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  Topic: Young Cosmos, A Salvador Cordova project< Next Oldest | Next Newest >  
Occam's Aftershave



Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,00:54   

Quote
Asshat Cordova:  If you are making judgement based on the rhetorical form I used, that can only have traction if I used an invalid illogical rhetorical construct. The more important question is whether the math, physics, and chemistry are correct when argued from first principles.

Tiggy could not refute the math. Heck, he couldn't even do it.

I wonder if that idiot Cordova thinks he's fooling anybody with his BS?  I wasn't trying to refute the math, I was pointing out his improper use of the math based on ridiculous unsupported assumptions, and the resultant asinine conclusions.  I explained why it was GIGO (a term that Sal deleted immediately) in all its blazing glory. I told the idiot that I refused to be sidetracked with his disingenuous demands that I plug some totally irrelevant numbers into a calculator, and that I had wasn't going to let him evade discussion that way.  I kept hitting him with questions about the Brown articles (both of them) and his assumptions.  He kept cowardly ignored the questions so I kept asking them, finally getting to the ugly episode of him changing the words in my post.  :angry:

His charge that I was 'spamming' was when I twice went in and changed my words back (before he locked me out of the thread and banned me that is).  Nice that he still keeps taking shots at me when I can't speak to defend myself.

Sal now ranks up there with the most repugnant spineless cowards I have ever had the displeasure to deal with.

--------------
"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."

- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.

  
Stephen Elliott



Posts: 1776
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,01:53   

Quote (Occam's Aftershave @ Aug. 04 2007,00:54)
 
Quote
Asshat Cordova:  If you are making judgement based on the rhetorical form I used, that can only have traction if I used an invalid illogical rhetorical construct. The more important question is whether the math, physics, and chemistry are correct when argued from first principles.

Tiggy could not refute the math. Heck, he couldn't even do it.

I wonder if that idiot Cordova thinks he's fooling anybody with his BS?  I wasn't trying to refute the math, I was pointing out his improper use of the math based on ridiculous unsupported assumptions, and the resultant asinine conclusions.  I explained why it was GIGO (a term that Sal deleted immediately) in all its blazing glory. I told the idiot that I refused to be sidetracked with his disingenuous demands that I plug some totally irrelevant numbers into a calculator, and that I had wasn't going to let him evade discussion that way.  I kept hitting him with questions about the Brown articles (both of them) and his assumptions.  He kept cowardly ignored the questions so I kept asking them, finally getting to the ugly episode of him changing the words in my post.  :angry:

His charge that I was 'spamming' was when I twice went in and changed my words back (before he locked me out of the thread and banned me that is).  Nice that he still keeps taking shots at me when I can't speak to defend myself.

Sal now ranks up there with the most repugnant spineless cowards I have ever had the displeasure to deal with.

It isn't new dude. Sal has been that way for quite some time. Why post on a site where he has control? You gotta know that he would "modify" your posts.

That guy is the sorta prick that would use ten sentences containing the longest words he can google to say something simple.

example:
Quote
If you are making judgement based on the rhetorical form I used, that can only have traction if I used an invalid illogical rhetorical construct.

tit

  
oldmanintheskydidntdoit



Posts: 4999
Joined: July 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,05:10   

his one man moderation band is feeling the strain I think, at least he seems to be getting more and more ill-tempered. His tactic of ignoring critical questions fails to work when nobody else is replying. They are just left hanging (when not deleted).

Pass the popcorn Lenny.

--------------
I also mentioned that He'd have to give me a thorough explanation as to *why* I must "eat human babies".
FTK

if there are even critical flaws in Gauger’s work, the evo mat narrative cannot stand
Gordon Mullings

  
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank



Posts: 2560
Joined: Feb. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,08:37   

Somewhere in the AtBC archives is a thread between me and Sal.  After I pestered him for months at PT with a few simple questions (which he never answered), he finally got all ballsy on me and "challenged" me to "debate" him here (which led me to question whether it was even really him).

He lasted less than two days before he tucked tail and ran like a little girl.

He is a ball-less coward.

