Jebus. Didn’t I just put one of these down? They seem to be coming faster — I’m gonna need more ammo.
May 12 2012
TZT
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901 comments
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Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountain
25 May 2012 at 8:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Raj, I’m going to have to ask for a citation on your assertion that the reviews are freely available. Where?
A person, writing after a paper has been published, about the content, with commentary and critiques, is a different process than peer review.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
25 May 2012 at 8:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rajkumar, where is your evidence, not OPINION. OPINION can and will be dismissed. Evidence must be linked to.
Amphiox
25 May 2012 at 8:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The raja, who knows NOTHING about the scientific method, faps out more lies about the scientific method. All of which it just made up.
Pitiful liar.
FapfapFAP.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 8:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
500 comments. OK. you guys vent. And I suspect a new thread will be created by PZ Myers. If it does, maybe I pop in and join the conversation. in the meantime, happy venting.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 8:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What? Already a new thread?
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
25 May 2012 at 8:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I do not need an imagination to see the smug, rajkumar.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 8:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Without even killing the old one>?
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
25 May 2012 at 8:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Raja
I’m not sure what you think you are talking about, but you are obviously confused. Reading peer reviewed literature doesn’t mean reading the reviews themselves. When an article is submitted to a peer reviewed journal, the editor sends the submission off to scientists working on related problems and asks for them to review the paper so that she, the editor, can decide if the work merits publication based on expert opinions. The reviews themselves are typically anonymous and not published or available to anyone other than the journal editors and authors.
Review articles are part of the peer reviewed literature, which consist of detailed summaries of an active area of research that are generally sourced by anywhere between 50 and 300 research articles. Review articles are a perfectly suitable way for a new researcher or competent amateur such as Ogvorbis (when he reads paleontology, or myself when I read stuff that isn’t chemistry) to become acquainted with a particular scientific endeavor.
Do you get it now?
chigau (違う)
25 May 2012 at 8:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rajkumar
you are so stupid
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 8:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You don’t need an imagination … FULL STOP. You are doing fine without it.
chigau (違う)
25 May 2012 at 8:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hurin
I think you are the fourth to try to explain peer-review.
So, I doubt it.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
25 May 2012 at 8:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That attempt at an insult missed the target, oh smug one.
Amphiox
25 May 2012 at 8:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Which the scientific method, and only the scientific method, continually self-corrects for, with future research and additional peer review.
And I guess my prediction that the raja would attempt to make dishonest and pitiful hash about peer review, and expose yet more of its fundamental dishonesty and incompetence, and plain lack of basic human decency, in the process, proved correct.
The behavior of fapwits like the raja is just so predictable.
Fapfapfap.
John Morales
25 May 2012 at 8:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Specimen:
I’m no scientist, but at least I know to what peer review refers.
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
25 May 2012 at 8:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Feralboy12
Whatever the mystery source may be, I think we can safely conclude that it has never seen a peer reviewed article even once in its life.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
25 May 2012 at 8:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So, smug one, which one is it; do I have an overactive imagination and love cult movies or am I lacking? You claimed both for me, you silly clown.
Just so you know, you are not a funny clown, just creepy.
Amphiox
25 May 2012 at 8:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wrong again.
Wrong yet again.
So we can add the fundamental basic mechanics of how PZ runs the TZT to the things that the raja apparently cannot define, is too lazy to try to find out, too dishonest to admit its ignorance, and too fundamentally indecent to refrain from attempting to use to snark at someone.
It’s not like it couldn’t figure these mechanics out, just by PASSIVE OBSERVATION, considering how long it has infested this thread.
But that would require a degree of intellectual curiosity and integrity, and I suppose the raja just isn’t capable of that degree of effort.
Pitiful.
Fapfapfapfap.
SallyStrange: bottom-feeding, work-shy peasant
25 May 2012 at 8:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What is it you want, Raj? What do you hope to gain from these interactions? Why do you keep coming back?
The most plausible explanation I can think of is that you’re some sort of intellectual masochist who gets an odd thrill out of being repeatedly told that he’s stupid.
Amphiox
25 May 2012 at 8:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Poor, poor raja. It seems to think that peer review is some THING out there to find and read, and not a PROCESS that vets and maintains the quality of the scientific literature.
But then the raja pretty much things EVERYTHING, including people, are things. Explains its misogyny and bigotry as well.
Perhaps it was unfair of me to bring up the term “peer review”. It has, after all, a whole three syllables.
Broke the raja’s hapless brain, it seems.
Fapfap.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 8:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
OK. I think we can go back to the book ‘The Afterlife Experiments’ by Gary Schwartz. Has anyone ACTUALLY read that book?
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 8:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
even if anyone could read a Peer review the only ones that matter are THE PEERS REVIEWING IT.
so fucking stupid you are.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 8:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
admit you are wrong about peer review
chigau (違う)
25 May 2012 at 8:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Did Schwartz publish any of his “experiments” in a peer-reviewed, refereed journal before he published his book in a vanity press?
John Morales
25 May 2012 at 8:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The current specimen:
Oblivious, this one is.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 8:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Good to see you back, Sally. Previous hurts, insults, misunderstandings, miscommunication and all the like, have all been forgotten. It’s a fresh new start.
In a way, yes. Because calling someone stupid is very easy, especially on a blog. All you have to do is punch a few keys, and voila! However, the difficult, the most difficult thing to do in a discussion, probably, is to say something and then back your claims and logic with proper explanations. I see it is quite a rarity amongst your lot at the moment, but you never know…. You can say I am waiting for that golden moment
John Morales
25 May 2012 at 8:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SallyStrange,
Exactly what Amphiox mocks.
(Intellectual paraphilia is sad)
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 8:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t know. I am only familiar with his books. Quite impressive they are. What I do know is, someone from some university did give him a very negative peer review, which got famous too. He wrote back a reply, got a reply. Then the communication sort of got cut off..
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 8:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It’s easy because you are making it easy.
You continue to say stupid things and people are calling you on them.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 8:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And I am not calling you stupid because you all look very intelligent to me? Have you ever thought about that?
John Morales
25 May 2012 at 8:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Specimen:
It has been said, O schtick incarnate.
(Then, you’ll emphatically flounce and in due course return for your next indulgence in your feeelthy habit)
chigau (違う)
25 May 2012 at 8:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I agree with the Rev.
Until raj admits to being completely wrong about peer-review, we should talk about other things.
How’s the weather?
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 8:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Raj tell us about peer review again please?
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
25 May 2012 at 8:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chigau
Here’s hoping the answer to this question isn’t some bizzare deflection about “not reading the reviews”…
SallyStrange: bottom-feeding, work-shy peasant
25 May 2012 at 8:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So, Raj, why is it that you enjoy being verbally flagellated? If you could identify that part in you that prefers the certainty of insults to the uncertainty of learning new things, perhaps you could overcome your severe intellectual stumbling blocks.
Also, peer review.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 8:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I thought it was you and your friends who were doing this part? I never tried to explain them, I was just discussing their importance and their proper usage. However, since Wikipedia is quite famous in your group, can I give a link to a Wikipedia article on Peer Reviews?
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 8:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No you were absolutely wrong about them. You don’t have a clue about how they work. This was obvious.
Admit you were wrong.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 8:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
We actually explained them to you. Wiki was to give you some material to read up on them.
Admit you were wrong.
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
25 May 2012 at 8:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Raja
(emphasis mine)
Facepalm.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 8:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I thought I had already given that answer in my last comment. I will try again…
Your ‘insults’ are not insult to me at all, because I see them coming from screaming children if they are not backed by explanations. Defensive reactions. Your own problems. Not mine.
feralboy12
25 May 2012 at 8:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
CSI reviews Gary Schwartz’s work:
How Not To Test Mediums.
chigau (違う)
25 May 2012 at 8:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rajkumar
On your computer do words sometimes show in blue?
and change color when you move the cursor over them?
Those are links.
Two people have already provided you with links to wikipedia’s Peer Review page.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 8:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Raj admit you were wrong about peer review.
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountain
25 May 2012 at 8:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
WTF. The link to the Wikipedia page on peer review was linked to about 5 times.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 8:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Are you crazy? I have written a couple of them myself when I was in university. I criticized my group member, and she criticized me. We both got a PASS. OK. Not at a professional level, but isn’t it the same damn principle?
Amphiox
25 May 2012 at 8:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Same reply to the shiffy way back when applies to this.
Books mean nothing except as summaries and simplified presentations of the PRIMARY scientific literature.
It is frankly insulting that when we take the effort to track down FREE primary literature citations, and PROVIDE the link, the person we GIVE these citations to not only REFUSES to look at them with some lame excuse like ‘I don’t read the philosophy literature’ (as the pitiful raja did almost right from the beginning), but then responds by name dropping some book, providing not even an excerpt for us to see and evaluate, and expecting us to actually go out and spend money and time tracking it down.
Any book that is not fiction that is worth reading will have a BIBLIOGRAPHY and INDEX, listing the PRIMARY LITERATURE citations that the book’s material is based upon. If you have the book, it is a simple matter to flip it open and look up those citations, and then provide the links to those citations, so we can SEE what this book is based upon and decide if the book is worth spending our limited resources on.
And if you are not willing to do even this, absolutely bare minimum level of basic intellectual honesty, then you are not worth talking to.
John Morales
25 May 2012 at 8:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hurin, it righteously doesn’t read the reviews because one should judge a work by its merits, and certainly not by its reviews.
–
I note that, predictably, it has failed to note the multiple times the very Pfft article it brandishes with desperate bluster has already been adduced.
(Seems that the Golden Moment approaches fast)
chigau (違う)
25 May 2012 at 8:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
READ THE FUCKING WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE!
Amphiox
25 May 2012 at 8:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It cannot explain it, but thinks itself competent to discuss their importance and proper usage.
Pathetic, arrogant, liar.
Pitiful.
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountain
25 May 2012 at 9:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No. It is a completely different principle.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 9:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh you dishonest little shit.
No it is not the same when you are talking about actual scientific papers submitted to real scientific journals, not your Biology 101 class.
You equivocating little slimy fuck.
You don’t have a fucking clue.
Admit you are wrong.
John Morales
25 May 2012 at 9:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.” – Catherine Aird
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 9:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I think I should go now. Two things
1- It’s Saturday
2- The mercury in the anger meter is climbing much faster than I had hoped. Chill out you lot, and note of the fact that I always try to converse in a friendly and professional manner with you.
Take care
enjoy the weekend… fans of Sam Harris, I am sure your got silos full of peyote and magic mushrooms for weekends and public holidays….:)
Amphiox
25 May 2012 at 9:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No the fapwit hasn’t.
In other words the fapwit PLAYED at SOME kind of review. It did NOT do the real thing.
The “same principle” does not make the same thing. No more than a blastocyst is a human being.
Yep, the raja doesn’t even bother to look at the links people give it, but it expects US to actually go out and PURCHASE and read an entire book.
Pathetic dishonest fapwit.
Fapfap.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 9:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Before I go…
Why you have you hopes tied to my being right or wrong? Don’t give me that power, because I am never going to admit just for your sake. You are going to have to let go of this desire, a stupid desire, that is. And release me from this power of controlling you.
John Morales
25 May 2012 at 9:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
such predictability!
The Golden Moment has cum.
(On past performance, the specimen will leave a couple more ejaculations here before its next session)
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 9:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ahh yes run away you dishonest lackwit. Can’t take the heat because you know you’re getting hammered.
And remember, I fucking schooled your ass on Sam Harris and drugs before.
Amphiox
25 May 2012 at 9:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Veiled misogyny and bigotry, passive-aggressive snarks, frank open insults, THESE are what the rajafapmore calls “friendly and professional”?
Utterly pathetic lying unethical immoral fapwittery.
FapfapFAP.
John Morales
25 May 2012 at 9:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[predictable predictability is predictable]
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
25 May 2012 at 9:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Typical for late spring/early summer. Cooler near the lake, barely above 70 today.
Rajkumar, either cite something or shut the fuck up as they loser you are…
SallyStrange: bottom-feeding, work-shy peasant
25 May 2012 at 9:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So then Raj, why do you enjoy being screamed at by those you view as your mental inferiors? And why did you lie when you said you enjoyed being insulted?
Also, peer review. Admit that you didn’t know what it is. Admit that you were wrong.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
25 May 2012 at 9:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You’re never right. That requires you citing the literature. You are always WRONG, because YOUR OPINION, without citations, is BULLSHIT. Welcome to reality 090. Not even college level…
feralboy12
25 May 2012 at 9:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah, that’s friendly and professional, calmly insinuating that we’re all on psychedelic substances.
Just because your insults are feeble doesn’t mean you’re being friendly.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 9:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
even if this were true?
So?
You’re still incredible wrong and incredible stupid.
mikmik
25 May 2012 at 9:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKK!
raj, who reviews it is also subject to investigation, and financial backing implying personal gain does not take a scientist to see that.
Christ, If I;m watching the World Cup Finals, and a linesman let’s Drogba 15 meters offside collect a pass, go in unmolested, and score, I knows that it was wrong. I only have to be familiar with the rules of the game, not have the skills required to play the game.
A scientific publication of research is watched by a crowd of scientists, also statisticians, referees – checking methodology – logicians, and any number of interested people in the crowd. The pitch id built on an accumulation of repeatedly verified events that act in certain ways on this pitch, so even someone that doesn’t possess a high degree of technically intricate understanding of part of the experiment can see other areas of the process that don’t fit the situation.
In medical research, it is double blinding that is immediately obvious to the least educated layman that something is wrong if that protocol isn’t followed.
It is logic and improper reasoning that I am semi-competent and spotting, and we all can spot when an author tries to include completely unfounded processes that have never been shown at any other time, let alone have a known mechanism of behavior and interaction,
But, I have talked to PhDs in Psychiatry and Physics and Economist Master of Business teachers that have all been deficient in the simple area of logic, and have been blinded by subconscious bias into either not seeing things that add up to discredit their conclusions, or the converse.
I want to say again, scientists are simply people, and the more certain scientists keep displaying integrity and valid work, the more likely they will be taken seriously, but they will never be granted the position of infallibility.
Experts are only experts when they’ve produced a consistent series of rigorously sound and relevant projects.
I didn’t have to be a mathmatician of Cosmologist to see that a book written by the dean of Astronomy at an Ivy League school was off his fucking rocker by claiming he had a theory that explained gravity by having space permeated by small objects the traveled in all directions equally and pushed on mass when another mass blocked these objects between the two, or the shrink that we started talking about high energy physics and space time suddenly start with the n-dimensional crap where different entities of emotion ghosts lurked to produce our neurosis.
Get the fuck off your arguments from authorities binge! An authority is also not an authority if he/she/it is only recognized as such my a group of peers that themselves are lacking in credibility or sanity.
