Barry Arrington

In recent days Jeffrey Shallit and I have been discussing the differences between a random string of text and a designed string of text. I put the two strings up in this post; Shallit responded in this post; I responded to Shallit in this post; and Shallit replied here. After all of this back and forth, the one question that remains is the question in the title to this post. Has Jeffrey Shallit’s fundamentalism driving him barking mad? To remind readers, here are the two strings: #1:OipaFJPSDIOVJN;XDLVMK:DOIFHw;ZDVZX;Vxsd;ijdgiojadoidfaf;asdfj;asdj[ije888Sdf;dj;Zsjvo;ai;divn;vkn;dfasdo;gfijSd;fiojsadfviojasdgviojao’gijSd’gvijsdsd;ja;dfksdasdXKLZVsda2398R3495687OipaFJPSDIOVJN;XDLVMK:DOIFHw;ZDVZX;Vxsd;ijdgiojadoiSdf;dj;Zsjvo;ai;divn;vkn;dfasdo;gfijSd;fiojsadfviojasdgviojao’gijSd’gvijssdv.kasd994834234908uXKLZVsda2398R34956873ACKLVJD;asdkjadSd;fjwepuJWEPFIhfasd;asdjf;asdfj;adfjasd;ifj;asdjaiojaijeriJADOAJSD;FLVJASD;FJASDF;DOAD;ADFJAdkdkas;489468503-202395ui34 #2:To be, or not to be, that is the question—Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to sufferThe Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,And by opposing, Read More ›

Guillermoe has very quickly become one of our most ardent critics on these pages. That is why it was so interesting to watch him walk right into a trap that HeKS cunningly set for him. Here it is: THE TRAP Guillermoe: We know what designed Stonehenge: HUMANS!! HeKS: How do you know this? Guillermoe: PAST EXPERIENCE. We know humans build things because we have observed that they do. HeKS: How do you know it was humans rather than aliens? Guillermoe: Because our past experience proves that humans exist and does not prove that aliens exist, so it’s much much more likely that humans built Stonehenge. That allows us to say A LOT of things about the designers of Stonehenge. What Read More ›

For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter.  We might more accurately term them “materialists employing science.”  And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence.  That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms . . . Phillip Johnson Johnson’s observation came to mind when I read HeKS comment to a prior post.  That comment recasts Johnson’s observation in terms of Bayesian priors.  It would be cumbersome to put everything in block quotes.  All that follows is HeKS: Read More ›

When someone says “the science is settled” one of two things is true:  (1) they know better and are lying; or (2) they are deeply ignorant about the philosophy of science.  Geraint Lewis, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sydney writes: . . . science is like an ongoing courtroom drama, with a continual stream of evidence being presented to the jury.  But there is no single suspect and new suspects regularly wheeled in.  In light of the growing evidence, the jury is constantly updating its view of who is responsible for the data. But no verdict of absolute guilt or innocence is ever returned, as evidence is continually gathered and more suspects are paraded in front of the Read More ›

I’m not done mining the rich little vein of error ore that Evolve managed to compress into one paragraph.  Evolve writes:  “DNA is a chemical molecule whose components are present in nature. It is not a software program.” Now, it is certainly true that DNA is a chemical molecule whose components are present in nature.  Here is a brief description from Wikipedia: DNA is a molecule that encodes the genetic instructions . . . Each nucleotide is composed of a nitrogen-containingnucleobase—either guanine(G), adenine (A), thymine (T), or cytosine (C)—as well as a monosaccharide sugar called deoxyribose and a phosphate group.  The nucleotides are joined to one another in a chain by covalent bonds between the sugar of one nucleotide and Read More ›

In my last post I noted that Darwinists can be proud fundamentalists too. And then a commenter who goes by “Evolve” kindly provided an example in the combox to this post. Evolve writes: [All] of life’s processes can be reduced to chemistry. DNA is a chemical molecule whose components are present in nature. It is not a software program. . . . To deny the weight of our observations and evidence, and invoke imaginary designers requires quite a leap of faith. But who is the real leaper here? One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis Read More ›

Charles Darwin and Edgar Allen Poe were born within one month of each other (February 1809 and January 1809 respectively).  Sadly for someone trying to connect Darwin with “Poe’s Law,” the “Poe” in Poe’s Law takes its name not from Edgar Allen but from Nathan Poe.  From Wikipedia’s article on Poe’s Law: Poe’s law, in broader form, states:  Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.  The core of Poe’s law is that a parody of something extreme, by nature, becomes impossible to differentiate from sincere extremism. Indeed, when Nathan coined the term he was taking the Darwinist side of an evolution debate.  Read More ›

In a prior post I highlighted an altercation with Daniel King. DK has been posting here since 2006, and his comments, while generally critical of ID, have been for the most part measured and civil. I am happy to report that Mr. King has accepted responsibility for his actions and posted an apology. We all make mistakes. It takes courage to own those mistakes and apologize. Thank you sir for your demonstration of that courage. The matter is closed.

