The thread which MarkE began with the title, "Origin of Life Challenge," had as its original focus a 60-day challenge by James Tour which has now expired, with no takers. I have not heard tell of a single response from any
of the OOL researchers to whom Tour directly addressed his challenge:
Steve Benner, Jack Szostak, Clemens Reichert, Lee Cronin, Bruce Lipschitz, John Sutherland, Nicholas Hud, Ramana Naran Krishnamurthy, Neil Devaraj, and Matthew Pounder.
_Evolution News_ has been playing up this "victory" since October 31: https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/on-origin-of-life-chemist-james-tour-has-successfully-called-these-researchers-bluff/
If the response of the people here in talk.origins is anything to go by, the crowing in the url is justified. And I'm not talking about the "deafening silence" since October 31.
I'm talking about the response on the original thread after MarkE did his OP back on August 25. Tour had made 5 specific challenges, the first three
of which are specific enough and concrete enough that several knowledgeable t.o. regulars could have said that they were unrealistically
demanding, or that they were strawmen that could be easily circumvented,
were that the case. Nothing remotely like that happened here in t.o.
In particular, the second challenge seems to be central to the current hypotheses about OOL:
"For the second problem, proposed solutions needed to describe how nucleotides could have linked into chains with less than 2 percent of the wrong linkages." [quoted from the linked article]
Clicking on the words "second problem" takes one directly to a YouTube presentation that MarkE had linked, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmykRoelTzU&t=679s
to the 11:22 minute point where the precise statement of the second problem is shown on a slide.
Similar clicks take the reader to precise statements of the other four problems.
The descriptions of all except the fourth problem are readily intelligible to Athel Cornish-Bowden,
who has written a whole book on the biochemistry of life.
[Not to be confused with the biochemistry of OOL, of which Athel has admitted to be no more qualified to write than he claims Tour is.]
Perhaps two or three other t.o. regulars could understand them with equal ease.
Instead, Athel confined himself to blatant *ad hominem* credentialism, pointing out that of over 200 papers Tour had published in organic chemistry, none was on the origin of life. No other t.o. critic of Tour did any better.
If this is the caliber of response by researchers like those I listed,
then it would seem that Tour has successfully shown that the "Emperors
of OOL research" have no "clothes" suitable for addressing any of Tour's
five challenges.
On 11/27/23 4:50 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
The thread which MarkE began with the title, "Origin of Life Challenge," had
as its original focus a 60-day challenge by James Tour which has now expired,
with no takers. I have not heard tell of a single response from any
of the OOL researchers to whom Tour directly addressed his challenge:
Steve Benner, Jack Szostak, Clemens Reichert, Lee Cronin, Bruce Lipschitz, John Sutherland, Nicholas Hud, Ramana Naran Krishnamurthy, Neil Devaraj, and Matthew Pounder.
_Evolution News_ has been playing up this "victory" since October 31: https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/on-origin-of-life-chemist-james-tour-has-successfully-called-these-researchers-bluff/
If the response of the people here in talk.origins is anything to go by, the
crowing in the url is justified. And I'm not talking about the "deafening silence" since October 31.
I'm talking about the response on the original thread after MarkE did his OP
back on August 25. Tour had made 5 specific challenges, the first three
of which are specific enough and concrete enough that several knowledgeable
t.o. regulars could have said that they were unrealistically
demanding, or that they were strawmen that could be easily circumvented, were that the case. Nothing remotely like that happened here in t.o.
In particular, the second challenge seems to be central to the current hypotheses about OOL:
"For the second problem, proposed solutions needed to describe how nucleotides could have linked into chains with less than 2 percent of the wrong linkages." [quoted from the linked article]
Clicking on the words "second problem" takes one directly to a YouTube presentation that MarkE had linked, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmykRoelTzU&t=679s
to the 11:22 minute point where the precise statement of the second problem is shown on a slide.
Similar clicks take the reader to precise statements of the other four problems.
The descriptions of all except the fourth problem are readily intelligible to Athel Cornish-Bowden,
who has written a whole book on the biochemistry of life.
[Not to be confused with the biochemistry of OOL, of which Athel has admitted
to be no more qualified to write than he claims Tour is.]
Perhaps two or three other t.o. regulars could understand them with equal ease.
Instead, Athel confined himself to blatant *ad hominem* credentialism, pointing out that of over 200 papers Tour had published in organic chemistry,
none was on the origin of life. No other t.o. critic of Tour did any better.
If this is the caliber of response by researchers like those I listed, then it would seem that Tour has successfully shown that the "Emperors
of OOL research" have no "clothes" suitable for addressing any of Tour's five challenges.
You may be aware of the common evaluation (I paraphrase, but you could probably look it up), "Debates with creationists look good on their CVs; mine, not so much."
On Monday, November 27, 2023 at 8:46:52 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
On 11/27/23 4:50 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
The thread which MarkE began with the title, "Origin of Life Challenge," had
as its original focus a 60-day challenge by James Tour which has now expired,
with no takers. I have not heard tell of a single response from any
of the OOL researchers to whom Tour directly addressed his challenge:
Steve Benner, Jack Szostak, Clemens Reichert, Lee Cronin, Bruce Lipschitz, John Sutherland, Nicholas Hud, Ramana Naran Krishnamurthy, Neil Devaraj, and Matthew Pounder.
_Evolution News_ has been playing up this "victory" since October 31:
https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/on-origin-of-life-chemist-james-tour-has-successfully-called-these-researchers-bluff/
If the response of the people here in talk.origins is anything to go by, the
crowing in the url is justified. And I'm not talking about the "deafening silence" since October 31.
I'm talking about the response on the original thread after MarkE did his OP
back on August 25. Tour had made 5 specific challenges, the first three
of which are specific enough and concrete enough that several knowledgeable >>> t.o. regulars could have said that they were unrealistically
demanding, or that they were strawmen that could be easily circumvented, >>> were that the case. Nothing remotely like that happened here in t.o.
In particular, the second challenge seems to be central to the current
hypotheses about OOL:
"For the second problem, proposed solutions needed to describe how nucleotides could have linked into chains with less than 2 percent of the wrong linkages." [quoted from the linked article]
Clicking on the words "second problem" takes one directly to a YouTube
presentation that MarkE had linked,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmykRoelTzU&t=679s
to the 11:22 minute point where the precise statement of the second problem is shown on a slide.
Similar clicks take the reader to precise statements of the other four problems.
The descriptions of all except the fourth problem are readily intelligible to Athel Cornish-Bowden,
who has written a whole book on the biochemistry of life.
[Not to be confused with the biochemistry of OOL, of which Athel has admitted
to be no more qualified to write than he claims Tour is.]
Perhaps two or three other t.o. regulars could understand them with equal ease.
Instead, Athel confined himself to blatant *ad hominem* credentialism,
pointing out that of over 200 papers Tour had published in organic chemistry,
none was on the origin of life. No other t.o. critic of Tour did any better.
If this is the caliber of response by researchers like those I listed,
then it would seem that Tour has successfully shown that the "Emperors
of OOL research" have no "clothes" suitable for addressing any of Tour's >>> five challenges.
You may be aware of the common evaluation (I paraphrase, but you could
probably look it up), "Debates with creationists look good on their CVs;
mine, not so much."
I haven't been thinking in terms of showbiz, John. YouTube debates are the wrong venue
for dealing with such specialized issues as Tour's first three challenges.
I think a scholarly article in a lower-echelon, but still respectable scientific
journal, by someone with a good reputation but not a "star" of OOL like the researchers Tour named, would do the non-creationist public a real service.
That is, IF it is possible to explain how relevant or irrelevant Tour's first three
challenges are to OOL, and why.
If NOBODY can explain these things in humanly intelligible terms at this point in time, then OOL science is in a really bad way. It would be better
to call it a "proto-science" like the alchemy of the Middle Ages.
Back then, researchers did discover a number of important things, like sulfuric acid.
But no one had a scientific theory worthy of the term. Researchers were stumbling
blindly in the dark, trying this and that experiment. Maybe that's all that can be said about the present state of OOL research.
The thread which MarkE began with the title, "Origin of Life Challenge," had as its original focus a 60-day challenge by James Tour which has now expired,
with no takers. I have not heard tell of a single response from any
of the OOL researchers to whom Tour directly addressed his challenge:
Steve Benner, Jack Szostak, Clemens Reichert, Lee Cronin, Bruce Lipschitz, John Sutherland, Nicholas Hud, Ramana Naran Krishnamurthy, Neil Devaraj, and Matthew Pounder.
_Evolution News_ has been playing up this "victory" since October 31: https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/on-origin-of-life-chemist-james-tour-has-successfully-called-these-researchers-bluff/
If the response of the people here in talk.origins is anything to go by, the crowing in the url is justified. And I'm not talking about the "deafening silence" since October 31.
I'm talking about the response on the original thread after MarkE did his OP back on August 25. Tour had made 5 specific challenges, the first three
of which are specific enough and concrete enough that several knowledgeable t.o. regulars could have said that they were unrealistically
demanding, or that they were strawmen that could be easily circumvented, were that the case. Nothing remotely like that happened here in t.o.
