Now William Dembski, that untiring advocate of academic freedom and the open discussion of controversial ideas, has reported Eric Pianka to the Department of Homeland Security.
Could Pianka be charged with terrorism/conspiracy to commit a terrorist act? What happens if a student actually takes his suggestion to heart and kills a bunch of people? Why shouldn’t we think that Dr. Doom himself would commit the act of human destruction he is advocating? How is what he is saying any different from somebody at an airport saying that he plans to plant a bomb there.
Hmmm…anybody ever read any apocalyptic Christian literature? Did you know those guys are looking forward to Armageddon? Maybe the screeners at airports ought to arrest anyone caught carrying a Left Behind book…or a Bible. This is the crazy world to which paranoid kooks would lead us.
Although, actually, I don’t think Dembski is paranoid: I suspect there’s more a kind of vile glee at seeing a way to harass a scientist.
I think Eric Pianka and all the other crash-and-dieoff hand-wavers are doomsday freaks. I also think that the cassandra complex is an interesting phenomenon. It tells you more about the speaker than the state of the world.
The ID crowd has a cassandra complex of their own. If you read anything about the ID subject, evolution, naturalism, etc. out of the religious right it becomes quickly apparent that the whole antievolution movement is driven by sociological paranoia and metaphysical dread. “But if people don’t believe in a literal creation, won’t we lose the whole basis of natural rights? Won’t we have state-sanctioned murder, infanticide, gulags, holocausts, ahhh!!!!!!!!! we’re all gonna die!!!!”
Here’s my personal opinion on the cassandra complex:
Smart people often develop very sophisticated and definite ideas about how the world ought to be. Sometimes these take the form, as with right wingers, of Platonic “rationalist” worldviews or theology. In other cases, as is often the case among secular-minded scientists, these idealisms take the form of utopian visions of a world ordered by scientific reason; a world that is ecological, balanced, orderly, scientific, and sustainable.
The problem with our idealistic models is: the universe does not give a damn.
Life, of all non-living phenomena, most closely resembles a fire or a storm. It has an order of it’s own, but it crackles, consumes, swirls, flickers, and changes suddenly. It will *never* resemble *any* of our idealisms– either Platonic or secular. Life will never form a utopia: religious, ecological, or otherwise. Life *is* thermodynamic disequilibrium. It will never be “in balance.” Nothing is sustainable. Everything is a change which is a precursor to yet another change. The apparent balance that we see in a forest is an illusion of the slow passage of time. Imagine a time-lapse photo of a forest taken over a hundred years.
To the idealistic mind, this is profoundly discomforting. We have many names for it: the looming die-off of the human species, the problem of sin and the need for salvation, the problem of evil, etc. This is the feeling that religious folk always talk about– the fact that we sometimes feel as if we “don’t belong here.”
It’s the cassandra complex: “the sky is falling because the world does not resemble my model of it!”
Until we make peace with chaos.
Dembski and Pianka are travelers in the same boat as far as I can see. I suspect that the DHS will roll their eyes at both of them, after spending far too much of our tax dollars investigating these flailing loons.
I’ve decided to make a couple modifications (in bold) to Dembski’s quote about Pianka. Looks good to me.
CousinoMacul,
Nicely done, but I think Robertson would have been a better sub.
I tend to agree with Adam’s analysis, except to note that technically (and often practically) thermodynamic disequilibriums can still be steadystates, limit cycles or other attractors that gives order of sorts.
Anyway, this affair is also ironic, since Pianka in his lecture notes warn against his doom scenarios. Dembski is as always not quite getting it, and hopefully Pianka can continue his discussion freely.
To me, the really sad thing in this whole story is the involvement of Forrest Mims III. As a child, I learned a lot about electronics by reading his books, which really are the best introduction to the field out there. But since reading about his creationist views, I can’t really recommend the books wholeheartedly any more, even though they don’t bring up creationism.
Hmmm. Not so long ago Ann Coulter suggested putting rat poison in Supreme Court Justice Stevens’ food. Was she ‘reported’ for this?
Jonathan, I share your dismay about Mims. My teen years were spent reading his books and columns (did he write for Popular Electronics or Radio Electronics?) and building and experimenting with his circuits. I too was stunned when I found out he was a creationist. And recently I discovered that A.K. Dewdney, another of my teen heroes, holds rather nutty conspiracist views concerning 9-11.
Y’all help me out here, please? In the articles and discussions I’ve been reading about Dr. Pianka’s talk, I have not been getting the impression that he is actively working toward some fervently desired goal of having 90% of humans wiped out by some disease. (If he was, why would he bother to warn us?) But people are reacting as if he is personally holding the vial over the water tower, so to speak. What’s his real take on this?
