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MANY authors on the Internet would like to think of themselves as being soloists vocalizing to a vast audience. Apparently, however, these "soloists" in cyberspace are as locked into patterns of conformity as anyone singing in a choir of saints. They cannot break out because they think they are already singing the right tune.

Whether these patterns of group behavior are destructive depends on the extent to which exceptional individuals detect the conformity and manage it.

1. OBJECTIVES


1. DEBATING BEHAVIOR


1. Why take the side of creationism?

In Galileo's day, if you wanted to expose the mechanisms that produced conformity, you would probably argue against the Church. You would argue that the Sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe. Only by challenging orthodoxy can you measure the forces that hold people's minds locked into orthodoxy.
2. Would it matter that creationism is wrong?

It matters a lot. If you want to detect the forces that hold people's minds in orthodoxy, you would have to argue something that is wrong--or at least they think is wrong. Otherwise you would merely flow with the others--in orthodoxy.

2. WORK AVOIDANCE


1. Why not study work avoidance in the Senate-- rather than in the unlikely forum of the Newsgroups?

People are much freer in expressing their orthodoxy on the Internet--because they think that they are free of orthodoxy.
2. How can you tell that a writer is avoiding the issue of the discussion?

All you have to do is compare the writer's pattern in other topics, such as music, modems, or mensa. At any given time there are maybe twenty disagreements over "arithmetic." But the quality of the disagreement over arithmetic is quite different--hypothetically because in the "arithmetic" discussion, the disputants consciously can deal with the issue under discussion.
3. What makes the discussion of creationism different?

Well, to answer that, you would have to have a theory of unconscious taboos. And you would have to use the theory to make some predictions of repeated patterns. Then you would have to have some data to test your theory of predicted patterns.

And if you have captured the essence of the mechanisms driving the creationism arguments, then you will predict most of the repeated patterns.

4. What would you look for in the data?

You would look for work avoidance.

2. THE THEORY


1. PROGRESS OR FUTILITY


1. What is work?

Work is whatever effort actually produces some progress. And of course, what will produce progress depends on what you think of as progress.

For the physicists hoping to get progress out of the steam engines of the Industrial Revolution, work was the effort that actually moved some object, force dot distance. But for a society, work is something else--because progress in a society is very different from merely moving objects.

Progress in a society requires that the society increase its repertoire of abilities to solve problems.

2. What is the work in the Newsgroups?

The theory is that people respond to opportunities for work similarly--in the Senate and in the Newsgroups.
3. They avoid work?

Exactly. People intuitively smell the reappearance of the work that they have avoided--just like the codger who never learned to read. The codger has a whole routine of dismissing books and newspapers. And the codger's routine serves to avoid having to learn to read.

Heaven forbid that the codger would actually spend an hour puzzling over the alphabets and emotions that he has buried under all the reasons that books and newspapers are . . . . Well, whatever the codger's story is.

In the Senate or in the Newsgroups, when people confront the work that they have avoided, they launch into the story they have invented to divert their attention--from the topics that make them sick to their stomach.

2. CORRELATIONS IN PATTERNS


1. Why do some topics upset people?

Well, it has nothing to do with the topic. A topic is just a topic.

But a topic can upset a person--if the person has some unresolved superstitions about the topic.

For example, a lot of evolutionists apparently get sweaty palms if they overhear a skeptic pointing to the lack of experimental evidence for single-celled creatures evolving into apes, women, and birds.

2. How can you tell that evolutionists get upset?

Just look at the data.

3. THE DATA


1. SCOPE OF THE EXPERIMENT


1. What is this data you refer to?

The data are in DejaNews.

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Detailed Analysis

2. How many data points are you talking about?

From the beginning to the end of the data period, 08/20/96 to 12/20/96, there were 2051 articles posted within the boundaries of this experiment throughout all the Newsgroups. DejaNews has broken the few long postings into several segments, each less than four thousand characters. On the other hand, DejaNews might include some spurious topics in the search. So there are fewer than 2051 data points, but nearly that.
3. Has each of these postings been read?

