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ED CONRAD--THE NEXT STEP TO TAKE
Ryan Brown 942-7905 (rabrown@email.unc.edu)
Mon, 9 Dec 1996 17:37:31 -0500
On 8 Dec 1996, / wrote:
> Date: 8 Dec 1996 10:59:22 -0800
> From: / <raven@kaiwan.com>
> Newsgroups: sci.anthropology, sci.anthropology.paleo, sci.archaeology
> Subject: Re: LEAVE SCI.BIO.PALEO OUT OF REPLIES TO CONRAD
>
>
> In article <585bvm$26f@news.ptd.net>, edconrad@prolog.net (Ed Conrad) wrote:
> >
> >DLHARM1@ukcc.uky.edu (dlharm1) wrote (to talk.origins and
> >sci.bio.paleontology):
> >
> >>Mr. Conrad has some deep-seated problem. He ignores evidence and thrives
> >>on being insulted. Please help deprive him of this pleasure. PLEASE LEAVE
> >>SCI* GROUPS, ESPECIALLY SCI.BIO.PALEONTOLOGY OUT OF THE REPLY||||| ~80%
> >>of s.b.p is now devoted to discussing this loon's trolls.
> >>
> >>Thank you,
> >>DLH
> > ~~~~~~~~
> >Simply remove your rose-colored glasses, then maybe you'd
> >realize that you -- not I -- have the ``deep-seated problem.''
>
> I agree with him. You apperently suffer from delusional paranoia.
>
> Conspiracy when there isn't one, false accusations of others are
> all typical of this.
>
>
> Seek professional help.
>
> Anybody else agree?
> ----------------------------
> Steve "Chris" Price
> Associate Professor of Computational Aesthetics
> Amish Chair of Electrical Engineering
> University of Ediacara "A fine tradition since 530,000,000 BC"
> raven@kaiwan.com
>
>
I agree wholeheartedly. Ed has just promised a complete explanantion of
how the pyramids were built, no doubt based on "good ol' common sense."
Up until now I've kept silent about Conrad's paranoid rants (and his
horrible lapses in spelling), but his latest post (I believe to
sci.archaeology) smacks of child molesting (at least mind molesting).
If Ed wants to talk, I guess he can talk. But I do believe 15 is quite an
impressionable age (Looking back, I was quite impressionable at the time).
Ed's sugary sweet reponse to an honest request from a 15 year old smacked
of screaming paranoia, as do all his posts. But this post was
sugar-coated for easy consumption...too easy. Ed rhetoricizes pretty
well, and I can see he might grab some believers every once in a
while. So is this dangerous? I reply with a resounding "YES!" In a
recent post, Conrad suggested that during his stay in the academy his
porfessors required him to take a "basic truth," and turn it into a
"fabrication." Here, I strongly suggest that Conrad balked at critical
thinking in the university. Something, somewhere, conflicted very
profoundly with his prevailing worldview, and he thereby began to reject
critical thinking tools in the academy and instead created his own
system of logic and evidence, one which fits, unlike the academy's, quite
neatly into his own constructed history and sense of reality.
But because he faces enormous opposition, Conrad's model leaves very
LITTLE room for criticism. In fact, I'd say almost none. The model needs
to support a mind but relies on tenuous links and threads. THIS leads to
some serious paranoia, and a world which I don't envy in the least.
Problem is, Ed has made some of his threads pretty sticky. There's no
doubt that he is completely stuck in his web...but I fear for others,
especially impressionable others.
Constructed worldviews are fine, but Ed's is outstandingly uncritical and
largely paranoid. Unfortunately, he shows serious interest in propagating
his worldview, quite readily seized an opportunity when it appeared,
and shot out a sticky pseudopod to the nearest and easiest target. If
such blatantly manipulative behavior persists, I say we take action to get
him removed, somehow, from these groups. We don't need someone with the
massive authority of "science" posting things like this to high school
kids...
Ryan Brown
UNC-Chapel Hill
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