I understand that you disagree with David’s characterisation, and that is fine. Can I request though that when discussing it in asflanet you avoid sarcasm or ridicule such as this?We have had multiple people get in contact who have said they are not comfortable participating in the forum specifically because of a small set of people such as you, who at times writes in a way that people read as condescending, dismissive or ridiculing.I am writing this privately so as to avoid calling you out publicly, but I do request that you tone your messages down in this regard.
Blogger Comments:
This is not the first time Doran has attempted to bully CLÉiRIGh with a false accusation; see:
[1] Here Doran grants CLÉiRIGh permission to disagree with Rose. But see also
But in this case, contrā Doran's claim, CLÉiRIGh wasn't disagreeing with Rose, and Rose wasn't presenting a characterisation. Rose had written:
Perhaps we need to consider theories in relation to the communities that affiliate around them.
[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. CLÉiRIGh was not using sarcasm or ridicule; he seriously meant what he said:
Yes, good idea. Let's consider Creation Science and Natural Selection in relation to the communities that affiliate around them. It may not tell us much about the theories, but it will tell us a lot about the communities.
The reason CLÉiRIGh judged Rose's suggestion to consider theories in relation to the communities that affiliate around them to be a good idea is that it would bring to light what is regarded as evidence for (or against) a theory in different communities. See also David Rose On Theories, Communities And Academic Fields.
[3] This is misleading, because it is untrue. In the SFL email discussion lists, the proportion of subscribers who participate in theoretical discussions is typically less than 1%. Here Doran merely repeats the previous bare assertion of his community colleague Dreyfus (recorded here).
[4] This is misleading, because it is untrue. CLÉiRIGh posts to the asflanet list only extremely rarely, and many of its subscribers would not know anything about him.
[5] To be clear, Doran provides no evidence that any of CLÉiRIGh's few posts were condescending, dismissive or ridiculing. Again, here is part of a post in which CLÉiRIGh helped a list member to understand a theoretical point, for which he thanked him muchly off-list:
But my main reason for commenting is just to say how great it is to see someone reasoning grammatically. More power to you.
Moreover, if Doran were really serious about policing the tone of posts on asflanet, he would instead target David Rose, but Doran and Rose are, in Bernstein's terms, both priests of the same prophet, Martin. For just one example of Rose's behaviour on email lists, see the post here.
[6] To be clear, Doran is a junior academic, half CLÉiRIGh's age. His inappropriate tenor of superior social status can be explained by the Dunning–Kruger effect:
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realise it. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast, the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people.
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Tone policing – focusing on emotion behind (or resulting from) a message rather than the message itself as a discrediting tactic.