What Adam said–and yes, “vile glee,” what PZ said. It will be interesting to see what other witnesses say, if anything, about this. Certainly I was not there. (Dembski was not there either, so what makes him so certain about what happened? How does he know that anything happened? “How can we know when we can’t witness events in the past…” etc!)
Also, didn’t some congressman make a remark about the “justifiable” anger of renegade citizens toward so-called “activist judges” right around the time that some convicted murderer killed people in a courthouse while trying to flee prison (only to be stopped by a blond hostage who plied the cretin with God–a.k.a. her methamphetamine-filled life)? Whatever happened with that?
I didn’t know about that whisky bet. Jeez, Wild Bill, it’s just one bottle. Cough it up.
“Jonathan, I share your dismay about Mims. My teen years were spent reading his books and columns (did he write for Popular Electronics or Radio Electronics?) and building and experimenting with his circuits. I too was stunned when I found out he was a creationist. And recently I discovered that A.K. Dewdney, another of my teen heroes, holds rather nutty conspiracist views concerning 9-11.”
I have mets lots of smart people who believe, for example: creationism, alien abductions, the Roswell crash, that the U.N. is building concentration camps in America, that the Big Bang is a religious conspiracy to get the Genesis account accepted as science (yeah there are atheist theological conspiracy theories too!), etc. I know lots of people who believe various 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Very smart and inquisitive people are much more prone to believe strange things than your average person. Normal people simply do not think about such questions in the first place.
I wouldn’t write off a good engineer for being a creationist. Just roll your eyes at that part, and pay attention to the real value of the rest of their work.
As others are, I am dismayed by Forest Mim’s involvement. When I was a very young lad and had to go to Sunday School before church with my parents (as far as I can remember, I’ve always been a skeptic, always thought church was hokey and the people were disingenuous), Forest Mims was my Sunday School teacher. He was very engaging and frequently brought cool electronics that he would explain to us and let us mess with.
I distinctly remember a largish briefcase that held one of those very first Radio Shack 20 character by 2 line LCD screen computers, an acustic modem and printer. It all fit into a briefcase and was extremely cool. This was the mid 70’s mind you! I may have even decided to check out these cool computer things back then and that’s what I’m still doing to this day.
Of course, he was all about the whole Jesus and God and all that sort of stuff, but he had the most wonderful toys. One would not think he’d turn out to be an ID’er. Sad.
If only two kooks canceled each other out.
“Cassandra complex” seems a funny way of dismissing a doomsday predictor since Cassandra was right.
Ouch. Dewdney was also one of my favorites too — and I actually got to meet him when I was a postdoc in Canada — he seemed to share the typical Canadian disdain for Bush (which I didn’t mind, sharing it myself), but I didn’t realize he thought 9/11 was a US conspiracy. But searching on the web shows that’s what he really thinks. Hopefully, Martin Gardner hasn’t gone wacko either religiously or politically — that would be the last straw.
form of utopian visions of a world ordered by scientific reason; a world that is ecological, balanced, orderly, scientific, and sustainable.
Some people would argue that the above are caused by the use of science in politics. I don’t think there’s pure science; everything scientific is used in politics.
form of utopian visions of a world ordered by scientific reason; a world that is ecological, balanced, orderly, scientific, and sustainable.
Some people would argue that the above are caused by the use of science in politics. I don’t think there’s pure science; everything scientific is used in politics.
Correction, I meant the lack of the above.
“”Cassandra complex” seems a funny way of dismissing a doomsday predictor since Cassandra was right.”
… and if Pollyanna had lived in the 50s, she would have been right too.
Both Pollyannas and Cassandras are usually wrong though. They occasionally are right, and people are occasionally struck by lightning and bit by sharks too.
Yes, but more to the point, she was convinced (in her case, justly) that she was right, and despaired that those around her couldn’t see the dire things she predicted. Sounds like a solid description of the mindset of a kook to me.
Uh oh, A.K. Dewdney teaches CS at the university where I did my undergrad. Then again, Phillipe Rushton used to teach some sort of social science there, too. Is it any wonder why I don’t like to admit having gone there?
PZ, I really like these “battle of the cranks” articles. Maybe you could make this a regular feature, kind of like Eschaton’s “Wanker of the Day”?
Speaking of Falwell, it appears McCain is sucking up to him. I’m just waiting to see which yellow dog the Democrats will put up for my vote.
Re Cassandra:
She was cursed with seeing the future correctly but never being believed by listeners. Ancient Greek story, from Homer I think (siege of Troy).
Another creationist scients, now dead: Wlater Lammerts, the renowned rose breeder (Chrysler Imperial, Queen Elizabeth, Golden Showers). Lived up the street from me when I was a kid.
Can I report Dembski to DHS for being a timewasting dipshit?
battle of the cranks !!! ROFL !!!
