…and this is a 
How to recognize a troglodyte
Category: Creationism
Posted on: July 20, 2007 1:00 AM, by PZ Myers
Some guy in Virginia didn't like this op-ed by David Barash, and didn't like being characterised as an "illiterate troglodyte," so he set out to demonstrate that he was an illiterate troglodyte. He wrote a letter that's simply non-stop bogosity.
While it is a fact that Gregor Mendel proved a general theory of evolution in the mid-1850s, there is no scientific evidence that Darwin's theory of evolution is scientifically valid.
I don't blame you if you feel like stopping right there and not going on. It's kind of a show-stopper, isn't it? You can safely assume the writer knows nothing about basic biology. Mendel reported his result to the Brünn Natural History Society in 1865, and published in 1866. What he demonstrated was an abstract mechanism for inheritance that was the foundation of modern genetics. Not evolution, genetics. They're different, you know.
And of course, there is lots of evidence for evolution.
Mendel's theory stated that through natural selection a species would change over time to meet the changing requirements of its environment. He never proved or claimed to prove that species would change into new species, only that they would change in ways that would allow them to survive in their new environment.
Mendel's theory said nothing about natural selection or the effect of the environment, or their ability to survive in an environment. He explained inheritance in terms of unit factors that were present in pairs in the organisms he studied, and that were passed on as single units in the gametes, and then reformed as pairs at fertilization.
In science, two separate terms are used to describe scientific thought. Science uses the term "law" to denote a proven fact that can be relied on in all circumstances. Science uses the term "theory" to label assumptions or concepts that are still unproven. I note with interest that science has never labeled Darwin's concepts as laws. They have always been, and in my opinion will always be, listed as an unproven theory.
He has a mistaken notion of what a "theory" and a "law" are. A theory is not a guess. It's an integrated collection of observations and explanations that provides a framework for understanding new results, and for guiding the generation of new experiments and tests. It is not inferior to a law, and a law is not "a proven fact"; for instance, Dollo's Law is more of a guideline, belike, as are the laws of piracy.
Barash states that the problem is that these events happen over long periods of time and are hard for "illiterate troglodytes" to comprehend. The fact is that if this really happened, there would be a complete and consistent fossil record of the changes. There is no such record.
Can the writer show me the skull of his great-great-great-great-grandmother? Almost certainly not, and not because he's squeamish or respectful. It's because it almost certainly doesn't exist anymore. Bones decay, and the fate of almost all bones is that they crumble away. We do not expect a complete fossil record. It would be a little bit freaky, a lot crowded, and probably better evidence for god than evolution if a complete array of all of our ancestors was available for inspection.
While I will readily admit that I am somewhat illiterate in all of the ins and outs of scientific research, I am sufficiently educated to both read and understand that there is no proof of evolution.
First clause is correct. Second clause is obviously wrong—he is not sufficiently educated. We also do not discuss "proof" in any science — that's for mathematics.
Show me the scientific proof of even just one instance of a species changing into another, and then I too will believe. Until then, please leave me in my ignorance and belief that an all-powerful creator of the universe created everything we see.
Here's a list of transitional fossils, and another list of observed speciation events. I don't think he'll ever notice these links, though, so I guess we'll just have to leave him in his admitted ignorance and god-belief.
Now for the really sad part. The fellow's name is Richard Carr, and…
Carr teaches computer science at Hollins University and Virginia Western Community College and is an ordained Baptist minister.
Parents, I strongly recommend that you do not send your children to the computer science programs at Hollins University or Virginia Western Community College. You can do better than that.
The "ordained Baptist minister" part didn't surprise me in the least.
Comments
Sad as it is, I have given up hope for some people (and how did he become a professor of anything, even at a Community College?)
Posted by: Olivier | July 20, 2007 1:26 AM
They're hiding in computer science departments! Get 'em guys!
What is it about:
- engineers
- mathematicians
- physicists
- comp sci people
... that makes them more vulnerable to woo? Is it just me confirming my bias and remembering when I see these people saying stupid things? (when, because of their professional achievements I expect better of them...)
Is this a trend? Do biologists have higher rates of atheism / pure rationality?
Posted by: Federico Contreras | July 20, 2007 1:29 AM
"Is this a trend? Do biologists have higher rates of atheism / pure rationality?"
I don't know about biologists specifically, but there are definitely higher rates of athiests among scientists (about 60% of them I think). There was some other statistic I'll try to look up.
Here's a sign for the biology departments: You don't have to be sane to work here, but it helps!
Posted by: soteos | July 20, 2007 1:58 AM
This guy is just one more reason why scientists should never label their concepts as "laws." It's a term with misleading connotations that never should've been used to label any concept of science. "Absolute certainty" and "proof" and other things connoted by the term "law" arguably have no place in science.
Just my opinion.
Posted by: AL | July 20, 2007 1:59 AM
AL: It's a little late for that. But, what would you propose?
Posted by: Azkyroth | July 20, 2007 2:03 AM
I'd just like to say, on behalf of computer scientists and engineers everywhere, that we're not *all* thick-skulled tools. Or Libertarians. (But I repeat myself.)
