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Folks,
I agree with those that would like this forum to spend less [not no time] on the creation isssue.
I am interested in the issues and am some one who walks sometimes to a bit of a different beat. I am evangelical and interested in scholarly science and philosophy and history of science. I also am list ownder of two list for scientists and for a while was active on the ASA list (Christiians who are scientists - a group really concerned about doing good scientists most of whom are NOT youg earth folks). So I am speaking from experience of someone who has seen lists lose their usefulness by changing their character and Paleonet has lately been changing its character.
Let me suggest the following.
1. It is easy for a list to degenerate into a talk or chat group (maybe especially if it is a topic close to our hearts). It might have been good to have heard on the list about the IMAX theater but we don't need all the threads on the topic.
2. When a list has been on topic as this list has, I know the messages will be serious questions related to paleontolgy. This has been great for a chap that teaches paleontology in a small college in NW Iowa. I found a community that helped me identify a pliosaurid and answered basic questions that were outside my area of expertise. I and most others respected that and hesitated to engage the whole community in chat.
3. Much of the posts on creationism have gone little further than saying I am worried about US trends. I hear little mention of scholars like Ron Numbers that have studied Creationism or first class evangelical scholars like Alvin Plantinga that have addressed the issue. My thinking is that a lot of creationism of the young earth stripe is layscience and not really pseudoscience but this is not a place for me to post about it. Yes I am suggesting that to be fruitful in our anaysis of US creationism we need to move beyound the chat level, but that would be more fruitfully done on a forum focused on that issue.
In past paleonet has not had to have suggestions on posting. May I at least suggest that:
We try and keep the list somewhat on topic.
If we post off topic think if someone else has said the same thing. Once a group becomes chatty it is way to easy to say I agree. Save your posts for something new or different on the topic.
The next step in degeneration in lists is for those who like to hear themselves talk always posting to the list. So far that has not happenned but it will if this forum becomes to chatty.
James Mahaffy ( mahaffy@dordt.edu) Phone: 712 722-6279 498 4th Ave NE Biology Department FAX : 712 722-6336 Dordt College, Sioux Center IA 51250-1697 >>> lepark@uakron.edu 04/05/05 11:52 AM >>>
Dear All--
Having started this thread back in November, I feel incumbent to weigh in on its relevance to Paleonet.
I just attended a wonderful symposium at Yale, dedicated to Dolf Seilacher, entitled: Evolving Form and Function: Fossils and Development. While the symposium was populated by remarkable contributions from evolutionary biology and paleobiology on this topic, informal conversations (none of which was initiated by me!) during coffee breaks and dinner kept turning toward Creationism/ID, indicating that ID and the attack on Evolution is a worthy topic of conversation amongst people interested in paleontology and evolution. Furthermore, Dolf's own closing remarks mentioned ID and how we must continue discussing and challenging this attack on science. Thus, its relevance, no matter how uncomfortable it may make some feel, is quite real.
Just as I do not open or read messages on topics that I am not that interested in, I would recommend that others do the same for ID. The attack on Evolution in the US is a real threat to our science and to thinking people around the world. It is my hope that people who do not suffer this same circumstance find some sympathy and perhaps offer some support or suggestions as to how to combat it. We are, after all, part of the same community, which is without borders.
Lisa
Dear PaleoNetters,
Sandy Leo has hit the nail right on the head. A subject is ‘on topic’ if messages keep being posted. If it is ‘off topic’ nobody replies. After all, PaleoNet is not an organisation like GA or BGS, it is us! Therefore what interests some of us is ‘on topic’, no matter how obscure or annoying to others. If any or all of us were allowed to proscribe particular topics, then PaleoNet would be the lesser for it. If you are not interested in a particular topic, don’t whinge about it, just use the bloody delete key! Have those who whinge about particular topics ever stopped to consider that what they are whingeing about may be very pertinent to someone’s livelihood? Have they ever thought that their most treasured interest may be as boring as chiropteran excrement to others! It all gets down to tolerance; a commodity much too rare in today’s world.
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GEOSCIENCE AUSTRALIA
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