--------------
Editor, Red and Black Publishers
www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

  
Hermagoras



Posts: 1260
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,09:38   

Give me some love, peoples:
scordova:    
Quote
I was trying to point out the focus on rhetoric can compromise the focus on facts. The racemization data are facts. Opinions, even by scientists are secondary. Even less relevant to truthfulness are the rhetorical forms used to debate the issue.

When engineers build spaceships they'll either fly or not. The rhetoric they use to claim their invention will work is irrelevant to the truthfulness of the claim.

If you are making judgement based on the rhetorical form I used, that can only have traction if I used an invalid illogical rhetorical construct. The more important question is whether the math, physics, and chemistry are correct when argued from first principles.

Tiggy could not refute the math. Heck, he couldn't even do it.

Hermagoras (using Tiggy/OC's fine post here as inspiration):
   
Quote
This is rich, considering that the vast majority of ID and creationist writing amounts to rhetorical critique.

You didn't actually provide any facts or data.

Let me point out again that Tiggy didn't try to refute the math because that wasn't his point. His point was rather about the use of the math. I believe the term you engineers use is "GIGO."

The fact that nobody who actually works in the field would accept your critique suggests that something's at issue besides the blindness or stupidity of everybody but you. Unless you're really the smartest guy ever (but that position has already been claimed by autodidact DaveScot at UD).


--------------
"I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB

http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

   
oldmanintheskydidntdoit



Posts: 4999
Joined: July 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,14:15   

Sal appears to have found the Ban button and used it wholesale.

I suspect we've got another roaring success just like overwhelmingevicence on our hands!

There are plenty of reasonable unanswered questions left on your forum Sal. Why not spend the time while you are waiting for people to comment answering them?

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I also mentioned that He'd have to give me a thorough explanation as to *why* I must "eat human babies".
FTK

if there are even critical flaws in Gauger’s work, the evo mat narrative cannot stand
Gordon Mullings

  
Stephen Elliott



Posts: 1776
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,14:20   

Quote ("Rev Dr" Lenny Flank @ Aug. 04 2007,08:37)
Somewhere in the AtBC archives is a thread between me and Sal.  After I pestered him for months at PT with a few simple questions (which he never answered), he finally got all ballsy on me and "challenged" me to "debate" him here (which led me to question whether it was even really him).

He lasted less than two days before he tucked tail and ran like a little girl.

He is a ball-less coward.

I remember your Sal questions over at PT. I also remember him not ever answering. Sal is probably the most anoying (to me) UD poster. Quite an acomplishment considering the company he is in.

  
Rob



Posts: 154
Joined: July 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,17:31   

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Aug. 03 2007,22:46)
Speaking of not being able to understand or do math, one can check out Sal blithering on about the TSPGRID example and "omega".

Sal has a major brain cramp that prevents him from grokking issues having to do with the conservation of CSI.

One of his typical examples of CSI is 500 coins on the floor all heads up, which he says constitutes 500 bits of CSI.  Even if the coins were turned heads up by a deterministic process, say a robot, Sal insists that the all-heads-up pattern has 500 bits of CSI.  He's been claiming this for over three years now, even though I've pointed out to him repeatedly that we can always increase the number of coins to exceed the CSI in the robot.  (This is exactly the point of TSPGRID, except that TSPGRID is a better example since it's nondeterministic.)

When I tried to pin him down on this a year ago, the conversation went nowhere, with Sal claiming that he needed Dembski to explain the following parenthetical statement from NFL:  
Quote
(if A is defined in relation to \Omega_1 and B in relation to \Omega_2, we can let \Omega be the Cartesian product of \Omega_1 and \Omega_2, and then embed A and B canonically in \Omega)

Dembski's statement is perfectly clear, and I explained it in detail to Sal, but Sal said he needed to hear it from Dembski.

Amazingly, as of a few weeks ago, Sal still didn't understand the problem with the robot and the coins:
Quote
Sal:   For example, it is improbable that 500 coins in a room on the floor will be heads.  It is theoretically possible that there exists a robot governed by deterministic laws which can take the coins in a room and ensure any initial condition of coins in the room will eventually result in 500 coins being heads by the operation of the robot.  However, the a priori probability of such a machine existing in the first place (via a stochastic process) is on average more remote than the chance of 500 coins being heads.  A bit value can then be assigned to the a priori probability of the robot being the source of a new probability distribution.


