Report discussion problems here: No.2

Why can't I post in the Great Debate thread?

It's not actually a problem, but I'm wondering whether you've changed the font for the thread titles or whether I'm just imagining it.It suddenly seems different ... smaller, rounder, and fatter ... but so subtly so that I'm 50:50 on thinking that maybe it's just my imagination. Please clear this up one way or the other, 'cos it's bugging me.

My jaw just dropped, can you pick it up for me? I didn't bring up the topic of the 2LOT. Smooth Operator started talking crap about it like creationists so often do when they're cornered. Now you tell me that I shouldn't reply to him unless I can explain it "in layman's terms".I can't. No-one can. I might give it a try, but I have a better chance of walking on water. If I explain it in layman's terms, I haven't explained it. If I explain it, I can't do so in layman's terms.Of course if you proposed the same challenge to Smooth Operator, he could talk complete bullshit about it "in layman's terms". But no-one can give you the accurate picture in layman's terms. The concept of entropy is inexplicable in layman's terms. You might as well ask me to tell you what the Riemann Zeta Hypothesis is, but without any of my mathematical mumbo-jumbo. There's no analog. I can't say: "Well, imagine the Universe is a rubber sheet ..." Einstein was lucky.But on the basis that I can't do this, you say that I should stop pointing out that Smooth Operator is wrong about it ... while issuing no warning to him to stop being wrong about it. Apparently the difference is that he can express his errors "in layman's terms", whereas it is impossible for me to tell the truth in the same vernacular medium.Level the playing field by all means, but do not privilege nonsense over truth.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

According to the administrators: What I am wondering is whether there was any reason for this. After all, no reason whatsoever was supplied. Apparently I have transgressed in such a subtle way that no-one will ever know what I did wrong.It seems that Percy feels that there was some good reason for his action, but he is either unable or unwilling to explain what it is.Does anyone at all believe that there was any good reason for this?Anyone?Please let me know.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

If there was such an organ as the International Journal Of Bullshit, and if they published an article entitled Why Making Up Dumb Nonsense Is A Good Substitute For A Valid Argument, With Special Reference To Telling Halfwitted Lies About Dr Adequate, then my letter to that periodical would, if anything, be even more scathing in tone than the words in which I have addressed Smooth Operator.If you will make all posts on this forum subject to fact-checking and peer-review, then I for my part will treat it as a technical journal. If, on the other hand, you are willing to let people post lies unchecked, then I may occasionally point out their errors.

Th moderators appear to be banning me from the forums one forum at a time.Apparently what has aroused their wrath is that I wish to debate the actual topics being raised, rather than the dumb paranoid fantasies and outright lies that creationists weave about their opponents.If this is really how they want the forums to work, then I suggest that they change the name of this board from EvC to AdHvE.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

* drums fingers lightly on desk *

A search of my posts shows that I have never used that analogy before on any forum; also that of my 3694 posts to date, only 40 of them have been made on the Faith and Belief forum, since these are not issues that I usually care to discuss.

I reply to posts you make about me, if that's what you mean. Especially when they are factually inaccurate.If you would prefer me not to, I can see why.

Then I recommend that you cease to make assertions for which you can't be bothered to find evidence. What if I think that you're mistaken?It is, after all, more likely that you are mistaken about what I have written than that I am.

Well, who's going to annoy me now?If no-one makes me cranky, I get all ... uh ... reasonable ... er ...... hmm, maybe I'd better just sit quietly and think about this.

Bias? You mean people rate posts according to their content, not just their grammar and spelling?I hardly see any way round this. Obviously people are going to prefer posts that seem to them to contain solid facts and good reasoning over those that seem deficient in both.

Re message 275 by AdminPD, here.The admin writes: Now this would be fair enough if some Christian had started a thread explaining how he believes in God because thinking about Jesus makes him feel all warm and fuzzy.However, this particular thread was set up for atheists to explain why they're atheists, and to ask the hard questions they'd like Christians to answer.And one major reason, perhaps the major reason, why atheists are atheists is that, eschewing the special pleading of theists, they apply the same methodology to the God question as they do to every other question; and one of the hard questions they want to ask Christians is why there's no real evidence for God comparable to the evidence for electricity and giraffes and rice pudding.Such issues can't be off-topic in this particular thread even if it is in the Faith and Belief forum.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I think that that's a fair enough response to "EvC is mostly pointless".Anyone who wants to can suggest improvements to the forum. And anyone who just can't stand it can leave and go and find a forum that they think better. If some creationist thinks that EvC is "mostly pointless", then he always has the opion of not posting on EvC. He could indoctrinate his Sunday School class instead.

Would it be possible in archaeologist's case to waive rule 5?