Category: Uncategorized

Recovering Evangelical offers supporting evidence for my previous conclusion about him:

The point I made was that the problem is not peer review as a process, but that some scientists are shady. The idea that there’s something wrong with the practice of science because some people display favoritism in the process of peer review is, to use a term you applied to me, “moronic.” To call peer review “not science” for this reason is “idiocy.”

Perhaps, but RE has failed to grasp the relevant point, which is that favoritism in the process of peer review was not the problem I was discussing. Favoritism may be an issue, but it is not the fundamental problem, it is only a symptom of that problem. RE doesn’t seem to understand that the only thing about peer review that is even related to science is that it is a professional activity in which many scientists currently engage. It is no more inherently scientific than white lab coats, because it is merely a form of collective editing by scientists used as an anticompetitive barrier to entry. Peer review does not involve use of the scientific method, as no replication or experimentation is involved. Nor does peer review add anything to the body of knowledge in itself, it is specifically designed to remove potential additions to that body and can be confirmed to have been an inhibiting factor in the legitimate increase of scientage on numerous occasions. This latter fact cannot always be attributable to shady behavior of individual scientists, in fact, the shady behavior usually concerns attempts to pass peer review, not the peer review itself. If one prefers Popper’s definition of science to Myers’s, then note that peer review also has little connection to the falsifiability or unfalsifiability of a hypothesis.

To delete my initial comment, as you did, is “cowardice.” To claim that it’s because I am a troll, or the same poster who’s been banned before, is “bullshit.” Can’t you track IP addresses?

That’s absurd. RE was behaving in a similar manner and making arguments very remniscent of those made by a previous troll who had been banned eight times and regularly makes use of different names while hiding his IP address. It’s hardly incomprehensible that “Recovering Evangelical” could be confused with “Cosmos” aka “Why Christians Are Wrong”, especially when similarly nonsensical accusations are being thrown. Moreover, as soon as it became clear that RE was not Cosmos/Pintopolis/TCW etc, I apologized and allowed him to continue posting.

Aren’t you held up to be some kind of uber-computer nerd? I submit my e-mail address with every post! I’m sure you have the ability to find out, generally, who/where I am, or at least who I’m not, especially if you’ve banned this other person 8 times before.

Perhaps, if I’d kept track of Cosmos’s original IP and took the time to track down both physical addresses. I don’t bother wasting that kind of time and effort, though especially not when it’s someone who is so prone to slinging personal insults as you are. And if RE is determined to behave in a manner as tiresome and repetitive as Cosmos, I won’t hesitate to add him to the list of 20 or so people who have been banned over the last five years. His readiness to behave in an obnoxious manner doesn’t make me inclined to tolerate him for long.

In response to my contention that “I see this as another one of VD’s misrepresentations,” you say “That’s because you’re stupid.” This is hypocrisy, because you ridiculed “BD” for doing the same thing to you. In fact, you dedicated an entire front page post to it.

No, this is merely stating the obvious. BD’s statement was ridiculous because I am demonstrably not stupid. This is a matter of public knowledge. RE, on the other hand, has submitted a good deal of evidence demonstrating that he lacks the intellectual capacity to understand some fairly simple and straightforward concepts. What applies to RE does not necessarily apply to me.

So yes, you displayed cowardice when you deleted my initial comment, hypocrisy when you responded to it by claim that I was stupid, you lied when you painted me as another poster, and to claim that peer review isn’t science because some scientists display favoritism or other human faults, is “moronic.” Case made, charges stand. Please try and refute, my day has been slow so far and I could use some entertainment.

I didn’t say that peer review isn’t science because some scientists display favoritism. I said it is: “little more than the scientific version of union thuggery.” RE’s inability to comprehend what I wrote or understand why peer review is not science is why he can be reasonably be described as possessing sub-standard intelligence, which means that I am not a hypocrite. While I was mistaken about his identity, he has not shown any evidence that I knew he was not Cosmos, (there had been some previous speculation by several regulars that he was), so he has no grounds for claiming that I lied. My reposting of his argument and his nonsensical insults should suffice to belie the claim of cowardice.

The TIA downloads have picked up of late. 75 on Friday and 93 yesterday, compared to an average 25 the previous week. No idea why, but interesting nonetheless. And what is with the continued “strawman argument” claims from the dimmer “brights”? It’s bizarre, because I’m not only responding directly to the specific arguments laid out by the New Atheists in their books, in the case of Dawkins I actually quote in its entirety what he asserts is the central argument of The God Delusion. If I got any less “strawman”, I’d be plagiarizing.

