> Has this ng devolved into a proctored seminar of some sort?
>
> Brief (I hope) tale on the subject: when I was just starting to read
> and post to Usenet, I took up with alt.atheism.moderated. There were
> some very bright folks posting there, from a variety of academic
> backgrounds as well as from none, but there was an M.D. who was a
> theist, and he'd turned the place into pretty much what I just
> mentioned in my question above. He played the "we doctors have
> to know a lot of science" card, and pretended to be expert enough
> to pronounce on all the lines of research then current in the
> area of abiogenesis, and had nearly everyone conned into not
> challenging him on the science. It was like his classroom
> (and he didn't know what he was talking about on the subject.
> The charlatan actually touted for Behe.) It cheapened the
> quality of the forum, since nearly every thread was 'his turf'.
>
> Probably everyone knows that that ng has gone fallow. I doubt that
> the above was in any way instrumental in that, but maybe it helped to
> prevent a more vital group from finding a way to avoid the ignominy ...