Reply #126: Ad hominem attack, forsooth!

[Shrikeangel]

I'm responding only to the things you say right here. I know nothing about you as a person, I've never said that because of who you are, your statement has no merit. I AM characterizing your argument in a way you don't like, but that does not make it an ad hominem attack.

As for Casey, you obviously DON'T agree with me, because I am saying that when he says, "It's real", he means that the EFFORT is real, but he does not say ANYWHERE that the threat that the effort seeks to produce is credible. Merely that SOMEONE thinks enough of it to spend money on it.

The Soviet Union spent lots of money trying to turn spring wheat into winter wheat by freezing the seeds. It was NOT a credible activity. But it REALLY happened, and REALLY nothing ever came of it. But in talking of the Soviet Union's EFFORT to run their agriculture according to Lysenkoist biology, that EFFORT was real. Even though it never could have amounted to anything.

That's why I say you are taking Casey's quote out of context. He is talking, all along, of things that people are seriously interested in, and seriously trying to achieve, but that aren't credible. The fact that people seriously try to work on them is something that his agency had to deal with, nonetheless.