I’m beginning to suspect that more than a few of my critics not only don’t comprehend what I’ve written, but that they don’t even understand the arguments that their heroes have made.

UPDATE – I did warn you that educators aren’t very bright:

If the author wrote the book for the three most often named Athiests, I could probably give him 4 or five stars, the 1 star is for the book as written, assuming that it was intended for mass market readership…. My objection to the book is not what it says, but how it says it. A book written in obvious attemt to “prove” a series of points should be written in a manner that will allow the majority of readers to understand the points being made. Unless the reader wants to sit down with an unabridged dictionary in one hand and the book in the other, he will not be able to tell if Mr Day really has some arguments or is just “blowing smoke”.

As a post script, I am not one of his Mensa idiots nor am I uneducated. I have a post graduate degree and taught in a major University for over 20 years.

It’s tragic, but I don’t mourn for the woman who demonstrated her remorse through action, I mourn for the two children in whose deaths she was complicit:

Emma Beck was found hanging at her home in Helston, Cornwall, on Feb 1 2007. Her suicide note read: “I told everyone I didn’t want to do it, even at the hospital. I was frightened, now it is too late. I died when my babies died. I want to be with my babies: they need me, no-one else does.”

The abortion industry is a vampirish business sustained by the blood of murdered children and the emotional mutilation of women. It cannot be eliminated soon enough for me. History will judge the abortion culture as savagely as we judge National Socialist Germany, and rightly so. A society that fails to have children will not survive. A society that murders great quantities of its children does not deserve to.

Sam Leith of the Telegraph believes that Harry Potter will be appreciated as a classic 50 years from now:

Were this same survey to be conducted in another 50 years, our children will doubtless be bemused by the way an old classic like “Harry Potter” still has the power to top the list.

C S Lewis – it is fair to say – was the J K Rowling of his day.

I like Leith, but I think his conclusion here is utterly wrong. What makes Lewis memorable, and Rowling forgettable, is his ability to convey a sense of the transcendent to the youthful mind. But there is literally nothing memorable about the Harry Potter series except the gimmicks, which is why Rowling’s books will be no more well-regarded in 50 years than the Tom Brown books on which Harry Potter is in good part based are regarded now.

It takes a lot more than popularity to make a book a classic. Moreover, the very concept of “school” may well be an inexplicable one to most children of the future, since technology is rapidly eliminating the last justifications for learning en masse.

I have to admit, the sort of response to TIA posted on WND tends to amuse me, especially in light of the non-reading atheist reviews that insist TIA is just another theologian’s apologetic:

I am shocked and saddened after reading Vox Day’s “The Irrational Atheist,” which I purchased at your site.

I have never been so conflicted about a book in my life, because it is simply outstanding in places – absolutely irrefutable. But his claim to be a believer is belied by his use, even at times glorification of, at least 14 types of terms for sick, vile and disgusting sexual perversions (some of which I had to research to find out what they meant, and which turned my stomach when I did), five mentions of grossly immoral and/or irresponsibly behavior, five slang references to body parts let’s just say which are below the beltline (yep, you guessed them!), three mentions of crude bodily functions, (to be exotic, one is even in German, and again, yes, those are the ones you’re thinking of), and five vulgar and/or crass nicknames for women.

In summary, to rip a quotation from Day out of context, “… by the ‘end’ it was getting pretty painful.” His particular humor specialization certainly appears to be the sexually perverted and scatological varieties.

Poor Oscar doesn’t seem to realize that the game argot goes along with the game designer’s analysis. And not only does he misassign the Rasmussen quote to me, I don’t recall any toilet humor in the book. I imagine a more well-read critic would be inclined to view the quote from Heller’s Catch-22 as a literary reference. Oscar claims to be shocked by the Offspring culture I inhabit, he’d probably keel over dead were he ever exposed to Slipknot culture.

In any case, I don’t quite see the point of pretending to be something you’re not. One of the things I always despised about Christians before I became one was the insufferable hypocrisy that many of the most annoying ones tended to exhibit. Now, hypocrisy is far from the worst of evils, in many cases it’s merely the homage that vice pays to virtue, but it’s a particularly problematic one if you’re going to be communicating with non-Christians. TIA isn’t written for old people who have to google a Hentai reference, it’s written for those who understand the point I’m making about the New Atheists.