Look at your answers in Genesis dingbats for a good example of scientists gone of the rails and failing very fucking badly.
Amphiox
25 May 2012 at 9:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A nice example of “friendly and professional manner”.
Pitiful.
Fapfap.
Outright admission of deliberate intellectual dishonesty.
Pathetic.
Fapfapfap.
It is for YOUR SAKE, you pitiful fool. Because we still care, just enough, to want you to become a more intellectually honest, decent human being.
Failing that, we will illustrate your pitiful dishonesty so that others can see it for what it is, because we, unlike you, are ethical people for whom HONESTY matters.
And BECAUSE we are ethical people, for whom HONESTY is a value to live by, and not just pay lip service to, we will CONTINUE to respond to every lie and evasion you fap out, as long as it takes, because doing so is the RIGHT and DECENT thing to do.
And we will continue to do so until you learn and demonstrate intellectual honesty, or go away. And if you should come back, so will we.
And we will not stop.
Because that is what DECENT and HONEST people do.
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
25 May 2012 at 9:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I have a list of my own:
1) I doubt your ignorance is significant enough to people here to cause actual anger. Frustration and dismay maybe.
2) If you want to actually benefit from any of the dialog here, please feel responsible for knowing something about the subject you want to discuss ahead of time. Otherwise you are going to continue to be a source of morbid entertainment rather than a full participant in the conversation.
3) Its ok if you are wrong, as long as you can admit it. Being wrong happens to everyone, its the evasiveness and overconfidence that make you exceptional.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 9:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
we know how that goes
kemist, Dark Lord of the Sith
25 May 2012 at 9:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hot and humid.
Yes, here in canuckistan.
Raj, as someone who’s actually done experiments and written peer reviewed papers (and helped review some) about them I’ll explain how it’s done.
When you’ve done some experiments and have got interesting data you write a paper that you submit to a journal.
The editors of the journal give copies of your paper to other scientists who work in a field related to your paper. They read it, and will send back their review – this includes many things, from basic grammar to points of science. Sometimes there are questions, other times critics, and (those are the most annoying for poor grad students) other experiments they’d like you to perform in order to accept the paper.
Sometimes also you get a straight rejection of your paper.
A review of a paper (not a review article, which is a whole ‘nother thing) is not something you read, as in a book review. It’s more like a discussion of your work among peers. It ensures that what’s published in the scientific litterature is not complete and utter crap, and that if you use the method that is described in there, you can get the same or close to the same results as the people who first did the experiment.
This is useful because what’s in there is not just written to be memorized by some future students, it’s also the foundation of the next experiments, and perhaps of useful new technology.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 9:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
sigh
Raj if you’re reading this you really are a little shit. As soon as you know you’ve been beaten you run away like a scruffy street dog with your tail between your legs.
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
25 May 2012 at 9:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
RBDC
I’ve said my share of stupid things on this blog, if that’s what you mean.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 9:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hilarious. So along with being wrong, you’re going to be a dishonest ass just for spites sake.
Building a real pretty picture of your character Raj.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 9:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
well no, I was talking about Mr. Doesn’t have a fucking clue.
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountain
25 May 2012 at 9:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I would rather talk about armored battle dingoes that raj.
Anyone up for a discussion of armored battle dingoes?
feralboy12
25 May 2012 at 9:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I must say, though, that Raj is a remarkably durable chewtoy. He keeps coming back, manages not to get banned, and usually offers something for us to bite into. Very dependable.
And his little squeaky noises are sort of cute sometimes.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 9:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Interesting comment, which made me come back for a while.
I was actually talking about a book that Gary Schwartz has written. It is called ‘The Afterlife Experiments’. It’s meant to be for lay people. As one of his intended readership, I know nothing about what Gary Schwartz’s ‘peers’ think of his experiments, and I also don’t need the opinion of his ‘peers’ to make any good use of that book. Just like people do not need ‘peer reviews’ to evaluate Richard Dawkins’ books. It wasn’t me who brought up this peer review thing. Someone else did.
And, by the way, as I said before, ‘peer reviews’ are not holy scriptures. The last word. They are very often loaded with professional bias, especially for someone like Gary Schwartz, who is conducting ‘The Afterlife Experiments’. Yeah! Get a load of this…. We also have people like Dawkins on the other spectrum, who are hardcore atheists and who do not believe in afterlife to being with. Imagine if Dawkins had written a Peer Review for Gary Schwartz? All I said was, read the book before talking about any peer reviews. And all this hostility in return.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
25 May 2012 at 9:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
How would you know? You’ve already demonstrated you don’t have a clue about what a Peer Review is.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 9:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
people like Dawkins on the other end of the spectrum
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 9:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If I have demonstrated that, then maybe it was a misinterpretation on your part.
See ya
And read the book if you cab. It is interesting.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 9:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
can
feralboy12
25 May 2012 at 9:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In short, you have no idea whether or not his methodology is sound, if his experiments are valid, or whether his results warrant the conclusions. Got it.
The first link I clicked on at Schwartz’s Wikipedia page went over his methods and his analysis, and found clear problems. I gave you that link, which I expect you ignored.
Sounds like a terrific read.
I wanna party with you, cowboy.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
25 May 2012 at 9:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The absolute arrogance on display here.
Also, smug one, Richard Dawkins would not be part of the peer review of Gary Schwrtz’s research, that is not his field of study. Not because he is an atheist.
Idiot!
chigau (違う)
25 May 2012 at 9:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I quit.
So.
armored battle dingoes
Is that some military name for Australian Infantry or are we talking about those OZ doggies?
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
25 May 2012 at 9:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Why would we be interested in such unscientific fuckwittery? Why would you think somebody’s OPINION, such as yours, means anything compared to peer reviewed scientific facts? Your and other non-scientist’s OPINIONS are meaningless. The fact you haven’t caught on to that truth shows your lack of intelligence, cogency, honor, and integrity….You have nothing to offer us….
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountain
25 May 2012 at 9:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Both, Chigau!
The Australian cavalry rides dingoes into battle. Don’t you know that?
chigau (違う)
25 May 2012 at 10:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Esteleth
Isn’t there some danger of being kicked to death by Rebel Camels?
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountain
25 May 2012 at 10:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Kangaroo Auxiliary will deal with them.
vaiyt
25 May 2012 at 10:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@rajkumar, 466
We’re familiar with the one work being discussed. It’s not science.
Whatever else the author may have produced is out of the question.
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
25 May 2012 at 10:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Raj
(emphasis Raj’s)
Meaning what? You haven’t come out and said it, but this reeks of the golden mean.
Sometimes your opponents will review your article. If your evidence and arguments are sound it will likely still be published.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
25 May 2012 at 10:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I think it might be time to junk Raj…his mix of smug and passive agressive bigotry is getting borring….or at very least time to bring up new topics for him to be wrong about.
So Raj…what do you think of climate change?
chigau (違う)
25 May 2012 at 10:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What about Drop Bears?
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountain
25 May 2012 at 10:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Bears, led by Ditka and Sweetness, drop balls in the end zone.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
25 May 2012 at 10:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So I was told today that wild dolphins don’t open their mouths to vocalize…ones in captivity do it mimicing humans. Weird if true!
kemist, Dark Lord of the Sith
25 May 2012 at 10:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dawkins’ book (if you mean the God Delusion, that is) is not about science or experiments.
I’d describe it as an essay. An opinion piece that does contain some refered facts. But no new knowledge.
Science papers, writings that describe reality, are different form opinion pieces, even if they sometimes do contain informed opinions – hypotheses. They deal in new discovery that are henceforth included in our body of scientific knowledge.
Even if I am a chemist, I find it very important to show my findings to other chemists. Their experience makes their opinion more important than, say, my neighbor’s, because my neighbor has never even done any organic chemistry in his life and wouldn’t know the difference between a Grignard and a Diels-Alder reaction if they both danced the rumba in his backyard.
This isn’t a matter of autority, but of expertise.
It’s well and good that people might proceed to “experiments” without any expertise of their own or without taking into account the expert opinion of those who know the appropriate field.
But this will often produce very shaky, and often wrong conclusions, because there are rules to designing good experiments, and those rules are often field-dependant.
For instance I have read several papers defending homeopathy on the basis of very poorly thought out experiments from people who had obviously no experience using Raman spectrometry. Just reading their method an undergraduate chemist with basic knowledge of Raman spectrometry could conclude that the experiments in questions were measuring solvents contaminants in their samples. If you knew how to read the spectra, you could even identify the contaminants in question.
These papers ar examples of “experiments” that would seem legitimate to laymen – they had nice tables, and sciencey-looking Raman spectra (with a big fat, unavoidable to the trained eye contaminant band in them) and important, technical-sounding turns of phrase.
But they were the worthless work of cranks – what Feynman calls cargo cult science.
chigau (違う)
25 May 2012 at 10:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ing
In captivity, almost all dolphin performance-behavior is accompanied by a reward (food).
That may be a better expalnation for the open mouth.
mikmik
25 May 2012 at 10:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Quite impressive they are [in my opinion]. Don’t forget that part, raj.
Quite impressive they are not according to:
and my earlier post which you could have read by the time you said “Quite impressive they are…”
did you miss :
Also see – A Novel Way to Make an Ass of Yourself;Gary Schwartz Rides Again
Gary Schwartz’s Subjective Evaluation of Mediums
Veritas or Wishful Thinking?
Strange, these woowoo books have no research associated with them published!
http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/schwartz/schwartz_pub.shtml
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
25 May 2012 at 10:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
that sounds more likely.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 10:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
kemist, Dark Lord of the Sith
No, I was talking about books like The Selfish Gene and The Greatest Show on Earth. Or, maybe, books like The Magic of Reality. Not that I have read these books, but I suppose Dawkins has tried to explain science to general people through those books.
Of course, only a scientist can properly evaluate a scientist’s work or his/her experiments. But what I am saying is somewhat different. I am saying, one should read the book AND the peer reviews, if one MUST take peer reviews into account. In other words, read both of them, and then make any conclusions. I am not trying to discuss whether or not peer reviews are inherently good or bad. Or, what value they have in professional circles. They have their value. This is why they exist.
Now, suppose you are a professional scientist, and wanted some information about Gary Schwartz’s experiments. Suppose you are relying solely on a peer review, or some peer reviews, written about Gary Schwartz’s experiments … you are going to get only 1/100th of the whole picture. You have to read the book too, simply because the book is available for you to read. The more knowledge about a situation, the better it is to make an informed assumption.
What lay people think about some scientific experiments should be, in the end, quite irrelevant to science and scientists. However, if mainstream scientists find themselves concerned about what some ‘stray’ scientists are feeding to lay people, then the best strategy would be to follow the same course. That is, refute the work of those scientists in a language that is accessible by lay people.
That’s all.
Time’s out for me for today.
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 10:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Time’s UP
John Morales
25 May 2012 at 10:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The specimen:
TSTKTS.
consciousness razor
25 May 2012 at 11:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Those aren’t scientific studies, shitstick, and you won’t find anyone here citing them as such, not without a whole lot of mockery accompanying it.
The point ———–>
Your head
rajkumar
25 May 2012 at 11:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Who said they were? They all belong to the trash can in every science class. This is why I haven’t read them.
John Morales
25 May 2012 at 11:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Specimen pants:
Second cumming is taking longer, and it exhorts itself thus.
(Such stamina! Such determination! Such piteousness!)
Amphiox
25 May 2012 at 11:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
TWO posts.
Wow. That is an impressive flounce failure, even by the rajafapmore’s standards.
consciousness razor
25 May 2012 at 11:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Is that why you also haven’t read “The Afterlife Experiments”?
Amphiox
25 May 2012 at 11:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And here we have unequivocable evidence that rajafapmore STILL does not know what peer review actually is. It is clearly continuing with its false claim that peer review is actually something out there in the public domain to be read.
Which means it has either deliberately IGNORED everything we have posted to it explaining to it what peer review is and means, OR it has read them, and is DELIBERATELY IGNORING THEM to continue to push a completely false point.
Either way, utterly PATHETIC intellectual dishonesty on display here by the pitiful fapwitted LIAR.
FAPFAPFAP.
Amphiox
25 May 2012 at 11:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ah, another shining example of “a friendly and professional manner”.
Fapwitted liar lies again.
Pathetic.
Fapfap.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
26 May 2012 at 12:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Uh no. No “misinterpretation”. You don’t have a fucking clue about what a peer review is or how it is done or why it is done.
You’ve shown that.
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 12:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Another irrelevant and blatantly dishonest example of distortion and evasion. No one is using Dawkins’ books as citations of evidence for claims, the way the rajafapmore is trying to use its book, while simultaneously refusing to make citations to the primary literature, and simultaneously refusing the even click on links provided to it.
Yet more transparent intellectual dishonesty from the fapwit.
Fapfapfap.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 12:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Maybe not in its entirety. But then, who knows about anything in its entirety? Do you?
By the way, the process of ‘peer reviewing’ is still irrelevant to what I originally said about reading the book. Read between the lines. I have already said many times I am not bothered with this process of ‘peer reviewing’, because I am just a reader of Gary Schwartz’s book. I know nothing about his peers and their reviews about him, and I don’t need to know anything about them. Someone just brought this up, that ‘peer reviewing’, while I mentioned that book, which effectively diverted the course of the conversation to something completely irrelevant to the discussion.
I hope that makes some sense to your out of control sense. If it doesn’t, I suppose, nothing will.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 12:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So, do expect nonsense when you try to inject nonsense into the discussion. Some people are becoming quite good at it.
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
26 May 2012 at 12:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Raja
Well, Raj, I have to admit I haven’t read those, although The Greatest Show on Earth is on my shelf and keeps staring at me. Thing is, writing a book on established science is a lot like writing a review article. If you have an expert like Stephen Hawking, or Richard Dawkins writing about their field of study, you can usually trust that the work they produce will be grounded in a thorough study of the peer reviewed literature. That’s good for chumps like me, because as interesting as I found A Breif History of Time, I find the theoretical physics literature relatively unapproachable.
Of course, if Hawking had made the assertion that Galaxies rotate because quantum machine elves turn an invisible hand crank, then he would have rightfully drawn criticism. You would be able to tell by reviews, and the way the physics community responded to the book, if it was confusing speculation with fact or making unsubstantiated assertions.
Books like a Breif History of Time aren’t trash, but then there is a difference between books that report science to the laity, and books that attempt to circumvent the review process in order to propose new science. The latter kind are a common tactic people use to publish pseudoscience.
