Alix Nenuphar

Jerry Bauer, alias Chronos, alias Jeptha, etc. appears to agree with me regarding a question of cosmology - after arguing through several dozen posts.

Should I be worried?

Doubting Didymus

You might want to tell those of us not in the know who the hell you are talking about, and where.

Fedmahn Kassad

Jep is one of the most irritating Creationists I have ever encountered, but he does accept an old earth. In fact, he has basically written that one would have to be a moron to accept a young earth. On the other hand, he loves to argue his own special brand of the 2nd LoT, which we liked to call "Jepodynamics".

FK

Alix Nenuphar

DD:

My apologies.

I post occasionally on the ARN boards, where Mr. Bauer has been highly active of late, making a number of odd, unsupported statements regarding thermodynamics, evolution, and cosmology.

Several members of those boards have pressed him for supporting details; in the case of cosmology (the point I happened to be arguing), he actually admitted I was correct - after a long series of obfuscatory posts.

Is this relatively normal behaviour for Creationists?

The discussion may be found here: http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13

Principia

From what I've seen of ARN and other IDiot hangouts, I'd say that's right on the money. Jeptha is one of those that thinks writing something ... anything at all to your replies is sufficient. So pick your battles, and know when to quit. A good measure of how well your arguments are holding up is the level of rhetoric and fluff that comes in the responses -- the less substance the better your arguments were. The more indignant and pissed off they sound, the more likely they are compensating for their insecurities and ignorance.

But of course, the trick on these Inet fora like ARN is to realize that you are giving people like Jeptha free audience, a means of satiating their need for attention, an outlet for their most inane ideas, as well as valuable time. So you kinda have to ask yourself, when you write back to Jeptha, is Jeptha having a better time than you are?

Of course, my cynical belief is that neither science nor science education is done in Internet forums. YMMV

Alix Nenuphar

Principia:

An excellent point that I had not considered - the exhibitionist potential of the internet is immense and anonymous simultaneously.

I would agree that no actual science is going on - though some of the Myrmecos and RBH threads contain interesting information I would not otherwise have thought to acquire. Serendipity is the basis of much of what I know....

Thank you for the input and for the implied advice. Unlike much advice it has found a good home.

pangloss

I stumbled across Jerry's most recent thread - his exhaltation and dogged defense of crackpot Jerry Bergman.

It is hilarious to see the cretin not be able to stand an argument premised on his own - that is, he trotted out the argument from authpority pretty good, asking how anyone could disagree with so credentialed and 'respected' (cough, cough) a "scientist" as Bergman, then bristled (with moderater support) when others demonstrated that bergman is not the uberscientist Jerry had made him out to be.

And then ignores substantive responses in favor of engaging in hero protection.

As others have mentioned, he is basically a nutball. For example, his position is that since inbreeding would confuse phylogenetic analyses (it wouldn't, but he is most insistent), all phylogenetic abnalyses should be disregarded.

He also once claimed that an increase i heat is what kills organisms. I suggested a test for this claim - take the temperature of an infant and compare it to the temperature of an adult. If the adult's temp is not substnatially higher than the infant, claim refuted.

After relaizing how utter idiotic his claim is, he later tried to claim that it was me who claimed that temp. rises as we age!


Idiocy at its finest :banghead:

Tom Ames

Alix,

I always enjoy reading your posts, but lately they've made me cringe. Please don't waste your time on this guy! Take it from someone who tangled with "jeptha" long ago and barely escaped with sanity intact.

I think your contributions could be very valuable if presented in a larger venue. Talk.origins and NCSE are always looking for essays debunking Jeptha's brand of stupidity. I think we'd all be grateful to see your clear and well-reasoned arguments in a place where they might do some long-term good.

Alix Nenuphar

Tom:

I hope they're not making you cringe because my logic or language is that bad.... (And that is a serious comment - I'm fairly new to this entire internet message board concept, and I'd rather not write piffle; feedback is appreciated.)

I admit my curiousity about Jerry Bauer was whether or not he would admit to error or prevarication. But I certainly extended the argument far longer than was commesurate with either my patience or his credibility.

However, Principia has pointed out some interesting possibilities I had not considered, and helped me see the argument in an entirely new light.

I had not considered talk.origins or NSCE. I will do so.

Thanks for the tip and the vote of confidence!

Tom Ames

To the contrary. The only time you come across as a non-native English speaker is when you mention it explicitly.

(And as you surely have learned: message boards are not in general good places to go to learn standard English or critical thinking. Present board excepted, of course!