Uncommon Dissent

Damnit, Jason, you need to warn people to unplug their irony meters before they read this post. I just lost my two favorite ones.

That last quote of Dembski's really takes the cake. Dembski is notorious for never admitting error over even the most trivial of things, or when he's been soundly and irretrivably shown wrong on something. The possibility of being wrong is quite clearly not manifest in his writing, which typical of creationists in general, uses the well-worn technique of extreme confidence to try to convince his audience that he knows what he's talking about. Heck, how could a guy so absolutely sure of himself be mistaken?

To question Darwinism is dangerous for all professional scholars but especially biologists. ID's are fond of telling audiences that evolution is on the verge of collapse

just a legitimate question: Who honestly would want to read this? I mean, I many doubt people outside the biological field read books on evolution for their leisure reading, so why would anyone want to read this? Unless you want your creationist views enforced?

Shouldn't that be "how would a guy so absolutely full of himself . . .?"

Jason quotes Koons as saying:

"Darwin himself contributed to the illicit shift in the burden of proof in his well known challenge to his critics in The Origin: " If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." It is, of course, impossible to "demonstrate" any such thing. (P.13)"

Jason comments:

"I describe this quote as a bright spot because he is tacitly rejecting the fundamental pillar in the case for ID: the irreducible complexity of certain biochemical systems. When Michael Behe introduced this idea in Darwin's Black Box he quoted the very same line from Darwin that Koons used. It was Behe's claim that systems which could not be formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications had now been found, and they were precisely those systems involving several, well-matched parts, such that the removal of any one part rendered the system non-functional. Do a google search on Darwin's quote and you will come up with dozens of creationist web sites claiming that Darwin's challenge had been met. Yet here Koons is plainly rejecting this claim. Good for him."

My comment:

I think that Darwin, in a rare misstep, wrote "could not" but really meant to write "did not." In that case an excellent demonstration would be that the organ (or organelle, or biochemical system) formed in a single major modification. Behe demonstrated nothing of the sort, of course, but made a whole career out of misrepresenting the quote. Unfortunately, even with Koons' surprising admission, it will be a long time before the public is on to the Discovery Institute's word games.

You are obviously very bright and accomplised Dr. Rosenhouse, but I disagree with your statement:

"Dembski and his ilk are laughed at by knowledgeable people because their arguments are laughably wrong. That's all there is to it."

IDists are laughed at, but not because they're scientific arguments are laughably wrong. I know some of the professors at your school, JMU. Dembski does have underground support there. Percentage of the Science oriented faculty? Maybe 3% at least, but there is dissent.

You know the climate is changing. You can see the numbers of students at JMU ISAT on a Friday night at an IV meeting or JMU University Commons on a Thursday night at a Crusade meeting. Some of them are your students, but they have not succumb to your beliefs, and there are more of them each year....

These students see some of their professors in church on Sunday. They know they have sympathetic faculty on their side. Dembski has underground support for sure, even in your own backyard.

cheers,
Salvador

I am glad to see how Salvador points out how the ID movement is largely religiously motivated. In fact ID is laughed at by science because its claims have been show to be fundametanlly flawed. Underground support is all ID can ever hope to achieve because out in the open in fails scientifically.

Examples:

No Free Lunch

Various claims of no free lunch have been made but despite Dembski's reliance on the NFL theorems, it was proven that the NFL theorems have no relevance to evolution.

Complex Specified Information

Despite claims that only intelligent designers can created CSI, it has been swhon that either neither regularity or chance nor Intelligent Designers can create CSI since the probability of an event in either case becomes close to 1 and the log of 1 is close to zero, or it has been shown how simple processes of inheritable variation and selection can increase information.

Irreducible complexity

Once claimed as a reliable indicator of design has lost most of its appeal now that pathways to IC systems have been identified.

Scientific contributions

Despite many years of opportunities, ID has failed to show that it is scientifically relevant.

Tonight I picked up "Uncommon Dissent" and read the forward.

Two months ago, upon reading Dembski's discussion of the "Myths" and propagandistic claims which Darwinians use to sidestep the debate, I would have thought him an alarmist guilty of gross exageration. However that was before I spent time at pandasthumb.