In particular, the second challenge seems to be central to the current hypotheses about OOL:
"For the second problem, proposed solutions needed to describe how nucleotides could have linked into chains with less than 2 percent of the wrong linkages." [quoted from the linked article]
Clicking on the words "second problem" takes one directly to a YouTube presentation that MarkE had linked, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmykRoelTzU&t=679s
to the 11:22 minute point where the precise statement of the second problem is shown on a slide.
Similar clicks take the reader to precise statements of the other four problems.
The descriptions of all except the fourth problem are readily intelligible to Athel Cornish-Bowden,
who has written a whole book on the biochemistry of life.
[Not to be confused with the biochemistry of OOL, of which Athel has admitted
to be no more qualified to write than he claims Tour is.]
Perhaps two or three other t.o. regulars could understand them with equal ease.
Instead, Athel confined himself to blatant *ad hominem* credentialism, pointing out that of over 200 papers Tour had published in organic chemistry,
none was on the origin of life. No other t.o. critic of Tour did any better.
If this is the caliber of response by researchers like those I listed,
then it would seem that Tour has successfully shown that the "Emperors
of OOL research" have no "clothes" suitable for addressing any of Tour's five challenges.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
I don't ordinarily look at *Evolution News*, but I got tipped off yesterday to a "victory" of James Tour that took place then. But by the time I got it, I was up to my eyeballs in preparing today's reviews for tests I give my two classes on Friday.researcher, has agreed to participate in the roundtable discussion with Dr. Tour in front of one hundred faculty members from Harvard and MIT.
Tour was at an invitation-only panel at Harvard, led by Lee Cronin, to discuss OOL.
The announcement in Evolution News has been there since November 15. https://evolutionnews.org/2023/11/james-tour-and-lee-cronin-to-discuss-origin-of-life-at-harvard-roundtable/
It is so short, I am copying the whole announcement below.
[BEGIN QUOTE]
Props to Professor Lee Cronin. In the wake of chemist James Tour’s 60-day challenge regarding ungrounded origin-of-life claims, the Cambridge Faculty Roundtable on Science and Religion will host a discussion on OOL. Dr. Cronin, a leading OOL
“Almost everyone in that room is going to be favoring the side of Lee Cronin, and that’s fine,” says Tour. “I said I don’t need a panel — I’ll just talk to them myself.”
Just so you know, this is an invitation-only event to be held on November 28 at Harvard. Wish you could be a fly on the wall? Good news. The conversation will be recorded and posted sometime after the event.
[END OF QUOTE]
There may still be time, before the conversation is posted, for the biochemistry-savvy
folks here to redeem themselves by finding some *scientific* flaw in Tour's first
three challenges. Their disgraceful performances up to now were described in the OP, which I've left in below. Besides Athel, "Lawyer Daggett" has made noises
from time to time about being a biochemistry hotshot, and Bill Rogers seems to think of himself as one, too.
The first two at least would look bad if the panel had uncovered some flaw as
mentioned above, and it turned out to be so simple that they could easily have
picked up on it themselves.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
[copy of OP follows:]
On Monday, November 27, 2023 at 7:51:52 PM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
The thread which MarkE began with the title, "Origin of Life Challenge," had
as its original focus a 60-day challenge by James Tour which has now expired,
with no takers. I have not heard tell of a single response from any
of the OOL researchers to whom Tour directly addressed his challenge:
Steve Benner, Jack Szostak, Clemens Reichert, Lee Cronin, Bruce Lipschitz, John Sutherland, Nicholas Hud, Ramana Naran Krishnamurthy, Neil Devaraj, and Matthew Pounder.
_Evolution News_ has been playing up this "victory" since October 31: https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/on-origin-of-life-chemist-james-tour-has-successfully-called-these-researchers-bluff/
If the response of the people here in talk.origins is anything to go by, the
crowing in the url is justified. And I'm not talking about the "deafening silence" since October 31.
I'm talking about the response on the original thread after MarkE did his OP
back on August 25. Tour had made 5 specific challenges, the first three
of which are specific enough and concrete enough that several knowledgeable
t.o. regulars could have said that they were unrealistically
demanding, or that they were strawmen that could be easily circumvented, were that the case. Nothing remotely like that happened here in t.o.
In particular, the second challenge seems to be central to the current hypotheses about OOL:
"For the second problem, proposed solutions needed to describe how nucleotides could have linked into chains with less than 2 percent of the wrong linkages." [quoted from the linked article]
Clicking on the words "second problem" takes one directly to a YouTube presentation that MarkE had linked, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmykRoelTzU&t=679s
to the 11:22 minute point where the precise statement of the second problem is shown on a slide.
Similar clicks take the reader to precise statements of the other four problems.
The descriptions of all except the fourth problem are readily intelligible to Athel Cornish-Bowden,
who has written a whole book on the biochemistry of life.
[Not to be confused with the biochemistry of OOL, of which Athel has admitted
to be no more qualified to write than he claims Tour is.]
Perhaps two or three other t.o. regulars could understand them with equal ease.
Instead, Athel confined himself to blatant *ad hominem* credentialism, pointing out that of over 200 papers Tour had published in organic chemistry,
none was on the origin of life. No other t.o. critic of Tour did any better.
If this is the caliber of response by researchers like those I listed, then it would seem that Tour has successfully shown that the "Emperors
of OOL research" have no "clothes" suitable for addressing any of Tour's five challenges.
I don't believe you're a closet creationist, but this kind of message doesn't help.Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 8:46:54 AM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:researcher, has agreed to participate in the roundtable discussion with Dr. Tour in front of one hundred faculty members from Harvard and MIT.
I don't ordinarily look at *Evolution News*, but I got tipped off yesterday
to a "victory" of James Tour that took place then. But by the time I got it,
I was up to my eyeballs in preparing today's reviews for tests I give my two
classes on Friday.
Tour was at an invitation-only panel at Harvard, led by Lee Cronin, to discuss OOL.
The announcement in Evolution News has been there since November 15. https://evolutionnews.org/2023/11/james-tour-and-lee-cronin-to-discuss-origin-of-life-at-harvard-roundtable/
It is so short, I am copying the whole announcement below.
[BEGIN QUOTE]
Props to Professor Lee Cronin. In the wake of chemist James Tour’s 60-day challenge regarding ungrounded origin-of-life claims, the Cambridge Faculty Roundtable on Science and Religion will host a discussion on OOL. Dr. Cronin, a leading OOL
“Almost everyone in that room is going to be favoring the side of Lee Cronin, and that’s fine,” says Tour. “I said I don’t need a panel — I’ll just talk to them myself.”
Just so you know, this is an invitation-only event to be held on November 28 at Harvard. Wish you could be a fly on the wall? Good news. The conversation will be recorded and posted sometime after the event.
[END OF QUOTE]
There may still be time, before the conversation is posted, for the biochemistry-savvy
folks here to redeem themselves by finding some *scientific* flaw in Tour's first
three challenges. Their disgraceful performances up to now were described in
the OP, which I've left in below. Besides Athel, "Lawyer Daggett" has made noises
from time to time about being a biochemistry hotshot, and Bill Rogers seems
to think of himself as one, too.
The first two at least would look bad if the panel had uncovered some flaw as
mentioned above, and it turned out to be so simple that they could easily have
picked up on it themselves.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
[copy of OP follows:]
On Monday, November 27, 2023 at 7:51:52 PM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
The thread which MarkE began with the title, "Origin of Life Challenge," had
as its original focus a 60-day challenge by James Tour which has now expired,
with no takers. I have not heard tell of a single response from any
of the OOL researchers to whom Tour directly addressed his challenge:
Steve Benner, Jack Szostak, Clemens Reichert, Lee Cronin, Bruce Lipschitz, John Sutherland, Nicholas Hud, Ramana Naran Krishnamurthy, Neil Devaraj, and Matthew Pounder.
_Evolution News_ has been playing up this "victory" since October 31: https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/on-origin-of-life-chemist-james-tour-has-successfully-called-these-researchers-bluff/
If the response of the people here in talk.origins is anything to go by, the
crowing in the url is justified. And I'm not talking about the "deafening silence" since October 31.
I'm talking about the response on the original thread after MarkE did his OP
back on August 25. Tour had made 5 specific challenges, the first three of which are specific enough and concrete enough that several knowledgeable
t.o. regulars could have said that they were unrealistically
demanding, or that they were strawmen that could be easily circumvented, were that the case. Nothing remotely like that happened here in t.o.
In particular, the second challenge seems to be central to the current hypotheses about OOL:
"For the second problem, proposed solutions needed to describe how nucleotides could have linked into chains with less than 2 percent of the wrong linkages." [quoted from the linked article]
Clicking on the words "second problem" takes one directly to a YouTube presentation that MarkE had linked, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmykRoelTzU&t=679s
to the 11:22 minute point where the precise statement of the second problem is shown on a slide.
Similar clicks take the reader to precise statements of the other four problems.
The descriptions of all except the fourth problem are readily intelligible to Athel Cornish-Bowden,
who has written a whole book on the biochemistry of life.
