The dynamics of talk.origins

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

The thread, "Harshman, Nyikos, and talk.origins: a Yugoslav analogy"
started talking about the dynamics of this newsgroup. The discussion
has gotten sidetracked, but a pair of posts, one by John Stockwell

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/IXyKRN-DKEQ/YvF_xGWOfnIJ

and another by Greg Guarino,
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/IXyKRN-DKEQ/suYiFUieqhUJ

have given me a chance to return to the topic. The following is a reply
to Stockwell, with another in reply to Guarino to follow.

nesday, March 26, 2014 1:24:20 PM UTC-4, John Stockwell wrote:

> Here is the extremely scandalous paragraph I wrote years ago:

> "It is hard to figure out what Nyikos believes. I suspect that he is
> a modern Catholic who really believes that the Paul Erdos'
> "Supreme Fascist" is listening in on his every brain wave, and
> doesn't want to allow himself the unthinkable that his Deity is
> really a fantasy.

Well, if you've been following the exchanges between me and Harshman,
or me and Okimoto, since then, you know how off-base that suspicion
of yours is.

> Or it may be closer to home. He might be doing
> heavy couch time if the ball and chain is a die hard believer and
> caught wind of any doubt coming from her hubby."

Interestingly enough, this is very much like the two things from
long ago for which Shrubber lambasted me a few posts earlier,
with one difference: I scrupulously avoided saying anything
negative about the relatives of the people I was criticizing.

> No doubt Mrs. N. is a living saint to put up Peter.

The big fallacy in that last sentence is that you are assuming
that my wife is anything like you or Shrubber or Harshman
etc. The truth is utterly different: she is very much like
what I've seen from Arkalen, and I treat her with the same
courtesy as I treat Arkalen, so no sainthood is required.


If you are good at understanding the dynamics in this newsgroup,
you now know why Paul Gans made it a top priority from the get-go
after I showed up here in 1995 to get everyone sneering
at my "lists": he wanted at all costs to propagate the illusion
that I treat everyone like I treat despicable scoundrels like him.

And with you, he has evidently succeeded spectacularly.

Peter Nyikos

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 8:40:51 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
> On 3/26/2014 9:38 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 1:30:40 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
> >> On 3/24/2014 6:16 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> >>> On Friday, March 21, 2014 4:57:08 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:

> >>>> So you think John's objection to you presenting his position elsewhere
> >>>> has to do with how "true" or "correct" he thinks it is?
> >
> >>>> I'm pretty sure it's something else.
> >
> >>> Like Robert Camp on another thread, you are being awfully
> >>> coy about what that "something else" is that you are "pretty sure of".
> >
> >> I disagree. I see little reason to detail what seems obvious.
> >
> > Let me give you a friendly bit of advice, Greg. When you bluff,
> > try not to be so transparent about it.
>
> No bluff. Brevity, a distaste for getting bogged down in nonsense,
> and a sense that John's reasons are obvious.

So "obvious" that, now that you have finally divulged what you
think they are [snipped, to be dealt with later
if appropriate] you have selectively dealt with how I behave
under attack and ignored how he and Prothero behave under attack.

It is the fate of mavericks like me and Alan Feduccia to be the
target of ridicule and attack by John Harshman and many others
who are far more dishonest than Harshman is, and also ignorant
of the issues.

There was a thread Harshman began about a year ago in which
he whined no end over how _Auk_ had published a paper by Feduccia
and, supposedly, gone against all reasonable standards in
so doing. He was joined in this by quite a few people who had nothing of
their own to contribute to the discussion when it finally started
dealing with the actual CONTENT of Feduccia's article.

That happened after about 50 posts dissing Feduccia and _Auk_, when
I started to inquire as to the actual contents. Care to guess
whether anyone would have done so if I had not?

I'd be stunned if you did. You've already shown a lack of
interest in becoming independent of Harshman, back
in December of last year. See the long, polite post I did in
reply to you when you asked a bunch of questions:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/PRzmsyHthWk/Q-kW29VHshsJ

I asked you a number of questions in return, but you never
replied to that post.

Concluded in next post.

Peter Nyikos

[broger...@gmail.com]

LEONATO

Neighbours, you are tedious.

DOGBERRY

It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the
poor duke's officers; but truly, for mine own part,
if I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in
my heart to bestow it all on your worship.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 8:40:51 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
> On 3/26/2014 9:38 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 1:30:40 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:

> >> I'll tell you what I saw as I skimmed over the previous four paragraphs:
> >> Harshman, Shrubber, Camp, Harshman, Harshman, Prothero,Harshman,
> >> Shrubber, Harshman, Hemidactylus, Harshman, Harshman, Harshman,
> >> Prothero, Prothero.
> >
> >> That was enough to determine that nothing in those paragraphs would be
> >> of interest to me.
> >
> > And, I take it, as soon as you saw how I squeezed Harshman into a corner
> > (with the help of what turned out to be a very revealing set of comments
> > that I've since documented here) you decided nothing in our previous
> > exchange was of interest to you.
>
> As usual, you have "taken it" in a way that bears no resemblance to what
> I wrote.

"As usual" is utter bilge, and you can't prove otherwise because the
people who talk this way about me never provide credible evidence,
and almost never try to.

What I wrote was a COROLLARY to what you wrote. If you had looked
at the previous exchanges between me and Harshman, you would have
seen something almost congruent, the only real differences being
lots of "you" in place of Harshman, and Camp and Shrubber's names
missing because they hadn't yet decided to "interject" themselves
into discussions with Harshman.

And you confirmed that I had successfully divined where you
were coming from, below:

<huge snip>

> for reasons of your own,
> you find it necessary to defend Meyer

For reasons of your own, you make it seem like I haven't been
completely upfront in "defending" Meyer -- your spin-doctoring term
for my trying to make sure that his book and his views are being
reported accurately.

> and search for details that his
> detractors may have reported inaccurately

A double whitewash. EVERYTHING that Prothero actually gave a
page number or figure number for in his review was wildly
inaccurate--and that's putting it charitably.

And "may have" reveals how hollow your "As usual" was: I guessed
perfectly what had happened, and the next thing continues to
confirm it:

> in order to cast aspersions on
> their character.

I never cast aspersions on the character of people without adequate
evidence. I don't expect you to believe that. The only question
in my mind is whether your automatically disbelieve it.

> Of course, I have a much more charitable nature,
Of course, I've had a much more charitable nature towards you
than you have had towards me, up to the time you wrote this.
But you have nevertheless decided to cast aspersions on me
[most of them snipped] for reasons of your own.

Care to reveal what those reasons are? They must bulk large in your
mind, because you have somehow decided to jump in on a thread
where you have no idea what went on before you butted in.

> but I am still curious.
> John gave us a detailed synopsis of the book. Why not give us yours -
> once you've finished reading it - and let us see how they differ?

I first want to go over John's carefully. Then, I plan
eventually to do one of my own.

You could shorten that "eventually" by:

(1) replying in detail to that December reply of mine to you and

(2) replying in detail to this post.

Peter Nyikos

[Roger Shrubber]

nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 8:40:51 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
>> On 3/26/2014 9:38 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 1:30:40 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
>>>> On 3/24/2014 6:16 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>>>>> On Friday, March 21, 2014 4:57:08 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
>
>>>>>> So you think John's objection to you presenting his position elsewhere
>>>>>> has to do with how "true" or "correct" he thinks it is?
>>>
>>>>>> I'm pretty sure it's something else.
>>>
>>>>> Like Robert Camp on another thread, you are being awfully
>>>>> coy about what that "something else" is that you are "pretty sure of".
>>>
>>>> I disagree. I see little reason to detail what seems obvious.
>>>
>>> Let me give you a friendly bit of advice, Greg. When you bluff,
>>> try not to be so transparent about it.
>>
>> No bluff. Brevity, a distaste for getting bogged down in nonsense,
>> and a sense that John's reasons are obvious.
>
> So "obvious" that, now that you have finally divulged what you
> think they are [snipped, to be dealt with later
> if appropriate] you have selectively dealt with how I behave
> under attack and ignored how he and Prothero behave under attack.

Even though your further words only amplify the following points,
they have been deleted.
The reasons not to want you to recap my arguments here (even
though your question was about John) are as follows.
1 I don't want anybody attempting to make arguments in my name
or pretending to understand what I think in some internet forum.

2 I especially don't want anybody trying to do so when they
have repeatedly shown they don't really understand what I've said.

3 I further would not want somebody invoking my name or my arguments
when that person has demonstrated a penchant for being obnoxious and
disagreeable far beyond typical.

4 If I wanted to have my thoughts presented in some forum, I
would engage in that forum myself. Who knows, maybe somebody would
raise points that would require me to revise my position or choose
not to present it. Just because I think I'm right about something
does not mean I always find it appropriate to point it out.

All 4 of these apply in your case but number 1 is enough.

And to finish a separate issue, I also don't want anybody bringing
my friends or family into the conversation. It's none of anybody's
business dwelling on them. Naturally, you will again confuse this
with people suggesting you talk to a confidant to get a reality check.
The ability to confuse the two is one thing you ought to talk to
a confidant about to see if they can explain it to you.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:15:50 PM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:

...a bunch of stuff that looks like he is trying to
divine what I am going to say about him.

And I didn't even mention him in the post to which he was replying.

He obviously isn't referring to the first post to this thread:

> 1 I don't want anybody attempting to make arguments in my name
> or pretending to understand what I think in some internet forum.

I think he is trying to divine what I would do with something
Harshman wrote, but he is dead wrong, and is not basing it on
anything I wrote, but only on his private fantasies.

Points 1 through 4 are thus pure unadulterated GIGO.

And so, in his own way, Shrubber illustrates the dynamics of this
newsgroup.

Peter Nyikos

[Roger Shrubber]

nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:15:50 PM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
>

> ....a bunch of stuff that looks like he is trying to

> divine what I am going to say about him.

No it does not look like that. Your inability to recognize
the obvious is one of those reasons why somebody would
not want you invoking their arguments elsewhere.
And that is what I was answering, and it was something
you kept badgering Greg about, specifically what are the
"obvious" reasons that somebody would not want you invoking
their name or arguments in another forum.

> And I didn't even mention him in the post to which he was replying.
> He obviously isn't referring to the first post to this thread:

>> 1 I don't want anybody attempting to make arguments in my name
>> or pretending to understand what I think in some internet forum.
>
> I think he is trying to divine what I would do with something
> Harshman wrote, but he is dead wrong, and is not basing it on
> anything I wrote, but only on his private fantasies.
>
> Points 1 through 4 are thus pure unadulterated GIGO.
>
> And so, in his own way, Shrubber illustrates the dynamics of this
> newsgroup.

I was not trying to divine your intentions about anything.
If I was, I would have discussed intentions. I'm obvious
that way. I was directly answering the question you kept
asking about why somebody would not want you (or in my
answer anybody for more generic applicability) to go around
trying to recycle their point of view.

As I say, in general, it's undesirable. And specifically,
you are way too unreliable and way too obnoxious for me to
want you to do so. I further expect that independent of the
unreliability and obnoxiousness, few people want anybody else
to argue on their behalf, invoking their name.

And to an allied point, the reason is not because of any
deception in what people originally post as you have
insinuated.

[Greg Guarino]

On 3/27/2014 8:26 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 8:40:51 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
>> On 3/26/2014 9:38 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 1:30:40 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
>
>>>> I'll tell you what I saw as I skimmed over the previous four paragraphs:
>>>> Harshman, Shrubber, Camp, Harshman, Harshman, Prothero,Harshman,
>>>> Shrubber, Harshman, Hemidactylus, Harshman, Harshman, Harshman,
>>>> Prothero, Prothero.
>>>
>>>> That was enough to determine that nothing in those paragraphs would be
>>>> of interest to me.
>>>
>>> And, I take it, as soon as you saw how I squeezed Harshman into a corner
>>> (with the help of what turned out to be a very revealing set of comments
>>> that I've since documented here) you decided nothing in our previous
>>> exchange was of interest to you.
>>
>> As usual, you have "taken it" in a way that bears no resemblance to what
>> I wrote.
>
> "As usual" is utter bilge, and you can't prove otherwise because the
> people who talk this way about me never provide credible evidence,
> and almost never try to.

You imagine here that I would have sufficient interest, and the drive to
spend my time documenting past "transgressions" in order to "prove" (to
whom? myself?) ... something. I'm afraid that's your department, and
you'd be ever so much better off, not to mention more interesting, if
you could wean yourself from it.

> What I wrote was a COROLLARY to what you wrote. If you had looked
> at the previous exchanges between me and Harshman, you would have
> seen something almost congruent, the only real differences being
> lots of "you" in place of Harshman, and Camp and Shrubber's names
> missing because they hadn't yet decided to "interject" themselves
> into discussions with Harshman.

I have no idea what that means.

>
> And you confirmed that I had successfully divined where you
> were coming from, below:
>

I can't imagine how you could think that. I stated quite plainly, I am
"coming from" a strong distaste for, and lack of interest in, personal
squabbles on this newsgroup.

> <huge snip>
>
>> for reasons of your own,
>> you find it necessary to defend Meyer
>
> For reasons of your own, you make it seem like I haven't been
> completely upfront in "defending" Meyer

Not my point at all. I agree you made your chosen "side" plain, even
before you started to read the book.

-- your spin-doctoring term
> for my trying to make sure that his book and his views are being
> reported accurately.

Yet you have studiously avoided the most obvious avenue to accomplish
that: "reporting his views accurately" ... yourself. Present your own
evaluation of the book, and show us how it contrasts with those of
others. Avoiding the clear path to your stated goal invites speculation.

>
>> and search for details that his
>> detractors may have reported inaccurately
>
> A double whitewash. EVERYTHING that Prothero actually gave a
> page number or figure number for in his review was wildly
> inaccurate--and that's putting it charitably.

That's a very odd turn of phrase - one you've written before. It's the
unusual qualifiers the perk my ears up. "EVERYTHING that Prothero
*actually gave a page number or figure number for*".

If I remember correctly, Prothero's argument is that Meyer "shortens"
the "explosion" to make the diversification of organisms seem too rapid
to have been possible through evolution. Does Meyer indeed do so,
irrespective of "page numbers"? Do the things on those pages - in the
light of the whole book - support Prothero's take on Meyer's argument?
If not (have you read the whole book in these several months?) how does
your interpretation of Meyer's argument differ? Do YOU find Meyer's
timetable persuasive?

> And "may have" reveals how hollow your "As usual" was: I guessed
> perfectly what had happened, and the next thing continues to
> confirm it:
>
>> in order to cast aspersions on
>> their character.
>
> I never cast aspersions on the character of people without adequate
> evidence. I don't expect you to believe that. The only question
> in my mind is whether your automatically disbelieve it.

I find your aspersions to be uncommonly frequent and your interpretation
of other people's motives to lean uncommonly often to the negative.
Moreover, I think you spend an uncommon and unhealthy amount of time
thinking about "proving" your negative impressions correct. Even if they
were, is it really what you want to spend your time on? Searching Google
Groups for posts years old for supporting documentation? Why not just
spend your time with a better class of people?

>> Of course, I have a much more charitable nature,

> Of course, I've had a much more charitable nature towards you
> than you have had towards me, up to the time you wrote this.
> But you have nevertheless decided to cast aspersions on me
> [most of them snipped] for reasons of your own.
>
> Care to reveal what those reasons are? They must bulk large in your
> mind, because you have somehow decided to jump in on a thread
> where you have no idea what went on before you butted in.

I have given my reasons, more than once.

>> but I am still curious.
>> John gave us a detailed synopsis of the book. Why not give us yours -
>> once you've finished reading it - and let us see how they differ?
>
> I first want to go over John's carefully. Then, I plan
> eventually to do one of my own.

Especially after this many months, that course invites the suspicion
that you find it difficult to defend the book directly, concentrating
instead on attacking Meyer's opponents, and at that, by ignoring the
forest to knock down saplings.

Should that suspicion be incorrect, it's easy to rectify. Give us your
own assessment of the book. Tell us what you think Meyer's arguments
are, and what you think their strengths and weaknesses are.

> You could shorten that "eventually" by:
>
> (1) replying in detail to that December reply of mine to you and
>
> (2) replying in detail to this post.
>
> Peter Nyikos
>

Among the things I find in that post are two insinuations that I don't
think for myself, another theme you return to uncommonly often.

---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
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[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

CC: Da Monie

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 7:59:38 PM UTC-4, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> The thread, "Harshman, Nyikos, and talk.origins: a Yugoslav analogy"
> started talking about the dynamics of this newsgroup. The discussion
> has gotten sidetracked, but a pair of posts, one by John Stockwell

> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/IXyKRN-DKEQ/YvF_xGWOfnIJ

> and another by Greg Guarino,
>
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/IXyKRN-DKEQ/suYiFUieqhUJ

> have given me a chance to return to the topic.

And here is a reply to Da Monie, posting to the same thread and right
around the same place as the other two.

On Monday, March 24, 2014 3:32:13 PM UTC-4, Dai monie wrote:
> On Monday, 24 March 2014 14:37:23 UTC+1, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On Friday, March 21, 2014 8:19:50 PM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> > (Snip) Everything that is not interesting to anyone
>
> Why are you constantly referring to posts made years ago?

I take it "you" also refers to Shrubber. Correct me if I am wrong.

Of course, knowing little about you, I will also give you the benefit
of the doubt, and assume you use "constantly" as a mere intensifier.

Does Dutch have a translation of "giving X the benefit of the doubt"?
If not, I'll gladly explain it to you.

> What is the purpose of this entire topic?
>
> In the Netherlands, we have a saying: "Do not drag dead cows out
> of the ditch".

They had a similar saying in the Soviet Union, which Solzhenitsyn
often heard, "Why dig up the past, Comrade?"

However, the Soviet rulers themselves had the opposite attitude,
insisting that Rudolf Hess be incarcerated until he died, saying,
"We never forget the past."

Somewhere between those those extremes lies the golden mean
of which Aristotle wrote.

> I am at a loss as to what the purpose of this topic is.

Which one?

> It is even worse to see it here - a place I thought was about
> thoughtful discourse.

If you want thoughtful discourse on scientific themes related
to those of talk.origins, your best bet is sci.bio.evolution.

But be warned: there is very little going on there, because
thoughtful discourse on these themes only attracts very few people.

Keep reading for one indication as to why this might be.

> Instead, some people - in particular you, Peter, but others also -
> continuously have to get into little fights among themselves
> based on things in the past

Almost always, they are based on the present, but sometimes
the past is brought up to reinforce charges of hypocrisy,
and to denigrate one's opponent.

