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Creationists covering tracks on Cornell meeting; and Fuller doesn't get it

Posted 4 March 2012 by Nick Matzke

There is still mostly an eerie silence from the creationists/IDists on the Springer/Cornell issue (previous PT posts: 1, 2, 3). Basically all we have in terms of official response are the comments given to Inside Higher Ed. But much of the evidence of the details of the conference that originally existed has been taken down. Here are the examples of which I am aware: 1. David Klinghoffer of the Discovery Institute, after the controversy broke, put up a post, which was quickly taken down. 2. David Coppedge of JPL lawsuit fame (Coppedge is the main author/editor of Creation/Evolution Headlines, one of the most virulent of young-earth creationist websites, and he is currently involved in an employment lawsuit with JPL, and was an invitee and attendee of the Cornell meeting) originally posted about the Cornell meeting right after it happened in June 2011. The posts were on Coppedge's hard-shell YEC site crev.info, and in Mountain Daily News. According to this comment on PT, the Creation-Evolution Headlines version once had, but no longer has, this text:
Here's something that should make you mad. One of the organizers had invited Cornell professors, some known to be Darwin skeptics, but they all declined. In addition, he had tried to interest area churches in participating, either by sending people to hear the talks or assist with volunteer help, and they all declined, too. Some of them did not even answer the emails. There is still fear among many scientists toward being associated with a controversy like intelligent design. And, sad to say, many churches these days are more concerned about looking good to the world than dealing with matters of truth. ... Because of potential harm to careers of some participants, names of all are being withheld from this review.
Maybe the mention of soliciting help from local churches was thought to be damaging in whatever case the creationists are trying to make to Springer. 3. Sid Galloway, the former zookeeper with the animals-based evangelical ministry -- He took down his listing of the talk titles of the meeting, and some other information. Galloway now says:
[...] Over the past few weeks (today's date is March 1, 2012), some sites on the web have linked to this page as if it somehow represented the BINPS. Those making such an assumption either did not carefully read the page or deliberately chose to misrepresent it. This page has always been a simple and personal review of the BINPS. This webpage from its first draft made it clear that I was merely an attendee of the BINPS (and probably the least qualified to attend since I am simply a college prep high school honors biology teacher seeking to train my students to scientifically challenge all hypotheses, theories, and laws). The Bio-Info conference was an inspiring example of truly critical, logikos thinking in the scientific community. The symposium was not sponsored by Cornell, though Dr. John Sanford, Cornell geneticist and inventor of the Gene Gun was a principal coordinator. [...] [Italics original; and this guy teaches high schoolers? Ugh, see note 1.]
Unfortunately for those supporting the meeting and the publication, Sanford, apparently a principal coordinator, is a total nut who thinks that fitting a curve to the lifespans of the descendants of Noah in the Bible constitutes science. 4. Jorge Fernandez, another young-earther and an author on various papers at the meeting, started a new thread and put up a post at his hangout, TheologyWeb. But soon after, he demanded that the thread be taken down (see link for original formatting; I'm too busy to reproduce his massive use of bolds, italics, caps, and various smileys):
1. I had promised you that the two papers that I co-authored would soon be published, remember? Well, publication has occurred and release is supposed to be very soon - within days. However ... 2. ... we may be witnessing in real time another episode of 'EXPELLED'. 3. The Proceedings from the symposium, contained in a book titled Biological Information: New Perspectives, is now encountering the usual attempts at censorship practiced by the 'Thought Police' -- you know, the type of censorship that the Evo-Faithful loudly deny happens at all. 4. This was strictly a scientific symposium -- I know, I was there from start to finish. Every paper was scrutinized to be/remain science ... pure science. 5. The publisher is Springer-Verlag. I assure you, the papers were heavily peer-reviewed. But guess what? They now want to do additional peer-review because of "complaints". OMG ! 6. The Evo-Faithful complain that intelligent design isn't science "because it's not peer-reviewed." When it is peer-reviewed, they say, "It shouldn't have been peer-reviewed because it's not science." Now where did I put my shotgun? 7. In passing, do you see why I use the term "dishonest" as often as I do? Do you? Huh? Do you? It fits! 8. Lastly, wanna guess who's already involved? Yup, you guessed it, the NCSE : the 'witch' and her broomstick. 9. More details here : http://the-scientist.com/2012/03/02/...print-id-book/ 10. This could turn ugly, very ugly ... stay tuned ... Jorge
What to make of all of this, added to the eerie silence at normally shoot-from-the-hip blogs like Uncommon Descent? Possibilities include (1) they are going to try to convince Springer that this is Real Science (TM), not religious apologetics; (2) they are going to try to sue Springer, and want to remove evidence that Springer had a good reason to do whatever Springer might do (more peer-review, abandon the project, etc.); (3) they don't know what will happen, but lawyers are involved, and lawyers always tell you to not make any public statements. The only other reaction I've seen comes from Steve Fuller, who in typical fashion refuses to exercise any critical judgment whatsoever about any of the generations-old crank science arguments of the creationists/IDists, or their attempts to sneak it by engineers and other innocents who know nothing about population genetics or other highly relevant fields.
Why, oh why, have the self-appointed epistemic vigilantes at the National Centre for Science Education (NCSE) decided to subvert the already fragile academic norm of peer review by declaring that one of the top three European publishers of scientific journals and books has mistakenly allowed intelligent design (ID) sympathisers to publish a book in their information science series? That two positive peer reports in the original book proposal was insufficient to discover the allegedly heinous nature of its content must mean, of course, that more peer reviewing is needed - not that perhaps the content is not as heinous as the scent of ID might have suggested.
Oh, please. Steve Fuller is willfully ignoring that this conference isn't mostly IDists being as vague as possible for legal/school/media purposes, and saying that they're fine with an old-earth and common ancestry and maybe all they're saying is God is behind everything in reality in some vague way. This conference is mostly young-earth creationists of the old-fashioned "creation science" type, many of them with direct connections to Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research, and they are arguing that if our species was older than their literalist interpretation of Genesis says, we'd be extinct from mutations by now because [insert tired, long-refuted young-earth creationist arguments about how the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or probability, or Haldane's Dilemma, or whatever, kills population genetics, never mind the thousands of actual population geneticists who disagree]. Fuller is supposed to have a background in history of science. What would you say if a group came along and said that Johannes Kepler never existed? What if their argument was that the existence of Kepler was forbidden by the Second Law of Thermodynamics? What if, in response to this argument, scientists had repeatedly pointed out that the Second Law of Thermodynamics did no such thing, but the Kepler Deniers had replied with "Just because the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't technically make the existence of Kepler completely impossible, this doesn't mean the existence of Kepler is probable!" Then, what if it was announced that these Kepler-denying yahoos were getting talks which were clearly about Kepler denial published in a "peer-reviewed" volume in a Springer series on Engineering? What if, in response to your outraged spluttering, they scolded "Censor! Don't judge something before you've read it!" The current situation is basically like that. Fuller, as usual, doesn't get it. Just in case someone like Fuller wants to see this through the eyes of those of us who actually study the creationists carefully, and know the personalities involved and their hobby horses, I'll go through the list of talk titles and give a short review of what they tell us, with little more than a google search and a search on previous PT posts on these guys. The Cornell 2011 Meeting Schedule, Reviewed Fortunately for us, based on long experience, I remembered to archive Galloway's original page. Interestingly, by nothing more than googling the talk titles, it is easy to figure out who many of the speakers were. Most of them are young-earth creationists!
Session One May 31: INFORMATION THEORY & BIOLOGY Presentation 1 - Biological information: what is it?
Werner Gitt (?). YEC, talkorigins.org rebuttal.
Presentation 2 - A second look at the second law of thermodynamics
Granville Sewell. YEC? (Almost always, only YECs are daft enough to go for the Second Law of Thermodynamics argument, an argument so infamous and so bad even Answers in Genesis basically admits it shouldn't be used (but not quite, because they would leave egg on so many creationist faces; see their link to further discussion). This is the name of the paper that was published and then withdrawn by Applied Mathematical Letters. See this PT post by Wes Elsberry for a detailed history of Sewell's antics. (As aside, Sewell's favorite journal, the Mathematical Intelligencer, just published a detailed rebuttal to Sewell's argument by an actual chemist (Sewell is a mathematician). The paper is: Lloyd (2012), "Is There Any Conflict Between Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics?". Lloyd concludes:
[Sewell's] proposal that entropy can be partitioned [into separate X-entropies, which according to Sewell cannot be interconverted and thus each have to imported/exported from a system separately] is relied on in a series of papers, from the original MI response to the recent revisiting of this in the AML paper, but the proposal has no validity. The illustrative example given in the MI response is simply wrong, and these papers rely on erroneous interpretations of basic physics and on a failure of logic, which vitiate the conclusions drawn. In particular, these papers provide no reason whatsoever to suppose that the Second Law makes any statement that denies the possibility of Darwinian evolution, or even makes it improbable. The qualitative point associated with the solar input to Earth, which was dismissed so casually in the abstract of the AML paper, and the quantitative formulations of this by Styer and Bunn, stand, and are unchallenged by Sewell's work.
Sewell responded oh-so-maturely with a youtube video, which the Discovery Institute (old motto, courtesy Stephen C. Meyer: "We're not 'some Young-Earth Creationist who just fell off the turnip truck', we swear!"; new motto: "Actually, we love those turnip-truck YEC arguments, especially the Second-Law argument!.) immediately posted on its blog. (So did Uncommon Descent, when Sewell's video got 2000 views of youtube, which I'm sure means it will soon catch up with the 131,673,705 hits that sneezing baby panda has). The argument of the video is essentially "tornados don't work backwards, therefore we're right about the Second Law of Thermodynamics falsifying evolution." The tornado-in-a-junkyard argument is such a moldy old creationist chestnut it's even been given a name and a wikipedia page: Hoyle's Fallacy. Here's Sewell:
Evolutionists have always dismissed this argument by saying that the second law of thermodynamics only dictates that order cannot increase in an isolated (closed) system, and the Earth is not a closed system -- in particular, it receives energy from the Sun. The second law allows order to increase locally, provided the local increase is offset by an equal or greater decrease in the rest of the universe. This always seems to be the end of the argument: order can increase (entropy can decrease) in an open system, therefore, ANYTHING can happen in an open system, even the rearrangement of atoms into computers, without violating the second law.
Dude! Your problem isn't with evolutionary biologists. Here, let me Google that for you. You are fighting with physicists and chemists when you make the Second-Law argument. They all know thermodynamics, they use it every day, they don't work in evolutionary biology and mostly don't care about it, and they say you're hopelessly wrong, and they have for freaking decades.
Presentation 3 - Biological information and thermodynamics
More Second Law of Thermodynamics junk, unless the conclusion was "the creationist thermodynamics argument is junk", in which case Sewell presumably would have abandoned his silliness by now. But I couldn't trace this phrase specifically.
Presentation 4 - Multiple overlapping codes profoundly reduce the probability of beneficial mutation
This is a paper by William A. Dembski, Winston Ewert, R.J. Marks II, according to Marks's CV
Presentation 5 - A General theory of information cost incurred by successful search
This is a paper by William A. Dembski, Winston Ewert, R.J. Marks II, according to Marks's CV There are many debunkings of Dembski & Marks on the web. See Wikipedia, or here for a start.
Presentation 6 - Pragmatic information
This is listed on John W. Oller Jr.'s CV. Oller is a young-earth creationist well known in Louisiana for various shenanigans involving attempts to get creationism into the public schools there. He's also on the Institute for Creation Research's Technical Advisory Board. See Barbara Forrest Demolishes a Creationist and John Oller fesses up.
Presentation 7 - Limits of chaos and progress in evolutionary dynamics
No hits, but yammering about how evolution is supposed to be uniformly progressive, but things sometimes get simpler is a creationist classic. Over in real evolutionary biology, we official left behind "evolution is progressive" generations ago, and people like, say, Darwin, were always suspicious of the idea.
Presentation 8 - Tierra: the character of adaptation
This is a paper by William A. Dembski, Winston Ewert, R.J. Marks II, according to Marks's CV
Session Two June 1: BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION& GENETIC THEORY (Each presentation was followed by a time of Questions and Answers) Presentation 9 - Not Junk after all: non-protein-coding DNA carries extensive biological information
This sounds like Jonathan Wells, but could be any number of creationists/IDists who have uncritically and unthinkingly picked up the idea that "junk DNA is dead", ignoring the obvious fact that the amount of DNA in genomes doesn't correlate with complexity, that ferns and salamanders have dozens of times more DNA (due to repetitive DNA) than humans do, and that nearly identical species can have very different genome sizes. This huge variation proves that a ton of DNA is not strictly necessary. Anyway, whoever it is who is spouting the same-ol', dumb-ol' creationist arguments about junk DNA not being junk, if they don't address the variability issue (e.g.: Onion Test) and the various other criticisms of the creationist position (Larry Moran has the best compilation), then they'll have junk science in addition to junk DNA.
Presentation 10 - Can biological information be sustained by purifying natural selection? Presentation 11 - Selection threshold severely constrains capture of beneficial mutations Presentation 12 - Computational evolution experiments reveal a net loss of information despite selection Presentation 13 - Using numerical simulation to test the "mutation-count" hypothesis Presentation 14 - Can synergistic epistasis halt mutation accumulation? Results from numerical simulation
These papers are all listed in the "Selected Papers" of Wesley Brewer, and are almost certainly coauthored by John Sanford and the other collaborators on their Mendel's Accountant project. Sanford is a YEC of course, and Brewer's research on weather simulations is funded by the Institute for Creation Research and published in Answers Research Journal, so Brewer is certainly a YEC as well.
Presentation 15 - Striking architectural similarities between higher genomes and computer executable code
Sounds sort of like Stephen C. Meyer, or Douglas Axe, both of the Discovery Institute. Cue Meyer's favorite Bill Gates quote, "DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created." Which is repeated 7500 times on Google on creationist/ID websites -- except that the top hit is the Talk.Origins Quote Mine Project. And by the way, Stephen Meyer, I'll see your Bill Gates quote and raise you a quote by some people who have actually thought carefully about the similarity between DNA and programming: "It's the worst kind of spaghetti code you could imagine." (For source, see notes.)
Presentation 16 - Biocybernetics and biosemiosis
This sounds like David Abel, he of the prestigious Origin of Life Science Foundation.
Presentation 17 - Computer-like systems in the cell
Sounds like Dave D'Onofrio, who apparently said his paper was soon-to-be-published back in November 2009, when he presented it (along with spiffy animations of the cell! from Harvard!) at the Warren Astronomical Society (founded February 2009) of Warren, Michigan (population 135,000). Fortunately, "The views expressed in presentations are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Warren Astronomical Society." A paper by Dave D'Onofrio is listed in Ashby Camp's List of 1156 Articles Supporting Biblical Creation at TrueOrigin.org, an attempted rebuttal website for TalkOrigins.org. The paper is "A comparative approach for the investigation of biological information processing: An examination of the structure and function of computer hard drives and DNA" in Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, which seems to be the ultimate low-bar journal that creationists have targeted, which has already published three articles by Abel et al.
Session Three June 2: THEORETICAL MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (Each presentation was followed by a time of Questions and Answers) Presentation 18 - Can genetic information be traced to a last universal common ancestor?
This sounds like Paul Nelson, but presumably we would have heard about it already if he was involved.
Presentation 19 - A new model of intracellular communication based on coherent, high-frequency vibrations in biomolecules
No idea, but a lot of kooks like mystical stuff involving vibrations.
Presentation 20 - A multiplicity of memories: the semiotics of evolutionary adaptation
This one is J. Scott Turner, listed in his annual report. He's the token "Darwinist" I bet. J. Scott Turner seems to have gotten into the ID issue after the Kitzmiller-related fracas of 2005, likes to ignore the entire sordid history of the creationists and ID movements, and ignore all the technical rebuttals we've written, and pretend that scientists are the ones with the problems here. See Shallit's evaluation of a piece he wrote in 2007.
Presentation 21 - The cost of substitution during concurrent substitutions and the Absent-Optimal Effect
Anything about the "cost of substitution" is probably Walter ReMine, a YEC who has had a decades-long obsession with Haldane's dilemma, which isn't.
Presentation 22 - The membrane code: a carrier of essential information that is not specified by DNA and is inherited apart from it
No idea. The idea of membrane heredity is not new, although various creationists/IDists love latching onto anything that sound different than standard DNA inheritance, I guess because they think evolution can't work on traits which are inherited in a non-DNA fasion, or something. Never mind that Darwin successfully invented evolutionary theory in the first place only knowing about inheritance and nothing about DNA.
Presentation 23 - Measuring and analyzing functional information in proteins
This sounds close to a paper by Kirk Durston, David Abel, etc., again in Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling. See Durston's devious distortions on PT.
Presentation 24 - Getting there first: an evolutionary rate advantage for adaptive loss-of-function mutations
This sounds a lot like Michael Behe talking about his review in Quarterly Review of Biology. Which unfortunately was shot down by friendly fire right after it came out. Notes Note 1: I feel sorry for those students...they'll be in for quite a shock when they end up in actual college biology and learn that their high-school teacher was teaching them that evolution was controversial when it's just a basic part of standard biology education. Christians who accept evolution often say that one of the bigger sources of atheism occurs when students are raised fundamentalist then go to college and learn that evolution and geology aren't conspiratorial fairytales, just obvious inferences from massive datasets. I wonder how Galloway feels about having that on his conscience. Note 2: Further notes on Galloway's page: Galloway also put up some links to young-earth creationist books, by Sanford and others, to defend his position -- while calling his position "ID." In some venues, IDists will swear up-and-down that they are a totally different thing from bad-old, nasty-old young-earth creationism and the "creation science" of the 1970s and 1980s, and will vociferously berate anyone who points out the connections. But this distinction was totally ignored at this meeting, and by the attendees and speakers, who appear to be majority young-earthers, with some "classic" ID people added for spice. I swear, will these guys ever even get their own talking points straight? Galloway has all kinds of glowing endorsements of the meeting and its science-y-ness and sophistication, but then he blows it by giving an example of the "new" scientific information on which he says: "I highly respect the courageous, scientists (many who are world-renowned) based upon the newest and best evidence as they scientifically challenge the prevailing old and potentially out-of-date paradigm regarding the origin of bio-info." What's the "new" information? A quote from Karl Popper from 1974 about the paradox that DNA is needed to produce protein, and protein is needed to produce DNA. 1974!! Never mind that the RNA World hypothesis essentially solved this particular problem in the 1980s. Never mind that anyone mildly capable would know this. Galloway feels comfortable both expounding upon the falsity of mainstream science, and of endorsing the quality of the Cornell meeting, even though he doesn't know the first thing about the relevant science. This sort of guy is the true audience of these creation science/ID "conferences" -- fundamentalists, whether they be scientists or teachers or nonacademics, who already "know" evolution is wrong but feel a deep need to have science on the same side as the Bible. No actual expertise in relevant fields like population genetics or molecular evolution required. Note 3: Here's the source for the DNA-spaghetti quote.
National Public Radio (NPR) April 25, 2003 Friday Analogies for the way DNA works ANCHORS: MICHELE NORRIS; MELISSA BLOCK REPORTERS: DAVID KESTENBAUM All Things Considered (8:00 PM ET) - NPR [...] KESTENBAUM: But why, if things are so well-organized, our genetic code tied up in a neat little bundle--why is it taking so long to understand? Mr. DAVID HAUSSLER (Computer Scientist, University of California-Santa Cruz): It's the worst kind of spaghetti code you could imagine. KESTENBAUM: This is David Haussler, a computer scientist at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Spaghetti code is what you get when a software designer doesn't really think a project through in advance. The code ends up so tangled that even the person who wrote it can't understand it. In the human cell, the idea is simple enough. Each gene in the DNA is an instruction for making a particular protein. But from there, things get complicated. Mr. HAUSSLER: The general type of phenomenon is if you have a protein and we thought it did certain things and then we found that it's also involved in this other pathway, and then, oh, my goodness, it's also involved in this process. Every few weeks there's another function that we have discovered for this protein. KESTENBAUM: Imagine if a bank were organized this way. One worker would help sort letters in the mail room and sometimes analyze stocks, sometimes cook french fries in the cafeteria and occasionally go to a board meeting. Mr. HAUSSLER: That kind of code is just the kind of code you don't want to build in engineering because it's generally not successful. It's amazing that life does it that way, and life is, of course, very successful. KESTENBAUM: Right. It's exactly what students are told not to do. Mr. HAUSSLER: Precisely. Nature would not get good grades in my computer science classes, unfortunately. KESTENBAUM: And this is a major reason why it's so hard for scientists to fix cells, so hard to design drugs or cure diseases. DNA is spaghetti code because nature has been tinkering with the system for billions of years like a bad programmer. Bruce Alberts is a biochemist and president of the National Academy of Sciences. He says the way proteins carry signals around a cell is about as complicated as the wiring in the brain. Mr. BRUCE ALBERTS (President, National Academy of Sciences): We could know every connection of those chemical signaling pathways, and that's what we've been working out for years. But still, we may not be, or I would say we're not likely to be able to understand it without some new way of thinking about it. KESTENBAUM: Few researchers think a full understanding of this strange chemical computing system will come anytime soon. Len Adelman, the mathematician, gives it hundreds of years. Bruce Alberts wouldn't even make a prediction. Scientists may always have to tweak things in cells to see what happens. That, after all, is what nature has been doing. David Kestenbaum, NPR News, Washington. LOAD-DATE: April 26, 2003
(A few edits made on Monday to fix typos etc. HT: Rolf)

