferior quality and/or not suitable to
>>> the customer's needs. The goal is to "switch" the customer to
>>> another, more expensive product or one that has a higher profit
>>> margin...'
>>
>> What were the ID perps selling the rubes?
>
> You haven't demonstrated any difference between your supposed 'perps'
> and your supposed 'rubes'. A scam requires at least one individual who
> knows what's actually going on and hopes to profit from the ruse.

There is obviously a difference between the guys buying into the scam
and the guys selling it. All the rubes that wanted to teach the science
of ID obviously bought into the scam. So what if both the seller and
buyer are creationists? Did you know that Meyer makes his living
running the ID scam? He used to have a real teaching job, but when the
bait and switch started to go down he quit that job and went to work
full time for the Discovery Institute ID scam outfit. Look it up. That
doesn't even matter. A bait and switch is just that a bait and switch.
Offer one thing and only give the rubes something else.

>
> You keep repeating variations on your assertion that 'ID perps were
> selling rubes the scam that they had the ID science to teach in the
> public schools' as though mere repetition will eventually validate it.
> In fact, you have no case at all that any kind of scam was going down
> unless you can demonstrate that the 'perps' (a) knew that ID wasn't
> science and (b) knowingly misrepresented ID for gain to people who (c)
> accepted their claims at face value and (d) gave the 'perps' something
> of benefit in exchange.

What do you not get? Where have you been for over a decade? The ID
perps had a mission. Have you read the original mission statement of
the Discovery Institute. They sold ID to advance that political
mission. There is absolutely no doubt about that. I don't even really
understand what you are objecting to.

>
>> Did the rubes ever get what they were selling? What did they get
>> instead? If the ID perps were selling TV sets instead of a dishonest
>> political scam it would be a crime. Do you doubt that? Why isn't
>> Best Buy or Walmart not allowed to do what the ID perps did? In the
>> Discovery Institute's example they never had the ID science to sell
>> the rubes in the first place. ID was something that the rubes were
>> never going to get, and what did the ID perps push off on them
>> instead? Every single time that a legislator or school board wanted to
>> teach the science of intelligent design, what did they get instead
>> from the guys that sold them the scam?
>
> None of your bluster provides evidence that anyone at the Discovery
> Institute knew that 'Intelligent Design' is bogus or attempted to
> deliberately deceive anyone else into believing that it was legit.

Have you read the Wedge document? Have you read the mission statement
of the Discovery Institute's ID scam outfit?

QUOTE:

What is The Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture All About?

The Mission of the Center


THE proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one
of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. Its
influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West's greatest
achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free
enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences.

Yet a little over a century ago, this cardinal idea came under wholesale
attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of modern science.
Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and man, thinkers such
as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed human beings
not as eternal and accountable beings, but as animals or machines who
inhabited a universe ruled by chance and whose behavior and very
thoughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry,
and environment. This materialistic conception of reality eventually
infected virtually every area of our culture, from politics and
economics to literature and music.

The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were
devastating. Materialists denied the existence of objective standards
binding on all cultures, claiming that environment dictates our moral
beliefs. Such moral relativism was uncritically adopted by much of the
social sciences, and it still undergirds much of modern economics,
political science, psychology and sociology.

Materialists also undermined personal responsibility by asserting that
human thoughts and behaviors are dictated by our biology and
environment. The results can be seen in modern approaches to criminal
justice, product liability, and welfare. In the materialist scheme of
things, everyone is a victim and no one can be held accountable for his
or her actions.

Finally, materialism spawned a virulent strain of utopianism. Thinking
they could engineer the perfect society through the application of
scientific knowledge, materialist reformers advocated coercive
government programs that falsely promised to create heaven on earth.

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

The Center is directed by Discovery Senior Fellow Dr. Stephen Meyer.
An Associate Professor of Philosophy at Whitworth College, Dr. Meyer
holds a Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge
University. He formerly worked as a geophysicist for the Atlantic
Richfield Company.
END QUOTE:
http://web.archive.org/web/19980114111554/http://discovery.org/crsc/aboutcrsc.html

The Wedge document:
http://ncse.com/creationism/general/wedge-document

QUOTE:
Phase I. Scientific Research, Writing & Publication

Individual Research Fellowship Program
Paleontology Research program (Dr. Paul Chien et al.)
Molecular Biology Research Program (Dr. Douglas Axe et al.)

Phase II. Publicity & Opinion-making

Book Publicity
Opinion-Maker Conferences
Apologetics Seminars
Teacher Training Program
Op-ed Fellow
PBS (or other TV) Co-production
Publicity Materials / Publications

Phase III. Cultural Confrontation & Renewal

Academic and Scientific Challenge Conferences
Potential Legal Action for Teacher Training
Research Fellowship Program: shift to social sciences and humanities
END QUOTE:

QUOTE:
Five Year Goals

To see intelligent design theory as an accepted alternative in the
sciences and scientific research being done from the perspective of
design theory.
To see the beginning of the influence of design theory in spheres
other than natural science.
To see major new debates in education, life issues, legal and
personal responsibility pushed to the front of the national agenda.
END QUOTE:

What do you not get? They had a mission. To accomplish that mission
they needed to sell ID science to the rubes. In the Wedge document they
admit that they still have to do the research, but their plan was always
to sell the ID scam. Have you read what Philip Johnson said when he
quit the ID scam? Johnson did not write the Wedge document, but he did
develop the Wedge strategy and is credited with getting the ID perps
together. After the loss in Dover he admitted that the ID perps had
nothing equivalent to the real science. That is why the bait and switch
has gone down 100% of the time. The ID perps even tried to run the bait
and switch on the Dover rubes, but the Dover rubes had already obtained
their "free" legal assistance. If guys like Philip Johnson did not
already know that ID wasn't up to snuff would the switch scam have been
necessary? Why didn't they just give the rubes the science of
intelligent design all these years?

>
>> What do you not get? You are describing exactly what the Discovery
>> Institute has been doing for the last 12 years. They sell ID and all
>> the rubes get from them is a switch scam that doesn't even mention
>> that ID ever existed. When all those school boards and legislators
>> claimed to be able to teach the science of ID was it the bait or not?
>> They did not claim to teach the switch scam did they? What did they
>> get stuck with?
>
> Where'd you get the idea that the Discovery Institute provides 'a
> switch scam that doesn't even mention that ID ever existed'? ID is all
> over the DI's website:

Are you for real? How could you be so ignorant of what the ID perps
actually give the rubes? Do you really not know what the switch scam
that they give the rubes is?
This is a joke, right? Absolutely no one denies that they sell the ID
scam except for Nyikos, and he claims that they never claim to have the
theory of intelligent design to teach, and that someone else must have
the ID theory that they talk about teaching in the public schools.

>
>>> Disguising Creationism as 'Intelligent Design' doesn't even qualify
>>> as a metaphorical bait-and-switch. The thing is, as scummy as the
>>> scam is, it requires a higher degree of shrewdness than anyone
>>> involved in the 'Intelligent Design' fiasco ever demonstrated: to
>>> accuse them of running a bait-and-switch actually gives them more
>>> credit than they deserve.
>>
>> Even though ID was creationism in disguise the rubes did not get
>> creationism in the switch scam. The switch scam does not mention that
>> creationism nor ID ever existed. No matter how you explain it the
>> bait and switch went down.
>
> It seems the only actual victim of this notional 'bait and switch' is
> you. --
> S.O.P.
>

Two people have now denied that the bait and switch has been going down
and you are so clueless that you claim to not know what the switch scam
is. Does that make you wonder about how wrong you have to be? Nyikos
is the only other person to deny the bait and switch. I hope you like
the company. The most anyone else has managed is to make a denial and
then run away for good without trying to defend their stupidity.