Coffey, Gans, and Harshman are big offenders in this last
respect, but you may be too new to talk.origins to know that.

> as if they hadn't yet left their teens.

I take it you view all politics as being adolescent at best.
Because, as you should know, this newsgroup is intensely
politicized, partly because creationism and ID are big political
issues, but also in the sense that talk.origins is like what
the ancient Greeks called a *polis*. Here is something Theodore
Roszak wrote that is relevant to a lot of behavior here:

As Aristotle recognized long ago, the political animal
is political with very nearly the whole of his being;
his zealous will to power, his secret resentments,
his twisted ego drives, his noble aspirations...and
perhaps least of all with his weighing and measuring
intellect. That is why Aristotle wisely gives so much
range to tact, to finesse, to sloppy compromise in the
polis, knowing that here, there can be no exact
accountings or neat classifications.
_Where the Wasteland Ends_, p. 223 in 1972
Anchor Books edition

And this explains, I think, why talk.origins is so much more
popular than sci.bio.evolution. For one thing, it attracts
a lot of political animals who have no real interest in
biology *per se*. And for another, it engages very nearly
the whole of their being, and "perhaps least of all [their]
weighing and measuring intellect."

Future historians, assigning research projects to their graduate
students, could do worse than to send them researching the
archives of talk.origins. They will find a veritable microcosm
of the currents that pervade political life, as well as occasional
high drama when some particularly candid exchange -- something
you almost never see elsewhere outside of fiction -- takes place
and the real nature of some people (not the virtual reality
that many try with all their might and main to create)
is laid bare.

For more on these matters, you might try following this thread
as it unfolds.

I will also have more to say in a second reply to this post
of yours.

Peter Nyikos

[*Hemidactylus*]

Am I imagining things or did I just read the same thing already
elsewhere? I'm hearing an echo reverberate through my head. It's
excruciating. Oh my....what's happening...it hurts..........my
skull...is throbbing....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjnZO5ZgWE8

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Friday, March 28, 2014 7:17:47 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

> Am I imagining things or did I just read the same thing already
> elsewhere? I'm hearing an echo reverberate through my head. It's
> excruciating. Oh my....what's happening...it hurts..........my
> skull...is throbbing....

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjnZO5ZgWE8

At first I thought you were talking about how I reposted a
lot of what you are replying to; that was on the "Yugoslav analogy"
thread, in direct reply to Dai Monie, so that just in case he
missed this new thread, he would thus know about it.

Here is another reply I did to him last week. I am repeating it
here because

(A) nobody has replied to it and, moreover, it has the distinction
of being the last post to the thread in which it appears and

(B) it also sheds a lot of light on the dynamics of
this newsgroup, especially where Harshman is concerned.

On Monday, March 10, 2014 4:14:30 PM UTC-4, Dai monie wrote:
> On Monday, 10 March 2014 18:48:27 UTC+1, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> > On Wednesday, March 5, 2014 9:59:27 PM UTC-5, Dana Tweedy wrote:

> > > Ray, that is not how evolution is defined. What you are referring to is
> > > common descent. Evolution is defined as change in allele frequencies in
> > > populations over generations. This has been observed repeatedly, and
> > > cannot be denied without looking extremely foolish.

> > What? That this is the correct definition of "evolution"? Then Harshman
> > must look very foolish in your eyes.

> > If you mean that "change in allele frequencies in populations over
> > generations" cannot be denied without looking extremely foolish,"
> > then you are really sticking your neck out below:

> > > Myer's view of evolution is to deny it, except for when it's too obvious
> > > to deny without looking foolish.

> > You are here alleging that Meyer usually denies "change in allele
> > frequencies in populations over generations" by your OWN definition
> > of "evolution."

> > I would be staggered if you could come up with a single instance of
> > Meyer doing that.

> Would not (You cannot deny change in allele frequencies in population
> over generations without looking foolish) and (Meyer denies evolution,
> except when it is too obvious to deny without looking foolish) lead to
> (Meyer does not deny changes in allele frequencies)?

It would if this weren't an intensely politically charged newsgroup.
But Dana Tweedy stuck out his neck above by correcting Ray Martinez,
who used a definition essentially equivalent to Harshman's. So if
you follow my reasoning above, you will see that Dana has burned his
bridges behind him as far as your interpretation of these words goes.
[Pay PARTICULAR attention to the word "populations."]

You see, in an intensely political (in the broad Aristotelian sense)
newsgroup like talk.origins, it is understood that even if two people
in the dominant clique (in this case, Harshman and Dana Tweedy) directly
contradict each other, readers are perfectly free to ignore this as
long as

(1) one did not do it in direct reply to the other and

(2) one did not actually name the person whom he was contradicting.

In line with this, Dana Tweedy has abandoned this thread, while
Harshman has avoided acknowledging the existence of this contradiction,
which I've pointed out twice to him. The first time, he left it in,
uncommented, labeling it and everything else "bloviation."

The second time, he refrained from replying to the post at all. Almost
a week has passed, and so I doubt if he will ever reply to it.

> I have not read the book. At all. But it seems to me that it is possible
> to just make up your own definition of evolution, or write very
> suggestively, so that readers do not see that evolution means allele-
> frequency changes.

"evolution" means lots of things, and Dana Tweedy's is NOT the one which
is relevant to the very name of this newsgroup, talk.origins.

Over in sci.bio.evolution it would be a different matter.
But this is not s.b.e.

Peter Nyikos

[Roger Shrubber]

All that babble leverages initial sophistry based upon a
forced equivocation. Meyer does deny evolution as a viable
explanation, and evolution is a change in allele frequency
in populations over generations but it does not have
arbitrary limits upon what it can achieve as Meyer would
have it. Dancing about with casual language to avoid
the clear message is less than honest.

Clearly there is much to be said about the ways that
allele frequency changes occur around speciation _events_.
There is even controversy about many of the details, or
at least to the best way to describe circumstances that
lead to speciation. But are they really exceptions to
the process or just conceptual difficulties for the
way people tend to over-simplify? The latter. But again,
cutting through it all, Meyer and his friends propose
limits on the change in allele frequency in populations
in terms of magnitude and continuation and thus, in a
very real sense, deny the concept by invoking these
limits.

Do not play at sophisticated games to accuse people of
being dishonest for not falling for the sophistry of
those who invent (but rarely specify the details of)
special exceptions to continued evolution.

>> I have not read the book. At all. But it seems to me that it is possible
>> to just make up your own definition of evolution, or write very
>> suggestively, so that readers do not see that evolution means allele-
>> frequency changes.
>
> "evolution" means lots of things, and Dana Tweedy's is NOT the one which
> is relevant to the very name of this newsgroup, talk.origins.
>
> Over in sci.bio.evolution it would be a different matter.
> But this is not s.b.e.

Most of the supposed differences between micro and macro
evolution are nothing more than reflections of limitations
of humans to integrate effects over long time periods. There
is also the issue of effects that are more occasional and
shifts in stabling selection, directional selection and
cataclysmic shifts. But ultimately, drawing lines and
declaring that this is evolution-type-A and that is evolution-
type-B is artificial. You are making too much of this
artificial distinction. Specifically, you are leveraging
charges of dishonesty on those who are not fooled by
attempts to use these artificial distinctions to claim
problems with evolutionary theory.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 11:29:57 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
> On 3/27/2014 8:26 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 8:40:51 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
> >> On 3/26/2014 9:38 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> >>> On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 1:30:40 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
> >
> >>>> I'll tell you what I saw as I skimmed over the previous four paragraphs:
> >>>> Harshman, Shrubber, Camp, Harshman, Harshman, Prothero,Harshman,
> >>>> Shrubber, Harshman, Hemidactylus, Harshman, Harshman, Harshman,
> >>>> Prothero, Prothero.
> >>>
> >>>> That was enough to determine that nothing in those paragraphs would be
> >>>> of interest to me.

Whereas you steady stream of belittlements of me is evidently of great
interest to you. As is your habit of only replying to a select
sample of posts I do in reply to you, which is directly relevant
to that steady stream.

> >>> And, I take it, as soon as you saw how I squeezed Harshman into a corner
> >>> (with the help of what turned out to be a very revealing set of comments
> >>> that I've since documented here) you decided nothing in our previous
> >>> exchange was of interest to you.
> >>
> >> As usual, you have "taken it" in a way that bears no resemblance to what
> >> I wrote.
> >
> > "As usual" is utter bilge, and you can't prove otherwise because the
> > people who talk this way about me never provide credible evidence,
> > and almost never try to.
>
> You imagine here that I would have sufficient interest, and the drive to
> spend my time documenting past "transgressions" in order to "prove" (to
> whom? myself?) ... something.

Au contraire, you are imagining things about me. What I "imagine"
is that you are relying almost exclusively on hearsay about me.

What you don't seem to realize is that this hearsay ultimately
rests almost exclusively on a steady stream of blatant assertions
by ONE person that I am terribly bad at understanding his motivations,
coupled by an almost total absence of even HINTS as to what those
motivations might have been.

You are, right now, in the process of contributing to that hearsay,
and you are following the pattern of everyone else by showing little
or no interest in even DESCRIBING any of the earlier examples which
provide the foundation for your "As usual."

If you continue in this pattern, you will be providing us with
illustrations of some very interesting dynamics of this newsgroup.

>I'm afraid that's your department, and
> you'd be ever so much better off, not to mention more interesting, if
> you could wean yourself from it.

Yes, I suppose I *would* be more interesting if I were to make
a habit of asserting things like "As usual..." , and then
of exhibiting a lack of interest in supporting them.

> > What I wrote was a COROLLARY to what you wrote. If you had looked
> > at the previous exchanges between me and Harshman, you would have
> > seen something almost congruent, the only real differences being
> > lots of "you" in place of Harshman, and Camp and Shrubber's names
> > missing because they hadn't yet decided to "interject" themselves
> > into discussions with Harshman.
>
> I have no idea what that means.

It should be obvious: you would conclude from all the "you"s and
"Prothero"s that the previous exchange held no interest for you.

And this in turn would comprise a vindication of my reasoning.

Or are you mystified by the part after the "because"? If so,
I will gladly explain that part too.

> > And you confirmed that I had successfully divined where you
> > were coming from, below:

> I can't imagine how you could think that. I stated quite plainly, I am
> "coming from" a strong distaste for, and lack of interest in, personal
> squabbles on this newsgroup.

Do you usually have this much trouble keeping track of issues under
discussion? With this last comment, you are *continuing* to confirm my
suspicions that you never bothered to inform yourself about what it
was that I was suggesting that Harshman talk to his wife about, and
that you continue to have ZERO interest in informing yourself about it.

And by the way, you are doing a dandy job of continuing your
personal squabble with me, which you initiated.

And, all through this post, you are illustrating the dynamics of
talk.origins.

Continued in next reply to this post of yours.

Peter Nyikos

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:15:50 PM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> > On Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:15:50 PM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> >
> > ....a bunch of stuff that looks like he is trying to
> > divine what I am going to say about him.
>
> No it does not look like that.

I beg to differ. You ignore the fact that this thread is in its
infancy, and that people reading it and not knowing the history
of what I wrote about to Guarino can hardly fathom your 4-point
verbiage, which talks about yourself as though you were in the
same boat with Harshman. You aren't, and I could hardly begin
to list the ways in which your interactions with me have
differed in the last 3+ years fromthe ones I have had with Harshman.

> Your inability to recognize
> the obvious is

...something that has not been established.

> one of those reasons why somebody would
> not want you invoking their arguments elsewhere.
> And that is what I was answering, and it was something
> you kept badgering Greg about, specifically what are the
> "obvious" reasons that somebody would not want you invoking
> their name or arguments in another forum.

Harshman isn't a generic "somebody." He is someone whose
name I've already mentioned in that Amazon.com blog, and
invariably in a favorable light. See representative
sample below.

I documented a representative sample to Guarino, in a post to
the thread where this brouhaha began:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/IXyKRN-DKEQ/1JFgfPfznMYJ

Both of you are avoiding the actual content of that
documentation like the plague, with Guarino showing no sign
of having read it at all in his bizarre reaction:

"I think that the above, which I can scarcely
make any sense of out of context, is an excellent
example of why many people might not want you to use
"excerpts" of their writing in your battles."

The larger context was irrelevant to the point I was making,
which is expressed above, with "invariably in a favorable
light." And the context for THAT is amply given in the
excerpt which Guarino taunts about:

__________________begin excerpt___________________________________

"I'm pretty sure I explained where he got the 80my figure, with
reference to his own book, ..."

WHO CARES when and where Prothero first pulled that 80 million year
figure out of a hat? The point is that he had a number of different
plausible times to date the start of the "Cambrian slow fuse" and he
arbitrarily picked ONE of them.

Did you ever provide ANY explanation for why that 80 million year figure
is especially appropriate? Did Prothero? If he did, why didn't he simply
refer Harshman to the right pages in his book instead of first ducking
the question and opting for a DIFFERENT date [documentation on request]
and then censoring Harshman's repeated requests to explain the 80 million
figure?

"and yes, it's possible to say that the radiation took more time,
or less time, because it depends upon what you use as your
benchmarks for the timing of the radiation."

Yes, and what benchmark[s] did Prothero use for his 80 million figure?
Can you answer even THAT question? Or will you just sit there preening
yourself in the hope that ___________ can and will answer it?

=================end of excerpt from a March 20 post ===================

Guarino's claim not to be able to make sense of a largely on-topic
passage suggests that all his professed interest in _Darwin's
Doubt_ is that of someone ill equipped to make sense out of any
discussion of the issues in it.

The pointed questions at the end are provocative, but Guarino's
reaction to them is suggestive of paranoia. As is your 4-point
harangue which I've snipped along with some accusations by you,
but I will gladly dissect it all in detail if you insist that
it is on-target.

Peter Nyikos

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/1/14 6:57 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Thursday, March 27, 2014 11:29:57 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:

>> [...]

>> You imagine here that I would have sufficient interest, and the drive to
>> spend my time documenting past "transgressions" in order to "prove" (to
>> whom? myself?) ... something.
>
> Au contraire, you are imagining things about me. What I "imagine"
> is that you are relying almost exclusively on hearsay about me.
>
> What you don't seem to realize is that this hearsay ultimately
> rests almost exclusively on a steady stream of blatant assertions
> by ONE person that I am terribly bad at understanding his motivations,
> coupled by an almost total absence of even HINTS as to what those
> motivations might have been.

I have seen at least three people comment that you did not understand
their motivations. And as one of those people, I know firsthand of your
ineptitude in that area.

As for what the people's motivations are, in almost all cases that is
very simple. They are none of your business.

--
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

[broger...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 12:00:31 PM UTC-4, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

>
> I beg to differ. You ignore the fact that this thread is in its
>

> infancy, .....

Actually, I think this thread is mired in its adolescence.

[Roger Shrubber]

nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:15:50 PM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
>> nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
>>> On Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:15:50 PM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
>>>
>>> ....a bunch of stuff that looks like he is trying to
>>> divine what I am going to say about him.
>>
>> No it does not look like that.
>
> I beg to differ. You ignore the fact that this thread is in its
> infancy, and that people reading it and not knowing the history
> of what I wrote about to Guarino can hardly fathom your 4-point
> verbiage, which talks about yourself as though you were in the
> same boat with Harshman. You aren't, and I could hardly begin
> to list the ways in which your interactions with me have
> differed in the last 3+ years fromthe ones I have had with Harshman.

Such a stream on non sequiturs! This thread or that, if people
read exchanges involving you they will have seen you repeatedly
asking why John would not want you invoking his name and his
arguments in your activity elsewhere on the web. And such reasons
have nothing to do with anything else you write. Most people
would not trust anyone to do so, or few, and those who have
watched you would specifically not trust you to either understand
their arguments in the first place, or faithfully relate them
in the second. Further, few want their names invoked elsewhere
on the web outside of their involvement, and specifically few
would want somebody who has a special talent for engendering
animosity to do so.

All of your continued opportunistic babble to shamelessly
repost your own words or introduce some of these foreign
discussions are entirely beside the point. What you have
recently written does not address the general sense of
people not wanting others to invoke them elsewhere and
neither does it address their general perception of
your ability to represent them or otherwise avoid making
an ass of yourself. Lastly, I'm repeating to you that
your interpretation of why I wrote what I did is yet
another example of you not understanding people's motives
and even their points.

[Roger Shrubber]

It's one of the only ways I wind up feeling young.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

Does that refer to everything on this thread, or only the
sub-thread to which you have contributed just now?

In either case, I suggest you read the reply to Dai Monie in which
I twice mention Aristotle in two entirely different contexts, and
I recommend that you ignore Hemidactylus's reply to it, and also
the link he provided, both of which have nothing to do with it.

I'd be interested in reading your reaction to the way Dai Monie
treats the expression "teen-age" and the way I address it.
Especially the latter.

Peter Nyikos

[*Hemidactylus*]

On 04/01/2014 01:57 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 1:10:00 PM UTC-4, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 12:00:31 PM UTC-4, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
>>> I beg to differ. You ignore the fact that this thread is in its
>>> infancy, .....
>
>> Actually, I think this thread is mired in its adolescence.
>
> Does that refer to everything on this thread, or only the
> sub-thread to which you have contributed just now?
>
> In either case, I suggest you read the reply to Dai Monie in which
> I twice mention Aristotle in two entirely different contexts, and
> I recommend that you ignore Hemidactylus's reply to it, and also
> the link he provided, both of which have nothing to do with it.

Listen here you obnoxiously self-centered fucking prick, my link had
everything to do with your echo-post and your self-referentially
pathetic obsession with...yourself. I admit some degree of self-centric
bias as it was my head that kinda metaphorically *exploded* from years
of reading your toxic bullshit. I post the link again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjnZO5ZgWE8

It's an absolutely beautiful and apropos scene and far more concise than
anything you are capable of to convey what I thought, in my silly little
self-obsessed world, as a *serious* point. Reading you makes my fucking
head explode.

Not the greatest movie ever by the way (notice lack of acronymic
compression for the one...it is heart-felt...you lack a heart so cannot
*empathize!), but the scene rules the day here.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081455/

> I'd be interested in reading your reaction to the way Dai Monie
> treats the expression "teen-age" and the way I address it.
> Especially the latter.

My head explodes again. Over and over. Not that's important as you have
carried the day, the week, the month, the year, the decades. You find
that sort of recognition to be more important here than I do. My posts
often tend to be more concise, like the quick "Scanners" scene, yet
convey so much more than you could ever fathom. I apologize for boring
all to tears. I have a deficit in riling the folks and throwing raw meat.

