Sarkar slams Stein, while Kimbo kicks arse...

Let's not forget PZ Myers, who puts all timid souls to shame, with his wicked excoriations of the creationist conmen!

Well, regarding nice treatment of students, I have professor whose usual answer to questions regarding his lecture is: "If you have to ask that, you're in the wrong room."

So... not all educators are nice to their students. (Undergrads are a renewable resource anyway...)

Hey John, care to elaborate on this exchange between you and Kimbo?

Someone who talks that way to his students is guilty of educational malpractice, in my view.

Brian I think the point was to point out the difference in discourse between academics/students and academics and their colleagues. I don't think anyone was suggesting this type of hostility would be permitted in a teaching environment.

That being said I think once you reach a certain academic level in your own right as a student you should expect your teachers to become more confrontational as you begin to attack their ideas, it's the natural evolution of things.

I can't wait :)

nqdrstu: understood, I was referring to the undergrad student commenting about the professor who said, "If you have to ask that, you're in the wrong room." I think our comments just crossed in Cyberspace.

Crossed tubes are a nightmare =)

...so anyone who thinks Intelligent Design has been expelled... - what licenses that inclusion, besides social darwinism in academia, dickhead?

Quoting from his essay:

That evolutionary theory, especially natural selection, has been abused by various groups for nefarious political ends is old and well-worn history. In the United States it inspired Social Darwinism ... And, yes, natural selection was invoked by the Nazis.

I wonder if these statements are true. (Aside from "abused by various groups", which is vague enough to be irrefutable.)

Hmm. Would Kimbo/Sarkar continue to insult people if it *does* hurt physically ? If the target responds by ramming
the insulters nose into the skull with his fist ?

Look, I suspect Kimbo has tenure and in the academic circle physical confrontation is virtually unknown. He doesn't face visible repercussions for his behavior. But it hides the fact that verbal violence is still violence; any mobbing target will vigorously agree.

Wasn't there a case in the USA where a professor was attacked in his car after disparaging remarks ?

The lesson to be learned here is that we should use the words "shit" and "fuck" more often when we make our arguments. It makes us look tough, and give us more respect and credibility ;)

Sorry, but I can't see how bad behaviour helps a good logical argument (unless maybe you're in high school or show business). Lowering the level of discourse can also get you in a good deal of trouble, or a physical fight. Anyone who says "fuck you" to my face risks getting the shit kicked out them.

Sarkar may make some sharp points, but he sure has obtuse commenters...

Sorry, but I can't see how bad behaviour helps a good logical argument

Calling a spade a spade, and not a shovel, certainly can help. Would you call that "bad behaviour", though?

Anyone who says "fuck you" to my face risks getting the shit kicked out them.

This is a quite drastic overreaction, of which you should be ashamed IMNSHO...

tsk, jeff, you're totally missing the point.

in scientific or philosophical discussion, you can't just say "you're wrong;" you have to offer reasons, arguments, explanations.

so wilkins says to sterelny: "you're wrong".

and sterelny says, not "fuck you,", but rather
""fuck you," he explained."

notice the double quote marks? that's because sterelny was quoting, attributing the 'f.y.' to wilkins.

what sterelny said, very concisely and wittily, was that for wilkins just to say "you're wrong" is about as much of an explanation as if wilkins had said "fuck you," i.e. no explanation at all.

so all of your bluster and bad-ass is totally beside the point, because you failed to comprehend the exchange.

Anyone who says "fuck you" to my face risks getting the shit kicked out them.

Wow. How stone age of you.

I wonder if these statements are true. (Aside from "abused by various groups", which is vague enough to be irrefutable.)

Well, imho it's true. At least they got the name from Darwin. ;) It doesn't mean though, that Social Darwinists understood the theory at all. Most likely they hadn't had a clue and the only thing they knew about it was survival of the fittest.

Couple that with the old knowledge of selective breeding and you have Social Darwinism. It doesn't have much to do with the theory of evolution in the end, but it's enough to give racists and supremacists an excuse to act the way they did.

At least I don't feel alone in missing the point. Yes, I oversaw that double quotation, but I may be excused by the introduction. When Kimbo is introduced with the characteristics that he tells people if they are full of shit, I naturally expected a remarkable faux pas. What a mean trap.

> Calling a spade a spade, and not a shovel.

Sigh. If someone writes: "This essay is idiotic because it contains so many contradictions that it poisoned my brain", then it is an attack on the essay. The *essay*. E-S-S-A-Y.

It means that it does not make any implications about the
qualification of the author. The author could have a bad day, he could be lovesick, he could have plagiarized it without understanding it. There are thousand possible reasons why the essay is bad and many of them have nothing to do with the personality of the author.

But if you say: "The author is a moron", then it is an attack on the person. You deny him the qualification to write anything of value and he cannot defend himself effectively (Or how do you prove that you are not a
moron ?).

