ID whining continues...

[Principia]

From here (http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/ResponseToAAAS.htm), a complaint about the recent AAAS resolution:
[...]

RESPONSE TO THE AAAS RESOLUTION

Summary of Resolution

A copy of the AAAS resolution is appended to this Memorandum. In summary, it claims that Darwinian evolution is a "robust" and "scientifically accepted" theory of the origin of all of the diversity of life. Curiously the AAAS is concerned because ID "proponents" (who are highly regarded scientists) have the impudence to challenge this "robust" theory. The AAAS claims that the ID challenge is not supported by "credible scientific evidence" and that a design inference is not "testable." Instead the ID claims are said to be based on "misinformation." For these reasons the AAAS concludes that ID should be excluded from all of "public science education." To this end the AAAS Board urges all US Citizens, members of the AAAS and affiliates of the AAAS to

"oppose the establishment of policies that would permit the teaching of 'intelligent design theory' as a part of the science curricula of the public schools;"

In short, the AAAS seeks to have our public schools censor ID; to "burn the books" that are critical of Darwinian evolution. This form of censorship results in a public school policy called "Evolution Only."

TOP

Reasons Why Schools Should Reject the AAAS Resolution.

Short Response To the AAAS. The AAAS resolution is an affront to good science education and intellectual integrity, honesty and objectivity. It seeks to promote the same kind of censorship that Clarence Darrow argued against in the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial. Darrow fought for academic freedom when Tennessee sought to censor Darwinian evolution. Ultimately, the Supreme Court held that the censorship of one of multiple theories of origins violates the obligation of the state to be neutral in matters touching "religion and nonreligion" under the Establishment Clause. Censoring ID in 2002 is no different than censoring evolution in 1925. The principles are the same, only the names have changed. The idea now under attack is not evolution but ID. We believe the attack is not only unseemly, but is built on hidden assumptions and lame excuses. It is also inconsistent with logic, academic freedom, good science, the US Constitution and the views of a growing number of credentialed scientists, Congress and the public.
[...] Wow... the AAAS resolution is against the US Constitution!?

The whole article probably deserves a point-by-point rebuttal...

EDIT: For continuity (http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001718)

[RufusAtticus]

Thanx for the heads up. I think I'll try to tackle some of their "points," but not now.

[RufusAtticus]

[quote]From the statement:
No known natural law appears to account for the semantic character of biological information - the message bearing sequences in DNA. . . . Until a natural law is discovered that can explain this semantic characteristic, ID is the best explanation for the biological information contained in the genetic sequence necessary to specify life.<hr></blockquote>

So they admit that ID "theory" is deus ex ignoratia.

Apparently, when trying to find this "natural law," they quit before they got to Dalton's Atomic Theory and phosphodiester bonds.

[Principia]

From Dumbski (http://www.iscid.org/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000278&p=1):
The Sources of Randomness in Natural Selection:
Who's Whispering in Natural Selection's Ear?
By William A. Dembski

About a year ago I was interviewed with Eugenie Scott on a PBS program titled Uncommon Knowledge ("Darwin Under the Microscope"). The host, Peter Robinson, asked how a random evolutionary process could bring about the complexity we see in biology, and then brought up the famous chestnut about monkeys typing Shakespeare. Eugenie's answer was that evolution isn't like randomly typing monkeys acting all alone but rather like randomly typing monkeys with someone standing at the monkey's shoulder erasing any mistakes that the monkey makes.

Now there is an obvious problem here -- how does who- or whatever is at the monkey's shoulder know what to erase? If the monkey is supposed to be typing the works of Shakespeare, then the monkey's mistake-correcting helper presumably must know the works of Shakespeare already, which overthrows Eugenie's point, which was to get the works of Shakespeare without Shakespeare or any other designing intelligence.

Turn now to natural selection as it operates in biology. According to Richard Dawkins evolution should not be conceived as fundamentally random. Yes, there's random variation, but, as he puts it in the Blind Watchmaker, natural selection is "quintessentially nonrandom." Dawkins is therefore saying that certain self-replicating systems -- simply in virtue of the way nature is constituted and the natural laws that govern it -- will be better at surviving and reproducing than others.

This may remove the arbitrariness and randomness in the day-to-day operation of natural selection but not in the structure of nature that determines what nature can select. Return to Eugenie's mistake-correcting helper. If the helper is not a designing intelligence, then that helper is him/her/itself going to need some help in knowing what to erase. There is a regress here, and it confronts natural selection operating in biology as well.

Why should natural selection choose one organism to survive and reproduce and not another? Even here randomness cannot be wholly avoided because which organism gets to survive can simply be a matter of chance (the "better fit" organism may lose out simply by slipping on a banana peel and thereby breaking its neck). But the deeper point is that even if on average the "more fit" survive, what determines which organisms are "more fit"? How was nature structured to facilitate a complexity-increasing form of evolution driven by natural selection? Apart from design, sources of randomness will inform natural selection. But in that case natural selection itself becomes essentially (though perhaps not quintessentially) random. The retreat continues. How is this different from arguing natural design, except that nature was "structured" to promote complex organisms?

[pangloss]

Off-topic, but from ARN nonetheless:

"FYI: A link to a page on quantum mechanics and panpsychism, which could have relevance to EAM, if someone would just explain it to me. "


Ahh - the blissful self-assurance of ignorance....

[pangloss]

Juxtapose the above with this:

"It is the believers who must find the supporting logic and empirical evidence for MW, and it is up to them to present that evidence along with their metaphysical assumption. Just as Bertvan and I do with EAM."


Classic....

[theyeti]

Originally posted by Dumbski
Now there is an obvious problem here -- how does who- or whatever is at the monkey's shoulder know what to erase?

[...]

Why should natural selection choose one organism to survive and reproduce and not another?


It's called the environment you dipshit. And trying to regress the problem to "where did the environment come from" is a non sequitur.

Arggh! There are few things more frustrating than to see IDists drag out dumb questions about the supposed flaws in evolutionary theory when these have been answered decades ago by biologists, in this case going all the way back to Darwin. They simply don't know what they're talking about.

I recently poured through a number of ID articles looking for references and came to a revelation of sorts. I'm reminded of a recent article about John DiIulio's break with the Bush administration. DiIulio talks about the frustration he had when discussing policy with senior administration officials who didn't seem to have a clue. They would rant about Medicare when what they really meant was Medicaid. They'd talk about killing certain programs, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, without understanding how they worked. If this seems hard to comprehend, the reason is simply that these people have a very strong libertarian streak, and are convinced that government programs never do any good, and at best simply do no harm. If that's you attitude, why bother learning how the programs work?

So too with the ID movement. They've convinced themselves and their followers that Darwinian evolution is nothing more than "materialist philosophy masquerading as science", and that it has no real empirical content. If one truly believes this, and is unwilling to explore the possibility of being wrong, then why bother learning about evolutionary biology? Philip Johnson has bragged about not having taken a science class since highschool, and has said that one only needs to have "slim" knowledge of biology to understand evolution. Bill Dembksi continuously demonstrates that he knows next to nothing about biology in general and evolutionary theory in particular. The average IDist couldn't tell the difference between a nucleus and a nuclease. It would be hilarious if it weren't so irritating.

In general, the IDists cling to a schizophrenic view of the world. They reject rationalism and instead adhere to the postmodernist / neo-Marxist view that everything is political, including science, and that evolution can only be one social group's attempt at dominating culture by controling its "creation story". The evidence doesn't matter, because it's always interpreted though the lense of one's world-view. But when it comes time to defend ID as being something other than an exercise in religious apologetics and cultural authoritarianism, they go running right back to modernism. Suddenly the evidence does matter and can be objectively determined to favor one stance over the other. But when someone starts beating them over the head with evidence, it's right back to postmodernism again.

What they've got is a conceptual mess; a muddled, broken, and useless philosophy designed only to give them an easy out no matter what the situation. It's all about winning for them; they have absolutely no interest in science.

theyeti

[lpetrich]

I've also seen some postmodernism from some creationists. Like the argument that both sides look at the same data, make the same measurements, but come to different conclusions -- some see evolution in it, while some see creation in it.

But what is especially curious is that the ideological compatriots of many creationists, and possibly some creationists themselves, consider postmodernism to be intellectual decadence, a rejection of the Western tradition of belief in objective truth.

[Principia]

Over at AE (http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=3e3e9cbd8faaffff;act=ST;f=6;t=8), Micah Sparacio (webmaster/editor of ISCID) posted: I hope that you guys don't mind me participating on this board (unfortunately I'm not an anti-anti-evolutionist).

Anyway, I wanted to make a few comments about PCID. First of all, if you notice, PCID has been out for about 10 months. To expect that the journal would be operating like a well-oiled machine by this point is unreasonable.

Second, the intention of PCID from the beginning was to be a speculative/exploratory journal. There was no illusion in our minds that PCID would explode onto the scene as a top-notch science research journal. So your remarks, Charlie, have little weight. PCID is fashioned around the exploratory journals in physics which were popular in the late 1800's - early 1900's. These journals encouraged imagination/innovation over experimental rigour.

When we say that our journal is peer-reviewed there is no intention of deception. Each article that has thus far been published has been reviewed as stated on the site. Several papers have been returned for revision.

It is not accurate to say that PCID is an ID publication. So claims that we are supposed to have the "premier ID publication" are false. Anyone who tries to use our journal polemically as evidence of ID's success is off base. We encourage a wide variety of articles on a wide variety of subjects. Even anti-anti evolutionists are encouraged to submit papers. In fact, we have two papers that are currently in the works that are being developed as critiques of ID theorists by ID critics.

Finally, regarding our three month on the Archive policy. Surely you can forgive our desparation ;-) in the early months of our journals history. In an attempt to fill out our issues, or to compliment articles that are already scheduled for publishing, we may, from time to time, solicit papers that did not appear in our Archive for the required three months. Again, we apologize for this and sincerely hope that you will forgive us LOL, sounds like ID research has about a century's worth of scientific rigor to catch up, if it is still comparing itself to "imaginative" story-telling articles of the 1800's (!!). An ol'-fashioned journal headed by the self-proclaimed Isaac Newton of Information Theory... perfect juxtaposition.

[pz]

Originally posted by Principia
Over at AE (http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=3e3e9cbd8faaffff;act=ST;f=6;t=8), Micah Sparacio (webmaster/editor of ISCID) posted: LOL, sounds like ID research has about a century's worth of scientific rigor to catch up, if it is still comparing itself to "imaginative" story-telling articles of the 1800's (!!). An ol'-fashioned journal headed by the self-proclaimed Isaac Newton of Information Theory... perfect juxtaposition. I'm a bit baffled, though -- what specific journals is he talking about? I don't know anything about the physics journals of the time, but I've done my share of browsing in the old biology journals -- Roux's Archives, JEEM, J. Comp. Neurol. -- and they don't have this attribute of diminished rigor that Sparacio is claiming.

