The Refuge of the Toads

[Guestus Aurelius]

And now you know that.

[Brive1987]

Dawkins and Nugent have a thing going - beyond Nugents knighting articles.

Dawkins demand for an apology and his direct reference to 'atheism beyond America" mark him as a red shirt in more ways than one.

Don't see a mention - so pls note Benson has responded to Dawkins in her comments #30
http://archive.is/atbsq

Spoilers - there is no apology.

[comhcinc]

And now you know that.

Works for me. I was planning on reading up on string theory but this works as well.

I have now learned something new today.

[Bourne Skeptic]

Alan Weisman wrote a book called The World Without Us, which is basically a thought experiment in which the human species disappears overnight (not raptured or anything like that). He then describes how plants, fungi, and animals invade homes, buildings, roads, etc., and how long it takes for everything to fall apart and decay.

There was an interesting series called Life After People produced a few years ago based on the same concept. By geologic standards, man-made structures are incredibly ephemeral, with almost all reduced to unrecognizable heaps within 1000 years. The speculation was that Mount Rushmore would be the last man-made structure to be obviously visible and recognizable as such. If I recall correctly, after 100,000 years the faces may still be somewhat visible, perhaps in time for a successor intelligent species to gaze upon them in wonder. The pyramids will survive for millions of years, but will be buried within 10,000.

[youtube]Y8aLKHShv9o[/youtube]

WHy do some of the buildings have numbers on the top - is this for target practice scores?

The number indicates the maximum weight (in thousands of pounds) restriction of a helicopter landing on that rooftop pad.

[jmpea81]

Imagine the image problem organized atheism/secularism might face under similar circumstances:

http://wjla.com/news/local/man-attacked ... ves-matter (perhaps to be taken with a grain of salt or two)

Can people please stop being such intense dickwads? Thanks.

[Guest_0048cc29]

Guest I follow about 350 and my feed today has mostly been filled with tweets and retweets from Milo.

Same here (because of his swag store)
But I am definitely rarely seeing Mercedes tweets...mainly people retweeting her.

Well, call it Heisenberg, conspiracy theory, or twitter covering it's tracks but it's quite possible and even likely that twitter can turn this on or off, ramp it up or down as they need to and possible that they have backed off on Milo and Grummz due to the publicity while letting it continue against Mercedes due to her content.

If you go back to when the quality filter was introduced, I think you can find shoe demonstrating mentions and notifications weren't getting through all the time.

Twitter (and Facebook) play this stuff very close to their chest when anyone who would claim to support freedom of expression would be more open about the speech they do silence and why.

I certainly concede that hard things to measure remain hard especially in the face of an organization that wants to keep it hidden, and yeah, that does tread on conspiracy theory, jet fuel, steel beams and ancient astronauts.

[comhcinc]

Imagine the image problem organized atheism/secularism might face under similar circumstances:

http://wjla.com/news/local/man-attacked ... ves-matter (perhaps to be taken with a grain of salt or two)

Can people please stop being such intense dickwads? Thanks.

I've seen that. I am not buying his reason for the attack.

[Brive1987]

Strawkins - thanks for the accommodationist info. Where were the wars played out? Did it ever reach the vitriol and character assassination levels of the schism?

[Brive1987]

The accommodationist wars always struck me like the clone wars - semi mythical staging possibly best left to the imagination. But they seem to retain more than foundational relevance.

[jmpea81]

The accommodationist wars always struck me like the clone wars - semi mythical staging possibly best left to the imagination. But they seem to retain more than foundational relevance.

This post at WEIT is a good example for what it was about.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.co ... exhibit-a/

The famous Tom Johnson/Exhibit A affair. Involving the Colgate Twins and tremendous amounts of fun!

[tina]

Dawkins and Nugent have a thing going - beyond Nugents knighting articles.

Dawkins demand for an apology and his direct reference to 'atheism beyond America" mark him as a red shirt in more ways than one.

