WHY I KEEP POSTING TO TALK.ORIGINS

[nyik...@gmail.com]

The post reproduced in full below was done in sci.bio.paleontology earlier
this year when Beagle, the t.o. server, was down for several days. It was
in reply to a one-liner by Erik Simpson, and the two posts give two very different opinions of talk.origins. My side of it gives the main reasons why I keep posting here.

The reasons combine to show how unique a forum talk.origins is, and why
I think it is well worth preserving.

___________________________________ included post ______________________

On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 6:31:44 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 2:23:09 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > No posts have come in on talk.origins since 1:30 today [EDT, according to which
> > it is 5:15 as I type this].
> >
> > These downtimes are of unpredictable length, but some can drag on for a week.
> > So we may need to turn sci.bio.paleonotology into a sort of "talk.origins-in-exile"
> > for the interim.
> >
> > This includes being hospitable enough to go along with topics involving
> > creationism, despite what the s.b.p charter might say. This has been the
> > case with these t.o. downtimes in the past, and now we even have the
> > unprecedented lockdown measures against the coronavirus to reassure ourselves
> > that we aren't doing anything really out of line.
> >
> >
> > Peter Nyikos
>
> The world can probably limp along without TO almost indefinitly.

That's one big difference between you and me. For all its shortcomings,
TO is the only forum I know of where there are so many people of intelligence,
with expertise in many areas, who are free, willing, and able to discuss things
on just about any subject under the sun with others, without being ostracized
for having opinions that are very much at variance with that of the majority.

I know very well that some of us have to put up with a tremendous amount
of unfair, unjustified verbal abuse and even libel without hope of anyone
else standing up for us. But as long as we can fearlessly set the record
straight, without our corrections being censored, it is worth the trouble,
because even the worst of our abusers can sometimes provide us with new
understanding of subjects in which we are keenly interested.

Of course, the most relevant ("on topic") of these are: biology, cosmology,
planetary science, and geology. But it's quite gratifying to see that
much valuable information on such sundry matters as religion, history, climatology,
and even literature can sometimes be exchanged in t.o.

Perhaps most important of all, every regular participant who isn't a full time troll
can benefit from exposure to opposing viewpoints, so that at least they aren't in
total ignorance of what people very different from themselves are like.

And so, I think TO is still a most valuable and unique asset which is
well worth preserving even if it takes great sacrifices to make it work.


I do fear, though, that all too many regular participants are like you:
thinking that if TO were to go the way of so many other Usenet newsgroups,
gone altogether or becoming complete wastelands, it would be no big deal.


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

===================== end of post archived
at
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/WkIJNSOZTqk/m/twQNmU_oAAAJ
Subject: talk.origins server down again
May 21, 2020, 10:36:14 PM

[nyik...@gmail.com]

No response so far, not even from the people who rant and rave at me for posting
my position and place of work in virtual .sigs like the one that appears above.

This should spice things up a bit. It is a copy of my personal Bio to OEN Daily,
a forum managed by the ultra-progressive Rob Kall.
It is a rough-and-tumble forum politically, yet the people
of widely divergent viewpoints there seem to be quite civil to each other,
on the whole -- the opposite of my experience in talk.origins. The people who
make me see "the opposite" come in for criticism at the end.

_________________________ Bio ___________________________________

I am a Professor in the Department of Mathematics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208.

I come from humble beginnings. I was born a child of Hungarian WWII refugees, who fled because my father was active in both the anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet movements. He barely escaped the firing squad for his anti-Nazi activities, and didn't want to take his chance with the Soviets and their stooges like Rakosi.

When we finally got to the USA I was three years old, and distinctly remember our first living quarters: an abandoned one-room schoolhouse in rural Illinois, no running water, an outhouse, a wood-burning stove for the kitchen, mouse-infested and fly-infested. My father was essentially a slave to a stingy farmer who never paid him, except "in kind": he bought our groceries, and we hardly had any say in what they were.

It was a long struggle out of poverty, but I was an avid learner in school, and once I graduated from college, I was self-sufficient and even helped my father get out of debt.

I have had this job since 1979, and have over a hundred peer-reviewed reseach papers, over half of them solo and some in world-class journals.

I have debated and discussed a huge range of issues intensely on the internet in 1992-2001 and again from late 2008 to the present, and am often isolated because I have no truck with dishonesty or hypocrisy no matter who is guilty of these things.

This is especially noticeable on forums that argue evolution. I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for it. Some are honest and I treat them with respect, but I come down hard on the dishonest ones.

In spite of this, I have numerous opponents among the anti-creationists who are openly dishonest, many because they cannot argue for evolution like I can, and I keep correcting their misrepresentations of creationists. I want creationism defeated fair and square, they want it defeated by hook or crook.

______________========================== end of Bio ==================

I was thinking about saying something about ID -- IF it is to be defeated, I want
it defeated fair and square -- but I the propaganda of ID being
just another form of creationism has pervaded the media and printed matter
and conversations so extensively that it would have been a distraction from the message of the last paragraph.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
> it.

Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO instead of
all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?

Just a thought.

[nyik...@gmail.com]

On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> > I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
> > since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
> > life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
> > it.
> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO

Misleading pejorative words "Why not start" noted.

> instead of
> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
>
> Just a thought.

So you think both of the posts I have done to this thread are self-serving and off-topic screeds?

Is that because you know how devastating the following excerpt from my OP is to a self-
serving, off topic screed that your sidekick Erik Simpson posted at a later downtime of t.o.
to sci.bio.paleontology?

_____________top few lines of the copy of May post in my OP _____________________

On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 6:31:44 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 2:23:09 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > No posts have come in on talk.origins since 1:30 today [EDT, according to which
> > it is 5:15 as I type this].
> >
> > These downtimes are of unpredictable length, but some can drag on for a week.
> > So we may need to turn sci.bio.paleonotology into a sort of "talk.origins-in-exile"
> > for the interim.
> >
> > This includes being hospitable enough to go along with topics involving
> > creationism, despite what the s.b.p charter might say. This has been the
> > case with these t.o. downtimes in the past, and now we even have the
> > unprecedented lockdown measures against the coronavirus to reassure ourselves
> > that we aren't doing anything really out of line.
> >
> >
> > Peter Nyikos
>
> The world can probably limp along without TO almost indefinitly.

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

NOTE TO OTHER READERS: like the case of the dog that did not bark in the night,
it is what Erik did NOT write in reply, except for the one line, that is crucial here.

The other crucial event is all the loud barking Erik did in the post referenced below,
after I posted about "hospitality" with almost exactly the same words that I used
in that May post:

https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/kJ195hqnEk4/m/VV6ls-MeBgAJ
Subject: An appeal to those who value SBP
Oct 25, 2020, 1:11:47 AM

The pivotal difference between the two downtimes when these posts took place
is ONE "refugee" from t.o. in the October downtime who had not shown up in the May downtime: Glenn.
And the "appeal to those who value SBP" really is a highly coded appeal to ignore Glenn.

A naive person who takes all these facts in might think that Glenn is potentially
so destructive to SBP that this appeal is essential to saving that newsgroup.
But such people clearly have no idea what makes Erik Simpson or John Harshman tick.


Peter Nyikos

[Bill]

I too have had an interest in humanity since childhood, read lots of books
and found no satisfaction. Alas, the tidy hypotheses that try so hard to
establish the various theories about human life make no sense. I had no
interest in Creationism (it didn't exist then) but the naturalistic
explanations didn't persuade me either. I knew nothing and realized that no
one else did either and I accept it all as a mystery. No harm done, my ego
doesn't require omniscience.

The theory of evolution is believed by many to be a fact and that seems to
be its greatest strength. But popularity really isn't enough, we need to
think about it and admit the possibility that we just don't know. Our
favorite authorities will never concede their ignorance of course, too much
has been invested by too many. Yet another brick in the wall ...


Bill

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 6:20:30 PM UTC-5, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> > On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:

...

> So you think both of the posts I have done to this thread are self-serving and off-topic screeds?

Yes, and you are the master of conclusory allegation. John merely asked a
question, while you consistently assert answers, though at least this time
the answers you assert are correct. Serving yourself is your primary purpose.

[erik simpson]

Hey, I liked the bit where he ripped me up for what I didn't say. He even admits I didn't say it,
but it was dastardly of me anyway. If I knew what he wanted (or didn't want) me to say, I might
say something about it, but I have no clue. It seems to have something to do with Glenn (?).

[Lawyer Daggett]

Furthermore, you didn't say it when he thought you should say it, where he imagined
you thought it, and in a manner he projected you would have said it other than because
you were conspiring with others to make him look paranoid.

Meanwhile, I'm being "hateful" by exposing his ignorant lies about vaccines. I guess
I should be loving about somebody who spews ignorant fear based nonsense to
make people fear vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 via their lack of biological knowledge.

[John Harshman]

On 12/4/20 3:16 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
>>> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
>>> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
>>> it.
>> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
>> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO
>
> Misleading pejorative words "Why not start" noted.
>
>> instead of
>> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
>>
>> Just a thought.
>
> So you think both of the posts I have done to this thread are self-serving and off-topic screeds?

I think that's clear to everyone.

> Is that because you know how devastating the following excerpt from my OP is to a self-
> serving, off topic screed that your sidekick Erik Simpson posted at a later downtime of t.o.
> to sci.bio.paleontology?

No. But isn't that whataboutism?

[nyik...@gmail.com]

On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 7:25:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 12/4/20 3:16 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
> >>> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
> >>> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
> >>> it.
> >> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
> >> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO
> >
> > Misleading pejorative words "Why not start" noted.

As is typical of you, you breezed past the preceding sentence as if it
did not exist.

> >> instead of
> >> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
> >>
> >> Just a thought.
> >
> > So you think both of the posts I have done to this thread are self-serving and off-topic screeds?

> I think that's clear to everyone.

You claim to think many things which only a person with serious mental problems
would REALLY think.

But this one tops them all: you are claiming to think that "everyone" is capable of reading your mind as to your answer to my question.

Let me try *my* hand at this: you are going to say that I am taking what you said
way too literally.

Oh, wait: if you said that, you would be undemining their ability to read *literally* what set
off my question, and perhaps that might make them have second thoughts about
what you really thought about my FIRST post.

Note, I wrote "both of my posts." You, of course, give no hint even NOW of why you
think the OP was self-serving and off-topic, if indeed you think that at all.

> > Is that because you know how devastating the following excerpt from my OP is to a self-
> > serving, off topic screed that your sidekick Erik Simpson posted at a later downtime of t.o.
> > to sci.bio.paleontology?

> No.

Are you denying that it is devastasting to Erik? or only letting us know that you haven't
given the matter any thought?

> But isn't that whataboutism?

The word "whataboutism" is an invention that gladdens the hearts of hypocrites
with blatant double standards, inasmuch as it has the effect of tending to
turn this vice into a virtue.


By the way, am I correct in thinking that you didn't give what I wrote below
a moment's thought?

It will be interesting to see whether you have anything to say about the
short paragraph I posted after it this time around.

Apropos of that last word "tick": with a decade -- almost to the day! -- of direct observation
of Harshman's behavior under my belt, both here and on s.b.p.,
I believe I know what makes him tick far better than anyone who merely observes
our exchanges passively, and this accounts for the unique way I've worded
my replies to his evasive tactics above.


Peter Nyikos

[nyik...@gmail.com]

On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:

There are so many things wrong with the above comments of yours, John, that
one could match them with the sides of a die, and tackle them in turn
as they come up on the next roll.

My first reply was to one of the sides of my virtual die. Before saying
goodbye until Monday (as is usual, I avoid posting on weekends except
under exraordinary circumstances), I give the result of another virtual roll.

You should really look in the mirror when you write things like that three-llner
of yours. All the time I argued with Kleinman on his "reptilefeatherian"
nonsense with solid evolutionary/paleontological/genetic reasoning and
watched him squirm, I don't recall you EVER trying to argue with him on-topic.
You did your share in exposing his pretentiousness once, but that was by
discovering how "vanity press" the journal was in which he published
his most recent paper.


