General Discussion Of Moderation Procedures 10.0

In message 45 of the ACLU thread, AdminQuetzal warns crashfrog about "coming close to the line" for asking if the reason nemisis has not provided evidence for several of his assertions in that thread is because they are falsehoods. Presumably the reason behind this warning is because crash is approaching calling nemesis a liar.I understand that forum guidelines include the admonition and that calling someone a liar would run counter to this. However, I guess I'd like some guidance on how someone should handle a poster who repeatedly makes assertions that one believes to be factually incorrect or unsupportable, yet ignores all requests for support. The guidelines also contain this admonition: Certainly one response would be to counter the assertions with evidence, but this is not always possible. It's often very difficult to provide evidence of a negative.In a perfect world, we should expect that people will not pepper their arguments with false statements, or statements made with reckless disregard for their truth. However, this is a fairly open forum, and it's far from a perfect world. It seems to me that sometimes the best way to uncover a liar is to call them exactly that.Please do not assume that I am taking a position on the matters nj asserts in the thread by using that thread as a jumping off point for this question. It's something that I've been mulling over for a while, and that thread simply provided a convenient place for me to begin.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

You calling me a liar?Thanks for the direction. I suppose you do have a point. Assuming that someone has stooped to the level of lies, there's no reason we can't maintain the high ground.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I'd like to make a pitch for promotion of ogon's PNT WORDS!While I agree with AdminPD that the question ogon posed at the end of the message is much too broad, I do think that he raises some questions that can be discussed. In particular, this excerpt:

quote:

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I am reading these statements realizing that at different stages in my life I believed all of them to be true. But which statements are true? I’ve never had anyone show me chemicals turning into DNA, RNA and proteins, and I’ve never seen anyone turn them into living biological creatures. I have to take Joyce’s word that he replicated the RNA molecule and had the means at his disposal to accurately count all 10 trillion variations.

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I have to believe the author/s of genesis had some kind of divine inspiration and information to write such an account of the beginning of life on Earth. I also have to believe that over 2 billion Christians in the world can’t be wrong about Jesus.

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Here, he raises the question of how to evalute claims made by individual writings in the area of science and in the area of religion. The final question that he raises might be construed as his wish that the discussion be focused more on the question of evaluating individual scientific claims, although I certainly don't mean to put words in his mouth.I suggest, subject of course to ogon's approval, that his topic be promoted with the idea of discussing what criteria to use in evaluating the claims made by individual writings, either scientific, religious, or both.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat