LIES AND LIARS IN TALK.ORIGINS

[pnyikos]

Most regulars of talk.origins don't seem to care about dishonesty even
if someone attempts to bring it to their attention, unless the accused
person is someone they like (for instance, themselves) or actively
dislike.

What is really disturbing, though, is that a number of t.o. regulars
act as though dishonesty -- even lying that defames another -- is no
big deal, as long as they or people they like are indulging in it.

Many of the same people act as though lying *were* a big deal to them
when charging people they do not like with it. Their shenanigans have
become so widespread that Mark Isaak has written:

The charge of "lie" has been thrown around so frequently
and gratuitously lately that it has all the force of calling
someone a "poop-head".
--http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/34969dba90f503ce

However, this disregards the issue of the reliability (or lack of it)
of the word of the person making the charge. Most charges of lying
here, in my experience, fall into two diametrically opposed
categories:

A. Copious false charges of lying by some and
B. Copious true charges by the targets of copious falsehoods

How is one to tell the innocent from the guilty? Certainly not by
following the recipe Isaak gave immediately afterwards:

If I wanted to discover anyone who really is lying,
reading accusations of lying would be the
last place I look.

What this "advice" disregards is that there is so much going on in
talk.origins all the time, that there is only one practical way of
finding a liar who is not targeting you with lies. And that is to
look for documentation of lying; and the most (and almost the only)
practical way to find it is to see it associated with accusations of
lying.

Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of the process. Assessing
the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that
is probably why so few people undertake it. In future posts to this
thread, I will detail some of the obstacles in the way and make
suggestions for overcoming some of them.

Peter Nyikos

[Ray Martinez]

On Mar 5, 11:30�am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Most regulars of talk.origins don't seem to care about dishonesty even
> if someone attempts to bring it to their attention, unless the accused
> person is someone they like (for instance, themselves) or actively
> dislike.
>
> What is really disturbing, though, is that a number of t.o. regulars
> act as though dishonesty -- even lying that defames another -- is no
> big deal, as long as they or people they like are indulging in it.
>
> Many of the same people act as though lying *were* a big deal to them
> when charging people they do not like with it. �Their shenanigans have
> become so widespread that Mark Isaak has written:
>
> � The charge of "lie" has been thrown around so frequently
> � and gratuitously lately that it has all the force of calling
> � someone a "poop-head".
> --http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/34969dba90f503ce

The following link is also relevant, it informs Mark Isaak that I
wasn't accusing Peter of lying; rather, I was bemoaning Peter's "agree-
with-me-or-you-are-a-liar" tactic:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/98870af7d01e2400

Mark acknowledged his mistake here:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/470ae3ee83d3a6e9

And I have requested Moderation action----that Peter be warned for
corrupting this newsgroup with off-topic nonsense, that link is here:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/86b8e9981df37a5a

And here again for Peter and Paul Gans:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/53c6909cd066071b

> However, this disregards the issue of the reliability (or lack of it)
> of the word of the person making the charge. �Most charges of lying
> here, in my experience, fall into �two diametrically opposed
> categories:
>
> A. �Copious false charges of lying by some and
> B. �Copious true charges by the targets of copious falsehoods
>
> How is one to tell the innocent from the guilty? �Certainly not by
> following the recipe Isaak gave immediately afterwards:
>
> � �If I wanted to discover anyone who really is lying,
> � �reading accusations of lying would be the
> � �last place I look.
>
> What this "advice" disregards is that there is so much going on in
> talk.origins all the time, that there is only one practical way of
> finding a liar who is not targeting you with lies. �And that is to
> look for documentation of lying; and the most (and almost the only)
> practical way to find it is to see it associated with accusations of
> lying.
>
> Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of the process. �Assessing
> the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that
> is probably why so few people undertake it. �In future posts to this
> thread, I will detail some of the obstacles in the way and make
> suggestions for overcoming some of them.
>
> Peter Nyikos

For Peter to create a topic (with subject line in angry caps)
showcases his guilt in "crimes" against the health of this newsgroup.
The topic here is nothing but subterfuge, insults intelligence, and
seeks to psychologically disuade DIG from issuing him a much deserved
warning or banning.

Ray

[Glenn]

"Ray Martinez" <pyram...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:691ba2c8-850b-4a7f...@oz4g2000pbc.googlegroups.com...

Just turn him into a newt, Ray.

[Robert Camp]

On Mar 5, 11:30 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

For a long time I chalked up your awkward socialization to poor toilet-
training, but this is starting to look like some sort of genuine
psychopathology. Have you seen a professional?

[Inez]

On Mar 5, 11:30�am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> Most regulars of talk.origins don't seem to care about dishonesty even
> if someone attempts to bring it to their attention, unless the accused
> person is someone they like (for instance, themselves) or actively
> dislike.
>
> What is really disturbing, though, is that a number of t.o. regulars
> act as though dishonesty -- even lying that defames another -- is no
> big deal, as long as they or people they like are indulging in it.
>

Lying is a big deal if it winds up up with a war in Iraq or jail time
for tax evasion. Lying on newsgroups...eh. Annoying perhaps, but
where is the actual harm?

The notion that a person can't criticize someone for something without
then taking it upon themselves to police the whole newgroup for the
same crime is silly. People I disagree with are much more irritating
than people I agree with, so I criticize them more often. We call
that "human nature" down my way.

[pnyikos]

On Mar 5, 3:36 pm, Inez <savagemouse...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 5, 11:30 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:> Most regulars of talk.origins don't seem to care about dishonesty even
> > if someone attempts to bring it to their attention, unless the accused
> > person is someone they like (for instance, themselves) or actively
> > dislike.
>
> > What is really disturbing, though, is that a number of t.o. regulars
> > act as though dishonesty -- even lying that defames another -- is no
> > big deal, as long as they or people they like are indulging in it.
>
> Lying is a big deal if it winds up up with a war in Iraq or jail time
> for tax evasion.  Lying on newsgroups...eh.  Annoying perhaps, but
> where is the actual harm?

Well, if defamation is generally believed, and the target is
unpopular, the defamation has a way of mushrooming. And who wants to
be the target of that?

More importantly: there are enormous differences between lies, ranging
all the way from white lies to legally actionable libel. I don't
think I've seen any of the latter in talk.origins, but some people
have occasionally come close.

Some lying isn't a big deal even to me. I once caught a talk.origins
regular of something like two decades' standing, lying to get himself
out of a tight spot.

Since he did it in a way that would not have reflected too badly on
me, were the lie to have been generally believed, I readily forgave
him for that, though I didn't say so at the time. I did let him know
indirectly later on, however.

> The notion that a person can't criticize someone for something without
> then taking it upon themselves to police the whole newgroup for the
> same crime is silly.

It sure is. That is why it is light years apart from what I am doing
here, although there are some common elements.

Your next statement, OTOH, bears no discernible connection with what I
posted above.

>  People I disagree with are much more irritating
> than people I agree with, so I criticize them more often.  We call
> that "human nature" down my way.

Absolutely, and we are all prone to it. It takes a special kind of
saint to be calm in the face of the kind of vitriolic attack I've
documented in another newsgroup:

Any antiabort male should have his balls ripped off
with pliers. And "denise" needs to get gangraped
to death.
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.abortion/msg/7c4b3fb1356665b1
Message-ID: <528befe4-c690-4e99-a24e-
e518187d3...@p2g2000prf.googlegroups.com>
the last three symbols before the @ are c7a

The person who did that post was demonstrating that turning the other
cheek, the way "denise" (Denise Noe) consistently did in reaction to
the abuse showered on her by the same person, only works when the
opponent has a conscience.

I said the same thing, identifying the person who made that vile
comment -- I was replying directly to her --
in: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.agnosticism/msg/c7485fb2c3186e90

And this person posted in reply:

"Go kill yourself, OopsNy."
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.agnosticism/msg/dcefb7c1e350f5f8

"OopsNy" was one of her nicknames for me, and if anyone wants to know
what is behind it, I'll gladly tell.

By the way, Denise Noe isn't even antiabort: she is for the kind of
law that there is in many countries of Europe: elective abortion in
the first trimester, severely restricted legally afterwards.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

Why don't you ask Al Franken the same question? Before he became a US
Senator, he wrote a book titled, _Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell_.

Peter Nyikos

[Greg Guarino]

On 3/5/2013 2:30 PM, pnyikos wrote:

> Assessing
> the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that
> is probably why so few people undertake it.

There's a lesson in there, if only you could bring yourself to recognize it.

It is not merely time-consuming, it is pointless; several levels more
pointless even than the on-topic pointlessness that is the raison d'etre
of the group.

Usenet allows people to behave poorly with impunity. They're like the
rain; rain is annoying, but it has been around forever, and will be
around forever, however much I complain about it.

While I can't escape getting wet from time to time, I can easily choose
whom I care to interact with on Usenet. My newsgroup universe is
completely subject to my whim; I am Lord and Master of all I (choose to)
survey.

Undertaking the time-consuming quest of exposing (gasp) newsgroup
*lying*, you accomplish two things: You attract people who enjoy poking
the thin-skinned, and you chase away the rest who (like me) observe that
your name (among others) seldom accompanies an interesting post.

And you don't even content yourself with combating alleged insults to
yourself personally. You go to bat for Prawnster, who worked very
diligently to earn his reputation, and someone named Giwer, whose
participation here must have been an awful long time ago, as I have
never seen him post here.

I took a glance at Giwer's web site out of curiosity; like Prawnster, I
hardly think that we need to invoke conspiracy to explain why so many
people might have a poor opinion of him. It seems entirely plausible to
me that a lot of people could come to that conclusion independently. But
you seem attracted to the idea of persecution; enough to ferret out and
save documentation a decade old.

If you're interested in my advice, I recommend against the whole endeavor.

[Robert Camp]

I'm well aware of Franken's book. The reference in your title didn't
escape me. Neither was what I said in any way prompted by your title,
or Franken, or his book. Should I read something into your apparent
avoidance of the question?

[pnyikos]

On Mar 5, 4:22 pm, Greg Guarino <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/5/2013 2:30 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > Assessing
> > the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that
> > is probably why so few people undertake it.
>
> There's a lesson in there, if only you could bring yourself to recognize it.

I believe I've learned many lessons from it, some of which you don't
even hint at in what you wrote below [mostly snipped this time due to
lack of time].

> It is not merely time-consuming, it is pointless; several levels more
> pointless even than the on-topic pointlessness that is the raison d'etre
> of the group.

You and Inez seem to think alike. What you call on-topic pointlessness
is something I've already talked to her about on another thread.

_______________ begin excerpts___________

Don't forget, though, that this newsgroup also serves as a "proving
ground" for various items in the talk.origins FAQ Archive. Some real
kooks have contributed to the FAQ archive, but some of them have
managed to keep their kookiness out of their contributions to the FAQ
archive.

The FAQ archive serves as a general resource for the big outside
world. One of my daughters, who loves paleontology, did two term
papers for honors high school science courses using [in part]
resources from the FAQ archive, which she found on her own.

For the first, she used the excellent FAQ on horse evolution. When I
saw one of the FAQs she used for the other term paper, on the Cambrian
explosion, I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her that the
author was one of the most dishonest, cowardly regulars in
talk.origins at the time,

[...]

Fortunately, he is gone from talk.origins. The FAQ itself seemed
objective but I cautioned her to check some other resources on the
same topic, since I could not vouch for the correctness of everything
there.
================== end of excerpt
from http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/bdcb5063c0f96a81

> Usenet allows people to behave poorly with impunity.

Unless they do something that DIG feels is grounds for barring that
person. I've been given to understand that massive, documentable
defamation isn't one of them, and anyway the problem is so systemic
that this wouldn't be a practical thing to try even if it were
grounds. That is one of my reasons for starting this thread.

Rest deleted, to be replied to later.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 3/5/13 1:22 PM, pnyikos wrote:
> On Mar 5, 3:36 pm, Inez<savagemouse...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mar 5, 11:30 am, pnyikos<nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:> Most regulars of talk.origins don't seem to care about dishonesty even
>>> if someone attempts to bring it to their attention, unless the accused
>>> person is someone they like (for instance, themselves) or actively
>>> dislike.
>>
>>> What is really disturbing, though, is that a number of t.o. regulars
>>> act as though dishonesty -- even lying that defames another -- is no
>>> big deal, as long as they or people they like are indulging in it.
>>
>> Lying is a big deal if it winds up up with a war in Iraq or jail time
>> for tax evasion. Lying on newsgroups...eh. Annoying perhaps, but
>> where is the actual harm?
>
> Well, if defamation is generally believed, and the target is
> unpopular, the defamation has a way of mushrooming. And who wants to
> be the target of that?
>
> More importantly: there are enormous differences between lies, ranging
> all the way from white lies to legally actionable libel. I don't
> think I've seen any of the latter in talk.origins, but some people
> have occasionally come close.
>
> Some lying isn't a big deal even to me. I once caught a talk.origins
> regular of something like two decades' standing, lying to get himself
> out of a tight spot.

Did it all begin with the strawberries, then?

[Glenn]

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

Leave Lennon out of this, even if he did mushroom.

[Roger Shrubber]

Because he managed to do it with a sense of humor and so was
not so mind numbingly tedious. You also got the title wrong.

[Glenn]

"Roger Shrubber" <rog.sh...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:etOdnWsNQ4e38qvM...@giganews.com...

That's a lie. Peter didn't "get the title wrong", he made it up, and it is a
lie to lie, making him a lying liar. You knew that and lied about the
lie about the lie, like a lying liar.

[RAM]

Yes as soon as he assumed the rank of Capt. Morality to deal with the
degenerates on the deteriorating creation destroyer Talk Origins.
Sadly, it all started because the T.O. denizens unfairly keep giving
him the raspberries.

[pnyikos]

The pattern is SO boring: on this thread, as on so many other threads
I start, nobody seems to be addressing any of the specific statements
i make in my post.

So I've added a few comments myself, snipping some of the rest for the
sake of brevity.

On Mar 5, 4:40 pm, Robert Camp <robertlc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 5, 1:25 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> > On Mar 5, 3:10 pm, Robert Camp <robertlc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Mar 5, 11:30 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > > Most regulars of talk.origins don't seem to care about dishonesty even
> > > > if someone attempts to bring it to their attention, unless the accused
> > > > person is someone they like (for instance, themselves) or actively
> > > > dislike.
>
> > > > What is really disturbing, though, is that a number of t.o. regulars
> > > > act as though dishonesty -- even lying that defames another -- is no
> > > > big deal, as long as they or people they like are indulging in it.

Let me make clear that the number of people described above is AFAIK
less than a dozen. And only one of them, Ray Martinez, has shown up
on this thread so far. He is atypical in that most of the rest are
non-creationists. [Please note the AFAIK before commencing to flame
me, readers.]

However, Robert Camp, to whom I am replying, is however not free of
suspicion that he fits the above description. I can't recall offhand
any case of him fitting the one in the next paragraph I wrote earlier:

> > > > Many of the same people act as though lying *were* a big deal to them
> > > > when charging people they do not like with it.

[snip]

The question is the second half of a "garbage in, garbage out" (GIGO)
with no discernible (by me, anyway) connection to anything I wrote in
my first post. Perhaps if you tried to make a connection, your
question might start to make sense.

Judging from past performance by you, though, making a connection with
the actual *content* of my first post is the furthest thing from your
mind.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

I've seen these catty allusions to _The Caine Mutiny_ in a Thread
Diluting Kaffeeklatsch on another thread. Here, as there, they miss
the real essence of the film.

Is this kind of fluff all we can expect from you on this thread? My,
my, how far you have deteriorated since the very early days of my
return to talk.orgins. Back then, el cid served as an inspiration to
you. I miss him more and more with each passing month.

Why don't you do something worthy of your mettle, and reply to the
post in the thread I started a short while ago for on-topic discussion
of Feduccia's article in _The AuK_?

Peter Nyikos

[Bill]

I've said it before: You'd really be happier if you could just let go
of this. There are smart, polite, interesting people here. Just ignore
the others. They can't hurt you unless you let them.

[Mark Isaak]

On 3/5/13 11:30 AM, pnyikos wrote:
> [...]

> How is one to tell the innocent from the guilty? Certainly not by
> following the recipe Isaak gave immediately afterwards:
>
> If I wanted to discover anyone who really is lying,
> reading accusations of lying would be the
> last place I look.

Calling that a recipe for distinguishing innocent from guilty is like
saying "Don't include kerosine" is a recipe for chocolate cake.

And I stand by both bits of advice (at least, for the latter, when it
applies to ingredients for baking).

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

[John Harshman]

They aren't an attempt at encapsulating the essence of the film, merely
an attempt to acknowledge your Queegish personality. Would you have been
a better poster if we had all supported you from the beginning? Are we
all Fred McMurray? I doubt it.

> Is this kind of fluff all we can expect from you on this thread?

Yes, because it's all this crankish behavior deserves. Stop before it's
too late. You're even drifting into ALL CAPS, another crank signature.

> My,
> my, how far you have deteriorated since the very early days of my
> return to talk.orgins. Back then, el cid served as an inspiration to
> you. I miss him more and more with each passing month.
>
> Why don't you do something worthy of your mettle, and reply to the
> post in the thread I started a short while ago for on-topic discussion
> of Feduccia's article in _The AuK_?

Finally, something on-topic. Now let this thread go.

[Mark Isaak]

On 3/5/13 1:40 PM, pnyikos wrote:
> On Mar 5, 4:22 pm, Greg Guarino <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 3/5/2013 2:30 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>>> Assessing
>>> the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that
>>> is probably why so few people undertake it.
>>
>> There's a lesson in there, if only you could bring yourself to recognize it.
>

> I believe I've learned many lessons from it [...]

You believe wrongly.

Please, for your sake as well as ours, stop trusting your own judgment.
Find other people you trust and start running your ideas past them.

[raven1]

Pardon me for any frivolousness in my own previous replies to you, but
I do mean the following in all seriousness: will you please seek
competent psychiatric help? Your overreaction to, and obsession over
perceived slights, and your resentment towards others for not rushing
to condemn them, are becoming truly creepy in a "potential
mass-shooter in the making" sort of way.

---
raven1
aa # 1096
EAC Vice President (President in charge of vice)
BAAWA Knight

[Glenn]

"raven1" <quotht...@nevermore.com> wrote in message news:8g3dj8prmlhni89ie...@4ax.com...

You aren't even in his shoes, and you're overacting.

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 5 Mar 2013 13:40:43 -0800 (PST), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net>:

>On Mar 5, 4:22�pm, Greg Guarino <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 3/5/2013 2:30 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>> > Assessing
>> > the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that
>> > is probably why so few people undertake it.
>>
>> There's a lesson in there, if only you could bring yourself to recognize it.
>
>I believe I've learned many lessons from it, some of which you don't
>even hint at in what you wrote below [mostly snipped this time due to
>lack of time].

Did you ever consider that this habit of yours (the comment
inside the brackets above) is one of the two reasons people
dislike trying to hold a discussion with you?

>> It is not merely time-consuming, it is pointless; several levels more
>> pointless even than the on-topic pointlessness that is the raison d'etre
>> of the group.
>
>You and Inez seem to think alike. What you call on-topic pointlessness
>is something I've already talked to her about on another thread.
>
>_______________ begin excerpts___________

And this is the other one, at least for me: You refer to a
"lack of time" to address Greg's points, then you insert
dozens of lines unrelated to his comments. With such
behavior why is it a matter of wonder to you that many here
consider you to be a less-than-honest whiner who *refuses*
to support his positions or to honestly address rebuttals of
those positions?

