…and this is a 
That's some memory hole
Category: Creationism
Posted on: February 1, 2008 11:02 AM, by PZ Myers
For those of you looking for audio of that debate with Simmons, you can download an MP3 now. I'm actually a little bit impressed that the radio station has enough integrity to retain the file and make it available to their listeners.
I can't say as much about Uncommon Descent. They briefly put up a thread to discuss the debate as it was happening, the comments accumulated, and many conceded the debate to me (while, of course, disagreeing with me). It wasn't a troll thread, no vituperation was going on, it was just a fairly ordinary set of comments with nothing objectionable, I though…but then, poof, today it is gone. It is preserved at After the Bar Closes.
I don't like to do this; even when discussing the work of the anti-scientists in the creationist movement, we should link to their work. But I'm not going to link to Uncommon Descent ever again. It's not that they're wrong or that I disagree with them, but that the site is profoundly dishonest and unreliable, and can't be trusted. I'm not going to link to a site which will freely shift and modify their content to polish their image, since who knows where any link will end up.
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Comments
If Uncommon Descent ever goes out of business, the people who operate it can always get a job working with Winston Smith in the Ministry of Truth. They have the skill set.
Posted by: Zeno | February 1, 2008 11:07 AM
Um... I was listening to the audio, and there was a hiccup (possibly some sloppy editing?) at 6:04 into the MP3 file. Did anybody else notice that? Was it something important?
Posted by: Raynfala | February 1, 2008 11:08 AM
fucking ironic how the only missing links are those on uncommon descent
Posted by: me | February 1, 2008 11:10 AM
Just how much of what we write, and what even they write, will have been Expelled™ before the whole sorry lot of them is forgotten, anyway?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | February 1, 2008 11:14 AM
#3 - that is too funny!
Posted by: ifeelfine72 | February 1, 2008 11:15 AM
Wow, what a bunch of sore losers! Quite funny though!
Posted by: Plognark | February 1, 2008 11:21 AM
Yes, the crooks and liars at Uncommon Descent need to be called out. Let me do so:
William Dembski: You are a dishonest embarrassment to Christians.
Denyse O'Leary: You are a blatant liar and propagandist.
Dave Scot: You are a lying embarrassment to the human race.
The funny thing is they complain incessantly that their ideas are being censored. They, of course, are the biggest proponents of censorship around.
Posted by: Ric | February 1, 2008 11:29 AM
thanks to the not-missing audio link, I'm listening to the opening statements for the 1st time--I couldn't get to the live show yesterday until quarter past.
1)This Simmons character is absolutely incoherent. He doesn't make any sense at all, is just sort of rambling.
2)This confirms my suspicions that the only primary scientific literature these people have ever read is from the mid to late 19th century. They've probably not read a scientific paper since.
Posted by: me | February 1, 2008 11:29 AM
I kept expecting Bill Dembski or DaveScot to appear on the UD thread, wagging their fingers at the commenters and writing that "so-and-so is no longer with us". Nope, too many dissenters I guess; much easier to yank the whole thread.
Posted by: Norm | February 1, 2008 11:32 AM
Good job on the debate, you creamed him. I've been telling people I know about it and they were laughing. Durrr, I read Scientific American so I know what Scientists know... Hehe.
For those who are interested, I finally posted that show of mine with PZ and Ken Miller debating religion and nonreligion over the acceptance of evolution.
http://www.inoculatedmind.com/?p=311
It's PZ debate fever.
Posted by: Inoculated Mind | February 1, 2008 11:33 AM
I'm listening now. Ha! You're handing him his arse on a side-plate, with a pat of butter.
..and he brings up human birth as evidence for design? Surely a designed solution would be a lot less messy, painful and inefficient. Perhaps a zip-fastening across the abdomen?
Posted by: MissPrism | February 1, 2008 11:41 AM
I love how they try to make it sound like creationism is the dominant theory and PZ is just a "Darwinist proponent". As if they entire scientific community doesn't recognize the reality of evolution.
It simultaneously makes me laugh, feel sad and feel frightened.
Posted by: MorseCode | February 1, 2008 11:44 AM
I'm listening too.
Best entertainment of the week.
Thank you PZ.
Posted by: astromcnaught | February 1, 2008 11:49 AM
Did you hear the host at the start? 'Before we start the destruc... ah, I mean discussion...'
Freudian slip or prophecy?
Posted by: Stuart Ritchie | February 1, 2008 11:55 AM
PZ, on the matter of linking you can use a few HTML techniques to mark for non-human readers that you are not endorsing the linked material. There are two of these - rel-nofollow is the Google way of doing it, which basically says to the Google bot "You should not follow this link and not use this page's worth when calculating the worth of the targeted resource". To do this you add rel="nofollow" to the link.
There is also an unofficial, community effort called Vote Links put together by the microformats.org community. To do this you add rev="vote-for" rev="vote-abstain" or rev="vote-against" to the link to indicate whether you vote for, against or abstain on the resource.
One of the documents about Vote Links by a friend of mine use Dawkins and creationism as an example of how to use Vote Links.
I've been using vote-for/vote-against when pointing to anti-creationist and creationist resources respectively.
Good performance on tearing Simmons a new rear entrance.
Posted by: Tom Morris | February 1, 2008 11:57 AM
I love how they try to make it sound like creationism is the dominant theory and PZ is just a "Darwinist proponent". As if they entire scientific community doesn't recognize the reality of evolution.
It simultaneously makes me laugh, feel sad and feel frightened.
Posted by: MorseCode | February 1, 2008 11:44 AM
Of those 3 emotions the one that gets me most is sad! I am a Christian who believes in both creationism and evolution! I know that may sound contradictory, but I also know of others who feel the same way.
I guess it is inevitable that this controversy would happen, but what saddens me most is that I know so many brilliant, dedicated people on both sides and if there could only be a way to get them to be able to work cooperatively instead of being caught up in this squabble, the world could be made a better place by their combined efforts!
Dave Briggs :~)
Posted by: Dave Briggs | February 1, 2008 11:57 AM
Re 'Fucking ironic how the only missing links are those on Uncommon Descent'
... simply beautiful.
Posted by: AJ Milne | February 1, 2008 11:58 AM
What really impressed me is how many utter lies about Darwin and the Victorian period Simian got into his final 3-minute summary. He assigns mediaeval/early rnnaisance beliefs about frogs and such spontaneously generating to a society that at most were uncertain about the generation microorganisms - which Pasteur would disprove circa 1863. He then spends several minutes libelling Darwin for racism and sexism (when anyone who actually knew Darwin's writings would know that he was far ahead of his time), and...
You know, he said very little that was true throughout the interview, but in his last three minutes, he moved beyond plausible stupidity into outright slander.
Posted by: Adam Cuerden | February 1, 2008 11:58 AM
As one of the commenters at UD said (now scrubbed since my visit last night), "let's just close our eyes and pretend the debate didn't happen (paraphrased)."
Apparently they are.
It really was an embarrassing episode from their point of view and from the point of view of someone expecting an informed and intelligent argument from the "anti-Darwin" side. I, however, had no such expectation and even that expectation was thoroughly dashed by the rambling unintelligible dribble from the good doctor of Gapology.
I did pick up one thing though that I didn't know before, Darwin didn't know his monkeys. Don't look at me, I'm not gonna make the joke.
Posted by: jimmiraybob | February 1, 2008 12:08 PM
Yeah. Even if Simmons were accurate about Darwin's views -- and I have no basis or interest to conclude one way or the other -- it really goes beyond the pale to bring that up in a debate such as this one.
I mean, William Shockley was the co-inventor of the transistor, which is one of the more important inventions (if not The Invention) of the 20th century. But Shockley was also an advocate of eugenics, and was, by most accounts, quite the prick. But nobody uses that as the metric when evaluating his contribution to society.
Posted by: Raynfala | February 1, 2008 12:11 PM
I think I know the real reason why the thread went down.
From one commenter:
"ID needs a BIG EVENT. It needs something that will get everybody (laymen and experts alike) to stand up and take notice, something that will quickly and decisively nullify the enemy's defences."
They don't want us to know about the upcoming attack. I don't know about you guys, but I'm staying away from shopping malls and sports stadiums for the next week.
Posted by: ShotgunTex | February 1, 2008 12:12 PM
#3: You win.
Posted by: Epistaxis | February 1, 2008 12:14 PM
The enemy? Rationality is the enemy? Of course it is!
Posted by: Kseniya | February 1, 2008 12:16 PM
I just love how the title of his book is a parody of his argument. He wallows in his ignorance.
