…and this is a 
Why is it always 10 questions? Couldn't they just ask one really good question? I'd prefer that to these flibbertigibbet deluges of piddling pointlessnesses that the creationists want to fling at us. I think it's because they want to make sure no one spends too much time showing how silly each individual question is.
A few years ago, Jonathan Wells came up with his 10 questions to ask your biology teacher — they were largely drawn from his book, Icons of Evolution, and they were awful — they were only difficult to answer if you knew nothing of the science and accepted the dishonest pseudoscience Well presented as "scholarship". NCSE has all the answers you need; I think they hoped to stump a few school teachers here and there by feeding students with a collection of questions the students wouldn't understand, but that might hit a few gaps in the teacher's knowledge.
Now Dembski and some guy named Sean McDowell have a new list of Ten Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher About Intelligent Design. Once again, it's mislead-and-confuse time.
1. Design Detection If nature, or some aspect of it, is intelligently designed, how could we tell?
Design inferences in the past were largely informal and intuitive. Usually people knew it when they saw it. Intelligent design, by introducing specified complexity, makes the detection of design rigorous. Something is complex if it is hard to reproduce by chance and specified if it matches an independently given pattern (an example is the faces on Mt. Rushmore). Specified complexity gives a precise criterion for reliably inferring intelligence.
OK, so? Give me an independently specified pattern created by intelligent design to match against, say, a beetle. I can compare Lincoln's face on Rushmore to photos, paintings, and death casts of the real person's face, and can say that there's sufficient similarity on all details to rule out the possibility that Rushmore is a natural accident. Where's the design template for Odontolabis femoralis?
2. Looking for Design in Biology Should biologists be encouraged to look for signs of intelligence in biological systems? Why or why not?
Scientists today look for signs of intelligence coming in many places, including from distant space (consider SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence). Yet, many biologists regard it as illegitimate to look for signs of intelligence in biological systems. Why arbitrarily exclude design inferences from biology if we accept them for other scientific disciplines? It is an open question whether the apparent design in nature is real.
Nobody says you can't look for signs of design in biological systems; so do it already, creationists! Of course, you have yet to explain where you're going to find that independently given pattern that specifies Odontolabis femoralis. You haven't even explained yet what artificial/design mechanisms were used in the construction of that beetle. The natural explanation has the advantage that it only postulates mechanisms that we've seen to operate; we don't have to imagine a magical gene lathe operated by an invisible man.
I wouldn't encourage a grad student to waste his time looking for design in biology because the concept is so vaguely defined and so malformed to be useless. Productive science is about getting results, and I don't see any path given to generate useful data from this design hypothesis.
3. The Rules of Science Who determines the rules of science? Are these rules written in stone? Is it mandatory that scientific explanations only appeal to matter and energy operating by unbroken natural laws (a principle known as methodological naturalism)?
The rules of science are not written in stone. They have been negotiated over many centuries as science (formerly called "natural philosophy") has tried to understand the natural world. These rules have changed in the past and they will change in the future. Right now much of the scientific community is bewitched by a view of science called methodological naturalism, which says that science may only offer naturalistic explanations. Science seeks to understand nature. If intelligent causes operate in nature, then methodological naturalism must not be used to rule them out.
Who? Man, these guys have got intent and agency etched deep into their brain, don't they?
The rules of science are entirely pragmatic — we do what works, defined as a process that produces explanations that allow us to push deeper and deeper into a problem. That's all we care about. Show us a tool that actually generates new insights into biology, rather than recycling tired theological notions, and some scientist somewhere will use it. We're still waiting for one.
I am amused by the use of the word 'bewitched' to categorize people who don't invoke magical ad hoc explanations built around undetectable supernatural entities, however.
4. Biology's Information Problem How do we account for the complex information-rich patterns in biological systems? What is the source of that information?
The central problem for biology is information. Living things are not mere lumps of matter. Life is special, and what makes life special is the arrangement of its matter into very specific forms. In other words, what makes life special is information. Where did the information necessary for life come from? Where did the information necessary for the Cambrian explosion come from? How can a blind material process generate the novel information of biological systems? ID argues that such information has an intelligent source.
We know that chance and selection can generate information. This is not a problem at all.
ID can argue that Bozo the Clown put the information there. It doesn't make it true.
5. Molecular Machines Do any structures in the cell resemble machines designed by humans? How do we account for such structures?
The biological world is full of molecular machines that are strikingly similar to humanly made machines. In fact, they are more than similar. Just about every engineering principle that we employ in our own machines gets used at the molecular level, with this exception: the technology inside the cell vastly exceeds human technology. How, then, do biologists explain the origin of such structures? How can a blind material process generate the multiple coordinated changes needed to build a molecular machine? If we see a level of engineering inside the cell that far surpasses our own abilities, it is reasonable to conclude that these molecular machines are actually, and not merely apparently, designed.
No, the molecules in cells do not resemble human-made machines, except in the sense that they use the forces of physics and chemistry to do work. I notice that our own machines do not require supernatural forces to explain them; why should cellular machinery demand them?
Notice the sleight of hand there: they say we see a "level of engineering" in cells, therefore they are designed. They beg the question. Cells are not engineered. We have an alternative explanation, that they are evolved, which does not require conjuring up unknown forces.
6. Irreducible Complexity What are irreducibly complex systems? Do such systems exist in biology? If so, are those systems evidence for design? If not, why not?
The biological world is full of functioning molecular systems that cannot be simplified without losing the system's function. Take away parts and the system's function cannot be recovered. Such systems are called irreducibly complex. How do evolutionary theorists propose to account for such systems? What detailed, testable, step-by-step proposals explain the emergence of irreducibly complex machines such as the flagellum? Given that intelligence is known to design such systems, it is a reasonable inference to conclude that they were designed.
"Irreducibly complex" systems exist in biology. The catch is that they can be easily generated by natural processes, and IC does not imply intent or design. We explain complex organelles like the flagellum by looking in the cell for related structures that show potential paths to the structure; we know of natural processes, like gene duplication, cooption and exaptation, and coevolution that can produce features that exhibit irreducible complexity in the final state.
That last sentence is a classic non sequitur. We know that human beings build penis-shaped objects; that does not imply that Bill Dembski's penis is made of silicone and has an on-off switch, let alone that someone made it in an injection-molding machine.
7. Similar Structures Human designers reuse designs that work well. Life forms also reuse certain structures (the camera eye, for example, appears in humans and octopuses). How well does this evidence support Darwinian evolution? Does it support intelligent design more strongly?
Evolutionary biologists attribute similar biological structures to either common descent or convergence. Structures are said to result from convergence if they evolved independently from distinct lines of organisms. Darwinian explanations of convergence strain credulity because they must account for how trial-and-error tinkering (natural selection acting on random variations) could produce strikingly similar structures in widely different organisms and environments. It's one thing for evolution to explain similarity by common descent--the same structure is then just carried along in different lineages. It's another to explain it as the result of blind tinkering that happened to hit on the same structure multiple times. Design proponents attribute such similar structures to common design (just as an engineer may use the same parts in different machines). If human designers frequently reuse successful designs, the designer of nature can surely do the same.
Camera eyes evolved independently multiple times because there are a limited number of ways to build an image-forming light-detection device. An eyeball with a light-sensitive sheet on the back (a retina) and a lens in front is a natural way to do it. When we look at the octopus and human eye, though, we also see a host of differences: the octopus eye has a more efficient retina that puts the light collectors at the front of the light path, and instead of channeling all the outputs from the photoreceptors into a single point that creates a blind spot, the output neurons project in a diffuse array out the back of the eyeball.
They also use different molecular pathways to generate a response — we have ciliary photoreceptors, they have rhabdomeric photoreceptors. Why, it looks as if both lineages have been carrying out blind tinkering to produce something functional, and the there are deep differences under the superficial similarities!
So, why didn't the designer use similar eyeball modules in humans and octopuses? You don't get to argue that the designer used the engineering principle of recycling similar modules in different lineages while ignoring the fact that there are substantial differences between those two kinds of eyes.
8. Fine-Tuning The laws of physics are fine-tuned to allow life to exist. Since designers are capable of fine-tuning a system, can design be considered the best explanation for the universe?
Physicists agree that the constants of nature have a strange thing in common: they seem precisely calibrated for the existence of life. As Frederick Hoyle famously remarked, it appears that someone has "monkeyed" with physics. Naturalistic explanations that attempt to account for this eerie fine-tuning invariably introduce entities for which there is no independent evidence (for example, they invoke multiple worlds with which we have no physical way of interacting). The fine-tuning of the universe strongly suggests that it was intelligently designed.
Oh, please. I'd be more impressed if the constants of nature were not calibrated for the existence of life, and we were here anyway. Now that would be eerie. That the universe has laws that are consistent with our existence does not in any way imply that it was designed.
9. The Privileged Planet The Earth seems ideally positioned in our galaxy for complex life to exist and for scientific discovery to advance. Does this privileged status of Earth indicate intelligent design? Why or why not?
Many factors had to come together on earth for human life to exist (chapter 9). We exist in just the right place in just the right type of galaxy at just the right cosmic moment. We orbit the right type of star at the right distance for life. The earth has large surrounding planets to protect us from comets, a moon to direct important life-permitting cycles, and an iron core that protects us from harmful radiation. Moreover, the earth has many features that facilitate scientific discovery, such as a moon that makes possible perfect eclipses. Humans seem ideally situated on the earth to make scientific discoveries. This suggests that a designer designed our place in the world so that we can understand the world's design. Naturalism, by contrast, leaves it a complete mystery why we should be able to do science and gain insight into the underlying structure of the world.
Isn't this the same concept as 'problem' 9? We belong to a scientific/technological society; it is unsurprising that we live on a world in which that is possible. Again, I'd be more baffled if the features of this planet conspired against scientific discovery, but we made them anyway.
10. The Origin of the Universe The universe gives every indication of having a beginning. Since something cannot come from nothing, is it legitimate to conclude that a designer made the universe? If not, why not?
For most of world history, scientists believed the universe was eternal. With advances in our understanding of cosmology over the last forty years, however, scientists now recognize that the universe had a beginning and is finite in duration and size. In other words, the universe has not always been there. Since the universe had a beginning, why not conclude that it had a designer that brought it into existence? Since matter, space, and time themselves had a beginning, this would suggest that the universe had a non-physical, non-spatial, and non-temporal cause. A designer in the mold of the Christian God certainly fits the bill.
Question begging again? Is this the only trick they know?
How do you know that something cannot come from nothing? Here, take an hour, and a physicist will explain that you can get a universe from nothing. Physics is stranger than creationists can imagine, and it's always irritating to see incompetent ignoramuses like Dembski and McDowell think they can bamboozle us by invoking a physics they don't understand.
(I showed this video before, so it may be familiar to you.)
The Christian god was a god-man who had a distinct and transient anthropoid form. I don't see how the origin of the universe in some kind of quantum foam points to a dead Hebrew rabbi.
Ho-hum. Another collection of bad questions that assume what they intend to demonstrate, and another uninteresting exercise in tired apologetics from the Discovery Institute con artists.
Comments
Posted by: Michelle R | November 11, 2009 11:02 AM
It's 10 because 10 sounds official, remember?
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
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November 11, 2009 11:08 AM
Really? This is their anchor question? It's by far the one that is the easiest to dismiss...
If you're going to use the "something can not come from nothing" premise, then who created the creator?
Turtles all the way down, mate...
Posted by: gettingfree | November 11, 2009 11:10 AM
OT
POLL regarding Cincinnati atheist billboard...
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20091110/NEWS01/911110333/
Posted by: bckcntry | November 11, 2009 11:12 AM
Surely they know they're full of shit? None of this is new, and has been refuted time and again, yet they keep doing it. I mean, their agenda at this point must be, literally, "lie and spin bullshit."
I find it hard to believe that Dembski and this Mcdowell character had a eureka moment, and typed this up in a frenzy of intellectual clarity.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 11, 2009 11:14 AM
Damn it. I wasn't going to think about Dembski's penis today.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
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November 11, 2009 11:15 AM
And really... reading over this garbage, wouldn't have been much easier to have rolled up all these questions into one single question:
"Understanding the Theory of Evolution in its entirety and grasping the all the concepts necessary to understand why it is so universally accepted as "fact" as well as theory by the scientific community requires study, time, and commitment to learn. And learning is haaaaard.
Wouldn't it just be much easier to believe that all life was created by magic, as determined by nearly illiterate bronze-age goat herders?"
Really, that's what every question is saying, at its heart.
Posted by: Foggg | November 11, 2009 11:16 AM
Sean McDowell is the son of young earth creationist, fundamentalist apologist and author, Josh McDowell. These 10Q's will be on flyers at the next Campus Crusade for Christ event near you.
Posted by: 386sx | November 11, 2009 11:17 AM
All that typing to make those points, and they couldn't state what the "precise criterion for reliably inferring intelligence" is. Maybe "precise" has a different meaning over there in la-la land.
Posted by: JD | November 11, 2009 11:22 AM
"A designer in the mold of the Christian God certainly fits the bill."
Why are they ignoring Pan-Ku?
Posted by: Richard Eis | November 11, 2009 11:24 AM
-Something is complex if it is hard to reproduce by chance -
No it's not. I would say that almost everything natural is incredibly complex.
It's also not hard to see that babies don't have designers in the literal sense. So even if the first creature was designed, the ones that pop out after that aren't.
Saying God created me is like saying Charles Babbage is responsible for a picture my mum drew on the computer.
Posted by: Nick | November 11, 2009 11:27 AM
I have never understood argument 8. If the universal constants were inconsistent with life (or at least, with our kind of life) then we would not be sitting here to notice them. As PZ said, how much more compelling it would be if the universe was incredibly hostile to life at a fundamental level and we still managed to be alive. Silly IDiots.
Posted by: raven | November 11, 2009 11:29 AM
Yeah, these questions are truly awful. They must have hit every fallacy known to humans, with a few lies and delusions tossed in. It is mostly Arguments from Personal Incredulity and Ignorance. Take this one:
The laws of physics are fine tuned? Oh really? How do they know that? They don't. This is just a Made Up unproven assertion. It is more likely we are fine tuned by the laws of physics to allow existence. We know the laws of physics predate us (life) by 9 billion years.
Since Designers are capable of fine-tuning a system... What Designers? There is no proof they even exist. That they are capable of fine-tuning a system is again, a Made Up unproven assertion. They don't know that. This is a leading question that presupposes its answer, a rhetorical technique that has nothing to do with science.
If one piles up many cow patties which they did, in the end one has a huge pile of bullcrap. Which they do.
I can't see too many creo kids downloading this to persecute their science teacher. It is too complex and too long. They usually just download the goddidit stuff from AIG, which, after all, is written by morons for morons.
Posted by: DrA | November 11, 2009 11:30 AM
In a general biology lecture, half majors, half non-majors, I recently had a student pop one of these creationist questions at me, delivering it with a very smug look. I responded by asking, "Did this work in high school?" "Were you able to confound a biology teacher with a question like that?" No answer. So I explained to the class what this type of question was intended to do, and then apologized for wasting class time, but thought it was important to show everything that's wrong with the question and all the underlying assumptions it makes. It was 20 mins of digression that was not wasted time at all. No more questions were forthcoming. Lesson: know your stuff.
Posted by: Forbidden Snowflake
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November 11, 2009 11:31 AM
Wow, #7 is particularly made of fail. The sarcastic retort is practically built into the question.
- So, if the successful shulder girdle + spine + pelvis + limbs structure was not repeated between human and octopus, does that mean no designer?
Posted by: Richard Eis | November 11, 2009 11:35 AM
Is it me or do half of these questions start "I have no imagination so I don't how X is possible"
The problem is not biology, the problem is that Dembski is doing a very good job of playing dumb. The idea that anyone would want to appear as boring as Dembski is a strange one. Being anti-intellectual is one thing, but declaring smugly that you are dull and unimaginitive is not something I would stand up in class to do.
I wonder if a good solution would be to ask the rest of the class hypethetically how they would answer some of these questions.
Posted by: Lynna | November 11, 2009 11:35 AM
I see what the IDers are doing here. They are not teaching biology. They are teaching Propaganda 101. They're showing high school and college students how to view information through a propaganda lenses. Look for points that may be twisted to suit the cause of proselytizing for christian gods. Create a polished surface that hides confused thinking, lack of logic, and data that doesn't fit the god-did-it assumption.
In Propaganda 101 we also learn that repetition trumps truth. Repeat the argument and conclusion frequently, even if both are based on faulty logic, and eventually both will be accepted as truth.
Not only is this not useful, it is destructive. IDers should have a new slogan: We're not cool, we kill school.
Posted by: strangest brew | November 11, 2009 11:36 AM
"A designer in the mold of the Christian God certainly fits the bill."
It looks like Intelligent design has given up all pretext of being non-religious.
All that bowlarks about a non-defined designer or creator is finally exposed as the sack of crap we all knew it was!
ID is now surely screwed beyond redemption...they have now relinquished the smoke and mirrors because they cannot claim it is not a religious movement anymore.
GAME...SET...MATCH!
And seeing as this is Dembski's mess that enlightened bit of information seems to emanate from the top of the murky pole!
Do they have no shame?...well obviously not!
I wonder where they are dragging the goal posts to next?