Of course, I never finished college, so there's that.
Posted by: K. Signal Eingang | July 20, 2007 2:03 AM
Whoa there Silver
I trained as an engineer, extractive metallurgy, and I believe in evidence before pronouncement.
Recently I've become a sports coach and guess what it's all about what you can and can't do now.. evidence in the here and now is what's important so please lay off the group identity thing.
All my instructors and my personal experience both in engineering and sports have stressed that evidence and validated data is essential in all things. Maybe it is because I was trained in Britain.
Sooooo may I suggest you revise your list to include the specific term " North American" or "Provincial" before you use the terms:
- engineers
- mathematicians
- physicists
- comp sci people
Snobbery is relevant when talking about Universities that used to be polytechnics in the UK or are resident in the US bible belt and I have no problems in pointing it out. But engineers and coaches don't do things on a wing and a prayer they do things because experience and evidence tells them what works and doesn't.And the successful ones do not have a god complex that makes them inerrant, we leave that shite to medical doctors.
Posted by: Dave C | July 20, 2007 2:13 AM
Adding on to my earlier comment (#3), another statistic is somewhere in this video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1150978581009235713&hl=en
I can't find the spot where he says it, but 85% of the National Academy of Sciences is atheist.
It's one of the best videos on religion and ID I've ever seen, so you won't be wasting your time by watching it.
Posted by: soteos | July 20, 2007 2:22 AM
AL: It's a little late for that. But, what would you propose?
I'm not asking for the word "law" to be expunged from all scientific literature, but at least scientists should refrain from using it to label new concepts they develop (e.g. Moore's Law in computer science).
It's a holdover term from when early scientists believed they were simply enumerating descriptions of God's ordered universe, and when God orders things, they must be inviolable orders, and thus rightly called "laws" to connote inviolability. Of course, modern science recognizes that scientific descriptions (including the so-called "laws") are subject to revision, and that there is no a priori way to know that some scientific law is inviolable. There are, however, ways to find out if a law is violable, and historically laws have been "violated" all the time, although we refer to them as "falsifications," rather than "violations."
Posted by: AL | July 20, 2007 2:24 AM
Typical. No evidence. Unbelievable.
Dave C:
Like, for example, Dr. Egnor?
You know, there is a pattern of misinformed anti-evolutionism amongst engineers and MD's. The assertion that members of certain professions seem "vulnerable" to these kinds of errors is not equivalent to an assertion that all members have uniformly and without exception succumbed to said vulnerability. Kinda basic logic, actually, ain't it?
Anyway, it's nice to have you on this side and not that side.
Posted by: Kseniya | July 20, 2007 2:28 AM
I might add that I have another ulterior motive for wanting to do away with the notion of "laws." The concepts of "miracles" and "supernatural occurrences" are usually defined as things which are capable of violating scientific "laws." We really need to do away with the silly idea that there are inviolable things that when violated, constitute evidence of the supernatural. Obviously, it should be straightforward to anyone that an inviolable thing that gets violated was never inviolable to begin with, thus no supernatural occurrence ever took place. So when people talk about how some Tibetan mystic can generate energy ex nihilo from his hands, thereby violating the laws of thermodynamics, we can say that if this is true (a big if, of course), it means thermodynamics has been falsified and scientists need to rework it, not that this is some supernatural event that is beyond the examination and scrutiny of science, and science therefore has no say. It'll do away with another "the tools of empiricism can't touch this, this is strictly the domain of religion/spirituality" nonsense.
Posted by: AL | July 20, 2007 2:36 AM
"Carr teaches computer science at Hollins University and Virginia Western Community College and is an ordained Baptist minister."
Hey Orac, can I borrow that paper bag of yours? You know, the one you always wear when physicians say stupid things about evolution?
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | July 20, 2007 2:38 AM
Hey now, Mr. Contreras, don't go slandering my majors based on this lunatic.
Posted by: Skemono | July 20, 2007 2:42 AM
It's logical that scientists should have a rational mind. But most people compartmentalize knowledge of science and blind faith and dare not allow their brain to explore unchartered territories. That explains surgeons praying before surgeries and scientists performing prayers before launch of spaceships ;)
I admire you pharyngula. Keep up the good fight.
Posted by: Geetha | July 20, 2007 3:02 AM
Not every one of those people get caught up in the ID woohoo, but I see you point. Just by grazing the list of dissenters against Darwinism and more prevalent anti-evolutionists, a trend can be seen. But if I were to take a gander, the majority is from an improper association of scientific methodology with an elementary approach to scientific inquiry. By example...
Engineers and Chemists: Used to seeing order and purpose in design, it isn't too hard to see them attributing macchina naturae to organisms.
Mathematicians: Some may be too hard pressed to believe that nature comes from evidence; that is, nature must come from mathematics. Every now and then an eccentric anti-empirical mathematician appears on the grid, but his words seems to die in the tide of time.
Physicists/Astronomers: Most astronomers I meet are anti-ID, attributing our existence to coincidence. However, some-who-won't-be-named are alighted by the concept of fine-tuning and their gazing into the stars. Again, most physicists I meet could care less about orthodox religion, but those who do tend to be dealing with materials (eg. solid state physics). Perhaps these suffer from the same fate as the chemist/engineer, as these physicists can sometimes hardly be told apart.
