Fun fact: Ad hominem

Did you know…

…that pointing out errors in a discussion opponent’s reasoning is the same as making an ad hominem attack? It’s true! Witness this recent discussion on Conservapedia’s Talk:Scientific Theory page:

I guess your confusion, RSchlafly, lies in the fact that you conflate the profession of a biologist who specializes in the study of evolution (an “evolutionist”) with all scientists who accept the Theory of Evolution as the unifying theory of all the life sciences, and make observations, perform experiments and publish their findings on that basis. Scientist studying the mutations of a flu virus, scientists studying a troop of baboons, and scientists classifying new plants discovered in the Amazon may all rely on the Theory of Evolution to predict and explain much of what they observe, but they are not evolutionists as defined by the dictionary. You, however, use the term to include any scientist who accepts the Theory of Evolution as fact. That is ann error. NitramNos 10:35, 10 June 2007 (EDT)

Your ad hominem attacks are not relevant to the article. RSchlafly 10:41, 10 June 2007 (EDT)

I sure wish I knew how to debate as well as RSchlafly. Usually, I get bogged down in all sorts of things like counterarguments, pointing out logical fallacies, and finding ways to disprove the opponent’s arguments, but I can see that this other approach is clearly superior. Obviously, since I’m always right, to disagree with me is an ad hominem against me.

I’m glad to say that I think we have all learned something today.

Column 11: In the Gothic Style

On today’s main page at Conservapedia, we are instructed by mr. Schlafly that,

On this day, June 10, 1194, Gothic architecture was born as construction began on the Chartres Cathedral.

I’d like to take this opportunity to correct a few small mistakes here.

We shall leave aside, for the moment, the problematic question of whether it is possible to fix the “birth” of an entire architectural style (especially on as complex as the Gothic) at one particular point, much less on one specific date.

Let’s turn instead to the factual errors. Firstly, it is not correct that construction on the Chartres Cathedral was begun in 1194. Construction was actually begun as early as 1145, but most of the church constructed at that time burned down in 1194. However, the western end of the old church survived, and was incorporated into the new construction.
Further, even a bit of research would show that Chartres Cathedral is by no means the first example of Gothic architecture. That honor is usually awarded to the Saint-Denis Basilica in the prominent monastery of the same name just outside Paris. Construction of the Basilica was initiated by the equally prominent Abbot Suger in 1125. The Cathedral of Chartres is definitely one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture, but not the first one.

The question of Gothic architecture is a bit more complex than that, though. Obviously, Aboot Suger did not sit down one day and decide to found a new style of architecture. The Gothic style is made up of a number of elements whose heritage can usually be traced even further back in architectural history. For instance, Durham Cathedral from 1093, while still essentially a Romanesque building, has several architectural features that would later become part of the Gothic style, especially ribbed vaults. The now-destroyed 11th century third abbey church at the monastery of Cluny, usually known as Cluny III, may also have served as an influence on the Gothic style. And some elements, such as the ribbed vaults can be traced back to 10th century North Africa. This of course illustrates how little sense it makes to try to fix the beginning of any style at one particular day. Architecture simply doesn’t work like that.

In closing, one does wonder why Conservapedia didn’t use the occasion of the construction of the new Chartres Cathedral to highlight the history of this fascinating development, instead of just throwing out a completely incorrect bit on the main page. Although, granted, that would have required actual research and an understanding of the issues involved, and I understand there’s no time for such little details when one has a trustworthy encyclopedia to build. So I will be happy to offer my services to the Conservapedia management for research and consulting services in any medieval subjects necessary, in return for a very reasonable hourly fee. Feel free to contact me.

The rest of you, I wish you a good night, and good luck.

PS: Conservapedia: Please do something about Chartres Cathedral.

En Passant: Baraminology

I just took a break from the purgatory of report writing and came across this little gem of an article on Baraminology, which is probably overall the outright weirdest article I have ever read on Conservapedia. Just take this:

Neobaramin & Paleobaramin: A neobaramin is the living population of a given holobaramin, whereas a paleobaramin represents older forms of a given holobaramin. Neobaramins have undergone genetic degradation from their perfectly created forms (archaebaramin) and so may differ from their paleobaramins in notable ways. For example, the neobaramin of Humanity has a much shorter lifespan and greater prevalence of genetic diseases than the Human paleobaramin (e.g. Adam lived for 930 years^[3] and his children could interbreed without fear of deformity^[4]).

