Serious Questions about Pregnancy and Abortion

I still don't know what the hell you're talking about. I mean, gosh, here's an idea, genius - you could have replied to my post with the question.Why don't you try that now? Reply to this paragraph with the question and I'll try to answer it as best exemplifies my position. Sure. I'm telling you that I didn't even refer to "consensus". There's absolutely no reasonable implication of "consensus" in that post. Moreover, now that I've told you over and over again that I didn't say "consensus", there's absolutely no reason for you to read "consensus" in anything that I wrote there.Clear? Perhaps most people feel that they are above the law in this regard. Who am I to say? I'm certainly not the one who presumes to speak for the majority of Americans on any given issue. That would be you, remember?I was asked how I determine legal personhood. I responded with what the law says - at birth. How do I determine personhood outside of the law? I don't know, and I don't care to. That's a discussion of what words mean, and I find that tiresome in the extreme. As I've made clear.Nothing in the above about "consensus." But we do agree on the facts. We agree that a study was done, and that certain results were found, and that they were reported.All we disagree on is what conclusions that study supports. And as you say, more than one point of view can emerge on that point. So what are we still arguing about? No, that's your opinion. Your problem is that you simply can't understand how there could be any way to determine what is supported by facts other than the way you do it.Get over yourself, Holmes. There are other ways to think besides the way you do. It's possible to do think in ways you haven't thought of. Your arrogance is truly breathtaking - your amazingly self-centered position that you are the final arbiter of what can be known, what can be concluded from a certain set of facts.I'm sorry, but that is not your role. Plausible that abortion causes more deaths than pregnancy given the same medical conditions for both?Why is that plauisble? What's your evidence that this is true? That might or might not. Religious factors might or might not. You don't just abort by mind power, you need access at least to drugs to dialate the cervyx, anesthetics, and a curette. "Abortion with a coat hanger" makes a pretty gruesome talking point but it's not my understanding that it's actually possible to do that. If you believe that, that's fine. I don't know how we would possibly compare two amounts of risk that have not been numerically established, but simply approximated with words like "leading" or "major" or whatever.I don't see that as a position I can disagree with without a discussion about what words mean, which I simply won't be a part of. So consider your position uncontended. I don't see a problem with that position. I don't disagree with it. If abortion has a commensurate risk of depression or other mental issues, that's definately something we should take into account in formulating our abortion policy. I don't recall any chest-beating. I believe that one should form morals based on reality, on real situations that real people are in, and not on myths. Science is our best tool for perceiving that reality, don't you agree? Your endless distortions - impossible to believe, by the way, that you're doing it by accident at this point - make it all but impossible to debate evidence with you. The second evidence is presented to support one's contention, you attack your opponent for not supporting an entirely different position. When they challenge you to show where they advanced that new position, you quote them promoting a yet different position, prompting a dispute about what position you originally accused them of promoting! It's impossible to debate with you, Holmes, because you simply refuse to grapple with anything but your strawmen. Oh, wait, I forget - you're simply looking in your crystal ball and responding to arguments they haven't even made yet! Funny that, every time you do that, it turns out that wasn't the argument they were going to make ever.I'm sorry, Holmes. I liked the Coffee House much better before you came out of your little hole. I don't plan to reply on any Coffee House thread until you return to it. Apparently I'm safe in the threads that discuss what you never, ever participate in - the debate on evolution vs. creationism.

I find it amusing that those who drone on about moral relativism and the meaninglessness of the universe find themselves smuggling in meaning and morality every which way they turn. How ironic that the self-conrgatulatory pronouncements of the "new tolerance" would be so intollerant of those that won't partake of their ways.

