Is the criticism justifiable?

Bluejay writes:Hi, Mignat.

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1 Which is your OLV?

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I believe that life arose via naturalistic Abiogenesis: gradual accumulation of macro-molecules into simple life-forms.I do not consider evolution to deal with the origin of life, but if this is what you’re looking for, I am a fully naturalistic evolutionist, though I do not rule out the possibility of divine interference in the history of life.

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2 Should schools teach your OLV only?

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In science classes, yes. They should be free to teach Creation stories in religion classes, however.

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3 Do variations in colour, size or shape prove your OLV?

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I think this question is too vague. I do feel that the patterns in morphological and genetic diversity do support evolution and common ancestry, it that's what you mean.

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4 Have you ever exaggerated a truth into an extreme in order to silence an opposing OLH?

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I don’t think so, but I have been told by creationists that I have.

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5 What is the scientific method?

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Designing hypotheses and testing them against alternative hypotheses using experimentation and empirical study.

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6 Do opposing OLHs make you lose control?

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I’m uncomfortable generalizing. Some can get me frustrated, but most of them don’t upset me at all.

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7 Would you expect an apology to be given to a hurt OLH?

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This question is too vague.I have seen many instances in which I feel somebody was owed an apology.
I have also seen many instances in which I feel somebody was too easily hurt.

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8 Do you research your answers to an opposing OLH's questions before giving them?

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Yes.

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9 Does your OLV put you above opposing OLHs in any way?

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This question is too direct for me to feel like I can answer it honestly.

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10 Would a cruel answer to an OLH be acceptable to you?

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You’d have to define cruel. I think it would be a very outlandish claim to say that an answer in a debate is "cruel."

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11 Would a rude answer by an OLH be acceptable to you?

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Generally, no. But, there are circumstances when rudeness is more effective than politeness.

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12 Is it unreasonable that anyone should oppose your OLV?

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No. My OLV is not always easy for everyone to understand.

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13 Are you any less respectful towards opposing OLHs than your fellow OLHs when correcting a mistake?

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Often I am.

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14 Would you expect an apology if an opposing OLH found they had hurt you?

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No. I think tmy feelings are my responsibility, not theirs.

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15 Do you expect opposing OLHs behave to a higher standard in their postings than your fellow OLHs?

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I don’t think you can seriously expect to get valid answers to this question.

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16 Assuming that it has been proven that it takes millions of years to make a fossil, is it possible for the reported age of Neanderthal fossils to be tens of thousands of years?

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I don’t think any Neanderthal remains are actually fossilized, so this question is irrelevant.

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17 Would it concern you at all if you knew you had upset somebody deeply?

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Again, this depends on the situation. Some people get deeply upset too easily.

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18 How would you expect an opposing OLH to prove their OLV?

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Prove is really an inappropriate word to use. I would expect an opponent to show how empirical evidence conforms to the expectations of their OLV.

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19 Would you want an apology if somebody hurt you in a posting?

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I think you already asked this (question 14)

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20 Is it the opposing OLHs responsibility to prove themselves right and also to prove you wrong?

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Again, prove is the wrong word, but, yes: a debater needs to demonstrate that their argument is superior to the opposing argument. This generally requires both evidence for one’s own argument, and evidence against one's opponent’s argument.

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21What is you favourite proof of your OLV?

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There are no proofs in this debate.I like to use Tiktaalik (a transitional fossil between fish and amphibians), demonstrations of mutation and natural selection in bacteria, and nested hierarchical patterns in the fossil record across time.

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22 Could you see yourself accepting any shared ground with the opposing OLHs, should shared ground be discovered?

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Yes. I would not have a problem incorporating God or gods into my worldview if they could be demonstrated to have contributed to natural history.

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23 What would you change if this survey showed the criticism towards your fellow OLHs to be justified and unjustified towards the opposing OLHs?

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This survey will be able tell which criticisms are and aren’t justified.But, if the criticisms against me personally turn out to be justified, I would try to adjust my behavior.
If the justified criticism was not against me personally, I would first review my actions in my mind and determine if it applied to me, then would adjust if necessary.

