John Davison challenges PZ Myers to a debate
| February 5, 2008 | Posted by Dave S. under Intelligent Design |
This is something I’d pay to see. John Davison received his PhD in biology before Myers was born. Ironically he received it from the same university Myers teaches at today. Unless one counts the decades more experience Davison has as a professor of biology (University of Vermont) then they appear to be evenly matched. We’ll understand if Myers is intimidated by Davison’s greater experience and chickens out. Davison makes the challenge here at the bottom of the page.
I would love to confront him anywhere, with or without his equally deranged cronies – Dawkins and Hitchens. It would be a rout! I can’t even goad them into recognizing my existence. Myers is a cowardly victim, a “prescribed” vendor of hate, the epitome of cultural, moral and ethical evil. There is nothing that can be done for him or for his colleagues and followers. They are “born that way” losers in the lottery of life. Until they are gone they will remain a menace to Western Civilization. Hopefully that won’t take too much longer.
79 Responses to John Davison challenges PZ Myers to a debate
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jerry, I disagree. There have been instances where entire threads have been deleted. In other instances, the banning of a commenter has been followed by the removal of that commenter’s entire history of comments. I take Jack Krebs’s point to be that this distorts the history. Consider DavidBrennan, where DaveScot wrote:
How can anybody know whether they were offensive? Apparently others took them seriously enough to respond.
The person who wants to study UD in twenty years — in two weeks, even — is going to witness a Swiss cheese effect.
I remember watching DavidBrennen. He was a good kill.
I remember debating with DaveScot about whether or not information could be destroyed. He convinced me that in theory it cannot.
‘Turns out, this is most true on the internet. Consider the archives at http://www.archive.org. They likely contain DavidBrennen’s pre-deleted posts along with any other unsavory deletions.
That said, its not the deleted history that bothers me the most, it is the dispermitted voices. I would like to see a few knowledgable scientists allowed to post on this site. I would love to see some discussions like I have seen on brainstorms where Ph.Ds from both sides of the debate are going at it full guns. That’s fun.
“I would like to see a few knowledgable scientists allowed to post on this site.”
You said it, bFast.
larrynormanfan,
I certainly do not read every thread and cannot comment on the deletion of comments. Thank you for bringing up David Brennan because I was not aware of him. But I do not know why he was banned and how much of his comments were deleted.
The one recently I am aware of was Carl Sachs. I never saw the offensive remarks he supposedly made but only the comment that he was banned along with his comments. Perhaps others could comment on those who were banned and why. But to challenge Jack Krebs I asked him about embarrassing questions and he is welcome to provide examples. Let’s wait and see what Jack does. I am totally unaware of any embarrassing questions that got someone banned. I tend to throw out what I think are embarrassing questions for many on this site and I hope they ask tough questions in return.
I generally think the banning is too frequent but there has been very few if any banned who I thought were constructive. Most of them were presenting inane arguments or seemed to be trying to throw obstacles into the debate as opposed to moving it along.
jerry, I don’t question the banning: any blog can set its moderation policies. I just don’t understand the retroactive deletion of comments that have already appeared and, in some cases, prompted discussion.
“I would like to see a few knowledgable scientists allowed to post on this site.”
The word “allowed” is completely out of place. I doubt that any knowledgeable scientist is unwelcome here unless like PZ Myers they come with a track record of flame throwing. What I doubt is that many would be willing to come here and debate. We had Darrel Falk here over a year ago and he added very little. He is a biologists, a theistic evolutionist and believes in gradualism but he did little to defend it. Allen MacNeill shows up now and then and then leaves after a few comments.
There is no policy here that would not allow Richard Dawkins himself to comment as long as he behaved himself. The best Darwinist who regularly came here was great_ape but he hasn’t been around for several months. One of the last times he was here he was being attacked by some of the religious oriented people who comment here. So maybe that is why he hasn’t been back.
larrynormanfan,
I agree that the comments should have been kept if not just to show what gets one banned. Unless the comment was personally abusive to some individual.
Jerry writes,
Actually the word used was “awkward,” not embarrassing.
But Jerry’s “challenge” to me misses the point. The point is that there is no way to go back and look at threads which have led to banning because many comments (and even whole threads) are deleted. I agree with larrynormanfan’s distinction that the bannings themselves and the deletion of the history leafing up to the bannings are two different issues – neither of which has anything to do with Jerry challenging me to offer any questions, embarrassing, awkward, or otherwise.
