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Author
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Topic: John A. Davison: An Evolutionary Manifesto: A New Hypothesis For Organic Change
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John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
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posted 04. September 2006 12:45
It seems that the "Darwimps," as I affectionately call them, are going to continue their long tradition of assuming that their adversaries do not now and never have existed. I have, here as elsewhere, given them plenty of opportunities to counter my claims and convictions. Their silence speaks volumes as to their insecurity. Perhaps they have other excuses. I would love to hear them. I also hear nothing from the "Fundies" either, although in general I am much more in agreement with them than with the atheist chance-happy "Darwimps."
On another positive note, let me say that I am pleasantly surprised I haven't been banned yet. I sure did expect it. That is the usual sequel to the personal attack, denigration, insult and extraneous nasty defamation that I have experienced here as elsewhere on internet forums. It is an old story and one I have learned to expect and appreciate as it indicates I have "reached out and touched someone" don't you know.
Furthermore, if I can't evoke any rational responses and must carry on what is becoming a monologue, that suits me fine too. I take what I can get in the wonderful ephemeral and basically meaningless world of internet forums. I often do this sort of thing, wherever I am permitted, as preparation for presentation in the only science venue that really matters, journal publications destined for a permanent place in the libraries of the world. Books don't necessarily mean as much as they were often produced to make money for both the authors and their publishers and not to enlighten.
Having said that, I feel that the four greatest books ever published as evolutionary literature were Berg's, "Nomogenesis" which I would rate number one, followed in no particular order by Goldschmidt's "The Material Basis of Evolution, Grasse's "Evolution of Living Organisms" and Schindewolf's "Basic Questions in Paleontology." None of these and probably all together would even approach the sales of any one of the several books by Richard Dawkins or Stephen Jay Gould. Of that I am certain.
Thanks to whoever is in charge for allowing me to continue holding forth like this. Based on my experience on other internet forums, I certainly did not expect it. I say hurrah for "Brainstorms," "Davison's last stand" in the wonderful world of cyberspace!
I love it so!
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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Martin
Member
Member # 2001
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posted 04. September 2006 13:53
quote:
Admit it, John. You're a poster boy for why tenure is a bad idea. Utter lack of ambition and willingness to live on a sub-standard wage. Note I'm not bashing anyone that has been kind to you, which is something only a cowardly dwarf would do. I'm taking it straight to the horse's ass himself.
I do not see a point. There were plenty of great men, that lived in very bad conditions, having no money but having big debts instead. Remember genius Fyodor M. Dostoevsky, whose salary was only half as his contemporary Turgenev (or Tolstoy) for the same amount of pages. Also utter lack of ambition and willingness to live on a sub-standard wage?
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John A. Davison
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posted 04. September 2006 16:47
Thank you Martin. Your points were well expressed.
I regard my experience with the University of Vermont as one of my greatest achievements. It demonstrated that when blind ideology encounters reasoned science that ideology invariably carries the day but never will win the battle for the truth.
If I had wanted to become a millionaire, or to achieve early retirement, or to spend the rest of life writing science fiction, I would never have entered the world of academic science.
They wouldn't have driven me out at 72 if they hadn't already taken my laboratory away from me, denied me the classroom and a lot of other sordid matters which I will not discuss. They even ordered a psychiatric examination which I passed with flying colors only to discover that they demanded another one which I also passed much to their bitter disappointment and my unbounded delight.
Also I was never denied tenure or sacked either no matter what anyone claims either here or anywhere else. Those are blatant lies. Furthermore, I am an Emeritus Professor of Biology from the University of Vermont exactly as my email address procaims. The fact that they refuse to acknowledge that is an academic scandal inexcusable by any standard. If I live long enough, they will most certainly regret it. I will see to it that it never happens to another Professor who retires from the University of Vermont. It is one of my stated objectives. Just remember that you heard it here first. The administration of the University of Vermont has done to me exactly what the chance-intoxicated, mutation-worshipping Darwinian mystics have also done with all their critics as well. I, like my many sources, am not allowed to exist. It is an old story and it will continue I am sure but not for much longer.
Let me also add that I was publishing support for Intelligent Design when the so called Intelligent Design movement hadn't been conceived yet, let alone initiated. My work still remains unmentioned by those who now dominate that faction of the evoluton debate, a debate which in my carefully considered opinion should never have begun. When something is introduced for debate as the IDists did, "debate teams" spring up like mushrooms and, like all debates, nothing is ever resolved. There is no "Intelligent Design inference" either. Intelligent Design is obvious to any scientist who ever objectively examined nature either in the field or in the experimental laboratory. If you examine the ID spokespersons, most of them did neither. You can say exactly the same thing about the primary supporters of the Darwinian myth. Both factions have been dominated by armchair theoreticians more interested in gaining notoriety than seeking the truth. The history of science is littered with them and probably always will be.
