An Atheist Defends Intelligent-Design Creationism

Posted 2 January 2010 by Matt Young

Bradley Monton thinks he understands intelligent-design creationism better than either its ~~opponents~~ proponents or its critics. He's about half right. Monton, a philosopher at the University of Colorado, has recently been making a bit of a name for himself by publicly debating ID creationism and also moderating a debate between Francisco Ayala and William Lane Craig. So I decided it was time I read his book, Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design from cover to cover. I am working from a proof copy that the author kindly sent me last spring, so I will not comment on minor errors. I thought the book was well and clearly written, if not always well argued, but I thought that if I saw one more instance of an awkward and wholly superfluous phrase such as "it is the case that," I was going to scream or throw my shoe through the monitor. Monton begins by accusing the opponents of ID creationism of employing the genetic fallacy, though he does not use that term. He is familiar with the Wedge Document but consciously discusses neither the Wedge Document nor the evidence connecting intelligent design to more-traditional creationisms. Instead, he treats us to a few endnotes and says he is just going to evaluate the arguments, as if the context of the arguments were wholly irrelevant. He admits that your beliefs or preconceptions can influence your reasoning, but seems to think that he is immune. Ignoring the Wedge Document gives him permission to accept the disingenuous claim that the designer need not be supernatural; indeed, he says that ID creationists need that claim to achieve scientific legitimacy. He devotes what seems like an interminable chapter trying to tell the ID creationists exactly what they are saying (though he ignores role of ID creationism as a supposed link between science and theology). Ultimately, he defines ID creationism to include not just biology but also arguments such as the fine-tuning argument. Here he has a point: "Intelligent design" usually means anti-evolution, but it certainly could apply to the origin of the universe or even the origin of what are alleged to be human souls. Indeed, my coeditor Taner Edis and I included a chapter on the fine-tuning argument in our book, Why Intelligent Design Fails---but the book was overwhelmingly about biology, and when people talk about introducing intelligent-design creationism into the schools, they generally mean biology. More than once, Monton seems to say that the lack of a compelling argument against a given premise is equivalent to evidence in its favor, or at least that the argument is "plausible." Thus, later in the book, he discusses the hypothesis that we are actually living in a computer simulation or that we are disembodied brains in a vat. I think he must have read Donovan's Brain once too often. At any rate, he claims to see some evidence in favor of an intelligent designer and further that the designer is God; though he remains an atheist, he is now less certain of his atheism than he had been. Monton thinks there is, in fact, no explanation for, say, the existence of the universe. But if you insist that there must be an explanation, then he asserts that intelligent design is the best explanation we have. Thus, he devotes an entire book to defending a bad argument because there is none better. In Chapter 2, Monton takes on Judge John Jones's demarcation criteria and debates methodological naturalism with Rob Pennock. He argues, correctly, that we need to focus on evidence for and against ID creationism, rather than try to label it as science or pseudoscience. In particular, he says that a false theory should not necessarily be ruled out of science class---Newtonian theory is technically false. This argument could give sophistry a bad name; even if you think that all theories are technically false, good theories are useful within their ranges of validity. ID creationism is not useful anywhere. Says Monton: "I conclude that even if intelligent design's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community, it doesn't follow that intelligent design is not science." You could say the same for phlogiston or caloric; at best, then, intelligent-design creationism is obsolete or indeed useless science, just like phlogiston or caloric. We do not require teaching phlogiston or caloric in science class; they barely deserve mention. Why then should we mandate teaching ID creationism? The answer is political, not scientific. Monton argues first that science is not committed to methodological naturalism. Then he sets up a straw man, that science could not investigate evidence in favor of the supernatural if it is committed to methodological naturalism; therefore, science is not committed to truth. I argue that there is a difference between saying God did it and investigating a claim of supernaturalism. The demarcation between philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism is not sharp. I can surely apply the methodology of science to a claim of the supernatural without betraying that methodology. That is what we do every time we try to debunk a claim of a miracle. If we found enough miracles for which we could not develop a naturalistic explanation, we might, by a diagnosis of exclusion, tentatively accept the supernatural hypothesis (but we need to be very sure that we have considered and rejected all the possibilities). Indeed, Monton argues, correctly, I think, that science has not postulated the supernatural only because it has had no need to do so. Under the rubric, Other Arguments, Monton quotes Edis and me to the effect that the proponents of ID creationism do not practice science. He then takes us to task for saying that ID creationism is not science, a contention which I could defend, but which we did not say. Practicing nonscience is only one way to not practice science; you could also practice science improperly, and Edis and I note several failures of ID creationists in this regard. At any rate, if one ID creationist comes along and practices it as science, our conclusion is falsified. I won't hold my breath. Similarly, Monton attacks our claim that ID creationists make no substantive predictions: He says that in fact they predict that if we look for it, we will find evidence of a designer. That is at best a very tenuous prediction, since it does not include a testable hypothesis, but Monton compares it to the "prediction" that there is matter in the universe. That is not, however, a prediction; it is an observed fact. The third chapter details four arguments in favor of his generalized version of ID creationism, which he considers "somewhat---but only somewhat---plausible": the fine-tuning argument, the kalam cosmological argument, the argument from the variety of life, and the simulation argument. The fine-tuning argument is well-known, and I will not discuss it, but I thought that Monton should have discussed counter-arguments such as his colleague Victor Stenger's Monte Carlo calculation, wherein Stenger changes more than one fundamental constant at a time. I will also not discuss the kalam cosmological argument, which seems to me not substantively different from Thomas Aquinas's argument from first cause. What Monton calls the argument from the variety of life leads him to discuss the possibility of disembodied souls in an all-hydrogen universe. I suppose that possibility is theoretically possible, but I would like to have seen some speculation as to how such life might have arisen by natural selection or any other mechanism. Twenty or more years ago, I asked at a skeptics' conference, "I'd like to know what we are afraid of. Why don't we simply teach creationism as the bunk that it is, etc., etc.?" I was rudely awakened to the idea that more is involved than just logic, that too many teachers would not teach it as bunk, that many parents would object, and in short that matters were not so simple. Indeed they are not; what we teach in school is a social and political matter, as well as an educational matter. It is naïve to think otherwise. Monton, in his final chapter, finds uncompelling the arguments that ID creationism should not be taught in public school science classes. He argues that it could reasonably be "taught in an intellectually responsible, non-proselytizing way." In principle, he is right, but in practice he is dead wrong, if he means to include it in the science curriculum, as opposed to simply responding to honest questions by students. Intelligent-design creationism in its usual incarnation as pseudobiology is religion, pure and simple, and has no place in the public-school science classroom. If Monton had read the Wedge Document carefully and if he were not so credulous in believing Discovery Institute propaganda, he would know that. Indeed, he worries that he may be playing into the hands of people who think that the true goal of ID creationism is just to get religion into the schools. And well he might. Acknowledgments. Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education discussed the book with me and reviewed a draft of this article. Bradley Monton also reviewed a corrected draft and commented on it.

229 Comments

RBH · 2 January 2010

You could say the same for phlogiston or caloric; at best, then, intelligent-design creationism is obsolete or indeed useless science, just like phlogiston or caloric.

That's exactly Philip Kitcher's argument in Living With Darwin. He calls ID "dead science" and refers to its modern proponents as "resurrection men."

Gary Hurd · 2 January 2010

Very good review. Very sad that there are nitwits with tenure.

Mike Elzinga · 2 January 2010

Monton, in his final chapter, finds uncompelling the arguments that ID creationism should not be taught in public school science classes. He argues that it could reasonably be “taught in an intellectually responsible, non-proselytizing way.” In principle, he is right, but in practice he is dead wrong,
— Matt Young

I would argue that he is not right, even in principle. ID/creationism is simply full of serious misconceptions, misconceptions that have been repeated over and over despite attempted corrections by scientists for over 40 years. One doesn’t need to load up a class with misconceptions in order to placate some political/religious “sensibilities.” It is hard enough dealing with student misconceptions and preconceptions to get the proper understanding and nuances of scientific concepts across. Throwing in deliberate misconceptions would make the task impossible. The only way to deal with such misconceptions is to leave them out of the curriculum. Otherwise simply deal with them, if they come up as a question from a student, by referring the student to the appropriate literature, such as Talk Origins or the many books that have already dealt with the deceptions in ID/creationism. In rare cases where a student persists, I have been able to use such misconceptions as a humorous foil to get across the true concept, but I don't recommend doing this often; it might be taken as a provocation by religious fanatics.

Glen Davidson · 2 January 2010

To say that ID "substantively" predicts that there is a designer is idiotic. It is not a prediction entailed by any sort of observation or credible idea emanating from those observations. If I predict that a magical unicorn will be found in the universe, it would be just as substantive. What Monton and Nagel (Nagel's made claims that ID is science because, if it can be falsified by evidence (which we do with certain versions of ID), it's science--seeming to ignore the fact that IDiots won't allow any observation to falsify ID) seem to forget is the importance of following evidence, even when the hypothesis is produced. I'm not at all certain that even Paley's at least potentially falsifiable ID was truly scientific at the time, because it was cherry-picking "apparent design," rather than accounting for the totality of biology. So would ID truly be science even if it made honest predictions like Paley's writings could do? I'm not at all sure, it might still be more properly considered to be apologetics, not science. Demarcation problem again, because honest design predictions can be treated like science, and put to the test like hypotheses which are more legitimately produced. And there's no point in wading into the demarcation problem. At best, then, ID is failed science, dead science. These sorts of falsified ideas are typically treated as non-science, in fact. But it's bizarre that Monton lumps biological ID and cosmological ID together, because cosmological ID deals with the real problem that the universe is not adequately explained, while biological ID deals with their real problem that life is adequately explained (there are gaps in knowledge, but the theoretical parameters we have appear to be adequate at our present level of knowledge). A god-like being (including aliens) just might be responsible for one, while no reason exists to suppose any such thing for the latter (essentially none for the former, but I think the bare possibility should be acknowledged). I do think that Monton's correct that methodological naturalism is a red herring--and I'd note further that the IDiots make good propagandistic use of it against us by claiming that science simply precludes their nonsense from being considered properly, despite the web being full of treatments of a sort of Paleyian (falsifiable) ID which take design claims entirely seriously. Indeed, Darwin's own considerations of Paley's sort of ID show that science certainly can treat supernatural claims as if they are science, as long as they are constrained and falsifiable--totally unlike what today's ID happens to be now. But Monton fails especially badly when he ignores the fact that IDiots simply want to prevent science from demanding rigor and, classically, cause and effect analyses from evaluations of the supernatural. They want sermons and vague analogies to decide science, such as in Stephen Meyer's conflation of the evolved genome with rationally-produced (in part) human codes. If he dealt with biological ID as it actually is--a superstitious analogy of biology with human productions which does not in the least deal with the telling differences between such entities--he'd have to acknowledge that it's nothing other than religion. And if he dealt with the Wedge, or any of the ongoing religious statements by prominent DI fellows, he'd have to acknowledge the fact that they're pushing for a theistic pre-emption of today's science. Glen Davidson

http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Glen Davidson · 2 January 2010

Meyer's "scientific approach" is revealed here:

At Whitworth College in Spokane, Professor Norman Krebs introduced Meyer to books by Francis Schaeffer that helped him answer theological questions and also led him to a philosophy of science: "I was very taken with Schaeffer's argument from epistemology that the foundation of the scientific enterprise itself rested on certain assumptions that only made sense within a theistic worldview, in particular, assumptions about the reliability of the human mind." worldmag.com/articles/16170

Which ignores the fact that Schaeffer knew little about science and its philosophies, let alone the fact that the "theistic worldview" came from largely from the Greeks, and need not be understood "theistically." Better, Kant did a reasonable job (and people following him did a better job) of explaining how science can be completely valid even if the human mind/perceptions might not reveal anything of the "truth" of the world. And Meyer clearly matters, as he's at the helm of the DI's CSC, the heart of the attempted deception that is ID. The CSC's own blog proudly announced that Meyer was proclaimed "Daniel of the year," a reference in evangelical circles to one who stands up for God against the heathens (in this case, science at large). So they're waging a transparent war against secularism, including science, while Monton is claiming that ID may be considered to be science. Glen Davidson

http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Bob Carroll · 2 January 2010

Matt, don't you need to change that first sentence?

Also, Monton seems to be addressing a version of ID which is quite different from what its proponents say and do about it.

Wheels · 2 January 2010

At any rate, he claims to see some evidence in favor of an intelligent designer and further that the designer is God; though he remains an atheist, he is now less certain of his atheism than he had been. Monton thinks there is, in fact, no explanation for, say, the existence of the universe. But if you insist that there must be an explanation, then he asserts that intelligent design is the best explanation we have. Thus, he devotes an entire book to defending a bad argument because there is none better.

What a load. Purely from a neutral, philosophical view point: How is "God Did It" better than a less supernatural explanation for the origin of the Universe, "These Things Just Happen From Time to Time?" How is it superior to, say, "Incompetent Design," where things only happened to work out without any intent? If he can claim to see evidence for Intelligent Design, why can't other claim to see evidence for Incompetent Design?
On what basis, in short, does he claim that ID is superior? The fact that things allow for life to exist? But why would ID even explain that? You can just as easily imagine a Designer creating a Universe with no life.
What does he think, philosophically, is there to ID if you don't allow that the same questions were asked by out-and-out Creationists decades ago, and already answered by the scientific community? ID is just the re-branded persistence of bad arguments. It's one thing to claim that critics are dismissing it without considering its merits because of its connection to earlier forms of Creationism, but I think it's another entirely to find anything original in ID that didn't exist in those previous incarnations which he probably would have rejected. Then again, I have to wonder what he thinks about the Kalam Argument if he brings it up. To me it's just rephrasing the same old Cosmological Argument except stipulating that certain things "being to exist" and others don't. BTW, I'm looking at the January 2010 issue of SciAm, where the featured article's blurb reads, "Life in the Multiverse: Could the strange physics of other worlds breed life?" The attending article's conclusion is "yes, it's plausible under certain conditions." A universe without a weak nuclear force, and several possible universes with quarks of slightly different mass than ours', can still be amenable to the development of life. Personally, I've always thought the best refutation to "fine-tuning" or the "anthropic principle" was simply this: "If the conditions were different and didn't allow for life, we wouldn't be here to ask about it. If the conditions were different and did allow for life, we'd be there and asking the same question we are right now." That, or Douglas Adams's Puddle.

Matt Young · 2 January 2010

don't you need to change that first sentence?

Yes, thank you!

eric · 2 January 2010

Philosophers can write all the books they want arguing why ID should be considered science, but until some ID concept is used in science or by scientists, its all just hot air.

Monton et al. are confusing armchair quarterbacks with actual quarterbacks. IDers will tell you all about the problems with mainstream scientific research, but they have yet to get off the couch and actually pick up a ball.

raven · 2 January 2010

Monton should have titled his book, "Another reason why philosophy has a bad reputation." There really hasn't been that much new in philosophy since Plato. So the academics are always coming up with shocking new findings so someone will pay attention to them.

Monton being an ivy towerist: Monton, in his final chapter, finds uncompelling the arguments that ID creationism should not be taught in public school science classes. He argues that it could reasonably be “taught in an intellectually responsible, non-proselytizing way.”

Monton is wrong here. This is equivalent to saying communism or anarchism is the ideal system as long as it operates voluntarily and without coercion. A true statement but that never happens in the real world at the level of the nation state. Hundreds of millions suffered to find this out. It won't work in practice. Secondary school is also not the place to wage culture wars or introduce ancient discredited theories as if they were real and currently taken seriously by scientists. These are children in school to learn enough to survive in our society and possibly go to college. There isn't any need or enough time for ancient mythology. ID isn't new. If one form or another it predates xianity, over 2,000 years old. There also isn't a theory of ID. Since they refuse to put forward a testable theory, there are numerous versions all with the same name and nothing else in common.

raven · 2 January 2010

The CSC’s own blog proudly announced that Meyer was proclaimed “Daniel of the year,” a reference in evangelical circles to one who stands up for God against the heathens (in this case, science at large).

That is apt and funny but not quite the way the fundies mean it. Daniel is one of the more obviously shakey books of the bible. It is historical fiction written around 150-200 BCE but set 400-500 years earlier. The writer makes a lot of prophecies after the fact. They are more or less correct although he had a lousy history book and got some things wrong anyway. The future predictions were all wrong as usual. Hmmm, let's see. Daniel is historical fiction pretending to be inspired by god and it is wrong. Yep, that is Steven Meyer and the DI.

Sholom Sandalow · 2 January 2010

"If we found enough miracles for which we could not develop a naturalistic explanation, we might, by a diagnosis of exclusion, tentatively accept the supernatural hypothesis (but we need to be very sure that we have considered and rejected all the possibilities)"

This is wrong and a science stopper. The only correct conclusion to draw from (I'll call it) an event for which we cannot develop a (naturalistic) explanation is 'we don't know'.

Peter Henderson · 2 January 2010

Apparently Michael Polanyi leans towards ID: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Polanyi

Critique of Darwinism and reductionism In the late 60's and early 70's Polanyi wrote essays dealing with issues regarding the origin of life. In Life's irreducible structure[4] he argues that the information contained in the DNA molecule is a non-material phenomenon irreducible to physics and chemistry. Polanyi argued that the reductionist approach which is considered the ideal of science was actually clouding our understanding, and that the recognition of life's irreducibility to physics and chemistry would enable genuine science to advance in the right direction, even if this demonstration should prove of no great advantage in the pursuit of discovery. In Transcendence and Self-transcendence[5] he further criticizes the mechanistic world view science had inherited from Galileo. The paper is also thoroughly anti-reductionist. Using analogies Polanyi makes more arguments against determinism and mechanism in this paper. These papers are still being cited by scientists to this day and the arguments against mechanism and reductionism put forth by Polanyi in these papers makes him a favorite among intelligent design proponents as well as biosemioticians

Or is it a case of his views making him susceptible to quote mining ?

RDK · 2 January 2010

Peter Henderson said: Or is it a case of his views making him susceptible to quote mining ?

Is there any other quoting method employed by creationists? Unfortunately Monton is just another example of why philosophers are useless creatures. Add him to the list of people outside of science who think they can tell scientists how to go about their business. Oh and if Meyer is the new Daniel does that mean we can get the lions ready?

DS · 2 January 2010

"In Life’s irreducible structure[4] he argues that the information contained in the DNA molecule is a non-material phenomenon irreducible to physics and chemistry."

How does he figure that the information in DNA is non-material? We know the structure of DNA in great detail and there is nothing non-material about it. There is certainly information in the structure, but there is absolutely nothing non-material in that structure. There is information in the structure of the earth as well, is that non-material? Of course it can't be explained by physics and chemistry, you also have to include mutation and natural selection. How can you say that evolution could not produce something by ignoring the role that evolution played in producing it?

"Polanyi argued that the reductionist approach which is considered the ideal of science was actually clouding our understanding, and that the recognition of life’s irreducibility to physics and chemistry would enable genuine science to advance in the right direction, even if this demonstration should prove of no great advantage in the pursuit of discovery."

Well, what's he waiting for? He's had at least forty years now. Who was forcing him to use the reductionist approach? Why didn't he make science advance in the right direction if he supposedly knew how? It's real easy to be an armchair quarterback, but there is a reason why they don't have a hall of fame.

fnxtr · 2 January 2010

Great. More intellectual wanking from a clueless pedantic windbag. Just what the world needs.

Jim Lippard · 2 January 2010

The past dead ends of science may not be relevant for a science class, but they are quite relevant for a *history of science* or *philosophy of science* class, as a corrective to the notion that science is a linear progression of successful theories. That's as mistaken as the notion that evolution proceeds as a linear progression of successive species.

Wheels · 2 January 2010

I don't really agree with the philosopher-bashing going on. On another note, I just found out that Monton is associated with ARN, the Discovery Institute's mouthpiece in the philosophy community.

John Kwok · 2 January 2010

Agreed and it is precisely because ID is loaded with ample "misconceptions" and a fundamentally flawed view of science that Ken Miller has said, including in his "Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul" that ID is a science stopper. Moreover, he states, most persuasively, that ID proponents seek the same kind of cultural and political relativism found in the humanities and social sciences which Allan Bloom criticized in his "The Closing of the American Mind". Substitute for ID and one could write a book on "The Closing of the Scientific American Mind":

Mike Elzinga said:
Monton, in his final chapter, finds uncompelling the arguments that ID creationism should not be taught in public school science classes. He argues that it could reasonably be “taught in an intellectually responsible, non-proselytizing way.” In principle, he is right, but in practice he is dead wrong,
— Matt Young
I would argue that he is not right, even in principle. ID/creationism is simply full of serious misconceptions, misconceptions that have been repeated over and over despite attempted corrections by scientists for over 40 years. One doesn’t need to load up a class with misconceptions in order to placate some political/religious “sensibilities.” It is hard enough dealing with student misconceptions and preconceptions to get the proper understanding and nuances of scientific concepts across. Throwing in deliberate misconceptions would make the task impossible. The only way to deal with such misconceptions is to leave them out of the curriculum. Otherwise simply deal with them, if they come up as a question from a student, by referring the student to the appropriate literature, such as Talk Origins or the many books that have already dealt with the deceptions in ID/creationism. In rare cases where a student persists, I have been able to use such misconceptions as a humorous foil to get across the true concept, but I don't recommend doing this often; it might be taken as a provocation by religious fanatics.

John Kwok · 2 January 2010

Monton "drove" by a US News and World Report blog thread pertaining to the Darwin bicentennial earlier this year and I tried unsuccessfully to engage with him, especially in private e-mail correspondence, after I discovered his DI ties:

Wheels said: I don't really agree with the philosopher-bashing going on. On another note, I just found out that Monton is associated with ARN, the Discovery Institute's mouthpiece in the philosophy community.

Mike Elzinga · 2 January 2010

Jim Lippard said: The past dead ends of science may not be relevant for a science class, but they are quite relevant for a *history of science* or *philosophy of science* class, as a corrective to the notion that science is a linear progression of successful theories. That's as mistaken as the notion that evolution proceeds as a linear progression of successive species.