This is what the Ohio rubes got and no one has gotten much else.

http://www.discovery.org/f/64

This is the draft that still had the Wellsian lie about no moths on tree
trunks and creationist web links in it. The final draft took out the
Wellsian lie and the creationist web links. It also removed Wells' book
from the resource references.

The Discovery Institute only has the copy of the draft, but this is what
the switch scam is. It is just the old scientific creationist
obfuscation arguments that they used to use as filler to make themselves
sound sciency.

This is the Discovery Institute's John West describing the switch scam
in Texas. He said the same thing in Louisiana.

QUOTE:
John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, told us that the
science standards don't call for the teaching of creationism or
intelligent design. He also said the institute's view is that the
recently approved science materials don't meet the curriculum standards'
requirement that "all sides" of evolutionary theory be analyzed,
including information that is critical of evolution.
END QUOTE:
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/aug/19/rick-perry/gov-rick-perry-says-texas-public-schools-teach-evo/


Check out the Ohio model lesson plan that was the first bait and switch.
Try to find any ID science in it. No mention of intelligent design,
no mention of IC or specified information. There was no mention of the
Discovery Institute or any ID perp in the final draft.

It is sad that the links to the final draft are all broken. Someone
somewhere likely has a copy.

Where have you been for the last decade? You really didn't know what
the switch scam is?

This is the Discovery Institute's own defense of their switch scam and
they claim it has nothing to do with intelligent design.

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=875

They are essentially admitting to the bait and switch. You admit that
they are still selling ID on their web site, but what do the rubes
actually get? All the rubes get is a switch scam that even the ID perps
claim has nothing to do with intelligent design. Read the Ohio model
lesson plan. All they give the rubes is an obfuscation scam that is
just a bunch of naysaying.

Ron Okimoto


Tim Norfolk

unread,
Sep 14, 2014, 8:12:44 PM9/14/14
to
A conservative guess is zero.

deadrat

unread,
Sep 14, 2014, 8:39:26 PM9/14/14
to
On 9/14/14 4:46 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> deadrat <a...@b.com> wrote in
> news:QYCdnTXyZM7WYYjJ...@giganews.com:
>> On 9/14/14 2:12 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> [snip]
>>> You keep repeating variations on your assertion that 'ID perps were
>>> selling rubes the scam that they had the ID science to teach in the
>>> public schools' as though mere repetition will eventually validate
>>> it. In fact, you have no case at all that any kind of scam was going
>>> down unless you can demonstrate that the 'perps' (a) knew that ID
>>> wasn't science and (b) knowingly misrepresented ID for gain to people
>>> who (c) accepted their claims at face value and (d) gave the 'perps'
>>> something of benefit in exchange.
>>
>> (a) I take as dispositive Behe's admission that for science to include
>> IDiocy it must include astrology.
>
> Do you think Behe knows that astrology isn't science? I don't.

Let's take a moment, shall we, to contemplate the Senjakbeyanly Dramatic
level of obstinance that would lead you to claim to be a more credulous
fool than Bill Buckingham rather than to give up your position.

<moment of awe/>

>> But it's not necessary to demonstrate that IDiots "knew" that IDiocy
>> wasn't science.
>
> Yes it is. No knowledge = no scam.

OK, I'm gonna go over this one more time. And I'm going to type verrrry
slowly so you can follow:

The bait isn't the scientific theory of IDiocy. Since we can't really
know the interiority of other people's minds, it's impossible to prove
what IDiots really understand. Perhaps they believe their own hype even
in the face of the admission that for IDiocy to be science, then so must
astrology be. Hard to believe, but

This. Doesn't. Matter.

<moment of sinking in/>

The bait is the lesson plan. Got that? The bait is the assurance that
school board members who want to teach IDiocy will have the trappings of
pedagogy suitable to present IDiocy to high-schoolers.

>> The capacity of people to fool themselves has no demonstrable limit.
>
> Scammers don't fool themselves about their scams. If you pretend to be a
> deposed Nigerian politician with a million bucks in a secret bank
> account, you're a scam artist: if you actually think you're a deposed
> Nigerian politician, you're a few cards short of a deck.

Absolutely right. Which is why it doesn't matter if you believe, in the
face of all rational thought, that IDiots believe in their own hype.

Got that? See above where This. Doesn't. Matter.

>> It's sufficient to show that IDiots claimed to have a curriculum
>> suitable for public school science classes but didn't.
>
> No it isn't. If you can't show that they deliberately misrepresented their
> claims, then you don't have a scam.

Sorry, but I do. They claimed to have some teachables. They didn't.

>> (b) It's not necessary to show that money changed hands. IDiots have
>> a goal that I call undermining science education with religious dogma
>> and that they call changing the definition of science enough to
>> include astrology. It's sufficient to show that their
>> misrepresentation was an attempt to advance their agenda to achieve
>> their goal.
>
> I never said it was necessary to show that money changed hands. I said,
> correctly, that it's necessary to show that 'IDiots' knowingly
> misrepresented ID for gain: that gain need not have been monetary, but it
> had to have been present, and it had to have come from the 'rubes'.

They knowingly misrepresented the development of their pseudoscience.
They claimed to have a way to teach IDiocy as science. If they had a
curriculum to match that of high-school biology and it failed a court
test, then you would have a case. I think a losing one, but you could
still say they were just wrong, not dishonest.

But they didn't have the lesson plans.

> The people you characterize as 'perps' and the ones you characterize as
> 'rubes' were both attempting to advance the exact same agenda to achieve
> the exact same goal. Thus, there was no scam.

The perps wanted respectability for their pseudoscience; the rubes
wanted to undermine evolution to support their lack of faith in their
dogma. That they shared some of the same goals is immaterial. The
perps claimed they had a way to teach science; the rubes bought it, even
unto ignoring counsel.
Nothing, and I mean literally nothing about what I quoted is out of
context. Bucky thought he had the support to teach IDiocy, something
"good" to present students. It is immaterial whether he understood
science or pseudoscience or whether he was comfortable with IDiocy
because it aligned with his personal beliefs.

The perps convinced him they had something to teach. All they had was
_Pandas_.

>> (d) It's not necessary to demonstrate that the perps got anything of
>> benefit. At Dover, in fact what they got was a thrashing. It's
>> sufficient to show that the perps attempted to get something of
>> benefit.
>
> That's not how a scam works, deady. The perpetrator of a scam exchanges
> something worthless for something of benefit. If nothing is exchanged, then
> there is no scam.

The perps had something worthless, all right. Their claim to have a
curriculum. The rubes had something worthwhile, a toehold of
respectability in science education. That the scam wasn't successful
doesn't make it less of a scam.

>> And the attempt at Dover was to get recognition that their nonsense
>> achieved the status of science and to win a political victory for
>> their religious dogma.
>
> Calling them 'perps' who were running a scam on 'rubes' tends to conceal
> that fact.

<shrug>

RonO

unread,
Sep 14, 2014, 9:14:43 PM9/14/14
to
Actually it is a major part of the ID scam. Haven't you ever read
anything from Meyer, Dembski or Behe claiming that their ID science has
nothing to do with the Christian God. They admit that their intelligent
designer is the Christian God, but they keep claiming that the
intelligent designer doesn't have to be the Christian God.

http://www.discovery.org/f/985

QUOTE:
Does intelligent design postulate a “supernatural creator?”
Overview: No.
The ACLU, and many of its expert witnesses, have alleged that teaching
the scientific theory of intelligent design (ID) is unconstitutional in
all circumstances because it posits a “supernatural creator.” Yet actual
statements from intelligent design theorists have made it clear
that the scientific theory of intelligent design does not address
metaphysical and religious questions such as the nature or identity of
the designer.
END QUOTE:

If you can't believe the ID perps who can you believe?