As for Uncommon Descent, I am not even allowed to view their proceedings. That speaks loud and clear as to their insecurity just as it does at ARN. I can at least enjoy viewing the mindless inanity that characterizes forums like EvC, Panda's Dislocated Pollex and a host of other blogs from which I have been proud to have been banned, hopefully for life.
Once again I thank "brainstorms" for this opportunity to hold forth.
"Study Nature not books."
Louis Agassiz
"We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled"
Montaigne
"If you tell the truth, you can be certain, sooner or later, to be found out."
Oscar Wilde
"Meine Zeit wird schon kommen!"
Gregor Mendel
There now, I feel somewhat better. Thank you Martin for giving me this opportunity.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
[ 06. September 2006, 06:20: Message edited by: John A. Davison ]
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John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
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posted 05. September 2006 00:22
What I would like to know is exactly what do William Dembski and Denyse O'Leary hope to expect from me by denying me not only participation but even viewing priveleges at Uncommon Descent - my undying respect? Even the Darwimps at Panda's Thumb allow me to view their foolish gossip parties. It makes Uncommon Descent look rather common if you ask me.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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DaveScot
Member
Member # 1545
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posted 05. September 2006 06:23
John,
O'Leary and Dembski had nothing to do with your latest banishment at UD. It was me. I consulted with no one. Also consulting with no one I have now restored your ability to read and comment on Uncommon Descent. Be forewarned I won't put up with any of your paranoid bullshit, personal attacks on me, or off-color language. If anything you write is inflammatory or (directly or indirectly) refers to sex, bodily fluids, or the like that parents wouldn't want their small children to hear then you'll be banned for good. Restoring your papers on the sidebar is a long job and I'm not willing to spend 8 hours again reformatting it for display there. Let it be an object lesson to you that when you say things that piss people off there are consequences. The consequence in this case is I'm not willing to sacrifice my time again to help you get what you desire.
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DaveScot
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Member # 1545
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posted 05. September 2006 06:33
And before you ask, Dembski restored all the adminstrative control to me that I had in the past. I'll try to exercise it in a less heavy handed manner. No more marking up comments with my comments. You all were right that it was unsightly (defacing) and I realize that now that I've seen the blog again from a regular user's point of view. Mibad. No one's perfect.
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 05. September 2006 07:45
Well thank you so much David Springer.
I am not at all sure I am even interested in posting at Uncommon Descent ever again as long as you are the blogczar there. As for your threats, they bore me as fast as you present them. They always have.
I seem to have misplaced my user name and password, so would you please email those to me on the outside chance that I might change my mind about participating ever again at Uncommon Descent as long as you are in charge there? I don't suffer congenital bullies much. I never have.
I hope you can understand, but if you can't that is fine too. I also suggest that you restore to the side bar all my several papers that you removed in one of your chronic fits of uncontrolled pique. After all, you are the one who proudly placed them there. It is only fitting that you should put them back. If you refuse that simple request, that is fine too. It is only what can be expected from David Springer, the biggest bully in cyberspace.
You are a great liability to the "Intelligent Design movement" of William Dembski and continue to prove it here as elsewhere with your insufferable behavior and pontificating, condescending manners. Why he tolerates you is a mystery.
To employ one of your favorite phrases -
"Got that? Write that down!"
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undeniable."
John A. Davison
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 05. September 2006 09:56
Woops. I goofed with my signature. Things like that happen when one gets upset don't you know.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution UNDEMONSTRABLE."
John A. Davison
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 05. September 2006 15:15
I see that I can once again view Uncommon Descent. Apparently my request to be able to present messages has been met as well.
I have no intention of commenting at Uncommon Descent until my only additional request is also satisfied. I have repeatedly asked Dembski to see to it that my several papers which I published over the course of 22 years be replaced on the side board where David Springer had proudly placed them only to later purge all of them from the archives of Uncommon Descent. It is as if they were never there.
My position is very simple. Everything in those several papers speaks strongly in support of Intelligent Design. That support is in the form of documented facts and not mere surmise or inference. What is there is not subject to debate and has never been challenged in the professional literature. Furthermore there is nothing in those papers that in any way reflects poorly on my honesty, my integity or any other aspect of my personality now or then.
Nevertheless, David Springer found it necessary to remove those several papers from the side bar and has several times ignored my request to return them.
I understand that Dembski has reestablished Springer in the capacity of blogczar responsible for decisions regarding deletion, bannishment and the management of Uncommon Descent generally. He acts as "moderator" of what will and what will not be allowed to be presented.
