Jorolat: Objections to calling him a jerk?

[DaveW]

Jorolat, I overlooked your previous mentions of geocentrism in this GQ thread mostly because they weren’t directed at me. But now, with

The nature of the resistance once shown to the heliocentric theory (“It’s absurd!”) indicates the intellect can have difficulty accepting a reality contrary to what has previously been taught.

you’ve said it to me, and I am appropriately isulted.

For one thing, it shows how little you understand what the problem with geocentrism was. It was largely a political/religious interia that kept it from becoming acceptable earlier. As such, it was not a difficulty with “intellect.” The controversy was not based solely on logic, but largely upon the Bible. You might check out the latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer, by the way. It’s got a nifty treatment of what went on.

I also ignored the implications of your harping on geocentrism, but repetition has opened my eyes: you believe that we all have “closed minds” in need of opening, and the geocentrism thing is just your way of saying, “look what closed minds have done before - isn’t it horrible?” This is prejudice on your part, because I don’t believe that I’ve written anything in that thread that shows that I wasn’t taking your OP seriously. I never even came close to saying, “it’s absurd.” Telling me to be open-minded in response to a post where I was desperately trying to understand your meaning is ludicrous - especially when the other things you wrote were not answers to my questions.

What’s absurd is you. You feigned innocence and a desire for knowledge in asking, “what are the objections to an internal evolutionary mechanism,” but by your responses, it appears to be clear that you already know what the objections are, and just want to argue about this 100+ year old theory, coupled with new stuff that doesn’t even appear to be evolutionary in nature.

And when you said, “Outa time again but I’ll be back later,” it was another insult. I’ve already moved on from the posts you were replying to earlier today. Your responses haven’t helped clear up anything, they only show you’re not willing to put any time into participating. Come back and contribute when you’ve got enough time to catch up to the same page everyone else is on.

I doubt you fully understand the terms “evolution,” “natural selection,” “integrated organism,” “internal mechanism,” or even “simple human decency.” I know I don’t (except, perhaps, for the last), but you seem to have less of a grasp on them than I do.

[jorolat]

*Originally posted by DaveW *
**Jorolat, I overlooked your previous mentions of geocentrism in this GQ thread mostly because they weren’t directed at me. But now, with

The nature of the resistance once shown to the heliocentric theory (“It’s absurd!”) indicates the intellect can have difficulty accepting a reality contrary to what has previously been taught.

you’ve said it to me, and I am appropriately isulted.

For one thing, it shows how little you understand what the problem with geocentrism was. It was largely a political/religious interia that kept it from becoming acceptable earlier. As such, it was not a difficulty with “intellect.” The controversy was not based solely on logic, but largely upon the Bible. You might check out the latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer, by the way. It’s got a nifty treatment of what went on.

I also ignored the implications of your harping on geocentrism, but repetition has opened my eyes: you believe that we all have “closed minds” in need of opening, and the geocentrism thing is just your way of saying, “look what closed minds have done before - isn’t it horrible?” This is prejudice on your part, because I don’t believe that I’ve written anything in that thread that shows that I wasn’t taking your OP seriously. I never even came close to saying, “it’s absurd.” Telling me to be open-minded in response to a post where I was desperately trying to understand your meaning is ludicrous - especially when the other things you wrote were not answers to my questions.

What’s absurd is you. You feigned innocence and a desire for knowledge in asking, “what are the objections to an internal evolutionary mechanism,” but by your responses, it appears to be clear that you already know what the objections are, and just want to argue about this 100+ year old theory, coupled with new stuff that doesn’t even appear to be evolutionary in nature.

And when you said, “Outa time again but I’ll be back later,” it was another insult. I’ve already moved on from the posts you were replying to earlier today. Your responses haven’t helped clear up anything, they only show you’re not willing to put any time into participating. Come back and contribute when you’ve got enough time to catch up to the same page everyone else is on.

