Impending Major Developments in Pseudoscience!


Bill Dembski has posted a list of three pathetic predictions for Intelligent Design: that there will be two books published by the usual suspects (Behe, and Wells and Dembski) and that there will be a ‘research center’ at some unspecified university. Whoop-de-doo. For a major, groundbreaking, revolutionary new scientific paradigm, as they like to think of it, that’s nothing—when they crow about their triumphs, all they can do is mention a few PR efforts, and they’re so paltry that you could count them on the fingers of one partially maimed hand? John Lynch mocks their feeble vision, and offers a few suggestions for trivial additions which we know they will not produce.

After you’re done laughing at that silliness, here’s some more: Howard Smith is looking for the ethical imperative in cosmology and the kabbalah…it’s another respectable scientist suspending his credulity to build a pseudo-scientific link between reality and the fantasies of medieval mystics. It’s going to be very interesting when the Christian IDists like Dembski finally rout the entire mainstream scientific community with a couple of books and a church-sponsored room at a bible college, and then they have to turn and deal with the non-Christian heretics.

Comments

  1. says

    Dr. C. Northkote Parkinson had an entire chapter in his great book dedicated to “research centers.” He said that getting the research center, or somesuch, at a major institution, with the plaque on the door and all, is the sign that the group is entirely moribund and nearly dead. Parkinson pointed out that most the important business of life — around World War II, for example, the invention of RADAR, the creation of the first fission reaction, the building of the atomic bomb, the creation of the plans for D-Day, the building of tanks and airplanes — occurs in make-shift facilities, because there is too much creativity and action in doing the task to worry about designing a “center.”

    This will be the second such center. The last one was named after a nearly-obscure philosopher named Polanyi, at Baylor University (Baptist Central). The absurdity of a “science research” center named after and headed by a philosopher, untethered to any science department, was too much even for Baptist Central University. The “center” was parked well away from the scientists, the head came unglued and blamed the university president (after the university president had put his own job on the line to defend the center), thereby cutting off all support from the administration. The center lost funding, and eventually its head drifted off to other affairs.

    Which brings us to this point about a new “center” for research: If it is founded as such, it will indicate that ID is close to death; and it makes clear that not only do ID advocates have absolutely no research agenda to pursue to learn about living things and no clue about how to get such an agenda, they also don’t learn from experience.

  2. Valhar2000 says

    Ed, ID never was a research paradigm, or a science of any sort; it was a PR Campaign, pure and simple. The lessons that we may learn from the way scientific research has been done shed no light on the tactics of these people, and, in particular, their effectiveness.

    Specifically, it seems to me that this could be part of the on-going effort to fool the people who respect science even though they know nothing of it, and thus could be drawn to IDiots if they have a veneer of science about them, unearned though it may be.

    Defeating them in the scientific arena and in the courts does little against these people, since that is not in what they are about.

  3. Torbjörn Larsson says

    The illustration Lynch used for his post came from the wrong end.

    I don’t know about that – if I squint I can make it an ass.

    named after a nearly-obscure philosopher named Polanyi,

    Perhaps he is obscure as a philosopher (though on the face of it I can sympathize with his efforts to enunciate (personal) experience in the scientific process) but it seems a little unfair. The polymath Michael Polanyi (medicine, physical chemistry, economics, philosophy) started out from a medical degree to become an eminent physical chemist, who worked with Fritz London to explain adsorption using early quantum mechanics. He proposed the correct polymer structure of cellulose, and he introduced dislocations and proposed that they give crystals strength.

    He was also one of the founders of chemical dynamics:
    “Taking off from a treatment by Fritz London of the coulombic and resonance-energy contributions to binding energy, Eyring and Polanyi’s co-authored paper presented the first potential energy surface for chemical reactions, using a new language of the saddle-points or cols, valleys, barriers, and passes for understanding the energy transition from reactants to products. Independently, in 1935, Eyring published a paper on the ‘absolute reaction rate’ for chemical reactions, calculated from the probability of an ‘activated complex’ and the rate of decomposition of this activated state; Polanyi’s 1935 paper proceeded similarly, using what he called the ‘transition state method’ for calculating reaction velocities. These 1935 papers, along with the joint 1931 paper and a 1932 paper by Eugene Wigner and H. Pelzer, came to be seen as the foundation papers of the modern field of chemical dynamics.” ( http://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/8-2/bio_nye.html )

    So I would think he had plenty of insights to draw from. Apparently he influenced Kuhn. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Polanyi )

    The absurdity of a “science research” center named after and headed by a philosopher, untethered to any science department, was too much even for Baptist Central University.

