🚀 go-pugleaf

>: You see, science is not like law, where one is supposed to present
>: the best possible case for one's client or pet theory, and gloss over
>: or misrepresent evidence when it doesn't suit one.  Once someone
>: exhibits this a few times, at least in the science that I'm familiar
>: with, physics, that someone is not taken very seriously.  "Preponderance
>: of evidence" is meaningless, unless it is obvious that the evidence-
>: collection was done with a modicum of integrity.
>
I would like to bring back some somewhat archaic terms for this discussion:
Natural History and Natural Philosophy.  While there is no speciic science 
dicipline that wholly fits one or the other they are two different 
appproaches to science.  Natural History, typified here as evolutionary 
biology, is those sciences where you can't manufacture your data.  In 
Natural History disputes can be settled simply by generating another data 
set (doing the experiment over).  The Natural Historian is limited by the 
data that can be found in the world.  This is often incomplete.  He must 
come up with the best explanation he can with what is available.  This 
comes down to a preponderence of evidence type arguement.


Edmond Dantes
edantes@cts.com

	Excellent point.  In astronomy, we have been using the terms, 
observer and theoretician.  As an observer, I feel most uneasy about the 
way the theoreticians gallop over those non-linear parts.  As a natural 
historian, I realize that the natural philosophers are in SOME OTHER 
BRANCH OF SCIENCE than I am.

In message <161328Z24041995@anon.penet.fi> - an175779@anon.penet.fi (Poor Richa
rd) writes:
>
>...
>Poor Richard agrees with Dr. Fujita and believes that many scientists
>do not demonstrate a "modicum of integrity"; Poor Richard thinks that most
>of what fills the biological literature (almost 2000 journals now), is
>bullshit and not worth the paper it is printed on.  That is perhaps
>why the government insists on us calling it an "advertisement"
>
>Poor Richard thinks that the peer review system is badly warped and that
>these two commentators have the right idea:  Most scientific literature
>would be better off never having been printed, as law would be better off
>with fewer lawyers, more jails, fewer opinions and more facts.
>

Remember, folks, you don't have to read this pompous third-person drivel.  
Your newsreader has a Kill facility buried somewhere; learn about it.

Perhaps Poor Richard will manage to create new aliases on the anonymous news 
server, but at least he/she/it (or, as they say in Texas, he-sheeeit) will be 
put to msome extra trouble to keep imposing this stuff on us.

[extra lines
inserted
to keep
news
server from rejecting
the
message.
Apologies; when I get a newsreader with a usable editor, this won't be 
necessary.
]

Dan Drake
dandrake@nbn.com

In article <3nm1qq$epu@miwok.nbn.com>, dandrake@nbn.com (Dan Drake) writes:
|> Remember, folks, you don't have to read this pompous third-person drivel.  
|> Your newsreader has a Kill facility buried somewhere; learn about it.
|> 
|> Dan Drake
|> dandrake@nbn.com
|> 
|> 


Dan,

You have a definite obsession with censorship don't you?

I swear, everytime I turn around you're up on your soap box
screaming "Don't Listen to them!"

(you have something to hide?)



yer pal,

joan

In article <3nnlv6$faf@rc1.vub.ac.be>,
Joan Pontius <joan@vandijck.ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>In article <3nm1qq$epu@miwok.nbn.com>, dandrake@nbn.com (Dan Drake) writes:
>|> Remember, folks, you don't have to read this pompous third-person drivel.  
>|> Your newsreader has a Kill facility buried somewhere; learn about it.
>|> 
>|> Dan Drake
>|> dandrake@nbn.com
>|> 
>|> 
>
>
>Dan,
>
>You have a definite obsession with censorship don't you?

I fail to see how his post advocates censorship. If he cancelled the
post, it would be censorship. As far as I'm concerned, his response is
no different in what it suggests than someone who actually LIKES Poor 
Richard (not me, of course :) and says "Tough shit. If you don't like 
him, killfile him".

>
>I swear, everytime I turn around you're up on your soap box
>screaming "Don't Listen to them!"
>

He didn't say that, now did he? He made a statement of fact. No one DOES
have to listen to him or anyone else, for that matter. You know, there ARE 
actually folks out there who don't know how to use a kill file. Do _you_
read every single solitary post made to Usenet? If not, do you consider 
yourself a censor by not reading them all?

>(you have something to hide?)
>
>>
>yer pal,
>
>joan


Stacy

In article <D7toG7.4Ku@midway.uchicago.edu>
           sferguso@midway.uchicago.edu "Stacy Ferguson" writes:

> He didn't say that, now did he? He made a statement of fact. No one DOES
> have to listen to him or anyone else, for that matter. You know, there ARE 
> actually folks out there who don't know how to use a kill file. Do _you_
> read every single solitary post made to Usenet? If not, do you consider 
> yourself a censor by not reading them all?

Dear Stacy,

Like me. :-) Can you tell me how to use a kill file? Is it to put in names
for whom you don't want to receive post? Thanks for any help, sorry I'm new
around here.