111 Comments

DiEb · 5 March 2012

Thank you very much for your stunning work! The real surprise: the Discovery Institute is able to keep quite on a topic for a couple of weeks... perhaps we should look for a new wedge document!

Elizabeth Liddle · 5 March 2012

Nice testable predictive hypothesis!

Will be interesting to compare with the data when we get them, as surely we will.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkzRxogjpXOweR7FGKHp0B50VOKpnvNlI0 · 5 March 2012

Hi Nick,
Werner Gitt who did the first presentation is a german creationist (hard-core YEC) associated with the "Studiengemeinschaft Wort und Wissen" (which is basically the german equivalent to AiG). His website is only available in german, but some of his books have been translated to english.

patrickmay.myopenid.com · 5 March 2012

Awesome detailed summary. Thanks for the hard work.

eric · 5 March 2012

Good summary. I would bet on your #3 being true. #2 strikes me as extremely irrational: trying to remove all evidence that the conference while sueing to get the conference proceedings published?
[Sewell] This always seems to be the end of the argument: order can increase (entropy can decrease) in an open system, therefore, ANYTHING can happen in an open system, even the rearrangement of atoms into computers, without violating the second law.
I don't know about anything, but yes Granville, building computers doesn't violate the second law.

DS · 5 March 2012

I don't see a single thing in any of the talks that even remotely resembles science. Second law! You've got to be kidding me. Genetic "simulations"? We all know how creationists can generate biologically implausible scenarios to demonstrate that evolution could't be true. All you have to do is keep changing the parameters until you get the result you want. It doesn't matter if it make any sense or not. That's evidence of incompetence, nothing else. How about this little gem:

Presentation 10 - Can biological information be sustained by purifying natural selection?

If the answer is no then every species is doomed to extinction and life as we know it cannot exist. Seems to me that life has been doing just fine for the last 3.5 billion years.

Look, you simply cannot be a YEC unless you ignore and deny all of the major findings in every field of science for the last one hundred and fifty years. With that in mind, how can any of these clowns even have the audacity to suggest that what hey are doing is in any way shape or form "science".

Oh and inviting churches to participate in a "scientific" conference, nice touch. Why to add scientific validity to the "conference".

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q · 5 March 2012

Great summary. I hope you've sent a copy to Springer.

John · 5 March 2012

A most masterful piece of sleuthing, Nick. Since Fuller is supposedly a DI "ally", how come he hasn't stayed with the "progam". I just checked the DI CSC website and noticed that Michael Denton is a Senior Fellow? What? I thought he has said that he rejects Intelligent Design.

John · 5 March 2012

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q said: Great summary. I hope you've sent a copy to Springer.
I strongly second it. And if you don't send it directly to Springer, be sure to send it to Niles Eldredge. Am sure he'd forward it to Springer.

harold · 5 March 2012

I would like to put this conference in what I believe is its appropriate context. It has some interesting implications.

The first point is that, as regulars here are aware, the original goal of "ID" was to disguise creationism so that it could be legally taught in public schools. That goal received a severe setback in 2005, with the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision.

Since then, there has been a falling off of the popularity of the "always deny any connection with YEC or religion" meme.

The frustration of pretending not to be YEC is probably considerable for many. At one level, this conference may have represented some mainly YEC and YEC friendly types reasserting themselves. This doesn't signal any overt "split" between the DI and YEC - they'll still express love for each other - but there is some possibility that this conference was more easily connected to YEC than some strategists would have liked. There may be some behind the scenes friction.

Another thing...

As we all know, during the 2010 election, a low midterm turnout, a poor economy, and ostensible concern with the national debt created a one time Tea Party event. Certain types of voters may have been especially motivated. One result of this is that, although many have already been eliminated, a crop of creationist bills was introduced in state legislatures.

The timing of this conference could be a coincidence.

Having said that, the conference appears to have been a backhanded attempt to generate an ostensibly peer reviewed publication, and falsely claim that it is associated with a major research university. If such an attempt succeeds, whether the association with an election round that generated creationist bills is intentional or coincidental, it is a near certainty that such a publication would be touted by creationists in political and courtroom settings. Creationists are well aware that the fact that essentially all of their voluminous material is published by creationist, religious, and/or anti-scientific right wing sources, is an issue.

This is why, although I very strongly support creationists' freedom of expression (and everyone else's), I hope that Springer Verlag elects not to publish this anti-scientific material.

cwjolley · 5 March 2012

Do you suppose that what is going on is not that they are thinking about suing Springer, but that they are worried that they will be sued by Springer and/or Cornell for fraud?

DavidK · 5 March 2012

"6. The Evo-Faithful complain that intelligent design isn’t science “because it’s not peer-reviewed.” When it is peer-reviewed, they say, “It shouldn’t have been peer-reviewed because it’s not science.”

But isn't that the point of a peer review, to determine the value of a paper in regards to it's subject's domain and application? If the paper is found deficient, then it is rejected, and that's a primary reason why they engage NON-scientists/biologists/evolutionists in their reviews. Creationists OTOH argue that it should always be published no matter how bad it is because their concept of freedom of the press/speech requires everyone to bow to their demands. This is just a replay of the Sternberg/Meyer paper fiasco with the Smithsonian, and yes, Luskin is likely just itching to sue Springer.

