As the original Moderation page has developed a bug so that permalinks no longer navigate to the appropriate comment, I thought I’d put up a page for continuing discussion on moderating issues. The Rules can be found there so anyone with an issue should check that they are familiar with them.
26th June 2015: the bug has now affected this page so there is now a new Moderation Issues page here.
Am unsure if you meant your question to be rhetorical, but will respond as if it were an actual request for information.
The reason Creationists (in which category ID-pushers fall) “take this stuff so seriously” is that they believe they are doing God’s work by opposing the unholy/Satanic/pagan Evil which the secular world calls “the theory of evolution”.
Seriously.
Consider YEC Kurt Wise; as best anyone can tell, this guy actually does understand mainstream science, and he really does agree that, as far as science is concerned, the conclusions of mainstream science re: the age of the Earth and yada yada yada are all okay. So why is Wise a YEC? Exactly, specifically, and explicitly because those conclusions of mainstream science contradict his religious beliefs.
Consider the YEC group Answers in Genesis; the AiG website [ https://answersingenesis.org/about/ ] explicitly states
Likewise, the Institute for Creation Research is an explicitly Christian organization that explicitly rejects any conclusions which do not fall safely within the boundaries of (their particular flavor of) Christian belief.
And since various ID-pushers will insist that ID is not at all related to Creationism in any way whatsoever, and therefore ID cannot possibly be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the greater Creationist movement, it is worth pointing out that ID’s foundational “Wedge document” explicitly, directly states that the entire friggin’ point of ID is “to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions”; that the pro-ID textbook Of Pandas and People was an unabashed, openly Creationist text in its earliest drafts, and was converted to an ID text by the simple expedient of a search-and-replace operation in which character strings such as “Creator” were replaced by character strings such as “Intelligent Designer” (see also: the amusing typo cdesign proponentists) and that the Discovery Institute’s ID-pushin’ textbook Explore Evolution, at least one of whose authors is a YEC himself, consists exclusively, from stem to stern, of nothing but old, pre-refuted Creationist arguments against evolution.
So yeah. ID just plain is a morph of good old Creationism, and Creationism (whether YEC or OEC) just plain is a religious crusade, as far as Creationists/ID-pushers are concerned. All the various morphs of Creationism over the past several decades, from flat-out Creationism to mildly obfuscated Scientific Creationism to heavily obfuscated Intelligent Design, are the result of Creationists pouring their old Creationist wine into new seemingly-not-Creationist bottles, which act of deceit they perform anew after each successive court case rules that this flavor of Creationism is still religious dogma, and therefore still cannot be taught under the guise of science in public schools.
Why do non-Creationists “take this stuff so seriously“? I’m not sure there is any one reason. In some cases, it’s because the non-Creationist is, themself, a Christian who takes the whole “seeker of Truth” deal a lot more seriously than Creationist Christians do. In some cases, it’s because the non-Creationist regards the greater Creationist enterprise as an attempt to help convert the USofA into a Christian theocracy, and the non-Creationist doesn’t care for theocracy. In some cases, it’s because the non-Creationist regards truth and factual accuracy as ideals worth standing up for. Depending on exactly which non-Creationist you’re talking about, they could be opposing Creationism for any or all three of the reasons I listed, or they could have reasons I didn’t list.
cubist,
Yep, the question was a rhetorical chuckle. People get wound up about all manner of things, I guess, and I can see, on both sides, what they feel is at stake, but personal rancour just gets in the way.
I take the issues seriously, but not the ‘debate’. I try and get my facts straight, and spend a fair bit of time in that effort, but it’s voluntary, and in the process I learn. If someone happens to drift by on the interwebs who can’t carry an argument, takes a personal dislike or breaks the unwritten rules of sensible discourse, it can be frustrating but not something I let get to me. It’s entertainment. I learn all sorts by watching Creationists, about science and about people.
There’s the rub. When rules are unwritten, can we rely on everyone to act in the same spirit of open and honest dialogue? Evidence says “up to a point, Lord Copper”.
