Fresh off his electrifying performance on the Daily Show, the intrepid Dr. Dembski is still, it seems, attempting to do comedy. Witness the extraordinary chutzpah it took to write this post about the speaking schedule of NCSE staffers. He writes:
Have a look at http://www.ncseweb.org/meeting.asp. One of my colleagues describes reading this page as "watching a car wreck." I'm just sorry we can't get a percentage cut from all the speaking engagements they are getting as a result of attacking us. Life is so unfair.
Well Bill, we'd love to have a cut of your speaking fees, and of the fees you charged the Thomas More Law Center for your expert witness work on the Dover trial (over $100,000, if I recall correctly, while all of the experts on our side donated their time and took only expenses - Correction: I did not recall correctly here. The actual figure appears to be closer to $20,000 - 112 hours at $200 per hour), and of all the books you write in the copious free time that you save by avoiding publishing your claims for a scientific audience, books for which you find a ready audience in the churches among people who, as a group, have little hope of understanding your ideas. For that matter, I'm sure the NCSE staff would sacrifice body parts to get even a small percentage of the funding that the Discovery Institute enjoys. The DI has enough money laying around to give fellowships to rougly five times as many people as the NCSE has on their entire staff, not to mention the multiple directors, spokespeople and legal counsels they have and the PR firm they can afford to hire (more on that later).
Several things things should impress you about this page. First, the number of talks to atheist organizations; second, the number of talks paid for by university biology departments; and third, Eugenie Scott's willingness to travel.
Well let's take a look, shall we? The number of atheist groups....I count exactly one, a group called "Atheists United", to whom Glenn Branch spoke last week. He's probably counting Rationalists, Empiricists and Skeptics of Nebraska as an "atheist group", but that is illogical. One does not have to be an atheist to be a rationalist, empiricist or skeptic. In fact, Genie Scott appeared at their conference last week along with Chuck Austerberry, a Christian and founder of the Nebraska Religious Coalition for Science Education.
He might also be counting Americans United for Separation of Church and State as an "atheist group", but that is patently false. That organization is headed by a Baptist minister and about half of their board of trustees are Christians.
The number of university biology departments that invite Genie to speak is notable....why, exactly? He doesn't complete the implication with any conclusion, it's just thrown out there as though it was meaningful. I suppose it could mean that university biology departments are concerned about the attempts to water down science education and distort science for the purpose of religious indoctrination, so they ask Genie to speak to give them updates on what is happening in that arena. But somehow I doubt Dembski would see it that way. Still, this appears to be an argument by insinuation without bothering to spell out what exactly is being insinuated.
Lastly, why is Genie's willingness to travel and speak so noteworthy? A charitable person might see this as indicative of someone highly dedicated to their job. Just another argument by insinuation without the actual insinuation. But even more chutzpah can be found in this post, about the letter signed by 38 Nobel Prize laureates and sent to the Kansas State Board of Education. In his list of complaints against this letter, he writes, presumably with a straight face:
Why don't they instead put the energy into presenting scientific rebuttals against our side?...Doesn't that choice -- to allocate resources to PR instead of scientific rebuttals (which they always accuse Discovery of doing) -- reveal that something is seriously amiss with standard evolutionary theory?
I'll take Textbook Examples of Psychological Projection for $1000, Alex. This is stunning even for a man as disingenuous as Dembski. When asked, for example, why he doesn't develop a scientific theory of ID and publish it in the science journals so that it may be examined by other experts in the field to see if it holds water - you know, the way the advocates of every other idea in science do - Dembski responded:
Baylor's Mr. Dembski also has little interest in publicizing his research through traditional means. "I've just gotten kind of blasé about submitting things to journals where you often wait two years to get things into print," he says. "And I find I can actually get the turnaround faster by writing a book and getting the ideas expressed there. My books sell well. I get a royalty. And the material gets read more."
And as far as focusing on PR rather than on scientific research, all one can say is wow. This is a bit like watching Mike Tyson accuse someone else of being mentally unstable. It takes extraordinary gall to make that argument when the Discovery Institute just hired a huge PR firm, the same firm that handles AT&T, to help them peddle their wares. Does Dembski think that this suggests that "something is seriously amiss with intelligent design"? Of course not.
When IDers hire actual PR firms to sell their ideas, that doesn't suggest anything negative about ID. But when evolution advocates write a letter to a school board advocating evolution, he calls that an undue focus on PR and suggests that this proves something wrong with evolution. Dr. Dembski works at a seminary; one would think he'd have stumbled across the biblical concept of not pointing out the splinter in someone else's eye when one has a log in their own by now.
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All the hypocrisy I've come to expect from Dembski et. al. It's not surprising at all.
Good news, though, I see on the NCSE schedule that Eugenie Scott will be speaking soon very close to where I live. Cool!