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24 Do you hope this survey will persuade the opposing OLHs that your OLV is the right one?

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No.

Bluejay writes:Hi, Mignat.
If you don't mind taking some suggestions...When giving a survey, short answers can't really be used very effectively to demonstrate anything: you let the survey-takers make up their own answers, so you will get many different answers that may be difficult to categorize, and you'll need positively massive sample sizes (likely in the 1000's) before you can recognize any patterns in the data that can be useful for drawing conclusions.You should use multiple choice questions, maybe yes/no, or maybe with a scale of categorical options like, "A (strongly agree), B (agree), C (neutral), D (disagree), E (strongly disagree)." Categorical answers like these can be used to rank and organize the answers for statistical tests (particularly chi-square tests). Open-ended, short-answer questions, like the ones you asked, can only be used to form a subjective conclusion that really isn't useful or helpful.Furthermore, the topics of the questions you asked are not really focused or geared toward anything particularly productive: they're all over the place, and they simply can't help you credibly conclude whether or not anybody's criticisms are justified.And, lastly, many of your questions were simply asking me to say whether I would choose an ethical option over a non-ethical alternative option. The answers you get from questions like that are simply not going to be reliable: nobody really considers themselves to be unethical or immoral, so you're not likely to get any meaningful data from questions like that.

Bluejay writes:Hi, Mignat. I have to revoice my concern that any data you get from asking somebody, point blank, whether they would choose the ethical option over the unethical option, will be highly unreliable.And, in order to get at whether an insult or ridicule is justified, you would need a standard by which to judge justification, and I don't see that your survey provides such a standard.----- I don't think it's particularly fair to judge us all against Einstein. But, this evolution/creation debate is emotional: it threatens the very core principles of entire worldviews and belief systems (on both sides, I think), and only a small subset of participants have even been partially trained in the proper execution of a logical debate.In all honesty, I’m not sure that whether insults are justified is a particularly interesting question from a scientific point of view (I’m not convinced that it can be satisfactorily answered, either): rather, just learning what causes them might be more informative.----- Okay. I guess that makes sense. But, I'm still a little concerned that all the questions, in aggregate, don't really amount to anything that is particularly useful.----- The approach that yields the most information isn’t always the best approach. The more different answers you might get, the larger your sample size will have to be to achieve a level of replication from which you can meaningfully draw your conclusions.Studies that yield restricted information in an organized, code-able way are always more useful than studies that yield broad information in an unorganized way.----- I’m all for thinking outside of the box, but I’m leery of taking convention lightly without explanation.It’s always the best policy to run with the conventions until you’ve gained enough experience with them to know which aspects of convention should be challenged.----- Such is the character of this debate, I’m afraid.I wish I could say that my general debate behavior was always respectful and responsible, but that’s just not the case: I feel I’ve improved a lot during my stay at EvC, but I’m still sitting at the bottom of a long, upward curve, and I’ve still got a long way to go.In professional forums, people do their best to follow debate etiquette and protocol, but on casual, online debate sites like EvC, the knowledge of debate protocol and of its importance in debate, and awareness of one’s own violations of it, is very unevenly distributed.It doesn’t help that sites tend to become polarized pretty easily, so evolutionists can get away with stuff on their evo-dominated websites without fear of being challenged or censored (and the same for creationists on creo-dominated websites), and they often treat the lack of challenge or moderator action as a validation of the appropriateness of their tactics. And, if you're part of the minority side, you'd better be thick-skinned, which also means any minorities who stick around are going to be hard-headed and belligerent.And, probably most of us at EvC (including myself) learn how to debate in the course of debating here, so it’s of course going to be rough going.-----Anyway, I look forward to seeing what you'll come up with. But, definitely, it's more important for your survey to be rigorous, consistent and systematic than to be pinpoint accurate.

mignat writes:I mean, for example, an insult is unjustified when the insulter does exactly the same as the insulted. Please stop judging me. I know what I'm aiming at but you don't.I was comparing anyone to Einstein. I was comparing the attitudes towards the different theories and questioned whether anyone insults another over any of the non-evolution related ones.