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"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." -Theodore Roosevelt

Gosh, genius, you mean like I did in post #8, and#13. Like I said If you have a problem reading, let others know. Again, I am baffled at the amount of disingenuousness or laziness a person has to have to leave lines in that are clearly addressed later in a post being replied to. At this point I will cut to your answer to that question... Uh... YOU made such a statement first, using such language. This is tantamount to announcing you can use whatever language you want, no matter how misleading, and then not get involved in the discussion about your claims because it inolves language and you are disinterested in it.As it is I have already mentioned that there is no wiggle room for "leading". That's like a used car salesman throwing up his hands and saying, what does "brand new" really mean, what does "complete guarantee" mean? Leading means top, ahead of the rest.If you want to suggest "one of the leading" has some subjective wiggle room I am more than willing to agree. HOWEVER, it is a bit odd to suggest that a large "top" range would not mislead some people, and using a ranking system rather than percentage system to make such a determination is a bit slight of handish. Again its like the used car salesman saying the car was definitely "one of the top sellers", when he means one of the top 50 brands sold, and in fact it only had .05% of the market.Perhaps some care about language is in order. I went on to explain how consensus was implied, making this whole rant unnecessary, yet you left it in. Why? Here is you response to my explanation... 1) You were specifically asked NOT to explain hoe you determine legal personhood. The direct quote may be seen above in posts by me and 2ice upthread. I can post it again if you need a reread.
2) Consensus can be agreement to anything. It can be legal definition, or clinical definition, or whatever. Thus you are still discussing a form of consensus.
3) I said I was discussing consensus to the law, which is a form of consensus. I specifically stated that it may not reflect individual ideology, giving myself as an example, but an agreement on where we can draw the line socially. Which means what you just said fits exactly what I am talking about.
4) That backpeddling is ridiculous. Exactly what were you trying to say to 2ice then? That sure looked like an argument that it is the rare person that doesn't follow the law, not that people are free to choose and you yourself might be the odd guy out.That is called ad hoc reasoning, and it only gets you into trouble. WRONG. What results were found is NOT agreed on. That seems to be where the problem begins, and from there proper conclusions. And even if for some reason it was all about "the conclusions" that is still a bogus answer. I stated that we have to be able to agree that logic can support either conclusion from the facts, in order to agree to disagree.If you honestly held the above opinion, then how on earth can you disagree with ANYTHING a creo says? You should be simply agreeing to disagree on all issues and leaving it at that. Man this is exactly how Faith argued regarding evidence for the flood in geological formations. Do you mean to say that I should accept that from her, that you do accept that? We agree that studies are made and there are results, but any conclusion can be had?I mean really, c'mon. This makes twice in the same post you are undercutting your own arguments. I'm not sure what you mean by medical conditions: medical ailment, or medical technology available? I guess I will tentatively advance the notion it is plausible in both cases. Abortion introduces new possible problems, some of which can occur later. While in hospital treatment might favor abortion, when complications arise outside those who had abortions might fare far worse. Are you kidding me? There are many "home" methods besides what you just described, including simple acts like putting pressure on the abdomen. And despite any possible impractical aspects of "coat hanger" abortions, desperation has led people to attempt abortion with all manner of sharp instruments.You understand that your current line of argument undercuts claims by proC people that making abortion illegal will result in more deaths of women due to unsafe abortions, right? Exactly, which is why we need to look at whether evidence supports that IF. I agree that science is our best tool for understanding any underlying reality. What are you talking about? Posts #8 &13 are linked above. They are the first responses I had to your posts and evidence contained within. Find me anything like you just suggested in either of this posts. Post #12 is your first response to my questioning evidence within your first post. Here's a highlight... Again, you seem to be projecting your own actions onto me. I don't look in a crystal ball, it's called good analysis and debate technique. You use logic to deconstruct an argument and determine possible permutations, defenses to what you are going to say, and cut them off. I have not done that in this thread. Looks like you aren't the master of everything that goes on here. The last time I did this, in the previous abortion thread, I was dead on. The very points I was told I could not say anyone held or would be discussed, ended up being the points under discussion. I found that quite amusing. Okay, or you could just not reply to my posts? Just a thought. When I "crawled out of my hole" I didn't write to you at all. I didn't even mention you in this thread, so its not like I was picking on you personally.In any case this might be a good tactic for you. Though I might suggest not posting until you can control your anger and learn a bit more about how evidence and logic work together. Well that's an outright lie. Look through my post list (start with my original posts and move forward). It is true that recently most of my posts have been in the Coffee House but I have already explained why that is. Once there are more topics within ID, or on other subjects which haven't been done to death already, you'll see posts in there. Maybe you'll even see one to YOU, bwahahahahahaaaaaa!But hey, what's your problem, according to your own stated criteria nonCoffeeHouse topics are some of the leading topics I deal with... Heheheh.Its cute when you pretend to be the boss of EvC and tell people what they are supposed to come here for, tell them how they post as if you know what they do, and chastise them for not posting properly. Edited by holmes, : correcting url error which led to huge monster post