Posted by: Rob Adams | February 1, 2008 12:24 PM
#3, you actually did make me lol. Nice.
Posted by: Dahan | February 1, 2008 12:33 PM
Well, any time the creationists want to start actually doing science rather than actively campaigning against it, we'll be waiting with open arms (although I don't think many of them will remain creationists through the process.)
Posted by: Brownian, OM | February 1, 2008 12:36 PM
I call shenanigans! NO ONE is that specifically ignorant--It could not have happened by chance that this big fat pitch right in the strike zone showed up to "debate" you. This was not hardball--this was T-ball. The dude was intelligently designed to serve as the perfect example of how *not* to debate. EVERY statement he made was teeing up the ball. This was not "shooting fish in a barrel"; this was sticking a shotgun down the gaping maw of a carp and blasting away, loaded for bear. Simmons was the metaphorical equivalent of the spaceship that crashed on Krikkit--the easy, debate-for-dummies, this-is-what-ignorance-looks-like-in-concentrated-form version of a cdesign proponentist.
Who was it really? Did you get your buddy The Bad Astronomer to do his impression of a Discover Institute Fellow? (I was going to say "a knuckle dragging, drooling troglodyte", but that would be too much credit.)
Posted by: Anon | February 1, 2008 12:37 PM
but what saddens me most is that I know so many brilliant, dedicated people on both sides
If you don't conclude that the only thing brilliant about this Geof Simmons chap is his ignorance, then you weren't paying attention.
Posted by: me | February 1, 2008 12:39 PM
Aw, PZ, you just can't resist tilting against ignorant windmills, can you! I enjoyed the debate, and I think you did a good job defending your position.
Posted by: Larry Ayers | February 1, 2008 12:40 PM
There's a difference between being wrong and lying, isn't there. That's really the key here. Taking that thread down is a lie.
That is the culture I don't want a thing to do with.
With the whole WMD "Oops" in Iraq, I think these people have had good teachers. And it's all part of the same culture. Completely consistent, which is why I have no qualms about staying away from them.
I'm sorry if that connection seems like a stretch to some, but to me, the connection is now 100% complete.
Posted by: MikeM | February 1, 2008 12:46 PM
Wow, that was a total waste of your time. Good job not losing your cool; I might have hung up in disgust after the whole "no transistional whale fossils" debacle.
Hopefully your next debate will feature someone with a clue.
Posted by: Deathweasel | February 1, 2008 12:50 PM
I believe an "Oh, snap!" is in order.
I can just imagine Dembski sitting at his desk in the center of his volcano headquarters and raising both fists to the sky, screaming "PZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" as the camera rises dramatically above him in an expensive crane shot.
Posted by: October Mermaid | February 1, 2008 12:52 PM
I spent the whole time he was talking about the "lack" of whale fossils staring at pictures of them on numerous websites.
He simply can't be that ignorant, or arrogant enough to presume he can write a book in the subject. Can he? Even for a creationist.
Lying I can understand: they do that all the time, but surely no-one can be that incoherant and muddled for real.
Posted by: RT | February 1, 2008 1:01 PM
I do object to the moderator chastising PZ for describing his opponent as "ignorant". This is NOT a pejorative; it is merely descriptive and simply means "lacking the information." And the man had PROVEN that he LACKED THE INFORMATION. Now, "willfully ignorant", that's a pejorative.
PZ is ignorant of many, many things, AND HE KNOWS IT. That's what makes him a scientist. He is determined to relieve his ignorance in certain areas as much as possible in his lifetime.
Simmons, on the other hand, is ignorant, and by all the evidence, wishes to remain to so.
Posted by: Hairhead | February 1, 2008 1:06 PM
A commenter on the other thread said PZ should have been more polite because rudeness drives people away. In general he has a point, but it doesn't apply here.
First, when a guy flat out lies you have to flat out call him a liar in a believable way. If you don't, listeners won't know. You can't be a Milquetoast. Second, any additional level of moderation the commenter thought PZ should have exhibited would have had to be so nuanced as to be practically impossible in such a sprint-like debate.
Had there been more time, I'd have like to have pinned Simmons to specifics on his "Darwinian Inquisition" claim, and then shredded him.