DS · 5 March 2012

They should have gotten the message when even churches refused to attend. How dense do you have to be not to get that message?

harold · 5 March 2012

“6. The Evo-Faithful complain that intelligent design isn’t science “because it’s not peer-reviewed.” When it is peer-reviewed, they say, “It shouldn’t have been peer-reviewed because it’s not science.”
This statement is so incorrect that it's mind-boggling. 1) No-one says it shouldn't be peer-reviewed; it should be peer-reviewed, and if it doesn't contain valid evidence and logically drawn inferences, it should be rejected, as DavidK points out. 2) The current complaint of the creationists is that the material is being peer reviewed! "Additional peer review" is the current status. They're the ones who object to peer review.

eric · 5 March 2012

DavidK said: But isn't that the point of a peer review, to determine the value of a paper in regards to it's subject's domain and application? If the paper is found deficient, then it is rejected, and that's a primary reason why they engage NON-scientists/biologists/evolutionists in their reviews. Creationists OTOH argue that it should always be published no matter how bad it is because their concept of freedom of the press/speech requires everyone to bow to their demands. This is just a replay of the Sternberg/Meyer paper fiasco with the Smithsonian, and yes, Luskin is likely just itching to sue Springer.
All IMO, and I welcome comments by other scientists who may differ in opinion... There's a slight difference in this case, because we are talking about conference proceedings. Those are typically reviewed for writing quality and coverage of the presentation, rather than originality or impact. The purpose of proceedings is to say what went on at the conference, to let people who weren't there review the work which was presented. If this were a legitimate scientific conference, IMO the presenters' work should be included almost regardless of its academic merit. But this is not a legitimate scientific conference, as shown by the way the organizers controlled participation, advertising, etc... (among other reasons). If Springer wants to reject this "correctly," I think they should point to the non-quality of the conference as a scientific event, rather than the non-quality of any of the presentations. The point "your work is shoddy" is a legitmate reason to reject a paper under normal circumstances, but less so when its a conference proceeding and the shoddy work was one of the presentations. Which most scientists know and understand. Publishing your work in conference proceedings might impress laypeople who can't tell the difference, but it is not likely (on its own) to impress working scientists.

TomS · 5 March 2012

eric said: I don't know about anything, but yes Granville, building computers doesn't violate the second law.
Nothing that we build violates the laws of thermodynamics. There's no reason to think that "intelligent design" can build something that does. I guess I can design something that violates physical laws. I can even design something that violates the laws of mathematics. I run into problems when I try to build what I've designed.

cwjolley · 5 March 2012

TomS said: I guess I can design something that violates physical laws. I can even design something that violates the laws of mathematics. I run into problems when I try to build what I've designed.
One might be able to imagine something general that would violate physical law, for example I can imagine a FTL rocket. But design as in actual building plans? I'm not so sure.

TomS · 5 March 2012

cwjolley said:
TomS said: I guess I can design something that violates physical laws. I can even design something that violates the laws of mathematics. I run into problems when I try to build what I've designed.
One might be able to imagine something general that would violate physical law, for example I can imagine a FTL rocket. But design as in actual building plans? I'm not so sure.
I don't disagree. (At first I was going to mention FTL.) I was thinking of something like one of Escher's designs or a "Penrose triangle".

Starbuck · 5 March 2012

Impressive analysis

eric · 5 March 2012

TomS said:
eric said: I don't know about anything, but yes Granville, building computers doesn't violate the second law.
Nothing that we build violates the laws of thermodynamics. There's no reason to think that "intelligent design" can build something that does.
My point was just that Sewell is mischaracterizing his critics. Mainstream scientists don't claim that open systems allow "anything" to happen. If someone claims to have built a refrigerator that can reach 0 K, Sewell's maintream critics would have no problem saying that that violates the LOTs, regardless of whether its constructed in an open system or not. Perpetual motion machines, 100% efficient energy conversion machines, there are a whole host of things the LOTs prevent open systems from producing.

harold · 5 March 2012

eric said -
The point “your work is shoddy” is a legitmate reason to reject a paper under normal circumstances, but less so when its a conference proceeding and the shoddy work was one of the presentations.
A problem here is that exactly what you describe is being exploited. This whole event was a sham to trick a science publisher with a decent reputation into unwittingly publishing creationist nonsense, in my best guess, for legal/political reasons.
Which most scientists know and understand. Publishing your work in conference proceedings might impress laypeople who can’t tell the difference
Unfortunately, that appears to be the goal here. As it happens, I have no problem with either your suggestion to call the whole conference illegitimate, or with Springer's tactic of additional peer review.
But this is not a legitimate scientific conference, as shown by the way the organizers controlled participation, advertising, etc… (among other reasons).
Yes, merely reporting conference presentations without additional scrutiny implies that 1) the institution ostensibly organizing the conference is aware of it - whereas here, there has been an effort to falsely imply that Cornell had something to do with it, 2) that the attendees adequately represent the field, whereas here, almost no maintream biologists or information scientists were present - or aware of the "conference", apparently, at least in many cases - and virtually everyone present was a creationist - even though it is claimed to have been a "biological information" conference; also, 3) if churches were invited, as is claimed by some attendees, that is highly unorthodox for a scientific conference, particularly given that almost any scientific conference will include scientists of many different religious attitudes. Additional scrutiny is highly warranted.

DS · 5 March 2012

And, it the conference really was legitimate, why would they be afraid of additional peer review? If the whole thing was science all the way down, they have nothing to fear. If on the other hand, they blatantly misrepresented both the intent and the reality of the conference, then sure, they should be crapping their proverbial pants which are soon to be pulled down, exposing their fundamental dishonesty to the entire world.

DS · 5 March 2012

Maybe these guys are just tired of losing money publishing books that no one wants read. If they really thought there was a market for this crap, shouldn't they be trying to publish it themselves and keep all of the profits for the prophets? Only if they expected the book to be flop would they want someone else to publish it.

Unless of course the veneer of scientific respectability is so valuable to them that they just don't care about the money. What a sad state of affairs.

Carl Drews · 5 March 2012

What would constitute censorship by the scientific publisher? What if they say, "We have rejected your manuscript. Although we are unable to find anything wrong with your paper scientifically, we just don't like it." Maybe think of Alfred Wegener trying to publish on continental drift in 1912. Sure, his mechanism was insufficient, but probably some conservative scientists just didn't like his conclusions.

Perhaps the scientific publisher can reject anything they jolly well feel like rejecting, even for illogical or stupid reasons. But their business and reputation rests on publishing scientific advances, not on publishing The Journal of Stuff We Already Agree With.

Criticism is not censorship, as Douglas Theobald noted. Is there any action that would constitute censorship by the scientific publisher?

Paul Burnett · 5 March 2012

eric said: There's a slight difference in this case, because we are talking about conference proceedings.
This wasn't a conference - it was a "conference" - in the same way that intelligent design creationism is "science".

Paul Burnett · 5 March 2012

eric said: There's a slight difference in this case, because we are talking about conference proceedings. Those are typically reviewed for writing quality and coverage of the presentation, rather than originality or impact. The purpose of proceedings is to say what went on at the conference... Publishing your work in conference proceedings might impress laypeople who can't tell the difference, but it is not likely (on its own) to impress working scientists.
This is what Dembski and Marks got away with (sort of) in 2009 by giving a paper at an IEEE conference - to get their paper published in a "journal" that was actually just the conference proceedings. Looks like they were trying to expand on that concept by having their own stealth "conference".

Rolf · 5 March 2012

Unless I am mistaken, ID'ers have often bragged about the few peer reviews they have been able to collect, implying approval of ID by the scientific community.

Now it seems they don't care for more peer review. Now if that ain't progress...

raven · 5 March 2012

This whole event was a sham to trick a science publisher with a decent reputation into unwittingly publishing creationist nonsense, in my best guess, for legal/political reasons.
The creationists are doing what they always do. Trying to borrow or steal the prestige and authority of science to...attack science. Because much as they hate modern science, it is still the basis of our modern 21st century Hi Tech civilization and the most successful human endeavor in all of history.

eric · 5 March 2012

DS said: And, it the conference really was legitimate, why would they be afraid of additional peer review?
Playing devil's advocate here, but "afraid" may be the wrong word. I think its a fact of the scientific world that conference presentations often don't have the quality of journal-worthy research. No malice need be involved: even with the best of intentions, some failure in the lab may mean you can't present the findings you expected to produce, so you give a paper that would never get formally accepted, such as 'here's what we plan on doing.' By rights, I really don't think we should expect conference proceedings submissions to live up to the strict peer review regular journal articles should get. If you held real conference proceedings to the standard you are demanding we hold these yoyos to, many legitimate proceedings submissions would fail. Fair's fair; we need to use the same standard we'd use on other conference proceedings. But, just to be absolutely clear, I think this particular conference's proceedings is not worth publishing in a scientific journal because the meeting itself was not a scientific meeting. I would not expect Springer to publish the local book club or poker game results either - no matter how accurate and informative the submission, its not science.

Kevin B · 5 March 2012

eric said:
DS said: And, it the conference really was legitimate, why would they be afraid of additional peer review?
Playing devil's advocate here, but "afraid" may be the wrong word. I think its a fact of the scientific world that conference presentations often don't have the quality of journal-worthy research. No malice need be involved: even with the best of intentions, some failure in the lab may mean you can't present the findings you expected to produce, so you give a paper that would never get formally accepted, such as 'here's what we plan on doing.' By rights, I really don't think we should expect conference proceedings submissions to live up to the strict peer review regular journal articles should get. If you held real conference proceedings to the standard you are demanding we hold these yoyos to, many legitimate proceedings submissions would fail. Fair's fair; we need to use the same standard we'd use on other conference proceedings. But, just to be absolutely clear, I think this particular conference's proceedings is not worth publishing in a scientific journal because the meeting itself was not a scientific meeting. I would not expect Springer to publish the local book club or poker game results either - no matter how accurate and informative the submission, its not science.
I imagine that part of what Springer will be doing is to "peer-review" the conference itself. Under most circumstances it would be reasonable to assume that the organising committee of a conference will have set themselves up to make sure that the quality of the papers presented is up to scratch (if only for the committee's own reputation.) The proceedings editors then have the opportunity to deal with any really duff papers - either by fixing the text, adding an editorial comment or, in extremis, forcibly withdrawing the paper. Springer have discovered, rather late in the day, that the organisers of Biological Information - New Perspectives have a lot of baggage that militates against the assumption that they are up to scratch.

harold · 5 March 2012

What would constitute censorship by the scientific publisher?
Your questions may be rhetorical; I'm a bit impatient with the idea that a private entity can be compelled to publish at someone else's demand, though, so my tone may seem strong. Apologies in advance. Your freedom of speech is just that. It is freedom for YOU to speak, and NOT a unilateral power for you to compel others to speak as you wish them to. Why can't authoritarians get that? It is most amusing to me that I find myself explaining freedom of expression and free markets to those who would undoubtedly, if inaccurately, call themselves "conservatives".
What if they say, “We have rejected your manuscript. Although we are unable to find anything wrong with your paper scientifically, we just don’t like it.”
1) All private entities have a perfect right to do that; if I write a book I won't be sending it to Regnery or the publishing arm of a theological seminary, for exactly that reason, they won't publish it because they won't like it, and that is 100% their right. If I were fool enough to advance policies that would force them to emit speech that they don't want to admit, I would set the precedent for others to force ME to emit speech that I don't want to emit. What is it with this blatant, childishly obvious double standard? Do you want ME to be able to demand that the Weekly Standard print whatever I write? If not, then how can you presume the right to order others to print whatever you would like them to print? 2) The standard for scientific publication is NOT "unable to find anything wrong". This has been an undertone of creationist commentary as well. "We met the minimum standard so you are obliged to publish us on demand". Although to some degree this is covered by point "1)", another valuable point is that papers with "nothing wrong with them, scientifically" are frequently, and correctly, rejected. Is the journal Nature obliged to publish every manuscript it receives that has "nothing wrong with it scientifically"? Like the "publish whatever we demand" logic, this logic would also force publishers to publish a near infinite amount of material. Publication is at the discretion of the editors and publishers, and the standard is often that what is reported has the potential to significantly advance the field. 3) There is abundant reason to suspect that there is plenty wrong with the material in question here, from a scientific perspective.
Maybe think of Alfred Wegener trying to publish on continental drift in 1912. Sure, his mechanism was insufficient, but probably some conservative scientists just didn’t like his conclusions.
This scenario would only be a concern if there were government censorship of ID/creationism output. There is not, and ID/creationism writings abound in books and on the internet. It is far easier to publish a creationist book than to publish a science book, and profitable sales are more likely. The fear that ID/creationism may not be evaluated because it cannot be published due to actual censorship is an absurd one. Almost everyone who reads this blog, science supporter and creationist alike, is familiar with ID/creationist arguments, including, it would seem, based on the the article we are commenting on, what was presented at this "conference". The material from this "conference" will be published, unless the authors choose not to publish it. It may or may not be published by Springer. I note that what creationists are whining about here is additional peer review.
Perhaps the scientific publisher can reject anything they jolly well feel like rejecting, even for illogical or stupid reasons. But their business and reputation rests on publishing scientific advances, not on publishing The Journal of Stuff We Already Agree With.
That is indeed correct, but not an issue here. Publishing crap is one way to damage reputation and business. Failing to publish legitimate advances is potentially another. But the question here is whether they should publish crap. Whether they are too conservative with legitimate advances - which would be their right, but might represent loss of opportunity, as you note - is a different issue.
Criticism is not censorship, as Douglas Theobald noted. Is there any action that would constitute censorship by the scientific publisher?
If by censorship you mean suppression of creationist freedom of expression, then the answer is "no". Your freedom of expression is just that, freedom to express. It is not a unilateral power for you to require others to pay you for or promote your expression. If by censorship you mean "hold to editorial standards of quality, via rejection, revision, request for additional work, etc", then everything that is edited rather than directly self-published is censored, but this is not a reasonable thing to complain about.

Les Lane · 5 March 2012

I assure you, the papers were heavily peer-reviewed.
It's relatively easy to get things through peer review when you hide manuscripts from everyone who's qualified to review them.

Carl Drews · 5 March 2012

Harold, thanks for the perspective. In my question I was thinking of climate science rather than ID/creationism. Certain people's positions on global warming have become fairly well-known, and if they serve on the editorial board of a scientific journal they might be tempted to publish only manuscripts that support their position. Hopefully the editorial board is diverse.

