Destin Sandlin is an enthusiastic and cheerful engineering YouTuber, who spoke at Skepticon seven years ago. I was there. And I remember it, because I really disliked his talk. He’s got this “Aw shucks, I’m just a redneck engineer from Alabama” style that started to grate minutes into his presentation, and also he’s a Christian. That wouldn’t have been bad, except that that was his whole schtick — he’s a Christian speaking at an atheist conference! He must spend much of his time defending his faith and telling the audience to be tolerant of different perspectives, because obviously the Skepticon organizers must be intolerant despite the fact that they invited him to speak. It’s not as if they were unaware of his religious views, after all he mentions it and includes a Bible verse in every video.
I was really annoyed with the last 20 minutes, in which he showed off a bicycle that he’d modified to reverse the steering — it goes right when you turn left, etc. — and spent a year practicing riding it. His point was that different people have different backgrounds and expectations, so yeah, once again, you atheists who invited me here need to learn to respect other points of view.
Hated it.
Anyway, my response was to simply ignore him ever after, and had no interest in seeing any of his videos, until now. He has been written up by the Discovery Institute! He recently put up a video that was “golly gee, the flagellum sure is complex and awe-inspiring.”
A popular YouTube science channel called SmarterEveryDay has 11.5 million subscribers. The channel recently posted a fantastic video about the bacterial flagellum titled, “Nature’s Incredible ROTATING MOTOR (It’s Electric!).” It has been up for less than a week and already has over 1.9 million views. In the video, engineer Destin Sandlin explains how he became captivated after watching an online animation of the bacterial flagellum. He notes that the flagellum “is a really big topic, not only in biomechanics” but also in “philosophy.” That’s because “the complexity of the flagellum implies many things about the origin of life” and “raises questions that people are debating and they’re talking about how can this be?” Sandlin says that he’s “not going to answer” those deeper questions in this video and he doesn’t explicitly endorse intelligent design — but he clearly appreciates the importance of this tiny molecular machine.
Sandlin is very careful about walking a thin line. He clearly believes that complex molecular machines were designed, but he doesn’t have even basic knowledge about protein chemistry or how organisms work (at one point, he says that sperm flagella have rotary machinery like the bacterial flagellum — they don’t), so he’s conscious that he’s not at all qualified to discuss this stuff and that all he brings to the table on this topic is his religious bias, so he doesn’t come right out and say it. He’ll let the viewer fill in the blanks for him.
In the end, Sandlin expounds upon his emotional reaction to seeing the complexity of the flagellum. He says its complexity gives him “joy” and makes him feel “awe and reverence,” and even brings him to give thanks to God. What a beautiful reaction to such a little thing!
Gee whillikers, he’s just a good ol’ country boy letting you know how he feels…and providing fodder for creationists.
I’ll continue to ignore him, but now with additional vehemence.
Yet another person who draws conclusions about the universe based entirely upon their own willful ignorance and incredulity.
I’m still waiting for something as basic as a definition of the unit of complexity, let alone how and where the borderline between natural and designed is set.
Ahhhh, ID. The Great Intelligent Designer. Who loves him some parasites. Lots of them. From time to time I check into the site “Parasite Of The Day” to see what the latest little horror is featured. Why the Grand Intelligent Designer so loves fiendishly nasty parasites with complex life cycles is something I find the IDists don’t like to discuss.
And on the seventh day, God created Guinea worms.
http://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/
a bicycle that he’d modified to reverse the steering — it goes right when you turn left, etc. — and spent a year practicing riding it
A most apt description of religion, a bunch of arbitrary rules and much wasted time developing the skills needed to navigate them for absolutely no benefit, other than to the authoritarians who came up with them in the first place.
And that people can adapt to stupid, arbitrary changes.
Rich Woods@1–
IDists love to pretend they’ve mathematically proved the existence of irreducible complexity while refusing to define it mathematically.
Apologies if this is a stupid question, but why would someone like that be invited to speak at Skepticon?
