From: sfm@manduca.neurobio.arizona.edu (Stephen Matheson)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Janus IV: Questions for Marcus, flame set to low
Date: 27 Jan 93 06:51:29 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona UNIX Users Group

From article <nyikos.728073489@milo.math.scarolina.edu>,
by nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos):

[Deletia.  Deletia.  Deletia.  Deletia.  Deletia.  Some more deletia.]

> Not to mention the deception you engaged in where the digoxin/digitalis
> distinction is concerned.  There you said "Digoxin *is* digitalis,"
> just so you could make an insult about my alleged lack of medical 
> knowledge, and then did not even get the distinction right on the second
> try, and then on the third try you pretended that I was ignorant of
> the distinction yet again.  Are these the actions of an honest man?

I'd say they're the actions of someone who is quick to flame.  As I
recall, Mark detected your barely-perceptible and certainly
understandable ignorance of the pharmacology of cardiac glycosides, 
and decided to flame you for it.  In the process, he oversimplified
the issue.  If he'd been trying to explain cardiac glycosides to a
relative layperson like yourself, it would have been No Big Deal.
Since it was a flame, he opened himself (and dozens of longsuffering,
bleary-eyed talk.abortion readers) to incendiary retaliation, and
now we have this tiresome thread.

But I see no grounds for questioning Mark's integrity.  Likewise
for you, Peter.

[60 lines will be deleted.  Are you sure? Y/N/Of course]

>>>>>I thought that Mark told us all his profession when he started posting
>>>>>again.  If not, he certainly dropped a lot of hints that most people
>>>>>of average intelligence could have used to figure it out - that may
>>>>>explain why neither PHoney, DODie, nor Lebow were capable of it.

>>>>No, I never stated 'my profession is <x>'. It should have been fairly
>>>>obvious, to any resonably astute person though, given the sources I've
>>>>cited.

>>>Cited? Sources?  As in "a book, any book, on obstetrics"?  Hell, *I*
>>>can do better than that, and I never displayed any pretentions to
>>>working in a medical field.

>>PHoney, I've posted the documentation for that 4-5 times now. If you
>>can't find it because of your Custom Installation of the
>>NyikosNewsReader, with AI message deletion, that's your problem.

> Okay, be that way.  I'd like to know whether Steve Matheson has seen
> the documentation. [Copy of this post goes to him.]

"The documentation" for what?  Man, am I confused.  I'll say this: Mark
Cochran has been darn good at posting references in our recent thread,
which was the kind in which references are important protection from
temporary (or even chronic) pinheadedness.  It's also clear that a
combustion-enriched environment does not encourage the use of thorough
documentation, perhaps because such an environment seldom contains
information worth citing.

>>>> I never felt like my profession was the issue, since I was (and
>>>>am) able to back up statements with citations that do not rely on my
>>>>own expertise.

>>>As above?  or are you smugly sitting on the escape clause "able to"?

Isn't the point here that if you can read you don't have to provide
a lot of your own expertise?  Heck, I'm not a pharmacologist, but
I can read the Merck Index.  I've never seen the brain of a human
embryo, and I'm not an embryologist, but I can read, and I can
make some pretty secure judgments regarding the veracity of my
sources.  Then I can proceed to draw conclusions about the developing
brain.

>>Yes PHoney, as above. As in '4-5 times' I've posted the sources you
>>asked for. Steve Matheson did too, for that matter.

So we're talking about sources on the implantation rate.  No, I've
not seen any posts by Mark Cochran that included references on the
subject.  Alas, this proves nothing: I have neither the time nor
the interest in reading all the netnoise in this forum, and threads
full of bickering (especially long ones) I blissfully ignore :-).

> Except that his source disagreed with yours.  You said 2/3 of all 
> zygotes fail to implant, his gave a GUESS that 1/3 to 1/2 fail to 
> do so.

I don't think anyone knows, and as I recall, my post pointed out that
there are obvious limitations to estimating the occurrence of something
that is nearly impossible to detect.  I think a 2/3 failure rate is
higher than most estimates, but we are talking about estimates.

Since I don't think Mark is a liar, I'm guessing that he blurted out
2/3 in a flamefest.  Perhaps he had learned of a 2/3 success rate and
got it backwards.  Flames can do that.  Mark should know that.  That's
why I don't like to hang around flames.

Goodbye.

--

Steve Matheson   Program in Neuroscience   University of Arizona
sfm@neurobio.arizona.edu
Newsgroups: talk.abortion