John Gee's book review and thoughts:

Post by **_beastie** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 11:45 pm

They've forfeited even the slightest smidgin of credibility as judges.

Yeah, kind of like people who don't have a problem with Pahoran.

Post by **_Bond...James Bond** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 11:47 pm

Daniel Peterson wrote:
Runtu wrote:I don't think so. From what I've seen, Dr. Peterson is just having a little fun sending a little gentle mocking and sarcastic humor towards us critics.

True. But it's not really aimed at you or Trevor. I draw a sharp distinction between such folks as you are, and such folks as the Schmo. (Yip yip! Yip! Yip yip yip! Yip!) And then over in Mordor dwell Scratch and his ringwraith. They're in a class by themselves. Dr. Frankenstein and Igor. Count Dracula and one of the children of the night. Lex Luthor and Nigel, but not funny.

Come now....can't we find a more equal analogy? Perhaps those twin girls from The Shining?

(Creepy thought: The little boy in the Shining is named Danny!)

Edit: Sorry in advance for comparing Scratch and Rollo to little girls.....I'm sure they're burly men who wear flannel shirts and chop down trees and eat 12,000 calorie taco salads and other manly acts in real life.

Post by **_Runtu** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 11:54 pm

beastie wrote:
They've forfeited even the slightest smidgin of credibility as judges.

Yeah, kind of like people who don't have a problem with Pahoran.

Well, I've been told that Pahoran is a good judge of character. ;-)

Post by **_Sethbag** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:05 am

For the record, in case anybody cares, I don't think that DCP and ALITD are the same person. Of course, DCP could just be attempting misdirection by posting two very different, and somewhat opposing, views of the teaching of ID in schools, but to really accept that as likely requires a certain conspiracy-theorist bent that I just cannot bring myself to. I consider the link between them to be disproven, unless demonstrated otherwise through very strong evidence.

I disagree with the notion of "teaching the controversy". The fact is, teaching the controversy is not teaching science. At best it's Social Studies, or History. Science classes are for teaching science, not for teaching the fact that some frustrated born-again Christians have a problem with modern science. Until and unless ID can be demonstrated to be good science, it simply doesn't belong. And it hasn't been, and IMHO never will be, because it's just plain old bad science.

The best ID has to offer is the notion that for some questions we can't yet answer, "God did it" is the best answer. I know, I know, nothing in ID mentions God specifically, but you and I both know that it's God that's meant to be the designer. It's certainly not space aliens, or Emperor Xenu, or whatever. Any non-God designer would beg the question "who designed the designer?" and we'd be back to square one. For that matter, any God designer begs the question of how did God occur. ID claims that there are things that are part of living creatures which could not possibly have evolved, and that that impossibility demands a creator or a designer. The problem with that is, there doesn't seem to actually be anything in living things which couldn't have evolved. To my knowledge, intermediate, gradual evolutionary steps have been identified in all of the proposed "impossible to evolve" things such as the eye, blood clotting, wings, etc. At any rate, it's all a very big "god of the gaps" type argument, and as all such gaps arguments, as the gaps are filled, poof! there goes God.

Post by **_beastie** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:26 am

Well, I've been told that Pahoran is a good judge of character. ;-)

And incredibly witty to boot!

But really, we're just hyper-sensitive and take ourselves too seriously. What sane exmormon would mind being told they would support murder of Mormons, after all?

Post by **_Runtu** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:30 am

beastie wrote:
Well, I've been told that Pahoran is a good judge of character. ;-)

And incredibly witty to boot!

But really, we're just hyper-sensitive and take ourselves too seriously. What sane exmormon would mind being told they would support murder of Mormons, after all?

And it was my fault that I took offense at being told I deserved to be suicidal. Any idiot would have known that was the moment to repent.

Post by **_Daniel Peterson** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:32 am

Sethbag wrote:For the record, in case anybody cares, I don't think that DCP and ALITD are the same person. Of course, DCP could just be attempting misdirection by posting two very different, and somewhat opposing, views of the teaching of ID in schools, but to really accept that as likely requires a certain conspiracy-theorist bent that I just cannot bring myself to. I consider the link between them to be disproven, unless demonstrated otherwise through very strong evidence.

I can assure you that we're not the same person.

Sethbag wrote:FI disagree with the notion of "teaching the controversy". The fact is, teaching the controversy is not teaching science. At best it's Social Studies, or History. Science classes are for teaching science, not for teaching the fact that some frustrated born-again Christians have a problem with modern science. Until and unless ID can be demonstrated to be good science, it simply doesn't belong. And it hasn't been, and IMHO never will be, because it's just plain old bad science.

As I've already noted, Michael Behe is a mainstream Catholic, Philip Johnson is a mainstream Protestant, Michael Denton is an agnostic former Protestant, and David Berlinski is an agnostic Jew.

The stereotype is false.

In any case, I believe that the science, as such, could be taught in a very interesting way by squaring some of the ID writers off against their critics. That would be science, not social studies.

Post by **_beastie** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:51 am

And it was my fault that I took offense at being told I deserved to be suicidal. Any idiot would have known that was the moment to repent.

Hmm, I wonder if a reasonable person would call Pahoran's behavior "egregiously bad"?

Post by **_karl61** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 1:03 am

beastie wrote:
And it was my fault that I took offense at being told I deserved to be suicidal. Any idiot would have known that was the moment to repent.

Hmm, I wonder if a reasonable person would call Pahoran's behavior "egregiously bad"?

I actually posted on MA&D that I thought Pahoran and DCP were the same person, but DCP got to be a little bit meaner as Paharon.

Post by **_beastie** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 1:14 am

I actually posted on MA&D that I thought Pahoran and DCP was the same person, but DCP got to be a little bit meaner as Paharon.

LOL!

Pahoran was the worst behaved poster at ZLMB. Every now and then he'd be given a temporary ban to calm down, but the LDS mods just never could bring themselves to ban him permanently, which he abundantly deserved. With rare exception, it seemed that believers really enjoyed Pahoran. Perhaps he was saying all the things they would like to have said, themselves. I never understood it. It seemed obvious they needed to reign him in, because he gave "their side" a bad name. There's always at least a couple of believing posters like that on these sort of boards, just as there are some really poorly behaved exbelievers on boards.