However, the current ID/creationism (in the last 40 years or so) is not an example of a historical dead end. It is, and always has been, a set of deliberate distortions designed to advance a sectarian political agenda. It falls directly into the category of pseudo-science because its premises and concepts have not been part of the development of scientific understanding. I have occasionally advocated including a unit in a history and philosophy of science course that deals with pseudo-science and other abuses of science. ID/creationism would definitely be an example of some of the most contorted abuses. In fact, it has been far more political than other pseudo-scientific movements such as transcendental meditation, quantum gods, dianetics, pyramid power, new age woo woo, chariots of the gods, and perpetual motion.

raven · 2 January 2010

wheels: I don’t really agree with the philosopher-bashing going on. On another note, I just found out that Monton is associated with ARN, the Discovery Institute’s mouthpiece in the philosophy community.

I don't see why. Philosophers spend much of their time bashing each other around. Not going to go so far as to say all philosophy and philosophers are idiots stringing words together and desperately trying to get someone to pay attention. But Heinleins rule applies. A lot of it is trash. I wonder if Monton is trying to finagle some Templeton foundation money. They seem desperate to find people who aren't the usual creationist lunatics.

Wayne Robinson · 2 January 2010

Personally, I ascribe to "Lastthursdayism". Everything and everyone was created instantly with complete memories. Bradley Monton only thinks he remembers writing "Seeking God in Science" and you only think you remember receiving a proof copy of the book last Spring. See? It explains everything completely.

Gary Hurd · 3 January 2010

I begin to suspect that Monton is a closet creationist.

fnxtr · 3 January 2010

Raven:

Did you mean Sturgeon's Revelation?

fnxtr · 3 January 2010

crap. It looked okay in preview.

Wiki "Sturgeon's Law".

Rolf Aalberg · 3 January 2010

Monton, in his final chapter, finds uncompelling the arguments that ID creationism should not be taught in public school science classes. He argues that it could reasonably be “taught in an intellectually responsible, non-proselytizing way.” In principle, he is right, but in practice he is dead wrong, if he means to include it in the science curriculum,

Non-proselytizing way? Leaving it up to the pupils/students to chose what to believe, say what is more consistent with what they are being taught to believe at home? It does matter what we teach, doesn't it? If untruth is taught untruth will be believed. Why teach what we do not hold to be true? So far this is mostly an US problem but I'd hate to see a 'teach the controversy' movement over here. GH:

I begin to suspect that Monton is a closet creationist.

With the door wide open.

Paul Burnett · 3 January 2010

Bob Carroll said: Monton seems to be addressing a version of ID which is quite different from what its proponents say and do about it.

That's the old "bait and switch." First we have Monton's strangely limited vision of ID, then the Dishonesty Institute crows: "ID is true! Atheist philosopher says so!"

Alex H · 3 January 2010

Rolf Aalberg said:
Monton, in his final chapter, finds uncompelling the arguments that ID creationism should not be taught in public school science classes. He argues that it could reasonably be “taught in an intellectually responsible, non-proselytizing way.” In principle, he is right, but in practice he is dead wrong, if he means to include it in the science curriculum,
Non-proselytizing way? Leaving it up to the pupils/students to chose what to believe, say what is more consistent with what they are being taught to believe at home? It does matter what we teach, doesn't it? If untruth is taught untruth will be believed. Why teach what we do not hold to be true? So far this is mostly an US problem but I'd hate to see a 'teach the controversy' movement over here.

If it starts up, a good way to squash it quickly is to put counter-pressure on the controversy of the creation side- they're not allowed to edit your stuff unless you can edit their stuff. Usually works pretty quickly.

Paul Burnett · 3 January 2010

Gary Hurd said: I begin to suspect that Monton is a closet creationist.

I can understand (in theory) how fundagelical apologists like Meyer or Dembski are constrained to deduce that the "Intelligent Designer" must be Jehovah, the Creator God of Genesis. But I cannot understand how Monton, purportedly an atheist, could determine that the "Intelligent Designer" is Jehovah, the Creator God of Genesis. (Monton is working with the same information dataset used by another eminent philosopher, Harun Yahya, who has come to a slightly different conclusion.) Of course Monton is a closet intelligent design creationist. And as a cultivated tool of the Dishonesty Institute, his authentication certificate as an atheist seems to have expired.

Frank J · 3 January 2010

Gary Hurd said: I begin to suspect that Monton is a closet creationist.

It depends on how you define "creationist." If it includes ID, then he is out of the closet. If you mean YEC or OEC, then the question is why is he ignoring so many arguments that would defend (if not support) his position? Has anyone asked him simple questions about "what happened when"? Michael Behe, Hugh Ross and Ken Ham take 3 mutually contradictory positions. Surely Monton should be able to take a "best guess" as to which, if any of those 3 are correct.

Stanton · 3 January 2010

Frank J said:
Gary Hurd said: I begin to suspect that Monton is a closet creationist.
It depends on how you define "creationist." If it includes ID, then he is out of the closet. If you mean YEC or OEC, then the question is why is he ignoring so many arguments that would defend (if not support) his position? Has anyone asked him simple questions about "what happened when"? Michael Behe, Hugh Ross and Ken Ham take 3 mutually contradictory positions. Surely Monton should be able to take a "best guess" as to which, if any of those 3 are correct.

It could very well be that the Discovery Institute simply bought Mr Monton's services/opinions.

mark · 3 January 2010

I've sat around a lot designing many things, but haven't built them. Fundamentally, Intelligent Design Creationism relies on "poof"--otherwise there is still no universe, no life. Does that make God the ultimate poofter?

Can the Creative Intelligence be studied or described? In non-anthropomorphizing terms? IDists often say ID does not address a motive for creation, but is that possible for a non-anthropomorphic (indeed, non-biological) Creator?

TomS · 3 January 2010

The subtitle of the book is "An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design".

Is there any defense of ID in the book? A defense of ID would presuppose a description of it, and that would be something new. Even if in anthropomorphizing terms, it would be a first.

I'd be interested in just a few tiny first steps toward a description, such as
a couple of examples of things that are designed (an individual thing, a part of an individual, a collective, ...) and of things that are not designed (an abstraction, like "life", or a hypothetical, like a UFO pilot, or an impossible, like a Penrose triangle).

Meanwhile, I'll have to find a library where I can borrow the book.

Matt Young · 3 January 2010

Did you mean Sturgeon's Revelation?

I just fixed that link.

John Kwok · 3 January 2010

It's typically known as "Sturgeon's Law":

Matt Young said:
Did you mean Sturgeon's Revelation?
I just fixed that link.

raven · 3 January 2010

Raven: Did you mean Sturgeon’s Revelation?

That is the one, Sturgeon's Law. I racked my brain trying to figure out who said that, hit submit, and 5 seconds later remembered which writer it was. IMO, philosophers like Monton are just attacking science for the attention and money. Science has a lot of prestige and accomplishments and is one of the drivers of modern 21st century civilization. Philosophy's heyday might have been the ancient Greeks. When I first looked at ID, it wasn't clear what the theory of ID said. On second look, there isn't a theory of ID. There are multiple vague theories that have little in common. 1. In one formulation god poofs species into existence when no one is looking to restock the biosphere. 2. In another god is hiding out somewhere changing bases in genomes when no one is looking to morph one species into another. 3. The age of the universe might be 13.7 billion years old or it might be 6,000. 4. The designer(s) might be UFO aliens, unknown gods or god, a single god, or a large number of gods. The most common one is the xian god Yahweh and most of them aren't afraid to say it explicitly. If Monson is going to be an ID supporter, he should be explicit about which version of ID he means and who the supposed Designers are. Otherwise he is supporting smoke, mirrors, and mist.

Matt Young · 3 January 2010

I don't want this to sound like damning with faint praise, but Professor Monton is not a nitwit, and he is not a creationist. I apologize if I made him appear to be either.

Professor Monton is a philosopher, and as such he is entitled to examine even very far-fetched propositions to see if any of them have merit. His problem in this book, it seems to me, is that he tried too hard to get "intelligent design" into the title---and then he went native and began to see plausibility in what most of the commenters here apparently think are fatuous arguments. The closest he comes to defending creationism, ID or otherwise, is his statement that he is slightly less secure in his atheism.

I still think it is not a good book, but that is at least in part because its author is too credulous and studiously avoids the clear fact that ID creationism is a political movement, not a scientific or philosophical movement, and not because he is a creationist, closet or otherwise.

Stanton · 3 January 2010

John Kwok said: It's typically known as "Sturgeon's Law":
Matt Young said:
Did you mean Sturgeon's Revelation?
I just fixed that link.

A.k.a., "Caviar emptor"

eric · 3 January 2010

Mike Elzinga said:
Jim Lippard said: The past dead ends of science may not be relevant for a science class, but they are quite relevant for a *history of science* or *philosophy of science* class, as a corrective to the notion that science is a linear progression of successful theories. That's as mistaken as the notion that evolution proceeds as a linear progression of successive species.
However, the current ID/creationism (in the last 40 years or so) is not an example of a historical dead end. It is, and always has been, a set of deliberate distortions designed to advance a sectarian political agenda.

While I agree, I think its also worth noting that even when science classes cover past dead ends, they do so in a way radically different from what IDers propose. If you think about the plum pudding model, or the newtonian (non-quantized) models of the atom, or ether theory or z-rays etc... when these things are taught in a science class they usually get 10 minutes. And the teaching follows the same procedure: 1) they are introduced very briefly, just enough to give students the gist; 2) students learn what testable predictions they made; 3) students learn what tests (or thought experiments) were used to show them wrong, and; (in some instances) how the better current theory developed out of the mistake. The pedagogical point is to show students how we arrived at the current theory, not explore some bad theory in detail (which will just confuse them). In contrast IDers want significant classroom time spent on it (far more than 10 minutes), with no mention of why its wrong, or why 150 years ago this idea was rejected. Thus, Monton's suggestion that we would teach ID as a "past dead end" is IMO insincere, since neither he nor any other ID advocate actually propose teaching it the same way we teach actual dead ends.

eric · 3 January 2010

Matt Young said: Professor Monton is a philosopher, and as such he is entitled to examine even very far-fetched propositions to see if any of them have merit.

Matt, I haven't read the book but from your description he seems to be advocating teaching it in classes (or at least saying there are legitimate reasons one could teach it). But teaching it the way IDers suggest we do so has no merit. None. There is not even theoretical merit in exploring a bad idea in great detail and ignoring its faults. Class time is limited, this takes away time they could spend on actual science, and whatever historical/philosophical analysis you could do on ID, you could apply to a good theory for a more relevant learning experience. The only way it could be covered in science is the same way we cover past dead ends (see my previous message), but Monton isn't proposing that - he's proposing a different coverage which does not in fact have any merit.

Mike Elzinga · 3 January 2010

eric said: In contrast IDers want significant classroom time spent on it (far more than 10 minutes), with no mention of why its wrong, or why 150 years ago this idea was rejected.

The ID/creationists I know want all the classroom time. They would use their endless mud wrestling to crowd out any legitimate science. The examples you gave are extremely useful because, despite the fact that they are only first passes at explaining experimental data, they illustrate an important part of the thinking that takes place in physics. One often uses the simplest conceivable model of a phenomenon until it breaks down or until it ceases to pick up on subtle details. Then we start making adjustments. At each point in the exercise we have some kind of preliminary “reference theory” to check our understanding; then we move out from there. (By the way; see the note below.) With ID/creationism in its current form, there are no approximations to real scientific concepts. Concepts like “spontaneous molecular chaos”, “genetic entropy”, and all their grotesque distortions of thermodynamics and concepts in biology are simply wrong; they have no traction in describing any phenomena whatsoever. This is because their sole purpose has always been to bamboozle audiences and lure scientists into debates where ID/creationists can leverage legitimacy. Looking back over 40+ years of ID/creationist activity, I don’t see any of their concepts that can be used as “first approximations” to anything we understand from science. I have only once or twice used a creationist question that came up in class as a foil to teach a real scientific concept. This had to do with epistemology; why physicists and other scientists behave as though an external and knowable world exists. But other than that, everything ID/creationists say about physics is dead wrong and not worth the time discussing. I get the impression from my biologist friends that the same can be said about ID/creationist biology concepts. Note regarding above uses of approximate models: I happened to surf by Fox News when I was on the treadmill the other day. They were discussing the leaked emails about the modeling of global warming. This was the first time I had heard directly what they were doing with them; and it was clear that they were using every ID/creationist quote-mining tactic in the book. They misconstrued every quote-mined sentence by taking it out of context. Most of the time I could surmise the context as these modelers discussed the details of their models and which details affected global patterns in the model. But the Fox News talking bubble heads were making the worst possible interpretations imaginable. For example, when a scientist referred to a “trick” being used in the model, Fox News interpreted that to mean that the scientists were tricking us. And that wasn’t the worst of it. Can you imagine a science class that allowed equal time for this kind of crap?

Matt Young · 3 January 2010

... he seems to be advocating teaching it in classes (or at least saying there are legitimate reasons one could teach it). But teaching it the way IDers suggest we do so has no merit. None. ...

Yes, I agree completely. I did not consider teaching ID creationism in schools to be one of the "far-fetched propositions" that philosophers are entitled to consider. As someone above said, ID creationism is worth at most the 10 minutes we would devote to the plum-pudding model of the atom. Unfortunately, if we tried to teach it that way, we would open an enormous can of worms (for social and political reasons, not scientific), so practically we cannot teach it at all. That is why I quickly realized that I was seriously mistaken when I suggested that we should teach creationism as the bunk it is---and that was long before they poured all that money into supporting ID creationism. It should be painfully obvious now why we must not teach any species of creationism in public-school science classes.

John Kwok · 3 January 2010

Matt - Have you looked at Monton's CV, which is posted over at his website at the University of Colorado, Boulder? Apparently none other than Robert Pennock has accused him of being in league with the Discovery Institute, and it seems as though Pennock's harsh judgement is a sound one:

Matt Young said: I don't want this to sound like damning with faint praise, but Professor Monton is not a nitwit, and he is not a creationist. I apologize if I made him appear to be either. Professor Monton is a philosopher, and as such he is entitled to examine even very far-fetched propositions to see if any of them have merit. His problem in this book, it seems to me, is that he tried too hard to get "intelligent design" into the title---and then he went native and began to see plausibility in what most of the commenters here apparently think are fatuous arguments. The closest he comes to defending creationism, ID or otherwise, is his statement that he is slightly less secure in his atheism. I still think it is not a good book, but that is at least in part because its author is too credulous and studiously avoids the clear fact that ID creationism is a political movement, not a scientific or philosophical movement, and not because he is a creationist, closet or otherwise.

John Kwok · 3 January 2010

I suppose Theodore Surgeon would laugh at your deduction, Stanton. I remember growing up reading his stories. And anyone who is a diehard fan of the original "Star Trek" series will recall that Sturgeon wrote such classic episodes as "Amok Time" (where Spock must take the Enterprise back to Vulcan or else die) and the delightful "Shore Leave":

Stanton said:
John Kwok said: It's typically known as "Sturgeon's Law":
Matt Young said:
Did you mean Sturgeon's Revelation?
I just fixed that link.

A.k.a., "Caviar emptor"

raven · 3 January 2010

It should be painfully obvious now why we must not teach any species of creationism in public-school science classes.

The ancients had a name for this strategy. They called it the camel with its nose in the tent problem. The DI has another name for it. They call it The Wedge. Monson just bought into The Wedge strategy. He can't expect scientists or science supporters to be overjoyed. We've seen The Wedge in action for decades. I'm tempted to make a comment about another ancient story. The one about 30 shekels of silver. Since I don't know if Monson is on the DI payroll, we will just leave that as a possibility.

Miranda · 3 January 2010

Raven wrote: "There really hasn’t been that much new in philosophy since Plato. "

So, Raven, you've read all the thousands of philosophical works over the last two millenia?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

John Kwok · 3 January 2010

I think Monton has bought into the Wedge ever since his graduate school days at Princeton, where, incidentally, he apparently overlapped with a Princeton Theological Seminary student named William A. Dembski:

raven said:
It should be painfully obvious now why we must not teach any species of creationism in public-school science classes.
The ancients had a name for this strategy. They called it the camel with its nose in the tent problem. The DI has another name for it. They call it The Wedge. Monson just bought into The Wedge strategy. He can't expect scientists or science supporters to be overjoyed. We've seen The Wedge in action for decades. I'm tempted to make a comment about another ancient story. The one about 30 shekels of silver. Since I don't know if Monson is on the DI payroll, we will just leave that as a possibility.

raven · 3 January 2010

Raven wrote: “There really hasn’t been that much new in philosophy since Plato. “ So, Raven, you’ve read all the thousands of philosophical works over the last two millenia? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

I read a lot of the abstracts. I haven't read all the comic books that came out in the last two millenia either. Most of my reading consists of science journals and scientific papers. We scientists created a modern Hi Tech civilization which a few people claim to hate and virtually no one bothers to leave. We feed 6.7 billion people and have increased life spans in the USA by 30 years in a century. Once dread and common diseases such as polio, leprosy, and small pox are rare or extinct. In 2,000 years, what has philosophy done for humankind? It isn't nothing but advances have been far and few between. It was philosophy that brought us the enlightenment. Nowadays, it is some philosophers such as Monton that are attacking the enlightenment. BTW, Miranda, if you hate modern civilization, leave. Free country. Grab your spear and head into the outback. But you won't. A few people every year try that. They frequently last a few months and occasionally end up dead.

Flint · 3 January 2010

It might be useful to note here that creationists are vigorously opposed to teaching creationism as just one of a laundry list of odd beliefs presented in comparative religion courses. They way they see it, their faith is God's Truth, and shouldn't be presented as one more faith, but rather as what God (theirs taken for granted as the One True God) intended.

This is the big appeal of putting creationism into science classes: science is taught as though it were true, as "here is how reality is" rather than "here is what one group of people thinks." And science has acquired an enviable reputation among the Man In The Street for its track record, even though that man probably wouldn't be able to tolerate the practice of science, which involves being wrong and admitting error all day.

Creationism (and ID) are NOT "dead science" proven wrong by the ongoing efforts of dedicated curious researchers. Indeed, they are the antithesis of dead science - they are live, virulent anti-science.

Paul Burnett · 3 January 2010

raven said: It was philosophy that brought us the enlightenment. Nowadays, it is some philosophers such as Monton that are attacking the enlightenment.

In European, they had the Reformation...then there was the Counter-Reformation. Then they had the Enlightenment...and now we have the Counter-Enlightenment (or the Endarkenment), led by the Dishonesty Institute and their dupes and minions. (Does anybody else remember the post-apocalyptic novels of Andre Norton ("The Stars are Ours!" et al) and Robert Heinlein ("If This Goes On—" et al) where the anti-science mobs, with their pitchforks and torches, over-run and destroy civilization?)

Wheels · 3 January 2010

Matt Young said: I don't want this to sound like damning with faint praise, but Professor Monton is not a nitwit, and he is not a creationist. I apologize if I made him appear to be either.

For what it's worth, I don't think he's a closet Creationist. He seems to have a special affinity for nitwits and Creationists, though. Besides contributing to ARN.org, his selection of reviews for Seeking God in Science consists half of Discovery Institute fellows and the other half philosophers friendly to ID's framing of the issue, and hostile to real science. Of the latter, Groothuis has also decided that ID isn't traditional Creationism and argues that it's not religious, that "Darwinism" has problems ID addresses, etc. etc. (Roberts doesn't seem to have much out there to be cited, but his page at Chapel Hill has papers where he re-jiggers and defends the Fine-Tuning argument for Design, as well as a lot of other things which are lost on me but might be interesting to those more familiar with contemporary philosophy.)

Glen Davidson · 3 January 2010

In 2,000 years, what has philosophy done for humankind? It isn’t nothing but advances have been far and few between. It was philosophy that brought us the enlightenment. Nowadays, it is some philosophers such as Monton that are attacking the enlightenment.

Read Frege, read Quine, read Husserl. Philosophy continues to inform science, and played a role in the development of both relativity and quantum mechanics (to be fair, the wretched Copenhagen interpretation came out of philosophy to a considerable degree, but so did better interpretations). New developments do seem rare today, however, and I tend to think that Monton is indeed trying to appear "relevant" when he has nothing substantive to add. Philosophy remains important, however, in understanding language in science and beyond, and is not to be ignored in understanding the DNA code, for example. We bring a lot to science prior to doing it, and it's important to get logic and empiricism figured out as somewhat separate entities themselves, although I think that philosophy would do well to learn much from science in turn (especially about empiricism). The fact that Meyer, Monton, and Nagel misuse philosophy to attack science is no argument against philosophy itself. It does remind one, however, that philosophy puts out a lot of tripe, and that we need to weed out the nonsense from philosophy rather more than we need to do so for science. Falsification as a rule of thumb (I hardly think it's a demarcation criterion) comes mostly from Charles Peirce as a coherent concept, which Popper argued and developed further. It remains useful, especially when arguing against IDiots. Glen Davidson

http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Mike Elzinga · 3 January 2010

Glen Davidson said: It does remind one, however, that philosophy puts out a lot of tripe, and that we need to weed out the nonsense from philosophy rather more than we need to do so for science.

Then there is that joke about the dean complaining to the chairman of the physics department, “Why do you physicists require so much expensive equipment? In the Math Department they require only paper, pencils and wastebaskets. In the Philosophy Department they don’t even require wastebaskets.”

raven · 3 January 2010

The fact that Meyer, Monton, and Nagel misuse philosophy to attack science is no argument against philosophy itself. It does remind one, however, that philosophy puts out a lot of tripe, and that we need to weed out the nonsense from philosophy rather more than we need to do so for science.

There should be "philosophers" who can think of better things to do than support the New Endarkenment. So where are they? Why aren't they commenting on Monson's arguments which are weak and routine rehashes of DI press releases? Maybe they will get around to it someday. Seems like a lot of relevant contemporary philosophy is done by scientists like Ken Miller and Richard Dawkins. I racked my brain for some worthwhile modern philosophy and didn't come up with much. Barbara Forrest. Hector Avalos. Some would say the New Atheists. Some would say anyone but the New Atheists. There are some ideas that haven't added anything to modern life IMO. Postmodernism Plantinga's hopelessly confused nonlogic The Neocons. Let's rule the world because we can. Two wars later, a wrecked country, and two of my friends are dead in Iraq. Big success there.

