The latest issue of the Skeptic journal is now available (2005, vol. 11, No 4). It contains, among other things, two articles pertaining to the Intelligent Design and its critique. One of them (pages 54-65) is my article titled “The Dream World of William Dembski’s Creationism.” The other article (pages 66-69) “Creationism’s Holy Grail: The Intelligent Design of a Peer-Reviewed Paper” is by Robert Weitzel.
Given Dembski’s protestations regarding the term “creationism” when applied to his and his cohorts’ views (with some exceptions, like Dembski’s armour-bearer, Salvador Cordova who has frankly referred to himself as a creationist), perhaps it can be expected that Dembski will reject the very title of my paper as well as the reference to his ideas as a dream.
Weitzel’s paper is about Stephen Meyer’s infamous article in June 2004 issue of The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Weitzel shows the lack of merits in Meyer’s article and favorably quotes the article by Gishlick, Matzke, and Elsberry which was posted both on Panda’s Thumb (see this) and Talk Reason (see this).
I am posting this brief entry in order to explain why I’ve written one more article on Dembski’s already discredited pseudo-theory. Some denizens of The Panda’s Thumb and readers of Talk Reason probably know that I have authored a book Unintelligent Design (Prometheus Books, 2004) with a chapter about 100 pages long dealing in detail with Dembski’s literary output (as the latter existed at the time I was writing my book, in the first half of 2002). Furthermore, I have also authored a chapter in the anthology Why Intelligent Design Fails (Rutgers U. Press, 2004, eds Matt Young and Taner Edis) which specifically deals with Dembski’s misinterpretation and misuse of the No Free Lunch theorems. Why, then, have I written one more paper, which contains a concise critique of the main points of Dembski’s output?
Perhaps it is proper to point out that the article for Skeptic was written in March of 2004, before Dembski posted to the web some papers allegedly providing the “mathematical foundation of intelligent design.” Thus Dembski’s recent “mathematical” papers have not been covered in the Skeptic’s article. My brief critical discussions of those “mathematical” papers by Dembski can be found
here and here ; it was posted much later than the article for Skeptic was written. Other critiques of Dembski’s “mathematical” papers were suggested by Elsberry – see
this (March 15, 2005), and by Tom English (posted on ARN website in March 2005).
Having published the above book and chapter in the Rutgers anthology (besides a number of posts on the web) dealing with Dembski’s publications, I had no reason to return to discussing his output. Of course it was rather obvious that Dembski most probably would continue shooting out multiple articles, posts, and books at a machine-gun rate, but the experience with his output up to 2004 provided a good basis for not expecting from him any material of a greater interest than his production had up to that date.
So, why did I write the paper for Skeptic? The answer is simple. The editor of the Skeptic journal, Michael Shermer suggested that I write a paper for him succinctly analyzing Dembski’s output. In other words, Shermer had in fact commissioned me to write such a paper, asking though to limit it to not more than about 7,500 words.
However strong the aversion on my part to once again dealing with the literary production of Dembski, I just felt I could not afford not to go along with Shermer’s suggestion.
In the paper I submitted to Shermer in March 2004 I tried to analyze as succinctly as reasonably possible the most salient points of Dembski’s output, omitting many details and ignoring his often unethical behavior, but covering his most loudly praised claims.
Up to now, Dembski has never responded to the essence of my earlier critique. All his response boiled down to a couple of sentences, none of which in any way touched on the substance of my critique. On one such occasion Dembski wrote (in a post on the ARN website on March 13, 2004) that he has not replied to my critique because I just was
recycling other criticisms and doing a poor job in the process.
I think that for anybody who is familiar with my critique of Dembski it is obvious that the quoted “reply” displays Dembski’s arrogance and perhaps also his inability to offer counter-arguments to my critique. My book Unintelligent Design has been rather widely reviewed, both in press and on the web. While most of the reviews evaluated my book positively, there were, as could be expected, several quite negative reviews (mostly anonymous) obviously written by adherents of ID. However, in none of these negative reviews (not to mention the positive ones) was there even a hint at the notion that my arguments were not my own. There is little doubt that Dembski knows that my critical comments in no way “recycled” arguments of other critics. His disdainful dismissal of my critique as allegedly “recycling other criticisms” speaks more about his intellectual integrity than about the essence of my critique.
On another occasion, Dembski (see this) similarly dismissed my critical comments (as well as those by Wesley Elsberry) which addressed his article where he claimed to have mathematically “disproved” evolution theory. Again, without uttering a single word related to the substance of my (and Elsberry’s) critique, Dembski, in his habitual supercilious manner, wrote that answering my and Elsberry’s critique is rather low on his priority list since we (Elsberry and I) cannot even respond to his great math “in plain English” not to mention relating to his sophisticated mathematics (see Note 2 at the end of this post). (This was Dembski’s attempt at a pun, as another critic of Dembski’s article was named Tom English and in his critique Tom analyzed some details of Dembski’s mathematical exercise, while Elsberry and I avoided delving into Dembski’s math formalism because all his math exercise was irrelevant both to evolution theory and to the supposed foundation of intelligent design.)