Sadly, I have spent enough time here to see that in all truth Dembski has you guys quite figured out.

Nothing makes me more sure that there actually is a scientific controversy and philosophical war between metaphysical naturalists and theistic realists than spending time on these web boards.

I look forward to your angry poor reasoned replies.

"Theistic realists". That's a keeper.

"Theistic realists". Ooooo! I've got one! "Same Difference" Ooooo! "Military Intelligence"!....

High T Russ,

I am surprised that you expect the replies to be poorly reasoned or angry . While you certainly have set an example the common response is often quite well reasoned.

These webboard surely show that there is a philosophical (read religious) war going on, which is not surprising given the goal of the Wedge. But there is hardly a scientific controversy, Dembski may claim there is but he is mostly preaching to his religious choir.

The fact that most of the foundations of ID have been shown fallacious combined with any evidence of scientific relevance of ID makes any claim of scientific controversy suspect.

T. Russ.:

What part of the following essays are "sidestepping"? Then deal with the parts that are not "sidestepping"... you will have accomplished more than Dembski has ever done.

http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/zgists/wre/papers/dembski7.html

http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/resp_wre_19991229.txt

http://www.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=532248147

http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/wre_id_proxy.txt

http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/19990913_csi_and_ec.html

http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/zgists/wre/papers/antiec.html

http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/corr_wre_cs_bio.txt

http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/sc_resp_wre.html

http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/dembski_ans.txt

http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/resp_wre_20000202.txt

http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/wre_id_first.html

http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/rev_nfl_wre_001.html

http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/theftovertoil/theftovertoil.html

http://www.talkreason.org/articles/eandsdembski.pdf

I look forward to your substantive reply.

Sorry, didn't mean to come across as "High," but I really do think that what I wrote above is true. I believe this website is testimonial support for much of the claims made by the ID guys concerning the slippery debating tactics . I make a post supporting the introduction to Dembski's book then steve (most likey just being playful) makes fun of the term "theistic realist." Then in your post, you slightly insult me, (i might have deserved, and wasn't offended) and proceed to support Dembski's claims by basically commiting yourself to 3 of the four myths he lays out in the intro to "Uncommon Dissent".

Judge: You allege some harm to your person caused by the defendant?

Dembski: Yes Your Honor I do. Prior to the writing of the essays by Mr. Elsberry, I had only one such orifice as mentioned in the brief. But now, at a cost of great pain and embarrassment, I have two. Because Mr. Elsberry done tore me a new one.

Judge: I find the plaintiff guilty.

William A. Dembski's writings claim, among other things, that algorithms cannot produce Complex Specified Information (CSI), but intelligent agents can. A recent posting of Dembski's introduced qualifiers to CSI, so that we now have "apparent CSI" and "actual CSI". Dembski categorizes as "apparent CSI" those solutions which meet the formerly given criteria of CSI, but which are produced via evolutionary computation. This is contrasted with "actual CSI", in which a solution meets the CSI criteria and which an intelligent agent produces.

Sorry Wes, you know I don't have time for all that. Besides I was refering to the way debate is handled here at pandasthumb. I could probably find some myths and dissmive tactics in those papers but is it really worth my time? The more I hang around here the more I see how correct ol' Thomas Kuhn was about paradigm challenge resistance. It's kinda sickening.

T. Russ: I see you've gone completely into rhetorical overdrive. All of this crap about
"Dembski has you guys figured out"
"your angry poor reasoned replies sic [/]"
"It's kinda sickening"

I'm willing to wade through your asssaults on grammar and spelling, but I'm not going to respond to any of your silly accusations about debate dodging and dodging debates about debate dodging, etc., or the nonsense about "religious bigotry".

But if you do ever have an issue about science, research, data, etc., I'll be waiting. Have you raised any one issue having to do with actual science which has not been thoroughly dealt with here? If some people are disrespectful of your conflation of religion and science, I suggest you ask yourself "what would Jesus do?".

You have no time for Wes's serious engagement with the issues, but you've got lots of spare time for the parody of scientific inquiry called the IDEA club? Well, I suggest you take some of the time you spend making unsupported and unsupportable accusations on this site, and read some of the stuff that actually engages the science issues.