My impression of Dawkins from lectures and reading the God Delusion lead me to believe that his books on biology are probably not that latter case. With your book on NDEs, I would be more skeptical. In either case the source material will be present in the peer reviewed literature if the book is about science and also worth taking seriously.
consciousness razor
26 May 2012 at 12:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If your book were Aesop’s Fables or some shit, and you weren’t citing it as a legitimate source of evidence, then it would be irrelevant.
Now it turns out your book is full of fables, but I seem to recall you citing it as a legitimate source, which is the problem. And that’s why you’re an idiot.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 12:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A legitimate source of what? I never called it a legitimate source of anything. I am not in a position to give any reviews about the book. It is up to you to decide it for yourself. But the PREREQUISITE to this is you must read the book first. This is what I have been saying all along. Seems like, none of you is comfortable with making up your minds about a book AFTER having read it. All of you are inclined to making up your minds about a book BEFORE having read it.
Read the book, then discuss what’s in the book. This is the proper way of evaluating a book.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 12:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But if your intention is to discredit the book and its author for your own personal reasons, then no need to go any further on that. If your intention is to find negative stuff about someone, the Internet is your best friend. From Einstein to Jesus, from Aristotle to A C Grayling, from Mohammed to Richard Dawkins, you won’t be disappointed.
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
26 May 2012 at 12:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Raj
So in other words, you are an uncritical dolt who judges the material you read by whether it sounds nice.
Why do you come here again? You know there are probably places on the internet where you can go to discuss your pulpy “true ghost stories” books without killjoys like us bringing up annoying concerns like evidence.
consciousness razor
26 May 2012 at 12:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t give a fuck about evaluating a book. I want you to give some evidence, or else shut the fuck up.
You might ask yourself, “evidence for what?” What do you think there is (whether or not it’s documented in your fucking book) that you think we need to know about? And most importantly: where’s your fucking evidence for it?
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 12:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And please excuse me now
Turkish Charcoal Chicken with Arabian Parboiled Rice is on the dinner menu tonight. This is what I love about this city. 100′s of different cuisines from all over the world, at very reasonable prices. Good quality too. Not to mention all those Eastern beauties, full lips, white teeth, kohl in their eyes… eyes that have a naughty/friendly shine…
Bye
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 12:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, my evidence-making machinery is not working at the moment. I am sorry. Nothing can be done about it. But your last wish has been granted. I am shutting the fuck up, if only to open it to speak with the much softer and politer versions of human beings.
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
26 May 2012 at 12:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
My intention is not to read books on subjects that are generally considered pseudoscience. In the unlikely event that the field of “parapsychology” picks up a basis in a real science I might spend some time reading about “afterlife experiments”. Until then I’d prefer to read novels or ancient mythology if I want fiction.
consciousness razor
26 May 2012 at 12:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Okay fuck off then. Nice laughing at you. Don’t come back, ever.
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 1:05 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In other words, yet another admission of deliberate intellectual dishonesty.
No surprise here.
And ANOTHER example of “a friendly and professional manner”.
Fapwit liar continues to lie.
And it appears to be pioneering a new sport – flounce-flopping.
Ichthyic
26 May 2012 at 1:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Bears, led by Ditka and Sweetness, drop balls in the end zone.
well, I hope they drop trou first, or that could be more than painful.
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
26 May 2012 at 1:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
For some reason this reminds me of the last day of my 9th grade auto shop class, wherein we were shown a video entirely composed of dragsters crashing into walls and catching fire.
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Death
26 May 2012 at 1:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
My, this has been a wonderful use of time. Please forgive a very long post, but I had to after reading that … material. Skip to the end those who understand. (No, Raj, not you.)
Moments with Raj
His position when asked if his preferred authority had published peer-reviewed studies:
If you are not a scientist, and you rely solely on ‘reputable peer-reviewed publications’ for your scientific knowledge, then …You shouldn’t be reading these reviews to begin with. Stick to Encyclopaedias and Science For Dummies series.
On being asked to admit he was wrong:
Are you crazy? I have written a couple of them myself when I was in university. I criticized my group member, and she criticized me. We both got a PASS. OK. Not at a professional level, but isn’t it the same damn principle?
Why you have you hopes tied to my being right or wrong? Don’t give me that power, because I am never going to admit just for your sake. You are going to have to let go of this desire, a stupid desire, that is. And release me from this power of controlling you.
And, by the way, as I said before, ‘peer reviews’ are not holy scriptures. The last word. They are very often loaded with professional bias, especially for someone like Gary Schwartz, who is conducting ‘The Afterlife Experiments’. Yeah! Get a load of this…. We also have people like Dawkins on the other spectrum, who are hardcore atheists and who do not believe in afterlife to being with. Imagine if Dawkins had written a Peer Review for Gary Schwartz? All I said was, read the book before talking about any peer reviews. And all this hostility in return.
Continuing to be wrong:
Of course, only a scientist can properly evaluate a scientist’s work or his/her experiments. But what I am saying is somewhat different. I am saying, one should read the book AND the peer reviews, if one MUST take peer reviews into account. In other words, read both of them, and then make any conclusions. I am not trying to discuss whether or not peer reviews are inherently good or bad. Or, what value they have in professional circles. They have their value. This is why they exist.
On being called on the further mistake:
Who said they were? They all belong to the trash can in every science class. This is why I haven’t read them.
Again called on to admit he does not understand peer-review:
Maybe not in its entirety. But then, who knows about anything in its entirety? Do you?
At which point my computer began to smoke, sparks shot out the ports and I was forced to back off the sheer stupidity lest I lose a hard-drive.
Yo! Raj, peer-reviews are NOT book reviews. Two separate things there, Raj.
Ichthyic
26 May 2012 at 2:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
still haven’t seen anything to change my initial description of raj.
what a sad little 2-d character.
NEXT!!
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 7:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hey Nerd, here is your conclusive physical evidence to prove the existence of God.
Watch the following YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC0q5o_IKh4
From 2:00 to 2:25
And ponder on this: Do you really believe Evolution by Natural Selection (without any intelligence) could have produced a pair of such extraordinary beauties? If this doesn’t convince you , then rewind the clock a little, and watch a younger version of her:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLQx13ccLQE&feature=related&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-Ifb7S3MM88
This one, from 2:15 till the end.
What do you say?
Rev. BigDumbChimp
26 May 2012 at 8:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Uh huh
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountain
26 May 2012 at 8:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What.
Rajkumar, you have taken herpaderp to the next level.
At no point, have you said anything that even approaches rational thought.
I award you no points, and my god have mercy on your soul.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
26 May 2012 at 8:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
How Not to Test Mediums: Critiquing the Afterlife Experiments
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 8:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
re @125;
Yep, yet more pathetic odious misogyny from the rajafapmore.
And after everything we have told it about citing the primary literature, it has the pretension to think it appropriate to drop a link to a youtube video of a fictional work.
Utter moral and ethical bankruptcy.
Pitiful.
Fapfap.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
26 May 2012 at 8:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Reading Hyman’s critique pretty much shows that Schwartz’s experiments are shit.
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 8:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Note that the raja’s second link is actually FLAGGED AS INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT and requiring an account to sign in to with proof of age over 18 years.
Now given the specifically highlighted content of the first video, and the comment about “a younger version of her”, the implications are pretty clear.
Why I am not surprised that the rajafapmore would sink so low as to try to make implicit child pornography jokes?
This is where I withdraw from this fapwit the privilege of my considering it and treating it even remotely as a human being.
Pathetic.
Fapfapfap.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
26 May 2012 at 8:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nope, not even close fuckwitted idjit. Not equivalent to the eternally burning bush…And you know it…And YT isn’t evidence, it is OPINION, showing your ignorance and fuckwitted thinking.
Evidence is found in the peer reviewed scientific literature. With links like this (a real scientific paper by Lenski, a .pdf file you can download and read at your leisure). That is the primary literature, and gold standard for science. Books are last, as there is no consistent review and control, as there is this thing called vanity press.
Let me give you an idea of how science is done. First we look at a problem, and generate evidence by normal scientific means, and document the evidence in my lab notebook. I sign my lab notebook, and somebody reviews what I said and signs. Then when a paper is written, the notebook is used as a basis for the text. The paper is sent to an appropriate journal, and the editor then sends that manuscript to experts in the field for review. Usually other people who submit papers to that journal. The manuscript is reviewed for proper citations, and how one obtained the data, and that the conclusions are reasonable science based on the data. Suggestions can be made for improving the paper. Then the editor decides if the paper is accepted as is, will be accepted with modifications, or rejected. So working scientists are involved in the data collection, writing, and reviewing the paper prior to publication. This ensures that the paper meets the expected standards of science. If shortcuts are taken at any step, the paper can be considered useful for only wiping up certain spills. Your books fall into the latter category.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 8:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Those of you who watched those two Youtube videos, you have been exposed to the real meaning of the word ‘divine’, in its true and naked form. Those were ‘divine breasts’ — truly the work of some creative and divine intelligence.
Thus, the existence of God has been proven.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 8:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
beyond any reasonable doubt
Rev. BigDumbChimp
26 May 2012 at 8:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You really are an idiot.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 8:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh some on Nerdy. Don’t tell me it didn’t cause your naturally selected brain to jitter a little….
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 8:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ponder this. The very existence of an odious cowardly bigoted misogynistic stupid and EVIL worm (with apologies to actual worms that perform important ecological tasks) is by itself unequivocable proof that there is no such thing as a god, and no intelligence guiding this universe.
No intelligent process, either benevolent OR malign, would ever produce something as misshapen as the rajafapmore.
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 8:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dropping links to pornographic videos in an attempt to make a crass insult while pretending to disguise it as a frankly vapid anti-evolution argument really crosses the line, twice over, even for TZT.
The pitiful fapwit has just demonstrated that it doesn’t belong here, or anywhere else frequented by decent human beings.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
26 May 2012 at 8:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nope, the work of evolution…Your deity doesn’t exist, as you haven’t shown any appropriate evidence to back up your idiocy, ever. You must evidence your claim. We don’t have to disprove that which is only claimed…*POOF* claim dismissed…
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 8:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Of course, the phenomenon of human beings perceiving visual appeal in a human secondary sexual characteristic is just about the EASIEST OF ALL THE IMAGINABLE THINGS IN THE UNIVERSE for evolutionary theory to explain.
And that’s apparently the best argument against evolution that the rajafapmore can come up with.
The fapwit doesn’t have a brain.
Or a heart.
Or a spine.
Basically just a rectum attached to a pair of vocal chords, making random noises.
Fapfapfap.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
26 May 2012 at 9:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
once again Raj trying to change the subject
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
26 May 2012 at 9:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Actually, I didn’t even need to look to know what you had was bullshit for your claim, because you recommended it, and the source. I don’t get led around by losers like you.
Besides, I’m married to what I think is the best breasts, because they are hers, rather than other criteria.
desertfroglet
26 May 2012 at 9:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Raj, did I read some gazillion comments ago that you’re in Melbourne? If so, it’s just gone midnight where you are and, instead of hanging out with friends, which would be the normal thing to do on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, you’re making idiotic comments to a bunch of people who think you’re as thick as two short planks. Perhaps you could a) find some friends and/or b) get a life.
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 9:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*cough*
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
26 May 2012 at 9:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So, the assclam’s argument is this; boobies, therefore god.
Not really a convincing argument for those people who are not obsessed by breasts.
Proof that the assclam leaves a slime trail. But that was already known.
SallyStrange: bottom-feeding, work-shy peasant
26 May 2012 at 10:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I guess Raj missed being insulted for being a disgusting misogynist. Being called a dunderheaded fapwit wasn’t enough for him to get his jollies anymore.
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 11:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
nonono
raji luuuvs wimin
(or at least their boobies)
SteveV
26 May 2012 at 11:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
How can raj be that stupid and still breathe?
Is this “normal”?
kemist, Dark Lord of the Sith
26 May 2012 at 11:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
As I have explained to you, “peer review” isn’t something you read like a book review but the discussion of new ideas among those who know what it’s about. These days it often takes the form of a simple email exchange. It is highly technical, and no effort is made to explain the points of inquiry to laymen because it simply isn’t meant to be read by laymen. This is not done to hide those things from laymen but because it’s quite a useless endeavor to explain technical terms to those who are supposed to know them very well already.
It other words, if you read it it’s quite likely that it would all sound like gibberish to you. You could not form an informed opinion, one way or another, from reading it. Again this is not a matter of autority or elitism, but of expertise in a given field. Papers from scientists in fields I know nothing about are just as unreadable to me as they are to you.
Science books written for laymen are a very dumbed-down, math-and-technical-term-free, version of books or papers written to advance a field. They normally are written well after the results have been agreed on by a concensus of scientists. It is a common and easy mistake to think that you understand and are abilited to judge how good an experiment is for yourself after having read them – they’re written to be easily understood and achieve this by leaving a whole lot of things out. But the thing is that they don’t make you an expert.
They give a glimpse of the discoveries that have been made, but often go straight over the matter how they’ve been made – which is how you can really evaluate them. Unfortunately this how takes a lot of time to learn, and sometimes the only way to really understand it is to do it yourself.
Not exactly. What I get then is the current scientific consensus about his work. It may be wrong or right, time will tell, but what is definitely wrong is to assume that I am better abilited than experts to make an informed judgement on a field I know nothing about.
I don’t quite agree. It’s good that everybody participates in the accumulation of knowledge, and never wrong to ask questions, even ones you think might make you look stupid. Scientists taking interest in lay people’s questions often is the spark that makes a lay person want to learn more and become a scientist.
Many do so, and a lot of good work has been done. But there are lots and lots of cranks of all sorts. There are alt-med cranks (I particularly despise these because they often defraud, or worse, convince people to forego lifesaving medical treatment), UFO cranks, end-of-the-world cranks who predict the armageddon every few weeks, ect. There are even legitimate scientists who make unwarranted pronouncements in fields they know nothing about (Linus Pauling, a real chemistry genius but absolute crank with his claims about vitamin C, comes to mind) – those are genuine arguments from authority.
They turn to laymen first not out of the goodness of their heart but because they have failed to convince their peers, and know, deep down, that the work they have done is too sloppy to ever convince anyone who knows what they’re talking about.
Scientists who care about the truth first do their homework – that is, present well-documented work that is convincing to their peers – before they try to explain that new truth to the public.
Esteleth, Raging Dyke of Fuck Mountain
26 May 2012 at 11:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What.
Am I reading this properly?
Boobies (on someone not of age), therefore god?
*looks down*
By that logic, I’m an entire fucking pantheon.
Jebus, what a moron.
kemist, Dark Lord of the Sith
26 May 2012 at 11:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Or the work of a highly skilled surgeon.
Those who don’t have breasts often don’t seem to have any idea of how gravity, pregnancies and age affects them.