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Interesting, but wholly offtopic. I guess I'd say that there is no inconsistency in discussing meaning and morality and being a relativist. You just can't suggest that others must subscribe to that same meaning or morality.By the way I wholly disagree with Teddy. The most dangerous trait anywhere is the deification of moral responsibility unaccompanied by smartness. We can see that playing out in fundamentalists of all stripes these days. The first group cause problems by accident, the second cause problems intentionally as well as accidentally and dismiss it as rightful justice.I suppose I could sum it up this way, being smart generally entails and empowers people to question actions and results of those in charge, moral responsibility does not.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

You misunderstand what is meant by moral relativism. It doesn't mean morality isn't important; it means that there is no absolute, extra-social source for morality. Morality is something that humans invent as a way of binding themselves together as a society. It applies to humans in society, and only to humans in society. Hence, as long as we want to be part of a society, morality is going to be important to us, whether we call ouselves moral relativists or moral absolutists.Similarly, meaning is a human invention. Nothing in the universe has meaning in itself, only in relation to us (not because we're sooooo important, but because we are the only thing we're aware of that assigns meaning to things). So things have meaning for me, and they have meaning for you, but they don't have meaning in themselves.

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'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

I wasn't sure if I understood you correctly or not, so I'd point out that to a moral relativist there is no absolutely social source for morality as well. There are many different sources which can have equal values of moral reality. I don't think that's true. A single person can develop moral systems without other sentient beings around. Finding worth in industry over laziness, or perhaps injuring animals or even inorganic structures without "justification".Many people find their own moral identity by isolating themselves and considering their relationship with the world itself.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

