You, sir. Yes, you! Are a partisan asshole.

[mhendo]

@Starving_Artist

Yep, sometimes if people make an outrageous enough demand for cites which is going to require extraordinary amounts of my time, I may feel that if they want to know badly enough to monopolize my time like that, they should also be willing to compensate me for my time. I don’t do this routinely however, and rarely in the case when I think the other party is being honest in his approach.

For those playing along at home, here’s an example of what Starving Artist apparently considers to be a dishonest and unreasonable request for evidence:

First, the claim made by Starving Artist:

@Starving_Artist

What I do for the most part is offer opinions…opinions and observations. And so quite natually when I say something like “many people confuse evolution and abiogenesis largely because liberals have been proclaiming for years that creationism isn’t responsible for life on this planet, evolution is”, and some bozo comes along demanding cites to that effect from the scientific community, I roll my eyes and ignore them because I’m clearly talking about the types of liberals one finds around here and on television talk shows or elsewhere in public discourse and not members of the scientific community. I do find it amusing however, and something of a victory for me, when my opponents are reduced to these kinds of desperate and dishonest maneuvers.

Here’s my response:

@mhendo

Presumably, if liberals blurring the distinction between abiogenesis and evolution is so prevalent that it is responsible for “many people” confusing the two, then surely you can provide us with at least a couple of examples in places where people might have been likely to see them, and thus influenced by them.

I mean, a claim about influence, especially on a national scale (which is what you’re making here), should at least be able to turn up a little bit of evidence in the historical record, surely? I don’t even expect the evidence to come from the scientific community. I’d happy if you could provide some from “around here and on television talk shows or elsewhere in public discourse.”

And here’s the dope’s request for cash:

@Starving_Artist

It seems to me that if I’m going to have to waste my time copying and pasting links to something so painfully obvious, it ought to be worth my time somehow. Either of you guys willing to cough up some dough for every example I can find where liberals frame the question as creationism vs. evolution? Say, $20 per cite? I’ll even limit my cites to those with a national forum and you’ll still lose your ass.

I’ll leave you readers to make up your mind whether or not my request for examples (hell, even a single example would have been fine) was a reasonable one in the context of that debate.

It is interesting to note, though, that Starving Artist believed that the truth of his claim was “so painfully obvious” that finding evidence would be a waste of time, and yet finding evidence was apparently also such a chore that he would require $20 per citation to even attempt it.

The guy’s a walking case of cognitive dissonance. Among other things.

@Starving_Artist

What you really mean is that I refuse to play your obfuscatory little games and it drives you to distraction.

If by “obfuscatory little games” you mean “rational discourse,” yes. This is another example of the Starving Artist newspeak machine in action. Anything that challenges his worldview and his made-up “facts” is, by definition, “obfuscatory.”

It’s also hilarious the way that SA is constantly claiming victory trophy for himself in these debates. The only way that would ever happen is if they gave out trophies to everyone, even the slow kids, just for turning up. You’d definitely get the “special” trophy, SA.