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
26 May 2012 at 3:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Raj
I think its mindblowing ironic that you are using mammaries as a counterexample to evolution when all mammalian females from chimps to mice have them. If that hasn’t sunk in, why don’t you take a look at these four beauties and explain why they are on a totally different animal, and why you probably don’t find them as “divine” as the ones in your link.
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 3:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
More utter idiocy from the misogynist fapwit.
1. Lay people are the people who VOTE for the people who ultimately decide on things very important to scientists and science, like sources and directions of funding.
2. Lay people are the pool of potential talent from which future scientists are drawn.
3. On occasion, “lay” people actually ending DOING some science and contributing to the progress of science.
Only a fool or an enemy of science (the rajafapmore is both, of course) would not care what lay people think about science.
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 4:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This is not meant for the raja, as it is far beyond its meagre capacities to comprehend, and likely not something the liar is honest enough to be interested in learning anways, but peer review, with respect to the scientific method, actually has two separate stages.
The first is “official” peer review, which occurs before a submitted paper is published. It is anonymous, and involves a limited pool (at most a handful) of qualified experts. It’s primary goal is to weed out the things that are grossly unfit for publication, the things that are NOT good science.
Official peer review, the way it is set up now, is vulnerable to things like deliberate fraud (peer reviewers go into the process assuming good faith and are usually not very good at catching deliberate misrepresentation or fabrication of data), and some degree of individual bias (as the number of peer reviewers is usually limited to 2-5).
This is where the second part of peer review, the “unofficial” peer review comes in. This occurs AFTER a paper is published, and is public, and involve the whole scientific community, and will include other papers and follow-up experiments and observations.
The first stage of peer review is actually just the bare minimum for something to qualify as science. It is the second stage of peer review that actually determines if any particular scientific claim stands the test of time.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 4:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No, not just ‘boobies’. Divine boobies. You know what that means? Of course, you don’t. You need the quality of discernment, you need to be a ‘boob’ connoisseur to appreciate the beauty in them.
She almost got me killed when I saw her in Blame it On Rio for the first time. That was 15 years ago. I was 20. Then again, in Tales from the Crypt, she nearly stopped my heart for almost 30 seconds. And you are saying they did nothing to you, Nerd? Are you far sighted? Wear your glasses then…
Having said this, the evidence of God is all around you. All you need is the eye … the eye that can discern.
It’s not an attempt to change the subject. Look at it deeply. Ponder deeply. Why, and how, heterosexual males get attracted to females breasts? Why females need to cover their nipples and males don’t, when both nipples look exactly the same, only the size differs at most? In some cases, even the size doesn’t differ. Many females have smaller nipples … which are smaller or the same size as men’s nipples. So, why on earth, a male nipple doesn’t turn on a heterosexual male, but a female nipple does?
Something mysterious (and invisible) pouring out of those divine females nipples???
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 4:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Amphiox
No more ‘peer reviewing’. You were the one who introduced this crap? Be a pal, and undo what you did yesterday…. Just read the book. If you don’t want to, fine by me. Don’t read it.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
26 May 2012 at 4:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Creepy troll is a creep.
SallyStrange: bottom-feeding, work-shy peasant
26 May 2012 at 4:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
EWWWWWWW.
That’s all I have for Raj.
Esteleth:
When we hang out together, that’s two pantheons.
Hurin, Nattering Nabob of Negativism
26 May 2012 at 4:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You are probably just trolling at this point, because this line of reasoning is mindblowingly stupid. This is stupid even by your standards.
Have you considered that beyond your stupid fixation with nipples there are different people with different turn-ons? You seem to recognize that homosexuality exists by your reference to heterosexuality, but consider for a second that some people have a paraphilia, and feel exactly the same way you do about nipples when they see shoes, or even latex. Its not magic, you idiot, its exactly the kind of random diversity that is the foundation of evolutionary theory.
How does your mystical nipple hypothesis jive with the fact that people can be sexually attracted to polymers, by the way? I’m curious why god would design someone to be attracted to an inanimate material that wasn’t widely available until the 20th century.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 4:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Easy.Mental disorders. The same principle when people get turned into ‘paedophiles’. It is not considered a normal behaviour. I am talking about normal behaviour.
Have you noticed females are not allowed to expose their nipples in public in almost every part of the world, even if they are allowed to expose their breasts partially? What is the reason? Why males can expose their nipples and females can’t?
Do note, it is all happening at an unconscious level.
SallyStrange: bottom-feeding, work-shy peasant
26 May 2012 at 4:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
With Raj, first it was “Drugz R Gawd!”
Now it’s “Bonerz R Gawd!”
Somebody feeling sad he missed the free love era?
Rev. BigDumbChimp
26 May 2012 at 5:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yet another thing Raj knows shit about.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 5:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, Sally, as I said, you need the eye and the intellect. Someone asked me way back about possible episodes of divine interventions if God was a reality. These two video clips I gave, these are your divine intervention. This is one way how God intervenes.
feralboy12
26 May 2012 at 5:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Raj is showing us his deep understanding of the peer review process. He peers at tits and reviews them.
Pretty scientific.
Sexual selection driving some evolutionary changes? Nah, he don’t read them kind of books.
He obviously never looked at National Geographic much either.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 5:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There is nothing ‘unscientific’ about studying breasts, Feral. Don’t confuse it worn porn. I don’t live in the US.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 5:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry! WORN should read WITH
feralboy12
26 May 2012 at 5:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There is nothing ‘unscientific’ about studying breasts, Feral.
I’m looking forward to your taxonomy of tits.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 5:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Why? Do you consider studying human sexuality ‘unscientific’? If you do, it’s not your fault. It’s the mighty US porn industry.
mikmik
26 May 2012 at 5:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That would mean that you have no qualified opinion on anything except for ‘See Spot Run.’
See, this is the fucking problem (how many times have I said this. I wonder) with fap-eyed five year olds.* It doesn’t matter how fucking elebenty kazzillion many books and lectures and thinking that one of us has participated in already, and fundamentally thorough our understanding of said pseudo scientific ass-puss, they still think we missed the one, the only one out of bajillions, book/youTube/multi-level-marleting seminar that is THE PROOF we’ve all been waiting for.
Did you ever consider that you expect us to waste a large fraction of our life reading every fucking hallucinatory and imbecilic nimrod who writes grade two level fantasy’s books? May I recommend this on your next trip* to the library.
– - -
* Pun
**In classical psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus complex occurs during the phallic stage of psychosexual development (age 3–6 years) when also occurs the formation of the libido and the ego; yet it might manifest itself at an earlier age.
Psychosexual infantilism — Despite mother being the parent who primarily gratifies the child’s desires, the child begins forming a discrete sexual identity — “boy”, “girl” — that alters the dynamics of the parent and child relationship; the parents become objects of infantile libidinal energy. The boy directs his libido (sexual desire) upon his mother, and directs jealousy and emotional rivalry against his father — because it is he who sleeps with his mother. Moreover, to facilitate union with mother, the boy’s id wants to kill father (as did Oedipus), but the pragmatic ego, based upon the reality principle, knows that the father is the stronger of the two males competing to possess the one female. Nonetheless, the boy remains ambivalent about his father’s place in the family, which is manifested as fear of castration by the physically greater father; the fear is an irrational, subconscious manifestation of the infantile Id.[6]
– - -
See, it all makes sense now. Raj is coming here acting like an immature prepubescent boy to get abuse heaped upon him by the authority(father figure), which is a stand-in for his father, and he enacts his possessive jealousy by linking to a scene of bare titties, one that we he attempts to produce jealousy or desire in others but cannot take away from him, in order to play out his stunted need for mommy possession.
Ogvorbis
26 May 2012 at 5:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
raj also, quite conveniently, ignores the myriad cultures throughout history in which exposure of the female breasts was considered quite normal and perfectly acceptable.
feralboy12
26 May 2012 at 5:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, so you’re studying human sexuality. Pardon me, I must have missed the deep explanatory power of this statement:
I hope your “Federal Breast Inspector” license is up to date.
But I think I can help you with some of the more difficult parts of your study.
Uh…because they’re usually attached to females?
Unless you think they have some inherent attraction on their own, outside of that context. If so, I do not want to see what’s in your freezer, OK?
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 5:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ponder how human females get attracted to female breasts.
{nursing}
Everybody is attracted to female breasts.
Everybody is attracted to their mother.
/freud
Makes sense?
Ichthyic
26 May 2012 at 6:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ponder how human females get attracted to female breasts.
{nursing}
that’s ONE way (natal retention)…
However, the study of paraphilias is broad and extensive.
you certainly could take a gander at research in the area to come up with other ways this happens.
Ichthyic
26 May 2012 at 6:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Unless you think they have some inherent attraction on their own, outside of that context.
HE, doesn’t have to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_fetishism
Ichthyic
26 May 2012 at 6:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
it’s not your fault. It’s the mighty US porn industry.
just how “mighty” is it, Raj?
can you give us some examples of your favored US porn?
what about Australian porn?
FFS, why do you INSIST on being such a damn moron.
why?
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 6:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yes, males are usually attracted to females. But that still doesn’t explain anything. Look at the nipple example again. That’s all I have in my freezer at the moment. Just the nipples. Why female nipples attract males and male nipples don’t, when both look almost identical?
Or, maybe, try an experiment if you are a heterosexual male and find some attraction in female nipples:
Watch the two youtube videos I have linked above. Freeze one of the frames where Michelle bares her breasts. Save it as a photo file. Open the file in a photo editor. Zoom in on the nipple area, so you’d only be seeing the nipple. Cut it up and save it as a separate file. Now do the same with a male nipple. Then open both nipple files, and put both of them side by side. See which one you find sensual?
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 6:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Porn not allowed in Victoria. Only mail orders from the US or Canberra. I don’t have a credit card….
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 6:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
NO.
Acknowledgment of the importance of peer review is the BARE MINIMUM REQUIREMENT for intellectually honest discussion. Of course we already know the rapafapmore is a pathetic liar in everything.
But just because it chooses to continue to lie doesn’t mean it can expect the rest of us to coddle it in its lying ways.
Pitiful.
Fapfap.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 6:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yes. But that usually happens in infancy. I am talking about grown-up heterosexual people.
Ichthyic
26 May 2012 at 6:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
you need the eye and the intellect
now why do I picture THIS being Raj’s major educational influence?
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 6:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The fapwit’s usage of the phrasing “peer reviewing” continues to demonstrate that it has not bothered at all to try to understand what peer review, despite all the explanations given to it.
In other words, it has not even bothered to read anything we have posted in reply to its various excrescences. It just cherry picks stuff to snark about, and is basically posting just to see its own posts.
Odious, pitiful intellectual dishonesty.
Putrescent ethical bankruptcy.
Unfit in every imaginable way to remain even on a zombie thread.
Pathetic.
Fapfapfap.
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 6:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ichthyic
I’d rather stick with ill-understood Fruedian psychobabble.
Thanks, though.
Ichthyic
26 May 2012 at 6:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Only mail orders from the US or Canberra. I don’t have a credit card….
yeah, folks who live in their parent’s basements rarely do.
but, of course, you appear to have failed to notice that IN your answer was the fact that there is a major porn industry in Canberra.
I think I’ll start making fuckwit bingo cards for you.
Ichthyic
26 May 2012 at 6:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’d rather stick with ill-understood Fruedian psychobabble.
fair enough.
:)
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 6:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If he considered it ‘unscientific’ he wouldn’t have been asking about a taxonomy, now would he?
And this was in the post immediately before.
Well, we already knew the rajafapwit is capable of defining the english language.
That it thinks it can make a snark out of this is just more evidence of its vile ethical bankruptcy and odious intellectual dishonesty.
Fapfap.
Pitiful.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 6:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You clown, the porn only comes from Canberra. It is not Made in Canberra. In all states in Australia, as far as I know, video stores are not allowed to sell or rent X rated porn in video stores, or even through mail orders. Only in what are called ‘territories’, they can sell porn. Which means only in the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 6:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Amphiox
OK. Why do you have to poke your extra big nose into everything? Do you know when two people talk, they are on a different frequency then those who are not participating in the conversation? For example, when I ask you ‘why you poke your big nose into everything’, this is just for you. Others can’t really understand why I am saying this to you. But, of course, you can, even when you, especially when you say, you can’t.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 6:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
than
Ogvorbis
26 May 2012 at 6:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Why do you assume that a comment on a public thread is private? Any one here can, and does, comment on other commenter’s comments with their own comments. That’s kinda the way this works.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 6:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am not saying it is ‘private’. I am saying a comment, at least when I comment, is custom-made for the person I am talking to. Of course, others can participate, but it would never hurt to ask for a little explanation first.
rajkumar
26 May 2012 at 6:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am AFK
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 6:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
in the unlikely event that ryan figures out what PZ said, here’s my last comment to ryan from the blacklist thread:
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 6:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ll respond to the arguments made on the other thread here:
…and lest you again think this is America-specific, ryan, keep in mind that ahteist billboards which were entirely un-rude and civil and all that shit were rejected in Australia and Germany, and people got all sorts of pissy about the ones in London, too.
So if the point is that people get offended by negative tone, however minor the offence may be, the answer isn’t to get more aggressive and more angry, it’s to say what you want to say and get what needs to be done, done, in the least offensive way
Jadehawk, I am bi, and, in England, that’s almost worse than being gay. People assume that because you’re ‘bi’ you have less capacity for love, because you have to put half to one gender and the other half to the other. So I’ve not told anyone, and I can still respond calmly.
Christopher Hitchens was famous for being the world’s biggest asshole
I think Hitchens’ tone is perfectly acceptable, he very rarely makes extensive personal attacks except against truly heinous individuals. And Hitchens has been derided by many atheists for being too Anti-Islam.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 6:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rudeness doesn’t work on malice. rudeness works on those so thoroughly cushioned in cluelessness that they need to be shaken up.
Again, I disagree. In my experience clueless people tend to respond much better to examples and reasoning.
Most of my debates are political, my bugbear is the libertarian. Instead of saying ‘you’re a stupid selfish shit’, which yeah, would be true, I tend to simply post statistics about Norway and Sweden and Switzerland.
It doesn’t convince everyone, but I have found it to work.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 6:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rude ain’t always bad.
(Louis posted this on the other thread.)
I’ve never said that. I’ve even made it explicit that in the kinda example Louis gave (concerning the KKK) that rudeness is essential.
I just find there to be a lot of extreme overreacting.
