Barry Arrington

We have a jury system not because jurors are are necessarily wiser, more educated, or innately smarter than the alternatives (judges, kings, standing tribunals, viziers, etc.).  By and large they almost certainly are not.  We have juries because they are safer for those of us without power (the 99%, to use a phrase that has become all too hackneyed in such a short time) than the alternatives. The Zimmerman case is a classic example.  The prosecution was not based on the evidence against Zimmerman.  It was based on the politics of race.  The State Attorney should never have brought the case.  She had no hope of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman committed murder, but she was afraid to do the right thing.  The jury Read More ›

EL: “why is there something rather than nothing? I do not think it can be resolved by science. But I could be wrong.” No, you are not wrong. Science is the study of the natural world. It presupposes the existence and intelligibility of the natural world. It cannot account for the existence and intelligibility of the natural world. EL: “I think we will find that life is not particularly unlikely, given the universe we have.” There is no particular reason to believe this other than that it suits your metaphysical predisposition to reject ID. It is no different from saying “life is a brute fact that I can’t explain.” EL: “fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of scientific enquiry in general, Read More ›

“If they pressured Springer to reject the papers out of hand, that would have been wrong.” (See Nick Matzke – Book burner.) Tepid, but we’ll take what we can get. WJM writes: “What happened is that Nick and others exercised thuggish intimidation on Springer and Springer, acting in fear of what a few devoted people can do to reputations (especially via the internet) should they set their mind to it, pulled the book from publication at the last minute.” Liddle responds: “IF this is what happened, I condemn it.” Better except for the unnecessary qualification, because everyone familiar with the whole sordid affair knows that is exactly what happened.

Far from attempting to redeem herself, Elizabeth Liddle has actually doubled down on her censorship/fascism apologetics (see comment 113 to my post). Liddle admits that the book Biological Information—New Perspectives had already been peer reviewed. She admits that it was on the verge of publication. But, she notes, after Matzke’s publication on Panda’s Thumb all of a sudden Springer “decided that additional peer review would be necessary” before pulling and ultimately dumping the book. Liddle writes: “This is not surprising: if a lot of scientists write to a publisher and say: we have reason to think that this may not have been properly reviewed, then it’s only responsible to send out for further review.” Oh really? A lot of scientists Read More ›

WJM writes (See Nick Matzke – Book burner):  “Does Liz think that Nick, not having even read the papers, has a sound reason to reach out to the editorial board and “warn” them about publishing work he hasn’t even read?” Liddle responds:  “As much right as Springer had to offer to publish them, having not read them. And indeed to rescind the offer when alerted as to the nature of the conference.” Huh?  Lest anyone forget, Springer’s publication decision was not in the early stages.  They were on the verge of sending the book out the door.  It already had a Library of Congress number for goodness sake.  Yet, Liddle suggests that Springer had never read the papers and was Read More ›

In one of the comments to my last post,  Elizabeth Liddle writes:  “If Nick Matzke or any ‘liberal’ lays so much as a match to a children’s library book I shall be the first to protest.” Yet Liddle refuses to condemn Matzke for his efforts to suppress the publication of the papers from a conference before he had ever seen, much less read, them, which, of course, has the exact same effect as burning the books before they are distributed.  She dismisses this as “editorial judgment,” writing: To call . . . censorship merely “editorial judgement” would indeed be “Orwellian”. But to call the requirement that scientific papers meet a minimum standard of rigor before they are endorsed by a Read More ›

Nick Matzke famously got the publishing company Springer to suppress the publication of the papers of a conference held at Cornell.  See here. He did this without having seen, much less read, any of the papers.  Obviously, his motivation could not have been the content of the papers.  He was motivated by the mere fact that several of the conference participants were well-known ID proponents. Let us do a little thought experiment.  Suppose that Nick had published his famous piece on Panda’s Thumb a few days later, and the head of Springer had called him up and said, “Hey, Nick, I’ve got some bad news and some good news.  The bad news is that it is too late to stop publication of Read More ›

