>From: Stephen E. Jones <sejones@iinet.net.au>
>
>>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.
If I think I'm seeing blatant dishonesty and don't point it out, I'm a
partner in that dishonesty. I laid my case before you all last November. I
showed the context of Stephen's quote and I think that made it pretty clear
that his deliberate deletion changed the message of the quote. If I can be
kicked off this list for doing that, I don't belong on this list, in fact
none of us do.
I don't mind arguing Stephen's points--and I've done that--but I won't
tolerate deception which, BTW, I assumed was inadvertent. I thought he'd
picked up a quote somewhere and foolishly trusted the source. Stephen hotly
insisted that he had altered the quote himself.
I'm also kind of shocked at how few people commented on the issue at the
time. Except for Bertvan, of course, who basically said I should ignore it
all.
If Stephen had not already shut his ears as well as his mind, I would love
to know why he continues a debate technique that must be quite time
consuming, but doesn't get him anywhere. Everyone knows Mayr isn't a
creationist and doesn't have any serious problems with evolution. Why quote
him to make him seem as though he does? It doesn't really advance the
creationist cause, but damages it quite a bit.
>>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.
Richard Wein:
>While the reflector would no doubt lose much of its entertainment value if
>all anti-evolutionists withdrew, it would lose little in the way of rational
>discourse.
>
>There are certainly subjects for evolutionists to debate amongst themselves.
>(It's rather parochial of Stephen to believe otherwise.) I'm currently
>awaiting a reply from Terry Gray to a question of mine.... (hint) ;-)
I've often been appalled at the lack of rigor on this list. It seems like
few (and I grudgingly include myself in this) seem to be willing to take
the time and look up any facts to support their case. That causes the
debate to boil down to "did not/did too" and that's *really* boring!
Susan
----------
For if there is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing
of life as in hoping for another and in eluding the implacable grandeur of
this one.
--Albert Camus
http://www.telepath.com/susanb/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 25 2000 - 10:48:05 EDT