I have no idea whether Dembski chooses not to respond to my article in Skeptic, as he chose so far to do regarding my previous critique of his output, or whether this time he will try to repudiate some parts of the substance of my critique. It does not matter, though. From previous experience with Dembski’s replies to critique (as to that by Richard Wein, H. Allen Orr, Jeffrey Shallit, Robert Pennock, Nic Matzke, and others – see some details here) a pattern seems to emerge: in his replies Dembski avoids addressing the crucial parts of the critical remarks, pointing instead to irrelevant details such as the formal credentials of his critics, distorting the critic’s arguments, triumphantly asserting, without any factual basis for it, the alleged imminent victory of ID etc. Therefore, even if Dembski chooses (as he has not yet) to “respond” to my article in Skeptic, there is no reason to expect that his possible response will have substance.
Anyway, I am hardly concerned with Dembski’s opinion of my critique. I view him as a pseudo-scientist whose prolific output, either as his own discourse or as replies to critics, is largely worthless. Moreover, the documented instances of Dembski’s unethical behavior provide an additional reason for not attaching much significance to his possible replies to critique. (For cases illustrating Dembski’s unethical behavior, see, for example this or this> (posted on March 26, 2004).
After having published my book Unintelligent Design and the chapter in the Rutgers anthology, I had no plans to ever again write any detailed analysis of Dembski’s output, previous or subsequent. Shermer’s suggestion made me change my plans and write the article which appeared in Skeptic, v. 11, No 4. Also, some recent posts by Dembski led to my brief responses, posted on Talk Reason and Panda’s Thumb. Perhaps I’ll have to write about Dembski again in the future, but I’ll do it reluctantly; hopefully such cases will be quite rare, leaving this rather nauseating task to our younger colleagues whose own age is closer to Dembski’s.
Note 1
While Dembski’s output has been extensively critiqued by many experts in relevant fields of inquiry (including information theory, biology, end others) one of the reasons for his contemptuous and supercilious attitude to critics may be the abundance of exaggerated acclaims of his publications by sycophants like Salvador Cordova and such philosophers as Robert Koons. Apparently Dembski is inclined to give much more weight to those acclaims than to critique, as the acclaims jibe well with his own well documented self-admiration. To judge, however, what the reliability of the loud praise for Dembski’s alleged breakthroughs is, let us look at just one example.
In the much derided example, philosopher Robert Koons of Texas wrote (in the blurb on the dust cover of Dembski’s book Intelligent Design, InterVarsity Press 1999):
William Dembski is the Isaac Newton of information theory, and since this is the Age of information, that makes Dembski one of the most important thinkers of our time. His law of conservation of information represents a revolutionary breakthrough.
This super-inflated acclaim apparently did not embarrass Dembski. Were his behavior typical of a scientist, he certainly would have objected to having such a laughable blurb printed, or at least expressed his discomfort after the fact. He never did, thus testifying to his apparent agreement with Koons’s obsequious lines. Now, however, I am interested not so much in Dembski’s self-admiration as in the actual level of Koons’s understanding of what he was writing about. In the Science Insight journal, a publication of the National Association of Scholars (v.7, No 5, 2003 –(see this) there is a letter by that same philosopher Robert Koons who, just a few years after his comparison of Dembski to Newton and acclaiming Dembski’s “law of conservation of information” now writes, among other things, that
William Dembski does not claim to have ‘discovered’ the law of the conservation of information. Instead, he simply brings this well-known and widely accepted result of information theory (the ‘no free lunch theorems’) to bear on problems of the origin of biological information.
The 2003 statement by Koons, which utterly negates his previous claim of 1999, appeared after Dembski’s alleged law was shown to be non-existent by a number of critics. This example illustrates that acclaims of Dembski’s work by his admirers more often than not are worthless. (By the way, Koons’s second claim also demonstrates his ignorance of the matter he endeavors to judge. The “no free lunch theorems” by Wolpert and Macready have no relation whatsoever to Dembski’s alleged law of conservation of information, and even less support it in any way. Moreover, these theorems have little to do with information theory in general. They are part of optimization theory, but philosopher Koons seems to have an equally nebulous understanding of what constitutes both information and optimization theories. Such is the level of authority of Dembski’s multiple admirers and sycophants.)
Note 2.
In a post (see this), Dembski wrote:
I’m happy to acknowledge my critics where I think they are being insightful. There tends to be a disconnect, however, between the criticisms I regard as insightful and those that my critics regard as insightful. I’m afraid that Wesley Elsberry and Mark Perakh do not rank high among those I regard as insightful critics. Since I’m quite busy and have plenty of critics, they tend to fall low in the queue. Consider, for instance, that Tom English on this board at least engaged the mathematics in my article. I’ve seen no indication that Elsberry or Perakh could even state the gist of it in plain English.
I cannot speak for Elsberry, who surely is fully capable of repudiating Dembski’s arrogant claim in regard to Elsberry’s critique (in my view Elsberry’s critique of Dembski has been quite insightful and well substantiated). As to my own alleged lack of understanding of Dembski’s “mathematical” paper, perhaps it is relevant to point out that unlike Dembski, who has a rather unimpressive history of publishing peer-reviewed papers, I have to my credit nearly 300 scientific papers printed in international journals, as well as several scientific monographs. I also was granted a number of patents in several countries. For example, any one of my published papers on stress calculation contains more formulae (all of which I derived) than Dembski’s entire mathematical output. (For example, just one paper printed in Surface Technology, v. 8, 1979, pp. 265-309, contains 131 formulae I derived). Regarding my inability to express my view of Dembski’s mathematical exercise “even in plain English,” in fact I have expressed my ideas in published papers which I wrote in five languages. There seems to be little doubt that Dembski would hardly be capable of even reading most of those languages, or of comprehending the gist of most of those papers, such as those dealing with computation of electric fields in cells of complex shape, with calculation of stress, with kinetics of photodeposition, with electrosorption hysteresis, and with other subjects I used to deal with. It is advisable that Dembski weigh more carefully his disdainful utterances if he wants to be taken seriously beyond the narrow circle of his lickspittles. Of course all this is hardly relevant to the critique of Dembski’s output, and I’d prefer not to have said all of this, but Dembski’s arrogant remarks regarding “plain English” (which are rather typical of his overall attitude to his critics) called for providing, at least once, some reply in a similar vein, at least as a footnote.
91 Comments
ellery · 15 August 2005
I would like to recommend this site to Panda's Thumb readers. It purports to challenge the Periodic Table on the basis of ID.
http://www.re-discovery.org/per_table.gif
http://www.re-discovery.org/
It is quite subtle and clever--from their website:
The reDiscovery Institute is non-profit, non-partisan, public-policy think-tank located in Tacoma, Washington, with branches in Atlanta, Georgia and Fort Worth, Texas. The reDiscovery Institute fosters integration of science education with traditional Judeo-Christian principles of free market, limited government, morality, faith, property, obedience, and anti-intellectualism .
Our primary focus is to extend and promote Design Theories, which have been so successful in Biology, to the fields of Chemistry, Astronomy, Geology, Atmospheric Science, Oceanography, Material Science, Acoustics, Condensed Matter Physics, Fluid Dynamics, Nuclear Physics, Anthropology, Physiology, Algebra, Geometry, Statistics, and Meteorology.
Our goals are to Teach the Controversies, all of them, each and every one. The reDiscovery Institute promotes better education of children, and re-education of adults; those on our current Enemies List. The reDiscovery Institute supports Fellows, who relentlessly write letters to editors and post 'articles' on the web. Highly-paid journalists present our Fellows to the public as bonafide scientists.
The reDiscovery Institute maintains a slick web page, and tirelessly promotes archaic religious dogma elegantly dressed in modern scientific terminology, to school boards, museums, theaters, and editorial pages across America. We are consultants to Fox News Network. The reDiscovery Institute urges adherence to John Phillipson's Ice Pick Gambit: "Until we gain total control, keep the old testament part of our agenda quiet because it frightens normal people." The reDiscovery Institute is backed by members, a board, and an ultra-conservative, ultra-rich, California savings and loan heir who believes that the American democracy should be replaced with biblical theocracy.
Jim Anderson · 15 August 2005
If he has time to blog, he has no excuse.
Jaime Headden · 15 August 2005
The term "lackwit" may apply, since his ingenuity in replies to critics seems lacking in regard to the quality of his speech. Instead of providing clear or concientious commentary, Dembski resorts to a tactic that I have found familiar in pseudoscientists who receive praise largely from uninformed "scholars" and "philosophers" (people who read and think about things a lot, oooo...) and the responses, if typical, are themselves the only true recycled remarks in the conversations (if you can call them that). Dembski does not try to muster courage and brave the idea he might be wrong, since in his view he is right, and thus only seeks to validate his ideas and disrespect those that contradict what he has faith in are real. His touchiness on his avowed religiosity being mentioned by others is a classical defense when you run a front organization that pretends not to be religious in nature, but is such to its core. All that is lacking are the cheap repeated insults; if he were Jewish, no doubt he's be claiming antisemitism and jew-baiting, something I had to deal with in regards to another "scholar".
Salvador T. Cordova · 15 August 2005
steve · 15 August 2005
Ed Darrell · 15 August 2005
ag · 15 August 2005
With friends like Salvador Cordova Dembski needs no adversaries. Salvador seems to be under delusion that his diatribes may be taken seriously (re his miserable "critique" of Elsberry & Shallit's paper} while Dembski seems to revel in praise even if it comes from nincompoops.