I find it remarkable that someone as transparently "immoderate" as David Springer should be granted that authority for the second time. And so I, for the last time, implore Dembski to respond to my only and very simple request.
I regard myself as not only a Creationist but a strong champion for what to me is an obvious feature of the living world which is that it was designed. Am I to believe that there is no need for my presence in a forum presumably dedicated to exactly the same proposition? So it seems to this investigator. I can understand why I have been banned from forums and blogs dedicated to the Darwinian fairy tale. However I cannot understand why I should be isolated from a forum dedicated to exactly the same purposes that I share. Yet that is precisely what has happened at Uncommon Descent.
The only reason I can see for this remarkable sort of intellectual schizophrenia must be a personal one and most certainly it is not professional. Indeed the personalities of participants in reasoned intellectual discourse are of no consequence anyway and never have been.
Yet as Dembski's personally reappointed blogczar, David Springer has repeatedly introduced matters of personality into his messages presented both at Uncommon Descent and everywhere else he has posted, including most recently here at "brainstorms." He has impugned my honesty, my competence and my objectivity and much more and gotten away with it countless times.
I submit that such a person has no business in the role of "moderator" in any forum anywhere. He has even impugned the character of O'Leary who I had assumed was his successor as moderator at Uncommon Descent. Apparently I was mistaken.
And so I request for the last time that Dembski do what should have been done long ago which is to reestablish my 22 years of scholarship to the Archives of Uncommon Descent, to the position it deserves as strong evidence for Intelligent Design. Whatever is permitted to take place on any forum is ultimately the responsibilty of the sponsors of that forum, in this care Dembski and O'Leary at least as I understand it. Of course I might be wrong.
I have more internet adversaries than probably any other person in the history of the origins debate, a debate I feel should never have taken place. Every paper I have published over the course of the last several years pleads loud and clear for a planned universe both living and dead, extant and extinct. If there is no place for my work at Uncommon Descent, that will soon become apparent should my papers fail to reappear. Now in the twilight of my scientific career, one more enemy more or less is of no consequence to me as I know I am on the right track as I always have been. There is no middle ground in the search for the truth. As the old saying goes -
"You're either fer me or agin me."
Which is it to be?
"All great truths begin as blasphemies."
George Bernard Shaw
"If you tell the truth, you can be certain, sooner or later, to be found out."
Oscar Wilde
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
[ 05. September 2006, 17:59: Message edited by: John A. Davison ]
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 05. September 2006 17:48
Now that I can view UD again, I will be looking for those papers on the side bar. Until they are present there will be no comment from me at Uncommon Descent. I will offer my comments elsewhere.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
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posted 05. September 2006 21:49
While I wait for that which will probably never transpire, perhaps someone would care to comment on the presumed subject of this thread which is a brand new hypothesis for the great mystery of organic evolution.
As nearly as I can understand or demonstrate, this new hypothesis is being totally ignored by not only the Darwinian atheists but by those who, like myself, am convinced that there was a purpose and a Plan behind evolution, a process which I believe is no longer in progress beyond the relatively trivial generation of varieties and subspecies, neither of which are examples of creative evolution. Quite the contrary all naturally or artificially produced varieties would seem to me to be degenerative in character, resulting in reduced viability and fecundity, apparently leading now as in the past toward inevitable extinction. Mendelian genetics had nothing to do with creative evolution just as Bateson anticipated when he described the science he helped found as -
"a 'blind alley' which would not throw any light on the differentiation of species, nor on evolution in general." J.A. Davison, Rivista di Biologia 86-1: 101-111, 1993.
What I find especially revealing is that it is not only the Darwinian atheists that pretend this new hypothesis does not exist. It is also being ignored by all those who, like myself, feel that all of both ontogeny and phylogeny have resulted from a Plan, a word Robert Broom had the temerity to capitalize. Could that be because Broom was not prepared to accept the Biblical and young earth intepretation of organic evolution? I am sure that, like myself, he had also rejected such an explanation for the greatest unexplained phenomenon in all of biological science. I can only conclude that the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis (PEH) is just as unacceptable to the Fundamentalist Christian camp as it is to the atheist Darwinian one. How else can I explain the failure of Uncommon Descent to restore my several papers to the Archives of their organization? Discovery Institute has had no difficulty doing that which Uncommon Descent has apparently found to be completely out of the question.
I no longer wonder why. It can be traced to the prejudices and actions of a single person - David Springer, once again the principal blogczar at Dembski and O'Leary's Uncommon Descent. It is very unfortunate for the future credibility of that forum. If that can not be remedied I will do everything in my power to explain why such a transparently unprofessional action ever became necessary. It was purely for personal reasons, reasons which continue to be displayed here and elsewhere. There is no place for such actions and when they occur they seriously damage those who find them necessary for whatever reason. It is very unfortunate when scientific inquiry is marred by anyone who finds such tactics necessary and it should never be tolerated. It is a mark of great insecurity, an insecurity little different from that exhibited by the atheist Darwinian establishment. Pride is one of the cardinal sins and I can conceive of no other justification for his actions or his intractable refusal to correct them. He is obviously incapable of ever having made a mistake. The responsibility resides of course with the nominal sponsors of the forum, Dembski and O'Leary and with no one else.