[Not to be confused with the biochemistry of OOL, of which Athel has admitted
to be no more qualified to write than he claims Tour is.]
Perhaps two or three other t.o. regulars could understand them with equal ease.
Instead, Athel confined himself to blatant *ad hominem* credentialism, pointing out that of over 200 papers Tour had published in organic chemistry,
none was on the origin of life. No other t.o. critic of Tour did any better.
If this is the caliber of response by researchers like those I listed, then it would seem that Tour has successfully shown that the "Emperors of OOL research" have no "clothes" suitable for addressing any of Tour's five challenges.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
I don't believe you're a closet creationist, but this kind of message doesn't help.
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 1:51:54 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:researcher, has agreed to participate in the roundtable discussion with Dr. Tour in front of one hundred faculty members from Harvard and MIT.
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 8:46:54 AM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
I don't ordinarily look at *Evolution News*, but I got tipped off yesterday
to a "victory" of James Tour that took place then. But by the time I got it,
I was up to my eyeballs in preparing today's reviews for tests I give my two
classes on Friday.
Tour was at an invitation-only panel at Harvard, led by Lee Cronin, to discuss OOL.
The announcement in Evolution News has been there since November 15. https://evolutionnews.org/2023/11/james-tour-and-lee-cronin-to-discuss-origin-of-life-at-harvard-roundtable/
It is so short, I am copying the whole announcement below.
[BEGIN QUOTE]
Props to Professor Lee Cronin. In the wake of chemist James Tour’s 60-day challenge regarding ungrounded origin-of-life claims, the Cambridge Faculty Roundtable on Science and Religion will host a discussion on OOL. Dr. Cronin, a leading OOL
“Almost everyone in that room is going to be favoring the side of Lee Cronin, and that’s fine,” says Tour. “I said I don’t need a panel — I’ll just talk to them myself.”
Just so you know, this is an invitation-only event to be held on November 28 at Harvard. Wish you could be a fly on the wall? Good news. The conversation will be recorded and posted sometime after the event.
[END OF QUOTE]
There may still be time, before the conversation is posted, for the biochemistry-savvy
folks here to redeem themselves by finding some *scientific* flaw in Tour's first
three challenges. Their disgraceful performances up to now were described in
the OP, which I've left in below. Besides Athel, "Lawyer Daggett" has made noises
from time to time about being a biochemistry hotshot, and Bill Rogers seems
to think of himself as one, too.
The first two at least would look bad if the panel had uncovered some flaw as
mentioned above, and it turned out to be so simple that they could easily have
picked up on it themselves.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
[copy of OP follows:]
On Monday, November 27, 2023 at 7:51:52 PM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
The thread which MarkE began with the title, "Origin of Life Challenge," had
as its original focus a 60-day challenge by James Tour which has now expired,
with no takers. I have not heard tell of a single response from any
of the OOL researchers to whom Tour directly addressed his challenge:
Steve Benner, Jack Szostak, Clemens Reichert, Lee Cronin, Bruce Lipschitz, John Sutherland, Nicholas Hud, Ramana Naran Krishnamurthy, Neil Devaraj, and Matthew Pounder.
_Evolution News_ has been playing up this "victory" since October 31: https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/on-origin-of-life-chemist-james-tour-has-successfully-called-these-researchers-bluff/
If the response of the people here in talk.origins is anything to go by, the
crowing in the url is justified. And I'm not talking about the "deafening silence" since October 31.
I'm talking about the response on the original thread after MarkE did his OP
back on August 25. Tour had made 5 specific challenges, the first three
of which are specific enough and concrete enough that several knowledgeable
t.o. regulars could have said that they were unrealistically demanding, or that they were strawmen that could be easily circumvented,
were that the case. Nothing remotely like that happened here in t.o.
In particular, the second challenge seems to be central to the current hypotheses about OOL:
"For the second problem, proposed solutions needed to describe how nucleotides could have linked into chains with less than 2 percent of the wrong linkages." [quoted from the linked article]
Clicking on the words "second problem" takes one directly to a YouTube presentation that MarkE had linked, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmykRoelTzU&t=679s
to the 11:22 minute point where the precise statement of the second problem is shown on a slide.
Similar clicks take the reader to precise statements of the other four problems.
The descriptions of all except the fourth problem are readily intelligible to Athel Cornish-Bowden,
who has written a whole book on the biochemistry of life.
[Not to be confused with the biochemistry of OOL, of which Athel has admitted
to be no more qualified to write than he claims Tour is.]
Perhaps two or three other t.o. regulars could understand them with equal ease.
Instead, Athel confined himself to blatant *ad hominem* credentialism, pointing out that of over 200 papers Tour had published in organic chemistry,
none was on the origin of life. No other t.o. critic of Tour did any better.
If this is the caliber of response by researchers like those I listed, then it would seem that Tour has successfully shown that the "Emperors of OOL research" have no "clothes" suitable for addressing any of Tour's
five challenges.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
I don't believe you're a closet creationist, but this kind of message doesn't help.To be consistent, shouldn't you also say, "I don't believe Professor Lee Cronin is
a closet creationist, but giving James Tour a bully pulpit like that Harvard roundtable doesn't help." ?
Peter NyikosI don't see why anyone would need to respond to Tour.
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 11:36:53 AM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:researcher, has agreed to participate in the roundtable discussion with Dr. Tour in front of one hundred faculty members from Harvard and MIT.
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 1:51:54 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 8:46:54 AM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
I don't ordinarily look at *Evolution News*, but I got tipped off yesterday
to a "victory" of James Tour that took place then. But by the time I got it,
I was up to my eyeballs in preparing today's reviews for tests I give my two
classes on Friday.
Tour was at an invitation-only panel at Harvard, led by Lee Cronin, to discuss OOL.
The announcement in Evolution News has been there since November 15. https://evolutionnews.org/2023/11/james-tour-and-lee-cronin-to-discuss-origin-of-life-at-harvard-roundtable/
It is so short, I am copying the whole announcement below.
[BEGIN QUOTE]
Props to Professor Lee Cronin. In the wake of chemist James Tour’s 60-day challenge regarding ungrounded origin-of-life claims, the Cambridge Faculty Roundtable on Science and Religion will host a discussion on OOL. Dr. Cronin, a leading OOL
“Almost everyone in that room is going to be favoring the side of Lee Cronin, and that’s fine,” says Tour. “I said I don’t need a panel — I’ll just talk to them myself.”
Just so you know, this is an invitation-only event to be held on November 28 at Harvard. Wish you could be a fly on the wall? Good news. The conversation will be recorded and posted sometime after the event.
[END OF QUOTE]
There may still be time, before the conversation is posted, for the biochemistry-savvy
folks here to redeem themselves by finding some *scientific* flaw in Tour's first
three challenges. Their disgraceful performances up to now were described in
the OP, which I've left in below. Besides Athel, "Lawyer Daggett" has made noises
from time to time about being a biochemistry hotshot, and Bill Rogers seems
to think of himself as one, too.
The first two at least would look bad if the panel had uncovered some flaw as
mentioned above, and it turned out to be so simple that they could easily have
picked up on it themselves.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
[copy of OP follows:]
On Monday, November 27, 2023 at 7:51:52 PM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
The thread which MarkE began with the title, "Origin of Life Challenge," had
as its original focus a 60-day challenge by James Tour which has now expired,
with no takers. I have not heard tell of a single response from any of the OOL researchers to whom Tour directly addressed his challenge:
Steve Benner, Jack Szostak, Clemens Reichert, Lee Cronin, Bruce Lipschitz, John Sutherland, Nicholas Hud, Ramana Naran Krishnamurthy, Neil Devaraj, and Matthew Pounder.
_Evolution News_ has been playing up this "victory" since October 31:
https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/on-origin-of-life-chemist-james-tour-has-successfully-called-these-researchers-bluff/
If the response of the people here in talk.origins is anything to go by, the
crowing in the url is justified. And I'm not talking about the "deafening silence" since October 31.
I'm talking about the response on the original thread after MarkE did his OP
back on August 25. Tour had made 5 specific challenges, the first three
of which are specific enough and concrete enough that several knowledgeable
t.o. regulars could have said that they were unrealistically demanding, or that they were strawmen that could be easily circumvented,
were that the case. Nothing remotely like that happened here in t.o.
In particular, the second challenge seems to be central to the current
hypotheses about OOL:
"For the second problem, proposed solutions needed to describe how nucleotides could have linked into chains with less than 2 percent of the wrong linkages." [quoted from the linked article]
Clicking on the words "second problem" takes one directly to a YouTube
presentation that MarkE had linked, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmykRoelTzU&t=679s
to the 11:22 minute point where the precise statement of the second problem is shown on a slide.
Similar clicks take the reader to precise statements of the other four problems.
The descriptions of all except the fourth problem are readily intelligible to Athel Cornish-Bowden,
who has written a whole book on the biochemistry of life.
[Not to be confused with the biochemistry of OOL, of which Athel has admitted
to be no more qualified to write than he claims Tour is.]