Computer Science: I can only imagine boredom. Boredom of an intelligent being leads to reading, and all it takes is for an intelligent being to read the wrong material and his mind goes to mush.
/opinion...don't eat me!!!
Posted by: Shawn Wilkinson | July 20, 2007 3:38 AM
oi, oi! we're not more vulnerable to woo! i'll have you know my Computing Science department is the most woo-free department in the whole University, thankyouverymuch.
Lepht
Posted by: Lepht | July 20, 2007 3:56 AM
Unfortunately for me, Lepht, last I checked the computer science department at my university (Louisiana State University) wasn't accredited. So I don't know how much woo is wondering in the halls. Plus, they share their corridors with the Department of Religious Studies and Philosophy as well as a number of other smaller non-science departments. A lot of woodoo-voodoo I sense from that building.
Posted by: Shawn Wilkinson | July 20, 2007 4:02 AM
I am happy to report that Leonard Susskind's The Cosmic Landscape & The Illusion of Intelligent Design lives up to its title, even if the concept of "the landscape" is itself a bit of a contentious matter for a number of respectable physicists.
Besides, anyone with any sense whatsoever knows that strings are spaghetti and closed strings are SpaghettiOs, FSM be praised.
Posted by: Moody834 | July 20, 2007 4:03 AM
Interesting this post comes up today when there is an excellent post addressing part of what this snapper-head is spewing about laws and theories.
The post is over at Bad Astronomy here, and links to a further article about this scientific nomenclature.
AL also read, laws are not scientists' "concepts", though I agree with you about people touting miracles as violating laws.
Posted by: scienceteacherinexile | July 20, 2007 4:10 AM
Only reason I can think of that someone teaching CS to fall for this is that at work you only need to know a lot about programming (& associated other fields) but only a very small amount of the field for which you are building tools. It seems to be easy to fall into the trap then to think you know enough about this unknown field to actually be able to comment on it.
Posted by: Who Cares | July 20, 2007 4:12 AM
I OBJECT!
I'm a physicist (first degree & engineer (MSc) and I think I'm impervious to "woo"
Oh - "ring species" ...
The list in Talk Origins misses out a classic:
There is a ring-species set of gulls around the arctic.
In England and along the European coasts, we have to separate, mutualy-infertile gulls (among lots of others) - the Herring Gull, and the Lessr Black-Back Gull.
But if you travel East, the Lesser BB shades into another species, which shades into another whic ... shades into the US Herring Gull, which shades into the (European Herring Gull ....
A clsssic, as I said.
Posted by: G. Tingey | July 20, 2007 4:26 AM
'The assertion that members of certain professions seem "vulnerable" to these kinds of errors is not equivalent to an assertion that all members have uniformly and without exception succumbed to said vulnerability.'
In fact, those members of said professions who have NOT succumbed to said vulnerability ought to take it as a compliment. We usually give extra kudos to those people who succeed when the odds are against them rather than in their favour.
Posted by: Ruth | July 20, 2007 4:34 AM
This is the best study by discipline I could find:
It initially appears that by measuring disbelief fewer biologists than physical scientists actively disbelieve. However it seems when it comes to measuring belief biologists are the most godless. The difference is biology seems to have more agnostics, maybe we are more comfortable with looking at so much stuff we simply don't know about. When it comes to champion woo pushers... stand up Mathematicians!
So it seems you have to be careful which questions you ask.
Posted by: Peter Ashby | July 20, 2007 4:58 AM
Before being allowed to write *any* sort of science-based article, even on a website, there should be a mandatory test to make sure that you don't think that the term scientific theory is equivalent to `guess'.
I'd also like to identify as a rational engineer-type, even though I am drifting towards biology at the current time due to working on generating 3D reconstructions of neurons. Then again, I've done plenty of work with evolutionary optimisation and some on Artificial Life, and listening to Dembski bullshit about the No Free Lunch theorems and optimisation in general always makes my blood boil. People use evolutionary algorithms because they work, not because they have a duty to uphold the evil atheistic evolutionary hegemony.
Posted by: DrFrank | July 20, 2007 4:59 AM
I still shudder at some of the crap I heard during the anthrax attacks.
Posted by: uriel | July 20, 2007 5:03 AM
It's not about engineers, etc. but the delightful English comedian Linda Smith (who died far too young in 2006, breaking my heart) was president of the British Humanist Association, and she (I think) said that most comedians are atheists. She (or whoever it was said this) thought it might be a side-effect of their incessant search for new material, requiring a questioning approach as they observed the quirks, nonsensicalities and contradictions of social behaviour and the human condition.
It's a mistake to pretend that people choose a/theism as a rational choice. Yup, we atheists can generally construct a rationalisation, but the real reason is simpler: it's because we look around and it's crushingly clear that god and religious stuff is just drivel that doesn't "fit".