I doubt you fully understand the terms “evolution,” “natural selection,” “integrated organism,” “internal mechanism,” or even “simple human decency.” I know I don’t (except, perhaps, for the last), but you seem to have less of a grasp on them than I do. **

I am sorry that I’ve upset you, that was certainly not my intention. My replies are for anyone who reads the thread though I can certainly see why you should take them personally.

It’s not that I’m unwilling to spend time on the thread, it’s just that other commitments prevent me.

If Galileo’s peers hadn’t been conditioned into believing in the Bible during their formative years then perhaps they too could have responded to his discoveries in a similar manner. Galileo was placed under house arrest for the rest of his natural life. No matter how it was rationalized this is clearly a psychological reaction, due to the upset to conditioning, because the people doing punishing had no more natural right to life than Galileo did.

Once again I apologize but even now my time is limited.

Jorolat

[Captain_Amazing]

*Originally posted by DaveW *
**
For one thing, it shows how little you understand what the problem with geocentrism was. It was largely a political/religious interia that kept it from becoming acceptable earlier. As such, it was not a difficulty with “intellect.” The controversy was not based solely on logic, but largely upon the Bible. You might check out the latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer, by the way. It’s got a nifty treatment of what went on.
**

First of all, I don’t know Jorolat, so I don’t mind if you call him a jerk, but in regard to the geocentric/heliocentric debate, weren’t the big problems the geocentrists had with heliocentricism that, first, heliocentric theory required there to be annular parallax (which wasn’t detected till later), and also, assuming circular orbits, the heliocentric theory results in the increase of epicenters in the model?

[dropzone]

Hey! Language like that doesn’t belong in the Pit, Capt Amazing!

I do object to DaveW’s calling jorolat a “jerk” but I might just be excessively tolerant today.

[Miller]

I object strongly to calling Jorolat a “jerk.” Luke-warm insults like “jerk” are pathetic. Need I remind you this is the Pit? Show some creativity. If you called him, say, “a festering imbecilic testicle-monkey,” I would have no objections.

I admit, not everyone has this sort of talent for invective, but don’t fret! I’ve recently published a self-help book: “How to Swear Like a Sailor in Twelve Easy Lessons.” Just send $59.99 to:

Swear Like a Sailor
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Or call 1-800-Fuck-Off. Operators are standing by.

[Firx]

Upon consideration, “jerk” may be appropriate…

Perhaps I shouldn’t bother, but I’ll point out that Jorolat hasn’t actually responded to anyone’s objections. All he’s done is:

1- make what seems to be a comparison between himself and Galileo

2- defend himself against accusations that he compared himself to Galileo (twice).

3- make an analogy (the kaleidascope) that draws questions, and then never follow up.

4- refer posters to his website instead of addressing their remarks (four times).

5- “clarify” the OP by making (or continuing) nebulous references to "internal mechanism"s and “communication”
between the somatic and germ cells (four times).

6- compare natural selection to geocentric theory, not comment on remarks to the contrary, but still imply that NS is egocentric (three times for the egocentric reference).

7- not explain reasoning for said claim

8- repeatedly imply non-standard definitions for standard terms (e.g. “natural selection”, “Lamarkianism”)

9- directly suggest that those who responded to his OP were close-minded and unable to accept his theory (which, I might add, he never did explain).

Perhaps I’t only me who’s daft, but this seems like an absurd mixture of “someone please answer this homework question for me; no, I shan’t discuss your remarks, if you please” and “No-one agrees with me, so I must be ahead (or in this case, 100 years behind) of my time. Oh, happy day!”.

By the way, Jorolat, this thread might help you.

[Lemur866]

Jorolat, trying to compare yourself to Galileo is simply pathetic. You do realize that every crank with a crackpot idea compares himself to Galileo.