--------------
-- Rob, the fartist formerly known as 2ndclass

  
Hermagoras



Posts: 1260
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,19:38   

My favorite post to Sal ever.  Do you think he'll get the double meaning of the last paragraph?  

 
Quote
Following up on some comments earlier:
 
Quote
I was trying to point out the focus on rhetoric can compromise the focus on facts.The racemization data are facts.

A couple of points:
1. You continue to have a really strange view of rhetoric, one that is best described as outdated.  In this statement, for example, you hold to a notion of "rhetoric vs. facts," as though facts can be known outside of their articulation.  Rhetoric is nowadays best understood as "a way of knowing," that is, as epistemic.  

2. Which data are facts?  The ones you posted that were admittedly made up?  

 
Quote
Opinions, even by scientists are secondary. Even less relevant to truthfulness are the rhetorical forms used to debate the issue.


I won't comment on the even cruder distinction between "fact" and "opinion," which is one that I complicate in the first day of the composition classes I teach.  Suffice it to say that you set up this forum by declaring your stated interest in the importance of rhetoric.  For you to dismiss it now as not "relevant to truthfulness" (in a creationist forum, I want to say "truthiness") is a bit strange.  But that is the way of your flock.  A great many of your compatriots spend the bulk of their time doing nothing but rhetorical criticism.  That's where I would put Jonathan Wells's Icons and pretty much the entire output of Philip Johnson.  Dembski is more than rhetoric in philosophical drag: his work also includes pseudo-mathematics and theology ("explanations of the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing," as Mencken put it).  But "rhetoric" suddenly becomes unimportant when you think you've got a fact in your hand -- when in fact, you don't even have one in the bush.  

 
Quote
When engineers build spaceships they'll either fly or not. The rhetoric they use to claim their invention will work is irrelevant to the truthfulness the claim.


That's interesting but wrong.  Didn't you take technical writing?  The rhetoric of documentation in engineering is crucial to whether it will fly or not.  For example, one of the most important thinkers in visual rhetoric of science, Edward Tufte of Yale, has blamed the rhetorical structure of PowerPoint for the Columbia disaster.  See his Beautiful Evidence (Graphics Press)  for details.
 
Quote
If you are making judgement based on the rhetorical form I used, that can only have traction if I used an invalid illogical rhetorical construct. The more important question is whether the math, physics, and chemistry are correct when argued from first principles.

I'm actually judging based on your failure to provide actual evidence.  Like your man Dembski, you are overrating the importance of philosophy in science (hence words like "invalid," "illogical," and "first principles").  

Look, I don't know you.  But I'd bet dollars to donuts you've never really been trained in how dating works.  You've never dated anything yourself, and you're arguing from the literature rather than from experience.  Am I wrong?


Seriously, I'm really proud of that last paragraph.

--------------
"I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB

http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

   
Albatrossity2



Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,19:46   

Quote (Hermagoras @ Aug. 04 2007,19:38)
Look, I don't know you.  But I'd bet dollars to donuts you've never really been trained in how dating works.  You've never dated anything yourself, and you're arguing from the literature rather than from experience.  Am I wrong?

Seriously, I'm really proud of that last paragraph.

Hermagoras

You SHOULD be proud of that last paragraph.

But I can't imagine that Sal will ever get it.

Which, of course, makes it even more delicious!

Well done.

--------------
Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind
Has been obligated from the beginning
To create an ordered universe
As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.
                        - Pattiann Rogers

   
Hermagoras



Posts: 1260
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,19:54   

Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 04 2007,19:46)
Quote (Hermagoras @ Aug. 04 2007,19:38)
Look, I don't know you.  But I'd bet dollars to donuts you've never really been trained in how dating works.  You've never dated anything yourself, and you're arguing from the literature rather than from experience.  Am I wrong?