Glen Davidson · 3 January 2010

There should be “philosophers” who can think of better things to do than support the New Endarkenment. So where are they? Why aren’t they commenting on Monson’s arguments which are weak and routine rehashes of DI press releases? Maybe they will get around to it someday.

I don't know, it could be that they don't think it's worthy of publicizing by writing a response to it. I'll see if there are responses from philosophers on the web, but right now I don't know of any. A philosopher, Brian Leiter, does lay into Nagel for praising Meyer's book, in Thomas Nagel jumps the Shark, while I thought that scientists like Coyne and computer scientists like Shallit appeared to hold back from pointing out that it should put into question his reputation. I thought Leiter's response quite appropriate, especially since Nagel's dreck about consciousness should never have been given a pass in the first place. Glen Davidson

http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Glen Davidson · 3 January 2010

Pennock doesn't leave Monton's nonsense alone in US New & World Report. That was before Monton's book was published, which apparently was sometime last summer. Again, there's some question whether or not the book should achieve "bad publicity," since there is no such thing (not for ID, anyway, which claims "attacks" as a medal of authenticity). Here it's fine, for it's telling few about it who doesn't already know something of Monton. And still, I wouldn't be surprised if some reviews from philosophers trickle out, considering that at least some publications are likely to want it covered. Glen Davidson

http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Miranda · 3 January 2010

Raven writes, "BTW, Miranda, if you hate modern civilization, leave."

Was that truly an "if" kind of question, or was that an accusation? If the former, it's stupid. If the latter, it's desperate.

Origuy · 3 January 2010

When any discussion of philosophy on the web gets this long, someone must post a link to Bruce's Assertion. I guess it's my turn. Perhaps someone could add a verse for Monton.

eric · 3 January 2010

raven said: There should be "philosophers" who can think of better things to do than support the New Endarkenment. So where are they? Why aren't they commenting on Monson's arguments which are weak and routine rehashes of DI press releases? Maybe they will get around to it someday.

It could be that books like Monton's are to philosophy what books like Behe's are to biology - i.e. not proper research as they intentionally avoided peer review journal publication.

harold · 3 January 2010

Matt Young -

Beware of False Atheists.

The basic goal of ID, as almost all of us know, was to violate rights by teaching barely coded sectarian religious/political propaganda as "science" in US public schools, but to keep said propaganda coded enough to defeat the inevitable legal challenges with the disingenuous argument that it "isn't religious".

All of the major works in the canon of ID - all of Behe, Dembski, Meyer, Johnson, Wells, etc - consist mainly of illogical denials of biological evolution. The latest book by Meyer unconsciously concedes recent defeats, in my view, by focusing more on illogical denial that life could have originated naturally. (Even honest people who think that life originated magically should be able to see that Meyer's reasoning is illogical and does not make that case that this might have happened.)

All works of ID always "conclude" that abiogenesis and evolution are "impossible", and always proceed from there to the non sequitor that "design" is the only alternative.

No evidence for "design" (beyond illogical assertions that something "looks designed to them") or exploration of the nature of the "designer" is ever included - this is the disingenuous legalistic strategy of ID.

An exact analogy of ID logic in tune with the season is -

"It's 'mathematically impossible' that the presents under my Christmas tree came from human beings - all that evidence of store video cameras, receipts, finger prints, eyewitness sightings, etc, can be disregarded, because it's 'mathematically' or 'logically' 'impossible'.

So they had to come from some benign entity that delivers wrapped Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. It's 'the only other possibility'!

But I'm not saying it's Santa Claus! No, no, no! Maybe it was 'an alien'. It just has to be some super-powered, essentially magical entity whose existence can't be tested for or described, that delivers wrapped Christmas presents to humans on Christmas Eve. How dare you accuse me or arguing in favor of the existence of Santa Claus? All I'm saying is that it's 'mathematically impossible' that the presents weren't delivered by magic! Isn't that right, fellow Santa Clausians (wink, wink, wink)? By the way, thanks for that 'Santa Claus Scientist of the Year' award."

ID has always had a tricky relationship with "atheists" and "agnostics". On one hand, the insecure, bigoted rank and file go crazy with rage at the mere mention of these, which terrifies them.

On the other hand, if only some sap "atheist" or "agnostic" can be found to claim that he or she finds the illogical drivel of ID "convincing", that might ostensibly help to convince some sucker judge that ID "isn't religious".

Such saps have been hard to find, for good reasons.

While plenty of religious people can see through the nonsense of ID, there is virtually no reason for anyone without a religious/political agenda to ever claim to be convinced by ID.

Can someone who is intelligent enough to be employed as a "philosopher", who claims to find even a distorted version of ID nonsense convincing, and who also claims to be an atheist, be entirely sincere? I suppose it's possible, but it's a stretch to me.

raven · 3 January 2010

miranda the troll: Raven writes, “BTW, Miranda, if you hate modern civilization, leave.” Was that truly an “if” kind of question, or was that an accusation? If the former, it’s stupid. If the latter, it’s desperate.

You have yet to say anything on topic or intelligent. This is because you are just a troll. Troll away but be prepared to be ignored. There are adults here having a discussion.

raven · 3 January 2010

Can someone who is intelligent enough to be employed as a “philosopher”, who claims to find even a distorted version of ID nonsense convincing, and who also claims to be an atheist, be entirely sincere? I suppose it’s possible, but it’s a stretch to me.

It is up to Monson, if he is an IDist, to explain who the Designer(s) are and what evidence there is for design. We shouldn't have to guess or wonder. He is a college professor and should be capable of simple communication. If he is an atheist who believes in god(s), he should explain that also. The more I've seen of his nonsense, the weaker it looks. In fact it looks like the last 10 years worth of DI press releases.

Mike Elzinga · 3 January 2010

harold said: An exact analogy of ID logic in tune with the season is - "It's 'mathematically impossible' that the presents under my Christmas tree came from human beings - all that evidence of store video cameras, receipts, finger prints, eyewitness sightings, etc, can be disregarded, because it's 'mathematically' or 'logically' 'impossible'.

:-) You know, I think they actually don’t discard all that evidence. It’s “irreducible complexity”. How could all those finger prints look just like human fingerprints? How can they all be located just exactly where they are? And just look at the position of the wrinkles in all that wrapping paper; how likely is it that these wrinkles would appear exactly where they are? Did you see where those store receipts were lying? How can that be? And how probable is it that the credit card debt adds up to exactly the totals on those receipts? It has to be a miracle; or Santa.

Gary Hurd · 3 January 2010

Matt Young said: I don't want this to sound like damning with faint praise, but Professor Monton is not a nitwit, and he is not a creationist. I apologize if I made him appear to be either.

My suspicion was not due to your review of his book. Rather, it is the close association he has with the rest of the Discotutes. It could be that he just needs the money.

Miranda · 3 January 2010

Raven wrote, "There are adults here having a discussion."

One day, God willing, you'll be one of them.

RDK · 3 January 2010

Paul Burnett said: Monton is working with the same information dataset used by another eminent philosopher, Harun Yahya, who has come to a slightly different conclusion.

People consider Yahya a philosopher? The man who tried to pass off fishing lures as evidence against evolution in his shiny book? What is this world coming to? That's like calling Meyer a philosopher, with all due respect to Meyer. Which is to say zero.

stevaroni · 3 January 2010

Flint said: Creationism (and ID) are NOT "dead science" proven wrong by the ongoing efforts of dedicated curious researchers. Indeed, they are the antithesis of dead science - they are live, virulent anti-science.

They're not even "live anti science" they're instead some kind of weird viral thing, a structure that has no animation of it's own, looking to co-opt the productive organs of real science for it's own nefarious purposes.

Matt Young · 3 January 2010

It could be that he just needs the money.

I gather you have not published an academic book recently!

RDK · 3 January 2010

Miranda said: One day, god willing, you'll be one of them.

Fixed that for you Miranda. =)

raven · 3 January 2010

The third chapter details four arguments in favor of his generalized version of ID creationism, which he considers “somewhat—but only somewhat—plausible”: the fine-tuning argument, the kalam cosmological argument, the argument from the variety of life, and the simulation argument.

The fine tuning argument isn't evidence for intelligent design. It certainly isn't evidence against evolution. It is evidence for the existence of gods. One can always say, the gods fine tuned the universe for a Big Bang. Everything that happened since was the result. This is more like theistic evolution than anything else. FWIW, I don't have a problem with it. It isn't science but they aren't trying to use "god created the Big Bang" to take over our society and destroy it. Not familiar with the Kalam Cosmology. The variety of life non-argument is the usual, Argument from Ignorance and Incredulity. "I can't see how slugs evolved so goddidit." Evolution explains the diversity of life quite nicely as well as why 99% of all known life is extinct. Simulation argument??? Haven't heard that one. Really, Monton hasn't presented anything new here. This is a rehash of old, old creationist talking points.

Crudely Wrott · 3 January 2010

Someone must have noticed this earlier. I've not read the above comments and therefore have no excuse for being redundant and repetitive. Matt writes:

Ignoring the Wedge Document gives him permission to accept the disingenuous claim that the designer need not be supernatural; indeed, he says that ID creationists need that claim to achieve scientific legitimacy.

My very next thought upon reading this was:

Undressing God one garment at a time.

In order to make the notion of an Invisible Supernatural Spook who is deeply committed to Intelligently Designing more compelling, Meyers seems to be conceding that the Spook doesn't really have a Flail Full of Fantastic Fearful Phantasmagoria. Imagine! What's next? The Cloak of Invisibility?

Paul Burnett · 3 January 2010

RDK said: People consider Yahya a philosopher?

That was a joke, son.

Crudely Wrott · 3 January 2010

. . . er, "Meyer seems to . . ."

blush

raven · 3 January 2010

Matt writes: Ignoring the Wedge Document gives him permission to accept the disingenuous claim that the designer need not be supernatural; indeed, he says that ID creationists need that claim to achieve scientific legitimacy.

Monton is wrong here. If the Designers aren't supernatural, where did they come from? Did they evolve or were they created by an Invisible Cosmic Spook. Saying UFO aliens did it merely puts the question back a step or two. This was pointed out years ago. Allowing for UFO aliens does not give ID any scientific legitimacy. It muddies the waters for a few seconds until someone asks where the space people came from. Ignoring The Wedge document is also wrong. It is there on WIkipedia, it is well known, and it is a key piece of evidence for what motivates the IDists, Christofascist Dominionist fundie religion. Ignoring unpleasant bits a data isn't scholarship, it is propaganda. I googled some Monton and related key words trying to find out if he actually had anything new, original, or intelligent to say. All I found was stupid stuff. He talks about how Theistic Science should be allowed. Well, duh, seeing as how there is no central Vatican and Pope for science much less an armed enforcement squad, there is no one stopping anyone from practicing Theistic Science. The creationists spend ca. 50 million USD/year. Virtually all of it is on attacking science in general and evolutionary biology in particular. They could spend it on research but they don't. Most likely because they know it will go nowhere and produce nothing.

eric · 3 January 2010

raven said: Allowing for UFO aliens does not give ID any scientific legitimacy.

IMO allowing for aliens actually reduces their legitimacy, because looking for alien biologists or leftover alien artifacts is much easier than looking for a supernatural entity. Any design movement which hypothesizes alien biologists has no excuse for lacking a research program. But, the whole point of the movement is to reject all natural explanations - it is not to find a natural non-evolutonary mechanism - so we can be pretty sure that any evidence for aliens would be rejected as strongly as evidence for evolution. They can pay lip service to this idea as long as there is no such evidence, but if we ever found any you'd see a turnabout so fast it'd give you whiplash.

Flint · 3 January 2010

They could spend it on research but they don’t. Most likely because they know it will go nowhere and produce nothing.

Sort of. They're spending it where it matters to them, and they aren't stupid. ID doesn't become science in the Religious Mind by doing science. For the most part, doing science is invisible and thankless. Instead, it becomes science by SAYING it's science as loudly as possible. So the money goes into spreading the word and cranking up the volume. Say it long and loud enough, and people will believe it. THAT'S how it becomes science.

Gary Hurd · 3 January 2010

Matt Young said:
It could be that he just needs the money.
I gather you have not published an academic book recently!

Well, you know how much I earned from "Why Intelligent Design Fails." Did you, or Taner get anything?

Gary Hurd · 3 January 2010

Matt Young said:
It could be that he just needs the money.
I gather you have not published an academic book recently!

Well Matt, you know how much I made from "Why Intelligent Design Fails." I am thinking that writing for a creationist audience, touted and flouted by the Discotutes, will pay more than real work. And I would not be surprised that the DI sent a little "love" to Monty. They did pretty well with Weikart, and he did pretty well for them. With "atheist" Monton, they at least have someone that can remember what day it is, unlike their last "converted athiest," Anthony Flew.

Glen Davidson · 3 January 2010

And I would not be surprised that the DI sent a little “love” to Monty.

For sure. Remember the protestations that Sternberg was no IDist, so why were scientists so mean sob to him? He writes for the CSC, though, and whined like the best of them on Expelled. We can only speculate on Monton in absence of evidence, but we have good reason to suspect more than just that he's incapable of thinking through these issues. Maybe he can't, but then what does that say about him? Glen Davidson

http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

raven · 3 January 2010

William Dembski ID leader: If Holdren and his scientific colleagues are priests, what is their religion? Theirs is a religion of scientific materialism. According to scientific materialism, reality is constituted entirely of material entities, and science is the only way to understand that reality. Scientific materialism has preeminently been used to undercut the sanctity of life by attempting to justify such monstrosities as abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and eugenics (including coerced sterilization). Indeed, as Holdren’s 1977 book as well as his failure to repudiate it makes clear, his attraction to eugenics remains strong.

Dembski’s solution: Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.

Monton is just flat out wrong about everything. Reading his nonsense is a waste of time which is likely why no one much cares. One of his most outrageous blunders is claiming that ID is not a fringe cult religious dogma, is not a Christofascist Dominionist Wedge, and that it is not anti-science. One could fill volumes with quotes from IDists who obviously hate secular democracies, anyone but fundie death cult xians, and passionately hate science. Sorry Monton, science works. It is one the main drivers of our modern western civilization. We aren’t going to give it up because an unknown “philosopher” in Colorado doesn’t understand it. BTW, not going to unpack Dembski diatribe which is pure gibberish. But scientific materialism doesn’t exist. This is just a made up term that kooks like Dembski use to attempt to demonize scientists. Not that the IDists aren't anti-science or anything.

wikipedia: User:Daelin Jump to: navigation, search Scientific materialism or methodological materialism are interchangable dysphemisms for methodological naturalism (sometimes: scientific naturalism). The term implies that scientists collude to force a materialist (or rationalist) worldview onto a population. The term is usually only used by critics of the scientific discipline, such as the proponents of intelligent design. The term has become somewhat more common, as laymen are introduced to the creation–evolution controversy through the Discovery Institute’s framing of the language. Scientists and philosophers never use the term, as it is vaguely defined, conflicts with established language, and introduces both ambiguity and negative connotations.

raven · 3 January 2010

And I would not be surprised that the DI sent a little “love” to Monty.

Chances are Monton is getting paid somehow by the DI. They have a budget of 4 million USD/year and it all goes to PR and propaganda. We don't really know though, just a guess. I would ask him point blank but it is useless. My experience is that when you corner these people, they refuse to answer or lie or simply run. The going rate used to be 30 pieces of silver.

John Kwok · 3 January 2010

As soon as I saw these comments back in February, I realized that Monton was a younger Steve Fuller. I tried contacting him via e-mail without success:

Glen Davidson said: Pennock doesn't leave Monton's nonsense alone in US New & World Report. That was before Monton's book was published, which apparently was sometime last summer. Again, there's some question whether or not the book should achieve "bad publicity," since there is no such thing (not for ID, anyway, which claims "attacks" as a medal of authenticity). Here it's fine, for it's telling few about it who doesn't already know something of Monton. And still, I wouldn't be surprised if some reviews from philosophers trickle out, considering that at least some publications are likely to want it covered. Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Matt Young · 3 January 2010

... you know how much I made from "Why Intelligent Design Fails."

No, but I suspect it was two complimentary copies of the book. Or was it one? The following is not whining and is completely off task, but it may explain why I do not think Professor Monton wrote his book for the money: I published my first book, an optics book, in 1977. At that time royalties were typically 10% of list price. Between that book and a book on technical writing, I probably had a couple of years in which my royalties amounted to the low five figures, counting to the left of the decimal point. Typical royalties today, I think, are 7.5% of sales, or about half what they were in the 1980's. On subsequent books, I have received royalties each year in the middle or even upper five figures, but now I have to count on both sides of the decimal point.

... writing for a creationist audience, touted and flouted by the Discotutes, will pay more than real work.

No doubt, but I am frankly not clever enough to lie like that. And if I were, I'd write detective fiction, not creationist claptrap.

John Kwok · 3 January 2010

A few years ago I tried to interest Dembski and Behe into writing a textbook on Klingon Cosmology, stating that I'd be willing to assist them, and pointing out that it would be far more profitable than any of their Intelligent Design creationist mendacious intellectual porn. Even Ken Miller thinks Behe ought to be writing a textbook on Klingon biochemistry:

Gary Hurd said:
Matt Young said:
It could be that he just needs the money.
I gather you have not published an academic book recently!
Well Matt, you know how much I made from "Why Intelligent Design Fails." I am thinking that writing for a creationist audience, touted and flouted by the Discotutes, will pay more than real work. And I would not be surprised that the DI sent a little "love" to Monty. They did pretty well with Weikart, and he did pretty well for them. With "atheist" Monton, they at least have someone that can remember what day it is, unlike their last "converted athiest," Anthony Flew.

John Kwok · 3 January 2010

Matt, if Monton isn't doing this for money, can you explain Dembski's literary fecunity then? More than once I have noted sarcastically that he's published more books than Jared Diamond, Niles Eldredge, Ken Miller, Frank McCourt, Ernst Mayr or E. O. Wilson from 2000 to the present:

Matt Young said:
... you know how much I made from "Why Intelligent Design Fails."
No, but I suspect it was two complimentary copies of the book. Or was it one? The following is not whining and is completely off task, but it may explain why I do not think Professor Monton wrote his book for the money: I published my first book, an optics book, in 1977. At that time royalties were typically 10% of list price. Between that book and a book on technical writing, I probably had a couple of years in which my royalties amounted to the low five figures, counting to the left of the decimal point. Typical royalties today, I think, are 7.5% of sales, or about half what they were in the 1980's. On subsequent books, I have received royalties each year in the middle or even upper five figures, but now I have to count on both sides of the decimal point.
... writing for a creationist audience, touted and flouted by the Discotutes, will pay more than real work.
No doubt, but I am frankly not clever enough to lie like that. And if I were, I'd write detective fiction, not creationist claptrap.

Gary Hurd · 3 January 2010

Matt Young said:
... you know how much I made from "Why Intelligent Design Fails."
No, but I suspect it was two complimentary copies of the book. Or was it one?

One hardcover, one soft.

Matt Young said:No doubt, but I am frankly not clever enough to lie like that. And if I were, I'd write detective fiction, not creationist claptrap.

Funny you should mention that. I was a private investigator for a few years during a break from academical land. My partner died a few years ago, and I am writing old cases, and making them turn out the way we would have liked them to have happened.

John Kwok · 3 January 2010

Any chance you could turn this into "Murder, She Wrote" as seen from a secular humanist/atheist/"evil Darwinist" prospective (Just kidding about the secular humanist..."evil Darwinist" comparison.)? On a more serious note, it could be a useful fictional exercise to explain how and why Dembski's concept of the "Explanatory Filter" as a means of "detecting" design can't work, even in forensic archaeology:

Gary Hurd said:
Matt Young said:
... you know how much I made from "Why Intelligent Design Fails."
No, but I suspect it was two complimentary copies of the book. Or was it one?
One hardcover, one soft.
Matt Young said:No doubt, but I am frankly not clever enough to lie like that. And if I were, I'd write detective fiction, not creationist claptrap.
Funny you should mention that. I was a private investigator for a few years during a break from academical land. My partner died a few years ago, and I am writing old cases, and making them turn out the way we would have liked them to have happened.

Miranda · 3 January 2010

Raven writes, "Monton is just flat out wrong about everything."

Nope, not 60%. Not 80%. Not even 99%. But 100%!!!

And yet people still take you seriously.

Wheels · 3 January 2010

raven said: There should be "philosophers" who can think of better things to do than support the New Endarkenment. So where are they? Why aren't they commenting on Monson's arguments which are weak and routine rehashes of DI press releases? Maybe they will get around to it someday.

You mean like Robert Pennock and John Wilkins?

stevaroni · 4 January 2010

raven said: There should be "philosophers" who can think of better things to do than support the New Endarkenment.

Why do philosophers always feel the need to opine on the mechanics of the physical world anyway, as if that's actually a consideration to mother nature? Nature gives not a rat's ass about what may or may not be aesthetically pleasing or philosophically complete. The number "3" may be very nice and full of symbolism, certainly much more aesthetically pleasing than 22/7ths and a bit, but nature still uses pi instead of 3 for the circumference of a circle. Nature cares about getting laid, not transcendent beauty. Analyzing that with philosophy is like trying to teach english lit to a bunch of teenage boys watching the cheerleaders practice outside the classroom window. Yeah, it's a pretty thought, but the attention is elsewhere.

Robert Byers · 4 January 2010

This biblical creationist likes the idea of Bradley Monton that if science only does methodological naturalism then its not committed to truth.
AMEN.
This can be applied to science class in public schools.
In reality origin subjects are not just taught from science (of coarse we say they are not science subjects) but rather the TRUTH or the answer to origins is taught to the kids. The claim is simply that science is the only way to the right conclusion.
Origin conclusions are in fact taught and not just scientific methods to origin conclusions.
Otherwise rebuttal could not intellectually be denied unless its settled there is no grounds for rebuttal. A great statement of a state school. Indeed illegal.

Anyways creationism can take on science claims or origins first because we claim science doesn't occur in origin subjects. No testing is possible if one pays attention.