'One does not have to be an atheist to be a rationalist, empiricist or skeptic. '
Well, maybe. I tend to find Martin Gardner's stance compelling. He said in the abscence of evidence either way it was ok to take an irrational leap of faith. Hence his fideism. Now this is for the existence of God, not necessarily any one God or a particular religion. But it is irrational minus the evidence.
Or you could go the Daniel Dennett route and admit if you follow logic and rationality all the way down it leads to his conclusion. Of course most people jump off the ladder at various points. Some farther up than others.
Myself, as a Christian, I struggle more and more daily with the contradictions, irrationality, and simple absurdity of my religion. But I learn alot along the way. I realize my faith is likely irrational and admit it.
People like Dembski have made me question the underpinnings of what I have always believed. Charlantans like him embarass my faith. To make a rational case for people flying around, living to 900 years, and all the rest of religion is simply lunacy. When people try to make the irrational rational it always ends this way. Better to simply admit your irrational and chalk it up to wishful thinking.
R.E.A.S.O.N. might not be an officially atheist organization, but I doubt it's made up of too many people who aren't one.
Actually, Dembski should be asking how many biology departments invite ID proponents to speak before them. The answer would be very revealing, methinks.
Actually, Tony, Dembski should be presenting a theory and evidence for his theory. He has (as far as I know) done neither. As far as I can tell, he's nothing but a huckster. A well paid huckster. But a huckster, nonetheless.
Why doesn't he present a theory and evidence for the theory? I'd conclude that it's because he has no theory.
R.E.A.S.O.N. might not be an officially atheist organization, but I doubt it's made up of too many people who aren't one.
BTW, Matthew, why don't you email the people at REASON and ask them to engage in a survey as to how many atheists they have? I'm sure you'd give us the results. But I also suspect that you're too lazy to do so. It has been my experience that people who pose questions like your's are mostly bloviating, and aren't really interested in pursuing the issue. Go on--surprise me--pursue the issue.
Some of the people at REASON have been useful. Virginia Polstrel, who was useful, used to be there. Some of them are dumb as heck: I'll merely cite Cathy Young, whose idiotic columns are regularly published in the Boston Globe.
R.E.A.S.O.N. might not be an officially atheist organization, but I doubt it's made up of too many people who aren't one.
BTW, Matthew, why don't you email the people at REASON and ask them to engage in a survey as to how many atheists they have? I'm sure you'd give us the results. But I also suspect that you're too lazy to do so. It has been my experience that people who pose questions like your's are mostly bloviating, and aren't really interested in pursuing the issue. Go on--surprise me--pursue the issue.
Some of the people at REASON have been useful. Virginia Polstrel, who was useful, used to be there. Some of them are dumb as heck: I'll merely cite Cathy Young, whose idiotic columns are regularly published in the Boston Globe.
raj-
You're confusing two different "reasons". Reason magazine is a libertarian magazine. REASON, in this context, is Rationalists, Empiricists And Skeptics Of Nebraska, which has nothing to do with libertarian thought.
As far as Matthew's statement goes, I don't think it deserved this vitriolic response. He may well be right, though it wouldn't change my conclusion at all. It's still wrong to assume that rationalist or skeptic = atheist, as there are many theists who belong to such organizations.
Because I wouldn't ask someone to go through that much trouble to satisfy my curiosity (which I don't have anyways).
Wow, I don't think I've been chewed out like this for a simple observation in quite a while. But I'm not interested if this one particular organization that uses red-flag atheist tags really is (primarily) atheist or not. A quick glance at their website suggests they probably are:
http://www.reason.ws
Individually they don't necessarily mean atheists, but it's also true that all 3 are used as euphemisms for atheist, so grouped together I think makes a strong case for this being an organization with very few theists (though maybe many deists). So while you're probably technically right, I don't think Dembski is really off base reaching this simple deductive conclusion.
Ed, you're probably correct, but a link would have been helpful. Appologies to Matthew.
There is also a Reason Foundation, which publishes Reason Magazine.
On the other hand, when someone posts a comment such as the one that Matthew did, I always ask the question: why don't you ask them? The inference that is intended to be infered from the comment is obvious.
I was watching Dembeski blog Ed, and I a question arose inside me...why don´t you post there in the comments section? You don´t want or they have you banned?
When Ed writes: " I don't think it deserved this vitriolic response," and then Matthew writes: "but it's also true that all 3 are used as euphemisms for atheist..." I find I am inclined to disagree with Ed here.
To suggest that the specific terms rationalist, empiricist, and skeptic are euphemisms for athiest is choosing to engage in very poor use of semantic and semiotic distinctions. And making that conscious choice(is it an attempt to credit Dembeski with veracity?) is worthy of a smidgeon of vitriol, especially after he was, well, warned?
