ID in their own words: Dembski

It's not just from PT bloggers that I've heard of Dembski's astounding arrogance. But this example is the best so far (even counting the time he based an argument about the Cambrian explosion on a directly misquote and then proceeded with his intended arguments after someone had pointed out the blunder they were based on).

But it must have just been monumental to see him talk like this! To paraphrase, "You're a stupid wimp and you have a tiny dick. What's that, you say? No, I don't have to whip it out, or provide references--I have enough self esteem that I don't need to compare my dick against anyone else's!"

How is it that people manage to keep this idea these people are remotely scientific, when they continually make ridiculous assertions such as the quoted one in the post above? If they demand such high amounts of proof for 'darwinian' explanations but are unable to hold themselves to such standards, it says an incredible amount about their 'scientific' integrity and especially about their motivations (IE they have nothing to do with legitimate science).

No matter how much they all say, it IS the size of your research program that counts.

If ID is correct and an intelligence is responsible and indispensable for certain structures ...

— Dembski

when pressed for similar details for their explanations, ID proponents suddenly seem to be very reluctant, in fact not just reluctant but unable to support their claims. Since Intelligent Design is typically inferred based on an argument from ignorance, it is unable to provide any positive evidence or even explanation of its own beyond 'poof'.

"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty." :-D

They've already done the other bit of demanding what their names are.

Nelson's law assures us that you can't have made all this progress! We absolutely demand that you replace thousands of books and journals and databases with the word "poof"!

... it's not ID's task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories.

I presume they argue that it's not important for ID to lead to scientific understanding.

Am I right then? God lies in the details but the Intelligent Designer does not.That makes both scientific and theological sense to me!

"Provide as much detail in terms of possible causal mechanisms for your ID position as I do for my Darwinian position." ID is not a mechanistic theory,

and it's not ID's task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories.

If ID is correct and an intelligence is responsible and indispensable for certain structures, then it makes no sense to try to ape your method of connecting the dots.

True, there may be dots to be connected. But there may also be fundamental discontinuities, and with IC systems that is what ID is discovering.

Perhaps I should explicitly state one more thing that has been alluded to by a number of posts: empirical science begins by considering details, and more crucially, all theories are tested on the details almost to the exclusion of anything else.

IDists must belittle this crucial aspect of science in order to claim to be above testing and observation. One simply has to wait around to watch ID "scientists" shooting themselves in the head scientifically.

William A. Dembski Organisms using GAs vs. Organisms being built by GAs thread at ISCID 18. September 2002

it's not ID's task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories.

With the foreknowledge that my comments will likely draw the ire and wrath of those here with whom I am essentially in agreement, I nonetheless have to make the following observation:

The ghost of Jacques Derrida seems to hover over this argument like a noxious cloud. On the one hand the IDists adopt his methodology without understanding its honest utility, and on the other, the scientific community seems to cling to the notion of an external objective reality that somehow (metaphysical dualism?) exists independently of our cognition. Deconstruction of both views reveals the former as a ideologically closed system intent on rationalizing its a priori assumptions; and the latter, though admirably assuming established knowledge is amendable with new information, deifies analysis of reproducible phenomena as the only valid kind of knowledge.

This criticism is in no way intended to question the virtue of scientists, but a modest attempt to point out a blind spot that leaves them vulnerable to contrarian propaganda. Propaganda that is effective given the primal, purely subjective and emotional desire of the ordinary human being for ontological certitude.

Does anyone understand what I'm trying to say?

Hi, luminous beauty.

I think I do understand the point you're trying to make, but I see at least one problem with your description: the deliberate use of a loaded word ("deifies") in place of a more neutral one ("acknowledges").

Also, your point seems to rely on the meaning of "valid" knowledge. Is it "valid" = "verifiable"? Is it "valid" = "useful"? Is it "valid" = "true"?

I see knowledge as something that must be communicable and verifiable; what cannot be communicated and verified may be true, but isn't knowledge.

the scientific community seems to cling to the notion of an external objective reality that somehow (metaphysical dualism?) exists independently of our cognition.

This criticism is in no way intended to question the virtue of scientists, but a modest attempt to point out a blind spot that leaves them vulnerable to contrarian propaganda.