Posted by: Adam | February 1, 2008 1:06 PM
jimmiraybob@#18, I was thinking the exact same thing. It was bFast who said:
"In my opinion, we should just close our eyes and pretend that this debate never happened."
Maybe they closed their eyes really, really hard, and POOF!, it was all erased from their selective memories.
Posted by: Mrs. Peach | February 1, 2008 1:09 PM
Dave, just to know, how would you know a designed universe from an undesigned one? So far the creationist mantra has been "only an intelligent being could have created our complex universe". But how is that any different from saying that "only tiny invisible refridgerators up in the sky could create hail stones" or "only giant invisible moles(mole hills ya see) could have created mountains". If we didn't have an understanding of these phenomenon already, my above mentiones claims would have been at par with the ID theories of present.
You say that the IDers are dedicated researchers. I'm unimpressed with their ID work so far. So I find your notion/hope of IDers and 'Evil'utionists working hand-in-hand as naively optimistic. The fact is IDers have made it tougher for christians like you with a scientific bent to compartmentalise your beliefs the way you used to do.
Dragging God into scientific matters must now seem like a bad move.
Posted by: akshay | February 1, 2008 1:09 PM
remember at school when a bunch of kids is telling each other how tall their dad is and the short kid is obviously getting laughed at somewhat, the short kid gets really frustrated and confused and shouts really loudly, 'well my dads 9 foot 4' and then suddenly realises hes really and irreversibly messed up and bursts into tears. SIMMONS. just what is it with the actual blatent lies???? I dont understand that bit, is their really a subsection of any given human population that has these odd qualities??
Posted by: extatyzoma | February 1, 2008 1:11 PM
Oh, snap!
And me's comment #3 deserves to be preserved in some vault somewhere.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | February 1, 2008 1:15 PM
I can't believe that a medical doctor is so ignorant about evolutionary theory. It's not even the more complex aspects he gets wrong, but simple stuff.
I hope his patients see the light and leave his practice in droves.
Posted by: Scrofulum | February 1, 2008 1:17 PM
My favorite part was when PZ said "Your ignorance of the fossil record" at which point he was interupted with a desire to keep things civil and not call each other ignorant.
As if it is uncivil to refer to someone's lack of knowledge on a subject as ignorance. It is one thing to refer to a person in general as ignorant and quite another to point out a demonstrated gap in knowledge.
As in his obvious ignorance of the word 'ignorance'.
Posted by: JasonE | February 1, 2008 1:18 PM
"ID needs a BIG EVENT. It needs something that will get everybody (laymen and experts alike) to stand up and take notice, something that will quickly and decisively nullify the enemy's defences."
That's true. If YHWH shows up on his steaming chariot and does some kick-ass magic tricks that even food Randi (YHWH could use the $1mil to give to Ted Haggard, right?) I think we'd all take notice.
Speaking as just an amateur physicist, my defenses would be nullified if YHWH did just a few simple tricks - like, maybe, turning Jupiter into a diamond, or making a monkey out of Denyse O'Leary.. Oh... wait. With witnesses present.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | February 1, 2008 1:21 PM
My comment on UC:
"PZ Myers, who runs the caustic pro-Darwinism blog"
What's Darwinism?
I've looked all over the place, but outside of creationist literature, there seems to be no special regard held for Darwin in the Evolutionary sciences, except, of course, as the originator of the concept of natural selection.
I cannot find anyone in these fields who ignores or denigrates other mechanisms of evolution, such as endosymbiosis and genetic drift, to exclusively rely upon Darwin's proposed mechanism, nor can I find anyone who espouses Darwin's original concept of natural selection over more modern understandings.
Although he is caustic, it may be better to call him pro-science, or pro-cephlopod for that matter.
Posted by: Jason Failes | February 1, 2008 1:23 PM
"The enemy is fighting a political war, not a scientific one. They will lie as often as they have to. They are well equipped for it. Myers is a skilled and consummate liar, in my opinion."
Haha...kudos to the saved thread from UD.
Posted by: Michael Spear | February 1, 2008 1:24 PM
it is hard to believe hes an MD.
that final summary of his where started rambling on very quickly about not letting preconception, religion and politcal correctness (if i remember it all corrctly) affect science results was truly manic, it was almost unsettling, it reminded me of when you are in a sales room and the rep suddenly realises that you ARENT interested in the item and he (ive only had guys do this) suddenly gets really agitated and smiles madly but theres pain in his eyes and spit building up on the edges of his lips and you fear he actually wants to jump on you and strangle you. now of course this observation says little about evolution or lack of it but it says a lot about ID proponents when they have nothing valuable to say, nothing atall.
