In article <47e6fbac$1@news.povray.org>, ben### [at] pacificwebguycom says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > Ok, don't believe me. Go to just about *any* website run by one of thes
e 
> > pro-ID groups.
> 
> You seem to have visited quite a few of them.  What do you honestly hope
 
> to gain from doing so?
> 
The last one I went to wasn't obviously a creationist site. The main 
poster said something along the lines of, "I want everyone's honest 
opinion on if random chance could produce diversity." Most of the people 
posting kind of seemed to not quite get it, or to side step the 
question, so I posted, don't have the exact wording, but roughly:

"Actually evolution doesn't imply entirely random. While the mutations 
are random, those are effected by the environment, the rest of the DNA, 
and many other factors. Besides, one of the things I find odd about the 
argument is the idea that something as complex as the universe, or even 
a single beach, should be unable to produce something approaching a 
similar level of complexity. One would expect a universe with no 
variations are all to produce few results, but one in which it is 
impossible to even adequately describe the exact shape of a beach must 
produce a level of complexity close to that of the beach, and the planet 
is thousands of times more complex than that."

That was it. Three days later dozens of other people had posted, both 
before and after me, many of them making arguments about irreducibility, 
simple random things not producing complex results, and various other 
standard false arguments. My posts, which could have addressed nearly 
all of them, never made it past moderation.

Fact is, its not always possible to figure out who is open to 
explanation, and who isn't. If you don't try, then they win. Sadly, for 
the people that only visit their sites, even if you try, you can't win. 
The only real hope is that enough people look around and see sites that 
*do* accept explanation and argument, and that some of them, which I 
admit PZs isn't, have more even handed approaches. But, even with PZs, 
there is one message that should come across. If you show up, your posts 
will still be here tomorrow, and nothing short of being a constant, 
persistent, obnoxious troll, who does nothing but paste quotes from 
sites **we** know about, will get you ignored, and you **really** have 
to be a problem, to the point where you prevent all other discussion of 
subjects that are not even in any way related to evolution or ID, to get 
banned. All of which proves how big a lie it is to the claim that 
scientists want to stifle all discussion or argument, or that they won't 
debate creationists. Sure, if you stack the deck in your favor, and pull 
some of the stuff UD has, then hell no they won't debate. A level 
playing field is one where both people have the chance to make their 
best case, not one where one sides best case mysteriously disappears 
when its inconvenient for the host, or where one persons best case is a 
half hour of nonstop rants, which would take 10 hours to untangle enough 
to answer.

Some people are figuring out just who is being honest here and who 
isn't, as well as where you can get honest discussions. Sure, you have 
to be a complete fool to show up on PZs site with most arguments. They 
have been ripped apart more times than we can count, and some of us 
start to get a bit punchy when the clowns show up again and start 
stepping on everyone's feet. Show up with an honest question, ignore the 
few that maybe get a bit jumpy, and you will be OK. If you don't like 
that, then go some place like here:

http://thechapel.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/sermonette-1-sacrifice/
http://thechapel.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/lunch-with-a-liberal-
christian/
http://thechapel.wordpress.com/2008/03/23/sermonette-2-doing-the-good-
that-is-at-hand/

Its not a biology site, nor is its owner's entire carrier isn't being 
attacked by stuff like ID, so its not likely to get you chewed to death 
by the local rotweiler. However, its almost certainly just as 
unsympathetic to bad logic and blind faith. There is no way I can 
imagine this guys site being called "hate mongering". And, all I can say 
about my own behavior is that I have a) seen too many of the same 
arguments, b) know uncommon descent quite well in how it "treats" 
science, have experienced Davescot's posts personally, and d) have been 
hanging around PZ too long. lol

BTW, Mathis finally managed, after everyone else spun it by claiming 
that PZ was kept out because he would have been disruptive, as, well two 
contradictory things:

"I banned pz because I want him to pay to see it. Nothing more."

http://canadiancynic.blogspot.com/2008/03/dear-denyse-seriously-what-
hell-is.html

And that, it was a private screening and he wasn't a guest (I think that 
one has been covered rather well as BS):

http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/03/24/expelled

The guy can't even keep his story straight, never mind avoid making 
claims their own promotional sites prove are nonsense.

-- 
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    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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