Well, hello there Rich:
You write:
>There was very little in your last message that addressed the issue of
>whether Dembski misrepresented Dennett.
Lookie here. Rich makes a claim without qualifying it as his
opinion or interpretation (something he complained about with
Dembski). I can easily read what I wrote in my message and
argue you just misrepresented me. For I think there
was much in my last message that did indeed address this issue.
For starters, I noted that you have failed to establish that Dembski
misrepresented Dennett. It is clear that this is your *belief,* but
I think you have provided very little to support this belief. In fact,
you don't seem to want to address your interpretation head on. You
interpret my message as follows:
"I don't want to get distracted into a discussion about whether
Dennett's views are right, wrong, outrageous, etc."
But those are not distractions. Those are crucial questions that
need to be answered before we can say that Dembski has indeed
misrepresented Dennett. If, as you believe, Dembski *did*
misrepresent Dennett, then Dennett does not really recommend we
quarantine parents who teach their children to doubt Darwinism.
But that is anything but clear. The only way to be sure of this
is to address those questions you keep side-stepping:
"Keep in mind that we really don't seem to know what Dennett
is saying. We know he employs the common "us vs. them" thinking to
propose that "them" be quarantined, but we don't have a good handle on who
"them" are, we don't know what he means by "quarantine," and we don't
know what he means by "peacefully coexist." We do know that his blind
faith in his own metaphysics and memes have him believing that natural
selection evolved human beings and we do know he strongly desires to
re-educate the children of those who doubt his faith "as soon as possible.""
Until we can resolve these issues, you have no case that Dennett has
indeed been misrepresented. I admit it is a possibility, but we'll
need more than the fact that Demsbki didn't quote Dennett literally.
And you keep dropping the ball.
In fact, among the "little" that I wrote, I also demonstrated that
Dembski's claim appears to be a valid representation:
"Okay, so I use Websters to look up the word "quarantine."
One definition is as follows: "to isolate from normal relations
or communication." Hmmm. Normal relations and
communication among parents and children are to propagate
those memes [traditions]. That's an intimate part of the parent-
child relationship. And Dennett's plans of re-education
are indeed ways to isolate the parents and their memes from
their children. Thus, it is indeed quarantine Dennett is talking
about when advocates re-education "as early as possible." A way
to cage a religion, a way to quarantine a religion, is to ban it to
the realm of the purely private and intervene on a parent's
education of their children."
I can understand why you want to ignore these questions and
arguments as "distractions," as this is the only way to maintain
your opinions that Dennett has indeed been misrepresented. You
keep wanting me to agree with you, but refuse to provide any
reason for me to agree with you.
>You seem to consider that misrepresention is unimportant. I consider it
>to be very important.
Then you are quite different. My experience has shown me the
vast majority of non-teleologists/darwinists don't think it important
not to misrepresent their opponents. If you think misrepresentation
is so important, I am sure you will be posting much about the
way non-teleologists misrepresent ID as nothing more than a form
of creationism and religious expression.
>At the risk of heating up the debate, I've made an assertion in the subject
>line which ia analogous to Dembksi's assertion about Dennett.
I see, so instead of dealing with my arguments and questions,
you'd rather play games. Be my guest - I'm used to non-teleologists
relying on ploys like these.
>Since you've
>justified Dembski's assertion on the grounds that it's a "reasonable
>interpretation", I've made a reasonable interpretation of something you
>wrote. To quote your earlier post (20 March 2000 03:20):
>>If Dembski misrepresents Dennett, then Dennett can come
>out and more fully explain what he was trying to say. He
>can set the record straight and while he is at it, provide his
>evidence that it was indeed natural selection that evolved
>humans.
>Reasonable interpretation: it's OK to misrepresent people, because they can
>set the record straight afterwards.
>Perhaps you will consider my assertion to be an accurate representation. In
>that case, this thread will wither on the vine. But if you object that my
>assertion is a misrepresentation, you must find some grounds for doing so
>that do not apply equally to Dembski's assertion, or else agree with me that
>Dembski's assertion is a misrepresentation.
Easy. Your interpretation is a non-sequitar. Dembski's is not (see above).
>Disclaimer: in making my assertion, I'm committing the same offense of which
>I accuse Dembski. I hope it's clear that I'm only doing this to prove a
>point, and I don't really mean it.
The only point you have proved is that you would rather make me
the topic of the discussion rather than deal with my arguments and
questions and demonstrate how it is that Dennett has been misrepresented.
Given the weakness of your position (and the intolerant fundamentalist
you defend), this is understandable. BTW, in case you haven't checked,
Mike's views on misrepresentation are not a good topic for a mailing list
about evolution. It's rather impolite to hijack such a list with a topic
that would bore most and clutter their e-mail boxes.
Mike
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