Posted by: FlameDuck | November 11, 2009 11:37 AM
It's odd how people can confidently state that "something can't come from nothing", when that's exactly what they believe! In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Out of nothing. Remember? The argument that "Something cannot come from nothing" is an argument against creationism, you useless, cretinous morons!
Also, why would you want to ask your Biology teacher a bunch of questions, where roughly half aren't even about Biology, and are so easy to answer, anyone with an IQ above 80, would be able to do so, by simple deductive reasoning, without any formal scientific training at all. Do you really want to fail that hard?
Posted by: Tulse | November 11, 2009 11:38 AM
But the universe is incredibly hostile to life -- it is largely composed of trillions of cubic lightyears of vacuum at -270C, and what bits aren't cold hard vacuum are mostly bits of plasma at thousands of degrees (at least, what bits aren't dark matter). As far as we know, the only life in the universe clings to outside of infinitesimally tiny clump of rock in one infinitesimally tiny corner of that vast cold emptiness, an emptiness in which life would die almost immediately if it were directly exposed.
See, the Universe is clearly inimical to life...ergo there must be a Creator!
Posted by: FastLane | November 11, 2009 11:43 AM
I see someone beat me with the ID of Sean McDowell. If ID isn't religious (or have they completely dropped that meme?), why are so many of the cdesign proponentsists religious apologists? They expect us to believe that's all coincidence, and not, shall we say, designed? =P
With the explicit references to the bibilical god, it seems like the pretense of non-religion is flying out the window. That's good, because even in today's rabidly religious world, that will make it very, very difficult to get into schools.
Posted by: Alverant
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November 11, 2009 11:44 AM
"A designer in the mold of the Christian God certainly fits the bill."
And so do other gods. What makes this one so special? At least other gods are more original.
Posted by: Peptron | November 11, 2009 11:44 AM
Am I the only one that whenever I read anything that includes "Intelligent Design", I cannot help but think about Raelians that believe that humans were genetically engineered by aliens. Most of those 10 questions had me imagine aliens with test tubes "intelligently designing" humans. But then, the question would remain: where are those aliens coming from?
Also: how would those people react if somebody like Rael came to their seminars and agreed with just about everything they said, saying that, indeed, the world was intelligently designed by aliens from another world?
Posted by: Religion™ Brand Brain Staples | November 11, 2009 11:44 AM
With respect to number 8, here's a video that just went up the other day addressing exactly the issue of fine tuning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCKqj-2JXZg
Give it a watch, you may find it amusing. In a nutshell: The physical laws of the universe create an environment which is only almost entirely hostile to life.
So fine tuning? Not so much.
Posted by: Peptron | November 11, 2009 11:46 AM
Am I the only one that whenever I read anything that includes "Intelligent Design", I cannot help but think about Raelians that believe that humans were genetically engineered by aliens. Most of those 10 questions had me imagine aliens with test tubes "intelligently designing" humans. But then, the question would remain: where are those aliens coming from?
Also: how would those people react if somebody like Rael came to their seminars and agreed with just about everything they said, saying that, indeed, the world was intelligently designed by aliens from another world?
Posted by: eNeMeE
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November 11, 2009 11:48 AM
The fine tuning thing reminds me of the travesty that is biologos - can anyone get them to stop quote-mining Stephen Hawking?
Or get a comment past the censors over there to that effect?
Posted by: Iris | November 11, 2009 11:50 AM
Yeah. As opposed to supernatural explanations that attempt to account for this eerie fine-tuning invariably introducing supernatural entities for which there is no independent evidence (for example, they invoke multiple supernatural worlds with which we have no physical way of interacting).
LMAO. The projection is so strong it nearly knocks me out.
Posted by: Sigmund | November 11, 2009 11:52 AM
What if the biology teacher is already an ID supporter (like something up to 20% of US biology teachers!)
How about adding a couple of extra questions.
1. If the only intelligent design we know about comes from humans then, if we are discounting evolution, what reason do we have to suggest some other designer was involved?
2. All recognizable human designed structures (the watch, the TV, the car, computer code etc) has more than one designer. Usually it is the result of multiple designers. Isnt the logical inference that design in nature (since we are discounting evolution) should also be the product of multiple designers?
3. If some structures in biology are designed and some aren't how do we tell if something is designed and something is not? What is the distinguishing test that we apply to determine whether design was used? Remember that while the faces on Mount Rushmore look designed to us it probably doesn't appear that way to most animals that view it. To them it looks pretty much the same as any other mountain. How can we apply a design criteria to biology if we are forced to admit that everything in biology (and indeed nature) is in fact designed?
Posted by: Dania | November 11, 2009 11:53 AM
Right. Because cdesign proponentsists would never do such a thing.
Posted by: raven | November 11, 2009 11:54 AM
So does a corporation composed of Greek and Norse gods fit the bill. With the heavy lifting being done by trolls and illegal immigrant angels from Yahwehland, which has fallen on hard times.
ID has given up its pretense of not being anything more than Xian fundie cult nonsense. They are also going back to their YEC roots. The 6,000 year old universe is back as well as Noah and his boatload of dinosaurs.
Creationism can only thrive on ignorance and stupidity. ID is too esoteric and complicated for most creationists. It is so much easier to say, goddidit and all you scientists are going to hell after the Rapture next month.
Posted by: gman | November 11, 2009 11:54 AM
Dembski asks: "What detailed, testable, step-by-step proposals explain the emergence of irreducibly complex machines such as the flagellum?"
It almost makes you think he has his own "detailed, testable, step-by-step proposal" just in case you can't answer the question. But he doesn't, and he refuses to provide one. He says:
'You're asking me to play a game: "Provide as much detail in terms of possible causal mechanisms for your ID position as I do for my Darwinian position." ID is not a mechanistic theory, and it's not ID's task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories.'
-- ISCID messageboard post, William Dembski, September 18 2002
I think Elliot Sober has the best response to the fine-tuning argument.
To paraphrase his argument slightly, let us assume (merely for the sake of argument) that naturalism is true and that the initial conditions governing the origins of the universe are compatible with a variety of cosmological variables. Then the chance that those variables are set just the way they are is 1/g, where g is a very large number.
This, by itself, merely indicates that fine-tuning of the sort that we observe is highly improbable assuming naturalism is true. But is it more likely on the assumption that supernaturalism is true?
No. Consider a super natural being that can set the cosmological variables to any value he/she/it desires. Since we have no idea of the being's motives, we cannot say that he/she/it is more likely to prefer any given set of settings more than any other. So the chance of the settings being as they are is 1/g, precisely the same as naturalism.
The creationist cannot simply "assume" that the designer must have preferred a universe suitable for life, for the same reason he forbids the naturalist from assume that there's only one set of cosmological variables.
Posted by: John Harshman | November 11, 2009 11:56 AM
I find #9 particularly interesting. If earth is special, unique in the universe, what was the point of making that enormous universe? Just for the benefit of one inestimably teeny part of it? And that's considered intelligent design? I suppose that when Bill Dembski builds a new house, he'll buy a thousand square mile lot and put up a shoebox in one corner of it.
Posted by: The Science Pundit | November 11, 2009 11:58 AM
FTW!!!
Posted by: RamblinDude
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November 11, 2009 11:59 AM
The truly eerie, disconcerting thing about creationism is that it is not the search for truth; it’s the search for something to worship. How did these two different endeavors get conjoined in people’s minds to such an extent that today a significant portion of the population really can’t seem to tell the difference? It is disgusting and alarming, and the ironic thing is that the ones who are looking for something to worship—something to be subservient to, praise, receive favors from, etc—are the ones acting the most ape-like. So are the ones who are trying to dominate other people by imposing this behavior on them.
Posted by: Kausik Datta | November 11, 2009 12:00 PM
The idiocy in the entire set of questions aside, I somehow find this last statement an example of incredible hubris combined with a complete lack of understanding of the world around. I don't subscribe to any faith, but I think followers of every other religion should find this smug, self-important statement downright offensive to their respective beliefs.Posted by: Peter G | November 11, 2009 12:01 PM
"We know that human beings build penis-shaped objects; that does not imply that Bill Dembski's penis is made of silicone and has an on-off switch, let alone that someone made it in an injection-molding machine." But it doesn't exclude the possibility either does it? Something had to be done after his unfortunate adolescent Hoover vacuum "accident".
Posted by: Robert McClelland | November 11, 2009 12:02 PM
I have just one question for IDers. If God created us and God is infallible, then why are we so poorly designed?
Posted by: Joe Bleau | November 11, 2009 12:03 PM
It's nothing short of astonishing how often otherwise intelligent people fall for the "what're the odds" argument for design, even after having it pointed out that the probability for event E's occuring, given the fact that E can be shown to have actually occurred, is exactly and invariably 1.
Really, this entire list is answered fully and elegantly by Douglas Adams' puddle metaphor:
To me, the import of this story has always been just how reasonable the puddle's intuition actually is - but it's reasonableness is only the product of how very very much our poor puddle doesn't know about the circumstances surrounding its genesis and its makeup. Likewise, ID pretty much hangs its hat on some varient of the phrase "isn't it reasonable to suppose"... And maybe it is, as long as you don't think about it too much. But once you let a little intellectual humility in, the whole facade just crumbles.
Posted by: MrFire
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November 11, 2009 12:03 PM
A Christian God it is, then. My questions for them would be similar those asked by the all-singing, all-dancing King Herod.
Likely I would end up being as disappointed as he was, too.
Posted by: bobxxxx | November 11, 2009 12:10 PM
Dembski and his Magic Detection. He makes me wish people could be put in prison for excessive stupidity.
Posted by: BluegrassGeek | November 11, 2009 12:10 PM
I love how this is "10 questions to ask your biology teacher" but questions 8 through ten are about physics & astronomy. :P
Posted by: Joe Bleau | November 11, 2009 12:13 PM
RamblinDude @33:
That's an outstanding point, very well expressed.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | November 11, 2009 12:14 PM
Why is it always 10 questions?
'Cuz yahweh does things in 10s? 10 commandments. 10 toes. 10 fingers. Base 10 math. You know.
(head hurts from thinking like cretard)
Posted by: Matt Penfold | November 11, 2009 12:15 PM
The creationists have always been confused about exactly what evolution is. The vast majority of them seem to think it includes how the Earth was formed, and how the Universe began.
Looking at the above paragraph I realise I could have just left at "The creationists have always been confused". About pretty much everything.
Posted by: Rewarp | November 11, 2009 12:17 PM
I would dearly love to answer those questions, but the creationists in Malaysia have yet to move beyond the "we have no problem with a god commanding his believers to kill the apostates" stage.
In other words, they will have to learn how to read English first.
Posted by: Tacroy | November 11, 2009 12:18 PM
I find number 4 hilarious, because in the paper he published in an IEEE journal, Dembski proved exactly where the information contained in biology comes from (hint: it's not some mysterious designer).
Mark Chu-Carroll explains it in great detail here, but basically: Dembski's contention that all of the information in biology must come from somewhere is true. However, despite what he may think, all Dembski's paper proves is that evolution works as a transformative filter, funneling information about the external environment into the genome. It's just another way of looking at evolution; from an information theoric point of view, the process of evolution pulls "how to survive and reproduce" information out of the species' surrounding environment, and encodes it into the genome of the species' descendants.
That's where the information that fueled the Cambrian explosion came from - not some arbitrary divinity, but the surrounding environment.
Posted by: Desert Son
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November 11, 2009 12:20 PM
All those years claimed to be bearing a cross, turns out it was goal posts all along.
[New complementary close under construction],
Robert
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | November 11, 2009 12:20 PM
I wonder if a good solution would be to ask the rest of the class hypethetically how they would answer some of these questions.
That'd be a great exam.
Posted by: chgo_liz | November 11, 2009 12:24 PM
The questions sound like an undergraduate's desperate attempt to derail class discussion to hide the fact that s/he hasn't done any of the assigned preparation.
None of those 10 questions *have* to be answered in order to fulfill lab and classroom assignments for high school or college level bio classes.
But I agree with other posters who think the IDiots know perfectly well what they are doing. Their behavior can't be fully explained by ignorant belief and/or laziness: they've got a multi-phase battle plan and they've put it in action.
Posted by: biodork
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November 11, 2009 12:25 PM
Ick - these are the types of questions creationists are asking in biology classes? Facepalm!
Not only are the questions - and the "correct answers" provided by Dembski and McDowell - misleading and fallacious (including my least favorite strategy of combining verbosity and many questions), but they are not scientific.
One of the definitions of "science" given by Houghton Mifflin is "the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena"
Dembski/McDowell are focused on the "theoretical explanation of phenomena", and they ignore the "experimental investigation" part. In my mind, if your argument can't be proven/disproven by experimental investigation then you don't have a scientific theory, and as such it is not appropriate material for dissemination or discussion in a science class.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | November 11, 2009 12:25 PM
Ot how about asking the class if some deity other than the Christian one could be responsible.
That should make the IDiots go ape.
Posted by: KemaTheAtheist | November 11, 2009 12:27 PM
What I find incredibly funny about this one is that scientists (sorry I don't have the citations at the moment... I'll try to provide them later) have run simulations and even if you eliminate the "weak" and "strong" forces you can still get life.
You can also adjust gravity by a very large margin and still have no problems.
It's only fine tuned in the sense that if you were playing darts, by yourself, and the entire wall would be a bull's eye, then inside Dembski's head is the only way to lose the game.
Posted by: jimmiraybob | November 11, 2009 12:28 PM
Information is a toughy for geology too. How does one rock know that it's supposed to be granite and another know it's supposed to be limestone? How does a quartz crystal know it's supposed to have a crystal structure & composition different than ruby? How do earthquakes know where to attack godless heathens? Obviously, someone had to specify these things.
Uh huh, that's what I thought. I have just proved God. And hopefully, Zeus will reward me handsomely.
Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings
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November 11, 2009 12:29 PM
O RLY?
Is it a mystery that the universe is consistent, coherent, and observable? Is it a mystery that the universe that we observe is perhaps also the very foundation of reality?
This quote truly reveals the intent of ID proponents: to destroy the foundations of the epistemology of science. They deeply desire to allow non-empirical "evidence" such as the good warm feeling they get when they contemplate Jesus' rock-hard abs, and his warm, comforting embrace, and his kissable lips.
I know that the DI has that as their mission statement: to destroy the philosophy of "materialistic naturalism," or somesuch. But it's truly interesting to observe their Ham-handed approach. (See what I did there? "Ham-handed." I crack me up.)
Posted by: Dianne | November 11, 2009 12:29 PM
Something is complex if it is hard to reproduce by chance and specified if it matches an independently given pattern (an example is the faces on Mt. Rushmore).
This one always strikes me as particularly silly since we know perfectly well that weathering of rocks can randomly create patterns that "match" a lot of patterns, at least in people's minds. Mt Rushmore was designed but the Old Man in the Mountain is the result of erosion and weathering. When trying to determine which one is intelligently (or at least intentionally) designed and which the result of chance it would be more to the point to look at the details-evidence of blast holes, etc than to just look at it and say, "Yep, looks designed to me."
Posted by: tsig0
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November 11, 2009 12:29 PM
It seems the IDers think god is just like us but with a larger skill set.
Posted by: rlrr | November 11, 2009 12:30 PM
It's 10 because 10 sounds official, remember?
It's 10 because we have 10 fingers.
Posted by: Akiko | November 11, 2009 12:30 PM
Why do these goobers feel they need to prove the existence of god? I thought it was all about faith with that crowd.
Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings
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November 11, 2009 12:32 PM
His résumé fuckin' rocks.
Posted by: llewelly | November 11, 2009 12:37 PM
More accurately, they convert energy into information.Posted by: strangest brew | November 11, 2009 12:38 PM
#43
"The creationists have always been confused"
Then they got embarrassed...
Then they started lying...
Then they continued lying...
Then they invented ID to try and smuggle illicit noxious and toxic bowlarks into science education...by lying...
Then they lied at the Dover fiasco...
Then they told the truth...eventually...well mainly because they got so wrapped up they ended up tripping over their own legend...at the Dover fiasco...
Then they started lying again...
And they continued lying...
Anyone see a pattern here?
Then they let slip a little truth...
"A designer in the mold of the Christian God certainly fits the bill"
Methinks tis odds on that Dumbo Demsk it gonna get burned at the holy lab bench for that faux pas...
Or it is a high risk strategy and a slight of hand...I see not where they are headed with this...certainly out the school gates!
But he might lie about it!
Interesting times!
Posted by: KemaTheAtheist | November 11, 2009 12:38 PM
Right, but he hasn't been hired for anything in 2000 years because he lists "genocide" in his skill set.
I've tried to tell him to leave that off of there, but he's just too damned proud of it...
Posted by: flynn | November 11, 2009 12:40 PM
Given that people are known to intentionally infect others with diseases, it is a reasonable inference to conclude that witches gave me this rash.
Make up your own!
Posted by: DaveG | November 11, 2009 12:40 PM
These guys believe in God: they have every right to sustain their delusion. Since God is by definition supernatural, why in the world do they need to hijack science, badly, to prove that which needs no proof?
They're a little like this guy, grasping for attention but missing the point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh0ZsehhJHk
Pathetic.