Don't see a mention - so pls note Benson has responded to Dawkins in her comments #30
http://archive.is/atbsq

Spoilers - there is no apology.

Lying disingenuous cunt that she is. She hates Dawkins with a vengeance. She will spin and twist and move goalposts forever and a day to avoid giving any apology. Do not engage...like I said...go lie on a bitch beach in the sun.

[KiwiInOz]

This'll warm the cockles of your cuntles - an academic discussion about the c-word. It's Australian, of course.

[NoGodsEver]

I'll just leave this here:-

Atheism is not a modern invention from the western Enlightenment, but actually dates back to the ancient world, according to a new book by a Cambridge academic – which challenges the assumption that humanity is naturally predisposed to believe in gods.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/f ... -new-study

I suspect that there were atheists the day that some humans decided there were gods.

What's caveman-speak for 'get the fuck out of here with that bullshit'?

[Shatterface]

Benson's just a sack of hate and misery. Even the SJWs can't stand her.

[x_?_x]

And before it continues, I am not saying it isn't happening or that twitter wouldn't do it. I am only saying that before I acknowledge these claim as true I want to see some hard evidence.

Nor me... although i have seen some weird stuff with delays on occasions. Like i don't see their tweets even though i am reading every tweet, then i see the tweets because people have responded 1-2 hours later. I scroll down and can't find the original in my feed.
Could just be me, but if you were going to investigate it....

The thing is that's not anything new. I have been using the platform since 2008 and that's always been the case.

The claim is that twitter is hiding tweets from people they don't like.

How could a humble tweeter prove such a thing is true?

How could 'we' - the uninvolved masses, in essence - prove that twitter was engaged in a soft-censorship campaign?

Rather than debating a lack of evidence, I'd rather try to figure out a methodology that could demonstrate 'censorship,' or a lack thereof.

[comhcinc]

How could a humble tweeter prove such a thing is true?

How could 'we' - the uninvolved masses, in essence - prove that twitter was engaged in a soft-censorship campaign?

Rather than debating a lack of evidence, I'd rather try to figure out a methodology that could demonstrate 'censorship,' or a lack thereof.

Are you claiming that these claims are unfalsifiable?

[x_?_x]

How could a humble tweeter prove such a thing is true?

How could 'we' - the uninvolved masses, in essence - prove that twitter was engaged in a soft-censorship campaign?

Rather than debating a lack of evidence, I'd rather try to figure out a methodology that could demonstrate 'censorship,' or a lack thereof.

Are you claiming that these claims are unfalsifiable?

No 'bulletproof' method to quantify 'censorship' spring to mind.

Best I can do is picking random times to observe tweet-deck against regular 'feed' on either web or phone client. Other than that, I don't know how you can determine if tweets are disappearing / not appearing.

[deLurch]

http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/s ... 80478058/a
I wonder if Muscato is visiting Seattle?

So the city has employees ask people to specify how they identify. But the crazy people would say it is transphobic to ask people how they identify because Danielle is clearly a stunning woman.

I honestly don't care that much as it doesn't affect me. And in fact, I find situations like this is part of what it will take before society as a whole gets fed up with the SJWs. Let the branches of feminism duke it out.

From a privacy stand point, I think that there is a world of difference between a restroom with closed stalls, and a locker room where people are fully changing clothes. It would be far easier for the transgender to get what they desire for restrooms alone. But if they try to duke it out over change rooms, they are going to lose public support. Especially when you have adult men bopping in on a young girl's swim team.

An incredibly simple solution to all of this is to say that transgendered women don't get access to their preferred bathroom until they show how serious they are by getting bottom surgery.

[deLurch]

Here's the link to the above ^ https://richarddawkins.net/2016/02/necs ... -response/
I'm a little disappointed that he chose to address something written by Oafie because it implies she's still in some way relevant when she's not.

I am glad Dawkins is being rational here and putting his health first.

[comhcinc]

No 'bulletproof' method to quantify 'censorship' spring to mind.