[Burkhard]

On Wednesday, April 2, 2014 4:27:36 AM UTC+1, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> On 04/01/2014 01:57 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> > On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 1:10:00 PM UTC-4, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> >> On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 12:00:31 PM UTC-4, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> >
>
> >>> I beg to differ. You ignore the fact that this thread is in its
>
> >>> infancy, .....
>
> >
>
> >> Actually, I think this thread is mired in its adolescence.
>
> >
>
> > Does that refer to everything on this thread, or only the
>
> > sub-thread to which you have contributed just now?
>
> >
>
> > In either case, I suggest you read the reply to Dai Monie in which
>
> > I twice mention Aristotle in two entirely different contexts, and
>
> > I recommend that you ignore Hemidactylus's reply to it, and also
>
> > the link he provided, both of which have nothing to do with it.
>
>
>
> Listen here you obnoxiously self-centered fucking prick, my link had
> everything to do with your echo-post and your self-referentially
> pathetic obsession with...yourself. I admit some degree of self-centric
> bias as it was my head that kinda metaphorically *exploded* from years
> of reading your toxic bullshit. I post the link again:
>

Not that I could not empathise with the emotions expressed, especially the
"toxic bullshit" part. And yes, it sometimes may just demand a release valve (and
your rant/information ratio is thankfully consistently good) but remember that
opening a safety valve to deal with toxic bullshit causes environmental hazards
that can be harmful to third parties... Just saying... My policy is not to touch
toxic bullshit with a barge pole, only day to avoid it spattering all over you

[Nick Roberts]

In message <cvidnbVt-J81HqbO...@giganews.com>

*Hemidactylus* <ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

> On 04/01/2014 01:57 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 1:10:00 PM UTC-4, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 12:00:31 PM UTC-4, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> >
> >>> I beg to differ. You ignore the fact that this thread is in its
> >>> infancy, .....
> >
> >> Actually, I think this thread is mired in its adolescence.
> >
> > Does that refer to everything on this thread, or only the
> > sub-thread to which you have contributed just now?
> >
> > In either case, I suggest you read the reply to Dai Monie in which
> > I twice mention Aristotle in two entirely different contexts, and
> > I recommend that you ignore Hemidactylus's reply to it, and also
> > the link he provided, both of which have nothing to do with it.
>
> Listen here you obnoxiously self-centered fucking prick, my link had
> everything to do with your echo-post and your self-referentially
> pathetic obsession with...yourself.

Don't hold it in. Tell us what you really think...

--
Nick Roberts tigger @ orpheusinternet.co.uk

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which
can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 11:29:57 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
> On 3/27/2014 8:26 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> > On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 8:40:51 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:

Some unfinished business: here is the next installment of my reply to
Guarino's polemical post. I suspect he has decided to quit this thread,
so the questions and challenges I make to him are also meant for anyone
caring to address them.

> >> for reasons of your own,
> >> you find it necessary to defend Meyer
> >
> > For reasons of your own, you make it seem like I haven't been
> > completely upfront in "defending" Meyer
>
> Not my point at all. I agree you made your chosen "side" plain, even
> before you started to read the book.

You agree with yourself, and maybe others who choose to misrepresent me,
but not with me. If you really believe what you are alleging here,
I'd like to see you try to document it.

But I forget--you are the kind of person who makes sweeping claims
like one beginning with "As usual" and then actually boasts of not
supporting them, using taunts like:

"I'm afraid that's your department, and you'd be ever so much
better off, not to mention more interesting, if
you could wean yourself from it."

--taken verbatim from earlier in this post of yours

I wonder whether you realize just how MUCH that says about the dynamics
of this newsgroup. Or, rather, about your take on those dynamics.
But I don't think any of the other people participating on this thread
so far will take issue with that take.

> > ["defending" Meyer] -- your spin-doctoring term

> > for my trying to make sure that his book and his views are being
> > reported accurately.
>
> Yet you have studiously avoided the most obvious avenue to accomplish
> that: "reporting his views accurately" ... yourself.

Are you really ignorant of the fact that I have been doing that all
along? Every time I see a distortion or outright misrepresentation of
Meyer's book or his views, I do my best to report the truth
that is being distorted/destroyed.

What could be more boring than reporting things no one has ever taken
issue with? People can read the book themselves if they want to know
things about the book that aren't being discussed here.

By the way, I have yet to see any evidence that you have even
LOOKED at the book. Your questions about it have been so generic,
they could have been about almost any book ever discussed here.

> Present your own
> evaluation of the book, and show us how it contrasts with those of
> others. Avoiding the clear path to your stated goal invites speculation.

Have you ever suggested such speculation about anyone but me?

Have you even suggested it of Ray Martinez? I've never seen him
actually quote from drafts of the book that he keeps claiming
to be writing. Have you ever speculated about whether any drafts
even exist?

Regardless of your answer, I doubt that you ever will in the future,
now that Ray has accused Meyer of dishonesty.

He never posted the grounds for that accusation, but
that only enhances your estimation of him, doesn't it?

After all, only someone without anything worthwhile to say would
fill paragraphs with "Meyer" frequently repeated in them, don't
you think?

Remainder deleted, to be dealt with later.

Peter Nyikos

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 11:27:36 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

> On 04/01/2014 01:57 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 1:10:00 PM UTC-4, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 12:00:31 PM UTC-4, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> >
> >>> I beg to differ. You ignore the fact that this thread is in its
> >>> infancy, .....
> >
> >> Actually, I think this thread is mired in its adolescence.
> >
> > Does that refer to everything on this thread, or only the
> > sub-thread to which you have contributed just now?
> >
> > In either case, I suggest you read the reply to Dai Monie in which
> > I twice mention Aristotle in two entirely different contexts, and
> > I recommend that you ignore Hemidactylus's reply to it, and also
> > the link he provided, both of which have nothing to do with it.
>
> Listen here you obnoxiously self-centered fucking prick, my link had
> everything to do with your echo-post

What did you think my post was echoing?

Maybe I shouldn't even ask such "straight man" questions. I am replying
to a post that was done on April Fool's day, and even though all posts
from which text has been kept were made that day, I wasn't kidding
in any of them. So I'd better ask -- were you just going along with
the ancient April Fool tradition?

Here at the University of South Carolina, this is still a big deal.
The student newspaper, _The Gamecock_, came out with a real doozy of an April
Fool issue, and it includes some very witty humor.

I have been accused by your buddy Harshman and numerous others echoing him,
of lacking a sense of humor, so I am willing to post excerpts from that
issue if people wish. Even if their motivation is a hope that I will
confirm Harshman's "opinion" of my sense of humor, I am willing to do it.

> and your self-referentially
> pathetic obsession with...yourself.

In case you haven't noticed, I don't let drop a single reference to myself
in that reply to Dai Monie. Here is the only passage that anyone could
mistake for doing that:

__________________ excerpt____________________

> Instead, some people - in particular you, Peter, but others also -
> continuously have to get into little fights among themselves
> based on things in the past

Almost always, they are based on the present, but sometimes
the past is brought up to reinforce charges of hypocrisy,
and to denigrate one's opponent.

========================= end of excerpt

I was referring to everyone who gets into fights with others,
even if it is with only one person. [By the way, do you know
whether Guarino fits that last description?].
I took "continuously" to be a figure of speech.

> I admit some degree of self-centric
> bias as it was my head that kinda metaphorically *exploded* from years
> of reading your toxic bullshit. I post the link again:

Why illustrate explosions again? Wasn't the first time enough for you?

But I'd better quit now, and see whether anyone can shed light on
whether this was all just one April Fool joke by you.

<big snip>

Peter Nyikos

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

This is the third of four or at most five replies to Guarino's post,
which provides an amazingly fertile ground for comments about the
dynamics of talk.origins and even the whole internet debate on
ID proponents vs. anti-ID zealots.

On Thursday, March 27, 2014 11:29:57 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
> On 3/27/2014 8:26 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 8:40:51 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:

> >> you find it necessary to defend Meyer

> >> and search for details that his
> >> detractors may have reported inaccurately
> >
> > A double whitewash. EVERYTHING that Prothero actually gave a
> > page number or figure number for in his review was wildly
> > inaccurate--and that's putting it charitably.
>
> That's a very odd turn of phrase - one you've written before. It's the
> unusual qualifiers the perk my ears up. "EVERYTHING that Prothero
> *actually gave a page number or figure number for*".

Nothing unusual about it, since I said "wildly inaccurate"
rather than, e.g. "100% false."

And now you indulge in a long paragraph whose sole
purpose seems to be misdirection:

> If I remember correctly, Prothero's argument is that Meyer "shortens"
> the "explosion" to make the diversification of organisms seem too rapid
> to have been possible through evolution. Does Meyer indeed do so,
> irrespective of "page numbers"? Do the things on those pages - in the
> light of the whole book - support Prothero's take on Meyer's argument?
> If not (have you read the whole book in these several months?) how does
> your interpretation of Meyer's argument differ? Do YOU find Meyer's
> timetable persuasive?

This barrage of questions suggests that you are a singularly
amoral person who thinks that just because some conclusions
of Prothero MAY be correct, that exonerates him of whatever
massive deceit may have been perpetrated to arrive at those
conclusions.

They are not even all correct, and I think I have discovered
why anti-ID zealots attack Casey Luskin with even more vigor
than they attack Meyer: he vigorously debates one popular canard
after another about Meyer and _Darwin's Doubt_. The most relevant
one here has the keywords, "small shellies."

And this brings me to today's comment on the general theme,
"the dynamics of talk.origins." In this case, the dynamics
permeates the whole blogosphere where Meyer is concerned. The
attacks I've seen made on Luskin are so vicious because they
follow one of the cardinal rules of Effective Polemic:

"There is no need to refute anything X says,
so long as you can get people to IGNORE what X says."

This rule is applied by several people with me as X,
and from the way you have been hypocritically posting advice
on the thread,"Nyikos' agnostic claim,"
it seems that this may be one of your guiding lights as well.

By the way, if you aren't familiar with the way "ignore" is
usually used by the likes of Shrubber, your fellow
"get the heat off Harshman" campaigner, I'm sure Shrubber
will be glad to educate you. You will find it a valuable
addition to your arsenal of stereotyped, formulaic polemic.

TO BE CONTINUED

Peter Nyikos

[Robert Carnegie]

On Monday, 7 April 2014 21:02:07 UTC+1, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> By the way, if you aren't familiar with the way "ignore" is
> usually used by the likes of Shrubber, your fellow
> "get the heat off Harshman" campaigner, I'm sure Shrubber
> will be glad to educate you. You will find it a valuable
> addition to your arsenal of stereotyped, formulaic polemic.

Our new-ish friend "Kurt Godel" ought to come along and explain,
as s/he has done several times already, that the people other
than himself who post into talk.origins are of no interest
whatever to any reasonable person, such as s/he.

> TO BE CONTINUED

Words of dread indeed.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

As you can surmise from the reply I did to Dai Monie, I am
very much the opposite. I am continually intrigued by the
amazing variety of people who regularly post here.

Speaking of Shrubber--he's badly confused about what it was
that I was asking permission of Harshman for. All I wanted
was to show the anti-Meyer zealots of the Amazon.com thread
was the actual words that have passed between us about a
denunciation of Prothero that has been posted here as well as
over there.

And the reason is that I'd like to see the reaction of the people
there to the actual text of Harshman's defense of Prothero, since
none of them seems to have the chutzpah to be that openly
endorsing of what Prothero wrote.

I would not even go as far as giving my own commentary of what
had transpired in talk.origins, but would simply reply to the
reactions, if any, that I elicit over there.

That Amazon blog, like talk.origins, is dominated by people who
care little for the actual content of what is written where personal
issues are concerned, but base their replies mostly on WHO wrote it.

This was taken to extreme lengths when I posted quotes on a thread
about "virtual witch-hunts"
in which I quoted actual words that had been posted by various
people who were only "identified" by initials that weren't even
their own initials.

Mitchell Coffey went ballistic over that, calling me "immoral"
for hiding the identities of the people who wrote the text.

Some others, influenced by widespread canards about me, had
concluded that I was complaining about how people treat me--yet
NONE of the words quoted in the first post were by me.
Coffey held me morally responsible for misleading these people.

Peter Nyikos

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 12:12:58 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 4/1/14 6:57 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On Thursday, March 27, 2014 11:29:57 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
> >> [...]
> >> You imagine here that I would have sufficient interest, and the drive to
> >> spend my time documenting past "transgressions" in order to "prove" (to
> >> whom? myself?) ... something.
> >
> > Au contraire, you are imagining things about me. What I "imagine"
> > is that you are relying almost exclusively on hearsay about me.

And you, Mark, are one of the contributors to that hearsay, and
now you have in Greg Guarino a kindred spirit and fellow
contributor.

> > What you don't seem to realize is that this hearsay ultimately
> > rests almost exclusively on a steady stream of blatant assertions
> > by ONE person that I am terribly bad at understanding his motivations,
> > coupled by an almost total absence of even HINTS as to what those
> > motivations might have been.
>
> I have seen at least three people comment that you did not understand
> their motivations.

Harshman is the one responsible for well over 95% of those comments,
and he's doing it again on the thread about bird ancestry, where you
showed solidarity with him [as you have done elsewhere, helping yourself
in the process of helping him].

Unfortunately, you either believed, or pretended to believe, that
what I was writing in the post to which you were replying had
nothing to do with the issue of whether birds are [descended from]
dinosaurs. And so you've placed yourself between Scylla and
Charybdis:

"Scylla": If you believed it, you were demonstrating your
utter cluelessness about birds, dinosaurs, and how
so-called "protofeathers" are relevant to the issue at hand.

"Charybdis": If you only pretended to believe it, your dishonesty
is established and your "witness" for those three people
[who was the third one you had in mind?] and for yourself
is rendered worthless.

I gave you the benefit of the doubt on that other thread, and
assumed the "Scylla" alternative, which makes your
allegations worthy of at least cursory attention:

Subject: Re: The "birds are dinosaurs" issue.
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 10:31:52 -0700 (PDT)
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/pEWJEUTOxEs/AFh1ak67ykoJ
Message-ID: <19cb2037-8253-47c9...@googlegroups.com>

> And as one of those people, I know firsthand of your
> ineptitude in that area.

Of course, you have not given any alleged examples here. That would
be lowering yourself towards my level, wouldn't it?

I've been through this kind of topsy-turvyness wrt "lowering" with you
before, and now Guarino has also opted for it on this thread. Did you
see my reply to him where I countered with some "mental judo"?

> As for what the people's motivations are, in almost all cases that is
> very simple. They are none of your business.

Not in the cases under discussion. Of course, you may think that
derogatory comments about me are none of my business, because you
think that anyone whom you have chosen to make your opponent
should just make himself into a doormat.

Peter Nyikos

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/16/14 12:30 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 12:12:58 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 4/1/14 6:57 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>>> On Thursday, March 27, 2014 11:29:57 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>>> You imagine here that I would have sufficient interest, and the drive to
>>>> spend my time documenting past "transgressions" in order to "prove" (to
>>>> whom? myself?) ... something.
>>>
>>> Au contraire, you are imagining things about me. What I "imagine"
>>> is that you are relying almost exclusively on hearsay about me.
>

>>> What you don't seem to realize is that this hearsay ultimately
>>> rests almost exclusively on a steady stream of blatant assertions
>>> by ONE person that I am terribly bad at understanding his motivations,
>>> coupled by an almost total absence of even HINTS as to what those
>>> motivations might have been.
>>
>> I have seen at least three people comment that you did not understand
>> their motivations.
>

> Harshman is the one responsible for well over 95% of those comments, ...

Irrelevant even if true.

> Unfortunately, you either believed, or pretended to believe, that
> what I was writing in the post to which you were replying had
> nothing to do with the issue of whether birds are [descended from]
> dinosaurs. And so you've placed yourself between Scylla and

> Charybdis: [snip S&C]

Keep that paragraph in mind. You will need to refer to it later.

> [...]

>> And as one of those people, I know firsthand of your
>> ineptitude in that area.
>
> Of course, you have not given any alleged examples here.

Go back to that paragraph now. It is just such an example.

>> As for what the people's motivations are, in almost all cases that is
>> very simple. They are none of your business.
>
> Not in the cases under discussion. Of course, you may think that
> derogatory comments about me are none of my business, because you
> think that anyone whom you have chosen to make your opponent
> should just make himself into a doormat.

Utter nonsense. You speculated about my non-response to the bird issue,
which has nothing whatsoever to do with making derogatory comments about
you. You gave two possible options for my non-response, both of which
were wrong.

Your incompetence at discerning people's motives is not a matter for
debate. It is an empirically-verified fact.

[Robert Camp]

And self-evidently true. It is because of the numerous charges leveled
by numerous people whose motives have been misconstrued that this has
become an issue of discussion. There is no one more competent to
evaluate the validity of those charges than the people who made them, so
it's only by insinuation of mass hallucination, prevarication, or
conspiracy that one might argue against them.

But that would be paranoia.

[Greg Guarino]

On 4/16/2014 3:30 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 12:12:58 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:

>> >On 4/1/14 6:57 AM,nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>>> > >On Thursday, March 27, 2014 11:29:57 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
>>>> > >>[...]
>>>> > >>You imagine here that I would have sufficient interest, and the drive to
>>>> > >>spend my time documenting past "transgressions" in order to "prove" (to
>>>> > >>whom? myself?) ... something.
>>> > >
>>> > >Au contraire, you are imagining things about me. What I "imagine"
>>> > >is that you are relying almost exclusively on hearsay about me.

> And you, Mark, are one of the contributors to that hearsay, and
> now you have in Greg Guarino a kindred spirit and fellow
> contributor.
>

I have so far avoided commenting on this, which is probably the wiser
course, but you really must disabuse yourself of the notion that the
impressions I (and likely other people) take of your posting habits are
due to "hearsay". We all have access to the same "body of work". I know
it is the less-palatable explanation from your standpoint, but does it
really seem so unlikely that several people might take similar
independent impressions from reading the same material?

For myself, I have shaken my head in bewilderment at your "take" on my
own motivations any number of times, as well as those of others. As
regards my own, I can be certain you have been mistaken, often in the
oddest possible way. All of a sudden I won't criticize Ray because Ray
criticized Meyer? (head-shaking again)

Or think of it mathematically, if you like. Wouldn't you have to be
awfully unlucky to run into a pack of amoral, lying conspirators over
and over again? Isn't it possible that there is another thread that ties
the narrative together in a more probable way?

One more thing, should we be expecting your own evaluation of Darwin's
Doubt anytime soon?

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

Part of the dynamics of the whole Internet in forums which are
suffused with politics in the broad sense [see my first reply
to Dai Monie on this thread for what this means] is people taking
deceitful advantage of missing information to misrepresent someone.
This is especially odious when there are people who have killfiled the
target of such deceit.

