Carnivalia and an open thread

The Turning of an Atheist

By MARK OPPENHEIMER
Published: November 4, 2007
...
With his powers in decline, Antony Flew, a man who devoted his life to rational argument, has become a mere symbol, a trophy in a battle fought by people whose agendas he does not fully understand.
...

Hey, I found a video adaptation of a Transmetropolitan scene. Looks rather like a student film.

Coming to terms with an abusive cult upbringing

Ready to take a step into Bizarro World? Either the WBC family is more deluded than we thought or they are trying (poorly) to use reverse psychology to justify their claim that they have the upper hand and gawd has sided with them. Either way, just eerie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6gXB3PFVCI

Fark.com has green-lighted: [Geek]: November 13 is "Judgment Day" for "intelligent" design. So 1) creationists are going to Hell, 2) Sky.net hates idiots, or 3) PBS's "Nova" will have a two-hour special? James Cameron surrenders. At this writing you need to have a TotalFark account to read the thread but it it will be public in a few hours. The link that will appear on "Geek" category is Nova's website.

"Flock Of Dodos" is now available from Netfllix.

"In Flock of Dodos, supporters of intelligent design come across as straight-forward, friendly people. Evolutionists, on the other hand, tend towards arrogance and intellectual elitism, making it difficult for even one of their own to relate to them. When Olson gathers a group of scientists with whom he played poker in graduate school for another game, they are full of bluster, and obsessed with being "right," instead of trying to understand their opposition. -Martha Fischer

http://tinyurl.com/2wt4fn

Since they decided that javascript (who may be one of Expelled's dishonest writers) can dishonestly quotemine what I wrote at Expelled's blog, without me being able to reply, I'm putting my response here:

Glen Davidson Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

November 2nd, 2007 at 4:25 pm

[Glen]Not a new one, but I don't know why the following comment hasn't been posted. I don't mean to continue to treat with people whose only motivation is to attack those they hate with religious bigotry, however I should be allowed to respond to the dishonest quotemines and vapid unsupported accusations of those without any conscience or competence to discuss science. So here's the re-post:

Glen Davidson Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

November 2nd, 2007 at 10:27 am

[Glen]Javascript quotemines, in the way that only pseudoscientists and rabid fools do:

Garrison Seeber Says: November 1st, 2007 at 3:26 pm "only further emphasizes the Neanderthal mentality of your suppressive beliefs" Validate that claim... .................. [Java]Well, let's see... this might be difficult but I'll give it a shot.

[Glen]Unfortunately, you're too dumb to know what validation means. It does not mean quotemining. I use harsh words, but I also back them up, while you only tell lies and attack.

[Java]Below are validating quotes from our buddy Glen, the self proclaiming intellectual, that clearly exhibit his use of Neanderthal tactics in his attempts to bully others on the blog seeking only to exercise their constitutional rights to freedom of speech.

[Glen]Sorry, unintelligent one, I was not the one who came in here with nothing but hatred and lies. I made arguments, I backed up, or "validated" (too bad you don't know what words mean, buffoon), what I wrote. Not so much to those who had nothing related to substance, liek the dishonest Javascript, but that's because yours were free-form lies.

[Java]Follow with me if you will: ............... GLEN QUOTES: - As pathetic as your knowledge of science is...

[From here until near the very end, the lines starting with a hyphen are javascript's quotemines, and the ones not starting with a quotemine are what I wrote and they refused to post, with a few exceptions that I will attempt to point out. Most of the quotemined comments were made in response to Ben Stein's blog, a few toward the end were in response to javascript's ad hominem attack. So, the next sentence is my response to the above quotemine]

As we've shown previously, and as I demonstrated there as well. Try to learn to read above third-grade level.

- you lack intellectual integrity...

Another quotemine. I'd shown where he had not dealt with matters in an intellectually honest fashion. Rather than arguing pointedly with what I've written, you just whine and lie, again.

- your knowledge of science is abysmal

As is obvious to anyone who knows science, and has been amply demonstrated in these comments. Just because you ignore every bit of substance that I've written to back up my claims does not alleviate you of your responsibility to deal with them with intellectual honesty. Neither does your lack of intellectual honesty alleviate your responsibilities.

- you simply act as if science is as mindless as your sponsors are

And I'm sure that if you had anything intelligent to say, you'd be arguing against what I wrote, instead of quote-mining my supporting evidence out of it, with your typical dishonest tactics.

- this is part of your sleazy tactics.

Another sleazy quotemine from one who doesn't even know what intellectual integrity means. Indeed, it was a part of his sleazy tactics, as I demonstrated, and which argumentation you ignore as you have from the beginning.

- A rather simplistic analysis...

OK, it was an extremely simplistic analysis. Sorry that I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

- Ben's pathetic fallacy of argumentum ad hominem.

Which fallacy you compound, as you quotemine and attack without paying any attention to the facts and arguments.

- That's the best you can do, Ben?

Still better than the dishonesty of your attacks, javascript.

- you're digging your own grave there, Ben.

I know that it's nothing new, but yes, another dishonest quotemine, as javascript pointedly ignores what I actually wrote, how this fit into my arguments and conclusions.

- So what's your point?

