John Edser wrote:
>  "Anon." 
> 
>>
> 
>  
> 
>>>JE:-
>>>Population genetics is entirely Post
>>>Modern in its perspective and has
>>>been misused in an ongoing way to
>>>reduce evolutionary theory to just
>>>an "iron man" theory (an irrefutable
>>>theory of nature). Dr O'Hara
>>>appears to wish to attempt to
>>>enter into such a discussion.
>>>However when the hard questions
>>>are asked he just snips them
>>>and pretends nothing has happened.
> 
> 
>>BOH:-
>>Dr. O'Hara has given up, because it has become clear that John is more 
>>interested in abuse and insult than in trying to understand the logical 
>>and factual counter-arguments to his claims.  IIRC, this is the same 
>>reason Joe Felsenstein gave up.
> 
> 
> JE:-
> Dr O'Hara claimed (amazingly) that in my proposed 
> experiment to test a proposed Darwinian maximand
> of fitness to refutation (which I have always 
> claimed remains implicit within Darwin's writings) 
> that I had deleted all variation.
> Such an event is just an impossibility. You
> cannot delete random processes such as
> random sampling error or random mutation
> from any natural population. Because Dr
> O'Hara's error was so basic I questioned
> his claim, that he has a PhD in an evolutionary
> theory related field. Apparently this constitutes
> abuse. 
> 
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.

Bob

-- 
Bob O'Hara
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 68 (Gustaf Hällströmin katu 2b)
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland

Telephone: +358-9-191 51479
Mobile: +358 50 599 0540
Fax:  +358-9-191 51400
WWW:  http://www.RNI.Helsinki.FI/~boh/
Journal of Negative Results - EEB: www.jnr-eeb.org
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