The End of Evolution By Means of Natural Selection

Great post I dont know why they suspended you.

Faith's email is public. Anyone who would like to continue a dialog with Faith should send her an email to see if she's interested in an email discussion.Anyone who would like to post summaries should go ahead and do so, but I'm going to hold Faith's threads open for a while until I'm sure she's not going to return.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I'm glad you agree with Coyote when he says (amongst other things): He's not suspended though.

I don't see why she would need an advocate to avoid people supposedly misunderstanding her. It's all documented the moment you submit a reply.

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"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -- Charlton Heston

People aren't misunderstanding Faith. What happens is that she says one thing, then when people point out the errors she first says how badly she's been misunderstood, often adding she feels people are doing it on purpose to make her look stupid. Then she explains what she really meant, which often bears no resemblance to what she first said, and usually makes equally little sense.She also often says she's been misunderstood, but then supplies no explanation of what she really meant. It is very common for people to be left not knowing what Faith is advocating, just that whatever it is, it isn't what they thought.I want Faith to partner with someone, and they can only advocate views they both agree with. They'll have to take disagreements between themselves offline. If Faith agreed to this then I'm sure she'd soon be excoriating her partner just as she does everyone else, but at least it will be private, thus removing all the nonsense and garbage from my board.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

The common denomonator rule applies here. If everyone seems to "misunderstand" her, that is indicative of the problem chiefly with being her. She's the common denomonator in the "misunderstanding" which reasonably places her as the focal point. So it isn't that anyone misrepresents her, it't that she misrepresents herself. I believe this syndrome is colloquially referred to as "floundering," "frantic backpeddling," and the medical terminology called "foot-in-mouth disease." The only known cure is admitting one's mistake. I don't even see that as being feasible either. Some people are too pigheaded and prideful to ever change. Who would want the job of babysitting anyway? No one is going to want to do that. Besides, there's an excellent chance she'll bite the hand that feeds.

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"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -- Charlton Heston

Hi Hyroglyphx,I'm seeking a way by which Faith could continue participation here. Ignoring her flagrant Forum Guidelines violations is not one of the options being considered. When I suspended Faith she had already been in high dudgeon for at least a week, and constructive discussion had already ceased. Everyone else is already convinced that Faith's problems are all of her own making, but persuading Faith of this seems unlikely, and it's not the topic of discussion anyway.I'm open to ideas, people can send me PM's.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I'd like to give a short summary here.Faith's argument confuses me greatly, simply because she literally accepted every piece of the puzzle that is evolution, but denied that they all fit together to create the picture that logically follows from combining all those pieces.She acknowledged that beneficial mutations happen: She acknowledged that this increases diversity: She even acknowledged that mutations could lead to reproductive isolation: There’s been a horrible problem with synthesis on this thread. I’m at a complete loss as to how somebody can accept all three of the above statements, and still conclude something different from what the Modern Synthesis of Evolution has concluded.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Great Post I dont know why the suspended youU2"And see the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colors came out""It was a beautiful day
Beautiful day
Don't let it get away"

I agree with Tanypteryx. The really sad thing is that if Faith had put the same time and effort into studying biology as she did shouting nonsense about it, she would now understand the theory of evolution.Heck, if she'd even put as much effort into trying to understand our posts as she has into trying not to understand them, she'd have a good grasp of the basic concepts.

I haven't received any suggestions I felt were workable, and Faith doesn't think she can find anyone to partner with. Can you imagine if an evolutionist came here and posted a note saying, "I'm in a debate at another board and need another evolutionist to partner with me. The only requirements are that we follow their rules and that we both argue the same positions. We wouldn't be allowed to argue positions we only hold individually. They imposed that requirement because they think evolutionists are always changing their story and being inconsistent. Any volunteers?"But given that her level of irrationality surpasses that of most other creationists, I'm not surprised Faith didn't even try to find a partner, so I have another proposal. I don't think Faith would have broken down to the point of becoming unmanageable again if she had been able to carry on a one-on-one discussion over at the The Great Debate forum. I'd like a volunteer to take over discussion in the Reduction of Alleles by Natural Selection (Faith and ZenMonkey Only) thread, but I need a special someone who will be patient and constructive (which BlueJay and Zen Monkey were), and who will stick with it. Those of you who Faith has already nixed know who you are.Any volunteers?

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

No, I am not volunteering.It is unrealistic for evolutionists to expect Faith to agree with them. And it is unrealistic for Faith to expect evolutionists to agree with her. On the other hand, it is quite reasonable for evolutionists to express their position, and to expect Faith to acknowledge their position while still refusing to agree with it. And it is reasonable for Faith to express her view, and to expect evolutionists to acknowledge her view while still disagreeing with it.In my opinion, the thread started out within the reasonable zone, and continued there for a while. Then it left the reasonable zone, and went into the zone of unrealistic expectations, and that is when it began to deteriorate.I think people on both sides need to recognize when they have reached that position, and be prepared at that point to "agree to disagree" instead of continuing a debate which has deteriorated to the point where it makes no sense to continue.My suggestion to Faith, is that she make a final summary statement in the thread. Some evolutionists have already made final statements. When there has been sufficient time for final summary statements, the thread could be closed.

Hi Nwr,There are probably a variety of views, but for myself I never expect agreement on issues related to the creation/evolution debate, but when I characterized Faith as irrational I had in mind things like what words mean and not saying one thing one day and another thing another. For example, for Faith speciation does not result in a new species, but only in the inability to interbreed. For another, if you can't make sense of that it's your fault, not hers. To me it seems that the problems encountered with Faith go way beyond those of someone who merely holds a different opinion.--Percy

Faith's beliefs are very dear to her. What you describe, is her protecting those beliefs against contrary evidence. Doing what one must do to protect what one holds valuable does not seem at all irrational to me.Sure, from our perspective it, and in terms of our beliefs and values, it would be irrational for us to act in that way. However, rationality is an inherently relative notion, so we should not be judging her rationality relative to our point of view.

We might be thinking of different things. When I said I meant word meanings, an example of what I had in mind is when she said speciation does not create new species, it just results in inability to interbreed. Call it what you will, but I call it irrationality, others might call it being illogical or contradictory. But however you characterize it, you can't carry on a discussion with someone like this, and this thread and the other two make this very clear. Behavior like this is very troll-like, and even if unintentional as with Faith is a very unconstructive approach to discussion.Keep in mind that you're also only seeing the tip of the iceberg. As I mentioned in the public post I finally made to Faith, I had been exchanging PM's with her. She refused to listen to any moderation requests and finally stopped responding. That's when I posted the public message to her, and when she didn't even listen to that I suspended her for 24 hours. That's when she finally responded to my PMs, but only to say I couldn't tell her what to do and she had the right to respond as she saw fit. So I changed the suspension to be permanent.I am seeking ways that Faith can return to participation, but she still has to follow the Forum Guidelines. Rule 10 means people are to be treated with respect, not that we pretend someone isn't talking nonsense. The goal here is to have *constructive* discussions. I'm looking for ideas for how to do that with Faith.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.