    Again it seems a bit unfair to Polanyi. I find the following history description:

    “Questions from the faculty of Baylor led to an investigation by an External Review Committee appointed by the university. The External Review Committee Report, October 16, 2000, p. 2 said:

    �It is quite appropriate to associate the name of Michael Polanyi with discussions of science and religion. However, Polanyi explicitly indicated that he did not think that an agency such as that implied by claims of the intelligent design need to be invoked when dealing with the growth in complexity of the living world over aeons past (Personal Knowledge, p. 395). Given this, and given also the debates that have surrounded the Michael Polanyi Center from its origins, it would seem best that whatever research is carried out at Baylor on the design inference should not bear the Polanyi name.”
    (http://pr.baylor.edu/pdf/001017polanyi.pdf)

    Following the External Review Committee�s report, the Polanyi name was removed and the work of the Center was moved to the Institute for Faith and Learning at Baylor. Drs. William Dembski and Bruce Gordon who led the Intelligent Design project were also placed under the supervision of Dr. Michael Beaty, Director of the Institute for Faith and Learning.” [bold added, question marks is a font problem] ( http://www.missouriwestern.edu/orgs/polanyi/mp-id.htm )

  4. Torbjörn Larsson says

    The illustration Lynch used for his post came from the wrong end.

    I don’t know about that – if I squint I can make it an ass.

    named after a nearly-obscure philosopher named Polanyi,

    Perhaps he is obscure as a philosopher (though on the face of it I can sympathize with his efforts to enunciate (personal) experience in the scientific process) but it seems a little unfair. The polymath Michael Polanyi (medicine, physical chemistry, economics, philosophy) started out from a medical degree to become an eminent physical chemist, who worked with Fritz London to explain adsorption using early quantum mechanics. He proposed the correct polymer structure of cellulose, and he introduced dislocations and proposed that they give crystals strength.

    He was also one of the founders of chemical dynamics:
    “Taking off from a treatment by Fritz London of the coulombic and resonance-energy contributions to binding energy, Eyring and Polanyi’s co-authored paper presented the first potential energy surface for chemical reactions, using a new language of the saddle-points or cols, valleys, barriers, and passes for understanding the energy transition from reactants to products. Independently, in 1935, Eyring published a paper on the ‘absolute reaction rate’ for chemical reactions, calculated from the probability of an ‘activated complex’ and the rate of decomposition of this activated state; Polanyi’s 1935 paper proceeded similarly, using what he called the ‘transition state method’ for calculating reaction velocities. These 1935 papers, along with the joint 1931 paper and a 1932 paper by Eugene Wigner and H. Pelzer, came to be seen as the foundation papers of the modern field of chemical dynamics.” ( http://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/8-2/bio_nye.html )

    So I would think he had plenty of insights to draw from. Apparently he influenced Kuhn. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Polanyi )

    The absurdity of a “science research” center named after and headed by a philosopher, untethered to any science department, was too much even for Baptist Central University.

    Again it seems a bit unfair to Polanyi. I find the following history description:

    “Questions from the faculty of Baylor led to an investigation by an External Review Committee appointed by the university. The External Review Committee Report, October 16, 2000, p. 2 said:

    �It is quite appropriate to associate the name of Michael Polanyi with discussions of science and religion. However, Polanyi explicitly indicated that he did not think that an agency such as that implied by claims of the intelligent design need to be invoked when dealing with the growth in complexity of the living world over aeons past (Personal Knowledge, p. 395). Given this, and given also the debates that have surrounded the Michael Polanyi Center from its origins, it would seem best that whatever research is carried out at Baylor on the design inference should not bear the Polanyi name.”
    (http://pr.baylor.edu/pdf/001017polanyi.pdf)

    Following the External Review Committee�s report, the Polanyi name was removed and the work of the Center was moved to the Institute for Faith and Learning at Baylor. Drs. William Dembski and Bruce Gordon who led the Intelligent Design project were also placed under the supervision of Dr. Michael Beaty, Director of the Institute for Faith and Learning.” [bold added, question marks is a font problem] ( http://www.missouriwestern.edu/orgs/polanyi/mp-id.htm )

  5. Torbjörn Larsson says

    Drat! Sorry curious, I didn’t see that you had found the same material. Mea culpa.

  6. Torbjörn Larsson says

    Drat! Sorry curious, I didn’t see that you had found the same material. Mea culpa.

  7. jba says

    Just out of curiousity, has any ID group put forth a stance on cloning? I cant imaging they would be able use any of the standard christian arguments “its against gods way” “its not natural” etc. I mean, if we were all designed by a designer (but not god!) then why cant we design as well?

  8. quork says

    and that there will be a ‘research center’ at some unspecified university.

    Just to pre-emptively clarify, Biola University is no longer known as the Bible Institute of Los Angeles.


    The Institute was renamed Biola College in 1949.

    Biola’s main campus is located in the city of La Mirada in Los Angeles County, California and has satellite campuses in Chino, Inglewood, Thousand Oaks, Palm Desert, San Diego, San Bernardino and as of May 6, 2006 a new facility in Laguna Hills, Orange County

  9. David Marjanović says

    Genetic manipulation would be design. Cloning is not; a photocopy isn’t design either.

  10. David Marjanović says

    Genetic manipulation would be design. Cloning is not; a photocopy isn’t design either.

  11. says

    Dembski, Behe and the others announcing something of this sort reminds me a lot of those idiotic Raelians having a press conference to talk about their “cloning breakthrough” with the non-existant babies.