Also I should have said ‘least offensive way possible’ up there, as I agree wholeheartedly that sometimes it is better to be very rude. Just not extremely rude in all situations.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 6:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
they don’t get offended by “negative tone”; they get offended by the complete lack of it just the same as by actual rudeness.
why? those who will get pissed off at the rudeness of challenging the status quo will do so no matter how inoffensively I’ll explain something; OTOH, some people who simply need a massive thwack on the head for the urgency of a certain issue to get past their insulating privilege and status-quo-compliant thinking won’t even notice an issue unless they suddenly face an unexpected level of anger.
yes, I know. I actually try to remember when someone tells me something.
if bottling up works for you, I won’t stop you. what that has to do with me refusing to stop those who don’t want to bottle up, who need anger to wade through a pile of shit every day, and who are sick of being expected to be polite to those who make their lives miserable, I don’t know. Unless you’re saying that because you can bottle up just fine, so should all other members of non-dominant groups?
that’s not a quote, just FYI. was it meant as one?
*facepalm*
he was a neo-con and supported a number of bigotries. which were problems of substance, not tone.
feralboy12
26 May 2012 at 6:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The point about the atheist billboards was that religious people are offended, not by negative tone, but by the mere existence of atheists. And when that’s the case, you are simply not allowed to say what you want to say. Not even if all you want to say is “we exist.” Unless there’s some “least offensive” way to say that?
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 6:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson
Welcome in.
It may be possible to redeem yourself, here.
Be wary of rajkumar, xe is a wee bit odd.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 6:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
so it’s your experience vs. mine. why should yours trump mine, and lead me to abandon the method that worked for and on me?
again, in my experience the clueless don’t see what they do as a problem, and morton’s demon means they can’t notice. something has to get through their filters before evidence and reasoning can be applied. that’s how it worked for me, that’s how it worked for many others.
if it works differently for different people, that’s an argument for multiple approaches, not for abandoning our approach.
false dichotomy. Pharyngula does both at the same time, not one or the other. that’s what makes it work.
that’s the exactly same argument I presented for the pharyngulan method. again, why should your experience trump mine, and why should the same argument win when you use it, but lose when I do?
The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa)
26 May 2012 at 7:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan Wilkinson:
You’re an idiot, then.
Then you’re doubly stupid, and smug to boot.
typical shit-eating accomodationist tripe. I’m not sure how you even can be on both sides like that. I guess it’s possible if you don’t think too hard about it, something you undoubtedly excel at.
Shove it up your ass, ringmeat. Little fapwit shithead like you telling us how to do things.
You’re a ruptured cyst on the ass of atheism, Ryan.
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 7:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson:
You’re a specimen, ryan, but at least only a clueless pipsqueak instead of a troll (though you are even now tone-trolling).
You are somewhat less worthless than the rajkumar specimen.
If you’d stop imagining anyone cares even a smidgen about your perception of this blog, you could start making other stupid comments and people could have some more varied fun with you.
(It may even get you out of TZT.
Maybe.)
Louis
26 May 2012 at 7:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan,
And no one here, least of all me, is advocating that people should be extremely rude in all situations. I’ve made quite a few comments about being a pluralist on tactics.
Sometimes people are going to be rude to people you don’t think deserve it. Tough it out, my man. It really isn’t your call. When someone calls me a “fucking horrible person” on the internet, know what I do? Well after the crying, suicide attempts and drinking neat alcohol. I think to myself “wow, I really just don’t give a fuck”. It’s an amazing panacea for bumweedery on the internet.
Unless someone is being genuinely bullied (and big hint: when you are being a sexist bigot, you are not being bullied by being told you are a pissant), then step in. Until then, well, how do I put this, do fuck off would you?
Louis
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Okay, right.
Someone puts up a billboard saying ‘Come join our atheist group!’ or something, and a load of Christians are like ‘rar rar well atheists are just being offensive!’ Obviously that’s ridiculous, but the solution isn’t ‘Come join our atheist group, you slimy sacks of shit’.
The solution would be to point out that everything’s dandy and you’ve not said anything offensive and hope for the best. If that doesn’t work then extreme rudeness won’t.
And no, I’m not saying because I can bottle up that everyone can. As I said, I get very angry when people express genuinely homophobic sentiments. I do not get angry when people make a gay joke, or use the word ‘gay’ in a derogatory manner, and from what I’ve seen and done, it isn’t productive to do so.
I’m not saying anger never works, but on Pharyngula threads, it tends to be vastly too much. I am an example of someone for whom extreme anger does not work. I’d say there are many.
When someone debates William Lane-Craig, the only correct thing, really, to say is, ‘Hey Will, you’re a horrible disgusting liar, and you know you’re lying, and you’re using your faith to get money off the less intelligent people, you disgusting awful shitbat.’ But that’s not gonna work, that’s not ever going to work.
Take Matt Dillahunty. He starts out calm, and yes he gets angry and calls people a moron if they repeatedly get things wrong and I’m fine with that.
I saw a phonecall the other day where someone said Matt didn’t debate ‘professional apologists’ or whatever – on he’s got a lot. Matt didn’t respond by saying ‘you’re a troll lol fuck off you horrible excuse for a human being!’ he responded by saying he was happy to debate anyone – which is far more reasonable.
Dawkins didn’t push atheism into the zeitgeist by calling everyone that disagreed with him shit and awful and trolls.
Hitchens, even, doesn’t do that.
No very famous atheist-activist does.
I saw a debate with PZ in it, he stood up and said that people that believed in God, as his opening line, were nuisances and wastes of time. It didn’t at all resonate with the crowd, it was just awkward.
One wonders, if such extremely polemic works so well, it is confined to the commenters of a blog, whereas my simply less ‘FUCK OFF YOU AWFUL SHIT’, and more ‘You’re wrong for the following reasons, which might make you deluded’, ‘Being gay is perfectly acceptable because…’ and ‘Gender roles are silly for X, Y, and Z’ is mainstream.
Germaine Greer = Fine. Dawkins = Fine. PZ’s posts (generally) = Fine. Hitchens = Fine. Ian McKellen = Fine. MLK = Fine.
I understand that sometimes being rude is necessary, but not in response to anything, and not such a violent level.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
by whose standards? and more importantly, considering the complete lack of solid evidence provided, when should we be listening when someone tells us we’re “overreacting” and when shouldn’t we? because if we do listen to such accusations without evidence, we will be shut up entirely, since apparently being out of the closet (the atheism or the sexuality one) is already rude and uppity as far as some are concerned
Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 7:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan:
Here’s the thing about how utterly worthless tone trolling is – it effectively derails everything. No one, not one single person, is telling you to change your approach. Approach how you will – simply do not tell others how to approach. It’s simple.
Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 7:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan:
Good for you. I’m bi and I’ve been out for well over 30 years. I’ve taken one hell of a lot of shit for it, too. Still do. So, I’m not always “wonderfully calm”. Sometimes, being “calm” is seriously overrated. When it comes to some things, such as people being denied humanity, if you’re not angry, something is very wrong with you.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve given the evidence!
Muz said he didn’t think PZ should abandon all conferences that contain Abbie.
Someone responded by saying that he was a horrible excuse for a human being.
When someone comes in and is genuinely sexist, or generally extremely moronic, like bwe4, do what you want! I wouldn’t tell someone to respond to a genuinely horrible person in a perfectly civil way, and I accept that both approaches work. I’m just saying often on Pharyngula extreme overreactions are common.
I mean, I’m not saying anything particularly outrageous and I’m not being offensive, at worst, incredibly stupid.
Shove it up your ass, ringmeat. Little fapwit shithead like you telling us how to do things.
You’re a ruptured cyst on the ass of atheism, Ryan.
Though I like the word ‘fapwit’, this is excessive.
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 7:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Louis
*sigh*
You always know just the right thing to say.
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 7:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson:
You really are clueless.
This is a settled issue — Pharyngula is what it is.
You imagine I care one whit whether I change your mind or not?
You imagine I’m angry?
<snicker>
If only you’d understand that this is the umpteenth-plus-one times you’ve stated your stupid opinion, which has been duly noted and dismissed umpteen times.
(Persistently kicking against the pricks is being either perverse or stupid. Shall I flatter you by saying you’re probably not stupid?)
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
When it comes to some things, such as people being denied humanity, if you’re not angry, something is very wrong with you.
Yes, I am. I’ve said many times, I do react aggressively when someone says something genuinely homophobic, and the other day, something to do with a football player and rape, and someone in my year said it was, um ‘partly her fault’ and I lost my shit.
But creating a hostile environment towards people who aren’t denying people humanity, who are simply concerned with whether PZ is doing the right thing, or who, without being someone who is particularly sexist, uses the word ‘cunt’, is not helpful.
If it’s acceptable to call someone a ruptured ass-cyst for saying something you disagree with, why is it not acceptable to call someone ugly for doing something you disagree with?
I appreciate fully that Abbie is wrong, but if she’d called Watson a ‘ruptured ass cyst’ instead of just ugly, that wouldn’t be okay either.
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 7:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If one wants to credibly complain about tone, the very first thing one needs to do is demonstrating an understanding of the specific content that prompted the tone in question.
Ryan failed step one.
Which is why all his further blatherings about tone are worthless and have met the derisive respond here that they so richly deserve.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You should care whether people change their mind or not.
Being right isn’t a superiority trip, it’s something you should want others to be, too.
Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 7:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan:
Yet another thing – like many others, you run on the assumption that people here are in high dudgeon, furiously stomping on their keyboards while cussing aloud and foaming at the mouth.
Much of the time, we’re at best amused, at worst irritated. Mocking isn’t done in anger and there’s a lot of mocking going on here. There’s a lot of educating done here, too, and yes, sometimes annoyance or frustration leaks through (you’d get that if you found yourself having to explain the same shit for the nth damn time, 5 or 6 years of having to do so at that.)
Assuming everyone here is in a constant state of anger is a mistake. A costly one.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
‘I really don’t want to seem like a Smith supporter in this (’cause I’m absolutely not on these contentious issues of the last (jesus) year)….
But I don’t think PZ should do this. Obviously not my call. Her talks are generally good though and it strikes me as better to be above this lot of ‘net stupidity until it affects the work.
Putting the organisers in the position of choosing between you seems like an unpleasant thing, since one heavily outweighs the other in drawing power.
Depends on a lot of things I guess, but in principle it seems such a provision could result in undesirable situations’ – Muz
‘Fuck off. You’re a disgusting excuse for a so-called human being.
Fuck you. You’re a disgusting excuse for a human being.’ – Aquaria.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
that’s stupid, and has shown a distinct lack of working (see accommodationist flailing, such as Nisbet’s BS about AGW, and the fail that’s the Intersucktion). also, obviously not true. if someone got offended, then obviously we said something offensive. that’s how those two words work.
what it doesn’t mean is that all offense is to be avoided, or bad at all.
also, you’re seriously confused if you think what we’re doing is equivalent to “Come join our atheist group, you slimy sacks of shit”. it’s actually more like “we’re atheist and we want to be seen. and if that bothers you, go shit in the ocean, you bigoted fuck”
why not? what about persistent homophobia isn’t angering? quite frankly, i think you should be angry, regardless of whether you chose to express it. without such anger, change will not come, because lack of anger and frustration leads to complacency very easily.
as opposed to what? faux-homophobic sentiments?
by whose standards? I mean, considering that it fucking works, how can it be “too much” objectively, rather than simply not someone’s personal preference, in the same way that cloying levels of politeness aren’t my preference?
on whom? on Craig? nothing short of an aneurysm is going to work on that dense piece of shit, no matter how polite of rude you are.
OTOH, being honest about how much of a liar he is can and does work on some individuals on the fence. Not catering to the illusion that Craig has anything of value to say, and lying-by-omission about the fact that he’s in fact lying when he makes his arguments only serves to obfuscate and confuse.
that’s debatable. debating known liars and bullshitters, especially “politely”, is to allow them to fuck you over in public. not being able to call out gish-gallopers as the liars they are is a flaw that gives these liars a veneer of respect they don’t deserve.
FIFY
considering that many people here have faced actual violence because of the things they are/they fight for, this is kinda… severely fucked up. nothing we do here is “violent” by any stretch of the imagination.
Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 7:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan:
Jesus Fucking Christ, you excel at missing the point. Abby says nasty shit about Rebecca Watson because she’s indulging in a sexist viewpoint, shoring up misogyny all the way. The reasons someone uses words is what fucking matters. Try to get the fucking point this time, would you?
By the way, one more fucking time: ruptured ass cyst – what gender is that? It’s like calling someone an asshole (if they happen to be behaving like an asshole), everyone has one. When it comes to calling a woman ugly, in this case, Rebecca, Jen and others, it comes attached to a fucking history.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
My point was that when debating Lane-Craig, you’re not attempting to convince Lane-Craig. You’re attempting to convince the audience.
And I’m sorry, I didn’t know Germaine Greer had said anything transphobic. She is thus not fine. I’ve only read The Female Eunuch.
without such anger, change will not come, because lack of anger and frustration leads to complacency very easily
This isn’t true. Again, Dawkins would never have got anywhere if he wrote in the style of people on Pharyngula. The Atheist Experience would not be reaching so many people if Matt acted as people on Pharyngula. Hitchens would not have. Dennett would not have. Harris would not have. Hume would not have. Epicurus would not have. Lucretius would not have.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ
26 May 2012 at 7:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryan, you aren’t going to convince anybody here on this subject. It is like John says, a settled issue. For years now, Pharyngula has been what it is because of ongoing self-selection by people who really like what happens after the three-comment rule kicks in. Folks come for the squid, stay for the gratuitous unkindness.
Tangentially, how do you talk to libertarians who don’t care about statistics, but rather assert their “non-aggression principle” as a moral imperative?
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
<blockquote‘Fuck off. You’re a disgusting excuse for a so-called human being.
Fuck you. You’re a disgusting excuse for a human being.’ – Aquaria.oh FFS. did you miss this part?
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
oops
oh FFS. did you miss this part?
Ogvorbis
26 May 2012 at 7:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So please explain how using the word cunt, as an insult (which is pretty much the only way it is used around these here parts) is not sexist, whether conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional.
Louis
26 May 2012 at 7:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[Fuck it, one more then bed]
Ryan,
You consider people like MLK “fine” NOW.
MLK’s contemporary critics called him “uppity” and “impatient” and even “rude” on occasion. You are benefiting from MLK’s “rudeness” in the past. Your ability to even appreciate the beautiful reason of someone like MLK is precisely because he was rude, uppity and impatient by the civility standards of his time. He challenged the status quo so that we now, thank fuck, have a different status quo to challenge for slightly different reasons. And believe me, people were mortally offended and outraged by his challenge.