[Principia]

I honestly don't know myself, but this is not the first time the analogy has been tried. Dembski (or was it Nelson?) similarly justified IDiots publishing books rather than peer-reviewed articles, by using Darwin's OOS as an example. Eh, it's all good for a laugh.

EDIT: Here's a timeline (http://superstringtheory.com/history/history2.html) of physics achievements that Sparacio is comparing the articles in PCID with. LOL, we're talking about ID vs. the works of Maxwell, Boltzmann, Planck, Einstein. I tell you this is self-aggrandizement at its worst.

EDIT2: I found one reference (http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000483#000010): Dumbski: Niels Bohr once remarked that if a physicist has a wild idea but doesn't publish it, and it later turns out to be correct, the physicist has no one to blame but himself. This statement by Bohr makes no sense unless in fact a physicist could definitely publish a wild idea in some reasonable journal in the prewar period. Certainly he could publish in Zeitschrift fuer Physik, which would (at the time) publish any paper submitted by a member of the German Physical Society. Heisenberg published his "wild" idea on the Uncertainty Principle there.

[Principia]

Well, it sounds like there is just one (or a few) example being recycled over and over. From AE (same thread), Sparacio parrots the Dumbski quote above: Zeitschrift fur Physik is the most prominent example.

I should correct something I said before. It is not so much that the journals I refer to encouraged one methodology over another, it is just that the peer-review process was negligible to non-existent and thus the journals (especially those in physics) were more welcoming to speculation/creative hypotheses making.

The current role of peer-review in the sciences is a relatively recent phenomena (post 1930s). One could argue the current role of peer-review is an outgrowth of the "scientist myth" where even hypotheses making is a calm, collected, methodological process void of any creativity or speculation. One gets the sense that Mr. Sparacio hasn't been through the peer-review process.

EDIT: I should add here that the "wild ideas" that Micah and Dumbski are advocating for their journals are nowhere as rigorous as any theoretical physics article.

[Arrowman]

Niels Bohr once remarked that if a physicist has a wild idea but doesn't publish it, and it later turns out to be correct, the physicist has no one to blame but himself. This statement by Bohr makes no sense unless in fact a physicist could definitely publish a wild idea in some reasonable journal in the prewar period.Trouble is, this sort of argument appeals to the lay community, who think that great scientists sit around rubbing their bearded chins until the "aha!" moments, and that scientific journals are places where "wild ideas" are published before they have undergone any critical scrutiny. The difference between Bohr's "wild idea" and ID is too subtle, and requires too much understanding of the way scientific publication works, for a lot of people to grasp.

[Albion]

Another problem is that peer review means review by one's peers, not necessarily review by practising scientists or even scientifically literate people. For scientists, that does mean review by other scientists, but for creationists it means review by other creationists. They can get something published in a bona fide peer-reviewed creationist journal without a scientist ever having set eyes on it. But when people talk about peer review in general converation, they mean a rigorous review by scientists, and creationists are very happy to let them carry on thinking it.

[Gregg]

Originally posted by lpetrich
I've also seen some postmodernism from some creationists. Like the argument that both sides look at the same data, make the same measurements, but come to different conclusions -- some see evolution in it, while some see creation in it.

But what is especially curious is that the ideological compatriots of many creationists, and possibly some creationists themselves, consider postmodernism to be intellectual decadence, a rejection of the Western tradition of belief in objective truth.

I sent several e-mails to an ID web site calling them on this. I pointed out that I hear lots of right-wing Christians these days talking about how Western culture is superior to middle east culture partially because of our emphasis on science and rational thought. Then I asked, "If you agree with this, then why are you working to corrupt science and rational thought?"

Never did get a reply.

[Principia]

From the IDiot stronghold, ISCID (http://www.iscid.org/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000309&p=1): Moderator (either Micah S. or John B.): This is a heads-up to everyone at Brainstorms. It involves a policy change.

Though this has been the intention of Brainstorms from the beginning, we are just now making it exlicit.

All critiques at Brainstorms must be in the spirit of helping to improve the hypothesis. If the argument is just too far removed and off base, then participants are required to refrain from posting to the thread. If participants can't refrain from consistent efforts to merely shoot down ideas, rather than sometimes affirming the positives, their posting privileges will be removed.

Being even more explicit...

All posts on the first page of a thread must be what Edward de Bono calls of the "green hat" type. The earliest posts must be confined to positive construction, re-construction and modification of the ideas in the original post. In other words, on the first page of a thread, participants are required to show that they have an interest in helping the argument to be developed and not just in shooting it down.

After the first page of a thread, participants are then allowed to provide more forceful, "hole-picking" critiques.

There are several purposes to this new rule. First, to prevent an idea from being killed before it is given a chance to breathe. Second, to encourage a cooperative environment. Third, to give the moderator additional tools for removing participants from the board who are unable to participate in a cooperative environment and who constrain their behaviour to shooting down ideas and disrupting conversation. I think to get even more explicit, Dembski will just have to strip naked and dance in front of national TV. LOL "Please, please don't shoot down our IDiotic ideas."

EDIT: fvck, it's been a slow day

[RufusAtticus]

If the idea has merit, then it won't be shot down period.

[pz]

Originally posted by RufusAtticus
If the idea has merit, then it won't be shot down period. That's not quite true. You must have participated in graduate journal clubs -- you can take even a thoroughly reviewed, published paper from a prestigious author on a great subject, and rip into it. It's part of our scientific training to be consistently critical.

And it is good.

Picking and sniping at ideas is how we make them better and stronger. Cheerleading does not make them better and stronger. This policy from ISCID is an open declaration that their ideas are too feeble to stand without being propped up by advocates, and further, that they are not interested in seeing them improve.

[RufusAtticus]

Originally posted by pz
That's not quite true. You must have participated in graduate journal clubs -- you can take even a thoroughly reviewed, published paper from a prestigious author on a great subject, and rip into it. It's part of our scientific training to be consistently critical.

And it is good.

Picking and sniping at ideas is how we make them better and stronger. Cheerleading does not make them better and stronger. This policy from ISCID is an open declaration that their ideas are too feeble to stand without being propped up by advocates, and further, that they are not interested in seeing them improve.

Sorry, what I was trying to say is that if an idea has merit it can survive naysayers, even agressive ones.

[Principia]

It's pretty clear that the whining Moderator is John Bracht. From this ISCID thread (http://www.iscid.org/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000287&p=5), he gets trounced (or as they call it "lit bombed" :D), and subsequently puts forth the following plea: Yersinia, Frances, Gedankin, et al.,

With research and school I don't have a lot of time to go into detail on all the points that have been raised on this thread, so this email will summarize what I see as the important issues.

[...]It does no good to argue from the literature when it's making the same error you are. I disagree with the way you're just papering over the real problems involved in adding dimensionality to the hypervolume, and I certainly disagree with the way much of the literature does the same thing. So citing literature that promulgates the same error won't convince me--sorry!

As for your insistence that my definitions have not been rigorous enough, as far as I can tell you just want me to give a "soundbyte" summary of my ideas so you can go pubMed search and find some abstract that contradicts whatever I say. You want an easy target that you can shoot down. However, the ideas I'm dealing with are a good bit more sophisticated than that, and don't admit to easy simplification to the superficial (and therefore likely incorrect) level you want. If you can't read what I've already written and deal with that, I don't have too much sympathy. I've spelled out my ideas over and over again, with as much clarity as I can muster, and doing so again won't help. Furthermore, the fact that you just want to "shoot down" or defeat my ideas is enough to show that you aren't really thinking in the spirit of this discussion forum. I'm trying to explore ideas that seem to have a lot of validity in terms of expressing something true about biological complexity, but are not yet fully fleshed out. Recall the mission statement of Brainstorms is to provide a place for novel intuitions, speculations, hypotheses, conjectures, arguments, and data related to complex systems that have yet to be developed into full-fledged research projects. Critiques are welcome, but your warpath mentality is certainly not. If you offer valid critiques in response to this email, I'll respond to them, but if you continue with the battle warrior mentality I won't bother (this goes for Frances and Gedankin, as well).

[...]Bottom line: none of the examples presented in this thread as counterexamples to my arguments have been this sort of inventive change. Simply showing that genes can duplicate and evolve is not enough. The question is: can gene CONTEXTS evolve such that genes are imbedded in the regulatory networks in ways that produce novel structures? A duplicated gene that evolves is still going to be interpreted in light of the "old" genetic network, and will only be able to produce (at best) variants of what existed before. Genuine novelty (of the inventive sort I'm talking about) simply cannot come about this way because you're just moving around in the hypervolume of possibilities--you're not re-engineering it to make new possibilities available to be explored.

[...] Unless someone brings up a response which shows real insightfulness (in the sense of addressing the evolution of genetic contexts instead of the evolution of individual genes), I'll let this be my last post on this thread. I'm weary of the repititious error in which evolution within a hypervolume (via gene duplication, and subsequent mutation of that gene) is conflated with the re-engineering of the hypervolume itself. Perhaps someone will want to argue that there is no real distinction--in which case a good justification for that assertion will have to be made. But I'm not hopeful--it seems that most of my critics aren't willing to think that hard and consider what sorts of genetic changes they're dealing with. Who knows, though--maybe I'll be proven wrong. I'll let you all have the last word.

John And this guy is a graduate student?! What, is he following in the footsteps of J Wells?

[pangloss]

Hyperspace?

BLAH Blah?

If you can't figure out what I am thinking, thats your problem?

If actual evidence counters my claims, then frankly I don't accept them?



My - what incredible SCIENCE the IDiot offers!

I had an email discussion with Bracht some time ago. Same sort of thing - the evidence I presented wasn't exactly addressing what he had in mind, and when I douibted his simple assertions, I was "posturing" or being "arrogant."

Right....:boohoo:

[pangloss]

Say - I thought Nelson was going to pay a visit and put everyone in their place?

Guess he didn't like having his underhanded tactics exposed within the space of - what was it - 2 posts?

Better to hang with the sycophants - plus moderator protectionis a plus...

[Dr.GH]

Well, other than numbskull cheerleaders, the "new policy" will mean that there will be no second page.

[Kevin]

Originally posted by Principia
Moderator (either Micah S. or John B.): This is a heads-up to everyone at Brainstorms. It involves a policy change.

Though this has been the intention of Brainstorms from the beginning, we are just now making it exlicit.

All critiques at Brainstorms must be in the spirit of helping to improve the hypothesis. If the argument is just too far removed and off base, then participants are required to refrain from posting to the thread. If participants can't refrain from consistent efforts to merely shoot down ideas, rather than sometimes affirming the positives, their posting privileges will be removed.

Being even more explicit...

All posts on the first page of a thread must be what Edward de Bono calls of the "green hat" type. The earliest posts must be confined to positive construction, re-construction and modification of the ideas in the original post. In other words, on the first page of a thread, participants are required to show that they have an interest in helping the argument to be developed and not just in shooting it down.

After the first page of a thread, participants are then allowed to provide more forceful, "hole-picking" critiques.