    Goofballs.

  12. Steve says

    Anyone have any idea what Behe’s argument is going to be? Based on a review of some pre-publication blubs, it looks like it’s going to say that mutations can’t happen fast enough or that they can’t produce big changes, but the information provided is sketchy. Anyone know where he’s going with this book, because it seems to me that it may be important to get the evolutionary biology response out there before the book is even available.

  13. quork says

    Here’s some “Intelligent Design” that puts anything the Discovery Institute has funded to shame: Cows Engineered to Lack Mad Cow Disease

    Scientists have genetically engineered a dozen cows to be free from the proteins that cause mad cow disease, a breakthrough that may make the animals immune to the brain-wasting disease.

  14. quork says

    Anyone know where he’s going with this book…

    I think he’s taking it to the bank.

  15. says

    jba – I’ve found a 2003 quote by a Paul Nesselroade on the ARN website against human cloning: “If however, our lives are the product of intentionality and design, then purpose and meaning as well as right and wrong may not be just arbitrary human constructs… Far from needing us to carve them out, purpose and meaning could form part of the very template from which we ourselves were stamped! With this starting point, cloning looks quite different. Are we just enhancing our lives, as we would with a new invention or tastier dish, or are we hijacking the designer’s machinery and pirating it for our own exploitation? And what about the possibility of fundamental human dignity that design implies? Enhancing one life at the expense of another involves value assignments and selection between them. It all starts to feel uncomfortably reminiscent [oh, here we go, people!] of 1940’s Europe. Who assigns the values? Who makes the selections? [Never mind that we’re constantly making them anyway.]

    “Often the critics of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement make the claim that ID is a ‘science stopper.’ Well, if by ‘science’ they mean unrestrained experimentation on human beings, they may be right.”

    In other words, do what the designer says, not what the designer does. (But who gets to interpret what the designer “says”? Ah! Those who would experiment on human beings–their way. *wink*) Because it is about God. Don’t let them fool you. It’s all about the G-meister.

  16. Mena says

    These guys are getting to the age where they are going to find out that the prostate wasn’t too intelligently designed, aren’t they?
    When they have an institute maybe they can do some groundbreaking research on the difference between a hypothesis and a theory. They seem to be unable to understand the scientific method or are manipulating it so that it looks like their hypothesis, which has never undergone any testing, is just as valid as the theory of evolution. I’m betting on the latter, should we take a poll? There seems to be a lot of money in ignorance and hate in this country right now.

  17. jba says

    Thanks Kristine! It sounds an awful lot like the normal theist arguments. All they did was replace god with designer. What a bunch of crap. I mean, I dont want any clones of myself, but thats just because I know they would try to kill me so they would be the real me. It would be a mess.

  18. brtkrbzhnv says

    I wouldn’t even go so far as calling it a hypothesis before they’ve specified the designer; for the claim that there is a designer is totally vacuous and untestable if we don’t know a single fact about the designer (except for it being “intelligent”). If e.g. they decided that the designer is omnipotent and benevolent we’d have a testable hypothesis, and all that would be needed to falsify it would be a single imperfection in all of creation.

  19. Mena says

    I see the hypothesis as there being no way that the universe could have arranged itself into what it is without some help from some unknown (wink) force. They don’t have any desire to test their hypothesis for a couple reasons. It’s supernatural they probably feel that it doesn’t need to be tested. They are right because they know that they are right. End. Of. Discussion. It’s also important to drag this out for as long as possible and make as big of a fuss as possible in order to keep the funds coming in. Remember that to the average Fox viewer the louder someone yells what they want to hear the more correct that person is about whatever he or she is talking about.

  20. Darrell says

    “If e.g. they decided that the designer is omnipotent and benevolent we’d have a testable hypothesis, and all that would be needed to falsify it would be a single imperfection in all of creation.”

    I don’t believe in God, or any gods, either. But, in the interests of helping improve arguments against creationism and similar belief systems I’d like to point out that finding an imperfection, or a multitude of them, in all of creation would not disprove this hypothesis unless the purpose of the design were also known and could be shown to be negatively impacted by those imperfections.

  21. Xanthir, FCD says

    I don’t believe in God, or any gods, either. But, in the interests of helping improve arguments against creationism and similar belief systems I’d like to point out that finding an imperfection, or a multitude of them, in all of creation would not disprove this hypothesis unless the purpose of the design were also known and could be shown to be negatively impacted by those imperfections.

    Of course, a design that makes no sense isn’t much of a design at all, is it? I mean, a god who does nothing more than flip a coin at all the important decisions would be designing us, technically… But I still think we could blame him for all the imperfections. An inept one who designed as well as he could and still messed up on stuff as fundamental as cancer or tiger cubs (they’re too cute when they’re small, and too fierce when they’re big!) isn’t worthy of much praise either.

    In other words, we don’t usually put kindergarten crayon practice up in art museums.

  22. Darrell says

    Xanthir,

    No arguments from me there …. well maybe one. I think tigers, cubs and adults, are cool as shit.