Topic: Proposed change to comment policy concerning ill-informed comments regarding A) the scientific method and B) evolution by natural selection.
At DI, we’ve had a wide-open comment policy. Until recently, I have rarely rejected comments. The ones I have rejected consisted mostly of preaching (see the current comment policy). I’ve also rejected a few ad hominem attacks. We have published more than 12,000 comments over the past 2 ½ years. I’ve rejected only about two dozen comments. I’ve clipped the preaching out of another 3 dozen.
I am hesitant to reject comments because disagreement with these DI’s writers makes them better thinkers and writers. Further, most of DI’s writers consider themselves (informally) to be educators who must work hard to engage with people who think differently than we do. We try to disagree without being disagreeable. Not that we always succeed.
Here’s the problem. We are now seeing (in my opinion) an excessive number of comments that purport to attack A) evolution by natural selection and B) the scientific method, where the writer shows that he/she lacks basic familiarity with the subject matter. In other words, the people offering many recent comments mischaracterize the subject matter they purport to attack. They are attacking straw men, [1] which does not serve any meaningful long-range purpose. Further, attacking straw men is a form of a comment already disallowed: off topic comments; such comments amount to attacking something other than the think actually being discussed.
The types of comments I’m concerned about fall into these categories:
– Natural selection is “random.”
– Evolution by natural selection is a religion.
– There is no evidence for an old earth.
– The theory of evolution is a failed attempt to explain the first appearance of life on earth.
– The scientific method is a “religion.”
– Scientists have conspired, on the whole, to fake evidence and defraud the public.
– Scientists (and the writers at this site) are not familiar with the writings of the Bible.
– Darwin himself was racist or a social Darwinist.
– Fairness demands evolution and creation be given equal time as a scientific exchange.
– Inherit the Wind is false propaganda.
– Evolution is only a theory.
– Evolution cannot be replicated or tested.
– “Survival of the fittest” is a tautology.
– Bacterial flagella are irreducibly complex.
– That those who promote evolution cannot possibly be living moral lives and that they will go to hell.
These claims have each been addressed in detail by well-respected science sites (e.g., see here [2]and here [3]) and, in many cases, by the writers at this site.
What I would propose is that those who choose to raise these attacks will be henceforth treated like grown-ups; in short, in order to have comments published on the above topics at DI, the people offering these types of comments will first be given the opportunity to show us that they are reasonably familiar with the subject matter. They must first show us that they are able to put Science’s best foot forward before attacking it (not that they must agree with mainstream science, but that they need to understand it enough to put its best foot forward before attacking it).
Here’s the quandary: Every time another one of these comments comes in, one or more of the writers at this site feels compelled to take time away from other projects to step up to explain that the thing being attacked is not understood well enough to attack it. Allowing ill-informed comments is making for some onerous and repetitive writing by our writers and for some tedious reading by most of our readers. I also suspect that many such comments are less than sincere, amounting to “sport,” rather than legitimate attempts to discuss and understand the topic matter raised by the post.
To the extent that I would reject these comments, I might be accused of censorship. On the other hand, to continue to allow these comments gives the green light to trolling. What is a troll? [4]
An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.
I am thus floating my proposal to tweak to DI’s comment policy. What I’m proposing is that all comments that raise the above-described topics can be, at my discretion (or at the discretion of the individual authors), rejected as “off-topic.” If a new visitor comes to this site and “innocently” mischaracterizes well-established evidence or theories, I will be highly-inclined to allow the comment, despite the mischaracterization.
To those of you who feel that DI’s writers are literally hell-bound and that you thus need to constantly return to your long-discredited points no matter how often they have been previously addressed, you will be placed on a very short leash. To the extent that you might not be allowed to repeated raise the same discredited points at this site, you are free to start your own websites where you can preach your religious faith, where you can claim that dinosaurs roamed the earth 6,000 years ago, where you can argue that well-established natural laws are sometimes miraculously suspended and where you can claim that the Bible is absolutely coherent, completely based in historical fact and utterly lacking in contradictions.
To summarize the proposal I am hereby floating: Visitors to this site who attack well-established scientific principles, especially where those attacks are based on religious convictions, are subject to rejection unless the comment demonstrates that the writer first has a basic understanding of the subject matter that he or she is attacking.
This is a principle of fairness. Rudimentary knowledge and an open mind must proceed the right to promulgate an opinion. At Bible conferences, I’m would assume that the microphone is not freely handed over to those who demonstrate that they’ve never read the bible or those who want to convince the crowd that the Koran is the way to go and that the Bible is hogwash.
Would the proposed new policy mean that comments can’t attack science? Absolutely not. For such comments to be allowed, though, ignorance regarding the subject of these attacks must be “innocent” (to be determined in our discretion) or the attacks must be reasonably and demonstrably well-informed.
I invite comments regarding the fairness of this proposed amendment to the DI comment policy.
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