Behe is also on record as claiming that he thinks that denial of common
descent is foolhardy. He just thinks that his intelligent designer
tweeks things every once in a while. He even put forward the claim that
the intelligent designer may have just gotten the ball rolling and
everything unfolded according to plan. He put forward his stupid notion
of front loading. The original life form would have been endowed with
all the genetic material necessary for subsequent evolution of life on
earth. He just never gave any explanation for how the genetic material
needed to create the flagellum survived intact for well over a billion
years before the flagellum evolved, or why it took so long to evolve a
flagellum. He hasn't told anyone how or why it took over 3 billion
years for the blood clotting system to evolve if all the information was
there at the start of life on earth 3.8 billion years ago.

Dembski was one of the big pushers of space alien designers for several
years, but he seems to have lost interest in the subject. He even
admitted that space aliens were the best scientific explanation that ID
had. He got into trouble at the religious college that employed him
because they objected to him telling students that the earth may be
older than a few thousand years and that Noah's flood may have been
local. He had to apologize to keep his job.

Philip Johnson admitted that he thought that the earth was billions of
years old. He just claimed that the age of the earth didn't matter, but
my guess is that a lot of YEC IDiots wouldn't think so.

Ron Okimoto


TomS

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 12:19:00 AM9/15/14
to
"On Sun, 14 Sep 2014 20:14:43 -0500, in article <lv5ei4$miq$1...@dont-email.me>,
RonO stated..."
Yes, all of us know what advocates of ID claim as their official
"Big Tent" policy.

But when reads a letter to the editor who refers to, for example,
"Irreducible Complexity", they seem not to know about the possibility
of human common descent with other primates, that the designers may
have ceased to exist, etc.

Rolf

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 11:07:37 AM9/15/14
to

"Roger Shrubber" <rog.sh...@gmail.com> skrev i melding
news:hJGdneN3W9vdt4nJ...@giganews.com...
> Rodjk #613 wrote:
>> On Friday, September 12, 2014 1:17:41 AM UTC+3, Ron O wrote:
>>> On 9/11/2014 2:43 PM, Alan wrote:
>>>
>>>> "RonO" <roki...@cox.net> wrote in message
>>>
>>>> news:lus047$5pl$1...@dont-email.me...
>>>
>>>>> On 9/10/2014 3:52 PM, Alan wrote:
>>>
>>>>>> "Tim Norfolk" <tims...@aol.com> wrote in message
>>>
>>>>>> news:b53830fc-973f-4f7e...@googlegroups.com...
>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
> On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 7:53:12 AM UTC-4, Ron O wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>
>>>>>>> Because it affirms their beliefs, so it works?
>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>
>>>>>>
>>>
>>>>> had claimed did not have anything to do with intelligent
>>>>> design.
>>>
>>>>>
>>>
> I disagree. Some fit your description but I think it's a vocal
> minority. They are vocal because they view this as a fight. But
> there is a larger group that are fence sitters who want a justification
> for what they want to believe AND are rather anxious and willing
> to accept rationalizations. It's the standard formula for becoming
> gullible.
>
> It actually works both ways. There are some who want to "believe"
> in evolution but also don't understand the science. They can be
> a problem too, especially if they are teachers.
>
> If I'm right, and there are many people who are mostly honest,
> somewhat ignorant, and do at some level want to or are otherwise
> inclined to accept evidence that supports their religious inclinations,
> that has implications. One of those implications is that ranting
> about rubes and scams and IDiots does more harm than good. It's
> going to be very counter-productive. It is the behavior of a
> polemicist, not a scientist.
>
> There is no legitimate science behind the claims of the discovery
> institute or its principals. They have advertised their motives
> in The Wedge Document. Their enemy is "materialism" and to them
> that means science that disregards supernatural causation. And
> everything that follows is apologetics in support of that beginning.
> But this point can be made calmly and without sounding like a
> slavering lunatic spewing forth about "rubes" and "IDiots".
>
>
Bravo.


TomS

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 11:42:19 AM9/15/14
to
"On Mon, 15 Sep 2014 17:07:37 +0200, in article
<lv6vbe$r85$1...@news.albasani.net>, Rolf stated..."
The question is which is the better rhetorical stance to take.

It's been a while since I've read anything about the Enlightenment,
but I think that the history of that may provide instruction as to
what works. As I recall, there were "moderate" and "radical"
approaches to the Enlightenment. How did that work out?

One may also study the similar division among the Creationists, not,
I stress, to suggest that we emulate them, especially because they
have unilaterally disarmed themselves of evidence and reason. That
makes it what, in today's jargon, is "asymmetrical warfare". So,
we have the "radical creationists" who blame the discovery of
evolution for all the evils of modern society ... er, I'm having
a "senior moment" ... could someone remind me of the "moderate
creationists"?

Roger Shrubber

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 1:21:55 PM9/15/14
to
TomS wrote:
> "On Mon, 15 Sep 2014 17:07:37 +0200, in article
> <lv6vbe$r85$1...@news.albasani.net>, Rolf stated..."
>> "Roger Shrubber" <rog.sh...@gmail.com> skrev i melding


Regards the better rhetorical stance, I recommend talking to
more creationists. Not actually talking though. I'm reminded of
a Yogi-ism. "You can observe a lot by just watching." But in
this case, I recommend "just listening". I'm referring to a
few cases where I was in a group from work where creationism
came up and somebody went off on how absolutely brain dead any
and all creationism is but then they had to go. Others left and
two people who I would have never guessed had ID leanings mentioned
something about Behe's book. Rather than explain why it was
nonsense I listened, encouraged them to talk some. They were smart
people, just not very knowledgeable about biology. It kinda
intimidates them. But as engineers, they liked the teleology
that Behe's ideas rest on. And they want to believe. I don't think
they particularly like being lectured to or called rubes.
Treating them that way is a very effectively way to get them
to not listen to anything you have to say. So, as a matter of
effective rhetorical strategy, if you are trying to impress
yourself or your fellow travelers, energetically insulting anyone
who thinks otherwise is a tried and true method. Just look
at how well it works in congress.

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 1:52:47 PM9/15/14
to
deadrat <a...@b.com> wrote in
news:YdSdnbcR9t-iqIvJ...@giganews.com:

> On 9/14/14 4:46 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>> deadrat <a...@b.com> wrote in
>> news:QYCdnTXyZM7WYYjJ...@giganews.com:
>>> On 9/14/14 2:12 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>> [snip]
>>>> You keep repeating variations on your assertion that 'ID perps were
>>>> selling rubes the scam that they had the ID science to teach in the
>>>> public schools' as though mere repetition will eventually validate
>>>> it. In fact, you have no case at all that any kind of scam was
>>>> going down unless you can demonstrate that the 'perps' (a) knew
>>>> that ID wasn't science and (b) knowingly misrepresented ID for gain
>>>> to people who (c) accepted their claims at face value and (d) gave
>>>> the 'perps' something of benefit in exchange.
>>>
>>> (a) I take as dispositive Behe's admission that for science to
>>> include IDiocy it must include astrology.
>>
>> Do you think Behe knows that astrology isn't science? I don't.
>
> Let's take a moment, shall we, to contemplate the Senjakbeyanly
> Dramatic level of obstinance

[remainder of gas cloud removed]

Nice try, deady, but it ain't gonna work on me.
--
S.O.P.

