Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Conversation stopper

Much as I'd like to discuss abstruse metaphysical concepts with Only the Sangfroid, it's difficult to have a conversation when someone fails to observe the basic canons of intellectual honesty. Drawing unsupported inferences is one thing, but you cannot put words in someone's mouth, even with brackets. To do so is not just intellectual dishonesty, it's lying pure and simple.

In Sangy's latest missive, He quotes me as saying,
[W]ho — besides philosophers, theologians, pseudo-intellectuals such as Sangy, and other professional bullshit artists — would ever care [about truth]?
What I actually said was,
And even if the universe were as thick with causally inert objects as morons at the Creation Museum, who — besides philosophers, theologians, pseudo-intellectuals such as Sangy, and other professional bullshit artists — would ever care?
The only thing an honest person could put inside the brackets would be "causally inert objects". To place one's own interpretation of another's remarks, even if that interpretation were justified (which it's not), is simply lying.

All I can do in this situation is prove he lied and call him a liar. No further conversation has even the slightest chance of being productive.

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