Here's how an honest person would have quoted:

[Glen earlier]So what's your point? Are we supposed to throw out English science, since it was based in a non-politically correct economic system? Here's Ben saying that Western culture must (selectively) go, due to its many sins. Ben the PC man. Very good, Ben, you're now part of the ranks of the nihilists and bigots who fault civilization's advances just because much of the past evil was retained for so long (and into the present, one might (or might not) argue).

[Glen later]Since my response was to his faulting of "Darwinism" based on the inadequate grounds that it comes from a time of imperialism, I dare say that the honest quote demonstrate my point. Which is why you dishonestly left that out.

- Ben, you're now part of the ranks of the nihilists and bigots

See the foregoing quote for the context that javascript is not honest enough to include.

- Your understanding of evolution is as deficient as your understanding of history, Stein.

And apparently so is yours, javascript, or you'd deal with the facts and arguments I brought up instead of quote-mining.

- One does not write of "Darwinist means," unless one is a science illiterate, as Ben is.

That's right. He's [Ben] shown himself to be illiterate in science right there, and by continuing to write of "Darwinism" as if it depended upon the writings of one man.

- It isn't a lacuna, ignorant one...

Were he [Ben] not ignorant, the issue of abiogenesis would not have come up. And if you weren't ignorant, you'd recognize that I made an important point. I am not as nice as I was previously, by the way, mostly because Ben has ignored where he has been corrected in the past.

- someone so bereft of intellectual honesty as Ben is would even attempt to supply evidence for his scurrilous charges.

Yes, and why don't you try to supply evidence for your scurrilous charges, intellectually dishonest javascript?

- IDists simply hate the Enlightenment...

Yes, they attack it at its very foundation, at its requirement for demonstrable evidence. Another issue you can't deal with, though apparently there are none you can address, java.

- bigoted theists...

A particularly disgusting quotemine from java. I very carefully pointed out that many theists are nothing like the bigoted and dishonest IDists, but he quotemines it as he wishes to misrepresent it.

- More tendentious nonsense.

And of course I justified that remark. You've justified none of your attacks.

- Ben has no truthful criticisms to make...

Here's the context that this extremely dishonest person wishes to be ignored:

[Glen earlier]More tendentious nonsense. Darwinism and its successors have never ever sought to explain everything. Darwin sought to integrate biology with Newtonian-type science, and largely succeeded. But I guess Ben has no truthful criticisms to make of MET, so he resorts to what IDists always end up using, untrue assertions.

[Glen later]Since I was addressing the fact that "Darwinism" has never once claimed to explain everything, yes, it was tendentious, and I have yet to see Ben provide a truthful criticism of MET. Note how dishonestly javascript edited out the qualifiers I included.

I have to wonder if you're one of the writers of Expelled, javascript. You're really so dishonest and bigoted that it's hard not to believe you could be.

- I'd like to know where you got such a disingenuous idea as that

This is where that came from:

[Ben]But it's difficult to believe it will. Theories that presume to explain everything without much evidence rarely do.

[Glen earlier]I'd like to know where you got such a disingenuous idea as that "Darwinism" presumes to explain everything.

[Glen later]I'd still like to know where such a disingenuous idea came from. From you, javascript?

- evil liars, most likely the sorts of anti-science anti-intellectual persons

More quote-mining, of course, and yes, I demonstrate that you who lie constantly are of that kind.

- Not all of us are as pitiful as you anti-science ranters.

Ben was claiming that we're "pitiful" and (in essence) that therefore we need to be open to unproven nonsense like ID. But indeed, we who know science know a good deal more about the issues than people like Stein and javascript.

- the usual arrogance of the ignorant

Indeed, it was the usual arrogance of the ignorant, which you continue.

- if you weren't a slimy little worm, and actually knew something, I'm sure you could have written something intelligent.

And instead of making up for your dishonest attack, you pile on more quoteming dishonesty.

- your anti-intellectual rant ad nauseam

Since you have done nothing but stupidly rant, I rather suspect that this has been well-validated.

.................

[Java]Now maybe it's just me but that sounds more like a Neanderthal then it does a civilized Intellectual that I think Glen would have us believe that he is.

[Glen]Why yes it does, and since it is your dishonest quotemining and vicious unsupported attack that compiled it in such a tendentious fashion, it looks like you have shown that you were just projecting.

Glen D

There is no reason to either block or smother the above post. Just because it may very well be one of the writers, producers, or main characters whose dishonest claims have been refuted is no excuse to either smother or expel this post.

Am I supposed to stand by while Ruloff, Miller, or Stein (I increasingly suspect one of them or others associated with the movie, since what seems to really bring out the hatred is that I refuted the blog at the top of the comment list) dishonestly quotemines and accuses without evidence or justification? Sure, I'm well past the point where I'm going to be nice when lies are constantly being told about us in a bid to enforce religion on our society, but unlike javascript, I actually make arguments, do not dishonestly quotemine, and I stay away from fallacious attacks on the person.

It will certainly be a sorry day if you protect "one of your own" from a response to his unwarranted and unsupported attack on the person, without the slightest hint of being capable of answering what I actually wrote (hence the quotemining).

Glen D http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

and the ones not starting with a quotemine

Of course "quotemine" is the wrong word there. It was supposed to be "hyphen".

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Probably way too late to note this, but the Sacramento Bee had a really good article on Sunday about global warming.

Of course, it's even better than average because scientists from UC Santa Cruz were involved. Okay, snob moment over.

Really, it is a good article.

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/468894.html