Uh-huh. And this:

Thus, organisms that are found to be continuous in a BCS potentiality region form a holobaramin or monobaramin (depending on if all organisms within the potentiality region are considered), whereas those that are discontinuous form a polybaramin or apobaramin (again, depending on completeness of the organisms considered).

What does that even mean? I don’t know, but I do know that it is something that desperately needs a refutation. Fortunately, I don’t have to write it (not that I’d have the time, anyway), because a mr. John Ponce was kind enough to write it for me way back in the 17th century:

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (Entities are not to be multiplied beyond what is necessary)

Get with the program, Conservapedia.

Anyway, back to the report writing. 13 days to go. Stay frosty, America!

Just a few questions

I found this amusing: http://www.conservapedia.com/Talk:Main_Page#Hi

Poor MikeG didn’t seem to get much of a response to his questions – just a single one on his talk page so far – but I’d say it looks like he got his hands on some interesting data anyway.

Fun fact: Saint Jerome

Did you know…

…that the fact that Saint Jerome (ca. 340-419) was not baptized until around the age of 18 or 20 means that he was not raised as a Catholic? It’s true!

To a casual observer, it might seem like this is simply a case of a Sysop pretending to know something about religious history, without actually knowing what he’s talking about, and thus anachronistically applying modern attitudes to fourth-century Christianity. However, this is Conservapedia, and as we all know, it is never easy to predict which particular reality will prevail in the end. Maybe starting tomorrow, virtually dozens of homeschoolers will be learning about how one of the most important Church Fathers was actually not raised as a Catholic.

A part of this little exchange that I particularly like is the way Sysop TK completely and summarily dismisses a valid scholarly reference which was added only half an hour before making the revert. But of course he has the Epistle to Theophilius fully memorized, and has the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium standing on a shelf right next to the computer – right?

EDIT: This little misunderstanding has been cleared up now.

Update

Greetings to all and sundry! As you have probably noticed, updates and new columns have been scarce recently. I have an immensely important report deadline coming up in a few weeks, and, following my usual pattern, am ridiculously behind schedule on it. Fortunately, I work well under pressure, but it means that the update scarcity will continue for a little while yet.

However, when we return, it will be with many interesting new columns, including a return to our Weberian analyses of the Conservapedia power structure. In the meantime, why not head over to RationalWiki for all your Conservapedia-related needs?

For the record

Sysop TK has recently provided a list on mr. Schlafly’s talk page of the people he believes are responsible for the vandal attacks on Conservapedia, including your columnist among them:

Most of this isn’t the several people using the “Ice” account, but Tmtoulouse, ColinR, AmesG, AKjeldsen, Palmd and Sterile, among others and their many socks. The poor things are so devoid of a life, they crave argument for arguments sake. Feel free to contact me for a more complete list. –Sysop-TK _/MyTalk 17:18, 22 May 2007 (EDT)

I would like to state that I resent this implication. I have never engaged in vandalism against Conservapedia, and would never dream of doing so. I believe the only reason why I am on that list is because of my activities on RationalWiki, which, that is true, has been a hang-out for some of the vandals that have attacked Conservapedia in the past. However, I have not been connected with these activities.

In a recent IRC conversation I have asked TK to remove my name , which he refused. I would call upon him to produce evidence to back up his claim, except that I know he can have none, and that it is well-known that he does not consider evidence necessary.

I know that the management of Conservapedia believes highly in moral laws. I would like to ask, what kind of moral laws support unsubstantiated accusations against an innocent men? I am not a Paulus, and this is not Caesarea, but still: For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar.

Bigger*, better, faster!

Sweet suffering Saint Sebastian on the Sousaphone in a short story by Susan Sontag! RationalWiki 2.0 is online and ready to fulfill all your needs for cutting remarks, sharp commentary and insightful analyzes!

Find it at http://www.rationalwiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

*Well, ok - maybe not quite yet.

Column 10: Breaking news, again!

Ladies and gentlemen: We bring you, fresh from the source, two new stories of administrative mal

Firstly, this morning’s usual browsing of the Conservapedia logs revealed the following entry in the Block Log:

• 02:36, 22 May 2007 Karajou (Talk | contribs) blocked “Wikinterpreter (contribs)” with an expiry time of infinite (intent to cause trouble here, as per http://cpcolumn.wordpress.com/2007/05/20/column-9-on-legitimate-authority-on-conservapedia/#comment-345_)

This is remarkable on two levels. Firstly, if we take a look at the comment quoted, it says the following…

Geo.plrd May 20th, 2007 at 8:35 pm

Thanks for the heads up Icewedge!

