On Sunday, November 26, 2017 at 5:05:03 PM UTC-5, J.LyonLayden wrote:
> On Sunday, November 19, 2017 at 6:05:02 PM UTC-5, The Incredibly Lucky JTEM wrote:
> > As long as I can remember, this is a place were
> > Asperger's victims dogmatically parrot the things
> > they learned in the 4th grade, in response to
> > YECs.
Here's a bit of trivia about Harshman, another favorite target
of JTEM's attacks.
In sci.bio.paleontology, I needled Harshman's insistence on
saying "birds are dinosaurs" and eschewing "birds are descended
from dinosaurs." I said that if he and his fellow cladophiles
had their way, future generations of savvy kids would smile
at "The Incredible Mr. Limpet" saying in a movie of the same name,
"Now, more than ever, I wish I were a fish."
While less knowledgeable children would just be bewildered, the savvy
ones would smile because they would "know" that Mr. Limpet was
already a fish, and was merely wishing to become a different kind of fish.
Harshman is almost completely satire-proof, so he said he
was looking forward to that day.
At this, I mused at the possibilit that Harshman had Asperger's, and
he astounded me by saying that his own wife frequently accuses
him of having Aspergers.
My reaction went: "This one admission has raised my estimation
of you more than months of back and forth. Henceforth, anyone
who calls you a coward will be answerable to me."
Harshman, who cannot bear not to be in control of any situation he
is in, rebuffed the compliment by saying the admission had not
required any courage at all.
> > It's always been that way. Going back YEARS...
> >
> > I personally argued against the group -- THE WHOLE
> > GROUP -- staying that Neanderthals & so called
> > "Moderns" interbred. Not one person agreed with me,
> > despite everything from the physical evidence to
> > common sense SCREAMING that I had to be right. People
> > quoted headlines from mtDNA studies saying that
> > interbreeding never happened, and all attempts to
> > discuss the underlying science AND THE UNDERLYING
> > ASSUMPTIONS died a horrible, rude, dogmatic (f)Lamewar
> > death.
> >
> > NEVER has anyone engaged in real discussion in this
> > group, not even at it's height.
>
>
> I must have stopped coming here by the time you started posting about neanderthal introgression, because I used to argue the same thing.
> We've had plenty of discussions on the paleoanthropology forums about neanderthals.
>
> I applaud your ability to see through the dogma back then. I also applaud your realization that both chimps and humans evolved from australopithecines (whether you want to call them "homo sapiens" or not).
You are needlessly sticking your neck out here, J.Lyon. It is true that
the fossil evidence suggests this, due to the complete absence of
KNOWN chimp fossils apart from one Pleistocene tooth. But you have
to remember that chimps are primarily forest dwellers, and fossils
in forests -- other than in stream beds -- are very hard to come by.
> This is another thing that's "written on the wall," though few seem able to read it.
>
> I disagree that this group never lived, though. It has lived as a prime example of homo sapien barbarism, from the 20th to the 21st century. It's absolutely notorious. When I try to explain usenet to some people, they don't know what the hell I'm talking about until I meantion Talk.Origins.
Even worse: the abortion Usenet groups. Although talk.origins is now
roughly at the same stage they were in back in 1996; now they are
essentially defunct.
> Oh, they've heard of that. It's where academians exchange hatred and vitriol with nutjobs. it's where the educated pick on the uneducated. It's where equally religious fanatics argue about two subjects which have little or nothing to do with one another.
It's also a place where I [1] have tirelessly fought for truth and justice [2]
as I also did in the abortion groups. Only a few people ever support me,
and that rarely. Glenn and Kalkidas are among them, but even Glenn only
went out of the way to support me once [IIRC] against someone, despite my
going several times out of my way to support Glenn.
[1] I am just as convinced of the truth of common descent as anyone
here, and fight creationism [as well as a highly dishonest creationist,
Ray Martinez] more knowledgeably than all but a handful -- you can count
them on the fingers of one hand -- of my fellow "evolutionists". So
I don't fit into any of the molds you've mentioned.
[2] jillery sneeringly adds "and the American Way" despite there being
no such thing any more, if there ever was. I've told her so, but
she is too much in love with the formula to stop.
And she thereby inadvertently reveals how little either truth or justice
mean to her.
> > > Is there anywhere left to discuss actual hominid evolution?
> >
> > No.
> >
> > But to be honest, there never was such a place.
I still do my best at it here, and try not to go out on any limbs. The
truth is fascinating enough as it is.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina