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From: *Hemidactylus* <ecphoric@allspamis.invalid>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Whither Oxyaena?
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2024 20:31:22 +0000
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erik simpson <eastside.erik@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/4/24 11:04 AM, Kestrel Clayton wrote:
>> On 04-Dec-24 13:03, erik simpson wrote:
>>> On 12/4/24 9:45 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 3 Dec 2024 15:49:46 -0500, Kestrel Clayton
>>>> <richZIG.e.clayZIGton@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On 03-Dec-24 13:54, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>>>> On Tue, 03 Dec 2024 18:34:31 +0000, Martin Harran
>>>>>> <martinharran@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> [...]
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Glenn was exceptionally nasty
>>>>>>> to her about the whole thing.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Bad choice of words ... nothing exceptional about Glenn being nasty :(
>>>>> 
>>>>> I presume you meant "Exceptionally nasty even by the exceptionally 
>>>>> nasty
>>>>> standards of Glenn."
>>>>> 
>>>>> (Glenn's posting history shows decades of slowly growing angrier and
>>>>> more paranoid. I feel a little sorry for the guy, even though I know
>>>>> it's at least partly self-inflicted.)
>>>> 
>>>> Towards the end of the 'old' TO, I began to take the notion that Glenn
>>>> might be a sock puppet for Nyikos. Despite some indicators, I didn't
>>>> have enough evidence to call it out and I also doubted whether Nyikos
>>>> actually was capable of being able to maintain such a level of
>>>> subterfuge for so long.
>>>> 
>>> I believe Nyikos and Glenn were separate cranks, neither sock puppets 
>>> of anyone else.
>> 
>> Yeah, my bellyfeel is that they were separate people. Peter Nyikos was 
>> already pretty spiteful; I don't know that it would have made sense to 
>> create a sock puppet just to be abusive when he was already doing that 
>> on main. Besides, Dr. Nyikos clearly wanted to be seen as formidably 
>> intellectual, which very much ran counter to Glenn's style.
>> 
>> I suppose it's not impossible he rolled a sock puppet just so he could 
>> post the occasional smugly lowbrow "Says you" and "Neener neener," but 
>> if he had, I doubt he would have been able to resist praising himself 
>> with it, or rushing to his own defense when challenged.
>> 
>> 
> Nyikos was an excellent mathematician, albeit in a deadend branch of 
> mathematics.  This excellence made him pretty unique as a crank, and I 
> stupidly interacted with him for a long time, not recognizing his crankhood.
> 
He had a bunch of energy for someone his age and cocksureness. I think his
topology background made him think he was uniquely qualified to quarrel
with experts on embryology like PZ Myers back in the day. Or maybe he was
motivated by his views on abortion to engage in such topics. 

Weren’t he and Glenn not on the same page about the directed panspermy
thing? Glenn could have been his gadfly alter, but they had such disparate
styles of communication. To Nyikos Glenn was one of the many renegade
underdogs he felt a need to protect. 

The newsgroup would be far more active if Nyikos were still posting. I
assume he had the tenacity to have managed the migration from Google Groups
to an alternative posting method. His death coincided with the passing of
Google Groups. Did Glenn post using Google Groups? I can’t recall if he
continued to post after it discontinued. We lost Nando too. He’s not
present to see us survive the many COVID shots we received. 

Nyikos did cause far more activity on the paleontology group too.