But surely you see that this is ridiculous. You are not faced with house arrest, excommunication, or the death penalty for espousing unpopular opinions. And surely you can see that the vast majority of people who challange existing scientific theories are wrong. You may be right, you may be wrong, but surely you can see that 99% of the people who compare themselves to Galileo are simply cranks.

You may very well fall into that 1% who turn out to be right after all. But surely you can see that this sort of comparison doesn’t exactly inspire us to keep an open mind. Quite the opposite in fact.

Just like you wouldn’t quite trust a guy who constantly shouts “I’m NOT crazy!” at the top of his lungs every couple of minutes. Maybe he’s not crazy, but would you take his word for it?

[Smeghead]

NOW do you see why I didn’t try answering his OP?

BTW, I personally think “twit” is more apropos than “jerk”. But I’ll go with the crowd.

[DaveW]

Jorolat wrote:

I am sorry that I’ve upset you, that was certainly not my intention.

Apology rejected, since you went on to confirm what I’d only suspected, by comparing all the people who even read the OP to people who’d been conditioned to believe things so strongly they were unable to give someone a fair hearing. Plenty of people did give you a chance, and you reply with prejudice. This response of yours doesn’t help, it just insults people all over again. Bravo.

Once again I apologize but even now my time is limited.

Then, as above, I suggest you not reply at all until you have enough time to post a thoughtful reply free of unintended insults. Your hasty slap-dash replies have been less than satisfying.

And now, you appear to be purposefully confusing the whole issue by taking your own quotes out of context (see original thread). Firx can add this to his list.

dropzone wrote:

I do object to DaveW’s calling jorolat a “jerk” but I might just be excessively tolerant today.

I was feeling tolerant, myself, which is why the thread title doesn’t contain the word “fuckwad.”

Miller wrote:

I object strongly to calling Jorolat a “jerk.” Luke-warm insults like “jerk” are pathetic. Need I remind you this is the Pit? Show some creativity. If you called him, say, “a festering imbecilic testicle-monkey,” I would have no objections.

Well, I must admit this has never been my strong point. I believe it’s going to be my curse around here: “too lame for the Pit, too strong for any other forum.”

Firx wrote:

Perhaps I shouldn’t bother, but I’ll point out that Jorolat hasn’t actually responded to anyone’s objections.

Thanks for bothering. I’d only suspected this level of nonsense, thanks for quantifying it.

By the way, as per Jorolat’s stated intentions, his only response to any objection should have been “thank you, I will add this to my upcoming ‘objections’ page.” Not that anyone’s actually come up with any decent objections yet, as it still appears (per your #8) that there are definition problems. I’m still trying to figure out whether he’s actually talking about evolution and/or natural selection at all. The more examples he gives, the farther away from these things he gets.

Smeghead wrote:

NOW do you see why I didn’t try answering his OP?

On a second reading of your post, I can see that I should have emphasized the “semi” part of “semi-coherent” instead of the “coherent” part. Puts a whole different spin on this guy.

[Smeghead]

Exactly.

[jorolat]

*Originally posted by Lemur866 *
**Jorolat, trying to compare yourself to Galileo is simply pathetic. You do realize that every crank with a crackpot idea compares himself to Galileo.
**

You can’t read Lemur, I didn’t compare myself to Galileo - I merely pointed out that those who have a psychological dependence on words written by others become disturbed when their comfort zone feels threatened.

Even verbal abuse can damage a child

Congratulations on declaring the true nature of your inner self

‘long pausse’

Aren’t you feeling violent yet???

[jorolat]

There are real people and there are cardboard cutouts - watch out for scissors!!!

Jorolat <— the biggest grin you could possibly imagine…

:):):)

[Firx]

Originally posted by Jorolat:

[quote]
You can’t read Lemur, I didn’t compare myself to Galileo - I merely pointed out that those who have a psychological dependence on words written by others become disturbed when their comfort zone feels threatened.