And that's a variation of #2 above. If you did it only
occasionally it wouldn't be a problem, but you do it on a
regular basis, and along with the inclusion in your posts of
material from *years* earlier (what I jokingly refer to as
"Peter's infinite recursions") it makes anything you wish to
say nearly impossible to follow.
--

Bob C.

"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."

- McNameless

[John Bode]

On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 1:30:32 PM UTC-6, pnyikos wrote:

[snip]

>
> What is really disturbing, though, is that a number of t.o. regulars
> act as though dishonesty -- even lying that defames another -- is no
> big deal, as long as they or people they like are indulging in it.
>

This accusation would carry some weight if you could point to specific
examples. Surely you can already point to *some* instance of lying and
defamation if it's so prevalent.

Otherwise I'm not sure what the point of this is. Announcing the result,
then beginning the investigation is exactly backwards.

[jillery]

Part of the problem with your suggestion is that rockhead uses very
distinctive definitions for "lie" and "dishonesty" and "evidence" and
"examples" and "defamation" and "prevalent". Just sayin'.

[pnyikos]

On Mar 5, 5:18�pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> pnyikos wrote:
> > On Mar 5, 3:10 pm, Robert Camp <robertlc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> For a long time I chalked up your awkward socialization to poor toilet-
> >> training, but this is starting to look like some sort of genuine
> >> psychopathology. Have you seen a professional?
>
> > Why don't you ask Al Franken the same question? �Before he became a US
> > Senator, he wrote a book titled, _Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell_.

"Because" in the following comment is illogical, since "mind numbingly
tedious," even were it correct, is an entirely different issue from
"genuine psychopathology".

> Because he managed to do it with a sense of humor and so was
> not so mind numbingly tedious.

What sense of humor? If he was anything like "Me, Al Franken" as
played in "Saturday Night Live," he was as obnoxiously self-centered
as Woody Allen, without the intelligence that at least made Woody
Allen interesting.

On the other hand, I could see lots of humor in the skits of
"Ernestine, the telephone operator" because, even though she was
obnoxious, she was satirizing a source of irritation to millions.
["We're the telephone company. We don't HAVE to care."]

And maybe that's what makes Franken humorous to you in the book, but
since I pay almost no attention to either Ann Coulter, or Rush
Limbaugh, or Bill O'Reilley, I'm afraid the humor would totally escape
me.

> You also got the title wrong.

Serves me right for not googling it. Correct is: _Lies and the Lying
Liars Who Tell Them_.

Ironically, the way I had it was more accurate as to the contents.
For something whose contents are akin to the actual title of Franken's
book, the following two books are better:

_Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!: The Psychology of Deceit_, by Charles V. Ford

http://www.amazon.com/Lies-The-Psychology-Deceit/dp/0880489979

_Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life [Paperback]_, by
Sisella Bok

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375705287/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

Good humor, there, even though it is way wide of the mark of what I am
writing to this thread.

Besides the original post, my replies to Inez, Guarino and Camp should
make the latter point clear.

Peter Nyikos

[Roger Shrubber]

On Mar 8, 8:34 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> On Mar 5, 5:18 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > pnyikos wrote:
> > > On Mar 5, 3:10 pm, Robert Camp <robertlc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >> For a long time I chalked up your awkward socialization to poor toilet-
> > >> training, but this is starting to look like some sort of genuine
> > >> psychopathology. Have you seen a professional?
>
> > > Why don't you ask Al Franken the same question?  Before he became a US
> > > Senator, he wrote a book titled, _Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell_.
>
> "Because" in the following comment is illogical, since "mind numbingly
> tedious," even were it correct, is an entirely different issue from
> "genuine psychopathology".

Perhaps you intended to say that the logic escapes you.
It is true that I did not connect all the dots.
The hidden presumption is that normal humans who
have passed childhood recognize how terribly
boorish it is to incessantly call other people liars
every time they say something you don't like.
In fact, in well socialized people there's a bit of a
reflex-like reaction if you simply overhear "liar" from
a conversation you've not be following. Most people
are more likely to notice that somebody has lost
their cool and is regressing to a 10 year old child
than to reach for their judge's robe to have the
combatants present in an evidentiary hearing.
Don't ask why I mention that last bit.

So when one gangs together "lies" and "liars" it really
begins to look like somebody has gone off the deep end.
One worries that the bubble on their level is drifting
outside the lines.

The book you tried to reference, _Lies and the lying liars
who tell them_ of course takes thing even further. Three!
The immediate reaction is that somebody has completely
lost it, bring the men in the white coats, the bubble on their
level has escaped. Then, something else kicks in. It's just
so far over the top that it had to be intentional, an element
of parody. This process can take any where from a fraction
of a second to perhaps 5 if you were otherwise preoccupied.
Some may even cook it slower. Some, sadly, not at all.

And if one looks at the author, and has any familiarity with
his style, one recognizes he loves extremes. Litotes and
parody, heavy dripping sarcasm.

The book itself, by the way, deviates from the books of those
referred to in the title in that it does not simply spew forth
accusations of their low intelligence and lack of moral character,
spittle spraying screeds laced with raw anger and vitriol ,but
instead retorts in the form of laughing at them and pointing
out absurdities. It does not raise it's voice and shout back,
it savages with humor by recounting their own words to document
hypocrisy but always laughing at them, not stomping a foot
and cursing them. Even people who are politically right leaning
see the humor, even if they don't enjoy it as much.

So back to the logic. Normally socialized people with a
normal sense of self-awareness understand how antisocial
it is to go about accusing people of being liars. They would
also understand that a spur of the moment reaction is less
antisocial than a cold and calculated accusation, such as
the initiation of a thread with lie or liar in the title. Ganging
the two together effectively screams "I have no clue how
this will look to normal people" unless of course it is somehow
diffused, the standard way being with humor.

I do believe that this grotesque lack of awareness of how
others will perceive you is a pyschopathology. I also believe
it's related to your failure to recognize humor.

It's not that you're evil Peter. There are just some things
you don't and apparently can't understand. I'm sure you
make up for it in other ways. But it does handicap you in
certain circumstances. This is particularly true of those
often use humor to diffuse tension. And talk.origins has
always been about humor. How can you do anything but
laugh at the idea of adults believing that the world is
only 10,000 years old and that Noah loaded all the animals
on his arc.

> > Because he managed to do it with a sense of humor and so was
> > not so mind numbingly tedious.
>
> What sense of humor?  If he was anything like "Me, Al Franken" as
> played in "Saturday Night Live," he was as obnoxiously self-centered
> as Woody Allen, without the intelligence that at least made Woody
> Allen interesting.

That's the joke. It's self-deprecating humor. They take that
self-centeredness and amp it up, turn the dial up to 11.
They invite us to laugh at them. It's not like they are trying
to be role models for children.

> On the other hand, I could see lots of humor in the skits of
> "Ernestine, the telephone operator" because, even though she was
> obnoxious, she was satirizing a source of irritation to millions.
> ["We're the telephone company.  We don't HAVE to care."]

Peter, you have trouble recognizing satire. Profound trouble.

> And maybe that's what makes Franken humorous to you in the book, but
> since I pay almost no attention to either Ann Coulter, or Rush
> Limbaugh, or Bill O'Reilley, I'm afraid the humor would totally
> escape me.

There you go. Litotes.

> > You also got the title wrong.
>
> Serves me right for not googling it.  Correct is: _Lies and the Lying
> Liars Who Tell Them_.

> Ironically,  the way I had it was more accurate as to the contents.

But it would then have been clinical and not funny, which is the
point.

> For something whose contents are akin to the actual title of Franken's
> book, the following two books are better:
>
>  _Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!: The Psychology of Deceit_, by Charles V. Ford
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Lies-The-Psychology-Deceit/dp/0880489979
>
>      _Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life [Paperback]_, by
> Sisella Bok
>
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375705287/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk
>
> Peter Nyikos

Some horses are determined to die of thirst.

[Paul J Gans]

If I recall correctly he even has his own definition of
"irreducible complexity" that allows him to claim that
evolutionists at times unfairly attack Behe.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

[Roger Shrubber]

On Mar 8, 10:57 am, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

More like he fixates on specific definitions from Behe, with
his own specific interpretation, and ignores where Behe
implies or uses others. Behe is not as rigorous as Peter,
and that seems to be other people's fault.

[David Iain Greig]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Most regulars of talk.origins don't seem to care about dishonesty even
> if someone attempts to bring it to their attention, unless the accused
> person is someone they like (for instance, themselves) or actively
> dislike.

Actually I've expressed a dislike of this too - about Ted Holden.
People called Ted a liar, and I objected. People can disagree with
others without actually lying; many positions simply are orthogonal.

I also dislike threads with people's names in them calling them out.
It's tacky.

Peter, I suspect you're wasting your time on this, regrettably.

--D.

--
david iain greig dgr...@ediacara.org
sp4 kox
http://www.ediacara.org/~dgreig arbor plena alouattarum

[pnyikos]

On Mar 5, 6:18 pm, Bill <brogers31...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 6, 2:30 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> > Most regulars of talk.origins don't seem to care about dishonesty even
> > if someone attempts to bring it to their attention, unless the accused
> > person is someone they like (for instance, themselves) or actively
> > dislike.
>
> > What is really disturbing, though, is that a number of t.o. regulars
> > act as though dishonesty -- even lying that defames another -- is no
> > big deal, as long as they or people they like are indulging in it.
>
> > Many of the same people act as though lying *were* a big deal to them
> > when charging people they do not like with it.  Their shenanigans have
> > become so widespread that Mark Isaak has written:
>
> >   The charge of "lie" has been thrown around so frequently
> >   and gratuitously lately that it has all the force of calling
> >   someone a "poop-head".
> > --http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/34969dba90f503ce

[snip for focus]

> I've said it before: You'd really be happier if you could just let go
> of this. There are smart, polite, interesting people here. Just ignore
> the others. They can't hurt you unless you let them.

That's not the issue. The issue is, how far can this newsgroup
deteriorate if everyone turns a blind eye to the things I talked about
in my post?

The answer: distressingly far. See what I documented in my reply to
Inez. The hate-driven woman whom I quoted, is not only given free
rein in the abortion newsgroups, but her critics are outnumbered by
the people who will not merely turn a blind eye to what she is doing,
but will back her to the hilt.

And they will use lies repeatedly to do it.

Back in 1996, I posted what I think should be done in this newsgroup:
set up a tribunal for the adjudication of personal disputes, along
with an ombudsman to

(a) apprise new posters of their right to bring grievances before the
tribunal, and
(b) remind posters of their right to do so if the ombudsman notices
apparently unjust attacks on them.

Decisions of the tribunal would be a matter of public record,
posted periodically to let posters decide just how seriously
they ought to take "misunderstandings" of them by other
posters.

One kind of result might be a poster asking someone who
is making an ad hominem *attack* (a special kind of
ad hominem statement) against him:

Say, I notice you had 5 judgments of the tribunal
go against you in 5 suspiciously similar
"misunderstandings".

An appropriate sequel might go:

Have you any reason why I or anyone else in
this newsgroup should take *this* "misunderstanding"
any more at face value than the tribunal took any of those
five?

Overseeing the tribunal would be someone whose role would be to make
sure the judgments it renders are fair. The overseer's authority would
consist of vacating what he considers to be unfair judgments and
remanding them to the tribunal for re-evaluation.

I can think of about eight people who would probably have a lot to
lose from the establishment of such a tribunal, ombudsman, and
overseer, and to use every trick in the book to heap scrorn on the
idea.

Unfortunately, many talk.origins participants have paid little
attention to the massive charges and countercharges of "lying" that
erupt now and then, and so these destructive people would probably get
their way.

But let me remind everyone that Mark Isaak acknowledged the existence
of such eruptions, as documented way above, just before my "snip for
focus," Bill.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 5, 6:28 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote:
> On 3/5/13 11:30 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > [...]
> > How is one to tell the innocent from the guilty?  Certainly not by
> > following the recipe Isaak gave immediately afterwards:
>
> >     If I wanted to discover anyone who really is lying,
> >     reading accusations of lying would be the
> >     last place I look.
>
> Calling that a recipe for distinguishing innocent from guilty is like
> saying "Don't include kerosine" is a recipe for chocolate cake.

As far as incompleteness goes, yes, but the analogy is irremediably
flawed.

A much better analogy would be if a person who has no intention of
baking a cake were to say,

If I wanted to discover a good way to
bake chocolate cake, a cookbook
is the last place I'd look.

That errs a bit in the opposite direction, but at least the "who has
no intention of baking a cake" seems to be spot on, because you have
given me other advice in which you used the relentlessly truth/
falsehood-neutral term "mudslinging."

> And I stand by both bits of advice (at least, for the latter, when it
> applies to ingredients for baking).

That's a very shaky "stand by", given that you've deleted my
criticism, which has nothing to do with the [in]appropriateness of the
term "recipe".

_____________ repost______________

What this "advice" disregards is that there is so much going on in
talk.origins all the time, that there is only one practical way of
finding a liar who is not targeting you with lies. And that is to
look for documentation of lying; and the most (and almost the only)
practical way to find it is to see it associated with accusations of
lying.

Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of the process. Assessing

the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that

is probably why so few people undertake it. In future posts to this
thread, I will detail some of the obstacles in the way and make
suggestions for overcoming some of them.

================

One obvious obstacle is people like you standing by bum advice that
you've given.

There are many, many others, some of which I will be posting about
here as time permits.

Apropos of that: next week is our week of Spring Break, and family
activities may take me away from Usenet for days at a time [in
addition to the weekends: I almost never post here on Saturdays or
(especially) Sundays.]

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

You are begging the question. If playing dominance games is
indicative of Queegish personality in your book, then you have it all
over me.

Way back, within a month of my return to talk.origins, you falsely
accused me of playing a dominance game, and it has becoming
increasingly obvious that you were indulging in a dirty tactic of
accusing others of one of your favorite pastimes, which I facetiously
referred to as UnofficialTalk.Origins Hall Monitor a few days ago.

John, you've been playing a dominance game over me ever since before
you said that, erupting in incessantly repeated variations of "You are
terrible at guessing motives. Stop it." and many other such formulas.

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

> Would you have been
> a better poster if we had all supported you from the beginning? Are we
> all Fred McMurray? I doubt it.

Read about my dream of a tribunal, in reply to Bill just now, and get
back to me about this, OK?

> > Is this kind of fluff all we can expect from you on this thread?
>
> Yes, because it's all this crankish behavior deserves.

I'll take this as strong evidence that you don't mind people lying
their heads off here all they want, and that the only thing that you
are concerned about is that all complaints about it cease.

> Stop before it's
> too late.

There you go again with your dominance game.

> You're even drifting into ALL CAPS, another crank signature.

"all caps" evidently means "1% caps" in the Queegish lexicon of John
Harshman.

> > My,
> > my, how far you have deteriorated since the very early days of my
> > return to talk.orgins.  Back then, el cid served as an inspiration to
> > you.  I miss him more and more with each passing month.
>
> > Why don't you do something worthy of your mettle, and reply to the
> > post in the thread I started a short while ago for on-topic discussion
> > of Feduccia's article in _The AuK_?
>
> Finally, something on-topic. Now let this thread go.

There's that dominance game again.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 5, 6:37 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote:
> On 3/5/13 1:40 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > On Mar 5, 4:22 pm, Greg Guarino <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 3/5/2013 2:30 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >>> Assessing
> >>> the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that
> >>> is probably why so few people undertake it.
>
> >> There's a lesson in there, if only you could bring yourself to recognize it.
>
> > I believe I've learned many lessons from it [...]
>
> You believe wrongly.
>
> Please, for your sake as well as ours,
> stop trusting your own judgment.

This from the dispenser of illogical, bum advice "...last place I
would look."

>   Find other people you trust and start running your ideas past them.

Where, in e-mail???? The biggest single change in Usenet that took
place during my 7 years' absence is that people now are incredibly
wary of e-mail exchanges with friendly people, let alone adversaries.

I had many a long e-mail exchange with adversaries of mine in
talk.abortion in 1992-1997 and in soc.history.medieval in 2000-1, more
diplomatic usually than our public exchanges. [There were exceptions
in the opposite direction, but they either got more civil or they soon
ceased.]

Anyway, I trust lots of people here [but not you], but only Glenn
seems to show the least inclination to listen to me on matters like
this.

Well, I can always hope. Perhaps Bill will read my latest reply to
him, and take the revival of my old idea to heart.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

Why, is this reply any less frivolous?

> but
> I do mean the following in all seriousness: will you please seek
> competent psychiatric help?

Why?

>Your overreaction to, and obsession over
> perceived slights,

You mean like the hundreds of false derogatory accusations Mitchell
Coffey has leveled at me in the last three months, including more than
a hundred accusations of lying, all without merit?

Do you think I over-reacted to his allegation that I am a pathological
liar, or that I've said anti-semitic thngs, and that I believed he
Nuremberg Trials to be a witch hunt? or the alllegation that I did
rape-apology posts? that I aided a pro-Nazi named Giwer?

Or are you completely oblivious to the existence of these events?

"Don't judge a man until you've
walked a mile in his moccasins."

> and your resentment towards others for not rushing
> to condemn them,

You are way off target. I don't think you even read half the post to
which you are replying.

> are becoming truly creepy in a "potential
> mass-shooter in the making" sort of way.

This sounds awfully frivolous from where I sit.

Will you hang around to seriously address my points, or will you take
a powder like you so often do when your frivolous comments are
challenged?

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

What? Are you saying that you play dominance games? And I don't know
where anyone would get the idea that Captain Queeg was into dominance
games. Starting with a contrary-to-fact postulate tends to make the rest
of the sentence pointless.

> Way back, within a month of my return to talk.origins, you falsely
> accused me of playing a dominance game, and it has becoming
> increasingly obvious that you were indulging in a dirty tactic of
> accusing others of one of your favorite pastimes, which I facetiously
> referred to as UnofficialTalk.Origins Hall Monitor a few days ago.

I'm afraid that this is all your hallucination.

> John, you've been playing a dominance game over me ever since before
> you said that, erupting in incessantly repeated variations of "You are
> terrible at guessing motives. Stop it." and many other such formulas.

That isn't a dominance game. It's an observation and a bit of advice.

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

You may disagree, but who's in a better position to assess your claims
about my motives, you or me? Of course I could always be lying, if you
want to go there.

>> Would you have been
>> a better poster if we had all supported you from the beginning? Are we
>> all Fred McMurray? I doubt it.
>
> Read about my dream of a tribunal, in reply to Bill just now, and get
> back to me about this, OK?

Read it. Silly idea. Sorry.

>>> Is this kind of fluff all we can expect from you on this thread?
>>
>> Yes, because it's all this crankish behavior deserves.
>
> I'll take this as strong evidence that you don't mind people lying
> their heads off here all they want, and that the only thing that you
> are concerned about is that all complaints about it cease.

You tend to take things as strong evidence that aren't evidence at all.
Sorry if I've mentioned that before.

>> Stop before it's
>> too late.
>
> There you go again with your dominance game.

No. Again, an observation and advice.

>> You're even drifting into ALL CAPS, another crank signature.
>
> "all caps" evidently means "1% caps" in the Queegish lexicon of John
> Harshman.

Thread title.

>>> My,
>>> my, how far you have deteriorated since the very early days of my
>>> return to talk.orgins. Back then, el cid served as an inspiration to
>>> you. I miss him more and more with each passing month.
>>
>>> Why don't you do something worthy of your mettle, and reply to the
>>> post in the thread I started a short while ago for on-topic discussion
>>> of Feduccia's article in _The AuK_?
>>
>> Finally, something on-topic. Now let this thread go.
>
> There's that dominance game again.