T. Russ · 16 August 2005
Hey Sal,
Ever wonder why we deal with people who can't carry on a simple conversation without resorting to childish name calling. Sychophant, lickspittle, lackwit, nincompoop? How can these guys talk about Dembski being arrogant, unethical, and rude. I have never seen the evidence for such claims. I would say that it is apparent and understandable that Dembski grows frustrated with having to deal with the same old bull all the time from anti-ID propagandists, but he never just gets on his blog and starts calling his critics delusional pseudo-scientists lackwits. The way these guys see Sir William looks to be just another classic case of self-projection?
Anyways, I just finished reading your critique of Elsberry & Shallit's paper and noticed that you managed to complete a quite thorough response without ever lowering yourself to such pejorative language. Good Job.
SEF · 16 August 2005
Wesley R. Elsberry · 16 August 2005
Mike · 16 August 2005
"I would say that it is apparent and understandable that Dembski grows frustrated with having to deal with the same old bull all the time from anti-ID propagandists..."
I thought the entire point is that he never actually "deals" with anyone who criticizes his "work".
GCT · 16 August 2005
Jaime Headden · 16 August 2005
Besides, aside from definitions of information (using Shannon information theory, that is), the problems with Dembski's "terms" are the bases of use for "conceptual", "physical" and "complex". Complex? Complexity is relative, as any one familiar with Complexity Theory can tell you. A spoon is a collection of millions of atoms is a simple tool is a spoon....
Russell · 16 August 2005
Hey! It's T. Rex again! Now, forgive me if this is getting a bit repetitious, but didn't you promise months ago to go away and not return until you had a meaningful response to Elsberry's critiques? I have to ask, then, if referring to Cordova's "thorough response" substitutes for providing your own. What about the list provided in comment #43222?
Flint · 16 August 2005
Would anyone care to speculate on T. Russ' religious orientation? Would anyone wonder whether it is just a coincidence? Is anyone willing to argue that what's really being addressed here is the math, and not the faith? Does anyone seriously expect that Dembski will ever address substantive criticisms knowing that they invalidate his apologetics?
We're partway there, I hope. Now, when anyone says "ID is science" there's little debate as to whether it's really science; we all know it's not. But when Dembski says "ID is math" everyone focuses on the math.
People, the topic here is a religious doctrine. Belief in defiance of the evidence is surely the sine qua non of Creationism. Dembski has chosen to misrepresent the evidence in mathmatical terms. Getting Dembski to admit valid criticisms of his treatment is like getting Duane Gish to admit there was no Noah's Flood. Not going to happen.
Russell · 16 August 2005
Art · 16 August 2005
Ed, remember that Sal is on the record as claiming that "information is almost anything you want it to be". Just make it up as you go along and you cannot be wrong.
This is the acme of ID theory. LOL.
(Url for Sal's comment: http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/13/t/001771/p/10.html#000365)
Rasmus Pedersen · 16 August 2005
Unsympathetic reader · 16 August 2005
Does Koons know how to describe Dembski's work in "plain English"? Does he understand the 'work' at all?
Sad · 16 August 2005
I don't know where I stand with the debate.
But I'm shocked to read some of the insults being thrown at Sal. I re-read his whole post a couple more times to see what he could have said that is drawing such heat. I can't find it.
What exactly are some of you attacking?
SteveF · 16 August 2005
The general feeling of smug, self satisfaction radiating from every pore does it for me.
GCT · 16 August 2005
Russell · 16 August 2005
sad · 16 August 2005
Oh, that makes sense then. He believes certain things that seem to contradict scientific knowledge and other things that can't be proved. He is a F#$*ing good for nothing piece of trash.
Let's never listen to anything he has to say then because of his accompanying historical context. Let's put alot of "LOL's" following his posts too. We can be our own little clan.
Oh wait!!!! I'm a F#$*ing good for nothing piece of trash too. My stars! I believe things that contract scientific knowledge. That earth cooled and liquid water appears around 3.8 billion years ago...followed immediately by photosynthetic algae. Darn it!!! That's not gradual. Come on chemical evolution.... where's my trial and error? Where is the gradualism? Now how about that early bacterial complexity? Crap! That's out of key too.
steve · 16 August 2005
"chemical evolution"? Have you been reading the Jack Chick tracts again?
Salvador T. Cordova · 16 August 2005
Salvador T. Cordova · 16 August 2005
Man with No Personality · 16 August 2005
Hey, don't tar Sancho Panza with Sal's sins--Sancho knew he was working for an idiot. He's more Bardolph to Dembski's Falstaff...
GCT · 16 August 2005
Sad, did you come here to ask questions and learn about evolutionary theory? If so, please ask away and the people here will be more than willing to help you.
If you came to complain about the treatment that some people receive, this place is the same as most other discussion boards. Sometimes the rhetoric heats up and people exchange words that they would not otherwise use in polite conversation. IMO it stems from the anonymity of sitting behind a computer screen detached from the person that you are conversing with. In that sense, what you are witnessing with Sal and others is an ongoing back and forth that has been going on for quite a while. And, yes, it is a back and forth. No one, however, has called him a, "F#$*ing good for nothing piece of trash." People do disagree with him and those disagreements do heat up, but no one has called Sal that. Please don't put words in other people's mouths.