Posted by: Hopalong Cassowary | November 11, 2009 12:41 PM
--Rear Rev. Harken TwomeyPosted by: Desert Son
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November 11, 2009 12:43 PM
KemaTheATheist,
On the contrary, I'd say he has been hired during that time, and specifically because of that prior experience, if only to serve as a consultant.
[New complementary close under construction],
Robert
Posted by: NewEnglandBob
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November 11, 2009 12:44 PM
The questions are worded so childishly. It is apparent what they are trying to hide just by reading the questions.
Posted by: PaulC | November 11, 2009 12:46 PM
"Specified complexity gives a precise criterion for reliably inferring intelligence."
The longer Dembski prattles on, the more I wonder what he thinks intelligence is in the first place. The only unambiguous example of intelligence we know about is the human brain (and to variable degrees other kinds of animal brains). As far as we can observe, it works using some combination of reinforcing and inhibiting feedback loops and requires variability to do anything novel (i.e. there is rarely a good new idea that was not found by cherrypicking from a set of mostly bad ideas). "Specific" "complex" patterns (in Dembski's sense) are rarely found with one role of the dice, but over a long series of dice rolls and selections. That's true whether the search is done by evolution or by the human brain.
So in short, if you take Dembski's objections to their logical conclusion, you might redefine intelligence such that evolution can be viewed as a process with comparable intelligence to the human brain in some domains. But it doesn't give you any useful way to distinguish between the two. Evolution seems to be at least as good as the human brain at solving a certain class of engineering problems, though the time scales are different, and it may actually be better at some kinds of problems subject to human blindspots (further muddled by the fact that we humans have stolen some of our best engineering solutions from biology).
The analogy breaks down with things like self-awareness, which is observed in humans, but not in any obvious way in evolutionary processes. However, this has little to do with the power of such a process to invent motorboat propellers whether large or very, very small. If we believe that the human brain can do such things then I don't see why evolutionary processes should be insufficient. I'm naive enough to think that Dembski may have started out thinking he had an insight, but the fruitlessness of his approach ought to be clear even to him by now.
Posted by: Divalent
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November 11, 2009 12:46 PM
Why arbitrarily exclude design inferences from biology if we accept them for other scientific disciplines?
In what other disciplines do scientists accept "design inferences"?
Chemistry? Physics?
SETI is not an example of a general use of "design inference" because the whole point is to search for intelligent life that we suspect might exist, and even there the assumption is that it will be "natural" (e.g., like us) not supernatural. Our own existance is proof of the existance of beings like us (technologically), and so based on our example we have a good idea of what we are looking for.
Posted by: llewelly | November 11, 2009 12:47 PM
Actually it's the same concept as "problem 8".Posted by: KemaTheAtheist | November 11, 2009 12:52 PM
Nah. I think it was more like they cherry-picked from his biography. If they had actually consulted him and his powers for real, it would be a lot worse.
Posted by: Dr. Matt | November 11, 2009 12:52 PM
The part in #9, about how the earth is ideally situated for making the scientific discoveries that we have made, is delightfully goofy. If certain important discoveries were impossible given our position, how would we know?
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | November 11, 2009 12:52 PM
whew, I had to take a knee after reading that
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 11, 2009 12:53 PM
Given that intelligence is known to design such systems, it is a reasonable inference to conclude that they were designed.
Given that people are known to kill each other, it is a reasonable inference that all the people who have ever died were murdered.
Posted by: ChrisH
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November 11, 2009 12:53 PM
Dear me.
I though that all you needed to do was to staple a copy of Kitzmiller to a plank and apply vigorously until they went away....
Posted by: RBH
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November 11, 2009 12:57 PM
Sigmund wrote
Absolutely: Multiple Designers Theory.Posted by: Kraid
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November 11, 2009 1:00 PM
Both questions 8 and 9 can be easily dismissed by the Anthropic Principle. Of course physical laws of the Universe and the conditions of our planet can support our life. If that wasn't the case, we wouldn't be here to make the observation!
It's kind of like a Zen koan to imagine all the non-beings that don't exist because a particular environment doesn't support their existence. That infinite multitude would probably argue against the "fine-tuning" of the Universe/world/local environment.
Posted by: PaulC | November 11, 2009 1:00 PM
"If you can't tie good knots, tie lots of them." I'm embarrassed to admit that I read that in one of those "Dewar's profile" ads many years ago. I think it was supposed to be advice on sailing, but PZ was asking why 10 questions and not just one, and that was the first thing that popped into my mind.
Posted by: Michael Simpson | November 11, 2009 1:00 PM
Although I appreciate the counter arguments for each of Dumbski's points, it's not constitutional. I like ChrisH's Kitzmiller plank!
Posted by: SteveM | November 11, 2009 1:01 PM
Begs the question that only intelligence can create complexity. The real "signature" of (intelligent) design is whether or not something can be accounted for through natural processes. For example, compare Mt Rushmore to the former "Old Man of the Mountain" in New Hampshire. Both are faces of men on a mountain, but Rushmore is not easily accounted for through just natural mechanisms, especially their resemblence to 4 well known faces. The point is that you do not say "This looks complicated so it must show intelligent design", but instead that "this cannot (is very unlikely to) be due to natural processes". And notice that Debski always uses the phrase "by chance", if it isn't design, it has to be chance. So if it is improbable, it must be design. Completely ruling out any other mechanisms to produce complexity (fallacy of the excluded middle).
No it is not reasonable to conclude that. Not until you can reasonably rule out natural mechanisms. And just not knowing that step by step sequence of natural processes is not sufficient to completely rule out natural processes. That man designs things like a flagellum only says that it could have been designed, not that design is the most reasonable explanation. It excludes the opposite observation of natural structures similar to the flagellum. That implies that natural processes are sufficient to account for it. So the conclusion, formally, is not that the flagellum is a result of natural process, but that it is not inconsistent with the assumption that it is a result of natural processes. That there is no reason to reject the natural hypothesis for the design hypothesis. Debski and the like abandon all the tools of science in favor of "It could be design, therefore it must be". Even an elementary statistical process control course might help him see the problem with that approach. I just can't imagine how he could be unaware of these pretty basic statistical methods, he must be deliberately ignoring them.
Posted by: raven | November 11, 2009 1:07 PM
One of the many pathetic aspects of ID is that they do virtually no research.
They have the money. The churches rake in billions and billions of USD every year, tax free. If they wanted to, the fundies could fund a huge research program in ID.
Instead, they spend millions on shoddy, lame propaganda such as the above "10 Fallacy laden unproven assertions pretending to be questions."
Who knows why they won't walk their talk? Probably they don't really believe it themselves. Or they know that after 2,000 years of ID in some form, it goes nowhere no matter how much money they spend on it.
Posted by: jgc | November 11, 2009 1:11 PM
RE: question 8
My response to this classic has always been "Why should we presume it was the conditions of the universe have been fine-tuned through some unknown mechanism by some unidentified designer (for whose very existence there is no evidence), instead of accepting the obvious and parsimonious conclusion that it's instead life as we know that has been fine-tuned to thrive under those conditions as it exists, by means of a natural mechanism directly observed to occur on a planetary scale--differential selection with respect to environment?"
Posted by: CJO | November 11, 2009 1:11 PM
SETI is not an example of a general use of "design inference" because the whole point is to search for intelligent life that we suspect might exist, and even there the assumption is that it will be "natural"
Like everything else in these irremediably clueless-seeming, but actually execrably dishonest, wannabe 'gotchas' Dembski's had it explained to him, many times, slowly and carefully, why SETI is possibly the crappiest example he could ask for of the sort of "design detection" he's talking about, and it doesn't help that the extent of his 'knowledge' of what SETI is about comes from a movie starring Jodie Foster.
Succinctly, the problem is that SETI is not, currently, looking for complexity at all, in the form of a coded message, or anything like it. They are, in fact, looking for simplicity and regularity; they're looking for a strong, focused signal equivalent to a carrier wave that could be produced by the kind of tech that we might build if we wanted to let everybody in the galactic neighborhood know we could build a big-ass radio array.
Posted by: SteveM | November 11, 2009 1:11 PM
re 68:
I am not a member of the SETI team, but from what I understand they do not so much look for "signal" as look for "not noise". They hope that any intelligence sending radio signals will be sufficiently similar to us to be intelligable, but what they are actully looking for is "noise" and when they find something that isn't noise they will still try to understand it as a (maybe new) natural phenomenon before declaring it a "signal".
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
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November 11, 2009 1:16 PM
Well... it was anyhow...
*Raises a glass in sorrowful recollection*
Posted by: stptrck75 | November 11, 2009 1:17 PM
This is a great example of arguing from a pre-formed conclusion. Christians want and need ID to be true so badly that they willingly ignore all the evidence to the contrary. Religious psychology is one of remarkable compartmentalization. In one compartment of the mind facts and evidence are ignored in favor of faith and superstition. This compartment is necessary in order to avoid what other humans have told them will happen to them if they don't worship a particular supernatural being. In another compartment they completely accept the validity of the scientific method and evolution-based scientific discoveries (eg. antibiotics, antivirals, well...virtually all pharmaceutics) when ill or injured. The logic of two individual compartments must never overlap or the faithful is in danger of entertaining doubt. Doubt of the veracity of the holy doctrine. It's a life of constant intellectual contradictions.
-posted also at McDowell's site
Posted by: strangest brew | November 11, 2009 1:17 PM
#67
"Dembski may have started out thinking he had an insight, but the fruitlessness of his approach ought to be clear even to him by now."
I think he/they/DI have indeed come to that conclusion!
Strange this nonsense should arise today...over at the Panda's Thumb...
http://pandasthumb.org/
They have a article about one of the IOWA school boards kicking ID into touch without a whimper from the DI...most odd!
I think they have another strategy going...the wedge seems to have hmmm!...come unstuck!
But never trust a spurned xian...they got 'summut a bubbling in their cauldron...and it is not sure we are going to like it!
Either that or Dummy demsk has right royally screwed up in his rapture and let slip unintentionally and thereby confirmed that ID IS a Religious scam...again summat we all knew...but a few of the ID sheeple were still touting the 'teach the controversy'...'two scientific theory'...mantra come nonsense..on the premise that ID was not religious...so that is gonna get interesting as well!
Seems the mat is well out from under their jackboots...
oh dear...how sad...never mind!
Posted by: raven | November 11, 2009 1:21 PM
For any science teachers out there, have any students ever actually done the 10 questions from AIG, ICR, or the above ID ones?
DrA above gave one such example with his clever reply in #13. Other science teachers in HS report students handing them various pieces of religious literature such as watchtowers and downloads from AIG on the hydro-canopy or Marsupials rafting to Australia after the flood. Some have reported teachers invading their classrooms and screaming at them. A few have reported anonymous death threats.
The fundies have turned American schools into their battlegrounds just like they did the boy scouts and everything else that they touch. I'm sure it happens, but how often and where?
Posted by: dNorrisM | November 11, 2009 1:22 PM
=
"...If such systems don't exist, how is this not evidence for design?
=
"Heads I win, tails you loose."
Posted by: Clare
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November 11, 2009 1:24 PM
What always gets me about intelligent design arguments is how they suck all the wonder and excitement out of nature. Can anything be more boring, or more likely to extinguish any spark of interest in research, than the presumption that everything was simply invented by something (well, really someone) a really, really long time ago. My son is doing IB biology in high school, and while textbooks aren't everyone's favorite thing, still, I've actually enjoyed reading all the early chapters on atomic and molecular structures, carbon compounds, the cell etc. etc. and seeing how it all makes remarkable sense logically, structurally, and as an evolved system, with no guiding hand to direct it. If I weren't so irritated at their efforts to screw up science education, I'd say I felt sorry for ID-ers whose view of nature is so evidently cramped.
Posted by: John | November 11, 2009 1:31 PM
I wish all these religious hacks would stop trying to put their religion into my kids' science classroom. I would really like to see "10 Questions to Ask your Pastor About Religion" pamphlet distributed at Vacation Bible Schools around the US. Here, I'll start off with some candidate questions...
1. Did God really smote all those people in the Old Testament? Is this really indicative of a loving and caring God?
2. Is unquestioning faith really a virtue? And, if you are cursed with a mind that seeks rational truth and logic, are you condemned to hell for eternity? Why?
3. What exactly is gnashing of teeth? Can you demonstrate?
4. Did God put opening tabs on other foods that fit comfortably in my hand besides bananas?
Posted by: cag
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November 11, 2009 1:33 PM
Of course there has been Intelligent Design. Let me list a few:
Bilharzia Snails - Intelligent! Praise the lord!
Anopheles Mosquito - Intelligent! Praise the lord!
Tsunamis/earthquakes - I. PTL.
Hurricanes/Tornadoes/Floods - ...
And the list goes on......
Posted by: LADave
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November 11, 2009 1:45 PM
Thank you Professor Myers for taking the time to respond to this junk. It must be so annoying to have to keep responding over and over to the same crap every day. Just know that there are a lot of us out there who appreciate the work you do. Keep it up.
And to all the commenters: you guys are fierce!
Posted by: jj | November 11, 2009 1:48 PM
Points 8 and 9 are the most annoying to me. I always see those arguments as 100% backwards. NO the laws of physics aren't just perfect for life (in fact, it's a harsh universe out there) but life developed around the laws of the Universe. Is that so hard? And the "perfect planet" idea. There's 2 points here - 1)The Universe is amazingly huge, with so many planets that vary in composition, environment, etc. 2)If life is going to pop up, of course it's going to be on a planet that can sustain it.
Then there's the argument that it's so improbable that life would just happen by physics and chemistry alone. But the way i see it, as long as there is ANY probability it could happen, there is still a chance, the universe is so large in both time and space, that, it in fact did happen. And, since it's so improbable, it had to have happened here (we're the 1 in 1x10∧1000000) That's more of a reason why we don't have all kinds of extra-terrestrial life out there.
Posted by: kopd | November 11, 2009 1:50 PM
The "what are the odds?" arguments really reveal how bad people are at probabilities. And maybe a bit of a category error, too. The probability of a universe having the qualities that ours does is unknown. It could be a really really tiny number, maybe really close to 0. But the probability that a universe will have some qualities is 1. I would have preferred a universe that allows me to fly, or at least one where I have better knees (all other things equal).
Posted by: KemaTheAtheist | November 11, 2009 2:02 PM
Here's a .zip for the papers that demonstrate how loose the fine tuning can really be:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/kmzkyyiguyd/Fine-Tuned-Universe-papers.zip
Papers by Dr. Adams and Dr. Harnik
(A correction from what I said before: the paper makes conclusions about the elimination of the "weak" force only, not the strong force.)
Posted by: charley | November 11, 2009 2:02 PM
Try asking those questions about familiar scientific processes like diagnosing a car problem or solving a crime to clearly see how stupid they are. I wonder if Sean McDowell would accept an explanation from his mechanic that his car is running rough because it's possessed by demons.
Posted by: Rey Fox | November 11, 2009 2:06 PM
"Since something cannot come from nothing, is it legitimate to conclude that a designer made the universe?"
No, because the designer is also "something". Next question!
"Right now much of the scientific community is bewitched by a view of science called methodological naturalism, which says that science may only offer naturalistic explanations."
How bewitching it is to not be able to make shit up.
"Science seeks to understand nature. If intelligent causes operate in nature, then methodological naturalism must not be used to rule them out."
So...wait, stop. You were just using the "other ways of knowing" argument, now you're saying we should stick with the good way of knowing?
"Question begging again? Is this the only trick they know?"
Well, yeah. If they had the capacity to question their assumptions, they wouldn't be IDists.
Posted by: Roy Tyrrell Raelian | November 11, 2009 2:06 PM
OK then here is one question.
Has any scientist on the planet been able to re-create the natural conditions where even the simplest protein molecule can self assemble ?
Posted by: iHunger | November 11, 2009 2:08 PM
When I read the title, I was hoping it was a list of 10 questions that Biologist had created to ask about Intelligent design, like:
1) What does Intelligent Design actually predict and how can it be tested?
2) Wouldn't "Intelligent" Design imply that there would be best practices and learning from ones mistakes? Why give avians so much better lungs than primates? Why give the octopus better eyes? Why have Caucasians at all if they can get sun burn and skin cancer?
...
Posted by: lose_the_woo
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November 11, 2009 2:11 PM
Like a snowflake?
Now I get it!!
Posted by: speedwell | November 11, 2009 2:14 PM
I wonder if Sean McDowell would accept an explanation from his mechanic that his car is running rough because it's possessed by demons.
When I was in college, I went to an Assemblies of God church for a while where people believed exactly that. Seriously. The mom of one of my friends believed that her car was having problems on the way to church because we were going to church. I'm inclined to believe that I started to call bullshit on religion right around that time.
Posted by: Holammer | November 11, 2009 2:16 PM
I'm not a biologist. But I find vestigial organs to be the best possible evidence against ID.