Best I can do is picking random times to observe tweet-deck against regular 'feed' on either web or phone client. Other than that, I don't know how you can determine if tweets are disappearing / not appearing.

Well then I don't think people should be making such statements then.

I would point out that Nero claimed to have a source. You would think this source could provide some type of proof.

[Bourne Skeptic]

If anyone knows where I can get a new or used LGA1366 Socket B Motherboard PM me.

[comhcinc]

Today is the last day for input for the upcoming hang out that is happening on Saturday. So far this is what we have:

Saturday 20th 2pm Eastern Time (US) using google hangouts.

I will make the final set in stone tonight.

Remember all regular members are invited but I will not be recording this for the public.

So be there and

https://media.giphy.com/media/gawAL8Xum5U3K/giphy.gif

For those of you that don't read every post.

[Jan Steen]

Benson's just a sack of hate and misery. Even the SJWs can't stand her.

Benson's just a sack of hate and misery. Even the other SJWs can't stand her.

FTFY

[free thoughtpolice]

So David Futrelle has the goods on Roosh V, but of course isn't saying that he did it, he is just relaying an anonymous rumor:
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2016/ ... more-22345
I wonder what sort of anonymous rumors are out there about Futrelle? Is he a child molester? Murders puppies by raping them to death? Fortunately for Futrelle, I doubt that even the worst of his MRA enemies aren't vile enough to stoop to his tactics.

[free thoughtpolice]

aren't should be are :doh:

[Gumby]

Today is the last day for input for the upcoming hang out that is happening on Saturday. So far this is what we have:

Saturday 20th 2pm Eastern Time (US) using google hangouts.

I will make the final set in stone tonight.

Remember all regular members are invited but I will not be recording this for the public.

So be there and

https://media.giphy.com/media/gawAL8Xum5U3K/giphy.gif

For those of you that don't read every post.

I've never done a Google Hangouts before. Questions:

A) Is it a pain in the ass to access and participate? Do I have to set up an account of some kind if I already have a google account?

2) Is video feed necessary, or could I just use a stock image? I'd rather block my webcam.

T) Do you give an address to "dial into"? how does everyone connect to your hangout?

If I am home at that time I wouldn't mind dropping by for a bit.

[HunnyBunny]

I made a transcript of the relevant bit of Dawkins' recording because I knew they'd pull this sort of shit. Ophelia is using Matthew Facciani's transcript made-up shit . Compare it to mine and -- HEY, WHAT DO YOU KNOW -- it's markedly different. *snip*

FIFY

How on earth can anyone claim the Faccini 'script' is anything like the original? It's a bunch of sentences bearing a vague resemblance to about 20% of what Dawkins actually said.

This is what the fight-back against SJWs is about, the continual lies and slander they spread about people. It's why Michael Nugent's push-back against the FTB slanderers is so important. If we allow them to get away with this sort of shit, it becomes reality for millions of people who are gullible enough to believe without checking. All hail the Slymepit, exposing the SJW lies since before anyone else was willing to admit they were lying.

[Guest_0048cc29]

No 'bulletproof' method to quantify 'censorship' spring to mind.

Best I can do is picking random times to observe tweet-deck against regular 'feed' on either web or phone client. Other than that, I don't know how you can determine if tweets are disappearing / not appearing.

I'd ask what clients the folks claiming censorship are using.

If it's chrome / firefox desktop should be "relatively easy" aka "small matter of programming" involving writing a variety of bookmarklets, userscrripts or extensions a user can install to observe xerm tweets and what they see when hitting refresh and compare that to nero et. al's timeline in specific.

It can also involve a bit of coordination where multiple observers who have the extension installed are "tagged on the backchannel (ie follow another twitter user)" to monitor nero, grummz, et. al, when they do tweet. #snap or #romeburns or something like that.

[comhcinc]

A) Is it a pain in the ass to access and participate? Do I have to set up an account of some kind if I already have a google account?

If you have a google account you are good to go.