Seriously, I'm really proud of that last paragraph.

Hermagoras

You SHOULD be proud of that last paragraph.

But I can't imagine that Sal will ever get it.

Which, of course, makes it even more delicious!

Well done.

Thanks!  

Disclaimer: as a major free speech advocate, I'm not against learning from "the literature" (wink wink).  In fact, I spent most of my teen years deeply immersed in "the literature."  But what I learned was unrealistic, and real-world experience tempered my views.

--------------
"I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB

http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

   
carlsonjok



Posts: 3326
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,20:45   

A look into the Recycle Bin over at Young Cosmos offers some interesting, if disturbing, insights into the machinations taking place inside Sal's noggin.  He apparently commandeers people's login, and post the most juvenile of rants under their name, then may even follow up using other pseudonyms.  

I guess I understand why he doesn't have moderator duties over at UD.  He could actually make UD even more of a farce.

--------------
It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it.  We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

  
Hermagoras



Posts: 1260
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,20:54   

Quote (carlsonjok @ Aug. 04 2007,20:45)
A look into the Recycle Bin over at Young Cosmos offers some interesting, if disturbing, insights into the machinations taking place inside Sal's noggin.  He apparently commandeers people's login, and post the most juvenile of rants under their name, then may even follow up using other pseudonyms.  

I guess I understand why he doesn't have moderator duties over at UD.  He could actually make UD even more of a farce.

Holy thread convergence, Batman!  My post on this very practice of moving and erasure used Stalin's picture editing as an example, and has itself been removed to the recycle bin, thus perfectly illustrating  my point.  :angry:  

And then . . . wait for it . . . someone at Uncommonly Dense mentions the Stalin editing in the comments following that strange Dembski rant about the (non) editing of some comments by Wolpert.  

Naturally, the commenter gets it wrong on the specifics as well, adding Lenin to what was really Stalin's practice of removing Trotsky and other former friends from pictures.

--------------
"I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB

http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

   
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank



Posts: 2560
Joined: Feb. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,21:20   

Quote (Hermagoras @ Aug. 04 2007,19:38)
Look, I don't know you.  But I'd bet dollars to donuts you've never really been trained in how dating works.  You've never dated anything yourself, and you're arguing from the literature rather than from experience.  Am I wrong

Oooouuuucccchhhh !!!!!!!!!!!


Sal, of course, will remain utterly oblivious and entirely untouched.

--------------
Editor, Red and Black Publishers
www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

  
k.e



Posts: 1948
Joined: Mar. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 04 2007,23:08   

Sal - serial rhetorical dater.

Even better than the fundamentalist bible reader who confuses the menu with the meal.

You can't eat rhetoric Sal (you can't **** it either)

--------------
The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions.These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.Haldane

   
Hermagoras



Posts: 1260
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,00:11   

One more before I turn in:

Quote
Here's an interesting thing, Sal.  You write:

Quote
With no training in 2004 I deduced Reiner von Protch's [sic] numbers (which by the way are represented by some dots in that graph), were fabricated, bogus, and useless. He got away with fraud for 30 years. I'd say, even with no training, I can smell a rat. But you don't have to believe one iota of what I say.


I found where you made this claim on Uncommon Descent, but only after von Protsch's fraud was discovered.  Should I believe that you found this out months earlier?  Should I ask you to prove that you knew von Protsch was fraudulent  before anybody else?  That's an extraordinary claim to make, and yet you've provided no evidence for it.  

Why is this relevant?  Because you say that Tiggy could not do the math you asked him to do.  But if your asking was a red herring (as I think it was), and not relevant, then he has no reason to prove his bona fides to you.  The thing is, I think that Tiggy could do the math, but chose not to because he recognized that it was not relevant to his original, unanswered question.  

As to your ability to concede some points: Congratulations.  I agree that your conversation with Jellison, for example, was unproblematic because, as you put it:

Quote
1. He knows what he is talking about
2. He doesn't willfullly [sic] misrepresent others
3. He is cordial and civil
4. He takes time to understand the opposing position, spending hours analyizing [sic] it and carefully considering it, going to great pains to represent it accurately.


