Is Amazon now enforcing review standards?

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 8, 2011

Academic Freedom}

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At Cannuckian Yankee’s comment 14 on UD Contest post “Why do people refuse to read books they are attacking?” (now being judged), we learn,

There’s a guy on Amazon who’s extremely anti-ID. He comments on or reviews just about every ID book, but it’s quite obvious that he never reads the books. He goes by “sillysilly” sometimes, and other names, but you can tell it’s him.Sillysilly’s “reviews” and comments are pretty much the same – “ID is religion and not science, and you’re a lying jerk if you believe otherwise.”

But then we learn, at 22,

BTW, sillysilly now goes by Creationist_Nonesense_Ignored_by_Scientists, and most of his comments have been deleted by Amazon, which is not surprising.

To some, it is surprising. Many had despaired of the ‘Zon ever getting the message that customers are not well served by a huge barrage of noise by non-readers against anyone who would read and seriously consider a book.

Also: Has anyone heard recently from Misshelver or A Man for Misshelver? Perhaps these anti-design folk have got together and started a family dedicated to complicating the lives of locally owned bookstores and their customers. 😉

Comments

Junkdnaforever and others, The only thing I would caution regarding the shroud and it's related to my statement in reference to how Wiki treats it, which I repeat here... "A huge issue here is that Christians for the most part do not depend on relics like the shroud of Turin to substantiate the claims of Christianity. It’s not an issue whereby it must be authentic for Christianity to be true, so there’s really nothing to be gained by insisting that it IS authentic if it is not. So I doubt if most Christians would insist that it is without good evidence.' ...would be in supposing that the shroud never surfaced in the 12th or 15th centuries. Suppose it still lay buried under layers of history in Jerusalem. The Christian doesn't then say: "Oh, we have no shroud, therefore our faith has no evidential basis." And I should also mention the city of Jerusalem. Let's say that through thousands of years of history it too lay buried under rubble piled upon rubble without a present day trace of its existence. The Christian doesn't then say: "Events in the Bible took place in a city called Jerusalem, and yet we have no evidence that it ever existed; therefore our faith has no basis." The point being that evidence lends support to other evidences, which lend support to yet other evidences, and one missing piece of evidence neither renders invalid the Christian claims. The events still happened, while some evidence has disappeared. The absence of all evidences supportive of Christian claims would absolutely be problematic as they would also include the absence of the Bible itself; but I think God in His sovereignty has allowed certain evidences to surface as sufficient. I also believe that he allows new evidence from time to time as a means to render unfounded contrary claims. I think the shroud is an example of God's sovereignty over the evidence in light of current doubts about the historicity of Jesus. We see further evidence of this in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the heyday of Higher criticism regarding the Old Testament. So with each new age there appears a new controversy regarding Christian belief, and God responds by bringing to light new evidences. That's what I believe He does. This is why I caution that the shroud should not be depended upon as too strongly supporting those events without pointing to all the other supportive evidence, such as that presented in Morrison's "Who Moved the stone" argument, or the evidence that exists in extra-biblical texts, or the testimony of the Early Church fathers, and so on and so forth. We should never defer to one piece of evidence, but rather to continually drive home the other supportive evidence. What the atheists on Wiki will not be able to do by suppressing the shroud evidence then, is to completely destroy or suppress the whole issue of evidence for Christianity's claims. So when they're busy suppressing evidence for the shroud, the Christians who contribute on there (and there are many of them); should be enhancing and drawing attention to the other evidences. BTW, I read the article recently, and it looks pretty good still. There are some minor issues that I found to be a bit slanted, but overall the article looks pretty solid and objective. Apparently they haven't got around to their agenda as of yet, and it remains a discussion. I would say that a person reading the article who knew nothing about the shroud would be able to use the information present in the article as a guide for further study on both sides, and not just on the side of atheists; so i think the article is pretty balanced at this time. I personally think that the articles concerning ID are atrocious. If you noticed anything different; I would be surprised.CannuckianYankee_{June 10, 2011
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Junkdnaforlife. (Your name as a most unfortunate short version, so I'll avoid using it) :>) When I said that there is room for debate regarding the shroud, I'm reflecting the Catholic Church's official position. This does not mean that it is not empirical evidence. Empirical evidence always leaves room for debate ideally, but for some this rule is not always strictly followed, unfortunately. That does not mean that it isn't strong evidence. I had to clarify that, not that I could find any disagreement with it on your part. I fully agree with your last post. Excellent points.CannuckianYankee_{June 10, 2011