[quote]

You really are a monolithic ass. This topic was addressed last February and you brought up the same stupid arguments that you’ve used here. The same experiments. The same “explainations”. Even the same fucking references to geocentric theory, screwing up as usual. You’ve had six months to find some sort of validation for your theory, find primary sources for these experiments, or perform your own experiments, and instead you have apparently done nothing. In fact, your understanding of the situation seems to have diminished, because here and here you comment on the relevancy of “populations evolve, individuals don’t”, whereas here in your new post you tell us you don’t understand why it’s brought up. Did it slip your mind? Maybe you fell into a coma and only woke up last week? Or maybe you were just lying to get us to comment on your crackpot theory. Or, and this is the idea I espouse, you were just too stupendously dense to get the picture the first time. I honestly can’t imagine why you don’t collapse into a single point. Although maybe I have it backwards, and your skull is so vacuous that it should implode your head.

Nevertheless, I must admit that the profundity of your ignorance and bigotry has inspired me. In fact, I have written a short piece of performant art to commemorate the occasion. It’s entitled Anatomy of an Idiot.

Prologue: As each member of the audience enters the theater they are given, instead of a playbill, a copy of “The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme”. Several plants begin to comment loudly about the paper, eventually resulting in a discussion which is shouted across the theater. If any audience members object, they should be roughly criticized and insulted. This ends when uniformed guards enter and remove the plants. Without giving the audience to react, the lights dim and the curtain rises.

Setting: A dark stage, with a single wooden chair in the center, as the curtain rises, a spotlight, previously playing randomly accross the audience, centers on a man in the front row. The man rises and ascends to the stage, sits.

MAN: (in the voice of Prof. Higgins from the film “My Fair Lady”) It’s all so simple. Yes, so simple. Why they haven’t seen it now is enough to make one mad. Why, it’s clear. Yes, so clear. Why, they haven’t lauded me! That’s really very queer. (MAN stands) They must not know. Well, I shall tell them!

(Backdrop rises. Stage lights come up, revealing a well stocked modern biochemical research laborotory. Sticking from behind a cabinet, we can see the feet and legs of what appears to be a man wearing a lab coat. MAN walks back to the lab, and, with a sweep of an arm, clears the central lab bench of all equipment. Flasks shatter on the floor, small jars containing preserved specemins are flung into the orchestra pit, and expansive pieces of electronic equipment spark and then go dim.)

(MAN leaps onto the bench, but slips. He catches himself and stands facing the audience. At this point the orchestra, silent until now, begins a hearty polka, to which the man sings. The words of his song are muddled, but they should convey a simultaneous sense of self-worship and contempt for all others. Superlatives are occasionally heard through the ranting of the song. Halfway through, the MAN begins dancing in a wild and unsettling way.)

(MAN jumps from the bench and walks calmly back to the corpse on the lab floor. He straightens his tie and shakes his head sadly.)

MAN: If only you had listened. If only you had heard. When I think about what’s happened I really feel that it’s absurd. Why, if only you had thought about it, I’m sure you would have changed your mind.

(MAN looks about the lab with a forlorn expression)

MAN: I only can suppose that this is what you wanted. What a shame.

(Sounds of breaking glass and shouting occur off stage left. MAN starts, and then runs wildly around the bench, flailing his arms and causing more havoc with the remaining equipment. MAN trips over his own feet and falls flat on his face in a comical manner. He then slowly gets up and moves furtively off stage right.)

Epilogue:
The epologue consists of the original scene, with the modification of a huge projection screen behind the wooden chair. On the screen is projected the front page of the Chicago Tribune. Among the different columns is one entitled “Gould Found Brutally Murdered - Suspect Still at Large”, with accompanying details, which include the date, time and location of his discovery. Further down the column is the sentence “Although it is unknown at this time who commited the murder, one of the suspects is an obscure evolutionist who disagreed with Gould’s work. It is believed that the evolutionist became obesessed with a modified Darwinian theory which espoused the belief that evolution is guided by…” The sentence trails off the edge of the screen.