If a atheist commentator agrees with creationisms claims to legitimacy then what hope is there for the resistance to change in origin subjects by better ideas!?

Frank J · 4 January 2010

This biblical creationist likes the idea of Bradley Monton that if science only does methodological naturalism then its not committed to truth.
— Robert Byers

I see that you have backpedaled from introducing yourself as a YEC to introducing yourself as a "biblical creationist." I still suspect you're a Poe, but if you're not, it would behoove you to learn Monton's opinion of the age of the Earth and common descent before raving about him. I'd bet that Monton agrees with the 4.5 BY that mainstream science and most DI Fellows claim, and accepts common descent. Though unlike Behe, who spilled the beans early on, Monton might have been warned to play "don't ask, don't tell."

TomS · 4 January 2010

John Kwok said: Any chance you could turn this into "Murder, She Wrote" as seen from a secular humanist/atheist/"evil Darwinist" prospective (Just kidding about the secular humanist..."evil Darwinist" comparison.)? On a more serious note, it could be a useful fictional exercise to explain how and why Dembski's concept of the "Explanatory Filter" as a means of "detecting" design can't work, even in forensic archaeology:

To analyze ID from the point of view of a detective story, recall the tradition that the solution must specify Means, Motive, and Opportunity - and in the game of "Clue", one must specify Who, Where, and How ("I suspect Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with a Rope"). ID fails.

Pablo · 4 January 2010

Jim Lippard said: The past dead ends of science may not be relevant for a science class, but they are quite relevant for a *history of science* or *philosophy of science* class, as a corrective to the notion that science is a linear progression of successful theories. That's as mistaken as the notion that evolution proceeds as a linear progression of successive species.

That's what I say. Why do they need to teach it in science class?

DS · 4 January 2010

Pablo wrote:

"That’s what I say. Why do they need to teach it in science class?"

For the exact same reason that they need to put nativity scenes on government property. They crave the legitimacy and funding of government endorsement. That alone should be enough to convince anyone that they have no scientific validity.

eric · 4 January 2010

Robert Byers said: This biblical creationist likes the idea of Bradley Monton that if science only does methodological naturalism then its not committed to truth.

Monton's complaint in this paraphrased comment is that science as a method does not guarantee we will ever gain full and complete knowledge of the universe. That it might miss things. That's true, but its doubly irrelevant. Irrelevant once because science never gave this guarantee that it would ever find the ultimate truth. Irrelevant twice because no other method guarantees you will find it either. "Committed to the truth" in this case is really just a whine that the scientific method is not aesthetically perfect - that empiricism and induction are grubby, poor, incomplete methods for gaining knowledge. That you can never be 100% certain that you are right. Maybe so, but despite (and perhaps because of) these limitations, its historical fact that when it comes to the physical world the scientific method is the most succcessful method we have. Of course, if Monton has a method which is better committed to the truth, he should outline it. And then perhaps demonstrate it by using it to discover something useful we don't already know.

CharleyHorse · 4 January 2010

I think a quick look at Monton's financial records would
confirm his real reasons for defending ID creationism.

John Kwok · 4 January 2010

Not really, since he's been supportive of ID creationism since his graduate school days at Princeton. BTW, he was critical of Judge Jones's ruling in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial if I'm not mistaken:

CharleyHorse said: I think a quick look at Monton's financial records would confirm his real reasons for defending ID creationism.

raven · 4 January 2010

Monton as quoted on Wesley Elsberry's blog: In sum: even though I think that supernatural hypotheses in science will ultimately be proved wrong, I don’t see how allowing them will lead to the end of science. Those scientists who do are willing to allow for supernatural hypotheses can still search for naturalistic explanations for phenomena.

Eric: Of course, if Monton has a method which is better committed to the truth, he should outline it. And then perhaps demonstrate it by using it to discover something useful we don’t already know.

I can see why Monton was widely ignored by everyone but creationists. He has reached the exalted state of "not even being wrong". One of his silly strawmen is that science should allow for Theistic Science. The fact is it does. There are no science police breaking down church doors to raid underground church laboratory facilities. The creationists take in 50 million USD per year, all spent on attacking science. The churches themselves take in ca. 70 billion USD/year. That is a lot of money and a fraction could support a robust theistic research effort. And roughly half of all US scientists are xians. They don't bother. We tried Theistic Science for several thousand years. It went nowhere and accomplished nothing. This time was known as the Dark Ages. If ID is going to claim some superior way of understanding the real world, they've had millenia to do it in. They haven't done it yet and after a few thousand years, no one expects them to. Even they know it which is why they spend all their money on propaganda. Like Monton's.

Glen Davidson · 4 January 2010

There are no science police breaking down church doors to raid underground church laboratory facilities.

No, it's worse, they talk trash about people like Sternberg, for his mere manipulation of the peer review to pass on junk science. Traumatized by that torture by darwinio-nazi-communists, Sternberg has been unable to produce the breakthrough evidence for ID he'd nearly reached in his research (always so close!). That, no doubt, was the entire purpose of the mental violence perpetrated upon him. So it's not their fault that they're not doing science. Can't you see that? Glen Davidson

http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

stevaroni · 4 January 2010

Robert Byers said: Otherwise rebuttal could not intellectually be denied unless its settled there is no grounds for rebuttal. A great statement of a state school.

Then. Quit. Whining. And. Just. Farging. Rebut. It. Already. Stop complaining about how science is wrong and put your evidence on the table. Tell us exactly what supposedly happened, and exactly when it happened and exactly what physical evidence it left behind and exactly where I go to find it. It's a simple question, Byers, but one creationists have been studiously avoiding for decades. That's why it's not taught in school, Byers, because creationists learned long ago to not answer any questions, because as soon as they do people look at the details and realize that there are none.

TomS · 4 January 2010

raven said:
Monton as quoted on Wesley Elsberry's blog: In sum: even though I think that supernatural hypotheses in science will ultimately be proved wrong, I don’t see how allowing them will lead to the end of science. Those scientists who do are willing to allow for supernatural hypotheses can still search for naturalistic explanations for phenomena.

What are the hypotheses of ID, other than "somehow, somewhere, something is wrong with evolutionary biology?" Are secondary-school classes the appropriate forum for exploring scientific hypotheses? How about spending a similar amount of time on the scientific hypothesis of the divine ancestry of the emperor of Japan? Who knows what scientific discoveries would result from checking his DNA?

John Kwok · 4 January 2010

I suppose this explains why Sternberg has become an officially paid prostitute of the Dishonesty Institute:

Glen Davidson said:
There are no science police breaking down church doors to raid underground church laboratory facilities.
No, it's worse, they talk trash about people like Sternberg, for his mere manipulation of the peer review to pass on junk science. Traumatized by that torture by darwinio-nazi-communists, Sternberg has been unable to produce the breakthrough evidence for ID he'd nearly reached in his research (always so close!). That, no doubt, was the entire purpose of the mental violence perpetrated upon him. So it's not their fault that they're not doing science. Can't you see that? Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

eric · 4 January 2010

raven said: There are no science police breaking down church doors to raid underground church laboratory facilities. The creationists take in 50 million USD per year, all spent on attacking science. The churches themselves take in ca. 70 billion USD/year. That is a lot of money and a fraction could support a robust theistic research effort.

Indeed. As I said earlier, this is armchair quarterbacking at its worst. Because these folks don't merely watch, they actually refuse to play when given the opportunity. Perhaps Matt, you can appeal to Monton as a fellow author to describe how his theistic science would differ in detail from mainstream science. For instance, Lenski is still chugging away with his bacterial research. How should he change his approach and experimental design(s) in the future if he wanted to be more open to the supernatural, more theistic? We might not be able to coax the armchair QB off the couch, but maybe we can change his "contribution" from complaints about other people's performances to the plays he would run if he were in charge.

John Kwok · 4 January 2010

Wait, isn't this exactly what the ever delusional Mikey Behe suggested to attorney Eric Rothschild under oath at the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial. That's funny, I have yet to see Behe offer how he would establish science as an entity that's open to theistic, supernatural exploration:

eric said:
raven said: There are no science police breaking down church doors to raid underground church laboratory facilities. The creationists take in 50 million USD per year, all spent on attacking science. The churches themselves take in ca. 70 billion USD/year. That is a lot of money and a fraction could support a robust theistic research effort.
Indeed. As I said earlier, this is armchair quarterbacking at its worst. Because these folks don't merely watch, they actually refuse to play when given the opportunity. Perhaps Matt, you can appeal to Monton as a fellow author to describe how his theistic science would differ in detail from mainstream science. For instance, Lenski is still chugging away with his bacterial research. How should he change his approach and experimental design(s) in the future if he wanted to be more open to the supernatural, more theistic? We might not be able to coax the armchair QB off the couch, but maybe we can change his "contribution" from complaints about other people's performances to the plays he would run if he were in charge.

Frank J · 4 January 2010

To analyze ID from the point of view of a detective story, recall the tradition that the solution must specify Means, Motive, and Opportunity - and in the game of “Clue”, one must specify Who, Where, and How (“I suspect Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with a Rope”). ID fails.
— TomS

Actually it's more like YEC and OEC fail, and ID doesn't even try. I wish we could all stop to recall how it was before we became interested in the "debate." Those with little time or interest might lurk a bit and see an endless back-and-forth of "Evolution can't explain..." and "Evolution can too explain..." And like it or not the former provides the catchier sound bites regardless of how misleading they are. Once in a while we need to remind the lurkers that, even if Meyer were right, YECs and OECs would still be dead wrong, and the alternative would still be evolution as most lay people understand it (~4 BY of descent with modification). And Meyer and his DI buddies all but admit that in their evasion.

RBH · 4 January 2010

Glen noted

Pennock doesn’t leave Monton’s nonsense alone in US New & World Report. That was before Monton’s book was published, which apparently was sometime last summer.

It's worth quoting from the article Glen linked to:

Luskin's second example is of a kind. I did indeed write to Bradley Monton about a paper in which he criticized the judge's opinion in the Kitzmiller v . Dover case, but not for the reasons Luskin recounts. Posted barely a week after the decision came out, Monton's manuscript contained basic factual errors. Most errors in philosophy are just ridiculous, but some can be harmful, if only to the philosopher's own reputation or that of the profession. Monton would have been wiser to wait to correct his errors through the peer-review process or at least to include the standard disclaimer for unreviewed manuscripts that they should not be quoted, but that was his own business. The reason I asked Monton to take down the paper was that in one place he seemed to make a libelous insinuation about myself and others in the case. I took that apparent accusation very seriously. Monton wrote back to apologize and to say that he had not intended to suggest anything offensive to me or anyone in particular. He agreed that his sentence was written in a way that could have been misconstrued, however, and promised to remove it. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of the matter and I made no further objection to his post. Monton has since become known as an ID apologist (from an odd atheist perspective), and I periodically get unsolicited E-mail from scientists and philosophers about his participation in their activities. Sadly, he is harming more than his own reputation. Just a few months ago I received a call from a member of Monton's department at Colorado asking for my assistance in repairing damage to the department's relationship with science colleagues caused by a talk he gave on the subject. I sympathize with the department, but can no longer give Monton the benefit of the doubt in the way I did when he posted his draft while still a graduate student. So far as I know, he hasn't stooped to publishing out-of-context quotes from private E-mail without permission (no reputable publisher would allow that, in any case), but I was told recently that, like Luskin, he has been making personal attacks on me in talks and a series of Discovery Institute podcasts. I have turned the other cheek to this calumny as well. Again, who is the character assassin?

John Harshman · 4 January 2010

raven said: But Heinleins rule applies. A lot of it is trash.

I believe you refer to Sturgeon's Law. Wrong SF author. ("90% of everything is crud.")

John B. · 4 January 2010

There's Intelligent Design, and there's intelligent design. Unfortunately the latter often gets overlooked but in fact we use hypotheses of intelligent design every day, whenever we conclude (or more often assume) that an object is man-made even though we never saw any man (or woman) making it. If we happen upon a watch we conclude it was created by a human because we know that watches are made by humans. (Even if we found that same watch on Mars, we would still conclude it was a man-made object although we would certainly wonder how it got there.) Police detectives use intelligent design every day, when they conclude that murder or other crime was committed by a human, and try to figure out whodunnit. They could, in virtually all cases, distinguish between a death caused by another human and one caused by a wolf or a bear. Even if they cannot immediately identify the killer, there is no need to hypothesize that invisible pixies or some supernatural deity are, or might be, responsible.

SETI is entirely founded on the idea of "intelligent design"; presumably, if we found a radio signal, or better yet an extraterrestrial artifact, we could detect whether it was a man-made object (like a stray spacecraft) or was made by a non-human intelligence. Again, no pixies or gods need apply.

But in all cases we immediately conclude, or at least wonder, WHO? Who is responsible? Who made the thing? Who sent the radio signal? When and why and how? The real problem with the proponents of "Intelligent Design" is that they are so very, very cagey about identifying (or even asking questions about) the designer, about the who, the when, the where, the why and the how of the design process. But except for the "who" (unless you consider ancestors and natural selection to be "whos") these are the very questions that consume evolutionary biologists; they are absolutely central to modern evolutionary research, and this is why "Intelligent Design" is not the least bit comparable to evolutionary theory. Unless the ID crowd can somehow bring themselves to start asking similar questions and think about how to find the answers, their ideas don't rise above the level of idle speculation.

John Kwok · 4 January 2010

Thanks for posting Pennock's quote from the US News and World Report blog. Am not sure Matt Young realizes how much of an apologist Monton has been for the Dishonesty Institute, but anyone reading Monton's CV would realize how much he's been one, and especially one quite dedicated to the DI's conception of Intelligent Design even before the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial.

For those who are interested, here's his CV:

http://spot.colorado.edu/~monton/BradleyMonton/Articles_files/monton%20cv.pdf

I am especially intrigued that one of his forthcoming manuscripts is a defense of the "God of the Gaps" argument.

John Kwok · 4 January 2010

John, apparently he missed the error here. I mentioned that it was "Sturgeon's Law" in another, related thread recently, and he admitted that's what he had meant:

John Harshman said:
raven said: But Heinleins rule applies. A lot of it is trash.
I believe you refer to Sturgeon's Law. Wrong SF author. ("90% of everything is crud.")

Mike Elzinga · 4 January 2010

John Kwok said: For those who are interested, here's his CV: http://spot.colorado.edu/~monton/BradleyMonton/Articles_files/monton%20cv.pdf I am especially intrigued that one of his forthcoming manuscripts is a defense of the "God of the Gaps" argument.

Strange CV. He seems attracted to all the woo woo stuff.

John Kwok · 4 January 2010

As I said before, as soon as I read his comments in reply to Pennock's blog entry at US News and World Report and then his CV, I realized that he was merely a younger version of Steve Fuller:

Mike Elzinga said:
John Kwok said: For those who are interested, here's his CV: http://spot.colorado.edu/~monton/BradleyMonton/Articles_files/monton%20cv.pdf I am especially intrigued that one of his forthcoming manuscripts is a defense of the "God of the Gaps" argument.
Strange CV. He seems attracted to all the woo woo stuff.

raven · 4 January 2010

Roger Pennock: Sadly, he is harming more than his own reputation. Just a few months ago I received a call from a member of Monton’s department at Colorado asking for my assistance in repairing damage to the department’s relationship with science colleagues caused by a talk he gave on the subject. I sympathize with the department, but can no longer give Monton the benefit of the doubt in the way I did when he posted his draft while still a graduate student.

Everything I've seen, a lot, says Monton is simply a crackpot. He claims ID isn't a fringe fundie xian death cult idea. I'm sure that was news to the UC Boulder biology department. They were threatened with mass murder by a troubled Xian terrorist creationist wannabe not so long ago*. He is still on the run with a warrant out for his arrest AFAIK. Someone defending these guys from another department must be spooky. I started going through his written materials line by line and it was one wrong thing after another. A few of the most blatant examples have been posted. After a while it was like knocking down bowling pins from 10 feet away. Quite boring. It probably isn't worth paying much more attention to him except for a light intellectual workout and some minor amusement. Crackpots can always be counted on to shoot themselves in the foot again and again. I'm sure Monton will be back in the future with more god babble from an "atheist". *Not going to mention the name here although it is well known. He has shown enough self awareness to possibly get help and turn his life back around. We can hope for the best.

RDK · 4 January 2010

What amazes me is that people are surprised about Monton coming out of the woodwork, considering how many other people in fields that have nothing to do with biology have spoken out against evolution. The subtitle of his book should have been a dead giveaway: "An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design". If that doesn't scream Disco payroll, I'm not sure what does. Pretending to be atheists or former atheists is something creotards of all flavors excel in. Berlinski says he's a secular jew. Comfort and Cameron both proclaim they used to be atheists. This is not new. Here's a quick excerpt from Monton's Amazon product review:

The doctrine of intelligent design has been maligned by atheists, but even though Monton is an atheist, he is of the opinion that the arguments for intelligent design are stronger than most realize. The goal of this book is to try to get people to take intelligent design seriously. Monton maintains that it is legitimate to view intelligent design as science, that there are somewhat plausible arguments for the existence of a cosmic designer, and that intelligent design should be taught in public school science classes.

Emphasis mine. It reads exactly like a DI press release, and I'm sure I'll have the same opinion of the book itself as soon as Amazon delivers my copy. Oh and my favorite part about all this is going through each of the reviewers and click on "read my other reviews" in order to see how many of them are from people whose pages are solely made up of 5-star raves for the ID talking heads. It's just plain funny.

Brenda · 4 January 2010

I believe Monton was driven to his position by his companions' obnoxious attitude towards Creationism. Not with the arguments themselves, but the attitude. When Monton tried to give a Creationist the benefit of the doubt /here and there/, he was verbally attacked, as if he were "one of them". He just wanted to distance himself from that s#!t, and look where he wound up. Everyone here at PandasThumb, keep up the good work and you'll see scores of Bradley Montons.

Glen Davidson · 4 January 2010

Sorry, Brenda, but we made the grave mistake of assuming that adults can think for themselves. We didn't know that a trained philosopher was supposed to fall for inane claptrap just because it's treated like inane claptrap. That's egg on our faces, for sure. Glen Davidson

http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

fnxtr · 4 January 2010

What are you saying, Brenda? People shouldn't call bullshit when they see it?

And do you have some data to back this up?

eric · 4 January 2010

She's using, as PZ puts it, the Courtier's reply. I.e. "Pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes is so rude! Maybe he doesn't have any, but I won't listen to you as long as you embarrass us all by pointing that out in public."

RDK · 4 January 2010

Also Brenda, why do creationists deserve the benefit of the doubt? You should probably bone up on the history of Intelligent Design before you dive into a discussion pretending to be the neutral momma-figure reprimanding both sides. Everyone knows that it only ends in closet-escaping and teeth-gnashing towards evil Darwinists.

raven · 4 January 2010

I believe Monton was driven to his position by his companions’ obnoxious attitude towards Creationism.

The truth is probably a lot more mundane. And it involves Monton's attitude towards US dollars. If I get a chance, I'll ask him point blank about his payment. They usually won't answer, lie, or run away. How much does thirty pieces of silver buy these days?

Mike Elzinga · 4 January 2010

Brenda said: I believe Monton was driven to his position by his companions' obnoxious attitude towards Creationism. Not with the arguments themselves, but the attitude. When Monton tried to give a Creationist the benefit of the doubt /here and there/, he was verbally attacked, as if he were "one of them". He just wanted to distance himself from that s#!t, and look where he wound up. Everyone here at PandasThumb, keep up the good work and you'll see scores of Bradley Montons.

Apparently you are unaware of 40+ years of ID/creationist distortions of science, started by Duane Gish, Henry Morris and others at ICR. These were deliberate taunts to lure scientists into “debates” from which Gish and Morris successfully leveraged “respectability and legitimacy.” I know personally some public school biology teachers who were bludgeoned by Duane Gish when he worked at what used to be the Upjohn Company in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Many of his “people” still live there and still engage in the same kinds of taunts. In addition, there has been 40+ years of attempted corrections by the science community to these deliberate distortions by the ID/creationist community. The only response by ID/creationists to these attempts has been to repeatedly turn right around and reuse these refuted misconceptions in new venues and to keep repeating them in their multimillion dollar campaigns against evolution and all of science. One of the results of this campaign has been a very significant increase in scientific illiteracy and susceptibility to pseudo-science. Another has been the increasing inability of “neutral” observers, such as you yourself, to be able to vet information and identify abuse and lies. Surely you know about the Wedge Document; don’t pretend you don’t. Some of us who are scientists posting here have been eyewitnesses to this fraud for those 40+ years, and nothing has changed with the ID/community. At what point should we start treating these propagandists with kid gloves and courtesy? They have never returned the favor; and they have always been the aggressors. Your loyalties are misplaced. And you should learn some real science so that you can tell the difference between what is real and what is fake.

harold · 4 January 2010

Brenda -

I believe Monton was driven to his position by his companions’ obnoxious attitude towards Creationism. Not with the arguments themselves, but the attitude

This is one of the craziest things I have ever heard in my life. A bad idea becomes good if other people don't like it? For the record - 1) I actually was once nicknamed "the champion of the underdog" (during my residency), because of my persistent habit of giving people who were unpopular or under suspicion the benefit of the doubt and the opportunity to defend themselves. 2) When I first started paying attention to creationists, I had the idea that some of them might be sincere people struggling with a crisis of faith and so on. Over the years, however, I have discovered that ID/creationism attracts people who are, in my personal view, grossly lacking in sincerity. I have learned that ID/creationism is massively associated with a particular social/political agenda, and that ID/creationists do such things as distort and misquote the works of others, hide their true views when it suits them, repeat arguments that they know have been disproven to naive audiences who have not been exposed to the rebuttal, censor rational critiques of their ideas (however civil the expression) in any venue where they have the power of censorship, say different things in different venues, make false claims about their credentials, plot and scheme to receive credentials they don't deserve, obtain legitimate credentials by being dishonest about their views and going through the motions (with the sole objective of flaunting the credentials when they engage in denialism), use complicated sounding meaningless terminology to bamboozle their audience, make and repeat transparently illogical arguments, and much, much, much more. Any negative attitude I have developed toward ID/creationism has been entirely created by ID/creationists themselves.

