Posted by Matt Young on August 14, 2004 | Comments (16) | TrackBack (0)

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.
—Plato

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes

Kent Hovind, the creationist and tax resister, has made only a few cameo appearances on PT, but he was recently the subject of an article in Intelligence Report (Camille Jackson, “When Giants Roamed: A Florida Theme Park Sells Creationism - with an Antigovernment Twist,” Summer, 2004, p. 49), a publication of the Southern Poverty Leadership Center.  The New York Times describes Hovind as the operator of a creationist theme park but, unfortunately, in a fairly credulous article, glosses over some of Mr. Hovind’s other activities  (Abby Goodnough, “Darwin-Free Fun for Creationists,” May 1, 2004).

Continue reading  “Kent Hovind and the Civilized Society”

Posted by PvM on August 13, 2004 | Comments (63) | TrackBack (0)

I intend to review a book by Young and Edis (editors) called “Why intelligent design fails”.

In thirteen chapters contributors  Gert Korthof, David Ussery, Alan Gishlick, Ian Musgrave, Niall Shanks, Istvan Karsai, Gary Hurd, Jeffrey Shallit, Wesley Elsberry, Mark Perakh, Victor Stenger and of course Taner Edis and Matt Young show how the foundations of ID are without much scientific support. As experts in their various fields, these scientists take on various aspects of Intelligent Design claims and methodically take them apart.

This book is the lastest in a line of excellent books in which authors have addressed various aspects of the Intelligent Design movement and have shown how Intelligent Design has failed to live up to its scientific claims.

• Unintelligent Design by Mark Perakh

• God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory by Niall Shanks

• Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design by Barbara Carroll Forrest

• Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe by Victor J. Stenger

• Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose? by Michael Ruse

Recommendation:

Continue reading  “Why intelligent design fails: Introduction”

Posted by PvM on August 12, 2004 | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

UDN, Inc. and GNIJS of Ohio are united in our cause to open up Ohio state science curriculum to fair, even-handed and objective discussion of all sides of the issue of the origins of life.

Although we believe the Ohio Board of Education has improved its track record with the recent debate between proponents of teaching evolution and those in favor of intelligent design, we are aghast that the State failed to notify our group of the debate, invite one or two of our speakers, or show the slightest recognition of our position on the issue at all.

Read more at  Unintelligent Design Network, Inc.

Posted by PZ Myers on August 12, 2004 | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

Let's take a break from Dembski and talk about something more interesting: whale evolution. John Lynch has already mentioned this paper on how the evolution of whale hearing unfolds in fossil record, but it's fun stuff and I thought I'd discuss some of the data in a little more detail. In particular, I'm going to take a look at one figure of the structure of the ear to see how the changes occurred.

Continue reading "Evolution of the whale ear" (on Pharyngula)

Posted by PvM on August 12, 2004 | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

Note that Dembski has uploaded a revised manuscript which now correctly attributes the measure to Renyi and thanks the many critics for their contributions

I am not a mathematician but let me give it a try and others can amend and revise my comments.

The Kantorovich/Wasserstein distance metric is also known under such names as the Dudley, Fortet Mourier, Mallows and is defined as follows.

where refers to the expectation of the random variable x and means that the minimum is sought on all random variables X which take a distribution F and random variables Y which take a distribution G.

where is the set of all joint distributions of random variables X and Y whose marginal distributions are F and G.

Continue reading  “A quick explanation of Wasserstein Metric”

Posted by Mark Perakh on August 12, 2004 | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

In his reply to the critical comments by Cosma Shalizi, William Dembski asserts that his “dear critics” to whom he has emailed his new paper on Variational Information are not qualified to judge his mathematical breakthroughs. He lists six such “dear critics” - Shallit, Levitt, Wein, Stenger, Schneider, and myself. A question is, if we all are not qualified to appreciate the great achivements of the Isaac Newton of information theory, why did he send his article to us and explicitly requested our opinions?  I can’t speak for the rest of the “dear critics” but there is little doubt that at least the three mathematicians on that list are versed better than I in the material of Dembski’s article. I indeed do not claim to be an expert in the subject matter of Dembski’s new paper, nevertheless I had no problem with understanding his paper. There is little doubt that the mathematicians like Shallit, Levitt and Wein must have even less problems with that. As promised in a comment to another thread, I have now posted an essay to TalkReason, which, although is not directly about Dembski’s new paper, contains some material which may shed light on the question of who, Dembski or his critics, is better qualified to judge the merits of his newest mathematical opus - see www.talkreason.org/articles/complexity.pdf .