After exactly three minutes, the projector is halted and the curtain drops.

[Smeghead]

Yep. “Twit” is definitely the word.

[DaveW]

Jorolat wrote:

You can’t read Lemur, I didn’t compare myself to Galileo - I merely pointed out that those who have a psychological dependence on words written by others become disturbed when their comfort zone feels threatened.

Good grief! Jorolat, you are most-assuredly one of the most dogmatic asses I’ve ever had the displeasure of corresponding with.

Your “apologies” to me were obviously completely insincere, since you now know that this comparison is insulting, but you continue to make it. The fact that you say it to everyone who has an “objection” means that you are the geocentrist. The only difference is that you have a psychological dependence on your own words. You are the one who’s defending his “comfort zone” with pre-emptive claims of dogmatism, while many of us gave you a fair shake. Not only are you the one with blinders on, you claim that it’s actually all of the people who’ve ever read the thread who are blind.

The fact that you haven’t learned a single thing in the last six months (while I’ve learned just now that I’ve done little but repeat other people’s objections - thanks again, Firx, I guess we’ve both taken a few on the chin) shows that you take your “theory” as seriously and unquestioningly as many people take their religion.

You’re a pseudoscientist of the worst kind. You are sure you are correct, but have no compelling evidence to support your claims. Your protestations of innocence and honest inquiry are laughable when you ignore the replies and/or deny the responses have merit.

[Captain_Amazing]

Well, I’ve finally read the linked thread.

One of the criticisms of the late Carl Sagan (they also said this about Isaac Asimov) was that he was more a “popularizer” than a scientist. That’s to say, he didn’t really make any scientific advances himself, all he did was attract laypeople to existing science.

I’ve always disagreed with people who criticize him. I think it’s an art to take difficult scientific concepts and lay them out so that they’re eacy to understand, and Carl Sagan was so gifted at that. He could take almost any scientific concept and lay it out so that it seemed like child’s play to understand.

Jorolat just seems to be the anti-Carl Sagan.

[DaveW]

It should go without saying, but I’m with you, Firx. Jorolat has been avoiding posting in good faith, and he is an outrageous jackass. And so…

Jorolat wrote (in the OT):

I haven’t the time or inclination to find it but one reply began a sentence with the words “Natural Selection guides…” and in beginning this thread I was fully aware of the difficulties in communicating with mindsets who unconsciously see “Natural Selection” as a supernatural entity that acts on natural life without being part of it. It is a form of zealotry in itself.

Well, considering that later on you write,

I have also been accused of being a zealot which is quite interesting. The appending of labels with a negative emotional content that has accrued under other circumstances and involving other people is often the precursor of punishment. The way it works is this:…

then I feel completely justified in labelling you a tremendous hypocrite. Since it’s okay, in your world, for you to label and dismiss natural selection as supernatural or a knee-jerk response, it must be okay for me to label and dismiss you as a crackpot.

Wait, that word doesn’t really sum up what I’m thinking. Neither does ‘jerk’, ‘twit’, ‘fuckwad’, ‘jackass’, or numerous other labels. You dismiss natural selection as metaphysical without any supporting evidence, you claim incorrect things about Galilleo and the heliocentrist/geocentrist controversy of ages past, and you appear to think that the Fibonacci sequence stuff has merit in supporting your theory (not to mention other nonsense). You have held these positions for at least seven months, despite gentle and not-so-gentle reminders that you are probably deluding yourself.

I must say that you appear to be willfully ignorant.

On a message board devoted to fighting ignorance, the above is probably one of the worst insults I could employ.

(I’m fairly sure that Jorolat won’t read what’s below - as if I thought he’d read what’s above - but allow me to vent some more, please: I’ve seen a lot of ‘Jorolats’ but restrained myself due to the idealistic hope that the Jorolats will respond well to rational arguments. How wrong I was…)

I would argue that there are only individual organisms and their individual offspring. If all external supernatural agencies are discounted then that only leaves the organism and the answer to how evolution occurs must be internal.