Perhaps two or three other t.o. regulars could understand them with equal ease.
Instead, Athel confined himself to blatant *ad hominem* credentialism,
pointing out that of over 200 papers Tour had published in organic chemistry,
none was on the origin of life. No other t.o. critic of Tour did any better.
If this is the caliber of response by researchers like those I listed,
then it would seem that Tour has successfully shown that the "Emperors
of OOL research" have no "clothes" suitable for addressing any of Tour's
five challenges.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
I don't believe you're a closet creationist, but this kind of message doesn't help.
To be consistent, shouldn't you also say, "I don't believe Professor Lee Cronin is
a closet creationist, but giving James Tour a bully pulpit like that Harvard roundtable doesn't help." ?
Peter Nyikos
I don't see why anyone would need to respond to Tour.
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 4:31:54 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:researcher, has agreed to participate in the roundtable discussion with Dr. Tour in front of one hundred faculty members from Harvard and MIT.
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 11:36:53 AM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 1:51:54 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 8:46:54 AM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
I don't ordinarily look at *Evolution News*, but I got tipped off yesterday
to a "victory" of James Tour that took place then. But by the time I got it,
I was up to my eyeballs in preparing today's reviews for tests I give my two
classes on Friday.
Tour was at an invitation-only panel at Harvard, led by Lee Cronin, to discuss OOL.
The announcement in Evolution News has been there since November 15. https://evolutionnews.org/2023/11/james-tour-and-lee-cronin-to-discuss-origin-of-life-at-harvard-roundtable/
It is so short, I am copying the whole announcement below.
[BEGIN QUOTE]
Props to Professor Lee Cronin. In the wake of chemist James Tour’s 60-day challenge regarding ungrounded origin-of-life claims, the Cambridge Faculty Roundtable on Science and Religion will host a discussion on OOL. Dr. Cronin, a leading OOL
“Almost everyone in that room is going to be favoring the side of Lee Cronin, and that’s fine,” says Tour. “I said I don’t need a panel — I’ll just talk to them myself.”
Just so you know, this is an invitation-only event to be held on November 28 at Harvard. Wish you could be a fly on the wall? Good news. The conversation will be recorded and posted sometime after the event.
[END OF QUOTE]
There may still be time, before the conversation is posted, for the biochemistry-savvy
folks here to redeem themselves by finding some *scientific* flaw in Tour's first
three challenges. Their disgraceful performances up to now were described in
the OP, which I've left in below. Besides Athel, "Lawyer Daggett" has made noises
from time to time about being a biochemistry hotshot, and Bill Rogers seems
to think of himself as one, too.
The first two at least would look bad if the panel had uncovered some flaw as
mentioned above, and it turned out to be so simple that they could easily have
picked up on it themselves.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
[copy of OP follows:]
On Monday, November 27, 2023 at 7:51:52 PM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
The thread which MarkE began with the title, "Origin of Life Challenge," had
as its original focus a 60-day challenge by James Tour which has now expired,
with no takers. I have not heard tell of a single response from any
of the OOL researchers to whom Tour directly addressed his challenge:
Steve Benner, Jack Szostak, Clemens Reichert, Lee Cronin, Bruce Lipschitz, John Sutherland, Nicholas Hud, Ramana Naran Krishnamurthy, Neil Devaraj, and Matthew Pounder.
_Evolution News_ has been playing up this "victory" since October 31:
https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/on-origin-of-life-chemist-james-tour-has-successfully-called-these-researchers-bluff/
If the response of the people here in talk.origins is anything to go by, the
crowing in the url is justified. And I'm not talking about the "deafening silence" since October 31.
I'm talking about the response on the original thread after MarkE did his OP
back on August 25. Tour had made 5 specific challenges, the first three
of which are specific enough and concrete enough that several knowledgeable
t.o. regulars could have said that they were unrealistically demanding, or that they were strawmen that could be easily circumvented,
were that the case. Nothing remotely like that happened here in t.o.
In particular, the second challenge seems to be central to the current
hypotheses about OOL:
"For the second problem, proposed solutions needed to describe how nucleotides could have linked into chains with less than 2 percent of the wrong linkages." [quoted from the linked article]
Clicking on the words "second problem" takes one directly to a YouTube
presentation that MarkE had linked, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmykRoelTzU&t=679s
to the 11:22 minute point where the precise statement of the second problem is shown on a slide.
Similar clicks take the reader to precise statements of the other four problems.
The descriptions of all except the fourth problem are readily intelligible to Athel Cornish-Bowden,
who has written a whole book on the biochemistry of life.
[Not to be confused with the biochemistry of OOL, of which Athel has admitted
to be no more qualified to write than he claims Tour is.]
Perhaps two or three other t.o. regulars could understand them with equal ease.
Instead, Athel confined himself to blatant *ad hominem* credentialism,
pointing out that of over 200 papers Tour had published in organic chemistry,
none was on the origin of life. No other t.o. critic of Tour did any better.
If this is the caliber of response by researchers like those I listed,
then it would seem that Tour has successfully shown that the "Emperors
of OOL research" have no "clothes" suitable for addressing any of Tour's
five challenges.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer-- University of South Carolina
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
You are indulging in insulting innuendo, without trying to identify whatI don't believe you're a closet creationist, but this kind of message doesn't help.
you mean by "this kind of message." Contrast that with my specific, concrete reply:
To be consistent, shouldn't you also say, "I don't believe Professor Lee Cronin is
a closet creationist, but giving James Tour a bully pulpit like that Harvard roundtable doesn't help." ?
Peter Nyikos
I don't see why anyone would need to respond to Tour.Are you disappointed that Professor Lee Cronin does not share your anti-creationist bigotry?
Do NOT confuse "anti-creationist" with "anti-creationism." I'm at least as againstI did not insult you although you are a prolific generator of insults. Neither am I bigoted with respect to people's religious beliefs, creationists or not. Many
creationism as you are, but I follow the Christian way of "hate the sin but love the sinner." And in the case of Tour, there is no sin at all in trying to gauge
just how far the proto-science [1] of OOL has developed. That is what the clallenges are designed to do.
Tour isn't even asking for the big bottleneck of OOL in any of his challenges.
This bottleneck is the production of a ribozyme RNA replicase [2] .
For that, a 60 day deadline would have to be replaced by
at least a 6-year deadline. Even that would be well-nigh hopeless,
if the OOL researchers had to produce it under simulated early earth conditions. To make it fair, they would have to have leave to use
any method they want to use.
[1] See my reply to Harshman for a rough idea of what this means.
[2] There are RNA replicases , but they are proteins, not strings of nucleotides.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer-- http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 11:36:53 AM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:researcher, has agreed to participate in the roundtable discussion with Dr. Tour in front of one hundred faculty members from Harvard and MIT.
On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 1:51:54 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote: >>> On Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 8:46:54 AM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
I don't ordinarily look at *Evolution News*, but I got tipped off yesterday
to a "victory" of James Tour that took place then. But by the time I got it,
I was up to my eyeballs in preparing today's reviews for tests I give my two
classes on Friday.
Tour was at an invitation-only panel at Harvard, led by Lee Cronin, to discuss OOL.
The announcement in Evolution News has been there since November 15.
https://evolutionnews.org/2023/11/james-tour-and-lee-cronin-to-discuss-origin-of-life-at-harvard-roundtable/
It is so short, I am copying the whole announcement below.
[BEGIN QUOTE]
Props to Professor Lee Cronin. In the wake of chemist James Tour’s 60-day challenge regarding ungrounded origin-of-life claims, the Cambridge Faculty Roundtable on Science and Religion will host a discussion on OOL. Dr. Cronin, a leading OOL
“Almost everyone in that room is going to be favoring the side of Lee Cronin, and that’s fine,” says Tour. “I said I don’t need a panel — I’ll just talk to them myself.”
Just so you know, this is an invitation-only event to be held on November 28 at Harvard. Wish you could be a fly on the wall? Good news. The conversation will be recorded and posted sometime after the event.
[END OF QUOTE]
There may still be time, before the conversation is posted, for the biochemistry-savvy
folks here to redeem themselves by finding some *scientific* flaw in Tour's first
three challenges. Their disgraceful performances up to now were described in
the OP, which I've left in below. Besides Athel, "Lawyer Daggett" has made noises
from time to time about being a biochemistry hotshot, and Bill Rogers seems
to think of himself as one, too.
The first two at least would look bad if the panel had uncovered some flaw as
mentioned above, and it turned out to be so simple that they could easily have
picked up on it themselves.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
[copy of OP follows:]
On Monday, November 27, 2023 at 7:51:52 PM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
The thread which MarkE began with the title, "Origin of Life Challenge," had
as its original focus a 60-day challenge by James Tour which has now expired,
with no takers. I have not heard tell of a single response from any
of the OOL researchers to whom Tour directly addressed his challenge: >>>>>
Steve Benner, Jack Szostak, Clemens Reichert, Lee Cronin, Bruce Lipschitz, John Sutherland, Nicholas Hud, Ramana Naran Krishnamurthy, Neil Devaraj, and Matthew Pounder.