Andrew

-- 
Dr Andrew McCaddon  Wrexham           The Internet:
                    Clwyd             "One small step for me,
                    North Wales        One giant leap for my 'phone bill."

joan@vandijck.ulb.ac.be (Joan Pontius) writes:

>In article <3nm1qq$epu@miwok.nbn.com>, dandrake@nbn.com (Dan Drake) writes:
>|> Remember, folks, you don't have to read this pompous third-person drivel.  
>|> Your newsreader has a Kill facility buried somewhere; learn about it.
>|> 
>|> Dan Drake
>|> dandrake@nbn.com
>|> 
>|> 


>Dan,

>You have a definite obsession with censorship don't you?

Using a kill file isn't censorship. 

>I swear, everytime I turn around you're up on your soap box
>screaming "Don't Listen to them!"

Neither is letting other people know about kill files.

regards,
Chris Lawson
Internet     claw@werple03.mira.net.au

-- 
                           
Chris Lawson    claw@werple03.mira.net.au
__________________________________________________________________________
-- 
                           
Chris Lawson    claw@werple03.mira.net.au
__________________________________________________________________________

> He didn't say that, now did he? He made a statement of fact. No one DOES
> have to listen to him or anyone else, for that matter. You know, there ARE 
> actually folks out there who don't know how to use a kill file. Do _you_
> read every single solitary post made to Usenet? If not, do you consider 
> yourself a censor by not reading them all?

I feel sort of stupid for asking this, but I keep on telling myself 
'there are no stupid questions, only stupid ignorances'. SO,.........

HOW DOES ONE USE A 'KILLFILE'?





dmw

On Wed, 3 May 1995, X Donald Wallace wrote:

> HOW DOES ONE USE A 'KILLFILE'?



what the heck is a killfile?  

In article <799274348snz@mccaddon.demon.co.uk>,
Andrew McCaddon <Andrew@mccaddon.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <D7toG7.4Ku@midway.uchicago.edu>
>           sferguso@midway.uchicago.edu "Stacy Ferguson" writes:
>
>> He didn't say that, now did he? He made a statement of fact. No one DOES
>> have to listen to him or anyone else, for that matter. You know, there ARE 
>> actually folks out there who don't know how to use a kill file. Do _you_
>> read every single solitary post made to Usenet? If not, do you consider 
>> yourself a censor by not reading them all?
>
>Dear Stacy,
>
>Like me. :-) Can you tell me how to use a kill file? Is it to put in names
>for whom you don't want to receive post? Thanks for any help, sorry I'm new
>around here.
>
>Andrew
>

Oops! Guess I should have realized that I could have been correct and
that I left people hanging. I guess I'm so used to frequenting more
hostile newsgroups that killfiles are one of those things EVERYone there
knows about :)

Okay. You've already gotten instructions for tin newsreaders, with 
which I'm unfamiliar. Most people I know use trn, and I can help with
that. 

First, a killfile is a command that tells your newsreader to eliminate
articles that you don't want to know about. Of course, you can always 
skip and article by hitting "n" to go on to the next article, but 
sometimes the obnoxious threads get really long and you may have to 
hit "n" a number of times to get to the next article. 

Let's say Poor Richard, for example, has written a post you aren't
interested in. You can make sure that you never see that post or 
responses to it never again. In fact, you'll never even know it was 
there in the first place. It's kind of like the article never reached
your site. 

You can kill a particular thread by typing "K". If you type a small "k",
you'll still kill the thread but only for that session. By typing a 
capital "K" (without the quotes) you are telling your newsreader that 
"The next time open sci.bio, this thread won't be here". The problem
with this is that this won't keep OTHER articles by Poor Richard from
popping up. 

This can be taken care of. If you don't want to know about another 
article from Poor Richard ever again, you can type CONTROL-K (the 
"K" must be in caps) and you will enter an editor. There will be 
a line in which the word KILL appears. You would add the following:

	/Poor Richard/h:j

to the line in which "KILL" appears. This will tell your newsreader
to get rid of anything written by Poor Richard so you'll never even
know it was there. Use whatever name or words are in the "From:" 
line of the post. 

A few things to keep in mind. Killfiles can be defeated. The only 
people I've ever killfiled are a few guys who are extremely anti-
female in other newsgroups (not this one); guys who love to go 
on and on about how women are inferior and should be home barefoot
and pregnant. I learned eons ago that arguing with a fool like that 
is pointless since you can't suddenly expect them to decide that 
you're right. It just annoys me to hear from the same jerks over and
over again. Of course, sometimes these guys realize that people have 
killfiled them because no one is responding to them anymore so they
change their finger names, craving all the attention they used to get 
even if it is negative. You'll have to killfile on the basis of the
new name to continue avoiding the person you really don't want to 
hear a peep from. 

Also, killfiles will make entering a newsgroup take a few seconds 
longer. If you were to type "trn sci.bio", and had killfiled Poor 
Richard, then it will take the newsreader a few seconds to search 
through all the articles and get rid of the articles by Poor Richard.
Once Poor Richard gets bored and stops posting, you may want to 
get rid of the killfile because your newsreader will still go looking
for them whether or not he is still a frequent poster and it'll still
take a few seconds to look for him.

Hope this helps.

Stacy