Any time I give you advice, that's a dominance game? At any rate, I will
help you let this go by not responding further.

[pnyikos]

On Mar 5, 8:10�pm, "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "raven1" <quoththera...@nevermore.com> wrote in messagenews:8g3dj8prmlhni89ie...@4ax.com...

Just like what I said to raven (and eridanus last month) about
moccasins.

I'd appreciate it, Glenn if you would read what I wrote to Bill. My
reply to raven1 illustrates one of many reasons why I think a tribunal
would be beneficial.

The main problem is finding people who are both willing to serve, and
trustworthy, so it may stay forever on my wish list.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 6, 12:59 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Mar 2013 13:40:43 -0800 (PST), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos

> <nyik...@bellsouth.net>:

>
> >On Mar 5, 4:22 pm, Greg Guarino <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 3/5/2013 2:30 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >> > Assessing
> >> > the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that
> >> > is probably why so few people undertake it.
>
> >> There's a lesson in there, if only you could bring yourself to recognize it.
>
> >I believe I've learned many lessons from it, some of which you don't
> >even hint at in what you wrote below [mostly snipped this time due to
> >lack of time].
>
> Did you ever consider that this habit of yours (the comment
> inside the brackets above) is one of the two reasons people
> dislike trying to hold a discussion with you?

Better than your leaving it in, and flagrantly ignoring it.

> >> It is not merely time-consuming, it is pointless; several levels more
> >> pointless even than the on-topic pointlessness that is the raison d'etre
> >> of the group.
>
> >You and Inez seem to think alike. What you call on-topic pointlessness
> >is something I've already talked to her about on another thread.
>
> >_______________ begin excerpts___________
>
> And this is the other one, at least for me: You refer to a
> "lack of time" to address Greg's points, then you insert
> dozens of lines unrelated to his comments.

It was a less than one-minute copy and paste job.

Got any non-frivolous comments? I didn't think the rest of yours
[left in below] were any less frivolous.

But I'll gladly address them if someone besides you identifies what he
thinks of as non-frivolous ones, and makes a commitment to stick
around for my answer and to indicate whether he agrees with my take on
them or not.

Peter Nyikos

> >fromhttp://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/bdcb5063c0f96a81

[pnyikos]

On Mar 7, 12:43�pm, John Bode <jfbode1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 1:30:32 PM UTC-6, pnyikos wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>
>
> > What is really disturbing, though, is that a number of t.o. regulars
> > act as though dishonesty -- even lying that defames another -- is no
> > big deal, as long as they or people they like are indulging in it.
>
> This accusation would carry some weight if you could point to specific
> examples.

I have done that a number of times before, but I thought I'd take a
different approach this time.

Anyway, raven1 made me decide to follow your advice to some extent.
Would you like for me to document the essence of what I said to him?

[I don't think even you would want me to document ALL the relevant
posts of Mitchell Coffey, and my replies.]


> �Surely you can already point to *some* instance of lying and

> defamation if it's so prevalent.

Done. And I sincerely wish that I could have done it for a target
other than myself. Over in talk.abortion I was able to do that,
because there was a basically honest, decent person (Bob "Osprey"
Heishman) who had been the target of massive, hate-driven defamation
for over a year before I re-joined the newsgroup in late 2008.

I still haven't found such a person over here (other than myself,
alas).

> Otherwise I'm not sure what the point of this is. �Announcing the result,
> then beginning the investigation is exactly backwards.

I hope what I wrote now helps.

Peter Nyikos

Peter Nyikos

[Greg Guarino]

On 3/8/2013 2:21 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>> I've said it before: You'd really be happier if you could just let go
>> >of this. There are smart, polite, interesting people here. Just ignore
>> >the others. They can't hurt you unless you let them.

> That's not the issue.

Sure it is. More's the pity that you can't see it.

> The issue is, how far can this newsgroup
> deteriorate if everyone turns a blind eye to the things I talked about
> in my post?

I find that the amount of nonsense I see is strongly related to how much
nonsense I choose to look at. I can make it go away entirely whenever I
like, without the aid of a "tribunal".

Incidentally, I can scarcely think of a more effective way to increase
the nonsense ratio here than to initiate a "tribunal".

[Bill]

Sorry, but I still think trying to resolve these disputes is an utter
waste of time. If you ignore them, they wither. If someone accuses you
of lying and you just don't respond, the thread dries up and blows
away. If you would just refrain from engaging with the people who
irritate you, they wouldn't irritate you any more. Life is too short.

[Glenn]

"pnyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:9c606185-fd3f-401d...@m12g2000yqp.googlegroups.com...

It must be hard for you to understand, but I regard your behavior
as overacting, overreacting and obsessive. It's more apparent in
children with tantrums that are unable to handle things.
This may or may not provide you with some insight into why I
would not consider your idea of what would be beneficial with
regard to resolving your problems.

[Earle Jones]

In article <cabal-khd62a$1ph6$2...@darwin.ediacara.org>,

David Iain Greig <dgr...@ediacara.org> wrote:

> pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > Most regulars of talk.origins don't seem to care about dishonesty even
> > if someone attempts to bring it to their attention, unless the accused
> > person is someone they like (for instance, themselves) or actively
> > dislike.
>
> Actually I've expressed a dislike of this too - about Ted Holden.
> People called Ted a liar, and I objected. People can disagree with
> others without actually lying; many positions simply are orthogonal.
>
> I also dislike threads with people's names in them calling them out.
> It's tacky.
>
> Peter, I suspect you're wasting your time on this, regrettably.
>
> --D.

*
Well said, DIG.

And whatever happened to Ted Holden?

earle
*

[Mark Isaak]

On 3/8/13 11:55 AM, pnyikos wrote:
> On Mar 5, 6:37 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote:
>> On 3/5/13 1:40 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>>> On Mar 5, 4:22 pm, Greg Guarino <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 3/5/2013 2:30 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>>>>> Assessing
>>>>> the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that
>>>>> is probably why so few people undertake it.
>>
>>>> There's a lesson in there, if only you could bring yourself to recognize it.
>>
>>> I believe I've learned many lessons from it [...]
>>
>> You believe wrongly.
>>
>> Please, for your sake as well as ours,
>> stop trusting your own judgment.
>
> This from the dispenser of illogical, bum advice "...last place I
> would look."

Note that what you just wrote is another unhealthy symptom. Again, do
not take my word for it, but don't take yours, either.

>> Find other people you trust and start running your ideas past them.
>
> Where, in e-mail????

Anything but. Do it face-to-face. Many large companies have social
counselors on staff to address staff problems of all sorts. If your
university has such a department, I suggest you start there.

[pnyikos]

On Mar 8, 7:22�pm, "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "pnyikos" <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote in messagenews:9c606185-fd3f-401d...@m12g2000yqp.googlegroups.com...

Well, it is more than a little interesting to see you write this,
Glenn, for you have seen and often commented on the accusatiolns
Mitchell Coffey has made against me. Have you seen all the ones I
recounted to raven1? He also claimed that, in my attempts back around
2000 to counter a characterization of me as a particularly despicable
kind of homophobe, I was proving I was a homophobe by my very
defense.

Perhaps you think that massive campaign by Coffey to discredit me has
been resolved by him killfiling me. But hardly had he done so, he
posted a whole raft of new accusations of lying by me. I expect him
to go on doing this kind of thing, just as jillery has done for about
a year now.

What do you think of as an over-reaction? My original post? My
suggestion of a tribunal? I assure you, Mitchell Coffey is only one
of several people who are very much like the people who made
talk.abortion into a hellhole. If you doubt that it is a hellhole,
I'll be glad to play Dante to you.

> It's more apparent in
> children with tantrums that are unable to handle things.
> This may or may not provide you with some insight into why I
> would not consider your idea of what would be beneficial with
> regard to resolving your problems.

It's not just my problems that are the issue here. It's the problem
of anyone who might like to discuss creationism and evolution here,
and who believes in truth and justice and fair play, finding out the
hard way how these things are trampled on day in and day out.

Peter Nyikos

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 8, 4:31�pm, Greg Guarino <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/8/2013 2:21 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >> I've said it before: You'd really be happier if you could just let go
> >> >of this. There are smart, polite, interesting people here. Just ignore
> >> >the others. They can't hurt you unless you let them.
> > That's not the issue.
>
> Sure it is. More's the pity that you can't see it.

In other words, you think I am being hurt by what is going on? I
assure you, I've become inured to lots worse than what people have
thrown at me here in talk.origins. It's people with a less tough
constitution that suffer when they are falsely accused of vile things,
or see it happen to people they care deeply about.

I am focusing this thread on the narrow subject of lies, especially
those that are false accusations of lying. But these are just the
most easily labeled aspects of the general phenomenon of dishonesty
and insincerity, which in turn are only a part of what is rotten in
the state of talk.origins. There will be other threads devoted to
these aspects also, but...sufficient unto the day the rigor thereof.

Continued in next post.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 8, 4:31 pm, Greg Guarino <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I find that the amount of nonsense I see is strongly related to how much
> nonsense I choose to look at. I can make it go away entirely whenever I
> like, without the aid of a "tribunal".

If only it were easy to identify nonsense and reject it, rather than
being conned or railroaded into accepting it!

> Incidentally, I can scarcely think of a more effective way to increase
> the nonsense ratio here than to initiate a "tribunal".

There are risks, to be sure; but if a tribunal got a reputation among
fair-minded people for justice, it could serve as a rallying point for
people. At worst, it could become corrupted and turn into a kangaroo
court, but at least it would be an identifiable thing, rather than
what is now the case--groups of people congealing into impromptu
kangaroo courts and gleefully labeling anyone "paranoid" and a
"conspiracy theorist" who accuses them of collusion.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 7, 7:57 pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Note how neither of these two actually gives the definitions whose
existence they allege below--it would give their little game away.

> >On Thu, 7 Mar 2013 09:43:21 -0800 (PST), John Bode
> ><jfbode1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 1:30:32 PM UTC-6, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >>[snip]
>
> >>> What is really disturbing, though, is that a number of t.o. regulars
> >>> act as though dishonesty -- even lying that defames another -- is no
> >>> big deal, as long as they or people they like are indulging in it.
>
> >>This accusation would carry some weight if you could point to specific
> >>examples.  Surely you can already point to *some* instance of lying and
> >>defamation if it's so prevalent.
>
> >>Otherwise I'm not sure what the point of this is.  Announcing the result,
> >>then beginning the investigation is exactly backwards.
> >Part of the problem with your suggestion is that rockhead uses very
> >distinctive definitions for "lie" and  "dishonesty" and "evidence" and
> >"examples" and "defamation" and "prevalent".

Yes, the ones accepted by the world at large, rather than the twisted
uses we see from jillery and Gans and Coffey.

 > If I recall correctly he even has his own definition of
> "irreducible complexity"

It is the one used by Behe.

> that allows him to claim that
> evolutionists at times unfairly attack Behe.

They do, and one way is the use of phony definitions to attack
strawmen while ostensibly describing Behe. But there are many other
ways of unfairly attacking Behe. It is an internet wide phenomenon,
even more virulent in scienceblogs than here. The surest way to
invite hateful attacks in scienceblogs is to try and correct
"misconceptions" about Behe.


> --
>    --- Paul J. Gans- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[*Hemidactylus*]

As much as people do wind up goading you on this group do you really
think a tribunal is the way to go? There are those of us who have had
enough with both sides of the nonsense, but we don't feel like going to
the Hague though might think twice about being Amsterdamned.

[pnyikos]

On Mar 7, 6:56�pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 8, 8:34�am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 5, 5:18�pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > pnyikos wrote:
> > > > On Mar 5, 3:10 pm, Robert Camp <robertlc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > >> For a long time I chalked up your awkward socialization to poor toilet-
> > > >> training, but this is starting to look like some sort of genuine
> > > >> psychopathology. Have you seen a professional?
>
> > > > Why don't you ask Al Franken the same question? �Before he became a US
> > > > Senator, he wrote a book titled, _Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell_.
>
> > "Because" in the following comment is illogical, since "mind numbingly
> > tedious," even were it correct, is an entirely different issue from
> > "genuine psychopathology".
>
> Perhaps you intended to say that the logic escapes you.
> It is true that I did not connect all the dots.
> The hidden presumption is that normal humans who
> have passed childhood recognize how terribly
> boorish it is to incessantly call other people liars
> every time they say something you don't like.

You've begun a nice little treatise on psychology, but it has no
bearing on the issue of the actual lies that take place here and what
can be done about them. Nor does it fairly characterize my behavior.

Interestingly enough, you are taking somewhat the opposite tack from
Harshman in the following post from the thread, "Alan Feduccia again":

On Mar 8, 4:47 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> On 3/8/13 1:09 PM, pnyikos wrote:
> > Last night, I did not have easy access to Feduccia's article so I had
> > to pull my punches where the travesty below is concerned.
>
> Have you considered that characterizations like "travesty" serve to
> impede the civil discourse you claim to want?

Civil discourse is way down on my wish list. Truth and justice rank
far, far above it.

You have made the last in perhaps over a hundred revivals of this
Usenet Vandal taunt about me and this claim of what I want,
stretching all the way back to 1992 in talk.abortion. I'd dearly love
to know what accounts for this massive evolutionary convergence of
ideas in people's heads.

One hypothesis: the people who keep independently reviving it are
fundamentally amoral people whose brains put rudeness and dishonesty/
hypocrisy into indistinguishable slots.

Then, when they are accused of doing something dishonorable, they
naturally defend themselves by implying rudeness on the part of the
other, perhaps by devious means.

And if they happen to be accused by a person with a highly developed
moral code about honesty, the indistinguishability of the two slots in
their brains comes into play, and the result is yet another revival of
the factoid you spewed above.

Snip rest, to be dealt with in separate reply.

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

Snip rest...[continue as above]

[pnyikos]

On Mar 7, 6:56 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 8, 8:34 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 5, 5:18 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > pnyikos wrote:

> So back to the logic. Normally socialized people with a
> normal sense of self-awareness understand how antisocial
> it is to go about accusing people of being liars.

I didn't come to talk.origins (or talk.abortion, or alt.abortion, or
sci.bio.paleontology...) to socialize. I came to learn, to teach, and
to help prevent the newsgroup from sliding in the direction that
talk.abortion has slid. I do my socialization elsewhere.

If socialization is your main reason for being here, and not anything
more serious, then we can go our separate ways, and never bother each
other again.

> They would
> also understand that a spur of the moment reaction is less
> antisocial than a cold and calculated accusation, such as
> the initiation of a thread with lie or liar in the title.

If "antisocial" is where it's at for you, I suggest you read my reply
to Harshman that formed the bulk of my first reply to this post of
yours, even though its relevance may have escaped you first time
around. "Civil discourse" is close to being the opposite of
antisocial behavior, after all, while rudeness is one form of
antisocial behavior.

> And talk.origins has
> always been about humor. How can you do anything but
> laugh at the idea of adults believing that the world is
> only 10,000 years old and that Noah loaded all the animals
> on his arc.

You can say that, and so can I, because we both know that creationism
cannot be anything like a real menace to society. But there others
here who are paranoid about creationists [and that's only mildly
stretching the meaning of "paranoid", unlike the use to which Harshman
and others put the word].

One apparent example is Augray, on the same thread where that reply to
Harshman came from.

The thread was set up for the purpose of bemoaning the fact that _The
Auk_ gave space to Feduccia for his challenges to the "birds are
(descended from) dinosaurs" orthodoxy. It devolved into a thread for
*ad hominem* attacks on Feduccia. Augray took it a step further,
asserting that Feduccia should stop publishing opposition to the
reigning orthodoxy because he is being used by creationists.

Behe is routinely subjected to the same kind of treatment, and I think
paranoia about creationists plays a large part.

Another example of the same phenomenon is Robert Camp not only posting
an unfair diatribe against Glenn Morton, but also having it nominated
for Post of the Month.

A slightly different example is Richard Alan Forrest, a graduate
student in plesiosaur paleontology, who one might think would be a
kindred spirit of mine at least where love of paleontology is
concerned. Not only did he spurn all suggestions to help revive
sci.bio.paleontology, he also could not be convinced that I am not a
creationist. He really seemed to be have a bee in his bonnet about
how important it is to combat creationism relentlessly.

> > > Because he managed to do it with a sense of humor and so was
> > > not so mind numbingly tedious.
>
> > What sense of humor?  If he was anything like "Me, Al Franken" as
> > played in "Saturday Night Live," he was as obnoxiously self-centered
> > as Woody Allen, without the intelligence that at least made Woody
> > Allen interesting.
>
> That's the joke. It's self-deprecating humor.

Believe it or not, I indulged in self-deprecating humor when I first
started posting to talk.abortion in 1992.

But I soon discovered that self-deprecating humor was totally lost on
the fanatics who already dominated that newsgroup. It was a case of
"give them an inch, and they'll take a mile."

>They take that
> self-centeredness and amp it up, turn the dial up to 11.
> They invite us to laugh at them. It's not like they are trying
> to be role models for children.

Alas, that does not seem to be true of Woody Allen. A judge saw him
as being unfit to have any kind of custody over his children. I don't
think Al Franken is any better. He once made a personal appearance in
Columbia, and I read a report that he was so rude to someone who
happened to have a different opinion than him, that the young man in
question broke down and cried.

> > On the other hand, I could see lots of humor in the skits of
> > "Ernestine, the telephone operator" because, even though she was
> > obnoxious, she was satirizing a source of irritation to millions.
> > ["We're the telephone company.  We don't HAVE to care."]
>
> Peter, you have trouble recognizing satire. Profound trouble.

You are very wrong about that, and I'd like to see what basis you have
for this opinion.

> > And maybe that's what makes Franken humorous to you in the book, but
> > since I pay almost no attention to either Ann Coulter, or Rush
> > Limbaugh, or Bill O'Reilley, I'm afraid the humor would totally
> > escape me.
>
> There you go. Litotes.

Do you really think most people would appreciate broad humor that
deflates a stuffed shirt without having any idea of how the shirt was
stuffed?

> > > You also got the title wrong.
>
> > Serves me right for not googling it.  Correct is: _Lies and the Lying
> > Liars Who Tell Them_.
> > Ironically,  the way I had it was more accurate as to the contents.
>
> But it would then have been clinical and not funny, which is the
> point.

That's *your* sense of humor. I think it would be only slightly less
funny than the actual title, and far from clinical.

*De gustibus non est disputandum.*

Concluded in next reply.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 7, 8:39 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:

... in reply to crap by jillery and Gans, already addressed.

> More like he fixates on specific definitions from Behe, with
> his own specific interpretation,

No, Behe and I are on the same page. We correspond from time to time,
you know.

>and ignores where Behe
> implies or uses others.

Many have made this allegation, none have credibly supported it.

Can you succeed where all others have failied?

Caution: going back to preliminary definitions that predate _DBB_
misses the point.

>Behe is not as rigorous as Peter,
> and that seems to be other people's fault.

I'm calling your bluff. Show me one place where this sarcasm is
justified.

You may call on others for help on this; it's an "open book test."

Peter Nyikos

[Thrinaxodon]

On Saturday, March 9, 2013 12:14:03 AM UTC-5, pnyikos wrote:
> On Mar 7, 6:56 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 8, 8:34 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> >
>
> > > On Mar 5, 5:18 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
>
> > > > pnyikos wrote:
>
>
>
> > So back to the logic. Normally socialized people with a
>
> > normal sense of self-awareness understand how antisocial
>
> > it is to go about accusing people of being liars.

