Reply To: Questions regarding DPF.

[Rezwan]

Viking Coder wrote: Your choice of words does not show you to be cognizant and capable of critical, independent thought; rather, it shows a pridefully ignorant ideologue who values juvenile insults, cherry-picking sophistry and “I’m not touching you” style threats over rational, primary resource based discussion.

OK Viking Coder, as for ROE, this is also problematic. Well, actually – he’s capable of such thought, and has many lucid moments, he just seems to prefer baiting and such.

So, for me, it’s not about his ignorance or intelligence, and it’s not about primary resource based discussion. It’s more primal. It’s about intentions of engagement. Are you trying to touch the stranger’s mind, or just stomp around and trample them?

Viking Coder wrote: Yes, “people who reference the peer-review published & independently validated research should be put to death” is a threat.

Did he actually say this? Where?

Viking Coder wrote:
Why is that any different than opening threads on evolution through natural selection on a discussion board frequented by a creationist?

I don’t have a problem with that. I think that, if properly moderated, a conversation between creationists and natural selectionists can be very illuminating. As can conversations between any apparently polarized factions. Illuminating about much more than the topic itself.

Being Iranian American, with a Born Again Christian mother and an Mullah Grandfather, with enthusiastic NRA and Libertarian cousins and flaming liberal cousins, and another cousin who is all about “the secret” and the power of positive thinking…I have a lot of experience with dead-end polarizing conversations. They are only dead ends because the participants put a lot of energy into keeping them polarized, and blocking out others. It takes a lot of work – starting with a nice, deep breath – to get these participants to have a real conversation with each other and to see and hear each other.

I’ve done this work, on many occasions, and gotten to different points of insight. It’s really cool, too. Those moments of reflection when a person slips out of position and into that open space…. Of course, after that moment of appreciation, the participants invariably snap back into position. But at least for a moment there was a human connection and a glimmer of understanding and a possible way out of an ideological impasse.