"If you tell the truth, you can be certain, sooner or later, to be found out."
Oscar Wilde
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
[ 05. September 2006, 22:03: Message edited by: John A. Davison ]
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John A. Davison
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posted 05. September 2006 22:26
I just had a "brainstorm".
Since Springer, in his usual arrogant style, has absolutely refused my request, perhaps Dembski or some other soul at Uncommon Descent would see the virtue of honoring my simple request: but then perhaps not. Being by nature an experimentalist, I am confident we will soon see the result of my proposal. I can conceive of no ambiguous result. That is always the mark of a good experiment don't you know.
A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
[ 06. September 2006, 06:54: Message edited by: John A. Davison ]
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John A. Davison
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posted 06. September 2006 07:56
Since there is a lull here, I would like to express my admiration for the unique way in which topics are presented here at "brainstorms."
In most forums, topics are introduced, discussed feverishly and then they disappear into the sunset at the bottom of the page, typically to never be heard from again. "Brainstorms" has the unique characteristic of allowing past threads to be instantly revived. Threads are naturally ordered as interest in them dictates. It is a vastly superior method to that employed by most blogs and forums. I am grateful that I could take advantage of that property when my Manifesto was summarily eliminated from discussion at Uncommon Descent. I would like to see other forums employ the same system as it is vastly superior to what most of them now use.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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John A. Davison
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posted 06. September 2006 13:02
I see a stony silence continues, which I take to be a good sign. That was the fate of Berg, Broom, Goldschmidt, Schindewolf, Grasse and Bateson as well. I am honored to be in such distinguished company. It has always been the practice of the Darwinians to imagine that their critics never existed. For a very long time they have gotten away with it, largely through the effort of science fiction writers like Mayr, Gould and Dawkins.
What is being revealed here is quite remarkable because exactly the same tactic is now being used with respect to myself when I am obviously both a Creationist and a strong proponent of Intelligent Design. This time it seems to be the result of the influence of David Springer who has once again achieved the position of blogczar at Uncommon Descent. By his own admission he decides what will and will not be allowed at Uncommon Descent and seems to enjoy that power immensely as he has publicly displayed right here at "brainstorms" and elsewhere. He has made it indelibly clear that he will not permit the restoration of my several papers, papers that he had proudly introduced when he described me with "my good friend Professor John Davison," only subsequently to purge them from Uncommon Descent with the promise that he would restore them "in memorium" as a celebration of my death. He also proudly stated that he intended to urinate on my grave, except that he used the common "piss" rather than the more civilized "urinate." He used the same vulgar verb just a few posts back right here at brainstorms without a word of warning from anyone. No one will ever urinate on my grave Springer because there won't be one. My carcass is scheduled to be directed to the Medical Anatomy class laboratory for dissection. That is if they want it. Otherwise an ordinary incineration will do just fine which is what happens eventually anyway. There will be no grave and accordingly no urinating on it.
Isn't he precious? As near as I am able to ascertain this is the man who now controls every aspect of the administration of Uncommon Descent.
What is even more remarkable is the fact that both O'Leary and Dembski, the sponsors of Uncommon Descent, have twice given this authority to a man who long ago earned the reputation as the biggest bully in cyberspace, a man who will go to any length to discredit anyone who challenges his views and does so in the most base manner imaginable as he has so dramatically demonstrated time and time again. It is his stock and trade. He has been allowed by Dembski and O'Leary to do all of this without even a word of caution as to his methods and his language. They might as well surrender the whole of Uncommon Descent to Springer who apparently has cowed them into a position of subservient impotence. As far as I am concerned, if my papers do not reappear on the side board, my present characterization of Uncommon Descent will stand as an established fact.
As I have often said -
It is hard to believe isn't it?
and as I have also often said -
I love it so!
"All great truths begin as blasphemies."
George Bernard Shaw
"Silence is golden."
Thomas Carlyle.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
[ 06. September 2006, 13:08: Message edited by: John A. Davison ]
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Catfish Khan
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Member # 537
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posted 06. September 2006 13:59
John
On your 64th post here: Uncommon Descent , you write "Of course abiogenesis is impossible NOW". Do you literally mean it is impossible, or do you just mean that it is simply unecessary now?
Dave
[ 06. September 2006, 14:00: Message edited by: Catfish Khan ]
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