Posted by: The Barefoot Bum | November 11, 2009 2:17 PM
I think you are speaking hastily, without adequate evidence or investigation. Such an investigation appears tailor-made for the ASPEX offer.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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November 11, 2009 2:17 PM
While not relevant to the idiocy of ID, that work is found under the general heading of abiogenesis. And it all depends upon what you mean by protein. A total insulin protein, no. Some smaller peptides with just a few amino acids, yes. I seem to recall them seeing glycylglycine in interplanetary dust. And the gaps are being worked on by real scientists, and those gaps, like those in the fossil record, will keep getting smaller and smaller until they essentially don't exist.Posted by: lose_the_woo
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November 11, 2009 2:18 PM
"Unless someone can establish the limitations of the universe as a whole, it would be presumptuous to point to the cosmos and declare it incapable of existing without an external cause." Daniel Kolak and Raymond Martin, Wisdom Without Answers, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998), p. 39
Posted by: PaulC | November 11, 2009 2:19 PM
"Did God put opening tabs on other foods that fit comfortably in my hand besides bananas?"
The banana was intelligently designed by the United Fruit corporation to exploit the indigenous people of the world.
Not sure about the pull tabs though.
Posted by: raven | November 11, 2009 2:21 PM
You probably meant nucleic acid or life form or something. You probably are so stupid that you don't know the difference between proteins, DNA/RNA, or life. You are most likely a fundie death cult xian.
The answer is yes. We have recently managed to evolve a primordial replicator type molecule out of RNA. It evolves. I would google and post the details but you would in no particular order, move the goal posts, explain how I'm going to hell, offer to send me there yourself, and then run away and lie again somewhere else.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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November 11, 2009 2:22 PM
Until someone leaves a stunner on a plane during a snatch mission, and then the recovery team messes up the timeline even further.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 11, 2009 2:29 PM
No, damn it!
You got us! The peptide bond itself is irrefutable evidence for Intelligent Design!!!
Posted by: Kim Hosey (AZ Writer) | November 11, 2009 2:30 PM
How I wish I'd had someone like any of you or even current me to put me in my place when I brought something very like this to my then-teacher in tenth grade. My teacher was a prick, which I took to have some bearing on the correctness of his ideas for some reason, and my boyfriend at the time was home-school through a Christian correspondence outfit whose "science text" could've been a 1990 ringer for Icons. I pretty much just took in one of their lists like this and parroted it at my teacher. He told me to go to hell. I defaced his picture of Darwin. He defaced my next paper. We were both immature morons, to be sure, but one of us was certainly more correct about actual science. Big surprise; it was the science teacher.
That's the insidious thing about this kind of tripe, though. It's beyond painfully obvious to me now how ridiculous it all is. But I was smart in school. My education was pretty darn good. But I think it was lacking in the crux of how science is done, which begins with how to think logically. Skepticism (which isn't the same as arguing with your teacher). Reasoned inquiry, falsifiability. Without a foundation like that, this kind of thing can derail otherwise intelligent folks. Sad.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | November 11, 2009 2:34 PM
What's you're point.
Hasn't been done yet, therefor Rael's little extraterrestrial buddies did it?
That's some good clear thinking there.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution
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November 11, 2009 2:35 PM
Has any religious representative on the planet been able to provide observable, measurable, falsifiable evidence for the existence of any being that could poof life into existence from nothing?
Oh... wait... you mean you don't apply the same principles of reason, skepticism and logic to matters of religious belief?
Huh... interesting, that...
Posted by: Stephen P | November 11, 2009 2:36 PM
Has anyone put together a list of ten (or whatever) questions to ask the Discovery Institute? A few off the top of my head:
1. How old is the earth?
2. Do humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor or not?
3. What percentage of the DI's budget over the last twenty years has gone on scientific research?
4. Is the DI attempting to identify the nature of the designer? If so, how? If not, why not?
I'm sure people here can come up with more and better.
Posted by: KemaTheAtheist | November 11, 2009 2:37 PM
@98
Yes...
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/scientists-develop-first-examples-rna-replicates-itself-indefinitely-18191.html
Posted by: strangest brew | November 11, 2009 2:37 PM
#98
YES!
As Raven has already pointed out...details are available on Google.
In fact there is more...the experiment that religionists loved to condemn and dismiss at the time was the Miller/Urey replication attempt.
It was far more productive then any religion felt comfortable with!
http://www.enotes.com/earth-science/miller-urey-experiment
I doubt you will look at the link...it would destroy the oft vaunted cackle from retards that 'life from nothing is not godly!'
Posted by: Tulse | November 11, 2009 2:41 PM
I'm convinced that, in some alternate universe, there are hyperintelligent shades of blue that use exactly this same claim to argue for the existence of the Great Colorist.
Posted by: DLC
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November 11, 2009 2:47 PM
Dembski: "8. Fine-Tuning The laws of physics are fine-tuned to allow life to exist. "
Me : Oh my fat ass! (spit-take!). PHOK!
You Bloody Fool!
You've just tried to claim the complete opposite of reality!
Life evolved within the parameters set by the conditions!
Oh right... Bill Dembski doesn't 'buy' evolution, therefore any argument he makes has to be based on some magic man.
Oops, silly me...
Of course, if life had managed to evolve say, on Mars, I guess they would be sitting around discussing how it's impossible to have life on any such heavy, hot, dense - atmosphered planet such as Earth.
And I hope there would be a Martian named P'Zed to argue in favor of reality.
Ps: Don't get me started on the blasted horrorshow about "privileged planets" either !
Posted by: Souljacker | November 11, 2009 2:47 PM
Creation science = Sitting at a desk with a Thesaurus trying to think of Sciencey sounding ways to say, "God exists, dammit".
Posted by: Azkyroth
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November 11, 2009 2:48 PM
The sad thing is, any of these would have stymied any of the science teachers I had in K-12.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 11, 2009 2:48 PM
A designer in the mold of the Christian God certainly fits the bill.
At last we get an answer to the perennial question of "Where did God come from?"!
If God himself is invisible, maybe we can at least get a glimpse of the mold in which he was formed.
Perhaps take a few samples from the interior, to answer the new perennial question: "Is God ceramic, cement, or metal?" (and its corollary, "Why doesn't transubstantiation cause chipped teeth every time a congregation chomps its cosmic crackers?").
Posted by: Jarandhel | November 11, 2009 2:51 PM
Regarding #1 and #2, it seems that both ignore the possibility of unintelligent design. There are many artifacts of nature which we can show have been physically constructed by unintelligent animals, from ant hills to woven nests to spiderwebs, which clearly show the hallmarks of "design". In some cases design superior to our own. Can we synthetically produce and weave an artificial material as strong and flexible as spider silk? Yet at no stage in their creation was what we consider to be intelligence involved.
Even assuming that they could one day prove that life exhibits the hallmarks of design, that's still a far cry from proving the designer intelligent. Imagine, if you will, a mindless God who "designs" such things as part of its life cycle, no more intelligently than the lowest of animals, just a spider weaving its web. I think the prospect would horrify most ID proponents, but their design argument advances this theory of God just as well as, if not better than, the Christian theory of God.
Posted by: puseaus | November 11, 2009 2:53 PM
"We know that chance and selection can generate information. This is not a problem at all."
Maybe someone hasn't heard about this yet, like if they have been reading the wrong book all the time? That would be a problem.
Posted by: mas528
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November 11, 2009 2:54 PM
A layman in the fields of computer science, biology, and is ignorant of science in general asked this question.
0! = 1
0^0 = 1
Two ways to get something from nothing.
Posted by: otoemlak | November 11, 2009 2:56 PM
What's you're point.
Hasn't been done yet, therefor Rael's little extraterrestrial buddies did it?
That's some good clear thinking there.
Posted by: Fire Ant | November 11, 2009 2:56 PM
The Earth is a privileged planet? Would have been nice for some intelligent designer to give us gills so we could live on most of it's surface! Instead, we're stuck on a ridiculously paper-thin layer of life on this rock....can't go too far up, can't live in the oceans.....I'd say that's a tease!
Posted by: not a gator | November 11, 2009 3:00 PM
#1 is a darn good point, but I think misses the point.
Their claims of "rigor" are ridiculous to begin with. Take the Fibonacci sequence. Turns up in Nature all the time. Proof of intelligent design? Hardly. More like humans stumbling across a mathematical pattern that mimics a physically simple mathematical structure. (It's a spiral.)
Animals which use camouflage "mimic" "independent" structures, like those beetles that look like twigs. There are also plenty of examples of convergent evolution. Evolutionary theory explains these examples well. Intelligent Design is left with lots of confusing questions, like why does one beetle look like a twig, one like a leaf, and millions of others look like, well, beetles? Why does the twig look as it does? Why do some creatures have effective camo and others don't? Etc.
What is independent? We are certainly not independent of Nature. ID might suppose that any idea we come up with was implanted in our brains by the Creator. Sure, why not? Evolutionary theory is a robust explanation for the things we do, while ID is the start of a nice, profitable series of scifi-fantasy novels. (Like V'ger, they search for the creator to give them purpose. They should have listened to Spock.)
But all of this is a sideshow. They are being intellectually dishonest, because we know that a lot of their actual arguments have been along the lines of "The eye is complicated! Therefore goddidit." and other sorts of arguments from ignorance, whereas their "intuitively" grasped patterns are quite easy to explain using evolutionary theory and thus would get laughed out of the arena. They've learned that their specifics are best kept behind a curtain, over there, where they can't be picked apart and ridiculed.
Yes, please show me how an appeal to an "independent" pattern can be "rigorous" especially when you assume a priori a creator. How do you know this creator didn't only create humans (~brains~)--thus making all your conclusions suspect? Scifi territory again. Oh, in case you're wondering what it was that Spock said, he said that loving someone gave him all the purpose he needed, and he felt sorry for V'ger because it could never understand that.
Maybe Dumbski should stop searching for the Unknown God who can never love him back and the Creator which won't answer his questions and find something in this world worth living for. It couldn't hurt.
Posted by: Tulse | November 11, 2009 3:05 PM
It's getting there:
NASA scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of our hereditary material, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidine exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | November 11, 2009 3:07 PM
you're / your
damn it
Posted by: Texan Expat in Finland | November 11, 2009 3:15 PM
Given that the moon looks like cheese, it is a reasonable inference to conclude that it is made of blue cheese.
And the hyper intelligent shades of blue are blogging about a non-existent "Deep Rift".
It is going to be a glorious day when biologists actually achieve abiogenesis (which I'm confident I will see). The philosophical tidal wave that announcement will cause will be grand to watch. Of course, the Disco Tute will simply deny that anything of the sort happened and will become "Abiogenesis - Truthers".
Posted by: catgirl | November 11, 2009 3:18 PM
I have only one intelligent design question to ask Dembski and McDowell:
If the designer is so intelligent, why didn't s/he make better designs?
People have foot bones that can break just by walking, Human backs are notorious for causing unnecessary pain, and a newborn's head is too big to fit comfortably through the birth canal. What idiot came up with these designs?
Posted by: FlameDuck | November 11, 2009 3:19 PM
Okay I've read this a couple of times now, and it just occurred to me that they're absolutely wrong. I know, surprise, surprise.Something is complex if it has a large number of interacting and interdependent components. These do not have to match a pattern. Mt. Rushmore is a crappy example of something complex, because it's basically a rock, with bits removed to make it reassemble 4 people important to the religious right. Compared to say a modern computer or the Hubble space telescope, Mt. Rushmore is laughably simple and primitive. Sure if you where to build Mt. Rushmore from scratch, using subatomic particles, sure that would be complex. But that's not how Mt. Rushmore was created. They basically took a rock, and hit it with a hammer until it resembled something else. Not exactly rocket science. It wasn't even designed! It was sculpted!
Posted by: Happy | November 11, 2009 3:22 PM
"A designer in the mold of the Christian God certainly fits the bill."
LOL. Really? So the God whose recording of His creation sounds like a story written by an illiterate goat-herder from 3,000 years ago (weird that!) "fits the bill" as the designer of Hydrogen atoms and DNA? Methinks not.
Posted by: Sigmund | November 11, 2009 3:26 PM
I find it fascinating that probably the best evidence for the conditions on earth during the time life was beginning are probably lying on the surface of the moon, in the form of meteorites blasted off the primordial Earth. There is virtually no material left on the Earth from this time period so we are left to make educated guesses about how life began.
The evidence seen in current life may not be a direct line back to the beginnings of life - while our ancestors almost certainly went through an RNA world phase, billions of years in the past, without firm data such as Earth rocks from that time, preserved on the moon, we can only speculate on how many previous phases of life occurred before conditions suitable for the RNA world arrived.
Posted by: varlo | November 11, 2009 3:27 PM
One assumes the the multiple designers theory means that instead of goddidit that godsdidit.
Posted by: KemaTheAtheist | November 11, 2009 3:29 PM
That's proof of "the Fall!"
God said that Eve would have horrible pain in childbirth!
God said that Adam would have to toil in the fields!
/Poe
I feel dirty now. I'm going to go shower.
Posted by: Kel, OM | November 11, 2009 3:29 PM
That was really painful to read. It seems according to those ten questions that ID is a theory of everything, rather than just an alternative to the problem of diversity of life over time. Yet even with those 10 questions, they didn't answer the fundamental two I think need to be answered - what did the designer do, and how can we test for it? No good saying a designer could have done it when there's no tested mechanism. It's like seeing hoof-prints and suggesting that it's a unicorn, because unicorns and horses would both leave the same print.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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November 11, 2009 3:30 PM
No, they'll point out that scientists had to set up the conditions in which life developed, thereby proving their point.
Posted by: kopd | November 11, 2009 3:41 PM
I've already seen that one somewhere.
Posted by: KemaTheAtheist | November 11, 2009 3:54 PM
To which the response will be one of the following depending on if you want to be snarky or not:
1.) (Snarky respose) Then am I as awesome as God, or is God as pathetic as a human? *snaps fingers* Ah HA! God was created by humans!
2.) (Scientists response) We created life by replicating the Earth as it formed naturally from a process called accretion. There was no God needed for that. There was no God needed to replicate it.
3.) (Combination) I figured out how the world began and made my own world. The world began without a God, but I created this one. I am omnicient about everything in the universe I created! I AM GOD! I decide who lives and dies in MY universe! If I feel like it, I can give them earthquakes! *shakes test tube* I can send them through space! *throws test tube across the room into a wall* Or, I can KILL THEM ALL! MUAH HAHAHAHAHA *pours bleach into the puddle on the floor slowly*
Posted by: Susannah | November 11, 2009 3:57 PM
I got stuck at # 5:
It never occurred to him that maybe they're
strikinglymore or less similar because we are working in the same universe, with the same laws of physics. We can't just go and build a machine based on a different set of laws, unless we want to join the perpetual-motion machine crackpot club.Now, back to the next question.
Posted by: raven | November 11, 2009 4:07 PM
You left out a step there.
You are supposed to claim that your created life forms in your own image are evil. Then drown all but a few to prove that they are evil. Let them recover. Then tell them you love them, turn on a blow torch, point it, and....INSTANT RAPTURE!!!
Hmmm, while being a god doesn't look so hard, it also doesn't seem very rewarding. Torturing microbes?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 11, 2009 4:07 PM
1) Interesting that the cdesign proponentsists are not vitalists. What happened to the Breath of God, blewn into Adam's nostrils? Was that... oh. Literal. I see. <facepalm>:
2) Where does information come from? Mutation and gene duplication. Duh.
This is it. You finally get your Molly nomination.
Indeed. Why doesn't the universe look like described in the Bible – a flat Earth topped by a solid metal dome (heaven) which carries God's throne?
Experiments are not necessary; they're just a convenient way to arrange opportunities for observation. Observation is necessary; repeated observation helps for statistical reasons.
Wow. That I want to see! Without the strong force, how do you get elements other than... no, wait, how do you even get protons? Could a down quark really hold two up quarks together by its electromagnetic charge alone? :-S And without the weak force, how do you get nuclear fusion (assuming the strong force and thus nuclei exist in the first place)?
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 11, 2009 4:09 PM
Has any scientist on the planet been able to re-create the natural conditions where even the simplest protein molecule can self assemble ? - Roy Tyrrell Raelian
Yes: see for example Adsorption and Polymerization of Amino Acids on Mineral Surfaces: A Review.
There's a very interesting article in a recent New Scientist (yes, I know they publish a lot of crap these days, but this is interesting and relevant): Nick Lane "The Cradle of Life New Scientist 17 October 2009, pages 38-42. Explains the hypothesis that life arose at hydrothermal vents where alkaline exudate reacted with the early acid ocean, forming "carbonate rocks riddled with tiny pores and a "foam" of iron-sulphur bubbles", within which amino acids, nucleotides, and fatty-acid bubbles could have formed, been concentrated, and interacted, using a protein gradient as an energy source. 2009 Nobelist Jack Szostak has been undertaking experiments which have confirmed that such conditions do indeed form nucleotides and fatty-acid bubbles.
Posted by: JJR | November 11, 2009 4:11 PM
Makes me think of my favorite NonStampCollector YouTube video from a little while back:
High Stakes Intelligent Design.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_G9awnDCmg
"Three of a kind beats a pair, mate; 6.6.6. I can't believe how badly you suck at this..."
Posted by: Kel, OM | November 11, 2009 4:16 PM
Something I wrote before work: The Unicorn Inference. It's dreadful but its short.
Posted by: MadScientist | November 11, 2009 4:20 PM
Q1: Did the phrase "Intelligent Design" win an award for "Mother of all Oxymorons"?
Q2: How can we possibly trust someone named "Dumbski"? I can imagine how he got that name: his parents were trekking through the snow and his mother happened to ask his father "what should we name our son" just as his father was getting very irritated by his pair of cheap skis and he screams "dumb ski!"