If you truly want to learn and discuss things, please, let's do that. If you came to complain, then perhaps you should try looking back at some of the previous exchanges that have taken place, and you can decide for yourself whether anyone has stepped over the line.
island · 16 August 2005
1) My point is that what you will likely compare to things humans design to call design, "that which projects intent"... is no different than the sum of any otber objects *expressed bias* toward satisfying whatever relevant physical need, necessity being the mother of "invention" in every case. Only human arrogance can put us above nature to make us believe that we aren't "predisposed" to making our own form of "fairy-rings"... there is no difference.
2) Done and done... ;)
3) Please spend some quality time on it.
Steve · 16 August 2005
Steve · 16 August 2005
Dembski has his usual dismissive post and his other lickspittle lacky, DaveScot has posted pointing to Mark's "non-existent" publications in his fields of expertise. Of course, the idiot DaveScot didn't do the correct search, and he apparently is unaware of Dembski's own paucity of publication in math/probability/philosophy journals. I think Dembski needs new lickspittles.
island · 16 August 2005
Dembski booted me the moment that I told him that evidence for design in nature can be no more than that.
He then deleted two of my posts, so that it looked like DaveScot had nailed me trying to promote a book that I used for evidence.
IOW... he made what I'd said into his own lie, and left it that way.
DaveScot also accused me of being a crackpot because he doesn't understand enough physics to know the difference. Funny how that works... ;)
SteveF · 16 August 2005
DaveScot is a tragic case. He spent many a moon brown nosing John Davison, before they had a bit of a falling out. Last I read between the two, Davison was insulting DaveScot over at Stranger Fruit.
I actually happen to like Davison, I think he's an amusing eccentric. He had enough of DaveScot drooling over him and got rid. can't seem Dembski doing that; he likes his little cult around him. I can just imagine him patting Salvador on the head right now, shortly before he takes him out for his afternoon walk.
Dave Carlson · 16 August 2005
SteveF · 16 August 2005
I rather enjoy mocking people who deserve to be mocked. Each to his own I guess.
Steviepinhead · 16 August 2005
There may be depths to which we should not stoop.
With specific reference to Sal, however--and indulging myself in a strained cross reference having to do with the structural competence of grasses--we should exert ourselves very little to shelter those who have allowed themselves to be bamboozled from the imeediate effects of their bamboozlement.
Sir_Toejam · 16 August 2005
I'm sorry, but constant association of Salvador with Slaveador, sycophant, pet, etc. only serve to continually reinforce the truth. I have never seen anyone so deserving of such epithets, and they also warn others that he really IS that bad.
I don't look at it as "stooping", more like civic responsibility in this case.
Steviepinhead · 16 August 2005
...no more than I should be than I should be spared the immediate and predictable effects of my misspelling, should I now be mocked for the same, heh heh.
We've had a good deal of side-chatter about civility, ad hominem attacks, and so on recently. Lines are difficult to draw. Generally speaking, though some may choose to resist, I think we are entitled to poke a little fun at each other. Some here dish out their lessons in logic with considerable relish, and with little disposition to suffer what they deem to be the logical errors of others. And, to a greater or lesser degree, some of us are clearly of the mind that--if you are going to indulge in a public debate on issues of public import--you ought to be able to roll with the punches and still snap back with a smile--or a sneer--on your face.
As recent threads, and the real-world developments that have prompted them, have made clearer than ever, we stand near the fire: a highly-charged nexus of science and emotion, faith and fact, religion and politics.
Ultimately, it's each participant's choice how nigh to the fire he or she dares to draw.
Sal has not been handled nearly as sharply here as we have, at times, handled our own. He has undeniably been ridiculed and saddled with some unpalatable epithets, but he has also been treated with some rough affection; tolerated rather than ignored. Indeed, a good deal of time and effort have been spent attempting to point him toward appropriate information and to gently remedy the defects in his processing of that information.
Sal has never been banned or deleted, as any of us would promptly have been at, say, Dembski's site, had we persisted in expounding our own views as, um, doggedly as Sal has done here. Nor have the "accolades" he has received here been entirely unrelated to the way he has portrayed himself, here and elsewhere, as the faithful adherent of some of the more prominent and self-aggrandizing IDists.
Sal chooses to keep returning, whether to prove his mettle to his own acolytes or even in the fond hope that he somehow is making some reciprocal impact--if not on us, then on the impressionable lambs lurking on the far fringes of our fire-circle.
Perhaps, more fundamentally, Sal and Blast and some of the others just can't help themselves: on some level, they receive some reward for their visits that overmasters whatever perils they may face. Heh, maybe the same could be said of some of us: we wandered into this vortex in all innocence, but now we're trapped by our own predilictions, unable to escape in spite of our better judgment.