These are all behaviors characteristic of Dr. Jellison in that exchange.  I am not sure they represent your behavior in, for example, your exchange with Tiggy.


--------------
"I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB

http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

   
Occam's Aftershave



Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,08:40   

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Sal is getting tired of being publicly humiliated on his own forum, so he's making YC invitation only

 
Quote
Asshat Cordova: Finally, things could get awfully boring at YoungComsos from now on. We're closing the gates and making it an invitation only forum. I will aim for dialogue like I had with the qualified scientists here.


If you can't stand the heat, run screaming from the kitchen. :D  :D  :D

--------------
"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."

- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.

  
Hermagoras



Posts: 1260
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,10:48   

Quote (Occam's Aftershave @ Aug. 05 2007,08:40)
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Sal is getting tired of being publicly humiliated on his own forum, so he's making YC invitation only

   
Quote
Asshat Cordova: Finally, things could get awfully boring at YoungComsos from now on. We're closing the gates and making it an invitation only forum. I will aim for dialogue like I had with the qualified scientists here.


If you can't stand the heat, run screaming from the kitchen. :D  :D  :D

I've responded to Sal's latest rant with selections from OA/Tiggy's message to me.  Thanks for permitting me to do that.  Let's see if he bans me for bringing you back in by proxy.

--------------
"I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB

http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

   
Hermagoras



Posts: 1260
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,12:06   

And again:

 
Quote
scordova wrote  
Quote

There is a different interaction when trying to persuade than when trying to solicit corrective review and feedback.


Hey, what do you know?  We agree.  I'm sorry, however, that you're getting this impression:

 
Quote
I'm getting the impression you're trying to put a one size fits all evaluation of what I write. What the rhetoric applied in one venue (like UD) is inappropriate for another (the discussion forum).


The problem, IMO, is that although there are important differences between the kinds of rhetorical moments you identify, they are really points on a continuum and the boundaries are very, very fuzzy.

Consider what happens when a scholar submits a work for publication.  Now, there is a crucial sense in which the work is persuasive: in the first instance, the contributing author is trying to convince two anonymous peers that the work is worth publishing.  Later, should the work be published, one goal is to convince readers that the work is correct.  (Note that I'm using "convince" for your "persuade"; these have subtly distinct meanings in rhetoric.  One form of the distinction is that people are convinced of a view but persuaded to action.  We might say, for example, that some author(s) are trying to persuade others to perform follow-up experiments.)  

OK, so in all of these ways the work attempts to persuade (or convince).  The act of seeking publication is even kind of aggressive, in that the author(s) think the work should be out there and that it demands attention (at least of the tenure committee!;).  

But there are other ways that the act of seeking publication is profoundly submissive.  We say that works are "submitted" for publication, and the word is meaningful.  The authors will (generally) submit to the judgment of the peer reviewers.  The authors will (generally) submit later to the scientific reception of the work.  Publication is an attempt an convincing and/or persuading, yes, but it is also and at the same time a submission to the judgment of the scientific community.  

The problem I'm seeing is that it's not clear where this forum lies, or what the boundaries are.  For example, you've been persuaded to drop some of your arguments.  Good: that shows something, including that the forum may be persuasive from the perspective of the other (if not from your perspective).  But in a dialogic forum, persuasion and convincing go on all the time.  Perhaps your recent decision to close the forum to all but the invited is an acknowledgment of the ambiguous status of forums like this.  But as I've suggested earlier, it's easy to use doctrines like "civility" to avoid uncomfortable questions.  

Aristotle famously defined rhetoric as "the counterpart of dialectic."  The precise meaning of this phrase has been debated ever since, but the general view now is that rhetoric and dialectic are not easily separated -- no more than "fact" and "theory," to go back to my old debate (cut off at UD) with Gil Dodgen.


Visible here, at least for the moment.  ???

--------------
"I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB

http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

   
Occam's Aftershave



Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,12:29   

LOL!  Thanks Hermagoras for today's laugh.