And by the way, I DID write on-topic about an on-topic topic in the following post, just two
days ago, with lots of evolutionary and paleontological insight:

https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/VoMGxziUpKY/m/Gw-LhI4NBwAJ
Re: Popular Mechanics: I.D. is 100% ACCURATE!
Dec 2, 2020, 9:55:28 PM

When was the last time YOU did that kind of post to t.o.?

I don't see you active anywhere on the thread where I did the linked post.


Peter Nyikos

[Robert Camp]

On 12/4/20 5:49 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 7:25:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 12/4/20 3:16 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:

<snip ephemera>

> Apropos of that last word "tick": with a decade -- almost to the day! -- of direct observation
> of Harshman's behavior under my belt, both here and on s.b.p.,
> I believe I know what makes him tick far better than anyone who merely observes
> our exchanges passively, and this accounts for the unique way I've worded
> my replies to his evasive tactics above.

You don't know what makes anyone tick. You can't because you are
incapable of reading people. It's harder online, obviously, but even
here there are obvious social cues and references - and you nearly
always miss them. You inevitably fail at interpreting humor, innocent
asides and personal motives. Maybe you're just bad at it in this
context, or maybe it's a clinical problem.

As with so many times before, I urge you to seek professional help.


(And for heaven's sake stop accusing others of having "serious mental
problems." Everyone recognizes that for the desperate projection that it
is. That kind of thing doesn't distract from your instabilities, it
sharpens the focus on them.)

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2020-12-04 23:21:10 +0000, Bill said:

> John Harshman wrote:
>
>> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
>>> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
>>> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
>>> it.
>>
>> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
>> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO instead of
>> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
>>
>> Just a thought.
>
> I too have had an interest in humanity since childhood, read lots of books
> and found no satisfaction. Alas, the tidy hypotheses that try so hard to
> establish the various theories about human life make no sense. I had no
> interest in Creationism (it didn't exist then

You must be incredibly old if you had never come across Henry M. Morris.

> ) but the naturalistic
> explanations didn't persuade me either. I knew nothing

So not much has changed?

> and realized that no
> one else did either and I accept it all as a mystery. No harm done, my ego
> doesn't require omniscience.
>
> The theory of evolution is believed by many to be a fact and that seems to
> be its greatest strength. But popularity really isn't enough,

Nobody said it was. Popularity is irrelevant. The reason why
intelligent knowledgeable people accept evolution as a fact is that the
evidence is overwhelming.

> we need to
> think about it

Something you should doing.

> and admit the possibility that we just don't know. Our
> favorite authorities will never concede their ignorance of course, too much
> has been invested by too many. Yet another brick in the wall ...

--
Athel -- British, living in France for 34 years

[Oxyaena]

On 12/4/2020 6:16 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
>>> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
>>> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
>>> it.
>> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
>> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO
>
> Misleading pejorative words "Why not start" noted.

Misleading description of words as "pejorative" noted.

>
>> instead of
>> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
>>
>> Just a thought.
>
> So you think both of the posts I have done to this thread are self-serving and off-topic screeds?

Yes.

[snip idiocy]

[RonO]

On 12/5/2020 2:01 AM, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2020-12-04 23:21:10 +0000, Bill said:
>
>> John Harshman wrote:
>>
>>> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
>>>> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
>>>> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
>>>> it.
>>>
>>> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
>>> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO instead of
>>> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
>>>
>>> Just a thought.
>>
>> I too have had an interest in humanity since childhood, read lots of
>> books
>> and found no satisfaction. Alas, the tidy hypotheses that try so hard to
>> establish the various theories about human life make no sense. I had no
>> interest in Creationism (it didn't exist then
>
> You must be incredibly old if you had never come across Henry M. Morris.

This probably just reflects how willfully ignorant or the kind of liars
that are among the anti evolution crowd. Scientific Creationism didn't
fall out as the main anti evolution effort on TO until around the Dover
Fiasco. Before around 2005 IDiocy wasn't the main bogus creationist
stupidity on TO. Since around 2010 only losers like Alpha Beta bring up
the old creationist claptrap. The rest of the anti-evolution
creationists had adopted IDiocy as if it were something better than how
lost they had been before. Glenn likely didn't become an IDiot until
around 2004. Before that, Glenn was a pretty straightforward plain
vanilla anti evolution creationist.

Really, even though anti evolution creationism was found to be a lost
cause back in 1987 the scientific creationist claptrap remained the main
source of bogus junk put up by the anti evolution creationists until
after the turn of the century. Of Pandas and People would be put up in
the 1990s on TO but not as an intelligent design book, but in order to
support the scientific creationist claptrap. I started reading TO back
in 1993 and Of Pandas and People and Denton's bogus book Theory in
Crisis would be put up, but intelligent design would not be mentioned.
IDiocy didn't really start until the Discovery Institute's ID scam unit
was formed in 1995, and it took them around a decade to convince the
anti evolution creationist losers that had gone with scientific
creationism that, that was a lost cause, and that they should join the
ID creationist scam, that turned out to be no better. The ID Perp Top
Six were all used by the scientific creationists before they lost in the
Supreme court in 1987, and scientific creationism was found to be no
science worth calling science. Really, the flagellum as a designed
machine was one of the favorite debate bits of stupidity of the
scientific creationists. They just didn't call it IC, and gaps in the
fossil record was another mainstay of the creationist denial. Fine
tuning, the origin of life, and the Big Bang were all used as denial
arguments by the scientific creationists.

Ron Okimoto

[mohammad...@gmail.com]

When you see evolutionists en masse denying people make choices, then it should be well clear to everyone who the liars are.

Nor could it be any other way that evolutionists would end up denying that people make choices, because once you accept choice is real anywhere in the universe, as a matter of physics, then the only logical conclusion can be that organisms were intelligently designed.

If freedom would be real, then obviously decisionmaking could surmount the mathematical improbabilities of obtaining a viable organism. Which is why everyone who accepts choice is real, also supports some form of intelligent design theory.

Only by pretending that choice is a cultural fantasy of people, and not a physical reality, can people believe evolution is true.

Evolution scientists are total liars. They lie about anything. They lie about the history of the holocaust, they lie that people's character can be established what it is, as scientific fact, they'll lie about anything and everything.

It's because conscience does not function well, when choice is regarded as a cultural fantasy.

That total crook Jillery asserts that in some quantum thought experiment, the explosion does not destroy the photon. Eventhough the article on the experiment says 5 different times that the explosion destroys the photon.

So you know, ridiculous arbitrary lying, about anything.

Another total crook, Harry Krishna, he defines the verb "choose" , as selecting from alternatives. Then he defines the verb select, as choosing from alternatives. That is very obviously, an error of circular logic. Yet he just continues to insist that is correct.

Mark Isaak, he lies that the nazi's in general rejected Darwinism, while in truth the Hitler Youth were taught natural selection and evolution in explicit reference to Charles Darwin.

Evolutionists are total liars, one and all, without any exception. It cannot be any other way. You cannot dump on the idea of making a choice, and then still have a functioning conscience.



Op zaterdag 5 december 2020 om 13:05:28 UTC+1 schreef Ron O:

[John Harshman]

On 12/4/20 5:49 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 7:25:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 12/4/20 3:16 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
>>>>> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
>>>>> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
>>>>> it.
>>>> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
>>>> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO
>>>
>>> Misleading pejorative words "Why not start" noted.
>
> As is typical of you, you breezed past the preceding sentence as if it
> did not exist.

As is only proper.

>>>> instead of
>>>> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
>>>>
>>>> Just a thought.
>>>
>>> So you think both of the posts I have done to this thread are self-serving and off-topic screeds?
>
>> I think that's clear to everyone.
>
> You claim to think many things which only a person with serious mental problems
> would REALLY think.
>
> But this one tops them all: you are claiming to think that "everyone" is capable of reading your mind as to your answer to my question.

You misunderstand. What's clear to everyone isn't what I think but that
your posts are self-serving, off-topic screeds. And by "off-topic" I
refer to the topic proper to talk.origins, not the topic of your OP.

> Let me try *my* hand at this: you are going to say that I am taking what you said
> way too literally.
>
> Oh, wait: if you said that, you would be undemining their ability to read *literally* what set
> off my question, and perhaps that might make them have second thoughts about
> what you really thought about my FIRST post.
>
> Note, I wrote "both of my posts." You, of course, give no hint even NOW of why you
> think the OP was self-serving and off-topic, if indeed you think that at all.
>
>
>
>>> Is that because you know how devastating the following excerpt from my OP is to a self-
>>> serving, off topic screed that your sidekick Erik Simpson posted at a later downtime of t.o.
>>> to sci.bio.paleontology?
>
>> No.
>
> Are you denying that it is devastasting to Erik? or only letting us know that you haven't
> given the matter any thought?

I haven't read the excerpt, but it's bound to be something only you
would consider devastating, based on past experience.

>> But isn't that whataboutism?
>
> The word "whataboutism" is an invention that gladdens the hearts of hypocrites
> with blatant double standards, inasmuch as it has the effect of tending to
> turn this vice into a virtue.

No, it's a recognition that "what about that?" isn't a valid reason to
ignore "this".

> By the way, am I correct in thinking that you didn't give what I wrote below
> a moment's thought?

Yes. I didn't even read it.

I suspect that your belief is incorrect.

[John Harshman]

On 12/4/20 7:21 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
>>> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
>>> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
>>> it.
>> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
>> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO instead of
>> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
>
> There are so many things wrong with the above comments of yours, John, that
> one could match them with the sides of a die, and tackle them in turn
> as they come up on the next roll.
>
> My first reply was to one of the sides of my virtual die. Before saying
> goodbye until Monday (as is usual, I avoid posting on weekends except
> under exraordinary circumstances), I give the result of another virtual roll.
>
> You should really look in the mirror when you write things like that three-llner
> of yours. All the time I argued with Kleinman on his "reptilefeatherian"
> nonsense with solid evolutionary/paleontological/genetic reasoning and
> watched him squirm, I don't recall you EVER trying to argue with him on-topic.

The squirming was all in your imagination. I tried arguing with Dr.Dr.
long before you showed up and realized its futility long before you
showed up.

> You did your share in exposing his pretentiousness once, but that was by
> discovering how "vanity press" the journal was in which he published
> his most recent paper.

So?

> And by the way, I DID write on-topic about an on-topic topic in the following post, just two
> days ago, with lots of evolutionary and paleontological insight:

Congratulations. If you would just increase the signal to noise ratio,
things would be better.

> https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/VoMGxziUpKY/m/Gw-LhI4NBwAJ
> Re: Popular Mechanics: I.D. is 100% ACCURATE!
> Dec 2, 2020, 9:55:28 PM
>
> When was the last time YOU did that kind of post to t.o.?

Dunno. I don't keep score.

> I don't see you active anywhere on the thread where I did the linked post.

It's also pointless engaging with JTEM. There are a number of trolls
best left unfed. And in fact there isn't much going on here these days
that warrants any sort of response.

[RonO]

On 12/5/2020 6:36 AM, mohammad...@gmail.com wrote:
> When you see evolutionists en masse denying people make choices, then it should be well clear to everyone who the liars are.
>
> Nor could it be any other way that evolutionists would end up denying that people make choices, because once you accept choice is real anywhere in the universe, as a matter of physics, then the only logical conclusion can be that organisms were intelligently designed.
>
> If freedom would be real, then obviously decisionmaking could surmount the mathematical improbabilities of obtaining a viable organism. Which is why everyone who accepts choice is real, also supports some form of intelligent design theory.
>
> Only by pretending that choice is a cultural fantasy of people, and not a physical reality, can people believe evolution is true.
>
> Evolution scientists are total liars. They lie about anything. They lie about the history of the holocaust, they lie that people's character can be established what it is, as scientific fact, they'll lie about anything and everything.
>
> It's because conscience does not function well, when choice is regarded as a cultural fantasy.
>
> That total crook Jillery asserts that in some quantum thought experiment, the explosion does not destroy the photon. Eventhough the article on the experiment says 5 different times that the explosion destroys the photon.
>
> So you know, ridiculous arbitrary lying, about anything.
>
> Another total crook, Harry Krishna, he defines the verb "choose" , as selecting from alternatives. Then he defines the verb select, as choosing from alternatives. That is very obviously, an error of circular logic. Yet he just continues to insist that is correct.
>
> Mark Isaak, he lies that the nazi's in general rejected Darwinism, while in truth the Hitler Youth were taught natural selection and evolution in explicit reference to Charles Darwin.
>
> Evolutionists are total liars, one and all, without any exception. It cannot be any other way. You cannot dump on the idea of making a choice, and then still have a functioning conscience.