Posted by Jason Rosenhouse on August 12, 2004 | Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)

In light of William Dembski's recent technical paper (the first of seven!), and the protracted discussion that is taking place in the comments section of this recent post from PZ Myers, this may be a good time to review his various mathematical arguments in favor of ID.

Continue reading  “The Evolution of Dembski's Mathematics”

Posted by PvM on August 11, 2004 | Comments (55) | TrackBack (0)

Note: Dembski has submitted a posting to ARN called Condeding too much which mostly misses the point. More later.. In fact my conclusion was premature, it was just a revision of the same old with a new ‘topic’.  What was first title “the benefits of reinventing the wheel” is now titled “conceding too much” and much of the text has been revised.

Note: The title borrows from a posting by Mark Perakh on Talkreason.org. Who says that Intelligent Design is not predictable

William Dembski’s strategy of ‘using critics’ has been well documented in his own writings.

Critics and enemies are useful. The point is to use them effectively. In our case, this is remarkably easy to do. The reason is that our critics are so assured of themselves and of the rightness of their cause.  As a result, they rush into print their latest pronouncements against intelligent design when more careful thought, or perhaps even silence, is called for. The Internet, especially now with its blogs (web logs), provides our critics with numerous opportunities for intemperate, indiscreet, and ill-conceived attacks on intelligent design. These can be turned to advantage, and I’ve done so on numerous occasions. I’m not going to give away all my secrets, but one thing I sometimes do is post on the web a chapter or section from a forthcoming book, let the critics descend, and then revise it so that what appears in book form preempts the critics’ objections. An additional advantage with this approach is that I can cite the website on which the objections appear, which typically gives me the last word in the exchange. And even if the critics choose to revise the objections on their website, books are far more permanent and influential than webpages.

Scientifically speaking such behavior seems ‘odd’ as it suggests that it may be more important to appear right rather than being right. From an apologetic standpoint I can understand such a position but from a scientific standpoint I wonder about the effectiveness of such an approach in providing for a solid scientific foundation for ID.

Recently Bill sent an email to various well-known critics…

Continue reading  “Dembski's consistent inconsistencies”

Posted by John M. Lynch on August 11, 2004 | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

Studies of the fossil record along with genetic data for Cetacea (Whales, dolphins and their allies) offers some of the best examples of evolutionary studies generating testable, refutable, hypotheses regarding the development of organic diversity. Many readers will perhaps remember Carl Zimmer’s wonderful exposition in At The Water’s Edge (Amazon), but a lot has happened since Zimmer was writing in 1999, with interesting articles appearing in journals such as Systematic Biology, Paleobiology, and Evolution and Development. In the August 12th edition of Nature, a study of the early evolution of whales demonstrates the changes that took place in whales’ outer and middle ears, required for the transition from a land-based to a marine-based existence. From EurekAlert:

The ear is the most important sense organ for modern toothed whales, say scientists, because these whales locate their prey using echolocation. Directional hearing is critical: A blind whale could find food without much trouble; a deaf one would starve.

The study documents how hearing in these whales evolved. The research is based on cetacean fossils representing four groups of early whales. The earliest cetaceans, pakicetids (those that swam in ancient seas 50 million years ago), used the same sound transmission system as did land mammals, and so had poor underwater hearing. More recent cetaceans, remingtonocetids and protocetids (those that lived 43-46 million years ago), retained the land-mammal system, but also developed a new sound transmission system.