In my case, this includes Burkhard and Nick Roberts, both of whom
have weighed in on this thread and both of whom have no qualms
about relying on censored material to post wild claims about me.
I have used the term "Blinkered Coxswains" for such people. Mark Isaak
has been around long enough to know why that second word was chosen.

On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 11:38:09 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:

> On 4/16/2014 3:30 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 12:12:58 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> >> >On 4/1/14 6:57 AM,nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> >>> > >On Thursday, March 27, 2014 11:29:57 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
> >>>> > >>[...]
> >>>> > >>You imagine here that I would have sufficient interest, and
> >>>> > >> the drive to spend my time documenting past "transgressions"
> >>>> > >> in order to "prove" (to whom? myself?) ... something.
> >>> > >
> >>> > >Au contraire, you are imagining things about me. What I "imagine"
> >>> > >is that you are relying almost exclusively on hearsay about me.

This was in connection with a very specific charge, that I am
very bad at discerning the motivations of others. Greg, of
course, takes advantage below of this having been snipped by Mark.

> > And you, Mark, are one of the contributors to that hearsay, and
> > now you have in Greg Guarino a kindred spirit and fellow
> > contributor.
> >
> I have so far avoided commenting on this, which is probably the wiser
> course, but you really must disabuse yourself of the notion that the
> impressions I (and likely other people) take of your posting habits are
> due to "hearsay".

Of course, I never hinted at any such a sweeping statement.

> We all have access to the same "body of work". I know
> it is the less-palatable explanation from your standpoint,

You know no such thing, and you are far more in danger of the
negative judgment of any future historians or grad students of history
than I am.

See my first reply to Dai Monie for more on that.
Perhaps Hemidactylus's utterly bizarre pair of replies to that
post can be explained by his becoming discombobulated at
the thought of talk.origins posts being analyzed by future
historians or political scientists.

> but does it
> really seem so unlikely that several people might take similar
> independent impressions from reading the same material?

Of course not, because they are coming from the same place
politically, morally, socially and psychologically.
Just as you, Isaak, Shrubber and Camp are on this thread.

That is the place where five people involved in the thread
on the "birds are dinosaurs" issue are coming from. Four of
them, including Isaak, have independently decided to harass me for
sometimes departing from the topic of the thread, while posting nothing
but off-topic flamage themselves, while the fifth, Shrubber,
has made some feeble attempts to address the topic (one of
which ended in disaster, another in a backpedal) but is mainly
doing the same thing the other four are doing.

By the way, it is of more than passing interest that you are
ignoring three long posts where I am in the process of dismantling
your edifice of formulaic, stereotyped polemic. Mark's snippage
of the context in the first of those three replies gave you a
much more cozy starting point.

Concluded in next reply to this post of yours.

Peter Nyikos

[John Stockwell]

>> No doubt Mrs. N. is a living saint to put up Peter.

>The big fallacy in that last sentence is that you are assuming
>that my wife is anything like you or Shrubber or Harshman
etc. The truth is utterly different: she is very much >like
what I've seen from Arkalen, and I treat her with the same
>courtesy as I treat Arkalen, so no sainthood is required.

Hmm. What does Arkalen say to that?

John

[broger...@gmail.com]

Dynamics of talk.origins, eh? Why stop there? Why not go for the set theoretic topology of talk.origins. Turn talk.origins into a topological space. Each individual poster could be an element of the space. Then you could construct the topology by creating open sets out of sets of posters who harass you in similar ways, posters who commit similar errors, etc. Then make sure they are stable to finite intersection and arbitrary union, and bingo, you've turned talk.origins into a topological space. (You, yourself, will be one of the open sets all on your own). Then you'll have a fantastic advantage in discussing it with anyone else in the group.

[Roger Shrubber]

nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> Part of the dynamics of the whole Internet in forums which are
> suffused with politics in the broad sense [see my first reply

. . .

> That is the place where five people involved in the thread
> on the "birds are dinosaurs" issue are coming from. Four of
> them, including Isaak, have independently decided to harass me for
> sometimes departing from the topic of the thread, while posting nothing
> but off-topic flamage themselves, while the fifth, Shrubber,
> has made some feeble attempts to address the topic (one of
> which ended in disaster, another in a backpedal) but is mainly
> doing the same thing the other four are doing.

I observe that continually indulging in characterizations of
other people's posts with terms like "feeble" or proclaiming
that they are backpedaling, coupled with frequent characterization
of your own posts as having scored victories of sorts increases
the political nature of discussions. One might even say it
induces a type of dynamic in talk.origins.

Personally, every time I start thinking that I've crafted
some devastating retort I like to remind myself how many people
seem to convince themselves of that very thing despite a couple
of things. The targets of their arguments seldom seem devastated.
Observers seldom share the sense of devastation, even when
they are sympathetic to the thrust of the argument. In essence,
people directly involved in the repartee seem to be very
poor judges of how they sound. They simply lack perspective.
None of that is very controversial. That last step, however,
is to acknowledge that 'I am one of they' and I've come to
believe that this step often trips people up.

[Mitchell Coffey]

On 4/18/2014 11:35 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
[snip]

>
> On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 11:38:09 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
>

[snip]

>
>> We all have access to the same "body of work". I know
>> it is the less-palatable explanation from your standpoint,
>
> You know no such thing, and you are far more in danger of the
> negative judgment of any future historians or grad students of history
> than I am.
>
> See my first reply to Dai Monie for more on that.
> Perhaps Hemidactylus's utterly bizarre pair of replies to that
> post can be explained by his becoming discombobulated at
> the thought of talk.origins posts being analyzed by future
> historians or political scientists.
>

[snip]
>
> Peter Nyikos

My understanding is that Doris Kearns Goodwin is pouring through your
1998 postings as we speak.

Mitchell Coffey

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

Ask her.

Peter Nyikos

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

I've talked in the "Yugoslav analogy" thread about what I call the
"New Class" of talk.origins. I allude to this theme at the end
of the post.

On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 6:57:24 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 4/16/14 12:30 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 12:12:58 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> >> On 4/1/14 6:57 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

...a continuation of something that appears in my reply to Guarino today:

> >>> What you don't seem to realize is that this hearsay ultimately
> >>> rests almost exclusively on a steady stream of blatant assertions
> >>> by ONE person that I am terribly bad at understanding his motivations,
> >>> coupled by an almost total absence of even HINTS as to what those
> >>> motivations might have been.
> >>
> >> I have seen at least three people comment that you did not understand
> >> their motivations.
> >
> > Harshman is the one responsible for well over 95% of those comments, ...
>
> Irrelevant even if true.

It is highly relevant, liar, because it is his "testimony"
that really carries weight on this issue. The other ca. 5% are,
IIRC, completely unsupported.

I cannot recall a single instance in which you tried
to support any of your comments along those lines--except, of
course, by reference to Harshman's prior "testimony".

> > Unfortunately, you either believed, or pretended to believe, that
> > what I was writing in the post to which you were replying had
> > nothing to do with the issue of whether birds are [descended from]
> > dinosaurs. And so you've placed yourself between Scylla and
> > Charybdis: [snip S&C]
>
> Keep that paragraph in mind. You will need to refer to it later.

Come off your high horse, poseur. You have no legitimate place on it.
It is you who need to keep the paragraph in mind, particularly
the words "had nothing to do with the issue".

> > [...]
> >> And as one of those people, I know firsthand of your
> >> ineptitude in that area.
> >
> > Of course, you have not given any alleged examples here.
>
> Go back to that paragraph now. It is just such an example.

Your unsupported testimony is worthless; you are a highly dishonest
person. And don't think what Robert Camp wrote to buttress you counts
as support; his testimony is as worthless as yours.

Below, you even provide us with a sample of your dishonesty.

> >> As for what the people's motivations are, in almost all cases that is
> >> very simple. They are none of your business.
> >
> > Not in the cases under discussion. Of course, you may think that
> > derogatory comments about me are none of my business, because you
> > think that anyone whom you have chosen to make your opponent
> > should just make himself into a doormat.
>
> Utter nonsense. You speculated about my non-response to the bird issue,

Here, you try to confuse the issue, with "non-response" instead of
"opinion that any point I might be making has nothing to do with
the issue":

_____________ begin excerpt from reply to you____________________
> > "Lingham- Soliar (in press) harshly criticized this latter study
> > as unsound," but since its results were incorrectly reflected
> > and some of the claims are incorrect..."
> >
> > At worst, L-S is beating a dead horse by asserting that it
> > is dubious to attribute feathers to Psitaccosaurus. But then,
> > maybe someone else besides Mayr made that claim.
> >
> > If not, that's one MORE example of "protofeathers" that are
> > nothing a sensible paleontologist would label that way.
> >
> > Concluded in next reply.
>
> Okay, you have convinced me that your point, if you have one, has
> nothing to do with birds, dinosaurs, or feathers.

Not only are you jumping to wild conclusions, you are ignoring
the word "protofeathers" and the relevance of my last comment
to the issue. Also, you don't seem to recognize the fact that
Psitaccosaurus is a dinosaur, far removed from the theropods
which the "consensus" says birds are [descended from].
========================= end of excerpt
from
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/pEWJEUTOxEs/AFh1ak67ykoJ

> which has nothing whatsoever to do with making derogatory comments about
> you. You gave two possible options for my non-response, both of which
> were wrong.

Looks like you've opted for Charybdis. No wonder you snipped it.
Here it is again:

"Charybdis": If you only pretended to believe it, your dishonesty
is established and your "witness" for those three people
[who was the third one you had in mind?] and for yourself
is rendered worthless.

> Your incompetence at discerning people's motives is not a matter for
> debate. It is an empirically-verified fact.

Of course, you give no empirical evidence; that would be "lowering"
yourself to my level in your "village" morality, wouldn't it?

Remember the post about two years ago, where you said many tribes
of uncivilized people use a completely different morality towards
"others" than towards fellow villagers? Everyone who has posted
to this thread, except myself, is a member of the "talk.origins
village," whose membership I have called "the New Class" elsewhere.
I am most assuredly an "other," an "outsider."

Peter Nyikos

[John Stockwell]

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/18/14 1:39 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> [snip Nyikos's inevitable self-justification]

>
> Remember the post about two years ago, where you said many tribes
> of uncivilized people use a completely different morality towards
> "others" than towards fellow villagers?

No.

> Everyone who has posted
> to this thread, except myself, is a member of the "talk.origins
> village," whose membership I have called "the New Class" elsewhere.
> I am most assuredly an "other," an "outsider."

From your perspective, it is everyone else who is an outsider.

I am curious why you want it that way.

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/18/14 8:35 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> [...] the term "Blinkered Coxswains" [...]. Mark Isaak

> has been around long enough to know why that second word was chosen.

I have no idea why you want to bring up my name. I have never payed any
attention to your private vocabulary. When I encounter it, I replace it
with the equivalent of "mumble, mumble", because that is all the meaning
I ever take from it.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Tuesday, April 1, 2014 1:24:24 PM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:15:50 PM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> >> nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> >
> >>> On Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:15:50 PM UTC-4, Roger Shrubber wrote:
> >>>
> >>> ....a bunch of stuff that looks like he is trying to
> >>> divine what I am going to say about him.
> >>
> >> No it does not look like that.
> >
> > I beg to differ. You ignore the fact that this thread is in its
> > infancy, and that people reading it and not knowing the history
> > of what I wrote about to Guarino can hardly fathom your 4-point
> > verbiage, which talks about yourself as though you were in the
> > same boat with Harshman. You aren't, and I could hardly begin
> > to list the ways in which your interactions with me have
> > differed in the last 3+ years fromthe ones I have had with Harshman.
>
> Such a stream on non sequiturs! This thread or that, if people
> read exchanges involving you they will have seen you repeatedly
> asking why John would not want you invoking his name and his
> arguments in your activity elsewhere on the web.

"his name and" makes this a complete and utter falsehood. Except
perhaps for the very first post, I specifically said I would leave
his name out of it and not even hint at who wrote the
pro-Prothero words.

You started compromising your integrity on behalf of Harshman
wrt this pro-Prothero issue well AFTER I had made that clear.

Do you want to go on compromising it? Then read on:

> Further, few want their names invoked elsewhere
> on the web outside of their involvement, and specifically few
> would want somebody who has a special talent for engendering
> animosity to do so.

The only question in my mind is whether you and/or Harshman
have conned Guarino into thinking that this "their names involved"
business is what the whole issue is about, or whether he has
independently decided to compromise his integrity on behalf
of Harshman.

> All of your continued opportunistic babble to shamelessly
> repost your own words or introduce some of these foreign
> discussions are entirely beside the point.

Opportunism is something alien to my way of thinking,
but many people practice it here, including jillery
and Harshman and, to a lesser extent, you yourself.

You saw an opportunity to denounce me for bringing
Harshman's wife into the picture, and then when I brought
up the case of Stockwell and my wife, you opportunistically
acted as though the only thing of importance was "putting
words into his wife's mouth" whereas NONE of those words would
have brought any discredit on her if she HAD uttered them.

Of course, you opportunistically took advantage of the absence
of that text in your continuing denunciations. Had you included
them, their innocuous nature would have been obvious to
everyone.

> What you have
> recently written does not address the general sense of
> people not wanting others to invoke them elsewhere

Anonymously? With everything I'd written before about Harshman
on that Amazon.blog apt to mislead the readers of that blog
into thinking that it could not possibly
be Harshman who compromised himself so blatantly in support
of Prothero?

You are building a castle on quicksand, Shrubber.

> neither does it address their general perception of
> your ability to represent them or otherwise avoid making
> an ass of yourself.

I know, you love to think that I frequently make an ass of
myself. But the examples you keep invoking were made over a decade
before you made an ass of yourself with your "feathers are
collagen" comment which is on a par with those earlier boo-boos
of mine. And you don't even have the excuse of being a
non-biochemist for making yours.

> Lastly, I'm repeating to you that
> your interpretation of why I wrote what I did is yet
> another example of you not understanding people's motives
> and even their points.

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

Peter Nyikos

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

I am reposting something I posted on another thread, because it
gave me a chance to talk about one of the most powerful weapons
some of the regulars of talk.origins regularly use against me.

It is a gross misrepresentation of what "lists" of mine that I
did in 1995-2001 were all about. Paul Gans, perhaps tipped off
by the experience of people in talk.abortion about the effectiveness
of my "lists", made every effort to discredit them from the
get-go, and in this he has been spectacularly successful.

________________________excerpt__________________

On Tuesday, February 12, 2013 2:54:12 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/12/13 7:05 AM, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>
> > On 02/12/2013 09:14 AM, John Harshman wrote:
>
> >> On 2/12/13 2:50 AM, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>
> >>> On 02/11/2013 11:57 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>
> >>>> On 2/11/13 7:38 PM, Dana Tweedy wrote:
>
> >>>>> On 2/11/13 7:24 PM, John Harshman wrote:
>
> >>>>>> So far, we know that I'm:

> >>>>>> Robert Golaszewski (apparently my real name)
>
> >>>>>> John Harshman
>
> >>>>>> Will in New Haven
>
> >>>>>> Mr. John Manning on another, now named newsgroup:
>
> >>>>>> alt.religion.mormon.
>
> >>>>>> DIG
>
> >>>>>> rnorman

> >>>>>> Does anyone have any more confirmed nyms? By "confirmed" I mean there
> >>>>>> must be an explicit accusation in some TO post by the non-chemist.
> >>>>> IIRC, he seemed to think I was you, at least the last time he
> >>>>> popped up here.

> >>>> Afraid I'm going to have to demand a citation. But if you can produce
> >>>> one I'll be happy to add you to the list.

> >>> By the standard you're using how can we address false positives and
> >>> negatives?

> >> I suppose if Quark E wants to issue corrections to the list I have to
> >> accept them. That's about it.

> > Shouldn't you consult the List Keeper for his advice on these matters?

If that's me, both Harshman and Hemidactylus know that the lists I am
associated with are those whom my adversaries deceitfully make out to
be "enemies lists". Actually, as I found out from my searches of old
files, I once had a list I'd forgotten about: Courageous rational
evolutionists [a convenient word, that last one, despite my distaste
for it]. And I see that I once had DIG himself on THAT list.

> There are lists he isn't involved with. My grocery list, for example.
> This is one of those lists.

Again, if that un-named "List Keeper" is me, you were indulging in an
understatement of truly nanotechnology level proportions, John.

By the way: a much more recent reference by you to me was also the
result of pure serendipity: I saw you referring to me as "P***r N****s
in reply to jillery, in another thread where I hadn't participated,
perhaps under the mistaken (and paranoid, by your standards)
belief that I am regularly googling references to me.

I'm stretched thin enough as is, and have been all year, and haven't
done such a thing in years. So I might even have missed some threads
with my name in the Subject line.

Peter Nyikos
================ end of excerpt from post archived
at
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/cUjLAhnut6I/N55k9I2UPO8J
Subject: Re: Revised: My sock puppet list
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 06:01:56 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <3d71c531-c08b-4baf...@googlegroups.com>

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

Here is another repost which sheds light on the dynamics of talk.origins.

People like Isaak, Camp, Coffey, Shrubber and Guarino, have already been
corrupted by the power that comes with being in the good with each other
(and many other regulars, including all Village Elders) and fighting
ONE person who is frequently set upon by the others I've named,
and many others.

It illustrates how much MORE they might be corrupted if they had the
power here that Prothero wields over his "skepticblog".

___________________begin excerpt______________________

On Tuesday, April 15, 2014 4:55:39 PM UTC-4, Mark Buchanan wrote:
> CMI - Creation Ministries International, is offshoot of AiG.

> They have a particularly annoying commenting policy. Anyone can comment
> on a recent article and there may or may not be a response and it may or
> may not be posted on their site.

The same is true of the anti-creationist, anti-ID "skepticblogs".
Their blogs are moderated, and for a while both John Harshman and I got
swimmingly past moderation, but then someone noticed that Harshman
had persisted in asking a question of Prothero because Prothero's
answer, though helpful in some ways, completely ignored the main
question of Harshman, and Harshman had kept persisting.

So all of Harshman's posts except that initial one and another where
he was completely supportive of Prothero and critical of me, were
deleted from the blog.

They have a policy of letting people off with an e-mail warning if they
are posting inappropriate material, but Harshman never got a warning
and yet was so thoroughly banned from that blog that he couldn't even
compose a reply to Prothero any more.

