Tuesday, December 20, 2011

The Darwinists get it wrong again: Letter from KY superintendent continues to spawn nonsense

Matt Young at Panda's Thumb, a Darwinist blog, describes my post on the correspondence between the Kentucky superintendent and State Education Commissioner in the comments section of his post on the issue. According to Young, I defend Mr. Line and demonstrate "just enough erudition to hide the anti-scientific tenor of the post. If you haven’t enough time or patience, I suggest you scroll directly down to the comment by Scott Goodman, who really hits the nail on the head."

And this:
At any rate, the author of the blog ran a post that defends Mr. Line and demonstrates just enough erudition to hide the anti-scientific tenor of the post. If you haven’t enough time or patience, I suggest you scroll directly down to the comment by Scott Goodman, who really hits the nail on the head.
Hmmm. Apparently pointing out inaccuracies, oversimplifications, and misleading statements is unscientific in the world of scientific dogmatism. That can't do a whole lot for the reputation of the science about which Young seems so concerned.

And speaking of scientific dogmatism, which is what I was targeting in my post, Young doesn't seem to want to make the basic distinction between criticisms of such dogmatism (what I do in the post) and criticisms of actual science (which I don't do in the post), which, of course, is exactly the kind of distinction scientific dogmatists don't like to make.

And to commend for his readership a comment in the comments section of my blog which itself stretches the truth is another measure of extent to which standards of intellectual integrity are regularly dispensed with when it comes to the defense of certain scientific dogmas.

The comment inaccurately refers to me as a defender of Intelligent Design, blatantly mischaracterizes my arguments, and criticizes me for statements I did not make. Not that I expect this to make any difference to Young, since these are rhetorical tactics regularly employed at places like Panda's Thumb.

So far, neither Young nor the commenters on my blog even bothered to address the actual arguments I made in the post (with one exception, and this one got it wrong--as he usually does). I fact, no one as yet come to terms with the arguments I made in my original analysis of the Kitzmiller decision's reasoning in uncritically employing a faulty demarcation criterion between science and non-science and in a blatant inconsistency at the center of that part of the decision.

Instead, we get cheap ad hominem attacks like the comment from Young that I am "the Discovery Institute’s point man in Kentucky." Huh?

How does he know this? He heard it from "his informant." Never mind actually checking it out or verifying whether it was true. Mere random Internet rumor will suffice. One hopes he takes more care in the books he writes about evolution.

My only connection with Discovery is that they have co-posted some of my blog posts that have to do with criticisms of scientific dogmatism. I do not take a position on whether Intelligent Design is a legitimate scientific theory, as the commenter he refers to alleges. Never have. Nor have I ever done or been asked to do anything for Discovery in Kentucky.

But no misrepresentation is so far out that it cannot be justified by the fact that it is done in the defense of Darwinism.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/12/env_welcomes_new_contributor_m004669.html

Martin Cothran said...

http://vereloqui.blogspot.com/2007/12/big-welcome-from-pandas-thumb.html

Art said...

Apparently pointing out inaccuracies, oversimplifications, and misleading statements is unscientific in the world of scientific dogmatism.

Hmmm....

A schools superintendent in Kentucky uses the word "theory" as a euphemism to suggest that evolution is little more than an educated guess, and it is his critics that are guilty of "inaccuracies, oversimplifications, and misleading statements".

LOL. In this season of myth, fairy tale, and imagination, Martin's recent posts on the subject are quite appropriate.

Martin Cothran said...

Art,

So because Line made these mistakes, it's okay for his critics to make them as well?

Check.

KyCobb said...

Martin,

Why don't you take a position on whether Intelligent Design is a legitimate scientific theory? Even Phillip Johnson, the father of the intelligent design movement, has stated that there is no theory of intelligent design.

Singring said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Singring said...

'I fact, no one as yet come to terms with the arguments I made in my original analysis of the Kitzmiller decision's reasoning in uncritically employing a faulty demarcation criterion between science and non-science and in a blatant inconsistency at the center of that part of the decision.'

In fact, we have.

Specific claims of ID (irreducible complexity and 'specified information') can be shown to be either falsified by the data or incoherent (see for example the responses to Behe by Miller et al. at the Dover trial and in print, or this paper by Ellsberry & Shallitt: http://www.talkreason.org/articles/eandsdembski.pdf).

Meanwhile, the overarching claim that certain things in nature or the universe in general are designed is unfalsifiable. Or can you come up with a falsification of parts of the natural world being designed, Martin? I'd love to read about that!

So judge Jones was perfectly right in ruling that ID as a ganeral idea or claim is not falsifiable and therefore not science, but that in those cases in which specific claims have been made about nature that might imply design, these claims have indeed been falsified and/or shown to be incoherent. There is no inconsistency here whatsoever.