There are several purposes to this new rule. First, to prevent an idea from being killed before it is given a chance to breathe. Second, to encourage a cooperative environment. Third, to give the moderator additional tools for removing participants from the board who are unable to participate in a cooperative environment and who constrain their behaviour to shooting down ideas and disrupting conversation.

This is counterproductive. If their interest is in presenting a new model to the scientific community, it is likely to encounter a great deal of scrutiny and criticism, and it won't all be of the safe "I'm just doing this to help us, but I really really believe ID anyway" sort of criticism. Thus, having people presenting the conclusions and research of mainstream science would actually help them if they were to avail themselves of it.

However, this strategy is just perfect if they intend to forgo publishing their material in the scientific arena and go straight for forcing it into the classroom instead.... :mad:

[Kevin]

John Bracht's post is a bravura performance of sheer incoherence.

What is "evolution within a hypervolume"? One would assume that it has something to do with the geometry of higher-dimensional space, but then this is the topsy-turvy world of ID, where things don't mean what they mean in rigorously defined standard terminology (information, complexity, etc.) If it does involve the geometry of higher dimensional space, what does it have to do with evolution?

Secondly, I don't understand why he thinks the "hypervolume" needs to be "re-engineered". Is he actually complaining because organisms don't pop into existence in a generation with entirely different body plans, as he appears to be doing?

This is exactly the sort of nonsense which would be weeded out by an intense scrutiny of the idea. I guess he's already thought of that, though.

:banghead:

[Tom Ames]

Originally posted by Kevin
John Bracht's post is a bravura performance of sheer incoherence.

What is "evolution within a hypervolume"?...

This is exactly the sort of nonsense which would be weeded out by an intense scrutiny of the idea. I guess he's already thought of that, though.

:banghead:

Actually, this is not really that nonsensical.

The idea is that a genetic algorithm (or indeed, any heuristic search algorithm) traverses some portion of a space that represents all possible solutions to a problem.

If you think of the Traveling Saleman Problem (http://www.math.princeton.edu/tsp/) (TSP) with, say, 4 cities, you might get a clearer sense of what this means.

There are 4! possible routes between 4 cities, so there are 24 possible solutions to this small problem. These 24 solutions form points in a 1-dimensional space (in this case). For more complex problems, more variables will be needed to describe the solution, so the solution-space will be of higher dimensionality.

Bracht's point is that truly "novel" solutions to a problem involve increasing the dimensionality of the solution-space. For example, in a real-life TSP, a better solution to minimize the cost of the route might be to take alternative forms of transportation for some segments. A generic heuristic search strategy will never be able to come up with the alternatives represented by this addition of a new parameter (and a new dimension in the solution-space).

Although true, this is not a particulary novel insight. And of course as RBH, Frances and others have pointed out, evolutionary algorithms in the wild and in silico are not necessarily the generic heuristic search strategies that Bracht seems to assume. They are potentially (and actually) capable of increasing dimensionality by (for instance) gene duplication.

[NialScorva]

Originally posted by Tom Ames
Actually, this is not really that nonsensical.

The idea is that a genetic algorithm (or indeed, any heuristic search algorithm) traverses some portion of a space that represents all possible solutions to a problem.

If you think of the Traveling Saleman Problem (http://www.math.princeton.edu/tsp/) (TSP) with, say, 4 cities, you might get a clearer sense of what this means.

There are 4! possible routes between 4 cities, so there are 24 possible solutions to this small problem. These 24 solutions form points in a 1-dimensional space (in this case). For more complex problems, more variables will be needed to describe the solution, so the solution-space will be of higher dimensionality.

Bracht's point is that truly "novel" solutions to a problem involve increasing the dimensionality of the solution-space. For example, in a real-life TSP, a better solution to minimize the cost of the route might be to take alternative forms of transportation for some segments. A generic heuristic search strategy will never be able to come up with the alternatives represented by this addition of a new parameter (and a new dimension in the solution-space).

Although true, this is not a particulary novel insight. And of course as RBH, Frances and others have pointed out, evolutionary algorithms in the wild and in silico are not necessarily the generic heuristic search strategies that Bracht seems to assume. They are potentially (and actually) capable of increasing dimensionality by (for instance) gene duplication.

Not the best example, the TSP is np-hard, and weighted paths don't appreciably change the difficulty of it. It changes the topography, but not the difficulty.

[Tom Ames]

Originally posted by NialScorva
Not the best example, the TSP is np-hard, and weighted paths don't appreciably change the difficulty of it. It changes the topography, but not the difficulty.

Maybe not the best example, but I think it made the salient point. I was going to use the example of phylogenetic systematics, but didn't want to needlessly complicate things.

If you have a better way of making the point, by all means, let's hear it.

[NialScorva]

Originally posted by Tom Ames
Maybe not the best example, but I think it made the salient point. I was going to use the example of phylogenetic systematics, but didn't want to needlessly complicate things.

If you have a better way of making the point, by all means, let's hear it.

Sorry, I was overthinking. I see your point and I was referring to the fact that Bracht wasn't saying anything. Your analogy is fine, and adding my comment onto it hints at why it's not a problem for evolution.

Sorry for the trigger happy response.

[Principia]

From Luskin of IDEA (http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~idea/scidoubtevol.htm): The claim is often made that few or no legitimate scientists or academics have any real doubts about the validity of Darwinism, naturalistic theories of the origins of life, or believe in the real scientific possiblity of Intelligent Design of life or the universe. The purpose of this document is to list individuals of high academic training who have publicly expressed serious doubts about Darwinism, other naturalistic theories of life's origin, or have expressed support for Intelligent Design theory, either in scientific journals, books, web-documents, letters, or other public statements. Our criteria for this page is that each individual must either 1) have a PhD, 2) be a professor at a university or 3) be moderately published in scientific journals, or 4) is a member of a mainstream scientific society.
[...]News Flash: What about "Project Steve?" (added 2/26/03): "Project Steve" is a recent list of scientists named Steve, Stephanie, and related mutations of the name Steve, that has been released by the NCSE to poke fun at lists, such as this one, that intelligent design proponents have compiled of scientists who are skeptical of Darwinism. It is officially just for fun, and also in honor of the late Stephen J. Gould, and as of today there are about 265 "Steves" that have signed the list. If we can lay politics and arguments aside for a moment and not take any of this too seriously, much of the material on the Project Steve Website is actually quite funny and NCSE staff deserves some credit for putting their sense of humor to use. But there is a deeper point.

We must ask the question, has anything been proven by any of this? Of course not. Before Project Steve came out, everyone knew that the scientific establishment produces more Darwinists than design proponents, and the implications of these numbers are hardly surprising. However, the Director of the NCSE herself has said that science is not a democracy, and that numbers or popularity contests do not decide who is right.

Indeed, in the end, most creationists, Darwinists, ID proponents, and everyone else agree that what really counts is evidence, and not numbers or lists. At least this has always been our position. Sure, a lot of people think the evidence tips towards Darwinism. Others may feel it sits on the side of design. But what matters in the end is evidence.

But if evidence is all that matters, why have ID-proponents compiled these lists, much to the amusement of people named Steve? In our view, ID proponents don't amass these lists because they think lists win the argument. Rather, lists such as these help to rebut an argument-from-authority that some Darwinists use in the public debate to distract from actual discussions of the evidence and to encourage people not to question Darwinism. That argument essentially is, "the overwhelming majority of scientists accept Darwinism and so should you and your school's curriculum." Unfortunately, this sometimes appear to be a persuasive argument, despite the fact that it sidesteps discussions of the evidence which could reveal legitimate criticisms of Darwinism.

For ID-proponents, the most effective way to rebut that argument and try to shift the discussion back to the evidence, is to temporarily fall into the trap and to become distracted from the evidence, and compile a list showing that a lot of intelligent people question Darwinism too. (The main reason for questioning "evolution" (meaning evolution (dramatic change through the history of life) driven by Darwin's naturalistic mechanism as the drivinfg force) actually get’s to the mechanism often sited as being one of the main driving forces of life’s diversity from an evolutionary perspective: random genetic mutation giving rise to various characteristics upon which natural selection acts. In other words, what we see in the biosphere is largely due to an unguided, basically random process (natural selection is not random, but the mutations which natural selection acts upon are random - therefore, at the base of this mechanism is randomness). While we certainly do not deny that a mutation-selection mechanism is present in nature, to credit it with nearly everything that is seen in the natural world does not seem warranted based upon the scientific evidence.) The bottom line is that intelligent design proponents "amass" these lists because Darwinists often use the "argument to authority" to support their position, and Darwin-skeptics are forced into the position of rebutting this fallacious "argument to authority," (though practically it has proven persuasive argument for them), by showing that many intelligent individuals doubt Darwinism too. In fact, the list on this page presents itself as a rebuttal to the claims of Darwinists, stating in the opening sentence of the Introduction above, "The claim is often made that few or no legitimate scientists or academics have any real doubts about the validity of Darwinism, naturalistic theories of the origins of life, or believe in the real scientific possiblity of Intelligent Design of life or the universe."

Thus, in conclusion, it is, and always has implicitly been the IDEA Club leadership's underlying position that these lists really don't matter much in this debate. And if you agree with us that evidence is all that matters, save yourself some time and stop reading now; suffice to say, a lot of intelligent people have questioned Darwinism, and a lot of intelligent people, indeed, probably indeed including the vast majority of scientists accept it. But since you agree that evidence is more important than the overall opinion of the scientific community, this list doesn't even matter (and for some insight into why scientific opinion is what it is, take a look at The Stasis of Objections, where we discuss why so many scientists accept Darwinism and are skeptical of design).

But if you think that essentially no one trained in the sciences, particularly the biological sciences, is skeptical of Darwinism, or if you think that the "argument-from-authority" is a persuasive or conclusive argument in this issue, then please at least consider the modest presentation of Darwin-skeptics on this list. We don't expect to -- and never wanted to -- convince you that so much scientific opinion is on our side that therefore we are right--that argument, which some Darwinists use, discourages critical thinking, which we value very highly. We simply hope that this list might help show that intelligent people do question Darwinism, such that you might want to shift your eyes back to the evidence, and take a second (or first) look at the scientific evidence of this issue yourself. We are happy to invite you to peruse the articles on our website in the process.

And now back to our regularly scheduled list of Darwinism skeptics...which, incidentally, currently boasts a whopping 9 "Steves" itself!
LOL, the hypocrisy is astounding! Lists don't matter, but oh, btw, here are 400+ "scientists" who happen to agree with us. Post-list analysis, at AE by nic (http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=3e5f7bda1aa2ffff;act=ST;f=2;t=56).

[Principia]

From here (http://www.discovery.org/viewDB/index.php3?command=view&id=1393&program=CRSC%20Responses):
Dumbski: If Project Steve was meant to show that a considerable majority of the scientific community accepts a naturalistic conception of evolution, then the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) could have saved its energies -- that fact was never in question. The more interesting question was whether any serious scientists reject a naturalistic conception of evolution -- that fact has been in question, especially by the NCSE. That it is now a known fact can be credited to Seattle's Discovery Institute, whose list of scientists questioning Darwinian evolution was the impetus for Project Steve. Interestingly, the NCSE has on numerous occasions stressed that science is not decided at the ballot box. If the NCSE still holds that position, then Project Steve is not only a proof of the obvious but also an exercise in irrelevance. Methinks this "serious scientist" doth protest too much. If it is obvious that a considerable majority of the scientific community accepts evolutionary theory, then what is the obvious point about the handful of "serious" ones who don't? Or how about the one or the few who take the time to write about an "exercise in irrelevance?"

[Gregg]

Whoops! This is an old thread and I just noticed that I already HAVE responded to the quote below further up in the thread, with pretty much the same comment. Moderator, please feel free to delete it.

Gregg

Originally posted by lpetrich
I've also seen some postmodernism from some creationists. Like the argument that both sides look at the same data, make the same measurements, but come to different conclusions -- some see evolution in it, while some see creation in it.

But what is especially curious is that the ideological compatriots of many creationists, and possibly some creationists themselves, consider postmodernism to be intellectual decadence, a rejection of the Western tradition of belief in objective truth. Oh yeah, I saw that a long time ago. Social conservatives arguing that much of the military and economic superiority of the West is due to objective science, and in practically the same breath arguing for lower science education standards. It's bizarre.

Gregg

[Xeluan]

Originally posted by Principia
From here (http://www.discovery.org/viewDB/index.php3?command=view&id=1393&program=CRSC%20Responses):
Methinks this "serious scientist" doth protest too much.

It is evidence that Dembski has no pretense to argue ID on scientific grounds anymore. The whole issue is political for Dembski and as such based totally on spin and rhetoric with no content.

And he lost his sense of humour along he way.

[Principia]

In the first ID whining thread, Richard Halvorson whined about not giving the DI dumbasses equal academic attention. Now he throws another tantrum in The Harvahd Crimson (http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=347399):
Does our culture, like many others, have an unpardonable heresy? Every culture constructs an idol unto itself, punishing heresy by excommunication. We can discover the sacred idol of any culture by finding its taboo question.
In Medieval Europe, the peasant was forbidden to question the truth of the Church. Under Communism, comrades doubting the Party were thrown in gulag labor camps. Now, citizens must recite principles of Darwinism through compulsory schooling.

We are encouraged to learn nuances like punctuated equilibrium and neo-Darwinism, but questioning the universal explanatory power of evolution is met with intellectual excommunication.

I make no apology for those who blindly reject scientific evidence due to contrived religious doctrines; I have equally little tolerance for those who ignore scientific evidence to prop up a naturalistic anti-religious dogma.

Anti-religious prejudice among scientists significantly impeded 20th century scientific advance. Stephen Hawking wrote in A Brief History of Time that evidence for the Big Bang was ignored for decades because it “smacks of divine intervention.” For fear of theological implications, there were “a number of attempts to avoid the conclusion that there had been a Big Bang.”

Intellectual honesty requires rationally examining our fundamental premises—yet expressing hesitation about Darwin is considered irretrievable intellectual suicide, the unthinkable doubt, the unpardonable sin of academia.

Although the postmodern era questions everything else—the possibility of knowledge, basic morality and reality itself—critical discussion of Darwin is taboo. While evolutionary biologists test Darwin’s hypothesis in every experiment they conduct, the basic premise of evolution remains an scientific Holy of Holies, despite our absurd skepticism in other areas.

Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins writes: “It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who does not believe in evolution, that person is either ignorant, stupid, or insane.”

Biologists continue to recite the worn credo, “the central, unifying principle of biology is the theory of evolution.” But where would physics be if Einstein had been forced to chant, “the central, unifying principle of physics is Newtonian theory,” until he could not see beyond its limitations?

Scientific innovations originate outside the dominant paradigm—demanding orthodoxy invites stagnation. Scientists who question evolution, like Intelligent Design theorists, do not reject evolution entirely, but argue that evidence supports a limited explanatory role. Faithful Darwinists, however, like Teilhard de Chardin, insist that evolution is “a general postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must henceforth bow.”

Luckily, no one needs a doctorate to separate honest skepticism from institutionalized dogma. Skip Evans, of the National Center for Science Education, worried that classroom discussions of evidence against evolution might “cast seeds of doubt in students’ minds.”

Professors expressing doubts about evolution are often ostracized, demoted or fired. A Baylor University professor found research funds rescinded because his project would undermine evolutionary presuppositions. Other skeptical professors have resorted to using pseudonyms, fearing for their jobs and careers if they openly publish contrary evidence.

Evolution skeptics are almost universally dismissed with an ad hominem charge of “religiously-motivated propaganda.” Yet science students and professors consistently fail to address the merits of critics’ arguments. They cannot answer the relevant evidential questions of: (1) what is the most compelling critique of evolution; (2) and on which points the evidence or arguments fail.

Most Darwinists have not read or considered biochemist Michael Behe, geneticist Michael Denton, embryologist Jonathan Wells, or information theorist William Dembski. These dissenting voices are systematically marginalized and silenced by academic McCarthyism.

We must refuse to bow to our culture’s false idols. Science will not benefit from canonizing Darwin or making evolution an article of secular faith. We must reject intellectual excommunication as a valid form of dealing with criticism: the most important question for any society to ask is the one that is forbidden.

—Richard T. Halvorson is an editorial editor. :rolleyes:

[pangloss]

Most Darwinists have not read or considered biochemist Michael Behe, geneticist Michael Denton, embryologist Jonathan Wells, or information theorist William Dembski. These dissenting voices are systematically marginalized and silenced by academic McCarthyism.

When did wells become an embryologist?

When did Dumbski become an Information theorist?

Do these clowns just make up important sounding titles to impress the lay public as they see fit?

[Albion]

Marginalised and silenced? With books available at Amazon and all the popular bookstores? Hardly silenced. And if they're complaining about being marginalised, then maybe they shouldn't go around saying things about dedicating their lives to destroying darwinism for the greater good of their religion (like Wells) or about ditching the stage of the Wedge project that's concerned with research and taking their argument straight to the public (like Dembski) - how seriously can you take scientists who base their science on that sort of foundation? These people really do want to have it both ways.

[Principia]

One can always count on IDiot haunts to find their latest gripes. I went over to ISCID today, and sure enough, caught Mike Gene (http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-6-t-000290-p-3.html) complaining about the scientific establishment being unfair: Nevertheless, it would seem to me that since the peer review process allowed the argument about engineers, evolution, and cytosine deamination into the pages of a well respected scientific journal, don't you think the same literature should allow the description of this curiosity? After all, science proceeds once the idea is implanted into the larger community. Several people keep challenging ID proponents to put their arguments in the mainstream literature. I'm just trying to see what the same people say about these essays. Does it deserve a wider hearing? Or should it be excluded from such a hearing? Fair questions, right? So Rex Kerr puts out his opinion -- a "no," conditioned on more data and demonstration of biological relevancy. Mike G.'s response: It is interesting that you point out editors " will check to make sure nothing too outrageous is said" and also ensure that the review/opinion piece " is within the bounds of reasonable opinion." It would seem obvious to me that any ID speculation would run into trouble on this basis alone. [...] Unfortunately, the concept of biological relevance has a distinct subjective element to it, where different people arrive at different judgments of relevancy. In this case, there is evidence that cytosine deamination can influence genomic organization (two examples cited above) and is also more common as a function of transcription. [...] The bottom line is that this is a question to be investigated, not a reason to keep a hypothesis out of the literature that is read by investigators. It appears to me you expect my hypothesis to enter the fray as a extensively tested and supported theory. [...] And therein lies the problem for ID and the scientific literature. In the end, subjective judgments concerning whether something is within the bounds of "reasonable" opinion and whether something is "relevant" to the journal and its mission will come into play. And those reasons are sufficient to keep a extremely modest ID proposal out of the literature. [...] (to another poster, GP) But therein lies my dilemma. I neither have the time nor sufficient skills for this type of analysis. Normally, one should be able to tap into the global scientific mind and perhaps recruit those with the sufficient skills and similar interests, perhaps even putting a grad student or post-doc onto the scent. Unfortunately, given the sociological dynamics centering around the issue of ID, the inability to take this next step is a very real problem. So the song and dance: The example cited is an opinion piece in Nature ... but even ID won't qualify for an opinion piece because of subjective considerations (duh!), but ... any ID speculation is problemsome anyway (duh!), since it needs to be extensively tested and supported ... but I don't have the skills and the resources to test them ... but they're still interesting hypotheses that generate research (repeat refrain).

This is apparently the latest rhetorical device. Set up IDiotic arguments as (un-)interesting research topics, show that the scientific community is biased, and argue that as an explanation why IDiots will never get published.

But, they apparently forgot about PCID... :D

[Principia]

From here (http://www.discovery.org/viewDB/index.php3?command=view&id=1448&program=CRSC):
DI Note: Nature declined to publish this correspondence, citing lack of space. Nonetheless the journal found space in the next issue to publish a 468 word letter warning of the dangers of intelligent design in Germany. Behe's letter is 350 words.

Sir-

As a public skeptic of the ability of Darwinian processes to account for complex cellular systems and a proponent of the hypothesis of intelligent design, (1) I often encounter a rebuttal that can be paraphrased as “no designer would have done it that way.” A classic example is the backwards wiring of the vertebrate eye. (2) If no intelligent designer would have done it that way, the reasoning goes, then a blind, purposeless mechanism must be responsible, with natural selection being the prime candidate. This is a negative argument, reaching its conclusion in favor of the sufficiency of unintelligent processes by ruling out intelligence, which depends critically on our ability to differentiate useless from functional features. That ability has been severely called into question by the recent work of Hirotsune et al. (3)

The modern molecular example of poor design is pseudogenes. Why litter a genome with useless, broken copies of functional genes? It looks just like the aftermath of a blind, wasteful process. No designer would have done it that way.(2) Yet Hirotsune et al (3) show that at least one pseudogene has a function. If at least some pseudogenes have unsuspected functions, however, might not other biological features that strike us as odd also have functions we have not yet discovered? Might even the backwards wiring of the vertebrate eye serve some useful purpose?

The peril of negative arguments is that they may rest on our lack of knowledge, rather than on positive results. The contention that unintelligent processes can account for complex biological functions should, to the extent possible, be supported by positive results, rather than by intuitions of what no designer would do. Hirotsune et al’s (3) work has forcefully shown that our intuitions about what is functionless in biology are not to be trusted.

Sincerely, Michael J. Behe

1. Behe,M.J. Darwin's Black Box: The biochemical challenge to
evolution. The Free Press, New York (1996).
2. Miller,K.R. Life's Grand Design. Technology Review 97, 24-32 (1994).
3. Hirotsune,S. et al. An expressed pseudogene regulates the
messenger-RNA stability of its homologous coding gene. Nature 423, 91-96 (2003). All of this from the man who codified the God of the Gaps argument in his own book... :rolleyes:

[Xeluan]

What has Behe published in the way of original research supporting his hypothesis? IIRC, Behe harped on about publish or perish quite a lot his book.

I see the ID community as the scientific equivalent of the real bitter, fat guy at a football game (football is defined by your country of origin) munching on pie and beer who has never played a game in his life but yet feels this is sufficient to criticize everyone on the field and claim that he can do better. Yet when offered the chance to show his wares claims that the superior athleticism of the players is unfair and also doesn't want to do the training required to compete and that this is evidence that a conspiracy exists to stop him playing. However when someone from the team scores he will claim that this is evidence that he really is a good player.

[pz]

You forgot the other part of the analogy: the bitter, fat guy is rooting for a team that has never won a game or scored a point, and in fact, always seem to trot out onto the football field prepared to play a game of badminton.

[hezekiah jones]

no-brainer n. 1. type of decision made faced with editorial space that can accommodate either warning the Germans about IDiocy or printing another of Behe's fetid crapulencies.

[Principia]

Just for context, here is the original Nature article that sparked this little tantrum: Nature 422, 460 (2003); doi:10.1038/422460b

Axeing of website article sparks row at Max Planck

ALISON ABBOTT

[MUNICH]

The Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne has removed the detailed description of 'intelligent design' from its website, following complaints from scientists that it was inconsistent with the laboratory's scientific mission.

The article, which was posted by Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, a theorist at the institute, discusses the idea that an intelligent force must be responsible for the origin of the Universe and for the diversity of life forms. Known as intelligent design, this theory rejects natural selection, and has been portrayed by its opponents as a 'front' for creationism (see Nature 416, 250; 2002).

Earlier this month, Peter Gruss, president of the Max Planck Society, asked the four directors of the Cologne institute to provide a scientific justification for Lönnig's pages. Lönnig posted the material five years ago, and the site has since received over 35,000 hits. A disclaimer identifying the article as a personal opinion was added in 2001, following earlier complaints.

"Only scientific issues should be discussed on a Max Planck site," says Gruss. And last week, Lönnig's pages were removed from the institute's site, pending a directors' meeting on 28 April to determine their fate.

Ulrich Kutschera, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Kassel, has campaigned against the presence of the material on an official Max Planck website, branding it "pseudoscience". "It is fine as a personal opinion expressed on a personal website, but not on the official site of a scientific organization of international status," he says.

Many evolutionary biologists share Kutschera's concerns: Axel Meyer of the University of Constance, for example, says that he was "shocked" by the contents of the pages. But others, such as Diethard Tautz at the University of Cologne and Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, are more circumspect, saying that independent opinions should be permitted. Tautz, however, says it might be more appropriate for such opinions to be aired at "an institute of philosophy" than at the Max Planck.

Lönnig is displeased by the removal of his discussion. "No one is happy when someone switches off the information flow of what he thinks is right," he says. And Heinz Saedler, one of the institute's directors, who has supported Lönnig and published jointly with him, says that although he doesn't believe in intelligent design himself, he enjoys discussing it with Lönnig. And here is the opinion article that Behe wanted to provide a counterpoint to: Designer scientific literature

Sir – Your News report1 "Axeing of website article sparks row at Max Planck", describing the removal of several hundred web pages discussing a concept called 'intelligent design' (ID), is welcome.

In Germany, efforts to undermine evolution education — mostly in the form of ID, which rejects the theory of natural selection — have evolved into a successful campaign, including a standard textbook in its fifth edition, several journals and two professional video films in which proponents of ID such as the microbiologist Siegfried Scherer and the geneticist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig give interviews in the laboratories of their government-sponsored departments. The ID strategy is not to identify the 'designer' as God in the Bible or for adherents to call themselves creationists; they have coined the term 'theists' to describe themselves (see ref. 2 for a discussion).

Last year, ID–creationism took a step towards scientific respectability when Lönnig and Heinz Saedler published an review3 entitled "Chromosome rearrangements and transposable elements". In this article they summarize arguments against Darwin's concept of gradual evolution with reference to the prominent German anti-Darwinists Otto Heinrich Schindewolf (1896–1971) and Richard Goldschmidt (1878–1958).

Lönnig and Saedler discuss the possibility of "a partly predetermined generation of biodiversity and new species", which they characterize as a "nonselection-driven and autonomous" process. Popular books by ID proponents Michael Behe and William Dembski are cited as credible sources. (For critical reviews of these books, see refs 4 and 5.) Lönnig and Saedler refer to a "wide range of opinions" and cite evolutionists such as Michael J. Benton, Stephen Jay Gould and John Maynard Smith as well as ID– creationists such as Behe and Dembski, and Lönnig's now-removed web pages. On the basis of these references and polemical comments, the authors state that we should welcome all ideas and hypotheses on the origin of life, "wherever they may lead".

In a German video film called Is The Bible Right? There is No Evidence for the Theory of Evolution, Lönnig argues that an intelligent force, endowed with consciousness and spirit, has been at work in the creation of all complex forms of life. This viewpoint is now implicitly proposed as a hypothesis in the scientific literature.3

Four years ago, this journal published two excellent editorials6, 7 entitled "The difference between science and dogma" and "Combating the exploiters of creationism". I think that the time is ripe to continue this series.

U. Kutschera
Department of Biology, University of Kassel, Heinrich-Plett-Strasse 40, 34109 Kassel, Germany

Nature May 08, 2003

[Principia]

Well, we heard the senior IDiots whine about how they can't generate any research with their oh so fruitful paradigm.

Let's hear it from Josh Smart, who submitted yet another ID research proposal to ISCID (http://www.iscid.org/papers/Smart_ApplicationOfIC_060503.pdf) (so many research proposals... so little time ;) ). What does he have to say?
Josh Smart:I would like to discuss three different approaches that a researcher can take to solving these problems: Strict, Assumptive, and Concessionary. These are general ways to approach any description (not just the irreducible core). However, no author uses any one of the approaches exclusively. Usually an author will make judgment calls based on the time and expenses involved, and the importance of a particular point.

In the Strict approach nothing is assumed, and nothing is taken for granted. Ideally, this is the way every problem would be approached. If meticulously carried out, a Strict approach leaves no one on the short end of the stick. The disadvantage is that taking the Strict approach often involves going through meticulous, time-consuming detail. For example, it is possible that the secretory proteins of the eubacterial flagellum have been coopted from the TTSS. It is also possible, that the TTSS is descended from the flagellum instead of the other way around. A Strict approach to determining the irreducible core of the flagellum would involve gathering the information necessary to determine which system came first. If it was the TTSS, then the excretory proteins could be listed all together as one component of the irreducible core. If it were the flagellum, then all of the indispensable parts would be listed individually.

When the time necessary to fleche out details is not worth the benefit gained, assumptions can be made. These assumptions can take two forms: those that strengthen the argument, and those that weaken the argument.

In the approach I have labeled Assumptive, when the Strict approach becomes unfeasible, or undesirable, assumptions are made that benefit the argument. Taking the Assumptive approach to the TTSS-flagellum problem would mean assuming that the flagellum is not the result of co-option, and that each indispensable gene product can be listed individually as a part of the irreducible core. While this strengthens the results that get put onto paper, it can prove to be detrimental, as self-serving assumptions are easy targets for attack. Because of this, the Assumptive approach is rarely used.

The easiest way to avoid offering up easy targets for counterattack, is to take a Concessionary approach. In this approach simplifying assumptions are made to disfavor one’s own argument. In this case the TTSS would be assumed to be the predecessor of the flagellum, and the gene products involved in secretion would all be listed together as one component of the irreducible core. While this may make the end results not appear quite as strong on paper, an argument that is still well backed even with a Concessionary approach is obviously a good one. In the end it may seem even stronger in the mind of the reader.
So... now we have 3 additional different kinds of IC, in addition to the countless numbers from before: Strict IC (which Josh whines about being too "time-consuming" to research), Assumptive IC (which is appropriately labelled, for the ass-kicking that an IDiot gets whenever he uses it), and Concessionary IC, which for all intents and purposes hides the IC argument in the gaps of knowledge (after all, Josh thinks that not all knowledge is worth the time to pursue).

Then, there's the hallmark of any IDiot report -- a blurb about what evolutionists should present them to change their open-minds: The value of the methods for determining the irreducible core listed above lies in the fact that any proposed evolutionary pathway to achieve them is an irreducibly complex pathway. The only counter to irreducible complexity that will severely damage it is a plausible evolutionary pathway for an irreducibly complex system. Once the irreducible core of a system has been determined it is necessary that claims against the systems irreducible complexity include an explanation for each component of that core. Until that explanation is given the system should be considered out of the reach of evolution. Nothing like setting the rules of the game so that IDiots win by default. ;)

Well, Josh did get something right -- he observed: Intelligent design theorists have noted the lack of substance in critiques of their work, but there has been virtually no attempt to level more specific challenges to evolutionary theory. Intelligent design will not advance within the scientific ccommunity as long as it continues to engage in this exchange of generalities.
Progress lies in application.
[...]
Finally, intelligent design proponents are encouraged here to actively seek out evolutionary explanations for irreducibly complex systems. Propose pathways. If there is a plausible pathway, put it out in the open. Let it be evaluated. If intelligent design is true, then the proposed pathway will be irreducibly complex and go through some unselectable step. In this case, propose the best possible pathway, and then point out the flaws. Determine the degree of irreducible complexity of the pathway. Challenge others to find a better version. This active exploration of possibilities will, I believe, have more impact than anything else. Gasp -- propose evolutionary pathways??! Do science for the sake of defeating science? Can Josh be a hidden metaphysical naturalist after all?

No, in fact Josh is just an undergraduate who's part of the IDEA cult (http://vanderbilt.ideacenter.org/Pages/Contact.html). Brainwashing has to start early to make a good IDiot.

20$ says that this undergrad product makes it into the next edition of PCID, so that the editors can use it for polemical reasons.

[pangloss]

Originally posted by Principia
No, in fact Josh is just an undergraduate who's part of the IDEA cult (http://vanderbilt.ideacenter.org/Pages/Contact.html). Brainwashing has to start early to make a good IDiot.



Did you catch his hometown?

Probably spent his formative years worshipping at that statue of that great draft-dodging college flunk-oout...

[Principia]

I guess I ought to give Joshua the benefit of the doubt. But when the bulk of his paper cites Julie Thomas (read Mike Gene), and other polemical works in order to make an appeal for IDiots to do some research, a reasonable person has to realize that Joshua is missing the point. Neither Behe, nor Dembski, nor Gene do ID research.

Look. One only has to see how the recent Lenski et al. paper was received by the IDiot crowd. They were presented with an opportunity to clarify and test their IC concepts. So what do they do instead?

1) They complain about not having enough knowledge to conduct other experiments.

2) They complain about digital organisms having no biological relevance.

3) They complain that the experiments were front-loaded.

4) They complain that the IC definition is not really set in stone.

5) They complain that the critics make too much of the paper.

This, of course, all points strongly to the notion that ID is neither testable nor falsfiable. Josh should better spend his time on his studies than telling his compatriots to do something that will never happen -- ID research.

[Principia]

From the self-proclaimed computer scientist (http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-18-t-000001-p-16.html) IDiot: PCID defender/editor: Charlie D. States:
"I sense another definitional can of worms is about to be opened."

This is telling, in that, a definitional can of worms is only a definitional can of worms if you are artificially restricting a concept from going through natural stages of development. It is only a can of worms if you want a static target to IC-bomb, once and for all.

Well, folks, that has to be about the biggest admission of IDiots playing definitional games that I have seen yet. What's "telling" is that it is phrased (of course) as a whine. ;)

[KC]

Originally posted by Principia
From the self-proclaimed computer scientist (http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-18-t-000001-p-16.html) IDiot:

Well, folks, that has to be about the biggest admission of IDiots playing definitional games that I have seen yet. What's "telling" is that it is phrased (of course) as a whine. ;)

Humpty Dumpty Syndrome at its best.

KC

[Principia]

When in doubt for an IDiot, substitue a popular book for good ol' fashioned scientific research. Dumbski apparently has stitched together his collection of essays at designinference.com, and published yet another book about his pet theory.

If one wants to guess what the tenor of the book will be (and why it belongs to the ID whining thread), just take a peek at the preface (http://www.arn.org/docs2/news/designrev.pdf).

PS: Anybody know how Dumbski is doing at Baylor these days?

[Principia]

Naturalism is clearly a temptation for science, and indeed many scientists have succumbed to that temptation. The temptation of naturalism is a neat and tidy world in which everything is completely understandable in terms of well-defined rules or mechanisms characterized by natural laws. As a consequence, naturalism holds out the hope that science will provide a theory of everything. Certainly this hope remains unfulfilled. The scandal of intelligent design is that it goes further, contending that this hope is unfulfillable. It therefore offends the hubris of naturalism. It says that intelligence is a fundamental aspect to the world and that any attempt to reduce intelligence to natural mechanisms cannot succeed. Naturalism wants nature to be an open book. But intelligences are not open books; they are writers of books, creators of novel information. They are free agents, and they can violate our fondest expectations.

There is an irony here. The naturalist’s world, in which intelligence is not fundamental and the world is not designed, is supposedly a rational world because it proceeds by unbroken natural law—cause precedes effect with inviolable regularity. On the other hand, the design theorist’s world, in which intelligence is fundamental and the world is designed, is supposedly not a rational world because intelligence can do things that are unexpected. To allow an unevolved intelligence a place in the world is, according to naturalism, to send the world into a tailspin. It is to exchange unbroken natural law for caprice and thereby destroy science. Thus, for the naturalist, the world is intelligible only if it starts off without intelligence and then evolves intelligence. If it starts out with intelligence and evolves intelligence because of a prior intelligence, then somehow the world becomes unintelligible.

The absurdity here is palpable. Only by means of our intelligence is science and our understanding of the world even possible. And yet the naturalist clings to this argument as a last and dying friend. This was brought home to me when I recently lectured at the University of Toronto. One biologist in the audience insisted I must take seriously that the world is two minutes old so long as I accept intelligent design. Presumably any creating intelligence could just as well create a deceptive world that appears old but was freshly created two minutes ago as create a verisimilitudinous world that appears old because it actually is old. That is certainly a logical possibility, but do we have any reason to believe it? Hundreds of years of successful scientific inquiry confirm a world that’s structured to honestly yield up its secrets. If, further, the world reveals evidence of design, why should the mere possibility of a deceptive or capricious designer neutralize that evidence or lead us to disbelieve in the existence of a designer?

If we’re going to take seriously the possibility of a designer misleading us, then we also need to take seriously the possibility of a natural world devoid of design misleading us. Imagine a natural world, devoid of design, where the laws of nature change radically from time to time, where time can back up and restart history on a different course, and where massive quantum fluctuations on a cosmic scale bring about galaxies that seem ancient but are in fact recent. It’s not just designers that can be deceptive and capricious. The same is true of nature. Yet if science is to be possible, we need, as a regulative principle, to assume that nature is honest and dependable. And if nature is the product of design, that means we need, again as a regulative principle, to assume that the designer made nature to be honest and dependable.

It follows that the two-minute-old universe argument against intelligent design is an exercise in irrelevance. It cuts as much against naturalism as it does against intelligent design. And it can’t even touch the point at issue, namely, whether certain biological systems are designed. To decide that question we must consult not theology or anti-theology but the evidence of biology. If that evidence points us to design, then that’s where we must go. What would be absurd is to say that the evidence points us to design but that we must nonetheless reject design because a deceptive designer might have designed the evidence to mislead us. That would be rejecting design by presupposing design.

When I pointed out to the Toronto biologist that Isaac Newton believed in intelligent design and didn’t hold to a two-minute old universe, he instantly remarked that Newton didn’t know about evolution. Poor Sir Isaac. Presumably Darwin would have made him an intellectually fulfilled atheist and erased any vestige of intelligent design from his science (intelligent design figures substantively in Newton’s Principia—see, for instance, his General Scholium). Somehow science and our knowledge of the natural world is supposed to unravel once we allow that
intelligence could be a fundamental principle operating in the universe. I don't think Dumbski gets it -- if his interventionalist designer is constrained by natural laws in the designing, then it is an exercise in irrelevance to posit a designer at all. To "assume that the designer made nature to be honest and dependable" is to subject any designer to that infamous Razor.

[Albion]

If we’re going to take seriously the possibility of a designer misleading us, then we also need to take seriously the possibility of a natural world devoid of design misleading us. Imagine a natural world, devoid of design, where the laws of nature change radically from time to time, where time can back up and restart history on a different course, and where massive quantum fluctuations on a cosmic scale bring about galaxies that seem ancient but are in fact recent.

How can something devoid or design or intelligence mislead us? Deception requires intention, and intention requires intelligence. Or maybe "mislead" isn't quite the right word there. Quite apart from which, all science (among other things) depends on the assumption that the universe runs consistently and that things are as they appear to be, otherwise the whole of science would end up paralysed by finer points of philsophy. As long as we're assuming that things are as they appear to be, we're looking at the same stuff that he's looking at, and there's no evidence of anything that requires explanation outside the laws of nature - two-minute-old universes notwithstanding.

[Roland98]

Originally posted by Principia

Then, there's the hallmark of any IDiot report -- a blurb about what evolutionists should present them to change their open-minds:


The value of the methods for determining the irreducible core listed above lies in the fact that any proposed evolutionary pathway to achieve them is an irreducibly complex pathway. The only counter to irreducible complexity that will severely damage it is a plausible evolutionary pathway for an irreducibly complex system. Once the irreducible core of a system has been determined it is necessary that claims against the systems irreducible complexity include an explanation for each component of that core. Until that explanation is given the system should be considered out of the reach of evolution.


Re: part in bold--what does it take to prove this, exactly? Do they have the same standards as Hovind's "contest?"

[Principia]

Originally posted by Roland98
Re: part in bold--what does it take to prove this, exactly? Do they have the same standards as Hovind's "contest?"
Not quite as stupid as Hovind, these IDiots, but no better substantively in their "theories" either. IC is thus far untestable scientifically, mostly because IDiots reject all current methodologies to test it. For instance, one only has to look at the ISCID on Lenski et al.'s Avida recent experiment here (http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-6-t-000371.html), and here (http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-18-t-000001.html). Lenski purportedly evolved an organism that fit the IC definition quite well... or so the ID critics there thought, until whole new qualifications and alterations to the IC concept was discovered. ;)

But, sorry, you don't win anything for debunking IC. This is why most scientists have no vested interest in addressing the topic (except when called upon at school boards, etc.) and why in the 7 years since Behe made the whole thing up, not one single research paper supporting the claim has been published in a mainstream journal. Of course, one only has to read this thread to hear the excuses.

[Roland98]

Originally posted by Principia

[B]IC is thus far untestable scientifically, mostly because IDiots reject all current methodologies to test it. For instance, one only has to look at the ISCID on Lenski et al.'s Avida recent experiment here (http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-6-t-000371.html), and here (http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-18-t-000001.html). Lenski purportedly evolved an organism that fit the IC definition quite well... or so the ID critics there thought, until whole new qualifications and alterations to the IC concept was discovered. ;)

Yeah, that was my point. Have you read what it takes to "win" his "prove evolution" contest? And anytime someone has something that may seem to fit the bill, the bill is--of course--changed. Not to mention that it's subject to review by a committee that Hovind hand-picks. :rolleyes:

But I hadn't seen their response to the Lenski paper--thanks for that reference.

[acidphos]

No, in fact Josh is just an undergraduate who's part of the IDEA cult (http://vanderbilt.ideacenter.org/Pages/Contact.html). Brainwashing has to start early to make a good IDiot.


Interesting. There was all sorts of publicity for the club here 2 years ago but nothing at all last year. There was a crafty display put on by ID ppl in september of 2001 and the IDEA club popped up shortly after - "Designed for Destiny" was the title I believe.

[acidphos]

More about your good pal Josh Smart


Josh Smart ID whining in Vandy Student Newspaper (http://www.vanderbilthustler.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/03/01/3c7eb44360d7c?in_archive=1)

[Roland98]

Originally posted by acidphos
More about your good pal Josh Smart


Josh Smart ID whining in Vandy Student Newspaper (http://www.vanderbilthustler.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/03/01/3c7eb44360d7c?in_archive=1)

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Principia]

A super-whine from Frank Tipler (http://www.iscid.org/papers/Tipler_PeerReview_070103.pdf) about, what else, those orthodox scientists suppressing religious implications of science, and oh, not paying IDiots enough (to do what? keep whining?).

Excerpts:
But the interesting question is, what caused the “excessive specialization and careerist sociology” that is making it very difficult for new ideas to be published in peer review journals? There are several possibilities. One is a consequence of Anderson’s observation that,
paradoxically, more scientists can mean a slower rate of scientific advance. The number of physicists, for example, has increased by a factor of a thousand since the year 1900, when ten percent of all physicists in the world either won the Nobel Prize or were nominated for it. If you
submitted a paper to a refereed journal in 1900, you would have a far greater chance of having a referee who was a Nobel Prize winner (or at least a nominee) than now. In fact, a simple calculation shows that one would have to submit three papers on the average to have an even chance that at least one of your papers would be “peer” reviewed by a Nobel Prize winner. Today, to have an even chance of having a Nobelist for a referee, you would have to submit several hundred papers.
[...]
One could argue that because the number of Nobel Prizes awarded is permanently fixed at one per year in three scientific disciplines (physics, chemistry, and medicine), the relative decrease in Nobelists does not mean a similar decrease in the number of giants to pygmies. The data contradict this proposal. The American Chemical Society made a list of the most significant advances in chemistry made over the last 100 years. There has been no change in the rate at which these breakthroughs in chemistry have been made in spite of the thousand-fold increase in the number of chemists. In the 1960s, U.S. citizens were awarded about 50,000 chemical patents per year. By the 1980s, the number had dropped to 40,000. Finally, although the number of people awarded a Nobel Prize is fixed, the number nominated is unlimited. Yet the data show that the number of scientists nominated for the Prize has increased by at most a factor of three in the past century—despite the thousand-fold increase in the number of scientists. (Robert Root-Bernstein, Discovering, Harvard University Press, 1989, pp. 39-40.) Unquestionably, there has been a huge drop in the ratio of giants to pygmies over the last century.
[...]
Another possibility is that the increasing centralization of scientific research has allowed powerful but mediocre scientists to suppress any idea that would diminish their prestige. All great advances in science have by definition the effect of reducing the prestige of the “experts” in the field in which the advance is made. The expert’s expertise is necessarily invalidated by a radical change in the underpinnings of a scientific discipline. Laymen rarely appreciate how centralized scientific research has become in the last fifty years. Funding for my own area of physics, general relativity, is located in one and only one division of one and only one bureau of the federal government, the National Science Foundation. If the referees for a grant proposal submitted to this division of that bureau happen not to like your work, your grant proposal will not be funded—period. In the first part of the 20th century, a grant rejection, like a paper rejection, would not stop an idea from being presented or from being developed. In this earlier period, a tenured professorship came with a small amount of research funds. Since the universities of the time were not dependent on government grant money, tenure decisions were not dominated by whether a scholar up for tenure obtained a grant.
[...]
The problem with the referee system for papers is that in the post-WWII period, the referees are almost never the “peers” of the scientific genius. The size of the scientific community makes true peer review impossible. Most referees are “stupid” (to use Nobelist Blobel’s adjective), at least relative to the authors whose breakthrough work we would most like to see published in the leading journals. But I will grant that these “stupid” referees serve a useful purpose if the scientific community remains as large as it is today. Most papers written by most members of the scientific community are worthless. (Most papers are never cited by other scientists.) These trash papers are written because of the “publish or perish” rule imposed by universities. A referee, even a stupid one, can at least keep out the worst of the trash papers from the journals. But we don’t want to misidentify works of genius as trash. Which is exactly what the typical referee in fact does.
Stupid people monopolizing the market for research grants to preserve their own prestige and to prevent God from being talked about in science. I don't know what's funnier -- the obvious, arrogant, self-pity of an IDiot -- or the conspiracy theories he invents to explain why his research career is in the shithole. Tipler apparently thinks that he has a Nobel coming for him (hell, in all of the stories about Nobelists, one could almost hear a tone of contempt), were it not for the "stupid pygmies" that couldn't see the genius in his work. His solution? Have "experts" circumvent peer-review by recognizing the genius in his work and recommending its publication. So, Tipler wants the scientific elite to have even more power... Maybe in his hubris, he forgets that even in his system of review, his God-theses might still be rejected? ;)

[Principia]

Boy, when one IDiot cries foul, it's like opening the floodgates for all the rest of 'em. Managing editor of PCID has this request (http://arn.paulrpayne.net/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000780):
Charlie d. and others find it quite easy to hold PCID/ISCID accountable for not publishing ID research. Or at least, it seems that PCID gets spat at every time some issue about the lack of ID research is brought up. I'm glad that we make for an easy target, a mistaken target, but easy nonetheless.

PCID is not an ID journal. This is our policy, and as long as I am the managing director of the society, it will stay our policy. PCID is an exploratory journal for the encouragement of scientific and philosophic creativity. We do get a lot of ID related submissions. But that has started to change, and will be clear in the October issue.

I get tired of repeating the refrain, but Tipler's piece is actually an "after the fact" reflection of what PCID's aim as a journal is. I assume that this is why ISCID has taken the essay into the our Archive. Not that we agree with every word, but we do agree with the main thrust.

Finally, Charlie. d., we've actually missed two issues of PCID because of a "dearth" of submissions, not one. Be sure to keep that in mind for the future. Wouldn't want to miss out on that extra cartridge of ammo, now would you?
Of course, the alternative explanation here is that a managing editor wouldn't want to claim "PCID is an ID journal" because that would have just that much more implication about the status of ID research. Just imagine. If PCID were declared the solution to ID's publication ills, how would two missed journals as a result of a dearth of submissions look? Methinks it's easier at the outset to make an excuse for the lack of research. ;)

[KC]

Originally posted by Principia
Boy, when one IDiot cries foul, it's like opening the floodgates for all the rest of 'em. Managing editor of PCID has this request (http://arn.paulrpayne.net/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000780):

Of course, the alternative explanation here is that a managing editor wouldn't want to claim "PCID is an ID journal" because that would have just that much more implication about the status of ID research. Just imagine. If PCID were declared the solution to ID's publication ills, how would two missed journals as a result of a dearth of submissions look? Methinks it's easier at the outset to make an excuse for the lack of research. ;)

Does trhat mean PCID will publish an article critical of ID?

KC

[Principia]

Does that mean PCID will publish an article critical of ID? Don't betcha ur bottom dollar on it. ;) Saying PCID is not an ID journal is like Duane Gish saying that his ICR is about scientific endeavours. Both are obviously rhetorical devices meant to score points in the face of criticisms about the level (or nonexistence) of one's research. But, given that neither Micah nor John B. (who hold the reins at ISCID), have actual graduate degrees, it is easy to see how they commit this most common of academic faux pas -- dishonesty.

Anyway, for an IDiot, it doesn't seem like a degree makes that much of a difference in terms of academic honesty. Dembski, for instance, yet again publishes a mined quote wtihout consulting the author, or without revealing the context of the quote. He whines in his Design Inference Part Deux (http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-6-t-000386.html):
My own experience with the peer review process confirms an observation by Paul Gross: "Being right isn't enough. What you say, however right, must be said in a currently acceptable language, must not violate too brutally current taste, and must somehow signal your membership in a respectable professional club." (www.mbl.edu/publications/Gross/Heilbrunn) I was an unknown entity when I published The Design Inference, and the book didn't address the implications of the design inference for biology. Once those implications became clear, however, getting my work published in the peer-reviewed literature became more challenging -- though certainly not impossible. I have, for instance, another book coming out with Cambridge University Press titled Debating Design co-edited with Michael Ruse. Six out of seven referees approved it enthusiastically and the lone dissenter grudgingly admitted that it would sell very well.
And here's Paul Gross's response:
If anybody among the addressees knows how to post something directly to Dembski, or to the web site of his Institute, please forward this reply for me to this quote from him (announcing a forthcoming Dembski work), to wit: [snip repeated quote from above].
1. Nuts, in general, and advisedly.

2. This quotation from my old paper on Professor L. V. Heilbrunn and Calcium is characteristically quote-mined and ridiculously misused, recently by Berlinski and now again by Dembski.

Heilbrunn, the subject of the article, published prolifically in the standard (peer-reviewed!) scientific literature. He was, also, the author of the most-used textbook, for two decades, of general physiology in English -- a work of originality as well as massive scholarship in the peer-reviewed literature. He had enemies, but they did not prevent publication of his works in that literature. It was good enough. His story, and the case to which my shoplifted remarks referred, has no relationship with that of the ID theorists, who do not publish in the standard literature and have established, instead, an industry of finding excuses for the fact.

[Including the excuse that their flagship journal and Society are NOT meant for IDiots -- Principia ;)]

3. It is history of science so bad as to approach demagoguery to suggest that no scientific revolution has appeared in the peer-reviewed literature. One can only wonder WHAT modern scientific revolutions Dembski is thinking about: relativity? quantum mechanics? valence bond and molecular orbital structural chemistry? the chromosome theory of heredity? Morgan's genetics? the structure of DNA? ...? ...? All these and a dozen more I have thought of in the five minutes before lunch appeared from the start in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

PRG

I would have ended this post here, but luckily for the topic, Paul Nelson followed this with a personal whine of himself:
A few years ago, the journal Rhetoric and Public Affairs (Michigan State University Press) published a special issue on the intelligent design debate. The issue editor, John Angus Campbell (then at the University of Washington) and I invited Paul Gross to participate, as a biologist who both doubted ID and had well-known views on the public perception and role of science. Gross was invited to say whatever he pleased, no matter how critical, about ID.

Gross turned down the invitation. That special issue of Rhetoric and Public Affairs has now become a big anthology from Michigan State, with critical contributions from Michael Ruse, Will Provine, Massimo Pigliucci, and many others:

http://msupress.msu.edu/bookTemplate.php?bookID=725

I can understand Paul Gross's complaints about IDers not trying to get into his party -- but it strikes me as overly fastidious to turn down invitations to have a critical go at ideas he despises...and then to complain that IDers are making a public ruckus away from the grown-ups. Aww... the big boys don't want to play in Paul's little sandbox. Heh, who'd thought?

PS: I wonder why Dembski didn't quote the following from Gross's article:
Finally, however, there is nothing really unexpected in the above. It's the way things are in all other professions. There is nothing inherently just or objective about the profession of science, in the short term. But, to begin with, biology does more to improve the human condition than most other professions. And objectivity does win. Not everybody gets a fair deal, but the truth comes out, eventually. And once it does, our understanding of the world is forever changed. Perhaps, because there is not an iota of objective truth presented thus far in ID? ;)

[RBH]

In response (http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000637#000000) to Dembski's use of the same partial quotation on ARN in March I made exactly the same point. It had no apparent effect.

RBH

[KC]

Originally posted by RBH
In response (http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000637#000000) to Dembski's use of the same partial quotation on ARN in March I made exactly the same point. It had no apparent effect.

RBH

Is there a Creationist School of (Quote)Mines somwhere?

KC

[Principia]

Originally posted by RBH
In response (http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000637#000000) to Dembski's use of the same partial quotation on ARN in March I made exactly the same point. It had no apparent effect.

RBH
Excellent. I think this isn't the first time Dumbski has tried out one of his arguments or misquoted others online, where the error was pointed out to him by critics, and yet proceeds to put the misleading, if not erroneous, information in his books. Dishonesty, plain and simple.

[charlie d]

Call me naive, but I do believe that Mycah and others would really want PCID not to be an ID(-only) journal, and are trying as best they can to make it so.

However, as long as they publish crappy blatantly creationist stuff, no respectable person will want to touch the thing with a ten foot pole.

Regardless, whether PCID is or not an ID journal is irrelevant. PCID would undoubtly publish ID-supporting evidence if any were submitted. The fact that they haven't published any shows that none has been.

But notice how in all the threads at ARN and ISCID the focus has now switched from peer-review censorship to the fear of ostracism and "darwinian inquisition" if anyone comes out with ID-supporting evidence. Of course, they can't have both: either people are trying to publish ID research, in which case they must not be that afraid of the darwinian inquisition, or they are not even submitting their papers in fear of the darwinian inquisition, in which case they can't whine about peer-review censorship.