Since many of people’s ideas are absorbed from the surrounding society, the fact that due to people like MLK we now live in a less obviously racist society, where overt racism is actually penalised as opposed to the norm, your noble anti-racist attitude, just like mine, didn’t spring into being from simple reasoning alone. Isolated, in a vacuum. It’s been drip fed into us by society. Sexual equality, feminism and the like, has a long way to go (as does racism, less so perhaps, but I wouldn’t want to implicitly belittle the problem with too many comparatives.), by not knuckling under to it people are called “feminazis” “castrating bitches” “man haters” and the like. All because the bigots cannot cope with any challenge to their sexism and privilege, however mild. So “rudeness”, “impatience” and “uppityness” are useful. It disturbs, it demonstrates the contempt people have for bigotry or crimes greater than mere rudeness.
I repeat, no one is advocating universal rudeness. After all I haven’t called you a mammering fuckpickle yet, and you assuredly are being one.
Read the following with some care and attention.
Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”:
Think about this. Seriously. As I said to that other bloke.
You are arguing for a negative peace, like it or not. This. Is. Not. Good.
(And also, stop making straw men out of people’s positions here, no one, and I do mean no one, is advocating omnirudeness)
Louis
Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 7:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fuckin’ A, put me with Aquaria. FFS, are you so dense, Ryan, that you don’t grok that Muz is completely ignoring the crap Abby has pulled, supported, sheltered and encouraged since Egate? Oh, sure, she’s a bully and she’s supporting a shitload of misogynist bullies, but heh, that’s okay, right?
Fuck that noise with splinters on, Dear.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I assumed she said ‘I thought I deleted that last part’ because she’d written the same thing (basically) twice.
And Pitbull, surprisingly, it sometimes works.
It wouldn’t work on a libertarian like Penn Jillette, who’s obsessed with freedomz! But then, nothing will so they’re pointless.
But rather on libertarians who think libertarianism leads to better growth and just betterness all around.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
and our approach works. this is not debatable. it’s a well-established fact that, to quote your own words, “It doesn’t convince everyone, but I have found it to work.”
start explaining why “it works for some” and “in my experience” are valid arguments when you make them, but not when I make them. NOW!
or, admit that multiple approaches are called for.
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 7:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson:
First, be right.
(You ain’t)
–
You really don’t get this place.
This:
is disingenuous shit.
You laud it.
This: “Fuck off. You’re a disgusting excuse for a so-called human being.”
is someone’s honest opinion.
You decry it.
(Go figure)
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
are you confused? the part you’ve quoted says nothing about style. you said you didn’t get angry. I said you should, even if you don’t let the anger show. style had fuck all to do with that quoted comment.
Pharyngula is one of the most popular atheist blogs, with an extremely lively and large commenter community; one that thrives because of it’s aggressive attitude towards bigotry and ignorance. why do you ignore that when you make your arguments from popularity?
and again:
start explaining why “it works for some” and “in my experience” are valid arguments when you make them, but not when I make them. NOW!
or, admit that multiple approaches are called for.
The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa)
26 May 2012 at 7:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You whine about excessive rudeness from our end- correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t you the clueless fucklicker who tried to get everyone to watch some rape-porn with him for ‘research purposes’ a few threads back? You’re right, that’s MUCH more ‘polite’ than saying a few naughty words.
If you can’t see the difference, it’s only because ruptured oozing anal cysts like you have very little cognitive ability. Go eat a bag of shit. And then fuck yourself, Ryan fucking wilkinson.
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 7:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What?
When?
*off to google, I’ll be back*
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
no, it doesn’t work on you because you’re a fucking delicate snowflake.
worked just fine on me.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I do not support Smith. I would like to make it abundantly clear that I do not support Smith, why would I support her when my whole thing is that extreme aggression is bad, and her whole thing is extreme aggression?! I’ve said numerous times I agree with PZ to not go to conferences with her!
Jadehawk you’re right! Sometimes rudeness does work! Yes! Good! I’ve said I can think of many situations in which rudeness is a valuable option, but just not all the time.
And Louis, I’m not advising inaction, just less full-on-bile to people who aren’t necessarily opposed to you.
Like Jadehawk and Caine, I appreciate you’re restraining yourselves and I would have no problem with the tone you’re using right now being used all the time (though yes, I imagine others would. Which I suppose must be the main issue you have with what I’m saying. Where is the line drawn. Ah. I see.) (I imagine the restraint must be hard).
Okay, so Morales accusing me of being a Smith supporter – that sort of thing is not cool. Someone comes in trying to say that maybe PZ shouldn’t have been so aggressive to the gelato owner (this is a hypoethical. Bwe4 was a moron) and he gets accused of defending anti-atheist discrimination. Someone says that although Smith as a person is terrible, her talks are helpful, and all of a sudden he’s a vile excuse for a human being?
I know the line is hard to draw out clearly; but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be an attempt at one.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
not actually true, in the sense that marginalization and unvarnished honesty about the massive damage their views do actually can accomplish a shrivelling up of the popularity of such hideous, anti-human ideas. sure Jilette won’t change his mind, but if his audience shrinks because his bull is called out blatantly, unrelentingly, and without worry for civility, that is a net positive, and fewer people will be duped into thinking his ideas are good.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And fine, Jadehawk, if it works for you it works. You’re right, yes, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t many examples on Pharyngula of it going too far, which really was my whole point in the first place.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“all the time” is not the point. you’re arguing that we need to become more polite to those who disagree, because in your experience that works better. in my experience rudeness works for exactly the things and exactly the situations you want to except from it (using slurs casually, for example)
start explaining why your experience trumps mine, or drop that line of argument.
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 7:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson:
I’m finding it harder to imagine flattering you.
(Looks like you really aren’t being perverse)
The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa)
26 May 2012 at 7:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I do want to correct myself though on this statement. I misread the statement. Huge brain fart, my mind switched up ‘Smith’ and ‘Watson’. Color me embarassed, but it happens.
I still maintain that Ryan is a smelly, vile, ruptured, oozing, festering cyst on the ass of atheism.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah John I think I misread what you said and I apologise for that.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Smelly in a good way, at least?
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ
26 May 2012 at 7:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yes yes I know it sometimes works. I’m an ex-libertarian, bitten by a radioactive sovereign citizen, and arguing with them is my superpower.
My question was how do you talk to the ones who don’t care about statistics. Your reply suggests you just don’t.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m being exceedingly patient because I’m stuffed to the gills with acetaminophen + codeine.
the fact that you’re sticking around Pharyngula instead of leaving for other atheist blogs suggests though that the horrible horrible rudeness isn’t even scaring off such a precious delicate snowflake as yourself.
Louis
26 May 2012 at 7:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fuck fuck fuck, okay just this one more. I do NOT have a problem, fuck off! ;-)
Ryan,
Civility, politeness and manners depend on social context. That in turn is formed from the people who comprise that society. The majority of the people here at Pharyngula are on the ruder end of the rudeness spectrum. When commenters here make repeated, stupid errors (as I have done) they can be dealt with pretty rudely. Other places have different social contexts, different degrees of rudeness.
No one here is seeking to make Pharyngula universal, no one is asking you to start being rude or stop being not rude. Why is it so troublesome to you that the rude people have somewhere to be rude?
Is it because “we’re not helping”? Because if so, as many, MANY people are pointing out to you: YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT THAT!
My current attitude towards feminism and feminist ideas is a direct result of some people on Pharyngula getting exasperated with me making erroneous arguments and then them telling me I was being an arse.
That shocked me. Why? Because, well I’m not an arse! I am a being of wonder and light and purity and all things good. How dare these people on the internet call me an arse! How RUDE! “BUT!” I thought to myself, “what if these very rude people have a point, however rudely delivered. I better find out if I want to maintain a scintilla of the intellectual integrity I like to try to maintain”. So off to the library I did go. I followed feminist threads here and SHUT THE FUCK UP. I didn’t, or rarely commented on them, I just read. I read books, I even went to a different feminist website and asked questions making my agenda very clear.
Up until the rudeness I wasn’t spurred to do any of that, I just dismissed these people as over sensitive idiots. Boy howdy was I wrong! I was Wrongy McWrongerson of Wrongsville, Wrongshire, WR0 0NG. It was, in fact, me who was the over sensitive idiot. I was being a precious little snowflake about my MAN FEE FEES (Important) and protective of my special lovely super gorgeous privilege. Once I’d read enough, thought enough, examined it enough, I just cast my MAN FEE FEES (Important) to one side, acknowledged my privilege and went about my day.
All inspired by the initial jump start of being dealt with rudely on Pharyngula.
Will it work for all people all the time? No of course not. Tell me anyone who claims it does and I will personally slap them. But it does work some of the time, so some of us are going to use it some of the time. No one is demanding you do it. Why are you demanding we don’t?
Louis
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
you haven’t shown that the line should be where you want it to be though. our method works, after all.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 7:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What you’re missing is that basically people ARE saying that, or damn close, or providing comfort to people who do say that…you’re just ignoring it because you are an idiot who can’t read subtext.
For example, when a libertarian says that basically people on welfare should be allowed to die, they may be saying that I myself or someone else here deserves to die…and they need to be called out on that. All bigotry should be treated personally because to someone it IS personal.
Ogvorbis
26 May 2012 at 7:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So if someone is an ally, and fucks up with some sexist, racist, or bigoted language, should I (a) ignore it because, well, even though that language is an excellent way to silence people, xe is an ally, or (b) point out exactly how I feel about the use of that language so that the person who used that language is aware that they fucked up and why the fuckup is wrong? Which do you suppose is more effective at creating an atmosphere in which men, women, gays, lesbians, transexual, bisexuals, blacks, whites, Asians, etc, feel welcome? The one in which silencing language is met with firm, and sometimes vitriolic, response? or the one where it is ignored so we can all just get along?
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I like what PZ posts, and I agree with almost everything the commentariat (? spelling) says, just not quite how they say it.
To a libertarian who cares only about freedom, I imagine the best way to do it would be to point out how poor people are not free, really.
But I rarely encounter those.
I was a libertarian for perhaps a week, convinced by Milton Friedman.
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 7:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson:
Has it occurred to you that there may have been a posting history involved when assessing such apparent out-of-the-blue responses? :)
Louis
26 May 2012 at 7:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan,
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
that’s… incredibly stupid. do you even realize that this is a valid criticism because it’s a criticism about substance?!
the problem with these comments is their content. they are untrue. the problem is not with their tone. especially considering that Morales doesn’t actually comment in the pharyngulan tone (or at least, I’ve never seen him do it)
The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa)
26 May 2012 at 7:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Now this is exactly what I mean, shit-eater. Find examples for us of it ‘going too far’. And they don’t count if you’re the recipient, you consistently deserve it. Every time I see your name pop up in the comments, you’re farting and belching out some kind of ridiculous nonsense and making everyone with two braincells to rub together facepalm.
Hey, if you like the smell of your own shit I’ll try not to judge too hard, just find somewhere else to sniff your finger and ffs stop waggling it under our noses.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 7:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Actually from reading your comments you give examples that are extreme blatant, even an idiot like you can see them, cases…which you then agree politeness will not work on such people.
So you’re for rudeness when it won’t work…great that’s really rational, shithead
Louis
26 May 2012 at 7:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I can also fuck up bork quotes.
Hmmm Can I spell Icthcyi?
Nope. Definitely off to bed.
Louis
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So if someone is an ally, and fucks up with some sexist, racist, or bigoted language, should I (a) ignore it because, well, even though that language is an excellent way to silence people, xe is an ally, or (b) point out exactly how I feel about the use of that language so that the person who used that language is aware that they fucked up and why the fuckup is wrong? Which do you suppose is more effective at creating an atmosphere in which men, women, gays, lesbians, transexual, bisexuals, blacks, whites, Asians, etc, feel welcome? The one in which silencing language is met with firm, and sometimes vitriolic, response? or the one where it is ignored so we can all just get along?
I’ve never said ‘ignore it’.
And okay, if the extreme level of rudeness here works – fine. My point is that sometimes it goes too far, and I have pointed out an example and I could probably find others.
And Louis I think you do have a problem, but it’s a good one, a world-helping one.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 7:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
doesn’t work, because they don’t accept the existence of positive freedoms, and consider the enforcement of such positive freedoms to be violence.
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 7:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Germaine Greer
yup
Just me not paying attention.
I’m going for a bath.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 7:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t believe you.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 7:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Coyote, the reactions to Muz and to Leslie. I also got a facebook message from someone saying the following: “I have visited both right wing sites and the lefties, and the fanatics on either side are very tiresome, as you said. They really *do* want a circle jerk, and anyone who does not explicitly toe the line is considered a troll. In the end it does nothing about opening actual, real, honest debate. It’s just a bunch of asshole sitting around agreeing with each other.”
She sent others, but in essence, it was she stopped reading Pharyngula because the commenters were too rude, and she says she didn’t even comment.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Horseshit. UTter horseshit. Have you been to the rest of the internet? The content here may be different but it is not extreme rudeness…specifically because some shit isn’t tolerated.
Go to Reddit Atheism and try some horseshit like this with a femmy nyme and see how polite people are.
This is a rude blog, it is also the most fucking safe and polite forum of its size I have ever seen.
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 8:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I could just cut and paste my earlier comment at #212, but sheesh, Ryan continues to persist with this sort of clueless intellectually dishonest distortion, and it is surprised that it gets met with some degree of anger?
And it gets surprised that even more odious fapwits like bwe4 and rajkumar, when engaging in even more egregious examples of precisely this sort of intellectual dishonesty earn well-deserved insults in response?
The hole, she’s a gettin’ deepah….
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You don’t believe that I rarely encounter freedom obsessed libertarians? I assure you, in England there’s much less nutbaggery, and on the internet, the main argument I encounter is ‘America has the best healthcare in the world!’
I think libertarians are the least salvageable group, though, because their ideology is based almost entirely on selfishness.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
you haven’t shown any of those “many occurrences” of going too far. you’ve shown only that there are individuals who don’t take to the existing levels of invective.
you know those are different things, right? you know that we’re not actually aiming to please everyone, simply because that’s impossible and also because other blogs already occupy the nice-niche?
The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa)
26 May 2012 at 8:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I really give a shit what your friend on facebook says. Really. I could not possibly groan or strain hard enough to give a bigger shit.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
She’s wrong. Also mistaking passion for rudeness. She seems like she’s one of the special snowflakes who thinks that ti’s rude for anyone to tell them their ideas suck in one of those free exchanges.
And again, go to fucking stormwatch or Drudge Report with a female sounding name and see how much ruder they are to dissenters.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve never used Reddit, so I wouldn’t know. I’ll try and report back to you.
But we’ll agree to disagree about tone, which I imagine is all you want. I’ll do it my way and you do it your way and I’ll say not another word.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
nah. in many cases, it’s cluelessness caused by insulation-via-privilege. but the rest, yes, they are selfish. so why not insulate them and make sure they don’t feel welcome in actual civilized (as opposed to “civilized”) society?