Q3: Can we skip ID and move onto Hansel and Gretel?
Q4: Will tomorrow's lesson be "living with being a moron"?
Q5: Is a stupid monkey like Dumbski proof that evolution really doesn't work, just as Dumbski claims, or is he really just very good at faking being incredibly stupid and clueless?
Well, Dumbski's list does prove one thing: there really is such a thing as a stupid question.
Posted by: MrFire
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November 11, 2009 4:30 PM
A designer like the moldy Christian God certainly does not fit the bill.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 11, 2009 4:36 PM
There I write comment 142, begging for something that's provided in comment 95. Sometimes the threads here progress just too fast.
Posted by: MadScientist | November 11, 2009 4:40 PM
For Dumkbski's #2 I'd just like to point out a few things:
1. What is the metric for intelligence? I would theorize that any organism which can deliberately manipulate its environment is intelligent. So all animals have some degree of intelligence. Biologists wouldn't be searching for intelligence because they're not so stupid that they wouldn't understand that it's evident everywhere (contrary to what religiotards claim that humans are the only intelligent animal). Behavioral scientists on the other hand do poke around to try to get some idea of the mental capacities of some species.
2. SETI by necessity seeks signs of highly developed intelligence and technology. Specifically SETI is looking for evidence that alien life forms can manipulate radio signals in a fashion similar to what we humans do (modulate signals in non-random fashion and also in a way not currently known to occur naturally). We know that there is only one species on the earth which has achieved that level of technological sophistication. I don't expect to see a cow building and operating a shortwave radio any time soon nor should we expect, say, an Andromedan Amoeba to be sending us radio signals telling us about its plans for universal domination. Dumbski's mention of SETI is only more proof of his ignorance. Well, actually, everything about Dumbski simply screams "look at me! I'm an ignoramus and proud of it!"
Posted by: SteveM | November 11, 2009 4:40 PM
Re FlameDuck @ 131:
It occurs to me that "complexity" is really the worst possible way to define "design". In fact, complexity is usually a sign of very poor design. Compare a bird's wing and just about any airplane wing. The airplane wing is far far simpler than any bird wing. Compare the roman arch to arches in termite mounds. The stone arches are far simpler than what the termites produce. Just about everything that nature has produced can be designed to be much simpler. "Irreducible complexity" is actually a much better argument for evolution than it is for "inteligent" design.
Posted by: jre | November 11, 2009 4:47 PM
Does this mean I have to get into it again?
And just when I thought I'd gotten out.
Posted by: will von wizzlepig | November 11, 2009 4:51 PM
About the video... which is awesome... I have a question, and my google skills are not finding me the answer.
The video refers to the universe expanding. So, let's take a snapshot- at this second, right now, all the material and open space and dark matter -everything- in the universe fills the center square of a tic-tac-toe board.
After a second passes, though, the universe has expanded into the surrounding squares, and no longer fits inside the middle square.
What IS that space the universe is expanding into?
If the space where the universe wasn't did not exist beforehand, but now does exist since the universe has expanded into it, um...
Does anyone have this answer, or does it simply not matter, or am I not getting the idea correctly?
Posted by: MadScientist | November 11, 2009 4:53 PM
Ah, Dumbski's #10 is really one of the dumbest:
"Since something cannot come from nothing, is it legitimate to conclude that a designer made the universe?"
It's the infinite god-regression problem. If Dumbski believes that, then he must accept that there are an infinite number of greater gods, a contradiction to what the abrahamic religions claim. I can think of at least 3 non-exclusive possibilities when claims conflict:
1. at least 1 set of claims is wrong
2. the issue is not understood and incorrect ideas are being presented 3. all claims are nonsense and irrelevant
Posted by: Steve in Dublin | November 11, 2009 5:01 PM
Rather foolish of them to bring 'octopuses' into it, knowing full well that Mr. Cephalopod himself was just waiting there in the wings to pounce all over that one, eh?
Posted by: RC | November 11, 2009 5:11 PM
It strikes me that there are a huge number of these "Lists of 10" for christian students to use to harass their poor biology teachers.
Here's an idea:
How about we all put together a "List of 10" for students to ask of biology teachers who insert christian values into their teachings?
We could have 10 simple questions for them to ask, with a simply worded explanation of the full scientific answer, which they can then compare to their teacher's answer. Maybe also include a typical creationist response with a short explaination of the scientific failings. I'd be happy to collate it and maybe we could get PZ to put it out there in the aether.
For example (from my christian catalog I get to suck up their money), they recently stated that evolution doesn't work on plants because plants make their own food from the sun. Therefore no competion, so no evolution. This is a fairly easy question to clear up, but is published in a worldwide mag.
They also stated that Germans will cause the apocalype, but that's irrelevant.
Or maybe it's been done....let me know if it has.
Posted by: Sastra
|
November 11, 2009 5:12 PM
I think that one, and only one, of their answers is (more or less) legitimate: the answer to question #3. But it does not help them; it hurts them.
Basically, Question #3 is a rather convoluted way of asking "Can science say anything about the existence of the supernatural -- or is it designed in such a way that it can only give "natural" answers?" The argument which says that, by definition, science couldn't consider supernatural forces is what we call "accomodationism." You can't use the scientific method to either confirm, or deny, the existence of God. The ID proponents are wrong, but so is Richard Dawkins.
Instead, Dembski here is coming out on Dawkins' side:
That's right. An Intelligent Designer is not ruled out of science, up front. It was kicked out of science when we discovered a better explanation: evolution. You can formulate "God" into a testable hypothesis, and it becomes either unnecessary, or wrong. Take your pick.
Is ID a science theory? Yes and no, I think. Because it proposes no mechanism, has no model, throws itself into gaps, and is technically capable of fitting itself into any discovery, it's not a scientific theory. But, in cases where Behe, Demski, or other proponents make the mistake of fleshing it out enough to have it imply clear, testable consequences, it graduates from "not science" -- to failed science.
Not where they want to end up.
There's a reason the accomodationists are all het up about keeping science away from God. It protects religious beliefs from critique and analysis by making sure they're so vague they can't be wrong.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 11, 2009 5:16 PM
The part of the ribosome that actually makes the peptide bonds is a ribozyme.
The question thus becomes where the RNA world came from. And that seems to have been largely answered a few months ago, when a way was found to make ribonucleotides from scratch under realistic conditions.
Hint: if you don't understand every single word I just used, quit this blog immediately and spend a few hours (yes, hours) in Wikipedia, because you don't know what you're talking about.
:-o
That makes a lot of sense!
Dębski is a rather unremarkable Polish surname. The ending shares a common ancestor with the English -ish.
Posted by: Pope Maledict DCLXVI | November 11, 2009 5:20 PM
I'm not sure if anyone's pointed this out so far in the thread, but there are only seven questions that ought to be asked of a biology teacher, of which only six specifically address matters biological.
Admittedly question 3 is on the general methodology of the scientific method, and could be answered by anyone with a comprehensive education that covered the philosophy of science.
However questions 8, 9, and 10 are really cosmological questions that ought to be asked in the physics class (if they are asked at all), and one could imagine a biology teacher fumbling an answer that might be more adroitly handled by a colleague who had studied physics - owing to specialisation it's quite possible for some teachers to be strong in certain fields of science and weak in others.
I think the whole set of questions is fairly inane, but one of the stupider things about this Dumbski/McDowell article is how it ignores specialisation in science; question 10 in particular expects a lot of the biology teacher, to be aware of fairly sophisticated concepts in physics (not the least being an understanding of quantum mechanics and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle) to the extent of being able to give a satisfactory reply.
Posted by: Sastra
|
November 11, 2009 5:31 PM
Now, PZ -- that's not fair. If you're going to take away Bill's favorite pick-up line, the least you can do is buy him a new sweater. Let the poor guy have a chance with the women.
By the way, I'll note that it looks like Fine Tuning is definitely considered part of Intelligent Design. Didn't Francis Collins use Fine Tuning as one of the 'scientific' reasons he believes in God? If so, then the big song and dance about how we shouldn't criticize Collins' approach to finding God because he's such a good ally in fighting against Intelligent Design needs some new steps and lyrics.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | November 11, 2009 5:32 PM
Rigorous, because they're claiming that if it's complex and functional, it's designed. A total lie. "Specification," of course, means "function" to them.
Actually, Paley's "design detection" could very well have been made rigorous, for he said that we should look for what an architect or artificer would produce. Which we've never found in life, save where human manipulation caused it.
They carefully avoid rigorous entailed predictions such as Paley's, because they don't dare to make ID falsifiable (not what rigorously defines science, but a good rule of thumb) as Paley understood that a claim like his should be. Change the rules of science (#3), and you know longer need real evidence for ID.
Dembski's list of 10 isn't too bad from a PR stance, iow, because most teachers below college level won't understand the level of obscurantism at which Dembski's operating. The saving grace is that most students won't either.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Blake Stacey
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November 11, 2009 5:32 PM
A recent, preliminary investigation (to be published in the Physical Review) found that life could be possible in a universe with unbroken supersymmetry. In other words, you throw in a whole heap of extra fundamental particles, whose analogues in our universe are either virtually undetectable or just not there at all, and life can still happen.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 11, 2009 5:35 PM
There is no such space. The universe itself, spacetime itself, is expanding. It's not expanding into somewhere. (There is no "there" there.) It's just expanding.
That's simply not something our capability for intuition has evolved for. :-|
...Now excuse me while I look for a photo of Sastra.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 11, 2009 5:43 PM
"No higher resolution available." Too bad.
But I must run away anyway. She mentioned the Unholy Sweater. <shiver>
<faint>
Posted by: Cath the Canberra Cook
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November 11, 2009 5:47 PM
will von wizzlepig (lol@nym), you are indeed not getting the idea correctly.
But don't feel bad, it is such a counter-intuitive thing that most people who get the idea abstractly and mathematically still don't get it intuitively. We have ape-brains, evolved to be pretty good at the Euclidian & Newtownian approximations that work at our scale.
Key point: There is no pre-existing space. Or indeed, time. The starting point is a singularity, if that helps. There's no "before" or "outside", any more than there's a place on earth that's south of the south pole. Another common analogy is to imagine the universe on the surface of a balloon. As you blow it up, of course it does expand into a pre-existing space - but that's NOT the point you need to analogise. That's a distraction. The space between points on the balloon is what you need to think about. The distance between any two points on the surface gets larger - but there's no extra balloon material being supplied from anywhere.
Posted by: arensb
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November 11, 2009 5:48 PM
Once, when I was a wee CompSci undergrad, one instructor was giving the mandatory talk on plagiarism in homework assignments and such.
He said that one popular idea about engineering and related disciplines is that it's easy to cheat: after all, if you and Joe are both given the same detailed description of what the bridge/program/circuit must do, then the end result will perforce be quite similar. So if you just copy Joe's work, the instructor will believe you when you say that you came up with the same design independently.
But that turns out not to be true: the shape of a suspension bridge or parabolic antenna, or the outline of the program may be dictated by the spec, but the realization involves a thousand tiny decisions, and it's in these details that you can tell whether you wrote your own code, or copied Joe's and renamed all the functions and variables.
In fact, this came up during the SCO vs. IBM trial: looking at different bits of code, it was quite easy to tell whether a given module came from SCO's lineage, or IBM by way of Linux, or was new to IBM.
Posted by: Sastra
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November 11, 2009 5:48 PM
David Marjanovic, OM #162 wrote:
You mean like this?
I don't have an Unholy Sweater, but Blake has an Unholy Hat. PZ's just.... Unholy.
Posted by: D | November 11, 2009 6:03 PM
On point 5: They get it backwards when they say that "structures in the cell resemble machines designed by humans," because cellular machinery came before us. Whenever there are similarities, it is we who ape them, not vice-versa. Four and a half billion years being the mind-boggling expanse of time that it is, of course there will be similarities between machines we design to exploit a principle, and whatever might have evolved to fill a niche that involves exploiting the same principle. So even where the point applies, it works against them.
On point 10: I thought that God was the first cause? If so, then back when there was only God, God was all of existence. If God was not created by anything else, then nothing created God. So, clearly, something can come from nothing, physics or no.
Posted by: mothwentbad | November 11, 2009 6:09 PM
Man-made optimized objects performing a certain function subject to certain constraints resemble evolution-made objects performing the same function subject to the same constraints. Who would have thought that such maxima could be stable or unique or something? Musta been Jebus, clearly.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | November 11, 2009 6:21 PM
Note, too, this highly dishonest but familiar characterization of complexity by Dembski. It's total bollocks that something unlikely to occur by chance must necessarily be complex, and Dembski only lies about it because he knows damn well that most archaeological design that we discover is in fact not very complex at all, quite unlike life with its rampant complexity.
He must lie in order for his disanalogy between human-made items with life to appear to be an analogy. Complexity is not a telling aspect of design at all, even if I have argued that in some cases complexity (of a certain kind, namely rational complexity, which is never found as such in life) might help to confirm some intelligent designs.
And then, of course, natural selection is all about how non-chance forms life without the input of intelligence, so that's another species of dishonesty from Dembski.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM
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November 11, 2009 6:23 PM
Regarding the 'Third Point' of 'who writes the rules of science?', this is of course the original Philip Johnson talking point, which is that methodological naturalism (MN) unfairly excludes the supernatural a priori.
My eyes glaze over at this point. My personal experience tells me that debating how to apply 'naturalism' with creationists is not very helpful in and of itself. While it is useful to distinguish MN from the position of philosophical (metaphysical) naturalism (PN), it is not needed to defend the practice of science. Science simply investigates phenomena and attempts to devise testable explanations for those phenomena. If it can't be tested, if there is no way in principle to falsify a claim, then it can't be treated scientifically. It is true that supernatural claims are often non-falsifiable, but (here's key point), there are claims other than supernatural claims that are also non-falsifiable!
Classic example: 'My dog loves me.' Many of might well believe this fervently, but we must keep in mind that Fido might be an Evil Canine Genius, who just displays affection to keep the Kibbles and Bits a-flowin'. What is like to be a dog? Who knows? It's an inherently subjective claim, and very difficult (if not impossible) to test. It may well be true, of course. It's just not obvious how science (which requires objective evidence) is going to be able to say anything about the claim one way or the other.
Thus...supernatural claims are just part of a large set of claims that end up in the category of 'not possible to falsify in principle by objective means.' Changing the definition of science to admit supernatural claims or inferences, as Johnson and his cronies suggested, could make the IDevotee feel as if they are getting a better hearing, but they won't change the ontological status of such claims.
Posted by: Charlie Foxtrot
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November 11, 2009 6:25 PM
"I bring you these 15..."
*crash*
"10! 10 questions for your Biology teacher!"
/MelBrooks
Posted by: kermit | November 11, 2009 6:27 PM
DLC@117 "Of course, if life had managed to evolve say, on Mars, I guess they would be sitting around discussing how it's impossible to have life on any such heavy, hot, dense - atmosphered planet such as Earth."
Hardly. As it was explained to me, over half a century ago, when I was an alleged Creationist, my preacher's son-in-law addressed the Youth Group: "Evolution can't possibly be right! We're not here by chance. If we'd evolved on Mars instead of Earth, we'd all be dead!"
It wasn't his comment that stunned me so much as the other teens' solemn faces, nodding in agreement...
Posted by: Cappy | November 11, 2009 6:27 PM
"That last sentence is a classic non sequitur. We know that human beings build penis-shaped objects; that does not imply that Bill Dembski's penis is made of silicone and has an on-off switch, let alone that someone made it in an injection-molding machine."
I have to call you out here. No evidence has been presented that Bill Dembski has a penis, therefore you are engaging in wild speculation.
Posted by: Janine The Ineffable, OM | November 11, 2009 6:40 PM
The fine tuning argument, oh my...
Being the oldest of eight children, because of births and general childhood mayhem, I spent a lot of time in hospital waiting rooms. My memory is hazy because this was about thirty, thirty-five years ago. There was always a lot of religious material sitting around and being a bookworm, I would read everything there. I remember one bit about how kind god was when he made the Earth. How he placed it in just the right spot where it was neither too hot nor too cold. How he set the oxygen level just right; too little and we would suffocate and too high the air would burn. It took learning facts to see how silly this was; that the temperature of Earth has fluctuated over the billions of years and oxygen is the waste product of hundreds of millions of years of plant life.
It amuses me that they are using the same technique as was used in some kiddie religious propaganda bit that I read decades ago.
Posted by: PaulBurnett
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November 11, 2009 6:55 PM
8. Fine-Tuning The laws of physics are fine-tuned to allow life to exist.
This has always tickled me - the laws of physics that govern stars and galaxies billions of lightyears from earth in all directions were fine-tuned for the benefit of life on earth. Riiight.
Posted by: Sastra
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November 11, 2009 6:56 PM
Scot Hatfield, OM #170 wrote:
Yes: but it's not the case that supernatural claims can't be falsified. This is only true if you add in "faith" -- the commitment to bend the evidence, and yourself, any way you have to, in order to keep a belief. This isn't a legitimate move in science.