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 1:53:43 PM9/15/14
to
RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lv545u$ucc$1...@dont-email.me:

> On 9/14/2014 2:12 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>> RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lv1d3p$bq$1...@dont-email.me:
>>
>>> On 9/12/2014 9:37 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>>>> RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lut8l5$p1b$1...@dont-email.me:
>> [snip]
>>>>> http://ncse.com/news/2005/10/discovery-institute-thomas-more-law-ce
>>>>> nt er-squabble-aei-foru-00704
>>>>>
>>>>> Thomas put forward the booklet that claimed that ID could be
>>>>> taught in the public schools authored by three Discovery Institute
>>>>> fellow. Meyer was the director of the ID scam wing of the
>>>>> Discovery Institute and deWolf was head of legal at the time the
>>>>> booklet was written.
>>>>
>>>> Yep, Thomas did that. And it proves a whole bunch of nothing.
>>>
>>> Why? The ID perps were obviously selling the rubes the scam that
>>> they had the ID science to teach in the public schools. It doesn't
>>> mean that Thomas did or did not know that they were lying.
>>
>> I don't think that's obvious at all. A scammer deliberately deceives
>> someone for personal gain. If Thomas, Meyer, DeWolf, et al. were
>> knowingly providing bogus material to 'rubes', what do you think they
>> hoped to gain from it?
>
> No. You are obviously wrong. Just look up the definition of scam.
> One of the definition is simply that a scam is a dishonest scheme.
> Look it up.

Already did. You're wrong, I'm right. End of story.
--
S.O.P.

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 3:44:19 PM9/15/14
to
TomS <TomS_...@newsguy.com> wrote in
news:420795739.000...@drn.newsguy.com:

> "On Mon, 15 Sep 2014 17:07:37 +0200, in article
> <lv6vbe$r85$1...@news.albasani.net>, Rolf stated..."
>>
>>"Roger Shrubber" <rog.sh...@gmail.com> skrev i melding
>>news:hJGdneN3W9vdt4nJ...@giganews.com...
[snip]
>>> There is no legitimate science behind the claims of the discovery
>>> institute or its principals. They have advertised their motives
>>> in The Wedge Document. Their enemy is "materialism" and to them
>>> that means science that disregards supernatural causation. And
>>> everything that follows is apologetics in support of that beginning.
>>> But this point can be made calmly and without sounding like a
>>> slavering lunatic spewing forth about "rubes" and "IDiots".
>>
>>Bravo.
>>
> The question is which is the better rhetorical stance to take.

The answer is, 'the one that doesn't spew forth about "rubes" and
"IDiots".'

Not that I take such a stance with my own rhetoric, you understand - I'm
as likely to come off sounding like a slavering lunatic as anyone is, and
more so than some - but good rhetoric is like good art: you don't have to
be able to make it in order to know and appreciate it.
--
S.O.P.

jillery

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 4:43:07 PM9/15/14
to
It's good that you recognize your own limitations.

Mark Isaak

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 5:23:47 PM9/15/14
to
Your first point I disagree with. If I offer my high-quality antique
widget for sale with sincere intent to sell it, and you pay me money for
it, and at the last minute I decide I really don't want to part with the
widget and ship a low-quality thingamajig instead, I have done a
bait-and-switch. Your second point is too minor a quibble to bother with.

>> What the Discovery Institute offered for sale was a legal way to teach
>> creationism.
>
> No. A sale is an exchange. What were the supposed 'buyers' offering in
> exchange for the DI's claims that it was Constitutional to teach ID in
> public schools?

You are being too literal. Can you deny that, if all had gone well for
them legally, all sides (from their points of view) would have
benefited? The school board and Thomas More Law Center would have
advanced their goal of bringing creationism to school kids. The DI
would have got publicity and a test case they could point to in further
dealings. Such mutually beneficial exchange is at the heart of what a
sale is.
Again, too literal. Even literally, though, an "intelligent design"
curriculum is a product which the DI manufactured and advertized. The
school board received that product. The product carried a price: that
it would be used (and as events showed, that was a high price indeed).
I stand by my use of "customer."

>> And in the Dover case, at least one customer noted that he expected
>> some customer support which was conspicuously absent. So I think
>> "bait-and-switch", if not the best term, might still be applied.
>
> The fact that you're referring to one of the Thomas More Law Center's
> lawyers as a 'customer' demonstrates that the distinction between
> 'sellers' and 'customers' is invalid. Lawyers from the TMLC spent years
> looking for a school board willing to be an ID test case: they struck
> out in West Virginia, Michigan, Minnesota, and elsewhere before they
> convinced the Dover Area School District to add ID to the curriculum,
> with the full awareness that the district would be sued and the
> understanding that the TMLC would represent the district at no charge.

In cases of barter, both parties are customers and both parties are
sellers. That does not make the distinction invalid; it just emphasizes
that one must be clear what relationship in particular one is referring
to. Especially with three or more parties, as we have here.

Which is why it is important, occasionally, to clarify exactly what is
the substantive point which is in dispute. The point -- "Is
'bait-and-switch' an acceptable term to describe the DI's actions?" --
frankly, does not seem important enough to spend this many electrons on,
so this will likely be my last response.

> Dicky Thompson, the 'customer' in question, is no rube - he was the
> Chief Assistant Prosecutor and then Prosecuting Attorney of Oakland
> County, Michigan, over a period of 24 years before hooking up with the
> Thomas Morons. Nobody duped him into believing that ID was legit, and
> he's never acknowledged its bogosity, either. He thinks he could have
> won if the DI 'experts' had testified as planned.
>
> Unsurprisingly, Meyer, Dembski, and the other 'experts' who withdrew
> from the case claim that it was the TMLC's fault. It doesn't look like a
> vendor-customer relationship to me: more like two officers of the same
> battalion blaming each other for a humiliating defeat.

I have seen multiple similar disputes in vendor-customer relationships.
"It's the supplier's fault for shoddy work that does not meet the
need." "No, it's the customer's fault for poor specifications or
improper installation." And many other variations.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Keep the company of those who seek the truth; run from those who have
found it." - Vaclav Havel

deadrat

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 5:30:53 PM9/15/14
to
On 9/15/14 12:52 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> deadrat <a...@b.com> wrote in
> news:YdSdnbcR9t-iqIvJ...@giganews.com:
>
>> On 9/14/14 4:46 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>>> deadrat <a...@b.com> wrote in
>>> news:QYCdnTXyZM7WYYjJ...@giganews.com:
>>>> On 9/14/14 2:12 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>>> [snip]
>>>>> You keep repeating variations on your assertion that 'ID perps were
>>>>> selling rubes the scam that they had the ID science to teach in the
>>>>> public schools' as though mere repetition will eventually validate
>>>>> it. In fact, you have no case at all that any kind of scam was
>>>>> going down unless you can demonstrate that the 'perps' (a) knew
>>>>> that ID wasn't science and (b) knowingly misrepresented ID for gain
>>>>> to people who (c) accepted their claims at face value and (d) gave
>>>>> the 'perps' something of benefit in exchange.
>>>>
>>>> (a) I take as dispositive Behe's admission that for science to
>>>> include IDiocy it must include astrology.
>>>
>>> Do you think Behe knows that astrology isn't science? I don't.
>>
>> Let's take a moment, shall we, to contemplate the Senjakbeyanly
>> Dramatic level of obstinance
>
> [remainder of gas cloud removed]

Sure. Snip the context and ...
>
> Nice try, deady, but it ain't gonna work on me.