But then as Patrick says, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Regarding the particular issue of Creationism and the movement’s involvement in politics, it is a phenomenon largely confined to the US. I find it difficult to take the fervour and subjugation of facts to belief at all seriously. I realise those living in US society who object to the attempt to build a conservative Christian hegemony don’t have that luxury, hence the understandable passion attached to comments from Cubist, Glen and others.
This can happen. There are good reasons why it is not a rule at some sites (e.g. Talk Rational).
But I still think there’s a razor to be slid between demonstrating where someone has been contradictory, or misrepresentative (is that a word?) and accusing them of lying. In general, I think people think that what they are saying is true at the time they are saying it, even if it contradicts what they said earlier. I have no problem with anyone pointing out that contradiction, nor with pointing out that a quote-mine is a quote-mine.
I stick with the fundamental belief that while people like other people to think they are right, they also want to be right themselves. If I thought I was wrong, I would change my mind. The fact that I don’t suggests that I really do think I’m right. Same goes for Sal. Sure, we might speculate that he deep-down knows that YEC is a bust, and that his reasons for hanging on to it are emotional rather than rational, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t really think YEC is true, or that he hasn’t convinced himself that his quote mines are real evidence of a heart of darkness in the Old Earth model.
Dunno. Will think some more. Gotta run.
People in the UK who share your opinion that Creationism is only really a problem in the USofA, got a rude awakening when Sir Peter Vardy started some schools in the UK which taught Creationism as science. And let’s not forget Adnan “Harun Yahya” Oktar over in Turkey…
I’d recommend less complacency, and more vigilance. Creationists know that in secular societies, which tend not to favor theocracy, they can’t achieve their goals openly & honestly; since they regard their goals as literally God-ordained, they do their work in secret, with plenty of deception. I am not sufficiently familiar with French culture/politics/etc to have any concrete notion of how Creationists might go about their goal of destroying secular science education, but given what I know about how these guys work in the US, and what I know of their efforts to export Creationism to other nations, I am strongly inclined to doubt that France is totally free of their malign wannabe-theocratic influence.
I hope you’re right to assume that there ain’t no Creationists working in France. I just can’t share that assumption.
cubist,
Not heard of Vardy, but this popped up – he won a suit defending himself against the charge, and the state schools inspectorate found no evidence.
This isn’t to say that ‘it couldn’t happen here’, but things are anyway very different on either side of the pond. Church attendance is perennially on the slide (something I find paradoxically saddening, from a cultural pov). Yet we nearly all still go to ‘Church of England’ schools where we routinely crayon in Bible stories (a sure fire way to put someone off religion for life!).
But on the other side, we hold our scientists in high regard, and are genuinely proud of the likes of Darwin and Newton. The former’s on the ten pound note, there was a special £2 coin minted on his bicentenary, and I had a pint of “Darwin’s Origin”, brewed in his honour for the same. And one of our ‘national treasures’ is a wildlife documentary maker who weaves the evolutionary perspective into his narratives which are among the most popular programmes on telly.
USAian correspondents can make comparisons with their own circles of acquaintance but I know of precisely 2 Creationists – OK 3 if you count the barmaid who hissed “you know he stole all his ideas don’t you?” when I handed her one of said £2 coins (should have kept it; worth a bit more now)!
From where we are now, a more likely religious threat is Shar’ia Law! I look crap with a beard, so let’s hope not.
And after the poster continues to clutter up the thread with silly and debunked claims, without addressing any of the issues raised or presenting any evidence in support of his claims (viz. Sal & geochronologists cherry-picking dates) long after the best argument has won?
I like Lizzie’s ideas, but there should be some way to handle intentional and repeated abuse of her hospitality.
I agree… it is even possible (though I think unlikely) that he doesn’t realize he isn’t discussing anything or attempting to present evidence for many of his claims. He is not arguing in good faith. He is not discussing. He’s just preaching the same old boring crap.
I point out his errors because I know some find them interesting. But he’s turning this blog into his pulpit, and that’s exactly opposite to the spirit of the blog.
There’s a rather steep cost in time to reply to gish gallops. Perhaps we could agree that claims covered decades ago should be handled by linking to responses made at the time.
I’m more concerned about the cabal of conservative Catholics that have come out of the woodwork recently over Vincent Lambert*, who has been in a coma for 8 years or so following a motorcycle accident. That these groups still have the influence they do reaching into French political life is somewhat worrying.
