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 Community
 Riley Sinder
is an Affiliate of the Center for Public Leadership. He is also Consultant and Advisor to the
Superintendents Leadership Program, a project supported by the Wallace-Reader's Digest
Funds. Previously, Sinder was Director of Emerging Technologies at the Center for Public
Leadership. For the last twenty years, he has developed key pedagogical and analytical
methods for teaching leadership, particularly the kind of non-hierarchical leadership that sparks
high-technology teams into breakthrough discoveries. He helped Ronald Heifetz devise the
framework underlying one of the Kennedy School's most popular courses, "Exercising
Leadership: Mobilizing Group Resources." Sinder also has managed numerous state-of-the-art
technology teams in telecommunications, e-commerce, and Web software. In applying modern
systems understandings to real problems, he has organized several research projects, including
Promoting Progress: The Supreme Court's Duty of Care, analyzing the U.S. federal courts'
sensitivity to the foreseeable effects of court action or inaction in the area of patent law and,
accordingly, recommending improvements to American civil rights law. A current book project
is Mobilizing Teams to Win in Business: Adapting to High Technology. He has a Ph.D. in
Chemistry from U.C.L.A., J.D. from Washington College of Law, and S.B. from M.I.T. Away
from work, Sinder enjoys classical music, arguments about religion, camping in the mountains,
and windsurfing.
- Article
Claira Duvensky
Staff Writer
If the Usenet newsgroup you frequent seems a little more active lately, you can thank a team of
six UofC psychology graduate students researching debating behavior on the Internet. The
students have created an Internet character, given him an unpopular cause, and even created a
personality for him as they used him to spar with real people all over the world.
"The results have been fascinating," says team member Ehmed Mudjavi. "People have gone
to
a great deal of trouble to respond to our character, and have even gotten really angry at him on
occasion."
The team has dubbed its creation "Riley Sinder," and an account was opened up under that
name with Netcom, an Internet service provider (Riley's e-mail address,
rednblu@ix.netcom.com, is based on the UofC lacrosse team's colors).
Since the start of the term, the students have been regularly posting under Riley's name to more
than a dozen political, religious and philosophical newsgroups.
All the posts argue a single point: that creationism should be taught in public school science
classes.
"We wanted to give him an unpopular viewpoint in order to generate more comments," explains
group member Karen DuPres. "But we didn't want to make him outrageous."
Using arguments that typically include obscure legal references and somewhat hard-to-follow
logical paths, Riley never wavers from his cause. One recent post authored by the team reads,
"The most dangerous element of evolutionism is that its religious content is UNCONSCIOUS.
The evolutionists actually BELIEVE their source of evidence to be infallible. Thus, there is no
reason to examine their own faith."
The core of the argument the team developed for Riley is that the prohibition against teaching
creationism in public schools actually represents an unconstitutional limit on the free speech of
the majority of Americans. Riley also questions the infallibility of evidence in the physical world
in order to score points against evolution.
"It's a little bit beyond where a completely logical person would stand," admits Karen. "But
there is a logical flow there, and some ideas that people can respond to. We didn't want him to
just announce that Jesus is coming back at Christmas or something, because that wouldn't
generate the right kind of replies. And if we made him completely rational, no one would
respond."
The team members take turns writing the posts, which are then checked by other members for
consistency of tone, language and personality. Explains Ehmed, "Riley's personality is a little
bit
pompous, and sort of aloof. He uses big words, and likes to throw out an advanced concept
here and there. He never addresses anyone by their name, and often does not reply at all."
Riley's posts have generated hundreds of Usenet replies, 95 percent of them from people who
disagree with him, says team member Judy Tockas. Dozens more replies have been sent
directly to Riley's e-mail address. Interestingly, the private e-mail tends to be more favorable.
"About half the people who e-mail Riley directly are sympathetic to his cause," Judy says.
"Although some criticize his arguments as illogical, a lot of the writers agree that religion should
be taught in the public schools."
Riley has even received two invitations to join militia groups bent on the establishment by force
of a more religious-based government. "That scared us a little," said Ehmed. "There are
a lot of
crazy people out there."
In the next few weeks, the graduate team plans to start analyzing the replies to Riley. A focus of
the analysis is identifying the degree to which respondents become emotional in their replies to
Riley, and how that emotion affects their ability to argue logically.
"It's been a lot of fun," says team member Nova Ciccione. "Creating a new person is sort
of
like playing god. We've all learned a lot about religion and evolution, too, along with learning
about how people argue."
So where does the name "Riley Sinder" come from? "Believe it or not, it's a play on the
name
Cinderella," says team member Matt Jenkins. "We knew our guy was going to get beat up on,
but he really is there for a more noble reason than people may think."
- U of C Psych Experiment
» See document: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/3369/front.html
- Almost his Homepage
» See document: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6624/
- DUVENSKY Files
- REINVENTING CIVILIZATION
- PROMOTING PROGRESS
- Lucretius
» See document: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucretius
- Nature of Things
» See document: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Nature_of_Things
» See also: <Branch 364>
 Andreas the Hardvark
» See document: http://siliconyogi.com/andreas/2003
- Etymologies
- Religion
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ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English religioun, from Old French religion, from Latin religi, religin-,
perhaps from religre, to tie fast
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- Source
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ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English, from Old French sourse, from feminine past participle of sourdre,
to rise, from Latin surgere
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 Reclaim
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TRANSITIVE VERB:
Inflected forms: claimed, claim·ing, claims
1. To demand, ask for, or take as one's own or one's due: claim a reward; claim one's
luggage at the airport carousel. 2. To take in a violent manner as if by right: a hurricane
that
claimed two lives. 3. To state to be true, especially when open to question; assert or maintain:
claimed he had won the race; a candidate claiming many supporters. 4. To deserve or call
for; require: problems that claim her attention.
NOUN:
1. A demand for something as rightful or due. 2. A basis for demanding something;
a title
or right. 3. Something claimed in a formal or legal manner, especially a tract of public land
staked
out by a miner or homesteader. 4a. A demand for payment in accordance with an insurance
policy or other formal arrangement. b. The sum of money demanded. 5. A statement of
something as a fact; an assertion of truth: makes no claim to be a cure.
IDIOM:
lay claim to To
assert one's right to or ownership of.
ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English claimen, from Old French clamer, claim-, from Latin clmre,
to
call.
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 Bible
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NOUN:
1a. The sacred book of Christianity, a collection of ancient writings including the
books of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. b. The Hebrew Scriptures,
the sacred book of Judaism. c. A particular copy of a Bible: the old family Bible. d.
A
book or collection of writings constituting the sacred text of a religion. 2. often bible
A
book considered authoritative in its field: the bible of French cooking.
ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin biblia, from Greek, pl.
of biblion, book, diminutive of biblos, papyrus, book, from Bublos, Byblos.
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- Partner | Boundary (3/14 )
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English partener, alteration (influenced by part, part) of parcener, parcener
parcener: Middle English, from Anglo-Norman, from parcen, portion, division, from Vulgar Latin
*parti, partin-, from Latin partiti, partitin
Boundary: can not find boundary or bound, bind
Middle English binden, from Old English bindan.
- 3.7.03 Cynic | Adapt | Challenge | Arrogant
(3/7 )
Etymologies:
Cynic: Latin cynicus, Cynic philosopher, from Greek kunikos, from kun, kun-, dog. See kwon- in
Adapt: Middle English adapten, from Latin adaptre : ad-, ad- + aptre, to fit (from aptus, fitting;
Challenge: Middle English chalenge, from Old French, from Latin calumnia, trickery, false
accusation; see calumny. V., from Middle English chalengen, from Old French chalangier, from
Latin calumnir, from calumnia.
Arrogant: Middle English arrogaunt, from Old French, from Latin arrogns, arrogant-, present
participle of arrogre, to arrogate. See arrogate.
Arrogate: Latin arrogre, arrogt- : ad-, ad- + rogre, to ask
Future Words :
Avoid
Courage
Enthousiasm
Arrogance
- Etymologies for the Day! (2/28 )
idiot- peculiar / alone
Competition- to seek(strive) together
- 2.21 Etymologies of the day... (2/28 )
Authority - Middle English auctorite, from Old French autorite, from Latin auctrits, auctritt-, from
auctor, creator
Purpose - Middle English purpos, from Anglo-Norman, from purposer, to intend : pur-, forth (from
Latin pr-; see pro?1) + poser, to put; see pose1.
Task - Middle English taske, imposed work, tax, from Old North French tasque, from Vulgar Latin
*tasca, alteration of *taxa, from Latin taxre, to feel, reproach, reckon. See tax.
lead - Middle English leden, from Old English ldan. See leit- in Appendix
- The Same Page
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It is not important to gather together on the same page,
It is more important to recognize that we are all pages in the same book
And when any page is lost the story can not be told.
Then we will be ready to recognize that the our page is blank and that are hands hold the pen.
8 Fold Path To Yo
12 Apostles of Yo
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- Outline
- The Book of...
The Book of...
Islam
Christianity
Open Source
Zen
Science
Matrices
8 Fold Path To Yo
12 Apostles of Yo
- Complex Systems
& Leadership
» See document: http://siliconyogi.com/andreas/Phippo
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» See document: http://www.wikipedia.org/
» See also: Nature of Things
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