Flibbertigibbet Dembski

Since Dembski is boring, here is a question, from a list titled imponderables here: http://users.aristotle.net/~russjohn/literary/delusion.html

WHY ARE THERE NO GREEN MAMMALS? You'd think there would be, given the obvious evolutionary advantages that can come with being green. There are green members of every other family, green molusks and sponges, green insects and arachnids, and green birds and reptiles. I've heard of a rare South American tree sloth that paints itself green by inoculating its fur with algae, but that doesn't count. Although on some level it recognizes that being green can help it survive, it isn't genetically green.

Ooh! That's, like, twenty minutes drive from my home. I wonder how long before he'll have a public seminar there ...

Isn't it amazing how people are willing to perform such dramatic feats of intellectual gymnastics as to reconcile education and scholarship with myth and superstition.

If you ask me, they've both got "theological" and "seminary" in their name, so who cares? He's moved from one dunghill to another.

and "Baptist", too.

WHY ARE THERE NO GREEN MAMMALS?

Because the Designer wanted it that way. Too easy! Next, please..

Fort Worth? Thats my city! Now it'll be even dumber :(

a son with autism... now THERE'S evdence of intelligent design!

[a son with autism... now THERE'S evdence of intelligent design!]

Zing!

Here is another article by the guy who asked the question about green mammals. I hope his good humor gets to you.

http://users.aristotle.net/~russjohn/monsters/ms6.html

The average intelligence of Louisville just jumped up a notch! Sorry, Texas, looks like you get all the winners ...

"WHY ARE THERE NO GREEN MAMMALS?"

Because most mammal have dichromatic vision? Or because they aren't envious of the human condition of too many dumb questions or seminaries.

No green mammals? You've never been on a St Patrick's Day Parade - or, for that matter, seen the state of some of the mammals on the day after? Not only are they green, but they've grown gills to be green about...

R

This is great. Demski can keep all the SBTS monogrammed towels he stole from the faculty men's room.

William Dembski, a leading proponent of the controversial Intelligent Design movement, is leaving Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, just one year after he was brought to the seminary to found a think tank on science and theology.

A think tank at a Bible college? Bwa-haha!

Dembski will become research professor of philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

Research professor, as in he won't be doing any teaching? What exactly does full-time research in philosophy consist of?

Mohler had announced Dembski's appointment with great fanfare before the 2005-06 school year, naming him a professor and director of a new Center for Science and Theology. Seminary spokesman Lawrence Smith said a replacement would be named soon.

Has Salvador Cordova finished his bachelor's degree yet? Or maybe DaveScot?

Why are there no green mammals?

As I started researching this a bit more, I was astounded to discover that frogs, birds, and others in the tetrapod, or four-legged, world can't make green pigment, either! Or blue, for that matter. It turns out that all color variation that we see in tetrapod animals is the result of different combinations of patterns of deposition and refraction of the same two types of pigments: black and yellow-red. A chameleon's color changes because of rapid shape changes in refractory cells in its skin, not by rapid production or release of an actual pigment. Frogs are green because of the pattern of refraction of blue light by special cells in their skin, which blends with their yellow pigment.

There's more at the link.

Dembski from this article:
"I've enjoyed my time at Southern Seminary -- the students were great and the faculty were very warm and welcoming"

Review of Dembski by a student at ratemyprofessor.com:
"What a vacuous tool! He is SO full of himself. He is actually full of **** and that's it. You could NOT design a worse professor."

"You could NOT design a worse professor."

oh man

that killed

Ever since I learned about chloroplasts and mitochondria, I've been envious of plants. Green with envy, even. I'd gladly be actually physically green if it meant I could photosynthesize. Forget stem cell research and concentrate on just the stems. I strongly advocate human-plant hybrid research.

What were we talking about? Oh yes, Dembski. *shrug* After the move, will we still have to listen to him yammer about Waterloo this and Waterloo that?

If the sloths' algae-daubing behavior is instinctive, then they ARE genetically green; they just steal their green pigment from another organism instead of synthesizing their own. Technically, plants do the same thing with chloroplasts.

But the important point is that sloths with the algae-daubing gene(s) are greener than those without (which may now be only in other species, but at some point there would have to have been a population with a mix of algae-daubers and non-algae-daubers); that's a genetically determined difference, even if its mechanism is more indirect than usual.