If that was the question you were referring to, I answered it completely by accident. You certainly gave no indication that that was the question you were so breathlessly adamant that I answer, which is why I asked you to clearly and consisely ask the question.You ask a lot of questions. A lot of them are rhetorical. If there's a specific question that you want me to address, especially if you're going to make a big deal about me not doing so, then you need to be very clear what that question is. Simply saying "the question" isn't specific enough in posts where you have 20 or 30 sentences that end in question marks.Something for you to work on. I'm glad that you consider the question answered at this point. I can't imagine why you have to be such an insufferable ass about it. Because you're wrong. It wasn't implied. The proof of that is that I wrote the statement, and here I am telling you what I meant - not "consensus."I apologize if somehow I wasn't clear on that point. I don't understand why my unambiguous statement about what I meant at that time isn't sufficient to clear up this confusion. I was asked how I determine personhood in a context that I understood to be legal. We were, after all, talking about laws in the past couple of posts. A apologize for the confusion if that's how you mistook my statements. Keep in mind though that they weren't written to you - you weren't the intended audience - and so I wrote keeping in mind what I believed 2B would understand from reading them, not what you would understand.So I don't feel particularly compelled to defend myself against your interpetation of what was said. You made a mistake because you weren't the intended audience, so naturally you mistook my meaning. You have some reason to dispute the reported data? I'm talking about the literal numbers returned by the study. Not the assumptions, not the conclusions, not the interpretations. The data. You dispute the data? Each individual element? The study reports, internally, that "so-and-so died from complications of pregnancy" or whatever, you assert that she did not?That's what I meant by "results." Not the interpretation, but the elemental data contained within the study.Surely you're not the only one allowed to determine what conclusions are supported by evidence? No, it doesn't. Obviously there are a large number of ways to perform an unsafe abortion. There's also a large number of unsafe things someone might do assuming that it will cause an abortion, like throw themselves down a flight of stairs. But most people are smarter than that. Given the choice between a tumble down some stairs and giving birth, most people choose to continue their pregnancies, I assume.A large number of people will choose not to have abortions if they know it's not safe. Thus, the reason why abortion is rarer in the developing world is because it's so much harder to do it safely.How does that undercut any argument? Holmes, I've done that over and over again over the years. All you do is shrug it off as a "misunderstanding." Sometimes you admit to it, sometimes you don't. Clearly I can see you're doing it a lot more often than you realize.Why don't you realize that? If you want to defend yourself against these charges, start with the catalogue of your distortions in the global warming thread, which you were never able to satisfactorily address. Because you brought them up! Nice distortion, but you seem to have forgotten that you were replying to a post by RAZD which, to a large part, merely referenced a post of mine. How was that not, at least indirectly, writing to me? That's why I responded - you were attacking my argument.Of course, to appear superior to me, now you have to distort the actual history. True to Holmes form in every way. A revealing act of projection. Where have I ever claimed to be "the master"? The fact that you read that into my statements is a pretty clear indicator that's actually your goal, as I've repeatedly stated - for some bizzarre reason, you're compelled to come out on top of every encounter. It's unthinkable for you to admit that your opponent might have a good point about something, might know better than you except on subjects beneath your interest, might have a valid way of thinking that you didn't think of, first. If you can address points honestly and avoid distorting positions, telling falsehoods about your opponents, and resist your pathological need to come out on top in every encounter, I invite your participation.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

