djmullen

There are a couple of interesting threads recently posted on ISCID's Brainstorms. Both of them are "sticky" posts, so they stay at the top of the list and both are by the moderator.

The first posted thread is, "Would you consider joining ISCID if...", dated 14 May 2004. Apparently ISCID is having so much trouble getting people to join that they are considering offering bribes. And what bribes!

"First, ISCID is thinking about starting a publishing house and providing members with free access to complete books online (books would also be printed). Or course this would be contingent on the sort of books that we publish...but hypothetically, does this interest you?"

An ID vanity press! Just what the world needs. I can just about imagine what kind of books they would publish, considering the trash that goes into their journal. Perhaps "The Wisdom of Jerry D. Bauer, With Key to the Scriptures"?

The second offer is even more pathetic: "Second, we've been thinking, for some time, of providing our members with free access to the science portion of JStor (it is the only sort of online journal access that we can currently afford). This would allow members to read articles that are at least five years old from various science journals (e.g. Science). Not the most up-to-date stuff, but alas, we can't afford the most up-to-date stuff. Many in the academic world already have access to this service, in which case you should answer NO."

Yummm! Access to scientific articles that are at least five years old! Not exactly something that will pry my checkbook open. I have to ask here, Why is ISCID hurting for money? It's not all that expensive to run a Web BBS, especially one as little used as ISCID. The Discovery Institute has enough cash to pay Dembski $60,000 to write a book. That amount of money would run ISCID for at least ten years and ISCID is way funnier than anything Dembski has ever written.

But the next sticky post, also dated 14 May, is even more interesting:

"Open viewing, invited posting"

"Note: We are currently reviewing users and providing certain participants with posting privileges to Brainstorms. If you do not have access, and would like us to review your status, please send an email to [email protected] with the subject line: Brainstorms Invitation

Moving forward, Brainstorms is implementing a new discussion board policy. This policy is an attempt to improve the quality of our forum's postings while at the same time slowing down the pace. Good conversations don't happen when people post in a frenzy, driven only by an eagerness to shoot down ideas, accuse, and slogan-sling.

There is a danger in taking this policy: it could be that it doesn't fit internet dynamics. We will have to wait and see. One thing is for sure: we were not happy with the quality of discussions that were taking place, and saw no reason to waste our bandwidth hosting the sort of thing that is pervasive across the net. If you want to advocate for or against Darwinism, go somewhere else. If you want to advocate for or against ID, go somewhere else. Indeed, if you see this conversation as "ID vs. Darwinism" then you might as well go somewhere else as well.

Brainstorms was never set up to be a standard, anything goes, discussion forum. We have a goal: to foster substantive, scientific discussions. Some people think that having this goal amounts to censorship. We're sorry if you see it that way. We don't. We see it as implementing heuristics to produce above status-quo conversations.

Active participation at Brainstorms is now limited to:

(1) An invited group of participants who we feel have generally been productive community members and who have generally remained congenial unless provoked (and sometimes despite being provoked)
(2) Suitably screened emails sent as thread-starters to [email protected] (if someone's email is accepted, then he or she automatically becomes a probationay participant).
(3) ISCID members

Posting at Brainstorms, for any of these three groups of people, is a privilege that can be revoked if abused."

So, apparently ISCID is no longer a place to advocate for or against ID - or ID vs Evolution. They want to foster "substantive scientific discussions". Yeah, right. As if anybody in the ID movement has anything substantive to discuss. Most wouldn't recognize science if it bit them on the bum.

The odd thing is I haven't noticed any especially disruptive posts on there lately, although I haven't been reading it that closely. I haven't noticed any useful or intelligent posts from ID types, either.

I feel sorry for Micah. He still seems to believe that if he can just find the right formula, substantive scientific discussions will blossom, just like in real science. The problem is that substantive scientific discussions are the last thing that ID wants because they invariably show how un-scientific and un-substantial ID is.

Meanwhile, Jerry Don Bauer is still posting. Apparently, he's one of the elite few who are going to contribute to the substantive scientific discussions, as soon as somebody shows him the difference between his head and a hole in the ground.