Sort of apparent why all the other IDiots are cringing having Nando
support their cause. We know who has been lying for decades. Nando
knows who has been lying for decades when they have claimed that they
have a scientific theory of IDiocy that can be taught in the public
schools for decades. Nando knows that such a scientific theory does not
exist. He just can't accept that reality, and thinks that there is a
chance that such a scientific theory may one day be produced. One day
producing it, isn't the same as lying about teaching something that
doesn't exist.

Ron Okimoto

[Bill]

Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

> On 2020-12-04 23:21:10 +0000, Bill said:
>
>> John Harshman wrote:
>>
>>> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
>>>> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
>>>> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
>>>> it.
>>>
>>> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
>>> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO instead of
>>> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
>>>
>>> Just a thought.
>>
>> I too have had an interest in humanity since childhood, read lots of
>> books and found no satisfaction. Alas, the tidy hypotheses that try so
>> hard to establish the various theories about human life make no sense. I
>> had no interest in Creationism (it didn't exist then
>
> You must be incredibly old if you had never come across Henry M. Morris.

I read Henry Morris in the 60s so, yes, I am really old. My first problem
was that Creationism is a religious doctrine.

>
>> ) but the naturalistic
>> explanations didn't persuade me either. I knew nothing
>
> So not much has changed?
>
>> and realized that no
>> one else did either and I accept it all as a mystery. No harm done, my
>> ego doesn't require omniscience.
>>
>> The theory of evolution is believed by many to be a fact and that seems
>> to be its greatest strength. But popularity really isn't enough,
>
> Nobody said it was. Popularity is irrelevant. The reason why
> intelligent knowledgeable people accept evolution as a fact is that the
> evidence is overwhelming.

It's the fact that the ToE is accepted by so many intelligent knowledgeable
people may not be useful. We know that the ToE has been taught as fact for
decades, the theory is promoted in every educational setting. If you achieve
success in academia, you will have acquired the standard view of the
standard model of the ToE; it's all you've been taught. You are unlikely to
consider alternatives likely, maybe impossible, probably absurd.

Bill

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Nonsense. If you come up with a coherent thought-out argument for
intelligent design it will be considered seriously. But you won't.

>>
>>> we need to
>>> think about it
>>
>> Something you should doing.
>>
>>> and admit the possibility that we just don't know. Our
>>> favorite authorities will never concede their ignorance of course, too
>>> much has been invested by too many. Yet another brick in the wall ...

[jillery]

On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 07:27:54 -0800, John Harshman
<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

>> You should really look in the mirror when you write things like that three-llner
>> of yours. All the time I argued with Kleinman on his "reptilefeatherian"
>> nonsense with solid evolutionary/paleontological/genetic reasoning and
>> watched him squirm, I don't recall you EVER trying to argue with him on-topic.
>
>The squirming was all in your imagination. I tried arguing with Dr.Dr.
>long before you showed up and realized its futility long before you
>showed up.

Not to dispute your contributions arguing with drdr, but I must point
out that *lots* of posters argued with him before nyikos the peter
showed up.

Also, only nyikos the peter used his appearances at least as much to
mindlessly criticize those other posters as to argue with drdr.

Finally, I point out that even if nyikos the peter managed *a* solidly
on-topic and spam-free post, which to the best of my knowledge doesn't
exist, that would not instantly redeem his years of spamming
ejaculated spew and Big Lies.

--
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.

[erik simpson]

But it would be a step inthe right direction.

[Oxyaena]

On 12/4/2020 3:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> No response so far, not even from the people who rant and rave at me for posting
> my position and place of work in virtual .sigs like the one that appears above.

Yeah, keep bitching because no one is feeding your trolling. No one here
is interested in your off-topic, self-serving screeds.

[Oxyaena]

Shit remember when he accused us of libeling him for pointed out he
technically libeled me when he accused me of saying something about
Alfred Wegener that I didn't? It pissed him off so much that he wouldn't
talk to us for a whole year.

[Mark Isaak]

On 12/4/20 5:49 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 7:25:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 12/4/20 3:16 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
>>>>> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
>>>>> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
>>>>> it.
>>>> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
>>>> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO
>>>
>>> Misleading pejorative words "Why not start" noted.
>
> As is typical of you, you breezed past the preceding sentence as if it
> did not exist.
>
>
>>>> instead of
>>>> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
>>>>
>>>> Just a thought.
>>>
>>> So you think both of the posts I have done to this thread are self-serving and off-topic screeds?
>
>> I think that's clear to everyone.
>
> You claim to think many things which only a person with serious mental problems
> would REALLY think.
>
> But this one tops them all: you are claiming to think that "everyone" is capable of reading your mind as to your answer to my question.

What John said has nothing to do with mind reading; it has to do with
reading. It really *is* clear that your posts are self-serving and
off-topic. The "everyone" was a slight exaggeration, since the set of
people it is clear to does not include you. But add the implied
"almost" before it and "who has read them" after, and John's statement
becomes a simple, straightforward truth.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"If one day, my words are against science, choose science."
- Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

[John Harshman]

On 12/5/20 9:51 AM, jillery wrote:
> On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 07:27:54 -0800, John Harshman
> <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>>> You should really look in the mirror when you write things like that three-llner
>>> of yours. All the time I argued with Kleinman on his "reptilefeatherian"
>>> nonsense with solid evolutionary/paleontological/genetic reasoning and
>>> watched him squirm, I don't recall you EVER trying to argue with him on-topic.
>>
>> The squirming was all in your imagination. I tried arguing with Dr.Dr.
>> long before you showed up and realized its futility long before you
>> showed up.
>
>
> Not to dispute your contributions arguing with drdr, but I must point
> out that *lots* of posters argued with him before nyikos the peter
> showed up.

Of course. But I'm the one Peter was talking about.

> Also, only nyikos the peter used his appearances at least as much to
> mindlessly criticize those other posters as to argue with drdr.

True.

> Finally, I point out that even if nyikos the peter managed *a* solidly
> on-topic and spam-free post, which to the best of my knowledge doesn't
> exist, that would not instantly redeem his years of spamming
> ejaculated spew and Big Lies.

Still, it would be an improvement.

[erik simpson]

Indeed. It was the basis for his "boycott". I would be a better person if I felt more
sympathy, but I just can't. Anyway, it's no pain simply not to engage with him.

[erik simpson]

After a while, I stopped reading Drdr's "contributions", but it's my impression that neither
Peter nor anybody else made a dent in his armor. He's a hardened crank, and stuck to
his mantras with perfect fidelity. I don't know why DIG lowered the hammer on him, but
Peter seems to be the only one upset about it.

[jillery]

On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 10:26:43 -0800 (PST), erik simpson
<eastsi...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 9:55:28 AM UTC-8, jillery wrote:
>> On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 07:27:54 -0800, John Harshman
>> <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>
>> >> You should really look in the mirror when you write things like that three-llner
>> >> of yours. All the time I argued with Kleinman on his "reptilefeatherian"
>> >> nonsense with solid evolutionary/paleontological/genetic reasoning and
>> >> watched him squirm, I don't recall you EVER trying to argue with him on-topic.
>> >
>> >The squirming was all in your imagination. I tried arguing with Dr.Dr.
>> >long before you showed up and realized its futility long before you
>> >showed up.
>> Not to dispute your contributions arguing with drdr, but I must point
>> out that *lots* of posters argued with him before nyikos the peter
>> showed up.
>>
>> Also, only nyikos the peter used his appearances at least as much to
>> mindlessly criticize those other posters as to argue with drdr.
>>
>> Finally, I point out that even if nyikos the peter managed *a* solidly
>> on-topic and spam-free post, which to the best of my knowledge doesn't
>> exist, that would not instantly redeem his years of spamming
>> ejaculated spew and Big Lies.
>

>But it would be a step inthe right direction.

Even a math professor from USC should know a single datum does not a
trend make.

[erik simpson]

But Grasshopper, every journey begins with a single step.

[*Hemidactylus*]

But this one was unfortunately aborted in utero. A faint heartbeat was and
nervous activity was detected. Time for suction to remove the carcass of
lost hope.

[jillery]

On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 16:55:17 -0800 (PST), erik simpson

>But Grasshopper, every journey begins with a single step.

Even a Shaolin priest, even one claiming there was a first step,
should wait for another step before assuming a trend.

[Mark Isaak]

On 12/5/20 4:55 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 3:55:28 PM UTC-8, jillery wrote:
>> On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 10:26:43 -0800 (PST), erik simpson
>> <eastsi...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> [...]

>>> But it would be a step inthe right direction.
>> Even a math professor from USC should know a single datum does not a
>> trend make.
>

> But Grasshopper, every journey begins with a single step.

Not for grasshoppers.

(Apologies for the nitpick. I just wanted to make sure others
appreciated the finely mixed metaphor. I that bothers you, go take a
flying leap.)

[nyik...@gmail.com]

On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 11:15:28 PM UTC-5, Robert Camp wrote:
> On 12/4/20 5:49 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 7:25:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 12/4/20 3:16 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> <snip ephemera>
> > Apropos of that last word "tick": with a decade -- almost to the day! -- of direct observation
> > of Harshman's behavior under my belt, both here and on s.b.p.,

> > I believe I know what makes him tick far better than anyone who merely observes
> > our exchanges passively, and this accounts for the unique way I've worded
> > my replies to his evasive tactics above.


> You don't know what makes anyone tick.

What I meant was that I have a far better idea of what makes him tick
here in talk.origins than anyone who merely observes... [continue as above]

> You can't because you are
> incapable of reading people.

You are far less capable of reading him online to the extent that I can.
You fell flat on your face a number of years ago when you imagined you could read Harshman's
perennial net.sidekick Erik Simpson better than I could. Your post
was such a fiasco that even the combined efforts of Mark Isaak
and Hemidactyus were inadequate to pull you and Erik out of the
hole into which you had dug yourselves.

Do you really need documentation of the above? I can provide it, but then
the natural sequel will be a bunch of people like Erik and Mark and Hemidactylus
beating on me for what a nasty piece of work I am, to be beating on an
innocent, defenseless person like yourself.

>It's harder online, obviously, but even
> here there are obvious social cues and references - and you nearly
> always miss them.

You seem to have learned from your experience of that fiasco
never to give specific examples of such alleged behavior,
lest you fall flat on your face again.

> You inevitably fail at interpreting humor, innocent
> asides and personal motives. Maybe you're just bad at it in this
> context, or maybe it's a clinical problem.

Says someone who is so naive about the status of
mental telepathy that he thinks that the 70, 000 witnesses of
the "dance of the sun" at Fatima, Portugal on October 13, 1917
were victims of a mass hallucination.

The soberly scietific explanation I gave, namely that the crowd was
witnessing a sundog of rare quality [1], was too mundane, or whatever, for you,
and you stuck to your pseudoscientific guns.

>
> As with so many times before, I urge you to seek professional help.

As with so many times before, you are projecting your mental shakiness
onto me.


[1] Rarity is no impediment: have you read how rare the close conjunction
of Jupiter and Saturn will be shortly after sundown on the 21st?
The closest observable one since March 4, 1226, according to reliable sources.

>
> (And for heaven's sake stop accusing others of having "serious mental
> problems."

You think Ron Okimoto doesn't have them? You sure are naive.

Since you didn't have the guts to name any of the "others" [2],
I picked the crybaby who couldn't stand the heat of the Kleinman kitchen,
and started a whole thread entreating DIG to ban him.