If Matthew is suggesting that applying the processes of logical and rational analysis to ID reveals its falaciousness is the same as the reasonable questioning of the existence of faith in some divinity which can never be rationally proven, then he needs to show that relationship with sources and evidence. Merely suggesting a link through semantic abuse isn't valid.
Sergio wrote:
I haven't the slightest interest in commenting there. The comments on Dembski's blog are reserved solely for Salvador and the uber-idiot DaveScot to publicly fellate each other about how brilliant their hero is. Besides that, Dembski has already banned people who comment there critically, even if they do so politely.
Matthew, have you ever taken statistics?
Between 3% and 13% of Americans identify themselves as atheist. Unless the organization accepts atheists only, the odds are highly against any organization in the U.S. being made up primarily of atheists.
But take Raj's challenge: Ask them.
Ed Darrell at September 18, 2005 09:37 PM
But take Raj's challenge: Ask them.
I've challenged "them" to do so over at least ten years. I've never seen anyone do it. I'll liken them to drama queens. They apparently absorb what they believe to be reality from the vapors.
/tic
"I'll merely cite Cathy Young, whose idiotic columns are regularly published in the Boston Globe."
I particularly loved this one, since I admire Cathy Young's work, in particular, for how well-reasoned and well-supported it is.
' It's still wrong to assume that rationalist or skeptic = atheist, as there are many theists who belong to such organizations. '
Indeed, now whether they are truly rational or skeptical is the question.:-)
Amy Alkon at September 19, 2005 03:34 AM
I particularly loved this one, since I admire Cathy Young's work, in particular, for how well-reasoned and well-supported it is.
Admire her all you wish. I don't admire her. One of her recent columns published in the Globe was a defense of the libertarian alliance with the conservatives and Republicans. As with most of her columns, it made no sense. A libertarian alliance with conservatives and Republicans? Modern American conservative principles and those of most Republicans are antithetical to libertarianism.
Ed Says:
Besides that, Dembski has already banned people who comment there critically, even if they do so politely.
He hasn't banned me. Yet. I posted a simple question for him a while back, and though I haven't been banned, he also hasn't answered the question.
Here's the link: http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/28#comment-5951
FYI - Here's the question I asked him -
"Is the following sequence of letters the product of random chance, or is it designed with a purpose?
adaeibfecehigicbchdfbfdcchcbgiejbhhdaigaficiicgeaj
Would appreciate any help you could offer. Thanks
If you haven't gotten an answer to that question by now, I doubt you're going to, Robert.
I don't think you understand that the words "Rationalists, Empirists, and Skeptics", all are labels atheists use (i'm one, by the way, though i don't use any of those labels), and since they are all used together here; this is why I reached the conclusion that this organization probably is predominantly atheist. Ed recognized this too, or he wouldn't have otherwise thought to point out that this organization might not technically count as "atheist" as Dembski called it (and Ed is right). I'm inclined to be a little lenient on vernacular speech, though.
I'm not sure what raj is talking about here. I think he feels that I'm a Dembski fan because I defended him on this one minute point.
I have to confess to being baffled by all this attention paid to what was really an innocuous comment by Matthew. I don't think my point, that one can be a rationalist or a skeptic without being an atheist, was merely a technicality. I am myself both of those things and I am not an atheist, and I know lots and lots of other people who are likewise. But I think Matthew's point was not an entirely unreasonable one. I'm sure he's right that most people who join skeptic's groups are atheists. But I still think it's important to distinguish which is a subset of which. All atheists may well be skeptics (though I know some decidedly un-skeptical atheists, ones who blindly accept all manner of absurd claims solely because they confirm their preconceptions), but not all skeptics are atheists. I think this is especially important to point out in the context of a debate that is often framed as Christians vs. atheists, and falsely so. But still, I don't think anything Matthew said warranted anything more than mild disagreement.
I'm a theist but you can very definitely describe me as a skeptic. I'm pretty much skeptical of nearly any claim made by extreme right or left wing organisations. They both tend to have completely nuttey anti-science sentiments although often because of different ideologies.
Ed Brayton at September 19, 2005 02:26
I have to confess to being baffled by all this attention paid to what was really an innocuous comment by Matthew.
Because it was not necessarily an innocuous comment. I have seen the tactic used before: a statement such as "I am sure that "xxx" organization is "primarily populated by atheists,"" is oftentimes used to draw the inference in the mind of the reader that the "xxx" organization is actually primarily populated and supported by atheists. One oftentimes has to differentiate between what is actually said and what is intended that the reader is supposed to infer from what was said. There is a substantial difference.
I challenged him to obtain evidence for his comment. It is probable that he doesn't know whether or not his statement is correct.