Engage Cloaking Device!
Over at Bill Dembski’s Uncommon Descent weblog, the administration has found it convenient in the past to excise comments or posts that, once criticism comes in, they belatedly find were ill-advised, or just plain stupid in content. There was the notable incident of Dembski railing about how Jeff Shallit’s deposition in the Kitzmiller case last year must have been horrible, and that was why Shallit didn’t testify, and why the deposition wasn’t available for general access. IIRC, three separate posts made those false claims about Shallit. Once it became clear that the deposition had been publicly available all that time and that Dembski had been talking a bunch of demonstrably false nonsense (as when Ed Brayton quoted from the TMLC brief requesting exclusion of Shallit’s testimony in limine, showing that the defense was the party most eager to keep Shallit off the witness stand [Actually, on review, it was a quote from the ruling on the defense in limine motion.]), those several posts suddenly and silently vanished away.
Of course, people could simply turn to the Internet Archive or the Google cache to see what used to be part of UD and wasn’t anymore.
Apparently, the UD administrators, in their search for the more perfect memory hole, have discovered the power of excluding robots from their site and making specific requests to un-archive and un-cache their site. Good-bye, Internet Archive! Sayonara, Google! Hello, personal revisionism!
Update: David Springer is claiming that the UD departure from Google was not their idea, and that somebody at Google must have had it in for them and expunged UD from the Google cache all on their own.
Update: Now Springer says it was all my fault. Hmm. There’s no evidence, natch, but I’ve password-protected the BUUD site so that if there were some problem inherent in it being accessible to Google, that should now not be a problem.
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The “Telic Thoughts” commenter seems to have substituted a wad of cotton candy for what should be a set of working synapses. The only thing in any doubt here is whether UD intentionally pulled the plug on having their materials cached at the Internet Archive and Google, not whether they’ve been engaging in revisionism. Of course, the poor thinking skills thing on the part of ID cheerleaders is not news, either.
For the referenced Telic Thoughts “blog” go here:
http://telicthoughts.com/?p=937
I must admit, I haven’t found a trace of “UD revisionism” being discussed in there. The author – Krauze – seems to touch only the issue of UD in Google Cache. But maybe I’m wrong? You can always set me straight, Dr. Elsberry.
All of the Telicians – especially Mike Gene and Krauze – have taken great care in maintaining a civil tone and if there’s one place in this “ID debate” that should be recognized for it’s discourse ethos, then “Telic Thoughts” must be it.
That’s obviously shameless what I’ve just wrote, but I’ve got a suspicion there’s some hidden motif behind your last comment, not merely heated – and mistargeted – rhetoric.
With regards, S. Blank.
I think this kind of post is counter-productive and reflects badly on whichever side posts it. (I doubt anyone will care what my opinion is, but I felt the need to share it).
As often happens, the finger-pointing got out in front of the facts. It was clear the reasonable possibilities were…
1. Accident – unintentional
2. Not real – either by hoax or misunderstanding
3. Pro ID prank – intential harm by an ID proponent
4. Anti ID prank – intential harm by an ID critic
I predicted #1, it looks that that is the case.
watch out wes! the springerbot is threatening to sue you for damages!
LOL.
can they get any more retarded over there?
it’s amusing, and yet very sad at the same time.
Yes, that was my point precisely. They overlook or ignore the revisionism.
What do you suppose the odds would be that a comment saying the same thing as above would remain up at the website in question?
You’d have a much easier time making the sale on this argument were I not one of TT’s favorite rhetorical targets.
Austringer asked…
“What do you suppose the odds would be that a comment saying the same thing as above would remain up at the website in question?”
Most of my posts were delayed or went missing on Uncommon Descent until I was outright banned from the site.
Telic Thoughts has accepted me (my post aren’t moderated).
To answer your question, if we are talking about UD, I would say the chances are near 100% against a post like this appearing.
where can i buy a cloaking device that turns me invisible?
I can add another tid-bit of evidence to the banning and deletion of posts. Here’s the story of how I got banned, again:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2008/12/too-stupid-to-educate-and-conscious.html