2) Is video feed necessary, or could I just use a stock image? I'd rather block my webcam.

You can do audio only.

T) Do you give an address to "dial into"? how does everyone connect to your hangout?

I am going to start a hang out and then will be able to invite everyone that wants to be in it

If I am home at that time I wouldn't mind dropping by for a bit.

Sweet.

[HunnyBunny]

Over at Ophelias:

Bjarte Foshaug
February 17, 2016 at 11:28 am

I remain a passionate feminist who looks at the world beyond America and clearly sees that by far the majority of misogynistic atrocities are committed in the name of Islam.

And how, if I may ask, is the situation of Muslim women remedied by telling Western women to put up with any attempt by Western men to seek personal gratification at their expense or expect the same level of hatred and abuse that you have inspired – even actively encouraged – for the last not-so-few years”? The essence of “Dear Muslima” (and pretty much everything you have had to say on the topic ever since) was not that we should be more concerned with the treatment of women in the Muslim World (if it was, your whole unprovoked attack on Rebecca Watson was a complete non-sequitur). The only honest interpretation was that we should be less concerned with the still unacceptably high levels of sexism faced by Western women. The whole ugly thing boiled down to “We could be treating you a whole lot worse, so shut up and be grateful that we’re only being creepy and disrespectful”

:bjarte:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160217230 ... f-the-bus/

[Gumby]

Thanks Com.

[AndrewV69]

Not as advanced on evolution as some of you guys, but what is the latest consensus on the Dawkins vs. Gould view? Does one have a stronger case, or are both views compatible, and the "feud" completely overblown?

Gould is a fraud. A peddler of beautiful bullshit. That is all you need to know really.

Personally, I became aware that Gould was a lying fucktard back in the day. It was a long time ago and I do not remember the details but it was around the time that The September That Never Ended, within a decade or so at any rate.

There was an article in NY Times? The Atlantic? and some back and forth between Gould and the author of the article. It was clear then that Gould was full of bullshit from his responses.

Anyway, I digress. There are lots of articles all over the place that trash Gould. Here is one Beware of Stephen J. Gould.

But Gould's actual conduct was much stranger. He wrote as if the entire Williams revolution had never occurred! Gould attacked, as if they were still current views, romantic notions that no serious biologist had put forth since the 1960s. Then Gould presented his own counterarguments to these no-longer-advocated views, and they were bizarre. Evolution is a random walk in complexity, with a minimum at zero complexity and no upper bound? But there is an upper bound! Sheer chance explains why dogs are more complex than dinosaurs? But they probably aren't!

Why did Gould behave thus? Two observations: One, to bring order to a scientific field, it must first be in chaos. Two, plagiarism is a crime that everyone understands.

Follow the link to read the rest shitlord.

[Lsuoma]

Australian town consumed by hairy panic.

[screwtape]

Before John Thaw died (which was sometime after Morse died, of course—sometimes it's hard to separate the character from the actor), he had time to make one more excellent series as a British QC:

http://www.annedudley.co.uk/userassets/ ... 20main.jpg

And talking ofjustice, I can't get any. Spent the day from 2am bucketing and baling out a sewer backup into the basement, and even some damage on the ground floor from overspill from toilets. An 11ºC heatwave causing rapid snowmelt and heavy rain overpowered the sewerage system and it seems I'm just about the lowest customer in town. Municipality, insurance company, an adjustor, a contractor and a plumber already involved. Splashing around in sewage ought to involve a few more white cells than I have these days, but there was no choice. A backflow valve goes in the lateral tomorrow and then the basement gets torn apart.

[deLurch]

So David Futrelle has the goods on Roosh V, but of course isn't saying that he did it, he is just relaying an anonymous rumor:
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2016/ ... more-22345
I wonder what sort of anonymous rumors are out there about Futrelle? Is he a child molester? Murders puppies by raping them to death? Fortunately for Futrelle, I doubt that even the worst of his MRA enemies aren't vile enough to stoop to his tactics.

