"Anon."  wrote in news:cl65sn$ave$1
{at}darwin.ediacara.org:

 
> Just to set the record straight on what I feel constitutes abuse, it 
> does include questioning my professional competence, for example:
> 
> "How can anybody who has a BSc in statistics and
> a PhD in quantitative biology not know that random
> processes ... _cannot_ be eliminated from
> a natural population? Has Dr O'Hara been misusing models
> for so long that he cannot discriminate between testable
> reality and just his oversimplified "quantitative
> biology" models?"
> (from the 5th of October)
> 
> Some other choice quotes (from 2nd October, or earlier in the same 
> thread), which I also take to be abusive:
> "Dr O'Hara's reply seems to be completely confused. "
> "Dr O'Hara's protest that: "It was a statement, or a
recommendation" 
> remains absurd via his own logic: ..."
> "Dr O'Hara's arrogance knows no bounds. "
> "Where did Dr O'Hara obtain his PhD? Please tell us so students can 
> avoid this school!"
> "Can Dr O'Hara follow a simple argument? "
> "Clearly Dr O'Hara does not have a clue about what this experiment is 
> actually about: ..."
> "None of Dr O'Hara's responses demonstrate any ability to understand 
the 
> simple biological experiment that I have proposed. "
> 
> Now, there are substansive scientific points on which John and I 
> disagree, and it may well be that John is correct on some points.  But 
> if we are going to discuss evolutionary biology, then please focus on 
> the issues at stake, and not get into insults and name-calling. 


John is something of a conundrum. He is neither stupid nor ignorant. But 
he is singularly single-minded, and has an unfortunate tendency (shared 
by many humans, including myself) to lapse into calumny when his 
arguments are challenged.  I gave up responding to John some time ago, 
even though he raises some good arguments, because of his single-
mindedness. I suggest you do the same. What we need to do is get into 
some good arguments between ourselves so we can both satisfy our desire 
for intellectual discussion. I think this may be difficult  because we 
tend to agree, but here goes: bipedalism in humans is simply a result of 
drift - our ancestors could have as easily switched to knuckle-walking.


Yours,

Bill Morse
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