I’m not complacent about Creationism as a political force in the US, because what goes on in the US usually has global ramifications eventually. I hope this blog helps in a small way to keep information and dialogue going, which is how the disinformation of Creationist politics will be defeated, I’m sure.
*I couldn’t find much about the detailed background other than in French but there is something about it on BBC News website.
ETA link
I personally find Christian creationism rather toothless. I am a bit more concerned by Islamic creationism,because it is wrapped up in a militant movement, and because opposition to that movement is being treated as politically incorrect.
As for TSZ’s Troubles, perhaps a.new thread on whether YEC Merits a detailed response.
Allan Miller,
Because the anti-Enlightenment, willfully scientifically illiterate actually vote.
Alan Fox,
That may not have been original with me. 😉
JonF,
Ideally that kind of control should be in the hands of the readers, not the moderators. If you find someone isn’t adding value to the conversation, you should have the ability to filter out their comments. Participants who feel otherwise can continue to read them.
I don’t know if there’s a WordPress kill file plugin, but I’ll look around.
petrushka,
That would be ideal. There is nothing that Sal has posted that wasn’t addressed 20 or more years ago here: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-index.html
petrushka,
I’d find that interesting reading, but I don’t see this as “TSZ’s Troubles”. The trouble is with those, myself included, who do not control our own responses to the nth repetition of the YEC nonsense. No one is forcing anyone else to respond in Sal’s threads. A simple “This has all been refuted and I will not waste my time with it.” followed by not wasting your time with it is all the “moderation” necessary.
I dislike deliberate lying. The problem is not seeing the lying, it’s the lying.
It’s a TSZ trouble when we are goaded into fighting among ourselves by someone having no scruples. I propose that quote mines be added to the list of posts that go to guano.
The operational definition of an unacceptable quote is one that has been truncated or altered to support a point that would not be accepted by the the original author. This is not rocket science.
Second hand quotes should be avoided by all of us. They make it difficult to find the context. There are non-contrversial quotes that are seldom challenged, but anything that appears to be an author giving hostile witness against his usual position should immediately be suspect.
JonF,
Your problem is your response to what you perceive as deliberate lying.
I happen to share your visceral response to that kind of blatant dishonesty. The appropriate response is not to censor the person you think is lying but to point out the truth. The best response to bad speech is good speech. Any other approach results in bad consequences. We are none of us angels.
petrushka,
No, it’s the fault of those of us who choose to allow ourselves to be so goaded.
Your proposal involves a judgement call in many cases. I do not see how the extra effort on the part of the admins and the additional meta arguments that are sure to result are in any way superior to simply calling out dishonest behavior and providing evidence of it.
I usually agree with what you post here. It’s nice to have something to argue about.
Patrick,
And you can influence that vote by being snarky with its operator?
Allan Miller,
Sometimes. No one likes being laughed at. At some point, reached long since by YECs and UD regulars, mocking is the only appropriate response. If evidence and reason were going to work, they wouldn’t be creationists in the first place.
This is a political battle, not a rational debate.
My home Internet provider decided to discontinue ITE service in my area without warning. I would like to make an OP on quote mining but can’t do it from a phone. Also, eye two is this week. Might post on that also. In a week or so.
Patrick,
I’m more than happy to mock. I’m all in favour of mockery of some positions. But my original aside was looking askance at those who get angry. Find some stranger on the internet, get annoyed with the way they conduct debate, then do it again. Chacun a son gout, I suppose.
Lizzie,
You’re quite right to remind us that people can sincerely hold even the most ridiculous of beliefs, and that we should keep this in mind. (Scientologists actually exist!)
It doesn’t follow that people won’t deliberately lie on a blog, however. Indeed, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the opposite conclusion.
The “good faith” rule requires us to assume a known falsehood: that all commenters are at all times stating what they believe to be the truth.
So true. And misrepresent, weasel, etc. As I’ve said before, I think the moderators here focus too much on ad homs (of course, they’re the easiest to see), and not enough on the more dishonest sorts of crap (which is, admittedly, harder to make a call on). But while names generally don’t hurt too much (compared to sticks and stones, anyhow), the misrepresentations are awful, because they can be repeated, turn up anywhere, etc. The moderation here seems to me uneven and a little random, but I don’t think the answer is turning the place into a complete zoo.