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Scott: "The idea of a relic that verifies Jesus’ existence runs contrary to the Bible." I don't think that's true. I don't know where you stand on ID because I haven't discussed anything with you before that I recall, but ID is essentially used as an inference to design, the same way the shroud can be used as an inference to the facts of the resurrection. If you use your argument, God would not have left any evidence for design, and neither would He have left a bible in the first place as evidence for His work among humans. You have to take that argument to it's full logical boundaries, which render any evidence for the existence of God as unbiblical, even the bible itself. It's self-refuting. I think the Shroud is legitimately representative of the facts of the resurrection; and that's the only thing it should be used for - not for veneration or anything else. We don't venerate the bible itself, but the words within it, because they are the immaterial Word of God. The only material that should be venerated is Christ Himself, because He is God in the flesh, and also bears the title the Word of God, because those words in the Bible are essentially about Him. But evidence and the veneration of material are really separate issues, as I believe that the shroud itself and what God has provided for us in his Word are separate issues. We have enough to go by in His Word to substantiate the claims of Christianity in my view, but that doesn't suggest that there couldn't be supplemental material that further substantiates it. The existence of a city called Jerusalem is material evidence for the claims of Christianity, and we don't find too many people objecting to its use in support of those claims. It should't be any different with an object such as the shroud. While I disagree with those in the Church who have venerated the shroud, I do agree with Pope John Paul II's statement regarding the shroud when he last viewed it stating that it's authenticity "we leave to science." (that's a paraphrase). So the church has remained neutral in this regard. It puzzles me still then, why if it remains a neutral issue it is accepted for veneration as the face of Christ. That is the one thing that to me doesn't make sense, yet I'm sure that any Catholic could provide us an explanation for why it is so, and it might be something along the lines of what I stated about worshiping Christ as the only physical (material representation of God). I still think that shroud veneration is not the same thing. Christ is not present on the Earth physically, so we worship Him in spirit. We don't worship church buildings or statues or religious relics, or anything else upon the Earth that is not the eternal Godhead. The shroud is material, vulnerable to decay. That should be obvious to anyone. In fact, it nearly was destroyed by fire in the late 1990s, so it does not physically represent the eternal Godhead. It only lends support to one particular event involving the eternal Godhead. One day we will worship Christ face to face. That's my view.CannuckianYankee_{June 10, 2011
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ScottAndrews whether you need the Shroud to bolster your personal faith or not, whether you think it is Idol worship or not, the scientific evidence itself speaks very strongly to its authenticity of the Shroud, and strictly, from a scientific point of view, the completely mysterious issue of image formation should be given respect, especially since the image formation has repeatedly defied plausible explanation by peer review; Part 1 of 13 Rebuttal to Luigi Garlischelli Shroud Forgery - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it7vw7LU13U PROOF SHROUD OF TURIN CANNOT BE A FAKE - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfDdbxMKZRw please note the 3:20 minute mark of the following video; Shroud Of Turin - Sewn From Two Pieces - 2000 Years Old - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4109101/ New Evidence Overturns Shroud Of Turin Carbon Dating - Joseph G. Marino and M. Sue Benford - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4222339 THE SHROUD AS AN ANCIENT TEXTILE - Evidence of Authenticity http://www.newgeology.us/presentation24.html The Sudarium of Oviedo http://www.shroudstory.com/sudarium.htm Turin Shroud Enters 3D Age - Front and Back 3-D images - articles and videos https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1gDY4CJkoFedewMG94gdUk1Z1jexestdy5fh87RwWAfg Shroud Of Turin's Unique 3 Dimensionality - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4041182 This following recent video revealed a very surprising holographic image that was found on the Shroud that was only made possible very recently by advances in modern imaging technology: Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words 'The Lamb' - short video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4041205bornagain77_{June 9, 2011
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Sorry, don't mean to spam multiple posts. But the Jews, from early on, were taught that idols must be no part of their worship. Theirs was an enlightened relationship with God. For them, the use of relics, icons, and idols was beneath them, the realm of pagan religions. (The only physical objects involved in worship were explicitly specified by God.) Paul, a well-educated Jew, was irritated by the many idols in Athens. Can we even imagine him kissing or praying before a shroud? It would have sickened him. If he saw someone else doing it, he would have put a stop to it. He left his previous practice for something superior, not something inferior. Relics, icons, and idols are all anathema to Christianity,ScottAndrews_{June 9, 2011
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As for the shroud of Turin - couldn't it be from anyone executed anywhere over a broad period? Weren't lots of people executed? Where are the other shrouds? It's like finding one and only one fossil when you know there were thousands of specimens. Isn't it a little suspicious that exactly one shows up, and it happens to be from Jesus? In Jude, Michael and Satan disputed Moses' body, apparently because it could have become an object of worship. Would Jesus really deliberately leave behind what for many has become an idol? Don't Christians walk by faith and not by sight? No one should need a shroud to in any way enhance or verify their faith. There's no mention of those in the first century requiring physical evidence to live and die for their faith. The idea of a relic that verifies Jesus' existence runs contrary to the Bible.ScottAndrews_{June 9, 2011
