From: Burch Seymour
From: bseymour@encore.com (Burch Seymour)

There are times in life, when one sees a deal that is too good to be true
for example, that one must back up and try to see the bigger picture.
If someone calls you and offers to send you a cashiers check for
$50,000, but first we need your charge card number, the picture becomes
much clearer.

However, when one sees individuals holdin' on to out dated ideas and
crackpot science the motivations are not so clear. Whenever I see or
hear something that turns on my reality check light, I try to figure
out who is making money from this "thing".

I can see for example that as science progresses, more and more of
the things that used to be "acts of God" or articles of faith are
being eroded down to textbook phenomena. Lightning and thunder are
still to be respected, not as the wrath of the gods, but as potentially
dangerous electrical activity. So when the mysticism starts to leave
religion, the big money churches start looking for something to hold
on to as the focus of the faith. Thus was begat "creationism." Big
ministries need big money, and that requires keeping people in their
hold. If too many of their stories are proven to be just folklore, the
audience leaves. We've already seen how well *some* of the TV evangelists
practice their preachings. (I don't mean to imply any generality here,
I'm sure there are some genuinely fine people in this business, but some
of these guys are just pond scum!)

Now to the point at hand. Some folks are just born to be trouble makers.
They sit at home and look for ways to stir things up. Gives them some kind
of cheap thrill that they've wasted some important folks time by causing
them to argue about "Their theory of the origins of the universe". The
more radical and outlandish, the better. By taking a hodge podge of
information from a variety of sources (some credible, many not) one
can "prove" damn near anything. Then you sit back and watch the stuffed
shirts have kittens trying to refute you. The great part about it is,
the Trouble Maker never has to prove anything. He can just say
"I don't choose to believe that!" and call up some "great conspiracy"
amongst scientists to back up his contention that some obvious thing
is false. This sends the stuffed shirts back into paroxysms of rebuttals.
Great FUN!

So here's the scoop (from my point of view). Never argue with fanatics.
They are either out to just goad you into blowing your cool or are
so far 'round the bend that you'll never change their point of view
anyway. The debates are not very productive and waste bandwidth better
devoted to more useful discussions.

This debate reminds me of an episode of M*A*S*H in which a visiting
person made Charles grovel about everything. If Winchester tried
to talk about wine, this guy one-upped him. In fact, in every case
the guy one-upped Winchester. Then at the end we found out he was
a son of a limo driver who had just picked up a lot of gab from hanging
around snobby people. BUT He drove Charles to distraction trying to
outdo him. The same thing seems to be going on here. One group trying
to play by the "rules" of an objective, provable, evidence based,
scientific method. The other playing by no rules. Discounting valid
data when it doesn't suit their needs. Using data from similar sources
when it does. Depending on the writings of a lunatic as valid science.
Using ancient folk tales, passed on verbally for who knows how long,
as documented facts. (Jeez, we can't even figure out who shot JFK,
how in the heck are we supposed to separate fact from fiction in
5000-year-old folk legends)

Anyway, my point (and I'm almost done with this babble) is ignore the
gibberish fountains. They are using you for entertainment.