And, to his credit, whatever the gaping holes in his knowledge or the defects in his argumentation, Sal's rarely whined about his treatment. Indeed, I'd kind of miss Sal if he never returned. But that's no excuse to pull on the kid gloves. Or to delay the pizza boy in his rounds.
steve · 16 August 2005
Comment #43292
Posted by Man with No Personality on August 16, 2005 01:05 PM (e) (s)
Hey, don't tar Sancho Panza with Sal's sins---Sancho knew he was working for an idiot. He's more Bardolph to Dembski's Falstaff...
I started calling him Sancho P. Cordova. I agree that Bardolph might be a better comparison. Harder to work in that name, though.
Dene Bebbington · 16 August 2005
I see that in Dembski's blog comments Dave Scot is attempting to show that Mark Perakh hasn't really got so many published papers and patents as he stated. What I'd like to know is this, if Dembski has discovered such a revolutionary method for inferring design then how come nobody, himself included, is using it properly for anything theoretical or practical?
Steve · 16 August 2005
mynym · 16 August 2005
"There may be depths to which we should not stoop."
It's interesting to note what triggers there seem to be for the psychological dynamics typical to Darwinists. Although the arguments of "scientific consensus" and "They're scientists, which means everything said is just like gravity or somethin'." are made by Darwinists often enough any building of consensus or identity politics about being "expert" among the opposition is the subject of rather visceral and personal rhetoric. That's because projection is all of the person and the personal.
Some Darwinists in recent history guided by viscera/"biological thinking" and visceral reactions merged their projections in with a visceral hatred for the "fairy tales of the Jews" and the "Jewish influence." The "fairy tales of the Jews" had to do with a disdain for knowledge based on old texts and a shift toward a rather blind sort of focus on organicism and biology as a connection to Nature instead, the other notion of an "influence" of alienation and separation that could be blamed on the Jews was merged in with a further rebellion against any notion of transcendence. Perhaps alienation from Nature comes from the "god-of-the-gaps" that those with the Darwinian urge to merge cannot seem to fill in. There was a weakness to the urge to merge. A "...weakness...due not to inferior training but to the mendacity inherent in any scholarship that overlooks or openly repudiated all moral and spiritual values."
(Hitler's Professors: The
Part of Scholarship in Germany's Crimes
Against the Jewish People
By Max Weinreich
(New York: The Yiddish
Scientific Institute, 1946) :7)
Given Sal's attempts to focus on "blue prints" or the conceptual information first and the perceptual formation second as well as the way he is apparently influenced by both old texts as well as textual notions of the transphysical or transcendent it would seem that proto-Nazis cannot restrain themselves. They have their type of scholarship to support with their visceral propaganda. There is some notion of transcendence, so they must rebel against it. One scholar used rebellion against transcendence as a key feature in the definition of Nazism, which is probably why scientism was so prevalent in Nazism. Darwinists often show the same tendency, although they don't quite go all the way. I suspect that economic pressure could act as a trigger for a rather viral set of memes to begin to show up among Darwinists. Money can paper over the worst of disagreements until it can't.
mynym · 16 August 2005
Perakh sure writes a lot about his book and his writings. I suppose what is in them is best left to the imagination.
Steviepinhead · 16 August 2005
Then there are those who we are tempted to receive with rather less affection.
Indeed, with a mynym...
Mark Perakh · 16 August 2005
I have received several emails asking whether my essay in Skeptic is available online. Up to now it was not. However, Skeptic's editor Michael Shermer has now given permission to post it. Its full text will be soon posted to Talk Reason.
steve · 16 August 2005
Wesley R. Elsberry · 16 August 2005
mynym · 16 August 2005
mynym · 16 August 2005
PvM · 16 August 2005
Never underestimate the level of amusement Sal can bring to this. The problem is that from a scientific perspective his attemtps to understand and defend intelligent design are quite amusing.
Problem is that whenever faced with issues he cannot refute, he returns to childish approaches. Just wait and see, his references to Shallit as Dembski's former teacher are just the beginning.
In the end nothing Sal has to offer addresses the simple observation that ID is scientifically vacuous. But then again. So is YEC.
Sir_Toejam · 16 August 2005
"Why now, now I am just about prepared for further amusement!"
I personally don't find the silly or the ignorant or the sycophantic all that funny or amusing myself.
However, in the case of Sal, as i stated several times long ago, he is his own worst enemy, and a great case in point for the status of the ID crowd.
ellery · 16 August 2005
Isn't the Achilles' Heel of ID the matter of implementation? I mean, it is one thing to have a design idea, but it is another thing to bring it to be. All designers and manufacturing engineers have noticed this. Usually there are aspects of the design--however neat--that cannot be made.
In the case of ID, I wonder how "The Creator's Design" was turned into practice. Does this require another series of {poof}? Usually there is feedback between the designers and the fabricators. I imagine a lot of junior level gods busily making atoms from the design, assembling molecules, and sending them on to the origami section to fold proteins, according to the blueprint. Getting this right for every sperm and ovum is certainly a challenge, and quality control is an issue.
Some versions of design 4.01.34 went extinct. This may have been due to either implementation failures or design flaws. The warranty issues alone are awesome.