I'm just not sure how much clearer I could be than putting it first, and stating that I want you to answer it before anything else. You want I should make it blink or something? Then what did you mean? Please explain what you meant by that statement to Taters. He specifically asked you NOT to do that. I'm not sure how he could have been any clearer. If you look upthread here you will discover that your "intended audience" came away with the exact same interpretation I did. In fact I don't see how anyone could come away with any other interpretation. I'm quite interested to see what point you were trying to make to Taters without that interpretation. What numbers you claim they are showing, yes. I mean you know it wasn't as simple as some team of researchers out there with a clicker jotting down how each person died according to some chart, right? They have sections on the definitions needed to filter the original data they received, as well as the variability that made up all the different ways records were kept. This is more like a meta-study.And as it stands what data is required for you to claim support for your "personal" position is not there. This is directly comparable to what Tal and Faith do, suggesting that all data is open to interpretation and so supports their position. That's not how it works. Sometimes the very nature of the data stands in conflict with certain conclusions. No I'm not the only one, but that does not mean that any and all can. Some are patently incorrect, and your position is one of them. For example, Tal says that his position the wmds Bush was discussing were found in Iraq, because some wmd material was found in Iraq. He does not get to say the above, to get out of the fact that the report he is pointing to clearly states that the material was known about, in storage all along, and at this point couldn't harm anyone anyway.If you look at the UN link, you will see that they were only trying to assess the different magnitudes of risk to women engaged in sexual activity (as well as getting pregnant) where there insufficient medical help. Part of the "numbers" they use are incredibly low risk factors for pregnant women within developed nations. That is patently incompatible with an argument about how dangerous pregnancy is. I'm sorry what? If women know how dangerous pregnancy is then why do they keep doing that? But more to the point, when a woman is desperate to get rid of a child she tends to do so even at greater risk. If that were not so, why do women have back alley abortions, though their risk was known?And by the way your argument does not mean they are "less available", which is what you said originally, just done less often. Okay, how less often, and what difference does that make if the mortality is higher? I am not asking about the years. You said I did something right here. I showed you my first posts to your posts in this thread. And I showed what your second one was to me. You know you can't show anything you claimed in my initial posts (though it is right there in yours) so you are pulling out this "over the years" flimflam. Why would I have to address charges in this thread by discussing charges you made in ANOTHER thread? That makes no sense. Regarding the other thread, as I said then most of the issues were totally bogus on their face, and since many had been dealt with already, people would have either made their decision already or they just wouldn't care. Nope, try again. I dropped all discussion of the points I initially raised, because of the uproar you and she made. I then laughed as the argument proceeded to unfold between schraf and Taters in the exact way I figured would happen. They did this on their own with no intervention by me. It was just obvious that's where it had to end up if there was any point to what they had been arguing up till the time I entered.It didn't take a genius to spot where it was going, it took disingenuity to claim I couldn't. Uh... so now writing to someone else counts as writing to you, because in talking to them I was attacking an argument you had used elsewhere in the thread? That's some serious damage. Its really simple crash, I didn't write you. I left you alone. If you don't like how I write then you could have completely avoided any contact with me. You chose to initiate, not me.And let me point out the major irony here. One of your huge complaints to me is how I distort your position, building strawmen to attack. If that is true, then how could I possibly have been attacking an argument of yours when I wrote to RAZD? I mean I didn't use your name in that post, and you later claimed I wasn't even addressing your actual position in that thread. That means something is in logical conflict here. You need to sit down and figure out whether I can identify your arguments and positions or not. Heheheh... I was making a joke by riffing on your complaint about me. That you could not tell that was a joke is sort of sad. That you claim I must be projecting if I say such a thing, is hilariously ironic. In this thread I have directly and indirectly admitted more than one opponent has had a good point about something. You in specific have made at least two resulting in direct admissions that I have made a mistake. It appears that you need something else from me, like just saying all that is necessary is not enough. Do my posts need to squirt tears, or bleed profusely?Plenty of people know better than me on subjects I find interesting. Its just that you don't see me writing to them as if I know something in their field when I don't have a clue. Absence of my posts in a thread is not evidence of an absence of my interest/presence in a thread. Sometimes silence is more valuable, especially when people know more than me on topics I am interested in. Again, I don't know what you want from me, except posts which gush about posters?On your third critique, I think there have been many people with interesting points of view that I have either not thought of or have no experience regarding. In one recent thread all I did was pop on to say how interested I was in all the view points expressed so far. Truthlover in specific was a guy living a different way of life that I totally had to admire even if it was not my route. And RAZD has had some wonderful takes on traditional arguments which didn't just make me think, but made me think better. I mention those two because they were the ones with some of the most unique vantage points that simply never occured to me, and probably never would. But MANY others have had their impact on me. With all the insults you laced into this "invitation" I must assume you don't work for Hallmark. FYI, I don't need your invite to post. If it means I gotta crash the party, so be it!Edited by holmes, : added anyone

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

That's what I said . In my clumsy way I was saying that there is nothing outside individual societies that you can use to measure morality against. (And so you can't make absolute value judgements between societies). That's not something we can test. We don't survive if we don't have society. Even feral chidren grow up in the society of other animals.(One qualification I'd make to my original claim is that human morality is likely to be a development of some natural animal faculty, so the statement 'It applies to humans in society, and only to humans in society' perhaps should be amended to 'It applies to moral animals in society, and only to moral animals in society'.) I think we have a tendency to overestimate how 'individual' our morality is. It seems to me that our moral behaviour is like an iceberg, the vast majority of it submerged within a sea of social training, with just a tiny little promontory of individual choice peeking above the waterline.

