On Fri, Jan 24, 2003 at 08:31:07AM -0800, Nick Arnett wrote: > I don't think this is intended to be a place for such debate. We > don't have any structure on the list to manage it,
No "list structure" would be required. As I mentioned in my post, each person would post a "letter", perhaps once a week, laying out the important points and giving references. > although your call for a referee would head us that way, which is not > necessarily a bad thing... The main job of the referee would be to see that everything went smoothly, no replies or points were missed, etc. > but it would be a rather large leap from an almost-anything-goes > discussion, which I regard as brainstorming, to some kind of formal > disputation forum, as DB says. No, not much of a leap at all, if both parties agreed to it. And a perfectly reasonable one, given the subject under discussion. > It's something of a relief to see a bit of a flame war crop up without > the participation of the usual suspect, but hey, guys, can you both > try to lower the heat level? No, I won't. I re-read my posts before I send them, and I obviously didn't see a problem or I would have rewritten them. > I see name-calling and there's no call for that. Please cite a case in this discussion where I called anyone insulting names gratuitously. > It's dangerously close to being personal attacks. Obviously, I disagree. So, are you planning to take pre-emptive action against personal attacks? If there haven't been personal attacks, but YOU think there MIGHT be personal attacks that MIGHT occur SOMETIME in the future, then you will act? If so, then you are moderating the list, which I object to. If you don't intend to take pre-emptive action but just make these silly comments, then you should know that I will ignore such comments from you in the future, because I don't intend to make any personal attacks. I check my messages before sending to make certain I don't say anything that I didn't intend. > And now, a completely personal request... could you each state your > positions in brief? I'm lost. _Skeptical Environmentalist_ by Bjoern Lomborg presents an interesting viewpoint about environmentalist claims, makes some apparently reasonable counter claims and gives references to relevant studies. Lomborg has been unfairly attacked by a number of people for, as far as I can tell, daring to give the environmental literature a critical reading and offering an alternative viewpoint. It seems to me that there could be two reasonable responses by Lomborg's critics: (1) write detailed critiques of Lomborg's points with references to scientific literature, possibly in book form, or (2) for a scientist, pick one or more of Lomborg's points, perform the necessary experiments and modeling to prove the point wrong, and publish the study in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. But I am not aware of any of the critics employing either of these approaches. -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