The claim 'little invisible pixies come at night to mow people's lawns' is - in principle - an unfalsifiable claim. However, the subordinate claim 'a little invisible pixie will come to my garden to night to mow the lawn' can be quite confidently falsified - simply by setting up a few cameras and measuring the length of, say, 100 blades of grass in the evening and then teh following morning. If we see no change in grass length (or if we see a change in length but th video shows my neighbor mowing the lawn because he's such a nice guy), then we can safely assume that my claim was false. Yet the overarching claim 'little invisible pixies come at night to mow people's lawns' may still be true and is not falsifiable because these pixies could be mowing other people's lawns or they could even be mowing lawns on other planets for all we know.

But of course, you don't care about what has actually written in response to ID. You don't care about the actual science. You don't care about accurately portraying the conflict between ID and science.

You just want to leap in and defend ignoramuses who want to retard the education of children while at the same time attacking scientists, all in the name of ID. To top it all off, you then take the cowardly back door of not even wanting to say what *you* believe about evolution/ID.

For crying out loud, you have never even comitted to saying how old you believe the earth is! This is so embarassing a hide-and-seek game you are playing that you shouldn't be surprised when scientists don't take you seriously when you write about their profession - because apparently you don't even seem fluent enough in this area to formulate a belief on the age of the earth - let alone a belief in the how the complexity of life has arisen.

Anonymous said...

Merry Kitzmas, Martin! http://ncse.com/creationism/legal/intelligent-design-trial-kitzmiller-v-dover

Wonder why you and your pals at the DI never tried for another trial? Wonder why Dembski bailed out of testifying?

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

Relax. Have glass of wine or something. It's not healthy to get so worked up over these things.

You see what happens when you try to tell someone else what they should do, but your morality is based on emotions rather than reason?

Just let this be a lesson to you.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

To top it all off, you then take the cowardly back door of not even wanting to say what *you* believe about evolution/ID."

I don't take a position on the issue because I am not a scientist. For me to take a public position on a purely scientific issue on which I am not qualified would be like you taking public positions on philosophical issues without being qualified.

And we've seen how badly that's turned out.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

In fact, we have. [answered my arguments on Dover v. Kitzmiller]

No you haven't.

It's very clear from your comment here that you have neither read the section on Dover on whether ID is science or my critique of it, since you say nothing about my main argument that Jones contradicts himself by saying, at one and the same time, that irreducible complexity is "central to ID" and that it isn't.

I'll repost tomorrow a summary of my critique from several years ago so you can be informed in your comments.

And just continuing to assume Popper's falsifiability criterion doesn't make it any less illegitimate as a definitive demarcation criterion of science.

Martin Cothran said...

KyCobb,

Why don't you take a position on whether Intelligent Design is a legitimate scientific theory?

I explained this a while back in my post here: http://vereloqui.blogspot.com/2010/07/will-p-z-myers-need-to-be-tranquilized.html.

I'll just add that I don't take such public positions on scientific issues for the same reason that you shouldn't take public positions on, say, the cosmological argument for the existence of God unless you have some basic familiarity with Aristotle and St. Thomas: because you wouldn't know what you are talking about.

Singring said...

'I don't take a position on the issue because I am not a scientist. For me to take a public position on a purely scientific issue on which I am not qualified would be like you taking public positions on philosophical issues without being qualified.'

So you don't take a position on the age of the earth or evolution becuase you're not a scientist - but you feel you're in a position to tell scientists what they should and shouldn't be teaching in science class. This is rich.

'It's very clear from your comment here that you have neither read the section on Dover on whether ID is science or my critique of it, since you say nothing about my main argument that Jones contradicts himself by saying, at one and the same time, that irreducible complexity is "central to ID" and that it isn't.'

I have read you 'analysis' and it in no way, shape or form shows that Jones did what you think he does.

As I have said above, just because an idea is 'central' to a theory or idea does not imply that the falsifiability of that idea impinges on the falsifiability of the overall theory. Anyone literate in science (or logic) should know this.

The specific examples of 'irreducible complexity' that have been advanced by Behe et al. have all been shown to be unsupported by the empirical data. They have been tested and falsified. Does that mean thet Intelligent Design is falsified? NO.

After all, the designer could have designed the bacterial flagellum just so that it *looks* as if it had evolved via natural selection acting on random mutation, right?

The idea of natural selection is central to evolution. Natural selection can be falsified. If it were falsified, would that also falsify evolution as a whole? Again, NO, because there are plenty of other, random factors that could lead to changes in the frequency of alleles between populations (natural disasters, genetic drift, isolation etc.). To falsify evolution itself, you would have to show that the frequency of alleles in a population does NOT change in a population over time. That would be quite easy to do.