I got the same treatment, with this difference, that ALL my posts were
deleted (maybe 20 in all) so anyone reading the four (4) posts that are
still there, may wonder who on earth this "Peter Nyikos" could be, that
mysterious someone whom Harshman is accusing
of not having read Meyer's book [at that point--I've read lots of it
since then, and started talking about it already on Prothero's blog
soon thereafter].

I can't complain about that, though, because all my posts having anything
to do with Prothero were critical of him, so I can even tolerate having
the purely scientific posts by me being censored as well.

Harshman, on the other hand, was very supportive of Prothero in his replies
to me, yet those too were censored.

I have apparently been banned from every other "skepticblog" including those
of other article-posters, even if Prothero is not even participating on that
thread. Harshman hasn't tried to post to any of them when last I heard from
him about that, so I don't know whether this also applies to him.

Apparently, the more fanatical anti-ID types have just as much of
a siege mentality as the creationists.

==================== end of excerpt
from

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/8zdLoIeDKjo/xgtOV5ZQqywJ
Subject: Re: I've been blacklisted by CMI
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2014 11:29:15 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <15a572cc-c0b0-4267...@googlegroups.com>

There is much more to this post that is also relevant, but this
was the most relevant part.

Peter Nyikos

[eridanus]

El viernes, 18 de abril de 2014 21:39:43 UTC+1, nyi...@bellsouth.net escribió:

> > Your incompetence at discerning people's motives is not a matter for
> > debate. It is an empirically-verified fact.
>
> Of course, you give no empirical evidence; that would be "lowering"
> yourself to my level in your "village" morality, wouldn't it?
> Remember the post about two years ago, where you said many tribes
> of uncivilized people use a completely different morality towards
> "others" than towards fellow villagers? Everyone who has posted
> to this thread, except myself, is a member of the "talk.origins
> village," whose membership I have called "the New Class" elsewhere.
> I am most assuredly an "other," an "outsider."
>
> Peter Nyikos

Well, Peter. The problem is how to define morality. I am trying to guess
that morality is more or less on the behavior toward others, as compared
to oneself. In this sense, the kindness of the behavior, not only depends
on the character of the person, more or less rough, or unkind towards other
people, but also the propensity of this person to exert violence, or to
abuse others... as a quality that varies according to some variables...
like social rank, etc. We tend to show more kindness and deference towards
people of high social rank, and tend to show a feeling of despise,
disregard or indifference, to those bellow our social rank; and this can be
a subjective perception, the social rank.
Then, if the morality is degree of benevolence towards other people,
following some inspiration from the words of Jesus in some points of the
gospels... morality varies widely, not only among different people,
but also varies according to the rank of people, showing deference towards
the powerful and despise or indifference towards the poor and downtrodden.

I do not think there is much difference between believers and unbelievers
in this regard.
But traditionally, it always existed some despise of the foreigners, unless
they are rich and powerful. But this sense of despise of the foreign people
presents some variations among people. Some are more kind, some are more
disdainful or arrogant.
But in times of severe crisis, tempers get a lot rougher, and aggressions
become more probably.
What I see here, in this forum is an hyper-sensibility towards what other
people says in general, or what tels to you. If we assume that we are living
in a world of barely tamed predators, and we are hiding badly our feelings
of despise for others... we should not take offense for some minor teasing
or demeaning of your posts or theories. Reading the words of people here
it looks like we are training in psychological warfare with each other.
And that amazes me.
And to end this, it also amazes me that you keep airing your grievances
for so long against the people here for some shit or other they had
written to you. This is a childish attitude. You should ignore all
the grievances...
for as Jesus it is supposed had said in...
In Luke 6, 27 "But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to
those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who
abuse you. 29 To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other
also; and from him who takes away your coat do not withhold even your
shirt.

Then, what is the problem if some people demean what you are saying?
You should not care less. This is nothing but a ridicule fight of
egos' vanity. It is easier to despise someone in a group of Internet.
While, if we were meeting in a cocktail party, we would be showing
a rather polite attitude to each other. It is like the wolf in us
was covered by the coat of a sheep, that the is the coat of polite
manners in a cocktail party.

But if the words are related to the ideologies, and ideologies to
political parties, in times of mortal confrontations we will be
killing each other, for a handful of words. We hate each other
because of the words we are using. And, of course, nobody remember
these words of Jesus about "love your enemies". Not even the "Jesusians".

We can torture anyone that rejects the saying "man is naturally good."

Eri

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

The Guarino snip about which I wrote in my last reply to him,
was bush league snipping as far as dishonesty is concerned.
In contrast, Isaak's snip that I deal with below is much more serious,
and is typical of highly dishonest people who are secure in the
knowledge that none of the many people posting to the thread,
except the target of his defamation, is going to call him to task
for his deceit.

On Friday, April 18, 2014 7:01:06 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 4/18/14 1:39 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> > [snip Nyikos's inevitable self-justification]

You are flagrantly misleading readers who have killfiled me
(Nick Roberts and Burkhard are two who have participated on this
very thread) about the contents of the snip. It is far more
an indictment of YOU than a justification of myself.

IN fact, the snip is only way you can continue YOUR self-justification
without dealing with the indictment. Here is the heart of what
you snipped:

_____________________reposted excerpt________________________

____________________________end of excerpt____________

I'd provide the url so readers can see the sample for themselves,
but (1) the post is available only a few posts
ago on this thread and (2) I don't think anyone else posting to
this thread gives a rat's ass how dishonest you are, as long as
I am the target of your deceit.

> > Remember the post about two years ago, where you said many tribes
> > of uncivilized people use a completely different morality towards
> > "others" than towards fellow villagers?
>
> No.

I may have remembered the details wrong, but I distinctly remember
a post where you contrasted villagers with non-villagers as far as the
attitudes of the villagers towards each other and towards outsiders
were concerned.

I have been known to confuse recollections of your posts with those of
Coffey, but I'm pretty sure this is not one of those instances.

TO BE CONCLUDED

Peter Nyikos

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

Burkhard Schafer is a good example of what I call a "Blinkered Coxswain",
a term I explain below for the benefit of those interested. Mark
Isaak probably is NOT interested because it reflects badly on people
with whom he has had a cozy relationship.

On Friday, April 18, 2014 7:05:51 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 4/18/14 8:35 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> > [...] the term "Blinkered Coxswains" [...]. Mark Isaak
> > has been around long enough to know why that second word was chosen.
>
> I have no idea why you want to bring up my name.

You and Stockwell and Hemidactylus are the only t.o. regulars
who have been around long enough to be familiar with the posts
of the original Blinkered Coxswain. [That is, unless Roger Shrubber
was serious when he told Mitchell Coffey that he was around back
then, under a different name.] And you are far more heavily
involved in this thread than they are.

> I have never payed any
> attention to your private vocabulary.

Of course not; you might learn something about the dynamics of this
newsgroup if you did, and you want to avoid that, don't you?

> When I encounter it, I replace it
> with the equivalent of "mumble, mumble", because that is all the meaning
> I ever take from it.

In that case, you might as well stop reading now, because I am about to
explain the term for at least the second time.

"Blinkered" refers to people who have killfiled someone or are simulating
having killfiled them by never replying directly to their posts.

"Coxswain," chosen with a long-gone contributor to the Talk.Origins FAQ
in mind, refers to the practice of sporadically posting farfetched claims or
questions about the [de facto] killfiled person, whose wording is
blissfully clueless as to the true nature of what is going on.

The original Blinkered Coxswain would ask highly
demeaning questions beginning with words like "Did Peter really...?"
designed to elicit replies from allies who were reading my posts.
The replies would be along the lines of "Well, not exactly, but" followed
by misrepresentations that were more realistic sounding, and therefore
more believable, than the farfetched opening gambit of the Blinkered
Coxswain.

Peter Nyikos

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/22/14 7:48 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> The Guarino snip about which I wrote in my last reply to him,
> was bush league snipping as far as dishonesty is concerned.
> In contrast, Isaak's snip that I deal with below is much more serious,
> and is typical of highly dishonest people who are secure in the
> knowledge that none of the many people posting to the thread,
> except the target of his defamation, is going to call him to task
> for his deceit.
>
> On Friday, April 18, 2014 7:01:06 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 4/18/14 1:39 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>>
>>> [snip Nyikos's inevitable self-justification]
>
> You are flagrantly misleading readers who have killfiled me
> (Nick Roberts and Burkhard are two who have participated on this
> very thread) about the contents of the snip.

I think not. I have come to the conclusion (years ago, but nothing has
changed) that you are the sort of person who thinks he raises himself by
stomping on others. Thus self-justification, in your hands, often means
disparaging another person. Or, usually, other people.


Incidentally, I have reviewed this subthread which has so raised your
ire, and I attest that everything I wrote is true. In fact, I will go
further. When you wrote,

"Unfortunately, you either believed, or pretended to believe, that
what I was writing in the post to which you were replying had
nothing to do with the issue of whether birds are [descended from]
dinosaurs."

you wrote a blatant falsehood. By staking your reputation upon that
falsehood, you seem almost to be trying to be known as a liar.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

In this post, I reiterate my main reason for not playing "see no
evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" in the wake of rampant
dishonesty and hypocrisy in this newsgroup.

On Tuesday, April 22, 2014 12:39:33 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 4/22/14 7:48 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> > Isaak's snip that I deal with below is much more serious,
> > and is typical of highly dishonest people who are secure in the
> > knowledge that none of the many people posting to the thread,
> > except the target of his defamation, is going to call him to task
> > for his deceit.

And Isaak has again snipped what I reposted, while giving powerful
new evidence for the correctness of my evaluation of him, twice
deleted and reposted below, offset from the margin to make it easier
to find.

> > On Friday, April 18, 2014 7:01:06 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> >> On 4/18/14 1:39 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> >>
> >>> [snip Nyikos's inevitable self-justification]
> >
> > You are flagrantly misleading readers who have killfiled me
> > (Nick Roberts and Burkhard are two who have participated on this
> > very thread) about the contents of the snip.
>
> I think not. I have come to the conclusion (years ago, but nothing has
> changed) that you are the sort of person who thinks he raises himself by
> stomping on others.

An utterly worthless conclusion, born of the necessity of acting as
though I could not possibly have altruistic motives.

Chief among them is the desire to prevent talk.origins from deteriorating
into a hellhole like the one talk.abortion has become, due to
highly dishonest, hypocritical people who dominate the newsgroup.

You are doing a masterly job of acting as though you represented
the general readership here, whereas there are only three other
regulars on whom I have evidence of dishonesty and hypocrisy as
massive as what I have on you:

Gans, jillery, and RonO. Full stop.

Besides Robert Camp and Nick Roberts, these are the only other
people active this year about whom I would say something as
unequivocal as what I told you, and you have twice deleted:

Your unsupported testimony is worthless; you are
a highly dishonest person. And don't think what
Robert Camp wrote to buttress you counts as support;
his testimony is as worthless as yours.

> Thus self-justification, in your hands, often means
> disparaging another person. Or, usually, other people.

I treat people on an individual basis. You would love it if it were
otherwise, but you can see what wishful thinking that is just from
the differential treatment I accord your fellow "villagers" [including your
fellow Village Elders Hemidactylus and Stockwell] from the way I treat
you.

For instance, I am noticeably easier on Guarino than on you because
he does not yet have the massive "virtual paper trail" that you have.

> Incidentally, I have reviewed this subthread which has so raised your
> ire, and I attest that everything I wrote is true. In fact, I will go
> further. When you wrote,
>
> "Unfortunately, you either believed, or pretended to believe, that
> what I was writing in the post to which you were replying had
> nothing to do with the issue of whether birds are [descended from]
> dinosaurs."
>
> you wrote a blatant falsehood.

So you blatantly assert, but you have NOT given us a third alternative
to "believed" and "pretended to believe".

And, of course, you are not quoting the evidence I gave that there
IS no third alternative. That would be "lowering" yourself to my
level, by your topsy-turvy idea of "lowering," wouldn't it?

> By staking your reputation upon that
> falsehood, you seem almost to be trying to be known as a liar.

Keep those words of yours in mind. You have made NO attempt to
show that they do not apply to you. Quite the contrary.

Peter Nyikos

[John Stockwell]

On Monday, April 21, 2014 12:37:50 PM UTC-6, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> I am reposting something I posted on another thread, because it
>
> gave me a chance to talk about one of the most powerful weapons
>
> some of the regulars of talk.origins regularly use against me.
>
>
>
> It is a gross misrepresentation of what "lists" of mine that I
>
> did in 1995-2001 were all about. Paul Gans, perhaps tipped off
>
> by the experience of people in talk.abortion about the effectiveness
>
> of my "lists", made every effort to discredit them from the
>
> get-go, and in this he has been spectacularly successful.

They were about you being a pompous self-aggrandizing asshole.

-John

[eridanus]

I cannot believe it. You are still complaining?
Why you do not abandon the damned group? It is not any good
for your mental health to be among people that do not love you.
Is not there any group that would love you? Go there.
In general, people rarely love others, but themselves. This must
be also in your case. The most loved individual for each one is their
own persona. You can except some cases of people deeply in love, but
this state do not last very long.
Eri

[jillery]

On Tue, 22 Apr 2014 10:29:48 -0700 (PDT), nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

>You are doing a masterly job of acting as though you represented
>the general readership here, whereas there are only three other
>regulars on whom I have evidence of dishonesty and hypocrisy as
>massive as what I have on you:
>
>Gans, jillery, and RonO. Full stop.

You have as much evidence for my dishonesty as you do for DP, and you
pull it from the same source; your orifices.

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/22/14 10:29 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> [...]

>> Incidentally, I have reviewed this subthread which has so raised your
>> ire, and I attest that everything I wrote is true. In fact, I will go
>> further. When you wrote,
>>
>> "Unfortunately, you either believed, or pretended to believe, that
>> what I was writing in the post to which you were replying had
>> nothing to do with the issue of whether birds are [descended from]
>> dinosaurs."
>>
>> you wrote a blatant falsehood.
>
> So you blatantly assert, but you have NOT given us a third alternative
> to "believed" and "pretended to believe".

Honestly, if you are unable to think of at least one more alternative on
your own, you are too stupid for me to waste my time on. On the other
hand, if you continue to accuse people of lying purely because of your
*own* ignorance, then I probably will spend more time on you, in an
attempt to prevent talk.origins from deteriorating into a hellhole such
as talk.abortion is reputed to be.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

Mark Isaak's bluff has been called, and he shows everyone something
about the dynamics of talk.origins: when someone has built up a
long-standing (15 years or more) camaraderie with the Village Elders
[those who have made regular contributions to talk.origins over
a total of 15 or more years] they can post the most transparent
falsehoods, and the most juvenile taunts, and get away with them.

Mark has plenty of reason for behaving the way he does, over and
above his own flagrant self-interest. He is creating a virtual
reality, one devoid of true reality, for anyone who has
killfiled me. Since two of these people -- the Blinkered Coxswains
Burkhard Schafer and Nick Roberts-- have both posted to this thread
and may well be eating out of Mark's hand right now, Mark has plenty
of incentive to act in this way.

Near the end of this post I will make that incentive more explicit.

On Tuesday, April 22, 2014 10:38:45 PM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 4/22/14 10:29 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> > [...]
>
> >> Incidentally, I have reviewed this subthread which has so raised you

> >> ire, and I attest that everything I wrote is true.

A blatant lie in itself, one that might be called a meta-lie.

> >> In fact, I will go further. When you wrote,
>
> >> "Unfortunately, you either believed, or pretended to believe, that
> >> what I was writing in the post to which you were replying had
> >> nothing to do with the issue of whether birds are [descended from]
> >> dinosaurs."
>
> >> you wrote a blatant falsehood.

It is you who are indulging in a blatant falsehood, by saying this.
Here is the evidence for what I wrote, which you of course snipped
and can be counted on to go on snipping:

_____________ begin excerpt from reply to you____________________
> > "Lingham- Soliar (in press) harshly criticized this latter study
> > as unsound," but since its results were incorrectly reflected
> > and some of the claims are incorrect..."
> >
> > At worst, L-S is beating a dead horse by asserting that it
> > is dubious to attribute feathers to Psitaccosaurus. But then,
> > maybe someone else besides Mayr made that claim.
> >
> > If not, that's one MORE example of "protofeathers" that are
> > nothing a sensible paleontologist would label that way.
> >
> > Concluded in next reply.
>
> Okay, you have convinced me that your point, if you have one, has
> nothing to do with birds, dinosaurs, or feathers.

Not only are you jumping to wild conclusions, you are ignoring
the word "protofeathers" and the relevance of my last comment
to the issue. Also, you don't seem to recognize the fact that
Psitaccosaurus is a dinosaur, far removed from the theropods
which the "consensus" says birds are [descended from].
========================= end of excerpt
from
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/pEWJEUTOxEs/AFh1ak67ykoJ

> > So you blatantly assert, but you have NOT given us a third alternative
> > to "believed" and "pretended to believe".

> Honestly, if you are unable to think of at least one more alternative on
> your own, you are too stupid for me to waste my time on.

Your "Honestly,..." is the juvenile taunt, a staple with Internet Hellions,
to which I was referring to at the beginning. You cannot justify it,
given the evidence that I have reposted, and so you are already preparing
a face-saving exit from this thread to keep from EVER justifying it.

I expect you to delete the evidence and go on taunting like the
Black Knight of the Monty Python film, and I'm sure Burkhard
and Nick will eat it up, and can be expected somewhere, sometime,
to post the falsehood that you have proven that I have lied.

And so, they would be playing the role of Blinkered Coxswain to the hilt.
See my second post of yesterday for what that is all about.

> On the other
> hand, if you continue to accuse people of lying purely because of your
> *own* ignorance, then I probably will spend more time on you,

It won't happen, but I'm sure you'll find ways of creating the virtual
reality in the minds of Blinkered Coxswains that future accusations
are of this nature.

> in an
> attempt to prevent talk.origins from deteriorating into a hellhole such
> as talk.abortion is reputed to be.

I could accuse you of plagiarizing me here, but what is really relevant is
that you are engaging in what I call "counterfeit sincerity". Iago, in
Shakespeare's _Othello_, was a master of counterfeit sincerity, so much
so that Othello kept referring to him as "Honest Iago" and even "Honest,
honest Iago" after having killed Desdemona due to Iago's deceit.

You are somewhat of a master of it yourself, Isaak, but this was far
from your best effort. You made far more impressive displays of
counterfeit sincerity earlier in this thread, and if you keep hanging
around here, I'll point some of them out to the other readers. You,
I am sure, know what they were.

Peter Nyikos

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/23/14 11:56 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> Mark Isaak's bluff has been called, and he shows everyone something
> about the dynamics of talk.origins: when someone has built up a
> long-standing (15 years or more) camaraderie with the Village Elders

You have no idea what camaraderie is. I'm not surprised.