Monton tried to give a Creationist the benefit of the doubt /here and there/, he was verbally attacked, as if he were “one of them”

And rightfully so, if he "gave the benefit of the doubt" to patently false, illogical, and bluntly, dishonest arguments. It's one thing to engage in civil, or even deferential, discussion, with people who advocate ideas that are transparently wrong at a logical and factual level. It's another thing altogether to advocate the same ideas.

He just wanted to distance himself from that s#!t

Really? By "that shit" you must mean from science, logic, and honesty. Because if he wanted to distance himself from incivility or hostility, all he had to do was not be uncivil or hostile.

and look where he wound up

In a prestigious faculty position in the paradisical college town of Boulder, Colorado. A position that many more talented and more honest individuals would give a great deal to obtain. I guess that's the price some of them pay for the "more honest" part.

Everyone here at PandasThumb, keep up the good work and you’ll see scores of Bradley Montons

Fortunately, "scores" of philosophy professors spouting anti-science nonsense is not something I'm very worried about. Hell, there can even be "hundreds" of them, and I still won't be worried. (For the record, I most certainly do not mean to express contempt for the entire field of philosophy, which is not my position.)

John Kwok · 4 January 2010

For those of you who haven't read Pennock's comments I am reposting the link here:

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/room-for-debate/2009/02/18/creation-of-christian-soldiers-a-chilling-sidelight-of-darwin-bashing.html

I am sure that virtually all of us share his sentiment as expressed in his concluding remarks:

“As I wrote in a recent op-ed about Expelled and the ID culture wars, it is hard to know how to respond in a civil manner to such ignorant extremism. Let me go further here: Such views (and I do here mean views, not people) do not deserve a civil response. They deserve more than disapproval and ridicule. They deserve the moral outrage of all who are friends of reason and truth.”

“Darwin shares his birthday with Abraham Lincoln, and the famous conclusion of Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address is relevant to the culture war that creationists and other extremists would inject into our children’s science classes. Let us forthrightly reject those false and polarizing views and hope that the better angels of our nature will eventually prevail and bring this war to an end.”

Brenda · 5 January 2010

fnxtr writes: "What are you saying, Brenda? People shouldn’t call bullshit when they see it? And do you have some data to back this up?"

You think that "calling bullsh!t" must be done in an obnoxious, and even threatening, way?

The data you're seeking can be surmised by listening to Monton's interview with the DI.

RDK wonders, "why do creationists deserve the benefit of the doubt?"

Are you blind? I wrote, "When Monton tried to give a Creationist the benefit of the doubt /here and there/"

RDK continues (and Mike Elzinga seems to concur): "You should probably bone up on the history of Intelligent Design before you dive into a discussion pretending to be the neutral momma-figure reprimanding both sides. "

I bet I know the history better than you. And I don't have a problem reprimanding my side when it needs to be. Of course, if you're going to jump to the conclusion that I'm "one of /them/", that's your problem.

Mike Elzinga charges: "Your loyalties are misplaced. And you should learn some real science so that you can tell the difference between what is real and what is fake."

Your jumping to conclusions about me (and in both cases they're wrong) is irritating. It's that kind of thing that irritated, and pushed away, Monton, too.

Frank J · 5 January 2010

Also Brenda, why do creationists deserve the benefit of the doubt?
— RDK

Before one even asks that, the obvious question is whether (1) anyone who objects to evolution, regardless of how their alternatives contradict each other, deserves the benefit of the doubt, or (2) only the one particular alternative that the requester thinks is promising should. If (2) it can't be ID, because it's promoters admit to refusing to "connect dots." Even if they were right that some mysterious other process occurred "somewhere at some unspecified time" the simplest canditate would still come under the general heading of "random mutation," and the overall theory would still be evolution as we know it. And it can't be YEC or OEC unless they're willing to challenge each other (& ID) and not single out evolution. If (1) then the obvious question is whether all pseudoscience - astrology, UFOs, telekenesis, to name just a few - should also be given the benefit of the doubt. And if not, why single out the one pseudoscience that's so intimately tied to an extremist authoritarian agenda, as "Expelled" so clearly shows?

Frank J · 5 January 2010

I bet I know the history better than you. And I don’t have a problem reprimanding my side when it needs to be.
— Brenda

What is "your side"? Do you agree with the DI's Michael Behe that life on Earth has a history of 3-4 billion years and that humans share common ancestors with other species? If not what are your best guesses to those questions, and have you challenged any anti-evolutionist who comes up with different conclusions?

Ron Okimoto · 5 January 2010

What do you expect from atheists like Bradley Monton? This is probably just another example of a guy so far around the bend that he is shaking hands with the guys he claims to disagree with. Eventually they depend on the same level of argument to claim there is or is no type of god and lose track of what valid arguments are. Can anyone recall Flew?

If you stick to what the science can tell you, you will not have to claim to be a theist or atheist. It just won't matter.

Intelligent design is even known to be bogus among the ID perps at the Discovery Institute or they wouldn't have started running the bait and switch on their own creationist supporters years before they lost in court. Is any ID supporter able to find intelligent design mentioned in the creationist switch scam? Just who is running the creationist switch scam? Why would anyone run a dishonest bait and switch scam if they really had the ID science? It shouldn't take an atheist to clue anyone in on just how valid discussions about the merits of intelligent design are, and it would take a bonehead like Monton to give ID lip service.

Brenda · 5 January 2010

Frank J wants to know, "What is “your side”? Do you agree with the DI’s Michael Behe that life on Earth has a history of 3-4 billion years and that humans share common ancestors with other species?"

Is that a trick question? If I say yes, does that mean I'm a follower of Behe? If I say no, does that mean I'm a follower of Young Earth Creationists? When I want to discuss issues related to evolution or ID, I like to do so without having my correspondent peg me into one side. Some people don't like to operate this way, but I do. Stick to the arguments, I say.

Frank continues: "If not what are your best guesses to those questions, and have you challenged any anti-evolutionist who comes up with different conclusions?"

This question has nothing to do with anything I wrote. But I can answer that I challenge everyone. I'm kind of like the way Harold used to be, "champion of the underdog."

If an attack on a person or an idea is 95% accurate, I'm not afraid of arguing against the 5%, even at the risk of appearing that I'm 100% defending the person or idea.

Stanton · 5 January 2010

Brenda, do you badger the people at the Discovery Institute to be civil towards pro-science proponents, too?

eric · 5 January 2010

Brenda said: You think that "calling bullsh!t" must be done in an obnoxious, and even threatening, way? [later, in a reply to RDK...] Are you blind? [later, in a reply to Mike Elzinga] Your jumping to conclusions about me (and in both cases they're wrong) is irritating.

So Brenda, from your own posts I assume that you consider comments such as "Are you blind?" and 'you are irritating' to be acceptable, non-obnoxious behavior. Yes? To be honest most (but not all) of the replies to Monton on this thread were far less obnoxious than your own. I briefly scanned the first page of comments here, it contains 14 polite replies to Monton's arguments, 4 nonpolite replies, and about 12 posts which don't address his arguments at all (because they address someone else's post or some OT comment). I'll repeat my previous message, but this time directly to you: I think you are using the Courtier's reply. I think you are focusing on conversational etiquette as a means of avoiding or distracting conversation from Monton's substantive philosophical and scientific errors. Rather than complain about how rude we are, why don't you defend whatever substantive points Monton makes that you agree with and we don't?

CS Shelton · 5 January 2010

@wheels on page 1, though I'm sure I'm too late to the party to get seen:
"On what basis, in short, does he claim that ID is superior? The fact that things allow for life to exist? But why would ID even explain that? You can just as easily imagine a Designer creating a Universe with no life."
Given the increasingly sketchy boundary between living and unliving matter (prions can evolve? WTF?), one could say this universe does have no life - On the grounds that Life is as much a human construct as God. The concept exists, but that doesn't mean it has objective reality (sorry Descartes!).

Stanton · 5 January 2010

eric said: I'll repeat my previous message, but this time directly to you: I think you are using the Courtier's reply. I think you are focusing on conversational etiquette as a means of avoiding or distracting conversation from Monton's substantive philosophical and scientific errors. Rather than complain about how rude we are, why don't you defend whatever substantive points Monton makes that you agree with and we don't?

What a rude request to make of Brenda! [/sarcasm]

SWT · 5 January 2010

Brenda said: Frank J wants to know, "What is “your side”? Do you agree with the DI’s Michael Behe that life on Earth has a history of 3-4 billion years and that humans share common ancestors with other species?" Is that a trick question?

Not a "trick question," a fair question that deserves an answer.

Frank J · 5 January 2010

Is that a trick question?
— Brenda

Not at all. But you evaded it anyway. I don't care if you are "follower" of Behe, YECs, or evolution-deniers of intermediate positions. Heck, even I'm their "follower" on some religious, political and philosophical issues. But only one of them can be right about the science even if evolution is wrong. So who is? As for "champion of the underdog," I am not only that, but I am a scientist who has experienced first-hand being "expelled." But I "expelled" myself, because the data were not supporting my hypothesis. I didn't whine about being "expelled", or quote mine and cherry pick anything I could find to promote unreasonable doubt of the prevailing hypothesis. And I didn't keep backpedaling into "don't ask, don't tell" in a pathetic attempt to hide under a big tent with anyone who wants to, but is unable to, challenge the status quo. In stark contrast, anti-evolution activists are more than encouraged to propose, test and validate their alternate explanations. I even posted a request for proposals for alternate explanations for human origins on Talk.Origins 3 years ago. As you might expect, there are still no replies.

phantomreader42 · 5 January 2010

Stanton said: Brenda, do you badger the people at the Discovery Institute to be civil towards pro-science proponents, too?

Of course she doesn't. To do so would be to imply that quote-mining, plagiarism, censorship, dishonest editing of other people's posts, outright lying and threats of eternal damnation are somehow less than perfectly civil. The only things Brenda can see as lacking in civility are using naughty words and asking inconvenient questions.

TomS · 5 January 2010

Don't forget calling "Nazi".

Glen Davidson · 5 January 2010

The trouble for Brenda is that creationism/ID are dishonest and defamatory from the very start. They cannot do anything but lie about evolution and scientists who work with evolution, because only dishonestly demonizing theory and science can (pseudo)explain how science, which works so many wonders, could be completely wrong about how life originated. But because science in fact has the facts, the arguments, and the evidence behind both of these, we can show that vocal creationists/IDists are highly uncivil defaming liars (often times through ignorance, but clearly those claiming to know how science is wrong have the responsibility to cure their ignorance prior to attacking science and scientists). And we do. When you've already staked your ego and credibility upon a set of trashy lies, however, you don't simply accept that you're the ones being uncivil and dishonest. So what do you do? You pull a Brenda, and whine that creationists are being produced by the incivility of science and of scientists, ignoring the elephantine problem that they started all of the incivility by ignorantly hurling false accusations at honest folk. It's all she and the DI have as a weapon, so it's the one that we see ad nauseam. If they had evidence for any of their claims, including their defamatory claims against the scientific establishment with its systematic checks on honesty that ID/creationism deliberately bypasses and avoids using (via what are essentially loyalty oaths), they would present it. The incivility is all theirs, while we simply are forced to call frauds what they are. Glen Davidson

http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

raven · 5 January 2010

Roger Pennock in USNWR: They think nothing of blaming "evolutionism" and "Darwinists" for everything from abortion and homosexuality to the killings at Columbine and more. They compare those who write against them to Hitler and Goebbels. Indeed, the climax of Ben Stein's ID movie Expelled blamed evolutionary science for Nazi atrocities, including the Holocaust. Stein explained the central message of the film in an interview on Trinity Broadcasting Network: The Holocaust is "where science leads you," he opined. "Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people."

Brenda the religious kook is wrong of course. In terms of who is most vicious, dishonest, and insulting, the DI, IDists, and creationists are way, way ahead. 1. One of the main points the DI makes is that "Darwin killed the Jews." This is an old blood libel and it is false. Hitler and his millions of followers were all xians. 2. The other main point they make is that science is atheism. This is blatantly false as well. Science has nothing to do with religion, it is how we understand the real world. Historically most scientists were xians, today it is still about half. A lot of scientists don't like being called Jew killing, Nazi, commie, cannibalistic atheists.

Brenda being wrong. Everyone here at PandasThumb, keep up the good work and you’ll see scores of Bradley Montons

Not a coherent thought in her head. Xianity has been on the skids in the USA for the last 20 years. Between 1 and 2 million people leave the religion every year. Church attendance is down, offerings are down. The No Religions run around 24% of the population according to ARIS 2008. This is 72 million people and combined, one of the US's largest sects. The fundie cultists such as Brenda are shaking US xianity to pieces. Oddly enough, they don't seem to care if they destroy the US religion. Keep up the good work Brenda. US xianity is on track to fall below 50% of the population in a few decades. More religious extremists and more xian terrorist attacks will push it downhill faster.

JASONMITCHELL · 5 January 2010

is "Brenda" a sockpuppet of "FTK" or "forthekids" ?
this 'civility' trolling seems familiar

Frank J · 5 January 2010

The trouble for Brenda is that creationism/ID are dishonest and defamatory from the very start. They cannot do anything but lie about evolution and scientists who work with evolution, because only dishonestly demonizing theory and science can (pseudo)explain how science, which works so many wonders, could be completely wrong about how life originated.
— Glen Davidson

That would be bad enough if they just had a single, discredited alternative they desperately wanted to peddle. But what makes it even worse is how they have many mutually contradictory alternatives (and one completely vacuous one), and yet they increasingly make excuses for the ones that they know have at least as many problems as they pretend that evolution has.

Frank J · 5 January 2010

Of course she doesn’t. To do so would be to imply that quote-mining, plagiarism, censorship, dishonest editing of other people’s posts, outright lying and threats of eternal damnation are somehow less than perfectly civil.
— phantomreader42

To be fair, we should wait for her answer before assuming anything. It's possible, if not probable, that she tried. But if she did, and said anything inconvenient to the DI's propaganda, she would have been censored.

John Kwok · 5 January 2010

Raven, It's Robert Pennock, and BTW, I have received similar complaints about my lack of "civility" from ID proponents and sympathizers over at Darrel Falk and Karl Giberson's BioLogos website. Otherwise I strongly endorse your remarks here:

raven said:
Roger Pennock in USNWR: They think nothing of blaming "evolutionism" and "Darwinists" for everything from abortion and homosexuality to the killings at Columbine and more. They compare those who write against them to Hitler and Goebbels. Indeed, the climax of Ben Stein's ID movie Expelled blamed evolutionary science for Nazi atrocities, including the Holocaust. Stein explained the central message of the film in an interview on Trinity Broadcasting Network: The Holocaust is "where science leads you," he opined. "Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people."
Brenda the religious kook is wrong of course. In terms of who is most vicious, dishonest, and insulting, the DI, IDists, and creationists are way, way ahead. 1. One of the main points the DI makes is that "Darwin killed the Jews." This is an old blood libel and it is false. Hitler and his millions of followers were all xians. 2. The other main point they make is that science is atheism. This is blatantly false as well. Science has nothing to do with religion, it is how we understand the real world. Historically most scientists were xians, today it is still about half. A lot of scientists don't like being called Jew killing, Nazi, commie, cannibalistic atheists.
Brenda being wrong. Everyone here at PandasThumb, keep up the good work and you’ll see scores of Bradley Montons
Not a coherent thought in her head. Xianity has been on the skids in the USA for the last 20 years. Between 1 and 2 million people leave the religion every year. Church attendance is down, offerings are down. The No Religions run around 24% of the population according to ARIS 2008. This is 72 million people and combined, one of the US's largest sects. The fundie cultists such as Brenda are shaking US xianity to pieces. Oddly enough, they don't seem to care if they destroy the US religion. Keep up the good work Brenda. US xianity is on track to fall below 50% of the population in a few decades. More religious extremists and more xian terrorist attacks will push it downhill faster.

Mike Elzinga · 5 January 2010

Brenda said: I bet I know the history better than you. And I don't have a problem reprimanding my side when it needs to be. Of course, if you're going to jump to the conclusion that I'm "one of /them/", that's your problem.

That is simply not true; you don’t know the history. And you might be taken more seriously if you didn’t attempt to keep up the façade.

Your jumping to conclusions about me (and in both cases they’re wrong) is irritating. It’s that kind of thing that irritated, and pushed away, Monton, too.

We are not jumping to conclusions; it is obvious from your language. You really do not have sufficient knowledge of the science and how it has been distorted by ID/creationists to be able to make any valid judgments. You cannot fake knowledge about science that you don’t have.

Is that a trick question? If I say yes, does that mean I’m a follower of Behe? If I say no, does that mean I’m a follower of Young Earth Creationists? When I want to discuss issues related to evolution or ID, I like to do so without having my correspondent peg me into one side. Some people don’t like to operate this way, but I do. Stick to the arguments, I say.

This is a classic evasion tactic. Being coy and attempting to string people along so you can pull the old “gotcha” game somewhere in the “debate” is a cliché tactic among ID/creationists. You either know the science or you don’t. Your either know the age of the earth or you don’t. You either know the evidence for evolution or you don’t. You know damned well that you are bluffing and playing games; and so do we. You don’t have enough knowledge of science to know what is and what is not true. Yet you pretend to have a superior perspective that permits your condescending scolding. It is people like you, people who don’t know, don’t wanna know, and are proud of their ignorance, who have established the reputations of fundamentalists and ID/creationists that are despised by those members of the scientific community who have been watching your phony style of chutzpa for over 40 years. You can’t wipe that stench off yourself no matter how much you bluff and scold. Everything about you screams FAKE.

raven · 5 January 2010

I have received similar complaints about my lack of “civility” from ID proponents and sympathizers over at Darrel Falk and Karl Giberson’s BioLogos website.

Just quote the IDists words about more or less everything. They've left a huge paper trail behind them of absurd, ugly, and evil comments. Nothing disappears completely on the internet, the search engines can find it. Klinghoffer, Stein, and Weickart have made a career out of accusing scientists of the Holocaust. Tom Willis wants to herd scientists into slave labor extermination camps, as documented many places including PT. Dembski openly and fervently hates science and says so often as I quoted earlier on this thread. Cynthia Dunbar of the TBOE claims that evolutionary biology results in cannibalism. If quoting creationists own words is defined as incivility, then you are out of luck and BioLogos is dishonest.

John Kwok · 5 January 2010

Brenda -

I concur with what Stanton, Glen, Mike, and the others have been saying with regards to your remarks.

Are you as concerned with civility by the Discovery Institute as you seem so fixated with us, especially when the Discovery Institute has a well documented history of lying, bearing false witness against its critics, and even outright theft, in order to advance its goals.

What do you think of this instance of denial of freedom of speech and intellectual property right violation that the Discovery Institute did to one critic who merely sought to post a YouTube rebuttal to Casey Luskin's propaganda on Fox News last summer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-cmHJthuq8

IMHO what the Discovery Institute tried to do to that online critic is far worse than any of the negative commentary - which you've earned BTW - from those of us here at Panda's Thumb.

Enjoy your membership in the Discovery Institute's IDiot Borg Collective. You've certainly earned it.

Live Long and Prosper (as a DI IDiot Borg drone),

John Kwok

John Kwok · 5 January 2010

I may be out of luck already since Karl Giberson has posted a reply to one of mine at a recent thread expressing that there is some useful work being done by the DI on the evolutionary implications of information content:

raven said:
I have received similar complaints about my lack of “civility” from ID proponents and sympathizers over at Darrel Falk and Karl Giberson’s BioLogos website.
Just quote the IDists words about more or less everything. They've left a huge paper trail behind them of absurd, ugly, and evil comments. Nothing disappears completely on the internet, the search engines can find it. Klinghoffer, Stein, and Weickart have made a career out of accusing scientists of the Holocaust. Tom Willis wants to herd scientists into slave labor extermination camps, as documented many places including PT. Dembski openly and fervently hates science and says so often as I quoted earlier on this thread. Cynthia Dunbar of the TBOE claims that evolutionary biology results in cannibalism. If quoting creationists own words is defined as incivility, then you are out of luck and BioLogos is dishonest.

Wheels · 5 January 2010

CS Shelton said: @wheels on page 1, though I'm sure I'm too late to the party to get seen: "On what basis, in short, does he claim that ID is superior? The fact that things allow for life to exist? But why would ID even explain that? You can just as easily imagine a Designer creating a Universe with no life." Given the increasingly sketchy boundary between living and unliving matter (prions can evolve? WTF?), one could say this universe does have no life - On the grounds that Life is as much a human construct as God. The concept exists, but that doesn't mean it has objective reality (sorry Descartes!).

Prions variants might undergo selection, but I'm not sure they qualify as evolving in the biological sense because it seems to me that they don't develop new variant topologies through the generations. It seems that there is a very limited number of shapes available that allow prions to "reproduce," i.e. turn other proteins into prions, and that they simply recycle these same shapes over and over, shuffling the percentage of variant forms around when one becomes more suitable to the environment. I could be completely wrong about that. I also don't think the appearance of demi-Darwinian evolution in non-living things is exclusive to prions, either. You can say a kind of Darwinian process shaped the first self-replicating chemical pockets that eventually became life, too.

raven · 5 January 2010

I may be out of luck already since Karl Giberson has posted a reply to one of mine at a recent thread expressing that there is some useful work being done by the DI on the evolutionary implications of information content:

Ask him what it is and why. Chances are it is Dembski's and Marks search algorithm idea. This has been dissected ad infinitum by real scientists and is really pretty trivial. It certainly doesn't support ID creationism. And if you are out of luck, that is the way it goes. Creationists can't face the real world so they block it out.

eric · 5 January 2010

raven said:
Brenda being wrong. Everyone here at PandasThumb, keep up the good work and you’ll see scores of Bradley Montons
Not a coherent thought in her head.

Actually Raven, I think she's mostly right about this. We will continue to see scores of cdesign proponentists writing trade books instead of doing and publishing peer reviewed research. But it has little to do with our attitude.