For an interesting look at the numbers involved, tote up the number of people reading science / evolution / philosophical forums on this web site and compare them to the number logged into ISCID or ARN at the same time. Pretty pathetic for ISCID and ARN!

Principia

He sees it that way because he has no clue what motivates substantive, scientific discussions. What he and the rest of the IDiots want is a philosophical forum where they get to dictate the topics to be discussed, and where they can will their critics into respecting their points of view. The place has evolved so that if the critics provide scientific literature, that's called pubmed bombing. But if the IDiots heckle (a la nobody, MG, JDB, Bracht, WAD, et al.) their critics with polemical rhetoric, the moderators consider it healthy debate and suspend their own rules. No, that's not censorship... really.

Look at it this way: how has Micah Sparacio himself fostered substantive, scientific discussions on his forum? I would be interested in one instance of this. As far as I am aware, the only way he thinks he has contributed towards this lofty goal of his is by censoring people that do not engage in the armchair philosophizing that he's interested in.

I for one would love to see what they've proposed actually implemented at ISCID.

Principia

BS
The subtitle of the forum is "retraining the scientific imagination to see purpose in nature." They mean, um, a renewal in the scientific community, right?

But, this isn't the first time MS has whined about the "quality" of discussions that's taking place at his forum. First time, he implemented the post deletion rule (where offending posts were gently handed back to you in a PM). Second time, he reshuffled all the posts so that ones he liked from ages ago were bumped up. But, one could almost say that those measures wasn't intelligently designed for his purposes. Well, 3rd time's the charm.

Principia

Here's an instructive thread about how substantive scientific discourses run at Brainstorms.

The moderator posts a link to a chat with Paul Nelson about his Ontogenetic Depth concept.

By pg. 3 the discussion has been shifted to generetative entrenchment, and what types of evidence would falsify common descent.

This complaint about CD runs for most of the thread.

A single mention of OD was mentioned on page 5 as a request from Frances to detail OD. There was a one line promissory note to attach more information in a "few days" (dated 09/07/03 -- incidentally, the last we heard Paul Nelson, he claimed: "I’m lecturing at the University of Maine (Orono) today, but will try to post the reply when I return to Chicago tomorrow. It’s pretty long: I think I’ll put it up at ISCID and link from here." This was dated 04/07/04).

Walter Remine then joins the scene to derail the discussion.

Finally the moderator declares the thread closed "until Paul provides us with relevant material to get the discussion back on track." LOL

So where in all of this did the Moderator foster a scientific discussion? Why didn't he admonish Paul for being dishonest about his academic vaporware? I guess he thought that scientific discussions could occur in the absence of something to talk about.

Albion

I suppose so few of them understand that substantive scientific discussions are often quite confrontational because so few of them are actually scientists.

Well, this stuff is philosophy. And the answer is already known; all they're doing is exploring the different possible pathways to get to said answer.

Art

I vote to give Micah a break. Maybe his promotion of one of my posts isn’t what one would call “fostering scientific discussion�?, and maybe it’s too much a rarity to satisfy Micah’s critics (or even Micah), but it probably helps to show what Micah aspires to as far as ISCID goes. (I’ll admit, I’m partial to this particular thread. I dove in way over my head, forced myself to learn to read and understand stuff like HOT, and actually have ended up folding in some of these concepts into my own work. Better still, I’m still a woeful novice when it comes to many of these notions, but I’ve given myself a sense that I can actually learn something in this area. So, regardless of anyone else’s participation, or lack therefore, in the thread, it fostered my own scientific growth.)

I guess I have a different confusion. It sounds to me like Micah wants ISCID to become something like a bionet-style board. If this is what ISCID aspires to, then I have to say “ugh�?. Not that bionet is unbearable or useless, but it isn’t where I go for fun, or for a lofty scientific discussion.

djmullen

Principia: "I for one would love to see what they've proposed actually implemented at ISCID."

djmullen: It already is. Try and reply to any thread on ISCID and see.

rlogan

OK I went there, registered, and tried to post. It said I wasn't allowed to post.

Is that what you meant?

djmullen

Yep.

pangloss

Well, I do hope that they allow 'nobody' to keep posting. I for one have found his oportunistic slogan-spewing to be quite convincing...