Sometimes one wonders what version of reality intelligent design creationists live in. The most recent stimulus for that question is a post by Bill Dembski on Uncommon Descent. The post pitches an apologetics conferences to be held at Hickory Baptist Church in North Carolina. Dembski tells us the speakers will include such intellectual luminaries as James Dobson, Chuck Colson, Dinesh D’Souza, Lee Strobel, and, of course, Dembski.
In the post Dembski claims that
It’s nice to be in such distinguished company as indicated in this press release. I’ll certainly make my usual ID arguments. But I’ll also be pointing out that our opponents, the materialists and their cronies, are now battling principally for political rather than intellectual control. Indeed, the materialists have lost the intellectual battle.
Well, for openers, if that’s what Dembski takes to be “distinguished company” then he’s welcome to them.
More interesting, though, is Dembski’s list of how he thinks “materialists have lost the intellectual battle.” He provides a list of areas in which he thinks that’s occurred. Every one of them is a non sequitur:
**Remember how computers were going to become more intelligent than us and that we would be luck if they deigned to keep us as pets?
**Remember how humans were the third chimpanzee, only to find that some dogs and birds are smarter than chimps at various tasks?
**Remember how it was only a matter of time before the Miller-Urey experiment could be extended to explain the origin of life? (For the sheer hopelessness of OOL research, see my forthcoming book with Jonathan Wells, due out next month – How to Be an Intellectually Fulfilled Atheist (Or Not).)
The list of vapid materialist promises that show no sign of ever being fulfilled keeps growing and growing. But losing the intellectual battle no longer matters to materialists.
Notice anything? No evolution. No irreducible complexity. No mousetraps, CSI, SC, or Explanatory Filters. Why? Well, look below at Nick Matzke’s posts on the immune system and on the bacterial flagellum for two examples. The evolutionary origin of the poster child of ID and cover illustration for Dembski’s No Free Lunch and his blog, the bacterial flagellum, is closer to a full explanation in purely materialistic terms now than it was just 5 years ago. ID creationism lost the “intellectual battle” 150 years ago; it’s been fighting a rear-guard action every since, defending a smaller and smaller territory.
The ultimate self-parodying irony, though, is in the last two sentences of the post:
We’ve made a good case. What we need now are good legal and political strategies.
This from a Fellow of the Disco ‘Tute, whose sole and only tactics for 10 years have been political. I frankly cannot understand how a man with two (count ‘em, two!) Ph.D.s can be so unreflective, so unaware of self, so utterly blind to the reality of his own movement. It truly passeth all understanding.
Edited 9/22 to correct immune system link.
“This from a Fellow of the Disco ‘Tute, whose sole and only tactics for 10 years have been political. I frankly cannot understand how a man with two (count ‘em, two!) Ph.D.s can be so unreflective, so unaware of self, so utterly blind to the reality of his own movement. It truly passeth all understanding.”
Its easy - he’s in it for the money and knows how to get it. There’s a sucker born every minute.…
Hey, if you’ve been reading the Evolution News and Views website postings, you should be used to such ludicrously dishonest doublespeak.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/
In addition to the refutations of the Irreducible Complexity argument which you mention, such as Matzke’s recent post, Dembski’s CSI, Explanatory Filters, No Free Lunch, and “smuggling” arguments have also all seen effective refutations, which Dembski has not commented on. See my recent article (pardon the self-promotion) in Reports of the NCSE, which you can read here (it’s the one on “Has Natural Selection Been Refuted?”). I describe how his argument works, and the holes a number of people have poked in it, particularly Shallit and Elsberry. I add a couple of new arguments too. It’s a good one-stop-shopping place to read about those arguments.
Perhaps he has given up on these arguments, which were the basis of his renown among ID types. Or perhaps he will deal with these criticisms (somehow).
I have long wondered whether it would be more charitable to Dembski to think that he was a deliberate conman than to think he honestly believes what he says himself.
Ah yes, once more the battle cry: “THE WINDMILLS ARE WEAKENING!” It’s getting too tiresome to even make being annoyed worth the trouble.
White Rabbit (Greg Goebel) http://www.vectorsite.net/gblog.html
Self-promotion actually appreciated, looks like a nice article. I keep looking for materials to give me a better handle on Dembski’s work without having to read his bafflegab books. His short 2004 essay on human origins was enough to completely torpedo his credibility to me forever.
I might comment that Dawkins’ weasel program could be made a better model of evolution if instead of finding a fixed target phrase, it synthesized a meaningful phrase just on the basis of the rules of language syntax. The rules would be “front-loading” of course, but since they would be analogous to the laws of nature, that would not be a real objection.
This would be incredibly difficult to write unless one came up with a deliberately stripped-down language that had a small vocabulary and very simple rules of syntax. Another option, which would be easy to implement, would be for it to match an existing string in some archive of text – but alas this would also have the “front-loading” accusation thrown at it.
Of course, Dawkins flatly said in THE BLIND WATCHMAKER that the Weasel program was strictly an example of artificial selection. He simply wanted to demonstrate the power of selection.
White Rabbit (Greg Goebel) http://www.vectorsite.net/gblog.html
A finer collection of anti-intellectual elites it would be hard to find. No wonder conservatism is in so much trouble in the USA if these people are the luminaries they listen to.
So when did UD become an Obama hate site and Palin love-in?
Parody indeed.
Well what else do you want them to talk about? They ran out of bigfoot controversies, and bucking global warming wasn’t working out too well either.
It’s becoming a generalist wacko site. I like the change.
Really, there are only two problems with Dembski’s statement: one extra word, and missing emphasis. Try this:
Seems OK to me in amended form …
I’ve watched Dinesh D’Souza debate intelligent people. On the bullshit meter (words uttered divided by relevant evidence delivered), Dinesh has one of the highest scores ever recorded. He is good company for Dembski.
