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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 07/05/2009 : 06:45:42 [Permalink]
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He is uninterested in any substantive debate on any of the topics/threads he has posted in.
He has made blanket accusations of "certitude" against other SFN members.
He refuses to answer questions asked of him.
He deflects, changes the subject, and throws out strawmen when cornered.
But hey, some of you (ricky) didn't think jerome or latinijral were trolls at first either.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2009 : 07:14:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
He is uninterested in any substantive debate on any of the topics/threads he has posted in.
He has made blanket accusations of "certitude" against other SFN members.
He refuses to answer questions asked of him.
He deflects, changes the subject, and throws out strawmen when cornered.
But hey, some of you (ricky) didn't think jerome or latinijral were trolls at first either.
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True perhaps, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. This is a small but very tough forum populated by chronic researchers and nit-picking bastards. Newbies need to learn how to deal with us, and thus become chronic researchers and nit-picking bastards themselves, like innocent Jekyll into evil Hyde. And if he should turn out to indeed be trolling, well, I enjoy taking down trolls! As do you.
We shall see.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Landrew
New Member
44 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2009 : 19:59:27 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Originally posted by Dude
He is uninterested in any substantive debate on any of the topics/threads he has posted in.
He has made blanket accusations of "certitude" against other SFN members.
He refuses to answer questions asked of him.
He deflects, changes the subject, and throws out strawmen when cornered.
But hey, some of you (ricky) didn't think jerome or latinijral were trolls at first either.
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True perhaps, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. This is a small but very tough forum populated by chronic researchers and nit-picking bastards. Newbies need to learn how to deal with us, and thus become chronic researchers and nit-picking bastards themselves, like innocent Jekyll into evil Hyde. And if he should turn out to indeed be trolling, well, I enjoy taking down trolls! As do you.
We shall see.
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Any forum that purports to offer a free forum for philosophical discussion, yet promotes a particular point of view does not value intellectual freedom. |
God bless women, for without them there would be no cookies. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2009 : 20:23:21 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Landrew
Any forum that purports to offer a free forum for philosophical discussion, yet promotes a particular point of view does not value intellectual freedom. |
Bwahahahahahaha!
Oh, man... that's good.
When have you been prohibited from discussing whatever philosophy you desire?
Our mission statement is on every page. We promote skepticism: a particular philosophical viewpoint. We don't stifle non-skeptical points-of-view, but we do argue against them. Our mission is not to "offer a free forum for philosophical discussion," but that has certainly happened in the past (not with you, you don't seem interested in discussion).
Your attempt to shame us with hypocrisy fails due to the strawmen in your premises.
Oh, the idea that to value intellectual freedom one must not promote any particular point-of-view means that the only people who value intellectual freedom are those who don't promote intellectual freedom (or anything else). Is that a Catch-22, or does it just mean that the people who value intellectual freedom remain pointedly silent? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 07/06/2009 : 02:54:17 [Permalink]
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Philosophical discussion? Like some guys sitting around smoking pipes, sipping wine and waxing eloquent about angels fornicating on the head of a pin, or some damned thing? Do you mean, like, "Philosophy?"
Oh no, here, we deal with reality, fact vs. fiction, and the evidences surrounding both, not speculations of glory or apocalypse, at least not without labeling them as such.
From the dawn of sapience, philosophers have been full of shit and the skeptic has been their Gallipoli. There have been some few that that are exceptional; Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce, da Vinci & Galileo, to name a few favorites, but they are and have been rare. Most others, are unworthy of consideration.
But we can certainly argue it and the preceding might kick one off. Or, getting back to topic (often, we digress) I will state that after a certain point, fence-sitting becomes merely a wishy-washy excuse to avoid the fray.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/06/2009 : 06:14:59 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Landrew
Originally posted by filthy
Originally posted by Dude
He is uninterested in any substantive debate on any of the topics/threads he has posted in.
He has made blanket accusations of "certitude" against other SFN members.
He refuses to answer questions asked of him.