ID types are fond of design, but miss the important aspect of turning design into, for example, a real starfish or a real ginko tree (gymnosperm). At what point does design get turned into an implementation? And how do creators do this?
ellery · 16 August 2005
Isn't the Achilles' Heel of ID the matter of implementation? I mean, it is one thing to have a design idea, but it is another thing to bring it to be. All designers and manufacturing engineers have noticed this. Usually there are aspects of the design--however neat--that cannot be made.
In the case of ID, I wonder how "The Creator's Design" was turned into practice. Does this require another series of {poof}? Usually there is feedback between the designers and the fabricators. I imagine a lot of junior level gods busily making atoms from the design, assembling molecules, and sending them on to the origami section to fold proteins, according to the blueprint. Getting this right for every sperm and ovum is certainly a challenge, and quality control is an issue.
Some versions of design 4.01.34 went extinct. This may have been due to either implementation failures or design flaws. The warranty issues alone are awesome.
ID types are fond of design, but miss the important aspect of turning design into, for example, a real starfish or a real ginko tree (gymnosperm). At what point does design get turned into an implementation? And how do creators do this?
Sir_Toejam · 16 August 2005
"In the case of ID, I wonder how "The Creator's Design" was turned into practice. Does this require another series of {poof}? Usually there is feedback between the designers and the fabricators. I imagine a lot of junior level gods busily making atoms from the design, assembling molecules, and sending them on to the origami section to fold proteins, according to the blueprint. Getting this right for every sperm and ovum is certainly a challenge, and quality control is an issue."
ya know, this sounds an awful lot like a description of Santa's workshop.
maybe the IDers have actually visited Santa's workshop and just can't actually tell us because they signed NDA's?
Arne Langsetmo · 16 August 2005
steve · 16 August 2005
Is he saying that calculating CSI depends on having access to the divine blueprints, which we can never have?
This might be the worst attempt at a theory in the history of thought.
Sir_Toejam · 17 August 2005
"This might be the worst attempt at a theory in the history of thought."
that's giving it too much credit.
Ed Darrell · 17 August 2005
It doesn't look like Dembski's liable to defend himself on this one, either.
Over at Chez Dembski, there is a suggestion that Dembski and Perakh should debate solely on the math.
Reminds me of working finance at a large corporation. One joke (only when it wasn't true!) was that the finance guys often worked things out to four decimals on the right side, but were off by orders of magnitude to the left of the decimal. In short, math is only as good as the assumptions one makes in translating whatever it is to math coding.
Dembski uses an assumption that all life is like an electronic signal. A debate on the math would be completely pointless. If life isn't like an electronic signal, the results of the math debate don't matter. That's the assumption that needs debate with Dembski.
ts (not Tim Sandefur) · 17 August 2005
Sir_Toejam · 17 August 2005
agreed; sometimes i think the only reason dembski exists is just to vex those of us who post here on PT. Debmski hasn't published anything of note... ever. it's simply the controversy (read sh*t) he stirs up that garners folks curiosity.
It's like fascination with a car crash; people slow down, take a quick look, see that it wasn't worth slowing down for, and move on.
the only thing at the end worth noting is that all the looky-loos end up causing a massive traffic jam.
djmullen · 17 August 2005
The last two URLs in the print article have misprints. They end in ".cmf", but it should be ".cfm".
Correct URLs:
www.talkreason.org/articles/math.cfm
www.talkreason.org/articles/newmath.cfm
Salvador T. Cordova · 17 August 2005
Rilke's Granddaughter · 17 August 2005
Unfortunately for your 'argument', Sal, the things you list are hardly platonic forms. They are simply definitional concepts. Even your beloved "Lord Dembski" (can't you guys simply get a room?) admits that the specification is a wholly subjective construct.
And since he has never actually demonstrated that anything demonstrates CSI, the argument is pretty much moot, isn't it?
Salvador T. Cordova · 17 August 2005
You all may want to see my insightful comments at Uncommon Descent:
Dembski on Perakh
Salvador Cordova
PS
Rilke's Grand Daughter (RgD)!!! Is that you? Howya doin'? Haven't heard from you in a while. Glad to see your happy smilin face here at happy PandasThumb. Hope yer still enjoyin' your bonding sessions with you know who: RGD explains her bonding with Alix
ts (not Tim Sandefur) · 17 August 2005
ts (not Tim Sandefur) · 17 August 2005
Arne Langsetmo · 17 August 2005
Alan · 17 August 2005
ts (not Tim Sandefur) · 17 August 2005
steve · 17 August 2005
Steve · 17 August 2005
ts (not Tim Sandefur) · 17 August 2005
Arne Langsetmo · 17 August 2005
Rilke's Granddaughter · 17 August 2005
Paul Flocken · 17 August 2005
DembskiSpike is unable to successfully challengebig, bad, evolutionistsSylvester andSalvadorChester must do it for him.Wesley R. Elsberry · 18 August 2005
Those wishing to continue the "anthropic principle" stuff should visit the Bathroom Wall.
steve · 18 August 2005
Is the Bathroom Wall working again? It's been on the fritz for weeks.