Does anyone understand what I'm trying to say?

We only have to agree among ourselves about shared observations (even if "ourselves" are only figments in my mind, to go the extreme route)in order to do science. We don't have to bother with "objective reality" or some other claim for which one cannot even show a meaning to exist for that sequence of words.

I see knowledge as something that must be communicable and verifiable; what cannot be communicated and verified may be true, but isn't knowledge.

Hi Greg.

As I see it, one thing is being at a loss for words (we have invented new words, new symbols, new languages even, to deal with such temporary limitations); another thing is admitting to "knowledge" status things that cannot in principle be shared.

How can we consider "knowledge" (not "valid" knowledge, mind you; just "knowledge") something that isn't communicable (i.e. shareable) nor verifiable?

There seems to be a philosophical barrier here that I find it difficult to cross. What's "naive" about a working model that external reality exists, whether or not we exist to perceive it? Isn't this what even physicists operate by? Sure, we can always speculate that we're imagining things. We can agree that at some point, our perceptions are all we have, and that we can never be absolutely sure we are not brains-in-a-vat. But to what purpose?

I suppose I have no particular problem with unique or non-reproducible phenomena because these are not beyond scientific investigation in principle, only in logistics. As Glen says, neurology may be bringing some of those phenomena into more practical focus.

I admit I don't know what "deconstructionism" is. It's perhaps just a convenience to visualize science as "investigating reality" but so long as this remains successful, it's good enough. Isn't it?

Dembski: ID is not a mechanistic theory, and it's not ID's task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories.

Behe: Well, yes, of course that's exactly what I ask of Darwinian claims --- a mutation-by-mutation account of critical steps (which will likely be very, very many), at the amino acid level. But that's neither a "retreat" (In Darwin's Black Box (page 176)I implied that many small details would be necessary for a real Darwinian explanation)nor is it unreasonable --- that's simply what's necessary to actually explain the appearance of a complex, functional system in a Darwinian fashion, to show that it could indeed happen as Darwinists claim. Proteins change single mutation by single mutation, amino acid by amino acid, so that's the level of explanation that is needed. What part of "numerous, successive, slight" is so hard to understand? And not only a list of mutations, but also a detailed account of the selective pressures that would be operating, the difficulties such changes would cause for the organism, the expected time scale over which the changes would be expected to occur, the likely population sizes available in the relevant ancestral species at each step, other potential ways to solve the problem which might interfere, and much more. Alternatively, Darwinists could present a series of experiments showing that RM/NS is capable of building a system of the complexity of the adaptive immune system.

ahh...I was beaten to the above observation by a few days on the dembski thread:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/001108.html#c33236

Looks like I need to keep up.

Uhm . . . without going to deep into epistemology, it seems to me that if there were no objective reality, correlated in a reproducible way to (though not necessarily identical or even very similar to) our perception of it, science would be meaningless.

Thus, all science does start with a few metaphysical assumptions: that "reality" exists,

that our senses and rational faculties give us a limited, but reproducible and practically useful (applicable, predictive) perception of it, and that we all by and large share the same perceptions for the same corresponding external reality.

If we were all brains-in-a-vat, stimulated by some mad scientist's electrodes, we could still go through the motions of doing science, but it would be a very sad enterprise indeed.

Something that probably no one would engage in, if they were aware of their brain-in-a-vat condition.

What's "naive" about a working model that external reality exists, whether or not we exist to perceive it? Isn't this what even physicists operate by? Sure, we can always speculate that we're imagining things. We can agree that at some point, our perceptions are all we have, and that we can never be absolutely sure we are not brains-in-a-vat.

You know, this article had me checking out Dembski's blog, where I found our buddy Carnap (who swore he wasn't a creationist), made an appearance.

I don't know if I'd call him a creationist per se, but he does seem to be one of those annoying fence-sitters who think they're being open-minded when they're actually being credulous...

Glen:

I guess I'm seeing this from the perspective of a juror considering evidence presented at a trial. We know *something* happened; we can never know exactly what it was. Witnesses always disagree, our recollections are invariably embellished in many ways, etc. The best we can do is construct the most consistent approximation permitted by whatever evidence is available. But this doesn't cause us to wonder if the crime "really happened".