He deflects, changes the subject, and throws out strawmen when cornered.
But hey, some of you (ricky) didn't think jerome or latinijral were trolls at first either.
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True perhaps, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. This is a small but very tough forum populated by chronic researchers and nit-picking bastards. Newbies need to learn how to deal with us, and thus become chronic researchers and nit-picking bastards themselves, like innocent Jekyll into evil Hyde. And if he should turn out to indeed be trolling, well, I enjoy taking down trolls! As do you.
We shall see.
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Any forum that purports to offer a free forum for philosophical discussion, yet promotes a particular point of view does not value intellectual freedom.
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Without bothering to reiterate what Dave_W and filthy said (because they hit the pertinent points) I'll just add this: Any "discussion" of philosophy is an argument. You can't discuss one particular philosophy without contrasting it against a different one.
So whenever you decide to stop being a troll, feel free to engage in a discussion. There are plenty of us here who will oblige you.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 07/06/2009 : 15:18:52 [Permalink]
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| Actually, because he says it happens must mean that he can detect it, but his examples were nothing of the sort. |
I agree that his examples were poorly chosen, but I also think that the premise that it happens is obvious enough to not require examples.
On the other hand, giving a bad example shows that he either doesn't understand the Challenger explosion (which in addition to your criticsm was a decision made under a heck of a lot of pressure), or he doesn't see that much more information needs to go into the decision of whether or not to "fence-sit".
| ...clearly Landrew is unimpressed and (veiled generalities aside) is berating those of us who agree for not waiting long enough for more data to arrive. |
While I would like this thread to exist in its own little universe, I suppose it does not. In any case, his original post is ok (ignoring the Challenger bit) until you view it as a defense for his position on global warming, where your call for specificity makes a lot more sense.
| I believe that Dude is under the impression that Landrew comes from the crop of professional trolls who showed up recently from theybannedme.com |
Ah, this I was not aware of.
Dude:
No trollish behavior? You aren't paying attention then Ricky...
So, you don't think his fact-challenged statements, followed up with arrogance and a refusal to engage in debate, followed up by disparaging comments about other SFN participants, is trollish? |
No, from what I've seen it is the act of someone who has no experience in debate or these forums. It very may well be the act of the troll, but I don't believe you know enough to make this accusation. This is definitely something you should wait on...
| But hey, some of you (ricky) didn't think jerome or latinijral were trolls at first either. |
And I stand by that. Not that they weren't trolls, but that we didn't know enough to say that at the time.
Just because your trigger happy accusations were right doesn't mean it was right to make them. Personally I'd much rather err on the side of caution, even if it means a few days/weeks of annoyance.
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Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
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| Edited by - Ricky on 07/06/2009 15:20:30 |
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Landrew
New Member
44 Posts |
Posted - 07/06/2009 : 19:13:37 [Permalink]
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| And I'll just err on the side of leaving you crabby bunch of wannabe philosophers to your own little treefort. |
God bless women, for without them there would be no cookies. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/06/2009 : 19:15:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
| Actually, because he says it happens must mean that he can detect it, but his examples were nothing of the sort. |
I agree that his examples were poorly chosen, but I also think that the premise that it happens is obvious enough to not require examples. |
That was a pretty poor sentence of mine, combining two rather distinct thoughts into one. Because Landrew says that he can detect when people have jumped to conclusions, I wanted to know the criteria he uses. What I was betting on (due to the crappy examples) was Landrew effectively admitting "I knows it when I sees it," which would have clinched, for me, the conclusion that Landrew - while not a troll per se - was just another run-of-the-mill AGW denialist with delusions of moral superiority to us skeptics (who aren't skeptical enough, according to him). At the very least, he could have shown that he's serious about this discussion by talking about how (in general) people jump to unwarranted conclusions through acceptance of a number of logical fallacies. Best case would have been for Landrew to have actually provided not-already-debunked examples and evidence of AGW "accepters" skipping logical steps or otherwise leaping to inappropriate conclusions (best case 'cause then I would have learned something).| While I would like this thread to exist in its own little universe, I suppose it does not. In any case, his original post is ok (ignoring the Challenger bit) until you view it as a defense for his position on global warming, where your call for specificity makes a lot more sense. |
Well, the short answer to the general question is that if your argument includes any one of the classic fallacies of logic, and you don't gather more information to demonstrate that it's not a fallacious use of logic, then you've failed to be properly skeptical. I really don't know how much more discussion there could have been on the subject, but Landrew's post wasn't even that specific. He was just bashing some hypothetical anti-fence-sitters with a poor argument that didn't actually say much of anything except "sometimes, waiting is good," which anyone who's tried to eat unpopped popcorn would know. The premise in the OP, that some people think fence-sitting is a bad thing, just doesn't apply to folks here in general, and how often can we say, "yeah, some people aren't skeptical?" We all know that, which is part of the reason we're here.