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Actually, the most outstanding historical evidence for Christianity is its own existence. Not a few hundred, but thousands and then ten thousands, including entire families, risked terrible persecution to preach the good news. How many people would risk their lives that way for a story? This is reasonable if not scientific evidence that many witnessed his ministry, death, and resurrection and passed the account on.ScottAndrews_{June 9, 2011
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Cannuk: It’s not an issue whereby it must be authentic for Christianity to be true, I absolutely agree. It is more importantly a piece of empirical evidence for the historical Jesus. Also, this evidence overlaps into the gospel accounts. The various aspects of the shroud, the wounds etc, corroborate perfectly with the gospel accounts of the passion. This is important, because it supports the written record with archeological evidence thereby reinforcing the credibility of the gospels. The shroud is dangerous to the atheists because it is a smoking gun. This is why Wiki goes to great lengths to muddy the water on this issue. You are correct that the atheist does not have to accept it. Of course not. But many of the atheists most effective arguments against Christianity crumble based on the Shrouds authenticity. And they know this. How well does the Jesus was a myth, Jesus was the product of legend etc hold up against empirical archeological evidence? It doesn't. Not only do those arguments crumble, but then the prodding question of what exactly was the "mysterious" event that created the image on the Shroud begins to surface. Science has failed to explain the image formation process. This is a nightmare for an atheist: Archeological evidence for the historical Jesus coupled with a scientifically documented unexplainable image formation process that took place at the very moment that the gospels claim the resurrection happened. This is not proof, but it is a tough hill to climb. The shroud does for Christianity what the big bang did for theism. This is why the wiki Shroud page is ground zero in the Christianity debate.junkdnaforlife_{June 9, 2011
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As to peer-review and the Shroud; The high-points;
'if we focus only on what is published in peer-reviewed scientific journals then we know certain facts. The Shroud of Turin is at least 1300 to as much as 3000 years old. The images are unexplained. As Philip Ball wrote in Nature, in commenting on a 2005 article in Thermochimica Acta that showed that previous carbon 14 dating was invalid, "It is simply not known how the ghostly image of a serene, bearded man was made" If we turn to a 2003 article in Melanoidins we find that the images on the Shroud of Turin are a chemical caramel-like darkening of an otherwise clear starch and polysaccharide coating on some of the shroud’s fibers It is not paint. There is the enigma of the second face on the reverse side of the Shroud as reported in 2004 in the Journal of Optics published by the Institute of Physics. Other peer-reviewed evidence is clear: The bloodstains are from real human blood. The images have peculiar 3D properties. The Shroud was bleached by methods used in the first century and not later in the medieval. Add in some history, and given what is known scientifically, and there is ample reason to infer that the Shroud of Turin is genuine.',,, http://www.skepticalspectacle.com/description.htm
etc.. etc.. etc.. Moreover, if we focus on the proposition that Christ actually did defeat death on the cross, then many pieces of evidence from physics, like a giant universe wide puzzle, far from making the resurrection event of Christ impossible, all, 'serendipitously', fall in place and add very strong support of plausibility that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God who actually did defeat death (and sin) on the cross for our behalf: General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy and The Shroud Of Turin - overview notes http://bornagain77.livejournal.com/ The Center Of The Universe Is Life - General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy and The Shroud Of Turin - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/5070355 Turin Shroud Enters 3D Age - Pictures, Articles and Videos https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1gDY4CJkoFedewMG94gdUk1Z1jexestdy5fh87RwWAfg A Quantum Hologram of Christ's Resurrection? by Chuck Missler Excerpt: “You can read the science of the Shroud, such as total lack of gravity, lack of entropy (without gravitational collapse), no time, no space—it conforms to no known law of physics.” The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. Dame Piczek created a one-fourth size sculpture of the man in the Shroud. When viewed from the side, it appears as if the man is suspended in mid air (see graphic, below), indicating that the image defies previously accepted science. The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. http://www.khouse.org/articles/2008/847 etc.. etc..bornagain77_{June 9, 2011
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Oh, and junkdnaforlife, You may find this amusing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populumCannuckianYankee_{June 9, 2011
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Junkdnaforlife (great name) Thanks for a very revealing post. A huge issue here is that Christians for the most part do not depend on relics like the shroud of Turin to substantiate the claims of Christianity. It's not an issue whereby it must be authentic for Christianity to be true, so there's really nothing to be gained by insisting that it IS authentic if it is not. So I doubt if most Christians would insist that it is without good evidence. History has shown many relics in the past to eventually prove inauthentic, which hasn't really affected the claims of Christianity, nor the faith of those who believe it. They are really separate issues. But the real issue here seems to be in defending the integrity of peer reviewed articles; which for the most part, do uphold it's authenticity, and those involved in those forums at Wiki need to take a good hard look at how this affects the integrity of the entire