Anyway, I'm content to assume (as what I consider the simplest model) that there is an objective universe, and that the scientific method is our best currently known way to investigate and describe it. I'm sympathetic with the position that if we're checking out imaginary delusions or artifacts of inscrutable brain functions rather than something that's "really out there", it robs our curiosity of most of its motivation.

My primary interest is in consciousness, which is mostly why I even got into philosophy at all. Hence I am very interested in how "reality is constructed".

Regardless of that, even when I wrote of "naive realism" it wasn't a criticism, except that I consider naive realism to be inadequate in a few select areas. "Naive realism" is the actual name of the position that it appears that 'luminous beauty' was criticizing, and for the most part I don't understand any reason to worry if one believes in any sort of realism, including naive realism--except in select areas, again, ones that have essentially nothing to do with evolutionary issues. For instance, here's where I'm bristling at being called a "naive realist" (wholly unwarranted, but you know Piltdown...):

http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/001117.html#c33613

It's really an issue of epistemology, and the matter of what meaning there could be in saying or writing "reality". It is not anything of substance in dealing with (the great majority of) science, rather it is a cautious attempt at a non-prejudicial to philosophy. That is to say, if I had to testify as to the "reality" of a situation, I hope that I would simply take the concept of reality as it is intended to mean in our society and not bog down into issues of "what is is". There might be some times when one would have to discuss problems of reality, particularly the "reality" of numbers, math, and a whole list of words (but in court and in science this is rarely so much a problem since word meanings are conventionalized as much as possible there), still on the whole I wouldn't be arguing with people about "reality".

It's a little bit odd that I didn't bring up the questions of reality and wasn't too keen on anyone bringing it up here, and I ended arguing over the meaning of a word like "reality". Of course it's not a fight or anything, and I'm not even complaining really, since I do like the stuff. Just sort of odd, since I don't care in the least about these matters in the usual course of science.

So anyway, I have no quarrel with how you use the term "reality", and it is wholly legitimate in normal discourse. It's just that I happen to have gotten into consciousness matters where "reality" becomes a fuzzy issue and where appeal to contingency according to known physics becomes what is important, not ideas about reality.

Actually, one of the most charming things about science and philosophy is that these are two disciplines that the most immune from the post-modernist nonsense that has infected much of the rest of the academy. If you look at the people who do examine our metaphysical presumptions for a living--that is, analytic philosophers--you'll find very little or no truck with the radical relativist position being presented by Glen.

Sadly, Glen is using an antiquated reading of Nietszche, who is now read by most philosophers who aren't in France as the quintessential naturalist, like Hume. It N's world, scientific results are given an especially high place in terms of epistemic value. Contrary to the essentially fraudulent reading of N propagated by Derrida, N does not deny the possibility of finding truth that more or less corresponds to reality. He simply argues it is very difficult, and this difficulty does not preclude meaningful science. Quite the contrary, the difficulty in finding truth makes doing good science all the more important.

It is actually a very lively philosophical question as to whether we in fact could be brains in vats at all. The employment of certain concepts, including the ones that Glenn himself uses, seem to rely upon some kind of objective world. Shit, using language at all seems to preclude the radical solipsism that is the only real refuge of the post-modernist. Radical scepticism is almost certainly false.

Or, it isn't reasonable. At the very least, Glenn presumes that other minds exist. And if that is the case, then what is the simply, most reasonable explanation for the intersubjective agreement of all our perceptions, experiences, and scientific advancements: that's right folks, that we are all attempting to describe the same objective world that serves as the medium of our various experiences, perceptions, and theories.

Sorry for the rant, but the misreading of canonical philosophers by French post-modernists always gets analytic philosophers backs up. As does post-modernism. I am not necessarily defending naive realism, though I think some form of realism is true. I just think glib post-modernist scepticism should be taken out to the shed and put down for the good of us all.

One simply has to wait around to watch ID "scientists" shooting themselves in the head scientifically.

Sorry for the rant, but the misreading of canonical philosophers by French post-modernists always gets analytic philosophers backs up. As does post-modernism. I am not necessarily defending naive realism, though I think some form of realism is true. I just think glib post-modernist scepticism should be taken out to the shed and put down for the good of us all.