.... declare victory, Brave Sir Robin. Well played!

Apparently even typing slowly didn't work. I'll try again:

The bait is not the perps' claim to have science they didn't and don't
have. The bait is that they had a defensible science curriculum to
offer public schools. The rubes bought it. The perps had no such
thing, of course, and when the rubes got pushed into federal court, they
got shoved into paying $1M in legals fees of the pros from Dover. The
perps had no science curriculum to defend and their experts ran away
from the trial as fast as you've run from this thread.

It's not necessary to inquire into the perps mindset about whether
IDiocy is science. Maybe they believe it is; maybe they believe it
isn't but that it will be someday; maybe they know they're scam artists
from the get go. (Although I think it's simply adorable that you excuse
Behe on the grounds that he might think there's a scientific basis for
Dr Mystiko's "Answers in the Stars" horoscope and advice to the lovelorn
column.)

The rubes thought the perps had their back. And the rubes got taken.

But that's how scams usually work out rubes.



deadrat

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 5:36:31 PM9/15/14
to
Didja look here?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scam?s=t

> You're wrong, I'm right.

'Cause it says "fraudulent scheme" there.

> End of story.

Nice try, Brave Sir Robin.


TomS

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 6:27:30 PM9/15/14
to
"On Mon, 15 Sep 2014 16:43:07 -0400, in article
<lqje1alg4e60le6n1...@4ax.com>, jillery stated..."
I repeat my request for someone who is knowledgeable about the
Enlightenment (or some other similar change: Renaissance, maybe,
Reformation, ...) to tell us about radical vs. moderate movements,
which was more productive, or maybe that the comparison is not
applicable.

I know that my personality shapes the way that I argue, and that
that is poor guidance for others.

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 6:30:04 PM9/15/14
to
deadrat <a...@b.com> wrote in
news:HtudnYP92YpCxorJ...@giganews.com:

> On 9/15/14 12:53 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>> RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lv545u$ucc$1...@dont-email.me:
>>
>>>> I don't think that's obvious at all. A scammer deliberately
>>>> deceives someone for personal gain. If Thomas, Meyer, DeWolf, et
>>>> al. were knowingly providing bogus material to 'rubes', what do you
>>>> think they hoped to gain from it?
>>>
>>> No. You are obviously wrong. Just look up the definition of scam.
>>> One of the definition is simply that a scam is a dishonest scheme.
>>> Look it up.
>>
>> Already did.
>
> Didja look here?
>
> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scam?s=t
>
>> You're wrong, I'm right.
>
> 'Cause it says "fraudulent scheme" there.

So 'fraudulent' is an exact synonym of 'dishonest' in the deadrattian
lexicon? Interesting.
--
S.O.P.

deadrat

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 6:42:09 PM9/15/14
to
dishonest + scheme = fraudulent.

This is really what you want to dispute?

What are you doing? Channeling Glenn?


Roger Shrubber

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 8:04:15 PM9/15/14
to
TomS wrote:

> I repeat my request for someone who is knowledgeable about the
> Enlightenment (or some other similar change: Renaissance, maybe,
> Reformation, ...) to tell us about radical vs. moderate movements,
> which was more productive, or maybe that the comparison is not
> applicable.

I can only offer an opinion that the comparison is not
applicable. One might even ask if the Enlightenment has
succeeded (as a movement) but then one would have to
decide what it was.

To the extent that the Enlightenment was a call to examine
the world empirically without required reference to sacred
scripture, this was largely successful inasmuch as it
became largely permitted to do so. Of course not everyone
has been "converted". Further, what people have claimed
was "The Enlightenment" entangled itself with people's
acceptance of the basic premise of being empirical and
objective. By that I mean, their derived conclusions were
often claimed as ultimate necessary consequences of
accepting empiricism. Were Rousseau's opinions as absolute
a consequence of 'Enlightened thinking' as the Pythagorean
theory a consequence of geometry? Or are Dawkin's conclusions
about theism similarly necessary consequence of accepting
materialism within the scientific method?

And then as an alternative to The Enlightenment and
rational thought we have perhaps Deepak Chopra. Is he
successful? Yes. How? By giving people what they want
which turns out to be reasons to feel good over reasons
to be empirically correct, at least in my opinion.

And so I will argue that when you can find ways to make
people feel good when accepting your arguments you will
be more effective than alternative arguments that make
them feel bad, such as leading with the argument that
they are rubes.

> I know that my personality shapes the way that I argue, and that
> that is poor guidance for others.

I enjoy a more spirited argument but have found that to
be atypical and that it is a big turnoff to some.

RonO

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 8:48:55 PM9/15/14
to
I thought only creationists declared victory and ran away when they were
wrong. Just goes to show you can't be right about everything. Just
like Nyikos he snipped out the link that demonstrated that he was wrong
in order to declare victory. Where do these guys come from? The link
that you snipped and ran from cames up when I Googled "scam." That is
what cames up on the search.

Let's test how much like Nyikos you can be. Nyikos will snip and run as
a stupid and dishonest ploy involving the same material twice, but he
has some rule against doing it three times. Snipping and running the
first time was ridiculously stupid.

https://www.google.com/webhp?tab=ww&ei=BVnLUq_jOoybigLDu4CQBw&ved=0CBQQ1S4#q=scam

Are you, at least, less ignorant than you were yesterday, or is denial
all you have? What did you learn from the rest of the post?

Ron Okimoto

Sneaky O. Possum

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 9:58:23 PM9/15/14
to
RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lv81dn$r0k$1...@dont-email.me:
[lame invective snipped]

> The link that you snipped and ran from cames up when I Googled "scam."
> That is what cames up on the search.

You know what *else* comes up on the search?

'scam
'noun \'skam\

': a dishonest way to make money by deceiving people'

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scam

That's a quote from a real dictionary, bunky. Now, are you going to
pretend that you didn't write 'The ID perps were obviously selling the
rubes the scam that they had the ID science to teach in the public
schools'? Are you going to pretend that you weren't deliberately
likening them to criminals engaged in a criminal enterprise? Are you
that fucking dishonest?

> Let's test how much like Nyikos you can be.
> Nyikos will snip and run as a stupid and dishonest ploy involving the
> same material twice, but he has some rule against doing it three
> times. Snipping and running the first time was ridiculously stupid.
>
> https://www.google.com/webhp?tab=ww&ei=BVnLUq_jOoybigLDu4CQBw&ved=0CBQQ
> 1S4#q=scam
>
> Are you, at least, less ignorant than you were yesterday, or is denial
> all you have? What did you learn from the rest of the post?

You're in no position to heckle me about denial, Ronnie. I'm not the one
who's trying to pretend he wasn't describing Intelligent Design
promoters as criminals engaged in a criminal enterprise.
--
S.O.P.

TomS

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 11:47:02 PM9/15/14
to
"On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 01:58:23 +0000 (UTC), in article
<XnsA3A9C10E8DEC3sn...@78.46.70.116>, Sneaky O. Possum stated..."
Also from that same site:

"Full Definition of SCAM

"a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation <an insurance scam>"

I hope that anyone who is interested will read the original, as I
have not copied all of it.