> Like that ever happened.

>
>
> I didn't come to talk.origins (or talk.abortion, or alt.abortion, or

> It seems like you came here to be a troll.

> sci.bio.paleontology...) to socialize. I came to learn, to teach, and

> By calling us hypocrites. Very smart.

> to help prevent the newsgroup from sliding in the direction that
>
> talk.abortion has slid. I do my socialization elsewhere.
>
>
>
> If socialization is your main reason for being here, and not anything
>
> more serious, then we can go our separate ways, and never bother each
>
> other again.

> No, it was created to draw ID and creationism away from the other science discussion boards.

>
>
> > They would
>
> > also understand that a spur of the moment reaction is less
>
> > antisocial than a cold and calculated accusation, such as
>
> > the initiation of a thread with lie or liar in the title.
>
>
>
> If "antisocial" is where it's at for you, I suggest you read my reply
>
> to Harshman that formed the bulk of my first reply to this post of
>
> yours, even though its relevance may have escaped you first time
>
> around. "Civil discourse" is close to being the opposite of
>
> antisocial behavior, after all, while rudeness is one form of
>
> antisocial behavior.

> You've proven your self to be a troll.

>
>
>
>
> > And talk.origins has
>
> > always been about humor. How can you do anything but
>
> > laugh at the idea of adults believing that the world is
>
> > only 10,000 years old and that Noah loaded all the animals
>
> > on his arc.
>

> We debunk pseudoscientific attacks against science.

[pnyikos]

On Mar 7, 6:56 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > For something whose contents are akin to the actual title of Franken's
> > book, the following two books are better:
>
> > _Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!: The Psychology of Deceit_, by Charles V. Ford
>
> >http://www.amazon.com/Lies-The-Psychology-Deceit/dp/0880489979
>
> > _Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life [Paperback]_, by
> > Sisella Bok
>
> >http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375705287/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk
>
> > Peter Nyikos
>
> Some horses are determined to die of thirst.

And some donkeys are doomed to die of starvation between two or more
haystacks.

That is an allegory of a dirty debating tactic which in essence goes
like this:

Someone (call him Q) makes a demeaning false accusation of someone
else (call him P).

Scenario 1: P tries to laugh it off, by saying Q is clowning. The
accuser and his allies then rag on him for telling a falsehood.
[Unspoken thoughts: "Nyah, nyah, nyah, you can't prove it, because Q
could be lying, or insane."]

Scenario 2: P counters by charging that the accusation is a lie. He
gets the same treatment,with the unspoken thought now being "Nyah,
nyah, nyah, you can't prove it, because Q could be clowning, or
insane."

I leave it up to you to reason out what happens when P calls Q insane.

Oh, one thing more: as you know, Scenario 2 also results in Roger
Shrubber calling P (but not, for some reason, Q) antisocial.

Would Scenario 1 also have that result?

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 8, 3:07 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> On 3/8/13 11:44 AM, pnyikos wrote:

> > On Mar 5, 6:30 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>  wrote:
> >> On 3/5/13 3:01 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >>> On Mar 5, 5:09 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>    wrote:
> >>>> On 3/5/13 1:22 PM, pnyikos wrote:

> >>>>> Some lying isn't a big deal even to me.  I once caught a talk.origins
> >>>>> regular of something like two decades' standing, lying to get himself
> >>>>> out of a tight spot.

And, LO! That very same "regular" replied, snipping the part about me
having readily forgiven him. Is that a Judeo-Christian trait he can't
abide by, I wonder?

> >>>> Did it all begin with the strawberries, then?
>
> >>> I've seen these catty allusions to _The Caine Mutiny_ in a Thread
> >>> Diluting Kaffeeklatsch on another thread.  Here, as there, they miss
> >>> the real essence of the film.
>
> >> They aren't an attempt at encapsulating the essence of the film, merely
> >> an attempt to acknowledge your Queegish personality.
>
> > You are begging the question.  If playing dominance games is
> > indicative of Queegish personality in your book, then you have it all
> > over me.
>
> What? Are you saying that you play dominance games?

No, I am saying that calling my personality Queegish is begging the
question, and I'm trying to figure out some reason for you having said
it in the first place.

Seeing what you wrote at the very end, John, I'm afraid I'll never
learn the reason.

> And I don't know
> where anyone would get the idea that Captain Queeg was into dominance
> games.

Maybe we could get somewhere if you would tell me what YOU mean by a
dominance game.

Perhaps to you, the essence of a dominance game is concern over the
other person being unusually slow in grasping a point the average
college student should have no trouble grasping.

I was genuinely concerned over you way back then (see below as to
when), since I thought you were quite an intelligent person, and this
slowness on the uptake seemed completely out of character for you.

> > Way back, within a month of my return to talk.origins, you falsely
> > accused me of playing a dominance game, and it has becoming
> > increasingly obvious that you were indulging in a dirty tactic of
> > accusing others of one of your favorite pastimes, which I facetiously
> > referred to as UnofficialTalk.Origins Hall Monitor a few days ago.
>
> I'm afraid that this is all your hallucination.

No, it really happened the way I described it, and your tendency to
play dominance games has been remarked on by others.

Now, it could be that you had no insight into your tendency back then,
and if so I apologize for drawing the wrong conclusion about your
motive for accusing me.

> > John, you've been playing a dominance game over me ever since before
> > you said that, erupting in incessantly repeated variations of "You are
> > terrible at guessing motives.  Stop it." and many other such formulas.
>
> That isn't a dominance game. It's an observation and a bit of advice.

Or a defense mechanism. But that is not incompatible with it being a
dominance game ("The best defense is a good offense.")

> >   One hundred repetitions three nights a week
> >      for four years, thought Bernard Marx, who was
> >      an expert on hypnopaedia.  Sixty-two thousand
> >      repetitions make one truth.  Idiots!
> >         --Aldous Huxley, in _Brave New World_
>
> You may disagree, but who's in a better position to assess your claims
> about my motives, you or me?

That remains to be seen. Don't forget, several people here think they
know my motives better than I do, including one of your fellow Village
Elders. Are you going to claim they are wrong?

> Of course I could always be lying, if you
> want to go there.

Nope, the alternative I suggested just now is more attractive.

> >> Would you have been
> >> a better poster if we had all supported you from the beginning? Are we
> >> all Fred McMurray? I doubt it.
>
> > Read about my dream of a tribunal, in reply to Bill just now, and get
> > back to me about this, OK?
>
> Read it. Silly idea. Sorry.

At least it shows how silly your Fred McMurray bit was.

> >>> Is this kind of fluff all we can expect from you on this thread?
>
> >> Yes, because it's all this crankish behavior deserves.
>
> > I'll take this as strong evidence that you don't mind people lying
> > their heads off here all they want, and that the only thing that you
> > are concerned about is that all complaints about it cease.
>
> You tend to take things as strong evidence that aren't evidence at all.

So you say, but you give no explanation of why it was crankish to
write what I did in my first post.

If you did try to explain why, I wager you would have a hard time
explaining why it isn't evidence at all.

By the way, I have other pieces of evidence, including the behavior
that has earned you the nickname Dontwanna Hearaboutit.

> Sorry if I've mentioned that before.

I could have made the same sort of reply that I did just now, but it
didn't seem as appropriate for those threads.

>> Stop before it's
> >> too late.
>
> > There you go again with your dominance game.
>
> No. Again, an observation and advice.

Imperative sentences hardly qualify as advice.

> >> You're even drifting into ALL CAPS, another crank signature.
>
> > "all caps" evidently means "1% caps" in the Queegish lexicon of John
> > Harshman.
>
> Thread title.

And by now I may have posted a hundred thread titles since the last
all-caps one some time in the 1990's. And it may be another hundred
before I do it again.

I rest my case.

> >>> My,
> >>> my, how far you have deteriorated since the very early days of my
> >>> return to talk.orgins.  Back then, el cid served as an inspiration to
> >>> you.  I miss him more and more with each passing month.
>
> >>> Why don't you do something worthy of your mettle, and reply to the
> >>> post in the thread I started a short while ago for on-topic discussion
> >>> of Feduccia's article in _The AuK_?
>
> >> Finally, something on-topic. Now let this thread go.
>
> > There's that dominance game again.
>
> Any time I give you advice, that's a dominance game?

Any time you write an imperative sentence, that's advice?

> At any rate, I will
> help you let this go by not responding further.

Suit yourself.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 8, 9:39�pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote:
> On 3/8/13 11:55 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mar 5, 6:37 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote:
> >> On 3/5/13 1:40 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >>> On Mar 5, 4:22 pm, Greg Guarino <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> On 3/5/2013 2:30 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >>>>> Assessing
> >>>>> the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that
> >>>>> is probably why so few people undertake it.
>
> >>>> There's a lesson in there, if only you could bring yourself to recognize it.
>
> >>> I believe I've learned many lessons from it [...]
>
> >> You believe wrongly.
>
> >> Please, for your sake as well as ours,
> >> stop trusting your own judgment.
>
> > This from the dispenser of illogical, bum advice "...last place I
> > would look."
>
> Note that what you just wrote is another unhealthy symptom. �Again, do
> not take my word for it, but don't take yours, either.

[snip]

> "It is certain, from experience, that treating Peter as though he were
> � mentally unstable wins me more brownie points with the people whose
> opinions I care about, than the most erudite treatises on evolution could."
> -- Mark Isaak

Fixed it for you.

You're welcome.

Note to Casanova: since people here are very familiar with
Isaak's .sig, this is one of the rare cases where it is superfluous to
include brackets.

Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

It's another case of whose goad is getting gored.

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 8 Mar 2013 12:15:54 -0800 (PST), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos

<nyi...@bellsouth.net>:

>On Mar 6, 12:59 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
>> On Tue, 5 Mar 2013 13:40:43 -0800 (PST), the following
>> appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos
>> <nyik...@bellsouth.net>:
>>
>> >On Mar 5, 4:22 pm, Greg Guarino <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> On 3/5/2013 2:30 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>>
>> >> > Assessing
>> >> > the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that
>> >> > is probably why so few people undertake it.
>>
>> >> There's a lesson in there, if only you could bring yourself to recognize it.
>>
>> >I believe I've learned many lessons from it, some of which you don't
>> >even hint at in what you wrote below [mostly snipped this time due to
>> >lack of time].
>>
>> Did you ever consider that this habit of yours (the comment
>> inside the brackets above) is one of the two reasons people
>> dislike trying to hold a discussion with you?
>
>Better than your leaving it in, and flagrantly ignoring it.

I disagree.

>> >> It is not merely time-consuming, it is pointless; several levels more
>> >> pointless even than the on-topic pointlessness that is the raison d'etre
>> >> of the group.
>>
>> >You and Inez seem to think alike. What you call on-topic pointlessness
>> >is something I've already talked to her about on another thread.
>>
>> >_______________ begin excerpts___________
>>
>> And this is the other one, at least for me: You refer to a
>> "lack of time" to address Greg's points, then you insert
>> dozens of lines unrelated to his comments.
>
>It was a less than one-minute copy and paste job.

So? It still indicates that you're less than honest when you
don't want to address something.

>Got any non-frivolous comments? I didn't think the rest of yours
>[left in below] were any less frivolous.

Frivolity is in the eye of the beholder. There are those
here who consider any evidence which contradicts Special
Creation to be frivolous; the only difference I can see in
your posts is that you have the same attitude regarding
comments about panspermia or about your posting habits. And
BTW, I have yet to see any calculations, or even
demonstrable facts, supporting your contention that, IIRC,
the probability of panspermia ranges from 1 in 2 to 1 in 30.
Of course, they may have been in one of your interminable
"recursive" posts and I thus missed them.

>But I'll gladly address them if someone besides you identifies what he
>thinks of as non-frivolous ones, and makes a commitment to stick
>around for my answer and to indicate whether he agrees with my take on
>them or not.

And if you disagree you'll switch to personal attack mode,
as usual?

This is *not* frivolous; it's a comment regarding your
deficient communication skills *in this medium* (you may be
quite proficient as a lecturer, but this isn't a classroom
and we're not your students), the most important of which
(IMHO) are "stick to the current issue" and "keep it
straightforward". Minor digressions are OK if the intent is
clarification of those two points, but you take it to
extremes. Again IMHO, but I suspect many would agree.

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:31:16 -0500, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Greg Guarino
<gdgu...@gmail.com>:

Hear, hear! There's a *reason* why the moderation of t.o is
configured the way it is.

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 8 Mar 2013 22:35:35 -0800 (PST), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net>:

Thanks, but the phrase "Fixed it for you" conveyed the
nature of your action quite well even without familiarity
with Mark's sig, at least for me. YM, of course, MV. And
based on your prior comments in this regard, does.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 09 Mar 2013 10:17:00 -0500, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>:

Maybe if he just goed away... ;-)

[jillery]

On Sat, 09 Mar 2013 11:15:00 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>
wrote:

The problem is not his presence but his presentation.

[Roger Shrubber]

Three posts in reply to one, about your inability to recognize
humor. I'm humbled. Clearly I've misunderstood you all along.
You are without a doubt, the greatest genius of comedic performance
art of all time. It all finally becomes clear. Poe's law be praised.

[gdgu...@gmail.com]

On Mar 9, 12:14�am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> On Mar 7, 6:56�pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You have made the last in perhaps over a hundred revivals of this
> Usenet Vandal taunt about me and this claim of what I want,
> stretching all the way back to 1992 in talk.abortion. �I'd dearly love
> to know what accounts for this massive evolutionary convergence of
> ideas in people's heads.

Am I to understand that you are describing a hundred different people
who have had similar reactions to you, and you are trying to divine
the reason why?

> One hypothesis: the people who keep independently reviving it are
> fundamentally amoral people whose brains put rudeness and dishonesty/
> hypocrisy into indistinguishable slots.

You're a mathematics professor, correct? Your first hypothesis is that
a hundred different people who react in a similar way to you all share
the same (rare) character flaw. An interesting probability problem;
perhaps we need Kleinman to sort it out?

> Then, when they are accused of doing something dishonorable, they
> naturally defend themselves by implying rudeness on the part of the
> other, perhaps by devious means.

This is beginning to sound like Kleinman's math blended with Martinez'
regard for his fellows.

> And if they happen to be accused by a person with a highly developed
> moral code about honesty, the indistinguishability of the two slots in
> their brains comes into play, and the result is yet another revival of
> the factoid you spewed above.

I have a different hypothesis. I think that when a certain stimulus
yields (by your account) a similar response from a large number of
unrelated people, the first place to look for an explanation should be
somewhere in the vicinity of the stimulus.

What you call a "highly developed moral code" seems more like a thin
skin and a tenacious resolve never to let a (perceived) slight go
unrecorded, unmentioned and unpunished. You seek out your enemies on
unrelated threads and absent such threads you start new ones. The net
result of this "stimulus" is twofold: You put off people who manage to
have substantive - and dare I say civil - discussions elsewhere, you
attract an entourage of people who find endless (safe, virtual)
vendettas attractive.

The most parsimonious explanation for the discussion style you get is
that it's the discussion style you prefer. You might want to give
Bill's advice a second look. It works.

[Mike Painter]

On Sun, 10 Mar 2013 05:09:20 -0700 (PDT), "g...@risky-biz.com"
<gdgu...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>This is beginning to sound like Kleinman's math blended with Martinez'
>regard for his fellows.

Clearly this is a situation where only karlmath will apply.

I hold the chair in karlmath at U.of E. if you need help.

karl was a brilliant creationist who spent a lot of time here several
years ago.

In case you have forgotten in karlmath the mean is always equal to the
median and that's how they got the animals on the ark.

(karl is correct, he never used upper case on his name.)

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 09 Mar 2013 16:18:48 -0500, the following appeared

True, but eliminating the first would by definition
eliminate the second, assuming he's unwilling to learn
better habits.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sun, 10 Mar 2013 12:08:53 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Mike Painter
<mddotp...@sbcglobal.net>:

>On Sun, 10 Mar 2013 05:09:20 -0700 (PDT), "g...@risky-biz.com"
><gdgu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>This is beginning to sound like Kleinman's math blended with Martinez'
>>regard for his fellows.
>
>
>Clearly this is a situation where only karlmath will apply.
>
>I hold the chair in karlmath at U.of E. if you need help.
>
>karl was a brilliant creationist who spent a lot of time here several
>years ago.

I miss his screeds (especially those about woodpeckers); you
could almost *see* the spittle.

>In case you have forgotten in karlmath the mean is always equal to the
>median and that's how they got the animals on the ark.
>
>(karl is correct, he never used upper case on his name.)

I suspect he didn't know the difference; at least archie the
cockroach had a valid physical excuse.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 09 Mar 2013 11:03:16 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:

>On Fri, 8 Mar 2013 12:15:54 -0800 (PST), the following
>appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos
><nyi...@bellsouth.net>:

<snip>

>>Got any non-frivolous comments? I didn't think the rest of yours
>>[left in below] were any less frivolous.

>Frivolity is in the eye of the beholder. There are those
>here who consider any evidence which contradicts Special
>Creation to be frivolous; the only difference I can see in
>your posts is that you have the same attitude regarding
>comments about panspermia or about your posting habits. And
>BTW, I have yet to see any calculations, or even
>demonstrable facts, supporting your contention that, IIRC,
>the probability of panspermia ranges from 1 in 2 to 1 in 30.
>Of course, they may have been in one of your interminable
>"recursive" posts and I thus missed them.

Take your time, Peter; I'm quite patient.

<snip>

[pnyikos]

On Mar 9, 9:37�pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> pnyikos wrote:
> > On Mar 7, 6:56 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Mar 8, 8:34 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >>> On Mar 5, 5:18 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> pnyikos wrote:
> > Snip rest, to be dealt with in separate reply.
>
> > Peter Nyikos
> > =========== end of included post
>
> > Snip rest...[continue as above]
>
> Three posts in reply to one, about your inability to recognize
> humor. I'm humbled. Clearly I've misunderstood you all along.
> You are without a doubt, the greatest genius of comedic performance
> art of all time. It all finally becomes clear. Poe's law be praised.

I hope you don't think this crass, heavy-handed sarcasm deserves to be
called "real satire".

It seems more an attempt to get people to forget your main message to
me, which is that people who copiously call others "liars" are
antisocial.

Did you change your mind about that when you realized that Mitchell
Coffey has done that far more than I have, just in his attacks on me
[never mind other posters]?

I did point out this habit of Coffey's to raven1, and I guess you saw
it, eh?

In any event, I was far more concerned about that main [former?]
message of yours than I was about the fine points of humor in the
three replies I did to you.

Peter

[pnyikos]

On Mar 10, 8:09 am, "g...@risky-biz.com" <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 9, 12:14 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 7, 6:56 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > You have made the last in perhaps over a hundred revivals of this
> > Usenet Vandal taunt about me and this claim of what I want,
> > stretching all the way back to 1992 in talk.abortion. I'd dearly love
> > to know what accounts for this massive evolutionary convergence of
> > ideas in people's heads.
>
> Am I to understand that you are describing a hundred different people
> who have had similar reactions to you, and you are trying to divine
> the reason why?
>
> > One hypothesis: the people who keep independently reviving it are
> > fundamentally amoral people whose brains put rudeness and dishonesty/
> > hypocrisy into indistinguishable slots.
>
> You're a mathematics professor, correct? Your first hypothesis is that
> a hundred different people who react in a similar way to you all share
> the same (rare) character flaw.