‘twelve monkeys’ econazi vs. ‘rapture is coming’ doom cultists
The Ultimate Last Battle which makes world war 3 looking like an innocent squabble…
Observation: That virtually all religions share the same characteristic, that being that the lower ranks are required to subsidize the upper ranks financially. If God is all-powerful, why can’t he support his advocates?
Lament: Forrest J. Mims. From logic circuits to circuitous logic. A classic master/slave flip-flop.
Looks like a lot of argumentum ad hominem on this thread. Newton was a fundamentalist Christian and an alchemist, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to disregard the mathematical relationship between force, mass and acceleration, or the inverse-square law of gravity. His optics work doesn’t hold up quite so well but is still useful for some purposes.
The work can stand on its own even if the scientist lacks credibility because of personal belief in some kooky thing (especially when it’s outside his field).
Sure, I’d be dismayed if I saw Gardner, or Randi, or Dawkins, or Shermer, or PZ pushing something I considered nutty (after looking at their claimed evidence). But it wouldn’t invalidate their other work.
I’m not sure I agree with Adam at all – not from what I’ve seen about Pianka’s work. The Bubonic plague already happened, you know? And we have plenty of other outbreaks of disease. Will we likely lose 90% of human life? That’s a largely debatable point. Organizations like the CDC and WHO have developed tactics with which to handle such outbreaks. But Pianka is basing his theories on science – and yes, 90% of human life would be susceptible to such an outbreak.
But I would hesitate before dropping his name into the hat associated with psychotic manic individuals who think they are going to float into the sky towards heaven. Unless they have PROOF of the specific disbursement of gravity….
It was a cowardly, chickenshit act.
Too bad no one reported the virus carrying Spanish pigs to Moqtezuma, maybe the conquest of North America could have been prevented. Oh – my mistake, according to Dembski, the reporter, not the source, deserves the execution.
Adam
May I add a thought to your posts, especially the list in the second? I suspect you’re already aware of it.
Putting individuals’ psychology aside, a lot of this is driven by, perhaps an instinct for, pattern recognition/story telling. Story construction is, at base, selecting from available data in our minds that which forms emotionally meaningful/resonant patterns.
On CogDaily I mentioned The Prehistory of the Mind. Author and Britishh archaeologist Steven Mithen says a key to understanding the “big-bang of culture” 50,000 years ago, is the mapping of human “social intelligence” onto human “natural history intelligence”. For my point here, that might be considered adding emotional pay-off to recognizing patterns, which perhaps marks the beginning of storytelling.
If so, did conspiracy theories start then too? Actually, hunter-gatherer’s stories about their environment could be framed as such. 50,000 years of conspiracy theories! No wonder everthing’s such a mess . . . Those people did it — I know — when you weren’t looking.
I’m sitting here reading Pianka’s fabulous textbook Evolutionary Ecology (2000) with the following dedication:
For this generation,
who must confront the
shortsightedness of their ancestors
No truer words have been written and even the thought that Eric Pianka could be a threat to anyone anywhere is absurd. Look at the man’s publication record for some clues as to what his research interests are and tell me this isn’t a colossal waste of time. From this time forward any waste of time and/or energy (thermodynamically stable or otherwise) should be known as a Dembski…..illiterate hack.
Martin Gardner is a mild-mannered theist, a “mysterian” who believes there are some questions we’ll never answer. Ken Cope cited this in a comment on the original Pharyngula site:
Rare events -such as the destruction of large portions of a population- happen with probability 1 if you wait “long enough.”
This is not a Cassandra complex, or doomsday freak stuff or holocaust advocacy.
It’s actuarial science.
“Why shouldn’t we think that Dr. Doom himself would commit the act of human destruction he is advocating?”
Well, obviously, because the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Iron Man and other heroes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Doom) protect us from him. Duh!
But wait, you say. Evil geniuses with impregnable fortresses are hard to come by. And even in comic books, they want to rule, not ruin, the world.
Not if Eric Pianka has his way. Mwah-hah-hah-hah-hah! Hah-hah! Hah!
(Can’t you just hear the vile glee in my post?)
How strange to see people claiming that humans (and their co-evolving disease organisms) are not, as animals, subject to the same evolutionary forces as other animals. A 90% die off in other species is not that uncommon. Its usually preceded by a period of over-population. Now people aren’t in the same boat as as a population of super abundant rabbits. We have some control over our fate. But viruses and bacteria are constantly mutating and evolving and it is not unreasonable to think about the day when a particularly virulant form develops. People who deny the possibility seem to be practicing the same form of human “exceptionalism” as their religious brethren.
fishskicanoe
Newton’s obsession with alchemy and theology wasn’t as odd at the time as it seems now (although some of his theological views, such as the denial of the Trinity, were certainly heretical according to the Church of England). You can’t judge a person outside of the culture they lived in. A similar problem exists with criticism of 19th century figures that held views that would be considered racist today. But that doesn’t mean you can’t criticize people for holding similar views in our current society where they are no longer acceptable.