Posted by: extatyzoma | February 1, 2008 1:24 PM
I liked how the hosts thought PZ calling the guy "ignorant" was an uncalled-for insult.
Posted by: BlockStacker | February 1, 2008 1:25 PM
Best comment:
"In my opinion we should just close our eyes and pretend that this debate never happened."
Classic...
Posted by: Jay Hovah | February 1, 2008 1:26 PM
You can't be serious. Someone posted that without a trace of irony or self-awareness? Can we clip that and put it into every Psych 101 text as, well, as a textbook example of projection?
I'm stunned. That's over the top, even for UhDuh. What incredibly self-deluded fools. Flat-earthers. Ostriches. Flat-earth-believing ostriches. Without feathers. Butt-naked flat-earth-believing ostriches! Every one of them! :-D
Posted by: Kseniya | February 1, 2008 1:34 PM
I thought the funniest part was that Simmons wrote an entire book on missing links, but admitted almost immediately that he had no knowledge of the subject matter, that all he knew about whale fossils is what he read in a Scientific American article a year ago.
Someone needs to send a transcript of this debate to his publisher.
Posted by: Cephus | February 1, 2008 1:35 PM
Just listened to the whole thing. Simmons is blatantly dishonest, especially on the question for the show. He didn't know the title of the segment before coming on? What did he think he was being called on to talk about? What transparent BS.
And he never answered the challenge: Defend ID or whatever is better than evolution. He didn't do it because he can't, and is not prepared to argue on that playing field. All we get out of this tool is giraffes and whales popped into existence because he didn't do his research, and chimps are 100% different than humans...oh, and Darwin sucks. But he can't explain why beyond his revisionist historical moralizing (an obviously play to the station's audience). Can you believe the race card was pulled in the presence of all-white people?
Posted by: BlueIndependent | February 1, 2008 1:38 PM
I like me.
Not that I'm especially narcissist or anything.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | February 1, 2008 1:39 PM
OK, that was an "ASNR" (Acute Spontaneous Nasal Reflux). Good thing I've learned to not eat or drink when reading these.
Would that expensive crane shot really be a (Dennett) skyhook?
Posted by: Jim S. | February 1, 2008 1:40 PM
The 1984 allusion is disturbingly accurate. Creationists and ID proponents must employ doublethink when confronted by irrefutable evidence, and now they feel compelled to erase inconvenient events from their collective history. These are the sort of actions undertaken by totalitarian regimes when they are denying aspects of reality that do not conform to their preferred ideology.
Posted by: MachiavelliDiscourse | February 1, 2008 1:45 PM
I think the "brain fossils" UD quote is the winner for teh stupid.
As for Dembski's lair, I wonder what kinda of evil henchmen he has? Surely not flying monkeys. The monkeys have unionized, and will not work for a monkey hater.
Posted by: Michael X | February 1, 2008 1:53 PM
Yeah, that last volley from Simmons was another typical dirty creationist debating tactic. If you're getting called on your little lies, wait until the last minute to throw out a whole bunch of Big Lies -- even though I had the last word, I'm not quick enough to assemble a complete argument against all that nonsense he spewed about Darwin in a few seconds.
Posted by: PZ Myers | February 1, 2008 1:56 PM
I can just imagine Dembski sitting at his desk in the center of his volcano headquarters and raising both fists to the sky, screaming "PZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" as the camera rises dramatically above him in an expensive crane shot.
With DaveScot as "Mini-Ski"?
Posted by: Jackstraw | February 1, 2008 1:57 PM
Just listened to the whole thing.
Only a theory...beyond my comprehension...you're mean...I read a magazine...Darwin was a racist...
Bloody hell, they put you up against a street-sweeper.
However, you do have an evil laugh. That soft mocking chuckle will have the poor stooge waking up in a muck-sweat for years to come.
Posted by: Don | February 1, 2008 1:58 PM
I could scarcely believe my ears when he said right off the bat that he wasn't there "to defend ID . . . or to show you proof that intelligent design is a real science." Nah, I guess he was just there to debate poor old Darwin. Hell, he might even have won a debate with Darwin, Darwin having been dead quite a while. I wouldn't have bet money on it, though.
