Thursday, May 01, 2008

The Derbyshire Challenge: Is there a creativity crisis among Darwinists?

I will have to reiterate the rule about comments on my previous post about John Derbyshire's review of "Expelled" in National Review: You cannot have read the post if you want to comment. Your comments must be based on second hand information and hearsay--just like Derbyshire's review of "Expelled". I had to reject a post today that wanted me to know how "batsh*t crazy" I was.

This may very well be true, but the anonymous author admitted that he had, in fact, read the post. So into the ether it went.

Tsk, tsk.

Only one comment has met my challenge, betraying a clear indication that the author had not read the post. I'm disappointed by the lack of creativity on the part of all the ID critics who frequent this blog. Surely you can match Derbyshire's inventiveness in being able to write a confident sounding opinion of something you did not actually read or see.

I have not, however, given up hope...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Way back when, I asked Martin about the cost, to him, of the domestic partner benefits packages offered by some universities in Kentucky. Martin's response has been cleverly buried in his blog, but I know what he would say. Martin is all bent out of shape over less than $5 or so, because this horrid quantity will destroy his family, as well as those of all good and proper Kentuckians. Those awful people are going to toss the proverbial straw on poor Martin's back and destroy the basic fabric of pure Christian decency in this country (or at least our God-fearin' Commonwealth).

Well, Martin, we all feel fer ya. I offered to reimburse you the cash, and my offer still stands. I'm afraid I'm not quite up to the task of saving your marriage. Maybe PZ and his new-found prayin' mania can help.

Martin Cothran said...

Art,

I'm fairly certain that if I was trying to be clever that I would actually remember burying something in my blog, so maybe you would care to point out where I did this amazing thing.

In regard to the main point, however, the issue isn't how much it is costing each individual taxpayer (although one wonders how it might affect tuition-paying students at UK if they end up spending $630,000 per year on it, which is UK's own estimate). The point is why they are paying any money for it at all--particularly when proponents of the policies claimed during the debate that the cost would be borne solely by the employees and their spouses.

And then there is James Ramsey who flat out lied about whether U of L was subsidizing its plan benefits to a legislative committee (Go ahead, ask me for proof of that claim, I dare you).

Anonymous said...

"Surely you can match Derbyshire's inventiveness in being able to write a confident sounding opinion of something you did not actually read or see."

I'm just sayin' ...

Anonymous said...

Now for the main point.

I don't believe taxpayers or students are paying anything for domestic partner benefits. At UK for health coverage, at least, it's my understanding that the only benefit is that employees may enroll in family plans that would cover their partners. UK doesn't subsidize the difference between single and family coverage (as far as I know). So this only gives employees access to the rates that UK negotiates with health providers. There is no cost to taxpayers or tuition payers for this.

(Martin probably wants to argue that this is affecting his insurance premiums in some way, but that's just a lot of hot air. He hasn't an iota of real data that would support such a ludicrous claim.)

I don't know as much about the other public universities, but I would hazard a guess that Ramsey said nothing inaccurate or misleading.

Anonymous said...

(Keeping with the spirit ...)

I see how Martin has graciously agreed with my last comment (of course, in another comment that he has buried so that it cannot be read, but that's OK). This is a refreshing turn of events, such a simply-stated point of agreement. By waiting until this thread is near the bottom of the page, I'm hoping that his handlers at the DI don't discover that he has violated one of their basic rules - never, ever, EVER admit that a Darwinianist is correct about anything.

(Ooops - wrong debate. Oh well, I'm sure Martin will figure it out.)