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Subject: Believe what you will

Author:
Damoclese

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Date Posted: 09/26/06 11:07pm
In reply to: Wade A. Tisthammer 's message, "...and read carefully" on 09/26/06 5:06pm

There is another element to debate: past interactions that you've had with a person still influence present interactions. My interactions with you in the past anticipated a reply similar to the one you've made--in that regard I wasn't surprised.

My intention was not to support "personal attacks" or Felonious. I simply originally stated that I wouldn't have changed the entry based on what you provided as evidence. Honestly, I don't really "care" all that much if Wikipedia makes the change or doesn't. It's really inconsequential to me. I just figured I'd point out something that I see as a weakness in your presentational style. It was said more in the vein of a suggestion for the future and less in the vein of debating every tidbit.

Actually, I think that pretty much sums up one of the main issues I have with the way you debate: you miss the forrest and instead see individual trees. For a felllow who seems to be so behind the idea of things being "irreducibly complex" you often seem to ask for "specifics" which you then contest and say they mean nothing of the sort--but the thing is when you take them all as a whole, they do not reflect well on you.

The other thing is that you never seem to have a true position. It changes...it mutates. A specific example of this is in our go around I started mentioning things about Ludwig and then your reply was something along the lines of "It doesn't matter anyway because it is against Wikipedia policy". Well, that's not a particularly good way to debate. You seem to want to have it both ways;namely, you want to talk about Paley but then when contrary opinion arrives you dismiss it as trivial because it is against policy. Which position is it that you really want anyway?

There is an old phrase about being able to lead a horse to water but not being able to make him drink. I surely wouldn't want to force anything on anybody that they don't adopt themselves. A super secret about evidence is that people get to interpret however it is they wish to interpret it. It all boils down to the definitions they adopt in evaluating such things. This is why I see it as pointless to get into a discussion about evidence with you. Simply put, we don't have the same definitions and you have shown little interest in putting in the effort to understand someone else's definitions by my estimation and apparently by others as well. You'd rather spend your time showing just how "right" your definitions truly are and when people disagree you suggest they are simply "ignorant". I understand the impulse as it is ego driven, but it doesn't facilitate debate or growth--or at least it doesn't for me.

For that reason, I'm going to here terminate further correspondence with you on this issue.

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Many people change their view at times	QUITTNER	09/27/06 12:53pm
True enough -- Damoclese, 09/28/06 5:34pm
Ditto	Wade A. Tisthammer	09/29/06 10:52am