I beg to differ about fundamental amorality being a rare character
flaw in the abortion newsgroups, and in talk.origins. It seems to be
rampant in both venues, but it does not often manifest itself in
blatant dishonesty or hypocrisy. It's chief manifestation in
talk.origins at the present time is a complete lack of interest in the
issue of who is honest (or sincere) and who is dishonest (or
hypocritical).

In case you haven't noticed, this manifestation occurs in every post
to this thread except mine. Surprisingly, even Glenn is no exception
in this thread.

> An interesting probability problem;
> perhaps we need Kleinman to sort it out?

Now, non-creationsts do seem interested in whether people like
Kleinman are liars or hypocrites, but in the case of the amoral ones,
that is because they have a vested interest in discrediting Kleinman,
etc. in the eyes of people with strong moral codes.

> > Then, when they are accused of doing something dishonorable, they
> > naturally defend themselves by implying rudeness on the part of the
> > other, perhaps by devious means.
>
> This is beginning to sound like Kleinman's math blended with Martinez'
> regard for his fellows.

Martinez has no fellows; he only has adversaries, and that is almost
entirely his doing. That's largely true of Kleinman too.

> > And if they happen to be accused by a person with a highly developed
> > moral code about honesty, the indistinguishability of the two slots in
> > their brains comes into play, and the result is yet another revival of
> > the factoid you spewed above.
>
> I have a different hypothesis. I think that when a certain stimulus
> yields (by your account) a similar response from a large number of
> unrelated people, the first place to look for an explanation should be
> somewhere in the vicinity of the stimulus.

Have you looked in this case?

What conclusions have you drawn, and on the basis of what evidence?

> What you call a "highly developed moral code" seems more like a thin
> skin and a tenacious resolve never to let a (perceived) slight go
> unrecorded, unmentioned and unpunished.

Apparently you have seen a hopelessly biased sample of my posts. Have
you ever seen my replies to Arkalen, for instance?

What HAVE you seen that would lead to this conclusion?

[anti-glittering generalities about me, devoid of specific examples,
snipped]

Peter Nyikos

[Bob Casanova]

On Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:10:47 -0700, the following appeared

in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:

Still waiting for those data and calculations...

[Greg Guarino]

On 3/13/2013 1:02 PM, pnyikos wrote:
> On Mar 10, 8:09 am, "g...@risky-biz.com" <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mar 9, 12:14 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mar 7, 6:56 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> You have made the last in perhaps over a hundred revivals of this
>>> Usenet Vandal taunt about me and this claim of what I want,
>>> stretching all the way back to 1992 in talk.abortion. I'd dearly love
>>> to know what accounts for this massive evolutionary convergence of
>>> ideas in people's heads.
>>
>> Am I to understand that you are describing a hundred different people
>> who have had similar reactions to you, and you are trying to divine
>> the reason why?
>>
>>> One hypothesis: the people who keep independently reviving it are
>>> fundamentally amoral people whose brains put rudeness and dishonesty/
>>> hypocrisy into indistinguishable slots.
>>
>> You're a mathematics professor, correct? Your first hypothesis is that
>> a hundred different people who react in a similar way to you all share
>> the same (rare) character flaw.
>
> I beg to differ about fundamental amorality being a rare character
> flaw in the abortion newsgroups, and in talk.origins.

I disagree. A matter of perception, I imagine. I prefer mine. And I
think it's odd that you bring another newsgroup into the discussion.
What would I know about that one?

It seems to be
> rampant in both venues, but it does not often manifest itself in
> blatant dishonesty or hypocrisy. It's chief manifestation in
> talk.origins at the present time is a complete lack of interest in the
> issue of who is honest (or sincere) and who is dishonest (or
> hypocritical).

It's not a lack of interest. I have my own impressions of the people
here, which I use when I decide who and what to bother reading and
responding to. As I am the final arbiter, I need no tribunal.

>
> In case you haven't noticed, this manifestation occurs in every post
> to this thread except mine. Surprisingly, even Glenn is no exception
> in this thread.

I haven't noticed. There's a wide range of reactions between "complete
disinterest" and "let's collect and catalog every infraction (starting
12 years ago) and convene a tribunal to punish the guilty".

>> An interesting probability problem;
>> perhaps we need Kleinman to sort it out?
>
> Now, non-creationsts do seem interested in whether people like
> Kleinman are liars or hypocrites, but in the case of the amoral ones,
> that is because they have a vested interest in discrediting Kleinman,
> etc. in the eyes of people with strong moral codes.

I had quite lengthy discussions with Kleinman. He seems to have a real
problem visualizing mathematical concepts, but I think he believes what
he says. You'll note that I generally ignored it when he referred to me
as incompetent, irrational and ignorant about probability. I find it
easy to have a thick skin with total strangers who have no ability to
hurt me. I thus stuck to the issues under discussion. I certainly called
him on evasion, but figured that readers could draw their own
conclusions about him and about me.

>>> Then, when they are accused of doing something dishonorable, they
>>> naturally defend themselves by implying rudeness on the part of the
>>> other, perhaps by devious means.
>>
>> This is beginning to sound like Kleinman's math blended with Martinez'
>> regard for his fellows.
>
> Martinez has no fellows; he only has adversaries, and that is almost
> entirely his doing. That's largely true of Kleinman too.

Where do you figure you fall on that scale?

>>> And if they happen to be accused by a person with a highly developed
>>> moral code about honesty, the indistinguishability of the two slots in
>>> their brains comes into play, and the result is yet another revival of
>>> the factoid you spewed above.
>>
>> I have a different hypothesis. I think that when a certain stimulus
>> yields (by your account) a similar response from a large number of
>> unrelated people, the first place to look for an explanation should be
>> somewhere in the vicinity of the stimulus.
>
> Have you looked in this case?

I have no interest in compiling a dossier about you or anyone else. If
you ask me, that's obsessive and unhealthy. I read a small portion of
the posts here; the impressions I get, I get. Life's like that; a good
reason to put your better angels on display as often as possible.

> What conclusions have you drawn, and on the basis of what evidence?

"Impressions" is a better word, and I've already described them more
than seems useful.

>> What you call a "highly developed moral code" seems more like a thin
>> skin and a tenacious resolve never to let a (perceived) slight go
>> unrecorded, unmentioned and unpunished.
>
> Apparently you have seen a hopelessly biased sample of my posts. Have
> you ever seen my replies to Arkalen, for instance?

I think that any sample of my own posts would yield an impression of me
that I would find acceptable. Why do I need a guide to pick out the ones
you're more proud of?

> What HAVE you seen that would lead to this conclusion?

"Bozo". Just saw that today on your "on topic" thread.

>
> [anti-glittering generalities about me, devoid of specific examples,
> snipped]

There's the difference between us in a nutshell. You somehow think this
sort of thing is worth your time and energy; cataloguing "specific
examples", convening tribunals and jawing back and forth with the same
antagonists post after post, day after day. It would do you some good to
rethink that.

[pnyikos]

On Mar 13, 4:19 pm, Greg Guarino <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/13/2013 1:02 PM, pnyikos wrote:

> > On Mar 10, 8:09 am, "g...@risky-biz.com" <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Mar 9, 12:14 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> >>> On Mar 7, 6:56 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> You have made the last in perhaps over a hundred revivals of this
> >>> Usenet Vandal taunt about me and this claim of what I want,
> >>> stretching all the way back to 1992 in talk.abortion. I'd dearly love
> >>> to know what accounts for this massive evolutionary convergence of
> >>> ideas in people's heads.
>
> >> Am I to understand that you are describing a hundred different people
> >> who have had similar reactions to you, and you are trying to divine
> >> the reason why?

I now believe there are several reasons. The hypothesis I gave
earlier [see below] is tailor-made for the likes of Harshman, who have
had extensive interaction with me. In fact, Harshman has had more
interaction with me since my return in December 2010 than anyone else,
and he has given considerable evidence of being fundamentally amoral--
but not in the worst sense of the word.

> >>> One hypothesis: the people who keep independently reviving it are
> >>> fundamentally amoral people whose brains put rudeness and dishonesty/
> >>> hypocrisy into indistinguishable slots.
>
> >> You're a mathematics professor, correct? Your first hypothesis is that
> >> a hundred different people who react in a similar way to you all share
> >> the same (rare) character flaw.

They react in the same way, but I now believe it is not for the same
reasons and not always the same character flaws.

Here is another hypothesis that I think covers the majority of people
who say what John did. These are people who join talk.origins for
relatively brief spells, and who quickly find out who is popular and
who is set upon by numerous people.

They see one of the latter hitting back at someone who had attacked
him, and they figure that there is a good bet that, somewhere along
the line, this target-of-many had said they wished people were more
civil, or polite, or something along those morally-almost-neutral
lines.

And most of the time, they would be right.

And they figure that it's no skin off their nose if they are wrong in
this or that particular case, because there is safety in numbers.

> > I beg to differ about fundamental amorality being a rare character
> > flaw in the abortion newsgroups, and in talk.origins.
>
> I disagree. A matter of perception, I imagine. I prefer mine.

That may be because of something related to the new hypothesis: you
seldom see the likes of Ray Martinez, etc. being dishonestly attacked,
because truthful attacks against them are all that is needed to
discredit them.

I am different, in case you haven't noticed. And don't take it just
from me. I re-joined t.o. shortly before el cid died, and one of the
last things he did was to tell Ron O that I am different from the
other people he's mauled, and advising Ron O to go slow and learn
something about me before wading in with all guns blazing.

Ron O did not heed el cid's advice, and he has been reaping the fruits
of his heedlessless this past month, culminating today on an aptly
named thread. [Is that enough of a hint as to the Subject line of
that thread?]

From what I've seen of you so far, it's a shame el cid still isn't
around to dispense advice to you. Not the same advice to be sure, but
advice born of long experience with me and a wisdom that Harshman
would do well to emulate.

> And I
> think it's odd that you bring another newsgroup into the discussion.
> What would I know about that one?

*I* know a lot about that one, and the similarities in these matters
outweigh the differences. And the basic point is that amorality may
well be widespread thoughout the more controversy-filled newsgroups of
Usenet. This may simply be because most highly moral people get fed
up with the goings-on and soon quit.

By the way, it was only by adding my experience there to my experience
here that the number of these Harshman-style taunts are in the
hundredfold ballpark.

> >It seems to be
> > rampant in both venues, but it does not often manifest itself in
> > blatant dishonesty or hypocrisy.  It's chief manifestation in
> > talk.origins at the present time is a complete lack of interest in the
> > issue of who is honest (or sincere) and who is dishonest (or
> > hypocritical).
>
> It's not a lack of interest. I have my own impressions of the people
> here, which I use when I decide who and what to bother reading and
> responding to. As I am the final arbiter, I need no tribunal.

How postmodernist of you.

>
>
> > In case you haven't noticed, this manifestation occurs in every post
> > to this thread except mine.  Surprisingly, even Glenn is no exception
> > in this thread.
>
> I haven't noticed. There's a wide range of reactions between "complete
> disinterest" and "let's collect and catalog every infraction (starting
> 12 years ago) and convene a tribunal to punish the guilty".

I completely missed the second variety. Are you sure you aren't
making it up on the spot?

Anyway, you seem to be missing the point: while there is a wide range
of replies, NONE of the others, including you, seem at all interested
in trying to "separate the sheep from the goats," to use a biblical
turn of phrase, or even to identify a single sheep or a single goat.

Remainder deleted, to be replied to later, possibly only next week.
We are still on Spring Break, and we have a rather full plate of
family activities lined up for the rest of it.

Peter Nyikos

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:31:57 -0700, the following appeared

in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:

>On Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:10:47 -0700, the following appeared
>in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:
>
>Still waiting for those data and calculations...
>
>>On Sat, 09 Mar 2013 11:03:16 -0700, the following appeared
>>in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:
>>
>>>On Fri, 8 Mar 2013 12:15:54 -0800 (PST), the following
>>>appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos
>>><nyi...@bellsouth.net>:
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>>>Got any non-frivolous comments? I didn't think the rest of yours
>>>>[left in below] were any less frivolous.
>>
>>>Frivolity is in the eye of the beholder. There are those
>>>here who consider any evidence which contradicts Special
>>>Creation to be frivolous; the only difference I can see in
>>>your posts is that you have the same attitude regarding
>>>comments about panspermia or about your posting habits. And
>>>BTW, I have yet to see any calculations, or even
>>>demonstrable facts, supporting your contention that, IIRC,
>>>the probability of panspermia ranges from 1 in 2 to 1 in 30.
>>>Of course, they may have been in one of your interminable
>>>"recursive" posts and I thus missed them.
>>
>>Take your time, Peter; I'm quite patient.

Guess they don't exist. OK.

[Mitchell Coffey]

On Wednesday, March 13, 2013 12:49:55 PM UTC-4, pnyikos wrote:
> On Mar 9, 9:37�pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > pnyikos wrote:
>
> > > On Mar 7, 6:56 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >> On Mar 8, 8:34 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > >>> On Mar 5, 5:18 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >>>> pnyikos wrote:
>
> > > Snip rest, to be dealt with in separate reply.
>
> >
>
> > > Peter Nyikos
>
> > > =========== end of included post
>
> > > Snip rest...[continue as above]
>
> > Three posts in reply to one, about your inability to recognize
> > humor. I'm humbled. Clearly I've misunderstood you all along.
> > You are without a doubt, the greatest genius of comedic performance
> > art of all time. It all finally becomes clear. Poe's law be praised.
>
> I hope you don't think this crass, heavy-handed sarcasm deserves to be
> called "real satire".
>
> It seems more an attempt to get people to forget your main message to
> me, which is that people who copiously call others "liars" are
> antisocial.
>
> Did you change your mind about that when you realized that Mitchell
> Coffey has done that far more than I have, just in his attacks on me
> [never mind other posters]?

[snip]

So you've made a falsifiable assertion, Peter. Prove it.

Mitchell Coffey

[pnyikos]

On Mar 9, 2:03�pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Mar 2013 12:15:54 -0800 (PST), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos

> <nyik...@bellsouth.net>:

> >On Mar 6, 12:59�pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> >> On Tue, 5 Mar 2013 13:40:43 -0800 (PST), the following
> >> appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos
> >> <nyik...@bellsouth.net>:
>
> >> >On Mar 5, 4:22�pm, Greg Guarino <gdguar...@gmail.com> wrote:

Greg and I have had our own little exchange after this post of his,
alluded to below.

> >> >> On 3/5/2013 2:30 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >> >> > Assessing
> >> >> > the value of documentation can be a very time-consuming job, and that
> >> >> > is probably why so few people undertake it.
>
> >> >> There's a lesson in there, if only you could bring yourself to recognize it.
>
> >> >I believe I've learned many lessons from it, some of which you don't
> >> >even hint at in what you wrote below [mostly snipped this time due to
> >> >lack of time].
>
> >> Did you ever consider that this habit of yours (the comment
> >> inside the brackets above) is one of the two reasons people
> >> dislike trying to hold a discussion with you?

I'll answer directly this time: No, because it seems farfetched that
(1) people would only have two reasons for disliking trying to hold a
discussion with me and (2) that this would rank among the top two.

By the way, what other reason do you have in mind?

> >Better than your leaving it in, and flagrantly ignoring it.
>
> I disagree.

Since y'all outnumber me [have you been following my exchange with
Guarino on this thread?] we'll just have to agree to disagree on the
relative merits of me doing what I did (the comment inside the
brackets above) and you leaving something in, and flagrantly ignoring
it.

> >> >> It is not merely time-consuming, it is pointless; several levels more
> >> >> pointless even than the on-topic pointlessness that is the raison d'etre
> >> >> of the group.
>
> >> >You and Inez seem to think alike. What you call on-topic pointlessness
> >> >is something I've already talked to her about on another thread.
>
> >> >_______________ begin excerpts___________
>
> >> And this is the other one, at least for me: You refer to a
> >> "lack of time" to address Greg's points, then you insert
> >> dozens of lines unrelated to his comments.
>
> >It was a less than one-minute copy and paste job.
>
> So? It still indicates that you're less than honest when you
> don't want to address something.

This is illogical. I did say "this time around." Is there anything
of yours that I snipped of which you are so proud that you'd like me
to address it?

> >Got any non-frivolous comments? �I didn't think the rest of yours
> >[left in below] were any less frivolous.
>
> Frivolity is in the eye of the beholder.

Did it never occur to you to scroll back up and revise this opening
salvo of yours after you read the following?

[snip for focus]

> >But I'll gladly address them if someone besides you identifies what he
> >thinks of as non-frivolous ones, and makes a commitment to stick
> >around for my answer and to indicate whether he agrees with my take on
> >them or not.
>
> And if you disagree you'll switch to personal attack mode,
> as usual?

That's not my usual reaction to people who sincerely differ from me.
In fact--can you name anyone besides the "unMagnificent Seven" to whom
I react in this way?

Here they are: Coffey, Gans, Isaak, jillery, O'Shea, Ron Okimoto, and
yourself. And the reason I treat y'all that way is because each of
you has given evidence of hypocrisy to the extent of his sincerity
being in serious doubt.

This is in contrast to most of the people on this thread, to whom I am
giving the benefit of the doubt.

I could list them too, but I see no reason to cater to your laziness
and insincerity to that extent.

> There are those
> here who consider any evidence which contradicts Special
> Creation to be frivolous; the only difference I can see in
> your posts is that you have the same attitude regarding
> comments about panspermia or about your posting habits.

The "evidence" is all in the mind of yourself and Gans, who keeps
whining for special treatment, and all the people who have been
conned by Gans, as to whose minds the "evidence" is in. Gans's con
job is an example of Usenet Treadmill Salesmanship.

This is what I call the dirty debating tactic of trying to shame
people into going over refutations over and over again; Ron O is
especially adept at it.

An integral part of this tactic is the way he ignores all the evidence
I've posted that many of his objections are frivolous. [I even set up
a whole thread, "Gans displays his talents, and his modesty" to lay
some of the evidence for THAT on the table.]

[snip something to be dealt with in reply to a more recent post by
you, where it is still preserved]

> >> With such
> >> behavior why is it a matter of wonder to you that many here

Is "many here" a subset of the "unMagnificent Seven"

> >> consider you to be a less-than-honest whiner who *refuses*
> >> to support his positions or to honestly address rebuttals of
> >> those positions?

It would be a wonder, were it not for the fact that this newsgroup is
so heavily politicized that the "unMagnificent Seven" can post any
bull about me and not have it be contradicted.

The word "*refuses*" is evidence your insincerity, by the way. Can
you name a single case where I explicitly refused to provide evidence,
where I had not already provided evidence earlier? [See above about
Usenet Treadmill Salesmanship.]

Continued in next reply.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

Now that the more unsavory regulars of talk.origins are beginning to
dominate this thread, I am able to illustrate two of the things I
promised at the beginning of this thread.

These are the obstacles in the way of getting documentation to be
accepted, and some of the ways of overcoming those obstacles.

