Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Why is WikiPedia so slow?

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Sat, 7 Jan 2006, Christian M. Cepel wrote:

> There are no NAS or Nobelists because of those who commute those honors 
> do not hold similar beliefs and as a whole they are very abusive and 
> intolerant of those who do.  Take Mike as an example.  It's never been 
> enough for him to agree to disagree or to say I disagree with your 
> theories and/or beliefs, but still respect you as a person.  Quite the 
> contrary, you are told you are a fool, or stupid, and that you have no 
> value as a scientist and indeed have no right to claim the distinction.

The reason that you have no value as a scientist is that you are not 
taking a scientific approach to the problem.  That isn't even a 
possibility for you.  You are a religious person trying to promote your 
religion.  When science and data conflict with your prior beliefs you 
fight it.  A scientist keeps an opened mind and tries to construct his 
views based on data, evidence and logic.  You can't do that if you feel 
that you must defend ancient creation myths.

If you look at the way some of you approach me - Vern for example - they 
want to tell me what's what.  The attitude is "Here - look at this - tell 
me why this doesn't show that evolutionary theory is wrong."  In the email 
I'm responding to now you have told me once again how things are.  You 
claim to know what scientists and Nobelists are like but I'm not sure how 
many scientists you know.  I think you couldn't know very many.  I think, 
once again, that you are inventing a convenient defense of your religion 
and you don't really care what the facts are.  Jon and I are scientists 
and we have repeatedly contradicted your claims about what scientists are 
like, but you won't listen to us because it is not convenient for your 
argument in favor of your creation myth.  If you wanted to know about 
evolutionary science, you would not have to write to this list, you could 
just get some books and read them.

For decades scientists made the mistake of engaging with people like you 
in a "constructive dialogue" intent on informing you.  It turned out that 
you didn't give a shit, so the new strategy has been mocking derision. 
You asked for it, you got it.  Many scientists who used to debate with 
Creationists have decided that it is counterproductive because it makes it 
seem like there is a controversy and some validity to the Creationist 
view, but it has no validity.  None.  You can't dismiss science for 
decades and expect to be taken seriously by scientists.


> These people are certainly in the minority, and if you're in the 
> minority, the respected journals and such won't publish your research or 
> conclusions, and if you don't get published.  You don't get published, 
> you don't get grants, and you don't exist.

This also is not true.  As Jon has said repeatedly, solid scientific data 
collection, analysis and writing will lead to publication, more so if it 
causes us to question well-established ideas.  Of course, we often say 
that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," so if the 
claim is going to be that Darwin was wrong, or somesuch, you'd better have 
some pretty excellent data or you will be laughed at, and rightly so. 
Everyone, me especially, would love to be the huge superstar who proved 
that Darwin was wrong -- they'd have my photo in every biology and history 
textbook forever -- but that is about as likely at this point as proving 
that Copernicus was wrong.  Physicists have been trying for decades to 
poke holes in Einstein's theories.  Science is not like religion.  We are 
not trying to maintain it as it is; we are trying to change it constantly 
and we are especially interested in detecting false beliefs and 
eliminating them.  The goal of religion is stasis - the maintenance of the 
status quo despite any evidence that might be presented.


> Evolutionary theory is the Orthanc on which those who think a little 
> differently break their twiggy fingers on.

And this would be because they are so biased by their religious views that 
they are unable to do good science?

Mike

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