Do you have a clue as to why DIG was so accommodating as to do just that?

[2] If you think what I wrote above to Harshman is an example,
then YOU have serious mental issues.

> Everyone recognizes that for the desperate projection that it
> is. That kind of thing doesn't distract from your instabilities, it
> sharpens the focus on them.)

Now you seem to think you can read minds over the internet ["Everyone"].

Just who is indulging in desperate projection, hmmmmmmm?


Peter Nyikos

[nyik...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 10:30:29 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 12/4/20 7:21 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
> >>> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
> >>> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
> >>> it.
> >> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
> >> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO instead of
> >> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
> >
> > There are so many things wrong with the above comments of yours, John, that
> > one could match them with the sides of a die, and tackle them in turn
> > as they come up on the next roll.

Since your narcissism and conrol-freak tendencies caused you to ignore the above, John,
I will spell this out a little more.

I gave one "face of the die" in my first reply to your post, and two more in
the post to which you are replying. Below, I give a fourth one.

> > My first reply was to one of the sides of my virtual die. Before saying
> > goodbye until Monday (as is usual, I avoid posting on weekends except
> > under exraordinary circumstances), I give the result of another virtual roll.
> >
> > You should really look in the mirror when you write things like that three-llner
> > of yours. All the time I argued with Kleinman on his "reptilefeatherian"
> > nonsense with solid evolutionary/paleontological/genetic reasoning and
> > watched him squirm, I don't recall you EVER trying to argue with him on-topic.

> The squirming was all in your imagination.

You don't know what you are talking about. The squirming took the form
of him lying outright that I think the 20 or so mutants that were intermediate
between scales and true feathers (complete with barbules) were magically
immune from disease, starvation, predators...

I kept hitting him on the total illogic of the on-topic conclusion and not just
focusing on the libelous attribution of it to me. After this happened about
three times, he backpedaled from it big-time, and tried a more sophisticated
argument against my scenario.

Anyone who has any street smarts would know that as a sign of squirming,
coming from someone who is (or I should say was) as impervious to criticism in his public
behavior as you are.

>I tried arguing with Dr.Dr.
> long before you showed up and realized its futility long before you
> showed up.

Were you naive enough to think that you could reform someone as
impervious to criticism as yourself? I had no such illlusions. My purpose
was to squeeze him so tightly into the corner that I would have an open
and shut case, obvious to anyone of normal intelligence, that his
taunts against "reptilefeatherians" had been proven EXPLICITLY
to be illogical.

> > You did your share in exposing his pretentiousness once, but that was by
> > discovering how "vanity press" the journal was in which he published
> > his most recent paper.

> So?

So that was an off topic way of showing what a gasbag he was about some
things not relevant to reptiles growing feathers.


And that brings me to the fourth face of the die: you cherry-picked my
second post to this thread, acting as though that were the ONLY brush
it had with being on-topic. The place from which you quote-mined it
was followed immediately by:

"Some [creationists] are honest and I treat them with respect, but I come down hard on the dishonest ones."

This has to do with the proper way to treat anyone who may have had the misfortune
to be exposed to propaganda that was clever enough to look highly informative,
and not having seen it being refuted in a fair and square way. Such people are
best handled by patiently showing them in what way their "blind guides" had led them
astray.

For anyone to be truly on-topic when arguing with such people, one has to refrain
from gratuitous insults. If it hadn't been for me, J. Lyndon Layden may have
quit sci.bio.paleontology and never shown up in talk.origins after the hostile
treatment you gave him even in the midst of the oasis of civilization that you
and I and Erik and, above all, Richard Norman had maintained among the four of us.

> > And by the way, I DID write on-topic about an on-topic topic in the following post, just two
> > days ago, with lots of evolutionary and paleontological insight:

> Congratulations. If you would just increase the signal to noise ratio,
> things would be better.

Niggardly praise, devoid of any indication that YOU would try to make things
better in that way, noted.

To continue the fourth face of the die, I had gone on to write:

"In spite of this, I have numerous opponents among the anti-creationists who are openly dishonest, many because they cannot argue for evolution like I can, and I keep correcting their misrepresentations of creationists. I want creationism defeated fair and square, they want it defeated by hook or crook."

Part of the "hook or crook" is the effort by Ron O, abetted by jillery, to redefine as a
"creationist" to include anyone who believes in any kind of supernatural intervention
into the course of biological evolution, no matter how subtle or infrequent.

Do you have the guts to say what you think about this effort?


At this point, there was a change of topic after a short transition,
to be addressed later today.


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

[John Harshman]

No idea why that would take guts, but I prefer to use the term to refer
to people who think there are "kinds".

I probably won't reply to any more of this. Try something on-topic.

[nyik...@gmail.com]

Short answer: you don't.

> No idea why that would take guts, but I prefer to use the term to refer
> to people who think there are "kinds".

Your personal preferences as to how YOU use the word are irrelevant.

What IS relevant is people with the Ron O definition telling people this
or that well known ID theorist is a creationist, and leaving them to believe
that ID is nothing but the "kinds" style of creationist simply because that's
what creationism means to THEM. And to NAS and various other mainstream
educational organizations.

And to almost all the people here who think that the Dover case meant ID
was just THAT kind of creationism "in the closet."

Laurence A. Moran [remember how he was a t.o. regular in the 1990's?] even uses the expression "ID creationism" as though the real purpose of ID was to foster THAT
kind of "creationism."

>
> I probably won't reply to any more of this. Try something on-topic.

This IS on topic. Unless you are happy with one breakdown after another in
on-topic communication due to confusion about the meaning of one of THE
two most important on-topic words in talk.origins.


The other, of course, is evolution. And that too is the source of endless
misunderstandings, like people thinking that "the theory of evolution"
means "common descent" or, at the opposite extreme, "evolution due
exclusively to naturalistic influences."

Can you see why these are opposite extremes, or have you stopped paying
attention because you "KNOW" that I am off-topic here?

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

PS the concluding reply to the other post of yours to which I've replied today
is postponed to tomorrow. I never suspected you would be this naive about what
is on topic and what is not.

[nyik...@gmail.com]

People in good with the three clowns below frequently take advantage of my lack
of time by trying to paint my addressing the points of several people
in one post as though it were some kind of vice. Below, an open-minded reader could
begin to suspect just WHY they want it to be seen as a vice.

On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 4:50:28 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 11:00:28 AM UTC-8, John Harshman wrote:
> > On 12/5/20 9:51 AM, jillery wrote:
> > > On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 07:27:54 -0800, John Harshman
> > > <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >>> You should really look in the mirror when you write things like that three-llner
> > >>> of yours. All the time I argued with Kleinman on his "reptilefeatherian"
> > >>> nonsense with solid evolutionary/paleontological/genetic reasoning and
> > >>> watched him squirm, I don't recall you EVER trying to argue with him on-topic.
> > >>
> > >> The squirming was all in your imagination. I tried arguing with Dr.Dr.
> > >> long before you showed up and realized its futility long before you
> > >> showed up.

Harshman couldn't cope with my exposing the naivete of this comment,
and huffily cut things short by showing how much he HATES off topic
comments. :-) [Read below for The Rest of The Story, as Paul Harvey used to say.]

> > >
> > > Not to dispute your contributions arguing with drdr, but I must point
> > > out that *lots* of posters argued with him before nyikos the peter
> > > showed up.

Behold the One Shade of Gray Meltdown in action. Pointing out *non sequiturs*
that are no-brainers to point out are melted down to one word, "argued," along
with relentlessly showing the stupidity, and soon the flagrant dishonesty, of Kleinman's "reptilefeatherian" scam.

> > Of course. But I'm the one Peter was talking about.

> > > Also, only nyikos the peter used his appearances at least as much to
> > > mindlessly criticize those other posters as to argue with drdr.

Classic fallacy of Begging the Question ["mindlessly"] noted.

> > True.

Harshman just HATES off-topic posts. Yessiree. :-) :-(

> > > Finally, I point out that even if nyikos the peter managed *a* solidly
> > > on-topic and spam-free post, which to the best of my knowledge doesn't
> > > exist, that would not instantly redeem his years of spamming
> > > ejaculated spew and Big Lies.

Jillery is projecting Ron O's behavior on me big-time.

> > Still, it would be an improvement.

Yessir, Harshman positively HATES off-topic posts. :-) :-(

> After a while, I stopped reading Drdr's "contributions", but it's my impression that neither
> Peter nor anybody else made a dent in his armor.

I actually did, and I explained to Harshman today. I know, it takes street smarts
to see it, but I always thought the three of you had more of it than I did.

I also explained to Harshman that this was mainly beside the point. If the Dr. Dr.
had been allowed to continue posting to talk.origins, I could have had proof of
the irrationality of his "reptilefeatherian" scam by now in an form where
it could be zinged in with near bot-like speed in every thread and post where he
tried it.

He might have resorted after a while to accuse me of stalking and to have ME
banned. Sound familiar?

> He's a hardened crank, and stuck to
> his mantras with perfect fidelity.

As does jillery with her even more crank-like "Liar [1]." mantras.

> I don't know why DIG lowered the hammer on him, but
> Peter seems to be the only one upset about it.

The reasons are in the last paragraph of the second post I did to this thread,
but Harshman carefully avoided letting his cherry-picking go that far.


Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Mon, 7 Dec 2020 17:46:33 -0800 (PST), "nyik...@gmail.com"
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:


<mercy snip of your previous spam>

>> > To continue the fourth face of the die, I had gone on to write:
>> >
>> > "In spite of this, I have numerous opponents among the anti-creationists who are openly dishonest, many because they cannot argue for evolution like I can, and I keep correcting their misrepresentations of creationists. I want creationism defeated fair and square, they want it defeated by hook or crook."
>> >
>> > Part of the "hook or crook" is the effort by Ron O, abetted by jillery, to redefine as a
>> > "creationist" to include anyone who believes in any kind of supernatural intervention
>> > into the course of biological evolution, no matter how subtle or infrequent.

There are many definitions of "creationist". That *your* personal
definition is different from more relevant definitions doesn't qualify
as a redefinition.

But at least you finally admitted that ID's arguments invoke
supernatural intervention.

>> > Do you have the guts to say what you think about this effort?
>
>Short answer: you don't.
>
>> No idea why that would take guts, but I prefer to use the term to refer
>> to people who think there are "kinds".
>
>Your personal preferences as to how YOU use the word are irrelevant.

If you really think that, then you had no good reason to ask his
opinion in the first place. Which makes your objection above just
more of your meaningless noise.

>What IS relevant is people with the Ron O definition telling people this
>or that well known ID theorist is a creationist, and leaving them to believe
>that ID is nothing but the "kinds" style of creationist simply because that's
>what creationism means to THEM. And to NAS and various other mainstream
>educational organizations.

Since you mention it, when your "well-known ID theorist" invokes
supernatural intervention to explain biological phenomena he doesn't
understand, that's no different in principle than Bible-thumpers
invoking created kinds. That his invocation might be more subtle or
less frequent is simply one of degree.

>And to almost all the people here who think that the Dover case meant ID
>was just THAT kind of creationism "in the closet."

Since you mention it, explain "cdesign proponentists" without
handwaving away the fact of it like you usually do.

>Laurence A. Moran [remember how he was a t.o. regular in the 1990's?] even uses the expression "ID creationism" as though the real purpose of ID was to foster THAT
>kind of "creationism."

Since you mention it. Larry Moran still uses that expression in his
Sandwalk blogs. He makes more sense with it than you do with most of
your expressions. But then, that's a very low bar to hurdle.