Re: green mammals thread derailment.
So, I guess there would need to be a population of mammals that live in an especially green environment and either 1) face a predator that searches by sight and can see green; or 2) are trying to get at prey that detect their predators by sight and can see green.

Any candidates?

The "ratemyprofessor.com" page on Dembski appears to be a hoax. It is highly doubtful that Dembski taught any class called "ID 101" for a "Finance" department.

The whole "ratemyprofessor.com" site seems to be susceptible to hoaxed entries. If you look at Eric Pianka's entry on the site, there are only two ratings, and the second one does not actually list a course name. Here's the text of the comment left by that second one:

While Ebola is killing countless people in Africa, this professor is calling it good because it eliminates the surplus population. At the same time his waistband size shows he is personally consuming more than his share of the world's resources. If you love hypocrisy, by all means take him. Otherwise choose someone who donesn't hate his own species

This seems obviously from just someone who drank the koolaid last week (entry of 2006/04/04). Both ratings are from this past week.

A theological seminary is like a medical school of healing arts or a legal law school.

Hold on.. Dembski's in the *finance* department? Something doesn't add up.

-jcr

The entry is a hoax I would imagine. I don't think it's real.

Student evaluations aren't always the best things to go on to determine what a professor is like. You can get trends from all the comments, but every student is different and will come away from different professors with varying impressions.

"Dembski's in the *finance* department?"

He's in it for the money, not the science...

I like a great practical joke even better than the next guy. But hoaxing up rankings for IDists at RateMyProf is not even close to clever beyond measure.

I would hope that would-be hoaxers might think for a moment: It's unlikely that a hoaxer could come up with a rating more devastating than the real ones for these guys, even if the real ones rave about the professor. Such raves would probably be on the basis of the prof's religiousity, and so would be the slow, twisting-in-the-wind sort of death that ID so wishes to avoid.

H. L. Mencken, stuck for a column idea on deadline, once wrote a hoax column that suggested the only thing worthwhile Millard Fillmore ever did as president was introduce a bathtub to the White House. It was a joke. Some years later Mencken found an encyclopedia that listed among Fillmore's achievements, putting a bathtub in the White House. Since that entry gave more credit to Fillmore than Mencken thought reasonable or fair, Mencken swore off hoaxes. (John Adams put the first bathtub in the White House, as the first occupant.) Hoaxes have a way of sneaking into the line of real knowledge (Piltdown, anyone?). Let's avoid 'em, even at Dembski's expense.

Hoaxes have a way of sneaking into the line of real knowledge (Piltdown, anyone?). Let's avoid 'em, even at Dembski's expense.

Sure, but it's worth noting that the apparent hoax works because it captures aspects of Dembski that we see in his public manifestations. Let's hope he's a better teacher than biological theorist, but it's hard to believe he's great at any academic pursuit, considering his arrogant meddling in matters he doesn't understand.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

Paul wrote:

"He's moved from one dunghill to another."

Your characterization of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary as "dunghills" is crass, insensitive, rude, boorish, coarse, doltish, gross, uncouth, inelegant, loutish, lowbrow, oafish, Philistine, stupid, churlish, unrefined, vulgar, and witless, even by your standards.

Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

You sir, are incorrigible.

Why don't we have green PYGMIES AND DWARFS?

Gotcha!

Yeah, I can't really disagree with Charlie on that score. Not to praise any "theological seminary", but I bet I could learn some valuable information from them (the sifting process would be considerable, however). Is the Harvard theological seminary a dunghill as well, or is it Baptists and the like who come in for the derision, owing to their defenselessness among the Establishment.

Still, I can't be bothered to care much. I wanted rather to bring up one of the worst statements Dembski has made against science, and to include a response I made to it earlier, and elsewhere. Here's Dembski on Uncommon Descent:

The problem is that ID cannot be assimilated into a strict
materialism, and so the more atheistic scientists will become
depressed. As for acceptance, I doubt that much of the old guard will
ever get that far. Rather, acceptance will come from a younger
generation that is able to throw off the shackles of materialistic
thinking." UD, 9/1/05

continuing:

I think the following is an adequate response:

"Getting on to the real "predictions", it is possible that a younger
generation will "throw off the shackles of materialistic thinking." It
happened before, in the Roman Empire, when science was rejected in
favor of mystery religions and ultimately Christianity. And I mean no
insult to Christianity to say that the REJECTION of science in favor of
religion was absolutely disastrous intellectually, although science was
reconstituted into an even better vehicle for thought by Muslims, Jews,
and Xians who DID NOT reject "materialistic science". Dembski is not
the Newton of information science, he is the Savaranola of information
science, one who would dictate that we heed only religion, to the
rejection of intellect and empiricism."

Your characterization of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary as "dunghills" is crass, insensitive, rude, boorish, coarse, doltish, gross, uncouth, inelegant, loutish, lowbrow, oafish, Philistine, stupid, churlish, unrefined, vulgar, and witless, even by your standards.

But can you disprove it?

Before coming to Louisville, Dembski drew controversy as a researcher at Baylor University in Texas, a Baptist school. Biology professors there protested, saying Intelligent Design is not valid science.

Heh heh heh...

"crass, insensitive, rude, boorish, coarse, doltish, gross, uncouth, inelegant, loutish, lowbrow, oafish, Philistine, stupid, churlish, unrefined, vulgar, and witless"

...but accurate.

-jcr

Biology professors at Baylor University are alleged to have said:

"Intelligent Design is not valid science."

They are wrong.

Religious creationism is not valid science. The possibility that intelligence was involved in the emergence of life on earth can be studied by applying the principles of the scientific method, which includes making empirical observations, proposing hypotheses to explain those observations, and testing those hypotheses in valid and reliable ways.
The fact that there is little empirical evidence at the present time and no experimental tests available to test intelligent design does not preclude it from the realm of science. If the same standard that is used against intelligent design were to be applied to neo-darwinism, then one would be equally correct in saying: "neo-darwinism is not science" since there is no scientific justification for saying that a nexus exists between mutation, selection and the emergence of the highly organized structures, processes and systems that are found in living things.

Charlie, you are wrong on all counts. But, full marks for being on message and consistant over the years.

You say there is "little empirical evidence at the present time" is a fabrication or the result of too many mai tai's (I am familiar with that effect!).

There is NO empirical evidence at the present time. NO emirical evidence. None.

Aloha.

Your characterization of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary as "dunghills" is crass, insensitive, rude, boorish, coarse, doltish, gross, uncouth, inelegant, loutish, lowbrow, oafish, Philistine, stupid, churlish, unrefined, vulgar, and witless, even by your standards.

Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

You sir, are incorrigible.

Good lord! My monocle just popped out!

"By Jove! What a pompous fellow, wouldn't you say, what?"

"No, sir! You mean to say: 'affected, bloated, boastful, bombastic, conceited, egotistic, flatulent, flaunting, flowery, fustian, grandiloquent, grandiose, high-flown, highfalutin, hoity-toity, imperious, important, inflated, magisterial, magniloquent, narcissistic, orotund, ostentatious, overbearing, overblown, pontifical, portentous, presumptuous, pretentious, puffed up, puffy, rhetorical, self-centered, self-important, selfish, showy, sonorous, stuck-up, supercilious, turgid, uppity, vain & vainglorious'!"

Good God, old fellow, steady on, what?

My good people! Why spend time in painstakingly searching for numerous adjectives where but one will do quite well.

For instance, "dunghills" suits the purpose of describing these places very exactingly, if I might add so myself.

I should have written "Harvard Divinity School", though it doesn't much matter what the name is.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

First, Charlie, Intelligent Design is creationism. It would be possible to have a scientific program which looked for The possibility that intelligence was involved in the emergence of life on earth but that's not Intelligent Design, because ID is a specific set of ideas that involve far more (and less) than the idea that intelligence was involved in the emergence of life on earth. More because the proponents do not simply say that, and less because the proponents don't do any science, just PR and legal maneuvers. They certainly don't do this:

applying the principles of the scientific method, which includes making empirical observations, proposing hypotheses to explain those observations, and testing those hypotheses in valid and reliable ways.

One is inclined to wonder: Why not? Why don't they? Why don't they take the exact same course as every bit of science ever and simply put their ideas out, test them, support them with good and accurate info -- why instead do they try to PR the thing into schools and use legal cases to try to establish the idea? Of course then they'd have to do the work, and they'd have to do it accurately, and so far that has proven to be beyond the abilities, or perhaps the inclinations, of all of its proponents, despite having millions of dollars yearly at their disposal.

I love it when people like Dembski think they can criticize the fine scholarship of individuals such as Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett or Richard Dawkins. The gall...