Not sure WHAT the answer is, actually, but as a (self-) banned pseudo-contributor, I suppose my vote wouldn’t count anyhow.
I’m not so sure. To be sure that someone is lying, you have to be sure they know what they are saying is untrue when they are saying it. Some lies are easy to prove (about the speakers whereabouts, actions etc) but some false statements (false beliefs, inaccurate understanding of scientific evidence etc) are only demonstrably lies after contrary evidence is supplied and ignored.
Allan Miller,
Ah, my apologies, I missed that distinction.
walto,
One thing that has consistently worked for me, when someone misrepresents me, is to ask them for the supporting evidence. When it isn’t forthcoming, onlookers quickly figure out who’s actually being dishonest.
keiths,
Not disputing that could be the case, but how would you know what onlookers have figured out?
keiths:
Alan:
Read my statement again:
I’m not (at all!) saying that we’re always correct when we think someone is deliberately lying.
I’m saying that we’re incorrect to assume that no one ever lies, as the “good faith” rule requires us to do.
However, instead of post “person X lied”, you can post “what person X wrote is false because …”. As I understand it, the rules bar the first kind of response but not the second kind of response.
I think Lizzie intends “assume” as in “pretend” or “act as if” rather than “believe”. I’m out for the Evening. Solstice celebration! I’m hoping for sky-clad antics but I think it’s just supper.
Alan,
They state it.
For example, how hard is it to figure out what commenters think of Sal Cordova’s integrity, or lack thereof?
Alan,
Yes, and pretending that a falsehood is true is just as pernicious as believing it. It leads to absurdities like the one that prompted this entire discussion.
The rules allowed Sal to lie about what Glen wrote, but they didn’t allow Glen to point out that Sal lied, so you (reluctantly) guano’ed his comment.
When the rules protect the liar and penalize the truth-teller, you know you have a problem.
More on this in my forthcoming OP.
I do not actually expect a rule change. But I think posters who are given the benefit of the doubt should take responsibility for the integrity of their sources and of their arguments. This is not about being right or wrong. It is about the integrity of the argument process.
Neil,
Yes, but I don’t see that as an improvement, as I’ll explain in my OP.
petrushka,
Inevitably, some of them won’t.
At that point I would much rather see someone dispute their claims than censor them.
I’ll bet that Barry Arrington at least sometimes genuinely believes that ID critics aren’t “taking responsibility for the integrity of their sources and their arguments.” UD would be a much better site if he would simply say so and explain why rather than banning and censoring.
Readers can decide for themselves whether a commenter is credible. We don’t need moderators making those decisions for us.
I’m fine with what we have. I’m venting because I’ve watched knowledgeable people spend hours refuting garbage copied from websites that have no integrity.
After calming down I appreciate the free education.
I want anyone who participated in that education to know I read their stuff and appreciate their hard work.
Hear, hear.
Sal is lying. There is no question about it.
He knows he’s lying. There is no question about it (He probably believes a lot of what he says, but definitely not all.)
Sal is also being an asshole. There is no question about it.
Sal is the tail end of the YEC distribution. He adds nothing and takes away a lot.
Pointing out the truth is not an appropriate response to Sal. It may be interesting to some others, but it’s of no interest to Sal, and he actively avoids it.
I sympathize with Lizzie’s gentle rules. But Sal is the extreme case that cannot be handled by ordinary means. Were I Lizzie, I would tell him he’s welcome to post er after he apologizes for his egregious quote mines of thread participants and addresses at least one of the three fatal problems that I’ve posted so many times.
No doubt he would refuse, and post on UD or ENV that the mean evos kicked him out because he was arguing so effectively for YEC. So be it. He should be excluded form any company of civilized people.
Would you let Hitler post here and rant against Jews? He would, of course, be posting in good faith by Lizzie’s definition.
Some people are evil. Not many.
My problem is seeing evil people encouraged to lie.
I think that’s an over-reaction.
