Peanut Gallery

Oni smartly observes: YES!!!! Straggler & I should stay out of that!!;-)

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Let me ask you, Straggler, do you see the difference between: and ?

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Straggler says: Show me a post from me that even talks about "one deity at a time". You have a lot of nerve to put those words in my mouth.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Modulous says: Perhaps today, provisionally. But if they can grow human ears on mice, the day they can insert a rabbit zygote into a pig may not be that far off. So it's not "perfectly fine".Re-word it: Now we have the much harder problem of synthesizing rabbit DNA out of, say, pig DNA, by moving and adding and deleting genes at the nucleotide level with nano-scalpels - a project that hopefully will never, ever get enough funding.Modulous continues with: Don't be silly. Naw - that would just be some other IPU that RAZD wasn't even bringing up for bluegenes. That would not be The Made-Up IPU. In your scenario, bluegenes would have indeed given the first evidence RAZD asked for. We all kneaux which IPU RAZD was talking about.Modulous then brings up an analogy: The bullet hole, IMNSHO, is one of the many different kinds of "wet paint" positive evidence of the crime.The analogy doesn't work here.
I'm not even going to discuss the possibility that the "bullet hole" may have been created by the tip of a cane and just happens to look exactly like a bullet hole to the expert witness coroner. You can just redraw the scene to eliminate that possibility. No - it's not the same kind of dichotomy.If I may, perhaps I can further delineate what I think is going on with an unrelated math problem.An unopened beer can has 12 ounces of beer in it. The empty can weighs 1 ounce. It stands 6 inches tall on the table.At the beginning, the center of gravity, assuming no air-like bubbles inside, is at the center of the beer can, 3.0 inches above the surface of the table, when it is set down on it.As you begin to drink the beer, the center of gravity, when placed back on the table, moves downward. At some point it begins to return upward, until the end, when you empty the can.When it is empty, once again the center of gravity is in the middle, 3.0 inches above the table surface.Given the original parameters, determine the height in inches when the center of gravity reaches a minimum.Oh - and you are not allowed to use calculus!!!So when RAZD says "Show me the evidence that the IPU is made up", he is sort of saying to bluegenes that he can't use the evidential equivalent of calculus. He is not asking bluegenes to first demonstrate that the IPU doesn't exist (the calculus-like approach that Straggler has glommed onto).

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Modulous continues: I'm just saying that it safer for bluegenes to state it in DNA terms. Remember, there are people like Buzzsaw around who may regard "coming from" as the birthing process. Nevermind, it's a tiny point. In fact, it's microscopic, as it were, if I may.... Yes - 2 parts. RAZD did not say "any IPU", he said the IPU. True, he did not capitalize "the", but I'm am 100% certain that he was talking about the IPU that has been talked in this forum. Now, you're the one bringing up other possible IPUs. YES! that is the 2nd part of the challenge. I'm talking about the 1st part. You do understand the difference! Thank you.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Modulous objects: Any version of the IPU that was not made up by our IPU's version of Bobby Henderson.You said in Message 430: That would be a different IPU. One that was not made up by our IPU's version of Bobby Henderson.Ever wonder why RAZD did not ask bluegenes to demonstrate that the Flying Spaghetti Monster was made up?Modulous further adds: Using evidence that something doesn't exist to demonstrate it was made up is not the same as using evidence that it was made up to demonstrate it doesn't exist.Certainly, in the case of you & me & Straggler - and even RAZD himself! - the evidence that something does not exist will demonstrate it was made up. But that was not what RAZD asked bluegenes to do in the 1st part of his 1st task for bluegenes. He was asked to provide evidence that The IPU was made up in order to demonstrate that it doesn't exist (could not be a supernatural being). What we all would accept under normal circumstances would then become what we could term a version of a directed graph that begs the question. "Well, it doesn't exist, therefore it was made up. Since it was made up, therefore it doesn't exist."If bluegenes had worded his theory the way I suggested, then we have the opposite direction: doesn't exist => made up. And I bet RAZD would have never taken on the debate.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Modulous says: No - I accept him as evidence that it was made up! How did you ever conclude the opposite? After we have determined that indeed he is the Bobby Henderson of the IPU, the case is closed.Modulous continues: I was referring to Straggler there, sorry. RAZD was not seeking, in this particular instance, a high standard of proof at all. He was merely calling out bluegenes for evidence that it was "made up". It was, in fact, a call for a much lower standard of "proof".More: Piltdown Man.How much of the evidence that that was made up was in fact the kind of forensic evidence I have been hammering you guys about?Was that case sealed by someone sitting up in a tower, with tomes of books around him saying "this has to be a fake because...well it says here & it is obvcious to me and any logical thinking human, that the progression of the Homo Sapiens lineage cannot allow for that to happen by X and Y and Z."????More: No, no, no, no, no, and, further more, no. In fact let me say it again: no.I dont think that is the case at all. RAZD was just jumping on a technicality. It was the "plenty of evidence" that got him to take the challenge.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Panda writes: BINGO. Thanks, Panda.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Panda notes: How odd then, that for so many years after, even to this day, some of us have attributed his thinking powers to the mere falling of a random apple on his head!