_Evolution News_ has been playing up this "victory" since October 31: >>>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/on-origin-of-life-chemist-james-tour-has-successfully-called-these-researchers-bluff/
If the response of the people here in talk.origins is anything to go by, the
crowing in the url is justified. And I'm not talking about the "deafening silence" since October 31.
I'm talking about the response on the original thread after MarkE did his OP
back on August 25. Tour had made 5 specific challenges, the first three >>>>> of which are specific enough and concrete enough that several knowledgeable
t.o. regulars could have said that they were unrealistically
demanding, or that they were strawmen that could be easily circumvented, >>>>> were that the case. Nothing remotely like that happened here in t.o. >>>>>
In particular, the second challenge seems to be central to the current >>>>> hypotheses about OOL:
"For the second problem, proposed solutions needed to describe how nucleotides could have linked into chains with less than 2 percent of the wrong linkages." [quoted from the linked article]
Clicking on the words "second problem" takes one directly to a YouTube >>>>> presentation that MarkE had linked,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmykRoelTzU&t=679s
to the 11:22 minute point where the precise statement of the second problem is shown on a slide.
Similar clicks take the reader to precise statements of the other four problems.
The descriptions of all except the fourth problem are readily intelligible to Athel Cornish-Bowden,
who has written a whole book on the biochemistry of life.
[Not to be confused with the biochemistry of OOL, of which Athel has admitted
to be no more qualified to write than he claims Tour is.]
Perhaps two or three other t.o. regulars could understand them with equal ease.
Instead, Athel confined himself to blatant *ad hominem* credentialism, >>>>> pointing out that of over 200 papers Tour had published in organic chemistry,
none was on the origin of life. No other t.o. critic of Tour did any better.
If this is the caliber of response by researchers like those I listed, >>>>> then it would seem that Tour has successfully shown that the "Emperors >>>>> of OOL research" have no "clothes" suitable for addressing any of Tour's >>>>> five challenges.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
I don't believe you're a closet creationist, but this kind of message doesn't help.
To be consistent, shouldn't you also say, "I don't believe Professor Lee Cronin isI don't see why anyone would need to respond to Tour.
a closet creationist, but giving James Tour a bully pulpit like that Harvard roundtable doesn't help." ?
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 8:16:56 PM UTC-8, John Harshman wrote:respectfully agree and lawsuits would be unnecessary."
On 12/1/23 7:56 PM, erik simpson wrote:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 6:01:56 PM UTC-8, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
We'll see what you had written below, John, but first I have some VERY timely news.
I was even thinking of making a separate post of it, but it's mercifully short.
On 11/28/23 4:22 AM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:When I wrote the above, I had no inkling that *Evolution News* had reported,
On Monday, November 27, 2023 at 8:46:52 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
On 11/27/23 4:50 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
The thread which MarkE began with the title, "Origin of Life Challenge," had
as its original focus a 60-day challenge by James Tour which has now expired,
with no takers. I have not heard tell of a single response from any >>>>>> of the OOL researchers to whom Tour directly addressed his challenge:
back on November 15, about Lee Cronin's extraordinary act of hospitality towards Tour:
https://evolutionnews.org/2023/11/james-tour-and-lee-cronin-to-discuss-origin-of-life-at-harvard-roundtable/
And when I did see it on Monday, I had totally forgotten that Cronin WAS
one of the OOL researchers whom Tour had directly challenged:
And today, no thanks to anyone else posting to this thread, I stumbled upon what looks likeSteve Benner, Jack Szostak, Clemens Reichert, Lee Cronin, Bruce Lipschitz, John Sutherland, Nicholas Hud, Ramana Naran Krishnamurthy, Neil Devaraj, and Matthew Pounder.
the recording to which I have been eagerly looking forward:
"Dr. Lee Cronin & Dr. James Tour on Science and the Origin of Life, Cambridge Faculty Roundtable"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GDv4f2zUus
It's over 3 hours long, and even if I skip the preliminaries prior to the introduction, it's about two
and three quarter hours long. And I have a test, taken by some 25 students, to grade, so I may
only be able to report on the recording on Monday.
Enjoy the reprieve. :) :)
Now, on to where I left off in my first reply to John, preceded by a bit of context:
[Harshman:]
You will probably challenge the idea that Tour is a creationist, so hereI will not repeat my criticism of the above from the first reply,
in advance is the horse's mouth:
but proceed directly to the documentation:
https://www.jmtour.com/personal-topics/evolution-creation/#:~:text=Based%20upon%20my%20faith%20in,and%20a%20woman%20named%20Eve.
A sophisticated science-based exposition, for the most part; as different from Ken Ham's "Were You There?"
as a Boeing 747 is from a junkyard.
A couple of quotes:
Even they show a sophisticated understanding:
"Recall, evolution is both about the mechanism by which change occurs >>> over time, and the theory of universal common descent.This is a distinction even professional biologists occasionally slip up on.
The so-called "theory of evolution," the Modern Synthesis (a.k.a. neo-Darwinism)
is really a theory of microevolution that ends in speciation, and has nothing
whatsoever to say about common descent.
Before Amazon totally reinvented its review sections, I participated
in a single book "review" that ran for something like a thousand posts, >> and the "paleontological guru" there was none other than
"Our Lady of the Ungulates," Christine Janis. Yet, at one point,
she carelessly referred to common descent as "the theory of evolution." >> Needless to say, she quickly corrected herself as I pointed out this mistake.
But the mechanisms are unknownSee about microevolution above. Back in early 1979, I began a thread
in talk.origins,
TOWARDS A SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF MACROEVOLUTION
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/MAgP4bAfV40/m/XDh3HKRhBgAJ >> in which I emphasized that there was some raw material for a true theory,
but nobody had tried to organize it into a coherent whole.
The "Extended Evolutionary Theory" hasn't seemed to be successful at doing that,
thanks in part to it being attacked by devotees of neo-Darwinism who claim
that it can all be done within that theory.
Unfortunately, I do not know enough about the following bit to comment on it.
Suffice it to say that it is an example of quote-mining: Tour
devotes a lot of space elsewhere to criticisms of the very thing
of which he speaks below:
and the theory of universal common descent isIf you do, John, please try to articulate it.
confronted by issues of uncommonness through ENCODE and orphan gene >>> research. And each year the evidence for uncommonness is escalating." >> I don't know what connection any of this is supposed to have with creationism.
The last paragraph you quoted is on a different theme altogether.
It's a childlike faith, and if Tour devoted as little time in those almost
"Based upon my faith in the biblical text, I do believe (yes, faith and
belief go beyond scientific evidence for this scientist) that God
created the heavens and the earth and all that dwell therein, including
a man named Adam and a woman named Eve."
three hours as he did in the long essay from which you took these paragraphs,
he had plenty of time to express thoughts like the following,
coming in between your first and second quotes:
"In a secular classroom, one need not include an intelligent designer in order to provide the students with an appreciation for the science or an overview of the theories’ shortcomings. I think that, upon this approach, diverse camps could
Alas, agreeing to disagree is something that seems to be far out of reach
on this thread, or indeed anywhere in talk.origins.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
According to my son (paleobotany), he hasn't heard the term used for years. I'mYour "Macroevolution" is not a term used by modern paleontologists. It meant something when usedAre you quite sure? I haven't been keeping up with the literature as
in the past by those still using Linnaean taxonomy. Dobzhansky referred to it as the changes seen over
geologic time periods. Large changes are made up by a sequence of minor changes, excluding saltation.
much recently as I once did, but last I heard "macroevolution" was a
term in common use, and there was considerable argument about whether it can be reduced to accumulated microevolution.
sure there are exceptions, but I wouldn't know where to find them. Context of use
is probably important.
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote: >>>>
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy," Mark.
When someone who believes that creation was responsible for the origin
of life starts talking about the origin of life, that person is talking
creationism.
See if this will help: suppose someone with impeccable anti-ID
credentials, like Kenneth Miller, were to say the SAME IDENTICAL
words that Tour spoke in his opening statement at the recent roundtable.
It runs from 34 minutes to 55 minutes of the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GDv4f2zUus
Would you be saying Miller is talking creationism in that statement?
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy," Mark.
When someone who believes that creation was responsible for the origin
of life starts talking about the origin of life, that person is talking creationism.
See if this will help: suppose someone with impeccable anti-ID
credentials, like Kenneth Miller, were to say the SAME IDENTICAL
words that Tour spoke in his opening statement at the recent roundtable.
It runs from 34 minutes to 55 minutes of the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GDv4f2zUus
Would you be saying Miller is talking creationism in that statement?
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote: >>>>>
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy," >> Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
--When someone who believes that creation was responsible for the origin
of life starts talking about the origin of life, that person is talking
creationism.
See if this will help: suppose someone with impeccable anti-ID
credentials, like Kenneth Miller, were to say the SAME IDENTICAL
words that Tour spoke in his opening statement at the recent roundtable.
It runs from 34 minutes to 55 minutes of the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GDv4f2zUus
Would you be saying Miller is talking creationism in that statement?
Since I do not and will not watch youtube, I have no idea what you're
talking about.