<mercy snip of remaining spam>

[jillery]

On Mon, 7 Dec 2020 19:40:50 -0800 (PST), "nyik...@gmail.com"
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

>People in good with the three clowns below frequently take advantage of my lack
>of time by trying to paint my addressing the points of several people
>in one post as though it were some kind of vice. Below, an open-minded reader could
>begin to suspect just WHY they want it to be seen as a vice.
>
>On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 4:50:28 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
>> On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 11:00:28 AM UTC-8, John Harshman wrote:
>> > On 12/5/20 9:51 AM, jillery wrote:
>> > > On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 07:27:54 -0800, John Harshman
>> > > <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> > >
>> > >>> You should really look in the mirror when you write things like that three-llner
>> > >>> of yours. All the time I argued with Kleinman on his "reptilefeatherian"
>> > >>> nonsense with solid evolutionary/paleontological/genetic reasoning and
>> > >>> watched him squirm, I don't recall you EVER trying to argue with him on-topic.
>> > >>
>> > >> The squirming was all in your imagination. I tried arguing with Dr.Dr.
>> > >> long before you showed up and realized its futility long before you
>> > >> showed up.
>
>Harshman couldn't cope with my exposing the naivete of this comment,

Your naivete disqualifies you from complaining about others' alleged
naivete. Tu quoque back atcha, asshole.

>and huffily cut things short by showing how much he HATES off topic
>comments. :-) [Read below for The Rest of The Story, as Paul Harvey used to say.]
>
>> > >
>> > > Not to dispute your contributions arguing with drdr, but I must point
>> > > out that *lots* of posters argued with him before nyikos the peter
>> > > showed up.
>
>Behold the One Shade of Gray Meltdown in action. Pointing out *non sequiturs*
>that are no-brainers to point out are melted down to one word, "argued,"

Your meaningless noise is noted.

>along
>with relentlessly showing the stupidity, and soon the flagrant dishonesty, of Kleinman's "reptilefeatherian" scam.

What part of "not to dispute" do you not understand?

>> > Of course. But I'm the one Peter was talking about.
>
>> > > Also, only nyikos the peter used his appearances at least as much to
>> > > mindlessly criticize those other posters as to argue with drdr.
>
>Classic fallacy of Begging the Question ["mindlessly"] noted.

Your begging the question disqualifies you from complaining about
others allegedly begging the question. Tu quoque back atcha, asshole.

>> > True.
>
>Harshman just HATES off-topic posts. Yessiree. :-) :-(

More of your mindless noise noted.

>> > > Finally, I point out that even if nyikos the peter managed *a* solidly
>> > > on-topic and spam-free post, which to the best of my knowledge doesn't
>> > > exist, that would not instantly redeem his years of spamming
>> > > ejaculated spew and Big Lies.
>
>Jillery is projecting Ron O's behavior on me big-time.

Liar[1], and a PeeWeeHermanism to boot.

>> > Still, it would be an improvement.
>
>Yessir, Harshman positively HATES off-topic posts. :-) :-(

More of your mindless noise.

>> After a while, I stopped reading Drdr's "contributions", but it's my impression that neither
>> Peter nor anybody else made a dent in his armor.
>
>I actually did, and I explained to Harshman today.

I'm surprised you don't sprain your arm with how often you pat
yourself on the back over your vacuous victories.

>I know, it takes street smarts
>to see it, but I always thought the three of you had more of it than I did.

I know three-year-olds with more street smarts than you.

>I also explained to Harshman that this was mainly beside the point.

Your spamming self-promotions don't qualify as a "point".

>If the Dr. Dr.
>had been allowed to continue posting to talk.origins, I could have had proof of
>the irrationality of his "reptilefeatherian" scam by now in an form where
>it could be zinged in with near bot-like speed in every thread and post where he
>tried it.

*Everybody* who replied to drdr recognized the irrationality of his
scams, no street smarts required.

>He might have resorted after a while to accuse me of stalking and to have ME
>banned. Sound familiar?

Since you asked, the above sounds like one of the many Big Lies you
spam.

>> He's a hardened crank, and stuck to
>> his mantras with perfect fidelity.
>
>As does jillery with her even more crank-like "Liar [1]." mantras.

Your crank-like mantras disqualify you from complaining about
jillery's alleged crank-like mantras. Tu quoque back atcha, asshole.

>> I don't know why DIG lowered the hammer on him, but
>> Peter seems to be the only one upset about it.
>
>The reasons are in the last paragraph of the second post I did to this thread,
>but Harshman carefully avoided letting his cherry-picking go that far.

[1] Your explicitly written definition of "lie":
***********************
<7eeaa862-e4bb-4617...@googlegroups.com>
On Wed, 3 Jun 2020 17:54:36 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

I classify as a lie any statement that the utterer has absolutely no
reason to think is true, but is done to intensely denigrate the person
about whom it is uttered.
************************

[*Hemidactylus*]

nyik...@gmail.com <nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:
> People in good with the three clowns below frequently take advantage of my lack
> of time by trying to paint my addressing the points of several people
> in one post as though it were some kind of vice. Below, an open-minded reader could
> begin to suspect just WHY they want it to be seen as a vice.
>

Top-posting and long-winded preambles too. What’s with the long winded
preambles?
>
[snip]

>
> Behold the One Shade of Gray Meltdown in action. Pointing out *non sequiturs*
> that are no-brainers to point out are melted down to one word, "argued," along
> with relentlessly showing the stupidity, and soon the flagrant
> dishonesty, of Kleinman's "reptilefeatherian" scam.
>

Contrasted with your 50 Shades of Grey meltdowns where you post the tedious
sins of others against you as a repetitive laundry list.
>
[snip]

>
> Jillery is projecting Ron O's behavior on me big-time.
>

That’s not how projection works. It’s a person attributing their own
shortfalls onto others.

https://dictionary.apa.org/projection

“n psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theories, the process by which one
attributes one’s own individual positive or negative characteristics,
affects, and impulses to another person or group.”

Are you projecting your projective tendencies as projection makes you feel
uncomfortable? As an ego defense mechanism you might not realize it if so.
>
[snip]

>
> I also explained to Harshman that this was mainly beside the point. If the Dr. Dr.
> had been allowed to continue posting to talk.origins, I could have had proof of
> the irrationality of his "reptilefeatherian" scam by now in an form where
> it could be zinged in with near bot-like speed in every thread and post where he
> tried it.
>

To what avail? So you could get called Nomathos some more? What point would
there be in *that*? Are you a glutton for punishment? Do you need the
Passion of the Peter as a ritual for personal transcendence or redemption?
Nomathos was quite the scourging epithet perhaps on the Golgotha path? No
forgive them for they know not what they do?

[jillery]

On Tue, 08 Dec 2020 02:30:52 -0600, *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

>nyik...@gmail.com <nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> People in good with the three clowns below frequently take advantage of my lack
>> of time by trying to paint my addressing the points of several people
>> in one post as though it were some kind of vice. Below, an open-minded reader could
>> begin to suspect just WHY they want it to be seen as a vice.
>>
>Top-posting and long-winded preambles too. What’s with the long winded
>preambles?

Nyikos the peter has a lot of hot air to expel.

>[snip]

>> I also explained to Harshman that this was mainly beside the point. If the Dr. Dr.
>> had been allowed to continue posting to talk.origins, I could have had proof of
>> the irrationality of his "reptilefeatherian" scam by now in an form where
>> it could be zinged in with near bot-like speed in every thread and post where he
>> tried it.
>>
>To what avail? So you could get called Nomathos some more? What point would
>there be in *that*? Are you a glutton for punishment? Do you need the
>Passion of the Peter as a ritual for personal transcendence or redemption?
>Nomathos was quite the scourging epithet perhaps on the Golgotha path? No
>forgive them for they know not what they do?

The martyr complex is strong in that one.

[nyik...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 4:45:29 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 10:30:28 AM UTC-8, Oxyaena wrote:

> > Shit remember when he accused us of libeling him for pointed out he
> > technically libeled me when he accused me of saying something about
> > Alfred Wegener that I didn't? It pissed him off so much that he wouldn't
> > talk to us for a whole year.

Oxyaena is flagrantly rewriting sci.bio.paleontology history. And, in the process,
she is licking Harshman's boots for having pandered so much to her most
obnoxious trait since she posted as Thrinaxodon: falsely accusing people
of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome. By lying that I was exhibiting it, Harshman emboldened
the Thrinaxodon in her to say that she would contact my employers about
the (nonexistent) libel that she was accusing me of.


No ifs, ands or buts: Oxyaena wrote that she would do it.
Period. Full stop.
THAT was what made me decide to begin a boycott that was completely unparalleled
in all my posting to the internet. And even now, you, Erik,
feel impelled to put the word "boycott" into scare quotes:

> Indeed. It was the basis for his "boycott".

You are making yourslef accessory after the fact to Oxyaena's rewriting of history.
Give yourself a gold star for doing what comes naturally to you.

> I would be a better person if I felt more
> sympathy,

Does your idea of "better person" go beyond your self-centered idea of
morality to that extent? I don't think it does.

> but I just can't. Anyway, it's no pain simply not to engage with him.

Oxyaena seemed to take great pleasure until the very end of 2019 in hurling every
kind of insult and every kind of obvious falsehood she could think of to entice me to
to do no-brainer refutations of them, and thereby hand victory to all those who
were itching to catch me abandoning my boycott.

And you joined on occasion, but mainly I think you enjoyed the show Oxyaena
was giving you. After all, why engage with me if Oxyaena was doing it
with far greater originality than you could?


Peter Nyikos

PS Once more I have to postpone that second half of my reply to Harshman,
but I think he will be gloating too much to care, on seeing how successful that pandering
to Oxyaena's basest instincts in the wee weeks of 2019 turned out to be.

[Oxyaena]

On 12/8/2020 9:21 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 4:45:29 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
>> On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 10:30:28 AM UTC-8, Oxyaena wrote:
>
>>> Shit remember when he accused us of libeling him for pointed out he
>>> technically libeled me when he accused me of saying something about
>>> Alfred Wegener that I didn't? It pissed him off so much that he wouldn't
>>> talk to us for a whole year.
>
> Oxyaena is flagrantly rewriting sci.bio.paleontology history. And, in the process,
> she is licking Harshman's boots for having pandered so much to her most
> obnoxious trait since she posted as Thrinaxodon: falsely accusing people
> of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome. By lying that I was exhibiting it, Harshman emboldened
> the Thrinaxodon in her to say that she would contact my employers about
> the (nonexistent) libel that she was accusing me of.

Did you or did you not say that I libeled Wegener when I did not do so?

>
[snip groveling]

>
> Does your idea of "better person" go beyond your self-centered idea of
> morality to that extent? I don't think it does.

Pot kettle black.

[snip more groveling]

[Burkhard]

Oxyaena wrote:
> On 12/8/2020 9:21 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 4:45:29 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
>>> On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 10:30:28 AM UTC-8, Oxyaena wrote:
>>
>>>> Shit remember when he accused us of libeling him for pointed out he
>>>> technically libeled me when he accused me of saying something about
>>>> Alfred Wegener that I didn't? It pissed him off so much that he
>>>> wouldn't
>>>> talk to us for a whole year.
>>
>> Oxyaena is flagrantly rewriting sci.bio.paleontology history. And, in
>> the process,
>> she is licking Harshman's boots for having pandered so much to her most
>> obnoxious trait since she posted as Thrinaxodon: falsely accusing people
>> of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome. By lying that I was exhibiting it,
>> Harshman emboldened
>> the Thrinaxodon in her to say that she would contact my employers about
>> the (nonexistent) libel that she was accusing me of.
>
> Did you or did you not say that I libeled Wegener when I did not do so?

Would be difficult too, leastways if "libel" is understood in the legal
sense. US law does not recognize an action for defamation by or on
behalf of the dead.

[jillery]

On Wed, 9 Dec 2020 11:31:23 +0000, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

>Oxyaena wrote:
>> On 12/8/2020 9:21 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 4:45:29 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
>>>> On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 10:30:28 AM UTC-8, Oxyaena wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Shit remember when he accused us of libeling him for pointed out he
>>>>> technically libeled me when he accused me of saying something about
>>>>> Alfred Wegener that I didn't? It pissed him off so much that he
>>>>> wouldn't
>>>>> talk to us for a whole year.
>>>
>>> Oxyaena is flagrantly rewriting sci.bio.paleontology history. And, in
>>> the process,
>>> she is licking Harshman's boots for having pandered so much to her most
>>> obnoxious trait since she posted as Thrinaxodon: falsely accusing people
>>> of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome. By lying that I was exhibiting it,
>>> Harshman emboldened
>>> the Thrinaxodon in her to say that she would contact my employers about
>>> the (nonexistent) libel that she was accusing me of.
>>
>> Did you or did you not say that I libeled Wegener when I did not do so?
>
>
>Would be difficult too, leastways if "libel" is understood in the legal
>sense. US law does not recognize an action for defamation by or on
>behalf of the dead.