> [those who have made regular contributions to talk.origins over
> a total of 15 or more years] they can post the most transparent
> falsehoods, and the most juvenile taunts, and get away with them.

What, you don't like seeing your own behavior in others?

> Mark has plenty of reason for behaving the way he does, over and
> above his own flagrant self-interest. He is creating a virtual
> reality, one devoid of true reality, for anyone who has
> killfiled me. Since two of these people -- the Blinkered Coxswains
> Burkhard Schafer and Nick Roberts-- have both posted to this thread
> and may well be eating out of Mark's hand right now, Mark has plenty
> of incentive to act in this way.

And just what possible reason would I have for wanting others "eating
out my hand" as you put it? The only requests I make here are for
copies of articles not available to me, and I rather think people would
be more likely to do so if I remain uncontentious, which my previous
post would only serve to undermine.

All very nice, if you like red herrings. Your reference above, though,
was to "the post to which you were replying" when I said others
commented that you did not understand their motivations. I repeat that
post here, in its entirety to maximize bandwidth waste and to irritate
all other readers. Count the number of references to dinosaurs and/or
feathers therein:

======================== begin post in question (from Peter Nyikos)
On Thursday, March 27, 2014 11:29:57 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
> On 3/27/2014 8:26 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>> On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 8:40:51 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
>>> On 3/26/2014 9:38 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 1:30:40 PM UTC-4, Greg Guarino wrote:
>>
>>>>> I'll tell you what I saw as I skimmed over the previous four
paragraphs:
>>>>> Harshman, Shrubber, Camp, Harshman, Harshman, Prothero,Harshman,
>>>>> Shrubber, Harshman, Hemidactylus, Harshman, Harshman, Harshman,
>>>>> Prothero, Prothero.
>>>>
>>>>> That was enough to determine that nothing in those paragraphs
would be
>>>>> of interest to me.

Whereas you steady stream of belittlements of me is evidently of great
interest to you. As is your habit of only replying to a select
sample of posts I do in reply to you, which is directly relevant
to that steady stream.

>>>> And, I take it, as soon as you saw how I squeezed Harshman into a
corner
>>>> (with the help of what turned out to be a very revealing set of
comments
>>>> that I've since documented here) you decided nothing in our previous
>>>> exchange was of interest to you.
>>>
>>> As usual, you have "taken it" in a way that bears no resemblance to
what
>>> I wrote.
>>
>> "As usual" is utter bilge, and you can't prove otherwise because the
>> people who talk this way about me never provide credible evidence,
>> and almost never try to.

>
> You imagine here that I would have sufficient interest, and the drive to
> spend my time documenting past "transgressions" in order to "prove" (to
> whom? myself?) ... something.

Au contraire, you are imagining things about me. What I "imagine"
is that you are relying almost exclusively on hearsay about me.

What you don't seem to realize is that this hearsay ultimately
rests almost exclusively on a steady stream of blatant assertions
by ONE person that I am terribly bad at understanding his motivations,
coupled by an almost total absence of even HINTS as to what those
motivations might have been.

You are, right now, in the process of contributing to that hearsay,
and you are following the pattern of everyone else by showing little
or no interest in even DESCRIBING any of the earlier examples which
provide the foundation for your "As usual."

If you continue in this pattern, you will be providing us with
illustrations of some very interesting dynamics of this newsgroup.

> I'm afraid that's your department, and
> you'd be ever so much better off, not to mention more interesting, if
> you could wean yourself from it.

Yes, I suppose I *would* be more interesting if I were to make
a habit of asserting things like "As usual..." , and then
of exhibiting a lack of interest in supporting them.

>> What I wrote was a COROLLARY to what you wrote. If you had looked
>> at the previous exchanges between me and Harshman, you would have
>> seen something almost congruent, the only real differences being
>> lots of "you" in place of Harshman, and Camp and Shrubber's names
>> missing because they hadn't yet decided to "interject" themselves
>> into discussions with Harshman.
>
> I have no idea what that means.

It should be obvious: you would conclude from all the "you"s and
"Prothero"s that the previous exchange held no interest for you.

And this in turn would comprise a vindication of my reasoning.

Or are you mystified by the part after the "because"? If so,
I will gladly explain that part too.

>> And you confirmed that I had successfully divined where you
>> were coming from, below:

> I can't imagine how you could think that. I stated quite plainly, I am
> "coming from" a strong distaste for, and lack of interest in, personal
> squabbles on this newsgroup.

Do you usually have this much trouble keeping track of issues under
discussion? With this last comment, you are *continuing* to confirm my
suspicions that you never bothered to inform yourself about what it
was that I was suggesting that Harshman talk to his wife about, and
that you continue to have ZERO interest in informing yourself about it.

And by the way, you are doing a dandy job of continuing your
personal squabble with me, which you initiated.

And, all through this post, you are illustrating the dynamics of
talk.origins.

Continued in next reply to this post of yours.

Peter Nyikos
========================== end of post

I guess that post, which is not so different from the usual nykosian
sewage of accusations and pointless squabbling, simply slipped your
mind. No big deal. It confused me at first about which post you were
referring to, but okay then, let's consider the other post which you had
in mind, a post from an entirely different thread, about which I said,

"Okay, you have convinced me that your point, if you have one, has

nothing to do with birds, dinosaurs, or feathers." As you noted, that
statement followed immediately after (excepting a "to be continued"
line) a sentence about protofeathers.

Your response (I repeat again because it is so fun seeing your
foolishness) was:

"Unfortunately, you either believed, or pretended to believe, that
what I was writing in the post to which you were replying had
nothing to do with the issue of whether birds are [descended from]
dinosaurs."

What you neglect, in your haste to find fault in anyone but yourself,
was that I was responding to your *point* (or lack of one), not to a
couple of extraneous words lost in the noise of a long and rambling
post. Obviously I knew you had written something about dinosaurs and
feathers, but I saw no reason to believe that it was the point of your
post. When you told me what I "either believed, or pretended to
believe," you were dead wrong, as usual. When you insisted upon the
correctness of your evaluation, you were simply lying.

I believe that adequately covers the point at hand. Knowing how much
you love to complain about people snipping your deathless prose, I have
snipped the rest of your post. You're welcome.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Monday, April 21, 2014 3:45:34 PM UTC-4, eridanus wrote:

> El viernes, 18 de abril de 2014 21:39:43 UTC+1, nyi...@bellsouth.net escribió:

and Mark Isaak, who has distracted my attention from your thoughtful
post until now, wrote the following two lines:

> > > Your incompetence at discerning people's motives is not a matter for
> > > debate. It is an empirically-verified fact.
> >
> > Of course, you give no empirical evidence; that would be "lowering"
> > yourself to my level in your "village" morality, wouldn't it?

Isaak never contested this, and even though he posted a lot of
obfuscation in his latest post to this thread, he has indeed
continued his perfect track record of not giving the alleged
empirical evidence.

> > Remember the post about two years ago, where you said many tribes
> > of uncivilized people use a completely different morality towards
> > "others" than towards fellow villagers? Everyone who has posted
> > to this thread, except myself, is a member of the "talk.origins
> > village," whose membership I have called "the New Class" elsewhere.
> > I am most assuredly an "other," an "outsider."
> >
> > Peter Nyikos
>
> Well, Peter. The problem is how to define morality. I am trying to guess
> that morality is more or less on the behavior toward others, as compared
> to oneself.

To a considerable extent this is true. Rather than talk about
exceptions here, I'll just address the public aspect of morality
in this post.

> In this sense, the kindness of the behavior, not only depends
> on the character of the person, more or less rough, or unkind
> towards other people, but also the propensity of this person
> to exert violence, or to abuse others...

Yes, and I think it is important to make a distinction between
being good and being merely "nice." As a classic Celtic saying
goes about an extreme sort of case, "He is the sort who will pat
you on the back to your face and slit your throat behind your back."

> as a quality that varies according to some variables...
> like social rank, etc. We tend to show more kindness and deference
> towards people of high social rank,

Yes, and Mark has cultivated his comradeship with his fellow Village
Elders [a concept explained in my last reply to him] who are the
equivalent of people of high social rank in talk.origins.

But the best example is Harshman. For about a year and a half,
he was the only person who would engage me at length in on-topic
discussion, so I endured from him one slight after another, one blatant
insult after another, just to keep the lines open between us.

In the course of that long experience, I came to see what high
"social status" he has in this newsgroup. Events on this thread,
and on the thread on bird ancestry that I started, provide
dramatic evidence of his high social status that is easily
accessible to you right now.

> and tend to show a feeling of despise, disregard or indifference,
> to those bellow our social rank; and this can be
> a subjective perception, the social rank.

Yes, I've had my subjectively perceived (by several Village Elders,
and others) social rank here "bellowed" [excuse the pun] at me
many times in the last 3+ years. :-)

Continued in next reply to this post. But first, I will attend
to a more recent post of yours done only two days ago.

Peter Nyikos

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/24/14 7:15 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Monday, April 21, 2014 3:45:34 PM UTC-4, eridanus wrote:
>
>> El viernes, 18 de abril de 2014 21:39:43 UTC+1, nyi...@bellsouth.net escribió:
>
> and Mark Isaak, who has distracted my attention from your thoughtful
> post until now, wrote the following two lines:
>
>>>> Your incompetence at discerning people's motives is not a matter for
>>>> debate. It is an empirically-verified fact.
>>>
>>> Of course, you give no empirical evidence; that would be "lowering"
>>> yourself to my level in your "village" morality, wouldn't it?
>
> Isaak never contested this, and even though he posted a lot of
> obfuscation in his latest post to this thread, he has indeed
> continued his perfect track record of not giving the alleged
> empirical evidence.

Wow, you have a twisted mind. Yesterday you devoted a 100+ line post to
the fact that I gave alleged empirical evidence, and now here you are
denying its existence. I guess, like so many creationists, it does not
count as evidence to you if you choose not to believe it.

[eridanus]

El jueves, 24 de abril de 2014 15:15:10 UTC+1, nyi...@bellsouth.net escribi�:

> On Monday, April 21, 2014 3:45:34 PM UTC-4, eridanus wrote:

> ------------------ too much -------------

> > and tend to show a feeling of despise, disregard or indifference,
> > to those bellow our social rank; and this can be
> > a subjective perception, the social rank.
>
> Yes, I've had my subjectively perceived (by several Village Elders,
> and others) social rank here "bellowed" [excuse the pun] at me
> many times in the last 3+ years. :-)
>
> Continued in next reply to this post. But first, I will attend
> to a more recent post of yours done only two days ago.
> Peter Nyikos

If one takes as an assumption than only lower class people is offended,
the best politics is not to present any sign of being offended.
Among equals is rather common some teasing, even some pissing off each
other. Then, it is a sign of mental balance not to show any of your
equals you had been offended by some innocent teasing, or some pissing off.
Anyone that complains is showing some inner vulnerability that is
much better to hide. Any whining on the part of someone that feels
offended, only increases the satisfaction of those that did the hypothetical
teasing or pissing. Remember that all of us try to show off a fa�ade
of being more learned that we are really. And some time can be disputing
questions, without taking care of checking the disputed question.

In general, we are driven by vanity, and we love to brag a lot of our
capabilities and intelligence. Then, to whine about others is a
confession of weakness. We all are here among this small crowd of
enlightened intellectuals... we are are also a little actors, pretending
to know... about all. More or less. Then we are presenting a dogmatic
profile that show clearly we are actors, not real scientists.

So, please. Take a leave of absence of several months, do a little
penance or a good therapy, and come back with another topic that would
not be... "directed or undirected panspermia". Try a different topic, like
"the metabolism of the crab" from an evolutive perspective; or the genetic
problems of the parthenogenesis of the blue lizard of Arizona, or other.
Or a topic about the precise mechanism of a supernova explosion or the
diverse types of supernova from an evolutive perspective. This topic of
the panspermia is totally exhausted; and it is a cause of offense for the
people of this group.
Think that most people here is older than 50; and the older one gets
the more resistant is to changing his mind and to accept any new
paradigms.

If you read a little about the history of science, you will see that
any new paradigm was readily accepted by young scientist, and rejected
with stern energy by the old ones.

Eri

[eridanus]

El jueves, 24 de abril de 2014 16:10:23 UTC+1, Mark Isaak escribi�:

> On 4/24/14 7:15 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> > On Monday, April 21, 2014 3:45:34 PM UTC-4, eridanus wrote:
>
> >
>

> >> El viernes, 18 de abril de 2014 21:39:43 UTC+1, nyi...@bellsouth.net escribi�:

>
> >
>
> > and Mark Isaak, who has distracted my attention from your thoughtful
>
> > post until now, wrote the following two lines:
>
> >
>
> >>>> Your incompetence at discerning people's motives is not a matter for
>
> >>>> debate. It is an empirically-verified fact.
>
> >>>
>
> >>> Of course, you give no empirical evidence; that would be "lowering"
>
> >>> yourself to my level in your "village" morality, wouldn't it?
>
> >
>
> > Isaak never contested this, and even though he posted a lot of
>
> > obfuscation in his latest post to this thread, he has indeed
>
> > continued his perfect track record of not giving the alleged
>
> > empirical evidence.
>
>
>
> Wow, you have a twisted mind. Yesterday you devoted a 100+ line post to
>
> the fact that I gave alleged empirical evidence, and now here you are
>
> denying its existence. I guess, like so many creationists, it does not
>
> count as evidence to you if you choose not to believe it.
>
>
>
> --
>
> 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

Please, Mark. Do to reply to him anymore about his whining, to see
if he forget about his topic. The reinforcer of a poster is to see
that someone replies to it. If no one replies to a poster, he would
persist for a time, but eventually he would eclipse and go away.

Eri

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Tuesday, April 22, 2014 3:28:25 PM UTC-4, eridanus wrote:

> I cannot believe it. You are still complaining?

What you call "complaining" is a Machiavellian analysis of the
dynamics of this newsgroup, and of some of its most interesting
"citizens". See my first reply to Dai Monie here for more
about that aspect of things.

> Why you do not abandon the damned group? It is not any good
> for your mental health to be among people that do not love you.

Let me be the judge of that. I have been among people who
did not love me many times in my life, in some cases doing to me
far worse things than are being done to me here, and it did not harm
my mental health. In fact, the greatest stress I ever suffered
was precipitated by my Platonic love for a woman who turned out not
to be the paragon of social grace and inner harmony that I once
took her for. I gave her only the very slightest hint of the inner
turmoil her behavior was causing me. We parted as good friends,
and kept up a correspondence, on and off, for about two decades
after that.

> Is not there any group that would love you? Go there.
> In general, people rarely love others, but themselves.

I am an exception. The above is only a small glimpse of that.
Perhaps it is relevant to mention that I am the father of four
wonderful daughters whom I love and who love me deeply, without
the unrealistic admiration that I once had for that woman when
I was 23 and she was 25. This was fourteen years before I met
my wife, whom I also love deeply and who loves me at least as
much as I love her.

I also have excellent relationships with my colleagues here
at my department, and with everyone I encounter at conferences.
It gives me the strength to distance myself from the slings
and arrows of outrageous scoundrels in this newsgroup.

> This must be also in your case. The most loved individual for
> each one is their own persona.

False. Many saints have loved God far more than they loved
themselves. Take Mother Teresa, or Father Damien, for example.

Most interesting of all to me was Charles de Foucauld,
written about in an amazingly well written book,
_The Sands of Tamanrasset_.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sands-Tamanrasset-Charles-Foucauld/dp/0941936759

> You can except some cases of people deeply in love, but
> this state do not last very long.
> Eri

True enough, see above about when I was 23.

Peter Nyikos

[erik simpson]

This man is wise beyond his years, whatever his years may be.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Thursday, April 24, 2014 11:10:23 AM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:

> On 4/24/14 7:15 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > On Monday, April 21, 2014 3:45:34 PM UTC-4, eridanus wrote:
> >

> >> El viernes, 18 de abril de 2014 21:39:43 UTC+1, nyi...@bellsouth.net escribi�:

> >
> > and Mark Isaak, who has distracted my attention from your thoughtful
> > post until now, wrote the following two lines:
> >
> >>>> Your incompetence at discerning people's motives is not a matter for
> >>>> debate. It is an empirically-verified fact.
> >>>
> >>> Of course, you give no empirical evidence; that would be "lowering"
> >>> yourself to my level in your "village" morality, wouldn't it?
> >
> > Isaak never contested this, and even though he posted a lot of
> > obfuscation in his latest post to this thread, he has indeed
> > continued his perfect track record of not giving the alleged
> > empirical evidence.
>
> Wow, you have a twisted mind.

More counterfeit sincerity by you, Mark "Honest Iago" Isaak.

> Yesterday you devoted a 100+ line post to
> the fact that I gave alleged empirical evidence,

Wishful thinking, AT BEST. Only one of the alternatives I listed,
"believed" or "pretended to believe" had anything to do with
motives. And you ran away from the challenge to produce a third
one, covering your headlong flight with a formulaic, stereotyped
polemical insult.

And you go on being formulaic below, in a way that I thought
you had long outgrown. I guess the stress of being repeatedly
exposed as a dishonest hypocrite is causing you to regress to
a level one usually sees in Internet Hellions with only a few
years of experience in polemic.

> and now here you are
> denying its existence. I guess, like so many creationists, it does not
> count as evidence to you if you choose not to believe it.

I guess you will go on entertaining the people who have killfiled me
with your counterfeit sincerity, taking deceitful advantage of the
lack of evidence visible to THEM that it is pure counterfeit.

Peter Nyikos

[Nick Roberts]

In message <lj9ij5$u0b$1...@dont-email.me>

Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote:

> On 4/23/14 11:56 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> > Mark Isaak's bluff has been called, and he shows everyone something
> > about the dynamics of talk.origins: when someone has built up a
> > long-standing (15 years or more) camaraderie with the Village Elders
>
> You have no idea what camaraderie is. I'm not surprised.
>
> > [those who have made regular contributions to talk.origins over
> > a total of 15 or more years] they can post the most transparent
> > falsehoods, and the most juvenile taunts, and get away with them.
>
> What, you don't like seeing your own behavior in others?
>
> > Mark has plenty of reason for behaving the way he does, over and
> > above his own flagrant self-interest. He is creating a virtual
> > reality, one devoid of true reality, for anyone who has
> > killfiled me. Since two of these people -- the Blinkered Coxswains
> > Burkhard Schafer and Nick Roberts-- have both posted to this thread
> > and may well be eating out of Mark's hand right now, Mark has plenty
> > of incentive to act in this way.