PZ, you actually engaged in a battle of wits with an unarmed man, as the saying goes.
Posted by: Candy | February 1, 2008 1:59 PM
Regarding their calling you PZ and him Dr. Simmons...Did you tell the hosts prior to air time, "Please, call me PZ"?
Posted by: cm | February 1, 2008 2:01 PM
On the discussion thread, one of them said:
The ID movement is wasting its time and resources, in my opinion. This ID vs. evolution fight will never be won with either debates, arguments, brochures, web sites or what have you. The opposition has a propaganda machine that is impervious to this strategy. If public debates and discussions are the best that we can do, I'm afraid we have lost the war before it has even started.
ID needs a BIG EVENT. It needs something that will get everybody (laymen and experts alike) to stand up and take notice, something that will quickly and decisively nullify the enemy's defences. I don't see these endless debates and arguments making a dent in their armor. They're stronger than ever.
Education and arguments are nice but they will only be effective after we're on top, not before. Sorry to sound so negative but that's the way I see it at the moment.
Here's my suggestion for your "BIG EVENT": GET SOME EVIDENCE!! Geez, this is science. You play by bringing the evidence, not by looking for some magic Hail Mary pass to somehow make those with the evidence disappear in favor of your nonsense.
Posted by: Ipecac | February 1, 2008 2:09 PM
listening again i was almost crying with laghter at content and style.
simmons:
9:40 says hes not there to show ID is science or give evidence or defend it. (because thats impossible as far as we can tell).
10:42 brings up 'its only a theory' (big mess up)
10:56 'its a theory that science is disproving' (LIE)
11:23 suggests darwin wouldnt be published today because back then he didnt know genetics, cells?, immunity, viruses. (eh??????)
11.55 'im not christian..or a firm believer in the bible' (so a bit christian maybe if you believe in the bible a bit less firmly than others?)
12:10 says that natural selection, survival of fittest, mutation, genetic variation are all laws? like boiling water and so are not the issue, like botany and geology (eh) are not at issue its evolution theory thats the issue' (hes really fucking it up here, only a hillbilly fathered by his own brother could not see how dreadful this is becoming)
12:38 'fossil record becoming more incomplete' (well i suppose if worldwide fossil destruction exceeds that of current fossilisation maybe, but thats NOT what he meant, he didnt mean anything atall but to try and tell lies that some idiot might believe.
12:47 (for pure comic fun) 'pro evolutionists, new or old or somewhere inbetween' is he describing a bell curve here??
13:00 so his issue with evo being like jumping from NY to LA via a few steps is actually more impossible than doing it in a single leap (creation). this man is tripping.
13;20 the business of birth, often fatal prior to medical intervention yes? he mentions 'trial and error individuals or species' this guy is a doctor??????????? he sounds more like a 13 year old kid at bible school getting it all very wrong......
Posted by: extatyzoma | February 1, 2008 2:10 PM
Okay, that didn't format correctly. Here's what the guy in the thread said. The rest of the post, above, is my comment.
"The ID movement is wasting its time and resources, in my opinion. This ID vs. evolution fight will never be won with either debates, arguments, brochures, web sites or what have you. The opposition has a propaganda machine that is impervious to this strategy. If public debates and discussions are the best that we can do, I'm afraid we have lost the war before it has even started.
ID needs a BIG EVENT. It needs something that will get everybody (laymen and experts alike) to stand up and take notice, something that will quickly and decisively nullify the enemy's defences. I don't see these endless debates and arguments making a dent in their armor. They're stronger than ever.
Education and arguments are nice but they will only be effective after we're on top, not before. Sorry to sound so negative but that's the way I see it at the moment."
Posted by: Ipecac | February 1, 2008 2:11 PM
'fossil record becoming more incomplete'
I assumed he meant, 'You identify one transitional fossil, I see two more gaps.'
Posted by: Don | February 1, 2008 2:14 PM
I swear I can hear PZ sigh heavily at 03:44, when Simmons protests the word "infantile".
Classic.
Posted by: Paholaisen Asianajaja | February 1, 2008 2:18 PM
#5, 17, 22, 25, 39, 51
y'all are too kind
but I digress
isn't there some sort of commenter award thingy around here?