Actually, one of the most charming things about science and philosophy is that these are two disciplines that the most immune from the post-modernist nonsense that has infected much of the rest of the academy.

If you look at the people who do examine our metaphysical presumptions for a living---that is, analytic philosophers---you'll find very little or no truck with the radical relativist position being presented by Glen.

Sadly, Glen is using an antiquated reading of Nietszche,

who is now read by most philosophers who aren't in France as the quintessential naturalist, like Hume.

It N's world, scientific results are given an especially high place in terms of epistemic value.

Kant was very friendly to science, and Nietzsche was for the most part as well.

Contrary to the essentially fraudulent reading of N propagated by Derrida, N does not deny the possibility of finding truth that more or less corresponds to reality. He simply argues it is very difficult, and this difficulty does not preclude meaningful science. Quite the contrary, the difficulty in finding truth makes doing good science all the more important.

It is actually a very lively philosophical question as to whether we in fact could be brains in vats at all.

The employment of certain concepts, including the ones that Glenn himself uses, seem to rely upon some kind of objective world.

Shit, using language at all seems to preclude the radical solipsism that is the only real refuge of the post-modernist. Radical scepticism is almost certainly false.

At the very least, Glenn presumes that other minds exist.

And if that is the case, then what is the simply, most reasonable explanation for the intersubjective agreement of all our perceptions, experiences, and scientific advancements: that's right folks, that we are all attempting to describe the same objective world that serves as the medium of our various experiences, perceptions, and theories.

Sorry for the rant, but the misreading of canonical philosophers by French post-modernists always gets analytic philosophers backs up.

I am not necessarily defending naive realism, though I think some form of realism is true. I just think glib post-modernist scepticism should be taken out to the shed and put down for the good of us all.

I'll just repeat what I said before: "Philosophy and the study of the actual world have the same relationship to one another as masturbation and sexual intercourse."

Excuse me, Glen...but I don't remember using ad hominems against you, you silly boy. What's with the hostility? Is "glib?" really so insulting? You distance yourself from postmodernism, so is me calling it "nonsense" so bad? Are you having some trouble at home? A little short-fused eh? Is this how you treat all people who disagree with you? Man.

For example, I didn't call you stupid, pig-stupid. You say I lied to you because you use an antiquated reading of Nietzsche which you do. One example here, pne lower down.

You say: "Nietzsche really sort of back and forth on the issue of "truth", generally denying it (even in the uncapitalized sense), while clearly adhering to the general methods of discussing and discovering truth."

But this isn't what Nietzsche says. It is what Nehemas and Derrida would like him to say. As in much philosophy, it depends on what you mean by "truth." But Nietzsche adopts correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic accounts of truth depending on the circumstance. His discussion of truth and knowledge is complex, multilayered, and sophisticated. It is NOT him simply standing on a soapbox, like many postmodernists, and saying "THere is no truth, it is all socially constructed."

In fact, uh shithead (see I can add gratuitous insults too little git), I think the only insult I lay down is on Derrida, who is a fraud, but okay.

Let's take a look at some of the analytic philosophers you mention. Quine, for example, does not espouse anything like the kind of skeptcism you espouse. In fact, it is the opposite. For him, having an "objective reality" is not something that can really be questioned. It is actually a bit of nonsense question, a waste of time. He certainly wouldn't accept the kind of radical textuality you are espousing.

Not only that, but Quine and Nietszche were both naturalists. You said they are somewhat close to one another. I agree. But even Quine, if pressed, would accept that there some kind of reality that our statements would correspond to (or cohere with, or pragmatically interact with), correctly or incorrectly (better or worse). See Davidson on this. But he wouldn't think it a very interesting question, that's for sure That's true, I don't deny it. Your reading of Pierce is tendentious as he never rejected a correspondence component to truth, but he did think that concept needed to include a pragmatic one.

Look, let's take a look at what you actually say. Shall we? I am going to list a few quotes:

1) "Why the quote marks around "reality"? It's because it doesn't actually mean anything, that we can discern, beyond the momentary consciousness of perceptions, feelings, thoughts, actions, and intentions that we "know" and report to others."