Posted by: Sam the Centipede | July 20, 2007 5:03 AM
oh bother, no link. excuse my absolute absence of HTML... Lets try again:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/sci_relig.htm
Posted by: Peter Ashby | July 20, 2007 5:09 AM
No, it can't be THAT bad. This was a joke, right?? The Onion or something? Well, I will go duck my head in the sand and pretend that people (even people with some formal education!!) simply DO NOT, and CAN NOT, believe such things. I can't take it. It's common over in this part of the world too; in fact, I'm surrounded by these sorts of folks. But I can do nothing about it, so I simply refuse to believe it and live in self-manufactured world of books, magazines and computers. Nothing can be done!! I quit. It's not REAL, I tell you. You are making this stuff up.
Posted by: Francesco | July 20, 2007 5:32 AM
A nice link with explanations of the terms "Theory" and "Law".
http://www.notjustatheory.com/
Posted by: Carl | July 20, 2007 5:43 AM
AL, I don't think it would matter if terms were relabelled as you suggest, with "absolute certainty" replacing "law". The woos would still find ways to mangle the meaning. An illustration of the case in point:
I was once arguing with a woo who opposed cloning on the grounds that clones "didn't have souls", to which I sarcastically retorted, "Congratulations. You've just insulted every identical twin who ever lived."
"What do you mean?" she spluttered, so I explained that monozygotic twins are clones because they share identical DNA.
"But that's not what cloning means!" she protested. "Cloning means 'grown artificially in a laboratory'." (And, she didn't add, "by a goggle-eyed loon in a white coat who intends humanity harm", such is the woo romantic distrust of science.)
Woos arbitrarily redefine scientific terms to suit their prejudices anyway, so changing scientific jargon won't have any impact, as the problem isn't with the misunderstanding or misuse of terms, it's with the prejudice that informs the misuse. One of the hardest things ever is to correct the common misunderstanding that scientific laws cause events, such as the law of gravity causes objects to fall, rather than the law of gravity being a description of how the universe operates. This confusing observation with causation is on a par with believing that a sports commentator reporting on a football match causes the outcome of that match. But you try convincing the woos; because of their promiscuous teleology, they see the Hand of God in everything, and so are prone to confuse observation with causation.
Good thing I'm not observed when I'm causing trouble online, really...
Posted by: Kimpatsu | July 20, 2007 6:06 AM
AL:
Perhaps, and as much as I dislike the concept for its layman conflation with immutable laws, but it is a convenient term for labeling general observations (from data or theory).
And the different concepts of laws are as conflated in other areas. We have contingent juridical laws, yet there are confused people who believes in immutable moral "laws". Of course, ultimately often for religious reasons as you note for empirical descriptions. But we don't solve the general problem by specifically changing scientific praxis.
Nitpick: when we say that laws are violated, we mean another thing though. For example, the first law of thermodynamics on energy conservation can be violated, locally and briefly, by quantum fluctuations. That doesn't mean the law doesn't hold, it means there are exceptions for known reasons.
That would be some serious rework! Really, if we could create energy from nothing and the first law of thermodynamics were falsified, it would probably mean that there is no physics. By way of Noether's theorems it would mean that physical laws can't be time invariant since no entity like energy can be, in effect there are no laws.
On the other hand, we know from such things like Ramsey theory and ergodic theory that there is no such thing as complete disorder, but patterns must emerge. So I think it is a basic mistake that many do, especially the religious, when they wave their wand and claim presto, miracles unconstrained of current nature.
But there are constraints to the types of physics we can have, just as naturally as not any rules works for number systems. If we would see something like above it is just because causality broke down and something "other" intruded. (The only way to get around that is to discuss unique events in the form of improbable and uncontrollable quantum fluctuations. Which would work as known violation, not falsification.)
Now, anything and all of the above could be wrong - without some serious modeling it is mere handwaving from intuition than anything else. Perhaps my larger point is only that miracles may be harder to make than most people think. :-P
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | July 20, 2007 6:09 AM
Wow. That ring species example is fantastic.
I can see how such a thing can exist, but it's harder to imagine how it came to be in the first place.
For the gulls, presumably at some point there had to be a gap or gaps, the largest gap being in the UK. The single species then slowly radiated (tentative use of tecchie term here) into their respective sub-species. The gap closes and we have a complete ring, but the 2 ends do not overlap. Hows that?
Posted by: astromcnaught | July 20, 2007 6:39 AM
Federico (#2), as an engineer (EE, analog circuitry and signal processing), I ought to feel deeply offended. Unfortunately, I can't. I know too many deeply religious engineers, and I think what it boils down to is a god complex - that these engineers believe they're mimicking god in their design of crap.
ID might be particularly dangerous for these folk since they're used to designing archaic devices using formulae no one else understands. From an engineering standpoint, I find ID absolutely fascinating, and I'm particularly enamored with genetic programming and A-life experiments like Avida. From a religious standpoint its absolute crap. From a scientific standpoint, its a good analogy, but a horrible accurate representation of the way the world works. Engineers generally don't end up learning the scientific method outside of their intro chem/physics classes. The ones who came away with something a little more than rudimentary knowledge of that... they're the lucky ones.
Posted by: Brian Thompson | July 20, 2007 7:13 AM
i'd like to know if the paper that published his letter knew he sounded like an idiot. i hope they weren't using his letter to further their own views...because that would be sad.