When discussing Wegener with nyikos the peter, the topic drifts that
way. It's a continental thing.

[J. J. Lodder]

Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote:

> On 2020-12-04 23:21:10 +0000, Bill said:
>
> > John Harshman wrote:
> >
> >> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
> >>> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
> >>> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
> >>> it.
> >>
> >> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
> >> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO instead of
> >> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
> >>

> >> Just a thought.
> >
> > I too have had an interest in humanity since childhood, read lots of books
> > and found no satisfaction. Alas, the tidy hypotheses that try so hard to
> > establish the various theories about human life make no sense. I had no
> > interest in Creationism (it didn't exist then
>
> You must be incredibly old if you had never come across Henry M. Morris.
>
> > ) but the naturalistic
> > explanations didn't persuade me either. I knew nothing
>
> So not much has changed?
>
> > and realized that no
> > one else did either and I accept it all as a mystery. No harm done, my ego
> > doesn't require omniscience.
> >
> > The theory of evolution is believed by many to be a fact and that seems to
> > be its greatest strength. But popularity really isn't enough,
>
> Nobody said it was. Popularity is irrelevant. The reason why
> intelligent knowledgeable people accept evolution as a fact is that the
> evidence is overwhelming.

Indeed. I have wondered what Popper would have said of it.
As you know Popper insited, rather foolishly imho,
that falsification is all, and that verification counts for nothing.

But what if the verifications become truly mountaneous,
as uncounted terabytes and terabytes of data?

As you know this is the situation for the evolution theory nowadays,
with DNA sequencing done for most species.
The 10K Bird project for example sequences all birds
at almost the species level, all 10 000 of them.
This enormous mountain of data all supports evolution theory
and common descent.

You might even say that the Theory of Evolution is better
than for instance the Standard Model of particle physics.
(also supported by uncounted terabytes, from CERN and other places)

The ToE is even better, for it has a sound theoretical basis
in statistics, while the Standard Model
is at the bottom no more than phenomenology.
Very sophisticated phenomenology for sure, but still phenomenology,

Jan

[John Harshman]

Verification, in the way Popper used it, truly is useless. Facts
compatible with a hypothesis are of no use unless they're incompatible
with competing hypotheses, and that's what I think he was trying to say.

> As you know this is the situation for the evolution theory nowadays,
> with DNA sequencing done for most species.
> The 10K Bird project for example sequences all birds
> at almost the species level, all 10 000 of them.
> This enormous mountain of data all supports evolution theory
> and common descent.

But only because it's what we expect from evolution but, crucially,
don't expect from other hypotheses. You could think of it as falsifying
the alternatives.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

David Penny tried 40 years ago to show how evolution could be
falsified, but isn't: David Penny, L. R. Foulds & M. D. Hendy (1982)
"Testing the theory of evolution by comparing phylogenetic trees
constructed from five different protein sequences", Nature 297,
197-200. (I should declare an interest, as Nature consulted me as
referee of that paper, and I recommended publication.)

>
>> You might even say that the Theory of Evolution is better
>> than for instance the Standard Model of particle physics.
>> (also supported by uncounted terabytes, from CERN and other places)
>>
>> The ToE is even better, for it has a sound theoretical basis
>> in statistics, while the Standard Model
>> is at the bottom no more than phenomenology.
>> Very sophisticated phenomenology for sure, but still phenomenology,
>>
>> Jan

--
Athel -- British, living in France for 34 years

[John Harshman]

One weakness of that paper is that it isn't clear what opposing
hypothesis is being falsified; or in Popper's terms, it isn't clear how
bold the prediction is.

Incidentally, there has been no phylogenetic analysis published so far
in the 10K Bird project, so we don't really know whether it supports
common descent. I expect it will, but there's nothing so far.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Yes, but it was 40 years ago, and expectations have become tighter.

>
> Incidentally, there has been no phylogenetic analysis published so far
> in the 10K Bird project, so we don't really know whether it supports
> common descent. I expect it will, but there's nothing so far.
>
>>>> You might even say that the Theory of Evolution is better
>>>> than for instance the Standard Model of particle physics.
>>>> (also supported by uncounted terabytes, from CERN and other places)
>>>>
>>>> The ToE is even better, for it has a sound theoretical basis
>>>> in statistics, while the Standard Model
>>>> is at the bottom no more than phenomenology.
>>>> Very sophisticated phenomenology for sure, but still phenomenology,
>>>>
>>>> Jan

[nyik...@gmail.com]

On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 6:40:28 PM UTC-5, Lawyer Daggett wrote:
> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 6:20:30 PM UTC-5, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:

> > On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> > > On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:

> ...
> > So you think both of the posts I have done to this thread are self-serving and off-topic screeds?
> Yes,

Did Harshman appoint you as his mouthpiece, "Lawyer"?

If you are speaking only for yourself, let's see you give your reasons for your "Yes"
answer. Beginning, of course, with the OP which NOBODY has had the gumption to
reply to directly. I give you some motivation at the end of this post not to remain
mum about that OP.

> and you are the master of conclusory allegation.

That's a cute expression you dug up there, Daggett. Would you mind letting
us know what it means to YOU? And how it is supposed to apply to what I
wrote?

> John merely asked a
> question,

That "merely" is your pusillanimous self talking, not even daring to give anyone
who is ignoring my posts and reading yours the slightest clue as to what
Harshman's question was about.

I have tackled that masterpiece of mendacity in four different ways so far,
and have referred to them with faces of a die for easy reference:

_____________________________ excerpt from reply to Harshman_________________

> >> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
> >> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO instead of
> >> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
> >

> > There are so many things wrong with the above comments of yours, John, that
> > one could match them with the sides of a die, and tackle them in turn
> > as they come up on the next roll.

Since your narcissism and conrol-freak tendencies caused you to ignore the above, John,
I will spell this out a little more.

I gave one "face of the die" in my first reply to your post, and two more in
the post to which you are replying. Below, I give a fourth one.

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

And you've been mum the whole time in the wake of this raking of the
question you labeled with "merely" over the coals.

I've ignored you on this thread, and also the one about the words "creationism"
and "evolution," because your status in talk.origins is far below that of most
people in an adversarial position against me. And your pusillanimous "merely"
only underscores that fact.

It's finally become worthwhile for me to answer this post, though, because
you and Sean Dillon [1] have been posting one piece of outrageous
spin-doctoring after another on that thread, and this post shows just how
empty all your bravado is.


[1] Ever since Sean returned, I was struck by the way the two of you
are the closest thing to "identical twins" wrt *modus* operandi of any pair of
very active people in talk.origins with any status at all. Both of you are
addicted to bottom-posting and allergic to any specifics which could
give a clue as to how to interpret your generalities. No wonder the
two of you leaped to "defend" Mark Isaak for his hypocritical pretense at
being concerned about genuine communication wrt the meaning of words.

> while you consistently assert answers,

Like you and Sean did, in spades? At least I back up one answer after another
with reference to specific events, with documentation if necessary.

> though at least this time
> the answers you assert are correct.

Beg pardon? what answers did you have in mind here? You haven't left

> Serving yourself is your primary purpose.

Mindless projection of Anglo-American obsession with Looking Out for Number One
on me noted.

On the contrary, my OP exhibits a level of altruism that I have never seen exhibited
in talk.origins by anyone else and never expect to see from either Harshman,
Dillon, or yourself. You would do far better by claiming that my altruism
deserves to be treated the way Ayn Rand condemned "the Altruists"
in one novel after anothery. There, at least, you would have plenty of
grist for your self-appointed, virulently adversarial, policy towards me from the get-go.


Peter Nyikos

[nyik...@gmail.com]

I've been kept busy by a number of "squeaky wheels," especially jillery,
on the thread about the sundry meanings of the central-to-talk.origins words,
"creationism" and "evolution" from posting my reply to the concluding half
of Harshman's post. But now I finally "drop the other shoe."

A little bit is repeated from the first reply to jog people's memories.

On Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 10:30:29 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 12/4/20 7:21 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:

> > And by the way, I DID write on-topic about an on-topic topic in the following post, just two
> > days ago, with lots of evolutionary and paleontological insight:

> Congratulations. If you would just increase the signal to noise ratio,
> things would be better.

Niggardly praise, devoid of any indication that YOU would try to make things
better in that way, noted.

================ end of context

> > https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/VoMGxziUpKY/m/Gw-LhI4NBwAJ
> > Re: Popular Mechanics: I.D. is 100% ACCURATE!
> > Dec 2, 2020, 9:55:28 PM
> >
> > When was the last time YOU did that kind of post to t.o.?

> Dunno. I don't keep score.
Very revealing, this stalling in the teeth of the obvious follow -up questions.
Such as "do you remember what the topic was, or whom you were engaging
in discussion?"


> > I don't see you active anywhere on the thread where I did the linked post.

> It's also pointless engaging with JTEM.

I wasn't engaging with JTEM, you superficial "researcher". I was engaging
a topic which had been broached by Stephen Jay Gould.

>There are a number of trolls
> best left unfed. And in fact there isn't much going on here these days
> that warrants any sort of response.

The quote by Gould certainly warranted it, IMO. I was hoping someone would
know where the quote came from and have some inkling of what he meant by
"anything like human intelligence.” I've chased down the references that
were provided and I now know where it came from -- his classic book on
the Burgess shales.

But I am still in the dark about what Gould meant, not having had the
time to work my way through the book because of my onerous academic duties.


And so I look at your clueless comment again, a bit at a time.


> It's also pointless engaging with JTEM.

For a long time on one memorable sci.bio.paleontology, you and he engaged each other in
back-and-forth on the subject of male sperm of hominids (gorillas included)
which was made long and tedious because of your penchant for stalling (as above).
In a nutshell, he was telling you that "Google is your friend" about a point of
dispute between the two of you, and you kept holding out with "requests" for him
to provide the information you wanted.

It went on for quite a while, with tweet-length comments that are even more typical
of you than they are of him, with no sign of progress.


> There are a number of trolls
> best left unfed.

Funny you should say that, because the latter half of that exchange had YOU
looking more like a troll than JTEM, and him looking like he was "feeding the troll".
I commented on it at the time, several times, but you were too wrapped up
in your "duel" to care about that.


> And in fact there isn't much going on here these days
> that warrants any sort of response.

Yeah, you STILL can't recall the last time you did an on-topic post
exhibiting a competence like the post I linked up there, can you?

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

U. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[*Hemidactylus*]

What’s with the status obsession?

>
> It's finally become worthwhile for me to answer this post, though, because
> you and Sean Dillon [1] have been posting one piece of outrageous
> spin-doctoring after another on that thread, and this post shows just how
> empty all your bravado is.
>
>
> [1] Ever since Sean returned, I was struck by the way the two of you
> are the closest thing to "identical twins" wrt *modus* operandi of any pair of
> very active people in talk.origins with any status at all.

What’s with the fretting over identity?

> Both of you are
> addicted to bottom-posting and allergic to any specifics which could
> give a clue as to how to interpret your generalities.

Bottom-posting is the accepted norm and a matter of other-oriented
etiquette.

> No wonder the
> two of you leaped to "defend" Mark Isaak for his hypocritical pretense at
> being concerned about genuine communication wrt the meaning of words.
>

What’s with dragging multiple people into a discussion?