Jack,
How many threads have been deleted and for what reasons. Let’s get some specifics. If you do not know of any then you should not be commenting on it.
Dave gave his reasons for deleting the thread then gave a link to it in google. I am aware of a thread or two that Dembski deleted because after consideration he thought it was in bad taste or too precipitous on his part. Maybe there are others so list them. Maybe others can help you.
Again, Jack, you do what you do best and that is punt. Instead of backing up your claim you chastise me for substituting “embarrassing” for “awkward.” Provide some examples of banning or deletions based on “awkward” questions. You never answer any questions on Darwinian evolution so I don’t expect you to step up here either. But surprise us.
bFast
It’s not a question of being allowed. It’s a question of them wanting to. I suspect productive scientists generally have better things to do.
Not only is hrun0815 still with us, I removed him from the moderation list last week so he doesn’t have to wait for his comments to be approved. He’s made at least a dozen comments in the last few days.
First, it’s more common for comments to be deleted than for whole threads to be deleted.
Second, how can one be specific when the evidence for the specifics is gone? That is the point: if the material hadn’t been deleted, then one could go back and discuss specifics, but if the material is gone, one can’t be specific – all that is left is vague impressions that can’t be supported by evidence.
Also, I didn’t chastise you about anything. I merely wrote, “Actually the word used was “awkward,” not embarrassing.” I don’t see how you see that sentence as chastising.
Let’s get this thread back on topic lest I demonstrate some more commentary being deleted.
Jack Krebs,
“Also, I didn’t chastise you about anything. I merely wrote, “Actually the word used was “awkward,” not embarrassing.” I don’t see how you see that sentence as chastising.”
Then why bring it up at all. You made a point of the substitution so a normal person would think that I somehow made a mistake of substance when I used “embarrassing” instead of “awkward.” In a previous comment I just used the word “awkward.”
If you do not have any information on deleted comments then ask those who are here or on other blogs and maybe we can develop a list of them to the best of our recollection and see if anything meaningful was deleted. Otherwise, it is an accusatory comment without empirical support and should be kept to your self. Sort of like a theory of evolution I know about for which you also did not provide any empirical evidence when asked but only hear say that others say there is overwhelming evidence.
Dave,
The idea of banning was broached in reference to PZ Myers and John Davidson so it became a natural topic when it was turned onto UD itself. So while it is not relevant to a debate between Davidson and Myers, it is relevant to the behavior of both and how UD may be similar or different from what happens with both of them.
In the spirit of redirecting the focus back to the subject of the debate I offer the following interpretation of events:
——larrynorman asks how David Brennan’s comments led to his being banned: How can anybody know whether they were offensive? Apparently others took them seriously enough to respond.
As one who happened to be around at the time, I can tell you exactly what happened to David Brennan. He made an incredibly bigoted statement that was obviously calculated to embarrass the administrators at UD
—-bfast: “It is my opinion that ID is too fast to ban dissenters.
I remember several recent dissenters that were banned for incessantly raising phony objections. Almost always, the theme was this: ID is nothing more than religious or philosophical presupposition masquerading as a design inference. I submit that when one person raises that issue, say, twenty five times a week, they need to find other outlets for their mischief.
None of which supports non-telic evolution nor universal common descent.
larrynormanfan: “Sorry about the awkward phrasing: Christianity wasn’t a separate religion at the time.”
Given that Jesus was proclaiming himself as the annointed king (messiah) of Israel, and special son of God, I think it would be fair to say that at that point the “religion” had forked.
Anyway, I think calling someone a “son of the devil” at that time was about as harsh as you could get. A hypocrite is a pretender. Jesus didn’t consider them “co-religionists” in any meaningful sense other than that they were pretenders.
“What I mean is that Jesus got angry at his fellow Jews, not particularly at the secular authorities.”
The secular authorities weren’t acting particularly hypocritical. Apparently spiritual hypocracy was very offensive to him.
larrynormanfan, I said the preceding to say this: darwinist materialists often act hypocritically when they seek to maintain a reputation of loving truth where ever the facts lead, when, in fact, they often engage in lies, deceit, half-truth, character assassination, political maniputation, etc., for their own ends. Some of us think they should be taken to task for it. It’s time to make a cord of whips.