Vote for me!!!!
Posted by: me | February 1, 2008 2:18 PM
The reaction on UhDuh (Kseniya, did you coin this one? How I love it so!) alone made that debate worthwhile.
They now know, more than ever, that we see through their parlour tricks and snake-oil salesmanship, and know how to counter them. Their lies won't work. Their Gish Galloping won't work.
They can't win debates. They refuse to do real science and have it published. They can't smarm their way into universities by crying discrimination. They can't silently pad schoolboards anymore.
They're afraid (which to anyone with a brain demonstrates how little in God they really trust), because every failure like this merely exposes their con a little more.
No time to rest, but results like this almost encourage me to have faith.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | February 1, 2008 2:21 PM
Posted by: extatyzoma | February 1, 2008 2:21 PM
I swear I can hear PZ sigh heavily at 03:44, when Simmons protests the word "infantile".
Classic.
Posted by: Paholaisen Asianajaja | February 1, 2008 2:24 PM
Too much direct conflict for me. Got stressed with "fight or flight" issues. Damn, being neurotic sucks. Did enjoy what I heard though.
Posted by: Moses | February 1, 2008 2:32 PM
From his book:
Professor William Dembski, nationally acclaimed author of
The Design Inference, defines Intelligent Design as natural systems that cannot be explained in terms of undirected natural forces, yet exhibit features which, in any other circumstance, we would attribute to intelligence. He points to the carved faces of four United States presidents--Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt--at Mount Rushmore. Given the natural forces of erosion, wind, and rain plus a rare push from a tectonic plate, it remains highly improbable, if not impossible, that Nature could have carved such likenesses.
One should apply similar logic to everything we see in Nature. This book will help explain why.
All you scientists! Go forth and apply logic! Forget the evidence, forget testing! Forget all the bazillions of hours of field work of your colleagues! Logic is KING!
What a maroon.
Posted by: CalGeorge | February 1, 2008 2:39 PM
Calgeorge, don't knock logic. Logic is king. Bad logic is what they want you to use.
Posted by: Ric | February 1, 2008 2:43 PM
I just heard PZ's introduction, and I think that the only way to express my feelings about it is to borrow words form the creators of "Team America: World Police":
PZ Myers! Fuck Yeah!
Posted by: Valhar2000 | February 1, 2008 2:46 PM
I think I should have stuck with the cliff notes instead of listening for 45 minutes, but I may have had an insight for PZ or anyone else in a similar situation:
what I wanted to hear from PZ when things got into "calling me ignorant is name-calling" was something along the lines of:
Saying that the transitional whale fossils shows your ignorance is just refusing to cache things in politeness: questioning the foundations of the entire academic field of biology is far more insulting, and implying ignorance of a huge number of professionals. The suggestion that biologists are deluded, fabricating false evidence, refusing to question, and so forth is an unfounded attack on the integrity of the vast majority of professionals who have worked very hard to learn extremely difficult and complex material and find theoretical frameworks and experimental tests for them. To blindly assert that this is incorrect beyond merely calling the entire academic field of biology ignorant in general, it is saying that their entire lives' work is a sham. The presumption and pretense of suggesting that all modern biologists are delusional is far more of a vicious attack than suggesting that a layperson, like Dr. Simmons, is ignorant of an obscure topic like the whale fossil record, although one might extend that to say that he is presumptuous and arrogant to be writing books making claims on the topic without doing due diligence on educating himself on the topic.
It's perhaps also strategic to say that Simmons' ignorance is more of an insult to PZ than the other way around: the implication that both were on the same intellectual level and caliber is rather dubious to begin with, given the study level required to be a faculty member at a University in this particular field, but when what's presented as a "debate among equals" degrades to a non-professional asserting facts that are corrected by the educated professional, at some point it becomes insulting that the non-professional is dismissing the professional's expertise.
In all fairness, though, I think that sometimes the anti-creationist reflexes raise so much emotional frustration in academics that there are some knee-jerk reflexive accusations... I suspect that the title of "The God Delusion" seems the same way to professional theologians, and while one might argue that professional scientists are worthy of more respect, I can understand how the theologians feel similarly that their life's work is being dismissed by some sort of snotty outsider. The emotional reaction to being told that your life's work is founded on delusions, lies, or misrepresentation will always make it difficult to have an intelligent conversation, and I think it's desirable to call that out rather than to try to work around it or pretend that one is rational/righteous and above that sort of thing. Particularly since Simmons didn't really have tools to do anything more than save face when his facts were questioned, in some ways, pointing out that the "stop name-calling me ignorant" was hypocrisy of a sort might have been a way out of the "beating a dead horse" aspect.