Perhaps, in theory. The problem is that, unless you are well versed in the kooky venue that the author is immersed in, you can’t tell what sorts of reasonable sounding things are influenced by it. Maybe Mims’ fundamentalism makes him avoid certain electronic components because their product number contains 666, or maybe Dewdney’s obsession with conspiracy theory prevents him from discussing algorithms that were created by the NSA or researchers he believes are hidden CIA agents.
As someone who has known Eric Pianka since ’88, I know he is his own person in all ways, and cannot believe anyone could think he’d engage in anything like this (among other things, he is one of the last holdouts in evolutionary ecology and has never learned any molecular techniques at all). It would all strike me as a tempest in a teapot, if the folks in this administration were not so empowered and paranoid. BTW, I’d never trust anyone who can on the one hand be engaged in active science and on the other hand dismiss one of the central premises of all biology (evolution).
Dembski doesn’t realize that Mims came here from the future and will one day die in a gun-battle at the airport, vainly chasing a Pianka grad student.
Uh, wait a minute. A child Mims watched the gun-battle and set in motion a perpetual loop of causality… But that would have been decades ago…
WTF?! Where’s that script?!
Yes, we can.
We might as well assert that you can’t judge us for judging a person outside of the culture they lived in because the culture we live in permits it.
In short: take your relativism and shove it in your ear.
Kristine,
The congressman was Texas’ other Karl Rove-lap puppet, our illustrious Senator John Cornyn.
Are there any (real rather than supernatural) penalties for maliciously making false reports?
Hmmm…anybody ever read any apocalyptic Christian literature? Did you know those guys are looking forward to Armageddon? Maybe the screeners at airports ought to arrest anyone caught carrying a Left Behind book…or a Bible. This is the crazy world to which paranoid kooks would lead us.
There was another great post like this left at a blog on TelicThoughts, which was never addressed, and subsequently closed down (cowards), which I wish to reprint here:
“Andrea”: Can someone clarify something for me? Am I wrong, or are Dembski and Mims now on the record as finding abhorrent and repulsive any philosophy that envisions, in a positive light, the mass suffering and death of the vast majority of human beings (dare I say it – even wishes and prays for it), while the few survivors will live in some sort of “better world”? That Dembski and Mims consider the public dissemination of such a philosophy a bona fide danger to society, least some impressionable minds take its claims too seriously? That they deem proponents of such philosophies unworthy of academic positions? Just asking, because somehow it doesn’t sound right.
William Dembski and Forrest Mims are both world class AH’s.
Their comments about Dr. Pianka are so clouded by a type of quasi-religisoty as to almost put them in the same category as Falwell, Robertson and Bin Laden. Dr. Pianka’s opinions are PROTECTED ACADEMIC FREE SPEECH which SHOULD and MUST be aired on the Campus’ of our Institutions of Higher Learning! What do Dembski and Mims want? A return to the Dark Ages when the Catholic Church acting as the Govt could and did put Scientists and Free Thinkers to death by flame on the pyre and stake via the Inquisition? This is so very sad. To see that the MIND ROT of the Far Right Republicans which has poisoned Washington DC of late and caused the UTTERLY OBSCENE Iraq War is now reaching into Academia! This MUST STOP NOW!
Chris: Newton was not a fundamentalist Christian. He was an Arian – i.e. denied the doctrine of the trinity.
James Tiptree (Alice Mary Sheldon) wrote the story, long ago:
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:NyYcslkXfV0J:mtsu32.mtsu.edu:11090/305/SF%2520Authors/..%255CStories%255Cdrain.html+%22The+last+flight+of+doctor+ain%22&hl=en
Someone on alt.slack said it well, I quote:
“90% of the world’s population dies of airborne what-the-phuck-ever (Ebola doesn’t go airborne all that well).
Then 90% of those left die off within a year due to starvation, food poisoning, untreated injuries and other diseases, accidents, stupidity, depression, warfare and murder…. because the airborne what-the-fuck-ever
has killed 90% of the doctors and farmers and POlice and electrical engineers and refrigeration experts and plumbers and garbage men.
Then that 1% that’s left can settle down for a nice paleolithic future, because 99% of those survivors will be too busy scratching around for food and fighting off the legions of feral dachshund/rottweiler crossbreeds to be
peering through any E-lectron microscopes.
“Ook say this big metal box make good coconut crusher.”
A 50/50 plague, however, could be ideal. :)