I notice that Sal still does not address AT ALL the huge holes in his reasoning and his invalid assumptions, but is still whining about "Waaa!!  He won't plug numbers into the calculator!!"

NO mention of why he thinks the racemization constant should be unchanging, in light of the tons of physical evidence that shows it does change considerably.

NO mention of the empirically measured D/L ratios

NO mention that if even if you assume a non-changing constant and use the kinetic equation with the measured D/L values, you still get dates that are way older than the YEC 6000 year old model.

The only way to get the YEC dates to fit are to assume the measured D/L ratios are wrong , the kinetic equation is wrong, or both.

Ask Sal which one he thinks is wrong.  :p

Oh, and I just loved the fact that Asshat Sal now accuses me of being a criminal low-life, and that he has disdain for my criminal behavior against scientific inquiry

:D  :D  :D  :D  :D  :D  :D  :D  :D

--------------
"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."

- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.

  
Hermagoras



Posts: 1260
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,13:19   

Occam's Aftershave: Thanks.  I do what I can.

--------------
"I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB

http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

   
Hermagoras



Posts: 1260
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,14:12   

Again with Sal.

 
Quote
Hermagoras sez:  
Quote
Sal, you're going to have to help me out on this, because I'm no expert.  You write:
 
Quote
Tiggy has misrepresented my views. The green line represents what racemization rates would look like if they were unchanging. It does not mean I believe or I assume they do not change, because we know they do. Tiggy employed a strawman rhetorical form and attributed arguments and ideas to me which I did not make, nor intended to make.


But earlier you wrote:

 
Quote
The Green Line is where we would expect good data to lie. There is of course some temperature issues, but I will visit that in a subsequent post and respond to the supposed exterme error problems and show they objections are insufficient to weaken the plausibility C-14 dating is badly flawed beyond about 1000 years.


If "The green line represents what racemization rates would look like if they were unchanging," and "The Green Line is where we would expect good data to lie," then doesn't it follow that good data (for you) correspond with unchanging rates?


--------------
"I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB

http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

   
someotherguy



Posts: 398
Joined: Aug. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,14:53   

Quote (Hermagoras @ Aug. 05 2007,14:12)
Again with Sal.

 
Quote
Hermagoras sez:  
Quote
Sal, you're going to have to help me out on this, because I'm no expert.  You write:
 
Quote
Tiggy has misrepresented my views. The green line represents what racemization rates would look like if they were unchanging. It does not mean I believe or I assume they do not change, because we know they do. Tiggy employed a strawman rhetorical form and attributed arguments and ideas to me which I did not make, nor intended to make.


But earlier you wrote:

 
Quote
The Green Line is where we would expect good data to lie. There is of course some temperature issues, but I will visit that in a subsequent post and respond to the supposed exterme error problems and show they objections are insufficient to weaken the plausibility C-14 dating is badly flawed beyond about 1000 years.


If "The green line represents what racemization rates would look like if they were unchanging," and "The Green Line is where we would expect good data to lie," then doesn't it follow that good data (for you) correspond with unchanging rates?

LOL.

--------------
Evolander in training

  
Hermagoras



Posts: 1260
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,17:05   

So Sal has responded:

 
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Good data correspond to changing rates that are changes within reasonable physical and chemical limits. The green line represents the ideal, and some amount of variation from the ideal is permissible. Too much variation from the ideal ought to raise suspicion!

Some of the dots are well beyond reasonable physical and chemical limits, so much so that some scientists are arguing that yet-to-be-discovered chemical laws must be at work since C-14 is "God's truth". But this is like Bill Clinton trying to explain the DNA evidence with Lewinski by some yet-to-be-discovered chemical law. Something doesn't ring valid with such a promisory note.

The difficulty is using the English language to express mathematical concepts. Thus it is easy to mis-interpret the intended meaning. It is also easy for me to express my idea in a way that confuses the issue rather than clarifies it. I could express it mathematically, but making it more rigorous does not make it more clear (like a legal document is more rigorous, but not necessarily more clear). This is perhaps THE greatest challenge in scientific rhetoric...