Computers are wonderful at saving time. They will look for whatever you tell them to look for. The tabulations are quick and easy.

2. CONTROL GROUP


1. How can you tell when an evolutionist is upset?

Upset is merely a measured quantity in comparing the evolutionists' postings on religion to the evolutionists' postings on non-religion.
2. What is non-religion?

The computer is programmed to tabulate as "religious" any posting that contains the words religi*, creation*, or evolution*. Conversely, any posting containing no word from any of the above three families is tabulated as "non-religious." Each author's "non-religious" postings serve as the control group for determining each author's baseline emotion, logical coherence, response to the issue, personal attack, and typographical error count.
3. Will you publish the postings you have selected for the control group?

You can peruse the control group yourself, today, by clicking the author's name in the above DejaNews query and by then selecting a random article from the displayed list of Newsgroups. Any of those postings not containing religi*, creation*, or evolution* are in the population from which the control group was selected at random.

4. EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS


1. TWO OPTIONS: MAINTAINING BOUNDARIES OR . . .


1. How can you call this an experiment?

The experimental conditions were created within the experimental period by presenting a steady challenge to whatever part of reality the posters resisted and refused to face.
2. What is reality?

Reality is the set of all that exists.
3. How can you tell if something exists?

Most sane people would agree that the sun exists. But people differ on whether or not God exists. However, whether or not God exists, at least the belief in God exists and shapes the physical world.

Nevertheless, many evolutionists resist the reality that, without the intervention of a Creator, life as we know it would not exist.

2. . . . ALTERNATIVELY, LETTING THE LEMMINGS GO THEIR WAY


1. Will results change now that everyone knows the experiment is underway?

It is doubtful that the Newsgroup posters will change their patterns of work avoidance--because the posters are unconscious and are not aware that they are avoiding the work issue. Similarly, it is doubtful that the rats would run the maze any differently even if they knew that the maze was part of an experiment.

The patterns of issue avoidance observed in the experimental data are apparently unconscious on the part of the writers. People generally do not change unconscious behavior patterns.

2. What happens if no one challenges what the posters resist?

The posters do challenge each other. However, the repeated pattern is that both parties escalate the work avoidance of flaming and personal attack to such a degree that the underlying issue is obscured even from trained observers.

Without prescriptive intervention the underlying issue remains obscured under the flaming and personal attack.

5. ANALYTICAL METHODS


1. DEGREE OF EMOTION


1. Can you give an example of a prescriptive intervention?

Consider the following exchange:

> I don't have to disbelieve what you're arguing in order to be bugged by you arguing it.

---

If you are "bugged" by the ideas in what someone says, then some of your beliefs are injured in some way.

2. How is that reply prescriptive?

A prescriptive reply looks to why the person gets angry at some statement--not to whether the statement is accurate. If you are looking at the mechanism that generates anger, the statement "one and one is three" is as useful as the statement "one and one is two."

It depends on what reality the person resists.

3. But "one and one IS two"!

And therefore nobody gets infuriated at someone insisting that "one and one is three." You can check it out on DejaNews. Nobody gets angry at someone insisting that Santa Claus actually flies through the sky on Christmas Eve. This is so because nobody's irrational belief is threatened by the statement that "Santa Claus flies through the sky."

In contrast, evolutionists can "be bugged" by someone arguing that, when the evolutionist trusts only the physical universe as the one infallible source of evidence, the evolutionist is merely expressing a religious faith.

4. Is evolutionism actually a religion?

It does not matter. All that matters for this experiment is uncovering the mechanisms that enforce conformity in belief. And the mechanisms that enforce conformity apparently are irrational because the evolutionists will "be bugged" if you confront them with their leap of faith.

2. QUALITY OF LOGICAL ARGUMENT


1. How could you possibly set yourself up as a judge over quality of logical argument?

Any experimenter must establish an objective measure for all dependent and independent variables.
2. What is your objective measure for logical content?

This study merely will organize the data. You can evaluate for yourself the logical content of the following argument:

> If you have not been injured in fact, you cannot sue to enforce the First Amendment.

---

There is much more to the doctrine of standing than this. And standing covers more than just First Amendment cases.