The overall claim of ID, on the other hand, is not falsifiable in this way at all.

If it is - mayvbe you would like to tell us how?

So no matter what you do, the overall claim of ID (that of things in nature being designed) cannot be falsified.

This is exactly what Jones has said and your repeated attempts at trying to conflate the specific claims made by ID proponents to support their ideas with the overall claim of ID is not only illustrative of your lack of understanding of science, but also your disinterest in honestly characterizing the most crippling blow ID has ever been dealt in the public sphere (the reasons for which should be obvious).

'And just continuing to assume Popper's falsifiability criterion doesn't make it any less illegitimate as a definitive demarcation criterion of science.'

Whoops...there go those goalposts again!

Scott Goodman said...

Martin,

Your response echos that of Newt Gingrich when he said "Anyone who quotes what I said in my speech is lying."

Wesley said...

Martin, could you please clarify something for me? Are you taking Popper's "falsifiability" to mean something like "capable of being shown to be false" in general, rather than "capable of being shown to be false via application of modus tollens"? That's about the only way I can parse your argument offhand. If I am mistaken, please expand on what, exactly, you do mean when you say "falsifiability".

Anonymous said...

Martin, what is the "theory of intelligent design"?

Martin Cothran said...

Scott,

What did I say that you have quoted that is inconsistent with what I said in the post or the comments?

Martin Cothran said...

Anonymous,

Wonder why you and your pals at the DI never tried for another trial? Wonder why Dembski bailed out of testifying?

Is the false innuendo here supposed to help you remain unaccountable for the implicit misrepresentations about the Dover trial in your comment that adds to the lack of accountability that posting anonymously already gives you?

Maybe they "never tried for another trial" because they didn't try for the first one, since they didn't support the Dover school policy that was at issue. And maybe Dembski didn't testify the first time since he wanted his own counsel at the deposition and the attorneys for the Dover School District wouldn't let him do that.

I really don't think the continued misrepresentation of the facts and arguments about this issue help your case.

Martin Cothran said...

Wesley,

Fair question. I have used the term in several senses on this blog at different times depending on what the particular issue was. But in this particular discussion the context is the Dover trial, where it is not terribly clear how Judge Jones is using it. He uses the term "testability," which, I am inferring from where he uses it in his argument, means falsifiability in the more general sense.

But I am not sure that the distinction is really material in the present discussion. I mention it primarily because it is the demarcation criterion most commonly employed by critics of ID, but is a highly problematic one at best.

Scott Goodman said...

Martin,

You ask me a number of questions in successive posts. First, how are you a known supporter of ID? Well, your liberal use of the word "Darwinist", a well-established ID code word, along with your defense of a school superintendent who thinks the curriculum has too much emphasis on evolution are examples of where you are coming from. Your attempt to delegitimize ID's Waterloo, the Kitzmiller decision, is another. Your assertion that the "public education establishment [is attempting to stamp] out all dissent in its ranks on the issue of evolution." is yet another clue. That you don't say you are an ID supporter in so many words fools no one, any more than the refusal of out-of-the-closet ID advocates' refusal to name the "designer" fools anyone into thinking they mean anyone other than the Christian God. From where I sit, you are either an ID advocate or a creationist.

Your attempts to dismiss insistence on academic clarity as pedantry are an obvious attempt to paint those who so insist as "geeks", hardly a compliment given the tone of your piece.

Your attempts to conflate a vernacular use of the word believe so as to make it sound as though acceptance of scientific evidence is the equivalent to religious belief is yet another clue to your purpose.

Your contempt for erudition is obvious in your depiction of an education degree as being something that can be ordered using a cereal box coupon. Hyperbole? I think not. More likely a resentment against those who know more about the subject than you.

I agree with others who have posted. You have commented on the beliefs and motivations of those you disagree with. You owe it to your readers to say where you fall on the subject of evolution and why.

Wesley said...

Martin, earlier you wrote:

"""
Jones argues that Intelligent Design does not meet this criterion because it is not falsifiable. He then turns right around and argues that it is false. If it's not false, then it is falsifiable, and if it is not falsifiable, then it cannot be false. But he just goes on hoping that no one will notice the blatant contradiction in his argument.
"""

If you are going to ding Jones for relying on Popper, something even you stipulate has to be inferred, then the statement above is simply wrong. A claim that is a "restricted existential statement" can be demonstrated to be false, even though modus tollens won't figure in how that is done. In other words, a claim can fail to be classed as falsifiable vis Popper, but still be demonstrably false.

On the other hand, it looks to me to be equivocation if you are using the "general" connotation of simply being testable in some way. Jones refers to particular claims made by IDC advocates as being shown to be false, but your forceful statement quoted above relies upon there being no such distinction between "intelligent design" as such and instances of claims made in furtherance of "intelligent design".