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
For bigger shits, I’ve found resting your hands on your knees works wonders.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Correct. I think you either don’t talk to them often, mistake their beliefs for what you’d like them to be (your naivitee is on record) or are lying.
We get those fuckers here all the time and we don’t even go looking for them. It might be self selection but I have NEVER seen a libertarian that held on to the label for very long who wasn’t such an asshole.
LIke You said the inherent ideology IS selfishness, they’re all like that. If they care they actually learn and stop. I can maybe think of a handful but even the philosophically lauded public libertarians don’t qualify.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There’s an xkcd for that
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 8:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Louis*,
Very few regulars haven’t been treated to a dose of pharynguloid dog-piling** from others here.
(I know I have)
No-one here gets dispensation from criticism and opinion, believe it or not***.
(Only difference is, regulars are aware of others’ posting history)
–
* I quote Louis, but I ain’t talking to him.
** Or so it seems. It ain’t.
*** Hard to believe, I know.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If you insulate a group like that, all the contrarians rush in and join the ‘oppressed’.
I think Ron Paul gained a lot of his support by being so media-suppressed that people assumed he had to be doing something right.
The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa)
26 May 2012 at 8:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Don’t worry, given your assinine track record you’ll surely be braying forth entirely new stupiditudes soon enough. You just can’t help yourself, it’s your nature as a jackass.
PS: Fuck you.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No sorry. I hate that phrase. It basically translates to “I want to end the conversation here because I either think you’re an idiot, or I don’t want to follow through where the logic leads me”
In order to regain some sense of respect from me you actually have to concede a point, or continue arguing. Either you’re wrong and acknowledge it, are right and should argue it, or are dishonest and cowardly.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ll go with the naivety, I’ll keep it on record no matter how much I get the shit smashed out of me that I have hope in even the worst of people.
I don’t like most people. But I really, really want to.
Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 8:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Louis:
♥ ♥ ♥
I loves you for that brainy vitriol, ducks.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That is all you want isn’t it? That I’ll go on being optimistic and cheery and snowflakey, and you’ll all go on being hardasses.
I won’t concede that your way is ‘better’, but that, okay, it works.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ll jump in at the deep-end on Reddit, I’ve given myself a girl’s name and I’ll go to the MRA section.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ron Paul is popular because of pot and the stupidity of college kids.
He isn’t even fucking media suppressed, he gets a greatly inordinate amount of exposure for the little influence and chance of winning presidential nomination he gets.
GOOD! Contrarians are not supporters or reliable aid, they’re fucking assholes who are enamored with being rebellious more than being right!
I applaud any Bill Mahresq fucker who wants to throw in with assholes because it’s “oppressed”. It basically is self selecting against fair weather friends.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
how many times do I need to point out that your example wasn’t of us going too far, but of someone not being suited to our approach?
which is of course not actually true. “troll” is not thrown at anyone who disagrees. especially, “tone troll” isn’t, since it has the specific meaning of people whining about tone while ignoring the substance of an argument.
and what? you think people who are in love with the False Equivalence don’t say that when people aren’t using swearwords? “both sides do it” is a favorite argument of all moderates everywhere. and it’s never true. which never stops them. so why abandon a method that works, when abandoning it isn’t going to make moderates abandon this specious argument?
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I want you to be honest, partially for selfish reasons and also because I’m idealistic enough to give that service to people because it’s good for you.
Best thing I learned here is the absolute liberty knowing you can fucking escape a shit storm by admitting you were wrong rather than digging your heels in.
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 8:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Louis patiently explains and ryanwilkinson thoughtlessly retorts
I note that Louis is apparently less than impressed at such sagacity.
(Rude Louis! Rude!)
Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 8:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan:
So what? You expect us all to cry? Lots of people have shown up at Pharyngula in the last 7 years and left. In case you missed the zillion times Jadehawk has pointed this out, there are other atheist blogs. Nice, polite ones concerned with tone. Go there. She can go there. She can sit on facebook and whine. Whatthefuckever.
Pharyngula is not for everyone, however, it is one of the safest places on the ‘net (yep, true dat) with no tolerance for bigoted, sexist or phobic (gay & trans) asswipes. Yes, we stomp on cluelessness. People who are intelligent educate themselves, stop being clueless and dive right in.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No offense*, but that you think hardass/realist and optimistic and cheerful are incompatible is pathetic
*hehe I lie
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am being honest. I have accepted your way works. I don’t accept it is better.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Also your response shows why people hate tonetrolls
You ignored all the substance of my post, about WHY that phrase is annoying and meaningless, and just attacked me for being mean to you.
You’re a coward.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So by honest you mean ignoring what I said, my points, and focusing on an absurdly obvious truth?
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“Let’s agree to disagree” == “NOT THE FACE! NOT THE FACE!”
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 8:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson cluelessly imagines he has some idea about what this place is about:
Excellent.
Her loss, our gain.
(win/win!)
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am acknowledging your point! Your point is that your style works – I am accepting that. What else do you want?
I’m also posting on the MRA Reddit under a female name!
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
such contrarians are of no value. what’s your point?
lol. no.
Ron Paul has the support of a lot of college educated white kids who are illiterate in history and economics. Because he wants to give them what they want (no wars and legal pot), and because supporting him makes them feel rebellious. and once they already support him, not being front-page-news simply confirms their identity as rebels. none of the Ron Paul supporters I know started supporting him because he wasn’t talked about.
Also… how is being loudly and passionately called out on bigotry comparable to a supposed media-blackout? it’s the exact opposite of that! insulation via not-taking-your-bullshit works a hell of a lot better than attempts at insulation via if-we-don’t-talk-about-it-it-will-go-away (I’m assuming you’re talking about the early days of the primary. because most of the time, RP gets a fuckload more media-attention than his influence and status warrant)
The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa)
26 May 2012 at 8:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I want you to eat this pinecone. With your ass.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
and what is this shit? who claimed it’ “better”? who is supposedly demanding that you concede that it is better?
*sigh*
well, at least you conceded the actual point of this discussion. took long enough.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t understand why people don’t realise that given states power isn’t libertarian at all. Libertarians are so lost.
And people go craaazy for Ron Paul on youtube, I’m always surprised at how many people follow him.
Coyote, I would do, but it’s stuffed with a porcupine currently.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jade, I don’t know what else Ing wants me to concede.
Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 8:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan:
So? You’re someone who is afraid to tell people they’re bi. I doubt you’re going to posting at Reddit as an outspoken feminist.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
O.o
that… will be interesting.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I posted on a Rebecca Watson thread:
‘She just said it made her feel uncomfortable. She had been talking about how she didn’t want to be hit on for hours. If Dawkins had been talking about how he didn’t want to be preached to for hours, and someone did it to him in an elevator, he would probably say something along the lines of ‘Christians, don’t do that’.’
I don’t tell people I’m bi for convenience, if I was gay I’d come out. But I don’t really want to get into such a personal issue with random people on the internet.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
nothing. you’ve just pissed people off, that’s all.
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 8:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson tries pathos:
You can, of course, quote someone (anyone!) making this purported claim that you O so righteously and ostentatiously do not accept.
…
Right?
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And basically the stupidity of Paul’s “popularity”
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 8:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ing is rude,
Why break a winning streak?
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
well ok, no, strictly speaking you probably should concede that no one demanded that you accept the pharyngula method as better. or show me where someone actually did that.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
He said I was being dishonest, I didn’t know what he wanted!
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 8:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson:
Hey, I have kinks* too… but I don’t brag about them for brownie points.
–
* admittedly, neither gender-bending nor trolling — but hey! — everyone to their own.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I was asked to do so!
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yes I said the phrase “Agree to disagree” is inherently dishonest and said why. You ignored that.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But we’ll agree to disagree about tone, which I imagine is all you want. I’ll do it my way and you do it your way and I’ll say not another word.
That’s fine, surely. But lets not get into an argument about the details of my concession…
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
you mean this?
a lot of people see the “agree to disagree” line as a cowardly escape from having to admit one is wrong. hence, either concede or keep arguing if you think you’re correct. Though I’d admit that simply saying “fuck this, this argument isn’t going anywhere” is a fair enough admission of exhaustion; without the stupid demand that others agree that you’re just as right as they are, which the “agree to disagree” notion often does.
anyway, you’ve conceded that our approach works. if you hadn’t added the strawman of “but I won’t concede it’s better”, there would be nothing left to argue on that topic (except maybe the RP tangent)
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“agree to disagree” isn’t a concession. it implies you’re still disagreeing, after all. this is a concession:
Alethea H. Claw
26 May 2012 at 8:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wait, what, somebody said “Canberra”? Hello!
Of course there’s porn in Victoria. What is this, the 1950s? Is rajkumar a time traveller? It’s true that you can’t rent anything beyond softcore at normal video outlets; you have to go the the sex shops. Poor rajkumar, can’t even look in the yellow pages. Here you go, dude: http://www.yellowpages.com.au/vic/adult-shops-47368-category-s1.html
To be fair, the hardest core refused-classification stuff is still banned. No kiddie porn or bestiality or extreme violence. Perhaps that’s what rajkumar wants. Fetish porn used to be in that category, but BDSM porn has quite freely available in NSW for a good two decades now. I haven’t checked VIC; maybe they’re still in a timewarp.
Mind you, who goes to rental places for their porn these days? There’s this new-fangled invention, called an “intertubes” or something like that. I hear video outlets are going broke because of it.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh and the “won’t agree it’s better” basically equates to “but by damn am I going to find a way in which I come out as having won this argument!”
That’s dishonest.
You have many intellectually dishonest and cowardly habits, may of which act as defense mechanisms. You’d be wise to be try to be vigilant and spot them yourself.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I meant it as a concession, as in ‘you do your way I’ll do mine’.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
learn to quote, it prevents misunderstandings. especially in very fast moving threads.
for everyone else’s information, this is what ryan is referring to:
(though I suspect that was not literally meant as a command for ryan to do so)
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
which is fine, except we weren’t trying to make you do it our way. so you’re not actually disagreeing anymore. it would be nice if you’d eventually be able to admit that without any weird addenda that look like strawmen of what we were actually arguing.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
(though I suspect that was not literally meant as a command for ryan to do so)
I’m mildly autistic, I’m often told I take things too literally. Whoops…
And I’m not saying this as a sympathy thing, so please please please don’t offer me any for it.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yes. Funny you didn’t actually say that right? Or you know, acknowledge that no one was telling you to do it our way? Again you’re still trying to paint yourself as a winner. Stop trying to fellate your ego and use it as a learning opportunity,
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 8:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson:
So, now you grok how your early bleatings were stupid, ignorant tone-trolling, waaahing about our rudeness and anger because you in your wisdom knew it didn’t work and because you in your niceness wouldn’t do it that way?
Good.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I did say that. I said I won’t say another word about it. I very literally said it.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Don’t worry
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
26 May 2012 at 8:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I see the stupidity of this thread has doubled. Fortunately, I had already killfiled one of them for being an obtuse fuckwit, so I won’t be reading all the stupidity, just half of it.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ
26 May 2012 at 8:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Also because Ron Paul is the hobgoblin of little minds.
Cf. constitutional originalism, and the dogma you already mentioned, that there is a distinction between something called “positive” and “negative” rights.
Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 8:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan:
You wouldn’t have received any in the first place. Christ, have you lurked here at all? A fair amount of the regulars here are on the autism spectrum. They’re people. They’re individuals. They’re taken on their own merit. Every one of them can argue honestly, too. That’s a lesson you may wish to take on board.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 8:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
For someone who takes things too literally, that is a funny misuse of “literally”
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 8:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It seems accurate.
I’ll do it my way and you do it your way and I’ll say not another word.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 8:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryan. please. admit that no one was trying to get you to adopt the pharyngulan way, and that no one was trying to get you to admit the pharyngulan way was better (or show evidence that this happened).
preferably without adding another falsehood to your admission.
because I’ve already missed an opportunity to get shit done today and will end up suffering cabin fewer as a result of this conversation. I don’t want to also waste the evening on this.
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 8:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson:
To be generous, this is irrelevant.
(To be less so, you’re admitting you wanted brownie-points)
Irrelevant.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ
26 May 2012 at 8:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryan, there is a way to beat the dogmatic libertarians, but primarily it involves making of them an example to others. Get them to say something which is unconscionably racist to non-libertarians
— see the Lester Maddox gambit at http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/libertarians —
and then verbally abuse them for supporting the oppression of African Americans in the 1960s.
This shows the bystander that libertarianism is morally bankrupt and makes them want to never be on the receiving end of such obviously righteous anger.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 9:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve heard the response to something like the Lester Maddox gambit as follows:
‘If people want to be racist, they have the right to be racist. In an ideal society people wouldn’t be racist.’
Which was just ridiculous.
You are arguing for a negative peace, like it or not. This. Is. Not. Good.
I know there’s been a lot of ‘you don’t have to adopt our way’, but I have also been called an accomodationist and such forth… oh, and for ‘supporting the oppressor’. And that I don’t realise that all my Christian friends are in fact, secretly massive homophobes.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ
26 May 2012 at 9:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Is this “I don’t understand” as in “I think it’s terrible” or as in “I seriously do not understand why they want to devolve federal power”?
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 9:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Is this “I don’t understand” as in “I think it’s terrible” or as in “I seriously do not understand why they want to devolve federal power”?
I think it’s terrible.
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 9:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson, are you even getting that you’re supposed to say what you mean, and mean what you say around here (assuming you want to prosper)? ;)
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 9:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
well yes, strictly speaking you are being rather accommodating. not nisbet- and mooney-level, but accommodating nonetheless. which only works as long as someone else does the work of pushing the overton window (that would be us)
I’d like to see some citations, so that I can judge context and interpretation.
I’d argue that trying to make us stop doing what we were doing was wrong and you needed to stop that. which was the argument, and the doing of which could be interpreted as giving support to the oppressor.
the inherent homophobia in christianity argument was in a different conversation, and doesn’t have anything to do with the subject at hand. why are you bringing it up?
'Tis Himself
26 May 2012 at 9:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ #320
Phrases such as “judges legislating from the bench” actually mean “some judge made a decision I don’t like.” If the Constitutional originalist does agree with a ruling, then that rule was always there and just needed a little rational application to be discovered.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ
26 May 2012 at 9:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Right. But if you don’t hone in on what the practical effects of this would have been for African Americans in the 1960s, and repeat a few times that the libertarian is evil for thus supporting injustice, then they come off sounding merely consistent and “personally against racism”.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 9:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It was the same conversation; my lack of hating my Christian friends meant I had drunk some kind of kool-aid. Audley said it, I cannot remember the thread but I am looking and will get back to you.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 9:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
if you can’t remember the thread, then obviously it cannot have been the same conversation. d’uh?
