Very well put ChrisChris OConnor wrote:Thank you for sharing some of your personal story. Michael. I too play the drums (I suck) and am a big fan (or at least used to be) of heavy metal bands like AC/DC and Metallica, etc... I've gone to countless concerts and still am thoroughly wrapped up in music of one genre or another. I appreciate hearing the personal details of what made you who you are today.
Since you're new around here I'll share a bit about what we do. In the beginning (no pun intended) Booktalk.org was "The freethinker's book discussion community." We read and discussed books about science, critical thinking, atheism vs theism, and anything else that was of interest to people that questioned religion and religious-like beliefs. Over the years we broadened our focus and today freethought and atheism are no longer the focus, but we still have a lot of members, myself included, that find those topics of particular appeal.
We're not just a reading group that gives a few casual comments about books after we've completed them. We discuss our books while we're reading them and we literally rip them apart, discuss the pros and cons and identify errors, omissions, lies and logical inconsistencies. Our goal is not to give the author a thumbs up or thumbs down, but to become better more educated people through our readings and discussions. Often that process is painful for us or our authors. BookTalk.org isn't for everyone. You have to have thick skin around here to survive. I've been corrected countless times when I've strayed from clear thinking. Sometimes I agree with my critics and other times I don't. But I'm always learning and to me, and to most of the diehard BookTalk.org members, that's what this place is all about.
When you make a claim that there used to be an apple-sized organ hanging off the end of the human appendix we're not going to just cruise past that claim. Most of us here are somewhat scientifically literate and we expect scientific claims to have some support. Otherwise, you're just expressing whimsical and fleeting ideas from the recesses of your imagination. The claim of an organ that has now vanished is a scientific claim. It either used to exist or it didn't used to exist. We read those words and it is like slamming straight into a brick wall. We need to knock that wall down before we can progress. You're asking us to just tiptoe around that wall and keep reading. We don't do much tiptoeing around here so you're met with what appears to be hostility. The truth is we just want answers. And if you don't have answers how serious are we to take your book?
I myself encourage Michael Barry to continue researching the topic's he's covered and too take seriously the criticisms offered by members here on BT.
Reading "W,IGN?" was a tedium, as has been pointed out by others. It wasn't the proposal per se, but the overall presentation that made the read an aggravation, which is the last thing an author should want to do to a potential customer/reader.