By the way, the PLoS journals publish a near infinite amount of material. They are Open Access, so the author pays for publication. They are supposed to publish papers if the science is correct and well-described, but I would irritated if I discovered a hidden editorial policy against (or for) anthropogenic global warming.

harold · 5 March 2012

Harold, thanks for the perspective. In my question I was thinking of climate science rather than ID/creationism. Certain people’s positions on global warming have become fairly well-known, and if they serve on the editorial board of a scientific journal they might be tempted to publish only manuscripts that support their position. Hopefully the editorial board is diverse.
With the caveat that this is always a risk, I would like to give my perspective on the idea that AGW is being deliberately exaggerated. I think this is very unlikely. I am not a climate scientist, but I can assure you that I would be delighted, as would most climate scientists, if strong evidence against a potentially harmful warming trend largely due to rapid atmospherization of long sequestered carbon by fossil fuel burning humans were to emerge. Climate scientists do not benefit, neither with "more grants" nor in any other way, from potentially harmful climate change. It sucks for everybody. If anything, it is climate change denialists who have obvious ulterior motive. Even denialists with poor or irrelevant credentials and imperfect grasp of the latest evidence can receive much better compensation from "think tanks", industry lobbyists, etc, than mainstream scientists. Scientists did not "want" cigarette smoking to be associated with disease and certainly did not wish to court trouble with cigarette companies. Scientist do not "want" to make discoveries that cause friction with powerful established industries, but it happens sometimes. I agree that reviewers need to be open to all possibilities, but AGW is, unfortunately, very strongly supported. And, somewhat analogously with the creationist case, AGW denial is hardly censored - it's published in multiple forms every day.
By the way, the PLoS journals publish a near infinite amount of material. They are Open Access, so the author pays for publication. They are supposed to publish papers if the science is correct and well-described, but I would irritated if I discovered a hidden editorial policy against (or for) anthropogenic global warming.
1. I'm a huge fan of the PLoS model, but at least some PLoS venues are very strongly peer reviewed (which I think is good). It's a great model to make the scientific information that the editors choose to publish more rapidly, widely, and cheaply available. It isn't an "anybody can publish anything here" model, at least not the major PLoS titles. There are plenty of venues that have high tolerance for good but unexciting results, or even poorly supported ideas, and low threshold for publication out there, some online, some in print, too, of course. 2. I'm also strongly opposed to the idea of a hidden agenda on global warming studies; I'm more inclined to worry that such an agenda would belong to those who gain politically and financially by denying AGW. To use the cigarettes and disease analogy again, no scientist made any serious money pointing out the links, and a lot of people made a lot of money denying the link.

Tenncrain · 5 March 2012

Nick Matzke said: Christians who accept evolution often say that one of the bigger sources of atheism occurs when students are raised fundamentalist then go to college and learn that evolution and geology aren’t conspiratorial fairytales, just obvious inferences from massive datasets.
I can vouch for this. I grew up a YEC, then took both university biology and geology. My price for becoming an ex-YEC was spiritual upheaval - along with other YECs looking down their noses at me. Rather well know ex-YEC Glenn Morton had a similar experience, except that his YEC beliefs survived college but were finally destroyed by real world experience in the field as an oil geophysicist. Glenn remains a theist today, but at one point was on the verge of becoming an atheist.
...only YECs are daft enough to go for the Second Law of Thermodynamics argument, an argument so infamous and so bad even Answers in Genesis basically admits it shouldn’t be used...
Even some leading YECs balked at using the 2L chestnut, including Walter Lammerts who was co-founder of the Creation Research Society, and A.E. Wilder-Smith who was a well known British YEC. As historian Ronald Numbers notes in his book 'The Creationists', the CreResSociety Quarterly had articles during the 1970s and 80s from individuals (whom were otherwise faithful YECs) rejecting use of the 2L against evolution. Numbers has an account of AE Wilder-Smith stating that Henry Morris and other like creationists “…don’t know a thing about thermodynamics”. Lammerts described 2L arguments as “worthless prattle” and “thermodynamics junk”

Carl Drews · 5 March 2012

A few years ago I encountered a journal editor who I perceived was a global warming denialist. I put him and his journal on my personal blacklist, and moved on. Harold gives good advice here.

To bring this thread back: Springer has the right to reject any submission for any reason at all, or none. But they will hurt their scientific reputation and business by citing reasons unrelated to science or the description of that science, as well as give ID/creationists more excuses to holler bloody repression. Arbitrary or frivolous rejection is not a good right to exercise. Springer is doing the correct thing by holding additional peer review to examine the science contained within this manuscript. We like the PLoS model of peer review and publication.

Carl Drews · 5 March 2012

Tenncrain said:
I can vouch for this.
So can Author David Kinnaman of the Barna Group. See You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church and Rethinking Church (The Barna Group, September 28, 2011): Reason #3 - Churches come across as antagonistic to science. There is a cost to creationists for citing the Second Law of Thermodynamics for the umpteenth time. The cost is that Springer and other scientific publishers will wisely and deservedly subject your manuscripts to additional rounds of peer review, because you have a history of using bogus arguments.

Steve P. · 5 March 2012

harold said:
“6. The Evo-Faithful complain that intelligent design isn’t science “because it’s not peer-reviewed.” When it is peer-reviewed, they say, “It shouldn’t have been peer-reviewed because it’s not science.”
This statement is so incorrect that it's mind-boggling. 1) No-one says it shouldn't be peer-reviewed; it should be peer-reviewed, and if it doesn't contain valid evidence and logically drawn inferences, it should be rejected, as DavidK points out. 2) The current complaint of the creationists is that the material is being peer reviewed! "Additional peer review" is the current status. They're the ones who object to peer review.
Uh, peer-review did not reject the work, Harold. Therefore the evidence was valid and logical inferences correctly drawn. Geez, Harold. You. Are. Dense. Additional peer-review was 'needed' because some loud-mouths came sqeeling and whining to Springer's door. Oh, more peer-review. Right, gotcha. More peer-review is need because its Dembski/Marks/Sanford/ et al, you know, the pseudo gang!?. You guys are a riot. Your science is in a muddle (remind me of all the ground-breaking work Coyne, Matzke, Carroll, Felsenstein, et al are doing) so you spend your time tailing acronyms. Tinker, tailer, whiner, spy.

phhht · 5 March 2012

Steve P. said: Uh, peer-review did not reject the work, Harold. Therefore the evidence was valid and logical inferences correctly drawn.
Does not follow. Jesus, Steve P. You. Are. Stupid.

John · 5 March 2012

Steve P. said: Tinker, tailer, whiner, spy.
Wow, that's an accurate summation of you, Steve P. All of the people you dare criticize, including Nick Matzke, have done far more science than you have ever done. So are you going to follow harold's advice as noted here, Stevie P: harold said: "So anyway, Steve P., let’s go with the 'private entities are obliged to uncritically publish anything that creationists demand' model." "I’ll grant you that, as long as you grant me the same right." "I’m working on a book called 'Everything Steve P. Ever Says is Wrong'." "I demand that you publish it at your own expense." "We agree, right? Failure to publish whatever creationists demand is censorship. Extra peer review is censorship. Criticism is censorship." "So I want you to live by your own standards. If I demand that you publish something and you don’t do it, it’s censorship. Surely an advocate of dynamic cutting edge design science such as yourself would not stoop to censorship." "I want a first run of 200,000 beautiful copies, on vellum in gold-embossed leather binding." "If you do anything else, you’re guilty of censoring and persecuting me." "You better sell a LOT of textiles." "Publish, baby, publish." Stevie, baby, I opted to post this rejoinder to harold: I’d be interested in seeing whether Steve P.’s potential bestseller might rival that of 'Angela’s Ashes' or any of the 'Harry Potter' books in sales. I am willing to bet a brand new Taiwanese rug that it won’t." I stand by my bet, O CLUELESS, DELUSIONAL DI IDIOT BORG DRONE RESIDING IN TAIWAN.

ksplawn · 6 March 2012

Carl Drews said:
Tenncrain said: I can vouch for this.
So can Author David Kinnaman of the Barna Group. See You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church and Rethinking Church (The Barna Group, September 28, 2011): Reason #3 - Churches come across as antagonistic to science. There is a cost to creationists for citing the Second Law of Thermodynamics for the umpteenth time. The cost is that Springer and other scientific publishers will wisely and deservedly subject your manuscripts to additional rounds of peer review, because you have a history of using bogus arguments.
It's the old problem that was recognized even back in Augustine of Hippo's day. When someone professes that, as a matter of their faith, the stars don't behave the way they plainly do (or whatever contradicts empirical experience and science), it tends to turn away more people than it attracts and make the whole religion look as ridiculous as those claims.

harold · 6 March 2012

Steve P. said -
Uh, peer-review did not reject the work, Harold.
The original peer reviewers requested additional peer review.
Therefore the evidence was valid and logical inferences correctly drawn.
Invalid conclusion.
Geez, Harold. You. Are. Dense. Additional peer-review was ‘needed’ because some loud-mouths came sqeeling and whining to Springer’s door.
1) The implication here is that Springer acted wrongly and should have told the original reviewers "you ain't gettin' not lousy additional peer review". First of all, the day that Steve P. can tell Springer how and what to publish is the day that Steve P. buys the company or is hired as a high ranked executive with that level of decision making power. That's what Steve P. doesn't get. Freedom of speech is not freedom to unilaterally demand that others publish what you want them to publish. If it is, then I demand that you publish my book. If you agree that it isn't, then deal with the fact that Springer can publish what they want to publish. 2) Expressions of concern by scientists would be a highly valid reason for additional peer review. 3) I would not quite call this a "conspiracy theory", but as far as I know, and I could be wrong, the editors decided independently that this thing needed additional peer review.
Oh, more peer-review. Right, gotcha. More peer-review is need because its Dembski/Marks/Sanford/ et al, you know, the pseudo gang!?.
Sounds reasonable to me, given the well known past track record and institutional affiliations of these authors, although it's more likely that it was the nature of the material.
You guys are a riot. Your science is in a muddle (remind me of all the ground-breaking work Coyne, Matzke, Carroll, Felsenstein, et al are doing)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=sean%20b.%20carroll http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=matzke%20%2B%20n http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=coyne%20%2B%20JA http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=felsenstein%20%2BJ
so you spend your time tailing acronyms.
I literally do not understand what this means.
Tinker, tailer, whiner, spy.
The whiners here are the creationists. They seem to literally think that Springer Verlag is compelled to publish their stuff, and not only that, but to do it fast. We don't even know yet that Springer won't publish it, and they're already whining.

John · 6 March 2012

harold said: Steve P. said -
Uh, peer-review did not reject the work, Harold.
The original peer reviewers requested additional peer review.
Therefore the evidence was valid and logical inferences correctly drawn.
Invalid conclusion.
Geez, Harold. You. Are. Dense. Additional peer-review was ‘needed’ because some loud-mouths came sqeeling and whining to Springer’s door.
1) The implication here is that Springer acted wrongly and should have told the original reviewers "you ain't gettin' not lousy additional peer review". First of all, the day that Steve P. can tell Springer how and what to publish is the day that Steve P. buys the company or is hired as a high ranked executive with that level of decision making power. That's what Steve P. doesn't get. Freedom of speech is not freedom to unilaterally demand that others publish what you want them to publish. If it is, then I demand that you publish my book. If you agree that it isn't, then deal with the fact that Springer can publish what they want to publish. 2) Expressions of concern by scientists would be a highly valid reason for additional peer review. 3) I would not quite call this a "conspiracy theory", but as far as I know, and I could be wrong, the editors decided independently that this thing needed additional peer review.
Oh, more peer-review. Right, gotcha. More peer-review is need because its Dembski/Marks/Sanford/ et al, you know, the pseudo gang!?.
Sounds reasonable to me, given the well known past track record and institutional affiliations of these authors, although it's more likely that it was the nature of the material.
You guys are a riot. Your science is in a muddle (remind me of all the ground-breaking work Coyne, Matzke, Carroll, Felsenstein, et al are doing)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=sean%20b.%20carroll http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=matzke%20%2B%20n http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=coyne%20%2B%20JA http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=felsenstein%20%2BJ
so you spend your time tailing acronyms.
I literally do not understand what this means.
Tinker, tailer, whiner, spy.
The whiners here are the creationists. They seem to literally think that Springer Verlag is compelled to publish their stuff, and not only that, but to do it fast. We don't even know yet that Springer won't publish it, and they're already whining.
Am in full agreement here, except, as Nick himself has noted, the creo blogosphere has been quite silent about this. Even my dishonorable fellow Brunonian, David Klinghoffer of "Darwin + Evilution = Holocaust" fame, had to have his screed taken off the DI website, which is a rather rare occurrence for someone who is among the more "notable" DI mendacious intellectual pornographers (As for Steve P., he's just being his usual delusional DI IDiot Borg drone self.).

Karen S. · 6 March 2012

Sounds reasonable to me, given the well known past track record and institutional affiliations of these authors, although it’s more likely that it was the nature of the material.
Yes, reasonable. When you know that counterfeit bills are circulating, a good cashier or teller is extra-vigilant.

SWT · 6 March 2012

John said: (As for Steve P., he's just being his usual delusional DI IDiot Borg drone self.).
John, I must insist that you stop saying that. Whatever other faults we might find with it, the Borg collective is highly intelligent, highly logical, and very interested in actual observational information.

Karen S. · 6 March 2012

Whatever other faults we might find with it, the Borg collective is highly intelligent, highly logical, and very interested in actual observational information.
Good point. Without sound science, they wouldn't have all that technology, would they?

RM · 6 March 2012

In those fields of chemistry where I have worked, the standard of reviewing is the same for conference proceedings as it is for regular journal articles. I have been on the advisory editorial board of 4 scientific journals and have reviewed for some more. I know of a paper by a member of the honorary editorial board that was rejected as well as of a paper by an invited conference speaker. In my mind, both these decisions were correct. Of course, the two authors got angry, but that didn’t help.

Reviewing certainly goes wrong every now and then. Some papers are unjustly rejected and some are unjustly accepted. If there are many low-quality papers published the journal or the book series gets a bad reputation among its readers. It then stands the risk of being dropped by university libraries short of money. Neither publishers nor editors like that.

