@Toni_Torppa I’m getting kinda bored with this so let me explain to you what is going on here.
You object to any science that threatens your religious and ideological identity. You will look to any excuse to shield your beliefs from running afoul of the science. You will believe someone because they are a Christian. You will dismiss someone who isn’t. You’ll doubt those who aren’t PhDs and will doubt those who are if they don’t tell you what you want to hear. You will dismiss people’s criticisms because you claim they misrepresent Jeanson and other creationists, you will accuse them of not reading his work, of treating him unfairly.
You in short will do anything to avoid accepting any idea, regardless of who articulated it or what expertise they might have, so long as that idea is contrary to what you want to believe. It doesn’t matter if Jeanson’s critics are Nobel Laureates or competent undergraduates if they aren’t telling you want you want to hear you will dismiss them.
The question is not whether the professor considers the article good, but whether they should not rely on faceless sources, because they should give readers confidence through their own authority and they should respond openly to the topic by making the article, it is about who the trust is given.
This is somehow so ironic that I alone have to point out here why it is not appropriate for professors to refer to a faceless source in their counter-argument. Swamidass himself said at first that they don’t focus on your blog and that’s the first thing. I think he understood Point in that, but has since changed his position.
Yeah, in the law we have an analogue to this: arguing procedure over substance. If you are dead wrong on the merits, as Jeanson is, it’s time to start criticizing the little details of how the criticisms are written, who their authors are, yadda, yadda, and yadda. What the creationist hopes, in this situation, is that argument over these little non-substantive side issues will distract from the massive failure of the creationist argument when the rubber meets the road.
Except there are no faceless sources in @evograd’s arguments. He extensively drew from the literature and backed his every criticism with citations. It’s all there for you to examine for yourself but like I said you have no interest in taking any criticism seriously if it’s not in line with your religious beliefs
As an aside: many thanks to @evograd! As a person whose grasp of the technical issues is limited by my terrible decision not to pursue a proper scientific education, I deeply appreciate it when people take the time to explain material in such depth. Whether creationists learn anything from it or not, I know that I do, and I am very appreciative of the work.
LOL! Toni loves his sad little strawman. He’ll repeat the false claim of scientific argument from authority until people get tired of responding. Is Jeanson paying you to post this distracting nonsense Toni?
As I and others have said several times, this isn’t about trust. I’m not asking anyone to trust me, that’s why I include links to citations rather than making claims on my own authority.
Why would you trust an article that a professor wrote more than you would an article that the same professor said is accurate? You’re not making much sense.
And something else @Toni_Torppa. At risk of seeming like I’m speaking for @evograd let me explain to you why someone working professionally in science may not wish to have their name attached to their critique, especially a lengthy time consuming critique.
It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to actually have to take someone like Jeanson seriously. It’s embarrassing to waste one’s precious time on ideas so obviously divorced from the facts. It’s embarrassing to have to explain basic concepts over and over to someone like Jeanson who has no intention of learning the field. Most professional people are too busy with other work far more important than explaining to Nathaniel Jeanson how to interpret an unrooted tree.
That said some of us suck it up and take the time to do it anyway even though we know that people like yourself and Jeanson will never listen. It’s thankless work.
I am opposed to the fact that science should not give such a respect to faceless blogs as is now the case with a few professors. I call for the openness and objectivity of science, and that requires a certain set of prestige to be maintained. In other words, professors should not act so blue-eyed in relation to sources.
I’m not blindly respecting a “faceless blog” like you blindly trust Jeanson just because he shares your fundamentalist beliefs. I’m acknowledging the work and the documented, sound, cogent arguments THAT I HAVE BOTHERED TO ACTUALLY READ, in most cases arguments grounded in very basic stuff that any graduate student or even undergraduate should know.
This is incoherent. Anyone with the requisite competence (or lacking that, a sufficient level of interest and willingness to learn) can read and evaluate the quality of @evograd’s work.
Your concerns, as they say, have been noted. Why not move on to the point where you start actually dealing with the substance of the arguments? Anything else is just a waste of everyone’s time.
@Toni_Torppa I do happen to know who @evograd is and unlike you I have actually read what he has written and it’s spot on. You don’t like it because it runs counter to what you want to believe. That’s all that is going on here. It has nothing to do with science.