Evil? Well, yeah, I think some people are evil — and the evil people I’ve ever heard of have all been theist fanatics. (Tiny handful of exceptions, not the point here.) So it doesn’t take much for me to draw a connection between a theist behaving badly and a theist being evil. I think I have plenty of good reasons to be biased in that direction. (But I admit it is a bias, not an intrinsic truth about theism.)
Even given my natural hatred of YECcers and IDists and their political-economic connections to the woman-murdering, child-raping, gay-bashing churches around the world, I don’t see any evidence that the idiots who have happened to wander in here are actually performing evil.
Being an asshole is quite different from being evil, and I just don’t see that we need to worry about “evil people encouraged to lie”, because that’s flatly not what’s happening here.
JonF,
“Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”
You can’t control what other people do, you can only control your own reaction to it. I, too, think Sal is lying, quote mining, and being a generally despicable excuse for a human being. Neither you nor I nor anyone else is going to convince him to behave differently. The best we can do is refute his baseless claims and demonstrate intellectual integrity in contrast to his behavior.
We’re the good guys. We don’t get to act like the bad guys.
“Thought Police” I’m sure start well intended and concerned for the “greater good”.
FWIW, I agree with Jon. This isn’t a state, it’s a privately owned website. Much more like somebody’s living room even than Andorra. And it can either be civil or a total zoo. Your safety’s sake doesn’t require that this place be a shithole. There’s a difference between what goes on at UD and a total free-for-all, and I think Lizzie’s rules were intended to find a nice middle ground. As I’ve said I don’t think she quite got it right, but at least she tried.
walto,
Lizzie has every right to create whatever rules she likes for participants here. Thankfully, she has chosen to demonstrate her support for the principle of free expression, on the whole.
It’s that principle that is important. Just because someone can censor, edit, and ban doesn’t mean they should. The desire to control what other people say and hear is a character flaw. I don’t want others controlling the fora in which I participate nor do I wish to control those fora myself.
tbh, there are certain views I actually will draw the line at. Fortunately they haven’t come up, but if anyone posts Stormfont shit, or advocates abuse of children, then I will make up a rule on the spot.
Luckily I haven’t had to so far.
Also, it’s not really that I want a “middle ground”. I just get fed up of discussions that go nowhere, because the focus on who said what when and why rather than on the ideas at stake. Most people basically post what they believe to be true (or believe to be important anyway). What I want to know is why.
The solution to the difficulty of being presented with a “have you stopped beating your wife?” argument, on Lizzie’s site, would be to either ask the liar to divide the question them self or divide it yourself and point out that you are having to do so in order to defend yourself against a dishonest rhetorical device.
From what little I have seen so far in the current eating-our-own saga that regularly returns to TSZ, the usual creo tactics are doing exactly what they are intended to do. It is simply impossible to have honest discussions with people for whom ‘lying-for-Jesus’ is a virtue, not a vice; a feature, not a bug. Forums where assumptions of honesty are the rule are a free buffet for them.
Worshipping Free Speech is as stupid as worshipping any of the other gods men have invented.
The desire not to harbor advocates of child abuse, or Nazi propaganda, is NOT a “character flaw”.
There has never been a moral obligation to provide a platform for the endless spewing of toxic speech, subject only to the correction of whichever crowd has the most energy to (attempt to) refute it, or just shout it down by sheer numbers.
Your granny probably told you “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”. Too bad she was dead wrong. It’s a moral failing to believe that the Principle of Free Speech is what’s important, that it’s more important than caring about the damage unchecked speech does to our real living fellow humans.
Why don’t you ask my 12-year-old neighbor what he thinks about the Principle of Free Speech? Oh, you can’t. Because he’s dead. Because no one was willing to take the responsibility of controlling what other people said to him, of banning the bullying speech, editing out the gay-bashing slurs he was exposed to.
Of course it’s not just the worship of Free Speech which prevents folks from protecting the more vulnerable. Lots of factors.
And yet, right there at the top of the list is the idea that anyone who deserves to live should be tough enough to allow everyone else to say whatever shit they like. Just ignore it if you don’t like it. And admit that you’ve got a “character flaw” if for any reason you want to “control” them by telling them to shut up inside your own home.
Nope, not buying that simplistic Free Speech crap.