This is my concluding reply to a long post by Casanova, picking up
where I left off in my first reply:

On Mar 9, 2:03�pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Mar 2013 12:15:54 -0800 (PST), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos

> <nyik...@bellsouth.net>:

> >On Mar 6, 12:59�pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> >> On Tue, 5 Mar 2013 13:40:43 -0800 (PST), the following
> >> appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos
> >> <nyik...@bellsouth.net>:

To Greg Guarino:

> >> > Don't forget, though, that this newsgroup also serves as a "proving
> >> >ground" for various items in the talk.origins FAQ Archive. Some real
> >> >kooks have contributed to the FAQ archive, but some of them have
> >> >managed to keep their kookiness out of their contributions to the FAQ
> >> >archive.
>
> >> >The FAQ archive serves as a general resource for the big outside
> >> >world. One of my daughters, who loves paleontology, did two term
> >> >papers for honors high school science courses using [in part]
> >> >resources from the FAQ archive, which she found on her own.
>
> >> >For the first, she used the excellent FAQ on horse evolution. When I
> >> >saw one of the FAQs she used for the other term paper, on the Cambrian
> >> >explosion, I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her that the
> >> >author was one of the most dishonest, cowardly regulars in
> >> >talk.origins at the time,
>
> >> >[...]
>
> >> >Fortunately, he is gone from talk.origins. The FAQ itself seemed
> >> >objective but I cautioned her to check some other resources on the
> >> >same topic, since I could not vouch for the correctness of everything
> >> >there.
> >> >================== end of excerpt
> >> >fromhttp://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/bdcb5063c0f96a81

Guarino had written:

> >> >> Usenet allows people to behave poorly with impunity.

Only some people; in this newsgroup, it is non-creationists besides
myself.

I set a higher standard for myself, and many others (especially the
"unMagnificent Seven" and Harshman) set many higher standards for me.

The "unMagnificent Seven" are: Coffey, Gans, Isaak, jillery, O'Shea,
Ron Okimoto, and yourself.


In reply to Guarino, earlier, I stuck to an easily proven exception:

> >> >Unless they do something that DIG feels is grounds for barring that
> >> >person. I've been given to understand that massive, documentable
> >> >defamation isn't one of them, and anyway the problem is so systemic
> >> >that this wouldn't be a practical thing to try even if it were
> >> >grounds. That is one of my reasons for starting this thread.
>
> >> >Rest deleted, to be replied to later.
>
> >> And that's a variation of #2 above. If you did it only
> >> occasionally it wouldn't be a problem, but you do it on a
> >> regular basis,

Because I, unlike you, am trying to get at the truth about so many
things in dispute.

And that takes time. As the old saying goes, "A lie can travel
halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on."

> >>and along with the inclusion in your posts of
> >> material from *years* earlier (what I jokingly refer to as
> >> "Peter's infinite recursions") it makes anything you wish to
> >> say nearly impossible to follow.

In the case of the "unMagnificent Seven" I believe this is more a case
of wanting to be sure to remember what kinds of twisted arguments you
had used back then. If y'all tried to be sincere, this wouldn't be a
real problem.

In fact, I can't remember anyone outside the "unMagnificent Seven" who
has complained about this, except perhaps Harshman.

That's in talk.origins. In the abortion newsgroups, there were two
others: the close counterpart of Paul Gans, and a close counterpart of
Mitchell Coffey who was also an insult addict (and in that respect was
a close counterpart of yourself).

>
> This is *not* frivolous; it's a comment regarding your
> deficient communication skills *in this medium*

I don't cater to people who post things because they sound good,
rather than out of any true opinions of theirs.

Now, it could be that *in this medium* [which I take to mean heavily
politicized newsgroups like talk.origins and the abortion newsgroups]
these people are in the majority. But even so, I do not cater to
them.

> (you may be
> quite proficient as a lecturer, but this isn't a classroom
> and we're not your students), the most important of which
> (IMHO) are "stick to the current issue" and "keep it
> straightforward".

Bullshit. Coffey flagrantly violated those two standards when he
ripped into me for daring to challenge a statement Gans made about
prawnster.

And, since the "unMagnificent Seven" have me outnumbered, Coffey not
only got off scot-free, but Gans also acted as though Coffey had stuck
to the current issue, and had kept it straightforward. Both also
acted as though *I* had violated those standards by trying to return
to the issue that Coffey had completely ignored..

> Minor digressions are OK if the intent is
> clarification of those two points, but you take it to
> extremes. Again IMHO, but I suspect many would agree.

Your humble opinion is duly noted, and subject to feedback from
"many."

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 16, 1:11�pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:31:57 -0700, the following appeared
> in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:

> >On Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:10:47 -0700, the following appeared
> >in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:
>
> >Still waiting for those data and calculations...

See below about the timetable for them.

> >>On Sat, 09 Mar 2013 11:03:16 -0700, the following appeared
> >>in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:
>
> >>>On Fri, 8 Mar 2013 12:15:54 -0800 (PST), the following
> >>>appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos

> >>><nyik...@bellsouth.net>:
>
> >><snip>

[snip stuff dealt with in a reply a few minutes ago]

Now I deal with the matter I promised to deal with in that reply:

> >>> And
> >>>BTW, I have yet to see any calculations, or even
> >>>demonstrable facts, supporting your contention that, IIRC,
> >>>the probability of panspermia ranges from 1 in 2 to 1 in 30.

Not "probability of", but "odds in favor of", backwards from what you
have: 2 to 1, 30 to 1.

> >>>Of course, they may have been in one of your interminable
> >>>"recursive" posts and I thus missed them.

I promised Coffey I would do it no later than March, and I intend to
stick to that promise.

I don't think you follow my panspermia posts closely. This particular
estimate goes a good way back. Isaak and I had an exchange over half a
year ago in which the foundation for such figures was laid.

Did you ever participate on-topic on the threads, "An expansion of the
Drake equation" and "Evolutionary benchmarks from prebiotic soup to
Homo sapiens"? That's where a lot of the scaffolding was built. All
that remains is to give my own opinion as to some of the individual
probabilities that are multiplied together.

> >>Take your time, Peter; I'm quite patient.

Now we get to see what standards you set for being "quite patient":

> Guess they don't exist. OK.

Not OK, but there is no reason why that should bother someone in your
circumstances.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 18, 12:42�am, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com>
wrote:

When I wrote the above, I had neglected to take into account my many,
many exchanges with Ron O and O'Shea; but even there, I think Ron O's
accusations outnumber mine against him by about 10 to 1, and O'Shea's
outnumber those against him by about 5 to 1.

And in O'Shea's case, I can only recall one attempt by him to even go
through the motions of producing evidence for his false accusation of
"lying," and that fell flat on its face.

> [snip]

What goes on here, Coffey? I thought you had me killfiled, yet here
you are replying directly to a post of mine. Did you un-killfile me?
for how long.

> So you've made a falsifiable assertion, Peter.

As revised above, it is falsifiable in fact only if you draw upon the
abortion newsgroups, which I implicitly excluded.

I suppose the way "falsifiable" is used in the philosophy of science,
it is still "falsifiable in principle" even if it can be proven with
mathematical certainty.

> Prove it.

And if I do, will you just retreat to the security of your killfile in
order to avoid dealing with it?

In other words, is this just a nuisance request, in analogy with
"nuisance lawsuits"?

> Mitchell Coffey

Peter Nyikos

[Mitchell Coffey]

Prove it, Peter. I'm not interested in your excuses and evasions.

Mitchell Coffey

[Mitchell Coffey]

On Monday, March 18, 2013 3:11:07 PM UTC-4, pnyikos wrote:
> Now that the more unsavory regulars of talk.origins are beginning to

[snip]

> > (you may be
> > quite proficient as a lecturer, but this isn't a classroom
> > and we're not your students), the most important of which
> > (IMHO) are "stick to the current issue" and "keep it
> > straightforward".
>
> Bullshit. Coffey flagrantly violated those two standards when he
> ripped into me for daring to challenge a statement Gans made about
> prawnster.

Bullshit. He's not responsible for what I post, and you *are* responsible for what you post.

This is just evidence that you're metally ill. You don't deny what words Gans actually said about Prawnster: "He has a personality? What an idea!" And you have several times paraphrased in all seriousness the response you gave at the time: "He has a much more varied one than your benefactee O'Shea, by all evidence available to me. And he seems to take life more seriously than you do, even though he gets it wrong a great deal of the time. But then, you get it wrong a great deal of the time too, and O'Shea even more so." You even pounded your chest in a following post about how "You made no attempt to counter this assessment ... ."

In other words, *to this day*, even after it's been explained to you several times, you *still* think Paul was seriously claiming that Prawnster had no personality, and that a sane English speaker of at least average intelligence would interprit what Paul said as you do!

Meanwhile, I wasn't the first person to note you's been sucking up to this racist, mysogynist, homophobic troll; Harshman, at least, had. Yet you still make the paranoid, and frankly stupid, claim that my response at the time was in reaction to your astonishing misapprehension of English conversation. You, despite your posting history, constantly make laughable brags about how interested you are in truth, yet you ignore the fact that my posting history shows I didn't understand until several posts later that you really *did* seriouslly believe that Paul was seriously attacking Prawnster as having no personality, and *that* was what had you so insanely upset!

Similarly, you have finally claimed to have read a substantial number of Prawster's posts. Yet you evidently *still* deny that Prawnster is, as I put it, a "horrific racist, homophobe, rape-apologist and pathological liar." This sort of thing is why virually everyone who runs into you on usenet thinks you've mentally deranged.

> And, since the "unMagnificent Seven" have me outnumbered, Coffey not
> only got off scot-free, but Gans also acted as though Coffey had stuck
> to the current issue, and had kept it straightforward. Both also
> acted as though *I* had violated those standards by trying to return
> to the issue that Coffey had completely ignored..

[snip]

The evidence to me was that nobody except maybe Jillery and O'Shea, and certainly not Paul, liked me wasting space on T.O. agruing against your defenses of Prawnster and Matt Giwer. However, most or all regular posters knew from long experience that Prawnster is a racist, mysogynist, homophobe, and Giwer is a Holocaust denier and pro-Nazi. Many therefore cut me some slack out because they are revolted by racists, mysogynists, homophobes, Holocaust deniers and pro-Nazis, whom they also believe polute the newsgroup, and because your sick defense of these loathsome creatures disgusted them.

The very fact that you think you're going to get sympathy from moral people because you came to the defense of the likes of Prawnster when Paul joked that he was surprized to hear that Prawnster had a personality, shows how divorsed from reality you are.

Mitchell Coffey

[pnyikos]

On Mar 18, 5:02锟絧m, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 18, 3:34锟絧m, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mar 18, 12:42锟絘m, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com>

> > What goes on here, Coffey? 锟絀 thought you had me killfiled, yet here

> > you are replying directly to a post of mine. Did you un-killfile me?

> > for how long?

You ducked these questions, Coffey. Here you are replying to me
again.

Did you tell the truth when you posted that you had me killfiled?

>
> > > So you've made a falsifiable assertion, Peter.
>
> > As revised above, it is falsifiable in fact only if you draw upon the
> > abortion newsgroups, which I implicitly excluded.
>
> > I suppose the way "falsifiable" is used in the philosophy of science,
> > it is still "falsifiable in principle" even if it can be proven with
> > mathematical certainty.
>
> > > Prove it.
>
> > And if I do, will you just retreat to the security of your killfile in
> > order to avoid dealing with it?

You ducked this question too.

> > In other words, is this just a nuisance request, in analogy with
> > "nuisance lawsuits"?

You ducked this question too.

> Prove it, Peter. I'm not interested in your excuses and evasions.

I don't take orders from arrogant scoundrels like you, Coffey. Dig
it!

You are demanding that I devote untold hours to something from which,
by all indications, I would reap NO benefit whatsoever.

If someone whom I believe to be honest and sincere (that leaves out
the "unMagnificent Seven" and three other people I have in mind) will
promise to evaluate the evidence and report as objectively as possible
about it here in talk.origins, I will at least start such a project.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 19, 3:07�am, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, March 18, 2013 3:11:07 PM UTC-4, pnyikos wrote:
> > Now that the more unsavory regulars of talk.origins are beginning to

...show up, one of the five most unsavory and the second most rabid in
my experience, Mitchell Coffey, is showing the obstacles in the way of
getting documentation to be assessed fairly.

> [snip]
> > > (you may be
> > > quite proficient as a lecturer, but this isn't a classroom
> > > and we're not your students), the most important of which
> > > (IMHO) are "stick to the current issue" and "keep it
> > > straightforward".
>
> > Bullshit. �Coffey flagrantly violated those two standards when he
> > ripped into me for daring to challenge a statement Gans made about
> > prawnster.
>
> Bullshit. He's not responsible for what I post, and you *are* responsible for what you post.

You and he have a very cozy relationship, and what I say after
"Bullshit' is true, and I think Casanova will realize that what he
wrote was bullshit, once he knows the truth of what I said after the
word.

Similarly, I think Roger Shrubber will realize that what he wrote
about "antisocial" people is bullshit. I mean, the part about people
who accuse others copiously of lying is "antisocial". I think he has
already realized that you HAVE accused me copiously of lying, even if
he disagrees with my estimate of the frequency relative to mine.

> This is just evidence that you're metally ill.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one: I'll assume that
you read "challenging what Gans wrote" to mean "challenging what Gans
intended by what he wrote."

What Gans intended by what he wrote is still a mystery, barely
alleviated by his saying that he was joking. Do you know what the
POINT of his joke was?

If so, you are playing with the cards prosthetically attached to your
chest face down, to use a colorful hyperbole.

> You don't deny what words Gans actually said about Prawnster:
>"He has a personality? What an idea!"
> And you have several times paraphrased in all seriousness
>the response you gave at the time: "He has a much more
> varied one than your benefactee O'Shea, by all evidence
> available to me. And he seems to take life more seriously
>than you do, even though he gets it wrong a great deal
>of the time."

>"But then, you get it wrong a great deal of the
> time too, and O'Shea even more so."

I stand by those words, and you never tried to refute them, because
you were hell bent on painting me as the defender of "a horrific
racist, rape apologist, ..." and of Giwer.

So far from denying what I wrote after "Bullshit," you are reinforcing
it. And you continue to reinforce it, and to thereby undermine what

your "fellow Boss" Casanova wrote:

>You even pounded your chest in a following post
>about how "You made no attempt to counter this assessment ... ."

You've got a weird idea of what constitutes chest-pounding.

> In other words, *to this day*, even after
> it's been explained to you several times,
> you *still* think Paul was seriously claiming that Prawnster
> had no personality

No. I knew he was clowning, but I used his clowning as a platform for
some serious observations that his clowning naturally led to. And
those observations (see above) have remained unchallenged to this day.

[snip things to be dealt with in the next reply to Coffey's post]

> > And, since the "unMagnificent Seven" have me outnumbered, Coffey not
> > only got off scot-free, but Gans also acted as though Coffey had stuck
> > to the current issue, and had kept it straightforward. Both also
> > acted as though *I* had violated those standards by trying to return
> > to the issue that Coffey had completely ignored..

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

This is the second reply to Coffey's long tirade.

On Mar 19, 3:07 am, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Meanwhile, I wasn't the first person to note
> you's been sucking up to

...prawnster, in the same sense that Churchill "sucked up to" Stalin
because of the alliance against Hitler. Not the same sense as
Roosevelt did, who went overboard, e.g. by calling him "Uncle Joe"--a
term of endearment that Stalin took offense at, or at least pretended
to take offense at in order to enhance his bargaining position.

[description of an alleged general perception of prawnster, to which I
was not privy at the time, snipped here]

[redundant ranting snipped here -- see preceding reply for the gist of
it, and my rejoinders]

> Similarly, you have finally claimed to have read a substantial number of Prawster's posts.

No. I've read a fair number, spanning several threads, but never saw
any evidence of those horrific qualities in addition to the evidence
you posted in direct reply to me.

>Yet you evidently *still* deny that Prawnster is, as I put it, a "horrific racist, homophobe, rape-apologist and pathological liar."

No. I deny that I have seen what YOU would acknowledge to be a
"substantial number of Prawster's posts." At the rate I have been
going, I estimate I would need to read at least a hundred posts before
I get enough evidence to agree with even ONE of those heavily loaded
descriptions [assuming "horrific" also modifies "homophobe"].

That's if the evidence is there at all, as opposed to evidence for
some mild denunciations in the general direction of those heavily
loaded descriptions.

> This sort of thing is why virually everyone who runs into you on usenet thinks you've mentally deranged.

This assessment is laughable. I don't recall anyone outside the
"unMagnificent Seven" suggesting that.

And there are people who KNOW I am not like that, including several
honest, decent people in the hellhole talk.abortion.

[snip something repeated in the previous reply]

>
> [snip]
>
> The evidence to me was that nobody except maybe Jillery and O'Shea, and certainly not Paul,

What Paul says for public consumption and what he actually means are
two different things.

> liked me wasting space on T.O. agruing against your defenses of Prawnster and Matt Giwer.

Dishonest use of "defenses" noted.

The evidence to me is that nobody but Paul ever complained to you
about it--and was he complaining about YOU wasting space or about ME
wasting space?

Aren't you interpreting silence OPPOSITELY from the way you were using
to assess what "virtually everyone..." thought about my mental state?

> However, most or all regular posters knew
> from long experience

...of hearsay?

>that Prawnster is a racist, mysogynist, homophobe, and Giwer is a Holocaust denier and pro-Nazi. Many therefore cut me some slack out because they are revolted by racists, mysogynists, homophobes, Holocaust deniers and pro-Nazis, whom they also believe polute the newsgroup, and because your sick defense of these loathsome creatures disgusted them.

I think many cut you slack because they see how rabidly you attacked
me for saying a few non-denunciatory words about prawnster, and were
afraid they would get into hot water if they dared to be seen by you
and the other "unMagnificent Seven" as sucking up to me.

Concluded in next reply.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 19, 3:07 am, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:


>

> The very fact that you think you're going to get sympathy from moral people

You know very little about the range of what "moral people"
encompasses, including next to nothing of the Roman Catholic position
on such things. Your idea of "moral people" is skewed by your limited
exposure to moral people unlike yourself.

I have sympathy from at least four moral people in talk.abortion, and
from many more before that newsgroup became the hellhole that it is
today.

> because you came to the defense of the likes of Prawnster

Dishonest use of "defense" noted.

> when Paul joked that he was surprized to hear that Prawnster had a personality, shows how divorsed from reality you are.
>
> Mitchell Coffey

Utter bilge.

Peter Nyikos

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:21:32 -0700 (PDT), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos

<nyi...@bellsouth.net>:

>On Mar 16, 1:11�pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
>> On Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:31:57 -0700, the following appeared
>> in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:
>
>> >On Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:10:47 -0700, the following appeared
>> >in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:
>>
>> >Still waiting for those data and calculations...
>
>See below about the timetable for them.
>
>> >>On Sat, 09 Mar 2013 11:03:16 -0700, the following appeared
>> >>in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:
>>
>> >>>On Fri, 8 Mar 2013 12:15:54 -0800 (PST), the following
>> >>>appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos
>> >>><nyik...@bellsouth.net>:
>>
>> >><snip>
>
>[snip stuff dealt with in a reply a few minutes ago]
>
>Now I deal with the matter I promised to deal with in that reply:
>
>> >>> And
>> >>>BTW, I have yet to see any calculations, or even
>> >>>demonstrable facts, supporting your contention that, IIRC,
>> >>>the probability of panspermia ranges from 1 in 2 to 1 in 30.
>
>Not "probability of", but "odds in favor of", backwards from what you
>have: 2 to 1, 30 to 1.

Fine; the difference, while real (50% vs 67%, for example),
is insignificant in the context of what's essentially a
guess-with-numbers.

>> >>>Of course, they may have been in one of your interminable
>> >>>"recursive" posts and I thus missed them.
>
>I promised Coffey I would do it no later than March, and I intend to
>stick to that promise.

OK. Perhaps you can start a new thread with a clear Subject:
field, something like "Derivation of the odds of
panspermia".