But "you have to have faith in a supernatural belief" isn't part of the necessary definition of the supernatural itself. It's only added on when (because) the evidence isn't there. If you can imagine an experiment or situation which would lead to objectively or intersubjectively confirming a supernatural or paranormal phenomenom, then it can be treated scientifically. Any one of those silly "ghost hunting" shows demonstrates what such a situation might look like.
The supernatural is not, by its nature, outside of the scientific method. Faith, by its nature, is an unscientific method. The supernatural -- whether it's in the form of God, ghosts, the paranormal, vitalism, or spiritual energy, is only outside of today's model of reality formed from scientific investigation because it's wrong. Not an a priori exclusion, but a posteriori conclusion.
Unless you have faith, in which case coming up with strained excuses no matter what is standard to the "other way of knowing" beyond science.
If your dog fails to greet you when you come home, refuses to come when you call, ignores you when he can, and bites you when you approach, then I would say that's a falsification. Presumably, you don't have "faith" that your dog loves you. It's a reasonable inference based on the fact that the above conditions don't obtain.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 11, 2009 6:58 PM
...No, but that's interesting nonetheless. For instance, Blake's hat is indeed unholy.
The Unholy Sweater is Dembski's.
Maybe he is in fact pondering what you're pondering. <shudder>
Posted by: Kel, OM | November 11, 2009 7:01 PM
This is something Victor Stenger points out in God: The Failed Hypothesis, but isn't there an incompatibility between arguing of fine tuning of the laws of physics being right for life at the same time as arguing that abiogenesis / evolution cannot happen? They are hardly fine-tuned for life if it requires divine intervention for the basic premise.
Now I know, the obvious objection is that the universe is fine-tuned to facilitate life - not to create life. But that hardly sings out God's omnipotence. Surely God could create a universe that could both facilitate life and produce life. Otherwise, God's making more work for herself. And for what? So that believers on one planet 13 billion years later can simultaenously point to the origin of life and the origin of the universe as two separate events in need of an intelligent agent.
Whereas it seems to me that they want to have their cake and eat it too, that they want to necessitate miraculous intervention at the same time as inferring from physics that there was miraculous intervention there too. All this once again showing that God is nothing more than a substitute for human ignorance - we don't know something therefore divine intervention, heaven, and sin.
Maybe there should be a new law of humanity, specified complex ignorance - this isn't just regular ignorance, but specified instances where the subject matter can be in some way anthropic. In cases of SCI, it can be inferred that someone will interpret it as the word of a supernatural agent with humans in mind.
Today I've come up with two concepts I would love to see spread through the memosphere. "He's hearing hoofbeats and thinking unicorns", and "Just another case of specified complex ignorance".
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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November 11, 2009 7:03 PM
That's not a given. It's an extrapolation based on General Relativity, but it doesn't take into account quantum effects that would come into play once the universe got small enough, much less the effects of a unified quantum/gravity theory (assuming such a beastie exists).
In other words, we don't know enough to say "it all started with a singularity". I get the impression the idea that there are conditions where the laws of physics just stop working is becoming old hat and that the singularity is becoming the "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" of cosmology -- something everyone has heard about that lingers in the textbooks and the public consciousness long after those in the field have discarded the notion.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 11, 2009 7:05 PM
But that's an argument from parsimony. It doesn't falsify the Evil Canine Genius hypothesis.
That said, outright falsification is actually pretty rare, I think. Parsimony arguments are much more common.
Posted by: Lehooo | November 11, 2009 7:20 PM
Unlike the intelligent designer, for whom there is plenty of evidence of course! No, come on... This is a joke, right? I know he's a creationist, but the level of stupidity required to not see the irony in that sentence is still jaw dropping!Posted by: Sastra
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November 11, 2009 7:27 PM
David Marjanovic, OM #177 wrote:
Well, sure: that was why I recommended PZ buy him a new sweater, if he's not going to let poor Bill lie about the attributes his marks can't see in the dim light of the bar.
Well, sure, again. Ontological conservatism -- or Occam's Razor -- is one of the tools science wields. But any hypothesis, no matter how 'scientific' it is, can be made unfalsifiable by invoking bizarre, implausible, unevidenced "possibilities." Supernatural hypothesis aren't special that way. Maybe the sun really does circle the earth, but we're hallucinating a counterfactual reality in the Matrix. Maybe. Probably not, though.
If you approach supernatural hypotheses like any other hypothesis, you won't indulge in those sort of desperate saves.
Posted by: Janet Holmes | November 11, 2009 7:43 PM
Since the octopus' eye is so much better designed than ours, presumably that means that god was trying harder with octopuses than with us. Maybe he really designed the universe for the sake of the octopuses ... Surely if we're the pinnacle of design we'd have the best of everything! I'm still feeling hard-done-by that I can't see ultraviolet like birds and insects can, think of what we're missing out on, it's soooo not fair.
Posted by: Mack | November 11, 2009 7:48 PM
Intelligently designed? We're terribly designed. We're slow, and fragile, and have very few natural defenses. Our fur is useless in keeping us warm, we don't have claws or fangs, we don't blend into the landscape, and can't outrun predators. We don't have particularly well developed senses, and we frequently ignore what our senses tell us. No gills, or wings, we can't regenerate limbs, which would be very useful, and every fricking second thing can kill us.
I refuse to believe that we were designed without wings. Lazy gods, and their wing withholding.
Aside from that, I don't believe any so called intelligent being would design that sweater. It is indeed an Unholy Sweater.
Posted by: windy | November 11, 2009 7:50 PM
Most human-designed objects around us were made in China. Therefore, the universe was made in China.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 11, 2009 7:52 PM
Quoting the creationist nonsense:
It's interesting how Dembski and McDowell here sing the praises of scientific discovery but never have respect for scientific discoveries which we have actually made. And that ideal situation we supposedly inhabit? Anything but. For every observation our position in the cosmos lets us make, there exist countless more which are beyond our grasp. We've spent thousands of years of toil, trying to overcome the limitations of our vantage point. That atmosphere which seems perfectly blended for us to breathe? It obscures the stars, forcing us to build telescopes on mountaintops or heft them all the way into orbit. That great luck we had with eclipses? More than counterbalanced by rotten luck elsewhere. Why couldn't Aristarchus and Eratosthenes get supernovae to watch, like Tycho and Kepler did? The Aristotelian notion of the changeless heavens might never have taken root, and astronomy might have advanced the better part of two thousand years.
The dogma of the "privileged planet" ignores generations of effort to understand the natural world, in favour of pretending that nature was arranged for our benefit. How callous.
Posted by: Maezeppa | November 11, 2009 8:00 PM
Ten questions take up time and that's their purpose - obstruct and confuse and eat the classroom clock.
I once joined a creationist site and contacted the "minister" in charge of it. I said an "evolutionist" had explained something thus and so. I asked what was a good rebuttal (to a biological fact). I was curious to see how the question would be treated. Not surprisingly I was instructed to not think about it too much, and keep the focus on "saving their souls".
Posted by: D | November 11, 2009 8:17 PM
I'm loving this "Evil Canine Genius" business, because that's religion: the unfalsifiable bullshit you make up for no damned reason. (I got it right, right? I mean, the ECG hypothesis is all about trying to show that your dog loves you, right? Because... I mean... canine fondness entails that the ECG hypothesis is false, though unfalsifiable, just like God. But I might have got it wrong, I only skimmed...)
So many people seem to think that science is about discovering Ultimate Truth Forever or some such horse-shit. It's about making ever-better models of reality that fucking work, and that's that. The rest is details.
Posted by: Aquaria | November 11, 2009 9:17 PM
Is it a mystery that the universe is consistent, coherent, and observable? Is it a mystery that the universe that we observe is perhaps also the very foundation of reality?
It's a mystery to people whose ignorance lets them believe as inerrant a book that says stars are holes in the floor of heaven. They really think we're making up all of astronomy as we go along. Pah--quasars? Pulsars? Event horizon? Red shift (what are you doing looking up god's skirt??!!).
I mean, let's face it, if the Hebrew zombie worshippers had their way, everyone would be as appallingly ignorant as so many of them are.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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November 11, 2009 9:20 PM
That's just what scientists want you to think so they can buy their third mansion with science money!!!
Posted by: David B
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November 11, 2009 9:22 PM
I'm somewhat more than tempted to respond to this by
looking for 'Ten questions to ask your pastor about god'
Not easy, as I say in thread, in my OP at http://secularcafe.org/showthread.php?p=82050#post82050http://secularcafe.org/index.php
'It strikes me that finding 10 killer questions to ask your local sky pilot is fraught with difficulty, because so many potential questions are conditional on the guy's (it is usually a guy, always in the case of the RCC) interpretation of Christianity.
Pastors etc may or may not accept a literally true bible, may or may not accept an old earth and evolution, so finding killer questions on a one size fits all basis is pretty hard to do.
But it might be worth setting our collective wisdom on finding 10 good questions to ask.'
Contributions welcome, registration necessary.
David B
Posted by: Susannah | November 11, 2009 9:34 PM
RC #155
Do these people ever look up from their story books? Haven't they ever noticed the dandelions on the lawn? Or is that all taken care of by Chucho, the landscape guy?
I give up. No use arguing and explaining. They don't speak reality.
Posted by: Nebula99 | November 11, 2009 9:51 PM
Bunny @179:
In other words, we don't know enough to say "it all started with a singularity". I get the impression the idea that there are conditions where the laws of physics just stop working is becoming old hat and that the singularity is becoming the "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" of cosmology -- something everyone has heard about that lingers in the textbooks and the public consciousness long after those in the field have discarded the notion.
I don't know where you heard that; so far as I know the singularity is still a consensus. The Big Bang Theory (which involves a singularity) is widely accepted, though it has been modified from the form in which is was originally conceived (Cosmic Inflation was added for reasons that aren't relevant here). It also has predictive power: It predicted the results of the COsmic Background Explorer (COBE)'s observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation. For a more detailed explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Background_Explorer
I hope wikipedia is considered an OK source around here. It generally agrees with other sources when I look at it. On another note, here's a fun t-shirt about the subject: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://xkcd.com/store/science_shirt_back_thumb.png&imgrefurl=http://amandabauer.blogspot.com/2007/06/science-it-works-bitches.html&usg=__p_yOQKIVXrFs2KRwzjRlcXRfXJ0=&h=207&w=300&sz=27&hl=en&start=9&um=1&tbnid=kCxFOPE_PbsYkM:&tbnh=80&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dscience%2Bit%2Bworks%2Bshirt%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1 .
Posted by: Nebula99 | November 11, 2009 9:53 PM
Ugh, blockquote FAIL. The quote was supposed to extend until "discarded the notion." Sorry.
Posted by: Yubal
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November 11, 2009 9:59 PM
doh !
I just understood why they always come up with the same old lame arguments, because they refuse to keep up with the "latest" developments in science, like the +30 year old RNA-World Model, which is pretty much self-consistent without any major interplay of proteins or DNA. OK, water, salts, and a little basic organic chemistry (like lipids) would be nice stuff to have around in a RNA-World.
Take home message is: proteins are not thought to "self-assemble", they were most likely always encoded by RNA and a little help of other stuff floating around.
Concerning the question why its always has to be 10:
This issue can be answered numerological (I don't believe that stuff, but I once read a book about it)
In Numerology, every one digit number that is followed by one zero maintains its original "personal meaning" but is elevated to a higher amplitude which makes it stronger, more extensive, more relevant. e.g. the world-number 4 turns into 40 indicates a tremendous material struggle like the 40 fasting days in the bible. In the case of 1, which is the god-number, the 10 symbolizes the inherent will of god, that one that is not be questioned.
A human has typically 5 fingers on each extremity, which is taken together with the 5 senses humans have the reason why 5 is the human-number in numerology. The fact that we have two limbs each makes it 10 (or 20 if you count all digits).
Posted by: Yubal
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November 11, 2009 10:05 PM
P.S.
OK, nobody has ever re-created a RNA world either, but I assure you, there ARE people working on it, with limited, but countable success.
Science 27 February 2009 323:1143
Posted by: IanR | November 11, 2009 10:22 PM
I've always found the "fine tuned argument" funny.
If polar bears are well adapted to the Arctic (but not the tropics), does that mean God made them. Is this a "divine ecology" argument?
What the fine tuned argument is saying is that is that the universe is "well suited." Who cares?
Posted by: PaulBurnett
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November 11, 2009 10:31 PM
PZ wrote: "Dembski and some guy named Sean McDowell have a new list of Ten Questions..."
Sean McDowell has his own website - http://seanmcdowell.org/ - the header says "Worldview Ministries" and contains references to some of Sean's publications such as "Apologetics for a New Generation," "Evidence for the Resurrection," and "Jesus: Dead or Alive? A defense of the resurrection and its significance for teenagers." McDowell and Dembski co-wrote a book last year, "PZ wrote: "Dembski and some guy named Sean McDowell have a new list of Ten Questions..."
Sean McDowell has his own website - http://seanmcdowell.org/ - the header says "Worldview Ministries" and contains references to some of Sean's publications such as "Apologetics for a New Generation," "Evidence for the Resurrection," and "Jesus: Dead or Alive? A defense of the resurrection and its significance for teenagers." McDowell and Dembski co-wrote a book last year, "Understanding Intelligent Design."
Yessir, you can sure tell that intelligent design creationism is all about science and has nothing to do with religion!
Posted by: PaulBurnett
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November 11, 2009 10:35 PM
#198 - yikes - it didn't look like that when I previewed it...forgive double text. Mea culpa.
Posted by: gma | November 11, 2009 10:42 PM
#36
"I have just one question for IDers. If God created us and God is infallible, then why are we so poorly designed?"
Sorry, Robert. You forgot the story of the bite in the forbidden apple. That's why creationist morons claim that their imaginary sky daddy (She, He or It best abbreviated to SHIT) created random mutations to make humans more poorly designed than the fictitious Adam and Eve.
You have to study all possible fabrics before you can claim that the emperor has no clothes :)
Posted by: R0b | November 11, 2009 11:10 PM
Dembski has been using a previous version of this list for over five years.
I'm surprised that he's still claiming that "Intelligent design, by introducing specified complexity, makes the detection of design rigorous." Dembski personally came up with the concept of "specified complexity" over a decade ago, and it has failed to gain any traction since then. He continues to talk as if it's a main staple of ID, despite the fact that neither he nor any of his ID colleagues actually use it to make "detection of design rigorous".
Posted by: tresmal | November 11, 2009 11:29 PM
On a related note there's this from Casey Luskin which leads to this.
Posted by: Mark
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November 11, 2009 11:36 PM
Awesome video.
One guy at the end of the video asks something like, "If quantum fluctuations are able to create universes, will we ever observe it?"
And Krauss answers that it's possible, and that the large hadron collider could help in that respect.
Which put the question in my mind - what are the chances that our own universe was created by a large hadron collider?
Posted by: cmflyer
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November 11, 2009 11:53 PM
See that number? Snake scale. It's a snake scale! Now watch the replicant take the pleasure from the snake.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM
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November 12, 2009 12:07 AM
Sastra (#176):
I hate to quibble with someone who is probably more learned with me on this point, but...well...here goes. Keep in mind that we're essentially in agreement and this really is a quibble. You write:
Yes: but it's not the case that supernatural claims can't be falsified.
I suppose that could be true in principle, depending upon the nature of the supernatural claim, and the conditions that you can get independent observers to agree would constitute falsification, if observed. In practice, it is the consequences of supernatural claims in the real world that are in principle falsifiable, but the general claim is more elusive.
"Jesus Christ was divine. The Shroud of Turin is a miraculous relic that testifies to Jesus's divinity."
No matter how much evidence is adduced that shows that the Shroud of Turin is a clever piece of Medieval showmanship, this does not amount to a falsification of the first claim. In fact, it is difficult to imagine how we could get an objective description of what it would mean to be 'divine' in the first place, much less get independent observers to agree on how such a proposition could be falsified. But also note that the suspension of disbelief as to the claim of Jesus's divinity does not imply, in turn, that a person must then confess a faith in Jesus.
Now on this point, you write:
This is only true if you add in "faith" -- the commitment to bend the evidence, and yourself, any way you have to, in order to keep a belief. This isn't a legitimate move in science.
And yet, scientists (who are human beings) routinely defend views that are outliers within their own disciplines, often against the weight of evidence. Bruno Maddox has an interesting take on such an episode from Darwin's career.
Was he a poor scientist in this instance?
Posted by: RC | November 12, 2009 12:11 AM
Susannah @ 192
I know, I know....but the slowly dying optimist in me thinks we can at least get kids asking the right questions in class, make them think. The comments here occasionally gets me down since there is an awful lot of critique but not much *discussed* action. I'm sure people do things to promote science outside pharyngula. Just wanted to take it a bit further!
Still willing too, if people have ideas.
Posted by: MadScientist | November 12, 2009 12:22 AM
@Sastra #159: I've always found the association with Francis Collins to be rather bizarre. As I see it, Collins only opposes ID because it is not his own version of creationism. Collins is a creationist; there is absolutely no doubt about that. So I am always bewildered by claims that Collins is an ally against the proponents of creationism; Collins is clearly only an ally against the proponents of a version of creationism which differs from his own.
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes | November 12, 2009 12:28 AM
@David B.