>
>> while you consistently assert answers,
>
> Like you and Sean did, in spades? At least I back up one answer after another
> with reference to specific events, with documentation if necessary.
>
>
>> though at least this time
>> the answers you assert are correct.
>
> Beg pardon? what answers did you have in mind here? You haven't left
>
>
>> Serving yourself is your primary purpose.
>
> Mindless projection of Anglo-American obsession with Looking Out for Number One
> on me noted.
>
> On the contrary, my OP exhibits a level of altruism that I have never seen exhibited
> in talk.origins by anyone else and never expect to see from either Harshman,
> Dillon, or yourself. You would do far better by claiming that my altruism
> deserves to be treated the way Ayn Rand condemned "the Altruists"
> in one novel after anothery. There, at least, you would have plenty of
> grist for your self-appointed, virulently adversarial, policy towards me from the get-go.
>

Aren’t you due for a walkabout?

[jillery]

On Fri, 11 Dec 2020 18:40:00 -0800 (PST), "nyik...@gmail.com"
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I've been kept busy by a number of "squeaky wheels," especially jillery,

Only if your meaning of "busy" is equivalent to whittling toothpicks.

[nyik...@gmail.com]

On Friday, December 11, 2020 at 9:20:30 AM UTC-5, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote:
> > On 2020-12-04 23:21:10 +0000, Bill said:
> >
> > > John Harshman wrote:
> > >
> > >> On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> > >>> I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced
> > >>> since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of
> > >>> life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for
> > >>> it.
> > >>

Snip of Harshman text, recalled along with a critique in reply to Daggett earlier this evening....

> > >> Just a thought.

...leaving only the harmless "Cheshire Cat" grin. [TGIF]

> > >
> > > I too have had an interest in humanity since childhood, read lots of books
> > > and found no satisfaction. Alas, the tidy hypotheses that try so hard to
> > > establish the various theories about human life make no sense. I had no
> > > interest in Creationism (it didn't exist then
> >
> > You must be incredibly old if you had never come across Henry M. Morris.
> >
> > > ) but the naturalistic
> > > explanations didn't persuade me either. I knew nothing
> >
> > So not much has changed?

> > > and realized that no
> > > one else did either and I accept it all as a mystery. No harm done, my ego
> > > doesn't require omniscience.
> > >
> > > The theory of evolution is believed by many to be a fact and that seems to
> > > be its greatest strength. But popularity really isn't enough,
> >
> > Nobody said it was. Popularity is irrelevant. The reason why
> > intelligent knowledgeable people accept evolution as a fact is that the
> > evidence is overwhelming.
>
> Indeed. I have wondered what Popper would have said of it.
> As you know Popper insited, rather foolishly imho,
> that falsification is all, and that verification counts for nothing.
>
> But what if the verifications become truly mountaneous,
> as uncounted terabytes and terabytes of data?
>
> As you know this is the situation for the evolution theory nowadays,
> with DNA sequencing done for most species.

This use of "evolution theory" is inadvisable, Jan, because many readers
will think you are talking about the Modern Synthesis, a.k.a. neo-Darwinism,
whereas it looks like you are talking about modest fragments of common descent.

> The 10K Bird project for example sequences all birds
> at almost the species level, all 10 000 of them.
> This enormous mountain of data all supports evolution theory
> and common descent.

Of birds. But that's only a minuscule part of the Tree of Life.

Do they attempt to use molecular methods to date the LCA (Last Common Ancestor)
of living birds? Where placental mammals are concerned, it was long a
source of embarrassment as to how far apart molecular methods
and fossil evidence were, with the latter periodically vacillating between
early Paleocene and late Cretaceous, and the former deep in the Cretaceous.
The gap has shrunk a lot in the last decade, but it is still palpable.

The last really major analysis of which I know was several years ago,
and was exclusively morphological IIRC. Its conclusion was that the known
late Cretaceous fossils diverged from before the LCA of extant placentals.

> You might even say that the Theory of Evolution is better
> than for instance the Standard Model of particle physics.
> (also supported by uncounted terabytes, from CERN and other places)
>
> The ToE is even better, for it has a sound theoretical basis
> in statistics,

What sort of statistics did you have in mind?

> while the Standard Model
> is at the bottom no more than phenomenology.
> Very sophisticated phenomenology for sure, but still phenomenology,
>
> Jan

I've long been familiar with Woese's ideas about there having been too
much lateral transfer between the first prokaryotes to trace a common
ancestor. And the problem has proliferated since his death, just in
the direction I suspected it would: the base of the Tree of Life is getting
to look more like a mycelium than the trunk of a tree.


With that note, I sign off t.o. for my usual weekend posting break.
But, alas, I will have little time for my family: I have over sixty long
final exams to grade.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics

U. of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[*Hemidactylus*]

nyik...@gmail.com <nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been kept busy by a number of "squeaky wheels,"
>

[snip]

Before you go to your Christmas break hidey hole:

https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/q1jpLLvjM3Y/m/VCpibN-zBwAJ

Someone you were interacting with said:
“They are little babies for psychopaths. Psychopaths don't have emotions at
all. Psychopaths can put their own baby on a BBQ, watching it being fried,
and not feeling anything at all. No normal person can do anything similar.”

To which you replied:
“Hemidactylus might be that way. I will put him to the test before 2020 is
out.”

Care to fucking elaborate on what you mean by that?

[erik simpson]

Peter has been looking for potential allies in the unlikeliest of places. Glenn looked
promising for a while, but, well, you know. JTEM doesn't cooperate at all, and is
completely unimpressed with Peter's credendials. So he made an effort with a strange
person who could be fairly described as an exceptionally ignorant bigot. Any port in a storm?
Since the exchange you note, Peter seems to have abandoned the effort to sign him up. Not
very presentable in polite society, you know. You were just a throwaway line.

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 11 Dec 2020 21:48:09 -0600, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid>:

Peter, explain himself? You're kidding, right?
--

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 Fri, 11 Dec 2020 21:48:09 -0600, *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

>nyik...@gmail.com <nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've been kept busy by a number of "squeaky wheels,"
>>
>
>[snip]
>
>Before you go to your Christmas break hidey hole:

Too late. In the immortal words of Agent 008, "missed it by that
much."

>https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/q1jpLLvjM3Y/m/VCpibN-zBwAJ
>
>Someone you were interacting with said:
>“They are little babies for psychopaths. Psychopaths don't have emotions at
>all. Psychopaths can put their own baby on a BBQ, watching it being fried,
>and not feeling anything at all. No normal person can do anything similar.”
>
>To which you replied:
>“Hemidactylus might be that way. I will put him to the test before 2020 is
>out.”
>
>Care to fucking elaborate on what you mean by that?
>

[jillery]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 11:59:59 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Fri, 11 Dec 2020 21:48:09 -0600, *Hemidactylus*
><ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:
>
>>nyik...@gmail.com <nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I've been kept busy by a number of "squeaky wheels,"
>>>
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>Before you go to your Christmas break hidey hole:
>
>
>Too late. In the immortal words of Agent 008, "missed it by that
>much."

Oops, make that Agent 86. My bad.

>>https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/q1jpLLvjM3Y/m/VCpibN-zBwAJ
>>
>>Someone you were interacting with said:

>>?hey are little babies for psychopaths. Psychopaths don't have emotions at

>>all. Psychopaths can put their own baby on a BBQ, watching it being fried,

>>and not feeling anything at all. No normal person can do anything similar.?
>>
>>To which you replied:
>>?emidactylus might be that way. I will put him to the test before 2020 is
>>out.?

[erik simpson]

I'd quit reading Mario Petrinovic's stream of sewage before Peter (for God knows
what reasons) was attracted to it. After seeing Hemi's comments, I've gone back and
looked over more of it. Appalled I am. Mental illness might explain, but hardly excuses
this kind of behavior. Peter is unfamiliar with "kidding". This is simply vile.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 09:00:27 -0800 (PST), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by erik simpson
<eastsi...@gmail.com>:

>On Saturday, December 12, 2020 at 8:20:30 AM UTC-8, Bob Casanova wrote:
>> On Fri, 11 Dec 2020 21:48:09 -0600, the following appeared
>> in talk.origins, posted by *Hemidactylus*
>> <ecph...@allspamis.invalid>:
>> >nyik...@gmail.com <nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> I've been kept busy by a number of "squeaky wheels,"
>> >>
>> >
>> >[snip]
>> >
>> >Before you go to your Christmas break hidey hole:
>> >
>> >https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/q1jpLLvjM3Y/m/VCpibN-zBwAJ
>> >
>> >Someone you were interacting with said:
>> >“They are little babies for psychopaths. Psychopaths don't have emotions at
>> >all. Psychopaths can put their own baby on a BBQ, watching it being fried,
>> >and not feeling anything at all. No normal person can do anything similar.”
>> >
>> >To which you replied:
>> >“Hemidactylus might be that way. I will put him to the test before 2020 is
>> >out.”
>> >
>> >Care to fucking elaborate on what you mean by that?

>> Peter, explain himself? You're kidding, right?

>I'd quit reading Mario Petrinovic's stream of sewage before Peter (for God knows
>what reasons) was attracted to it. After seeing Hemi's comments, I've gone back and
>looked over more of it. Appalled I am. Mental illness might explain, but hardly excuses
>this kind of behavior. Peter is unfamiliar with "kidding". This is simply vile.

Peter is indeed unfamiliar with the concept of humor, and is
apparently attracted to the vile.

[John Harshman]

On 12/12/20 8:59 AM, jillery wrote:
> Too late. In the immortal words of Agent 008, "missed it by that
> much."

Just to correct one of your copious factual errors, that was Agent 86.

[jillery]

You keep using that word. I think it does not mean what you think it
means.

[John Harshman]

On 12/12/20 2:16 PM, jillery wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 10:55:02 -0800, John Harshman
> <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>> On 12/12/20 8:59 AM, jillery wrote:
>>> Too late. In the immortal words of Agent 008, "missed it by that
>>> much."
>>
>> Just to correct one of your copious factual errors, that was Agent 86.
>
>
>
> You keep using that word. I think it does not mean what you think it
> means.
>

Wrong again. That was agent Inigo.

[jillery]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 14:37:43 -0800, John Harshman

<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

>On 12/12/20 2:16 PM, jillery wrote:
>> On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 10:55:02 -0800, John Harshman
>> <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 12/12/20 8:59 AM, jillery wrote:
>>>> Too late. In the immortal words of Agent 008, "missed it by that
>>>> much."
>>>
>>> Just to correct one of your copious factual errors, that was Agent 86.
>>
>>
>>
>> You keep using that word. I think it does not mean what you think it
>> means.
>>
>Wrong again. That was agent Inigo.

Your criticism is based on a pointless and irrelevant factoid, which I
had already noted and corrected long before you mentioned it, but you
exaggerated it into a personal attack without basis and for no
apparent reason. That's the kind of behavor I expect from Glenn and
JTEM and Nyikos the peter. Not sure why you choose to emulate them
here.

[John Harshman]

It's clear enough that Peter isn't the only person here who lacks a
sense of humor.

[jillery]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 17:32:56 -0800, John Harshman

Tell me what you think is funny about saying I post "copious factual
errors", and I will acknowledge your sense of humor. Otherwise, my
impression is that it is you without a sense that I would call humor.

[John Harshman]

If you have to explain it, it isn't funny. Also, "I know you are but
what am I?" isn't a great response. Up your game.

You should know that "copious factual errors" wasn't intended literally;
it refers to any manufacturer of dairy products.

[jillery]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 21:04:39 -0800, John Harshman

It wasn't funny before you didn't explain it.

>Also, "I know you are but
>what am I?" isn't a great response.

So that's another thing you share with Nyikos the peter, that you
accuse others of your problems so you can accuse them of saying "I
know you are but what am I?".


>Up your game.


You first.

>You should know that "copious factual errors" wasn't intended literally;
>it refers to any manufacturer of dairy products.

Perhaps you're lactose intolerant.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Is Harshman speaking in a private language? I don’t get it either, but
haven’t followed closely. If he’s lactose intolerant perhaps that’s for the
best.

[DB Cates]

"Blessed are the cheesemakers."

--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)

[erik simpson]

See? If you hadn't been going on, we'd have heard that, Big Nose.

[Mark Isaak]

I got that, but I still don't get "copious factual errors."

