…and this is a 
Other people get mail
Category: Weirdness
Posted on: August 30, 2007 6:00 AM, by PZ Myers
It's not just me! Other people get strange messages, like the one forwarded to me below. Have fun with it.
The author, Don Pribor, is a member of the biology faculty at the University of Toledo. You really must read his research statement.
Many Scientific Thinkers Reject Evolution (not published)
By
Don PriborThere has been much public discussion of fundamentalist, literal interpretations of Christianity that deny evolution. I have not seen any public discussion of how many scientific thinkers believe in a literal interpretation of varies scientific theories that also denies evolution. Albert Einstein, representing mechanistic science, was smart enough to realize that the mechanistic perspective rejects the possibility of evolution. He, like most mechanistic thinkers, believed that the universe literally has a definite structure, represented by some mathematical formalism that unfolds - rather than evolves - in a predetermined way. Many scientific thinkers believe that any living organism as well as ecosystems literally are "nothing more than complex machines." Often these thinkers fail to realize that strict mechanistic theories, which imply among other things that time is reversible, oppose literal machine interpretations of life, which imply that time is irreversible. Furthermore, literal machine interpretations of life reject the possibility of evolution. Machines cannot evolve; only open non-machine systems far from equilibrium can evolve.
Virtually all high school and college science text books fail to point out that literal mechanistic interpretations of nature or literal machine interpretations of life totally oppose evolution. A systems theory of self-organization as well as Richard Dawkins' idea of "the selfish gene" do describe biological evolution in such a way that there is no need for a Creator God hypothesis. However, in contrast to mechanistic or machine literal interpretations of nature, these objective, narrative, evolutionary theories involving methaphorical, conceptual thinking provide the basis for constructing subjective, narrative perspectives that imply an absolute SOURCE that may be interpreted as a Creator God or "that Force, the spirit-that-moves-in-all-things" (Tom Brown, Jr., advocate for American Indian sprituality) or Brahman (of Hinduism) or Emptiness (of Buddhism) or other.
Addition to this, 8/28/07: The original, classical version of the second law of thermodynamics and the classical, probabilistic representation of this second law involving mechanistic determinism deny the possibility of evolution.
Politics
Comments
Nooo! Not Toledo.
(My wife grew up in the Toledo area, and we visit her parents at least twice a year.)
Posted by: Orac | August 30, 2007 6:07 AM
Holy Toledo!
Posted by: Zarquon | August 30, 2007 6:07 AM
"Virtually all high school and college science text books fail to point out that literal mechanistic interpretations of nature or literal machine interpretations of life totally oppose evolution"
In a similar vein, virtually all high school and college history text books fail to point out that Julius Caesar succeeded King Henry VIII.
Posted by: hyperdeath | August 30, 2007 6:23 AM
So life cannot be mechanistic because time is reversible? Damn. That means my coffee is metaphysical too! It's entropy is increasing as well.
Posted by: hyperbole | August 30, 2007 6:34 AM
My "emotional intelligence uses the seven aspects of creativity to prescribe participatory dialogue" in the following manner: Methinks you've got it the wrong way round.
Posted by: astromcnaught | August 30, 2007 6:34 AM
He seems to be claiming that determinism and evolution are incompatible. Bizarre.
Posted by: MartinM | August 30, 2007 6:36 AM
From his site:
His creativity????
Posted by: SoE | August 30, 2007 6:39 AM
You must be literate, to have a literal mechanistic interpretation
Posted by: Branedy | August 30, 2007 6:42 AM
My immediate response is a two word phrase - "Pseudointellectual drivel". Is anybody else affected that way. Using big words, doesn't make you clever. (Perhaps one Scandivanian OM might want to correct me on that though.)
Posted by: reason | August 30, 2007 6:43 AM
Sorry that should read .. using big words and convoluted grammar...
Posted by: reason | August 30, 2007 6:45 AM
Mr breakfast taco representing a problemistic mechanical approach to early morning food consumption also rejects literal evolutionry theory. With it's fried potatoes, corn, red bell pepper, and onions on a spicy tortilla, time becomes a tri-state of all possible references until I drink my coffee. And then, either way, I have to go take a shower.