The ‘answer’ to how evolution occurs is internal - genetic mutation followed by natural selection based on how well the mutated organisms fit into their environment. What, exactly, is “supernatural” about this?

Just because you don’t understand what the term “natural selection” means doesn’t mean it’s supernatural in any way.

The “Spandrels” paper was written in 1979 and since that time both phenotypic plasticity and the Baldwin Effect are coming increasingly to the fore

Cite? (Bwahahahaha!)

Reality can only be denied for so long.

You’ve been doing a fine job of it so far.

Another reason for not becoming overly involved, and part of the mindset mentioned above, is the tendensy to jump to erroneous conclusions. They are so tedious to reply to.

Yes, like “natural selection is metaphysical.” Very tedious, indeed, especially when the claimant ignores those who respond.

One example in this thread was the assumption that I was comparing myself to Galileo whereas in actual fact I was simply employing the principle that “History never repeats itself but Psychology does”.

History repeats itself all the time, as you have proven. Look at how well your current GQ thread has repeated the one you began in February. Beyond that, you have now directly compared yourself to Galilleo by saying, “I have been accused of not being a scientist and as geocentrism was the science of its day I do not consider this a crime.”. The funny part is that geocentrism in the time of Galilleo, based as it was on a dogmatic, Church-driven desire to prove that the Earth was the center of the universe, was never truly a ‘science’. Your own writings compare well with geocentrism, not heliocentrism.

No, wait, I take that back - your own ‘work’ compares well to neither. The people researching geocentrism actually did work on it. From what I can see, you’ve just read some articles, jumped to a conclusion, and then dismissed every attempt to actually answer your posts. You have yet to make a single calculation or run a single experiment. In this light, the geocentrists of the days of yore would be better company than you.

As to the charge of not being a scientist I would like to point out that neither is natural life, the subject supposedly under discussion.

Natural life is not a ‘scientist’, but it can be investigated scientifically. (Or are you denying that, say, biology is a valid science? If so, you are knowingly basing your own argument on a non-science, and dropping yourself into the dung-heap of ridiculous propositions.) Scientific investigations have been done for natural selection, evolution, heliocentrism, etc. You claimed you cannot investigate your own theory scientifically because you don’t have the time or materials. I doubt you could do it because you appear to not understand what science is.

Religious zealots, particularly those who don’t realize that is what they are, do not like their conditioning disturbed.

Which is a decent explanation of why you deny natural selection. And since you have no good evidence to support what you claim, then “religious zealot” fits you very well: your attachment to your hypothesis can only be described as a deep faith.

(Oh, and I take back the “worst kind of pseudoscientist” crack. You don’t sell anything, but you are arrogant enough to have started a newsletter, and that puts you one tiny step above the “worst kind,” who do both.)

On a slightly different note, Captain Amazing wrote:

Jorolat just seems to be the anti-Carl Sagan.

I think you’re giving Jorolat waaay too much credit in that comparison. It implies that he’s taking easy science and making it too complex to understand, when all he’s really doing is spewing ignorance of, and intolerance to, accepted and well-tested theories. A true “anti-Carl Sagan” would take something simple and explain it using lots of ten-cent words, and probably end with “but since you don’t have a PhD, you won’t understand.” Jorolat isn’t an anti-Carl Sagan, he’s a complete anti-scientist who denies the evidence before him in favor of his own unsupported thoughts.

[jorolat]

An invitation to read the latest post in the thread from which this one sprung. For my part I have posted twice here and have not read any subsequent contributions. Enjoy yourselves

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by jorolat *
**

*Originally posted by Firx *
**Apparently, Jorolat, you have more memory problems than I thought. You see, unlike you, I did go back and look at all of the posts in this thread, and guess what? No-one said anything even close to what you claim:

[Jorolat said:]I haven’t the time or inclination to find it but one reply began a sentence with the words “Natural Selection guides…” and in beginning this thread I was fully aware of the difficulties in communicating with mindsets who unconsciously see “Natural Selection” as a supernatural entity that acts on natural life without being part of it. It is a form of zealotry in itself.