Like it or not, that’s the world we live in and you can’t change it by pretending it doesn’t exist. And I note that my humor inclines to the cruel and the morbid, not the sexual and scatological.

There’s nothing like having a pair of rogues at your command who possess initiative, but are also capable of taking direction with alacrity. We didn’t have any healers, but every single Alliance fighter was disciplined and we ruthlessly destroyed the Horde, 505-0. I didn’t even think it was possible to win with a 500-point margin, I thought the previous record of 478 was all but untouchable.

We burned both Frostwolf towers and even took the Frostwolf graveyard twice, but too much eagerness to go after the Frostwolf base caused our attack to fragment at that point and we didn’t manage to hold it.

But it sure made me laugh:

Don Chenoweth, you should stop spamming the women at the Dallas Morning News, asking them if they’re “one of Rod Dreher’s sluts.” Nobody here appreciates it, you troll.

I’ve taken the entry from yesterday down because no one should have to read through the over 100 entries to follow the discussion about how the use of the term “slut” is regarded by different people, and how I expressed regret over having used it.

It reminds me of how all the Russian call girls around town became collectively known as “Big D’s girls” a few years ago. Big D is still a little taken aback by that. Good times.

To be honest, I find myself kind of tempted to call the DMR and ask to speak to one of Rod Dreher’s sluts, just to see who they transfer me to.

We’re supposedly in Iraq because 3,000 Americans were killed seven years ago. Meanwhile, Americans are being killed every day because George Bush refuses to stop the Mexican invasion:

Authorities have confirmed that the the driver of the van that struck the school bus that killed 4 students on Tuesday is an illegal alien…. The school bus was carrying 28 students. Cottonwood Fire Chief Dale Louluagie confirmed that 3 fatalities of the crash died immediately upon impact and the fourth victim died around 8 p.m. Tuesday night.

STUDENTS KILLED IN CRASH IDENTIFIED

* Hunter Javens, 9, Cottonwood.

* Jesse Javens, 13, Cottonwood

* Emilee Olson, 9, Cottonwood

* Reed Stevens, 12, Marshall

“Morales” was an illegal alien who couldn’t be bothered to pay any more attention to stop signs than immigration laws. If Americans wish to keep their country, they need to deport all the Mexicans, Somalis, Cubans, Saudi Arabians and other foreign nationals who are fast turning the country into the same sort of third world country from which they came. There simply isn’t an alternative.

Crypticlife dabbles in Japanese history:

Surely, Vox, you’re aware that “kamikaze” means “winds of god”, and that the imperial Japanese regarded the Emperor as a divine figure?

While this argument by translation is superficially serious, the problem is that “kamikaze” was not a term of religious significance, it was a historical metaphor making poetic reference to the fortuitous and presumably divine winds of the mythical hurricanes that were credited with turning back the Mongol invasions of 1274 and 1281. Given the similarities of the technological superiority possessed by both the Mongols and Americans over the Japanese, the metaphor should not be difficult to grasp.

Moreover, the “divinity” with which the Emperor was regarded in Japan was similar to the way in which the 18th century Deists viewed their distant and disinterested God, even the Meiji Restoration of the late nineteenth century only transferred power from the Tokugawa shogunate to the Meiji oligarchs. The Showa emperor was nothing but the same figurehead that every god-emperor had been since the short-lived Kemmu restoration of 1336.

EU shenanigans threaten to come to light at a rather inopportune time:

I first heard the rumours on Monday that led me here to details of a secret report that uncovered “extensive, widespread and criminal abuse” by Euro-MPs of staff allowances worth 100 million a year. The first Parliament officials I spoke to knew nothing of the report, so secret it had become. The first MEPs I contacted also knew nothing of the audit (that soon changed, as the excellent Chris Davies stepped up to the plate).

The first line from a Parliament spokesman I got was this: “The report does not name people but contains sensitive information that can easily be linked to individuals. For data protection reasons the report can not be published.”

I also got: “The decision was made by the Secretary General himself (Harald Rømer, a powerful bureaucrat who manages the Parliament’s behind the scenes administration)… They do not want any collateral damage.” Another well placed official explained: “Look we want reform and to do the right thing but we cannot make this report available to the public if we want people to vote in the European elections next year.”

Here’s hoping the socionomics people are correct and that the ongoing economic downturn will demolish this stealthy Enlightenment oligarchy that is attempting to succeed where the National Socialists failed.