Introduction
Consider this a follow-up of sorts to my post and debate with Alan Flanagan (Goodrich, 2021a, 2021b), if you want some background.
Nick Hiebert (Hiebert, 2021a), whom I have been interacting with for several years on Twitter, thought he could do a better job than Alan did, and challenged me to a debate. After going through a little back-and-forth on format, it became clear that Nick wanted to debate me only if he could have a moderator that would take his side in his view of the facts and the logic. I proposed a standard Oxford-style debate, where such matters are handled by the debaters, and the moderator simply enforces the rules (time, taking turns, etc.).
Nick refused, and blocked me. And then apparently wrote this, “A Comprehensive Rebuttal of Seed Oil Sophistry” (Hiebert, 2021b). And then challenged me again to a debate (I’ve been told), which I couldn’t see, as he has continued to block me. Which is most amusing, but…
After several requests, I’ve decided to take a look at his post. I’m responding as I read it, as it’s 60-odd pages long*. I am doing this in the manner of an audit. I’m not going to go through the whole thing, but until I have a feeling that I can assess the quality of the argument to my satisfaction, and hopefully to that of the reader.
This post moved to Substack.
