Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 09/29/06 10:52am
In reply to:
Damoclese
's message, "Believe what you will" on 09/26/06 11:07pm
>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.
In what way? You may have anticipated my "you misconstrued my position" response, but did you ever stop to think that maybe you actually did misconstrue my position? I did after all provide proof that you did so. Maybe your anticipations should be telling you more than you think.
>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.
And I'm very curious as to what those reasons may be. One reason was based on the mistaken notion that Paley was talking about watches, not about life. The other (correct me if I misinterpreted you) seemed to equate Ludwig’s “ensemble of components” concept with irreducible complexity, but this is a non sequitur. Consider perhaps the most obvious example: living multi-cellular organisms are an ensemble components but most evolutionists do not consider them (at least many of them) to be irreducibly complex. Besides a misconstrual of Paley and a non sequitur, what else do you have? A personal dislike for intelligent design? And you didn’t address at all the Wikipedia violations I addressed in the entry. What about that? Should policy be ignored if it means it rules against a belief you hold dear?
>I just figured I'd point
>out something that I see as a weakness in your
>presentational style.
Which is? I know you accused me of being “ambiguous” but then how was the section I quoted to you (regarding your own misconstrual, which you blamed on me) ambiguous?
>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"
Actually, I’m an agnostic when it comes to Behe’s irreducibly complexity argument. But being agnostic doesn’t mean I have to sit by and watch people violate common sense (e.g. using a citation that doesn’t support the claim) and Wikipedia policy regarding a Wikipedia entry.
>you often seem to ask for
>"specifics" which you then contest and say they mean
>nothing of the sort
I do? Where? Can you provide any shred of evidence for this?
I’m not saying you don’t honestly believe what you say, but I do think you haven’t been careful enough in making such claims. For instance, I suspect you will not be able to find any examples of me doing what you accuse me of. Are you simply assuming this to be true, just like you assumed I’m so behind the idea of things being irreducibly complex?
>The other thing is that you never seem to have a true
>position. It changes...it mutates.
I do on occasion change my mind, but I don’t think that’s what you’re referring to here (see below).
>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".
But I never conceded the matter about Ludwig. If you paid attention to my previous post you’d see that (another reason for me to suggest that you read more carefully). My position did not change here. Behe’s irreducible complexity is about a structure ceasing to function if any of the various parts are removed. Once the citation is actually looked up, we see that Ludwig says no such thing.
If anyone, it is Paley (who predates Ludwig by roughly a century) who came up with an “early concept” of irreducible complexity. Paley talks about messing around with any of the components wrecks the system, Ludwig says no such thing. Paley applied this analogy to biology and inferred design. Ludwig does not. Apart from personal feelings, there does not appear to be any reason to consider Ludwig over Paley. Thus, I stand by my position. The mere fact that I was able to provide additional reasons (in this case, Wikipedia policy) doesn’t change this—particularly since I pointed out those reasons in the entry which we’re talking about long before we started talking about it. Yet you accuse me of changing position? My position was the same months before this dispute with you ever started.
>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
It perhaps would’ve helped this discussion if you would’ve told me this earlier, instead of hiding this fact from me. What different definitions are you using? Is it “irreducible complexity”? I made the definition of it (Behe’s) explicit a number of times. If you use a different definition here or elsewhere, why did you not tell me? Debate is indeed pointless if you disagree on the definitions, use different definitions in your arguments and then fail to tell me about this.
I think the most sensible thing to do if we are attribute Behe’s “irreducible complexity” to another individual we should use Behe’s definition for consistency’s sake. Why this definition? Because otherwise we’ll be using the fallacy of equivocation if we attribute the concept of this ID adherent’s term to another individual.
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