[sfx: snagging aha's /m10 for his quotes file]

Creationists must continually evolve new techniques for staying rigid.

"idiots".. "psychos"..."F@*% Creationists"... Tolerance is the name of the game here... no, really, check out http://www.id.ucsb.edu/fscf/LIBRARY/berlinski/deniable.html - or better yet actually read the reviews on Amazon of Behe's "Darwin's Black Box", the book that started the whole thing... The evolution-friendly critics (like you-all here) leave a lot to be desired in terms of actually saying anything of substance - not unlike the ranting below - but here's the point: criticizing evolution doesn't make you a Creationist - it's just a great way to stop a debate. Or, to put it another way: Ignorance is Bliss...

There's a nice little anti-Creationist thing going at the moment called Project Steve where scientists called Steve sign up to say they think Creationism is bunk (it's a parody of the Creationists' own tactics, of course).

What with Jones and Hawking to name only two, the scientist Steves are quite an illustrious bunch.

It's intelligent design! Feh.

Any sociology or history book, no matter how scholarly or well-researched, that seems unduly liberal gets dogpiled by these guys on Amazon. Luckily it does seem like the Amazon cops eventually find them out.

There must be some Freeper dittohead book review conspiracy site out there somewhere, but forgive me for not wanting to look for it.

Hey Dave,

I think that there are credible solutions. It is just that the simplistic systems, like Amazon's, have been working pretty well...

Trust Metrics/webs of trust/etc are one way to deal with intentional system gaming. 'Readers who liked this, who are within 2 degress of seperation from you, also recomended xxxx' or 'Readers who liked this, who also recomended at least one book that you, or someone who you trust also liked, recommended these other books...'

These techniques are more complicated to implement and explain than the more symplistic system...but they can lead to more robust end systems.

Hmmm... perhaps more proof that creationism is such a pile of crap that they need to troll internet retailers to gain support for their half assed theories.

Perhaps if these idiots learnt what scientific objectivity means they might have a leg to stand on (created or evolved).

I've been surprised that user-generated rating systems like Amazon's etc. haven't been more compromised by simple-minded fanatics than they have been. As Usenet forums amply demonstrate, a few jerks can essentially bring down any such system. Looks like the religious psychos are finally catching on to the obvious.

It's a basic issue that folks like Rheingold sort of just sidestep, from what I've seen. Probably because there seem to be no credible solutions.

There was a long period where every scifi book or comic I looked at would have a "Users recommend this book instead of the one you're looking at" tag with a pointer to the Left Behind books. Eventually, Amazon turned off the feature for undisclosed reasons and when it came back they were gone.

Edited by author 04-21-2003 12:45 PM
MCHawking spun this to the creationists.