Recently Eric Anderson started a series on Darwinian Debating Devices, to which I submit the following contribution: “turnabout.” KF has a great explication of this debating tactic at his website, which I summarize: This fallacy turns on blaming the victim by implying or asserting (a) moral equivalency through pretended equality of blame for the cycle of attacks; or (b) trying to give the false impression that the victim trying to defend himself is the one who started the quarrel. Yesterday a long-term guest gave us a pristine example of the turnabout tactic. It started when william spearshake posted a comment noting that he was “no longer with us.’ As this is frequently the terminology used when a troll has been Read More ›

logically_speaking says: In my opinion questions such as who was the designer and who designed the designer are only important after design has been detected. In fact this is how many branches of scientific endeavor must proceed. Ask any detective at a crime scene, do they ask who was the murderer before answering the question of was any murder committed in the first place. There are two separate questions (1) was there design and (2) who was the designer. It really is a common sense observation that the second question is logically downstream from the first. It is a corollary to that common sense observation that anyone who insists that one cannot address the upstream question until one has resolved Read More ›

AVS writes concerning the comparison between human codes/languages and the biological translation system: Do you not see how superficial your comparison is between the biological translation system and human codes and languages? Yes all these systems have a “code” of some sort that translates into “meaning,” but once you start digging deeper into the biological side of the equation, the differences become quite clear. I think the problem is that we as humans explain the translational system using letters and words (how else would we do it), which makes it seem like there is huge similarities between this system and actual languages themselves. My point is that when you get down to it, the biological translational system does not read Read More ›

In my prior post CalvinsBulldog has some interesting questions, which I address here: Calvin, Thank you for your comments. While ID tries to be comfortably agnostic about the designer, orthodox Christians know that the designer is none other than God I would put the case somewhat differently. I would say orthodox Christians “believe” the designer is none other than God. Here the ontology/epistemology category issue arises again. Ontologically (the reality of the matter), design is obvious. Even Dawkins admits the appearance of design is “overwhelming.” Epistemology (what we can know about design): Without question the data warrant a design inference. On the face of it, operating empirically, what can we know about the designer? Not much other than that he/she/it Read More ›

Preliminary note. This post focuses on william spearshake again, and readers could be excused for wondering whether I am singling him out. Fair question. The fact is that william is a veritable fount of materialist shibboleths, which he spews with apparently gleeful abandon. In short, he has provided me with a rich vein of materialist error to mine, for which I thank him. In a prior post two materialists had this exchange: AVS If I may be so bold as to speak for WS, maybe he thinks that ID relies on the assumption that there is a designer (a god in just about all cases), which by default makes it a religious doctrine. william spearshake: AVS, exactly. Until they can Read More ›

Update: It occurred to me that people might think this post is intended merely to pick on WS. Not so. The purpose of the post is to demonstrate the principle of charity in philosophy, science and in other areas where ideas compete. WS is a stand-in for every materialist objector to ID who assumes before the argument begins that ID proponents are all liars and therefore refuse to address their arguments at face value. william spearshake: Given that ID didn’t surface until Creationism was ruled a religion, and since it encompasses everything from 6000 year earth creationists, to evolutionary theists, and since most authors and most supportive commenters are theists (ie, Christian) I stand my my previous claim.  [i.e., that Read More ›

Over at his blog Jeffrey Shallit attacks my two strings of text post. Let’s see what he has to say. “I don’t post [at UD] there because Arrington routinely bans dissent . . .” Correction, I routinely ban trolls, who then claim they were banned for dissenting. I suspect Shallit does not post here, because when he does he is routinely shown to be not just wrong but laughably so, as when I took him down here and here. Indeed, Eric Anderson smacked him down just today here. Shallit pretends to be above the fray. It is closer to the truth that he is afraid to post here, because every time he comments on this subject he is made to Read More ›