If Dembski is looking for more of the same BS star power, he should also invite Alistar McGrath whose a close second to Dinesh.
It would be more intellectually honest for Dembski to state: “Dembski tells us the speakers will include such bullshit-meter luminaries as James Dobson, Chuck Colson, Dinesh D’Souza, Lee Strobel, and, of course, himself in shameless selfpromotion.”
Yeah. I went there the other day to see if there were any word of the big meet-up at the Vatican, only to find insipid election-related propoganda and not even much in the way of own-horn-tooting.
Looks like Dembski is trying to make up for lost time. Besides his completely idiotic and irrelevant list, what does he consider the turning point for when his underdog “theory” became the intellectual victor? Any event? Series of events? Gradual change in the public perception?
… publication of peer-reviewed research?
Wow. Projection in a nutshell. This from the muckety-muck of a group that has utterly failed to provide evidence for their claims in a single peer-reviewed scientific research paper, let alone produce a body of research.
It’s also worth noting that Dinesh D’Souza realizes the failure of ID.
Initially they talked of “scientific strategies.” At least they’re now honest about what their strategies are. Perhaps they should review Lysenko’s history for tips on political strategy.
Such as showing up at the next trial where he’s agreed to be an expert witness?
-Karen S.
I don’t think it’s surprising at all, since ID is just another arm of the politico-religionist movement, which has attached itself to the “conservative” movement.
These are tough times for conservatives, although many who identify as such don’t seem to know it. I am reminded of the Dworkinization of Feminism and how they failed to distance themselves from their fanatics.
Despite the braying of the IDiots, I’ve never understood how specifying the target phrase counted as “front loading”, since you don’t specify the way to get here
Each time you run these programs they figure it out anew and give you a unique solution. How can you be accused of telling it what to do when it doesn’t do the same thing twice?
It’s like the plains of Africa, where one common survival target, largely “avoid being eaten by the cats” has spawned myriad solutions across many, many species.
Some animals solve the problem by getting too big to eat (elephants). Some get fast (gazelle). Some hide underground (meerkats). Some out think the predators (us). Some take wing, some climb trees, some take to the water, etc, etc, etc.
I fail to see how the fact that we all have to solve the same problem makes my solution any less valid than the giraffes.
But didn’t they make a good case in the form of a movie? Anyone? Anyone? You mean that wasn’t peer-reviewed? Of course it was! All of the ID peers reviewed it and love it!
I just wonder why Denyse O’Leary wasn’t invited to the conference.
A good point, but then have you ever seen a “front-loading” argument with any substance at all? They can’t bear to admit defeat, even though the little AI robots running around cheating each other are about as solid an in-your-face proof as you can get, so they just wail “front loading” and hope no one notices that there’s no there there.
I think they’re saying “this is artificial selection, there’s an Intelligent Designer (Dawkins) setting up the goalposts and giving it a direction, so the Weasel program is not only (a) bogus as a description of evolution by natural selection but (b) justifies our position.”
Fortunately Dawkins noted that it was an artificial selection process to begin with. Hmm … by identifying Dawkins as an Intelligent Designer, does that mean they’ve conceded he’s INTELLIGENT? (Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive!)
White Rabbit (Greg Goebel) http://www.vectorsite.net/gblog.html
But I thought ID isn’t about religion! They don’t even pretend anymore
The very moment she became McSame’s running mate. Truth be told - I actually understand the motivation.
Literally, right now, I’ve been searching for something “sciency” to blog about and I have been unable to because I am so obsessed with the fact that McPalin is so anti-science-environment-education-etc…that nothing else seems to interest me.
Look at a quote from this article
Anyway … IMO it’s just the most important thing right now.
Yes they do, and that’s not being sarcastic. It depends on who they’re talking to. There may be no evidence on either UNCOMMON DESCENT or EVOLUTION NEWS & VIEWS of any concern but well-right-of-center ideology, but that’s irrelevant – they believe, and I would bet sincerely, that the scientific facts justify their position and that the ideology is incidental.
“Your Honor, the court should not conclude that simply because we talk ideology 24:7:365 that ID is just a sock puppet for our ideology. ID is a scientific FACT and we are just lucky that it happens to fit with our ideology.”
White Rabbit (Greg Goebel) http://www.vectorsite.net/gblog.html
Vince,
In this case, I believe it’s “There’s a sucker born again every minute.”
I’ve got the same problem, although it’s not from lack of interest. It’s just that seemingly every day lately the most realty-free assertions in the world are coming from her mealy mouth.
We’re on the same wavelength. I outlined an approach to doing exactly that in response to some correspondence with Paul Nelson just over a decade ago.
From this essay.
Yes, but at least you have a cool picture of an entelodant! ;-)
It’s spelled “entelodont” and you two mind if I make some suggestions of “sciency” things to blog about?
William Dembski has the uncanny ability to completely drop his guard and let slip a little truth from time to time. Like when he talked about fund-raising “in the Christian community” to help ID, or when ID hasn’t made any scientific advances. Now, he’s admitting that their legal and political strategies weren’t good.
Took him almost 3 years to admit it.
Beautiful! You win the thread, Karen. :)
I did neglect on other aspect of Dembski’s post, namely its subtitle:
“November Apologetics Conference — We need more than good arguments.”
May one suggest that data might be a useful add-on to intelligent design “theory”?
No, it should be…
Find the wabbit!
In the Cam’brin!
Find the wabbit!
Dig the shale!
Find the wabbit!
With the raptors!
That would be the
ho- lee grail!
Update