Posted by: Ezekiel Buchheit | August 30, 2007 6:48 AM
Aiee. This is a man whose brain has been chewed to pieces by postmodernism. All that's left is postmodernist dribble.
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | August 30, 2007 6:49 AM
The end of the second paragraph sums up one of the big hurdles that liberal religion poses to atheists: equal opportunity supernaturalism. "What's the true nature of God and the universe? Anyone might be right... except atheists, of course." It was at my baccalaureate, and now it's here.
Also, can we please bring back the public pillory or something for people who invoke the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as an objection to evolution?
Posted by: Aaron | August 30, 2007 6:49 AM
According to WOS, he's so "creative" he hasn't bothered publishing anything since the mid 70s. His publication record consists of 12 papers from 1971 to 1975, an impressive little burst, but pretty lazy since. Most of it's in "Cryobiology" with the odd paper elsewhere.
Posted by: SteveF | August 30, 2007 6:52 AM
my nonexistent deity, his writing sounds just like the drivel they showcased in "Intellectual Impostures". it's like someone showed the creationists the Postmodernist Essay Generator and told them it would save them some work.
now, who would do something as cruel as that?
Lepht
Posted by: Lepht | August 30, 2007 7:00 AM
#14 - Hmm, cryobiology? You mean he's not relying on "an absolute SOURCE that may be interpreted as a Creator God or 'that Force, the spirit-that-moves-in-all-things' (Tom Brown, Jr., advocate for American Indian spirituality) or Brahman (of Hinduism) or Emptiness (of Buddhism) or other" for eternal life?
Posted by: Jud | August 30, 2007 7:08 AM
This person cannot be real. University of Toledo is a serious institution. PZ has invented him to make his blog more interesting.
Posted by: jaim klein | August 30, 2007 7:11 AM
You know how when you're reading something, you sometimes skip a line or read one twice by mistake, so you develop a sort of contextual-sieve to catch it? Well mine gave me a lot of false positives reading that. I wonder if it would make any less sense if you jumbled the lines about.
Posted by: Andrew | August 30, 2007 7:11 AM
IMHO, real PoMo's write this kind of nonsensical drivel much better than those of us with a scientific training. Even if we try hard, we can't seem to completely let go of attempting to make our point with some kind of logic. Letting go of reason and coherent argumentation, of course, is no problem for a real PoMo.
I'm afraid this fellow, who obviously has let go of science, but is also far from the lofty heights (or profound depths) of postmodernism, has got himself caught in a classic lose-lose situation. Sad, really...
Posted by: Thinker | August 30, 2007 7:14 AM
This is Bizarre. I'm reading thru this and thinking any moment now he will drag in entropy and thermodynamics, and sure enough there it is at the end. Well, the short evidentiary statement is: Evolution has happened, evolution does happen and evolution will continue to happen into the future. So ... live with it!!
Don Pribor needs a healthy dose of talk origins.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF001.html
DenisC
Posted by: Denis Castaing | August 30, 2007 7:20 AM
Actually, I think his 'argument' is actually something along the lines of 'evolution is true, therefore God.'
Posted by: MartinM | August 30, 2007 7:23 AM
Er no, Cryobiology is a journal not a source of eternal life!
Posted by: SteveF | August 30, 2007 7:23 AM
Here's one of his course descriptions!
http://www.utoledo.edu/as/bio/pdfs/syllabii/1120_f_02.pdf
Posted by: Barrett | August 30, 2007 7:26 AM
And then there is the addendum. . . I want to read the "probabilistic representation of this second law involving mechanistic determinism" and figure out how it impacts anything other then this man's drug addled fantasy world.
Posted by: MasFina | August 30, 2007 7:28 AM
The following is from his personal page at Toledo University, where he is in the department of biological sciences:
"Evolution to a vision narrative perspective for teaching-learning also became the basis of a meta-scientific theory of creativity. Besides describing ways of overcoming stress, this theory describes experiential learning and describes transformational stages of human development that may lead to "emotionally intelligent" individualism. Emotional intelligence uses the seven aspects of creativity to prescribe participatory dialogue that may lead to collaborations. I combine the above ideas with others to formulate the meta-pattern, cosmic narrative ecology."