2) "Anyhow, one can't show that Berkeley was wrong. More importantly, no one can show that the "brain's reality" is less real than the "objective reality". This is a real problem, in fact, because the brain has a reasonable claim to conventional reality (whatever that is), while there is nothing at all to warrant the reality of the perceptions that the brain interprets."

3)What is important is that the more competent ones are well aware that "we don't know what reality is".

4)In the more or less continental sense, however, I agree with Marx's statement. His target was primarily the metaphysicians and no doubt the analytic philosophers as well, who cling to notions like "reality" in spite of the relative lack of meaning to such claims.

AND

5)I'm with Nietzsche, we alone give meaning (no matter how much more complicated this is than Nietzsche seemed to think) to objects (a problematic word, along with "objective"), thoughts, endeavors, and beliefs. Or if one gets right down to it, I alone give meaning (or, "assume meaning" or simply consider as meaningful) to anything that I can regard as having meaning.

1-5 amounts to a radical scepticism about the external world and a post-modern claim of radical textuality. Do you disagree, cockbite? So, how far am I off?

But 4 is emphatically NOT what Nietzsche said. He certainly did not think that meaning was entirely malleable or could be altered by a whim. Nietszche was far too cognizant of our connection with the natural world and human institutions to accept that. No, the highest role of the "philosopher" is to creatively seek "alternative" systems of meaning that might be more life-affirming and closer to the little-t truth. If you are interested in his discussion of truth and knowledge, you might want to read Richard Schacht's or Brian Leiter's work on Nietzsche.

Anyway, I am tired of this. Like most fanciful pomo wastrels, you don't even come close to being clear. You accept "realism" but deny that "reality" has any meaning. Then you say that reality has mere "conventional" meaning. Well? Are you part of the Derridean school where contradicting yourself and seeking obscurity is intentional? Maybe if you strove for clarity, your posts wouldn't be "misinterpreted" so often.

Excuse me, Glen . . . but I don't remember using ad hominems against you, you silly boy. What's with the hostility? Is "glib?" really so insulting? You distance yourself from postmodernism, so is me calling it "nonsense" so bad? Are you having some trouble at home? A little short-fused eh? Is this how you treat all people who disagree with you? Man.

You say: "Nietzsche really sort of back and forth on the issue of "truth", generally denying it (even in the uncapitalized sense), while clearly adhering to the general methods of discussing and discovering truth." But this isn't what Nietzsche says. It is what Nehemas and Derrida would like him to say. As in much philosophy, it depends on what you mean by "truth." But Nietzsche adopts correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic accounts of truth depending on the circumstance. His discussion of truth and knowledge is complex, multilayered, and sophisticated. It is NOT him simply standing on a soapbox, like many postmodernists, and saying "THere is no truth, it is all socially constructed."

In fact, uh shithead (see I can add gratuitous insults too little git)

I think the only insult I lay down is on Derrida, who is a fraud, but okay.

Quine, for example, does not espouse anything like the kind of skeptcism you espouse. In fact, it is the opposite. For him, having an "objective reality" is not something that can really be questioned

even Quine, if pressed, would accept that there some kind of reality that our statements would correspond to (or cohere with, or pragmatically interact with), correctly or incorrectly (better or worse). See Davidson on this.

But he wouldn't think it a very interesting question, that's for sure That's true, I don't deny it. Your reading of Pierce is tendentious as he never rejected a correspondence component to truth, but he did think that concept needed to include a pragmatic one.

1-5 amounts to a radical scepticism about the external world and a post-modern claim of radical textuality. Do you disagree, cockbite?

So, how far am I off?

But 4 is emphatically NOT what Nietzsche said. He certainly did not think that meaning was entirely malleable or could be altered by a whim.

Like most fanciful pomo wastrels, you don't even come close to being clear. You accept "realism" but deny that "reality" has any meaning.

Well? Are you part of the Derridean school where contradicting yourself and seeking obscurity is intentional?

Maybe if you strove for clarity, your posts wouldn't be "misinterpreted" so often.

I just think glib post-modernist scepticism should be taken out to the shed and put down for the good of us all.

Glen, Patrick, can you take it to the bathroom wall, or email?