John Kwok · 5 January 2010

Sadly, I have to agree with you, eric. There is a substantial market, and, as "Signature in the Cell" has demonstrated, books like it can be bestsellers. Moreover, there is a well-entrenched "samizdat" publishing community dominated by Fundamentalist Protestant Christian publishers who are both willing and able to publish these books, even if mainstream publishers were reluctant to publish them (And now they won't, given the success of "Signature".):

eric said:
raven said:
Brenda being wrong. Everyone here at PandasThumb, keep up the good work and you’ll see scores of Bradley Montons
Not a coherent thought in her head.
Actually Raven, I think she's mostly right about this. We will continue to see scores of cdesign proponentists writing trade books instead of doing and publishing peer reviewed research. But it has little to do with our attitude.

John Kwok · 5 January 2010

Both he and Falk regard themselves as devout Christians who accept biological evolution as valid science, but also believe that much can be gained by working with fellow Christians, including those who are ID supporters, hoping to find common ground. Incidentally they seem to reject E. O. Wilson's appeal to Evangelical Protestant Christians to help preserve and protect "Creation" (Earth's biodiversity), even as Wilson - while cognizant of his own roots within this community - emphasizes that they should recognize that evolution is valid science and need not conflict with their Christian beliefs (Apparently so do Giberson and Falk, but they seem more interested in "soft peddling" this message than is Wilson.):

raven said:
I may be out of luck already since Karl Giberson has posted a reply to one of mine at a recent thread expressing that there is some useful work being done by the DI on the evolutionary implications of information content:
Ask him what it is and why. Chances are it is Dembski's and Marks search algorithm idea. This has been dissected ad infinitum by real scientists and is really pretty trivial. It certainly doesn't support ID creationism. And if you are out of luck, that is the way it goes. Creationists can't face the real world so they block it out.

raven · 5 January 2010

Both he and Falk regard themselves as devout Christians who accept biological evolution as valid science, but also believe that much can be gained by working with fellow Christians, including those who are ID supporters, hoping to find common ground.

That might be true in general. Worldwide the majority of xians don't have a problem with evolution. The DI isn't among those. They are funded by an ugly group of fanatical Xian Dominionists and they don't give a rat's ass about other xians or science. The DI is strictly into it for the politics as outlined in their founding Wedge document. About all they have accomplished is to cause a large amount of damage to US xianity. Fanatics aren't noted for their common sense. The DI will go down with the ship and take us with them if they can. Falk et al are being naive at best, and ingenuous at worst. Wait and see. If BioLogos turns into a fundie creationist website, then we will know. I've been watching the DI for a few years and have never seen anything honest or trustworthy about them.

Frank J · 5 January 2010

John Kwok,

Somewhat off-topic, but since censorship is being discussed, I vaguely recall some issue with the DI trying to censor (succeding?) one of your reviews of one of their books. So you might be interested in this.

John Kwok · 5 January 2010

It was Bill Dembski who tried to get Amazon.com to suppress one of my negative reviews of his book, but failed after I sent him an e-mail ultimatum to restore it or else. And yes, I am familiar with this, having posting it once over at BioLogos (and then having it removed after I wrote a post saying that this was typical DI behavior consistent with what we have come to expect from Benito Mussolini, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot. They claimed that the reason why they removed my second posting is because it was "inflammatory". Merely shows you how serious the DI is in promoting freedom of speech and respect for intellectual property rights IMHO.):

Frank J said: John Kwok, Somewhat off-topic, but since censorship is being discussed, I vaguely recall some issue with the DI trying to censor (succeding?) one of your reviews of one of their books. So you might be interested in this.

raven said:
Both he and Falk regard themselves as devout Christians who accept biological evolution as valid science, but also believe that much can be gained by working with fellow Christians, including those who are ID supporters, hoping to find common ground.
That might be true in general. Worldwide the majority of xians don't have a problem with evolution. The DI isn't among those. They are funded by an ugly group of fanatical Xian Dominionists and they don't give a rat's ass about other xians or science. The DI is strictly into it for the politics as outlined in their founding Wedge document. About all they have accomplished is to cause a large amount of damage to US xianity. Fanatics aren't noted for their common sense. The DI will go down with the ship and take us with them if they can. Falk et al are being naive at best, and ingenuous at worst. Wait and see. If BioLogos turns into a fundie creationist website, then we will know. I've been watching the DI for a few years and have never seen anything honest or trustworthy about them.

John Kwok · 5 January 2010

You don't have to warn me about the DI, since I've known since 2007 - if not before - that they are a crypto-Fascist organization, as I've just indicated in my reply to Frank J (replied to you in error).

Anyway, just had two posts over at BioLogos removed for being "inflammatory". This was the first:

Karl -

Mathematician Jeffrey Shallit, biologist Wesley Elsberry, and others have dismissed the Discovery Institute's claims that information content is important with regards to our understanding of biology. While I am not sufficiently well-versed in their mathematics or logic, I am persuaded of it from my own interest in how complexity has arisen within biological systems, and it seems well-established that such complexity has occurred as an emergent property. So it is pointless to even think positively of any evolutionary consequences for information content (which, I might add, Ken Miller, Francisco J. Ayala and others have lately observed too in their respective publications).

As for the Discovery Institute itself, I do not - as someone who is a registered Republican with very strong Libertarian values - see anything useful or constructive that the Discovery institute is currently engaged in. Instead, it should be viewed most appropriately as a malignant tumor on American intellectual, cultural and educational life, and dealt with accordingly. I believe Gross and Forrest's "Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design" succeeds in making this very case.

Sincerely,

John

John Kwok · 5 January 2010

That was a reply to a comment that Karl Giberson had posted in reply to mine, expressing his optimistic appraisal of some of the DI's "work":

John Kwok said: You don't have to warn me about the DI, since I've known since 2007 - if not before - that they are a crypto-Fascist organization, as I've just indicated in my reply to Frank J (replied to you in error). Anyway, just had two posts over at BioLogos removed for being "inflammatory". This was the first: Karl - Mathematician Jeffrey Shallit, biologist Wesley Elsberry, and others have dismissed the Discovery Institute's claims that information content is important with regards to our understanding of biology. While I am not sufficiently well-versed in their mathematics or logic, I am persuaded of it from my own interest in how complexity has arisen within biological systems, and it seems well-established that such complexity has occurred as an emergent property. So it is pointless to even think positively of any evolutionary consequences for information content (which, I might add, Ken Miller, Francisco J. Ayala and others have lately observed too in their respective publications). As for the Discovery Institute itself, I do not - as someone who is a registered Republican with very strong Libertarian values - see anything useful or constructive that the Discovery institute is currently engaged in. Instead, it should be viewed most appropriately as a malignant tumor on American intellectual, cultural and educational life, and dealt with accordingly. I believe Gross and Forrest's "Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design" succeeds in making this very case. Sincerely, John

RDK · 5 January 2010

I bet I know the history better than you. And I don’t have a problem reprimanding my side when it needs to be. Of course, if you’re going to jump to the conclusion that I’m “one of /them/”, that’s your problem.

I'm going to directly respond to your post in two parts. Part 1: Who exactly is "your side"? I hope you can elaborate without sidestepping the actual question like you've done several times in this thread, most notably when Mike asked you what you meant by "my side". Part 2: You say you're aware of the history of intelligent design. For argument's sake, let's say I believe you. There's not one example or instance in the entire history of ID that, beyond reasonable doubt, you would consider underhanded, dishonest, or worthy of suspicion? Please try and respond to these with more than just a one-liner about me being wrong and / or blind.

Mike Elzinga · 5 January 2010

John Kwok said: Both he and Falk regard themselves as devout Christians who accept biological evolution as valid science, but also believe that much can be gained by working with fellow Christians, including those who are ID supporters, hoping to find common ground. Incidentally they seem to reject E. O. Wilson's appeal to Evangelical Protestant Christians to help preserve and protect "Creation" (Earth's biodiversity), even as Wilson - while cognizant of his own roots within this community - emphasizes that they should recognize that evolution is valid science and need not conflict with their Christian beliefs (Apparently so do Giberson and Falk, but they seem more interested in "soft peddling" this message than is Wilson.):

There has been some discussion on NPR and TV wondering about why moderate Muslims don’t speak out about the distortions of their faith by terrorist extremists. Then someone brought up the same point about moderate Christians speaking out about the extremist and fundamentalist elements in Christianity. And I am sure by now everyone has heard about Brain Williams on Fox Noise saying that Tiger Woods should leave Buddhism and embrace Christianity in order to get real forgiveness. I am wondering if it is possible for moderate people in any of the Abrahamic religions can find some kind of “common ground” with any of these kinds of extremists. The long history of splintering sectarian warfare would suggest that this is not possible. It seems extremists are driving people away from religion altogether. After mud wrestling with such fanatics, many people begin to see all kinds of problems with religion, moderate or not. Maybe that is why many moderates fear to take on extremists.

John Kwok · 5 January 2010

It's a situation I am well familiar with since I have a well-known "moderate" Muslim cleric as a relative and another who is a member of Tim Keller's Redeemer Presbyterian Church here in New York City. And then I have other moderate Christians and Jews as relatives too.

Matt Young · 5 January 2010

... naive at best, and ingenuous at worst.

Disingenuous?

RDK · 5 January 2010

I know of several moderate Muslims at my university who actively speak out against terrorism by extremists, so I'm not sure it's fair to peg all moderates of every religion as being scared to speak out.

I think the old rule of "the loudest and most obnoxious of the group gets heard the most" applies. That's why we end up with people like Dembski and company getting press while normal people go about their daily business.

Mike Elzinga · 5 January 2010

RDK said: I think the old rule of "the loudest and most obnoxious of the group gets heard the most" applies. That's why we end up with people like Dembski and company getting press while normal people go about their daily business.

Unfortunately all too true. And many of us in the science community thought the stupidity spoke for itself and were complacent in engaging it seriously until these IDiots had gained considerable momentum. It’s a catch-22. Engage them and give them credibility and publicity; ignore them and they take over. It’s often hard to tell if any sustainable progress has been made in starkly exposing their lies, but apparently it’s what we are obligated to do.

John Kwok · 5 January 2010

In fact, you may have seen Chris Mooney's recent op-ed piece in the Washington Post in which he states that scientists should speak more forcefully about anthropogenic global warming and the scientific validity of evolution. But I think he confuses scientific disinterest in publicly promoting their work and the sorry state of science journalism in general (Incidentally he has a rather optimistic comment from Karl Giberson, in which Giberson thinks most fundamentalist Christians would accept the scientific validity of evolution if it was divorced from "...the view that life has no purpose". It's a sentiment that I don't endorse, at all, since, even as a Deist, I think Fundamentalist Protestant Christian opposition to evolution is based first, and foremost, on the fact of human evolution.): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123101155.html

Mike Elzinga said:
RDK said: I think the old rule of "the loudest and most obnoxious of the group gets heard the most" applies. That's why we end up with people like Dembski and company getting press while normal people go about their daily business.
Unfortunately all too true. And many of us in the science community thought the stupidity spoke for itself and were complacent in engaging it seriously until these IDiots had gained considerable momentum. It’s a catch-22. Engage them and give them credibility and publicity; ignore them and they take over. It’s often hard to tell if any sustainable progress has been made in starkly exposing their lies, but apparently it’s what we are obligated to do.

Brenda · 5 January 2010

Eric asks: "So Brenda, from your own posts I assume that you consider comments such as “Are you blind?” and ‘you are irritating’ to be acceptable, non-obnoxious behavior. Yes? "

Not really. I slipped. See how easy it is to slip into obnoxiousness? And see how ineffectual one becomes when that happens?

Brenda · 5 January 2010

RDK challenges me with a good question, which will force me to reveal something I didn't before:

"Part 2: You say you’re aware of the history of intelligent design. For argument’s sake, let’s say I believe you. There’s not one example or instance in the entire history of ID that, beyond reasonable doubt, you would consider underhanded, dishonest, or worthy of suspicion?

Please try and respond to these with more than just a one-liner about me being wrong and / or blind."

The answer to your question is yes. Much more than one.

Mike Elzinga · 5 January 2010

Mike Elzinga said: And I am sure by now everyone has heard about Brain Williams on Fox Noise saying that Tiger Woods should leave Buddhism and embrace Christianity in order to get real forgiveness.

Oh my; how did I make that mistake? It was Brit Hume; not Brian Williams.

RDK · 5 January 2010

Brenda said: RDK challenges me with a good question, which will force me to reveal something I didn't before: "Part 2: You say you’re aware of the history of intelligent design. For argument’s sake, let’s say I believe you. There’s not one example or instance in the entire history of ID that, beyond reasonable doubt, you would consider underhanded, dishonest, or worthy of suspicion? Please try and respond to these with more than just a one-liner about me being wrong and / or blind." The answer to your question is yes. Much more than one.

So I guess my follow-up question would be, again, why do creationists deserve the benefit of the doubt from Monton?

phantomreader42 · 5 January 2010

I notice you ignored his OTHER question, as he specifically asked you not to. And it's not the first time you've dodged that very question, as he mentioned. Here is is again, in bold so you may have a better chance of seeing it: Part 1: Who exactly is “your side”? I hope you can elaborate without sidestepping the actual question like you’ve done several times in this thread, most notably when Mike asked you what you meant by “my side”.

Brenda said: RDK challenges me with a good question, which will force me to reveal something I didn't before: "Part 2: You say you’re aware of the history of intelligent design. For argument’s sake, let’s say I believe you. There’s not one example or instance in the entire history of ID that, beyond reasonable doubt, you would consider underhanded, dishonest, or worthy of suspicion? Please try and respond to these with more than just a one-liner about me being wrong and / or blind." The answer to your question is yes. Much more than one.

And while we're at it, why do you think that people that you yourself admit are dishonest and underhanded should be immune from criticism? Of course, I'm expecting you to dodge these questions, yet again, because that seems to be all you know how to do.

Mike Elzinga · 5 January 2010

John Kwok said: In fact, you may have seen Chris Mooney's recent op-ed piece in the Washington Post in which he states that scientists should speak more forcefully about anthropogenic global warming and the scientific validity of evolution.

I think I mentioned on one of these threads that I stumbled across the Fox Noise crew quote-mining those “leaked” emails of the discussions among climate modelers about their computer programs. They were using exactly the same tactics used by ID/creationists when they lift things out of context and make them appear the opposite of what the context reveals. And they did it with all the hype and hysteria that we have seen in ID/creationist debating tactics. That shtick on Fox Noise was so familiar that I have no doubt about the kind of mentality behind it. I don't know why it hasn't happened yet, but an effective counter to this should be a juxtaposition of that behavior with the actual facts. And this shoud be done over and over in as many venues and news outlets as possible. These crackpots need to have their noses rubbed in their own crap repeatedly until it hurts so badly they start to think twice before doing it again.

phantomreader42 · 5 January 2010

No, Brenda, the reason you're ineffectual is that you're defending people whose position is utterly devoid of merit, people who are scientifically, intellectually, and morally bankrupt, people you yourself acknowledge are liars. And on top of that, you're a hypocrite, whining about civility while not bothering to be civil yourself. You're demanding other people follow rules that you refuse to live up to, and whining about naughty words while defending people who make false accusations of mass murder. The reason you're ineffectual is that you don't have the slightest fucking idea what the hell you're talking about, and you can't be bothered to live up to your own bullshit standards for five seconds.

Brenda said: Eric asks: "So Brenda, from your own posts I assume that you consider comments such as “Are you blind?” and ‘you are irritating’ to be acceptable, non-obnoxious behavior. Yes? " Not really. I slipped. See how easy it is to slip into obnoxiousness? And see how ineffectual one becomes when that happens?

Stuart Weinstein · 5 January 2010

Mike Elzinga said:
John Kwok said: Both he and Falk regard themselves as devout Christians who accept biological evolution as valid science, but also believe that much can be gained by working with fellow Christians, including those who are ID supporters, hoping to find common ground. Incidentally they seem to reject E. O. Wilson's appeal to Evangelical Protestant Christians to help preserve and protect "Creation" (Earth's biodiversity), even as Wilson - while cognizant of his own roots within this community - emphasizes that they should recognize that evolution is valid science and need not conflict with their Christian beliefs (Apparently so do Giberson and Falk, but they seem more interested in "soft peddling" this message than is Wilson.):
There has been some discussion on NPR and TV wondering about why moderate Muslims don’t speak out about the distortions of their faith by terrorist extremists. Then someone brought up the same point about moderate Christians speaking out about the extremist and fundamentalist elements in Christianity. And I am sure by now everyone has heard about Brain Williams on Fox Noise saying that Tiger Woods should leave Buddhism and embrace Christianity in order to get real forgiveness.

There any number of Moderate Xtians taking on Extremist Xtians. Some of that can figured out by the number of signatories to the Clergy letter Project. I suspect most of those are *moderates* and not your gun-toting, anti-abortion bellowing Xtian nut cases. With respect to Islam, they are harder to find, although there are some like Irshad Manji who are fighting extremism. The difference here, is that the Islamic moderates who speak out, do so from the relative security of the West, and in general not from the Middle East. Whereas you can find Xtian moderates decrying the excesses of Xtian extremism just about anywhere. This doesn't necessarily mean that Musliam moderates don't exist in these places, rather it reflects the lack of democracy and personal liberty in these areas. And, I don't think that was Brian Williams, but Britt Hume.

Bryson Brown · 5 January 2010

It seems to me that Darwin dealt with this kind of hypothesis pretty convincingly-- as I recall, he disliked Owen's view of the 'ur-vertebrate' as a kind of template or idea in the mind of God because, from a scientific point of view, it merely restated what we already knew by observation: that the vertebrates share a certain pattern of features.

This move to the supernatural closes down the possibility of any further inferences-- when we say that it 'just happens by magic', we rule out drawing any further conclusions, since saying 'it's magic' or saying 'Goddidit' offers nothing that could be used as a premise in other applications (at most, we get a recipe for 'explaining' similar cases). By contrast even the weakest naturalistic turn embeds the explanation (for example, aliens did it in some way we don't yet understand for reasons we don't know) in the context of a natural system of processes and agents with purposes and means that a successful science should give an account of-- and such an account needs to actually fit with what we can (at least in principle) observe of such processes, the conditions in which they occur and the traces they produce and (more broadly) with the general causal constraints of physics, chemistry etc. But explanations like these supernatural ones and like the empty explanations Wheels offers as trivial alternatives above, which fly free of this constraint, are a reductio of the scientific value of explanation; if such claims count as explanations, and they're really all that's available, I will happily do without one.

Monton seems to have bought in on the value of 'explanation' without any critical thought about what makes having an explanation worthwhile-- and it cannot be anything as limply subjective as 'I find myself satisfied by such utterances', since that can't justify the importance we assign to explanations in science.

Mike Elzinga · 5 January 2010

Stuart Weinstein said: And, I don't think that was Brian Williams, but Britt Hume.

Yup; already caught that above. Thanks.

Oh my; how did I make that mistake? It was Brit Hume; not Brian Williams.
— Mike Elzinga

raven · 6 January 2010

Mike Elzinga: It’s often hard to tell if any sustainable progress has been made in starkly exposing their lies, but apparently it’s what we are obligated to do.

signsofthelastdays.com: Are we witnessing the decline of Christianity in America? When you examine all of the most recent poll numbers, the answer is inescapable. Christian churches in America are losing members rapidly, and this trend is especially dramatic among young Americans. According to a stunning new survey by America's Research Group, 95 percent of 20 to 29 year old evangelicals attended church regularly during their elementary and middle school years. However, only 55 percent of them attended church regularly during high school, and only 11 percent of them were still regularly attending church when in college. Those numbers have got to be incredibly sobering to the evangelical Christian leadership in the United States. The reality is that young Americans are deserting the Church in America in droves. The other day we came across an article in Advertising Age that blew us away. The article was discussing marketing and religion, but what impacted us so profoundly were some figures from the American Religious Identification Survey by the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society & Culture at Trinity College. According to that survey, 15% of Americans now say they have "no religion" which is up from 8% in 1990. That would be bad enough news for evangelical Christianity. But there is some more news from that survey that is much worse. In that same survey, 46% of Americans between the ages of 18 to 34 indicated that they had no religion. Forty. Six. Percent.

At least some fundies have noticed that xianity is slipping in the USA. Particularly among younger people. As usual they have their own spin. This is good news. It means god is going to show up soon and kill everyone and destroy the earth. It's not close to being hopeless. I've gone through the statistics and polls and they all say one thing. US xianity is going downhill. 46% of US citizens between 18 and 34 claim no religion. As older people die off, what does that lead to? 24% of all US citizens are No Religions as of 2008, ARIS. It looks like the DI and the fundie xian creationists made a mistake here. They attacked the wrong target. Science is one of the most successful human endeavors known. It is one of the foundations of modern 21st century civilization. We are always making new discoveries and turning them into new technologies. Right now the data says US xianity's star is falling. Science is still charging ahead. If anyone should be staying up all night worrying, it is them not us.

Brenda · 6 January 2010

RDK asks: "So I guess my follow-up question would be, again, why do creationists deserve the benefit of the doubt from Monton?"

Because it's not true that they're wrong 100% of the time.

PhantomReader says: And on top of that, you’re a hypocrite, whining about civility while not bothering to be civil yourself."

I said "I SLIPPED". Hypocrisy is a measure of dishonesty, not of weakness.

PhantomReader continues: "I notice you ignored his OTHER question, as he specifically asked you not to."

I didn't ignore it; I only had time for a little typing in my last trip to my computer. I'm sure I skipped over a bunch of posts, too. You've demonstrated your knowledge of the concept of "judging favorably." Try it on me next time. Besides, I already explained why I chose not to answer that question.

I can't talk to you any more, PhantomReader, when you ask questions like this: "And while we’re at it, why do you think that people that you yourself admit are dishonest and underhanded should be immune from criticism?" Ask yourself if that question isn't just totally off the wall. -- No one is immune from criticism, as I wrote. Plus, I didn't say that anyone was dishonest; I said that the fellows at DI have SOMETIMES been dishonest. But they don't have a monopoly on dishonesty. Similarly, I wouldn't say that YOU are dishonest, Phantomreader, but ...

Mike Elzinga · 6 January 2010

Bryson Brown said: Monton seems to have bought in on the value of 'explanation' without any critical thought about what makes having an explanation worthwhile-- and it cannot be anything as limply subjective as 'I find myself satisfied by such utterances', since that can't justify the importance we assign to explanations in science.

