Evolution Denialism
denialism | November 5, 2007On his blog Stein espouses one of the weakest attacks I've heard yet against evolution, and not even original. It's a pathetic set of logical fallacies. Basically, he starts from the assumption that scientific theories arise if they serve the prevailing ideology of the time period, and because "Darwinism" was developed during the Victorian/imperialist age, it represents nothing but the worst aspects of that era.
Let's make this short and sweet. It would be taken for granted by any serious historian that any ideology or worldview would partake of the culture in which it grew up and would…
denialism | October 24, 2007Or is unintentionally channeling them is my conclusion from reading his latest WaPo Op-Ed entitled, "The Eugenics Temptation". This Watson nonsense has somehow convinced all these conservatives that lurking beneath the surface of every scientist is a seething eugenicist, biting at the bit to escape and kill off all we see who are inferior. I've agreed with Gerson on a thing or two, but this essay is a real stinker.
"If you really are stupid," Watson once contended, "I would call that a disease." What is the name for the disease of a missing conscience?
Watson is not typical of the…
denialism | October 24, 2007Orac has brought up the interesting point that debating the homeopaths at U. Conn might not be a good idea.
On a related note, in a post derriding attacks on consensus I was asked by commenters if isn't it incumbent on science to constantly respond to debate; to never let scientific questions be fully settled. And I understand where they're coming from. These ideas represent the enlightened ideals of scientific inquiry, free speech, and fundamental fairness.
However, they're also hopelessly misplaced in regard to the problem at hand. That is, denialists, cranks, quacks, etc., are not…
denialism | October 2, 2007I realize it's fundamental to being a crank, but the persecution complex of the IDers is getting really old. The latest is Bruce Chapman at Evolution News and Views, who no longer satisfied with grasping at the mantle of Galileo, is now groping for Semmelweis and Lister as well. The idea being, as usual, if science has been slow to accept the theories of people in the past, surely the same flaws must be preventing ID from being accepted. Never mind that these other scientists actually had things like data or evidence, or did rather fantastic things like reduce the death rates in maternity…
denialism | September 26, 2007I've largely been ignoring their stupid lately. But the sheer idiocy of a ID "mathematician" Granville Sewell takes the cake for this truly idiotic straw-man argument.
It starts with an interesting question though:
I speculated on what would happen if we constructed a gigantic computer model which starts with the initial conditions on Earth 4 billion years ago and tries to simulate the effects that the four known forces of physics (the gravitational and electromagnetic forces and the strong and weak nuclear forces) would have on every atom and every subatomic particle on our planet. If we…
denialism | September 21, 2007I am always amused by this statement at the bottom of the Evolution News and Views website. It says:
The misreporting of the evolution issue is one key reason for this site. Unfortunately, much of the news coverage has been sloppy, inaccurate, and in some cases, overtly biased. Evolution News & Views presents analysis of that coverage, as well as original reporting that accurately delivers information about the current state of the debate over Darwinian evolution. Click here to read more.
That being said, Casey Luskin shows just how accurate and unbiased his little news service can be,…
denialism | September 16, 2007Denyse O'Leary points us to an upcoming criticism of the New York Times from the crank journal First Things. Their great sin? Allowing Dawkins, a critic of Behe, to review his latest book.
He notes the curious fact that the Times should never have given the book to Dawkins to review anyway, without giving Behe the right of reply (which it would never dare to do):
You see, it's only OK for critics to review their opponents when Behe does it for Time. How dare the New York Times allow Dawkins to then say something about Behe's work?
Then in yet another example of the ID cranks' stunning…
denialism | September 2, 2007
For a scene of pure hilarity and joy, get ye over to Uncommon Descent as they try spin the rejection of a "Evolutionary Informatics Lab" by Baylor University.
Yesterday, the Baylor University administration shut down Prof. Robert Marks's Evolutionary Informatics Lab because the lab's research was perceived as linked to intelligent design (ID).
Hah. Perceived as linked? It probably doesn't help to have Dembski linking it as his one example of an ID research program. That's a little damning. Continued:
Robert J. Marks II, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at…
denialism | August 31, 2007I think Naomi Oreskes is being charitable when she calls denialists "contrarians", but to each their own. Stranger Fruit has her response to the latest nonsense being spread by these liars.
They've tried this before, and it was swatted down rapidly, basically the only way they can show any significant disagreement with the consensus on global warming since 1990 is to lie and dissemble. This time appears no different.
Maybe that's why they're cranks. They just keep cranking out the same nonsense over, and over.
denialism | August 31, 2007Granville Sewell describes the UD approach to science - in a word, quit early.
In any debate on Intelligent Design, there is a question I have long wished to see posed to ID opponents: "If we DID discover some biological feature that was irreducibly complex, to your satisfication and to the satisfaction of all reasonable observers, would that justify the design inference?" (Of course, I believe we have found thousands of such features, but never mind that.)