…which is in reply to the immediately preceding comment:

Icewedge May 20th, 2007 at 6:42 pm

This will all become moot tonight at 6 E.S.T., when the largest attack on the CP servers to date will be made.

Now, maybe it’s just because I’m a little dense, but I can’t for the life of me see anything related to Wikinterpreter here. As far as I know, Wikinterpreter has never posted here (EDIT: I should read the comments more thoroughly), and since I assume (or at least hope!) that the Conservapedia sysops do not have access to the IP addresses of people posting here, I wouldn’t expect them to know either.

Partly out of curiosity, and partly because this is something that at least tangentially involves me personally, I tried looking further into the matter, and came across another disturbing fact:

• 02:37, 22 May 2007 Karajou (Talk | contribs) deleted “User talk:Wikinterpreter“
• 02:37, 22 May 2007 Karajou (Talk | contribs) deleted “User:Wikinterpreter” (http://cpcolumn.wordpress.com/2007/05/20/column-9-on-legitimate-authority-on-conservapedia/#comment-345_ intent to cause trouble)

That’s right. Conservapedia sysops have now begun to delete the user pages of blocked people, making any kind of investigation of their actions through the use of page history virtually impossible. This kind of wanton destruction of, so to say, ‘public records’ really makes my historian’s heart bleed (does that make me a bleeding heart historian? Hm), and is a huge step backwards for transparency on Conservapedia.

I said this was remarkable on two levels. The other level is, of course, that it is explicitly stated on the official page on Differences with Wikipedia that,

15. We do not ban users based on their comments elsewhere, such as on their own blog. Wikipedia will monitor users’ blogs and ban them for their exercise of free speech on their own blogs.

This must now be said to be factually incorrect, since Wikinterpreter was in fact blocked for making a comment elsewhere (disregarding for the sake of the argument the fact that I can’t actually find the comment in question). Perhaps optimistically, I expect that this policy will now be changed to reflect reality, or that Wikinterpreter be unbanned and some disciplinary action be taken against Sysop Karajou for this breach of policy.

This morning’s second story is about a edit made by Sysop TK on Aulis Eskola’s talk page. I would ask you to examine this edit before reading on.

Now, what is going on here? A Sysop is found altering an entry on a user’s talk page, where he changes two hyperlinks, the one to this Column, the other to Rational Wiki.

I am a little unsure about whether to call this an act of vandalism, but there is a pretty strong case in favor of doing so. If not, this still represents what I think is the greatest departure yet from the otherwise long-standing Conservapedia principle that “a user’s talk page is his castle”. As in the other story above, I expect that policy will either be changed or disciplinary measures taken.

(By the way. Here’s a fun little hypothetical supposition: What do you think would have happened if this had been Sysop TK’s talk page being edited by someone else? Something to think about.)

On another point, the edit confirms what I have suspected for a long time, that there exists a serious misunderstanding about who I am. Sysop TK seems to think that I am actually the same person as Sid_3050, who was banned back in April. I am not quite sure why this misunderstanding exists, because surely a simple examination of the server logs of Conservapedia should quickly be able to disprove that theory.

In any case, it is not correct. I am neither Sid, nor PalMD, Colin_R or any of the other people that TK thinks are associated with the so-called Icewedge Cabal*. I am User:AKjeldsen from Conservapedia, as I also state quite clearly in About the Author I am not a sock puppet of anyone, nor have I ever or will ever use a sock puppet. And given the amount of time and energy I spend criticizing TK here, I think the least he could do is to hate me personally, rather attributing the credit to someone else. If TK is still in any doubt about my identity, I invite him to email me at kjeldsen@villaluisarecords.com (see that? The address has ‘kjeldsen’ in it, too) so we can get this… very, very strange confusion cleared up.

For the rest of you, good night, and good luck.

*The existence of which I can neither confirm nor deny.

Fun fact: A clean slate

Did you know…

…that one of the most controversial editors on Conservapedia regularly wipes entries from his talk page, instead of archiving them like any reasonable person would do? It’s true!

Fun Question Time! Why do you think he does that?

UPDATE: This practice seems to be spreading:
http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Ed_Poor&curid=10983&diff=171081&oldid=171080