Intelligent Design explains many follies

Hi John 10:10,I thought I'd reply generally to your post in the hope of finally ending this diversion from the main topic. This isn't directed at you personally but to everyone involved in the digression.Here at EvC Forum, the validity of one's position is judged not by what university you attended, not by how many and how advanced your degrees are, not by your income and not by your chosen field of endeavor, but by how well you advance and support your position.Hopefully that ends the matter. If anyone wants to play "My salary's bigger than yours" or "My university is better than yours," please take it to the [forum=-14]. Further digressions along these lines in this thread will draw short suspensions of posting privileges.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Going back to the OP, the topic of this thread is why design is a better explanation for the origin of life than processes that include random elements. Amazingly, after 200 messages this thread is still discussing probabilities and is pretty much on topic.However, I'm beginning to detect a little topic drift. I'd like to encourage people to minimize diversions onto topics like Isaac Newton and to try to avoid personal criticisms of others. I appreciate the difficulty sometimes involved in helping others understand that they're misapplying probabilities - take it as a challenge to be overcome rather than a blot to be excoriated.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I already have my eye on this thread. This should be readily apparent since I posted just a few messages ago. I'll repeat the caution of that message to say that respondents should address themselves to the content of John's message, which is 95% a quote from a page at Reasons to Believe.John himself is cautioned to not rely upon claims of victimhood as a form of rebuttal.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Braggadocio declarations are poor debate form, and this thread is not discussing how right or wrong anyone is (apologies for adjectizing a noun - oops, and more apologies for verbing a noun).John does present some perplexing contradictions. He claims a background in physics and professional employment with considerable compensation, and this is inconsistent with the faith-based arguments he offered when he started, and with his later inability to offer any tangible support for ID, indeed to even recognize that such was required.The contradictions are made clear from John's own posts. In these next four quotes John claims little scientific background and then proves it by making a few howler errors: But in another post he utters words that hardly seem possible, and certainly represent an issue of credibility: But we have to leave the frustrations of these contradictions aside and keep them and our thoughts to ourselves. Perhaps John is a true contradiction, or perhaps he's being less than forthright, but there is no way we can ever know for sure, so best to say nothing. Just focus on the topic. Even help John make his points, if he seems amenable.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Oh, well then, that makes all the difference. After all, why should the opinions of moderators count for anything. We'll just let members moderate themselves. Gee, why didn't we think of this before! Seriously, if you disagree with my moderation then there's a thread for that purpose (General discussion of moderation procedures: The Consequtive Consecution Sequel). In this thread please stick to the topic and leave the assessments of how well or poorly anyone is doing to the readers.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi everyone!Though this message is a reply to RAZD, this is to all.I guess the vacuum created by John 10:10's inability to argue or respond in any scientifically substantive way is a strong invitation to begin discussing him instead, but I think we should keep it objective and positive. In my opinion, John 10:10 is sincere but uninformed about science, creationism and ID. He accepts the traditional creationist belief that evolution and much other science is wrong, and he has some awareness of a few of the arguments creationists use, such as probability, but he doesn't understand them. The claim of an engineering physics degree is possibly spurious, or it might come from a Bible college, but degree or not it is clear that John 10:10 has very little scientific or mathematical background.Where John 10:10 has gone wrong is in trying to paint a picture of himself as scientifically competent that is belied by his inability to make accurate scientific statements. He's also developed a habit of not addressing rebuttals (already addressed by AdminNosy), and is given to quoting scripture.All this can be very frustrating, but I'd like to encourage the participants not to let John 10:10 lure them into violations of the Forum Guidelines. Yes, John 10:10 is violating them pretty well himself, but unfortunately for the rest of you there is no rule about when it's okay to violate the Forum Guidelines. If John 10:10 continues in his current vein he'll lose his privileges in the science forums, and attempts by members to spur John into meaningful posts through insult will only cause difficulty for themselves.I don't see any Forum Guidelines violations worth noting so far, but I sense we're beginning to run right up to the edge, hence this caution.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi John 10:10,As I said earlier, your inability to address the rebuttals, even to give any indication of understanding the rebuttals, is why this topic is turning from discussing the topic to discussing you. People get tired of repeating the same explanations over and over again and seeing you ignore them over and over again, and so you yourself have become the topic of conversation. You have only yourself to blame for this. We can put you out of your misery by removing your privileges from the science forums, but I'd prefer not to do that. Here's everyone's problem with you, John, by way of just one example: How can someone with an engineering physics degree and a minor in math make a boneheaded error like arguing that because something either is or it isn't that therefore the odds are 50/50? They're not serving you very well here. If your strong technical background doesn't begin showing itself in your posts by addressing the substance of rebuttals then you'll lose your privileges in the science forums.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi Chiroptera,John 10:10 may have provided his credentials in detail because I requested them a couple days ago in Message 246: The information he provided makes him even more perplexing. Perhaps he's a bit like Salty, minus the salt if you get my meaning. Somewhere along the way the boat lost the rudder and the oars left the water.John 10:10,I know this is demeaning and insulting, and we have Forum Guidelines against it (see rule 10), but if you read back through the thread you'll see that I intervened as Admin on a couple occasions (I use the Catbert avatar as Admin) to protect you against the frustration you were causing by ignoring rules 2 and 4 (stay on-topic, support your position with evidence and/or reasoned argumentation, address rebuttals, don't keep repeating the same points).I was hoping you would use the extra time to your advantage, but you changed nothing you were doing, and then AdminNosy gave a warning and you ignored him, too. I've gotten a little more ascerbic just to make sure that I have your attention before I take action, and I'm about ready to. If your next post is pretty much like the ones before it then I'll be removing your privileges in the science forums.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

You're impugning your own integrity. The people here are just calling attention to it. The credentials you listed are wholly incompatible with the rudimentary level of scientific comprehension you have displayed in this thread. So you're saying that because God either does or doesn't exist that therefore the odds are better than 50% for the existence of God. It is the disparity between your credentials and this naive (and, of course, self-evidently wrong) understanding of probability that is causing people to question them.To allow you to continue contributing in the science forums would only be an invitation to people to continue abusing you. I'm removing your posting privileges in the science forums for the following reasons:

1. Not addressing rebuttals, by ignoring them, by repeating original arguments, and by responding irrelevantly.
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2. Presenting a contradictory picture of yourself. This is covered in the Forum Guidelines under rule 8, and it is so distracting that it keeps drawing the thread off-topic, which is also against the Forum Guidelines. I'm not saying your credentials are false, only that they are belied by your inability to demonstrate any knowledge about anything so far. You could perhaps have offered something like, "Oh, well, probability was never my strong point. In my part of the nuclear industry it wasn't a factor." But you instead continued repeating the fundamental probability errors.
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3. Not following moderator requests.
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4. Not staying on topic.
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5. Making religious arguments in the science forums.

AbE: I've left your privileges enabled in the [forum=-11] forum.This message has been edited by Admin, Thu, 04-20-2006 02:20 PM

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

John 10:10 wasn't banned, his permissions were removed from the science forums, see Message 273.All members with forum restrictions had them removed with the release of dBoard 2.0, so John 10:10 can once again post here if he wishes. However, if he sees this I caution him to give some thought and attention to why he was presenting so contradictory a picture of himself that it was a consistent force drawing the thread off-topic. If that problem reappears then his permissions in the science forums will again be removed.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

This thread seems to be degenerating into petty bickering. If the level of discourse isn't elevated soon there'll have to be some kind of administrative action, perhaps rewarding the guilty and punishing the innocent. Seriously, we can do better.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

There will be a several hour reprieve in closing this thread. Make your final comments. now.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director