[EM] Very brief Russ reply

[Paul Kislanko]

Would you guys both take the discussion offlist? Please?  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: election-methods-electorama.com-bounces at electorama.com 
> [mailto:election-methods-electorama.com-bounces at electorama.com
] On Behalf Of MIKE OSSIPOFF
> Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 4:18 PM
> To: election-methods at electorama.com
> Subject: [EM] Very brief Russ reply
> 
> 
> Russ said:
> 
> I made the mistake of trying to persuade him that the 9/11 
> attacks were
> unlikely to have been planned and organized by someone 
> involved with the
> Bush Administration. However, I cannot "prove" that it wasn't, which
> apparently means to Mike that I have tried and failed to "refute" this
> conspiracy theory.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> First, a conspiracy occurs whenever 2 or more people agree to 
> commit a 
> crime. Thousands of people go to jail for conspiracies. No 
> one doubts that 
> 9/11 was a conspiracy by that standard definition. It's just 
> a question of 
> whether a few foreign indivuduals successfully conspired to 
> do 9/11 on their 
> own, a particularly improbable conspiracy theory, and one 
> contradicted by 
> mountains of evidence.
> 
>   Russ continued:
> 
> What I *can* do, however, is to demonstrate that such a 
> conspiracy would
> be massive in its scope
> 
> I reply:
> 
> No one has denied that.
> 
> Russ continued:
> 
> and absurdly risky for anyone to attempt.
> 
> I reply:
> 
>   Russ is repeating a replied-to argument without referring 
> to the reply, a 
> common practice of Russ's, but one whilch violates this 
> mailing list's 
> guidelines (as does his bringing up 9l/11).
> 
> Maybe it wasn't so risky when considering the gullibility of 
> the public, and 
> the media's support for the president.
> 
> Russ continued:
> 
> As I wrote before, Mike believes passionately that the WTC was wired
> with explosives that were detonated
> 
> I reply:
> 
>   Passionately? I didn't say that. I believe that apparently ordinary 
> explosive demolition is consistent with the physical evidence 
> and witness 
> reports, and the opinions of fire-protection experts, and that the 
> administration's story of collapse by fire is inconsistent with that 
> evidence. But it isn't entirely clear where Russ gets 
> "passionately". Except 
> that, as I said, Russ says things that give him satisfaction 
> to hear himself 
> say, without regard to other considerations such as what Russ 
> believes to be 
> true.
> 
> Russ continued:
> 
> on cue to bring the buildings down.
> Now, you can amuse yourself without end by imagining the logistics of
> managing something like that without getting caught.
> 
>   I reply:
> 
> A close member of Bush's family was in charge of security 
> there. That could 
> help some.
> 
>   Russ continued:
> 
> 
> But it goes way
> beyond that. In the course of our discussions, I sent Mike a 
> link about
> an analysis of the WTC collapse by a prestigious team of 
> perhaps dozens
> of structural engineering experts. I don't have the link handy, but I
> recall that they won an award for their work.
> 
>   I reply:
> 
> Actuallly I receilved no such link. If Russ had one, he'd 
> have included it 
> in his posting.
> 
> Was their award awarded by the Independent 9/11 Committee? :-)
> 
> Russ continues:
> 
> I haven't read their report, but I think we can safely assume that we
> would know it if they had concluded that the WTC couldn't 
> have collapsed
> as it did without pre-installed explosives. They obviously came to no
> such conclusion. But Mike read a book by a *theologian* who makes that
> very claim -- that the WTC could not have possibly collapsed as it did
> with pre-installed explosives -- and that was good enough for him. He
> dismisses my citing of the professional study as an "appeal 
> to authority."
> 
> I reply:
> 
> What else do you call it? You invoke a link that yoiu don't 
> give us, ans say 
> that it proves your point.
> 
> Russ continued:
> 
> By the way, I should have pointed out earlier that Mike told me via
> email that the EM group is already aware of his views on 9/11.
> 
> I replyi:
> 
>   In one discussion about Gore vs Nader, I conceded that if 
> Gore had been 
> allowed to take the office that he'd won, he wouldn't have 
> paticipated in a 
> terrorist act that killed 3000 Americans, and so a Gore 
> presidency would be 
> significantly better than a Bush presidency. But I that 
> doesn't mean we 
> shoudl vote for Democrats, just because there's somone much worse.
> 
> I'd said:
> 
> "The funny thing is that that comes from someone who believes that the
> evolution of species has never taken place."
> 
>   Russ replied:
> 
> Mike thinks he trumps me whenever he brings up my views on evolution.
> The only problem is that he distorts my views. I never said or wrote
> what he claims.
> hat I have made clear is that I do not believe that we
> could have gotten here by purely naturalistic processes with 
> absolutely
> no intelligent design or guidance (as the Neo-Darwinian Theory of
> Evolution (NDT) says).
> 
> I reply:
> 
> No, actually you were initiallyy saying that no evolution of species 
> happened. You call that "macro-evolution", and you were 
> angrily arguing 
> against it. But yes, later you backed down from that 
> position, replacing it 
> with something conveniently impossible to verify or disprove.
> 
> Ruiss continiued:
> 
> Do you suppose "natural selection" can
> work if a million harmful mutations occur for every beneficial one?
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Where do you get the million figure? I thought you said that 
> no figure was 
> available.
> 
>   No one denies that most mutations reduce the survivability of the 
> individual. But a few increase the individual's 
> survivability. As long as 
> the frequency of the mutations isn't such as to kill off the entire 
> population (and it obviously is not) then the fact that 
> harmful mutations 
> are more common than beneficial ones is irrelevant. A few 
> mutations happen. 
> A few individuals don't survive. A far fewer number are 
> benefited. The 
> benefiting individuals produce more offspring and thereby become more 
> numerous in the population. That's called natural selection.
> 
> Evolution speeded up when sexual reproduction began. Then, 
> variety increased 
> due to shuffling of existing genes.
> 
> When a split-off population is isolated in a new environment, 
> eventuallly 
> those gradual changes can naturallly be expected to make that 
> population 
> reproductively incompatible with the parent population, and 
> with  other 
> offshoot populations. Reproductive incompatibility is the 
> usual standard for 
> a different species. But define different species how you 
> want to. It's 
> hardly surprising that those gradual changes will sometimes 
> change the 
> population enough to make it qualify as a different species.
> 
> I respect people's religion, but Russ wants to substitute his 
> for science. 
> There's nothing iimplausible about natural selection leading 
> to evolution of 
> species.
> 
> Russ continued:
> 
> Radio engineers know that you cannot recover a signal if the
> signal/noise ratio is too low, but evolutionists apparently think that
> "natural selection" can "select" good mutations without being
> overwhelmed by the bad ones *regardless* of the ratio. That's 
> nonsense.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Russ isn't being entirely clear with us about what he means. 
> Experience 
> shows that mutation doesn't happen with sufficient severity 
> and frequency to 
>   kill off entire populations typically, if that's what he's 
> talking about. 
> The few adversely mutated individuals die or doen't do as 
> well. The fewer 
> beneficially mutated individuals do better than the others, 
> and so their 
> attrilbutes eventually predominate, given sufficient time.
> 
> What selects the beneficial mutations from the harmful ones? The 
> beneficially mutated individuals thrive and the adversely 
> mutated ones die, 
> or do poorly. Which part of that doesn't Russ understand?
> 
> Mike Ossipoff
> 
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