Paul Flocken · 18 August 2005
Yes, please repair the necessary. It won't load anything past August 8th.
Alan · 18 August 2005
Alan · 18 August 2005
Alan · 18 August 2005
Alan · 18 August 2005
Oops in spades.
Wesley R. Elsberry · 18 August 2005
Then open a thread under "After the Bar Closes" at the AE BB.
RBH · 20 August 2005
Salvador T. Cordova · 23 August 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 August 2005
Hi Sal. Welcome back.
A little birdie told me that you were talking smack about me while I was gone. I'm sure that wasn't just false bravado or craven cowardice on your part, Sal, and that you really DO have the ping-pongs to face up to me and answer some simple questions for me. Right?
*ahem*
1. What is the scientific theory of intelligent design, and how do we test it using the scientific method?
2. According to this scientific theory of intelligent design, how old is the earth, and did humans descend from apelike primates or did they not?
3. what, precisely, about "evolution" is any more "materialistic" than weather forecasting, accident investigation, or medicine?
4. do you repudiate the extremist views of the primary funder of the Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, Howard Ahmanson, and if so, why do you keep taking his money anyway? And if you, unlike most other IDers, are not sucking at Ahmanson's teats, I'd still like to know if you repudiate his extremist views.
Here's your chance, Sal. Right in front of the whole world. Prove that you're not just all "blow" and no "go".
Or, prove otherwise.
Wayne Francis · 24 August 2005
*crickets chirping*
You know I always thought that they where supposed to be relaxing ... not annoying.
slpage · 24 August 2005
Ahh..
Bill Dembski - the William Hammesfahr of Information Theory and his bootlick, Sal the WonderBoy!
Wesley R. Elsberry · 26 August 2005
Sal,
Yes, that is amusing. Wrong again, but amusing.
As to definitions, I have repeatedly made the point that what CSI is depends upon how it is recognized, which is a property (allegedly) of the math Dembski has given. The "physical/conceptual" text is a descriptive interpretation of what the math defines. It is not, itself, the definition. We addressed the math. We didn't address every handwaving description Dembski wrote.
As to "omega", Sal is utterly confused. There are two different uses of "omega" in Dembski's stuff. In The Design Inference, "omega" refers to "probabilistic resources", a mapping function that yields "saturated" probabilities and events. TSPGRID doesn't change "omega"_TDI, contrary to Sal's claim. In No Free Lunch, "omega" is the "reference class of possible events". TSPGRID is incapable of "increasing omega" by its operation.
Dembski discusses calculation of "omega" on p.52 of NFL. There, he gives the example of a six-sided die rolled 6,000,000 times. His "omega" for this "event" is "all 6-tuples of nonnegative integers that sum to 6,000,000". In other words, "omega" includes every possible way that one could roll a die 6,000,000 times. In other equations, if one rolls an n-sided die k time, "omega" is k*n. (This is for the case in which only the distribution of rolls matters, which is the context of Dembski's example, and not the sequence of rolls. For a sequence of die rolls, "omega" becomes n^k.)
As for the Sal's claim that TSPGRID "increases omega as it outputs data", that's just silly. One does have to take into account the number of runs of TSPGRID, just as Sal takes into account the number of coins in his idee fixe. Sal's objection to TSPGRID is exactly the same as objecting to coin-stacking on the grounds that he "increases omega as he adds coins".
Sal says that we didn't give "omega" for TSPGRID. This is literally true, but we do expect some minimal competence from our readers. The "omega"_NFL for TSPGRID with 4n^2 nodes run k times stated in the same way as Dembski's dice example is "all (4n^2)!-tuples of nonnegative integers that sum to k", or, more simply, k*(4n^2)! as anyone with a clue should be able to work out from the information that we gave. If you change n or k, you get a different "omega", just as you get a different "omega" if you stack dice instead of coins, or stack a different number of dice or coins. Once n and k are fixed, as in some specific instance of one or more runs of TSPGRID to be analyzed as an "event" in Dembski's parlance, "omega" is fixed as well.
So Sal's random charge of "error" here is just as amusingly inept as his previous outings. It seems that Sal is not well acquainted with Dembski's work, as "omega" is not all that mysterious. I suspect that Sal "knows" that the TSPGRID example just "has" to be wrong, therefore, any scattershot objection made will do. But if TSPGRID were actually wrong, and Sal were actually capable of analyzing it, he would have come up with a valid objection in the first place, and not have had to resort to flinging any odd objection at hand and hoping something sticks. So far there has been the "a deterministic version of TSPGRID doesn't output CSI!" objection (which is why TSPGRID is non-deterministic), the "TSPGRID doesn't provide PHYSICAL information!" objection (though several of Dembski's own examples share this "error" and a run of TSPGRID or any other algorithm certainly is physical), and now the "you didn't say what Omega was!" objection (where "omega" is easily calculated given the information we provided).
But I guess I will have to make do with amusement at further instances of random objections.
Rilke's Granddaughter · 26 August 2005