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<blockquote data-quote="TheCosmicKid" data-source="post: 7474490" data-attributes="member: 6683613">[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], we need to stop. This is clearly getting out of hand. Look, I get it. I know how it annoying it can feel to have some layman lecture you about the nature of your own damn field. (And if I didn't earlier, I certainly would have once you started talking about history.) But your tone is getting more and more openly abusive, while at the same time the positions you're abusing are slipping further and further from what I'm actually saying. There's already been a couple of flat-out &quot;That's not what I said&quot; moments over the course of this conversation, and if I kept responding to your most recent posts point-by-point as I have been, there'd be a few more. As for my own contribution to this mess, I can't know exactly how derisive and unfair I've come across to others, but looking back I can't imagine I made a good showing. For that I am sorry.Let's look at how else we could be carrying on. One example really jumps out at me. I gave a shorthand summary of science as &quot;seeing what works&quot;. In your response to that, you describe science as &quot;a tool to learn what is true&quot;. You seemed to believe that I meant something totally different from and opposed to what you meant, but come on, just look at it: &quot;seeing what works&quot;, &quot;a tool to learn what is true&quot;. Doesn't it seem possible that we're using modestly different phrasing to say the same thing? Or at least that there is some common ground there, enough to build something on rather than sniping at each other over? I honestly don't understand how you could say that something is &quot;a tool to do X&quot; and deny that it's outcome-oriented; X is obviously (to me) the outcome in question. But it's clear you just as honestly don't understand how I could deny that such a thing is process-oriented. I think we have different understandings of what it means to be &quot;outcome-oriented&quot; or &quot;process-oriented&quot; more than we actually disagree on what science is. And I'm still interested in understanding your meaning. But only if we can bring this back to someplace civil and constructive. Deal?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TheCosmicKid, post: 7474490, member: 6683613"] [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], we need to stop. This is clearly getting out of hand. Look, I get it. I know how it annoying it can feel to have some layman lecture you about the nature of your own damn field. (And if I didn't earlier, I certainly would have once you started talking about history.) But your tone is getting more and more openly abusive, while at the same time the positions you're abusing are slipping further and further from what I'm actually saying. There's already been a couple of flat-out "That's not what I said" moments over the course of this conversation, and if I kept responding to your most recent posts point-by-point as I have been, there'd be a few more. As for my own contribution to this mess, I can't know exactly how derisive and unfair I've come across to others, but looking back I can't imagine I made a good showing. For that I am sorry. Let's look at how else we could be carrying on. One example really jumps out at me. I gave a shorthand summary of science as [I]"seeing what works"[/I]. In your response to that, you describe science as [I]"a tool to learn what is true"[/I]. You seemed to believe that I meant something totally different from and opposed to what you meant, but come on, just look at it: [I]"seeing what works"[/I], [I]"a tool to learn what is true"[/I]. Doesn't it seem possible that we're using modestly different phrasing to say the same thing? Or at least that there is some common ground there, enough to build something on rather than sniping at each other over? I honestly don't understand how you could say that something is "a tool to do X" and deny that it's outcome-oriented; X is obviously (to me) the outcome in question. But it's clear you just as honestly don't understand how I could deny that such a thing is process-oriented. I think we have different understandings of what it means to be "outcome-oriented" or "process-oriented" more than we actually disagree on what science is. And I'm still interested in understanding your meaning. But only if we can bring this back to someplace civil and constructive. Deal? [/QUOTE]

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