It sounds like utter rubbish, it reads like utter rubbish, so it probably is utter rubish. How does a guy like this manage to hold is own in biology?
I am reminded of a tunicate. These sea creatures start off mobile with a nervous system that gives them the intelligence they need to get around. Finally they find a good rock or piling, settle down, stop moving, and junk whatever little brains they had as they no longer need them. Someond famously remarked: "just like a professor getting tenure."
Posted by: sailor | August 30, 2007 7:31 AM
"I combine the above ideas with others to formulate the meta-pattern, cosmic narrative ecology."
I think his adjective machine is broken, or perhaps he gets only the finest dro.
I'd also hate to have him as my car repairman..."The torque transmission paradigm has shifted to a meta-cognitive, cosmic narrative resulting in your vehicle becoming positionally fixated to a space-time singularity. It'll take about $800 to fix it."
Posted by: Willy | August 30, 2007 7:33 AM
His research statement reads like the randomly generated text you get in spam sometimes.
Posted by: Dr. Brazen Hussy | August 30, 2007 7:33 AM
In a similar vein, virtually all high school and college history text books fail to point out that Julius Caesar succeeded King Henry VIII.
Posted by: hyperdeath | August 30, 2007 6:23 AM
At times like these, I wish we could give "rep"!!!
Posted by: Moses | August 30, 2007 7:47 AM
Dr. BH, do you propose a literal machine interpretation of the creation of his research statement?
Posted by: Greg Leo | August 30, 2007 7:55 AM
From his research statement he looks like a classic new-ager with a biology degree.You know, one of those people who confuse science and post-modernism for some reason.Also, could someone take him aside and explain to him the meaning of "closed system" in one syllable word or something?That last remark nearly had me choking
Posted by: AntonGarou | August 30, 2007 8:05 AM
Betcha any money, right now there are real biologists from Toledo reading this blog with their heads in their hands.
Posted by: csrster | August 30, 2007 8:09 AM
I grew up in Toledo, so I can't say that I'm surprised at all.
Posted by: LM | August 30, 2007 8:11 AM
Fascinating... It certainly looks like English, but I'm damned if I can make any sense of it.
Perhaps someone should also mention that Einstein was probably the last major physicist to believe in a strictly deterministic universe. There's this thing called Quantum Mechanics, you know...
Oh, and the main reason machines can't currently evolve is that they don't reproduce...
Posted by: Dunc | August 30, 2007 8:12 AM
This man is allowed to teach? seriously?
Posted by: Elf | August 30, 2007 8:22 AM
Go to
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=224348&page=1
to see student comments about Pribor.
I especially liked this one on page 2:
"I didn't understanding anything in the class and still got an A!"
Posted by: Jeffrey Shallit | August 30, 2007 8:24 AM
Betcha any money, right now there are real biologists from Toledo reading this blog with their heads in their hands.
After reading his personal page and course description, I think he is a testament to the strength of tenure at the University of Toledo.
Posted by: Shygetz | August 30, 2007 8:28 AM
cosmic narrative ecology
Cosmic narrative ecology? Are you fucking kidding me?
Posted by: Josh | August 30, 2007 8:31 AM
After reading the syllabus for his biology course, one gets the sense that Dr. Pribor is waiting for the second Harmonic Convergence or the Annual Wind Chimes and Fruit Loops Convention. What is a "Magic Learning Cycle"?
Posted by: Doby | August 30, 2007 8:32 AM
Why is it that every time Creationists are on the ropes, they're all like 'THEISTIC EVOLUTION!' But then they go back to trying to deny evolution exists? I think that's the most infuriating part of this argument.
Posted by: Brendan S | August 30, 2007 8:33 AM
One of these things is not like the other.
http://www.utoledo.edu/as/bio/research.html
The rest of the faculty seems sane.