>I don't think you follow my panspermia posts closely.

I don't hang on your every word, no.

> This particular
>estimate goes a good way back. Isaak and I had an exchange over half a
>year ago in which the foundation for such figures was laid.

Then, given your propensity for resurrecting and posting
exchanges from even longer ago, you should have no problem
cutting and pasting that foundation, or providing a cite to
the messages.

>Did you ever participate on-topic on the threads, "An expansion of the
>Drake equation"

I don't recall that particular one, although fairly recently
I participated in a thread in which I pointed out that with
exactly *one* example of the development of life, and with
essentially zero (at the time) knowledge of the prevalence
of Earthlike planets or planets with Earthlike conditions,
or of the probability of the development of intelligent life
on such planets, the numbers invoked by proponents of the
Drake Equation were multiplying WAGs (and not even SWAGs) to
arrive at a conclusion. And I suspect your "1 in 2" and "1
in 30" are based on similar sand.

> and "Evolutionary benchmarks from prebiotic soup to
>Homo sapiens"? That's where a lot of the scaffolding was built. All
>that remains is to give my own opinion as to some of the individual
>probabilities that are multiplied together.

The derivation of those "probabilities", and the evidence
supporting them, is paramount in this; perhaps you can do
better than anyone else I've read.

>> >>Take your time, Peter; I'm quite patient.
>
>Now we get to see what standards you set for being "quite patient":

Yeah, 7 days, during which you had the opportunity to
respond as you did above regarding your promise to Mitch,
and during which you made multiple posts.

>> Guess they don't exist. OK.
>
>Not OK, but there is no reason why that should bother someone in your
>circumstances.

What exactly are those "circumstances", Peter? Retired
engineer on a fixed income? Fly fisherman? SF enthusiast?
Something different entirely?

And BTW, I read your responses today to my post of 6 March;
perhaps I'll get around to replying in a couple of weeks.

[pnyikos]

On Mar 19, 1:56�pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:21:32 -0700 (PDT), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos

> <nyik...@bellsouth.net>:

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Mar 16, 1:11�pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> >> On Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:31:57 -0700, the following appeared
> >> in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:
>
> >> >On Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:10:47 -0700, the following appeared
> >> >in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:

> >> >>On Sat, 09 Mar 2013 11:03:16 -0700, the following appeared
> >> >>in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:

> >> >>> And
> >> >>>BTW, I have yet to see any calculations, or even
> >> >>>demonstrable facts, supporting your contention that, IIRC,
> >> >>>the probability of panspermia ranges from 1 in 2 to 1 in 30.
>
> >Not "probability of", but "odds in favor of", backwards from what you
> >have: 2 to 1, 30 to 1.
>
> Fine; the difference, while real (50% vs 67%, for example),
> is insignificant in the context of what's essentially a
> guess-with-numbers.

As quite a few people have done with the Drake equation, including
Drake himself as some here have hinted. This is the sort of thing
everyone has to guess for himself:

"What do *I* think the odds are, given the reasoning available to
me?"

No one but Mark Isaak has made any attempt at answering that
question. Most people simply assume the odds are astronomically
against panspermia, while some, like Gans, decide to go for a "famous
victory" a la Hume and Southey:

"A total suspense of judgment is here
our only reasonable resource.
And if every attack, as is commonly observed,
and no defence ... is successful;
how complete must be *his* victory, who remains
always, with all mankind, on the offensive,
and has himself no fixed station or abiding city,
which he is ever, on any occasion, obliged to defend?"
-- David Hume, see:
http://students.english.ilstu.edu/flknowl/flk2/mrdialog.htm

"And everybody praised the Gans
Who this great fight did win."
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why, that I cannot tell," said he,
"But 'twas a famous victory."
--taken, with one word changed,
from Southey's poem,
"The Battle of Blenheim"
http://www.poetry-archive.com/s/the_battle_of_blenheim.html

For the context see:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/3eaab1464d1153d5

> >> >>>Of course, they may have been in one of your interminable
> >> >>>"recursive" posts and I thus missed them.
>
> >I promised Coffey I would do it no later than March, and I intend to
> >stick to that promise.
>
> OK. Perhaps you can start a new thread with a clear Subject:
> field, something like "Derivation of the odds of
> panspermia".

I envision it being "FAQ on directed panspermia, Part E: Expanding and
extending the Drake equation"

> >I don't think you follow my panspermia posts closely.
>
> I don't hang on your every word, no.

Nor do you see more than 1% of those posted to talk.origins on
directed panspermia, eh?

> > �This particular

> >estimate goes a good way back. Isaak and I had an exchange over half a
> >year ago in which the foundation for such figures was laid.
>
> Then, given your propensity for resurrecting and posting
> exchanges from even longer ago, you should have no problem
> cutting and pasting that foundation, or providing a cite to
> the messages.

You flatter me. Actually it would take me quite some time to dig up
the most relevant parts, but I hope to do that before that "Part E"
thread is too far under way.

I no more like to send people looking for needles in haystacks than I
like being sent to do it.

> >Did you ever participate on-topic on the threads, "An expansion of the
> >Drake equation"

It's the one from which the above quotes are taken. That was easy to
find because I put Google Groups Advanced Search to work on the
keywords "famous victory."

Even so, I had to go through two webpages in "Standard view" mode
before I found the right one. Google Groups took me to the last post
I did in the thread with the keywords in it. Fortunately, it wasn't
far from the one I was looking for.

So I have to choose the keywords carefully, and I can't think of any
offhand for Mark's foundation that I have in mind.

Continued in next reply.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 19, 1:56 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:21:32 -0700 (PDT), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos

> <nyik...@bellsouth.net>:

> I pointed out that with
> exactly *one* example of the development of life, and with
> essentially zero (at the time) knowledge of the prevalence
> of Earthlike planets or planets with Earthlike conditions,
> or of the probability of the development of intelligent life
> on such planets, the numbers invoked by proponents of the
> Drake Equation were multiplying WAGs (and not even SWAGs) to
> arrive at a conclusion.

Not all of them invoked numbers, and those that did, were doing it on
a different basis than your first-lecture concept of probability.

> > and "Evolutionary benchmarks from prebiotic soup to
> >Homo sapiens"?  That's where a lot of the scaffolding was built.  All
> >that remains is to give my own opinion as to some of the individual
> >probabilities that are multiplied together.
>
> The derivation of those "probabilities", and the evidence
> supporting them, is paramount in this; perhaps you can do
> better than anyone else I've read.

Since you haven't read anyone else doing the relevant ones, that's a
safe bet.

>
> >> >>Take your time, Peter; I'm quite patient.
>
> >Now we get to see what standards you set for being "quite patient":
>
> Yeah, 7 days, during which you had the opportunity to
> respond as you did above regarding your promise to Mitch,
> and during which you made multiple posts.

You aren't the only fish in the sea, Bob C. You aren't even one of
the big fish of talk.origins. And your challenge had nothing to do
with the subject of this thread.

> >> Guess they don't exist. OK.
>
> >Not OK, but there is no reason why that should bother someone in your
> >circumstances.
>
> What exactly are those "circumstances", Peter? Retired
> engineer on a fixed income? Fly fisherman? SF enthusiast?
> Something different entirely?

The last alternative.

> And BTW, I read your responses today to my post of 6 March;
> perhaps I'll get around to replying in a couple of weeks.

Take all the time you want. I am a VERY patient man.

Peter Nyikos

[Mitchell Coffey]

I don't work for you, jackass. How is not responding to a stupid question "ducking"? Ducking what? What business is it of yours?

> Did you tell the truth when you posted that you had me killfiled?

Of course I did. Are you really so stupid as to not understand the difference between Thunderbird and Google groups?

> > > > So you've made a falsifiable assertion, Peter.
>
> > > As revised above, it is falsifiable in fact only if you draw upon the
> > > abortion newsgroups, which I implicitly excluded.
>
> > > I suppose the way "falsifiable" is used in the philosophy of science,
> > > it is still "falsifiable in principle" even if it can be proven with
> > > mathematical certainty.
>
> > > > Prove it.
>
> > > And if I do, will you just retreat to the security of your killfile in
> > > order to avoid dealing with it?
>
> You ducked this question too.

It's another stupid and paranoid question.

> > > In other words, is this just a nuisance request, in analogy with
> > > "nuisance lawsuits"?

A purely paranoid statement.

> You ducked this question too.

Yet another stupid and paranoid question.

> > Prove it, Peter. I'm not interested in your excuses and evasions.
>
> I don't take orders from arrogant scoundrels like you, Coffey. Dig
> it!

Yet you expect me to take orders from you? You realize you've been accusing me of "ducking" your orders, above?

Evasion noted. All reasonable people will concluded you were lying when you asserted above

> You are demanding that I devote untold hours to something from which,
> by all indications, I would reap NO benefit whatsoever.

Evasion noted, and confirmation that you were misrepresenting the facts when you claimed I made more accusations of lying than you, has done that far more than you have, "just in [my] attacks on [you]." Note that you already admitted you weren't telling the truth when you said that, as you've already have had to modify your claim by excluding a newsgroup that you routinely present as T.O.'s twin.

> If someone whom I believe to be honest and sincere (that leaves out
> the "unMagnificent Seven" and three other people I have in mind) will
> promise to evaluate the evidence and report as objectively as possible
> about it here in talk.origins, I will at least start such a project.

Peter, you've been proven to be lying time after time. I have spent hours nailing with the fact time and again. You're routine inability or unwillingness to prove your accusations against others, as now, suggests you may not be delusional, but may actually know you're not telling the truth with your constant accusations of lying.

By refusing to have the decency to demonstrate your accusation,you just fingered yourself - again - as lying.

Mitchell Coffey

[pnyikos]

CC: Thrinaxodon, because this reply has been long delayed.

On Mar 9, 1:27�am, Thrinaxodon <biolo...@gmail.com> wrote:

Neat touch, adopting the name of a Lower Triassic galesaurid
cynodont.

Why don't I see you over in sci.bio.paleontology? Do you think that
newsgroup is a lost cause?

Anyway, the beauty of the old classification scheme is that each
organism had its own family, infraorder, etc. even if one had to get
paraphyletic to do it. I've illustrated that above.

That way, diagnostic characters help the field researcher narrow down
the kind of specimen before him.

Can you see why this gives at least one advantage of the old scheme
over the cladistic?

> On Saturday, March 9, 2013 12:14:03 AM UTC-5, pnyikos wrote:
> > On Mar 7, 6:56�pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > So back to the logic. Normally socialized people
> > > with a
> > > normal sense of self-awareness understand how
> > > antisocial
> > > it is to go about accusing people of being liars.

Looks like Mitchell Coffey doesn't care about coming across as
antisocial to the likes of Roger Shrubber. Fortunately for him,
Shrubber is likely to play "see no antisocial, hear no antisocial,
speak no antisocial" in reply to Coffey's latest post to this thread,
which is full of illogical, wild accusations of lying against me.

> > Like that ever happened.

Did you make this comment, Thrinaxodon?

Your posting ISP made things very hard by putting the same number of
attribution marks before your words as mine. If your ISP charges more
than $9 a month, I suggest you ask Harshman about Giganews. Or you
might try Google Groups, which I use and is still free.

I've fixed the marks below so that yours [or what I think are yours]
appear here with the right number of attribution marks.

> > I didn't come to talk.origins (or talk.abortion, or
> > alt.abortion, or

> It seems like you came here to be a troll.

What accounts for this strange suspicion of yours?

[first line below repeated from above.
> > I didn't come to talk.origins (or talk.abortion, or alt.abortion, or
> > sci.bio.paleontology...) to socialize. I came to learn, to teach, and

> By calling us hypocrites. Very smart.

Do you frequently take comments about small handfuls of people having
nothing to do with you as though they included you ("us")?

> > to help prevent the newsgroup from sliding in the direction that
> > talk.abortion has slid. �I do my socialization elsewhere.
> > �If socialization is your main reason for being here, and not anything
> > more serious, then we can go our separate ways, and never bother each
> > other again.

Bill the atheist is another person with whom the above words to Roger
may resonate.

> No, it was created to draw ID and creationism away from the other science discussion boards.

Why are you saying this to me rather than to Roger Shrubber?
Note, I was talking about him, not about the newsgroup.

> > If "antisocial" is where it's at for you, I suggest you read my reply
> > to Harshman that formed the bulk of my first reply to this post of
> > yours, even though its relevance may have escaped you first time
> > around. "Civil discourse" is close to being the opposite of
> > antisocial behavior, after all, while rudeness is one
> > form of antisocial behavior.
.
> You've proven your self to be a troll.


What is your definition of "troll," and where is this alleged proof
supposed to have taken place?


> > > And talk.origins has
> > > always been about humor. How can you do anything
> > >but laugh at the idea of adults believing that the
> > >world is
> > > only 10,000 years old and that Noah loaded all the animals
> > > on his arc.
.
> We debunk pseudoscientific attacks against science.

That does take place from time to time, and I pitch in from time to
time. Have you seen me trying to set "Dr. Dr. Kleinman" and Martinez
straight about evolution?

However, that is not the theme of this thread. Nor is it the theme of
a majority of the threads that I've seen lately. Nor is it the theme
of your reply to me, unless there was something you wrote in the many
lines below.

I've left them in, just in case someone spots something you wrote
below.

Peter Nyikos


> > You can say that, and so can I, because we both know that creationism
>
> > cannot be anything like a real menace to society. �But there others
>
> > here who are paranoid about creationists [and that's only mildly
>
> > stretching the meaning of "paranoid", unlike the use to which Harshman
>
> > and others put the word].
>
> > One apparent example is Augray, on the same thread where that reply to
>
> > Harshman came from.
>
> > The thread was set up for the purpose of bemoaning the fact that _The
>
> > Auk_ gave space to Feduccia for his challenges to the "birds are
>
> > (descended from) dinosaurs" orthodoxy. It devolved into a thread for
>
> > *ad hominem* attacks on Feduccia. Augray took it a step further,
>
> > asserting that Feduccia should stop publishing opposition to the
>
> > reigning orthodoxy because he is being used by creationists.
>
> > Behe is routinely subjected to the same kind of treatment, and I think
>
> > paranoia about creationists plays a large part.
>
> > Another example of the same phenomenon is Robert Camp not only posting
>
> > an unfair diatribe against Glenn Morton, but also having it nominated
>
> > for Post of the Month.
>
> > A slightly different example is Richard Alan Forrest, a graduate
>
> > student in plesiosaur paleontology, who one might think would be a
>
> > kindred spirit of mine at least where love of paleontology is
>
> > concerned. �Not only did he spurn all suggestions to help revive
>
> > sci.bio.paleontology, he also could not be convinced that I am not a
>
> > creationist. �He really seemed to be have a bee in his bonnet about
>
> > how important it is to combat creationism relentlessly.
>
> > > > > Because he managed to do it with a sense of humor and so was
>
> > > > > not so mind numbingly tedious.
>
> > > > What sense of humor? �If he was anything like "Me, Al Franken" as
>
> > > > played in "Saturday Night Live," he was as obnoxiously self-centered
>
> > > > as Woody Allen, without the intelligence that at least made Woody
>
> > > > Allen interesting.
>
> > > That's the joke. It's self-deprecating humor.
>
> > Believe it or not, I indulged in self-deprecating humor when I first
>
> > started posting to talk.abortion in 1992.
>
> > But I soon discovered that self-deprecating humor was totally lost on
>
> > the fanatics who already dominated that newsgroup. �It was a case of
>
> > "give them an inch, and they'll take a mile."
>
> > >They take that
>
> > > self-centeredness and amp it up, turn the dial up to 11.
>
> > > They invite us to laugh at them. It's not like they are trying
>
> > > to be role models for children.
>
> > Alas, that does not seem to be true of Woody Allen. �A judge saw him
>
> > as being unfit to have any kind of custody over his children. �I don't
>
> > think Al Franken is any better. �He once made a personal appearance in
>
> > Columbia, and I read a report that he was so rude to someone who
>
> > happened to have a different opinion than him, that the young man in
>
> > question broke down and cried.
>
> > > > On the other hand, I could see lots of humor in the skits of
>
> > > > "Ernestine, the telephone operator" because, even though she was
>
> > > > obnoxious, she was satirizing a source of irritation to millions.
>
> > > > ["We're the telephone company. �We don't HAVE to care."]
>
> > > Peter, you have trouble recognizing satire. Profound trouble.
>
> > You are very wrong about that, and I'd like to see what basis you have
>
> > for this opinion.
>
> > > > And maybe that's what makes Franken humorous to you in the book, but
>
> > > > since I pay almost no attention to either Ann Coulter, or Rush
>
> > > > Limbaugh, or Bill O'Reilley, I'm afraid the humor would totally
>
> > > > escape me.
>
> > > There you go. Litotes.
>
> > Do you really think most people would appreciate broad humor that
>
> > deflates a stuffed shirt without having any idea of how the shirt was
>
> > stuffed?
>
> > > > > You also got the title wrong.
>
> > > > Serves me right for not googling it. �Correct is: _Lies and the Lying
>
> > > > Liars Who Tell Them_.
>
> > > > Ironically, �the way I had it was more accurate as to the contents.
>
> > > But it would then have been clinical and not funny, which is the
>
> > > point.
>
> > That's *your* sense of humor. �I think it would be only slightly less
>
> > funny than the actual title, and far from clinical.
>
> > *De gustibus non est disputandum.*
>
> > Concluded in next reply.
>
> > Peter Nyikos- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Ray Martinez]

On Mar 19, 8:06�am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> On Mar 18, 5:02�pm, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mar 18, 3:34�pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > On Mar 18, 12:42�am, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com>

> > > What goes on here, Coffey? �I thought you had me killfiled, yet here

Peter: I'm very curious as to who the seven and three are?

Could you please name them?

Ray

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:25:04 -0700 (PDT), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos

<nyi...@bellsouth.net>:

>On Mar 19, 1:56�pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
>> On Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:21:32 -0700 (PDT), the following
>> appeared in talk.origins, posted by pnyikos
>> <nyik...@bellsouth.net>:
>> I pointed out that with
>> exactly *one* example of the development of life, and with
>> essentially zero (at the time) knowledge of the prevalence
>> of Earthlike planets or planets with Earthlike conditions,
>> or of the probability of the development of intelligent life
>> on such planets, the numbers invoked by proponents of the
>> Drake Equation were multiplying WAGs (and not even SWAGs) to
>> arrive at a conclusion.
>
>Not all of them invoked numbers, and those that did, were doing it on
>a different basis than your first-lecture concept of probability.

Given the fact that what I stated was the literal truth,
perhaps you'd care to explain exactly what that basis was?
And even a "first-lecture concept of probability" (nice
put-down, BTW) should make one aware that, without actual
and sufficient data, probability calculations are
essentially impossible.

>> > and "Evolutionary benchmarks from prebiotic soup to
>> >Homo sapiens"? �That's where a lot of the scaffolding was built. �All
>> >that remains is to give my own opinion as to some of the individual
>> >probabilities that are multiplied together.
>>
>> The derivation of those "probabilities", and the evidence
>> supporting them, is paramount in this; perhaps you can do
>> better than anyone else I've read.
>
>Since you haven't read anyone else doing the relevant ones, that's a
>safe bet.

It's a safe bet that you can do better? OK, so where are
they? Cites to currently-available info, please, although
I'll accept a cut/paste or a coherent synopsis.

