This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV :P I dont trust them staying up at Blogger, and the SEED overlords are letting me have 4 reposts a week, so Im gonna take advantage of that!
I am going to try to add more comments to these posts for the old readers-- Think of these as 'directors cut' posts ;)
I like to make fun of how crappy traditional media has become as much as the next person, but I also hate it when people complain about how bad something is, without offering positive, constructive criticism. Examples of what is right, so the offending parties can improve whatever theyre doing thats so crappy. So here is a classic post where a traditional media outlet (in this case, the magazine Skeptical Inquirer) got it right. It was a feature on HIV Denialism, but it covered the bases for all kinds of pseudoscientific conspiracies peddled to the public.
Later today I will have a post to contrast this one... One of my favorite laymen-scientist magazines, Discover, dropped the ball. Again. Big time. ERV angry.
Creationists and Deniers-- Ebony and Ivory
So anytime I bring up Creationists in a comment about Deniers, or Deniers in a post about Creationists, the opposite party always gets PISSED. At the Dembski Affair on Monday, Secret Agent Man was highly offended that I compared the tactics of ID Creationists to Deniers. When a Denier was drawn to a post I made on Creationism, he/she didnt understand why I treat Creationists/Deniers as the same group of people.
The connection is obvious to everyone... except Creationists and Deniers.
For instance, in the Sep/Oct issue of Skeptical Inquirer, the cover story is HIV Denialism (they mention Tara and Chris Noble and Brian Foley!). How many of these statements could be said for Creationists?
Go straight to politics-- the science will support you later
Go straight to the public-- theyll buy your crap
Dont support your own claims-- just point out the flaws in the prevailing scientific consensus, make up flaws as you see fit
Fr*me yourself as a 'rebel' and a 'dissident'-- You are brave to take on The Man
Dont understand the science you are against
Dont have a degree in the field you are against
Scientists are dumb
Scientists are in it for the money
When scientists finally address you, use THAT as evidence you are RIGHT
Dont ever change you mind. Ever.
For examples, look at all this crap Horowitz pulled in our 'debate', and compare it to Dembskis hiding places. Though I would add magical thinking (viruses, chemistry, everything is magic).
Skeptical Inquirer quotes a physician that finally got fed up with the Denier he was 'debating':
What is taking place on this forum is a farce, not a debate... Good scientists are meant to accept new evidence and incorporate this into their hypotheses.The denialist approach is to ignore new evidence that is contradictory to their predetermined stance. After comprehensive rebuttal of any point of view, the denialist tactic is to quickly switch to a different topic. Then later, when no-one is looking, they can switch back to the original theme, hoping no-one will realise that these points were completely discredited on an earlier occasion.
HMMMM! WHO does that sound like? It sounds SO familiar...
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Well, I'd have to say it sounds like every denier and creationist I have met or read about.
I especially like the comment about them being self-declared "rebels" since last night I played Star Wars Risk for the first time and as part of the empire completely beat down the rebels. Got the imperial march in my head while a fast forwarded version of the empire sweeping across the board from last night in my head now. Not that I think science = the empire, I'd just like to see real science soundly wipe out these so-called rebels once and for all and the game last night provided some nice visuals for it.
Why can't you just export your entire blog from there and import it here?
There's some possible reasons, William.
1. She's limited in her number of reposts per week as mentioned at the top of the post.
2. It's possible that the database, formatting, and/or general data storage differences that make it so it can't be lifted wholesale and moved.
3. While what you suggest is plenty easy with physical access to a machine, depending on the set up it can be difficult or impossible to do with remote servers.
There's some more but it's getting near the end of my day and I'm feeling lazy, even if #1 is the only true barrier it still is a solid barrier that can not be passed and if any of the others are true then reposting at all could take a lot of work to get even one done.
Abbie, I can't recall if you've mentioned this or not--have you read Nattrass' "Mortal Combat" book yet?
Well, ERV should consider getting her own blog if this one is preventing her from importing her old stuff (with comments).
I am not sure about other blogging systems, but the one I uses allows easy export and import of blog entries and comments.
Beggin' yer pardon, ERV, but the image you use to indicate your "retrotransposed" posts struck me as a bit so-so. Accordingly, I took it upon myself to do a revamped version, and you can view the thing at this URL: [ http://transform.to/~cubist/stuff/retrotransposedERV.2.gif ]. It's yours to use if you like, or to ignore if you don't like.
But is that export and import truly seamless, especially when trying to export to/import from an entirely different system or does it just work well with similar formats?
Also, why would we expect ERV to goto all the trouble of getting a server, setting it up, installing blogging software, dealing with ISP's for extra bandwidth for the blog all so she can repost old posts at the speed you want to see them at?
She has also mentioned that she is going over the posts and adding commentary to some of them, which may wind up making large portions of the old comments meaningless. There's no good reason for her to do anything differently.