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote: >>>>>>>
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
It's a logical fallacy, but in practice, in the real world, it's not >necessarily poor evidence of a person's general competence or
reliability. "Because you're a creationist, your claims are wrong" is a >fallacy. But "Because you're a creationist, your claims about evolution
are very likely to be wrong" is a pretty good bet.
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote: >>>>>>
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
It's a logical fallacy, but in practice, in the real world, it's not necessarily poor evidence of a person's general competence or
reliability. "Because you're a creationist, your claims are wrong" is a fallacy. But "Because you're a creationist, your claims about evolution
are very likely to be wrong" is a pretty good bet.
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote: >>>>>>
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
On Wednesday, December 6, 2023 at 4:47:00 AM UTC-5, Öö Tiib wrote:
On Tuesday 5 December 2023 at 22:47:00 UTC+2, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
When someone who believes that creation was responsible for the origin of life starts talking about the origin of life, that person is talking
creationism.
I'll be referring to this amazing video below:See if this will help: suppose someone with impeccable anti-ID credentials, like Kenneth Miller, were to say the SAME IDENTICAL
words that Tour spoke in his opening statement at the recent roundtable. It runs from 34 minutes to 55 minutes of the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GDv4f2zUus
Would you be saying Miller is talking creationism in that statement?
For me the issue is not what words Tour says but what he has done.
So, aren't you interested in what we know and do not know about
the origins of life? Specifically, life as we know it, based on protein enzymes.
This is what makes OOL so fascinating for me: the Central Doctrine
of the biochemistry of life as we know it is that information passes from nucleotides
to polypeptides (which are either proteins or the main ingredients of proteins)
but almost no information passes in the opposite direction.
To make a long story short, all paths from simple chemicals to life as we know it
seem to have to pass through the bottleneck of a ribozyme RNA replicase.
I described this concept to Erik Simpson earlier on this thread, but
no one here seems to be interested in trying to find another kind of path.
And now comes the punch line: nobody, not even Lee Cronin, the "opponent" of Tour in the
debate, has the foggiest idea what ribozyme replicase (either for RNA or DNA, by the way
might look like. By this I mean: what on earth might the sequence of nucleotides making it up be?
Tour has record of challenges. With Tour there will be conditions and inconveniences with such challenges.Why don't you confine yourself to this latest one? This is the
one that a mainstream OOL researcher took seriously enough
to result in an amazing debate.
Who cares about the ones where Tour's opponents were incompetent and/or clowns?
"Challenges" themselves are forThis one was not only recorded, the YouTube recording lasts for over
show, but whoever accepts those just gets nothing, even no right to record:
“It shall not be recorded or extend beyond the three of us as this is not for show but for my edification.”
three hours, and I haven't had the time yet to go over the final hour.
<https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/professor-james-tour-accepts-nick-matzkes-offer-to-explain-macroevolution/>
Why should they then do it if they get nothing? Or what "reward" is that Tour erases his youtube channel?He won't have the power to erase this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GDv4f2zUus
It's part of a prestigious series, with Harvard University hosting.
YouTube is not getting less full of
BS. It is nothing like million of dollars that late James Randi offered for any paranormal or supernatural evidence whatsoever in his challenge.
The origin of life is arguably the most difficult unsolved problem in all the
physical sciences. The origin of the cell is far more complicated than the evolution
of stars. Astrophysicists have been able to deduce what goes on in stars, depending
on where they started on the Herzprung-Russel main sequence.
Our sun will leave it before getting any further than carbon in producing heavier elements,
and will quickly become a white dwarf after that.
The biggest stars can go all the way to iron, then suffer core collapse, then become supernovas, producing all the remaining naturally occurring elements
in an unimaginably spectacular chain of reactions, then collapse either into a neutron star or a black hole.
Along the way, they will first undergo a "hydrogen flash" while burning helium in earnest, then when
the helium is badly depleted, they will undergo a "helium flash". Both happen deep
inside, and no one has observed these and many other things
which they have deduced simply on well established theoretical grounds.
But life is far too complicated for biologists to be good at the theory of its origins to the
same spectacular extent -- or even to a much less spectacular extent.
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote: >>>>>>>
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are
exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is
to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example,
a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the
New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a
matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not >sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis
would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't
be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is >important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to >withhold.
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared inI would think that if [X] is germane to the subject of Joe's argument
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote: >>>>>>>>
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are
exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is
to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example,
a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the
New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a
matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not
sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis
would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't
be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is
important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to
withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote: >>>>>>>>
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are
exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is
to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example,
a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the
New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a
matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not
sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis
would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't
be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is
important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to
withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
On 2023-12-07 8:06 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
I would think that if [X] is germane to the subject of Joe's argumentOn 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are
exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is
to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example, >> a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the
New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a
matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not
sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis
would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't
be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is
important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to >> withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
then it may not be a fallacy even if it is ad hominem.
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 5:42:02 PM UTC+1, Lawyer Daggett wrote:
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 11:22:03 AM UTC-5, Burkhard wrote:
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 6:32:02 AM UTC+1, DB Cates wrote:I should have know I would be usurped by someone who would make me sound like a child.
On 2023-12-07 8:06 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:Yes, that's how it is normally classified in argumentation theory -
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared inI would think that if [X] is germane to the subject of Joe's argument
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >>>>>>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are >>>>>> exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is >>>>>> to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example, >>>>>> a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the >>>>>> New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a >>>>>> matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not >>>>>> sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis >>>>>> would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't >>>>>> be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is >>>>>> important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to >>>>>> withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
then it may not be a fallacy even if it is ad hominem.
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)
though the term has undergone a shift in meaning from its inception
in Greek rhetoric to its modern usage. "Arguments from a position to know" >>> (in Doug Walton's terminology) for instance are potentially non-fallacious >>> ad-hominems, one example is expert evidence. Or if you
remember "12 angry men", pointing out that the other side's eyewitness is >>> as blind as a bat is a perfectly legitimate strategy to cast doubt on their assertion
IF it requires good eyes to have made that observation.
Fallacious ad-hominems as you say are ultimately instantiations of the relevance
fallacy (and some folks argue that ultimately, that's true for all fallacies anyway),that is
the problem is not that the speaker is attacked, but the speaker is attacked for having
a property that is irrelevant to the veracity of their claim. The standard textbook on this
is Doug Walton's 1998 book "Ad Hominem Arguments." where he also discusses the
(in his view regrettable) meaning shift that the term has undergone in public discussions,
where ad-hominems are often treated as fallacious by defiition.
mhh, i very much felt this about your post :o) Not just because of the fewer spelling mistakes,
but also b/c of the distinction between a "bare ad hom" and an "ad hom argument"
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 11:22:03 AM UTC-5, Burkhard wrote:
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 6:32:02 AM UTC+1, DB Cates wrote:
On 2023-12-07 8:06 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared in talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
Yes, that's how it is normally classified in argumentation theory -I would think that if [X] is germane to the subject of Joe's argument then it may not be a fallacy even if it is ad hominem.On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are >> exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is
to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example,
a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the >> New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a
matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not >> sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis
would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't >> be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is >> important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to
withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)
though the term has undergone a shift in meaning from its inception
in Greek rhetoric to its modern usage. "Arguments from a position to know" (in Doug Walton's terminology) for instance are potentially non-fallacious ad-hominems, one example is expert evidence. Or if you
remember "12 angry men", pointing out that the other side's eyewitness is as blind as a bat is a perfectly legitimate strategy to cast doubt on their assertion
IF it requires good eyes to have made that observation.
Fallacious ad-hominems as you say are ultimately instantiations of the relevanceI should have know I would be usurped by someone who would make me sound like a child.
fallacy (and some folks argue that ultimately, that's true for all fallacies anyway),that is
the problem is not that the speaker is attacked, but the speaker is attacked for having
a property that is irrelevant to the veracity of their claim. The standard textbook on this
is Doug Walton's 1998 book "Ad Hominem Arguments." where he also discusses the
(in his view regrettable) meaning shift that the term has undergone in public discussions,
where ad-hominems are often treated as fallacious by defiition.
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 12:47:03 PM UTC-5, DB Cates wrote:
On 2023-12-08 11:15 AM, Burkhard wrote:
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 5:42:02 PM UTC+1, Lawyer Daggett wrote: >>>> On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 11:22:03 AM UTC-5, Burkhard wrote:I'm just going to stand aside and let the people who know what they are
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 6:32:02 AM UTC+1, DB Cates wrote:I should have know I would be usurped by someone who would make me sound like a child.
On 2023-12-07 8:06 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:Yes, that's how it is normally classified in argumentation theory -
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared inI would think that if [X] is germane to the subject of Joe's argument >>>>>> then it may not be a fallacy even if it is ad hominem.
