Posts going missing?
Bob,
On the whole I think the moderation of this web-site (including this forum) is very sensible and strikes a very good balance between fostering fair debate and the unhinged views of the neo-Darwinists who if left unchecked would overwhelm this site. I say this in the spirit of hope partly because I have submitted an article which has not yet seen the light of day.
Jimmy
Which article? I'm having trouble finding a deletion notice in the log so it might have been unpublished. The system is a bit quirky. I've had my own articles disappear off the front page when they should not have. Also, deleted comments cannot be recovered.
I posted an article about my own research on the blog (not a comment). I'm not sure if it is still in the moderation queue. If it has been lost I would be happy to re-post it, it was a cut down version of a pamphlet that I published a few years ago.
I can appreciate that a moderator may have taken a a disliking to it because I am by no means a member of the ID movement - I merely wished to demonstrate how some mathematical concepts which originated in ID research have found applications a controversial study of the English landscape.
My deleted comment was on one of Denyse's posts. It was a short comment expressing my admiration for her work, but humbly suggesting that rather than post articles which contain little more than links to her articles on other private blog sites she might post these articles directly on OE.
My reason for saying this is that OE is rapidly becoming one of the world's main sites for open discussion of ID topics and that we are likely to bring her ideas to a wider audience by our joint effort and enthusiasm rather than using OE to promote our own private blogs.
Perhaps it is only my preference, but I imagine that new-readers would like to see a home-page full of diverse perspectives, thoughtful prose and lively debate. At the moment the home page seems to be mainly full of short articles some of which are just external links, written by a single author with no comments at all.
Bob
Dear all,
We are currently going through some transition here at Overwhelming Evidence and posts and comments may have been temporarily lost in the craziness. Rest assured that we have all the posts/discussion forums/comments in our hands. We will be sorting through them once things are a bit less crazy.
Thanks again, everyone, for posting and keeping this site running strong.
Best wishes,
Sam
since the publicity and premise of the expelled move coming out I've noticed a serious drop in the number of posts that appear and then, almost magically, vanish. It's a good sign of a healthy debate to allow your opponents the privilege of responding and I applaud this site and the other pro-ID sites that have reduced the number of banniations. I just wonder can it be kept up when the film has been and gone and the thread of "expelled supported expels enemy" headlines diminishes.
I just got back from watching the film - for the most part, I found it funny. I've always liked Ben Stein. However I took it as a guilty pleasure because I'm not sure that this kind of film is doing the ID movement any good at all.
Is this really the best way to introduce the ideas of ID to a wider audience? A great deal of the movie's content was a bit "conspiracy theory" for me.
Shouldn't we be reaching out to mainstream science, rather than attempt to mock researchers. And what will biologists make of future developments in ID when the whole movement is closely associated with a movie that many scientists seem to find distasteful? Why doesn't somebody make a movie about how ID explains things better than Evolution?
Bob
Bob,
Many, if not most, of those who are already interested in ID would like to have seen more scientific content -- after all, we are already interested in science and not scared off by technical content.
But that simply isn't true of the general public. Most don't even understand yet the basic fact that there are scientists who see scientific evidence pointing toward design, but who can only say so at the risk of having their career shut down. Now that is a message that the general public can get interested in.
In his salute to Expelled, Discovery Institute's Bruce Chapman echoes your thoughts and those of many others:
"Oh, if we had been making the film, there would have been even more about the scientific flaws in Darwin's theory and even more about the scientific case for intelligent design. If the filmmakers had been able to wait a few months we would have been able to provide them with some exciting new scientific studies and books to cite. But I have to concede that the resulting film would have been twice as long and probably unusable as a Hollywood feature!"
See more at Discovery Salutes Expelled
The producers shot much more film than was shown in the movie. Some of this may find its way into the DVD version that will be released. But for the theater release, they did many prescreenings and adjusted the content toward what the general audience was ready for.
Until now there has been a prevailing myth in the culture -- the Inherit the Wind myth -- that the only people who question Darwinism are uneducated hicks blinded by narrow religious views. That is the myth, and even in terms of the original Scopes trial, it is a fiction that turns the actual facts upside down.
Everyone would do well to see http://www.TheMonkeyTrial.com -- highly recommended.
If Expelled accomplishes nothing more than to make a general population aware of the existence of educated and informed skeptics of Darwinism and the retaliatory attempts of the establishment to silence them, then it will have been well worth the effort.
Dear friends - a few days ago I added a comment on an article written by a highly respected member of this site of whom I am a great fan. The comment consisted of equal parts criticism and admiration, and I am sure the author to whom I was responding couldn't have taken any offense.
A few hours after posting my response I noticed to my surprise that my comment had been deleted. If I have caused offense I am genuinely sorry, if this was a mistake I do hope we can re-instate my post.
One of the things I most value about this site it the administrators commitment to academic freedom. To date OE has been a place where no honest question or comment is off limits. It would be a great shame if this community were to start emulating the worst aspects of our neo-darwinist rivals.
Bob
login or register to post comments | 0 points