Apologies, Mark, for responding to Nyikos via one of your responses,
but he is in my killfile, and I am getting increasing disgusted with
his contemptible behaviour.

Some time ago, when I killfiled him, I (very foolishly, obviously)
assumed that he would do me the courtesy of holding back on the abuse.
After all, if you know that you are talking behind someone's back,
insults are not only childish, but also deeply cowardly.

This isn't the first time he's casualty insulted me recently (again, I
only noticed due to his pathetic backstabbing being quoted by someone
else), but I was hoping against hope that he would eventually realise
that such cowardly attacks did nothing beyond showing but a deeply
flawed individual he is. Obviously, such a hope was doomed to failure,
so I felt the need to comment on Nyikos' self-obsession.

Yes, before this I have indeed posted on this thread. But the post that
Nyikos brings up as "evidence" of god-knows-what other than his own
deep-seated paranoia was a one line humorous reply to Hemidactylus:

Hemi: Listen here you obnoxiously self-centered fucking prick, my link had
Hemi: everything to do with your echo-post and your self-referentially
Hemi: pathetic obsession with...yourself.

Me: Don't hold it in. Tell us what you really think...

Only someone with Nyikos' level of self-obsession and total lack of
humour could read my response as a comment about him. It was always
about (and to) Hemi.

But as I've allow Nyikos to (briefly) clamber out my killfile on Mark
Isaak's back, I'd like to put it on record that I fully support Hemi's
comments. Nyikos, you really need to get past your childish assumption
that everything that anyone posts on t.o. is about you. Frankly, as far
as I am concerned, you ceased being anything other than an annoying
irrelevance many months ago. If it wasn't for the occasional threads
that are interesting despite your interminable and vacuous postings
lauding how wonderful you are and how everyone else on t.o. is in a
vicious conspiracy to get at you, I'd give up on t.o. altogether, or
modify my killfile to use the 'references' header to get rid of all
trace of you.

> And just what possible reason would I have for wanting others "eating
> out my hand" as you put it?

During our earlier clash, Nyikos accused me of wanting the same thing
wrt Ray, and that he and I were on the same team. I think this is pretty
strong evidence that Nyikos has about as much contact with reality as a
Raelian.

--
Nick Roberts tigger @ orpheusinternet.co.uk

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which
can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[jillery]

On Thu, 24 Apr 2014 08:52:32 -0700 (PDT), erik simpson
<eastsi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Thursday, April 24, 2014 8:31:26 AM UTC-7, eridanus wrote:

[...]

>> Please, Mark. Do to reply to him anymore about his whining, to see
>> if he forget about his topic. The reinforcer of a poster is to see
>> that someone replies to it. If no one replies to a poster, he would
>> persist for a time, but eventually he would eclipse and go away.
>>
>> Eri
>
>This man is wise beyond his years, whatever his years may be.

I would agree with you if he followed his own advice.

[jillery]

On Thu, 24 Apr 2014 08:27:57 -0700 (PDT), eridanus
<leopoldo...@gmail.com> wrote:


>In general, we are driven by vanity, and we love to brag a lot of our
>capabilities and intelligence. Then, to whine about others is a
>confession of weakness. We all are here among this small crowd of
>enlightened intellectuals... we are are also a little actors, pretending
>to know... about all. More or less. Then we are presenting a dogmatic
>profile that show clearly we are actors, not real scientists.

Is there a pronoun in Spanish that translates into something like
"everbody but myself"? I ask because you seem to use the English "we"
that way, and that's not what it means. Just sayin'.

[jillery]

Join the club.

Yeppers.

[Paul J Gans]

It should be noted that he continues to hurl insults my way,
though I have not responded to him in months.

As many of us have learned over the years, when you ignore him
he only assumes that you've slunk off to collaborate with other
t.o. "elders" to fabricate more lies about him.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Thursday, April 24, 2014 9:09:18 PM UTC-4, Paul J Gans wrote:

Paul "Honest, honest Iago" Gans [not to be confused with
Mark "Honest Iago" Isaak] shows what it is to be a slightly different
kind of Blinkered Coxswain than Nick Roberts or Burkhard Schafer:
one who has not actually killfiled me but does not post *direct*
replies to someone for fairly long stretches of time. The essential
feature is that he goes on telling wild distortions or outright
falsehoods about that someone anyway, in reply to others.

> It should be noted that he continues to hurl insults my way,
> though I have not responded to him in months.

It might be noted, first of all, that you made a reply to
me on the thread about bird ancestry a bit before you made this
reply to your protege jillery.

But that is kid stuff. The half-truth you have uttered is
far more insidious: you are leaving out the fact that
you have posted utter bilge about me, far less than
a month ago [see below].

In other words, you are acting EXACTLY like you did for well
over a year after I returned, posting defamation about my past
behavior, and then when I set the record straight, you told
the despicable half truth you are telling everyone now, leaving
out all mention of your behavior.

Here, for instance, is something you wrote on a thread where
I have never participated. Not a month ago, but only a little
over a week ago, in reply to Richard Norman. I am putting
a column of "chevrons" into the left margin so people can
see where I am quoting you:

Subject: Re: The Louisville Slugger Theory of Human Evolution
Date: Wednesday, April 16, 2014 1:40 PM

> A while back I decided to try
> to find as much agreement as possible with Prof. Nyikos,

This is either massive counterfeit sincerity or a sign of advanced
senility. I'm sure that points of agreement between us on evolution
alone could fill a medium-sized book, because I am just as much
a foe of creationism as you are; my replies to Ray Martinez should
make that clear.

<snip for focus>

> His response was to reorder the content of what I'd written so that
> it seemed to mean something rather different. And in his comments
> he noted that a cursory reading of my post might indicate that I
> agreed with him and of course that was an untenable position to
> take,

Even without your demented (?) preamble, the above has
only a vague resemblance to what actually happened.
If you were actually to go back and READ the post where
I moved one little thing to where it would
be less of a *non sequitur*, it would become apparent how far your
memory diverges from what actually happened.

> so he rejected what I'd written as being part of some plot
> to "get him".

The "as being..." is a figment of your co-conspiratorial imagination.

["co-conspiratorial" refers to someone who finds conspiracy theorists
under every bed.]

================= end of reply to Louisville Slugger comments.

> As many of us have learned over the years, when you ignore him
> he only assumes that you've slunk off

Nobody has learned any such thing, inasmuch as it is only YOUR kind
of despicable character assassin who slinks off. Normal
t.o. participants stop replying when they no longer think they
have anything to contribute that is worth the trouble of composing.

YOU, on the other hand, waited until I went on a posting break last
year to post a bunch of crap about me, which elicited a comment
from Harshman that you seemed to be doing exactly the same things
you were accusing me of.

> to collaborate with other
> t.o. "elders" to fabricate more lies about him.

The truth is quite otherwise, as your cowardly behavior back then
indicates. You replied to John that you were doing it in my absence
because if you did it while I am around, I would post comebacks.

And well I would, inasmuch as you told lies and half-truths
about me on that occasion.

Peter Nyikos

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

> This man is wise beyond his years, whatever his years may be.

Au contraire, eridanus is just repeating a generalization that is regularly
applied on the internet to trolls, but has dubious validity when applied
to sincere people.

Where I am concerned, it is like the advice to fling Br'er Rabbit into
the briar patch. I am quite happy to be ignored by Mark while I go on
posting about the dynamics of this newsgroup, and if I can make a point
more easily by referring to Mark's behavior than by referring to the
behavior of someone else, or indeed in any other way, I will refer
to Mark's behavior. All you will see is a considerable diminishment
of the posts where he is mentioned.

I told Mark about why I post on the dynamics in the way I do, and he
"plagiarized" my words. I don't think anyone took his words as other
than pure sarcasm, but I am in earnest about not wanting this newsgroup
to become the hellhole that talk.abortion has become.

If everyone here were like Mark, or jillery, or Paul Gans, that day would
already be here. Where jillery is concerned, for instance, just look at
my long reply to her today, to see what an unprincipled person she is:

Subject: Re: The "birds are dinosaurs" issue.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/pEWJEUTOxEs/WTBe8b490SkJ

Jillery makes up her "principles" as she goes along and sheds them
just as quickly as she makes them up, when it is convenient for her
to do so.

Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

Yet another one of your TbBAa, as easily refuted. It's as if you
can't help yourself.

[eridanus]

El jueves, 24 de abril de 2014 21:26:33 UTC+1, jillery escribi�:

it is courtesy, probably. It is a way of speaking. We are all probably
some sort of actors in the comedy of life.
Eri

[jillery]

On Sat, 26 Apr 2014 00:23:56 -0700 (PDT), eridanus
<leopoldo...@gmail.com> wrote:

I mention it only because your use of "we" seems to exclude you from
your critical observation of others.

[Earle Jones27]

*
I have noticed that just about every thread in which Peter Nyikos gets
involved eventually degenerates into a pissing contest. It's all about
personalities and "She hit me first!"

It is not educational; in fact, it is boring.

I appreciate that Peter is an educated mathematician. Why does he get
himself into these juvenile arguments?

earle
*

[jillery]

If you feel like risking permanent brain damage, go back and count the
posts where he doesn't. I bet you wouldn't have to take off your
shoes.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <2014042716252412415-earlejones@comcastnet>,

Why do other people participate in the pissing contests?

--
Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greed. Me.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2014 16:25:24 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Earle Jones27
<earle...@comcast.net>:

Because neither education nor math skills confer either
empathy or humility, or the ability to carry on a civilized
and rational discussion.
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[jillery]

On Mon, 28 Apr 2014 07:48:13 -0400, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com>
wrote:

>In article <2014042716252412415-earlejones@comcastnet>,
> Earle Jones27 <earle...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> *
>> I have noticed that just about every thread in which Peter Nyikos gets
>> involved eventually degenerates into a pissing contest. It's all about
>> personalities and "She hit me first!"
>>
>> It is not educational; in fact, it is boring.
>>
>> I appreciate that Peter is an educated mathematician. Why does he get
>> himself into these juvenile arguments?
>>
>> earle
>> *
>
>Why do other people participate in the pissing contests?

Why should other people treat his piss any differently than any other
pissant?

[Paul J Gans]

Earle Jones27 <earle...@comcast.net> wrote:
>*
>I have noticed that just about every thread in which Peter Nyikos gets
>involved eventually degenerates into a pissing contest. It's all about
>personalities and "She hit me first!"

Not really. Much of it began for most folks by their simply
commenting on something Nyikos wrote. The response to such
comments is at times very personal. And so yes, then we are
off and running.

But it is NOT a case of equal blame on each side. I give you
the Harshman/Nyikos thread(s) where John tries mightily to
keep to the subject and is horribly villified as a result.

>It is not educational; in fact, it is boring.

It is that.

>I appreciate that Peter is an educated mathematician. Why does he get
>himself into these juvenile arguments?

You don't really want an answer to that, do you?

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

In this post, I drop a few hints about the real reason I am so isolated
in this newsgroup.

On Sunday, April 27, 2014 7:25:24 PM UTC-4, Earle Jones27 wrote:

> I have noticed that just about every thread in which Peter Nyikos gets
> involved eventually degenerates into a pissing contest. It's all about
> personalities and "She hit me first!"

What you've done, Earle, is to carefully collect the chaff I've posted
to this thread, describe it in a morally nihilistic manner, and cast
the wheat to the winds.

> It is not educational; in fact, it is boring.

Eridanus is far wiser than you. He knows how to talk to Mark Isaak
without offending him AND without being excessively negative about me.

Yes, I disagreed with erik when he said that eridanus was wise beyond
his years. But as they say, "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed
man is king."

Eridanus knows, and you probably know, that you are far safer attacking a
moral person than an unscupulous one like Isaak or Gans or jillery or Camp
or RonO, because you will only be seriously attacked by the moral person
if you act really unscurpulously, whereas the unscrupulous ones are not
inhibited by anything resembling truth, justice, sincerity, or fair play.

I do not expect anyone to look at the evidence that I have about the
dishonesty of the four unscrupulous people I've named. I do however
hope that some people will be mature enough not to assume, in the
absence of the evidence I could produce, that these people are no
worse than I am. Eridanus seems to be able to do that; you seem not
to be able to do it.

I am one of the very rare people who will look at evidence when people
are as disliked as I am by a sizable fraction of the people active in a
politically charged newsgroup. I did that with three people in
talk.abortion who were hated by most (Kevin Darcy in the 1990's) and
almost all (Bob "Osprey" Heishman and Jon Young in 2008-2009).
The first two turned out to be courageous, largely moral people.
The third did not. But it took a lot of looking to tell the difference.

I backed the first two for years, and have never regretted the decision.
I've attacked the third where I deemed it appropriate: far less often
than the people in the dominant clique did, but when I did it, I chose
the offending behavior carefully, whereas a great many attacks on
Jon Young are just "pissing contests."

Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Mon, 28 Apr 2014 20:24:11 -0700 (PDT), nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

>In this post, I drop a few hints about the real reason I am so isolated
>in this newsgroup.
>
>On Sunday, April 27, 2014 7:25:24 PM UTC-4, Earle Jones27 wrote:
>
>> I have noticed that just about every thread in which Peter Nyikos gets
>> involved eventually degenerates into a pissing contest. It's all about
>> personalities and "She hit me first!"
>
>What you've done, Earle, is to carefully collect the chaff I've posted
>to this thread, describe it in a morally nihilistic manner, and cast
>the wheat to the winds.
>
>> It is not educational; in fact, it is boring.
>
>Eridanus is far wiser than you. He knows how to talk to Mark Isaak
>without offending him AND without being excessively negative about me.
>
>Yes, I disagreed with erik when he said that eridanus was wise beyond
>his years. But as they say, "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed
>man is king."
>
>Eridanus knows, and you probably know, that you are far safer attacking a
>moral person than an unscupulous one like Isaak or Gans or jillery or Camp
>or RonO,

More TbBAs. It's as if you can't stop yourself.

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/28/14 8:24 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> [snippage]

> I am one of the very rare people who will look at evidence when people
> are as disliked as I am by a sizable fraction of the people active in a
> politically charged newsgroup.

Why do you call this a "politically charged newsgroup"? There is the
obvious link with politics in that belief in creation vs. evolution
falls predominantly along political party lines in the U.S., but I don't
think that is what you have in mind. And it is not about the power
dynamics, because the only person I have seen jockeying for power here
is you. Why do you keep bringing up the word "political", then?

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 11:10:29 AM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 4/28/14 8:24 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> > I am one of the very rare people who will look at evidence when people
> > are as disliked as I am by a sizable fraction of the people active in a
> > politically charged newsgroup.

> Why do you call this a "politically charged newsgroup"?

I told you yesterday evening, on another thread, quoting what I
told Dai Monie on this thread. Are you playing dumb?

> There is the
> obvious link with politics in that belief in creation vs. evolution
> falls predominantly along political party lines in the U.S.,

Wow, you really are using "political" in the narrow "partisan politics"
sense. Are YOU involved with a political party your local or state
politics? You asked me a similar question in the post to which
I am referring above, and because it had a contrary to fact premise,
I decided not to answer it directly.

> but I don't
> think that is what you have in mind. And it is not about the power
> dynamics, because the only person I have seen jockeying for power here
> is you.

Come off it! I am so isolated in this newsgroup -- much more than I ever
was in talk.abortion except for a few months after the 1992 election --
that I could not possibly be jockeying for power. Even Glenn, who showed
signs of understanding what manner of man I am, has disappeared from my
radar screen. And he never was a very effective person to begin with,
since almost everything he wrote was short "tweets."

On the other hand, John Harshman WIELDS power over me, and has wielded
it from the very first post he did on me on my December 2010 return
to this newsgroup. For this use of "power," see the post I did where
I mentioned the corrupting influence of power, and reposted some
things from:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/8zdLoIeDKjo/xgtOV5ZQqywJ

Many other people, yourself included, have wielded power over me,
e.g. by telling whoppers of a magnitude that you'd never tell about any
member of the New Class--that is, everyone but Glenn and creationists
and myself. You'd never get away with them.

And that goes for Gans, Camp, Roberts, Shrubber, Guarino and jillery among those posting here. Jillery is the proverbial "exception that proves the rule,"
because she has gotten into a lot of tiffs with other New Class members,
and it would be a near-miracle if she never posted misrepresentations
of any of them, but I doubt that she tells whoppers about them on anywhere
near the scale that she tells them about me.

> Why do you keep bringing up the word "political", then?

Read Theodore Roszak's words in the first reply to Dai Monie on this thread,
and be educated.

Peter Nyikos

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 08:10:29 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<eci...@curioustax.onomy.net>:

>On 4/28/14 8:24 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>> [snippage]
>> I am one of the very rare people who will look at evidence when people
>> are as disliked as I am by a sizable fraction of the people active in a
>> politically charged newsgroup.
>
>Why do you call this a "politically charged newsgroup"? There is the
>obvious link with politics in that belief in creation vs. evolution
>falls predominantly along political party lines in the U.S., but I don't
>think that is what you have in mind. And it is not about the power
>dynamics, because the only person I have seen jockeying for power here
>is you. Why do you keep bringing up the word "political", then?

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

....explains the reason quite nicely.

[Paul J Gans]

nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 11:10:29 AM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 4/28/14 8:24 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

>> > I am one of the very rare people who will look at evidence when people
>> > are as disliked as I am by a sizable fraction of the people active in a
>> > politically charged newsgroup.

>> Why do you call this a "politically charged newsgroup"?

>I told you yesterday evening, on another thread, quoting what I
>told Dai Monie on this thread. Are you playing dumb?

In other words, you won't answer the questtion.

[snip]

> Many other people, yourself included, have wielded power over me,
>e.g. by telling whoppers of a magnitude that you'd never tell about any
>member of the New Class--that is, everyone but Glenn and creationists
>and myself. You'd never get away with them.

>And that goes for Gans, Camp, Roberts, Shrubber, Guarino and jillery among those posting here. Jillery is the proverbial "exception that proves the rule,"
>because she has gotten into a lot of tiffs with other New Class members,
>and it would be a near-miracle if she never posted misrepresentations
>of any of them, but I doubt that she tells whoppers about them on anywhere
>near the scale that she tells them about me.

Do you know what "exception that proves the rule" actually means?

>> Why do you keep bringing up the word "political", then?

>Read Theodore Roszak's words in the first reply to Dai Monie on this thread,
>and be educated.

Which means that you aren't going to answer the question at all.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 2:36:23 PM UTC-4, Paul J Gans wrote:
> nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> >On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 11:10:29 AM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
> >> On 4/28/14 8:24 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> >> > I am one of the very rare people who will look at evidence when people
> >> > are as disliked as I am by a sizable fraction of the people active in a
> >> > politically charged newsgroup.
>
> >> Why do you call this a "politically charged newsgroup"?

