Selectiveness in Addressing Arguments

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

Continuing the discussion from Bilbo Defends' Behe's Irreducible Complexity:

@Mung

The selectiveness is the issue.

I am going to channel another poster from another thread. The claim was not that Mike was selective in his responses, of course he was selective , the charge was that he had not responded to critics .

It is true that we have to be selective in responding to critics.

For example, it would have been valid for me to ignore this criticism from an anonymous poster on the internet, who has missed my point entirely. It would be valid to be selective by ignoring it.

However, it is not valid to ignore critique from qualified scientists for over a decade, when making a scientific argument. It is not valid to ignore the strongest arguments against one’s position to engage only the weakest. And even then, there is sometimes benefit in engage really bad arguments against one’s point, as I am doing here.

[AllenWitmerMiller (Semi-Expired Professor & Minister.)]

This is an important thread that I don’t want to see die after the three day limit—at least not until more visitors have read it.