“The fossils document the ways in which cetacean hearing has changed, starting with ear fossils of whales’ land ancestors and ending with the ear of near-modern looking whales,” said Hans Thewissen, an anatomist at the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine (NEOUCOM). Thewissen and NEOUCOM researcher Sirpa Nummela led the study.

The newer system was similar to that of modern whales. The later whales could hear better in water than pakicetids could, and could also hear in air, but hearing in both media was compromised by the existence of two systems. With the advent of basilosauroids (approximately 40 million years ago), the old land-mammal ear disappeared, and the modern cetacean sound transmission system began its development. Although basilosaurids were not echolocators (they lacked the sound-emission equipment of later echolocators), they had taken a major step forward in refining underwater sound reception.

The paper in question is S. Nummela et al. “Eocene evolution of whale hearing” Nature Vol 430, No 7001, pp 776-778 (doi:10.1038/nature02720). Abstract reads:

The origin of whales (order Cetacea) is one of the best-documented examples of macroevolutionary change in vertebrates. As the earliest whales became obligately marine, all of their organ systems adapted to the new environment. The fossil record indicates that this evolutionary transition took less than 15 million years, and that different organ systems followed different evolutionary trajectories. Here we document the evolutionary changes that took place in the sound transmission mechanism of the outer and middle ear in early whales. Sound transmission mechanisms change early on in whale evolution and pass through a stage (in pakicetids) in which hearing in both air and water is unsophisticated. This intermediate stage is soon abandoned and is replaced (in remingtonocetids and protocetids) by a sound transmission mechanism similar to that in modern toothed whales. The mechanism of these fossil whales lacks sophistication, and still retains some of the key elements that land mammals use to hear airborne sound.

Those with access to the journal can read the article here

Posted by PvM on August 11, 2004 | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

Barry Lynn interviewed Barbara Forrest on May 10, 2004. This is how Barry Lynn introduces the issues:

Not a single scientific article has been published in any recognized scientific scientific journal supporting the idea of “creation science” or its newest variant “intelligent design”. How’s that for a culture shock? Nevertheless, in spite of that absence of scientific information a prototype college class has actually been created to teach so called intelligent design and dismiss evolution. A seminar on the topic of intelligent design has actually been taught to members of Congress here in Washington and to their staff. And new religious groups are springing up all over the country spending milllions of dollars a year to promote pseudo-science or religion and diss the idea of evolution. We have got a problem and it’s called the ignorance of future generations. Our guest today has written a truely very very useful book for people who have a serious interest in looking at science, looking at issues of religion and where the two maybe shouldn’t be meeting. The book is called “creationism’s trojan horse”. It is written by my guest Barbara Forrest

Listen to the full interview here

Posted by Reed A. Cartwright on August 11, 2004 | Comments (29) | TrackBack (1)

Anti-evolutionists often make political inroads by relying on America’s sense of fair play in addition to our scientific illiteracy.  The average American responds favorably to the loaded suggestion that all ideas are equally valid and asks, “why shouldn’t science class treat all ideas equally?”  Our challenge as supporters of science education is to teach the average American that science is not a “fair” process, but one that is based on merit, and that not all ideas are equally valid.  Realizing that many Americans are familiar with another merit based school program, sports, I have developed the following analogy.

Science doesn’t treat all ideas equally for the same reason why football doesn’t treat all players equally.  You don’t give your inexperienced freshman quarterback the same amount of playing time that you give the three-year starter who has taken you to two championships.  Playing time and class-room time are both based on merit.  Not all players and not all ideas have the same merit.  Some ideas, like evolution, are equivalent to a three-year starting quarterback with two championship rings and whose father won the Heisman Trophy and three Super Bowls.  Other ideas, like “intelligent” design creationism, are equivalent to an out-of-shape eight-grader who thinks football is played on an Xbox.