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'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

Mmmmmmmm... I'm going to have to think about that. Why could a child not grow up in a lab setting with no "social" interaction, including no animals? Ethical constraints might stop it from being conducted, but it seems to me a kid would live and adapt to that environment.I would think they would still produce "rules" for themselves as they construct mythological connections between effects and unknown causes. I agree and disagree. I believe there is a large portion of social training which sets who we are initially, but I also believe that is able to be overcome and many go through the process of doing just that in individual contemplation. It is not rare for people to challenge social beliefs, just not all beliefs or in an extroverted fashion.I think that's why most figures who have gone on to create "new" moral paradigms have spent large amounts of time separated from societies, or at the very least their original social background.If most is training (such that it is firmly rooted), how do you account for so much individual deviance, as well as large changes in cultures?Edited by holmes, : nothin' much

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

You are incorrect when you say we are the only thing that assigns meaning. Or that meaning is a human invention. Many animals show effects from being separated from the herd or the loss of another. Coco the gorilla conveys meaning all the time through sign language. We are simply arrogant enough to assume we are the center of everything. That tendancy is a historical fact. It is more likely that all living things experience meaning on some level. Since we are infants as the history of species on this planet go, countless living things that experienced meaning came along eons before our sorry asses.

I don't disagree. I just think we have a tendency to overestimate the individual variance (because we spend so much time on it), and underestimate how much of our moral behaviour is just learned and pretty much unconscious. An interesting problem...trying to test moral behaviour without interacting . Possibly, but would that be morality?

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'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

That would actually be pretty easy to set up, using a neutral environment with no "actors" besides machines which dole out food or "attention" based on mere physical cues and not according to social context.Ironically such tests of moral behavior would be labelled as immoral to most. I would argue so. As long as one is constricting behavior with associated feelings of liking or disliking one's own actions, though there is no objective reason to feel one way or the other, then that would be morality.For example a person on their own might start by cheating at card games like solitaire, then realize they don't like the lack of challenge, and so force themself to stick to the rules and ingrain that so much that "cheating" feels uncomfortable and something to regret, or even punish onesself for having done.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I've explained what I meant. But we agree that there's some data there, right? That the study was done? I'm trying to find some level of agreement here but your relentless contrarianism isn't making that very easy. I don't see how, and I don't see support for your contention that the risk is "incredibly low." A one in two thousand chance of death still seems fairly high to me. That's definately something I would describe as "dangerous", if it killed one out of every one or two thousand. ...what? I'm sorry but I don't understand how this is a valid response. What do you mean "keep doing that"? And who said anything about women being desperate? Yes, obviously, desperate people do dangerous things. But who said every woman who is thinking about abortion is desperate?Once again, you're grappling with strawmen instead of with my arguments. And how is any of this on-topic? No, I didn't. Your "mistake", again. Who said you had to do it in this thread? Do it in that thread. That's an unsatisfactory response. If they're bogus, prove it. If you're not interested in or able to do that, you hardly get to act like you've responded. Responding to a reference to another post? You're damn right that's a response to the original post. Call it "the commutative property of posting", if you like.I certainly precieved your post as an attack on mine. Why do you find that so unreasonable? Ah, right. Another of your old tricks - "You thought I was insulting you, but really I was just kidding." Do you ever notice how your little "jokes" don't ever seem to be funny? You just need to stop acting like an asshole. I mean it really is just that simple. If your egregious personal behavior didn't always become the topic of conversation, we could probably make some progress. You could, you know, actually argue in support of something instead of doing nothing but attacking your opponents on the most specious grounds possible.Just stop acting like an asshole. I'm not calling you an asshole, just telling you to stop acting like one. What's so hard about that?I mean the first think you could probably stop doing is replying to posts line-by-line. I reccommend that you attempt to respond to people and include no more than three quoted sections. That should allow your posts to be a little less schitzo, have a little more flow and cohesion, be less confusing, and get your point across clearer. As it is it's all but impossible to follow you, or percieve any attempt for points to build on each other, because every quoted section completely interrupts the flow.Seriously, try it.