Posted by: Hexxenhammer | August 30, 2007 8:36 AM
Here's an interesting website that will generate a research paper for you very much like this one:
http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/
Posted by: Umilik | August 30, 2007 8:38 AM
I'd say that essay is a load of crap, but that would be an insult to anal sphincters everywhere.
Posted by: The Mad Patriot | August 30, 2007 8:42 AM
One of his classes
BIOLOGY 1120: SURVEY OF BIOLOGY
"Unit III presents a theory of human creativity that describes how stress is a necessary condition for one becoming more mature."
Chapter 8 EVOLUTION TO AND REACTION AGAINST UTILITARIANISM
Chapter 10 TRANS-PATRIARCHAL HUMAN INDIVIDUATION
The sad thing is that he wrote the textbook himself. Reading the course information left me with two questions.
Where is the biology, and how the hell did this guy get tenure?
Posted by: bob | August 30, 2007 8:47 AM
I rather liked the one on page 5:
"What in the blue hell was this guy talking about and how did I get a B in it?!?"
Posted by: PZ Myers | August 30, 2007 8:52 AM
Doby @ #38
Oh, I am SO stealing that description.
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | August 30, 2007 8:55 AM
Ah, this explains a lot. Although, for all of my own crazy ideas, I much prefer potaphorical thinking.
Posted by: Jeebus | August 30, 2007 8:59 AM
Jeff Shallit (#35):
That RateMyProfessors site was depressing for so many reasons. So many students giving him positives because "it's an easy grade". Hell, that entire site is structured to encourage that sort of attitude, allowing students to rate by a professor's "Easiness"! I'd hate to think how PZ gets rated...
Some people just don't deserve a college education.
Posted by: minimalist | August 30, 2007 9:00 AM
Literally, this guy is literally stuck on the word "literal." Literally.
What's with "scientific thinkers"? Apparently "scientist" is too restrictive -- I suppose the term includes anyone who "thinks about science." (No reflection on John Wilkins, of course. G'die, mite!)
I saw a phrase similar to that in quotes in one of Henry Morris' cretinist books, where he dismissed the omission of plants (as living organisms) from Noah's Ark because "they are merely complex chemical replicating systems."
And where did Albert Einstein reject evolution?
Terminal-phase recto-cranial inversion. Take Basket Weaving 101 instead.
-- CV
Posted by: CortxVortx | August 30, 2007 9:07 AM
Evil, PZ. My brain can't handle the PoMo so early in the morning. It craves logic and structure and routine and copious amounts of coffee, not a deconstruction of reality offensive to the English language.
Posted by: Mike P | August 30, 2007 9:10 AM
He's clearly a pomo, or, if you like this description more, totally nuts. He thinks that a physicist (Einstein) knows exactly what biology, especially evolution, is about.
Posted by: Vjatcheslav | August 30, 2007 9:16 AM
Thinker @ #19 wrote:
"IMHO, real PoMo's write this kind of nonsensical drivel much better than those of us with a scientific training. Even if we try hard, we can't seem to completely let go of attempting to make our point with some kind of logic."
Obviously you've never heard of Alan Sokal!
Posted by: Ethyl | August 30, 2007 9:18 AM
There's a reason University of Toledo is often referred to "Bancroft High" (btw: the offical address is on Bancroft Street).
[note bene: I lived in Toledo for six years, and during that time had occasion to deal with some of UToledo's Information Technology students as they interned at my company. Those students were roughly the same quality as this professor.]
Posted by: phil | August 30, 2007 9:21 AM
It seems to me that many of these antievolution types simply do not compute heredity.
Posted by: paul | August 30, 2007 9:23 AM
As Planck said, "Science makes progress funeral by funeral." This guy got his degree in 1964, which means that science will progress by retirement, fairly soon. We can only hope.
Posted by: frank | August 30, 2007 9:26 AM
Thanks Jeffrey (#35) for the RateMyProfessors link. It's really quite a damning indictment of his approach to biology when students say that you failed to prepare them to go further in the subject. Really sad too.
I also noticed that his PhD is from 1964? That would put him 5-10 years past retirement age. It's one thing when great teachers stay past retirement, or outstanding researchers stay on the job. But if you're that bad...give someone else a chance (there are hundred of us banging on the door).
