[Coral-List] Political arguments on coral list

Pedro H. Rodríguez phernanrod at yahoo.com
Mon May 26 13:19:32 EDT 2014


I do not agree with Gene Shinn's strategy of attack and retreat, especially given his propensity to incite readers of the list by posting arguments that don't stand much of a chance when confronted. I have been waiting for his reply to recent criticisim, but all I've seen is a few other people come to his defense. He should adopt debating methods that are fair to all sides.. I don't recall a debate competition where one of the participants was given a chance to hide his head under the sand while his viewpoint was being debunked, and then appear a few months later with exactly the same argument. What is the point of this, besides relying on time to blur memories, and how is this different than what politicians do when presenting a fresh persona? This is not the nature of serious scientific debate- the kind that this list encourages.

Pedro  



On Tuesday, May 20, 2014 12:37 PM, Pedro H. Rodríguez <phernanrod at yahoo.com> wrote:
 


While I value discussions related to corals that go beyond science, I agree with Doug Fenner that posts whose aim or consequence is to mislead should not be part of what the list posts. Regarding specific posts that Doug mentions, articles published by lobbying groups with the sole intention of influencing policy, and which disregard the latest science, are touted as "peer-reviewed", and given the same weight as articles based on solid science. Yes, yes..... even "solid science" is biased, the author of those posts will argue, because the authors selected the subject subjectively, and blah, blah, blah..... But the aim of coral-list is not to argue these points and confound the issues, for the sake of just arguing. People have better things to do.

Pedro


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