Abbie Smith (ERV) is Anti-science, and a conservative republican lapdog

Do you remember when quack MISS Abbie Smith attacked science by going after the totally esteemed and respectable scientist DOCTOR Judy Mikovits (PhD)? It's the same way that Terrence Tau totally attacked his superior (and former professor) Edward Nelson by proving Nelson's supposed proof that arithmetic was inconsistent was itself wrong. This rarely happens in science and math, for we frown upon younglings attacking their betters and by extension the entire field.

Well, MISS Abbie Smith doesn't have the experience necessary to go after someone of DOCTOR Mikovits' stature. I suppose I should back up and start from the beginning on this totally serial issue. Recently MISS Smith on her anti-science blog, ERV, (found at scienceblogs.com/erv), has been up to her quackenagins as one can see in this post. In that post, you'll find linked this post from the scholarly XMRV think-tank known as mecfsforums.com. Robyn, one of its internet scholars, writes of non-scientist grad student MISS Abbie Smith:

And what else can doctors conclude other then [sic] it's all in our head. [sic]  According to her [sic] she's not a doctor or even a PhD* [emphasis added].  Oh [sic] and there's [sic] several things she would have done differently (being an expert and all) in the Science [sic] paper.  Ok [sic] so all this crap was said within the first 5 min and that's all I could stomach coming from a grad student.
Maybe after she becomes an actual scientist and get's about 30 years [sic] experience under her belt [sic] I might consider hearing anything she has to say.  I doubt it though.  You think many scientists do Conspiracy Podcasts [sic]?

 If one reads a bit longer, as noted by even non-scientist grad student MISS Abbie Smith (NSGSMAS hereinafter), one finds that NSGSMAS is compared to a goat. Now, at first blush this doesn't seem too telling, but then it started to coalesce in my mind while I was sleeping. NSGSMAS attacks a liberal scientist like DOCTOR Judy Mikovits (PhD). NSGSMAS attacks science. NSGASMAS attacks a courtly old man, Steve Kerns, in a debate and even insults his wife while engaged in the debate! A follow-up post by NSGSMAS on that very issue is titled 'I can't into science, I have the dumb', where she explains what it was about science that drove her away from it entirely. It's quite sad for such a young, young (though fickle - she'll excuse horrible acts of violence if one compliments her on her looks) woman.

In any event, the keystone that shed light on the whole thing is the goat reference. She attacks liberals, is anti-science, and, I daresay, the object of the very book President Bush was reading when the planes hit the towers. She is the republican's pet goat.

*this distinction itself led to Bones' famous saying on Star Trek, "I'm a doctor, Jim, not a PhD!"

(Hopefully, by breaking this story open, PZ Myers and Rebecca Watson will see fit to hastily move me into their witless protection program. Otherwise, I fear immediate death, for VHNSGSMAS** often brags about her ability to kill a gay man*** in a single chop - and her ability to jump small outhouses with a running start and favorable winds.)

** h is for homophobic. V is for very, or vengefully.
*** gay men being a subset of men it is a forteriori true that she's bragged about this because she's able to kill a regular man with a single chop. Or, perhaps, even a Ti Kwan Leep Boot to the Head

Logic, Magicsandwichshow Style

For those not in the know, Sunday last the fortnightly produced Magic Sandwich Show had as its theme the continuation of various and sundry conversations previously held, for one example, between Eric Hovind and Thunderf00t at the Reason Rally. The normal lineup was present (that is to say DPRJones, C0nc0rdance, AronRa**, and Thunderf00t) and joined by creationist and Christian apologist Eric Hovind (son of Kent Hovind, guest of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in sunny Florida), and his presuppositional confederate, Sye Ten Bruggencate. One is hard against a wall to classify the conversation among the panelists, but substantially incoherent comes charging to the fore of my mind. I do not aim to write a comprehensive* overview, but there is to my mind nevertheless a topic of substantial import (and interest):  logic.

This article presumes the reader has watched at least some the relevant episode of the MSS.

Magic Time!

I am fairly ethically naive I must confess. I do not think this is an indictment against me so much as a strength of mine. Consider by way of an anecdote having an argument with someone. To my mind, an argument is an argument is an argument and it should be evaluated in light of its premises, necessary implications, internal coherence, logical consistency and, of course, any datum that bears on it. In this way, in broad terms, an argument can be either good (sound and valid), or bad (unsound or invalid, or both) or indeterminate (I'll leave this one alone for now). I see no benefit that enhances an argument by appending to it the label 'philosophical'. Are these arguments somehow unlike other arguments? Do they not fail or succeed on all of the criteria I've laid out?

If so, then certainly no argument is improved by calling it philosophical. Indeed, an argument is frustrated because it should immediately be called into question for not having to observe the ordinary conditions of what makes an argument. If an argument is improved by adding philosophical to it, then in addition to all of these criteria is added that isn't available to 'regular' arguments? I fail to see any benefit at all in adding that label - except, perhaps, in the ego of some minds as setting out some esoteric bar that lesser intellects should take notice not to dare apply tension.  Of course, I don't find this a strength, but I am aware there are quarters in the world where obscurantism is a sign of enlightened thinking; I'm looking at you postmodernity.