The volume on “Biological Information” discussed here was intended to be Vol. 38 of the “Intelligent Systems Reference Library” published by Springer. There are two editors of this series who both may be described as computer scientists or engineers. Then there are editors or editorial boards for most of the separate volumes.

One may assume that the series editors received a suggestion for this volume from people behind the Cornell meeting, very likely together with a list of possible reviewers. After receiving favorable reports by reviewers from that list the book was accepted. The individual contributions were then to be reviewed by people selected by the volume editors. This way of operating works if everything is done in good faitn. The problem in this case is, of course, what evolutionary biologists see as the hidden agenda of the people involved. I don't blame the series editors for not detecting that. This book is too far away from their own fields of research.

I am an amateur when it comes to biology. I have followed PT since the days of Dover but usually only as a lurker. Having read Nick Matzke’s first article I e-mailed one the series editors telling him to be aware of the discussion here at Panda’s thumb. That was in the evening (Central European Time) of February 28. I don’t know whether my message caused Springer to take action. Anyway, the advertisement was gone in the afternoon (CET) the next day.
I think Springer acted in the only sensible way possible. Nick Matzke’s criticism may be all wrong (I am certain it isn’t) but it is in the publisher’s interest to find out before the book is out. Therefore Springer put the manuscript on hold for further review.

Some people here at PT have speculated about lawsuits. I think that will not happen. The circumstances may be unusual, but what we see is the normal way of handling a difficult publishing problem.

It is quite possible that the book is ultimately rejected by Springer. Then the book editors and authors will be free to give it to another publisher who may judge the manuscript differently. Such things happen all the time.

John · 6 March 2012

RM said: In those fields of chemistry where I have worked, the standard of reviewing is the same for conference proceedings as it is for regular journal articles. I have been on the advisory editorial board of 4 scientific journals and have reviewed for some more. I know of a paper by a member of the honorary editorial board that was rejected as well as of a paper by an invited conference speaker. In my mind, both these decisions were correct. Of course, the two authors got angry, but that didn’t help. Reviewing certainly goes wrong every now and then. Some papers are unjustly rejected and some are unjustly accepted. If there are many low-quality papers published the journal or the book series gets a bad reputation among its readers. It then stands the risk of being dropped by university libraries short of money. Neither publishers nor editors like that. The volume on “Biological Information” discussed here was intended to be Vol. 38 of the “Intelligent Systems Reference Library” published by Springer. There are two editors of this series who both may be described as computer scientists or engineers. Then there are editors or editorial boards for most of the separate volumes. One may assume that the series editors received a suggestion for this volume from people behind the Cornell meeting, very likely together with a list of possible reviewers. After receiving favorable reports by reviewers from that list the book was accepted. The individual contributions were then to be reviewed by people selected by the volume editors. This way of operating works if everything is done in good faitn. The problem in this case is, of course, what evolutionary biologists see as the hidden agenda of the people involved. I don't blame the series editors for not detecting that. This book is too far away from their own fields of research. I am an amateur when it comes to biology. I have followed PT since the days of Dover but usually only as a lurker. Having read Nick Matzke’s first article I e-mailed one the series editors telling him to be aware of the discussion here at Panda’s thumb. That was in the evening (Central European Time) of February 28. I don’t know whether my message caused Springer to take action. Anyway, the advertisement was gone in the afternoon (CET) the next day. I think Springer acted in the only sensible way possible. Nick Matzke’s criticism may be all wrong (I am certain it isn’t) but it is in the publisher’s interest to find out before the book is out. Therefore Springer put the manuscript on hold for further review. Some people here at PT have speculated about lawsuits. I think that will not happen. The circumstances may be unusual, but what we see is the normal way of handling a difficult publishing problem. It is quite possible that the book is ultimately rejected by Springer. Then the book editors and authors will be free to give it to another publisher who may judge the manuscript differently. Such things happen all the time.
The only credible threat of legal action has been stated from the delusional cabal at the Dishonesty Institute known as the Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture; in other words, I am refering to the pathetic Casey Luskin. I've heard a rumor about a scientist thinking of suing Springer, but since this isn't one I have been able to verify. You may have not been the only one to have alerted Springer. I wouldn't be surprised if either Niles Eldredge or his son Gregory (or both), the editors of the journal Evolution Education Outreach (which is published by Springer), may have complained too.

DS · 6 March 2012

RM said: It is quite possible that the book is ultimately rejected by Springer. Then the book editors and authors will be free to give it to another publisher who may judge the manuscript differently. Such things happen all the time.
Indeed. You can be sure that that is exactly what is going to happen here. Upon further review, (i.e. the very first review by anyone competent to judge), the volume will be rejected in its entirety. The DI, or some other creationist organization, will then "publish" it after their own 'peer review" process and try to make money selling it to the faithful. They will claim discrimination and censorship and undoubtedly cite the self published book as a scientific reference, proof that creationism is really scientific. All of the rubes will be completely fooled. None of the people who know what is going on will be fooled. The DI will declare victory over the "Darwinist conspiracy" and then try to pull the same scam again. I will try to care, but somehow I don't think I'll be able to.

harold · 6 March 2012

RM - If you have been following since Dover, you are probably quite aware that the major goals of ID/creationist tend to be political.
Some people here at PT have speculated about lawsuits. I think that will not happen. The circumstances may be unusual, but what we see is the normal way of handling a difficult publishing problem.
I would not rule out an obnoxious nuisance lawsuit. However, even the DI may be smart enough to realize, at levels above Luskin, that a failed lawsuit would be absurd to all observers, getting material published due to a lawsuit would not look very credible, and bringing a lawsuit in this situation would make publishers especially wary of future creationist submissions, no matter what the outcome. But there is another potential reason for the sudden and mysterious total silence from ID/creationist quarters that John has noted. "Creation Science" as part of high school science curricula was challenged in the 1980's, and lost numerous court decisions, including Edwards vs. Aguillard, which went to SCOTUS. That is the very reason that the "ID" and "ID isn't creationism" propaganda memes were created. This conference included liberal doses of YEC/"creation science". Also, when the additional peer review was initiated, one of the early online responses was by a YEC type who was an invited attendee, and contained disturbing commentary about getting a "shotgun", and another, which actually popped up at the DI, equated climate change denial with evolution denial (that author supports both of them) and claimed, hilariously, that both were being "censored". These early responses from creationists contained hostile if not threatening language, conspiratorial musings, and equated a decision by a private publisher to peer review more thoroughly with "censorship", seemingly implying the mentality that Springer was not only obliged to publish what they demanded, but obliged to do it fast and without much review. If there was a hope that this episode would produce a "peer reviewed non-religious ID science" publication to be brandished in school board meetings, court rooms, or state legislative chambers, that hope has now been badly damaged. Religious motivations and efforts to manipulate the peer review system in a deceptive way have been revealed, and violent language by conference attendees does not create a positive public image here. A desperate attempt at damage control may be the explanation of the silence.

DS · 6 March 2012

If the volume ultimately gets rejected, is there anyone who thinks that the authors will actually take the time to read the reviews comments and learn form them? Is there anyone who thinks that any criticism, no matter how valid, will actually be accepted? Is there anyone who thinks that the authors will actually make the corrections recommended, perform the suggested additional research and try to submit the paper to other real journals? In other words, it there anyone, anyone at all, who actually thinks that the authors will behave a real scientists going through a real review process? Is there anyone at all who thinks that, if the volume is ultimately rejected, the authors won't scream discrimination and censorship, no matter what the reviewers conclude or why?

That's what I thought.

Paul Burnett · 6 March 2012

harold said: A desperate attempt at damage control may be the explanation of the silence.
Good analysis. Their unusual silence shows we should not let up on publicizing their attempted hoax.

diogeneslamp0 · 6 March 2012

Tenncrain said: Even some leading YECs balked at using the 2L chestnut, including Walter Lammerts who was co-founder of the Creation Research Society, and A.E. Wilder-Smith who was a well known British YEC. ...Numbers has an account of AE Wilder-Smith stating that Henry Morris and other like creationists “…don’t know a thing about thermodynamics”. Lammerts described 2L arguments as “worthless prattle” and “thermodynamics junk”
This is incorrect. Some OECs rejected the 2LOT, but A.E. Wilder-Smith (who I believe was Swiss though he got a degree in the UK), relentlessly, painfully flogged the 2LOT argument. He was horrible. Wilder-Smith is a very important author, the true architect of Intelligent Design "theory"; you recall that Dembski said that his work was inspired by Wilder-Smith's ideas. Wilder-Smith, for example, used phrases like "specified complexity" back in the 1970's, and transformed the 2LOT argument into the "no new information" argument. He abducted and raped the jargon of Shannon's information theory. However, he never rejected the 2LOT argument. He LOVED IT and flogged it to death; then he morphed it into "specified complexity" and "no new information." His books are extremely important historically. If you have ANY interest in the history of creationism and ID, you should read ALL his books. I'm not kidding. In Wilder-Smith you can see how YEC morphs into ID by borrowing the jargon of computer science and information theory, but not the math. His math was either non-existent or infantile. Although his books are worthless as science, they're of huge importance to the history of pseudoscience. Ronald Numbers in "The Creationists" did not really get this point. Numbers' coverage of ID and Wilder-Smith is rather shallow. Wilder-Smith is supposedly one of the most "accomplished" creationists because he had three Ph.D.'s, and all three appear to be real, AFAIK, not fakes like with some other creationists. Which makes it perplexing to me how he could not understand even the simplest scientific arguments. He just use jargon, but he really didn't understand the subjects he was talking about, not... at... all. I think one of his Ph.D.'s was in pharmacology--so how could he be so ignorant of basic physical chemistry as to invoke the 2LOT argument? Oh but he did. In this 1969 book "Man's Origin, Man's Destiny" he wrote I think 20 or 30 pages beating 2LOT to death. Look at this trash!
Perhaps we may be permitted to use a second illustration of this very vital point of principle [2LOT], since it is so often overlooked. Let us once more put our brand new car under a tree in the forest and leave it there twenty years or so. From time to time we... measure the varying signs of increasing entropy-- decay. The battery runs down, corrosion begins under the paint, the tires deteriorate and burst, the safety glass gets translucent. After twenty years we can plot a fine decay curve of our car... But even by the most exact study of this decay curve we could never gain much authentic information on the car company's internal administrative organization for manufacturing such cars. ...the universe which is everywhere subjected to the laws of decay described by thermodynamics... such studies may give us very little light on events which took place under laws of nature entirely different to those we now know, namely, those of creation... the lower the entropy, the more complex the structure...the greater the "planning energy" expended in creating it." [A. E. Wilder-Smith, "Man's Origin, Man's Destiny (1969), p. 74-5]
Now what is wrong with this? He uses as an example of entropy increase a CAR RUSTING. HELLO!? Oxidation of iron is an exothermic process that involves local entropy DECREASE!! Horrible. What's worse is that he pushed the Paluxy man-prints, and he actually went to Paluxy and, next to a real dinosaur footprint, he and his collaborators splashed water on the ground in the shape of a human footprint ("wetting out" as creationists call it) and photographed their "man-print" next to the dino print ("The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution", 1983, Fig. 4, p. 120). He pushed many other fake fossils. In his 1969 book "The Drug Users" (you should read it--really) he says that the best refutation of "materialism" is the existence of occult phenomena, like seances, mediums who can speak to the dead, witch doctors, phantasms, ESP and telepathy. He says there is evidcence that if you take hallucinogenic drugs you can predict the future. He was a pharmacologist, after all. In his book "Creation of Life" (1970) he again says that taking drugs can help you see the future (p. 187) and says that he himself has telepathy (p. 214). This disproves materialism, because it proves that intelligence is non-material. This statement is immediately followed by the claim that intelligence can violate the second law:
Intelligence, and its coupling to calories, or work, has been shown to be the secret behind overcoming the outworking of the second law of thermodynamics and the accompanying increase in entropy to which all nature, left to itself, is subject. [p. 214]

Steve P. · 6 March 2012

Harold: "First of all, the day that Steve P. can tell Springer how and what to publish is the day that Steve P. buys the company or is hired as a high ranked executive with that level of decision making power. That’s what Steve P. doesn’t get. Freedom of speech is not freedom to unilaterally demand that others publish what you want them to publish."
Harold, it the other way around. It is you (pl)here who want to tell Springer how to do peer-review and how to determine what is fit for publication. You are putting the pressure on not to publish not Dembski/Marks et al. You have the freedom to blab all you want about how the authors of the book have some hidden, dangerous to the public at large, sinister agenda. Yet it is the publishers (if they have the fortitude to not buckle under your(pl)innocuous pressure) who will make the call, not you (pl).
Harold: "Expressions of concern by scientists would be a highly valid reason for additional peer review."
That was good for a chuckle. Puleeze. Expressions of concern? If anyone has an agenda, it is you (pl) who are adamant there be no challenge to your(pl) evolutionary sophistry. Oh, and Q&A with Sean Carroll does seem rather ground-breaking. I stand corrected. To be sure, Dembski/Marks and team are the Linsanity to your Lebron James. They are breaking out and will continue to do so, regardless of the noise you make.

Nick Matzke · 7 March 2012

Diogeneslamp9 - that's incredible! You appear to have read more wilder-smith than anyone I've met. Do I know you? Email me if you are comfortable, matzkeATberkeley.edu

Michael R · 7 March 2012

I read Wilder Smith in 1971 (Man's Origin, Man's Destiny) I did not take much notice of his 2L arguments as his geolgoy was so dishonest, with many pages trying to show that the Geological Column was a circular argument from evolution. That is now rejected by most creationsits as even they see it was false but wont admit it.

Smith was British and worked elsewhere including Turkey and Switzerland. He was portrayed as have 3 doctorates

Why do I always get a notice "your sesssion has expired" when I make a response and then have to log in?