If the answer is yes, we just haven't found any such thing yet, then all the constantly-repeated philosophical arguments that "ID is not…
denialism | August 30, 2007Reading You Are Dumb's take on Ben Stein and expelled, I found out they have a blog for the movie! I'm so excited, because it's clear that Ben Stein, in his introductory post, shows he's done his research and read the Crank HOWTO. Check it:
Some of the greatest scientists of all time, including Galileo, Newton, Einstein, operated under the hypothesis that their work was to understand the principles and phenomena as designed by a creator.
Really? Their hypotheses included God each time? That's shocking. Continued.
Operating under that hypothesis, they discovered the most important laws…
denialism | August 27, 2007Anyone who has been reading Scienceblogs knows that the creationists are all in a tizzy over their new movie expelled, which plans to unite the superstar power of Ben Stein with the superscience power of creationism.
My favorite part of the whole thing, based on my appreciation for quality crankery, is the built-in persecution.
You see, it's not enough to make a movie about the supposed persecution of people like Richard Sternberg (who clearly was not persecuted despite unethical behavior). They have to be persecuted for even coming up with the movie. They have to be persecuted for…
denialism | August 20, 2007The debate is churning along at Monkey Trials, and I have to say it's pretty interesting. Hatfield is doing a great job in this titanic struggle between data and "raw intellect".
Check it out.
denialism | August 13, 2007Responding to an idiotic challenge from Vox Day Scott Hatfield has chosen to debate Vox at some point after August 15th.
I don't know what to think. On the one hand, debating a crank like Vox day is unlikely to do anyone any good. It's not like a guy who doesn't think that science is valid (all science I know, he's crazy) is likely to be receptive to anything but their pre-formed worldview. On the other hand, it may help people see just how much of a lunatic crank Vox Day is. Although I don't know that we need evidence beyond the fact he writes for World Nut Daily.
In the end, I think it'…
denialism | August 10, 2007Today is a big day for cranks in two separate areas, but the interesting thing is the similarity of the responses.
First we have Casey Luskin of the "top think tank" the Discovery Institute (wow, they must be right up there with Cato and CEI!) blathering about paleontologists don't know anything because of the self-correcting nature of science.
After this latest find, one researcher realized its implications and was quick to quash any doubts this may spark regarding human evolution, stating: "All the changes to human evolutionary thought should not be considered a weakness in the theory of…
denialism | July 13, 2007We've discussed the incompetence of cranks in their critical reasoning skills, and their inability to think about science in a lucid or productive fashion. But have we tried to help them? Have we moved beyond caddy criticisms and actually bothered to extend a hand to our fellow man? Clearly not. Rather than continuing to mock ID for being the intellectually-dishonest, crank-laden nonsense that it is, why don't we help them become a real science?
Genomicron has some suggested experiments to help ID get on the right track. Maybe, if they are legitimately interested in science, we'll be…
denialism | July 12, 2007Hey Luskin. This is what a genetic fallacy actually looks like.
The Darwinists devoutly desire to avoid the true history of their creed, and usually the media assist in the cover up--unknowingly, I would like to think. The "Inherit the Wind" trope that is monotonously employed by journalists--not to mention Judge Jones of Dover, PA fame--derives from the play and movie of that name. But this cliché, which is the source of what many journalists think about the subject, was fiction and not even aimed at the evolution issue so much as the danger of McCarthyism in the 1950s. The real Scopes…
denialism | July 11, 2007Casey Luskin doesn't like that evilutionists equate Intelligent Design Creationism with, well, creationism. I'm sobbing.
But in a perfect example of how cranks like using the tools of logic to make their point, and then fail, he suggests that the assertion that ID = creationism is an example of the genetic fallacy. Well, that's interesting. What's his reasoning?
Darwinian logic often contends that because a given proportion of ID proponents are creationists, ID must therefore be creationism. It's a twist on the genetic fallacy, one I like to call the Darwinist "Genesis Genetic Argument…
denialism | July 3, 2007It's Ruthless Reviews coverage of the Creation Museum's opening.
I'd just like to say that I don't condone dressing up like a mentally disabled person before interviewing Ken Ham. And I don't find it funny, at all, to mock somebody for their religion. Even if they think dinosaurs are vegetarian, they don't deserve mockery from pill-popping investigative reporters going undercover with "Asperger's by proxy". I especially don't find it funny that they created a fake website, the "Special Times", to gain press access to the Creation Museum's opening.
And this youtube video of the interview…
denialism | June 28, 2007Back when we wrote the Unified Theory of the Crank one of the main things we discussed related to crankery is their inability to recognize competence in others. As a result, cranks tend not to mind the crankery of others, since they see themselves as opposed to a scientific orthodoxy. Consistency be damned, they just want to see science with egg on its face so they can prove that they are being persecuted.
Well lately, Uncommon Descent has been doing a pretty incredible job of sticking to this script. First we have Dembski, insisting upon the persecution of ID abroad, because the Germans…