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in >>>>>>>>> talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to >>>>>>>>>>>>> do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL. >>>>>>>>>>>
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are >>>>>>>> exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is >>>>>>>> to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example,
a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the >>>>>>>> New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a >>>>>>>> matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not >>>>>>>> sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis >>>>>>>> would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't >>>>>>>> be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is >>>>>>>> important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to
withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)
though the term has undergone a shift in meaning from its inception
in Greek rhetoric to its modern usage. "Arguments from a position to know"
(in Doug Walton's terminology) for instance are potentially non-fallacious
ad-hominems, one example is expert evidence. Or if you
remember "12 angry men", pointing out that the other side's eyewitness is >>>>> as blind as a bat is a perfectly legitimate strategy to cast doubt on their assertion
IF it requires good eyes to have made that observation.
Fallacious ad-hominems as you say are ultimately instantiations of the relevance
fallacy (and some folks argue that ultimately, that's true for all fallacies anyway),that is
the problem is not that the speaker is attacked, but the speaker is attacked for having
a property that is irrelevant to the veracity of their claim. The standard textbook on this
is Doug Walton's 1998 book "Ad Hominem Arguments." where he also discusses the
(in his view regrettable) meaning shift that the term has undergone in public discussions,
where ad-hominems are often treated as fallacious by defiition.
mhh, i very much felt this about your post :o) Not just because of the fewer spelling mistakes,
but also b/c of the distinction between a "bare ad hom" and an "ad hom argument"
talking about have at it.
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)
That's no fun, so riddle me this Batman ...
A). X is a confessed sinner and so should not be trusted.
Where does that score respective to being an ad hominen fallacy?
This is filler text while your brain does some background processing to give you time to have
a first impression and perhaps even run through an alternative or three depending on how fast
you process such things.
Let's also register a variant,
B). X is a confessed sinner and so should be trusted.
Continuing somewhat, if the point of an ad hominen fallacy is that it is a fallacy of irrelevance,
what would be the relevance of someone being a confessed sinner? Most superficially, being a
sinner can broadly be seen as indicative of being someone who betrays trusts, and so it seems
relevant and indeed a valid argument.
Then again, there's an alternative. Given a premise that none of us are without sin, that we have
all stumbled and deviated from our better angel at some point, then being a 'confessed sinner'
indicates an aspect of self-awareness and honesty that many would associate with trustworthiness.
Removing the fixation on the ad hominen aspect, is A). or B). a fallacy?
How does one score the relevance of the bit about being a confessed sinner? How much is determined by the argument versus the audience?
On 2023-12-07 8:06 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared inI would think that if [X] is germane to the subject of Joe's argument
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >>>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are
exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is
to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example, >>> a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the
New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a
matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not
sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis
would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't
be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is
important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to
withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
then it may not be a fallacy even if it is ad hominem.
On 12/7/23 6:06 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >>>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are
exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is
to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example, >>> a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the
New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a
matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not
sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis
would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't
be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is
important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to
withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
Saying it is wrong because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem. Saying it is >untrustworthy because Joe is an [X] is rational and prudent.
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 2:52:03?PM UTC-8, Bob Casanova wrote:
On Fri, 8 Dec 2023 07:27:51 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/7/23 6:06 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:I agree, And the second is *not* ad hominem.
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >> >>>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are
exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is >> >>> to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example, >> >>> a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the
New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a >> >>> matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not
sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis >> >>> would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't
be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is
important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to >> >>> withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
Saying it is wrong because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem. Saying it is
untrustworthy because Joe is an [X] is rational and prudent.
I'm beginning to think "ad hominim" doesn't mean a damn thing.
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 23:26:50 -0600, the following appeared in???
talk.origins, posted by DB Cates <cates_db@hotmail.com>:
On 2023-12-07 8:06 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:So if a known liar says that the Earth is not flat, the fact
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared inI would think that if [X] is germane to the subject of Joe's argument
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >>>>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are
exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is >>>> to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example, >>>> a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the
New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a >>>> matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not
sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis >>>> would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't >>>> be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is
important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to >>>> withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
then it may not be a fallacy even if it is ad hominem.
that he's a known liar would cause you to reject his
statement? OK.
On Fri, 8 Dec 2023 14:58:17 -0800 (PST), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by erik simpson
<eastside.erik@gmail.com>:
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 2:52:03?PM UTC-8, Bob Casanova wrote:It does (see the Wiki reference), but there are multiple
On Fri, 8 Dec 2023 07:27:51 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/7/23 6:06 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:I agree, And the second is *not* ad hominem.
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >>>>>>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are >>>>>> exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is >>>>>> to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example, >>>>>> a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the >>>>>> New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a >>>>>> matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not >>>>>> sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis >>>>>> would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't >>>>>> be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is >>>>>> important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to >>>>>> withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
Saying it is wrong because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem. Saying it is
untrustworthy because Joe is an [X] is rational and prudent.
I'm beginning to think "ad hominim" doesn't mean a damn thing.
definitions, which change constantly.
My take remains:
If an argument is made, and rejected, not on the argument,
but on the (perceived) character of the claimant, it's ad
hominem.
If an argument is made, and the (perceived) character of the
claimant is such that one is not willing to accept the
argument unexamined (something no one should do, even for
the arguments/claims of purported "experts"), it's not ad
hominem.
Others' mileages may, of course, vary. Widely. But then,
that's philosophy: Two philosophers, three (or more)
opinions.
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 5:47:03?PM UTC-5, Bob Casanova wrote:
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 23:26:50 -0600, the following appeared inThe fact that X is a known liar is not just cause to conclude that any and everything
talk.origins, posted by DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>:
On 2023-12-07 8:06 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:So if a known liar says that the Earth is not flat, the fact
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared inI would think that if [X] is germane to the subject of Joe's argument
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >> >>>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are
exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is >> >>> to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example, >> >>> a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the
New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a >> >>> matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not
sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis >> >>> would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't
be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is
important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to >> >>> withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
then it may not be a fallacy even if it is ad hominem.
that he's a known liar would cause you to reject his
statement? OK.
that X says is a lie. It is a reason to remain circumspect about any claims that X
makes, but is insufficient to conclude that X is necessarily lying. It should be
obvious that the observation that X often lies is not equivalent to a conclusion that
every statement from x is a lie or falsehood.
Making determinations of the fact hood of some suite of claimants is non-trivial.--
Interesting aspects of the nature of termination of myriad interactions and conceptualizations
of English vocabulary are, in many respects, fascinating. I just hope few have committed
themselves to ad hoc study that might well require significant contributions of caregiving.
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 12:47:03 PM UTC-5, DB Cates wrote:
On 2023-12-08 11:15 AM, Burkhard wrote:
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 5:42:02 PM UTC+1, Lawyer Daggett wrote:
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 11:22:03 AM UTC-5, Burkhard wrote:
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 6:32:02 AM UTC+1, DB Cates wrote: >>>> On 2023-12-07 8:06 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:I should have know I would be usurped by someone who would make me sound like a child.
Yes, that's how it is normally classified in argumentation theory - >>> though the term has undergone a shift in meaning from its inception >>> in Greek rhetoric to its modern usage. "Arguments from a position to know"On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared inI would think that if [X] is germane to the subject of Joe's argument >>>> then it may not be a fallacy even if it is ad hominem.
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in >>>>>>> talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to >>>>>>>>>>> do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL. >>>>>>>>>
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions >>>>>>> some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to >>>>>>> be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are
exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is
to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example,
a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the
New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a
matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not
sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis
would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't
be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is
important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to
withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)
(in Doug Walton's terminology) for instance are potentially non-fallacious
ad-hominems, one example is expert evidence. Or if you
remember "12 angry men", pointing out that the other side's eyewitness is
as blind as a bat is a perfectly legitimate strategy to cast doubt on their assertion
IF it requires good eyes to have made that observation.
Fallacious ad-hominems as you say are ultimately instantiations of the relevance
fallacy (and some folks argue that ultimately, that's true for all fallacies anyway),that is
the problem is not that the speaker is attacked, but the speaker is attacked for having
a property that is irrelevant to the veracity of their claim. The standard textbook on this
is Doug Walton's 1998 book "Ad Hominem Arguments." where he also discusses the
(in his view regrettable) meaning shift that the term has undergone in public discussions,
where ad-hominems are often treated as fallacious by defiition.
mhh, i very much felt this about your post :o) Not just because of the fewer spelling mistakes,
but also b/c of the distinction between a "bare ad hom" and an "ad hom argument"
I'm just going to stand aside and let the people who know what they are talking about have at it.That's no fun, so riddle me this Batman ...
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)
A). X is a confessed sinner and so should not be trusted.
Where does that score respective to being an ad hominen fallacy?
This is filler text while your brain does some background processing to give you time to have
a first impression and perhaps even run through an alternative or three depending on how fast
you process such things.
Let's also register a variant,
B). X is a confessed sinner and so should be trusted.
Continuing somewhat, if the point of an ad hominen fallacy is that it is a fallacy of irrelevance,
what would be the relevance of someone being a confessed sinner? Most superficially, being a
sinner can broadly be seen as indicative of being someone who betrays trusts, and so it seems
relevant and indeed a valid argument.