So you can call a spade a spade without insulting a person.
Unbelievable, isn't it ?

The scorching approach has another disadvantage: If your "rebuttal" doesn't hold water, it will come back like a boomerang. And as you don't have a big red "S" on your shirt, you *will* do sooner or later mess up. Then it's apology time if you don't want to be exposed as a complete jerk.

The pearl clutching is very quaint, but indicates a lack of familiarity with the academic environment. I've seen one distinguished faculty rise during the Q&A session of an invited (honored) talk and pronounce the speaker "full of shit." He also invited the guest to his lab after the talk where he'd prove it to him with some data.

None of the several hundred folks in the room had a second thought about the exchange. Everybody knew two things; the questioner was famously cantankerous, and if he said the data said you were full of shit, you'd better be paying attention.

kid blitzer and Dale are right on the money here. To be given a witty response like that from Kim Sterelny is to be taken down in a fun way - everyone there knew Kimbo and how he replies. Kim was taking my argument seriously (and he was wrong, at least about what I was saying, which is possibly the speaker's fault, not the critic's) and he was saying straight-forwardly what any critic might say politely. I took no offense. I'd have been much more upset had he not responded at all, given that it was a talk about one of Kim's topics of expertise.

One of the medical researchers at the institute I worked at before turning to the Dark Side and becoming an academic myself, was famous for the same sorts of takedowns - to his own students. Woe betide the unprepared doctoral student whose presentation had the slightest vagueness or ill-analysed data set! And all the students of that researcher remained fond of him and fiercely loyal after they had graduated. They were the better for it.

This is not social Darwinism - this is what academic debate is for. Anyone who wants to be heard in respectful silence with critical faculties turned off had better stick to sermons.

Anyone who says "fuck you" to my face risks getting the shit kicked out them.

For some reason, this kind of blustering always reminds me of this:

-"Remember Mahoney, nobody screws with me."
-"Well, maybe you'll meet the right girl and all of that will change."

The Paper Chase (1973)
[after getting kicked out of class by Professor Kingsfield]
Hart: You... are a SON OF A BITCH, Kingsfield.
Kingsfield: Mr. Hart! That is the most intelligent thing you've said all day. You may take your seat.

I expected my classes to be like this and was always disappointed when a squeamishly polite faculty member wouldn't call bullshit on some rambling nitwit that made the rest of us groan every time he'd open his mouth.

I had many illusions when I attended university. I must blog about them sometime. One of them was that this was what good teaching was like.

Instead, the best teachers were the ones who encouraged polite discourse. Let me give an example, and pre-empt my later post.

I was, to say the least, a loudmouth as an undergraduate. I did a Historiography subject where I would, unaware of the conventions, interrupt the lecturer and dispute this or that point he had just made. He smiled all the time, so I figured he didn't mind. At one point he was discussing Marx and history and I disagreed. He invited me to come up and give my perspective, so I did. At the end of the course I got a High Distinction. When the history department saw that this guy had given me a HD they immediately asked me to do an honours course, since he'd given only one other HD in 25 years there.

Cut to five years later: a friend whose sister, I had not known, was in that class told me she had been going home and bitching about this terribly disrespectful student who contradicted the truths of the history lecturer...

Speaking of illusions, please join me in urging Wilkins to become a talking head.

Grinding self-promotion is where it's at, John.

I've b een told I have a great face for radio, and a great voice for the internet. Now if someone can make a live-capture avatar of Snowflake up there in the Profile, and synthesise my voice into gorillic...

Before we further wallow in reminiscences how academic live *really* is may I point out that faculties and nationalities may be different ?
My background is not law, medical science or humanities, but natural science/engineering. The mathematicians were the politest folk, then the physicists/biologists and then chemistry/engineering. While the reviews could be pretty scorching and the inquisition would have been impressed by some reviewers, it wasn't never necessary to go further because you liquefied anyway when forcibly deflated. Or I always missed the most interesting part.

The faculties *are* really different because you could identify the current tract (especially philosophy) by visiting the lavatory...;-)

Oh come on TSK. That joke was old when I was an undergraduate. And just as inflammatory.

For some reason, this kind of blustering always reminds me of this:

-"Remember Mahoney, nobody screws with me."
-"Well, maybe you'll meet the right girl and all of that will change.">

The point is, that words do have consequences. If academic or workplace communication becomes a means of personal warfare, and you seriously insult someone (especially in front of others), you shouldn't be too surprised in this day and age, if they suddenly show up with a shotgun and blow your head off. No, I haven't seen that yet, but I've seen fistfights in college and in the workplace (once between the ceo and president of internet company). My experience is that when the level of discourse reaches that point, a physical fight can erupt *very* quickly.

I apologize for my faux pas. I tried to explain my original intention privately, but it probably made matters worse. So all I can do is leaving and saying that I am very sorry because I hurted John deeply.