This was easily foreseeable. In his press meeting, he laid out as his defense that he has never been accused of rape by a single person. He might as well have begged the feminist community to come up with an accusation.

I don't know how feasible extradition from Iceland to the US would be. Assuming it was true, I don't know how feasible extradition would be. Hell, if it was reported immediately, they could have nabbed him prior to leaving iceland. But if she did it now, and arrest charges were laid, Roosh would not be able to reenter iceland again without being arrested. Who knows, it might hamper his other international travels in the EU, and interpol affiliated states.

Honestly, her story sounds hinky. And I don't trust Roosh's book story either as he was writing a PUA book where I would believe there would be plenty of incentive to exaggerate.

[Skep tickle]

Now here's a mess of a situation: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/ ... acy.3.html

A little something for almost everyone - bodily autonomy, women's rights & roles (defended by a pro-life lawyer), men's rights, disability rights, parental rights, gender selection, baby selling, money, business, & contract law.

[deLurch]

Australian town consumed by hairy panic.

For others who have to look this up after reading the article:

paddock
1. a small field or enclosure where horses are kept or exercised.

[ffs]

[deLurch]

Now here's a mess of a situation: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/ ... acy.3.html

A little something for almost everyone - bodily autonomy, women's rights & roles (defended by a pro-life lawyer), men's rights, disability rights, parental rights, gender selection, baby selling, money, business, & contract law.

I find it interesting that parenthood can be determined by the surrogate contract, but sperm donation contracts don't hold water unless it is done through a sperm donation clinic.

[Bourne Skeptic]

Here's a link to the Milo, Christina Hoff Sommers speech at University of Minnesota.

[youtube]ePzma7LK7-k[/youtube]

[Brive1987]

Thanks Com.

What was the proposed Zulu/GMT?

[Really?]

Now here's a mess of a situation: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/ ... acy.3.html

A little something for almost everyone - bodily autonomy, women's rights & roles (defended by a pro-life lawyer), men's rights, disability rights, parental rights, gender selection, baby selling, money, business, & contract law.

I find it interesting that parenthood can be determined by the surrogate contract, but sperm donation contracts don't hold water unless it is done through a sperm donation clinic.

Sperm is extremely easy to come by. Heck, Carrier has a five gallon drum of it in his bedroom just in case. Carrying children to term takes forever and can only be done every year or so.

It is almost as if our species is sexually dimorphic and our societies have been shaped by these forces.

[Gumby]

Thanks Com.

What was the proposed Zulu/GMT?

2 pm eastern time US Saturday, which I believe translates to 7pm (or 1900, if you prefer) GMT. check a time site because I could be wrong on the GMT.

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

And talking ofjustice, I can't get any. Spent the day from 2am bucketing and baling out a sewer backup into the basement, and even some damage on the ground floor from overspill from toilets. An 11ºC heatwave causing rapid snowmelt and heavy rain overpowered the sewerage system and it seems I'm just about the lowest customer in town. Municipality, insurance company, an adjustor, a contractor and a plumber already involved. Splashing around in sewage ought to involve a few more white cells than I have these days, but there was no choice. A backflow valve goes in the lateral tomorrow and then the basement gets torn apart.

Is the utility company that provides sewer services at least on the hook for your damages and repairs? Fortunately for your white cells, reading Pharangula and Skepchick probably provide some immunity from sewage.

[CommanderTuvok]

Yet another NUS (National Union of Students) plonker turns out to be a massive retarded regressive lefty, with a hate-on for Maajid Nawaz. Obviously, Nawaz isn't a "proper Muslim" - i.e. an Islamist who wants gay people dead and women subjected, etc. Maajid is one of those strange Muslim liberals who NUS members have a deranged hate for.

Anyway, this prick posted that Maajid should suffer a "Halal slaughter" before he was coerced into offering an apology. Just another example of the horrid regressive left SJW insanity that the NUS is riddled with. Everytime you hear a story about the fucking NUS, it is something like this. I bet this JT White character admires Mo Ansar. He's that type.