Speaking of wrong facts, didn't he say there were 35 trillion cells in the brain? I had to convert to scientific notation, but I thought there were around 10^11, not 3.5x10^13, although I could imagine that as within the error bars for number of synapses (although 350 seems like a pretty large average number of synapses.)
Posted by: Mark (Monty) Montague | February 1, 2008 2:49 PM
"ID needs a BIG EVENT. It needs something that will get everybody (laymen and experts alike) to stand up and take notice, something that will quickly and decisively nullify the enemy's defences. "
Yeah, something BIG like a nationally covered COURT CASE in Federal Court, where both sides could present their evidence! THAT would get everybody to stand up and take notice, and quickly and decisively nullify the enemy's defenses!
Posted by: Siamang | February 1, 2008 3:07 PM
I hadn't really paid much attention, and I assumed that Dr. Simmons would be a Doctor of Theology or similar. I guess it shouldn't be, but the idea of a Creationist MEDICAL DOCTOR -- who apparently denies evolution -- is somewhat disturbing to me.
Posted by: Disciple of "Bob" | February 1, 2008 3:10 PM
Simmons coauthored this book with Dembski.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Darwin-Didnt-Know-Evolution/dp/0736913130/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201896200&sr=8-1
Birds of [incompetent] feather flock together...
Posted by: Foggg | February 1, 2008 3:15 PM
What is it with the cdesignproponentsists that they think they're being all subtle in the use of titles? You can always tell when there's one in a conversation as soon as they start referring to Dr. Ken Ham, Dr. Simmons, Dr. Fucktard etc. then Mr. Dawkins, Mr. PZ Myers. Is it the whole father figure/blind allegiance to figures of authority thing? I suspect it has to do with level of education.
Posted by: AlanWCan | February 1, 2008 3:17 PM
A quibble: creationist literature isn't in the "Evolutionary sciences". What you've written is akin to saying "outside of the interior of the Sun, there seems to be no naturally occurring nuclear fusion anywhere on Earth."
I was disheartened to see that the New York Times crossword puzzle (not, one would have thought, a bastion of creationist thought) contained the following a couple of weeks ago:
I almost wrote an angry letter to the puzzle editor. I don't think this would have happened on Maleski's watch.
Posted by: noncarborundum | February 1, 2008 3:19 PM
Posted by: Pablo | February 1, 2008 3:24 PM
I believe did! I'm glad you like it. It's so you!
Posted by: Kseniya | February 1, 2008 3:26 PM
They you should be really disturbed by this. He's a brain surgeon. (You can find his bio page at Stony Brook U. by googling "Michael Egnor" and clicking the first result. I'd add a link but I want to avoid moderation Purgatory.)
Posted by: noncarborundum | February 1, 2008 3:27 PM
I have to admit, even after subjecting myself to creationist propaganda and tactics for the last 1/3 or so of my life, I'm still absolutely scandalized by this example of censorship.
I mean, I'm proud to be part of a scientific tradition that has shone a light where there used to only be the darkness of faith, and I like being right about scientific issues as much as the next guy, but I also like a bit of a challenge. I sincerely wish that there was a valid scientific alternative to the modern synthesis, because if there were then we could learn a lot from it and improve our theory.
In a bizarre sort of way, I actually feel personally let down by the ID creationists, because they can't seem to offer us anything worthwhile. And it's impossible to even hope that they could, because they seem so averse to open discussion (even among themselves!) about the issues. I was following that thread yesterday, and someone suggested that they should assemble counter-evidence to PZ's claims, and then POOF! the thread disappears. How am I supposed to have any respect for a movement like that? How can I even hope to learn anything new from a group for whom even the most casual intellectual honesty is anathema?
I know that you guys are going to think I was foolish to ever think that they might actually have something new to say, or any desire to actually improve our scientific understanding, and I guess you would be right. Well, the good news is that the last tiny shred of my optimism in that regard is gone now.
Posted by: Justin H. | February 1, 2008 3:48 PM