What Does Cult Mean?

I'll let the other moderators do the housekeeping on their own forums. This one is my responsibility.

It is our job to maintain SciForums as a place people can come with the reasonable expectation to learn some science or to engage in scientific discussion. If instead they find the boards riddled with unscientific proselytism or with the ravings of people who actually deny and ridicule science, we won't have provided that service.

This website goes far beyond its obligations of tolerance and respect for free speech by including the Religion and Free Thoughts forums. Even in the Philosophy forum you could start an argument about the fundamental validity of the scientific method. Of course you'd have to be prepared to engage in some serious debate and not just toss around snide comments.

But linguistics is a science and I expect the discussions to more or less follow scientific principles. With my own off-topic ramblings and my liberal dose of factual errors, I don't think I set a very difficult standard.

I have professional credentials as an IT management consultant, an educator, an editor, a musician, a dog breeder and a landlord. There are many other labels that would be modestly accurate even if they represent activities I have never been paid to perform, such as mathematician, musicologist, physicist or biologist. I do not object to being called a Darwinist because I don't like the word; I object because to call me a Darwinist is simply incorrect. No one is a Darwinist in the 21st century. If you're struggling to find a word for people who do not deny evolution, the word you're looking for is scientist.

Your continued sloppy use of the term "Darwinist," which these days is only used by scientific historians and evolution-denial cultists, is a slander against the scientific community. Your incorrect use of the term "dogma" to apply to an established and universally respected scientific theory marks you not only as not a scientist but as one who opposes the scientific method because unlike, say, the Pope, you can't figure out a way to reconcile it with your religious beliefs. This is the reason that I've twice warned you about the danger of being banned.

You started a thread in the Linguistics forum with a perfectly respectable title. It appeared that you were interested in the semantics or etymology of the word "cult." Instead, you quickly derailed it with snide remarks and made it about your tiresome personal crusade to get scientists to take Evolution Denialism seriously.

This is fraud. Don't ever do it again. Consider this your third warning and quite probably your last.

This thread is closed.

 

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