John Kwok provided a link to Monton’s CV. From Monton’s list of interests, I personally get an uneasy feeling that Monton might be gravitating a bit toward pseudo-scientific woo-woo. Brain Josephson, after he got the Nobel Prize, stopped being productive and ended up in some pretty strange territory while trying to concoct a wave function for living organisms. That’s not to say there might not be some kind of collective coordinated behaviors that could be described by a wave function, much like what can be done for superconducting or superfluid states. But when one drifts off into some kind of supernatural “interpretations” of self-organization and other kinds of collective behaviors we see in nature, such a person looses the links to underlying phenomena, thereby introducing a gap between the natural realm and an assumed supernatural realm that then has to be explained (as well as accounting for how such a gab between two such realms is bridged). Some of this quantum mysticism crap, such as “What the Bleep Do We Know?” might be pretentious and stupid, but so far there hasn’t been an aggressive sectarian campaign to get it into the public school science curriculum. But I suspect that people who get sucked into this stuff are also susceptible to ID/creationist propaganda.

Mike Elzinga · 6 January 2010

raven said: Right now the data says US xianity's star is falling. Science is still charging ahead. If anyone should be staying up all night worrying, it is them not us.

There are some aspects of this that do, in fact, sometimes keep me awake at night. The success of science has lead to our current world population and quite possibly our unsustainable footprint on the global environment. If we can’t get the majority of the world population to understand the human relationship to the entire planet, if we can’t get them to understand science, if we can’t get them working together to address these issues, then militant fundamentalists will blame science for the mess we will be in. You can be sure that these fundamentalists won’t blame themselves for the ignorance, fear, and counter-productive behaviors of large segments of the human population. But who knows; maybe that asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was the god of the dinosaurs venting its wrath on the sins of the dinosaurs. We may get our own asteroid some day. I can see a plot for a science fiction book starting to emerge.

Dave Luckett · 6 January 2010

Practically no large body of opinion is totally 100% wrong in every respect. That doesn't mean that it can't be completely misleading, and it doesn't mean its proponents can't be deliberately deceptive. The DI is both.

For example, the DI is perfectly correct in its assessment that Biblical creationism in any form is never going to get up in the courts, (that's why they jumped ship at Dover) and correct to conclude that they're never going to get it into the public schools under that name. (Hence, "intelligent design", and when that failed, "teach the controversy" and "strengths and weaknesses".)

They are right to say that the idea of intelligent design or direction in nature can't be counted out. This is only another way of saying that it can't be falsified, of course, which only demonstrates that it isn't science, but they are also correct in their assessment that most people don't get this, so it doesn't matter.

They are also correct to seek allies and recruit fellow-travellers - like Monton. The "big tent" is useful.

But that's where their record of "not being wrong" ends. That is, with political cunning and tactical insight. They are wrong about everything else. There is no evidence for "intelligent design". "Irreducible" or "specified complexity" is nonsense. Their occasional excursions into information theory are mere handwaving, and rely on misunderstanding and confusing concepts in that field. And so on.

But more than being wrong, the DI is dishonest and deceptive. It misquotes and quote-mines. It misrepresents the views of scientists, and the meaning of surveys. It refuses to provide meaningful corroborative details, or any specific information about when or how intelligent intervention took place. All of this is strictly for political reasons, for it does no research or science at all, and yet still tries to present itself as a scientific organisation.

There is nothing whatsoever commendable about these activities. I have no idea what Brenda thinks is both correct and admirable in the DI. Perhaps she would be good enough to specify?

Brenda · 6 January 2010

Your post is good Dave, but your last question goes far afield from where I wanted to go with my original post, which dealt with some evolutionists treating Monton like dirt. (This occurred when he pointed out those few cases where the ID folks get things right, or where he pointed out those cases where evolutionists made bad arguments. This harsh reaction may have pushed him to his current position of being maybe /too/ openminded about ID (which is not to say he didn't /let/ himself be pushed). When I say "harsh reaction," I'm not just talking about harsh rebuttals to his positions. I'm sure he could handle those just fine. I'm talking about the ad hominem attacks and the threats (not physical, but another type).

Robert Byers · 6 January 2010

eric said:
Robert Byers said: This biblical creationist likes the idea of Bradley Monton that if science only does methodological naturalism then its not committed to truth.
Monton's complaint in this paraphrased comment is that science as a method does not guarantee we will ever gain full and complete knowledge of the universe. That it might miss things. That's true, but its doubly irrelevant. Irrelevant once because science never gave this guarantee that it would ever find the ultimate truth. Irrelevant twice because no other method guarantees you will find it either. "Committed to the truth" in this case is really just a whine that the scientific method is not aesthetically perfect - that empiricism and induction are grubby, poor, incomplete methods for gaining knowledge. That you can never be 100% certain that you are right. Maybe so, but despite (and perhaps because of) these limitations, its historical fact that when it comes to the physical world the scientific method is the most succcessful method we have. Of course, if Monton has a method which is better committed to the truth, he should outline it. And then perhaps demonstrate it by using it to discover something useful we don't already know.

I didn't understand him to say that science just won't give a complete understanding of everything. it seemed to me he was complaining that any origin conclusion must allow other methods for conclusions or truth is not the object. The scientific method is just a method to hopefully sure up conclusions. In fact really to discipline conclusions made by thinkers and researchers. Yet this is YEC and I.D ers complaint. We YEC would insist origin subjects are not apllicable to the scientific method because testing past and gone events is impossible. What they try to do ,when they do, is "test" present processes and extrapolate backwards to a point in the past. Yet it was not the past process that was tested in explaining a past result or a modern result still here. The great conclusions drawn about evolution on life or geology WE say have not been tested worthy to claim the prestige of science. Error and correction is too much a part of origin subjects and this would not be is methodology was solid like , well, a science one.

Robert Byers · 6 January 2010

stevaroni said:
Robert Byers said: Otherwise rebuttal could not intellectually be denied unless its settled there is no grounds for rebuttal. A great statement of a state school.
Then. Quit. Whining. And. Just. Farging. Rebut. It. Already. Stop complaining about how science is wrong and put your evidence on the table. Tell us exactly what supposedly happened, and exactly when it happened and exactly what physical evidence it left behind and exactly where I go to find it. It's a simple question, Byers, but one creationists have been studiously avoiding for decades. That's why it's not taught in school, Byers, because creationists learned long ago to not answer any questions, because as soon as they do people look at the details and realize that there are none.

Nope. Its not taught in school because the claim is that 1700's New Americans put in the constitution bans against God and genesis as options when kids are taught abort origins. In reality then , since, and now, great heaps of people think creationism(s) are the truth behind origin subjects and wait for the promise of freedom and America where truth will be allowed to be weighed in the public institutions that claim to be seeking and finding truth. The revolution is here and you know its right.

Frank J · 6 January 2010

Your post is good Dave, but your last question goes far afield from where I wanted to go with my original post, which dealt with some evolutionists treating Monton like dirt.
— Brenda

Some "evolutionists" treat "evolutionists" like dirt too. But we don't whine about it or become bleeding hearts for each other. Everyone, theist, atheist, liberal, conservative is welcome in our "big tent" as long as they back up what they claim. Unfortunately no anti-evolutionist can, and the ID variety admits that they don't even try. Meanwhile you are still evading some simple questions that I and others have asked. Let's try again: 1. Do you agree with Behe that life has a ~4 billion year history and that humans share common ancestors with other species? (note, this is one of the things that the DI got right, but they have been desperately backpedaling from it - though curiously not challenging it) 2. Can you show some examples in which you challenged the DI (or tried to if they censored you) or other anti-evolution group? 3. Can you state some examples in which you think that anti-evolutionists treated "evolutionists" like dirt?

Frank J · 6 January 2010

Nope. Its not taught in school because the claim is that 1700’s New Americans put in the constitution bans against God and genesis as options when kids are taught abort origins.
— possible Poe

Unfortunately for you, the DI does not want God or Genesis, or even bare bones "evidence of design," taught in public school science class either. So do you think they are just as guilty as "evolutionists" for misinterpreting the Constitution?

Dan · 6 January 2010

Robert Byers said:
stevaroni said:
Robert Byers said: Otherwise rebuttal could not intellectually be denied unless its settled there is no grounds for rebuttal. A great statement of a state school.
Then. Quit. Whining. And. Just. Farging. Rebut. It. Already. Stop complaining about how science is wrong and put your evidence on the table. Tell us exactly what supposedly happened, and exactly when it happened and exactly what physical evidence it left behind and exactly where I go to find it. It's a simple question, Byers, but one creationists have been studiously avoiding for decades. That's why it's not taught in school, Byers, because creationists learned long ago to not answer any questions, because as soon as they do people look at the details and realize that there are none.
Nope. Its not taught in school because the claim is that 1700's New Americans put in the constitution bans against God and genesis as options when kids are taught abort origins. In reality then , since, and now, great heaps of people think creationism(s) are the truth behind origin subjects and wait for the promise of freedom and America where truth will be allowed to be weighed in the public institutions that claim to be seeking and finding truth. The revolution is here and you know its right.

Ah, yes. When asked explicitly to "put your evidence on the table", Robert Byers cites no evidence at all. Proof that he has no evidence at all.

Brenda · 6 January 2010

FrankJ asks: "Meanwhile you are still evading some simple questions that I and others have asked. "

I "evaded" them because they were outside the purpose my joining this thread. But to be polite, (though I'm in a rush now). Here are the answers:
1. I explained why I "evaded" this. I wanted to see if I could have a normal conversation with someone if I left out my position. It seems like I can't. Actually, if you read through my comments carefully, you should've already deduced the answer.
2. Have I? Yes. Can I show it? I don't keep my emails, but I can make one up on the spot and you'll never know the difference. (ha ha)
3. Is this a tu quoque argument? Sure sounds like it. But I'm sure I've seen such examples.

Stanton · 6 January 2010

Brenda said: I "evaded" them because they were outside the purpose my joining this thread.

Like how you hypocritically refuse to castigate the Discovery Institute for their behavior, or how you ignore the incredibly rude behavior of the various creationists and Intelligent Design proponents who troll here in Panda's Thumb?

Dan · 6 January 2010

Brenda said: FrankJ asks: "Meanwhile you are still evading some simple questions that I and others have asked. " I "evaded" them because they were outside the purpose my joining this thread. But to be polite, (though I'm in a rush now). Here are the answers: 1. I explained why I "evaded" this. I wanted to see if I could have a normal conversation with someone if I left out my position. It seems like I can't. Actually, if you read through my comments carefully, you should've already deduced the answer. 2. Have I? Yes. Can I show it? I don't keep my emails, but I can make one up on the spot and you'll never know the difference. (ha ha) 3. Is this a tu quoque argument? Sure sounds like it. But I'm sure I've seen such examples.

Very interesting. For item 1 Brenda says it's okay to evade because she has a reason. (Much like the thief who says it's okay to steal because he needs the money to finance a ski trip.) For item 2 Brenda says she has done so, but she's perfectly willing to lie about it in any case. For item 3 Brenda asks whether a question is an argument. (Response: A question can be a component of an argument, but a question can never be an argument.) The kicker is that Brenda characterizes these non-responses as "polite".

eric · 6 January 2010

Stuart Weinstein said: With respect to Islam, they are harder to find...

I think we have to be cognizant of the fact that we may be suffering from a skewed view of the Islamic world. The vast majority of Muslim-Muslim conversation likely does not occur in English. It occurs in Arabic, or Farsi, or Indonesian, or whatever. When we English speakers look for English refutations of extremism, we're looking under the lamppost for our keys beacuse that's where the light is.

Frank J · 6 January 2010

Actually, if you read through my comments carefully, you should’ve already deduced the answer.
— Brenda

Answer to which question(s)? I don't recall any, but I could have missed one or two. I think any reasonable observer can see that I have been kind and polite, and I have not accused you of being otherwise. So please be kind and save me the trouble of re-reading all of yor comments and summarize your answer(s). So far it seems that your only purpose of joining this thread is to complain about how "Darwinists" behave. That point is taken, and no, you don't need to say anything about your alternate (if any) interpretation of the evidence, or about your criticism (if any) of anti-evolution activists to make that point. But you have nade that point. So please move on to the next ones.

eric · 6 January 2010

Robert Byers said: I didn't understand him to say that science just won't give a complete understanding of everything. it seemed to me he was complaining that any origin conclusion must allow other methods for conclusions or truth is not the object.

Does this go for Christianity too? It is not committed to truth about Jesus because it doesn't allow other methods for conclusions about Jesus.

The scientific method is just a method to hopefully sure up conclusions. In fact really to discipline conclusions made by thinkers and researchers. Yet this is YEC and I.D ers complaint.

Nothing prevents YEC and ID researchers from using any method of research they choose. Explain to me why for the past 10 years they have refused to use these other methods.

Error and correction is too much a part of origin subjects and this would not be is methodology was solid like , well, a science one.

Again, for all your talk of other methods, you have yet to explain why creationists don't do research with them. This is really simple Robert. You creationists don't need our permission or approval to do research by any method you choose. The DI has millions of dollars and a number of academically credentialed fellows with access to top-notch facilities (such as Behe and Dembski). So why don't you just frakking go do some research and stop wasting your time telling us what we are doing wrong? Why have you spent the last 10 years telling us to change how WE do experiments when you could have been doing experiments yourselves?

phantomreader42 · 6 January 2010

Brenda said: I can't talk to you any more, PhantomReader, when you ask questions like this: "And while we’re at it, why do you think that people that you yourself admit are dishonest and underhanded should be immune from criticism?" Ask yourself if that question isn't just totally off the wall. -- No one is immune from criticism, as I wrote. Plus, I didn't say that anyone was dishonest; I said that the fellows at DI have SOMETIMES been dishonest. But they don't have a monopoly on dishonesty. Similarly, I wouldn't say that YOU are dishonest, Phantomreader, but ...

Oh, so you DON'T think the frauds at the DI should be immune from criticism? Well then why do you whine and wail so pitifully any time they're criticised? Why do you pretend that the problem is NOT the Dishonesty Institute's blatant, shameless lying, but the fact that people dare call them on it? Why do you get such a terminal case of the vapors when lying assholes are called lying assholes? You've made it pretty obvious that you're not at all interested in an honest discussion. If you were, you wouldn't be dodging such basic questions, or whining about tone while defending frauds. Here's a tip for you Brenda. Lying is not civil! Doing it under oath is even less civil and also a CRIME! Repeating the same bullshit arguments that were debunked decades before you were even BORN is not civil. Running a bait-and-switch scam is not civil. Calling scientists Nazis is not civil. Falsely accusing a scientist of plotting a terrorist attack is not civil (and is in fact a crime). Plotting the murder of a federal judge is not civil (and is in fact a crime). But it seems I was right, the only things you can see as less than perfectly civil are naughty words and inconvenient questions. Rampant dishonesty, plagiarism, fraud, false accusations and death threats don't even register with you. Cut the civility whine, Brenda. Quit with the bullshit and say what you REALLY mean. Show some damn honesty. Cut out the pearl-clutching and fainting spells and give us a reason to think you're something other than a whining liar defending hte indefensible.

John Kwok · 6 January 2010

Here, here, Stanton. I couldn't have said them better myself:

Stanton said:
Brenda said: I "evaded" them because they were outside the purpose my joining this thread.
Like how you hypocritically refuse to castigate the Discovery Institute for their behavior, or how you ignore the incredibly rude behavior of the various creationists and Intelligent Design proponents who troll here in Panda's Thumb?

John Kwok · 6 January 2010

Brenda -

Can you defend the Discovery Institute - which many of us here, myself included have dubbed the "Dishonesty Institute" for the very reasons I am about to state - when it relies on blatant efforts at censorship, harsh ad hominem attacks on its critics and whines that it is the object of "evil Atheistic Darwinist" attacks? When it claims that it has a "scientific theory", Intelligent Design, which has never been subjected to rigorous scientific tests or even passed muster within the scientific community via the standard scientific peer review process for publishing in credible scientific journals? When its activities seem designed more to promote and to publicize Intelligent Design as an "alternative" to valid science such as evolution to a gullible, largely scientifically ignorant, public (which is why I have referred to the DI as one staffed by "mendacious intellectual pornographers", though that also refers to the ample lies, deceit and theft emanating from these so-called Discovery Institute "Fellows" and "Senior Fellows")? How can you demand civility from us when we are dealing with an organization, the Discovery Institute, which claims to be "democratic", but really acts - which has been amply demonstrated in the published writings of Paul Gross, Barbara Forrest (e. g. their book "Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design") and others - like the crypto - Fascist organization that it is, seeking to change the United States from a democratic republic to a theocratic Fascist state?

Brenda, I am being civil here. I expect you to answer my questions to the best of your ability, without evading them.

Respectfully submitted,

John Kwok

SWT · 6 January 2010

Brenda said: FrankJ asks: "Meanwhile you are still evading some simple questions that I and others have asked. " I "evaded" them because they were outside the purpose my joining this thread. But to be polite, (though I'm in a rush now). Here are the answers: 1. I explained why I "evaded" this. I wanted to see if I could have a normal conversation with someone if I left out my position. It seems like I can't. Actually, if you read through my comments carefully, you should've already deduced the answer. 2. Have I? Yes. Can I show it? I don't keep my emails, but I can make one up on the spot and you'll never know the difference. (ha ha) 3. Is this a tu quoque argument? Sure sounds like it. But I'm sure I've seen such examples.

Brenda, please don't be a tease or make us try to read your mind. IMO, Frank J's questions are all fair, and are all amenable to fairly short answers. If you had put as much effort into answering them as you have to not answering them, we might well be on to something else.

Dan · 6 January 2010

Brenda said: "Similarly, I wouldn't say that YOU are dishonest, Phantomreader, but ..."

Brenda claims that she supports civil conversation, but look what she does. She claims that she's not accusing phantomreader of dishonesty, and then adds "but ..." leaving the reader to figure out what "..." means. It's clear to me what Brenda thinks the "..." is supposed to mean. It means she wants to accuse phantomreader of dishonesty while claiming not to accuse phantomreader of dishonesty wink, wink, nudge, nudge. This strategy is hypocritical and extraordinarily uncivil.

harold · 6 January 2010

Brenda -

1. Your original premise is so illogical as to raise suspicions of insincerity (this is an honest statement of my impression, in highly civil language).

Essentially, your claim is that because some advocates of science were rude to Monton, he is justified in advocating a dishonest and illogical position.

This is not a rational attitude. Naturally, of course, you can always find someone to defend to valid position in a way that YOU define as "uncivil" (a subjective judgment). "I'm going to become a flat earther. Why? Because yesterday I told several people that the earth is flat, and one of them was uncivil to me". Does that make sense to you?

2. Furthermore, anyone can see that ID/creationists are much more uncivil, as a group, than advocates of science. I can assure that if Monton had "given the benefit of the doubt to the theory of evolution" in an ID/creationist forum, he would have learned this. Therefore, even by your own standard, he should reject ID/creationism.

3. The responses you have received here have been critical, but overwhelmingly civil. Your own responses have been among the less civil, even in terms of language.

4. Above, I complained about ID/creationists doing things such as hiding their true position, repeating already-rebutted arguments, and evading simple, relevant questions.

These things are uncivil, regardless of the language used by the person who does them.

You do these things. It doesn't mean that you are a creationist - and it doesn't matter. It's very uncivil to behave this way, whether or not one is a creationist.

5. One does not need to walk on eggshells or be excessively deferential to be civil. In my personal observation, those who make an excessive effort to treat creationist arguments with deference actually receive far more obnoxious, aggressive responses than those who are civil, but use an appropriate tone of self-confidence, and don't signal cravings for approval.

True incivility, in my view, is not the use of comical, non-obscene "insult" words, but the use of tactics like - physical threats, unjustified censorship of opposing voices, efforts to shut down the venues that contain valid criticism with viruses, DOS attacks, and the like, use of homophobic or ethnic slurs, and misrepresentation of the views of others (including construction of straw men).

phantomreader42 · 6 January 2010

This comment has been moved to The Bathroom Wall.

Richard Simons · 6 January 2010

Brenda said: FrankJ asks: "Meanwhile you are still evading some simple questions that I and others have asked. " I "evaded" them because they were outside the purpose my joining this thread. But to be polite, (though I'm in a rush now). Here are the answers: 1. I explained why I "evaded" this. I wanted to see if I could have a normal conversation with someone if I left out my position. It seems like I can't. Actually, if you read through my comments carefully, you should've already deduced the answer. 2. Have I? Yes. Can I show it? I don't keep my emails, but I can make one up on the spot and you'll never know the difference. (ha ha) 3. Is this a tu quoque argument? Sure sounds like it. But I'm sure I've seen such examples.

Re point 2: Feel free to make up an e-mail that you could have sent to the DI criticizing some aspect of their behaviour, even if it was never actually sent. Then at least we would have minimal evidence that you are prepared to publically find fault with some aspect of their lying, plagiarizing, misquoting and manipulation.

phantomreader42 · 6 January 2010

Brenda Utthead said: Your post is good Dave, but your last question goes far afield from where I wanted to go with my original post, which dealt with some evolutionists treating Monton like dirt. (This occurred when he pointed out those few cases where the ID folks get things right, or where he pointed out those cases where evolutionists made bad arguments. This harsh reaction may have pushed him to his current position of being maybe /too/ openminded about ID (which is not to say he didn't /let/ himself be pushed). When I say "harsh reaction," I'm not just talking about harsh rebuttals to his positions. I'm sure he could handle those just fine. I'm talking about the ad hominem attacks and the threats (not physical, but another type).

So, Brenda, you are now saying that due to ad hominem attacks (of which you have provided no examples) and "threats" (of an unspecified type which you admit were not physical, and of which you have also provided not one single example), Monton was driven to defend an organization whose entire propaganda campaign is riddled with ad hominem attacks, threats (many of which ARE physical) and outright lies. Why would a person with a functioning brain flee from people who dared call liars liars into the arms of those who made an entire movie, spending millions of dollars, lying to interviewees and stealing copyrighted material, for the sole purpose of falsely equating their opposition to Hitler? If, as you claim, Monton was running away from ad hominems, there are few worse places he could have run than to the Dishonesty Institute. There is no reason for a sane person with any intelligence to behave as you claim he did. So, Brenda, are you lying again? Or are you calling Monton stupid or crazy? And why defend him in that case?