Posted by: IanR | August 30, 2007 9:39 AM
I get the overwhelming impression that Prof. Pribor has been phoning it in for so long that even he can't tell the shit from the shineola.
Posted by: Saber | August 30, 2007 9:48 AM
Anyone notice the grading scheme on that syllabus of his?
"First, multiple choice exam worth 14.28% final grade
Second, multiple choice exam (worth 28.57% final grade)
Third, multiple choice exam (worth 42.85% final grade)
Final Exam Objective, short answer questions exam (worth 14.28% final grade)"
Adds up to 99.98%. If you can't grade with whole-numbers of percents, you're a loony.
Posted by: Stephen | August 30, 2007 9:50 AM
I found PZ's entry in "Rate My Professor":
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=123513
It seems his students like him, think his tests are hard, apart from one student he thinks he is too smart.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | August 30, 2007 9:55 AM
Someone has to say it, so I will.
Suck it, Salem Hypothesis!
Posted by: Rick @ shrimp and grits | August 30, 2007 10:01 AM
Naive me....I never realized there were actual "post-modernist" scientists, at least not to this degree. Maybe we need to cut prof a little slack. He obviously attended college during the 60's and the drugs affected his brain in a very unusual way.
Posted by: pdiddysl | August 30, 2007 10:03 AM
"Evolution to a vision narrative perspective for teaching-learning also became the basis of a meta-scientific theory of creativity."
Kudos to anyone who can diagram that sentence!
Posted by: JasonG | August 30, 2007 10:12 AM
see this is the problem with science. People like this idiot have tenure and a salary while people who would do proper research with that salary are stuck as postdocs or give up. Little wonder that a lot of us have given up. Science has long ceased to be a meritocracy.
Posted by: Peter Ashby | August 30, 2007 10:17 AM
The question remains for Dr. Pribor, is that if figurative organic accretion theory actualizes the mechanical vicissitudes present in literal evolutionary interpretation, then it is probable that through derivation of mechanistic theory, time elision is possible. While this does not impose a Creator God theory, we can suppose that the permutations of cosmic variables may produce a Noodly God (of Pastafarianism), or a Pink Unicorn.
(For those of you higher than me in the autism spectrum, that was parody.)
Posted by: Greg | August 30, 2007 10:19 AM
Okay, he seems to be making some sort of argument to the effect that many (some? one?) scientists hold to deterministic mechanism, whereby the entire history of the universe was decided at the Big Bang. That is, if you know the direction and velocity of every particle in the universe at any point, you can, with sufficient computational power, know exactly what will happen in the future by simply working out the interactions of those particles. That's actually a position some not-crazy people hold. (It was, if memory serves, Stephen Hawking who proposed the business of time being reversible if the universe is oscillating between big bangs and "big crunches," though he later changed his mind.)
Of course, Pribor isn't saying why such mechanism is contrary to evolution, which isn't exactly dependant on there being anything more to it than that selection and drift play roles in the various forces affecting the direction and velocity of the underlying particles. He doesn't even note that the kind of process that he describes as "some mathematical formalism that unfolds" was the original meaning of the term "evolution," which leads me to suspect he doesn't really know much about the history of the philosophy of science.
He is certainly inarticulate. Whether that is just a cover for incoherence would take wading through and interpreting too much jargon to make it worthwhile.
Posted by: John Pieret | August 30, 2007 10:28 AM
Holy frijoles, Speedy! It's a giant Enchilada!
Posted by: Inoculated Mind | August 30, 2007 10:31 AM
This is why I hate postmodernism. Why couldn't we just stick with Dada, and leave it at that?
Posted by: frog | August 30, 2007 10:42 AM
If one of my art/design foundations students came to me spouting as much postmodern drivel as this guy does I'd be embarrassed for them and try to help them. What to feel and do about this guy?
Posted by: Dahan | August 30, 2007 10:45 AM
In other news, curious blue ideas sleep furiously. Just because a series of symbols conforms to the grammar, syntax, etc. of a language does not mean that those symbols express something meaningful. They may just be marks on a cyber-page. Of course, I simply may not engage in enough participatory dialog to wrap my creativity around the meta-pattern cosmic narrative ecology.