Posted by: emily | July 20, 2007 7:22 AM
Astromcnaught:
I am not sure exactly what you meant by "presumably at some point there had to be a gap or gaps." A great example of a ring species is the "greenish warbler," which I like to use to point out to ID'ists who are all googly with micro-evolution but think there is some way to stop micro- from becoming macro-evolution.
Dr Darren E. Irwin
They are still greenish warblers, but they don't interbreed. In geologic terms it doesn't take much time for ring species to form, so it isn't difficult to understand how over the hundreds of millions of years since the pre-cambrian that this has led to "endless forms most beautiful" considering that geographical barrier to gene flow is but one of the mechanisms of evolution.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich | July 20, 2007 7:30 AM
re: #2
I don't know any mathematicians that don't accept the theory of evolution. Do you? Indeed, the mathematics of evolution are not hard at all and make the field fairly obvious for mathematicians.
The usual suspects are engineers and MDs, IIRC.
ID is the kind of idea that mathematicians would scoff at. The theory always seems to rest on the implied notion that unlikely events never occur. From a mathematical standpoint, this is a ridiculous notion. Mathematicians are handy with infinitessimal concepts and are unlikely to be bamboozled by somebody who says "the probability of X happening is 10^-25, therefore it must not have happened!"
It is true that many mathematicians believe in God, but most who do are of the order-to-the-universe concept of God. (Yes, as PZ has pointed out recently, this is just a compromise concept that lacks any relationship to religion as it is practiced by most people except for the fact that it is also on an intellectually shaky foundation, albeit in a considerably more subtle way.) Paul Erdos is famous for calling God "the supreme fascist". Of course he was young in Hungary in the 1940s, so I can see where the idea came from.
Posted by: RickD | July 20, 2007 7:30 AM
On the whole IDiot engineer thing: I think it's more a tendency for IDiots to spout their profession in order to maaaaagically give them the almighty authority so that they can intimidate us into backing down.
Glad I've never seen it work.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | July 20, 2007 7:48 AM
I'll be very brief (as it's too hot to go onto a long philosophical discussion right now): Many, if not most mathematicians and logicians, in my experience and from reading through history of the subject, have extraordinary difficulty accepting the idea that mathematical entities (numbers, classes, sets and so on) do not exist as something OUT THERE in the world (as opposed to just in the mind (conceptualism) or as dots on paper (nominalism).
They find it extremely hard to explain the "unreasonable efficacy of mathematics" and its seeming independence of human epistemology (after all, 2 and 2 really do make four always and everywhere right?) in terms of subjective mental operations, creative imagination and so on. So, they adopt an ontologically promiscuous Platonic view of this realm of entities (see e.g. Godel, Penrose, even Quine and Putnam, etc,..). This view of the reality of all sorts of abstract entities, objects and processes leads, in many cases, to mystical explanations of how these alleged "third-realm" entities epistemically interact with human minds. This, in turn, leads to odd speculations and dispositions to accept all sorts of other mysterious entities and phenomena without any empirical evidence or proof. The same holds for many philosophers obviously.
Posted by: Francesco | July 20, 2007 8:12 AM
Mike H: Thanks for the reply.
What i meant was that if, say, a species of seagull emerged somewhere and then that single species populated a ring, and then the species radiated then there would be no incompatible overlap anywhere around the ring.
However, if the species radiated as it populated the ring then, indeed, there could well be an incompatible overlap as we see with the herring and bb gulls.
Posted by: astromcnaught | July 20, 2007 8:12 AM
One distinction has to be made: there are computer scientists, who do experiments and study software and hardware, and then there are these kinds of business people who know how to use a spreadsheet and a word processor and get into colleges to teach young people the basic mechanics of how to use a computer. I suspect Mr Carr is one of the latter.
Posted by: PZ Myers | July 20, 2007 8:14 AM
Most engineers my age who were brought up in the U.S. had little or no discussion of evolution in their high school biology classes, and had to go to church every Sunday, if only to uphold their parents' standing in the community.
People who study physics or biology or geology, on the other hand, are forced to confront evidence about the age of the universe and the ways it has changed over time.
So I think the nuture of people who go into engineering has as much to do with it as their nature.
Although, as I've said before, once you actually start designing complex machines as an engineer there is little excuse for not seeing how evolution works (trial and error, lucky accidents, incremental changes over time, survival in competitive market places). Nothing just "poofs" into existence. That watch Paley metaphorically found in the woods had a long fossil trail of hourglasses, water clocks, and sundials behind it.
That is less evident in computer programming, but even there large programs evolve over time. That's how "spaghetti code" develops - although that could be seen as evidence for the FSM I suppose.
(Thanks to Peter Ashby at #27 for the link.)
Posted by: JimV | July 20, 2007 8:15 AM
My English composition instructor at my hometown community college was an ordained minister. He was a part-time faculty member hired to cover the evening class in which I was enrolled. My friends and I sniffed him out pretty quickly. He didn't announce his occupation, but his writing assignments and examples gave him away. I remember a supposedly sterling example of an essay he offered to us as a model of tightly reasoned composition: an attack on the Kinsey report. The essay was insubstantial fluff, railing against what the writer claimed Kinsey said and intended without ever sharing with us any of Kinsey's actual words. We eviscerated the essay with a barrage of questions about what the writer sought to prove and why we thought he hadn't.