Mike Elzinga · 6 January 2010

There seems to be another characteristic of “Brenda” that fits most of the creationist trolls who come here; effectively drawing attention to themselves.

Whether or not “she” is doing some kind of “psychological study” of “Darwinists”, the ultimate effect of “her” style of discourse is endless mud wrestling.

Another common characteristic of ID/creationists is the excessive concern about civility. Every one of them makes a point of how rude scientists are. Yet most of the time scientists are simply being direct as they are in their work of peer-review.

But for ID/creationists it has always been the case, as far back as I can remember about their “discussion style”, that having their misconceptions and misrepresentations pointed out is considered rude or uncivil. It has always been one of their goals to be seen as being treated deferentially and respectfully as though they were part of the “in crowd” in science.

These are the types of characterizations of scientists that have found their way into the Jack Chick cartoons. It flows through all their comments and instructions about what to expect if they “debate” and “evolutionist.”

As I have said a number of times before, place a scientist in the crucible of peer-review and what emerges is better science and a better scientist. Show a pseudo-scientist or ID/creationist even a hint of that crucible and what emerges is a whining child with a persecution complex.

“Brenda’s” mask is not very effective. Honest people who recognize that they don’t know enough science to comment are very unlikely to be persistently “morally outraged” by perceived “incivility” in the culture war between science and anti-science. If they seriously want to understand the issues, they go out and learn the science and then demonstrate that they understand the issues. “Brenda” refuses to do that because “she” can’t.

Stuart Weinstein · 6 January 2010

eric said:
Stuart Weinstein said: With respect to Islam, they are harder to find...
I think we have to be cognizant of the fact that we may be suffering from a skewed view of the Islamic world. The vast majority of Muslim-Muslim conversation likely does not occur in English. It occurs in Arabic, or Farsi, or Indonesian, or whatever. When we English speakers look for English refutations of extremism, we're looking under the lamppost for our keys beacuse that's where the light is.

Moderates like Irshad Manji suggest that there is nowhere near enough of that. Indonesia isn't the middle east which is the region I mentioned specifically. Indonesia is already fairly moderate; I know, as I have been there several times. It does have violent extremists, but it is slowly getting the upper hand with them. I'm not talking merely about *conversation* but commentaries in leading dailies and books.

Brenda · 6 January 2010

Stanton writes: "Like how you hypocritically refuse to castigate the Discovery Institute for their behavior,"

Huh??? Who obligated me to do that? Is that what you have to do to join some club? Does it have anything whatsoever to do with why I posted here in the first place?

Harold mistakenly writes: "Essentially, your claim is that because some advocates of science were rude to Monton, he is justified in advocating a dishonest and illogical position."

NO!! I never said he was justified for this reason. Jump BACK from Conclusion Land, Harold.

I don't have the time to read the rest of the posts now, and doubt I will, given the misrepresentations I have to deal with. Since you're all going to say "good riddance", I'll say it to you, too. Good riddance.

eric · 6 January 2010

Stuart Weinstein said: Indonesia isn't the middle east which is the region I mentioned specifically.

Yeah, but its home to 200 million+ muslims. And, as you say, they are slowly getting the upper hand on their extremists. Could that possibly be because of action by the moderates that we westerners don't see because, well, Indonesian internal religious and political squabbles don't make the front page?

I'm not talking merely about *conversation* but commentaries in leading dailies and books.

You originally said "taking on," which I took to include political action (which is not transparent, but may be inferred in that the amount of extremism is going down rather than up. We can at least infer that whatever it is the moderates in indonesia are doing - even if its nothing at all - it seems to be working). If you're talking only about blogging, op-eds, books, etc... I don't read the appropriate languages, so if your source does speak Indonesian and says that moderate indonesians do not write as much against extremists as (e.g.) western bloggers do against christian extremists, I believe you.

Glen Davidson · 6 January 2010

Wow, Brenda, you're utterly rude, and without a speck of evidence for any of your claims. You must indeed be a creationist of some sort. You're every bit the equal of the highly disingenuous Stephen Meyer, whose following unsupported and false accusation (plus comments below it) I also put on Biologos:

” Yeah on the global warming debate I think you see—this nature worship to that animates a lot of the and the Darwinian that the Darwinian world view I think leads him to the idea that nature is the end—be all—some people take that even further but.—a big interest in connection for me is the in the arrogance of the scientific consensus of this whole climate—thing in England does.”
http://multimedia.play.it/m/audio/27941971/stephen-meyer-interview.htm (it’s a machine transcript, so the wording is not perfect. However, the audio is at the same place.) Sure, he doesn’t say that nature worship is behind all of “Darwinism” (another bit of name-calling there), but he claims it’s behind much, sans evidence and, indeed, contrary to all actual evidence of the usual desire to do good science in biology. How do you counter this except by noting that this is dishonest rhetoric? And the moment we say that, we’re supposedly “uncivil.” What is definitely true, though, is that such false accusations and their disregard for evidence in general is as uncivil as it is unscientific—that is, not even fitting science with respect to language.

Yes, Brenda, it's terrible that we call the Meyer's dishonesty and yours what it is, the flagrant disregard of all integrity and civility. It's just terrible. How could we be so awful as to complain about your gross disregard for truth? Glen Davidson

http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

eric · 6 January 2010

Brenda said: I don't have the time to read the rest of the posts now, and doubt I will, given the misrepresentations I have to deal with.

Nine comments in total; 0 about Monton's arguments. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine how many were about rude language/uncivil conduct. If, however, Brenda you're still reading this, then let me try and correct the misrepresentations. We understand your point, which is that being rude to people may reduce our chances of convincing them that we are right and (in this case Monton) is wrong. We get it. We really do. We understand that was your point. We also understand that making that point does not imply that you agree with Monton either generally or in all particulars. Now: do you have any substantive points related to where or how Monton was either correct or incorrect?

Mike Elzinga · 6 January 2010

Brenda said: I don't have the time to read the rest of the posts now, and doubt I will, given the misrepresentations I have to deal with. Since you're all going to say "good riddance", I'll say it to you, too. Good riddance.

Why are you complaining about “misrepresentations” when you yourself set up the “discussion” in exactly the way that would prompt the questions that you evaded? This has been another ID/creationist tactic; waltz into a discussion with a “beat me up” sign attached, and then complain that “evilutionists” beat up creationists. It was your premeditated setup right from the beginning in order to validate your attitudes toward the science community and the defenders of science. You don’t know any science; your opinions are irrelevant.

harold · 6 January 2010

Brenda said -

I believe Monton was driven to his position by his companions’ obnoxious attitude towards Creationism. Not with the arguments themselves, but the attitude. When Monton tried to give a Creationist the benefit of the doubt /here and there/, he was verbally attacked, as if he were “one of them”. He just wanted to distance himself from that s#!t, and look where he wound up. Everyone here at PandasThumb, keep up the good work and you’ll see scores of Bradley Montons.

So I said -

Essentially, your claim is that because some advocates of science were rude to Monton, he is justified in advocating a dishonest and illogical position.

To which Brena replied -

NO!! I never said he was justified for this reason. Jump BACK from Conclusion Land, Harold.

To those who are less full of excrement than a lone port-a-potty at a big chili eating contest, it will be apparent that my paraphrase of Brenda's original argument (now conveniently copied above) is an accurate one.

harold · 6 January 2010

Please approve my prior comment or let me know its fate, as I would like to make that point, even if rephrasing is demanded.

Dave Luckett · 6 January 2010

Yes. The question is, what doubt should creationists be given the benefit of? Why should good scientists and rigorous philosophers of science not find creationism "obnoxious", and why should they not say as much? What is it about creationism that should spare it from the same contempt that they give to, say, antivaccination, or geocentrism, or astrology, or homeopathy?

But the DI is worse than that. Mere superstition, ignorance and prejudice is not sufficient to account for its subtle and recondite political manoeuvres, its consistent deception and dissemblement. The DI misrepresents not only the evidence, the theory, science and scientists. Much of its effort goes into misrepresenting itself.

Professional courtesy may be shown to colleagues whose data or reasoning turn out to be slightly mistaken - although persistence in the face of contrary data or better reasoning will rapidly erode that courtesy, in practice. But scientists are here confronted with liars backed by a nonce coalition of fools and rogues whose whole purpose is to replace a scientific theory with a religious dogma, and whose tactics in pursuit of that purpose are dishonest to the point of outright fraud. What are scientists to say to this? Is there any wonder that they grow warm, and their language becomes blunt?

"He who throws mud loses ground." Indeed, and that is an accurate observation at the tactical level. But honest outrage is not only understandable when dealing with the DI, it is a proper and ethical response to it.

Brenda confuses the symptoms of honest outrage with causeless personal prejudice. (She attributes the same error to Monton, and intimates that it is the origin of his other errors, although how she knows this she does not say.) What she complains of is the former, not the latter. She is wrong to complain, especially since she is complaining vicariously, on behalf of creationists generally and the DI in particular.

Or is it vicariously? She has been very careful not to say.

Glen Davidson · 6 January 2010

I listened to the audio on my last post up on this thread, and realized that while Meyer does start saying that nature worship is behind most "Darwinism," he does stop and say something much less offensive. I don't really consider what he wrote to be the objective truth nonetheless, but felt the need to correct myself on that score. Well, perhaps I jumped the gun, or anyway, felt too rushed at the time to check the transcript against the audio. No real matter, the fact is that there are a host of false statements on the CSC's blog, for which Meyer is at least indirectly responsible. Then there are more direct smears by Meyer against "the Darwinists," like this one:

The public has been intimidated into thinking that “non-experts” have no right to question “consensus” views in science. But the scandal in at the University of East Anglia suggests that this consensus on climate may not be based on solid evidence. But what about the Darwin debate? We are told that the consensus of scientists in favor of Darwinian evolution means the theory is no longer subject to debate. In fact, there are strong scientific reasons to doubt Darwin’s theory and what it allegedly proved. http://www.discovery.org/a/13751

No, they have not been "intimidated" by the truth that consensus is the sociological measure of the success of a scientific theory or assertion, nor by the fact that you really must have knowledge and evidence if you are going to question a theory such as evolution. Meyer managed to leave out an important qualifier to the usual statement that "Darwinian evolution" is no longer subject to debate, which is "within the scientific community." Clearly any assertion that it cannot be debated in the public square, or that it is fully off-limits to discussion, is false, and not commonly stated by real biologists. Since the DI has often reported on debates that they imply reveal "hidden questions" in the community of evolutionary scientists, we may conclude from that alone that an honest debate about evolution is not closed off, although scientists are not much interested in the usual tripe which fails to respond to the many fulfilled entailed predictions that non-teleological evolution makes. And there are not "strong scientific reasons to doubt Darwin’s theory," at least if by that he means the present theory which has moved considerably past Darwin (it's difficult to respond to such sloppy writing, perhaps one reason for it). That is an assertion that he cannot back up. As an isolated statement, I would not complain much about that claim, as it is his opinion, but here it falsely props up his defamation of scientists as people who stymie discussion. A mere unsupported opinion (no, his misrepresentations of the Cambrian radiation does not support his implication of suppression) does not properly back up this attack upon the scientists who are subject to checks on dishonesty in a way that none of his CSC fellows are. I was searching for a quote such the one above when I stumbled into the interview transcript, which I then thought was sufficient for showing that Meyer relies upon unsupported attacks upon his opponents. That one is not so good, in fact, but the present one is. Glen Davidson http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Glen Davidson · 6 January 2010

Quotes come awfully close to the argument from authority, yet do work. Anyway, many of us have made a case for being less than civil to ongoing attacks upon science, including Pennock on the link I gave and as specifically quoted by John Kwok. So my point in adding quotes to this discussion is certainly not primarily to appeal to authority, rather to add to the understanding of the arguments made via past formulations by respected people. The fact that authority does persuade many is also a reason. So:

"Ridicule is he only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them..." Attributed to Thomas Jefferson

When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat. Attributed to Ronald Reagan

Regardless of whatever one thinks of Reagan, I include his quote for the fact that many on the right--from which most of creationism comes--consider these to be words to live by. Unfortunately, we cannot see the light of ID/creationism, for there is none, which does not keep creationists from trying to apply the heat. For too long, those without light have been intent on making those with it feel the heat, while we've pretended that light will reach at least enough people. Well, I'm afraid that not enough will without heat backing up the light. Glen Davidson

http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

John Kwok · 7 January 2010

I hope you post a version of this over at you know where, merely to remind readers of that blog:

Glen Davidson said: Quotes come awfully close to the argument from authority, yet do work. Anyway, many of us have made a case for being less than civil to ongoing attacks upon science, including Pennock on the link I gave and as specifically quoted by John Kwok. So my point in adding quotes to this discussion is certainly not primarily to appeal to authority, rather to add to the understanding of the arguments made via past formulations by respected people. The fact that authority does persuade many is also a reason. So:
"Ridicule is he only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them..." Attributed to Thomas Jefferson

When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat. Attributed to Ronald Reagan
Regardless of whatever one thinks of Reagan, I include his quote for the fact that many on the right--from which most of creationism comes--consider these to be words to live by. Unfortunately, we cannot see the light of ID/creationism, for there is none, which does not keep creationists from trying to apply the heat. For too long, those without light have been intent on making those with it feel the heat, while we've pretended that light will reach at least enough people. Well, I'm afraid that not enough will without heat backing up the light. Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

eric · 8 January 2010

Robert Byers said: Nope. Its [creationism] not taught in school because the claim is that 1700's New Americans put in the constitution bans against God and genesis as options when kids are taught abort origins. In reality then , since, and now, great heaps of people think creationism(s) are the truth behind origin subjects and wait for the promise of freedom and America where truth will be allowed to be weighed in the public institutions that claim to be seeking and finding truth.

That's hilarious. Creationism(s)? Can multiple different creationism stories all be the truth? C'mon Robert, answer Stanton. Imagine you're in charge of the "Origins" unit for H.S. Science. What do you teach? When did the origin of life occur? How? Who or what caused it? If you want "creationism" taught in school you have to actually teach something, some content. Outline for us in broad strokes what you think that content is.

fnxtr · 8 January 2010

... and the experiments you'd design for high school students. And the research on which you would base your textbooks. You know, the actual physical, factual discoveries that have been made, as opposed to the kind of armchair quarterback blithering you're so fond of.

Frank J · 8 January 2010

That’s hilarious. Creationism(s)? Can multiple different creationism stories all be the truth? C’mon Robert, answer Stanton. Imagine you’re in charge of the “Origins” unit for H.S. Science. What do you teach? When did the origin of life occur? How? Who or what caused it?
— eric

Now I'm almost convinced that Robert is a Poe. In 12 years of following this debate I can't recall any creationist admitting so clearly that there are mutually contradictory "creationisms." Mostly they just pretend that it's either theirs or "Darwinism." And they say do little about theirs, that most audiences infer that it coincides with theirs, even if it doesn't. If I may answer the question posed to Robert, if it were up to me I would teach the following in a non-science class, and outside of public schools if not legal. I would teach that there are many origins accounts, and not only do they contradict each other, they are all easily falsified. I would leave out the designer/Creator identities as it is irrelevant to "what happened when". Then I would show that these accounts were all "supported" by seeking only the evidence that fits (and discarding the rest) and fabricating if necessary. And even with that cheating, they were unable to have the evidence converge on a mutually agreeable account. So the trend toward "don't ask, don't tell what happened when, just promote unreasonable doubt of evolution" began, and continues to this day. Then I would discuss evolution, and note how someone who had more vested interest in it being wrong than almost anyone, namely Pope John Paul II, not only admitted evolution, but spoke of the evidence supporting it as "convergence, neither sought nor fabricated."

Dale Husband · 9 January 2010

Robert Byers said: Anyways creationism can take on science claims or origins first because we claim science doesn't occur in origin subjects. No testing is possible if one pays attention. If a atheist commentator agrees with creationisms claims to legitimacy then what hope is there for the resistance to change in origin subjects by better ideas!?

First, if making inferences based on evidence pointing to past activities was not scientific, then detectives using forensic techniques to attempt to solve crimes wouldn't be using scientific methods either. Yet that's exactly what they are supposed to be doing. Would you argue that all the criminals convicted via forensic techniques have been wrongfully convicted and should be freed? Second, the claim that Creationist ideas are "better" than evolutionist ones is merely an assertion without substance, and the fact that one atheist is more tolerant of Intelligent Design (ID) does not change the fact that ID is devoid of any practical application as far as scientific productivity is concerned. Indeed, that is true of all Creationist ideas. They are useful only to promote religious extremism, which is itself destructive to civilizations, as history makes clear.

Bradley Monton · 10 January 2010

I've posted a reply to Young's review of my book here:

http://bradleymonton.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/whats-wrong-with-matt-youngs-review-of-my-book/

Bradley Monton · 10 January 2010

Also, I've started replying to the comments here:

http://bradleymonton.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/the-comments-on-matt-youngs-review-part-i/

Dave Luckett · 10 January 2010

I'm sorry, Mr Monton, and I agree with you that a philosophical theory should be evaluated on its intellectual merits. But I'm a historian by training, and believe that an idea and its expression are also historical facts to be further evaluated by referring to its origins and present outcomes.

That means that the Discovery Institute, the institution, and intelligent design, the idea, are to be evaluated not only by examining the idea's intellectual validity, but by considering where it comes from, what its proponents have done and still do, how they do it, and their objectives in doing this.

Where it comes from is religiously dogmatic young-earth creationism. What its proponents do is prevaricate, by fudging, obfuscating and misrepresenting the evidence. How they do it is by bypassing the scientific method of empirical research reported after peer review, and going direct to popular appeal using a publicity machine. Their immediate objective in doing this is to open the public schools to the teaching of a religious dogma, namely, that life was created by a God. A more distant objective is to rival, and then to replace, an evidence-based scientific theory with that dogma.

I regret that I cannot separate these historical facts from an evaluation of the Discovery Institute or the idea it advocates, and I am further chagrined to discover that I don't think it is useful to try.

Henry J · 10 January 2010

I regret that I cannot separate these historical facts from an evaluation of the Discovery Institute or the idea it advocates, and I am further chagrined to discover that I don’t think it is useful to try.

I think that's because the attempt has already been made to separate them, with the conclusion that I.D. and it's relatives don't contain an explanation for any observed patterns in the relevant evidence. Evolution theory, otoh, does explain observed patterns, several of them. Henry J

Dave Luckett · 11 January 2010

Henry J said: I think that's because the attempt has already been made to separate them, with the conclusion that I.D. and it's relatives don't contain an explanation for any observed patterns in the relevant evidence. Evolution theory, otoh, does explain observed patterns, several of them. Henry J

Ah, but that is to attack intelligent design - correctly - from principle from the philosophy of science: that a scientific theory should explain observed patterns in nature. I quite agree with that, but I would widen the attack by considering the Discovery Institute and the idea of intelligent design in its historical and political context. This is contra Mr Monton's idea that putting these considerations aside, one may evaluate intelligent design by examining it purely as a philosophical theory. I don't think that approach is useful, or even valid, for it neglects reality to an unreasonable degree. Whatever the arguable merits of intelligent design - and in my opinion the assertion of intelligent design has precisely the same merits as, say, solipsism or last-thursdayism - it has origins and effects in the real world, and these cannot reasonably be neglected or set aside.

Wheels · 11 January 2010

Bradley Monton said: Also, I've started replying to the comments here: http://bradleymonton.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/the-comments-on-matt-youngs-review-part-i/

Would be nice of you to turn on comments. Yes, ARN.org has a profile with links to some of Darwin's writings online (they don't actually host any themselves except some bookmark(?)). But he's dead, and can't object to being associated with them, or personally answer any points they raise. You assume that since they've got Darwin, it's okay. If they had Hitler as a featured author, would you object on the grounds that it was a problem? No? Then why should their posthumous inclusion of Darwin be indicative of anything relevant to your making the decision to contribute? What makes you think they haven't simply co-opted Darwin expressly for the purpose of making themselves seem more legitimate, a veneer of diversity in opinion and expertise to cover up their being run entirely by Intelligent Design proponents and Discovery Institute fellows? How do you know they aren't just throwing Darwin up as a "beard," in other words?

eric · 11 January 2010

Dave Luckett said: This is contra Mr Monton's idea that putting these considerations aside, one may evaluate intelligent design by examining it purely as a philosophical theory.

Gut reaction - if we discuss it purely as a philosophcal theory, then it belongs in philosophy class, not science class(es). This seems a sneaky attempt to justify the theory one way - as philosophy - so you can teach it a different way - as science. Sort of like claiming WWII was an important historical event worthy of study...therefore we should teach it in math class. However I haven't read Dr. Monton's replies, so I will go do that and see if he explains this.

Bradley Monton · 14 January 2010

The rest of my replies to the comments in this thread are here:
http://bradleymonton.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/the-comments-on-matt-young’s-review-part-ii/

Wheels · 14 January 2010

So you didn't really respond to my points at all except parenthetically informing us which of the reviewers are theists. Which doesn't matter in the least.

Also, what has the ARN.org cooptation of Charles Darwin got to do with whether or not they're the Discovery Institute's mouthpiece to the philosophical community? Why do you choose to so heavily associate yourself with the leaders of the Discovery Institute?

John Kwok · 15 January 2010

Monton, if you not "buy into" Intelligent Design, then why did you criticize Judge Jones's ruling at the conclusion of the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial? Would you care to comment here? Am looking forward to it:

Bradley Monton said: The rest of my replies to the comments in this thread are here: http://bradleymonton.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/the-comments-on-matt-young’s-review-part-ii/

Ron Krumpos · 1 April 2010

Physicists are searching for the "creator"; they call it the Higgs boson. Evolution came later. To say evolution is not intelligent or lacks design is to deny recent discoveries of microbiology and astrophysics. Before you reject ID entirely, read the 40 books on psychology, biology and physics in the bibliographies of my e-book at http://www.suprarational.org If we were to completely dismiss that which we didn't understand, progress in science and technology would come to a halt. It is the mysteries of life that drive researchers onward.