The pastor in this case has the advantage over the science teacher. The science teacher is not free to make up a lot of unsubstantiated bullshit. When I was in grade school, a priest would come to class on Friday mornings to answer questions regarding the nature of God (but mostly answered questions regarding whether certain acts counted as sins)...anyway, it was then I realized that he could say any crazy shit that he wanted, and backed into a corner could say, well...It's a mystery!
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 12, 2009 12:51 AM
It's not. To quote Sean "not the biology one" Carroll, "singularities are just signs that the theory is breaking down, and has to be replaced by something better." The successful predictions of big bang cosmology (cosmic microwave background, relative abundances of the elements, etc.) pertain to later phases of the cosmic expansion, after the Planck epoch. We can't say that much about the first 10^-43 seconds without a good theory of quantum gravity, and as yet, the only kind of quantum gravity we've been able to understand — defined via gauge/gravity duality as the dual of a conformal field theory — only works in a universe which doesn't look like ours.
Posted by: Snoof | November 12, 2009 12:58 AM
#203:
That reminds me of a scifi short story I read a few years back, by David Brin, I think.
The basic idea was that someone discovered that black holes created universes - each singularity was its own universe. Also, universes "inherited" characteristics from their "parent" universe - they'd either have the same or very similar physical constants and laws.
This led to the conclusion that there were more life-bearing universes out there than non-life-bearing ones, since life-bearing universes spawned _more_ baby universes; specifically, they were full of intelligent lifeforms which would do things like build black-hole bombs and black-hole reactors and the like.
Posted by: dannystevens.myopenid.com
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November 12, 2009 1:20 AM
What these bastards are doing is evil and scary.
They are not interested in convincing any of us with their dumb shit.
They are purposely, and with planning, driving a wedge between credulous young minds and their teachers. They only need a few kids to think "this seems neat but my teacher is part of a conspiracy against it that I don't understand".
It makes me want to find ways to blast their strategy to hell.
Posted by: Colin Meier | November 12, 2009 2:09 AM
PZ, you're missing their point. In the accompanying workbook and tutorial materials, they provide a small lump of clay which you can mold into anything - say, Odontolabis femoralis. Then, once you've fired the clay in a kiln, and painted it carefully, you re-apply the Mount Rushmore argument.
In this variant of ID, obviously, each student gets a chance to be Creator! Unless, of course, they eat their clay, or throw it at someone, in which case they get whipped, thus learning about not 'sparing the rod'.
Posted by: Colin
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November 12, 2009 2:11 AM
PZ, you're missing their point. In the accompanying workbook and tutorial materials, they provide a small lump of clay which you can mold into anything - say, Odontolabis femoralis. Then, once you've fired the clay in a kiln, and painted it carefully, you re-apply the Mount Rushmore argument.
In this variant of ID, obviously, each student gets a chance to be Creator! Unless, of course, they eat their clay, or throw it at someone, in which case they get whipped, thus learning about not 'sparing the rod'.
Posted by: rgz | November 12, 2009 3:55 AM
I come from another forum where a creationist posted what he believes is a demolishing argument, he seemed pretty satisfied with himself. As if this argument was some sort of rotund accomplishment product of divine inspiration.
He then proceeded to beget the question literally right away.
I've come to the conclusion that, not only are they blind to the circular nature of their thoughts, circular arguments actually entice them, attracts them.
Because they reaffirm themselves they believe them solid, and the simpler the circularity the better because it seems a "more solid argument" to them.
What I suspect is that they love circular arguments because they have just the right size for their brain.
Any smaller and they'd notice its silliness, any longer and they wouldn't be able to follow them.
Posted by: Kel, OM | November 12, 2009 4:00 AM
You couldn't expect anything less from a creationist other than a circular argument. They start with the answer (the bible is literally correct) and then go on a pseudological journey that inevitably gets back to the position they started with. Where it seems profound to them, yet it's entirely circular.
Posted by: marvin | November 12, 2009 4:09 AM
I just dropped a box of pencils on the floor and one came to rest on top of the other with about one tenth on of its length on one side and the remainder on the other. This strongly resembled a lever and pivot. With a degree of engineering I was able to both lift an object a vast distance with a small movement and by moveing the object I could lift a heavy object with a small force. I was just wondering according to question 5 was that just chance or am I in fact channeling the presence of a divine designer.
Posted by: windy | November 12, 2009 5:30 AM
Scott, I would have thought you had been hanging around Pharyngula long enough not to be impressed by the 'science can't say anything about love' argument. Just because you can't directly measure something, and you can imagine some unfalsifiable alternative, doesn't mean that 'science can't say anything about the claim one way or another'. Of course, there are several ways of scientifically studying emotions. Leaving aside the difficulty of defining love in dogs - is the hormonal state of the dog consistent with having an affectionate response when it greets you? Put the dog in an MRI, does its brain activity indicate cool plotting or emotional responses? Or you could construct an experiment: if you lock the dog by itself in a separate room with a guaranteed supply of Kibble and access to the yard, will it be content to stay there?
Posted by: Christophe Thill | November 12, 2009 6:14 AM
Complexity again ! I fell tempted to re-use the "you keep using that word..." quote, but it's becoming repetitive. So I'll just say that our poorm man's Isaac Newton, though he once was said to be a specialist of information theory, seems to has a very poor grasp of that notion.
To get complexity, you just need to have something whose description requires a large quantity of information. Pour some molten lead in cold water, and the "nugget" you will get will be a very complex thing. Another good example is a random ink blot. So... where's the designer in those cases?
Posted by: ConcernedJoe | November 12, 2009 6:29 AM
#211 yes but I'll add that they know the appeal of pseudoscience - it requires about zero hard work, about zero inquisitiveness, about zero scholarly grasp of fundamental mathematical and scientific principles and formulas. It has no wrong answer as long as the you conform to the basic meme. It is easy - while real science is hard - requires intelligent inquisitiveness, it requires critical thinking but critical in the sense of truth seeking not personal truth affirming. Real science requires study, knowledge and application of laws proven to be true and useful and universal. It is complex and it is repleat with failure, uncertainty, incorrectness, and "back to the drawing board".
It is the antithesis of religion where all can be expert - where memes rule, and where faith is a virture.
Heck - I spent many sleepless nights in the lab - suspect many here have - now that one thinks about it - doesn't CS have student appeal :-D!
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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November 12, 2009 8:43 AM
The Big Bang theory does not require a singularity. Stephen Hawking was talking about ways around a singularity a quarter century ago. Theoretical physicists have been talking about brane collisions and negative pressure from string winding for a decade.
Our current theories break down under extreme conditions of heat and pressure. That's no reason to assume that the universe itself does as well.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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November 12, 2009 9:06 AM
@Snoof #210: Stephen Baxter's Manifold: Time does that on an even bigger scale. (Well, it is Stephen Baxter, so no surprise.)
Posted by: Sastra
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November 12, 2009 9:10 AM
Scot Hatfield, OM #205 wrote:
In order to talk about falsifying -- or confirming -- the existence of the supernatural, we'd need a definition clear enough that there's an agreement on what evidence would count for it, or count against it. As you say, that is not in principle impossible; it is, in fact, relatively easy in many cases. If supernaturalists believe they've got strong evidence or argument, they never play games about "science can't say anything either way about the supernatural." The other view is now demonstrably wrong. Their claims become comprehensible.
Where it gets hard is when you get to people shifting the burden of proof, when evidence and argument fail them. That's a "faith" move, designed to save a claim that would otherwise be cast aside as unlikely.
But they do not, as good scientists, bend evidence beyond all reason, in a manner which shows that nothing could or would convince them to change their minds. Darwin did, after all, eventually recognize and admit his "blunder" about the Spean Bridge, when discoveries demonstrated that his own theory could no longer explain what the glacier theory could.
The process of science includes people making mistakes: it doesn't involve making mistakes which can't be corrected.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM
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November 12, 2009 9:28 AM
Windy #217 wrote:
Leaving aside the difficulty of defining love in dogs - is the hormonal state of the dog consistent with having an affectionate response when it greets you? Put the dog in an MRI, does its brain activity indicate cool plotting or emotional responses? Or you could construct an experiment: if you lock the dog by itself in a separate room with a guaranteed supply of Kibble and access to the yard, will it be content to stay there?
Sorry, Windy, but I'm not impressed by these counter-examples. Suppose we take your first case, and we see a predictable correlation between the level of some hormone and a response scored by independent observers via some metric as 'affectionate'. Let us further stipulate that we determine that there is a particularly high level of hormone activity associated with just one or few persons, toward which the dog is especially 'affectionate' by the same metric. Have we demonstrated that the dog loves the folk in question? I'm skeptical. All we've shown is a correlation between a chemical and a behavior.
After all, dogs are the product of millenia of (largely unintended) artificial selection by humans. It would be odd if they had not acquired a tendency to engage in displays that enhance their fitness when in close contact with humans. Our intimate relations with Lassie make us all too willing to anthropomorphize our impressions of what those displays mean to the other organism.
Consider: octopi are very intelligent, and will interact rather benignly with individual humans outside their tanks in aquariums, especially during feeding times. Some octopi are described as 'shy', and others 'friendly', and they can distinguish between different humans by touch alone. This video from MBARI is fascinating....but how many here want to sign up for the proposition that 'Some octopi ENJOY interacting with humans', much less grant them human-like emotions on the basis of behavior?
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 12, 2009 9:44 AM
Have we demonstrated that the dog loves the folk in question? I'm skeptical. All we've shown is a correlation between a chemical and a behavior. - Scott Hatfield
Nice piece of goalpost-shifting there. Your original claim was that "My dog loves me" is unfalsifiable, not unproveable. What is beyond reasonable question is that there can be relevant empirical evidence for and against such a claim - as there can with all but the most carefully evidence-proofed supernatural claims. There's certainly much better evidence that my dog loves me (she welcomes me more effusively if I have been away longer, seeks me out for attention even when she is not looking for food, etc.) than that "God" does!
This video from MBARI is fascinating....but how many here want to sign up for the proposition that 'Some octopi ENJOY interacting with humans', much less grant them human-like emotions on the basis of behavior?
Not on the basis of a single video, and my initial stance would be highly sceptical (octopi are not social, their brains are very, very different from our own, unlike those of dogs) - but give me enough evidence of behaviour and I certainly would.
Posted by: Martin Brock | November 12, 2009 10:14 AM
Krauss seems certain that falsifiable science will lead astrophysicists to "the wrong answer", concerning the curvature of the Universe, a trillion years from now, but he also seems certain that his vantage point somehow reveals "the right answer". How does he know that some observational limitation of his own vantage point, beyond his perception, doesn't also lead him astray? I can't tell him what this limitation is, of course, but Krauss' whole point about the astrophysicists a trillion years from now is that they won't know their limitation either.
General Relativity seems a useful a theory of the curvature of an observer's local space-time. Apparently, it significantly improves calculations in the Global Positioning System, so I'm happy to have it, but Krauss (and everyone else) might stop pondering the ultimate extents and fates of the Universe without doing any harm. I doubt that his academic obsession really is more ennobling than priests pondering angels on the point of a needle ... not that there's anything wrong with that.
Posted by: heironymous | November 12, 2009 10:30 AM
Simple Odds Experiment
Flip a coin 10 times. Keep track of Heads vs. Tails.
Sample:
H T H T T T H T H T
Calculate the percentage chance against that exact pattern from occurring
Answer > 99.9 %
What is your conclusion?
Posted by: Alex | November 12, 2009 10:52 AM
The penis argument should really be used more often.
Posted by: Tomato Addict | November 12, 2009 11:54 AM
Clearly Bill Dembski has no penis. It is impossible that such a structure could have evolved independently in so many species. Where are the transitional half-crocodile half-penis. transitional fossils? Ray Comfort has already demonstrated how the penis is undeniably intelligently designed (except if was family hour and he used a banana instead).
PS: Dibs on "Croco-penis".
Posted by: SteveM | November 12, 2009 12:14 PM
Re Christophe Thill @218:
To be fair, which is more than Dumbski deserves, he specifically says "complexity that cannot arise due to chance".
The problem is that he only allows for "chance" or "design" as methods to achieve complexity, eliminating evolution a priori.
Posted by: Megzor66 | November 12, 2009 12:17 PM
@Martin Brock #226, - In his lecture at the Quantum to Cosmos festival, which I just watched here: http://www.q2cfestival.com/play.php?lecture_id=7742 Krauss does actually mention your point, briefly acknowledging his own limitations and the possibility that he could have been led astray, although I agree with you that he does not give a sufficient answer to that point.
Posted by: MJ | November 12, 2009 12:42 PM
Ah, PZ, why do yourself of the injustice of assuming your grad students will be male?
Posted by: middlekk | November 12, 2009 1:04 PM
We should come up with "10 Questions Your Intelligent Design Theorist Should Answer"
A couple of suggestions:
1. What was the mechanism that the "intelligent designer" used to create the bacterial flagellum? Positing no "miracle" insertion, what was the process that led to its instant appearance? Where is the evidence for this process?
2. Why does the "modern" bacterial flagellum appear to be assembled from genes located in disparate locations from the bacterial genome that need to be activated in a specific sequence? How does this support the concept that the flagellum was created whole and complete? Why is there not a single flagellum gene in a single locus that goes "poof"?
3. Why does the "modern" bacterial flagellum appear to share genetic homology with the secretory systems of other bacteria? Is the secretory system also irreducibly complex? If so, see question 2.
I'm sure there are better questions than these. But, in my reading on ID, I have yet to see satisfactory answers to them.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 12, 2009 2:36 PM
Giant Squid theory.
Molly nomination.
Yes, why?
Posted by: Kel, OM | November 12, 2009 3:32 PM
I think only two questions are needed: what did the designer do, and how can we test for it. Fuck this inference nonsense, you can't conclude unicorns by hearing hoofbeats. They need a testable hypothesis of the designer in action in this world and they need to demonstrate this is the case. Otherwise their argument stays as an argument from personal incredulity "I can't see how the Darwinian process could build X, therefore designer" - not really an answer to anything.Posted by: Kel, OM | November 12, 2009 4:10 PM
I thought that was to do with the expanding galaxies beyond the event horizon and the disappearance of the cosmic background radiation. Two of the best evidences for the big bang would not be seen to us any more. It could be that we're led astray now, but the successful nature of the big bang theory holds that we can look to as near the beginning of time as possible.Posted by: AC | November 12, 2009 6:15 PM
Hate to break it to you Scott, but that's all love is. The experience of it and the value people assign to it are another matter.
Posted by: Martin Brock | November 12, 2009 6:16 PM
The Kolmogorov complexity of a "random" sequence of 0s and 1s, is practically zero. The complexity of "random" ink blot depends on how "random" it is, but the complexity of a screen full of random pixels is very high, while the complexity of a completely "white" screen (all pixels having the same value) is very high.
Posted by: Martin Brock | November 12, 2009 6:20 PM
Correction: The Kolmogorov complexity of a "random" sequence of 0s and 1s is practically the length of the sequence. The complexity of a screen full of random pixels is very high, while the complexity of a completely "white" screen (all pixels having the same value) is very low. I only had that totally reversed.
Posted by: Martin Brock | November 12, 2009 6:28 PM
That's the hypothetical limitation of the hypothetical astrophysicists a trillion years from now. Krauss' limitation would be something else.
But we might be led to believe the big bang theory when it is "really" false. All of the "supporting evidence" we have for the big bang might also be consistent with some other theory that we can hardly imagine because of our limited perception.
Posted by: Martin Brock | November 12, 2009 6:37 PM
Well, I don't blame him for following the standard model to its logical conclusions. He has no choice really. Formal models are all we can ever know, but we shouldn't forget that we only know the models and not the nature we seek to describe with them.
Krauss' work seems a bit more useful than internet porn, which is more than I'll say for this site, but I wouldn't give him any tax dollars. If he wants to ponder cosmology in priestly poverty, like Mendel or something, maybe I'd toss a dime in his collection plate now and then.
On the other hand, internet porn is a billion dollar business.
Posted by: Kel, OM | November 12, 2009 7:01 PM
Are you done with your jabs at this site? Sorry but it's getting tiresome. You're pointing out the obvious, that is this site is a blog. Congratulations, the whole world should stand in awe that you're pointing out that there's not much relevance to a site such as this. Why go on about it? Do you think it makes you sound insightful? That you're the only one proclaiming that the emperor has no clothes? That you have some deep insight into the way people behave that they would only see as self-evident if someone pointed it out to them?*obligatory internet = serious business*
Surely you can engage in conversation without being a total tool, is that too much to ask?
Posted by: SlantedScience | November 12, 2009 7:12 PM
Is the "Gumby" character/depiction they use as a bullet point copyrighted?
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM
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November 12, 2009 8:49 PM
Knockgoats #224 wrote:
Nice piece of goalpost-shifting there. Your original claim was that "My dog loves me" is unfalsifiable, not unproveable.
Um, I shifted no goalposts. I was replying to windy, who was attempting to show how science could adduce evidence for the proposition 'my dog loves me.' Obviously, by the way I tore into that counter-example, I'm attempting to show that windy was not actually demonstrating 'my dog loves me', but merely a correlation between chemistry and behavior. But, even if that correlation was not demonstrated, we would not be justified in saying that the claim 'my dog loves me' has been falsified.
AC #237 wrote:
Hate to break it to you Scott, but that's all love is. The experience of it and the value people assign to it are another matter.