The only part that's really worth discussing is "Some skeptics seem to take a default negative conclusion in lieu of evidence," but even that only gets us as far as "the burden of proof is on the claimant" and why that's true, and what a "null hypothesis" is. Link, link, link and we're done, pretty much. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/06/2009 : 19:16:09 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Landrew
And I'll just err on the side of leaving you crabby bunch of wannabe philosophers to your own little treefort. |
Yup, we are the problem, not you. Got it. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 07/06/2009 : 20:46:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Landrew
And I'll just err on the side of leaving you crabby bunch of wannabe philosophers to your own little treefort.
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I don't feel crabby. I don't much like talking philosophy even though I am aware that "scientific skepticism" is a philosophy. You did get the treefort part almost right. But I prefer to think of this forum as a sandbox...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 07/06/2009 : 20:57:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Landrew
And I'll just err on the side of leaving you crabby bunch of wannabe philosophers to your own little treefort. |
A guy who believes that the sun is made of iron will last for over 1,500 posts to maintain his argument and you bail after fewer than 40? Weak. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2009 : 01:08:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Cuneiformist
Originally posted by Landrew
And I'll just err on the side of leaving you crabby bunch of wannabe philosophers to your own little treefort. |
A guy who believes that the sun is made of iron will last for over 1,500 posts to maintain his argument and you bail after fewer than 40? Weak.
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Not only that (which is at least partially true), but he believed the sun was made of a solid shell of iron.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2009 : 03:11:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Landrew
And I'll just err on the side of leaving you crabby bunch of wannabe philosophers to your own little treefort.
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Why split so arbitrarily? Why not stay and show us the error of our line of thought? Really, if you think that you have a valid argument, on any topic, you should stay and present it.
Hurt feelings are not a good reason to abandon your principals, and who can say; you might be able to convince us. Neither of us know that yet. And if not, you can, perhaps, gain a little knowledge from us, the most important gift the universe can bestow upon a living organism. And it's all for free.
Crabby I might be, but a philosopher, wannabe or otherwise, I am not. I am merely another skeptic, as are we all.
Think about it.....
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 07/07/2009 03:15:01 |
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Landrew
New Member
44 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2009 : 17:21:46 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Originally posted by Landrew
And I'll just err on the side of leaving you crabby bunch of wannabe philosophers to your own little treefort.
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Why split so arbitrarily? Why not stay and show us the error of our line of thought? Really, if you think that you have a valid argument, on any topic, you should stay and present it.
Hurt feelings are not a good reason to abandon your principals, and who can say; you might be able to convince us. Neither of us know that yet. And if not, you can, perhaps, gain a little knowledge from us, the most important gift the universe can bestow upon a living organism. And it's all for free.
Crabby I might be, but a philosopher, wannabe or otherwise, I am not. I am merely another skeptic, as are we all.
Think about it.....
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Because if you are the reasonable one in the bunch, the averages are still too low for me to waste any more of my time here. |
God bless women, for without them there would be no cookies. |
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Fence-Sitting is not all bad
