Re: ad hominems & the future of this Reflector (was Why lie? was: Re: the role of sex in evolution)

From: Stephen E. Jones (sejones@iinet.net.au)
Date: Mon Apr 24 2000 - 22:03:56 EDT

  • Next message: Richard Wein: "Re: ad hominems & the future of this Reflector"

    Reflectorites

    On Mon, 24 Apr 2000 11:52:45 -0500, Susan Brassfield wrote:

    [...]

    >SJ>No. If Tedd claims that I have made an out-of-context quote, he should be
    >>able to state objectively what the context is and why my quote does not fit
    >>it.
    >>
    >>If I am wrong I will admit it and thank Tedd. I have no desire, or need, to
    >>post out-of-context quotes.

    SB>But I've already done that in this thread:
    >http://www.calvin.edu/archive/evolution/199911/0210.html

    We fully debated that at the time. Susan was simply wrong. The words I
    omitted with ellipses were not relevant to the particular argument I was
    making. I said at the time I would be happy to reinsert the omitted words
    and debate the point, but Susan declined.

    SB>you eventually admitted you didn't pick up an edited quote from the web or
    >"The Little Creationist Quote Book" but edited the quote yourself.

    Susan is wrong here too with her "eventually admitted" implication that I had
    claimed that I had not edited the quote myself, but copied it from a creationist
    web site.

    I never made such a claim in the first place, so there was nothing to admit.

    *All* the quotes I post are my own work, scanned off books and articles I
    have (or had) in my posession. And I take *full* responsibility for the quote if
    I post it.

    >SJ>Besides, it is *Tedd* who is playing this "out-of-context" quote "game", in
    >>order that we cannot get around to discussing "details, issues and evidence
    >>and actually defending arguments raised...".

    SB>none of us who debate you have any confidence in your quotes. They are too
    >often obviously out of context and quite dishonest.

    [...]

    I am getting a bit tired of Susan's "lie" and "dishonest" ad hominems as a
    substitute for rational arguments. It is a complete waste of everybody's time
    me defending myself from such `shoot the messenger' attacks. Since Susan
    continues doing this, I have now inserted a filter in my emailer to delete
    anything from Susan also unread.

    I note that Mike B. Gene has also unsubscribed from the Reflector. I
    don't blame him. In fact I am considering doing the same in order to
    concentrate on my studies, a book I am writing, my web page, and
    the other List I am on.

    Personally I think that the Moderator should immediately enforce a
    minimum standard of debating etiquette, e.g. ad hominems like "lie"
    and "dishonest" not be tolerated.

    Otherwise, if all the posting creationists and anti-evolutionists continue
    to leave this Reflector, then it will just be a debate between theistic vs
    atheistic evolutionists.

    In that case, I doubt that there would be much to debate about and
    the Reflector would probably just die.

    Steve

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