Mike Elzinga · 7 March 2012

SWT said:
John said: (As for Steve P., he's just being his usual delusional DI IDiot Borg drone self.).
John, I must insist that you stop saying that. Whatever other faults we might find with it, the Borg collective is highly intelligent, highly logical, and very interested in actual observational information.
And besides, Seven of Nine was once a Borg. ;-)

Mike Elzinga · 7 March 2012

diogeneslamp0 said: This is incorrect. Some OECs rejected the 2LOT, but A.E. Wilder-Smith (who I believe was Swiss though he got a degree in the UK), relentlessly, painfully flogged the 2LOT argument. He was horrible.
I was aware of Wilder-Smith’s influence on Henry Morris; and I suspected that Morris “refined” and “honed” Wilder-Smith’s arguments. Thomas Kindell, who was one of Morris’s protégés, has a video on the web that pretty much follows Morris’s argument formulated back in the early 1970s and published in one of his books, What is Creation Science?. The person who first caught my attention for using this bogus argument was Duane Gish who worked at the Upjohn Company in the community where I lived. Gish used to bully the biology teachers in their classrooms with the thermodynamic argument; and he used it regularly in his debates.

SWT · 7 March 2012

Mike Elzinga said:
SWT said:
John said: (As for Steve P., he's just being his usual delusional DI IDiot Borg drone self.).
John, I must insist that you stop saying that. Whatever other faults we might find with it, the Borg collective is highly intelligent, highly logical, and very interested in actual observational information.
And besides, Seven of Nine was once a Borg. ;-)
Excellent point!

Kevin B · 7 March 2012

Mike Elzinga said:
SWT said:
John said: (As for Steve P., he's just being his usual delusional DI IDiot Borg drone self.).
John, I must insist that you stop saying that. Whatever other faults we might find with it, the Borg collective is highly intelligent, highly logical, and very interested in actual observational information.
And besides, Seven of Nine was once a Borg. ;-)
If it comes to that, the Director of the Victoria & Albert Museum between 1995 and 2001 was A Borg, but in this case, the "A" stood for "Alan".

John · 7 March 2012

Paul Burnett said:
harold said: A desperate attempt at damage control may be the explanation of the silence.
Good analysis. Their unusual silence shows we should not let up on publicizing their attempted hoax.
Am in full agreement with both of you, harold and Paul. Too often they've sought to control the agenda, and now, it seems like we're the ones in the driver's seat.

John · 7 March 2012

Steve P. the delusional mendacious expatriate American rug merchant residing int Taiwan barfed:
Harold: "First of all, the day that Steve P. can tell Springer how and what to publish is the day that Steve P. buys the company or is hired as a high ranked executive with that level of decision making power. That’s what Steve P. doesn’t get. Freedom of speech is not freedom to unilaterally demand that others publish what you want them to publish."
Harold, it the other way around. It is you (pl)here who want to tell Springer how to do peer-review and how to determine what is fit for publication. You are putting the pressure on not to publish not Dembski/Marks et al. You have the freedom to blab all you want about how the authors of the book have some hidden, dangerous to the public at large, sinister agenda. Yet it is the publishers (if they have the fortitude to not buckle under your(pl)innocuous pressure) who will make the call, not you (pl).
Harold: "Expressions of concern by scientists would be a highly valid reason for additional peer review."
That was good for a chuckle. Puleeze. Expressions of concern? If anyone has an agenda, it is you (pl) who are adamant there be no challenge to your(pl) evolutionary sophistry. Oh, and Q&A with Sean Carroll does seem rather ground-breaking. I stand corrected. To be sure, Dembski/Marks and team are the Linsanity to your Lebron James. They are breaking out and will continue to do so, regardless of the noise you make.
Sorry moron, harold has made a most accurate assessment. The reason why Springer is seeking additional peer review is because there are legitimate concerns that this so-called "symposium" contains papers that are pseudoscientific rubbish replete in their mendacity. As it has been explained to you ad nauseum scores of times, everything that Dembski and Marks have written have been exposed as nonsense through the diligent work of Shallit, Elsberry, Matzke, and many, many others. Yet you insist on subscribing into their nonsense, which, I am sure, your Taiwanese colleagues would realize the severe gravity of their nonsense. Long ago I suggested that your Taiwanese colleagues know a lot more science than you claim to, maybe it's time you try learning it from them. Until then, however, you will remain the delusional DI IDiot Borg drone that you are, Stevie baby.

John · 7 March 2012

SWT said:
Mike Elzinga said:
SWT said:
John said: (As for Steve P., he's just being his usual delusional DI IDiot Borg drone self.).
John, I must insist that you stop saying that. Whatever other faults we might find with it, the Borg collective is highly intelligent, highly logical, and very interested in actual observational information.
And besides, Seven of Nine was once a Borg. ;-)
Excellent point!
Your points are excellent, but Steve P. is still a delusional DI IDiot Borg drone. Why? He would rather listen to the Borg King, one William Dembski, than listen to us. He's been assimilated into the DI IDiot Borg Collective.

patrickmay.myopenid.com · 7 March 2012

Mike Elzinga said:
SWT said:
John said: (As for Steve P., he's just being his usual delusional DI IDiot Borg drone self.).
John, I must insist that you stop saying that. Whatever other faults we might find with it, the Borg collective is highly intelligent, highly logical, and very interested in actual observational information.
And besides, Seven of Nine was once a Borg. ;-)
Therefore Goddess.

harold · 7 March 2012

Steve P. is almost getting it.
Harold, it the other way around. It is you (pl)here who want to tell Springer how to do peer-review and how to determine what is fit for publication. You are putting the pressure on not to publish not Dembski/Marks et al.
But all of that is my right and your right, Steve P. I can criticize Springer Verlag all day, and so can you. I can criticize them for doing one thing, and you can criticize them for doing the other thing. They may even listen to my criticism or your criticism, and be voluntarily influenced by it. That's fine. Criticism is not censorship. What I'm not doing is sending them material and then accusing them of "censoring" me if they don't publish my material! (Except in the trivial sense that any private editorial discretion is censorship.) If I write a book that condemns this "Cornell" "conference", in no way, shape or form is Springer Verlag or anyone else obliged to publish it. Withing broad limits of laws against libel, slander, and harming public safety, I get to decide what I want to say, you get to decide what you want to say, and they get to decide what they want to say. We can criticize, condemn, mock, satirize, praise, glorify, lionize, whatever. But no-one else is obliged to refrain from criticizing us, to promote our material, or to pay us for our material.
Harold: “Expressions of concern by scientists would be a highly valid reason for additional peer review.”
That was good for a chuckle. Puleeze. Expressions of concern?
My statement is obviously reasonable.
If anyone has an agenda, it is you (pl) who are adamant there be no challenge to your(pl) evolutionary sophistry.
IF this were true it would be irrelevant. Those of us on the pro-science side do have an agenda here. Just not that particular agenda. You have an agenda. Everyone has an agenda. We are both free to have an agenda and to express it. But no other person is obliged to publish it. Panda's Thumb happens to allow you to express your agenda in the comments section. They aren't obliged to, though. They do so voluntarily. As it happens, I welcome any serious challenge to the theory of evolution, that takes into account the already existing data, explains it as well or better, and proposes tests to distinguish between evolution and the new proposal. I just haven't seen one yet, and don't expect to.
Oh, and Q&A with Sean Carroll does seem rather ground-breaking. I stand corrected.
And now you know how Pubmed works.
To be sure, Dembski/Marks and team are the Linsanity to your Lebron James. They are breaking out and will continue to do so, regardless of the noise you make.

Doc Bill · 7 March 2012

In 2004 Dr. Dr. wrote:
In the next five years, molecular Darwinism — the idea that Darwinian processes can produce complex molecular structures at the subcellular level — will be dead. When that happens, evolutionary biology will experience a crisis of confidence because evolutionary biology hinges on the evolution of the right molecules.
Yeah, Steve-a-reeno, Dembski and Marks are breaking out, but only with acne. Only with acne.

Rolf · 8 March 2012

The stillborn idea that Darwinian processes cannot produce complex molecular structures at the subcellular level is as dead as ever.

apokryltaros · 8 March 2012

Hey, Steve P, could you explain why was this paper that allegedly refutes Evolutionary Biology submitted to the department of "Engineering and Applied Science" and not "Biology?

I mean, if the authors weren't afraid of actual biologists reviewing their paper, why did they refuse to submit it to be reviewed by biologists?

apokryltaros · 8 March 2012

Rolf said: The stillborn idea that Darwinian processes cannot produce complex molecular structures at the subcellular level is as dead as ever.
This sad truth is noticeable as an erupting volcano, yet, Creationists delude themselves by thinking they can resurrect that stillborn idea by hiding it from biologists.

Tenncrain · 8 March 2012

diogeneslamp0 said:
Tenncrain said: Even some leading YECs balked at using the 2L chestnut, including Walter Lammerts who was co-founder of the Creation Research Society, and A.E. Wilder-Smith who was a well known British YEC. ...Numbers has an account of AE Wilder-Smith stating that Henry Morris and other like creationists “…don’t know a thing about thermodynamics.” Lammerts described 2L arguments as “worthless prattle” and “thermodynamics junk”
This is incorrect. Some OECs rejected the 2LOT, but A.E. Wilder-Smith...relentlessly, painfully flogged the 2LOT argument. He was horrible. Wilder-Smith is a very important author, the true architect of Intelligent Design "theory"; you recall that Dembski said that his work was inspired by Wilder-Smith's ideas. Wilder-Smith, for example, used phrases like "specified complexity" back in the 1970's, and transformed the 2LOT argument into the "no new information" argument. He abducted and raped the jargon of Shannon's information theory. However, he never rejected the 2LOT argument. He LOVED IT and flogged it to death; then he morphed it into "specified complexity" and "no new information."[snip]
Appreciate the comments and corrections. The "...doesn't know a thing about thermodynamics...” quote by Wilder-Smith was during his later years, the quote via Iowa State Univ sources. Not sure of the context of this quote without having looked it up, but whatever the case, now seems Wilder-Smith's disagreement with Henry Morris on the 2LofT was more a peripheral issue. A bit curious why Walter Lammerts (a horticulturist) so strongly rejected using the 2L argument. Even by YEC standards, Lammerts was strict, preferring 6000 years over 10000 years. Interestingly, he was relatively progressive in his politics, supporting civil rights, JFK, strongly disagreeing with the John Birch Society.

diogeneslamp0 · 8 March 2012

Tenncrain said: The "...doesn't know a thing about thermodynamics...” quote by Wilder-Smith was during his later years, the quote via Iowa State Univ sources. [snip] now seems Wilder-Smith's disagreement with Henry Morris on the 2LofT was more a peripheral issue. A bit curious why Walter Lammerts (a horticulturist) so strongly rejected using the 2L argument. Even by YEC standards, Lammerts was strict, preferring 6000 years over 10000 years. Interestingly, he was relatively progressive in his politics, supporting civil rights, JFK, strongly disagreeing with the John Birch Society.
Sure, Lammerts was almost the only one of the founders of creationism who was not outright racist. I've read many old-timey creationist books from the 1920's and all those guys were racists, except Lammerts, up till about 1980, and for some of them after that. You'd be shocked at how many American creationists supported Hitler, Nazism, anti-Semitism and "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in the 1930's. They whitewashed that the minute the US joined the war. You'd be shocked how many of them supported eugenics. They whitewashed all that sometime after 1970 (thank you, sexual revolution!) Now they blame Darwin for the Nazism and eugenics that their predecessors supported. I haven't just read their books, I've scanned them into PDF's and did OCR so I can do digital searches for words! Let's look up "eugenics" and "negro" and see what we find! [grins] Ronald Numbers' coverage of the thermodynamic argument is very incomplete. He shows it as basically originating with the Englishman Robert E. D. Clark, who popularized it in the very popular "Darwin: Before and After" (1948); Numbers mentions that other authors had alluded to it before ("The Creationists", p.177-8). However, Numbers ignores the very interesting literature before R.E.D. Clark, which I think demonstrates that the 2LOT argument was inspired by... guess what?... racism. Yeah, I'm not kidding. If you're interested I could back that up with evidence. But I digress. R. E. D. Clark only said 2LOT prevented new kinds of organization. Morris' only innovation was that 2LOT did not apply until after Adam ate the apple. Adam eats an apple, then 2LOT begins, says Morris. This R. E. D. Clark choked on. Ronald Numbers describes the disputes between Morris and Lammerts:
Morris, for instance, attached great apologetical significance to the second law of thermodynamics, which he associated with the Fall, while Lammerts dismissed such “confounded thermodynamics junk” as worthless prattle. ["The Creationists", p.261]
I believe in context, Lammerts here is objecting to the argument that 2LOT did not apply BEFORE ADAM ATE AN APPLE. After "the Fall", Adam eats an apple and then 2LOT applies. I'm not sure Lammerts objected to the 2LOT argument as disproving evolution. Many creationists ONLY object to the idea of 2LOT starting with "the Fall." I believe also AIG ONLY objects to the idea of 2LOT starting with "the Fall"; I believe they have not rejected the idea that 2LOT disproves evolution. R. E. D. Clark, who popularized the idea, strongly objected.
By the late 1960’s, when The Genesis Flood appeared in an English edition...[Robert E. D.] Clark... thought Whitcomb and Morris were as “silly and dishonest” as the evolutionists they opposed. He especially resented the way Morris had twisted his argument against evolution from the second law of thermodynamics into “baseless rubbish” by associating it with the Fall of Adam and Eve. ["The Creationists", p.357]

Karen S. · 8 March 2012

Yeah, Steve-a-reeno, Dembski and Marks are breaking out, but only with acne. Only with acne.
And weren't they breaking wind with their infamous fart video produced to celebrate the Kitzmiller decision?

Steve P. · 8 March 2012

Dream on people, dream on. Intelligent design has always made logical, rational, intuitive sense. Nothing has changed here.

Man designs and sees his own designs in nature.

Christ: "The kingdom of God is within you".

'nuff said.

Dave Luckett · 8 March 2012

Well, at least Steve is now willing to tell us what his motivation is. It's not some whacky misreading of the evidence. He doesn't care about evidence. That was just a sham. It's his religion.