Posted by: Steve | August 30, 2007 10:46 AM
His book (PDF file above) seems to be a curious amalgam of concepts from anthropology, psychology, physiology and philosophy: there's science content in there, but the pattern of narrative suggested by the table of contents is neither historical or empirical. It's a belief system, a personal synthesis that may have some interesting features, but it's a belief system nonetheless being taught as a science course.
Thus, the following inescapable conclusion:
Beliefs aren't science. Teaching beliefs as science is a form of pseudoscience. He's a crackpot.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | August 30, 2007 10:50 AM
Molecules are machines that compute thermodynamics problems, so I'm not really sure what he's going on about. I'm also not sure what he means by reversing time, but I think he's trying to say that machines can't be invariant under time reversal. That's certainly new news to my skillet, which is a machine for computing egg frying problems. That's my best guess -- I actually don't know what he's trying to get at, and I don't think that's my fault.
Posted by: Dustin | August 30, 2007 10:50 AM
Let's try that again.
Posted by: Dustin | August 30, 2007 10:52 AM
Other comments from RateMyProfessors about Pribor include "if you need an easy science credit, and don't need to continue to other Bio classes, take him. If your required multiple Bio classes, don't take him. He is an easy grade, but not much on science. He doesn't teach Biology... its Priborology" (ellipsis in the original). Another one reports that "This professor was very unclear. This class is a glorified philosophy class with biology undertones. If you are looking for biology straight up and nothing else, this is not the class nor the professor for you. He does, however, curve test score insanely high so it is apparently difficult to fail. Biased and pointless, his beliefs, not fact." My favorite is the one who says that "He gives you 100% on the paper if you make it the right length". There appears to be a consensus in the comments that his class was closer to philosophy than biology and that it was a waste of time if one wanted to learn anything. I've heard of bad tenure decisions but this is appalling.
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | August 30, 2007 10:53 AM
OK, but it didn't it turn out that Einstein and the physical mechanists were kind of, well, wrong about all that?
Quantum mechanics, don'tcha know.
Posted by: Dan | August 30, 2007 10:53 AM
That is an amazingly stupid website for impossibly stupid people.
Posted by: Dustin | August 30, 2007 11:01 AM
The only appropriate response to silly entropic arguments like this is:
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | August 30, 2007 11:02 AM
Greg @62
Nah, you just don't cut it. You used a 2 syllable word, 'suppose', when there is a perfectly good 4 syllable word available - 'postulate'.
Not. Good. Enough. PoMo license denied!
Posted by: demallien | August 30, 2007 11:02 AM
#71--Reminds me of the math professor I once had who offered a course on non-parametric statistics, which turned out to be a semester worth of lectures on some arcane computer language he was in to. An absolute waste of fucking time.
Posted by: Blader | August 30, 2007 11:03 AM
Thanks Jeffrey (#35) for the link. The student ratings are wonderful - better commentary than ours, but then that is fair, they suffered him longer.
My favorite is:
I am thankful for this class. It's a science credit that is a philosophy class. I didn't understanding anything in the class and still got an A! Highly recommend for those needing a science credit!
Posted by: sailor | August 30, 2007 11:07 AM
Say wha'?
Posted by: Gray Lensman | August 30, 2007 11:19 AM
Damn, the thing would probably have to have a luminosity of something like 10^28 W, even. Like, maybe a large nuclear furnace in the sky. Evolutionists are rediculous -- they imagine mythical balls of hydrogen and helium as a substitute for God.
Posted by: Dustin | August 30, 2007 11:20 AM
For all of those whose comments include remarks about Einstein being wrong on determinism, you don't actually think that Mr Toledo Crackpot's quote has anything at all to do with anything that Einstein ever thought or wrote, do you?
Also just for the record Niels Bohr is on record as saying that Einsetin probably contributed more, through his sharp analysis and penetrating critic, to the development of quantum mechanics than any other single scientist. Nothing promotes the advance of science more than having one of the best brains on the planet finding the weak spots and poking holes in your theories!