Wiki network. So there are peer reviewed articles, which uphold the authenticity of the Shroud. (BA77 has shared several of them in other posts) Does this mean that it is in fact the burial cloth of Jesus? Perhaps, but there's still room for debate on this. It sounds to me like the atheist objectors to this are more interested in not allowing any evidence for Christianity, even if such evidence does not necessarily prove anything other than that the circumstances surrounding the shroud are unusual and difficult to explain away, as many other relics have been; while lending some interesting parallels to the passion and resurrection stories in the gospels. It is a very valid position to accept the shroud as the authentic burial cloth of Christ, but that doesn't mean that an atheist is therefore obligated to accept it as such; but when they are involved in suppressing scholarship for the sake of their ideology, they have nothing to gain by it, and it only goes to demonstrate some of the pettiness by which some atheists (not all) uphold their views at the expense of others.CannuckianYankee_{June 9, 2011
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Some behind the scenes Wiki bias. This is an expert from the talk page of the Shroud of Turin article. The problem here was that too many atheists were complaining that the Shroud article was too "pro-authentic", and had to be changed. The re-butt to this claim was that all the "pro-authentic" info was from peer reviewed journals, and that if the scientific evidence pointed more towards authentic than not, than that is that. But the atheists would not have it. Scientific evidence is apparently only gospel if it fits with their dogma. So what did the lead editor have to say about the weight of peer review articles vs. "skeptic websites"? "Wikipedia does not work that way my friend. If the readers at large feel the article is too pro-authenticity, it does not matter what the academics think. At the moment there is just one IP complaining, the key is not to get to the point where 20 IPs complain. Then we will need a rewrite. And I must say the complaints of this IP are not all empty. He has some valid points. I do not see Joe Nickle as respectable, but he has 1,000 times more readers than all the other academics combined, so he can not be ignored and must be mentioned. Wikipedia is a "public" item, not an academic item." History2007 (talk) 16:55, 6 November 2010 (UTC) Again: Wikipedia is a "public" item, not an academic item." Remember this is a response to the overwhelming peer reviewed papers that support the Shroud's authenticity. So to combat the peer reviewed papers, the science and reason police simply state that the academics do not matter more or less than a popular writer. The number of "readers" someone has now apparently holds as much weight than a Phd in the field. Perez Hilton can therefore weigh in on string theory. As long as the evidence goes against their dogma, then any BS is apparently allowed to hold as much water as peer review. And not just allowed but mandatory. Now go to any ID related article and compare.junkdnaforlife_{June 8, 2011
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Wikipedia is a work in progress, and there are people contributing to it, who share the philosophical views of ID friendly people. Unfortunately the way it was designed is to allow anyone to contribute provided that they follow a certain format - such as giving references to factual statements. In my view, those standards are not enough. While they do state that writers are to be balanced and objective in their articles, it's quite easy to inject opinion by citing the opinions of others who agree with you as if that has any bearing on the facts of the subject matter. This is particularly apparent in the articles covering ID and its proponents, where we get a lot of coverage regarding Dover more from the opinions and POV of the plaintiffs than with the defense. There's also a lot of coverage on the Wedge document with citations slanted towards an ideological basis for ID. Interesting since it's ok to interject your own ideology into an article, but it's not ok, apparently for ID to have an ideological basis (as if it did). Double standard? But there are Wiki forums where people discuss the objectivity of articles. It might be to ID's benefit for ID supporters to get involved in those forums if they are not already involved. Is anyone here involved?CannuckianYankee_{June 8, 2011
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Jammer, Interesting. Maybe they've been getting complaints about the quality of their articles. There are really some excellent articles there, but when they're dealing with a controversial subject, they do tend to get rather ideological, which I think is a shame. It's good to know that their offering this quality feature, but I wonder if it will really help - if it will open up the site more to public opinion rather than to scholarship. I hope it doesn't come down to people editing articles based on the ratings they get.CannuckianYankee_{June 8, 2011
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I think the issue with sillysilly is more in his tone. People complained about him, and so his comments were deleted. In the comments section there's also a selection click for "Did this comment contribute to the discussion?" I think sillysilly simply got clicked out of the discussion because most people - not just ID supporters were tired of his "silly" comments. I personally believe he's just a troll, trying to drum up some attention.CannuckianYankee_{June 8, 2011
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On a similar note, Wikipedia now features the ability to rate certain articles, on a scale of 1-5, in trustworthiness, objectiveness, completeness and the quality of the writing. There's also a check-box for those who are "highly knowledgeable" on the topic, which, if check, expands a few more options. Who knows how serious it's being taken, but it could be a step in the right direction. Any I.D. related article there is biased to the point of being nauseating. Example of Wikipedia Article Ratings SystemJammer_{June 8, 2011
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