We already got that, but it's nice to have it confirmed.

J. L. Brown · 8 March 2012

Dream on people, dream on. Intelligent design has always made logical, rational, intuitive sense. Nothing has changed here. Man designs and sees his own designs in nature. Christ: “The kingdom of God is within you”. ‘nuff said.

Nope, ID isn't about religion! No Theology in our 'logical, rational, intuitive sense" here! Not a bit, no sir! Honest! /sarcasm Nice one Steve P -- are you sure you aren't a Poe?

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q · 8 March 2012

Does anybody know Jonathan D.H. Smith from Iowa State University? According to his web pages (link) he contributed to BI:NP

Hierarchical information theory and the modeling of biological systems, pp. 419-512 in "Biological Information: New Perspectives" (eds. R.J. Marks II et al.), Springer Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Berlin, 2012.

He even provides a link to a copy of the article. (crossposted at AtBc)

John · 9 March 2012

Steve P. the delusional mendacious Taiwanese textile merchant barfed: Dream on people, dream on. Intelligent design has always made logical, rational, intuitive sense. Nothing has changed here. Man designs and sees his own designs in nature. Christ: "The kingdom of God is within you". 'nuff said.
Maybe you can enlighten the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy of Columbia University, one Philip Kitcher, who has referred to Intelligent Design as "dead science". Or perhaps Robert Pennock of Michigan State University, who has demonstrated the "evolution" of Intelligent Design in his book "Tower of Babel". Or perhaps even Barbara Forrest and Paul R. Gross, the authors of "Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design", who've done a most exhaustive, extensive research not only of ID cretinism but of the key players and financial supporters (I mean of course one Howard Ahmanson Jr.) behind the "birth" of the Intelligent Design cretinism think tank, the Dishonesty Institute's Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture. BTW Stevie baby, I just can't wait for your book. However, I honestly doubt it will sell as many copies as Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" did worldwide.

Karen S. · 9 March 2012

Man designs and sees his own designs in nature.
But that would make man the intelligent designer.

diogeneslamp0 · 9 March 2012

Steve P. said: Man designs and sees his own designs in nature.
And Man insists the CIA is beaming messages into his tooth fillings. And Man insists his evil dog told him to kill, kill. Why should we trust the feelings of schizophrenics? Feelings are fine. You can write greats songs and poems about feelings. But science is about well-defined theories that make specific predictions confirmed by observation. And now... Godwinned!
That which Man has over the Beast, perhaps the most wonderful proof of the superiority of the human being, is that he has understood that there must be a Creative Power [Schöpferkraft]. [Adolf Hitler, Table Talk, 27 February 1942]

Kevin B · 9 March 2012

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q said: Does anybody know Jonathan D.H. Smith from Iowa State University? According to his web pages (link) he contributed to BI:NP

Hierarchical information theory and the modeling of biological systems, pp. 419-512 in "Biological Information: New Perspectives" (eds. R.J. Marks II et al.), Springer Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Berlin, 2012.

He even provides a link to a copy of the article. (crossposted at AtBc)
I see that at the top of page 3 of this paper, "information" and "2nd Law of Thermodynamics" appear in adjacent sentences in the same paragraph. Is this sufficient to set off the pseudo-science detector? More seriously. At the bottom of the preceding page, it is suggested that the equation for "Shannon Entropy" is a "dimensionally incorrect integral version" of an equation derived by Pauli. Since the reference cited is to Tolman "The Principles of Statistical Mechanics", is this again a conflation Shannon Entropy with Thermodynamic Entropy?

diogeneslamp0 · 9 March 2012

Kevin B said:
https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q said: Does anybody know Jonathan D.H. Smith from Iowa State University? According to his web pages (link) he contributed to BI:NP

Hierarchical information theory and the modeling of biological systems, pp. 419-512 in "Biological Information: New Perspectives" (eds. R.J. Marks II et al.), Springer Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Berlin, 2012.

He even provides a link to a copy of the article. (crossposted at AtBc)
[snip] At the bottom of the preceding page, it is suggested that the equation for "Shannon Entropy" is a "dimensionally incorrect integral version" of an equation derived by Pauli. Since the reference cited is to Tolman "The Principles of Statistical Mechanics", is this again a conflation Shannon Entropy with Thermodynamic Entropy?
Here we go! Shannon-bashing! These guys abducted and raped the jargon of Shannon's information theory, but they fucking HATE Claude Shannon! Why? If you use his equations, then all natural processes produce information. Therefore, he must be wrong. Let's replace that with our ooga booga feelings about what information is.

diogeneslamp0 · 9 March 2012

Somebody should write a Panda's Thumb post about the long history of these cranks bashing Claude Shannon and his real math.

We should compile an archive of anti-Shannon statements-- the way these cranks weasel out of using Shannon's equations.

diogeneslamp0 · 9 March 2012

I have double-checked Shannon's 1948 paper. His equation for entropy is of course - (Sigma over i) pi log pi. It is not a "dimensionally incorrect integral form."

diogeneslamp0 · 9 March 2012

Look, if we can find online versions of the papers presented at this conference, why don't we read them... as many as we can... and then go over to Amazon and be the first to publish a review of the book?

I say we split up the job, division of labor, assign different papers to different PT'ers and put together a group review. Post it online NOW.

diogeneslamp0 · 9 March 2012

After scanning Jonathan Smith's paper, above, I can't find anything obviously wrong with it. I haven't double-checked all his math, though.

John · 9 March 2012

diogeneslamp0 said: Look, if we can find online versions of the papers presented at this conference, why don't we read them... as many as we can... and then go over to Amazon and be the first to publish a review of the book? I say we split up the job, division of labor, assign different papers to different PT'ers and put together a group review. Post it online NOW.
While I strongly symphathize with your aims, the book in question is not yet published (Nor may it ever be published.). Let's wait a while to see whether Springer does publish it.

Joe Felsenstein · 9 March 2012

diogeneslamp0 said: After scanning Jonathan Smith's paper, above, I can't find anything obviously wrong with it. I haven't double-checked all his math, though.
Also there's nothing particularly IDish or creationist about it. Nor on his web site at his university. Perhaps he thought that the Cornell conference was going to be a serious conference on information theory and biology. His paper might have helped persuade Springer that this conference was a serious one.

diogeneslamp0 · 9 March 2012

John said: While I strongly symphathize with your aims, the book in question is not yet published (Nor may it ever be published.). Let's wait a while to see whether Springer does publish it.
OK sorry, I went off half-cocked. Let's reserve judgement on authors we don't know well until we can read more.

RM · 9 March 2012

Jonathan Smith is a mathematician working in the field of algebra. He has been around for some time - his first publication is from 1976. He has a paper called "Entropy and Information in Evolving Biological Systems" in Biology and Philosophy 4 (1989) 407-432 with the author list Daniel R. Brooks, John Collier, Brian A. Maurer, Jonathan D. H. Smith and E. O. Wiley (ordered alphabetically). According to Web of Science, this paper has been cited 28 times, a fair number.

From the abstract I cite the following sentence: Macroevolutionary processes are neither reducible to, nor autonomous from microevolutionary processes. - As far as I understand, the macro/micro distinction is common among creationists. I don't have time and energy to read this paper. Whether it is correct or not, I think it represents honest work.

ksplawn · 9 March 2012

diogeneslamp0 said: Sure, Lammerts was almost the only one of the founders of creationism who was not outright racist. I've read many old-timey creationist books from the 1920's and all those guys were racists, except Lammerts, up till about 1980, and for some of them after that. You'd be shocked at how many American creationists supported Hitler, Nazism, anti-Semitism and "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in the 1930's. They whitewashed that the minute the US joined the war. You'd be shocked how many of them supported eugenics. They whitewashed all that sometime after 1970 (thank you, sexual revolution!) Now they blame Darwin for the Nazism and eugenics that their predecessors supported. I haven't just read their books, I've scanned them into PDF's and did OCR so I can do digital searches for words! Let's look up "eugenics" and "negro" and see what we find! [grins]
I definitely wouldn't mind some names and titles to look up. Incidentally, what OCR software do you use? I've mostly been using FreeOCR on science papers and other PDFs, but even as easy as they make the interface, the process is still somewhat cumbersome.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q · 9 March 2012

The PT cre could invite Dr. Smith to report from the meeting.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q · 10 March 2012

Another BI:NP talk was from J Scott Turner, Professor at the State University of New York, Syracuse, College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry, Department of Environmental and Forest Biology:

A Multiplicity of Memory. Toward a Coherent Theory of Adaptation. Biological Information—New Perspectives. Cornell University. June 2011

According to his CV it was an invited presentation. For a start here's what Jeffrey Shallit had to say about Turner back in 2007. (cross posted at AtBc)

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q · 10 March 2012

Oops, I missed that Turner was already mentioned as the author of presentation 20 in the original post.
However, a second source will not harm the case.

diogeneslamp0 · 10 March 2012

ksplawn said:
diogeneslamp0 said: You'd be shocked at how many American creationists supported Hitler, Nazism, anti-Semitism and "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in the 1930's. They whitewashed that the minute the US joined the war. You'd be shocked how many of them supported eugenics. They whitewashed all that sometime after 1970... Now they blame Darwin for the Nazism and eugenics that their predecessors supported. I haven't just read their books, I've scanned them into PDF's and did OCR so I can do digital searches for words! Let's look up "eugenics" and "negro" and see what we find! [grins]
I definitely wouldn't mind some names and titles to look up. Incidentally, what OCR software do you use?
I'd be motivated to write detailed posts on my blog on the topics of "creationists 4 Hitler" and "creationists 4 eugenics", IF people were actually to visit my blog and write comments! On anything. The lack of attention paid to my blog has reduced my desire to write up what I've found. But for a brief bibliography on the topic "creationists 4 eugenics": T. T. Martin in "Hell and the High Schools" (1925) (available online) says everyone believes in improving the race. In the historical context, that means human eugenics. The Institute for Creation Research's go-to guy for human eugenics was William J. Tinkle. He wrote two books on the topic, 1939 and 1970, below. Tinkle, 1939, "Fundamentals of Zoology", pro-racism and pro-eugenics. Ernest S. Booth, "Biology: The Story of Life", 1950, 1954. Seventh Day Adventist. Pro-racism and pro-eugenics. In the Acknowledgements section: Read and approved by Frank L. Marsh and Harold W. Clark. A. E. Wilder-Smith. "Man's Origin, Man's Destiny" (1969). AEWS was the founder of ID theory. Chapter 4 "Planned Evolution" is about breeding a master race that can live to be 900 years old like Adam in the Bible--we need to "breed out the recessives." Tinkle, "Heredity: A Study in Science and the Bible" (1970), non-racist and pro-eugenics. In the Acknowledgements section: read and approved by Henry Morris and John C. Whitcomb, Walter Lammerts and Frank L. Marsh. Published by Zondervan. Note that John N. Moore was science editor of Zondervan publishers (in 1970’s?); Moore was co-author, with Tinkle, fake physicist Harold Slusher, etc. of third creationist textbook "Biology: A Search for Order in Complexity" (1974). John Rousas Rushdoony. (Founder of Reconstructionism, brokered the publication of Morris' "The Genesis Flood.") "Selective breeding in Christian countries has led to...the progressive elimination of defective persons.” [Rushdoony, "Foundations of Social Order"] Most of my OCR was done at Scan Stations, those beautiful machines, which were free at my crack den *cough* the Yale Library. Microsoft Office Tools comes with Imaging software for scanning that does OCR; acceptable, but not as good as my crack den's Scan Stations! I have more than two dozen old-time creationist books scanned as PDF's. Panda's Thumb should have an online library at Google Docs where we compile creationist books so we can peruse and digitally search them. Creationists study history of science; why don't we study history of pseudoscience? Level the playing field. The "creationists 4 Nazism" thing is too complex and controversial to be summarized in a comment. If people were to visit my blog and comment a little, I'd be motivated to write that one up.

ksplawn · 10 March 2012

Thanks for the list! Unsurprisingly my local library system has zero of those books (and only a slim handful of anything by any of the authors). I can find some of the oldest online (public domain isn't dead yet), or discussions of the authors' eugenic views, though. For what it's worth, I'm currently picking up The Creationist Movement in Modern America by Eve and Harrold, a sociological take on the phenomenon which was written in between the fall of Scientific Creationism and the rise of Intelligent Design.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q · 11 March 2012

diogeneslamp0 said:
I'd be motivated to write detailed posts on my blog on the topics of "creationists 4 Hitler" and "creationists 4 eugenics", IF people were actually to visit my blog and write comments! On anything. The lack of attention paid to my blog has reduced my desire to write up what I've found.
A link to your blog might help.
I have more than two dozen old-time creationist books scanned as PDF's. Panda's Thumb should have an online library at Google Docs where we compile creationist books so we can peruse and digitally search them. Creationists study history of science; why don't we study history of pseudoscience? Level the playing field.
I would rather suggest the NCSE, just contact them.
The "creationists 4 Nazism" thing is too complex and controversial to be summarized in a comment. If people were to visit my blog and comment a little, I'd be motivated to write that one up.
Unfortuntely, it works the other way round. You will have to first write something before anybody will comment. However, I would appreciate to see more of your analyses of the connections of creationism with racism and eugenics. Maybe the PT moderators could invite you for a guest post or prominently post a link to your pages

John · 11 March 2012

I second Masked Panda's suggestion regarding sending copies of your .pdfs to NCSE. You might also peruse Ronald Numbers' book "The Creationists" and see whether he cites any of the books in question. If he doesn't you might want to contact him.

I also recommend posting links to your blog regarding creationist interest in Eugenics (Puts the lie to the absurd lies being touted by Klinghoffer, Weikart and others that Darwin and Darwinian thought was somehow responsible for Hitler and the Shoah (Nazi Holocaust). It would be especially interesting to see your evidence regarding this evidence and maybe to forward them to Jack Scanlan, an Australian biology undergraduate, who has been a frequent PT commentator as of late:

"You’d be shocked at how many American creationists supported Hitler, Nazism, anti-Semitism and 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' in the 1930’s. They whitewashed that the minute the US joined the war."