Better he relegate himself to the realm of theological seminaries, methinks.

Waco Texas... that rings a bell... wasn't there another religious wacko (love that pun) from around there named Koresh? :P

Anyone wanna bet that Albert Mohler got tired with his unruly 'star' and cut him loose? The Pianka egg-on-the-face being only the last straw, Dembski had to give up managing his blog (only to overpost it anyway), and had to have been The Incredible Disappearing Professor with all his publicized speaking gigs.

Even granting this clown his woo-hoo scientific claims, he's already demonstrated his poisonous effect on collegiality, craves celebrity treatment, and is quick to burn his bridges behind him. As a department chair myself, I know that spells instant poison for any academic department's professional climate.

I personally think Dembski's future really lies in hotel management, or maybe Kent Hovind will eventually need a museum curator (on second thought, there's never room for two prima donnas--on third thought, it may prove entertaining, so go for it.). As an academic, this patient can't be saved.

I'm glad to see that Dembski is leaving my hometown; I won't be quite as embarassed when I see his name in the news. I've no doubt the seminary will do its best to make up for his absence, though.

http://www.towersonline.net/story.php?grp=news&id=341

I think his son's autism informs his "intelligent" "design" viewpoint; he has to make sense of his lot in life from where he's been.

But that doesn't justify it of course.

My last name is Kowalski, and I always wonder why folks from Poland become Baptists.

Anyway, I'm waiting for his reponse to the latest bit of evolution news.

clearly Dembski merely wants to get back to his true passion:
Texas barbecue!!

A flibbertigibbet named Bill
Screeches science as tamed by God's will...

Lucky Kentucky

No! He can't move to the seminary here!

I just found a girl to dance with here. I thought, she's a baptist seminary student for god's sake, but she's knows I'm an atheist and hasn't been too annoying about it, so okay. I am in Texas after all.

So, the other day, I'm telling her about this Pianka thing, and I talk about Dembski's role and what a liar and politico he is. Now he's going to teach at her school.

Think I'm now doomed to answering endless stupid questions, and having to explain, in detail, exactly why I think Dembski is an amoral, lying bastard, without any hope of actual consideration. Or find a new dance partner.

I suppose I'm just going to have to leave Texas.

I didn't know Baptist seminary students were allowed to dance.

Well, Rey, I don't figure that any of the seminary students are reading the comments on this blog! Unless Dembski's reading and gets her thrown out, in which case, problem solved, right?

"*EVERYBODY* expects the Wagnerian Inquisition!

- You are hereby charged that you did on diverse dates commit heresy against the Holy Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Church."

dorkafork,
That link has a good analysis and reinforces the idea that coloration is coupled to the vision systems (and its use) of peers and predators.

But I don't agree with all it's arguments - green pigments and fur coloration by structure is or could be available if there was a need. It also forgot to discuss why and how we have green irises in our population - not as a major coloration, but still. http://www.tedmontgomery.com/the_eye/iris.html claims it's as unique as a fingerprint.

Why don't we have green PYGMIES AND DWARFS?

That reminds me, there is a green giant in Minnesota. I hear he's jolly.

Classic! I clicked on the link provided above by PZ--it's the Louisville newspaper story on Dembski's departure--and the ad displayed was a beautiful picture of the Flying Spaghetti Monster! (It's one of 3-4 ads that rotate--keep reloading if you don't see it the first time)

wamba: Research in philosophy takes many forms, but what Dembski does hardly counts, since he ignores most of the literature it seems. (Like any field, literature searches are vital.)

Woo hoo! One less wingnut in Ky! :-) Now if we can just get Fletcher gone...

I just want to comment that whatever you think of Dembski (I've opined before that his misapplication of math suggests intentional fraud) that doesn't justify insensitive comments about his son's autism as reported in the article. Dembski is at fault in many areas, but this isn't one of them. I wish him the best with his family and hope the move has the desired effect.

Well, Paul, certainly I don't poke fun at people who have genetic disabilities, but it raises the inevitable question for those who advocate intelligent design (I have a relative with a genetic disorder, too): isn't the choice between atheism and religiosity essentially a choice between inadvertent and deliberate cruelty, respectively?

I mean, the next time I hear someone's pain described as "God's will," I think I'm going to scream.

Kristine:

but it raises the inevitable question for those who advocate intelligent design

So do a lot of other things. It still strikes me as poor taste to bring it up in this context.