Forum:How is Dr. John A. Davison regarded by rationalwiki?

< Index | General discussion

I am curious as to how I am regarded by this forum. I have been banished from Uncommon Descent (4 times), Panda's Thumb, After the Bar Closes, EvC, richarddawkins.net, Pharyngula, Biologos, and many oter bastions of bigotry. For my perspective on the only matter which has ever been in question - the MECHANISM of a long ago terminated organic evolution, I refer you to my weblog -

http://jadavison.wordpress.com

John A. Davison

Never heard of you. So I regard you with callous indifference, bordering on scorn because I haven't had coffee and your first edit here is a posting all about yourself. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 14:23, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I too have never heard of you, but from your introduction you appear to wear people's dislike of you as a badge of honour, and I therefore have a less than average first impression of you. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 14:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Your blog also appears to be a word soup of random scientific words in an attempt to make yourself sound intelligent indispersed with you repeatedly wanking over any comments containing any kind of praise for your "work". Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 14:28, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm voting for "Never heard of you" as well. If I can have two votes, then I'll also vote for "Don't care to know you," if that's ok with you. User:Bondurant 14:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Without doing any research whatsoever and based purely on your post here, you seem to be suffering from DeMyer Syndrome - a unjustified desire to be taken seriously by the rest of the internet.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 14:41, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

After looking at some of your edits on the Dawkins forums, I see you are actually a troll. We already have quite a successful troll here, so you might be better of finding somewhere else to get attention. Have you tried the JREF forums instead. You'll get lots of abuse there to whine about on your blog. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 14:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

If you are the Davison from Vermont who is/was running for govenor then I too have to say Never heard of you before this post. Hamster (talk) 14:51, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

(UI) You're also an idiot. From here:
"Darwin was dead wrong about the time course of evolution just as he was about everything else. Every evolutionary event was instantaneous, requiring only the time it takes for a single cytogenetic event to take place. Such events took place many times over millions of years, each one producing in a single step a new taxonomic category whether species, Genus, Order, Class or Phylum. That is why not a single gradual transformation can be found in the fossil record. Such transformations never took place."
Oh dear. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 14:56, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I have laughed at you for years, but then I consider myself some what of a connoisseur of internet cranks so I wouldn't take that too seriously. tmtoulouse 15:14, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

How's Fran Tarkenton and Cathy Lee Crosby doin'? --Edgerunner⁷⁶_{Your views are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter} 16:05, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

That's John Davidson. Professor Moriarty 16:46, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Who is Dr. John A. Davison and why should "Rationalwiki" have an opinion about him?--Bob^{Bring back the hat!} 16:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

No idea. I know RWW has a thing against users editing the article on themselves, what is our policy on cranks creating articles about themselves? I mean, apart from one or two SCEPCOP guys, who the hell would want to publicise themselves here? ^bomination 18:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I've heard of Jim Davidson who really is famous - at least in the UK. Perhaps he spelt his name wrong?--Bob^{Bring back the hat!} 19:20, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

John Davison is a crackpot; he listed on RW's pages on cranks and internet kooks. His approach is parodied in this classic blog entry: John A. Davison orders a pizza. TallMan (talk) 03:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

One of the comments in that spoof article sums up "Dr" John A Davidson quite nicely:

A Criticism in Three Parts of John A. Davison:
I. Quotes do not constitute a scientific theory. Dr. Davison thinks they do. I have yet to see a scientific paper.
II. Just because a theorist isn't listened too by the scientific community doesn't mean he is discriminated against. It means he is wrong.
III. "Real science," involves a lab and big fancy equipment with chemicals brewing, as well as papers published in journals because of scientific merit. If sitting around thinking about evolution, with no more scientific insight than provided by a high school biology class, then watch out for your job, Mr. Davison, because anyone can do it.

(2) Is particularly good. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 11:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd change II to read "It means he is probably wrong, or lacks evidence to support his claims". Of course for every genius toiling in obscurity, there are many more cranks whose work is dismissed for exceedingly good reasons. Assuming this thread was actually started by Davidson, I'd say that this is a very bad way to gauge opinion. I'd think that reading our articles, or asking for comments on specific examples of your work would make this appear markedly less egocentric. Referencing the other sites gives me the impression of a martyr complex, and personally I don't care what people at those sites think. It would have been far more productive to ask "What do you guys think of <insert theory>?" --^{Ask me about your mother} 12:15, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I will put it this way; John A. Davison is a renowned biologist and was a Professor Emeritus at Vermont. He was teaching Zoology and proceeded to carry out experimental research during his entire professional career. He is best known for his ground breaking scientific alternative to Darwinism, the prescribed evolutionary hypothesis among others published works.Unfortunately most followers of PZ and Dawkins are not interested in facts so they try to assassinate his character with verbal attacks and ban him from forums and websites about evolution. The truth of the matter is both PZ and Dawkins are in fear of their reputation being destroyed in such a debate. ^{— Unsigned, by: SamB / talk / contribs 11:05, 12 January 2010}

Looks more like he was an Associate Professor of Biology at UVM, at least as of 2000.[1] ħuman 01:21, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean "was a Professor Emeritus"? How can you stop being a Professor Emeritus other than by dying? If he is dead, who started this forum? - π 11:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Countdown to me caring about who John A. Davison is in: 5... 4... 3... 2... oooh! Squirrel! Oh well, back to work. Bondurant (talk) 11:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Probability of SamB being the same person as J.A.D.? And no, the reason Dawkins et al don't debate people such as this is that (1) debating creationists is a pointless exercise. They repeat the same nonsense, ignore your arguments, and outright lie1, and (2) They do not want to increase little-known crank's profiles. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 16:47, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Public debates are more useful in soft subjects, such as philosophy and theology.

Biology is complicated, and it's far easier for cranks to rattle-off a string of unfounded assertions (Gish gallop) than it is for a competent biologist to offer rebuttals. Would we seriously expect cosmologists to debate astrologers? Science is not a democracy, and it doesn't matter how many people "believe" a certain theory. Tell him to ditch the forums and websites in favour of publishing in a journal. I'm sure that any theories with merit will be eagerly received, and can think of no serious institute that not jump at the chance of having in their employ the man who overturned a major component of evolutionary theory. --^{Ask me about your mother} 17:15, 12 January 2010 (UTC)