>
>That's a quote from a real dictionary, bunky. Now, are you going to
>pretend that you didn't write 'The ID perps were obviously selling the
>rubes the scam that they had the ID science to teach in the public
>schools'? Are you going to pretend that you weren't deliberately
>likening them to criminals engaged in a criminal enterprise? Are you
>that fucking dishonest?
>
>> Let's test how much like Nyikos you can be.
>> Nyikos will snip and run as a stupid and dishonest ploy involving the
>> same material twice, but he has some rule against doing it three
>> times. Snipping and running the first time was ridiculously stupid.
>>
>> https://www.google.com/webhp?tab=ww&ei=BVnLUq_jOoybigLDu4CQBw&ved=0CBQQ
>> 1S4#q=scam
>>
>> Are you, at least, less ignorant than you were yesterday, or is denial
>> all you have? What did you learn from the rest of the post?
>
>You're in no position to heckle me about denial, Ronnie. I'm not the one
>who's trying to pretend he wasn't describing Intelligent Design
>promoters as criminals engaged in a criminal enterprise.


--

TomS

unread,
Sep 15, 2014, 11:56:34 PM9/15/14
to
"On Mon, 15 Sep 2014 20:04:15 -0400, in article
<pvadne8Aj5sV44rJ...@giganews.com>, Roger Shrubber stated..."
And Dawkins is successful. Is he giving people reasons to feel good,
rather than reasons which are empirically correct?

Roger Shrubber

unread,
Sep 16, 2014, 12:23:41 AM9/16/14
to
I think Dawkins' arguments are mostly successful with people who
feel good about his arguments, and I think they are mostly unsuccessful
with people who would feel bad if they accepted them. Cause and
effect get confused when emotional reactions are involved.

Do you think that Dawkins is responsible for converting many
people to his way of thinking? I don't. I think he is more of
a standard bearer and that it is refreshing for many to have
somebody publicly saying what they are thinking already.


deadrat

unread,
Sep 16, 2014, 2:38:48 AM9/16/14
to
Not every scam is illegal. Many MLM schemes are scams but they're
legal. Charities that spend an inordinate amount on expenses (read the
operators' salaries) are scams, but as long as they honestly report what
they're doing to the gov, they're legal as well.


jillery

unread,
Sep 16, 2014, 5:06:08 AM9/16/14
to
If by "successful", you're referring to Dawkins' efforts against
religions and for atheism, there is a recognized correlation between
religion and education. In western countries, as education increases,
belief in God decreases. So, even if Dawkin's himself has no effect,
the larger culture of knowledge does. It's arguable whether Dawkins
or Chopra better represents that culture.

Rodjk #613

unread,
Sep 16, 2014, 6:26:21 AM9/16/14
to
On Sunday, September 14, 2014 4:57:17 PM UTC+3, Ron O wrote:

<SNIP

> What kind of creationists are still IDiots?
>
> Ron Okimoto

It provides them cover, so they can pretend to be scientific. It is sort of a 'wink wink' relationship. Actually, that is all ID ever was...

Since Dover, it is much less effective but it is all they have.

Rodjk #613

RonO

unread,
Sep 16, 2014, 6:58:17 AM9/16/14
to
The only IDiots left seem to be the ignorant, the incompetent and or
dishonest. You are only describing the dishonest fraction. Most likely
guys like Eddie and Kalk. There are still the guys that don't know any
better, or that can't tell that they don't know any better. I do not
know how large that fraction is, but judging from what comes through TO
it is a minority fraction.

Ron Okimoto

Rolf

unread,
Sep 16, 2014, 7:09:29 AM9/16/14
to

"Roger Shrubber" <rog.sh...@gmail.com> skrev i melding
news:OcqdnYaZ0pn2JorJ...@giganews.com...
Dawkins obviously knows a lot and may be quite right about many things, but
his literary style may counter his purpose if he want his writings for the
general public to have the effect I presume is much of his rationale in the
first place.

A better approach is to respect your reader, especially if he is in
opposition to your position - and to sincerely express that respect.
That may catch his his attention and make him disposed to a more
accomodating view of your arguments, maybe leading to the realization that
there may be something worth considering in what you say. But I think there
are people immune to civil exchange of views.

I like the styles of Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud. I also, but not
always, enjoy Kurt Vonnegut's. But Dawkins', not so much.


RonO

unread,
Sep 16, 2014, 7:26:26 AM9/16/14
to
So what? Did I ever say that there were not multiple meanings of the
word in use? You are the one denying that fact, and you had to snip and
run from your denial.

>
> That's a quote from a real dictionary, bunky. Now, are you going to
> pretend that you didn't write 'The ID perps were obviously selling the
> rubes the scam that they had the ID science to teach in the public
> schools'? Are you going to pretend that you weren't deliberately
> likening them to criminals engaged in a criminal enterprise? Are you
> that fucking dishonest?

What do you think that you are accomplishing when there are obviously
multiple definitions in use? You know for a fact, now that scam can
mean different things in different circumstances so what is your beef?
You do not have one.

>
>> Let's test how much like Nyikos you can be.
>> Nyikos will snip and run as a stupid and dishonest ploy involving the
>> same material twice, but he has some rule against doing it three
>> times. Snipping and running the first time was ridiculously stupid.
>>
>> https://www.google.com/webhp?tab=ww&ei=BVnLUq_jOoybigLDu4CQBw&ved=0CBQQ
>> 1S4#q=scam
>>
>> Are you, at least, less ignorant than you were yesterday, or is denial
>> all you have? What did you learn from the rest of the post?
>
> You're in no position to heckle me about denial, Ronnie. I'm not the one
> who's trying to pretend he wasn't describing Intelligent Design
> promoters as criminals engaged in a criminal enterprise.
>

This is what Nyikos does after doing something stupid and dishonest
twice. I guess once is enough for you. Why can't you address the link
that you were given and snipped and ran from?

Poor guy. When did I ever say that the ID perps were criminals. I have
always said that ID is a political scam. That is the only way they get
away with it. It is called free speech even if they are lying. I have
said that if they were in retail sales that it would be a crime, but
that isn't the same as calling them criminals, that is just a fact, and
I only have said that because two people have denied that the bait and
switch has been going down and it is a perfectly good example of why it
is a bait and switch scam. If the Discovery Institute were selling TV
sets instead of the ID scam it would be a bait and switch crime in the
states that I know about. Do you deny that fact? My only claim is that
they are dishonest political scam artists. You made up the criminal
part on your own because of your personal definition of scam. I can't
do anything about that.

Instead of running and lying about other people you may want to grow up
and take responsibility for your stupidity. Did it really make you feel
better to snip out a definition that made it clear that your definition
wasn't the only one? Why do you and Nyikos do that? It is a form of
denial, but denial so deep that you are willing to alter your physical
environment in order to maintain the denial in the face of reality.

Ron Okimoto


nyi...@bellsouth.net

unread,
Sep 16, 2014, 2:59:35 PM9/16/14
to
On Saturday, September 13, 2014 6:28:39 AM UTC-4, Glenn wrote:

...some things at the bottom of this post which I will address when
I get down there. But first, some choice words for the people listed
further below (in "LIFO" fashion).

> "Rodjk #613" <rjk...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:ffeb36ea-fdec-4b27...@googlegroups.com...
>
> > On Saturday, September 13, 2014 12:16:09 PM UTC+3, Glenn wrote:
>
> >> "Rodjk #613" <rjk...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:abbe3f6e-6f22-4315...@googlegroups.com...