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Let's start over. From the top, bluegenes is quoted in Message 1: RAZD's 1st demand: Modulous relates: Okay, I see where you are coming from. I hope that wasn't the case in this particular instance. I would suspect that it will eventually get there. But before the debate proceeds to that point, I think RAZD was just saying a sort of "gimme an example" of bluegenes claim that he had "plenty of evidence" - as a way of getting started. See below, re Msg 7, 8.Modulous later writes: I'm sorry. Perhaps I should re-read the debate thread (and I just did), but I didn't see any specific evidence for the IPU. I saw discussions of Hindu Hypothesis unification-like things. It's like if I put all of bluegenes' stuff in a text file and grep for "IPU", how many lines do I get? I was thinking at the time of this little side foray that I would get zero lines. Perhaps that's changed? Doesn't look like it 46 posts in. Analogies never work, but again, asked for what a cow looks like, bluegenes answers with descriptions of goats, ducks, geese, sheep, pigs and chickens. No cows. Now, RAZD may talk of how they are all barnyard animals so far - but, still no descriptions of a single cow.Same kind of evidence? No it is very different. Emphatically. Please see in the following....Parenthetically of little or no value here, but nonetheless something I missed before, from post 3, bluegenes actually clarifies: ...meaning that the claim is to be probably tempered with the perfectly ok caveat "as far as we know now".Here's bluegenes early on, in Message 7: Let me define an abbreviation, M-picture, for a collection of repeatable objectively gathered evidence comprising together a meta-picture. Then I think RAZD is sort of saying,"Okay:1) show me an M-picture of a baby rabbit being born from a mother rabbit - should be easy.2) show me an M-picture of a certain author writing a certain book. Should be easy.3) show me an M-picture of a supernatural being, specifically the IPU, being made up. Should be easy."RAZD is not getting into some other source of these things yet.He says after the above, in Message 8: Please note this, as bluegenes never could get himself unhinged from this misconception.Ahah - here we have bluegenes actually mention the IPU in Message 9: ......but AGAIN no evidence, rather an incorrect assumption of RAZD's purpose in asking about the IPU. bluegenes thinks RAZD is trying to falsify the theory and thus instead turns it back on RAZD with a sort of "Oh yeah? That's your job. Prove it aint!"Later on at the end of another overly massive post from RAZD (Message 32), he writes: Now it's down to just that: bluegenes replies, in part, in Message 33: RAZD is NOT trying to FALSIFY bluegenes' theory yet!!!!!bluegenes said he had evidence. Let's see it!46 posts and no objective evidence, peer-reviewed in scientific journals, that the IPU was made up.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Modulous replies: Why all this preoccupation with thinking RAZD's opening post was trying to FALSIFY the theory?RAZD is calling bluegenes out on this "plenty of evidence". He was trying to give him a softball. Admittedly, it was a very devious and cunning softball. NO! This is exactly what he is being asked to do in the OP.Sorry, Mod, but this is more and more what I am certain is being asked here. Sure, RAZD will bring in a lot of his familiar old baggage later on, but right from the start, he's asking bluegenes "...for example?" That's because bluegenes has tunnel vision. The only reasonable reason? How about "Let's see what you got on the table?". This isn't a game of poker where you don't reveal your hole card until the bet is called - you lay your cards right out on the table at the start. bluegenes theorizes that ALL supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination. He is not claiming that all he needs is 1 or even at least 67,283 demonstrated to be made up - he's claiming that ALL of them are made up.Perhaps the IPU should not be defined as a supernatural being? ObFalsification: bluegenes theory can also be falsified, as written, by scientific evidence that there is a supernatural being that is a figment of another species of life's imagination somewhere here on earth or elsewhere.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Straggler asks: Evidence that supernatural beings are made up.This would seem to correspond to the 1st of your warblings. Of course.
But what about the 1 left over? Which one is it?However, if I may just get off on a tangential line, just because 10000 things could all be wrong doesn't rule out that there may be an underlying true thing that has led all these 10000 things to try to explain it in their own stupid ways. I think that is the RAZD position, regarding the Hindu Hypothesis. Me - hey, I'm 5.7 on the Dawkins scale.Bluegenes is theorizing ALL. Not 999 out of 1000.So, , where is the Bobby Henderson for the IPU?Ice bucket:..\ ^ ~ ^/.
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..........................Edited by xongsmith, : because is spelled becauseEdited by xongsmith, : plural/singular fuckup

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Straggler asks: Not me! 5.7d. Which guy?!?!?!?
The Bobby Henderson of the IPU??? Beats me. Who am I to tell him what to do. Hey, look - let's go have a few pints. My favorite these days is still IPA - one of the 2 best things that came out of the British occupation of India.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

"Oh the humanity" - Newman. No, I most certainly am not. I'm not 6.0, I'm 5.7 (his favorite number divided by 10). I DO NOT have to provide objective evidence - the onus is not on me. Of course I agree with the general overview, but bluegenes fucked up in stating his postion. A slip of the tongue, as Panda called it. NO WAY, MAN, DO I AGREE WITH HOW YOU PHRASED THAT.
(BTW some of us baboons here think that the left testicle is pretty goddamned important!). Ahah - then this is the perfect time to challenge you to a game of Mornington Crescent.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

I, being from the States, arrive in Heathrow well enough (thank you) and after many hours of quandary wandery, finally decide - in my travels afoot, weary of Flying Spaghetti Monsters - to take Hatton Cross to Green Park. Here I note that things seem to be going swimmingly. I see a big portrait of an eye on the tube wall, but dismiss this as an obvious figment of my human imagination.Your move, sir.