[Brive1987]

Thanks Com.

What was the proposed Zulu/GMT?

2 pm eastern time US Saturday, which I believe translates to 7pm (or 1900, if you prefer) GMT. check a time site because I could be wrong on the GMT.

Ah. 6.00am Sunday morning here.

[DaveDodo007]

Strawkins - thanks for the accommodationist info. Where were the wars played out? Did it ever reach the vitriol and character assassination levels of the schism?

Well PZ called Ruse a gobshite and Ruse never stopped going on about it, it was mainly played out on blogs. PZ, Benson, Coyne and Dawkins blogs. I think it all started with the 'Don't be a Dick' post though I can't even remember who wrote it. There was Mooney and Asspig involved as well.

[free thoughtpolice]

DeLurch wrote:

This was easily foreseeable. In his press meeting, he laid out as his defense that he has never been accused of rape by a single person. He might as well have begged the feminist community to come up with an accusation.

When I heard Roosh tell the press he has never been accused of rape it became clear, if it already hadn't been just how stupid this guy is.
Also during the press conference you are talking about; am I the only one that found his body language kind of weird? It looked like a sort of spastic sexual display, kind of like he was restraining himself from doing the full wild and crazy guy dance.
[youtube]CwFD3KVJHU8[/youtube]

[mordacious1]

Australian town consumed by hairy panic.

For others who have to look this up after reading the article:

paddock
1. a small field or enclosure where horses are kept or exercised.

I know what "paddock" means (seriously, who wouldn't?), but I'm unfamiliar with that word in the definition, "exercised". What the hell does that mean? And yes, I'm too lazy to look it up.

[free thoughtpolice]

The Roosh V presser I was referring to:
[youtube]CD6ajfna7tE[/youtube]

[DaveDodo007]

The accommodationist wars always struck me like the clone wars - semi mythical staging possibly best left to the imagination. But they seem to retain more than foundational relevance.

This post at WEIT is a good example for what it was about.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.co ... exhibit-a/

The famous Tom Johnson/Exhibit A affair. Involving the Colgate Twins and tremendous amounts of fun!

Didn't benson expose Tom Johnson's bullshit where he fucked up his sock puppet accounts, he posted "I believe Polly-O" from his Polly-O account. Fun times. :dance:

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Melissa McEwen is upset(of course she is-it's a day that ends in a "y")because China relocated 9,000 people in order to build a giant radio telescope. She adds:

Note that it's never, ever, white people who are displaced for the purposes of giant telescopes.

Apparently China should be building its telescopes in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

In China, you need to relocate 9,000 people just to set out the trash.

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

This'll warm the cockles of your cuntles - an academic discussion about the c-word. It's Australian, of course.

You have likely summoned it, and it won't be confined to it's own thread.

giphyjgjgj_zpsarn8s7pq.gif

(1.31 MiB) Downloaded 345 times

[some guy]

A) Is it a pain in the ass to access and participate? Do I have to set up an account of some kind if I already have a google account?

If you have a google account you are good to go.

Would anyone watching be able to see google names? (And thereby know your email address.)

[Brive1987]

Strawkins - thanks for the accommodationist info. Where were the wars played out? Did it ever reach the vitriol and character assassination levels of the schism?

Well PZ called Ruse a gobshite and Ruse never stopped going on about it, it was mainly played out on blogs. PZ, Benson, Coyne and Dawkins blogs. I think it all started with the 'Don't be a Dick' post though I can't even remember who wrote it. There was Mooney and Asspig involved as well.

Don't be a dick was Plait trying to tone police atheist and skeptic debate via a speech at TAM 2010.

Surely this can't have been AccomWar's elevatorgate given the players on Team-Accommodation?

[CommanderTuvok]

Ironic that a lot of the anti-accommodationists, like PZ Myers, now accommodate Islamists, homophobes, and child rapists.

