Pharyngula

Posted by: DLC | November 20, 2007 2:38 AM

Uh, I have an iron stomach, but a low threshold for stupidity, so I'll pass. Recent reading has convinced me that Dembski and his pals are nothing more than disingenuous cdesign proponentsists ninjas. They can't get into Academia through the front door, so they must sneak in through a window in the back.

Posted by: freelancer | November 20, 2007 4:01 AM

C'mon ERV,
Own up, were you in this, and if so where?

Posted by: Inoculated Mind | November 20, 2007 8:17 AM

What, where's the sweater?

Posted by: ERV | November 20, 2007 10:03 AM

I think you can hear me in Part 4 somewhere :)

Posted by: danley | November 20, 2007 10:55 AM

Just in time for the holidays.

Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | November 20, 2007 2:42 PM

Interesting. That's the first time I've been able to watch and listen to Dembski at length.

First thought: he's another data-point in support of my hypothesis concerning the arrogance and narrowness of mathematicians. Let me hasten to say that I'm sure they're not all like that. I've just never met one.

Second thought: the man's an idiot - in both senses of the word. (Okay, maybe that was my first thought)

Third thought: I was impressed at the restraint shown by the questioners, particularly ERV given the way she'd been treated by them. I'd have been sorely tempted to be more forthright.

Fourth thought: what's the latest thinking on the role of sweaters in framing the debate?

Posted by: Beagle | November 22, 2007 9:01 AM

Y'know, I'd never wasted the time listening to their arguments before, but I figured, WTF, it's the night before Thanksgiving when I'm going to be too stuffed to think, everyone else is in bed, so why not?

I was struck by 3 things:

1. As is so often the case with science wannabes, they accuse science of doing what they do: Teleology? Yup, must be part of evolution. Conspiracy? Check, evolootionsists at work. No way to explain unexplained phenomena? You know it! EEs (Evil Evolutionists) at work.

2. Where are the eyes?

Why is it all flagella, all the time? What happened to the "irreducible complexity" of eyes? Oh wait! Maybe something about the fossil record and the increased understanding of the molecular biology of eyes and the similarities and differences in eye structure between species, both at the macro and micro level. This suggests that their real strategy is whack-o-mole: once scientists have whacked flagella (which they clearly have), they'll pop up elsewhere with toes (or toe jam) or mitochondria or the Isle of Langerhans or whatever.

3. They are revisionist historians of the highest order of duplicity. They conveniently forget that it was Darwin and evolution that had to undergo years of criticism to overcome the bias against it. It was, what, 100 years before it made it into standard textbooks at the secondary school level? Quantum physics had to go through an amazingly rigorous test before it was accepted. It has been measured to a degree that has never been approached before - by several orders of magnitude, yet these bozos, because of their lack of imagination, throw up their hands and say "We can't think of any way this could happen so it must be designed! We can't prove anything, but the burden of proof is on you!"

In short, they are intellectually, morally, and spiritually (yes! - the spirit of discovery) bankrupt. While on one hand, I'm not surprised, having followed your blog for some time, I was surprised at the breathtaking duplicity of Dembski, down to trying (and failing!) to beat up students and using the old "talk to me offline" when he can't overcome an argument. What a POS he and his colleagues, no, make that co-conspirators, are!