(I did, at least, recognize that Harshman was *trying* to make a joke.)

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"If one day, my words are against science, choose science."
- Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

[jillery]

I don't know Harshman's motives for initiating and perpetuating this
particular trolling attack, but it is what I have come to expect from
him. Perhaps he was stung by Nyikos the peter's Parthian shots posted
last Friday, and feels obliged to prove them wrong.

OTOH if he's lactose intolerant, then he's farting in my general
direction.

[John Harshman]

Now that's more like it. Also, your mother is a hamster.

[DB Cates]

Yeah, I saw it as badly indicated and badly placed sarcasm. I vaguely
recall that the earlier part of the thread included someone who
accused(?)/ is known to have accused(?) Jillery of 'factual errors'. So
possible sarcasm but not very funny.

[jillery]

I acknowledge that I did not initially even consider the possibility
that Harshman was joking. However, if he meant it as sarcasm, not
sure why he then doubled-down twice more with pointless personal
attacks, still preserved in the quoted text above.

[John Harshman]

I didn't intend anything I said as a personal attack. You tend to
interpret a lot of things as attacks, and I really should consider that
when posting in your direction.

[jillery]

On Sun, 13 Dec 2020 21:40:19 -0800, John Harshman

Your comment above is a pointless personal attack, and puts the lie to
your denial.

[John Harshman]

It wasn't intended as a personal attack.

[Mark Isaak]

On 12/13/20 11:53 PM, jillery wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Dec 2020 21:40:19 -0800, John Harshman
> <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

> [...]

>>>
>> I didn't intend anything I said as a personal attack. You tend to
>> interpret a lot of things as attacks, and I really should consider that
>> when posting in your direction.
>
> Your comment above is a pointless personal attack, and puts the lie to
> your denial.

Jillery,

John's comment above is neither pointless nor an attack. It is true,
and it would be to your advantage to know it.

[DB Cates]

Ah, but you failed to heed your own observation. There is no way out,
just stop interacting.

[jillery]

On Mon, 14 Dec 2020 06:22:28 -0800, John Harshman

I will charitably assume your comment above means you don't understand
the meanings of the words you posted. My experience is reasonable
people apologize for the likely effects of their words and behaviors,
even if they didn't intend those effects.

[jillery]

On Mon, 14 Dec 2020 07:43:27 -0800, Mark Isaak
<eci...@curioustaxonomyNOSPAM.net> wrote:

>On 12/13/20 11:53 PM, jillery wrote:
>> On Sun, 13 Dec 2020 21:40:19 -0800, John Harshman
>> <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> [...]
>>>>
>>> I didn't intend anything I said as a personal attack. You tend to
>>> interpret a lot of things as attacks, and I really should consider that
>>> when posting in your direction.
>>
>> Your comment above is a pointless personal attack, and puts the lie to
>> your denial.
>
>Jillery,
>
>John's comment above is neither pointless nor an attack. It is true,
>and it would be to your advantage to know it.

What has happened in this thread is, Harshman posted a pointless
personal attack, to which I responded appropriately. and Harshman now
characterizes my response as improperly interpreting his pointless
personal attack.

Since my response here was proper, and since you say you agree with
him, you must have based your opinion on some other event. Right here
would have been a good place for you to have cited said event. But I
acknowledge that it's so much easier to just post baseless allusions.

[jillery]

On Mon, 14 Dec 2020 10:22:26 -0600, DB Cates

And you failed to heed your own advice. Such is the nature of
hypocrisy.

[erik simpson]

Everybody who has or has not personally attacked jillery should just shut up!

[jillery]

On Mon, 14 Dec 2020 11:53:02 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

To which I add, you followed the script that has happened time after
time, for Harshman to troll a pointless personal attack, and I
properly respond to that pointless personal attack, and you and others
mindlessly accuse me of improperly responding to his pointless
personal attack. Give yourself a gold star.

[jillery]

Where were you when Harshman started his troll?

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

When I first cameto this group five or ten years ago (before the long
hiatus caused by the server's ignoring my messages) I had Jillery
killfiled, and recently I've had difficulty remembering why. Threads
like this one may suggest a hypothesis.

--
Athel -- British, living in France for 34 years

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Friday, December 11, 2020 at 9:00:29 PM UTC-5, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 6:40:28 PM UTC-5, Lawyer Daggett wrote:
> > On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 6:20:30 PM UTC-5, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > On Friday, December 4, 2020 at 5:30:28 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > On 12/4/20 12:44 PM, nyik...@gmail.com wrote:
> > ...
> > > So you think both of the posts I have done to this thread are self-serving and off-topic screeds?
> > Yes,
> Did Harshman appoint you as his mouthpiece, "Lawyer"?
>
> If you are speaking only for yourself, let's see you give your reasons for your "Yes"
> answer. Beginning, of course, with the OP which NOBODY has had the gumption to
> reply to directly. I give you some motivation at the end of this post not to remain
> mum about that OP.
> > and you are the master of conclusory allegation.
> That's a cute expression you dug up there, Daggett. Would you mind letting
> us know what it means to YOU? And how it is supposed to apply to what I
> wrote?
> > John merely asked a
> > question,
> That "merely" is your pusillanimous self talking, not even daring to give anyone
> who is ignoring my posts and reading yours the slightest clue as to what
> Harshman's question was about.
>
> I have tackled that masterpiece of mendacity in four different ways so far,
> and have referred to them with faces of a die for easy reference:
>
> _____________________________ excerpt from reply to Harshman_________________
> > >> Hey, that part was almost on-topic, or at least it alludes to an
> > >> on-topic topic. Why not start doing that sort of thing on TO instead of
> > >> all these self-serving and off-topic screeds?
> > >
> > > There are so many things wrong with the above comments of yours, John, that
> > > one could match them with the sides of a die, and tackle them in turn
> > > as they come up on the next roll.
>
> Since your narcissism and conrol-freak tendencies caused you to ignore the above, John,
> I will spell this out a little more.
>
> I gave one "face of the die" in my first reply to your post, and two more in
> the post to which you are replying. Below, I give a fourth one.
> ========================== end of excerpt =========================
>
> And you've been mum the whole time in the wake of this raking of the
> question you labeled with "merely" over the coals.
>
> I've ignored you on this thread, and also the one about the words "creationism"
> and "evolution," because your status in talk.origins is far below that of most
> people in an adversarial position against me. And your pusillanimous "merely"
> only underscores that fact.
>
> It's finally become worthwhile for me to answer this post, though, because
> you and Sean Dillon [1] have been posting one piece of outrageous
> spin-doctoring after another on that thread, and this post shows just how
> empty all your bravado is.
>
>
> [1] Ever since Sean returned, I was struck by the way the two of you
> are the closest thing to "identical twins" wrt *modus* operandi of any pair of
> very active people in talk.origins with any status at all. Both of you are
> addicted to bottom-posting and allergic to any specifics which could
> give a clue as to how to interpret your generalities. No wonder the
> two of you leaped to "defend" Mark Isaak for his hypocritical pretense at
> being concerned about genuine communication wrt the meaning of words.
> > while you consistently assert answers,
> Like you and Sean did, in spades? At least I back up one answer after another
> with reference to specific events, with documentation if necessary.
> > though at least this time
> > the answers you assert are correct.
> Beg pardon? what answers did you have in mind here? You haven't left
> > Serving yourself is your primary purpose.
> Mindless projection of Anglo-American obsession with Looking Out for Number One
> on me noted.
>
> On the contrary, my OP exhibits a level of altruism that I have never seen exhibited
> in talk.origins by anyone else and never expect to see from either Harshman,
> Dillon, or yourself. You would do far better by claiming that my altruism
> deserves to be treated the way Ayn Rand condemned "the Altruists"
> in one novel after anothery. There, at least, you would have plenty of
> grist for your self-appointed, virulently adversarial, policy towards me from the get-go.
>
>
> Peter Nyikos

I posted 3 sentences, consuming 3 lines. You fragmented that into 6 parts.
Here's what I posted:

"Yes, and you are the master of conclusory allegation. John merely asked a
question, while you consistently assert answers, though at least this time
the answers you assert are correct. Serving yourself is your primary purpose. "

You may not agree with what I wrote but take note. The sentences work
together to make a point. There's a coherence even if you disagree.

It was a response to you asking a question.
[PN] So you think both of the posts I have done to this thread are self-serving and off-topic screeds?

Your dissection is most entertaining. You begin by demanding that I back up
my yes but of course have dissected away the reasons I provided, invoking
your conclusory allegations and referencing back to that regards you asserting
answers.

Your posting style is the embodiment of a certain personality type that doesn't
listen to what another says, they just look for a chance to interrupt. Apparently,
that's what you like about usenet. You get to cut others off at the end of
every sentence, or as above, at every comma. And so you don't even begin
to understand what others have said or mean as you're too busy planning
what you are going to say in response. Then you punctuate it all with irrational
self-satisfaction in thinking you've scored grand victories. It's pathological.

[erik simpson]

Damn, I would have though that was a last-word-proof remark! Wrong again!

[nyik...@gmail.com]

On Friday, December 11, 2020 at 11:05:29 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:

> Peter has been looking for potential allies in the unlikeliest of places.

Your deep-seated insecurities are coming to the fore here. Both JTEM and Mario
would be a handicap instead of an asset as allies for me.

On the other hand, you and Oxyaena are the closest of allies, despite the fact
that Oxyaena is at least as much of a loose cannon as JTEM, especially in confrontations with me.
But I suppose you appreciate the way she has channeled the worst of her craziness as
Thinaxodon onto me.

What puzzles me is that you gave "Howler Monkey" the cold shoulder after
he tried to ingratiate himself with you in sci.bio.paleontology. I bet you'll regret
that decision if Glenn decides to post to that newsgroup on a regular basis.


> Glenn looked
> promising for a while, but, well, you know.

I know that Glenn is more sane than either Oxyaena, or Ron O, or Hemidactylus.
I think you know that too, deep down inside, hence your insecurities about him
that became obvious during the last downtime of Beagle. JTEM never bothered
you, for instance, and neither has Dale in his periodic invasions of s.b.p.


> JTEM doesn't cooperate at all,

Yes, he is a full-time loose cannon, unlike "Oxyaena" who learned from the terrible
beating from DIG's banhammer as "Thrinaxodon" how most profitably to
channel her negative qualities. As a result, you and Oxyaena and Harshman have
become like three peas in a pod in both t.o. and s.b.p.


Remainder deleted, to be replied to later, perhaps today.


Peter Nyikos

[*Hemidactylus*]

I haven’t taken offense, but this arcane Python stuff can get out of hand.

[*Hemidactylus*]

I can’t quite get at what humor Harshman was intending with “copious
factual errors” especially given jillery had already self-corrected on the
Get Smart reference. I will acknowledge the remark had a negative impact
on jillery.

I think I’ve already vented my spleen on how I feel about the Python
arcane. No good can come of it.

[erik simpson]

Yeah, Python's pretty silly, but it's inspired silly. Better than most of the stuff
floating down our little cloaca maxima. This has been a rotten year. Here's
hoping for across-the-board improvement coming up.

[jillery]

On Mon, 14 Dec 2020 18:37:15 +0100, Athel Cornish-Bowden
<acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote:

>When I first cameto this group five or ten years ago (before the long
>hiatus caused by the server's ignoring my messages) I had Jillery
>killfiled, and recently I've had difficulty remembering why. Threads
>like this one may suggest a hypothesis.

Threads like this one are stupid arguments manufactured so that other
posters can blame me for them. This is how Usenet bullying works.

Everything posted in this thread after Harshman's pointless personal
attack is a direct consequence of it and his continuing failure to
acknowledge it. This makes your suggested hypothesis mindlessly
misdirected. I am not surprised that you still remember how to play
your role in these charades. Give yourself a gold star.

[jillery]

On Mon, 14 Dec 2020 10:12:05 -0800 (PST), erik simpson

>Damn, I would have though that was a last-word-proof remark! Wrong again!

So you have no answer. This is how Usenet bullying works.