[MrDarwin]

A super-whine from Frank Tipler (http://www.iscid.org/papers/Tipler_PeerReview_070103.pdf) about, what else, those orthodox scientists suppressing religious implications of science, and oh, not paying IDiots enough (to do what? keep whining?).

Excellent. I think this isn't the first time Dumbski has tried out one of his arguments or misquoted others online, where the error was pointed out to him by critics, and yet proceeds to put the misleading, if not erroneous, information in his books. Dishonesty, plain and simple.

Can we please put an end to such childishness as "IDiot" and "Dumbski"? "Cretinist" is another one that makes me cringe. It does our side no good whatsoever--worse, it distracts from our arguments and makes it look as though we have no better strategy than to belittle and insult the opposing viewpoint.

[Principia]

MrDarwin: It does our side no good whatsoever--worse, it distracts from our arguments and makes it look as though we have no better strategy than to belittle and insult the opposing viewpoint. I make no pretense of representing anyone here at IIDB, so there's no "we" here. I can't help but notice, though, that you have just ventured into this little game that we children play. Tell you what. I'm an open-minded person. After a couple of months more at ARN and ISCID, you tell me if there's a better strategy to deal with the opposing viewpoint. I most certainly will be willing to give it a shot.

[MrDarwin]

Originally posted by Principia
I make no pretense of representing anyone here at IIDB, so there's no "we" here.

I said "we" because I have seen many other members here use the same tactics.

I can't help but notice, though, that you have just ventured into this little game that we children play. Tell you what. I'm an open-minded person. After a couple of months more at ARN and ISCID, you tell me if there's a better strategy to deal with the opposing viewpoint. I most certainly will be willing to give it a shot.

Oh, please. I have been active at II for several years, as anbody here can attest. I may not be the most active member, but I do what I can with the time I can spare. I registered at ARN two years ago (although I have not been active there for quite some time). I have been debating creationists of all stripes here and on other websites even longer--among them CARM and theologyonline. I have never found it necessary to make fun of a person's name or online pseudonym. I have never found it necessary to hurl insults or curse at anybody. I spoke against such tactics almost from the first day I registered here.

Yes, there is a better strategy. Call me a wild-eyed idealist but I believe the truth is powerful enough to speak for itself. My strategy is to view my opponent as somebody who's wrong. That's it. When they tell untruths, it's far more effective to prove them wrong than to say they are. And it's far more devastating (to lurkers and other observers, if not to the opponent himself) to prove somebody a liar than to call them one. Above all, I ask them questions about what they believe and why they believe it. It helps me understand their viewpoint (hopefully to overcome it), but it also forces them to examine their own beliefs and frequently shows them (and anybody watching the discussion) that they have absolutely nothing to base them on.

There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that these people are quite wrong. But many of them think they are right, and simply don't have the education or knowledge to know when they've been deceived. As such it does them no good to insult and taunt them--all it will do is make them resist the truth even more because of who is delivering it, and how it is being delivered. Some of these people may be bald-faced liars, or they may be monumentally self-deceived, or they may even be trolling. In most cases we don't know for sure, and it doesn't really matter. Address the facts and speak the truth--anything else distracts from your argument. (And in the case of trolls, insults and invective and endless argument are exactly what they're looking for--why give them the satisfaction?)

[Oolon Colluphid]

Originally posted by MrDarwin
Can we please put an end to such childishness as "IDiot" and "Dumbski"? "Cretinist" is another one that makes me cringe.
Sorry, but if it's childish, then... "Shaaan't!" :D :p

I endeavour to only use such terms amongst 'ourselves', for the reasons you give. But there is a long and honourable tradition in English of deliberately mangling or making-more-appropriate an opponent's name.

It should not be used from the outset: nobody should call Disciple 'Dumciple', for instance. But it becomes an almost necessary outlet when talking about the constantly-refuted and incorrigibly-dense. It is an encapsulation: a single-word summary of what you think of the opposition.

Same with any derogatory name-calling. I feel fully justified in calling, Vanderzyden, say, a humpty-backed twat (to use a current favourite)... provided I then go on to point out just why I believe this is the case. It's just an elaboration of the common way of speaking: "it's due to the homeobox genes, like I said three times on the last page, you idiot!"

Of course it's no substitute for an argument. But that's not why I, at least, use these terms.

And 'cretinist' is shorter to type.

Oolon

[pz]

Originally posted by Oolon Colluphid
Same with any derogatory name-calling. I feel fully justified in calling, Vanderzyden, say, a humpty-backed twat (to use a current favourite)... provided I then go on to point out just why I believe this is the case. I should point out, though, that it is our policy to edit out such derogatory comments when directed at current members of the iidb, whether they are creationist twats or the evolutionist variety, no matter how much logic you leaven the rest of your comment with.

We aren't going to extend such protection to just anyone outside the umbrella of these fora, however. Whether such tactics hinder or advance our cause is going to have to be an individual decision, for now.

[Principia]

MrDarwin: Yes, there is a better strategy. Call me a wild-eyed idealist but I believe the truth is powerful enough to speak for itself. My strategy is to view my opponent as somebody who's wrong. That's it. When they tell untruths, it's far more effective to prove them wrong than to say they are. And it's far more devastating (to lurkers and other observers, if not to the opponent himself) to prove somebody a liar than to call them one. Above all, I ask them questions about what they believe and why they believe it. It helps me understand their viewpoint (hopefully to overcome it), but it also forces them to examine their own beliefs and frequently shows them (and anybody watching the discussion) that they have absolutely nothing to base them on. MrDarwin, let there be no doubt that you are a more honorable and respectable person than I am. But I simply do not share your optimism nor your patience. Nor, do I have your far-reaching goals of forcing others to examine their beliefs, or to convince lurkers and other potentially inquisitive open-minded individuals. To be sure, they are worthy goals, but they simply do not cross my mind when posting on IIDB about antievolutionists.

But I do have a purpose. My purpose is to collect the evidence that within the ID movement, there is a general pattern of deception and misinformation, a pattern of intellectual laziness and dishonesty, and a pattern of ill-qualified individuals speaking up for a losing cause simply because they (not the scientific elites) can satisfy the intellectual needs of the masses. In truth, I post to inform the members of this forum, most of whom are still toying with Creationists from the Dark Ages (who have lost most of their teeth from gnawing on their own thick skulls), that there are movements out there with more subversive tactics and making more political headway than their predecessors. Once again, I find no reason to sugar-coat how I present this information so that I might actually win a few converts. In fact, I've made it known on more than one occasion that I do not believe Internet forums to be suitable media for teaching science anyways. If you want an example why, I'd suggest you keep talking to mturner at ARN. ;)

In any case, most of my commentary about ID shenanigans are limited solely to 2 threads on II which I have started for my own use (with the moderators permission way back when) -- of which one is this very thread. If I have actually a better way of saying what I have to say (e.g. more along the lines of your strategy), you'll simply have to believe that I have tried it elsewhere and am still doing it. On the other hand, if the moderation decides that what I am doing is no longer acceptable to II, they may feel free to axe this thread or my membership at anytime. I have no problems with atheists taking the moral high ground.

[unregistered_user_1]

http://www.angryflower.com/goinaf.gif

[Principia]

And in the end, after all my futile words to explain how the real issue rises above my or MrDarwin's or any one atheist's particular behavior, an IDiot (http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-6-t-000385-p-4.html) says it best:
Pim or others with a similar viewpoint. The major mistake that the exponents of ID have made is to fail to proclaim, without reservation, that which is obvious. To deny Intelligent Design is, in my humble view, insane. I do not subscribe to any particular religious interpretation as I regard that as supremely arrogant and without foundation. I am amazed that the perspectives of Grasse, Berg, Schindewolf, Punnett and even Bateson are ignored even though they all had serious reservations concerning any device driven by chance. Schindewolf even described the curious projection of the lower jaw of both marsupial and placental saber-toothed cats as DESIGNED TO PROTECT AND GUIDE THE CANINES. To let a silly debate hinge on theism versus atheism seems still to be the order of the day. It is a great tragedy. Evolution remains the greatest mystery in the history of science. There is very little that can be said with certainty, only that it did occur and chance had absolutely nothing to do with it. Of that I am certain. nosivad (http://www.uvm.edu/~jdavison)
We're insane, folks. ;)

[pangloss]

Originally posted by Principia
And in the end, after all my futile words to explain how the real issue rises above my or MrDarwin's or any one atheist's particular behavior, an IDiot (http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-6-t-000385-p-4.html) says it best:

We're insane, folks. ;)

I've been going at it with this moron for some time at the EvC forum. He is also the resident malcontent at Terry Trainor's "talkorigins" MSN newsgroup.

He relies on out-dated - in some cases WAYYY outdated - material for his claims. He relies on the musings of long-dead paleontologists to reach easily refutable conclusions, which he, of course, refuses to address...

He's an embarrassment to the state...

[Principia]

Inspired by Tipler, PCID's editorial board (http://www.iscid.org/pcid/2003/2/1-2/dembski_pcid_policy.php) decided on the following "peer-review" model for itself:

Frank Tipler’s article on peer review in this issue of PCID has led the PCID editors to reassess its policy on peer review. Although peer review as typically practiced by journals is effective at maintaining quality control for research within an established scientific framework, we agree with Tipler that it too often degenerates into a vehicle for censoring novel ideas that break with existing frameworks. Since the editors of PCID want as much as possible to encourage novelty and creativity within its pages, we are herewith changing our policy for the acceptance of papers. Henceforth, papers accepted for publication need simply pass the following two-step review process: (1) Having met basic scholarly standards and being relevant to the study of complex systems, the paper will be accepted into the ISCID Archive. (2) Once in the ISCID Archive, the paper will be accepted for publication in PCID provided at least one fellow of ISCID signs off on it. Except for papers by fellows submitted in their own name, papers accepted for publication in PCID will therefore be peer-reviewed. This review process emphasizes creativity and exploration over criticism and censorship.

So in other words:

1) We'll put any submission that we feel like into the archive. Simultaneously, we'll put a copy on our message board, where we can have critics do the review for us. If the paper is defensible by rhetorical tactics, then....

2) We'll simply put the paper into the journal. After all, who's going to ask which one fellow of ISCID approved the junk? ;) No, not especially since we can't even fill our quota for a quaterly journal. Adopting Tipler's model sure was clever -- now ISCID fellows can even posture as the "intellectual giants" that Tipler would've suggested be in control of peer-review.

EDIT: oops forgot the link

[pangloss]

...Then one should wonder why John Davison's infantile "my long-dead heros would agree with me, so I must be right" gibberish in print?


They must have been pretty desperate.

As for "Brainstorms" being a place for 'review', it looks to me more like a place where IDiots can place their latest pseudoscieence drivel, wait for a few accolades from the minions, argue against any criti