…and this is a 
He must be one of those very abstract types who never looks at data, doesn't understand statistics, and has never heard of the word "normalized." In a post that is a microcosmic analog of the whole Intelligent Design paradigm, Dembski completely bungles an analysis of Google searches to conclude that "international interest in ID is growing." Andrea Bottaro shows that he screwed up thoroughly, and the conclusion is actually the reverse.
I wonder if Dembski will acknowledge the correction, and admit that international interest in ID is negligible or declining? Or will his mistake mysteriously disappear from his web page? Anyone want to place any bets?
Comments
Posted by: PaulC
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June 16, 2006 2:01 PM
Mathematician? I thought he was a street performer http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/480#comment-13305
Posted by: Gerard Harbison
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June 16, 2006 2:02 PM
It's too late for it to disappear. Heh heh heh. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the dumbest of them all?
Posted by: Tiax
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June 16, 2006 2:13 PM
When I read that entry, I left a comment addressed to Dave, because it just seemed like exactly the sort of thing he'd do, I didn't even bother to check who actually wrote it.
Posted by: J-Dog
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June 16, 2006 2:14 PM
Eureka! NOW I get it. Dembski is NOT a mathematician, he is a Theater Major acting out a role as a mathematician! He actually does "street theater" for a living, conning the rubes.
Posted by: Bronze Dog
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June 16, 2006 2:35 PM
He's not just a mathematician, he's the king of bad math.
Posted by: MikeM
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June 16, 2006 2:52 PM
Call me immature, but I always like to compare the google search volume with the search volume for specific porn stars. The ones I've tried beat "Intelligent Design" in a landslide.
I'm going to hell.
Posted by: muddle
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June 16, 2006 3:12 PM
I'm a lawyer and even I understand data normalization.
Maybe all that work on one god being three, and vice versa, has got Dembski all messed up.
Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll
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June 16, 2006 3:22 PM
This is great. I just finished publishing a GM/BM post on how some of Dembski's recent writings have convinced me that he does not actually understand math; and as soon as I'm done posting it, I see this on Pharyngula and PT - demonstrating even less of an understanding of basic mathematics than I could have imagined.
Posted by: Lixivium
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June 16, 2006 3:23 PM
Off topic: is anyone listening to Mooney vs. Bethell on Talk of the Nation?
I like the intro they gave:
"Tom Bethell thinks liberals have hijacked science long enough. Chris Mooney, author of "The Republican War on Science", disagrees."
So I guess Chris Mooney thinks liberals haven't "hijacked" science long enough.
Posted by: Duke York
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June 16, 2006 3:45 PM
Tiax wrote:
I'm not sure if this is bad etiquette, or if it's already been said, but are we sure DaveScot actually exists? Could he be a sock puppet for Dembski?
Duke
Posted by: Kristine
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June 16, 2006 3:56 PM
"..Are we sure DaveScot actually exists? Could he be a sock puppet for Dembski?"
It's sock puppets all the way up, Duke. ;-)
I predict a memoir coming from Dembski: "God is My Cotangent," in which he puts the opposite over the hypotenuse, and then redefines the sine of x.
Posted by: Chakolate
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June 16, 2006 5:41 PM
Anyone who wants to find out the interest in, say, evolution as compared with, say, Intelligent Design can go to Google Trends, http://google.com/trends , and enter the two terms. You will find out the relative popularity of each. So go search, but don't miss that nearly flat line at the bottom of the graph - that's the ID inquiries.
Posted by: Zeno
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June 16, 2006 5:59 PM
Well, he's got the credentials, but perhaps the learnin' didn't take. Dembski could be an example of that unusual phenomenon, the former mathematician.
I used to think being a mathematician was a permanent condition, but I guess not.
Posted by: mark
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June 16, 2006 9:33 PM
Yeah, like Behe is a scientist. (Well, Behe used to be, and then got tenure).
Posted by: lytefoot
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June 17, 2006 12:40 AM
those very abstract types who never looks at data, doesn't understand statistics, and has never heard of the word "normalized."
Hey, don't be insulting us abstract types who don't understand statistics! Even we would be inclined to, I don't know, check our numbers before posting them on the internet?
I don't know, I suspect he understands statistics perfectly well--he's just waving a bunch of numbers at his idiot audience, knowing they'll agree with him. The ID people aren't actually trying to convince people who understand this stuff--they know they won't. They're trying to convince the ignorant, and in that, they aren't burdened by inconvenient 'facts'.
Remember, Dempski has a credential in psychology, too.
On the other hand, this may be a job for Hanlon's Razor... "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Posted by: darius
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June 17, 2006 4:07 AM
I don't believe he'll retract or disapparate the article. Dembski doesn't care if he's proven wrong by people who know what they're talking about. This has been well-demonstrated by his continued endorsement of ID and creationism.
Posted by: sdanielmorgan
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June 17, 2006 8:01 AM
Darius, this is because he knows that 99.9% of his sycophants can't see the merit of the refutations of his work, because they don't have the requisite background to understand such recondite material as competitive algorithms over search spaces. When your typical boot-licking DaveScot (apparently he got his education in electronics through the Marines, but no college, according to a brief bio he wrote on Davison's "New Prescribed Evolution") is faced with following Mark Chu-Carroll's analysis of Dembski's work, it is much easier, and safer, to assume that MCC is just another godless liberal [who probably supports the ACLU], and is thus intrinsically wrong.
In this case, Dembski may be intimidated to remove the article by the simple fact that it requires little, if any, understanding of mathematics or statistics to see how silly the error he made was. I would bet it resulted from Dembski's haste to post something supporting ID without checking out Google's method of normalization.
So, since the "average Joe ID-iot" can follow this refutation of Dembski, he may actually see the potential loss of credibility amongst the ID-iotic acolytes [this credibility was obviously lost long ago amongst all others]. Damage to his ego will likely result in "damage control". That's my hypothesis.
Posted by: SmellyTerror
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June 17, 2006 9:32 AM
Dear god, he put Australia 3rd.
For the record, the only Australians searching for ID do so to laugh at the crazy antics of those wacky, wacky American religious folk.
Although I've never heard of a serious proponent of ID in Australia - and doubt many people have even heard the term - we have a strong tradition of laughing at our Yankee friends.
Posted by: Ricardo Azevedo
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June 17, 2006 10:28 PM
Of course, that was the same mathematician who wrote this:
"Despite my disagreements with Morris and young earth creationism, I regard those disagreements as far less serious than my disagreements with the Darwinian materialists. If you will, young earth creationism is at worst off by a few orders of magnitude in misestimating the age of the earth. On the other hand, Darwinism, in ascribing powers of intelligence to blind material forces, is off by infinite orders of magnitude."
In "Intelligent design's contrubition to the debate over evolution: a reply to Henry Morris" (2005).
Posted by: Dan Someone
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June 18, 2006 1:53 PM
You should check out the comparative Google Trends charts for Intelligent Design vs. squid. I think we can see where people's real interests lie.