Then again, there's an alternative. Given a premise that none of us are without sin, that we have
all stumbled and deviated from our better angel at some point, then being a 'confessed sinner'
indicates an aspect of self-awareness and honesty that many would associate with trustworthiness.
Removing the fixation on the ad hominen aspect, is A). or B). a fallacy?
How does one score the relevance of the bit about being a confessed sinner? How much is determined by the argument versus the audience?
On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 10:32:03 AM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
On 12/7/23 6:06 PM, Bob Casanova wrote:
On Thu, 7 Dec 2023 08:55:31 -0800, the following appeared inSaying it is wrong because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem. Saying it is
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:Fine; you can argue about it with the sources referenced in
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >>>>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
the Wiki entry. You might also want to note Harshman's take
i=on it, and my reply.
The fact remains that unless you can refute Joe's argument,
I emphatically disagree.
It is impossible for any person to directly
check the accuracy of any but I tiny fraction of claims that they are
exposed to. Thus people must consider other ways to evaluate
credibility. One way which is both fairly easy and usually accurate is >>>> to consider the credibility and motivations of the source. For example, >>>> a claim made on Fox News carries less weight than a claim made in the
New York Times, because Fox News is known to lie to its listeners as a >>>> matter of policy, while such occurrences in the NYT are rare and not
sanctioned by the newspaper's management.
To say that Joe's assertion can't be trusted because Joe has halitosis >>>> would, of course, be a fallacy. But to say that Joe's assertion can't
be trusted because Joe has a long history of lying on this subject is
important information which it would be a disservice to the audience to >>>> withhold.
saying it's wrong it because Joe is an [X] is ad hominem.
untrustworthy because Joe is an [X] is rational and prudent.
--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell
I hesitated to opine but I guess I'm feeling foolish.
There's significant confusion surrounding ad hominen fallacies and attacks. Most of course understand the issue fairly well but perhaps it's worth being somewhat more formal.
An ad hominen attack is not an explicit argument. It's just an accusation that
some person has a negative quality. It's probably worthwhile to distinguish where it is a naked assertion and when it is in some sense the conclusion of some argument. And there one has to also be mindful that said argument might precede the conclusion/accusation with support to follow or it might be at the
end of some attempt to support the accusation. How well the reasons actually support the accusation are yet another matter.
Some assert that any attack qualifies as an ad hominen fallacy from a broad connotative sense that poisoning a person's reputation can influence people. There's some potential merit to that line of thinking but it's perhaps limited.
It doesn't fit well to the stricter sense of logical fallacies as there such is simply
considered something tangential and irrelevant to any actual argument.
And this transitions us to ad hominen fallacies. Rendered to the most simple analysis, an ad hominen fallacy is a fallacy of irrelevance.
To establish the irrelevance, one must examine the argument at hand. Essentially, we need two parts, one part addresses a principal and makes a negative claim about that principal (note, principal, not principle).
The second part is some brand of argument or conclusion.
If this second part is not rationally related to the negative characterization,
AND if the negative characterization is being used to support the second part,
THEN we have an ad hominen fallacy. X is a habitual thief so X should not be trusted with the payroll is a test case. This is not an ad hominen fallacy as the
particular accusation is not irrelevant.
Change it to X is a habitual thief so X should not be trusted to repair lawnmowers
is a bit different. It isn't clear that repairing lawnmowers is necessarily related
to habitual thievery.
Without belaboring things, the point is that the mere existence of a negative characterization of a principal isn't sufficient to establish an ad hominen fallacy
as the fallacy is at heart one of irrelevance. And as always, just because the
argument attempting to support a particular conclusion may be flawed does
not mean the actual stated conclusion is true or false. It's truth value is simply not established by that particular argument.
On 12/14/23 7:02 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
John, before I begin, I want to talk to you about a pressing issueFYI, Thunderbird can be configured to use Eternal September as well as giganews, and it's free. Thunderbird is quite versatile and has an
that transcends
all our difficulties and disagreements in dealing with each other.
Talk.origins and sci.bio.paleontology -- indeed all Usenet groups --
are threatened with extinction
due to almost everyone's reliance on Google Groups. The following
announcement
appears on every GG thread:
"Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new
Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new
content from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of
historical data will still be supported as it is done today."
You've always avoided posting on GG and hate to even look at it.
In times past, you have even tried to persuade me to switch to Giganews.
Are you still using it to read and post? Is there any sign that it, too,
will stop supporting talk.origins, etc.?
If the answer to the last question is No, I would like to look into
switching
to it before February 15, and will spread the word about it.
I know there is a monthly fee, but if that is the price we have to pay
for saving talk.origins and s.b.p. from extinction, I for one am
willing to pay it.
And now, on to responding to your comments below.
On Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 3:32:09 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote: >>> On 12/13/23 5:50 AM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, December 6, 2023 at 2:47:01 PM UTC-5, John Harshman
wrote:
On 12/6/23 7:31 AM, Bob Casanova wrote:
On Tue, 5 Dec 2023 22:10:29 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net>:
On 12/5/23 12:45 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 12:36:56?PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote: >>>>>>>>> On 11/30/23 6:46 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:16:53?AM UTC-5, John
Harshman wrote:
... Tour is a creationist.
The first three parts of Tour's challenge -- the parts I am >>>>>>>>>> really interested in --
have NOTHING to do with creationism, and everything to
do with sussing out the current level of progress in OOL.
Looks like you were never taught the full meaning of "*ad
hominem* fallacy,"
Mark.
Mark swept his blatant fallacy under the rug,
and Casanova was all too willing to ignore it in his
and Mark's subsequent general treatise on fallacies.
So were everyone else who contributed to the general treatise.
Ad hominem is often not a fallacy.I have to disagree. Wiki discusses it quite well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
While the final paragraph in the "History" section mentions
some arguments to the contrary, it also notes that these
arguments are not widely accepted. So "often" is a
significant overstatement; very occasionally" might be
better.
Bottom line: Ad hominem is almost universally considered to
be a fallacy.
It's a logical fallacy, but in practice, in the real world, it's not >>>>> necessarily poor evidence of a person's general competence or
reliability.
It is in the case where I criticized Mark Isaak for it. Twice in the
same post.
Do you deny this?
I do.
We can agree to disagree on this for the rest of this week, I hope.
"Because you're a creationist, your claims are wrong" is a
fallacy. But "Because you're a creationist, your claims about
evolution
are very likely to be wrong" is a pretty good bet.
Unfortunately for you and Mark Isaak, Tour said NOTHING about
either religion or biological evolution -- the only things you and
Erik Simpson have banked on with your cherry-picked short quotes--
in his ca. 20 minute opening statement in the 3 hour long roundtable.
What he said is not relevant to whether his being a creationist should
make us suspicious of his opinions on the origin of life.
Suspicious, sure; but if you aren't interested in learning about the
present sorry state of origin of life research, your suspicions are moot.
If you ARE interested, then it behooves you to learn about what
happened in the debate I talked about below.
relevant is in fact whether he's a creationist. And that's what the
quotes were for. And the quoted essay, taken in full, supports the claim >>> that he's a creationist.
There's an old Hungarian saying: don't hammer on open doors.
The second cherry-picked paragraph told me that much.
I said it showed a childlike faith, but I guess that wasn't enough for
you.
It's one that is poignant, too, where he says that he is like Tevye in
"Fiddler on the Roof."
about the evolution of animals: "I'm afraid that if I bend that much,
I will break"
But prokaryotes, which postdate OOL, and more generally plants,
are a different matter altoghether. In Genesis, on the third day,
God is depicted as saying, "Let the earth bring forth plants..."
and then we are told, "The earth brought forth plants."
When it comes the turn of fish and birds, God also says
"Let the earth bring forth..." but with a crucial difference:
It says "God made..."
So I think Tour is free to believe whatever he wants
about the causes of OOL. In the dinner conversation that followed
his and Cronin's opening remarks, he even seemed to say just that.
Tomorrow I will find that part of the video and transcribe it here.
"Dr. Lee Cronin & Dr. James Tour on Science and the Origin of Life,
Cambridge Faculty Roundtable"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GDv4f2zUus
Tour stuck to OOL, and his five points in his 60-day challenge
were made more clearly than before, and Lee Cronin made no effort
to undermine them in his opening statement that followed Tour's.
Nor has anyone on this thread, or earlier threads on the topic of
the challenge,
tried to undermine them.
Not relevant to my point.
I accepted your point immediately on reading the second paragraph you
displayed.
It's time to move on.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia, SC
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
adaptive junk filter that can reduce or eliminate garbage.
Merry Christmas!
On 12/17/23 7:34 PM, jillery wrote:
On Sun, 17 Dec 2023 08:16:13 -0800, erik simpson
<eastside.erik@gmail.com> wrote:
I've just been using ES for a couple of days. Have to noticed any
messages dropped recently. I've seen messages arriving in bunches;
that's probably the dalays. Dropped messages are harder to understand.
One way to notice dropped posts is to see replies to posts you don't
see. One way to notice delayed posts is to compare header dates to delivered dates. Of course, these things are irrelevant to those who insist ES works "just fine".
--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge
So far so good. We'll see.
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