Wesley Elsberry Bans Creationists
… when they become too persistent and the scientists debating them lose their temper and “make science look bad.”
UPDATE 9/21/07: Wesley’s moderator, Steve Story, commenting on the fact that Wesley has banned me from posting at AtBC except on the “Bathroom Wall” … LINK HERE. Steve is trying to say, “Hey, we let AFDave make over 1500 posts here … we don’t censor creationists.” Right, Steve, and James Blake let Rosa Parks sit in the back of his bus so he wasn’t prejudiced against blacks, right?
UPDATE 5/21/07: Wesley claims I was not banned. He says my login was just in an “odd state.” It does work now, but I’m still restricted to the “Bathroom Wall.” Thanks, Wes. Read his post HERE and my responses a few posts later. Note also that Wesley no longer works for the NCSE. Does this mean he is becoming less of an “anti-creationist”? One can only speculate.
UPDATE 5/4/07: AFDAVE GETS BANNED COMPLETELY. I noticed about a month ago that my login at AtBC had quit working, but no one informed me of anything … just BLIP … one day it quit working.
According the moderator, this is the reason I have been banned from posting anywhere except the “Bathroom Wall” at the Panda’s Thumb Forum known as After the Bar Closes. This may be the first time anyone has ever been banned from a forum because the opposition (not the person being banned) broke the rules. I was given the impression when I first began posting there that Wesley likes to have posters with different viewpoints. But it appears now that this is not quite the complete picture. The truth seems to be that he likes uninformed creationists to make a brief appearance, get schooled by the evolutionary scientists, and leave. I think he fully expected this to happen to me when I first began posting at ATBC and I guess he was surprised when this did not happen. My “Creator God Hypothesis” thread was recently closed against the wishes of myself and several other posters at ATBC after setting a new record at ATBC. It was broken into two parts totaling about 365 pages. Wesley is the Information Project Manager at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) which, according to their website, “Defends the Teaching of Evolution in the Public Schools.” It seems that a more apt name for the group would be National Center for Evolution Education (NCEE). More about Wesley’s anti-creationist activities can be found here and here .
Reasons for closing the thread and banning me from all threads except the Bathroom Wall were given by Wesley’s moderator, Steve Story, as follows …
stevestory
Posts: 2854
Joined: Oct. 2005(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 12 2006,22:34
(afdave @ Dec. 12 2006,22:19)
And I’m having fun on this thread for many reasons. You’ll have to talk to Steve Story about closing it.[Steve] The ‘leave it open’ forces are a bit stronger for the time being. Although the ‘shut it down’ forces send me emails like this one:
Steve, I agree with shutting down the thread. When civilized people are driven to name-calling and profanity due to their utter despair of making someone listen to reason, it’s time to stop.
I don’t suppose that Deadman or Occam’s Aftershave talk to their colleages and friends like that in real life, barring any ethanol-inspired conversations. But Dave’s obtuseness drives them to madness.
I laugh at the comments while I cringe at how an uninvolved observer, unaware of any science, would interpret them. And you can bet your ass Dave is saving replies like that to show how ‘evil’ those ‘evilutionists’ are – resorting to child-like name-calling and poop comments.
Shut it down. We can (and have) learned our science elsewhere. The regulars keep talking about the lurkers, but it seems as if the lurkers have by and large decloaked.
It doesn’t make rational scientists look like rational scientists, and believe me, in the public arena, scientists need all the rational help they can get.
[Steve] And I am sympathetic to their point of view …
Well … this e-mailer was right. I did save everything, but not to show how ‘evil’ the ‘evilutionists’ are. I think most of them are not evil at all. And I don’t think Wesley or Steve are evil. But I do think they like to posture as very open-minded, non-biased scientists. Which they are to a certain extent and now we have found their limits.
After the last post, Steve said this …
stevestory
Posts: 3003
Joined: Oct. 2005(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 05 2007,08:27
AFDave needs a new audience and we need to move on to other things, so I’m afraid I can’t let him simply jump to a new thread and carry on as before. Not allowing him to post here once the thread is closed will encourage him to set up shop elsewhere. It’s nothing personal, and he’s not being banned for misbehavior, it’s just in everyone’s best interests that we start seeing other people.
Yes it will and it will encourage me to make a post such as this one to shed a little light on …
The apparent purpose of ATBC: Promoting Evolution
… not “promoting science” per se.
And move elsewhere is exactly what I plan on doing … God-willing, you will find me very soon at The Richard Dawkins Forum hopefully with the same username. I will most likely be in the “Faith & Religion” and “Evolution and Natural Selection” sections.
MY PERSONAL BLOG
I will also test the waters at opening up comments again on this blog. I was too busy to moderate them before, but I may be up for it again. I will state my rules up front and will delete comments that don’t conform. If I find myself deleting too much, I will probably just shut down comments again. I will moderate comments AFTER you post them, so your comments will appear instantly.
So … if you want comments to appear here, please be polite, don’t engage in name-calling, stay on the topic of that particular post, don’t make baseless assertions, but rather document the assertions you are making preferably with original sources, don’t post copyrighted material, don’t post huge, long sections of text, rather post only the part that supports your point and link to the rest of it, don’t post gross pictures or use profanity.
Thanks! And happy commenting!