Of course when called to account they will argue that this is not what they meant but a post or two later “Natural Selection does this” and “Evolution does that” will start to appear again and we’re back into the metaphysical.

[Firx said:] In fact, I will personally vouchsafe that none of the remarks your have ‘quoted’ were actually said. I’ll also vouchsafe that neither were the sentiments they represent ever expressed. The only person who has been “called to account” about anything in this thread has been you, and instead of realising what was happening, all you’ve done is continue to insult people.

My first thought on reading your last post was to ask that the moderator close the thread so that we wouldn’t have any more chance of hearing your inane drivel, but I’ll do something else instead. I would first like to remind everyone that Jorolat has pulled this trick once before; having done so I would like to ask that everyone pitch in and squash this bug for good. I entreat everyone who looks at this thread to go here and append an answer to this question: has Jorolat been posting in good faith?, or has he been an outrageous jackass? Please, help stop this madness! **

[Jorolat:]In saying "I haven’t the time or inclination to find it but one reply began a sentence with the words “Natural Selection guides…” I hope it is obvious that I was quoting from memory and you are indeed correct in pointing out that no one said “Natural Selection guides…”.

What was actually said was:

I think the “weak” form says something more like 'once the entire body plan is put together no really large changes can occur, and the process by which the body plan forms is GUIDED BY NATURAL SELECTION [my emphasis]. This would seem to be consistent with many of the ideas Gould expressed in “Wonderful life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History”.

This appeared in a message posted on the 17th September at 11.12 pm and can be found on page 1 of this thread. The paragraph was subsequently quoted by someone else who apparently didn’t see any incongruity in the phrase I have emphasised.

I must admit that after reading your post re my memory and good faith that I was astonished to find that the author of this phrase was none other than yourself!

Bearing in mind that this is the GQ message board and not General Debates, along with the limited time that I’ve had up to now to spend on this, I would like to point out there is an additional communication problem when I say something like:

The original post was simply looking for objections to an internal mechanism beyond those listed. In terms of “Populations evolve, individuals don’t” it would basically be a question of whether germ cell mutations are all truly random or could an unknown percentage be due to an INDIRECT [my emphasis] (and non-Lamarckian) internal mechanism (posted on the 17th at 7.21 am)

and this is thereafter interpreted as:

By “internal mechanism,” you mean some process which changes an individual’s genes (or just the genes within the germ cels), yes? This would imply that some part of evolution is SELF DIRECTED, [my emphasis] (posted at 5.36 pm on the 17th)

or

Oh. OH! Okay. G&L are saying here that S, R & G are claiming that natural selection is fine for the “little things,” but for initiating or transitioning between forms, it’s not enough, and there must be “something else” (some strange “internal mechanism” that no biologist has yet found, or maybe God perhaps?) DIRECTING [my emphasis] the process. (posted at 7.47 pm on the 17th)

There are probably more examples but the point I’m making is that the difference between “direct” and “indirect” is more than two letters.

I’ve checked in the mirror - I can’t find any long ears.

Jorolat **

[DaveW]

Jorolat wrote:

For my part I have posted twice here and have not read any subsequent contributions.

Just because you don’t read them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I think your statement proves again that you are being willfully ignorant.

[jorolat]

@DaveW

Jorolat wrote:

For my part I have posted twice here and have not read any subsequent contributions.

Just because you don’t read them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I think your statement proves again that you are being willfully ignorant.

It doesn’t prove anything of the kind.

This post petered out a long time ago, and quite frankly there’s nothing more to add really - except to say, of course, that you are the real jerk!

Just for the record