Jeffrey Shallit has commented on his blog about UD’s 500-heads-in-a-row series (see here, here and here).  In his comment Shallit demonstrates that after all these years he remains clueless about even the basic ABCs of design theory. Before we get to Shallit’s Romper Room errors, let me congratulate him on getting at least something right.  He refers to the concept of Kolmogorov complexity and writes: If the string is compressible (as 500 consecutive H’s would be) then one can reject the chance hypothesis with high confidence; if the string is, as far as we can see, incompressible, we cannot. Here Shallit agrees with our own Granville Sewell, who wrote in comment 4 to my “Jerad’s DDS” post: The reason why 500 Read More ›

In the combox to my last post Jerad and Neil join to give us a truly pristine example of Darwinist Derangement Syndrome in action.  Like the person suffering from Tourette’s they just don’t seem to be able to help themselves. Here are the money quotes: Barry:  “The probability of [500 heads in a row] actually happening is so vanishingly small that it can be considered a practical impossibility.  If a person refuses to admit this, it means they are either invincibly stupid or piggishly obstinate or both.  Either way, it makes no sense to argue with them.” Sal to Neil:  “But to be clear, do you think 500 fair coins heads violates the chance hypothesis?” Neil:  “If that happened to me, I Read More ›

Part 1:  Jerad’s DDS (“Darwinist Derangement Syndrome”) Sometimes one just has to stop, gape and stare at the things Darwinists say.   Consider Jerad’s response to Sal’s 500 coin flip post.  He says:  “If I got 500 heads in a row I’d be very surprised and suspicious. I might even get the coin checked. But it could happen.”  Later he says that if asked about 500 heads in a row he would respond:  “I would NOT say it was ‘inconsistent with fair coins.’”  Then this:  “All we are saying is that any particular sequence is equally unlikely and that 500 heads is just one of those particular sequences.”  No Jerad.  You are wrong. Stunningly, glaringly, gobsmackingly wrong, and it beggars belief Read More ›

Climate activists very often seem to be either idiots or inveterate liars.  See here.  I am honestly not sure which is the case.

I can be kind of slow on the uptake, and no doubt many here at UD have recognized this phenomenon before – Darwinists mistaking their interpretation of the data for the data itself.  But it occurred to me with startling clarity today when I was reading the comments to this post in which the UD News Desk reports that that New Scientist is growing skeptical of some of the methods of neuroscientists who claim to have associated particular behaviors/beliefs with certain brain activity.  Turell is also skeptical of these methods and writes:  “What is crazy is that an fMRI is measuring blood flow increases to areas of the brain, not the brain neurons. The brain is extremely interconnected between all regions. So Read More ›

In 2001, a Space Odyssey, HAL 9000 kills Frank Poole. Was HAL 9000 morally culpable?

My thanks go to KF for pointing out the dustup over at TSZ over my last post.  I found this little gem at TSZ particularly amusing.  Allan Miller quotes me and responds: Barry:  “Materialists are obliged to believe …” Miller:   … absolutely nothing. There is no obligation.   Well Allan, I suppose it depends on what one means by “obliged.”    My dictionary defines it in two ways:  “to require or constrain as by law or command”  or  “to require or constrain as by conscience”  Perhaps our difference lies in the different ways we have used the word.  You are certainly correct that no one is going to require or constrain materialists by law or command to accept the conclusions that are Read More ›

For the holiday weekend LK and I jumped on our hawg, joined some dear friends and headed to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  There is nothing like a long motorcycle ride for contemplation.  The hypnotic thrumming of the big V twin scant inches beneath my seat, the passing scenery, the wind and sun, and above all the absence of any need to converse all combine to create ideal conditions for reverie.  Here are some of the topics I turned over in my mind as the hawg chewed up the miles: Subject-Object  As we were winding our way through Custer State Park I became aware of myself looking through my eyes as if they were a window.  I had a Read More ›