>> >> >>Take your time, Peter; I'm quite patient.
>>
>> >Now we get to see what standards you set for being "quite patient":
>>
>> Yeah, 7 days, during which you had the opportunity to
>> respond as you did above regarding your promise to Mitch,
>> and during which you made multiple posts.
>
>You aren't the only fish in the sea, Bob C. You aren't even one of
>the big fish of talk.origins. And your challenge had nothing to do
>with the subject of this thread.

No argument here, although I suspect your reticence had a
bit more to do with a lack of actual substance for your
claims than a lack of time, something quite common here
among True Believers.

>> >> Guess they don't exist. OK.
>>
>> >Not OK, but there is no reason why that should bother someone in your
>> >circumstances.
>>
>> What exactly are those "circumstances", Peter? Retired
>> engineer on a fixed income? Fly fisherman? SF enthusiast?
>> Something different entirely?
>
>The last alternative.

Wow, how cogent! Could you possibly be more vague? And BTW,
that's not an "alternative"; it's shorthand for "everything
not mentioned", so I have to conclude that your initial
comment was no more than rhetorical bluster and a vague
attempt to insinuate something of which you have zero
knowledge (sort of like "2 to 1" or "30 to 1"), especially
since you have no idea what my "circumstances" might be.

>> And BTW, I read your responses today to my post of 6 March;
>> perhaps I'll get around to replying in a couple of weeks.
>
>Take all the time you want. I am a VERY patient man.

Honest, too.

[pnyikos]

The "unMagnificent Seven" are: Casanova, Coffey, Gans, Isaak, jillery,
O'Shea, and Ron Okimoto.

The other three are Stockwell, Camp, and Harshman.

By the way, I'm beginning to see some merit in you claiming Harshman
is the head capo of talk.origins. Almost immediately after I returned
to talk.origins after almost a decade of absence, I saw him correcting
heavyweights Hershey and Gans when they posted misconceptions about my
arguments for directed panspermia and against easy abiogenesis. And
those two took it without a murmur.

In the past year, I've been noticing a pattern in the opposite
direction: as Harshman becomes more and more abusive towards me
[though being careful not to tell outright lies that cannot be passed
off as opinions or hyperboles] the unMagnificent Seven have steadily
become more and more outrageous and copious in their attacks on me.

Just look at how irrational Mitchell Coffey is in his latest reply to
me on this thread, and on the current "By their fruits" thread, and
how completely Ron O has lost his sense of proportion on that thread.

So far, I've only caught Harshman once in an outright lie, and that
was a forgivable one because he told it to get out of a very tight
spot, and because no adverse reprecussions would have resulted for me,
had the lie not been exposed.

He gave a very plausible sounding explanation for his behavior, one
that could easily have been true. Unfortunately for him, it turned
out to be completely false.

Peter Nyikos

[Roger Shrubber]

Tell us Peter, do mathematicians play follow the leader?
If you go to a conference do you have a small set of alpha
males that define tribes? Do they color code your name badges?

Or do people go their own way, sometimes that way being
the same as others, sometimes not?

Ray is convinced that "atheist scientists" play follow the
leader. That we say what we say about the evidence
because it is what we are told we have to say to defend
out world view. The notion that independent minds
can examine evidence and all come to the same conclusion
because that's where the evidence leads seems foreign
to Ray. I guess his leader told him that things don't work
that way and he believes it.

Now, and here's the hard part, use some introspection here.
Do you really think there's some coordinated response to you
or is it just possible that you have an ability to stimulate a
similar response in many people? There's word we use
for people who presume these conspiracies. I don't think
it applies to Ray as he's different. He's really almost
incapable of thinking that people act independently of
anointed leaders and authorities. Are you stuck in the same rut?

[Mitchell Coffey]

On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 11:55:45 AM UTC-4, pnyikos wrote:

> On Mar 19, 3:07?am, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Monday, March 18, 2013 3:11:07 PM UTC-4, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > > Now that the more unsavory regulars of talk.origins are beginning to
>
> ...show up, one of the five most unsavory and the second most rabid in
> my experience, Mitchell Coffey, is showing the obstacles in the way of
> getting documentation to be assessed fairly.

I take it this is a reference to my request that you back up a falsifiable claim you made about me, and your refusal to do so. The obstical is your dishonesty, nothing is keeping you from documenting your claim, except the fact that that claim was probably untrue.

> > [snip]
>
> > > > (you may be
>
> > > > quite proficient as a lecturer, but this isn't a classroom
>
> > > > and we're not your students), the most important of which
>
> > > > (IMHO) are "stick to the current issue" and "keep it
>
> > > > straightforward".
>

> > > Bullshit. ?Coffey flagrantly violated those two standards when he

> > > ripped into me for daring to challenge a statement Gans made about
> > > prawnster.
>
> > Bullshit. He's not responsible for what I post, and you *are* responsible
> > for what you post.

This is a basic moral and logical point, which you are unable to comprehend.

> You and he have a very cozy relationship, and what I say after
> "Bullshit' is true, and I think Casanova will realize that what he
> wrote was bullshit, once he knows the truth of what I said after the
> word.
>
> Similarly, I think Roger Shrubber will realize that what he wrote
> about "antisocial" people is bullshit. I mean, the part about people
> who accuse others copiously of lying is "antisocial". I think he has
> already realized that you HAVE accused me copiously of lying, even if
> he disagrees with

Normal people don't have to have rules directed at them specifically in order to understand how that rules is intended to apply to them. I'm well aware Shrubber disapproves of my calling you out for your copious lying, and have for a month or more. Narcissists and pre-schoolers, however, have to hear their name in a rule before they recognize it as meant to apply to them (e.g., "Peter, don't throw pebbles at the pidgeons"). You take this one Narcissistic step further, and assume if it has only your name in it, it is only meant to apply to you (e.g., Peter: But Mummy, your being so unfair! You didn't tell Sissy not to throw pebbles at the pidgeon; why is it OK for Sissy to throw pebbles at the pidgeons when I can't?!).

> my estimate of the frequency relative to mine.

You've already been caught lying on this point, and have shown that you are aware this is untrue, as you refuse even to attempt to demonstrate your claim.

> > This is just evidence that you're metally ill.
>
> I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one: I'll assume that
> you read "challenging what Gans wrote" to mean "challenging what Gans
> intended by what he wrote."

No, I read "daring to challenge a statement Gans made about prawnster." So did every other English speaker who read it, except you.

> What Gans intended by what he wrote is still a mystery, barely
> alleviated by his saying that he was joking.

The point wasn't that he said he was joking, the point is that he didn't have to say it, as any competant English speaker of at least moderate intelligence and lacking some significant executive function disorder would recognize it as a joke.

> Do you know what the POINT of his joke was?

Of course. You're probably the only one who read it who doesn't. It was to attempt to be funny at Prawnster's expense, Crazy Man. This is one of the things I meant about evidence of your mental illness.

> If so, you are playing with the cards prosthetically attached to your
> chest face down, to use a colorful hyperbole.

It's not particularly colorful. Helpful hint: the sort of intellectually insecure monomaniac who makes sure the World know when he's quoted Shakespeare also, not only identifies his figures-of-speach, he informs the World when his trope is colorful, as if would be devistating were the World to fail to note his literary genius. In short, Peter, it was a clever turn of phase, it really was, but it's ruined by the annotation .

But to respond to your point... No, Peter, I wasn't me who was hiding the true meaning of Paul's quoditian attempt at humor, it was your prefrontal cortex. Everybody got it but you.

> > You don't deny what words Gans actually said about Prawnster:
> >"He has a personality? What an idea!"
> > And you have several times paraphrased in all seriousness
> >the response you gave at the time: "He has a much more
> > varied one than your benefactee O'Shea, by all evidence
> > available to me. And he seems to take life more seriously
> >than you do, even though he gets it wrong a great deal
> >of the time."
>
> >"But then, you get it wrong a great deal of the
> > time too, and O'Shea even more so."
>
> I stand by those words, and you never tried to refute them, because
> you were hell bent on painting me as the defender of "a horrific
> racist, rape apologist, ..." and of Giwer.

"[Y]ou never tried to refute them." See, you parapharsed it *again*! You said these things, and stand by them, in response to an obvious joke, because you actually think people were seriously claiming that Prawnster didn't have a personality! Healthy people wouldn't, and didn't, bother to attempt to "refute" your opinion, even if it wasn't an obvious joke, because it's an inane non sequitur, one of your standard tu quoques, which you make the basis of a plurality of your arguments, which you don't realize is a logical fallacy. You also think people are obligated to "refute" your insults, even insults directed at third parties.

All this is yet more of the evidence that you're mentally ill.

And you are a defender of Prawnster and Giwer. Look up the word "defend."

> So far from denying what I wrote after "Bullshit," you are reinforcing
> it. And you continue to reinforce it, and to thereby undermine what
> your "fellow Boss" Casanova wrote:

Why are you directing this at me? You seem to take their rule seriously, and are not arguing against it as such, but through one of your irrational tu quoques. Attacking me for "reinforcing it" and not "denying" it is bizzare.

> >You even pounded your chest in a following post
> >about how "You made no attempt to counter this assessment ... ."

> You've got a weird idea of what constitutes chest-pounding.

You think your opinion is some kind of irrefutable argument, when it's just an inane insult, a non sequtur, and a tu quoque - that wouldn't be relevant or intereseting, even were it not made under the cognative misapprehension that people were actually claiming that Prawnster had no personality. If you were normal you'd be embarassed.

> > In other words, *to this day*, even after
> > it's been explained to you several times,
> > you *still* think Paul was seriously claiming that Prawnster
> > had no personality
>
> No. I knew he was clowning, but I used his clowning as a platform for
> some serious observations that his clowning naturally led to. And
> those observations (see above) have remained unchallenged to this day.

Which contradicts your previous statements.

You really think anyone gives a shit about your non sequitur opinions? This is more of your chest pounding. The fact that you're not embarassed by your rants is evidence of your imballance.

> [snip things to be dealt with in the next reply to Coffey's post]

[Bitching about third parties, several posts back, deleted.]

No, you're not going to suck me in to more of your bullshit on this subject in more posts.

You are not embarrassed by the fact that your sprung to the defense of the likes of Prawnster when someone joked "He has a personality? What an idea!", and you actually think it was some kind of intelligent refutation of that non-insult simply to trash-talk people on your hate-list. Pathetic.

Mitchell Coffey

[Mitchell Coffey]

On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 12:02:12 PM UTC-4, pnyikos wrote:
> This is the second reply to Coffey's long tirade.
>

> On Mar 19, 3:07?am, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Meanwhile, I wasn't the first person to note
> > you's been sucking up to
>
> ...prawnster, in the same sense that Churchill "sucked up to" Stalin
> because of the alliance against Hitler. Not the same sense as
> Roosevelt did,

[snip, borish historical run-on]

Nope. You tried to be his special friend. If you make this misrepresentation again I'll quote you. But no matter, you've just admitted the basic point that you allied yourself with the sort of monster who - on top of frequent lies, and racist, mysogynist and homophobic posts - sees that a regular's infant son has cancers, belittles it, then starts a new thread to further make fun of someone's baby having cancer, until warned off by DIG. Just your sort.

I'm not responding further than your first misrepresentation.

Mitchell Coffey

[pnyikos]

I've had second thoughts about Harshman. I do believe that for this
kind of project, he would try to be fair. But the odds against him
undertaking it are astronomical.

On the other hand, I realized that infrequent-posting old-timer
Michael Siemon has been behaving so erratically of late, I'd better
include him.

Also, Ray Martinez himself fails the "I believe to be honest and
sincere" test abysmally.

[snip for focus]

>
> Tell us Peter, do mathematicians play follow the leader?

For the most part, they do when it comes to political matters. Where
mathematical matters are concerned, it depends a great deal on the
situation.

I'd say most mathematicians are overconfident about beating the
system, and so they acquiesce in many things they probably wouldn't if
they could foresee the future.

> If you go to a conference do you have a small set of alpha
> males that define tribes?

Not in any sense that is relevant to talk.origins or the abortion
newsgroups.

> Or do people go their own way, sometimes that way being
> the same as others, sometimes not?

Only in some ways. Their research, for example, usually either dies
or goes in directions that they like, once they get tenure.

Before they get tenure, it's a different story for many.

> Ray is convinced that "atheist scientists" play follow the
> leader.

No more than most other scientists, I would guess.

That's with a normal definition of "atheist". Where HIS definition is
concerned, I'd say he's got it exactly backwards. He is following
Gene Scott, and nobody else AFAIK.

In fact, I'd say that where species immutability is concerned, the
line from Gilbert & Sullivan's "H.M.S. Pinafore" applies:

"He never thought of thinking for himself at all."

Do you know whether he acknowledges anyone else in this newsgroup to
be "not an atheist"?

> That we say what we say about the evidence
> because it is what we are told we have to say to defend
> out world view.

I'd say almost everyone instinctively adheres to what they tell
themselves about their own world view. For instance, some people are
paranoid about anything that smacks of Intelligent Design, even if it
is panspermists who evolved naturally doing all the hypothesized
designing.

> The notion that independent minds
> can examine evidence and all come to the same conclusion
> because that's where the evidence leads seems foreign
> to Ray.

Where creationism is concerned, that certainly seems to be the case.

> I guess his leader told him that things don't work
> that way and he believes it.
>
> Now, and here's the hard part, use some introspection here.
> Do you really think there's some coordinated response to you

Not except in some isolated cases, like O'Shea and jillery
coordinating their paranoia about me after I said I thought UC had
the upper hand on an isolated debate on the matter of proper usage of
the word "ape".

Do you believe you are a coelenterate? If you believe that humans are
descended from coelenterates, then by Harshman's cladistic criteria,
the same ones used to say "humans are apes", you believe you are a
coelenterate.

> or is it just possible that you have an ability to stimulate a
> similar response in many people?

I do, simply by virtue of being in the minority when it comes to
things like the above UC incident.

For instance, it is possible that this is "just a coincidence," but
Mark Isaak selected that very thread to make a totally unprovoked
attack on me, an attack more vicious than that of any I had sustained
since returning in December 2010 except those made by Ron O.

Documentation on request.

And it was far more dangerous than Ron O's attacks because Mark enjoys
a high degree of popularity and influence in talk.origins, while Ron
O is rather isolated.

Why did Mark do it? Was it out of solidarity with O'Shea and
jillery?

Or was it simply because nobody pointed out how far out of line these
two were in their paranoia about a possible alliance between me and
UC, simply on the basis of me arguing as above?

IOW, did Mark realize then that he could post any crap about me he
chose to post without suffering reprecussions?


>�There's word we use

> for people who presume these conspiracies.

Only people like me and Ray, who are in the minority. When O'Shea and
jillery presume such conspiracies between unpopular people, the
correct expression is "business as usual" IMHO.

> I don't think
> it applies to Ray as he's different. He's really almost
> incapable of thinking that people act independently of
> anointed leaders and authorities. Are you stuck in the same rut?

No. But you may be stuck in a rut of another sort, depending on how
what I've written here strikes you.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 21, 2:02嚙窮m, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 11:55:45 AM UTC-4, pnyikos wrote:
> > On Mar 19, 3:07?am, Mitchell Coffey <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Monday, March 18, 2013 3:11:07 PM UTC-4, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > > > Now that the more unsavory regulars of talk.origins are beginning to
>
> > ...show up, one of the five most unsavory and the second most rabid in
> > my experience, Mitchell Coffey, is showing the obstacles in the way of
> > getting documentation to be assessed fairly.
>
> I take it this is a reference to my request that you back up a falsifiable claim you made about me,

You are being sickeningly self-serving. Disingenuous assumptions like
this play an infinitely greater role in me calling you a scoundrel,
than this "request" did.

Your "request" turned into an arrogant, non-negotiable demand, a
perfect example of the expression "the arrogance of power." But you
showed yourself to be accurately described above by me, long before
this thread even began.

>and your refusal to do so. The obstical is your dishonesty,
> nothing is keeping you from documenting your claim,

except that it would take untold hours to document it, and you've
given NO sign that you'd give a rat's ass if it turned out to be true.

In fact, you ducked questions that might have led to the conclusion
that you would care.

> except the fact that that claim was probably untrue.

Well, now, would you even claim to believe that you've called me a
liar and accused my of lying no more than I have done these things of
you?

I expect you to duck this question too.

By the way, I haven't seen anyone else give any sign as to whether
they give a rat's ass as to whether either of us is right about this.


I've left the rest of what you posted in, and if anyone besides you
claims you are acting reasonably here, I will address your comments
and theirs if they give some sane reason for their opinion.

Peter Nyikos

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > > [snip]
>
> > > > > (you may be
>
> > > > > quite proficient as a lecturer, but this isn't a classroom
>
> > > > > and we're not your students), the most important of which
>
> > > > > (IMHO) are "stick to the current issue" and "keep it
>
> > > > > straightforward".
>
> > > > Bullshit. ?Coffey flagrantly violated those two standards when he
> > > > ripped into me for daring to challenge a statement Gans made about
> > > > prawnster.
>
> > > Bullshit. He's not responsible for what I post, and you *are* responsible
> > > for what you post.
>
> This is a basic moral and logical point, which you are unable to comprehend.
>
> > You and he have a very cozy relationship, and what I say after
> > "Bullshit' is true, and I think Casanova will realize that what he
> > wrote was bullshit, once he knows the truth of what I said after the
> > word.
>
> > Similarly, I think Roger Shrubber will realize that what he wrote

> > about "antisocial" people is bullshit. 嚙瘢 mean, the part about people

> > who accuse others copiously of lying is "antisocial". I think he has
> > already realized that you HAVE accused me copiously of lying, even if
> > he disagrees with
>
> Normal people don't have to have rules directed at them specifically in order to understand how that rules is intended to apply to them. I'm well aware Shrubber disapproves of my calling you out for your copious lying, and have for a month or more. Narcissists and pre-schoolers, however, have to hear their name in a rule before they recognize it as meant to apply to them (e.g., "Peter, don't throw pebbles at the pidgeons"). You take this one Narcissistic step further, and assume if it has only your name in it, it is only meant to apply to you (e.g., Peter: But Mummy, your being so unfair! You didn't tell Sissy not to throw pebbles at the pidgeon; why is it OK for Sissy to throw pebbles at the pidgeons when I can't?!).
>
> > my estimate of the frequency relative to mine.
>
> You've already been caught lying on this point, and have shown that you are aware this is untrue, as you refuse even to attempt to demonstrate your claim.
>
> > > This is just evidence that you're metally ill.
>

> > I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one: 嚙瘢'll assume that

> > it. 嚙璀nd you continue to reinforce it, and to thereby undermine what

> > your "fellow Boss" Casanova wrote:
>
> Why are you directing this at me? You seem to take their rule seriously, and are not arguing against it as such, but through one of your irrational tu quoques. Attacking me for "reinforcing it" and not "denying" it is bizzare.
>
> > >You even pounded your chest in a following post
> > >about how "You made no attempt to counter this assessment ... ."
> > You've got a weird idea of what constitutes chest-pounding.
>
> You think your opinion is some kind of irrefutable argument, when it's just an inane insult, a non sequtur, and a tu quoque - that wouldn't be relevant or intereseting, even were it not made under the cognative misapprehension that people were actually claiming that Prawnster had no personality. If you were normal you'd be embarassed.
>
> > > In other words, *to this day*, even after
> > > it's been explained to you several times,
> > > you *still* think Paul was seriously claiming that Prawnster
> > > had no personality
>

> > No. 嚙瘢 knew he was clowning, but I used his clowning as a platform for
> > some serious observations that his clowning naturally led to. 嚙璀nd