Is there a particular reason that you've chosen to infer things about Judge Jones' decision that put it in a maximally unfavorable light, when you do acknowledge that the inference thus made is not secure?

Martin Cothran said...

Wesley,

If you are going to ding Jones for relying on Popper, something even you stipulate has to be inferred, then the statement above is simply wrong. A claim that is a "restricted existential statement" can be demonstrated to be false, even though modus tollens won't figure in how that is done. In other words, a claim can fail to be classed as falsifiable vis Popper, but still be demonstrably false.

You seem to be arguing that, if Judge Jones was relying on Popper’s concept of falsifiability, and Popper allows for statements that are not technically “falsifiable” (e.g., restricted or “limited” existential statements) to be subject to falsification, then my argument that Judge Jones’ argument that ID is, at one and the same time, unfalsifiable and false is not valid (you said “wrong,” but I think you mean invalid).

If this is accurate, let me make a couple of qualifications.

First, irreducible complexity, which Jones says is “central to ID” does in fact purport (whether it succeeds or not) to operate as an observation statement in the consequent of a modus tollens argument that falsifies the universal in the antecedent:

If evolution explains the biological structure of all organisms, then all organisms are reducibly complex.

There are organisms that are not reducibly complex.

Therefore, evolution does not explain the biological structure of all organisms.

It doesn’t operate like a limited restricted existential statement.

Second, I seriously doubt that Jones is even aware of these distinctions: he’s simply operating in a post-Popper universe of discourse which takes falsifiability (his “testability”) as the axiomatic necessary condition for something to be science.

So I don’t see how this constitutes a telling point against my argument.

Martin Cothran said...

Wesley,

On the other hand, it looks to me to be equivocation if you are using the "general" connotation of simply being testable in some way. Jones refers to particular claims made by IDC advocates as being shown to be false, but your forceful statement quoted above relies upon there being no such distinction between "intelligent design" as such and instances of claims made in furtherance of "intelligent design".

I assume, by the term "instances of claims made in furtherance of 'intelligent design'" you mean Behe's irreducible complexity. If this is correct, then I don't think you read my argument carefully. I pointed out that Jones asserts that irreducible complexity is not just "a claim made in furtherance" of ID, but, in Jones' words, "central to ID."

My whole argument is that it is Jones who equivocates: He considers irreducible complexity central to ID in order to hold its falsity against ID, and considers it not to be central to ID in saying that ID is unfalsifiable (or "untestable") and therefore not science.

Wesley said...

Martin, your argument states a couple of premises.

"""
If it's not false, then it is falsifiable
"""

and

"""
if it is not falsifiable, then it cannot be false
"""

For Popperian falsifiability, these are *both* invalid premises. No argument based on them can be considered sound. For the "generic" connotation, the first premise is still invalid, and again prevents an argument based upon it from being sound.

"""
If evolution explains the biological structure of all organisms, then all organisms are reducibly complex.
"""

This is also an invalid premise. See Muller 1918 for the details : tinyurl.com/88voyyv
Evolutionary theory from over ninety years ago predicts interlocking complexity of biological organisms.

I think that reliance on invalid premises does have relevance for the status of your argumentation.

You've stated something that Behe himself doesn't seem to have done. Behe claims the status of Popperian falsifiability for IC in this way:

"""
In fact, my argument for intelligent design is open to direct experimental rebuttal. Here is a thought experiment that makes the point clear. In Darwin’s Black Box (Behe 1996) I claimed that the bacterial flagellum was irreducibly complex and so required deliberate intelligent design. The flip side of this claim is that the flagellum can’t be produced by natural selection acting on random mutation, or any other unintelligent process. To falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure (for mobility, say), grow it for ten thousand generations, and see if a flagellum--or any equally complex system--was produced. If that happened, my claims would be neatly disproven.
"""

Behe's "disproof" is simply whether a competing conjecture is confirmed, and not anything at all like what Popper described. I wouldn't care to take a bet that Judge Jones does not take cognizance of the distinctions I'm making, but I'd be much more inclined to wager that Behe and Dembski did not in their various writings touching on falsifiability.

Human Ape said...

Mr. Cothran, I was just wondering why you science deniers call biologists "Darwinists". Normal people call biologists "biologists".

Also, Mr. Cothran, I was wondering why you science deniers call supernatural magic "intelligent design". Normal people call magic "magic".

Just one more thing, Mr. Cothran. Does it ever bother you science deniers that virtually all the world's scientists ridicule people like you?

Many thanks.

http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com/

Joe G said...

Intelligent Design is falsifiable. ID can be falsified just by demonstrating that necessity and chance are up to the task of producing what IDists say is designed.

OTOH evolutionism cannot be tested, so it cannot be falsified.