> >> > On Friday, September 12, 2014 1:17:41 AM UTC+3, Ron O wrote:

> >> >> On 9/11/2014 2:43 PM, Alan wrote:

> >> >> > "RonO" <roki...@cox.net> wrote


Note the absence of "bait and" in the following--and NOT because I
snipped it anywhere:

> >> >> >> the switch scam [...]the switch scam [...]the switch scam
> >> >> >> [...] the switch scam. [...] switch scam supplements
> >> >> >> the switch scam

> >> >> > If you want to decrease support for ID (and any other creationism)
> >> >> > then improve science education in the US.

Common Core won't do it, because it results in mandatory dumbing down
of the best and brightest by forbidding them to study ahead.
And it won't go away any time soon, because it is backed up by Bill Gates's
billions for the simple reason that the "laptop" requirement means gigabucks
for Microsoft.

> >> >> That is why I said "sort of." IDiots like Glenn have to tell us what
> >> >> they expected compared to what they actually got, and why the switch
> >> >> scam that doesn't mention that ID ever existed is acceptable.

Again the absence of "bait and".

> >> > Worrying about what a Glenn or Nyikos character says in a
> >> > newsgroup does nothing to help you or make this clear.

For "Worrying" read "Deluding yourself."

> >> > The people who pull in the DI are not interested in the 'science'.

I don't know of anyone here who "pulls in the DI" except for the
distortions Ron O. posts about it by almost never talking about
the "bait and" part of THE "bait and switch scam."

And on those rare occasions where he does talk about it, it is often
bait for his own "bait and switch scam". More about this when I get
around to replying directly again to him, tomorrow.

> >> > Even here, I have been watching/reading/lurking in this group since
> >> > 1996 or so. No one has learned anything. Nothing.

Actually, I have learned a great deal here about biology, and sometimes
about other branches of science. And about human behavior.

But there seems to be NOTHING TO LEARN about any "bait and"
except for repeated evidence that Ron O has lost his marbles about a pair
of very similar quotes by the DI. These are the ONLY kind of quote the
DI has posted since 2005 Dover that he has been able to dredge up
up in his pathetic attempt to shore up his fantasy about "the bait".

> >> > Guys like Glenn play you for fools. They have no intention of learning,

Oh, I'm sure Glenn has learned a lot, but not as much as I have,
because it is only by wading into on-topic discussion that one gets
the full benefit of scientific information.

> >>> they keep repeating the same nonsense over and over, and they play word
> > >>games and talk in circles.

Bozos like Rodjk #613, who wrote the above, do not deserve any better.
I give them better on occasion, only to have them show exactly
why they do not deserve it.

And now, finally, I come to you, Glenn:

> >> Do you regard me as an IDiot because Ron says so?
> >> If not, you have no real cause to say "guys like Glenn".
> >> Aren't you really explaining your own behavior above?

Yes, from what limited experience I have with him. He is a toady
of Ron O from 2011 at least.

> > I think that talking to you is a waste of time...

> There you are.

Ron O has really ramped up his campaign of deceit against me on this
thread. I won't have time for it until tomorrow, Glenn, but I will
relentlessly pursue him on this thread. One thing I should explain
now, though. Back at a time when Hemidactylus gave the appearance of
sincerity, I promised him I would only reply to Ron O very sparingly
from that point on.

But Hemidactylus has gone off the deep end, and he now is completely
on Ron O's side despite having tried to look above it all in the past.

So I consider myself released from my promise: it is quite possible
that he only held off revealing what a toady he is of Ron O because
I kept to my promise, but his irrational hatred for me caused him to cast
caution to the winds.

Peter Nyikos

Robert Carnegie

unread,
Sep 17, 2014, 1:10:13 AM9/17/14
to
On Tuesday, 16 September 2014 02:58:23 UTC+1, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> RonO <roki...@cox.net> wrote in news:lv81dn$r0k$1...@dont-email.me:
> > On 9/15/2014 12:53 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> > The link that you snipped and ran from cames up when I Googled "scam."
> > That is what cames up on the search.
>
> You know what *else* comes up on the search?
>
> 'scam
>
> 'noun \'skam\
>
> ': a dishonest way to make money by deceiving people'
>
> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scam
>
> That's a quote from a real dictionary, bunky. Now, are you going to
> pretend that you didn't write 'The ID perps were obviously selling the
> rubes the scam that they had the ID science to teach in the public
> schools'? Are you going to pretend that you weren't deliberately
> likening them to criminals engaged in a criminal enterprise? Are you
> that fucking dishonest?

The word "pers" is identified at http://dictionary.com/ -
which I prefer over M-W - as police slang for the
perpetrator of a crime.

I'm happy to tell you that intelligent design doctrine
is the work of lying thieving cowards who deny their God,
and I may have done so before. Perhaps this helps.
Each word is carefully considered.

Ron is alleging that the "perps" represented ID doctrine
to "rubes" as being a topic with content of scientific
research, content that can be included in lessons in
public school, and that that wasn't and isn't true.
I don't think that's a controversial statement, but
perhaps you disagree.

If you need money to change hands for this to be
considered a scam, well, I think the "perps" are
getting paid by /someone/ for the time they spend
on this work, at least. They also gain in other
ways; obviously by the sale of their books,
including school textbooks.

Their immediate goal in the exercise is to get
public money improperly spent on undermining
evolutionary science in the minds of school
students. It's not clear to me that that money
goes directly into the pockets of the IDists
if and when it happens, but it's being misused.

eridanus

unread,
Sep 17, 2014, 3:52:33 AM9/17/14
to
El martes, 16 de septiembre de 2014 05:23:41 UTC+1, Roger Shrubber escribi�:
but what really pester religious fanatics is this very fact; that a book is
publishing arguments in favor of some form of atheism. This form of atheism
is cherished by those that are already atheists, but had not the time to
develop rationally their thinking. The books of Dawkins and others had
improved a lot a lot the education of some atheists that had not expended
much time reading appropriate books in favor of their atheism.

On the other hand, the books of Dawkins and others, are offensive for
ministers of some religions that take the bible literally, for these
arguments are convincing. Thus if they are convincing for some creationist
officers of some church... they fear it can be convincing for the common
crowd of his herd. Remember that, in the gospels, the followers of a
religion are called the "the herd" or more appropriately "sheep-herd",
for they are tamed. They have not reasons to worry about this, for the
herd, the sheep, do not read books.

More or less this was what I told to some young that was discussing me
some statement I made that looked atheist. I do not remember now this
nature of the argument... it was probably about the Thalidomida that
caused some incredible deformities on the limbs of babies. I had heard
one day a priest preaching and accusing "those women" that took this pill,
the Thalidomida, "trying to avoid to have babies.
The accusation was false for this drug was taking for some morning
sickness or some headaches some pregnant women were feeling. It was not
known at the time the teratogenic effect of this drug.
So, I told the young man, a few years younger than me, that this argument
was to be taken with his priest; for he was in fact a sheep, and thus had
not any capacity to engage in a rational argument. The young man was shocked and his face blushed. It was probably the first he was confronted
with this fact; the gospel was declaring the crowd of believers just an
herd of sheep. He was a sort of educated guy... and suddenly I make him
to realize how little respect the gospels showed for his intellect or
just for the intellect of the common crowd of believers.

Eri

Eri



Glenn

unread,
Sep 17, 2014, 6:31:53 AM9/17/14
to

"Robert Carnegie" <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote in message news:e9c7786d-72d5-423c...@googlegroups.com...
Who are these "perps" you and Ron refer to, specifically?

