[this no longer left intentionally blank, which is funny...]

It was so unusually easy to register that I thought.... something was wrong! "It's like butter," came to mind.

Well, I want to discuss many things on a genuine message board, forum as I loathe facepalm, and have no use for twitter.

My first message boards, or fora, were Ann Coulter (political), Bjork (fansite), Milkymoon (Joanna Newsom fansite)

I have spent some time on philosophy and science boards, but never stayed long.

I spent two years debating, informally, Biological Evolution, Origins, the nature of time, and such, on a fine forum, with the word "fairytale" in the url, and not knowing anything about the subject, I was successful--in not getting banned--for two years. What I brought to the table was, and is, what I call "referent analysis," a method of critical thinking, which I use to determine the truth-value of anything. I was introduced to this in the book, The Tyranny of Words, by Stuart Chase. I've dedicated some number of years reading Friedrich Nietzsche's works, though in English, my favorite being The Use and Abuse of History, translated by Adrian Collins. My most read book, repeatedly, is Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, which made me invest serious time in reading Nieztsche.

Perhaps, I should leave it at that, for now.

Err.. hello!

Ironclad wrote:Err.. hello!

How do I delete my bleeping account?? It was very easy to register but I can't figure out how delete my account.

I am not interested in someone approving my post. THanks.

scherado wrote:What I brought to the table was, and is, what I call "referent analysis," a method of critical thinking, which I use to determine the truth-value of anything. I was introduced to this in the book, The Tyranny of Words, by Stuart Chase.

Just to get some context, I dug up a review of Chase's book, which was published in 1938; the review came soon after, I'm guessing. The reviewer notes that an effective function of Chase's work would be to drive readers to investigate his sources, great thinkers of the caliber of Aristotle and Nietzsche. We had a great debate back on RDF with the intriguing title, "Relativism is self-refuting". This has forever warned me about some of the ways philosophy is discussed in chat-rooms. Just for the record, I don't accept the notion that "anything" has a truth value. As the song goes:

If you ain't wrong, you're right
If it ain't day, it's night
If you ain't sure, you might
Gotta be this or that

If it ain't dry, it's wet
If you ain't got, you get
If it ain't gross, it's net
Gotta be this or that

If it ain't sis, you can't miss
It's got to be your brother
Can't you see it's gotta be
One way or the other?

If it ain't full, it's blank
If you don't spend, you bank
If it ain't Dee, it's Frank
Gotta be this or that

Cito di Pense wrote:

scherado wrote:... a method of critical thinking, ... to determine the truth-value of anything. ...

...
Just for the record, I don't accept the notion that "anything" has a truth value. ...

Perhaps you misunderstood what I meant about "anything": I meant something asserted, a statement, anything one reads or hears, is this-or-that factual, and so on. For example, when I read an essay or article in a publication, what we used to call newspapers and such, I need to evaluate what I read for it's truth-value. The same in a publication by a biological evolutionist.

scherado wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

scherado wrote:... a method of critical thinking, ... to determine the truth-value of anything. ...

...
Just for the record, I don't accept the notion that "anything" has a truth value. ...

Perhaps you misunderstood what I meant about "anything": I meant something asserted, a statement, anything one reads or hears, is this-or-that factual, and so on. For example, when I read an essay or article in a publication, what we used to call newspapers and such, I need to evaluate what I read for it's truth-value. The same in a publication by a biological evolutionist.

Oh, I understood what you meant, but really, if you're going to be all rigorous about truth value, you might as well be careful about your expression, or else somebody might say something. Not saying anything is possible, but you have to keep quiet about it. It's a lot of work to comment on the truth value of anything, because some of it is not worth your time.

Oh, it’s “evolutionist” is it?

The proper term, in case you don’t know, is evolutionary biologist, and the precision of this descriptive term matters. Why? Because when you add the “ist” suffix you are applying a belief system, like Baptist, to those reporting empirical evidence based on testing observational reality. While it is possible for mistakes to be made, and confirmational biases to enter into the examinations, further studies almost always correct such errors. None of such efforts are based on any belief system.

RS

theropod wrote:... The proper term, in case you don’t know, is evolutionary biologist, ...
RS

All I meant was something on the subject of biological evolution.

scherado wrote:

theropod wrote:... The proper term, in case you don’t know, is evolutionary biologist, ...
RS

All I meant was something on the subject of biological evolution.

You mean, something on the fact of biological evolution.

Do you think mankind evolved from, to pick one common ancestor, tree shrews scherado? Oh yeah, and hi.

Cito di Pense wrote:... you might as well be careful about your expression, or else somebody might say something. ...

What does that mean?

Cito di Pense wrote:...You mean, something on the fact of biological evolution.

Is that a question without a question mark?

scherado wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:... you might as well be careful about your expression, or else somebody might say something. ...

What does that mean?

It's the predicate of something that started with an "if" clause. Did you know that in some programming languages, you can't even have an if-then without an or-else, because the result of the if-test might be false, and if you didn't have an or-else, you would not know what the fuck to think.

scherado wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:...You mean, something on the fact of biological evolution.

Is that a question without a question mark?

No, it's more along the lines of, "When I want your opinion, I'll give it to you."

He means there are some of us here on RatSkep that have been in the trenches for many years and when we see such terms used it sets us to DefCon 5. Those of us which have a professional background in the sciences will not hesitate to go to battle stations in such an event. I think you will find that precise use of terminology matters to those of us with trench foot, and our willingness to give quarter died long ago. Think of the thousand yard stare, and understand we love the smell of napalm in the morning.

RS

theropod wrote:we love the smell of napalm

not to mention the swell of facepalm

Cito di Pense wrote:

scherado wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:... you might as well be careful about your expression, or else somebody might say something. ...

What does that mean?

It's the predicate of something that started with an "if" clause. Did you know that in some programming languages, you can't even have an if-then without an or-else, because the result of the if-test might be false, and if you didn't have an or-else, you would not know what the fuck to think.

I still don't know what you meant.

FYI, I programmed in a dozen different languages between college and when I left my programming job.

Do you think humans share a common ancestor with gorillas scherado?

scherado wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

scherado wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:... you might as well be careful about your expression, or else somebody might say something. ...

What does that mean?

It's the predicate of something that started with an "if" clause. Did you know that in some programming languages, you can't even have an if-then without an or-else, because the result of the if-test might be false, and if you didn't have an or-else, you would not know what the fuck to think.

I still don't know what you meant.

FYI, I programmed in a dozen different languages between college and when I left my programming job.

So you say. I don't want to know how many you used. I want to know what you learned about languages.