The prof folded like a house of cards and his line of retreat was to congratulate us on our diligent consideration of the essay. Had that been his intention all along? I don't think so. He really seemed quite dismayed.
Funny thing: It turned out to be a thoroughly educational class in its own odd way.
Posted by: Zeno | July 20, 2007 8:16 AM
Oh, I dunno... It's OK for a rigidly predictive mathematical statement, such as Newton's Laws or Motion, or the Laws of Thermodynamics.
I would also take issue with describing this fool as a "troglodyte". There's nothing wrong with cave-dwelling.
Posted by: Dunc | July 20, 2007 8:16 AM
He might not be. Expertise in a narrow subset of scientific knowledge is no guarantee of knowing anything about other parts.
Posted by: Caledonian | July 20, 2007 8:20 AM
Stop dumping on engineers, and computer programmers! It is getting stereotypical. Surgury can produce Egnor and Orac, Computer science can produce a complete engoramus like this idiot, but also really cool stuff:
http://www.genetic-programming.com/
Posted by: sailor | July 20, 2007 8:46 AM
Easy there cowboy. I'm an in that field and my job is nothing but stress and lots of keeping up with current technology. There is zero boredom.
Maybe comp sci people with shitty jobs. But that can be applied anywhere.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 20, 2007 8:53 AM
(I am changing "Friend of Charles Darwin" to "Friend of David Carr")
This whole thread is typical atheist Pharyngulite piling on of a recognized computer scientist, just because your "proofiness" doesn't match up to his "truthiness." If reality has a well-known liberal bias, then it is time to start thinking with our guts.
Do I stand alone in defending poor Dr. Carr? Anyone have the guts to join me?
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FDC | July 20, 2007 9:15 AM
AL wrote: I'm not asking for the word "law" to be expunged from all scientific literature, but at least scientists should refrain from using it to label new concepts they develop (e.g. Moore's Law in computer science).
As a physicist working in the semiconductor industry I would like to point out that very few people (apart from some journalists working for the Register or Semibiznews.com) have ever mistaken the marketing strategy labled "Moore's Law" for a law of nature. Furthermore, Moore's Law has very little to do with Computer Science. It is a target that the semiconductor industry sets for itself and it is only seriously discussed by physicists, electrical engineers, chemical engineers, and materials scientists at meetings of the ITRS committee.
http://www.itrs.net/
Furthermore, it is a moving target -- the "Law" has been recast in terms of different metrics many times since Gordon Moore's first 10 year extrapolation of a trend he'd observed in 1965.
And Frederico, let me add my voice those rejecting the premise of your question regarding the susceptibility of "engineers, mathematicians, physicists, and 'comp. sci people'".
First, the use of the term "comp sci people" is unwarranted. There are computer scientists who do actual science. If you are going to idnetify everyone with a physics degree as a "physicist", then you ought to extend the same courtesy to computer science majors.
Next, I would challenge the construction of your category. There are engineering disciplines which are informed by biology -- making a distinction between engineers and biologists, while not making a similar distinction w.r.t. physicists, mathematicians, or computer scientists, is misleading.
Finally, as a scientist, I require data from a statistically valid sample that:
1) People with biology degrees are, in fact, less likely to be superstitious troglodytes than people holding degrees in other scientific disciplines.
2) The superstitious troglodytes who identify as engineers, physicists, mathematicians, or computer scientists have any standing in their respective professional communities.
Posted by: uri | July 20, 2007 9:15 AM
You know, the arguments about which type of education or degree is most likely to believe in creationism and reject evolution is way too narrow. Yes, it's true that ID takes advantage of people with post graduate degrees who misunderstand evolution for their arguments from authority, probably because the general population gives more credence to someone with those credentials. However, I'll betcha that there are folks with all kinds of doctorates - History, English Literature, Art, Linguistics, and so on - who are equally credulous. Throw in people who don't have those advanced degrees, and you have a huge pool of credulity. The problem isn't the fact that people with advanced degrees in smart-guy sorta-sciency stuff are being deluded, and their ideas disseminated, but that there are so many people out there who never learned the basics of science enough to see them for what they are. I don't know what schools everyone went to, but I attended a pretty well-funded school system, and learned a smidgin about Mendel and genetics, and evolution may have merited a sentence or two. Did we learn about what makes a theory a theory and a law a law? Nosirreebob. I now have a middle school child and a just about to start high school child, and for certain, I can tell you that their education in the very good system we have now covers about the same stuff. The high schooler will take one year of "earth science" (just enough to pass the state tests) but would have to be bound for a science career to learn any more. In fact, she'd have to be bound for a biology career, because the advanced classes are divided into biology and chemistry, and never the twain shall meet. What my kids know about the real world comes from my being a curious stay at home mom who takes them to museums, libraries, nature preserves, and who shows them movies and TV shows about science and nature that spark questions and answers. . .it's a very unusual situation.
