I’m posting here to complain about an abuse-of-privilege by “Baden”, when he, without justification, removed a thread from the Science category.
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I posted a thread, to the Science category, about Dr. Eugene McCarthy’s theory of a pig-chimpanzee hybridization origin for the human species.
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A few things that I should first emphasize about McCarthy and his theory, because they’re relevant to Baden’s removal of the thread, and to my complaint about that removal:
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1. McCarthy is a PhD geneticist, specializing in hybridization. He’s an established top hybridization-geneticist and has taught university-courses in those areas.
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2. McCarthy doesn’t claim that his pig-ancestry theory is true. But he provides facts that are otherwise difficult to explain. He provides a long list of anatomical ways in which humans differ from all of the other primates (and in which all of the other primates don’t differ from eachoter). …anatomical attributes all of which are shared by humans and pigs.
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Those many differences between humans and all of the other primates--where all of the primates other than humans are one anatomical way, but humans differ from all the other primates—have long puzzled scientists.
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For those two reasons, McCarthy’s pig-theory, and that thread about it, didn’t violate scientific standards, and wasn’t unqualified for the Science category.
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So what was Baden’s justification for the removal? Well, let’s listen to him:
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“Charitably assuming this is a joke and moving to the lounge.”
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“The idea is so ridiculous and so wrong in so many ways, and insultingly wrong to anyone with any background or understanding of the field, it's almost not worth explaining to anyone who takes it seriously.”
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Really? McCarthy’s background and credentials in the field of hybridization-genetics are incomparably better than those of Baden.
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“You don't need a PhD in genetics to know how silly this idea is.”
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“And McCarthy's counterweight to claiming something that is scientifically impossible…”
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So, his removal-justification consists of:
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“Ridiculous”, “Silly”, “Scientifically-Impossible”
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…because Baden says so. We get that Baden disagrees with Dr. McCarthy, a genetics PhD and established hybridization authority.
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Distant hybridizations are increasingly rare, with increasing distantness. But McCarthy points out that it just isn’t known what amount of distantness makes a fertile hybrid offspring entirely impossible.
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…but evidently Baden knows better Dr. McCarthy, a genetics PhD and established authority on hybridization.
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As I said, McCarthy doesn’t claim that his theory is true, but he merely presents evidence. …evidence that he’s a lot better-qualified to evaluate than Baden is.
Additionally, Baden fixated on old reports that McCarthy published at his website. For example:
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“He specifically uses the reports (which obviously he didn't write—he wasn't alive) as evidence for the notion that chickens and humans interbred, and he is endorsing that notion”
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No, actually McCarthy explicitly disclaimed any such endorsement of the reports’ accuracy or of the notion of chicken-human hybridization.
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And I mention this, lest it be used as thread-removal-justification:
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Baden justified his disagreement by quoting strongly-worded criticism from a McCarthy-critic who, compared to Dr. McCarthy, is uncredentialed in hybridization-genetics.
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But, more relevantly, the thread and its OP made no mention of chickens, but only spoke of McCarthy’s pig-ancestry theory and his evidence for it. Only Baden spoke of chicken-human hybridizations in that thread.
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A quote from the forum-guidelines:
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“In discussions, a moderator is subject to the same guidelines as everyone else, and shouldn't, under normal circumstances*, moderate their interlocutors.”
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Baden justified his removal of that thread from the Science-category only by his unsupported personal opinion that McCarthy’s suggestion is “scientifically-impossible”, “ridiculous” and “silly”. The removal was based Baden’s unsupported personal opinion—opinion in disagreement with a PhD hybridization-geneticist incomparably more qualified and better-credentialed in his field than Baden.
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I suggest, then, that Baden is abusing his privileges as moderator or administrator. It probably isn't fair to Baden (or anyone else) to burden Baden with the responsibility to not abuse the privileges of a moderator or administrator.
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Michael Ossipoff