RonO

unread,
Sep 17, 2014, 7:50:25 AM9/17/14
to
Who signed up for the ID perps orignial mission (Have you read the
mission statement and seen their original logo of God and Adam)? Most
of them are still there. Who sold the ID scam to the rubes?. Who did
not resign when the bait and switch started to go down and was obviously
being perpetrated by the Discovery Institute? I don't think that anyone
with a brain can deny what the Discovery Institute was involved in
doing. There may be some that lie to themselves that they had nothing
to do with it, but how many resigned after Ohio? After Dover (one and
he claimed that he had never supported the teach ID scam even though he
had written several newspaper editorials claiming that it was legal to
teach ID while he was a fellow, Beckwith)? Who was responsible for
putting out the pamphlet that you claim still has them claiming to have
the science of ID to teach in the public schools? Who had to OK that
Pamphlet's production?

One of the links that I gave to Nyikos about the bait and switch in Ohio
was an article that stated that in addition to Wells and Meyer that the
Chapman (the president of the Discovery Institute) and an entourage of
half a dozen other Discovery Institute players came and were in the
audience supporting the ID perps, Meyer and Wells. Were they among the
Perps? I do not know they were not named, but my guess is that Chapman
knew about the wedge document and things like your pamphlet. He probaby
could not have missed the education statement up on his web site, but
you never know. He might have been conned too. Three Discovery
Institute fellows (Meyer, DeWolf, and Deforrest) authored the teach ID
booklet that the Discovery Institute used to give out with their bogus
video. Until he quit the ID scam Philip Johnson used to support
teaching ID in the public schools. Dembski claimed that ID could be
taught in the public schools. You might recall stupid claims such as
one of the reasons to teach ID was so that future IDiots might do better
than the current generation of IDiots.

You can't forget the guys involved in ID Network. They were likely the
second largest IDiot organization. Here was a bunch of IDiots with
intelligent design in the name of their scam outfit and what did they
do? They followed the Discovery Institute's lead and began running the
bait and switch with the Discovery Institute. With ID in the name of
the group they started to sell the switch scam that didn't even mention
that ID had ever existed. How sad is that?

You likely even have to consider guys like Behe and Minnich even though
they have claimed in the past that they did not support teaching ID in
the public schools. Why didn't they resign when the bait and switch
started to go down in 2002? They had over 2 years of the bait and
switch going down on every IDiot rube that wanted to teach the science
of ID and yet they did nothing before or after Dover. Why did they sign
up for the mission of the ID scam wing of the Discovery Institute?
Within a couple months of Ohio the bait and switch went down on
Wisconsin and Minnesota. Somewhere the Discovery Institute has a list
of IDiot rubes that bent over for the switch scam. I recall Wisconsin
was still on it, but not everyone took the switch scam. A lot just
dropped the issue and you never heard about it again.

So I don't have a list, but you can start one on your own if you want.
Just start listing all the ID perps that have lied to you about the
science of ID since the bait and switch started to go down over 12 years
ago. That would likely be a good place to start, and then you can start
dropping the less guilty.

Ron Okimoto

RonO

unread,
Sep 17, 2014, 8:00:49 AM9/17/14
to
Poor Glenn. What did you do to deserve Nyikos? You had to feel sorry
for poor Hemi, for years Nyikos used him to make his stupid threats
against me and other posters. All the hammer blows and knockdowns that
Nyikos told Hemi that he was going to deliver, and the years of
repeatedly going back to poor Hemi and claiming that the knockdowns were
still coming, just delayed.

Nyikos can't even bring himself to tell me what his third knockdown was
and give me a link to the post, but he did tell Hemi that he had
delivered it even if he didn't tell him what it was and where to find it.

Hopefully Nyikos will make good on his "tomorrow" threat so you won't
have to endure yeas of excuses.

Ron Okimoto

eridanus

unread,
Sep 17, 2014, 10:37:31 AM9/17/14
to
El mi�rcoles, 17 de septiembre de 2014 12:50:25 UTC+1, Ron O escribi�:
Ron, what do you mean by "perps"? Perpetrators?
eri

nyi...@bellsouth.net

unread,
Sep 17, 2014, 10:54:12 AM9/17/14
to
On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 1:10:13 AM UTC-4, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> I'm happy to tell you that intelligent design doctrine
> is the work of lying thieving cowards who deny their God,
> and I may have done so before. Perhaps this helps.
> Each word is carefully considered.

If so, I'm sure you will be willing to back it all up.
Please do so.

> Ron is alleging that the "perps" represented ID doctrine
> to "rubes" as being a topic with content of scientific
> research,

Yes, but usually, it is research done by others and
interpreted according to certain standards, none
of which are religious in nature.

You can, of course, argue about those standards or whether
the interpretation accurately reflects them, but I don't
see you doing that here.

> content that can be included in lessons in
> public school,

...as a rival to evolutionary interpretations.

> and that that wasn't and isn't true.

Yes, one cannot expect students of that experience to
be able to understand the material, much of which is
beyond even the average undergraduate biology major.
The latter are generally saddled with a curriculum that
demands enormous amount of rote memory, due to catering
to pre-med majors. They are lucky if a course on birds or
mammals ever runs; they don't often run at this large state
university.

> Their immediate goal in the exercise is to get
> public money improperly spent on undermining
> evolutionary science in the minds of school
> students.

That includes a lot of hypotheses about evolution
and its causes, masquerading as "we know this,
thanks to science," for all the doubt that is
expressed about it.

I've been arguing on another forum with someone who
thinks that there is a serious genetic reason for why
most metazoan phyla evolved in some 40 million years
[dating from the split between protostomes and
deuterostomes ca. 573 million years ago, by the latest
estimates of which I am aware.] and the subsequent
500+ million years actually saw less in the way of new
body plans.

So far, she has been unable to give me even one reference
that advances this hypothesis in a scientific manner.
[She's a well known research biologist, by the way.]

I suspect this phenomenon is pure contingency, a mystery
that nobody has really tried to address in detail.

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

Glenn

unread,
Sep 17, 2014, 11:02:49 AM9/17/14
to

<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:c50a2151-7f38-4f1c...@googlegroups.com...
> On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 1:10:13 AM UTC-4, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>
>> I'm happy to tell you that intelligent design doctrine
>> is the work of lying thieving cowards who deny their God,
>> and I may have done so before. Perhaps this helps.
>> Each word is carefully considered.
>
> If so, I'm sure you will be willing to back it all up.
> Please do so.

"Lying theiving cowards who deny their God" isn't reprehensible enough here to challenge.
>


nyi...@bellsouth.net

unread,
Sep 17, 2014, 1:30:25 PM9/17/14
to
On Wednesday, September 17, 2014 10:37:31 AM UTC-4, eridanus wrote:

> Ron, what do you mean by "perps"? Perpetrators?
>
> eri

Yes, and what they are "perpetrating" is something Ron O stupidly calls a
"switch scam" which is like the Zen concept of the sound of one hand clapping.
Ron O's "evidence" for a "bait" that existed since 2005 (to complete the
expression "bait and switch scam") is not something that anyone here besides
him takes seriously. Nor has he identified anyone, anywhere who takes it
seriously.

And so, what Ron O stupidly refers to as a "switch scam" is simply
a program to help high school teachers to point out
weaknesses in evolutionary theory. The interested teachers,
many of them naive creationists, might make some silly mistakes
which the DI people would never make, so they do need some guidance
on this score.

One of the silliest mistakes, perpetrated [there's that word again]
by some creationists who should know better, is that Hyracotherium is
actually the same species as the modern day hyrax, and so it never
evolved into a horse. Anyone looking at skeletons of the two, or even
just skulls of the two, should be able to see the huge difference.

Peter Nyikos

It is loading more messages.
0 new messages