I said earlier that the Creationism/Evolution Debate at Wizbang was over but apparently some people did not get get the message. Even though I told him in email and in public to drop the subject, Paul continued…
As owner of the site, I have decided to make his hiatus permanent. Effective immediately he will no longer be writing for Wizbang. Sometime next week I’ll be holding a guest blogging day to look for his replacement.
Update I just got out of a meeting and I see some people think this is some sort of April Fool’s Day prank. The people who believe that must not have been reading for the last week.
[Important Note: This post was part of the Wizbang April Fools]
Oh man, guys, after reading Jay’s post above, I think everyone needs a chill-out. All three of you take the weekend off and get back to us on Monday.
I didn’t mind the evolution discussions. Really. I’ve participated in a number of evolution debates myself. Heck, I’ve even argued the creationist side a few times just to be contrary. The trick is to not let it degenerate into name-calling, and unfortunately that’s what happened here.
But one of the great things about blogs is that you can skip over topics that don’t interest you. Please come back, Kevin, Jay, and Paul. All is forgiven.
BillK:
Paul, if you want to start the most ill-matched blogging partnership ever, you are free to come join me. We can couple the “Progressive Blog Alliance” Blogroll with whatever large uber-conservative blog list you want. :-).
that would actually be pretty interesting, since most blogs are decidedly biased to one side or the other.
Bill K: Kevin put the writing on the wall a couple of days ago after the last big, in a long line of them, ‘evolution isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be and you’re all a bunch of dorks’ posts by Paul. So, it should hardly come as a surprise. If Paul had not gone ahead and made another evolution post, maybe Kevin would have waited a day or had second thoughts and just nixed the idea of a Paul hiatus.
What I don’t understand is that don’t blogs want to get hits? Don’t hits create increase ad revenue? Isn’t bad publicity still good publicity? All I can think of is that when Paul was running his marathon threads it distracted from both Kevin’s Schiavo posts and Jay’s. Sure, there were still high numbers in the comments to the other threads, but Paul pretty much matched them. And there was never any sign it would let up. Or, Paul would let up. Sure people may not like him, but Paul does get butts in the seats, so to speak.
Maybe, I’m looking at this all wrong in that number of comments do not equal high blog traffic. I’m not a blogger. I guess the sitemeter thingy is what’s important. But, when you have two very controversial topics going on at once, how do you tell which one is attracting the traffic? And how do you tell if one brought people to the site and then they stuck around to read and comment on another issue? You would look at the comments, right?
julie:
What I don’t understand is that don’t blogs want to get hits? Don’t hits create increase ad revenue? Isn’t bad publicity still good publicity?
Yep. I dont understand what Kevin is doing either. Basically he’s telling alot of people that what they are interested in is a waste of time. I know that the debate that was going on wasnt the most enthralling or productive of all time, but people were following it, and quite a few.
^^oops. the second paragraph shouldnt be in italics. i suck.
What an odd situation. It never struck me that Paul was making a particular argument about evolution/creationism so much as pointing out logical flaws in the often rabidly nasty responses of evolution zealots (to borrow a phrase), but if that’s a huge problem for some people, that’s far more of a commentary on them than on Paul. It seems likely that there’s more to this than we’re being told, doesn’t it?
For what it’s worth, every blog is a buffet. I take what I want and move on. Doesn’t everybody?
I guess it comes down to what sort of traffic you want. If I was only interested in the bottom line at Sortapundit I’d be focusing on Google keywords and posting porn all over the place, but that isn’t why I blog. Kevin obviously doesn’t want Wizbang (a site that he’s devoted 2 years to) to descend into, well, what it’s become in the past week or so – one long argument. Fair play to him.
Isn’t the foremost complaint against the media that they sacrifice substance and quality for sensationalism and ratings ploys (that is unless you subscribe a “media is controlled by liberals/conservatives paranoia)? Maybe Kevin just isn’t interested in trading quality for traffic. That is, of course, if Paul can really be credited with increased traffic (I only started reading this blog a few months ago, so I don’t know how it was before). In any case I look forward to Paul’s migrating his nutjobbery to another blog. It’s always good for a laugh.
What an odd situation. It never struck me that Paul was making a particular argument about evolution/creationism so much as pointing out logical flaws in the often rabidly nasty responses of evolution zealots (to borrow a phrase), but if that’s a huge problem for some people, that’s far more of a commentary on them than on Paul.
Hey, this guy can read!
It never struck me that Paul was making a particular argument about evolution/creationism so much as pointing out logical flaws…
Bwahahahahaha. Where oh where is Paul with is, “Can’t you read what I wrote?!?!?!” Please Uncle Mikey, you are going to hurt yourself on this one.
Sortapundit:
I think it’s pretty clear that Kevin likes to post naked ladies, too.
Really Paul? You never wrote you didn’t believe in “macro”-evolution? That you didn’t believe the 100’s of transitional fossils proved anything? You haven’t come up with your own definition of evolution which (needlessly) incorporates abiogenesis into the definition?
Steve,
I bet you never figured out a rubik’s cube on your own and have been bitter ever since.
Oh my God, my secret is out. Yes, I confess all my posts have been fueled over a bitterness at never having solved a Rubik’s cube before.
It is okay that you don’t want to answer any questions Paul. I know it is embarassing getting caught distorting things like this. Sheesh.
In case anyone is arriving to the party late, it was an April Fools joke.
Paul is not fired, Jay Tea is not pissed, I’m not mad…
Details and “told you so” comments here.
Interesting how because of one persons opinion about evolution so many become angry and resort to insulting ones inteligence rather than taking part in an actual discussion.
Alex as an example shows himself as one who doesn’t care for discussion in thought and demonstration of truth.
Very sad.
Steve is great at proving other people’s points, isn’t he?
Yeah, but the kicker is Uncle Mikey he doesn’t get that he’s doing it.
He reminds me of one of my sisters. My any measure of intelligence she would be in the top 99 percentile. Every Ivy League school in the country recruited her. She is unquestionably a genius.
But Lord that girl is dumb as a brick.
I went to help her paint her house one day and she had gone to the hardware store and bought paint but had no brushes or rollers. It never occurred to her there was a problem.
Sometimes smart people are just dumb as bricks.
At this point, I’m not at all sure Steve’s not in on the joke. I feel that shaky about my April Fool’s skills and magic.
Your sister sounds a lot like my physicist cousin, who walked in front of a laser during an experiment and almost blinded himself in one eye, and who I remember having to go collect from a canoe trip on a Texas river because he wouldn’t take our word for the fact that it’s better to go upriver on the way out so you can drift back if need be. Smart enough for particle physics, too smart for everyday life.