David said:John, I need to engage you as my counsel in this little IOM matter.
Quoted message said:My position is that Donovan in essence is stating that it is possible to be
a mediocre athlete in relation to the general population which is an
oxymoron and by any definition is untenable.
You are being nominated for the IOM because your method of arguing is to
declare the counter-positoin an "oxymoron". You are, in fact, saying
that it can't be right because you don't believe it. You say "by any
definition is untenable" despite the fact that you have been presented
with two definitions where it is tenable. Yelling louder and calling
people names does not constitute a counter argument.
You would not be getting the IOM award if you were able to come up with
a better argument. It certainly makes sense that you would appeal to
JMW for aid in forming an argument, which might help you learn how to do
it so you don't get reoccurring IOM awards, but it will not help you in
the face of the evidence that you are not currently CAPABLE of coming up
with an argument.
For example, your argument that it isn't possible to be a mediocre
athlete in relation to the general population is flawed for two reasons.
If you use the term "general population" to mean "people randomly
selected from the face of humanity" then it can quickly be shown that
there are vast differences between a person who trains and competes in
a sport at a mid-pack level and an untrained individual who does not
compete. Our language evolved to account for that difference by terming
the person who trains and competes as an athlete. That's how they
differ from the general population.
When I pointed out to you that I would blow away an untrained population
at a contest in my sport you then changed your term "general population"
to be "general population of people who are trained and compete". In
other words, you can only determine who is an athlete when comparing
them to other athletes. This loses the use of words in determining the
differences between people in the general population, but worse, it
creates a logical impossibility: if there is no such thing as a mid-pack
athlete then only the top half of one person who competes would be an
athlete. That isn't possible as one half of a person would not be
consistant with life and athletes are alive at the time of their
competition.
It also isn't possible because a contest exists between more than one
athlete. In any contest with three or more participants someone is
going to be mid-pack. The winner of that contest is declared the
Winner, not the Athlete.
I'm not very good at this, but I'm a helluva lot better than you are.
See, that's the thing: you can't argue your way out of a paper bag.
That's why you're getting IOM.
Dally