For EvC long-timers, it is fairly obvious why Adminnemooseus closed this thread, but for the benefit of others I'd like to offer a short explanation.
This thread was closed because of Randman's inability to stay on topic in a thread he himself started. He has a few favorite topics, whales, Haeckel and evolutionary fraud foremost among them. He raises these topics in almost every thread in which he participates no matter what the actual topic of discussion, and he ignores requests to stay on topic. He has probably been cautioned more times to stay on topic than any other single member while remaining singularly unable to do so or even to improve his behavior in this regard to any noticeable degree.
In response to Randman's constant charges of bias at EvC Forum he was made a moderator under the name AdminRand, and I hope he doesn't join the long list of largely inactive Creationist former moderators. I'm encouraged by his intervention in the
Dating from the Adams and Eves Threads thread (see
Message 217 and
Message 218), and I hope he continues to work at heping us keep dialogue here civil and constructive.
But some may have noticed Randman's "Mods, are ridiculous rants like this allowed?" plea in
Message 238. I'm sure the irony of a moderator expressing himself so intemperantly is not lost on most people, and the tit-for-tat response he advocates ("If so, please don't expect creationists and critics of evolution to treat the evos here with the sort of respect you would prefer.") is completely out of line for a moderator, not to mention his labeling his correspondent's comments "just a bunch of lies." Everyone is invited to read
Message 230 to see if they can find any lies there.
This is the unfortunate legacy of Randman. Unable to muster any actual evidence for his views, indeed, unable to even articulate a self-consistent scientific position, he is reduced to following a scorched earth policy where he excoriates any and all who hold different opinions from himself while constantly repeating rants on his favorite topics in every thread. His behavior is usually in violation of the
Forum Guidelines, and even of common decency, and usually absent any indication that he is reading or understanding other people's post. His favorite recent tactic is to erect strawmen by constructing incorrect interpretations and responding to those instead of what was actually said. Examples here include equating Ruse's comment about math to a claim that evolution is as certain as mathematical proof, and equating my comments about vestigiality to a claim that "if we can live without it, it must be vestigial."
It is unfortunate that a thread in which many would like to participate has to be closed because of the behavior of a single individual, so I'm going to reopen this thread, but I'm going to suspend Randman's privileges in this forum, the [forum=-35] forum, for a short while.
Those who reply to Randman are cautioned to stay on topic. Unless it is painfully obvious, make sure you are very clear how your reply ties in to the topic of this thread. For those wishing to address Randman's off-topic comments, just post a note here to a thread where you would like to pick up the discussion. Do not under any circumstances attempt to discuss or respond about Haeckel, whales, evolutionary fraud or anything else off-topic in this thread or you, too, can take a short vacation from this forum.
| -- | Percy |
| | EvC Forum Director |
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