Just one correction regarding your citation here:

"A. E. Wilder-Smith. 'Man’s Origin, Man’s Destiny' (1969). AEWS was the founder of ID theory. Chapter 4 'Planned Evolution' is about breeding a master race that can live to be 900 years old like Adam in the Bible–we need to 'breed out the recessives.'"

Wilder-Smith wasn't the founder of "ID theory". A better choice would be former Berkeley law professor Philip Johnson, widely seen as the "godfather" of the Intelligent Design movement, who made a suprisingly candid admission back in 2006 that we do not yet have a scientific theory of ID (I think two others who have played important "scientific" roles have been Michael Behe and William Dembski. Another likely candidate could be Michael Denton, who may be the only (current or former) Dishonesty Institute Senior Fellow who rejects Intelligent Design, rejects the Modern Synthesis, but accepts some kind of evolutionar theory as the best explanation for the current composition, structure and history of Planet Earth's biodiversity.

Nick Matzke · 11 March 2012

I have more than two dozen old-time creationist books scanned as PDF’s. Panda’s Thumb should have an online library at Google Docs where we compile creationist books so we can peruse and digitally search them. Creationists study history of science; why don’t we study history of pseudoscience? Level the playing field.
This is cool stuff, and IMHO it's an argument for a wiki-like resource for us "creationism watchers". EvoWiki was tried years ago but having completely open access and poor backup ability killed it. We could easily use wikidot or something now -- it even has free file upload ability (for books old enough to be out of copyright). Basically all it requires is a small core group of people with a vision and a willingness to regulate who contributes so that it is of high quality. Who's interested? Write here or email me at matzkeATberkeley.edu

Nick Matzke · 11 March 2012

PS: Guest PT post on creationists and eugenics -- easy to do, just email it to me.

diogeneslamp0 · 12 March 2012

Nick Matzke said: PS: Guest PT post on creationists and eugenics -- easy to do, just email it to me.
I'll do it. Does anyone know how old a book needs to be to be out of copyright? How long after the author's death? I think Google Docs should have some "borrow my book" function.

John · 12 March 2012

diogeneslamp0 said:
Nick Matzke said: PS: Guest PT post on creationists and eugenics -- easy to do, just email it to me.
I'll do it. Does anyone know how old a book needs to be to be out of copyright? How long after the author's death? I think Google Docs should have some "borrow my book" function.
As soon as the book is out of copyright, it is in the public domain. You have every right then to copy or to post etc. portions of it (or all) as you see fit. Hope you found my comments useful in my earlier reply to you.

ksplawn · 12 March 2012

diogeneslamp0 said:
Nick Matzke said: PS: Guest PT post on creationists and eugenics -- easy to do, just email it to me.
I'll do it. Does anyone know how old a book needs to be to be out of copyright? How long after the author's death? I think Google Docs should have some "borrow my book" function.
Cornell has a detailed chart here. Two good places to look for e-texts that are known to be in the public domain are Project Gutenberg and Wikisource (but for the latter you have to read carefully to make sure it's PD in the relevant countries). In fact you might consider donating some of your scans to these places if they qualify, because neither site is comprehensive yet. Slightly tangential, but I think terms of copyright are way too damn long as they stand now. Unfortunately copyright reform isn't really a big issue politically, at least not reform in the direction I favor.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q · 12 March 2012

The Marmortism blog reports on Ian Iuby's reaction to Springer's actions:
Creationist Stylings of Ian Juby (Part III) Unfortunately, there was a little bit more excrement to squeeze out of Ian Juby's latest weblog: Genesis Week Season 1, Episode 11. However, it turned out to be good news! Juby rages on about a book entitled Biological Information: New Perspectives that was "yanked from publication" (as Juby puts it) when the publisher (Springer-Verlag) became aware that one of the editors of the book was young-earth-creationist Dr. Jonathan Sanford. An enraged Juby sputters:
This is nothing less than open, flagrant bigotry!
I say good for Springer! Best to check that what they are publishing is actual science rather than creationist, anti-science tripe. In the end, I imagine the book will be published anyway - but only if it is scientifically sound. The creationist propaganda machine will laud this as some kind of victory - which it won't be. And yes, one of their anti-science drones will manage to publish some drivel that creationists will invoke as evidence for ID or some other creationist fantasy - but it will only amount to another weak criticism of evolutionary theory. And I will not be surprised. But for now, at least I can enjoy Juby's (and other creationists') indignant rage. Rage on! Nice marmot.
You can see Ian Iuby's take on the issue here.

John · 13 March 2012

ksplawn said: Slightly tangential, but I think terms of copyright are way too damn long as they stand now. Unfortunately copyright reform isn't really a big issue politically, at least not reform in the direction I favor.
Not to derail this thread, I strongly beg to differ. Especially now when there are many online outlets (including sellers of e-books) in which authors are either forced to sell their work for very cheap or aren't paid, period (Or there are countries, such as the People's Republic of China which don't honor copyrights.). This is an issue of key interest to me as someone who is trying to become a published author.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q · 15 March 2012

The link resulting from a google search for "biological information: new perspectives" site:amazon.de results in an empty page ON amazon's German pages. Before it looked like this. Searching directly on Amazon.de doesn't give any hit for the book either. However, the book is still listed at Amazon.com.

(cross posted at AtBc)

ksplawn · 15 March 2012

John said:
ksplawn said: Slightly tangential, but I think terms of copyright are way too damn long as they stand now. Unfortunately copyright reform isn't really a big issue politically, at least not reform in the direction I favor.
Not to derail this thread, I strongly beg to differ. Especially now when there are many online outlets (including sellers of e-books) in which authors are either forced to sell their work for very cheap or aren't paid, period (Or there are countries, such as the People's Republic of China which don't honor copyrights.). This is an issue of key interest to me as someone who is trying to become a published author.
The issue I have is perhaps summarized in this question; Would you, John, decide not to write your book if it could only sustain your family for thirty years after your death, instead of seventy years? Longer protections than we have now, or had in the recent past, will not affect you as an author, John Kwok. It has never demonstrably prevented anybody from producing any works in recorded history; indeed, the vast majority of culturally important and recognized words were produced under far less protection than we have now, sometimes even none at all. To my knowledge, nobody has ever said that they'll refuse to publish unless they can be sure a book, film, or concerto will continue to rake in money for their great great grandchildren instead of just their great grandchildren. In America the entire purpose of copyrights is to encourage people to produce new works so that the public will eventually have full access to them and can build upon them. Extending copyrights for lifetime after lifetime seems to me the least effective way to do this, and in fact it prevents the public from making full use of those ideas until many have become socially irrelevant and antiquated, of interest only to historians and sociologists (who usually have Fair Use access to them anyway). Current copyright terms of protection do nothing to encourage new works and actively discourage useful derivative works. They are antithetical to the intent (and certainly the letter) of original copyright laws and do more harm than good. No previously published in the US will enter the public domain again until 2019 due to our habit of perpetually extending copyright protections at the insistence of publishers, and the people who actually created these works are long dead and cannot benefit from the new terms of protection. It's an erosion of people's rights for the enrichment of middlemen only, not for the benefit of anybody else. Ironically this is happening at a time when a new democratization of media, no less significant than the printing press, is happening and people are capable of assembling vast electronic libraries of films, music, images, speeches, and books that can literally rival the size of national libraries. Their ability to legally do so is being shrunk as copyright terms are retroactively extended and what was once in the public domain and legally redistributable is placed back under creative monopoly. Who benefits from double lifetimes of protection? Not the public, not the authors, not you as a prospective writer. So I really fail to see what you hope to gain with such lengthy terms of protection.

John · 16 March 2012

ksplawn said:
John said:
ksplawn said: Slightly tangential, but I think terms of copyright are way too damn long as they stand now. Unfortunately copyright reform isn't really a big issue politically, at least not reform in the direction I favor.
Not to derail this thread, I strongly beg to differ. Especially now when there are many online outlets (including sellers of e-books) in which authors are either forced to sell their work for very cheap or aren't paid, period (Or there are countries, such as the People's Republic of China which don't honor copyrights.). This is an issue of key interest to me as someone who is trying to become a published author.
The issue I have is perhaps summarized in this question; Would you, John, decide not to write your book if it could only sustain your family for thirty years after your death, instead of seventy years? Longer protections than we have now, or had in the recent past, will not affect you as an author, John Kwok. It has never demonstrably prevented anybody from producing any works in recorded history; indeed, the vast majority of culturally important and recognized words were produced under far less protection than we have now, sometimes even none at all. To my knowledge, nobody has ever said that they'll refuse to publish unless they can be sure a book, film, or concerto will continue to rake in money for their great great grandchildren instead of just their great grandchildren. In America the entire purpose of copyrights is to encourage people to produce new works so that the public will eventually have full access to them and can build upon them. Extending copyrights for lifetime after lifetime seems to me the least effective way to do this, and in fact it prevents the public from making full use of those ideas until many have become socially irrelevant and antiquated, of interest only to historians and sociologists (who usually have Fair Use access to them anyway). Current copyright terms of protection do nothing to encourage new works and actively discourage useful derivative works. They are antithetical to the intent (and certainly the letter) of original copyright laws and do more harm than good. No previously published in the US will enter the public domain again until 2019 due to our habit of perpetually extending copyright protections at the insistence of publishers, and the people who actually created these works are long dead and cannot benefit from the new terms of protection. It's an erosion of people's rights for the enrichment of middlemen only, not for the benefit of anybody else. Ironically this is happening at a time when a new democratization of media, no less significant than the printing press, is happening and people are capable of assembling vast electronic libraries of films, music, images, speeches, and books that can literally rival the size of national libraries. Their ability to legally do so is being shrunk as copyright terms are retroactively extended and what was once in the public domain and legally redistributable is placed back under creative monopoly. Who benefits from double lifetimes of protection? Not the public, not the authors, not you as a prospective writer. So I really fail to see what you hope to gain with such lengthy terms of protection.
Some of your points have validity ksplawn and I won't have time to address them here. But given the fact that authors are now being given the option of getting a lot less money from sales of e-books than print versions NEED protection. And I have no objections at all if members of the author's family benefit from copyright with regards to the author's works.

ksplawn · 16 March 2012

I think copyright protections can be strong without increasing terms of protection to the point of sabotaging the purpose of copyright in the first place. The point of copyright law (again, in the US at least) was to balance the promotion of new works and creative output while not denying the public their innate ability to use ideas, since ideas are fundamentally different from concrete property. (The analogy used by Jefferson was that you can use one man's taper to light your own without depriving the other man of anything, unlike physical goods) That balance has been lost as the publishing industries have been the ones with the most money, lobbyists, and public outreach campaigns. You hear quite a lot about the problem of piracy, almost all of it coming from publishers' organizations, but you never hear a comparably well-funded advocacy (in public or to legislators) for restoring public domain or strengthening Fair Use protections.

Also, it's worth pointing out that the very publishers who advocate for ever more draconian and lengthy copyrights are the ones who create the situation in which authors have little bargaining power to set prices or negotiate compensation. That situation has nothing to do with copyrights or China.

John · 17 March 2012

ksplawn said: I think copyright protections can be strong without increasing terms of protection to the point of sabotaging the purpose of copyright in the first place. The point of copyright law (again, in the US at least) was to balance the promotion of new works and creative output while not denying the public their innate ability to use ideas, since ideas are fundamentally different from concrete property. (The analogy used by Jefferson was that you can use one man's taper to light your own without depriving the other man of anything, unlike physical goods) That balance has been lost as the publishing industries have been the ones with the most money, lobbyists, and public outreach campaigns. You hear quite a lot about the problem of piracy, almost all of it coming from publishers' organizations, but you never hear a comparably well-funded advocacy (in public or to legislators) for restoring public domain or strengthening Fair Use protections. Also, it's worth pointing out that the very publishers who advocate for ever more draconian and lengthy copyrights are the ones who create the situation in which authors have little bargaining power to set prices or negotiate compensation. That situation has nothing to do with copyrights or China.
I think we're going to have to disagree on this one ksplawn. Again, I have no further wish in derailing the thread. Thanks.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q · 9 April 2012

More from the Biological Information: New Perspectives "conference" from Bob Marks' wife's Christmas 2011 greetings:
Cornell University: Next we drove to Cornell University where Bob was part of a conference called Biological Information – New Perspectives. Bob was a coorganizer along with famous ID people like William Dembski (The Design Inference and No Free Lunch), Michael Behe (Darwin’s Black Box and The Edge of Evolution), John Sanford (Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome) and Bruce Gordon (The Nature of Nature). The proceedings of the conference will be published in 2012. Bob thought the conference was a grand success. Bob’s Ph.D. advisor, John Walkup, also came. John and his wife Pat are full time with Campus Crusade’s professor ministry in the Bay Area focusing on Stanford, Berkeley and San Jose State. Two of Bob’s graduate students, Winston Ewert and George Montañez, were also there so we got a wonderful three generation picture.
On page 3 of the pdf you will find that picture of Marks, Walkup, Ewert and Montañez at the conference in front of some poster. She also mentions the other not as secret ID conference (Berlinski's daughter reported on it) held in Italy 2011
Winston Ewert went to Italy with Bob. (I wish I could have gone, but I wanted to see Tristan more that Italy.) In Italy, Bob met Greg Chaitin who is a founder of algorithmic information theory and Chaitin’s number. Bob and Winston were both very excited to meet him. David Berlinski (The Devil’s Delusion) and Steve Myer (Signature in the Cell) were also there. After the conference, Bob was interviewed by Berlinski’s daughter for the Ricochet blog. The interview is on YouTube.

Roy · 14 April 2012

I haven't seen this summary http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?146559-Symposium-on-Biological-Information-at-Cornell mentioned anywhere.

Roy