Advocates of “intelligent” design creationism have an idea, one that is not developed scientifically.  It is like the weak freshman who wants to be a quarterback but who needs to work hard to compete for a spot on the team and the starting position.  Unfortunately, this quarterback does not think that he needs to practice.  He does not think that he needs to work at becoming a quarterback.  He thinks that he is already good enough be the quarterback.  Why shouldn’t he get as much playing time as the other quarterbacks?  The fact that the coach doesn’t think that he belongs on the team doesn’t inspire him to work hard and earn playing time.  To the contrary, it inspires his parents to bypass the obviously indoctrinated coach, and go over his head to the principal or school board.

A quarterback controversy is good for the team, after all.  If all quarterbacks are not given the same amount of playing time then fans will not be able to decide who to cheer for.  Clearly random parents who have never played football have a better understanding of the game than a coach who has been indoctrinated into it.  As outsiders they are clearly capable of besting the insiders when it comes to coaching decisions.  It is so obvious; isn’t it?

However, knowledgeable sports fans will understand why it is necessary to stick with an established quarterback, rewarding hard work and merit over egotism and self-importance.  Knowledgeable parents, educators, and politicians should similarly understand why it is necessary to stick with established scientific ideas in classrooms.

Posted by Timothy Sandefur on August 11, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Overlawyered.com reports that the Kennewick Man litigation appears not to be quite finished.

Posted by PZ Myers on August 11, 2004 | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Tangled Bank #9 is online, with a dozen links to diverse musings on various fascinating aspects of science and the natural world.

Posted by PZ Myers on August 10, 2004 | Comments (55) | TrackBack (0)

Cosma Shalizi has a sharp dissection of Dembski's peculiar abuses of information theory. Things don't look happy for poor Bill.

Dembski's paper seriously mis-represents the nature and use of information theory in a wide range of fields. What he puts forward as a new construction is in fact a particular case of a far more general idea, which was published in forty-four years ago. That construction is extremely well-known and widely used in a number of fields in which Dembski purports to be an expert, namely information theory, hypothesis testing and the measurement of complexity. The manuscript contains exactly no new mathematics. Such is the work of a man described on one of his book jackets as "the Isaac Newton of information theory". His home page says this is the first in a seven-part series on the "mathematical foundations of intelligent design"; I can't wait. Or rather, I can.

Posted by PZ Myers on August 08, 2004 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

During and after the Democratic National Convention, weblogs got a lot of attention as an up-and-coming medium for sharing news and information…but you may have noticed that all the attention was on the political uses of the blog. We all know, though, that there is much more to weblogging than the political rants from the left and the right—and one of the things many of us are also interested in is science. We have set up the Tangled Bank as a showcase for the scientific wavelength of the spectrum of viewpoints on the web, and are trying hard to give more prominence to the promulgation of science in this medium.

So don't be shy! You can help acknowledge the value of weblogging for disseminating all kinds of information other than political opinion by adding your voice to ours. We're looking for more entries for this week's Tangled Bank, so if you've written anything even remotely related to science, send it in to me so we can spread the word and direct more people to your writing. We want to know about you! You don't need to be a professional scientist, you don't need to write dry prose with statistics and eleven-syllable words, it is enough that you are enthusiastic about reason and logic and evidence and the wonders of the natural world around you.

Submitting an article has benefits directly to you, as well. Sending a link to us means your site will be linked in turn by a number of other science-oriented weblogs; several participants have reported to me that they've gotten their highest levels of traffic yet from their Tangled Bank entries. We aren't just raising science's profile on the web, we can help people notice your weblog as well.

I'm also looking for new people to volunteer to act as a host. Again, you don't need to be a scientist to do this. Do you think science is important? Do you want to help spread the word about science on the web? Then you have all the qualifications you need. Send me a message volunteering a little bit of your time and a little space on your weblog, and you too can be a Friend of Science. (Oh, and the hosts get even more traffic directed to their site than the link submitters—everybody wins in this game!)