I understand that the focus on which type of discipline is more or less likely to believe misinformation is based heavily on who's being used as ID pawns. I believe, though, that arming the people early on with truth would be the best way to combat this. Rather than waiting until obtaining a degree in a science that depends on evolutionary theory, or natural skepticism and curiosity, lead people to question these claims, we should be starting from early on. It certainly wouldn't be hard. First Grade, instead of everyone growing identical bean plants or marigolds, give them both pole beans and bush beans; scarlet runner, hyacinth bean vine, limas and favas! Second Grade, they're doing a unit on the jungle, so the common ancestry of the different types of monkeys can be touched on. There are opportunities wasted every elementary, secondary, and high school year, which, taken, would protect people from giving a moment's thought to the authority of a computer guy's statements about evolution. Sure, it'll take longer than trying to debunk the know-nothing fellows with letters after their names, but it'll have a much longer lasting effect.
Posted by: Alison | July 20, 2007 9:20 AM
Something is working at Hollins University:
http://www.hollins.edu/undergrad/compuscience/compusci.htm
"Computational Sciences: This program is suspended for the 2006-07 academic year."
Posted by: Whimsical Monkey | July 20, 2007 9:49 AM
Guess this guy doesn't believe in the germ theory of disease. Toss those vaccines, antibiotics, and whatnot, germs don't cause disease.
What is funny, among all the reality denier "movements", is one that does deny that germs cause disease. Voluntary ignorance is always popular.
Posted by: raven | July 20, 2007 10:06 AM
Nothing in science is EVER shown beyond doubt. Even if the demonstrations themselves didn't contain irreducible uncertainty, science is always open to new data - so the moment new data become possible, old results become uncertain.
New data is potentially available every new moment.
In science, a theory is a conceptual description that has survived repeated tests and has been shown to be consistent and predictive of the available evidence. It's very hard to make a hypothesis become a theory.
In comparison, spreading lies is almost unimaginably easier.
Posted by: Caledonian | July 20, 2007 10:09 AM
Let not these fools trick you into thinking Computer Science / Engineering folks are all this dense. I have a BS in Computer Science from NC State, and believe me, I'm as interested in proof as any Missourian.
Posted by: george | July 20, 2007 10:10 AM
The secret is probably the religious belief, which contaminates the brain so that "eevilution-doesn't-exist" is taken as true. Then of those people, we notice most the irony of those who have a degree in anything like a physical or mathematical science; and because they're "educated" they feel more confident in making pronouncements.
Posted by: Monado | July 20, 2007 10:26 AM
- engineers
- mathematicians
- physicists
- comp sci people
... that makes them more vulnerable to woo? Is it just me confirming my bias and remembering when I see these people saying stupid things? (when, because of their professional achievements I expect better of them...) [Emphasis mine]
I can't explain the other four, but I have a hypothesis (notice the correct usage) about engineers. Arrogance. They design things, and they think that since the machines they make are designed, everything else must have been also. At least, this is the same argument I've heard from every Creationist engineer.
There's a really good explanation of theory for the uninitiated. Whether they'll still get it, I doubt. But it's worth a shot.
By the way, not all engineers are Creationists, or even believers. I'm an engineer and an atheist. It's a very small club, but a fun one to belong to. ;)
Posted by: Berlzebub | July 20, 2007 10:39 AM
(I think you forgot that most people get new software more frequently than they replace material objects.)
Posted by: llewelly | July 20, 2007 11:19 AM
Cranky engineers might be explained by pragmatism and the nature of their education.
Engineers rarely discover something new about nature. We don't create knowledge, we apply it, and since most of time engineers design human-scale artifacts, we only use human-scale physics. The huge time scales used in biology, geology or astronomy are out of our reach, for example. Our scientific training limits to problem-solving and (basic) mathematical modeling; it doesn't involve a lot experimental work.
The result is that some engineers are not familiar with the principles, methods and subtleties of pure science because they have never done it. After all, a machine either works or doesn't; that's the only evidence we need. And without a good scientific mindset, an engineer is as prone to believe in crap as any other people.
And bear in mind Mr. Carr is a Baptist minister. Hoy many engineers and computer scientists are also religious ministers?
Posted by: Martin Pereyra | July 20, 2007 11:39 AM
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the Salem Hypothesis yet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_hypothesis
Will this hypothesis ever become a law?? ;-)
Posted by: OsakaGuy | July 20, 2007 11:51 AM
Regarding that silly "no transitional forms" dodge, I wonder what such people think happened with the development of the languages based on Latin. Do they expect to find every conceivable intemediate between Latin and Spanish, French, Portegese, Italian, and Catalan? Are they baffled that there's no Spanch or Frenish, Catagese or Portalian? I know it's not perfect, but that's a pretty powerful metaphor to demonstrate just how disordered is creationist thinking on transitional features.
Posted by: Greg Peterson | July 20, 2007 11:58 AM
llewelly @ #56:
You're right, I was thinking of the process of creating new designs in mechanical engineering vs. computer programming, rather than the perception of consumers. A steam turbine may last over 30 years, but the team that designed it should recognize that their design process is very similar to natural evolution, whereas a programmer might write small modules and consider them to have poofed into existence in his or her mind.