No you haven't. Let me be more clear. Explain what your point was to Taters. What was he supposed to get out of your message. Was he supposed to be convinced he should use the law. If so, why? Just because you do? What's that supposed to mean? There is data. There were many disconnected studies done. The UN pulled them together and filtered the disparate data using definitions to get at the relative risks of sexual activity as well as pregnancy for women in developing as opposed to developed nations. Could you point out where you got that number? I'm not being sarcastic, I just want us looking at the same exact page.In any case, if a 1 in 2K chance seems fairly high to you, how does abortion make you any more comfortable? Especially if it is in a developing nation? You said women won't do something if it is dangerous, so unless all pregnant women were raped, given that pregnancy is so dangerous why do they have sex? As far as being desperate... have you read your own material? I ask because you have so far said abortions aren't "that available" in developing nations, and then that women won't do something if they know if it is dangerous. Your own link discusses this. Maybe you should read your own link. I'm sorry, but if you were not claiming I had done something in this thread then your entire accusation falls apart.From post #31...
If I have done it here, then I have given you the posts for you to find it. If I haven't done it here then why are you bringing it up, especially as your accusation would be refuted by this thread. You don't seem to understand. If you are making claims about my behavior in this thread, then I don't understand why I'd have to start addressing it by discussing behavior found in another thread (discussed here or there). If you aren't making claims about my behavior here, then why are you mentioning anything?About the other thread, your list includes repeats of stuff I had already dealt with, as well as stuff which is patently bogus. Thus I'm willing to let the "court" make its decision with what already exists. The defense rests just fine thank you. As I have said already, they either already made up their minds or they just don't care. I'd think you'd be happy I'm letting you have the last word on that subject. 1) I still do not understand how you recognized a position I was attacking as "yours" in a post that was not to you, did not mention your name, and by the end of the thread you were claiming I was only inventing strawmen and never dealing with your real position. You could start by solving that conundrum for me.
2) I was posting to RAZD, in order to discuss his apparent support for claims which were not accurate, and use of material against another poster which was not entirely accurate. I was trying to convince RAZD to shift to a position more clearly in line with evidence on the issue. My post was NOT to you, nor intended to be to you. Given our history I figured that would have been for the best.
3) You are correct that I was attacking elements he seemed to be backing which were to be found in your posts throughout that thread (and IIRC he ref'd to some other thread). But as per 2 above, that does not mean I had any intention to engage you in dialogue on those points, and as per 1 above I was taken aback in that thread to hear you declaring I had been misrepresenting your position. That is why I am finding quite a bit of irony here...I shouldn't write to you because I never get your position right, but if I write to someone else and you see I am addressing a position of yours then de facto I am writing to you, yet when I deal with replies by you I am then condemned for never getting your position right and so I should stop hounding you all the time because I am always writing to you and never getting your position right, which even if I don't write directly to you you can tell I am because you can see your argument being addressed in my post to someone else... Please stop the merry-go-round. Actually I thought it was funny, but even if I suffer from a bad sense of humor it wasn't an "old trick". Really I was making a joke. Now wait a second, this thread was not about my personal behavior. You kept introducing me as a topic. And I WAS arguing in support of something. I was specifically trying to build consensus on the state of evidence.I wasn't attacking opponents, but rather discussing the merits or lack thereof of specific studies to draw conclusions on the issues. That's totally impersonal. If you feel insulted because a study does not provide enough info, or is not completely on target, to support a complete conclusion... then you are taking things wayyyyy too personally.And lets pretend for a second I always argue "against" and never "for", what difference does that make to you as long as my positions aren't inconsistent? How would that make me an asshole? And who cares if I was one. Even if I were the crabbiest bitter old man who only bitched and moaned, and never cracked a smile for anything, as long as I am correctly supporting my position, then that's all I have to do. Uh, you mean like I did until you used a 6 quote response with several points for me to respond to? With the exception of perhaps two posts, where the separate quote boxes were from journal articles, I did EXACTLY what you just said. Go back through and you'll see its true. You were the first person to start with the multiple quotes and points. I just responded in kind.If you don't give me so many different points to respond to, maybe by toning down insults and accusations and so stick to pertinent topic points, you'll find my posts resume their original short length.Can we do that? I would sincerely like that. If you would like that, then let's do that together.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)