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 9:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I remember that and that is not what Audley said.
For someone who claims to take things too literally you sure as hell don’t actually take what people say literally.
Audley said that your friends were drinking from the same kool-aid.
Why don’t you stop reading what you want to read. Your bias is blinding.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 9:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
and I almost guarantee this is a massive strawman.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 9:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nono, Josh OfficialSpokesgay said something about Christians being a cancer, and I said that was unfair they’re not all bad. It went from there.
I just cannot remember what thread it was on.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 9:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Jadehawk
IT IS!
*sending some keylime pie to you as a prize*
Seriously Ryan, we’re not going to drop it because you keep doing dishonest shit…and you probably don’t realize it.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 9:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
OH yes I remember that.
Yes and you’ll notice where he literally said you have to hate your friends?
No? Well why don’t you take him more literally then!?
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 9:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I would if I could find it!
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 9:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
oooh. yes. that ryan’s christian friends were drinking from the same kool-aid as the fundies (i.e. they believe the same religion which supposedly adheres to the same text). which has fuck-all to do with this conversation about tone, and which didn’t say fuck-all about how ryan was supposed to hate his friends.
jesus fuck, that was one hell of a strawman. and a completely misplaced one. I’m starting to think ryan is dragging these red herrings and strawmen out just to keep me from getting shit done today
*sigh*
'Tis Himself
26 May 2012 at 9:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
To be a true libertarian, one not only needs to be selfish but also ignorant about economics and history.
For instance, most libertarians claim that government welfare could be better handled by private charity. They don’t realize that governments got into the welfare business because private charities couldn’t handle the load. During the Great Depression, there was a real probability of starvation among the populace. Because of various government welfare programs, few if any starved. But during World War II in the US, Britain, Canada and Australia, thousands of men were rejected for military service due to the effects of prolonged malnutrition.
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 9:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
mwaaahahahhahaha
hahahaah
*cough*
hahahaha
ha
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 9:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I do. you’re strawmanning. and that had fuck-all to do with your current whining about how tone, so there was no fucking reason for you to drag this into this conversation.
also, are you perchance unable to separate criticism of you saying we should be “nice” (which absolutely happened; and rightly so) from criticism of you being “nice”?
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 9:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So when he sees his friends, people who seem good and wholesome and non-hateful, who identify as Christian, he has to make “Christian” acceptable in his mind.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 9:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That they may appear “good” and “tolerant” can hide their true motivations and herd instincts.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 9:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Do you do anything other than ask stupid questions and engage in apologetics for bigots?
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 9:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan, are you really this fucking stupid?
Frankly, that you interpret that as being people telling you to hate your friends proves the fucking point.
You take NOTHING literally, you twist and filter everything to fit your bullshit.
Fucking lying coward
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 9:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That’s right, keep licking the boots of your masters. Does it feel good to be used as a tool of the oppressors?
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 9:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan you’re just a tool PERIOD
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 9:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ryanwilkinson
here’s how it’s done
<blockquote>the words you’re quoting go here</blockquote>
results in
easier for everyone to read
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 9:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Think about the implications of this.
Government welfare helped win World War II for the allies.
Libertarians are nazi sympathizers!
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 9:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well.
That was a waste of time.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 9:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I didn’t answer the question about Nazis because I thought it was absurd.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 9:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dishonest and coward. Like I said
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 9:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You specifically said it was wrong to hate anyone like that, and then reject my request for clarification because it’s absurd.
You’re a shit head.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ
26 May 2012 at 9:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jadehawk if you’ve got stuff to get done, you needn’t bother with ryan.
Just let me know how many times you’d like me to call him naive and/or a bullshitter, and I’ll punch your timecard for you.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
26 May 2012 at 9:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I realize I am stepping late into a long running argument. But I feel the need to point out a few things to ryanwilkinson.
No one is saying that the way things are done in this blog is the way it should be done everywhere. That is because different methods work for different people. This blog is a rough place, it reflects what PZ wants. The thing is, even those of us who play rough save it for those whose believes causes real harm for real people.
Does it always work? No. Different methods for different people. Who brought up that nameless woman who quit read this blog. Big deal. This blog is filled with testimonials of people who said that places like this helped to challenge and to change their assumptions.
And then there is Greta’s blog. She does not allow this kind of rough play. Know what, most of us respect her for that. It is her place, she sets the rules. And her method works for some people. And she is loved and respected by many of us.
(As a side note, I read her blog but I rarely comment. This is because I do not want to cause trouble because sarcasm is second nature for me.)
Different place develop their own ways of expressing themselves. It is up to the newcomer to learn their ways. What is fine for one place is not for an other. This is not one way is superior to an other.
Your mistake is this. You came to this blog, did a piss poor job of communicating. You got called on it. You came back and told us that we need to change our ways. This is not going to happen.
Funny that you brought up Richard Dawkins. You do know that he recommended this blog in The God Delusion as a place for people to find out more about atheist. That Dawkins and PZ are friends. That Dawkins does comment here every so often. That is is respected by most of us, even is the level took a hit in the aftermath of his post.
My advise for you is this, if you do not like the tone of this blog, do not complain. We are not going to change. All of us have dealt with dozens of people who whined in the same manner you have. They are gone. If you do not like this, there are lots of other fine sites that are not as rough as we are. Find sites that reflect how you conduct yourself. It is easier for you and allows us to be ready for the fuckwits that love to lay turds here.
Not sure if this means much to you but as annoying as you have been, you are not even in the same league as the sexist shitstain that has been commenting in this thread.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 9:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yep, dishonest, yep. I love the Nazis, you got me! I tried to subtly weave in my Nazi-sympathies. You caught me, you’re a sharp one, you.
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 9:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The overton window has been screaming rightward for the last 30 years. And it has done so because the extreme right has been happily pushing it there, while attempts by progressives to hold them back have been hampered every step of the way by these so-called “accomodationists”.
Virtually every single one of the extreme and odious things the right wing has managed to achieve politically in the last 5 years has only been possible politically BECAUSE the accommodationists helped allow such extreme positions to be shifted by the Overton window into the politically acceptable.
The erosion of women’s reproductive rights, the ultrasound laws, the stand-your-ground laws, DOMA, Paul Ryan’s union busting, the Iraq War, ALL of it became possible ONLY because the Accommodationists rolled over for the extreme right wing.
Accommodationism is as guilty as Right wing fundamentalism for this state of affairs.
Perhaps more so, since the Accomodationists should have known better.
ryanwilkinson
26 May 2012 at 9:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I won’t comment again, I don’t think, I’m too nice.
I can hear the cheers, yaaay.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 9:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
OH my fucking God, are you physically unable to not bullshit!?
Everyone: THis is what sucks about what you do
Ryan: DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER I don’t do that *then does exactly that*
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 9:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jesus fucking Christ, does someone have to staple the point to your skull?
Clearly, Nice doesn’t work on you because the innumerable times people have explained something to your dishonest, cowardly, rodent ass have just gone over your head.
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 9:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*sigh*
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 9:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
1) theopontes, not audley.
2)this is what was actually said:
nothing about hating his christian friends
Josh:
also nothing about him having to hate his christian friends, but rather about how his liking of his christian friends makes him think of the identity “christian” as something that’s ok. which you also do, but which also doesn’t say that you have to hate your friends or that you were drinking anything.
theopontes again:
also correct, also not saying you have to hate your friends.
I’ll maybe grant you the quote from consciousness razor, but let’s face it. all CR did was ask you why you spend so much time telling us how horrible we are to holders of bigoted ideas:
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 9:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Accommodations quite literally have the blood of people like Dr. Tiller on their hands.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 9:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
and that one was for you telling Josh off. not for you being nice. in other words, you are indeed comletely incapable of distinguishing between criticism of your niceness and criticism of your whining about our lack thereof.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
26 May 2012 at 9:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Amphiox
Ryan just has shit on his hands from how far he has to dig to pull out his points.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
26 May 2012 at 9:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I do not hate all of the people I know who are christian but I also agree with Josh on this point. I do think that the same unquestioning acceptence of their faith comes from the same place where many people’s homophobia comes from. these people just accept assertions with examining the reason why. I think that my friends and relatives that are religious are sadly mistaken. But as long as they do not impede my rights and freedoms, I cannot hate them.
But I wish they had higher standards for themselves.
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 9:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, it sure didn’t take long for ryan to descend from blinkered foolishness to utter complete and total incoherence.
Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 9:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Y’know, Dear, you need to read derailing for dummies. I do believe SG has a link handy. It seems to be your basic tactic rather than arguing and sticking to the fucking topic at hand.
As to what Josh said, apparently, you’re so dense as to not get that even the mildest of xians enables and supports all the nasty shit. Fact of life, one you had best deal with. What you were pulling on him was a classic accommodationist ploy. If you don’t care for that descriptor, tough. It’s what you happen to be, at least at this point in your life.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 9:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
lol, thanks, that’s very sweet of you.
hmmm, if you’re taking my shift here, maybe I should go to the Drunken Noodle… only thing that’s still open at this time that isn’t full of drunk fratboys…
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 9:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“So when he sees his friends, people who seem good and wholesome and non-hateful, who identify as Christian, he has to make “Christian” acceptable in his mind.”
This clearly refers to defending Christianity as a whole via selective sampling of its adherents for some particular* trait; it alludes to the fallacy of fallacy of composition.
(But trying to get to the substance of something is not within the specimen’s purview)
–
* And irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is the nature of Christianity given its current adherents.
life is like a pitbull with lipstick ॐ
26 May 2012 at 9:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau thank you for laughing at my joke :)
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 9:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Incidentally, not all the cells in a cancer are malignant. Depending on the cancer, it could be a little as 0.1% of them. The rest of the cells are actually relatively normal cells that have had their phenotypes subverted by the tumor environment and would have been perfectly normal, healthy cells in a different physiological setting.
But it’s still completely fair to call the tumor a cancer, and it will still kill.
The analogy is not unfair at all. It is quite accurate on multiple levels.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 9:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
passive-aggressive douchebaggery is not nice by any definition of the word.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 9:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
definitely time for a break. i switched form 3rd person to 2nd person halfway through my last long post without noticing
chigau (違う)
26 May 2012 at 9:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
pitbull
I’m still snickering.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
26 May 2012 at 9:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Think on this, ryanwilkinson. Some of the worst and most hateful things I have read came from people who would not swear and thought that they were being nice.
Here is one example. One nattering godbot informed me that the reason why I was a lesbian was because a relative abused me. Never mind that I never have been sexually abused. That woman was so closed minded, without knowing my background, felt free to say that about me and which ever relative she thinks was to blame for me being a lesbian. That is true hate and discrimination. Not me calling her a hateful fucking idiot.
I am sorry that you are not able to see the difference.
Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 9:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Only in your head, Punkin. PZ had you right – you’re tiresome.
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 9:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yep, ryan and others like him have very rarely been nice, despite all their self-serving claims. They have been as mean-spirited and insulting as the worst angry profanity spewing ranters. Moreso, since you can add hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty to their actions.
And of course, some of the greatest evils in history have been perpetrated by people with mild manners and smiling faces.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 9:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ok, this is really fucking bugging me. I’ve scrolled through this thread twice now, and I still have no flaming clue WTF this is supposed to be in response to:
after all, in this thread Nazis were only mentioned in relation to libertarianism, not to ryan or anything he said…
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 9:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Amphiox,
Cognitive dissonance shock, I reckon.
<shrug>
(He’ll probably rationalise it and return just as oblivious; I have no reason for high expectations with him)
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
26 May 2012 at 10:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jadehawk, it could be that he thought it was implied because of how mean we are. And because about how quickly we call people who disagree with the collective “we” Nazis. He knows better how we operate then we do.
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 10:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m guessing it was in reference to some comment from the other thread ryan was exiled from.
If it WAS in reply to my little libertarian snark, then it would be a truly epic example of missing the point, irony fail, humor fail, basic reading comprehension fail, and self-centered paranoia (since none of my accommodationism/libertarian comments were directed specifically at ryan anyways).
Amphiox
26 May 2012 at 10:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So you’re predicting he’ll fail to stick his flounce?
A reasonable null hypothesis, I do agree.
'Tis Himself
26 May 2012 at 10:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Reading for comprehension is not one of Ryan’s strengths. Quite the contrary.
The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa)
26 May 2012 at 10:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I see Ryan is still too shittingly stupid to know the difference between saying ‘Christianity is a cancer’ and ‘christians are a cancer’. Big surprise.
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 10:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This. Is. Pharyngula!
mikmik
26 May 2012 at 10:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ryan, wait!
No, you can file a grievance! It’s even printable.
I am sorry to have missed you here. Perhaps you would speak with me in a civilized and polite manner, and in fact, there is a scientific matter about a listeners perspective I’d like to discuss.
If I were to severe your optic nerves from your retinae and attach then to your olfactory receptors in your nose that I had gently wedged between my gluteals, and then I farted – what would that look like? To you, I mean. I am genuinely interested in your perspective.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
26 May 2012 at 10:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Apparently Ryan is a cancer
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 10:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[meta]
mikmik, I chuckled.
(I am a bad, bad person)
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Death
26 May 2012 at 10:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Ing #279
QFT.
One of the main reasons I read the comments and speak up occasionally is that observations of this type are made. Speaks straight to the heart with its truth.
Lyn M, Purveyor of Fine Aphorisms of Death
26 May 2012 at 11:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ Ing (again!) #286
WARN A PERSON!
*patiently wipes down screen, keyboard, far wall*
John Morales
26 May 2012 at 11:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Janine,
Actually, it’s prejudice, not just discrimination, and you calling her that is also discrimination, but not prejudice.
–
At some point, being discriminating become a bad thing because of inappropriate euphemistic adoption of ‘discrimination’. Now I see others speak of people’s dignity to refer to their equal status in an ethical framework, with similar annoying results.
(Sigh)
theophontes 777
26 May 2012 at 11:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*blushes*
I don’t think it was meant as such, but being mistaken for Audley I take as a compliment.
Jadehawk, chef d’orchestre féministe
26 May 2012 at 11:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*back from
midnight snacklunch. look what I found: http://www.socialjusticeleague.net/2012/04/the-revolution-will-not-be-polite-the-issue-of-nice-versus-good/Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 11:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John:
True dat. I remember being taught the importance of being discriminating, as in 1) being able to discern the truth and 2) have discriminating tastes, a la good taste.
Caine, fantôme élastique MQ
26 May 2012 at 11:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jadehawk, that article is priceless, thanks for the link! Bookmarked for future visitors of denseness. Quoting a bit here in case Ryan is reading or shows back up again (likely, the first flounce never sticks.) Emphasis mine.
PZ Myers
27 May 2012 at 12:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
IT IS RISEN.
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