From a consumer point of view, I agree that it is easier to see evidence of rapid change in software than in, say, cars. (However, that might make the connection with natural evolution harder to see, as in the limit as evolution becomes instantaneous, it may look like pure creation.)
Posted by: JimV | July 20, 2007 12:01 PM
uri:
One might want to add Ray Kurzweil to that list. Bloody "Law of Accelerating Returns." Law of I-don't-understand-log-log-plots is more like it.
Posted by: Blake Stacey, OM | July 20, 2007 12:07 PM
You'd think that anyone who'd taken a basic algorithms course would be immune to this nonsense--if anyone should know how a clever algorithm can cut its way through a truly gigantic search space, it should be someone educated in computer science.
I guess I know a little of how Orac feels now. Paper bags all around!
Posted by: grendelkhan | July 20, 2007 12:17 PM
Capitalism is a bitch. From the Google ads at notjustatheory.com: "Creation vs. Evolution: Is evolution just a theory? You can prove creation. Order free booklet." D'oh.
Posted by: Rey Fox | July 20, 2007 12:32 PM
Berlzebub, I don't think you necessarily need explain why the physical sciences people are less accepting of evolution than biologists, they are still more accepting than the general populace, lets be grateful for what is there. The reason biologist are such a bunch of non believers is simple, Dobzhansky got it right: nothing, absolutely nothing in biology makes sense without evolution. If you are a biologist this hits you between the eyes so much it seeps through your skin so you don't even remark on it anymore unless a woo practicioner wanders by. Our genome sequence is intrinsically interesting but why are we using all the capacity to work our way through everything else? because as PZ pointed out in his synopsis of the jellyfish genome paper we can learn an awful lot about ourselves even from a bag of jelly BECAUSE and ONLY BECAUSE of evolution. If evolution were not true we could learn absolutely nothing about ourselves from the jellyfish genome. And that is just one example. Mixing and matching enzymes from viruses, bacteria, fluorescent jellyfish and lots of other stuff is now so routine it is technology not science anymore. Who would have thought you could make fluorescent mice or pigs or fish with a jellyfish protein?
Most people who are not biologists never encounter this stuff so don't get it rammed between their eyes on a daily basis. I lost my faith gradually, the more biology I learned as an undergrad and then postgrad. There was no great epiphany, just the day I realised the old position of 'well god might have intervened in evolution' was no longer tenable. Deep breath, thinks 'I am I an agnostic or an atheist?', well I should be an agnostic as a good scientists but some things, like Lamarkism and the Aether get to the stage that suspending disbelief is just silly. Deities I thought fitted into that, all way from fairies and tree sprites through hammer wielding maniacs and blood thirsty sun gods to invisible sky fathers.
I admire people who have not had my educational benefits and yet still accept evolution. so give credit where it is due and don't dump on those who have not too hard. Educate them instead.
Posted by: Peter Ashby | July 20, 2007 12:32 PM
Posted by: llewelly | July 20, 2007 12:36 PM
Newton, Einstein, Darwin, Mendel ... are my heroes.
As a physisict, I specialise in quantum cosmology. But my current bedtime books are "Wonderful life" by S.J.Gould, "the selfish gene" by R.Dawkins and "Stumbling on Happiness" by D.Gilbert.
I can only be an amateur in those fields, but I am trying to learn from them to see if we can develop better models in quantum cosmology
Yet I believe in God.
Because science will never provide the recomfort needed to a father who just lost his child.
As a frenchman, one piece of advice to my scientific friends in America, you will not win the battle over creationists by denigrating those who believe in God. You have to show that there is no incompatibility. This is what you have to focus on.
All the best.
Posted by: Christian | July 20, 2007 12:45 PM
I completely disagree Shawn (in fact, I disagree so strongly, I had to go find one of those computer-scored sheets so I could fill in the #5-Strongly Disagree circle. My mark was heavy and black.)
I would suggest that one of the marks of intelligent individuals is that they're able to read nearly anything without their minds turning to mush. Whereas an unintelligent (actually, I prefer undisciplined and untrained) individual reads with the questions "Do I want this to be true?" and "Does this make sense to me?" in the back of his or her head, the non-mush head is guided by the questions "Does this fit with what I've previously observed to happen?" and "If this were true, what would I expect to see?"
The point of science education should be to innoculate people against mush-headism.
Posted by: Brownian | July 20, 2007 12:53 PM
#21, #32, #35: Another ring species is the California salamander Ensatina, which diverged as separate populations migrated south from Oregon along paths in the Sierras and the coast, meeting again as distinct species in the south. These and the warblers are both described here at a good popular level by the warbler researcher, D. Irwin (as of 2002): Unusual Demonstrations of Speciation with links to primary & other reports. And since Bioscience is targeted at teachers in all levels of biology, it even links to a high-school lesson plan for ring species, which do have great truthiness potential - good match of intuition and data.
Posted by: thwaite | July 20, 2007 12:59 PM
Greg: re 'transitional languages' there is portagnol - common in brazil, spanglish - commom in miami, franglish -