Take a look at previous editions of the Tangled Bank. If you've written anything like them, send a link to pzmyers@pharyngula.org, and we'll put your work in the next edition. If you think promoting science is a good idea, also mention that you'd like to volunteer to help out, and I'll put you on the list of future hosts.

Posted by Reed A. Cartwright on August 08, 2004 | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

Here are a couple of interesting things from CSE and AIG.

Dr. Dino blasts Sarfati as a compromiser.

Dr. Sarfati’s book Refuting Compromise is awesome about the obvious compromise of Hugh Ross but he does not realize his own compromise in this area. It is my prayer that they will study the subject more thoroughly and repent of this grievous error. Their position clearly raises doubts about God’s Word, which is precisely what Satan did in the Garden of Eden when he said, “Yeah hath God said?” Our position at CSE is that God has preserved His Word for the English-speaking people in the King James Version.

And from the AiG email newsletter from 8/7/04:

Is evolution really sun worship?

Part of the evolutionist’s religion is that energy from the sun—acting on a primeval soup millions of years ago—caused the first life-forms to emerge. Thus, they believe that the sun really gave birth to living things. They are really giving glory to the sun’s energy for life.

Down through the ages, culture after culture has worshipped the sun. If you recall, the Israelites were warned not to worship the sun like the pagan nations around them.

Posted by Wesley R. Elsberry on August 08, 2004 | Comments (28) | TrackBack (1)

Over on Imago Dei, PT has come in for some criticism because we didn’t excoriate Francis Crick for having suggested “directed paspermia” as a possible scenario for the origin of life on earth.

At least our friends at The Panda’s Thumb, who show so much disdain for intelligent design theorists, would provide a tough critique of Crick’s intelligent design theory. Remember that science is supposedly about evaluating the data, not making ad hominem attacks on those who disagree with your view. Here are their comments regarding Crick, with very little mention (and no critique of) his ID theory.

If you are a Christian and propose an ID theory with supporting evidence, you are lambasted as a simple-minded, non-scientific science killer. If you are a Nobel prize winner and you propose an ID theory with no evidence, you are applauded by your “bold speculation”. Who still believes that this is a level playing field?

It’s a criticism that is based on a straight-forward argument from analogy. So, just how good is that analogy?

Francis Crick labeled his “directed panspermia” conjectures as just that: speculation. ID advocates try to assert that their conjectures are established science.

Francis Crick never held a congressional briefing, nor lobbied a state legislature, nor inveigled a school board, to insist that “directed panspermia” be taught to K12 students as science. ID advocates are using a socio-political full-court press to skip over all the tedious work of convincing the scientific community that they have a clue.

Hmmm. That analogy doesn’t look like such a good fit, does it?

Beyond that, we have the false assertion: “If you are a Christian and propose an ID theory with supporting evidence, you are lambasted as a simple-minded, non-scientific science killer.” It’s false because this has never happened. First, there is a difference between a scientific theory and a wild-assed guess. Second, it isn’t a “theory” just to assert that a problem exists in someone else’s theory. Third, “supporting evidence” assumes that one has proposed a positive theory of one’s own and (here’s the tough part) performed some empirical tests upon it that actually might have told you the theory could be wrong. Oh, yes, the tests need to not actually tell you that the theory was wrong. ID advocates don’t have a “positive research program”. Just ask ID advocates Rob Koons, Bruce Gordon, or Paul Nelson what they have said on this point. (They are hopeful that such is just around the corner, and some have been saying that since 1997.) The twin stars of ID argumentation, irreducible complexity and specified complexity, both are based upon asserting problems for someone else’s theory. So the conditions of the assertion have not been met, and there is no evidence of any such “lambasting” as was said.

There certainly has been lambasting of misguided people who try to push non-science into the science classrooms, and that is just how it should be.

There does exist a level playing field. The scientific community communicates via the peer-reviewed literature, establishing an iterative process of inter-subjective criticism and review that finds what works in scientific ideas. This playing field, though, has been shunned by ID advocates.

William Dembski wrote:

“I’ve just gotten kind of blase 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.”