But anyway, consider this illustration. Let's say college students did an exothermic chemistry experiment and the ideal result would be their thermometers would read 78.0000 degrees. The good data will tend to congregate around 78.0000 degrees. Now, we may have slight erors and variations in each student's test tube, and that results in differences from the ideal. We can define the range of results about 78.000 that would be deemed "good", i.e. say numbers from 68 to 88 degrees.


In similar manner, the green line demarcates the ideal result. When I said "The Green Line is where we would expect good data to lie," it is in the sense of the temperature experiment I described. Some dots ought to be above the green and some below. But in actuality, most if not all are below the green line, some way below.

Further, the actual distirbution of dots is clearly non-Random, but systematically down. Hence, this is not suggestive of random error but a systematic error (exactly the point of my thread). It would be like us expecting to see students get lab results from 68 to 88 degrees, but instead they ALL report results from 48-58 degrees. Something would be really wrong in that case.

If your issue is my wording, I accept the editorial objection.

Another way of saying it is that we would expect lots of dots above the green line. The plot suggests systematic errors because all the dots are below the green line, and some VERY far below it.

Now, how far above or below the green is tolerable? The graph itself suggests what are tolerable variations, namely the width defined between the purple lines. But this variation is centered about the red line, not the green line. This is suggestive of a systematic error (meanin an error resulting from the way we make measurements).


This seems like obvious BS (ideal?  what the hell? -- and also, there's that whole decay thing which is evaded), but I'm not knowledgeable enough to respond beyond the obvious, and he's kicked off all the people who know anything. Could somebody help me in responding?  On the board or in a private message -- either is fine.

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"I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB

http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

   
Occam's Aftershave



Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,18:39   

Double LOL!  What a big smelly pile of tard from Sol!  He's caught, he knows he's caught, so he's doing his best word-salad tossing to try and confuse the issue.

 
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Asshat Cordova:Good data correspond to changing rates that are changes within reasonable physical and chemical limits.

Ask him what the 'reasonable physical and chemical limits' are, and how he determined them.

   
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Asshat Cordova:The green line represents the ideal, and some amount of variation from the ideal is permissible. Too much variation from the ideal ought to raise suspicion!

Ask him why the green line (= zero change in the rate constant) should be considered ideal, when it is just a placeholder for actual empirical results?  Ask him what 'too much variation' is, and how he determined it is not permissible.  Permissible by whom?

Ask him why both M Brown and  RH Brown agree and accept that the rate constant diminishes with sample age?  

Ask him why, even if we force fit to the empirical D/L data to his his "ideal" line (as RH Brown did in his Table 2) that the equation still produces ages well older than the claimed YEC 6000 YBP?

Ask him if he accepts the empirically measured D/L ratios as accurate (which he must, as he's been basing his whole claims on them)

Ask him if he accepts the kinetic equation to be correct (which he must, as he's been using it constantly)

As I mentioned before, the only way to get the YEC dates to fit are to assume the measured D/L ratios are wrong , the kinetic equation is wrong, or both.  Point this out to him, than get him to explain it.

Oh, and ask him why he's completely avoiding ThoughtProvoker's questions on the actual AAR/C14 thread.

Give the asshat plenty of rope... ;)

--------------
"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."

- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.

  
Occam's Aftershave



Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,18:55   

Ooh, I missed one!  Ask him why he claims this  

   
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Asshat Cordova:  C-14 dating is badly flawed beyond about 1000 years.


When in the very second post of the AAR/C14 thread he presents Walt Brown's "excellent explanation of Radio-Carbon Dating flaws" that states

   
Quote
Radiocarbon dating is becoming increasingly important in interpreting the past. However, one must understand how it works and especially how a flood affected radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon ages less than 3,500 years are probably accurate.


:D  :D  :D  :D  :D  :D

M Brown, RH Brown, Walt Brown....is there some cosmic wingnut connection here I should know about?   ;)

--------------
"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."

- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.

  
Henry J



Posts: 5786
Joined: Mar. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,19:10   

I liked the "It is also easy for me to express my idea in a way that confuses the issue rather than clarifies it" line.