Besides, the harm is in the establishment of religion, not the "harm" of hearing creationist religious arguments.

3. ISSUE AVOIDANCE


1. Aren't people just arguing for what they believe? How are they avoiding the issue? Aren't YOU just rebelling against what THEY say the issue is?

Work avoidance has nothing to do with whose belief is better. Work avoidance is merely the response of the group to a painful turn in the conversation.

For example, when the press tears into the romantic affairs of the President, the press has no interest in mere romantic affairs.

The press and the demand market project a false importance on the President's affairs because focusing on the President's affairs relieves the public from facing painful realities such as: Deteriorating public education, Impending bankruptcy of the health care system, and Declining quality of life.

2. How does one story prevent the public from facing a painful reality?

The mechanism is illustrated by the following:

"I'm passing this on. I believe this answers the who and why of Riley Sinder.

From the Nov. 27 issue of the 'Frontman,' the student newspaper of the University of Chicago:

By Claira Duvensky
Staff Writer"

4. PERSONAL ATTACK


1. Does not the public have a legitimate interest in knowing the private life of the President?

No they do not.

The interest is dysfunctional. Before the President became a serious candidate, nobody was interested in Clinton's private affairs.

But when the President stands on the stage next to the painful problems in education, health care, and quality of life, the public suddenly develops a dysfunctional interest in the President's private affairs. And in examining the President's affairs, the public calms its fears to the extent that the press stories can replace the painful discussion of education, health care, and quality of life.

2. Why is intensity of personal attack a dependent variable in this experimental design?

Apparently, the intensity of personal attack is directly proportional to the strength of the work avoidance. The following quote from the experimental data serves to illustrate the point:

"since creationism is religion, it is forbidden by the 1st ammendment.

since you are a creationist, you are, by definition, a liar. thus you state that there is no evidence for evolution. a lie told by a liar."

3. How can you measure "intensity of personal attack" and "strength of the work avoidance"?

Neutral assessors are given a list of criteria to evaluate in the postings. The assessors compare postings from the experimental group to the postings in the control group.

5. SPELLING ERRORS AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS


1. Do not some people misspell all the time?

Comparison with the author's "non-religious" postings provides a calibration for that particular author. The observed pattern is that degree of emotion, lack of logical coherence, and avoiding the issue all correlate highly with increased occurrence of spelling and grammatical errors when the religious topics of evolutionism and creationism are under discussion within the experimental conditions.
2. Why do people have a tendency to misspell when they are emotionally upset?

Perhaps they do not. However, preliminary analysis reveals that in the experimental data there is a significant positive correlation between emotional content and misspelling in a posting, even when misspellings per line are normalized for the author's regular spelling habits as manifested in the control group of postings.

6. PRELIMINARY FINDINGS


1. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS


1. How will you analyze the experimental data?

The designers of the experiment created two independent variables: Religious content and Response/Non-response of the Rednblu intervenor.

There are five dependent variables: Emotional content, Quality of logical argument, Issue avoidance, Personal attack, and Spelling errors.

Accordingly, at this time the computerized analysis consists of a two-factor repeated-measures analysis of variance on the independent variables. Moreover, the analysis includes a multi-variate repeated- measures analysis of variance among the five dependent variables.

2. What correlations have you found?

Certain topics generate surprising emotional responses among the evolutionists. And the emotional responses correlate positively with measures of work avoidance, personal attack, reduced quality of logical argument, and increased typographical errors.

2. PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS


1. What topics generate "surprising emotional responses"?

Judging from the irrational responses of the evolutionists in the experimental group, the primary work avoidance centers around the following realization:

"The most dangerous element of evolutionism is that its religious content is UNCONSCIOUS. The evolutionists actually BELIEVE their source of evidence to be infallible. Thus, there is no reason to examine their own faith."

2. Why do the experimental results say little about the emotional responses of the creationists?

By preliminary estimates, less than 5% of the postings were from the creationist group. Furthermore, unlike the evolutionists, those creationists who participated did not resist a critical examination of the lack of evidence to support their personal faith.