Posted by: Thony C. | August 30, 2007 11:26 AM
Wow. "He is so smart it's hard to understand what he's saying," says some poor student.
Posted by: i, squub` | August 30, 2007 11:32 AM
His research statement is interesting. In my experience with paragraphs like those, the term "meta" can almost always be safely replaced with "insane".
Posted by: Frac | August 30, 2007 11:34 AM
That is, if you know the direction and velocity of every particle in the universe at any point, you can, with sufficient computational power, know exactly what will happen in the future by simply working out the interactions of those particles.
No, you couldn't, because you'd need more information than just the direction and velocity. If you had enough information then you (technically) could predict every damned thing, but the amount of information you would have to collect is (technically) infinite, so you'd still be collecting information when the universe ended.
And PZ has a zero Hotness rating. I find it hard to believe that *none* of his students like tentacles.
Posted by: Graculus | August 30, 2007 11:39 AM
Man, this reminds me of http://www.timecube.com/, with better formatting.
Posted by: Sivi Volk | August 30, 2007 11:39 AM
I love that "easiness" rating. Takes me back to when students of mine would ask who the easiest professor was for the following section. My answers varied from, "Why don't you save us all some trouble and drop out now?" to giving them the name of the hardest professor on the list.
I do hate engineering students. I hate them so much.
Posted by: Dustin | August 30, 2007 11:44 AM
demallien (#75),
"Postulate" has three syllables! Math license denied! :)
Posted by: Mike P | August 30, 2007 11:54 AM
literal mechanistic interpretations of nature
He just said "fundamentalist atheist", didn't he?
Posted by: Bob L | August 30, 2007 11:55 AM
Pribor should get extra crank points for first denying entropy (the reversible time thing), then attempting to use entropy to support his argument at the end.
It's pretty hard to believe that this is real.
Posted by: Curt Cameron | August 30, 2007 11:57 AM
Are we sure this guy isn't a dadaist art professor who was accidentally translocated?
Or possibly the addled offspring of a dadaist and a postmodernist?
Must have been some pretty low standards for tenure back then...
Posted by: eyesoars | August 30, 2007 12:03 PM
Not to pile on, but I think the DI should recruit Pribor as their next rising-star fellow. He could pen a better Wedge Document and confuse the hell out of everyone. But boy would he snow everyone with BS. Can you imagine him in the witness box of a Federal Court? The opposing attorney would tear his hair out and the judge would need a recess every three minutes to regain his composure.
Posted by: Keanus | August 30, 2007 12:04 PM
Graculus:
For the philosophical point, it is irrelevant whether humans could ever attain the goal (or exactly what kind of information you'd need to do so). The point of determinism is that all choice is illusionary and we're just playing out an "existence" predestined from the moment of the Big Bang. Other not-crazy people deny that the universe is deterministic in that sense.
Posted by: John Pieret | August 30, 2007 12:13 PM
This man is now a walking example of the downside of the tenure system. Is there no clause in the tenure process that says if a professor goes completely off the rails that he can be re-evaluated and possibly fired? (sure there's a worry of a slippery slope there, but there must be some kind of breaking point).
People who worked incredibly hard in real biology labs and struggled to get it right, people who are clear and careful communicators, fair graders, and care about biology are struggling to get tenure-track positions..and this man is allowed to "teach"? That is wrong.
Posted by: cm | August 30, 2007 12:26 PM
Reading the comments on these sorts of threads always amuses me to no end. You hard-science folks' reactions to stuff like this practically crack me up.
Without commentary on the truth or falsity of the statements in question, he's basically saying:
1) A literal interpretation of the mechanistic fallacy as used in science (as a trope, ferchrissakes; it's the pedagogical equivalent of a literary device) excludes evolution as a possiblility;
2) A lot of scientists (seem to) use/rely on a strict reading of the mechanistic fallacy.
I don't see where he's either endorsing the mechanistic fallacy's being used as a trope (or an analogy, if you like that better, since explaining biological or physical things in terms of "machines" to people who've grown up around machines makes a lot of sense) or making the argument that all scientists make this k