[HunnyBunny]

Excellent article on Twitter Shadow banning: https://karbonncopy.wordpress.com/2016/ ... e-shadows/

This clearly shows that Twitter intends to hide certain tweets from people in order to stop ‘abuse’. Suppressing these individual Tweets from certain users accounts depending where you are in the world and for a certain amount of time is not technically ShadowBanning. However, coupled with the new Timeline update that makes relevant Tweets appear instead of them appearing in chronological order, it has the same effect. A Tweet goes out from a user that this tool is being used against, that user’s followers do not see it as Twitter has hidden it from followers for a certain time, the Tweet gains no reach, it doesn’t appear on the timeline when it is eventually unhidden as it is not relevant enough to qualify. Like Dietrich says, “Censorship, that doesn’t look like censorship”.

After being published by The Washington Post, and Motherboard, Twitter came out and gave a statement in response.

“Earlier this week, an issue caused some Tweets to be delivered inconsistently across browsers and geographies. We’ve since resolved the issue though affected Tweets may take additional time to correct.” Twitter declined to comment further to both media outlets. If you ask me, it certainly hasn’t been fixed. If anything, it’s gotten worse.

This could be classed as ShadowBanning or just filtering, there is no argument that this is censorship.

I do think the beginning of the end has started for twitter. Everything is going wrong for them, from shareprice, to losing their best celebrity advocate in Stephen Fry. They have attacked the abuse issue by targeting people who are for the most part disagreeing, because they are listening to the Randi Harper's & Anita Sarkeesians. Jack Dorsey is an bumbling idiot SJW, who will get handed his marching orders by the investors, but likely it will be too late.

[DaveDodo007]

Stolen from KiA.

http://www.ktvb.com/news/local/regional ... e/45489064


I smell another TERF war.

[welch]

The thing that's really annoyed me about Pigliucci over the years is that for all his talk about how people (especially scientists) need to have better knowledge of the philosophical underpinnings of their ideas, he often resorts to mere argument by assertion..

That's cuz Massimo's an arrogant prick.

For a decade or more, he's been doing the same argument by assertion for his stupid, hodgepodge "Extended Synthesis", and just did it again in that blogpost, where he says he realized Dawkins' "view of biology was hopelessly limited" because of Dawkins' "refusal to take seriously the idea of multi-level selection, his (later) casual dismissal of epigenetics, his ridicule of advances coming out of paleontology, his utter ignorance (judging from the fact that he hardly wrote about it at all) of important concepts like phenotypic plasticity, phenotypic accommodation, niche selection, robustness, and evolvability ...." Just repeating a list over & over doesn't make it so.

In fact, Dawkins has addressed epigenetics, plasticity, robustness and evolvability, just hasn't accepted them as the death-knell of neo-darwinism MassPig insists they are. The "ridicule of advances coming out of paleontology" likely refers to one 'advance' -- punctuated equilibrium. Dawkins got a bit huffy, but he did discuss it at length and showed how it is a refinement, not a contradiction, of neo-darwinism, and also that Gould & Eldridge were dishonestly attacking a strawman.

Nor should anyone take multi-level selection seriously until somebody actually puts forth evidence of its existence, or at least can whip it into a workable hypothesis. Dawkins has acknowledged the plausibility of group selection, but no one in their right mind should still entertain selection at the level of the individual, something that should've died with Gould, but lives on with Gould groupies like MassPig.

And Niche Selection is a tautology at best, Gaia-woo at worst.

So MassPig can piss off.

PIggy is playing it well. The vast majority of people who read his shit at this point hate dawkins anyway, so you think THEY'RE going to even try to see if he's full of shit? Nope.

He's just preaching to the converted.

[Gumby]

Stolen from KiA.

http://www.ktvb.com/news/local/regional ... e/45489064


I smell another TERF war.

Patri-Archie was so prescient.

http://56.media.tumblr.com/ad43d6c28412 ... 1_1280.png