This look scarily familiar: (source) In the King-on-the-Mountain style of conversation, one person (the King) makes a provocative statement, and requires that others refute it or admit to being wrong. The King is the judge of whether any attempted refutation is successful. A refutation, for the King to rule it valid, must be completely self-contained: the King will ignore anything outside the way he has conceptualized the topic (see below for an extended illustration). If the refutation involves two or more propositions that must be heard together, the King will rule that each proposition individually fails to refute his statement. He won't address multiple propositions taken together. Once a proposition is rejected, he gives it no further consideration. A refutation must meet the King's pre-existing criteria and make sense in terms of the King's pre-existing way of understanding the subject. The King will rule any suggestion that his criteria are not producing insight as an attempt to cheat. For example: Chris: "SPECIES CANNOT EVOLVE FROM OTHER SPECIES!! LIKE BEGETS LIKE!!! THAT IS A LAW OF NATURE!!!" Pat: "To see how species can give rise to new species, consider the fact that offspring are not identical to their parents: there is always some slight variation. And consider the fact that unchecked population growth is exp--" Chris: "VARIATION YES, BUT THEY ARE STILL OF THE SAME KIND!!! LIKE BEGETS LIKE!!! THAT IS A LAW OF NATURE!!!" Pat: "If all the offspring survive and their offspring survive, and so on, the population will soon exceed the capacity of the environment to support them all: food, water, space, etc. So a great many of them will die, and--" Chris: "YES MANY OF THE OFFSPRING DIE. DYING DOES NOT !!!CREATE!!! A NEW SPECIES!! THAT IS LOGICALLY OBVIOUS!!! THAT DOES NOT REFUTE LIKE BEGETS LIKE!!!" Pat: "If you consider that the children's genes are not exact copies of the parents', you can see evidence of a family-tree relationship among species. Species that diverged from a common ancestor more recently would tend to have more of their genes in common. The fact that humans and chimpanzees have about 98% of their genes in common suggests that--" Chris: "A CLOUD IS 100% WATER AND A WATERMELON IS 98% WATER. DOES THAT PROVE THAT CLOUDS AND WATERMELONS WERE BORN FROM A COMMON ANCESTOR?" Pat: "Of course not. You also have to consider the way inheritance works and how there is always selective pressure on a population. You can't expect to understand evolution by taking each fact out of context!" Chris: "HA HA!! YOU LOSE!!! YOU CAN'T REFUTE MY ARGUMENT!!!"
That's a good link, I've never come across that before. It is very familiar from my days of patrolling around the religious forum as, as the source says, everything the 'king' says is obvious to see to both him and everyone and he cannot comprehend any other idea. I'm sure monkeyman here remembers the likes of muscleman and whutsupyall (same person if I remember rightly). Purple Squids! Oh those were the days.
I've seen that at another forum. This guy was saying how evolution isn't true and then proceeded to challenge people to prove the Big Bang theory (or maybe it was the other way around), as if they were related. And then he said not to post links, because he wouldn't read them. Yes. That King-of-the-Mountain tactic is painfully familiar to me.
Hey. There's a pledge drive going on. Why don't you save your ressurecting threads in this forum until it's over? Keep the pledge thread on top.
This is why I always try to set myself up as the King, if things look like they're going to turn into that kind of debate. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Well, it's a lot easier for you than the others, you can make posts disappear! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Haha. I didn't realize the thread was that old. It wasn't that far down from the top of the first page. Even so, it shouldn't hurt the drive too much if there's a thread above it. After all, this forum isn't very active (as I now see).
