This guy is quite a piece of work. He's kept up his string of lies over at BigC's blog in this comment. He writes:
Ed B has now expanded upon his original argument, and speaks against these people being treated as authorities - but that wasn't my original point, and isn't what he orignally said, either. Read his post again, if you will. He implied in his last paragraph that the list was worthless not because their position was a minority one, but that it was worthless due to the presence of engineers and chemists.
And he wonders why he's been "insulted" - he's been insulted because of his incredible insistence upon distorting my position even after being shown to be doing so repeatedly. Here is the last paragraph of my original post:
And even if the statement did indicate actual dissent from evolutionary theory, of what use other than rhetorical is a list of "scientists"? Why not scientists in relevant fields of study? How many biologists, geneticists or anthropologists are on that list? Very few. Lots of engineers of various types, a few chemists, but if you narrowed it down to those in actual relevant fields the number would be much smaller.
Upon reading that, dlamming assumed that I meant that no one without a degree in biology could speak on the subject of evolution. This was a ridiculous assumption in the first place because, as he himself noted, I speak on the subject of evolution without a degree in biology. If you're faced with different possible interpretations of what someone says, you would think that logic would enter in to determining which was more likely to be the correct interpretation, but apparently dlamming thinks otherwise.
At any rate, I responded to his misinterpretation of my argument politely at first, pointing out the reasons why his interpretation was clearly not tenable, that I could not possibly have meant what he thought I meant. I wrote:
Second, his "logical extreme" version of my argument has nothing to do with my argument. I neither said nor implied that those without training in a given field should be "able to discuss" the issue. For crying out loud, I am not a trained scientist myself, why on earth would anyone believe I'm taking such an absurd position? What dlamming misses is the context of my post. The DI's list of "dissenting" scientists is a very simple appeal to authority, but if one is going to make such an appeal the authority should at least be legitimate.
Of course an engineer or a physicist (or an educated amateur like myself who has taken the time to educate himself on the subject) may be capable of discussing evolutionary biology quite competently. I think that I discuss the issue quite knowledgably and I'm more than happy to let my arguments defend themselves in this regard. I'm certainly not going to put my name on any list to suggest that I have any legitimate authority in the field. But the DI's list doesn't cite any arguments it merely appeals to the authority of those on the list and it is an entirely valid criticism to point out that most of the people on the list simply don't have that kind of legitimate authority. It's roughly equivalent to claiming that 4 out of 5 mechanics agree that chewing Trident gum will reduce tooth decay - yes, it's possible that those 5 mechanics have taken the time to study the question and have made a rational conclusion based upon that study, but it's hardly something one should accept blindly.
The fact that even after having it explained to him that his initial misinterpretation couldn't possibly be accurate and telling him exactly what I did mean, he continued to claim that I said something I didn't say - and still continues it after repeatedly being shown to be wrong - is proof that he has no interest in honestly engaging my actual position. Why? Because he has no argument against that position and his ego won't let him admit he was wrong. So like all dishonest people, he instead invents a straw man version of my position, a ridiculous and untenable caricature of that position, that he can easily knock down to claim victory.
He also continues to ignore my argument concerning the actual statement that the scientists signed on to and why it is an absurd representation of evolutionary theory. That is what makes the list worthless, because it simply does not represent "dissent from Darwin" - I could easily sign that statement as absolutely accurate. So could Richard Dawkins, for crying out loud. That alone shows that the list is nothing more than an exercise in propaganda.
If dlamming had even a shred of honesty, he would admit that his interpretation of what I said was wrong and either engage my real position on logical grounds, or drop the matter entirely. The fact that he continues to distort and lie after being repeatedly shown to be doing so is proof that he just doesn't want to debate this issue honestly.
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BTW, he updated his last (one hopes) post on the subject just to point out that you'd called him a mean name (or, in his words "dropped the f-word" on him). Ironic, in that he probably thinks he's pointing out your lack of maturity, rather than simply providing evidence for his own lack.
I don't know why I find this particular exchange to fascinating. Perhaps it's because dlamming clearly is neither ignorant nor stupid; he can string words together to form complete sentences, he has an interest in science, and so forth. So why can't he argue coherently? Why can't he admit to misunderstanding your position, and leave it at that? Why can't he understand simple distinctions? It's puzzling.
I was just reading one of his earlier postings entitled Why the big fuss about evolution?.
I was surprised to see the old 'biologists (except for maybe evolutionary biologists) don't really need evolution' schtick.
[e]veryone has to learn evolutionary theory because it's the foundation of biology, and you can't do biological research without knowing and accepting it.
Anyone who's ever actually done biology research knows that this is of course rank nonsense. While I admit the evolutionary biologists are going to need to believe in evolution, the molecular biologists, geneticists, biochemists, etc. can get along fine with or without it. All that's really required is a belief that genes in different organisms that are highly homologous may have similar enzymatic functions, play a role in similar pathways, and if you're really lucky, have similar structure.
In this context, worrying about evolution isn't dissimilar to wondering "why are we here?". It would be very nice to know, different people have different theories about it, and some of these theories are taught in school. For most scientists though, caught up in their grant applications, conferences, and PCR reactions that just won't work, "why are we here?" doesn't come up frequently in the lab... and neither does evolution.
Well, maybe if you don't really care why organisms are the way they are, how they got that way, then maybe you don't need to "believe in" (his phrase) evolution. If you have no curiousity at all and are content to just describe things, then perhaps that's enough.
Personally, I couldn't do that. And neither could most "molecular biologists, geneticists, biochemists, etc." I'll bet. I doubt most would see evolution as some sort of interesting but largely irrelevant exercise in naval gazing.
When asked to demonstrate his own ability to explain evolution, dlamming has this lame dodge:
And yes, I think I could explain evolution here - but from discussions elsewhere, I'd get jumped on pretty quickly if I left out a description of the taxonomic kingdoms, or failed to discuss genetic drift vs genetic draft. If anyone reading this actually wants to read a discussion of evolution, I'll just point to the wikipedia entry, and leave it at that.
And with that, he's off to the pub for a cold genetic draft.
So, evolution is perfectly easy for an engineer to discuss, but if he tried it, he'd be attacked by nasty elitists like us, which is his excuse for not taking this opportunity to prove you wrong, so there! And if you doubt his ability to pass the buck to Wikipedia, you're "the worst kind of elitist."
Is he really an engineer?
His "About me" part of his blog states: I'm a grad student, and an aficionado of both yeast research and yeast products.
So he's a yeastineer.
I see - makes sense considering the name of his blog. It is strange though that he seems to have such a hard time accurately presenting Ed et al.'s views, especially for a grad student.
slpage says:
Sometimes it's very hard to just admit you're wrong and let it go already.
I think this issue has now been beat pretty much to death.
Speaking of 'elitism'...