Henry

  
Hermagoras



Posts: 1260
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,22:43   

Thanks for the help OA.  Here's my response (posted over there):

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Salvador,
Quote
It is . . . easy for me to express my idea in a way that confuses the issue rather than clarifies it.

You ain't kidding, buster.  But I object to a lot more than your wording.  You write,

Quote
The difficulty is using the English language to express mathematical concepts. Thus it is easy to mis-interpret the intended meaning.


True enough.  But the problem is not the English: what you said would be contradictory in any language.  It's practically a syllogism.  I'll call it

Cordova's Rule
Premise A: The green line represents an unchanging rate constant.
Premise B: Points far away from the green line represent fraudulent data.
Conclusion: Non-fraudulent data must show a rate constant that is or is very close to unchanging.

If you hold the first two premises, the conclusion follows.  If you think the rate constant changes, then  either Premise A or Premise B must be wrong.  

But the rate constant diminishes, it does not go up, with age.  Hey, even RH Brown accepts that, and Michael Brown.  So why would we expect any of the dots to go above the green line?

A few more questions:
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Good data correspond to changing rates that are changes within reasonable physical and chemical limits

What are those limits, and how did you determine them?
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The green line represents the ideal, and some amount of variation from the ideal is permissible.

I don't see why it's the ideal, or how you've determined what's a permissible variation. It certainly doesn't seem like an ideal that anyone in the scientific community buys.  And please don't quote that 1974 letter again -- as I mentioned, that was refuted at the time of publication, in the very next pages.  
Quote
But anyway, consider this illustration. Let's say college students did an exothermic chemistry experiment and the ideal result would be their thermometers would read 78.0000 degrees. The good data will tend to congregate around 78.0000 degrees. Now, we may have slight erors and variations in each student's test tube, and that results in differences from the ideal. We can define the range of results about 78.000 that would be deemed "good", i.e. say numbers from 68 to 88 degrees.

Argument by analogy: a nice rhetorical form.  It's a bit simplistic, though, and it assumes a lot.  It's only appropriate if the unchanging "ideal" rate in your premises is correct, which requires (I believe) rejecting either the kinetic equation and the accuracy of empirically measured D/L ratios.

A more appropriate analogy would be if you gave everybody a thermometer in a room at 72.0 degrees F and then sent them out in different directions in the dead of winter.  Each person was told to check the thermometer at a different time: the first at 1 minute, the second at 2 minutes, etc.  Probably there'd be some variation depending on where they walked, the different conditions, etc., but the measurements taken later go lower and lower.  

H


--------------
"I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB

http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

   
Occam's Aftershave



Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2007,23:08   

Looks good H, let's see how Sal wiggles and squirms to avoid the questions

On a side note, I see Sal finally responded to ThoughtProvoker's excellent questions on the AAR/C14 thread.  What did brave Mr. Cordova do?  He completely ignored TP's questions, and instead launched into a simple minded explanation for how exponential decay works. Never mind that TP has an EE degree, has known about exponential decay since freshman calculus, and asked Sal specific intelligent questions about the exponential equation Sal used in the graph.

:D  :D  :D  :D  :D  :D

(shake head and chuckles out loud)

Sal, don't ever change, EVAR! :p

--------------
"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."

- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.

  
oldmanintheskydidntdoit



Posts: 4999
Joined: July 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 06 2007,02:58   

Quote
C-14 under current conditions is sometimes accurate to within 2 years! But there are conditions when something as weakly accurate as amino acid racemization can surpass C-14 dating, namely, if the atmospheric concentration of C-14 in the past was less than it is now. Other lines of data show this rather convincingly.

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if there is a technical flaw in our (Walt, RH, Michael Brown, myself, others), this would be a good time to get feedback.

http://www.virtual-creations.net/~youngc....tart=45

ANybody that can still post needs to ask about atmospheric concentrations of C-14 and the "lines of evidence" that show it was less then it is now.

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I also mentioned that He'd have to give me a thorough explanation as to *why* I must "eat human babies".
FTK

if there are even critical flaws in Gauger’s work, the evo mat narrative cannot stand
Gordon Mullings

  
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