Because, at least superficially, he’s pro-science. Skepticon is not an anti-theist conference.
The JD Vance of engineering. “I’m not as backward as the rest of my kin. Just kidding, I’m worse.”
Hey, don’t blame God. All those parasites were lovely fellows until Adam and Eve ate the apple and caused The Fall.
Sadly you could probably find people who actually believe nonsense like that.
I kinda liked his engineering videos, but he’s clearly not qualified to talk about biology. I stopped watching his videos after the supersonic baseball video. He had his sons accompany him and they had to call him “Sir”. What an assclown.
“has 11.5 million subscribers” – how can we not despair of the human race?
On another nutter, have you heard the saga of RFK Jr. and the dead bear cub he left in Central Park 20 years ago with an old
bicycle? . It seems he was driving along and the car ahead of him hit and killed a bear CUB. At first he wanted to take it home to eat and skin, but then he realized he was going to the airport, and had a car full of drunk buddies ( of course he wasn’t drinking, according to himself) and they all agreed with his alternate plan to leave the dead bear in Central Park as if a cyclist had hit it. Luckily he just happened to have an old bike in his trunk, so this is what they did, and the NYC police were never able to find out what really happened. Somehow this was supposed to encourage the city to install more bicycle lanes! Just one more proof the man is batshtit crazy. He is admitting it now as he fears someone will dig it up to use against is cadidacy.
The complexity of the Alien xenomorph is another reason to feel awe and reverence.
And what is it with anglophones and their obsession to be called “sir”?
I’m seeing a lot of this style online. Tolerance is important don’t you know. Only their focus is tollerance of ideas, not people.
Speaking of parasitism, a Nobel Laureate has gone over to the dark side and become a climate change skeptic.
Sabine Hossenfelder (!) has thoroughly debunked his arguments.
She even explained “Fremdschämen”, the cringe you experience when seeing someone you do not know make complete fools of themselves.
Being “tolerant of different perspectives” should not extend to basic math mistakes!
I generally like his content. The enthusiasm he puts into things is usually pretty interesting. But he doesn’t put in the technical depth to really be more than just entertainment.
He did a pretty good job avoiding this particular issue until that recent video. I think that was his attempt of a fair and balanced coverage, and the few jabs he made were reflexive more than anything. But it still goes back to his style. If he had gone for an in depth coverage, he would have noticed, for example, the noted similarity between the flagellum ring and active transport proteins or various other similar cellular structures. But, as usual he provides a superficial take to make people feel smarter without challenging their preconceptions.
I was expecting some kind of sex scandal, thankfully, that wasn’t the case
Meanwhile, over at Sandwalk,Professor Laurence Moran criticizes ID. The latest ID site “Evolution News” has pronounced evolution a failed theory.
“Design has finally started to be taken seriously by scientists not because there are minor problems with Darwin’s explanation, but because it has become absurdly, blindingly obvious that neither it nor any other theory that ignores design will ever completely explain living things.”
Moran finds them depressing.
Jumpin a rope on a unicycle. Beats riding a modifyed bicycle any day.
The cheerful Swedish guy (now deceased) who explained things like population science and epidemiology was a good ‘leitbild’ for science education.
.
As for evolution, an author named Parkinson coined Parkinson’s Law where people really dig down into issues that seem simple, while avoiding discussing topics that are obviously complex.
The problem with evolution is, it gives the impression of being simple while really being a complex issue.
Those who realise they know nothing about brain surgery will nevertheless assume they have grasped the entirely of evolutionary theory.
(It is like the literary style of Hemingway – it appears to be simple so a ton of hacks try to emulate it)
I used to watch his videos, but I got tired of him trying so hard to show he was “one of them”, both with his series on the nuclear submarine, as with his videos on “redneck engineering”, such as the one on tractor pulling. He’s got a bit of a schtick where he acts dumb, to make the other come out smart, but in an irritating way.
I think the last video of his I watched, was an update on Dianna Cowern.