> >I told you yesterday evening, on another thread, quoting what I
> >told Dai Monie on this thread. Are you playing dumb?

> In other words, you won't answer the questtion.

In this case, Isaak was NOT playing dumb: he only saw the answer on
the other thread after he posted the above. And so I amplified
my answer there.

He seemed to be sincerely interested in the answer, you see. You
obviously are not, but are playing a dominance game.

"dominance game" is an expression I learned from Harshman long ago,
when he started playing it against me in December 2010; and he has
played it very often. You resumed playing it only a little later,
resuming it from 1995-2001, and have never stopped.

> [snip]
>
> > Many other people, yourself included, have wielded power over me,
> >e.g. by telling whoppers of a magnitude that you'd never tell about any
> >member of the New Class--that is, everyone but Glenn and creationists
> >and myself. You'd never get away with them.
>
> >And that goes for Gans, Camp, Roberts, Shrubber, Guarino and jillery among
> > those posting here. Jillery is the proverbial "exception that proves the
> >rule," because she has gotten into a lot of tiffs with other New Class

> > members,and it would be a near-miracle if she never posted

> > misrepresentations of any of them, but I doubt that she
> > tells whoppers about them on anywhere
> >near the scale that she tells them about me.

> Do you know what "exception that proves the rule" actually means?

Of course, twit. "proves" is used in the archaic "tests" meaning,
and if jillery weren't a protege of yours and/or you weren't going
senile, you would realize that I am using the expression properly.

> >> Why do you keep bringing up the word "political", then?
>
> >Read Theodore Roszak's words in the first reply to Dai Monie on this thread,
> >and be educated.
>
> Which means that you aren't going to answer the question at all.

I don't cater to people who are either recognizably playing dumb,
or are showing signs of senility, and that covers you very nicely.

Peter Nyikos

> --- Paul J. Gans

[jillery]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 10:37:31 -0700 (PDT), nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

>And that goes for Gans, Camp, Roberts, Shrubber, Guarino and jillery among those posting here.
>Jillery is the proverbial "exception that proves the rule,"
>because she has gotten into a lot of tiffs with other New Class members,
>and it would be a near-miracle if she never posted misrepresentations
>of any of them, but I doubt that she tells whoppers about them on anywhere
>near the scale that she tells them about me.

I don't do misrepresentations. Too often I do mistakes,
misunderstandings, confusions and errors. That you make no
distinction qualifies the above as just another one of your TbBAs.

[Paul J Gans]

I note the "exception that proves the rule" statement above.
Many people feel that it means that there is usually at least
one exception to a general rule.

I read what Nyikos wrote above as referring to the situation
in which the rule is that "New Class members" don't attack each
other, but that Jillery's occasional tiffs with them constitute
an exception that somehow "proves" the rule.

As a result I asked Nyikos (in another post) if he understood
the real meaning of "exception that proves the rule". I did this
because most folks do not.

He replied in the affirmative and correctly explained the rule
as meaning the exception tests the rule. That's not quite all of it
though. The phrase means that the exception TESTS the rule
and the rule PASSES that test.

So saying that Jillery is the exception that proves
the rule that "New Class members" don't attack each other
means that even Jillery actually follows that rule.

Thus my implied claim, which still stands, that Nyikos did not
understand the phrase when he used it above.


I would have pointed this out in your direct reply to me,
except that you (Nyikos) deleted what you'd actually said
about Jillery in that post. My now senile mind could not
recall the exact language used in the original post to
which I responded.

To avoid such things in the future, I humbly ask that you do
NOT delete the actual subject matter of a post when responding
to it.

And to all who have read down this far, I apologize for piggy-
backing on Jillery's posting.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 5:16:43 PM UTC-4, jillery wrote:

> I don't do misrepresentations.

Of course you do, liar. You misrepresent things you snip time and again.
I referred to some of it in the thread on bird ancestry, and you posted
a bunch of Gans-style Dadaism that insults the intelligence of everyone who
reads it:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/pEWJEUTOxEs/RsWLtXIjYdcJ

> Too often I do mistakes,
> misunderstandings, confusions and errors.

You do indeed. But you also post shameless misrepresentations.

To date, nobody has taken me up on the offer that I made in my
reply to your intelligence-insulting crap. You can read it
at the end of the following excerpts, separated by [...] marking
transition from one excerpt to the next.

On Saturday, April 26, 2014 1:11:55 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Apr 2014 08:38:55 -0700 (PDT), nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> >Jillery has been having a lot of fun, but it is time to remind her,
> >and everyone else reading this, about something she wrote a little
> >over a year ago:

[...]
> > "The OP is the one to say what the subject is and where the
> > topic should be discussed."
> >
> >Subject: Re: Turtle genome sequence and analysis
> >https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/_5VUAvu8FB4/anp_xRZJSREJ
> >
> >"OP" means "Original Poster". On this thread, that is myself.

[...]
All the crap you've been posting, accusing me of "SPAM", flies
completely in the face of what you yourself wrote earlier.

You are doing the opposite, accusing me of SPAM even when I post
material relevant to the original post (mine!) to this thread. It also
flies in the face of how you alleged that the OP of the "Turtle..."
thread, RonO, should be the one to decide what the subject is,
and HE had changed the subject from turtle ancestry to personal
attacks on me, and you backed him to the hilt on these attacks.

[...]
> >It should be obvious to everyone who has been following this
> >thread closely that the above is NOT jillery's opinion, and
> >probably never was.

> This is an example of one of your many TbBAs, something that's
> obvious, or even meaningful, only to you.

You are taking refuge in Dadaism, just like Gans frequently does
when he is nailed on something. Everyone following this thread
has seen you repeatedly acting in defiance of what you posted a
little over a year ago, quoted at the beginning, and that should
be obvious to everyone on this thread, even you.

I've deleted more (MUCH more!) of the same kind of Dadaism by jillery.
I will deal with it to if anyone besides jillery claims jillery is not
playing insincere destructive games, and explains why not.

================ end of excerpts from
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/pEWJEUTOxEs/O_4qDbv_vr0J

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out WHY no one has taken
me up on my offer; all it takes is a reading of the two posts for
which I have given urls here.

> That you make no
> distinction qualifies the above as just another one of your TbBAs.

This comment of yours is just the latest in your cataract of
misrepresentations.

"It's as if you can't stop yourself"

--Pre-emptive Peremptory Ploy frequently employed by jillery

Peter Nyikos

[Paul J Gans]

What was it that Archie Bunker called his son in law? "Meathead"?

Jillery and I have had disputes. Sometimes I backed down. Sometimes
Jillery backed down, sometimes we just let it go. Why? Because
there was no profit in continued contention.

I have had disputes with most every other person posting on t.o.
over the years. Most all of them were non-nuclear disagreements
about one thing or another.

What happens here is that gradually we came to know each other's
strengths and weaknesses, who knew what, and who had a thin
skin and who didn't. As in most social groupings, we respected
each other and did not go out of the way to insult each other
when we disagreed.

There is no reason to think that a "cabal" or "ruling class"
exists here. Moreover, there is no evidence for one. And
we don't accuse each other of being involved in one or the
other of those things.

[jillery]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 18:36:23 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans
<gan...@panix.com> wrote:

>>> Why do you keep bringing up the word "political", then?
>
>>Read Theodore Roszak's words in the first reply to Dai Monie on this thread,
>>and be educated.
>
>Which means that you aren't going to answer the question at all.

Yeppers.

[jillery]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 13:18:21 -0700 (PDT), nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

>> Which means that you aren't going to answer the question at all.

That's an easy prediction.

>I don't cater to people who are either recognizably playing dumb,
>or are showing signs of senility, and that covers you very nicely.

Run away!

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/29/14 10:37 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 11:10:29 AM UTC-4, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 4/28/14 8:24 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
>>> I am one of the very rare people who will look at evidence when people
>>> are as disliked as I am by a sizable fraction of the people active in a
>>> politically charged newsgroup.
>
>> Why do you call this a "politically charged newsgroup"?
>
> I told you yesterday evening, on another thread, quoting what I
> told Dai Monie on this thread. Are you playing dumb?

I don't see how those words apply to the newsgroup as a whole, or even
to significant parts of it aside from your own influence.

>> There is the
>> obvious link with politics in that belief in creation vs. evolution
>> falls predominantly along political party lines in the U.S.,
>
> Wow, you really are using "political" in the narrow "partisan politics"
> sense.

Will you please learn how to read someday? Someone who knows how to
read would finish the paragraph, or at least the sentence, before flying
off the handle, because they know that people sometimes propose points
they themselves disagree with in order to shoot them down.

> Are YOU involved with a political party your local or state
> politics?

No. I have no interest in politics.

>> but I don't
>> think that is what you have in mind. And it is not about the power
>> dynamics, because the only person I have seen jockeying for power here
>> is you.
>
> Come off it! I am so isolated in this newsgroup -- much more than I ever
> was in talk.abortion except for a few months after the 1992 election --
> that I could not possibly be jockeying for power.

And yet you do, persistently and consistently.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Monday, April 28, 2014 6:27:25 PM UTC-4, Paul J Gans wrote:

> Earle Jones27 <earle...@comcast.net> wrote:

> >I have noticed that just about every thread in which Peter Nyikos gets
> >involved eventually degenerates into a pissing contest. It's all about
> >personalities and "She hit me first!"

> Not really. Much of it began for most folks by their simply
> commenting on something Nyikos wrote.

"simply commenting" covers everything under the sun, including
near-actionable libel, in Gans's lexicon.

> The response to such
> comments is at times very personal.

But almost never is to the innocent comments, which Gans probably wanted
everyone to believe "simply commenting" refers to, or at least to act
as though they believed that this is what it refers to.

I should add that Gans is almost completely incapable of making innocent
comments about me, but he is running one of his usual scams. Like Mark Isaak,
he wants people to believe that I treat everyone the way I treat
dedicated perpetrators of injustice like him.

> And so yes, then we are off and running.

It's anybody's guess what "we" refers to here in Gans's nefarious mind.

> But it is NOT a case of equal blame on each side. I give you
> the Harshman/Nyikos thread(s) where John tries mightily to
> keep to the subject

...except that the subject is often the demeaning virtual reality
that he wants to produce about me, with belittling remarks like,
"ah, the arrogance of the solipsist" and other pieces of pure flamebait.

And it is often the demeaning virtual reality he wants to produce about
Feduccia, or Meyer, painting the former as a mere crank and the latter
as deserving the horrible vilification that Prothero heaped upon him.

> and is horribly villified as a result.

Not as horribly as Harshman has vilified me, and even that is not nearly
as horribly as as Prothero has vilified Meyer, much to the approval
of Harshman.

On the other hand, when Harshman DOES stick to on-topic discussion of
the evidence for birds being [descended from] dinosaurs, I am very
respectful. But Gans, like jillery, is not the least bit interested
in bird ancestry and so this is completely uninteresting to him.

> >It is not educational; in fact, it is boring.
> It is that.

Taken out of context, the above applies beautifully to what I
was talking about just now.

> >I appreciate that Peter is an educated mathematician. Why does he get
> >himself into these juvenile arguments?

> You don't really want an answer to that, do you?

He would be very wise not to want one from you, that's for sure.

Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 14:59:19 -0700 (PDT), nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

>On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 5:16:43 PM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>
>> I don't do misrepresentations.
>
>Of course you do, liar.

Of course I don't, liar. Repeating your lies as TbBAs just makes that
hole you dug for yourself get even bigger.

> You misrepresent things you snip time and again.

You're the very last person to complain about misrepresenting via
snipping.

>I referred to some of it in the thread on bird ancestry, and you posted
>a bunch of Gans-style Dadaism that insults the intelligence of everyone who
>reads it:

You referred to a bunch of TbBAs, just like you do now.

>> Too often I do mistakes,
>> misunderstandings, confusions and errors.
>
>You do indeed. But you also post shameless misrepresentations.

Yet another of your TbBAs. It's as if you can't help yourself.

You have needlessly spewed your venomous SPAM across several topics.
Watch how easy it is to get rid of it:

<snip irrelevant SPAM from other topics>

You make it so easy.

[Roger Shrubber]

nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Monday, April 28, 2014 6:27:25 PM UTC-4, Paul J Gans wrote:
>> Earle Jones27 <earle...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>> I have noticed that just about every thread in which Peter Nyikos
>>> gets involved eventually degenerates into a pissing contest.
>>> It's all about personalities and "She hit me first!"
>
>> Not really. Much of it began for most folks by their simply
>> commenting on something Nyikos wrote.
>
> "simply commenting" covers everything under the sun, including
> near-actionable libel, in Gans's lexicon.
>
>> The response to such comments is at times very personal.
>
> But almost never is to the innocent comments, which Gans probably
> wanted everyone to believe "simply commenting" refers to, or at least
> to act as though they believed that this is what it refers to.
>
> I should add that Gans is almost completely incapable of making
> innocent comments about me, but he is running one of his usual scams.
> Like Mark Isaak, he wants people to believe that I treat everyone the
> way I treat dedicated perpetrators of injustice like him.

This one goes to 11
In fact, it seems to be stuck on 11.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 7:24:32 PM UTC-4, Paul J Gans wrote:
> jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 10:37:31 -0700 (PDT), nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

[restoration of text snipped by jillery:]

>>> Many other people, yourself included, have wielded power over me,
>>>e.g. by telling whoppers of a magnitude that you'd never tell about any
>>>member of the New Class--that is, everyone but Glenn and creationists
>>>and myself. You'd never get away with them.

[end of restoration]

> >>And that goes for Gans, Camp, Roberts, Shrubber, Guarino and
> >>jillery among those posting here.

> >>Jillery is the proverbial "exception that proves the rule,"
> >>because she has gotten into a lot of tiffs with other New Class members,
> >>and it would be a near-miracle if she never posted misrepresentations
> >>of any of them, but I doubt that she tells whoppers about them on anywhere
> >>near the scale that she tells them about me.

<statement by jillery, already dealt with, snipped>

> I note the "exception that proves the rule" statement above.

<snip irrelevant comment about what "many people" think>

> I read what Nyikos wrote above as referring to the situation
> in which the rule is that "New Class members" don't attack each
> other,

You read it that way thanks to Jillery's snip. Of course, with the
context now restored,
it becomes obvious that the general rule is that New Class members
don't attack each other using WHOPPERS OF A MAGNITUDE like those that
Isaak, to whom I was talking, and you, and Jillery, and Camp, and
Roberts tell about me.

Roberts in particular was given the royal red carpet treatment
by Isaak and others for telling an especially big whopper about me.

> but that Jillery's occasional tiffs with them constitute
> an exception that somehow "proves" the rule.

> As a result I asked Nyikos (in another post) if he understood
> the real meaning of "exception that proves the rule". I did this
> because most folks do not.

> He replied in the affirmative and correctly explained the rule
> as meaning the exception tests the rule. That's not quite all of it
> though. The phrase means that the exception TESTS the rule
> and the rule PASSES that test.

And the rule that I have CORRECTLY stated does pass it. Can you
think of anything by Jillery that *disproves* the rule?

I'm all ears.

<snip false statements made under a mistaken [AT BEST] reading by Gans>

>I would have pointed this out in your direct reply to me,
> except that you (Nyikos) deleted what you'd actually said about Jillery
> in that post.

What are you babbling about? Do you really think you can insert
text into direct replies that people are making to you?
And what post of mine could you possibly be referring to?

> My now senile mind could not
> recall the exact language used in the original post to
> which I responded.

More incoherent babbling. You really need to talk to a shrink, Paul.

> To avoid such things in the future, I humbly ask that you do
> NOT delete the actual subject matter of a post when responding
> to it.

Great advice for jillery. Too bad she won't take it, and too
bad you are ignorantly [AT BEST] giving it to me.

> And to all who have read down this far, I apologize for piggy-
> backing on Jillery's posting.

I'll accept that apology if you admit that it was jillery who
misled you.

Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 19:06:38 -0700 (PDT), nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

>On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 7:24:32 PM UTC-4, Paul J Gans wrote:
>> jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 10:37:31 -0700 (PDT), nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
>[restoration of text snipped by jillery:]
>>>> Many other people, yourself included, have wielded power over me,
>>>>e.g. by telling whoppers of a magnitude that you'd never tell about any
>>>>member of the New Class--that is, everyone but Glenn and creationists
>>>>and myself. You'd never get away with them.
>[end of restoration]
>
>> >>And that goes for Gans, Camp, Roberts, Shrubber, Guarino and
>> >>jillery among those posting here.
>
>> >>Jillery is the proverbial "exception that proves the rule,"
>> >>because she has gotten into a lot of tiffs with other New Class members,
>> >>and it would be a near-miracle if she never posted misrepresentations
>> >>of any of them, but I doubt that she tells whoppers about them on anywhere
>> >>near the scale that she tells them about me.
>
><statement by jillery, already dealt with, snipped>

Since you snip out everything I say that refutes what you say, then I
can refute what you say just as easily:

<snip "peter's" self-seving irrelevant SPAM>

[Mark Isaak]

On 4/29/14 7:06 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> [...]

> Roberts in particular was given the royal red carpet treatment
> by Isaak and others for telling an especially big whopper about me.

That's it, Peter. I am sick of your hateful, evil calumny. I have
never "told a whopper" about you. I have said true things which,
*because* they are true, you do not like and do not want to acknowledge
the truth of. I have occasionally used exaggeration, but always in a
context where it should be obvious (though admittedly, not necessarily
to people like you who have demonstrated inabilities with reading
comprehension). Almost always, I have done so only at the provocation
of your own immoral claims directed at me or someone else.

If you don't like people saying bad things about you, then stop being
such a horrible person.

[jillery]

Yes, I remain bemused at your reaction to my audacious suggestion that
"The Lion in Winter" contained legitimate history.

>There is no reason to think that a "cabal" or "ruling class"
>exists here. Moreover, there is no evidence for one. And
>we don't accuse each other of being involved in one or the
>other of those things.

There is a tendency within all groups for individuals in the group to
participate in a kind of feeding frenzy, or mob mentality. T.O. is no
exception. Having been the target of it on multiple occasions, I
understand how someone might interpret that behavior as an organized
response.

[Paul J Gans]

Jillery did not mislead me. My respose was to a posting of YOURS
and you know it.

If you expect to discuss something, please do not delete material
from what I posted, especially on the grounds that YOU think it
not important. And don't drag in extraneous material.

I wrote about the saying "the exception proves the rule". Heaven
alone knows what you are writing about.