Hmmph. Does anyone bother to read the original post around here anymore? I was making the point that there are all sorts of claims that are difficult, if not impossible to do science on---not just supernatural claims held without regard to experimental test. Obviously, the subjective experience and value assigned to what is called 'love' is likely to fall in such a category.
And, frankly, when I consider the rather stubborn insistence of many here, that you can use science to falsify the supernatural, I'm starting to see the latter claim as a non-falsifiable hypothesis. The irony!
Posted by: Martin Brock | November 12, 2009 9:54 PM
No. Jabs are the primary business of this site.
Then why are you reading my comments and responding? Do you read all of the comments? I can't keep up. The site is very popular.
Thanks for the recommendation, but I'm much too humble to let you stand in awe. Please be seated.
Because it's there?
Awesome will do.
Am I the only one? Which emperor are we discussing?
No. I'm only playing the same game that the blogger plays along with most of his followers. I don't limit my remarks to the usual suspects, because the Catholics and the Left Behinders get enough jabs from others here.
I was an atheist when I was twelve and have never much departed the fold. I call myself a naturalistic pantheist now, because I like the way of thinking and appreciate ancient theology in allegorical terms and because I've hung out with atheists for decades but don't like being one of the crowd.
I know how to "fit in" here, and I choose otherwise. I don't deny it. I'm one of You, but what's the point of being a skeptic if I don't question my own assumptions? I've been where younger atheists are, so I've questioned their assumptions a lot. It's a habit. It's where my head is. If it bothers you, you should ignore me. I'm not out to get on your nerves, in spite of what you think, but I feel no obligation to tailor my words to your tastes either.
Posted by: Cowcakes
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November 12, 2009 11:20 PM
"We know that human beings build penis-shaped objects; that does not imply that Bill Dembski's penis is made of silicone and has an on-off switch, let alone that someone made it in an injection-molding machine."
We can however speculate that he does spend far too much time playing with his own penis-shaped object. There may be truth in the abnomition of "Stop it, or you'll go blind" (To the truth and bleeding obvious)
Posted by: Kel, OM | November 13, 2009 12:03 AM
I was under the impression that you're intelligent enough to make a point without being a borderline troll. That you have the capacity to push boundaries and say something insightful, instead you focus on facile and argumentative shit as if getting a rise is a commendable goal. I'm all for that, what my gripe is the manner by which you do it. You're being a tool, which is a shame because from the rest of your posts it seems like you might have something interesting to say. If you were actually doing that, then I could see your point. But you're not. And if you are then drop the jabs. It's not questioning anything, it's just showing that you're simultaenously trying to say your above this place while still being a part of it.I actually like this place for the reason that you're pretending to espouse. From being here, I've had my assumptions questioned, learnt a hell of a lot more about the natural world and been exposed to people who have thought completely the opposite to me. Hell, even in the thread where you were arguing definitions of atheism I engaged you where it forced me to think.
I'm not asking you to tailor your words to my taste, nor do I feel you're out to get on my nerves. You said something which I found vacuous and idiotic, and I called you out on it. Just saying if you have something interesting to say you can do so without being a complete tool about it.Posted by: Ed Darrell | November 13, 2009 4:16 AM
Here we go! Intelligent design in beetles:
http://www.ceramicbeetles.com/dale10.html
Alas, any hope of life sort of gets fired out of these things -- but I'm sure Dembski can explain that away.
Posted by: Ed Darrell | November 13, 2009 4:37 AM
Good old Josh McDowell, the guy who ruined any chances he had to be reasonable when he wrote a book called Evidence that Demands a Verdict, and then claimed that one of the proofs the Bible is true is that there are so many copies of the thing.
In other words, if you take any statement, put it on a photocopier and post the copies far and wide, it becomes true.
Why ten questions? That's what they could fit on one page, and so it's easy to photocopy, and as all McDowells learn from an early age, the more photocopies one has, the more true one's thoughts are.
It's a wonder they don't worship Xerox machines.
Posted by: windy | November 13, 2009 5:19 AM
Those weren't "counterexamples", they were ways to study the question experimentally. Lots of scientific ideas can't be falsified by direct observation, but they generate testable hypotheses. Like the theory of abiogenesis or common ancestry.
Do you think it's been established that emotions are dependent on brain chemistry in humans? How do you think that has been demonstrated, if not by a "correlation between chemistry and behavior"?
BTW, do you think it's equally impossible to know whether dogs feel pain?
This would apply equally well to small children, if you replace artificial selection by natural.
I agree with your larger point, just saying that IMO that example is a little unfortunate (it reminds me too much of the common cliche of "science can never explain love"), and your claim that we "obviously" can't do science on these things is downright bizarre.
Posted by: Knockgoats | November 13, 2009 6:00 AM
It is true that supernatural claims are often non-falsifiable, but (here's key point), there are claims other than supernatural claims that are also non-falsifiable!
Classic example: 'My dog loves me.' Many of might well believe this fervently, but we must keep in mind that Fido might be an Evil Canine Genius, who just displays affection to keep the Kibbles and Bits a-flowin'. What is like to be a dog? Who knows? It's an inherently subjective claim, and very difficult (if not impossible) to test. It may well be true, of course. It's just not obvious how science (which requires objective evidence) is going to be able to say anything about the claim one way or the other. - Scott Hatfield@170
Scott, #170 was your first post in the thread, and in it, you make the claim that "My dog loves me" is unfalsifiable. Then @217 windy gave two ways of falsifying the claim; @223 you switched to saying that if the dog passed the first of these tests (you ignored the second, behavioural one), that would not prove it did love you. That's goalpost-shifting. The plain fact is there are scientific procedures relevant to determining the truth of "My dog loves me". Why not just admit your example was badly chosen?
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM
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November 13, 2009 9:55 AM
The plain fact is there are scientific procedures relevant to determining the truth of "My dog loves me". Why not just admit your example was badly chosen?
Sorry, but I don't think scientists are in the truth business. I think they are in the model-building and model-testing business, and that one of the very things that makes science so successful is that it limits itself to the sort of claims that can be subject to experimental test. No one has adduced any potential line of investigation that would actually demonstrate that a dog has an internal emotional experience akin to what a human reports when they say 'I love x.'
Nor did Windy, as you claim, give two ways of falsifying the claim 'my dog loves me.' Instead, Windy essentially offered two research programs that would attempt to falsify predictions that would be expected consequences of the dog's supposed affection. But, if the expected correlation between chemistry and behavior was not observed, would the dog owner then be compelled to reject the hypothesis 'my dog loves me'? I think not. The emotion could still be real and present in Fido without aligning itself to our expectations of a given hormonal level.
So I don't see any goalpost shifting, I see a failure to properly conceptualize these sort of problems. In my experience, that's associated with an uncritical willingness of many readers here to embrace a phony, triumphalist vision of science. My example may be badly chosen for those who are so used to assuming that science can 'prove' anything in principle. If I can appropriate Laplace, I have no need of that hypothesis!
Cheers...SH
Posted by: Paul | November 13, 2009 11:01 AM
The fact that someone can hold an idea when ignoring evidence does not mean the evidence does not exist. Just because a woman can believe "my husband loves me" while he's beating her regularly does not mean the beating cannot be taken for evidence against said love being present.
Honestly, I feel like I'm reading Silver Fox.
Posted by: John Scanlon, FCD | November 13, 2009 11:25 AM
I didn't think that was the question, which you (Scott) originally raised thus:
See, I have a theory that goes something like this: Love is not at all what you feel, or think you feel, or report feeling, it's only what you do.
While the internal emotional experience of the dog is probably not knowable as Truth, I and others would maintain that hypotheses relating to it certainly are more or less falsifiable based on behavioural, physiological or neurological evidence (including indirect evidence and analogy between species such as you describe, 'akin to what a human reports'). However, on my theory, the internal emotional experience of the dog (or of yourself or your spouse or whatever) is of no decisive value whatsoever with respect to whether it/you/he/she loves some person/object.
Does X willingly and actively care for Y in whtever ways it knows how, NOT limited to 'displays of affection'? (It's not fair to add 'not conditional on reward', because if you starve and ignore your dog it might well have fallen out of love with you already). If so then X loves Y. 'X loves Y' is falsified if such behaviour does not occur.
If you need constant or escalating reward, or an audience, or need to talk about it to yourself or others, you don't love anyone. If the dog has no opportunity to help you in need, or fails to do so when it could, then it is not necessarily an evil genius but may simply be a shallow and unimaginative animal, presently incapable of active love or withholding it for some doggy reason.
Of course, it's only a theory.
Posted by: Sastra
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November 13, 2009 11:29 AM
Scot Hatfield )M #252 wrote:
Ah, is that what you meant then when you talked about the feasibility of science's ability to subject "my dog loves me" to experimental test? Reduce the statement down to complete subjectivity? If so, then I think you're right, but trivially so. And I think your analogy from "the supernatural" to "what an internal experience feels like" is a poor one.
There are all sorts of widely-agreed-upon ways one could take the statement "my dog loves me" and subject it to empirical verification or falsification. There are all sorts of widely-agreed-upon examples of what would be a supernatural phenomenon subject to empirical verification or falsification. The fact that one can be a runaway skeptic about the first claim doesn't mean that one must be a runaway skeptic about the other claims -- unless you are advocating runaway skepticism about every possible claim one can make, and flying full-tilt boogie towards solipsism (how do you really really know other people have minds at all? Science can't say! Big deal!)
A better analogy to "my dog loves me" would be another emotion-related question: do you love God? Does God love you? Should you love God? Questions 'outside' of science.
But we're talking about the existence of supernatural forces, energies, spirits, or personal beings, which would be like considering the existence of the dog. Unless, of course, you are suggesting that the supernatural is somehow "made up" of emotions.
Posted by: ellenjanuary | November 14, 2009 11:45 PM
A little late, but... great video. Thanks muchly. A point of relevant irrelevance, if no one minds? I'm looking over here at this stack of books - the Koran, the Bible, the Gita, Dawkins' River out of Eden, Larson's Evolution - I can accept the science in the science books and accept the possibilities in the others; and have no problems. What's wrong with the rest of the world; I mean, I'm supposed to be the crazy one. :)
Posted by: Larry W. Jewell | November 15, 2009 6:19 PM
Make 'em play by the rules!
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/playing_by_the_rules
Posted by: god_au_natural | November 16, 2009 11:19 AM
I agree with middlekk that there should be a "10 questions to ask about intelligent design," which is addressed to those espousing ID. Actually, that's what I was hoping PZ's post was before I started reading it. I'm in an area of Tennessee where science teachers routinely teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolutionary theory. Wouldn't it be nice if students had a nice list of questions to ask their biology teachers that exposed the gaps in knowledge such teachers have?
Posted by: SteveS
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November 16, 2009 2:30 PM
"We know that human beings build penis-shaped objects; that does not imply that Bill Dembski's penis is made of silicone and has an on-off switch, let alone that someone made it in an injection-molding machine."
I think, if anyone cares to check, that Dembski's penis *is* a dildo. He lost the original just prior to the Dover trial.
Posted by: SteveS
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November 16, 2009 2:39 PM
"We know that human beings build penis-shaped objects; that does not imply that Bill Dembski's penis is made of silicone and has an on-off switch, let alone that someone made it in an injection-molding machine."
I think, if anyone cares to check, that Dembski's penis *is* a dildo. He lost the original just prior to the Dover trial.
Posted by: injection-molding | November 18, 2009 5:57 AM
Checkout jos.plastopedia.com for plastics, polymer, injection moulding and packaging jobs.
http://jobs.plastopedia.com
Posted by: Malati dasi - Australia | November 19, 2009 1:31 AM
The Christian cosmology may not fit in with what Lawrence Krauss is saying but it perfectly fits in with the Vedic account of cosmology about multiverse, dimensions more than the 4 we know, diferent laws of physics in the different universes and other new weird ideas physicists are dreaming about.
The more these guy say about these things the more I believe in "God".
Posted by: Biology Teacher | December 31, 2009 11:56 PM
Academics is the UK’s fastest growing teacher recruitment agency, specialising in long-term and permanent placements for qualified teaching staff, middle and senior leadership professionals and non-teaching staff.
Regards.
http://www.academicsltd.co.uk
Posted by: Chemical Engineer
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March 12, 2010 11:49 PM
The world does not pay for random engineering design (for obvious reasons!), but it is amazing how the world will pay homage to random engineering (of evolution) all to avoid God so they can be their own little god.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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March 12, 2010 11:53 PM
Well, where is the conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary deity. Evidence that will pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers as being of divine, and not natural, origin. Claims lacking that evidence, like for your deity (which one of the 1000+ invented by man do you mean) above, are worthless.Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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March 12, 2010 11:56 PM
Bzzt. Wrong. Very wrong. Evolution is a fact, no one pays homage to it; atheism is a lack of belief in gods, full stop. Nothing more. It's religious types who can't think outside of a god; no matter how ridiculous, they have to squish a god into things somehow. I don't believe in gods, and I don't think I am one either.
Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM
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March 12, 2010 11:57 PM
Simply amazing how some engineers seem to think that they can transfer the experience in design to biology.
Would you like it if a biologist insisted that you got everything wrong in your field?
Posted by: Chemical Engineer
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March 20, 2010 1:47 PM
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says all things decay in their orderliness. Only a Mind (as in God or yourselves) can bring orderliness out of nothing. God desires to download his code into you! God is love, enjoy the download and quit fighting it!
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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March 20, 2010 1:53 PM
Zombie Thread! Returned to Life Again by an engineer who does not grok the SLOT.
Excellent!
beg your pardon?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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March 20, 2010 1:55 PM
This isn't evidence for your imaginary deity, but rather a bad case of sophistry with presuppositions. And you are wrong about the second law of thermo. What god? What deity? Show some real physical evidence, like an eternally burning bush. Then you have something. Until then, quit showing your obvious ignorance to the world. You only embarrass yourself.Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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March 20, 2010 2:05 PM
Ha ha! Theology is fun!
God desires to fill your crust with lemony meringue! God is pie, enjoy the slice and have some à la mode!
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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March 20, 2010 2:10 PM
Weee!
This is fun, even during XXXXXing Euphemism Week!
Posted by: David Marjanović
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March 20, 2010 2:19 PM
Wrong.
Instead, it says that the entropy of an isolated system cannot decrease. An isolated system is one that neither matter nor other forms of energy can enter or leave.
Hint: the Earth is not an isolated system.
So, when water freezes, turning into ice crystals, that's a miracle?
No. It's electrostatic attraction and repulsion. All you need to make order out of nothing is a force.
Evidence, please.
For both claims – that God exists, and that he wants to download stuff.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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March 20, 2010 2:21 PM
God desires to download his code into you! - Some loon
Sounds to me like your "god" is a rapist.
I'm getting seriously worried that my son wants to be an engineer: so many of them are complete fuckwits, either creobots, AGW denialists or whatever.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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March 20, 2010 2:26 PM
Chemical Engineer has obviously never heard of genetic algorithms, genetic programming, etc. What an ignorant buffoon.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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March 20, 2010 2:30 PM
As a chemist, I would like to apologise for CE up there. I musta inhaled too many gases somewhere along the line.
Posted by: First Approximation, L'esprit de l'escalier
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March 20, 2010 2:38 PM
Arghhhh!!!! Do you honestly think we've never heard this lame argument before. Honestly, this is up there with "if we came from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys?".
See here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/11/entropy_and_evolution.php
My firewall indicates that this is a virus.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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March 20, 2010 3:05 PM
Eeuuwww, tell your imaginary friend I don't do forced downloads, man. No means no.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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March 20, 2010 3:13 PM
spywarePosted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM
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March 20, 2010 3:21 PM
Eeeeewwwww! Is the big sky daddy trying to have sexual intercourse with everybody. So much for heterosexual monogamy.
Or is the big sky daddy the borg.? And you will be assimilated.
Posted by: JeffreyD
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March 20, 2010 3:30 PM
Chemical Engineer - let me get this straight, this is the same gawd who told guys they need to partially skin their dick?
Check Please!
Far from letting him download anything into me (is that what the RC priesthood has been doing, btw?), I plan to call the cops if the freak gets any where near me or the kids. I always find gawd botherer's daddy fixation to be a tad spooky. Grow up, drop the daddy issues.
Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe
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March 20, 2010 3:41 PM
Janine:
Engineer's "enjoy the download and quit fighting it!" is creepily close to "if rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it." Why anyone thinks that sort of sentiment would be convincing, I don't know.
Posted by: Janine, The Little Top Of Venom, OM
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March 20, 2010 3:53 PM
Yeah, here are the minions of Pharyngula, making light of rape yet again. Someone, quickly, inform the morality patrol at the Intersection. And an other person inform Kw*k that a religious person is being mocked yet again.
Posted by: First Approximation, L'esprit de l'escalier
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March 20, 2010 3:57 PM
Honestly, what's with this Christian need to convert? They are like the freakin' Borg.
We are Christians,
Lower your skepticism and surrender your free will.
We will add your holidays and religious traditions to our own.
Your culture will adapt to serve the clergy.
Thinking is futile.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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March 20, 2010 4:11 PM
Evilution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That sounds all sciency and stuff, just like creotards want their arguments to sound like. Unfortunately for the creotards, it's an easy argument to refute.