Culture

Barbara Forrest, the official historian for the anti-ID side, has a piece of revisionist history in the latest Skeptical Inquirer (see here). It is titled “The Vise Strategy Undone.” Since I’m the inventor of the Vise Strategy and one of the principal targets of her piece, let me offer a few corrections: (1) I wrote up the Vise Strategy for the Thomas More Law Center to assist them in interrogating the expert witnesses on the other side (for the full Vise Strategy go here; by the way, I gave this to the Thomas More people as a freebee). Forrest’s piece suggests that the Vise Strategy was tried and found wanting. In fact, the Thomas More attorneys never implemented it — Read More ›

Richard Dawkins continues to publish my past emails to him without permission and I continue to return the favor. The following correspondence is current and remarkable. The subject hearder “Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime” is Dawkins’s. I’ve omitted the portions of our correspondence not relevant to this theme. =-=-=-=-=- Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 09:35:39 -0600 To: Richard Dawkins From: “William A. Dembski” Subject: Re: Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime Dear Prof. Dawkins, Your response below regarding The Blasphemy Challenge (http://blasphemychallenge.com) is predictable, though thank you for being so forthright in endorsing it. Question: Would you be willing to go further and endorse expanding The Blasphemy Challenge to include blaspheming the God of Islam, encouraging young people in the Muslim Read More ›

Here’s a quote that connects with DaveScot’s plea in the previous post: Once one has sacrificed one’s intellectual conscience over a minor point one does not wish to give in too easily; one wishes to justify the self-sacrifice by convincing oneself of the fundamental goodness of the cause, which is seen to outweigh any little moral or intellectual compromise that may be required. With every such moral or intellectual sacrifice one gets more deeply involved. One becomes ready to back one’s moral or intellectual investments in the cause with further investments. It is like being eager to throw good money after bad. — Karl Popper, Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography, p. 34

The Rembrandt of flash animation and I are working to enhance “The Judge Jones School of Law.” As a first step we have made the animation less offensive to more refined sensibilities. All the overt flatulence has therefore been removed. Go to www.overwhelmingevidence.com for the less objectional version of this animation (we are keeping the original, however, so that when the history of evolution’s demise is written, all versions of this animation will be available to historians).

A hilarious flash animation of Judge Jones as a pull-string doll appears over at www.overwhelmingevidence.com. The humor is, granted, adolescent, but this is a site for high school students, and they are, after all, the ones that Judge Jones’s decision disenfranchised.

Judge Jones tours the American countryside seeking the adulation of our intellectual elite and extolling the genius of his Kitzmiller v. Dover decision. The press release below indicates that Jones let the ACLU essentially dictate his decision. Instead of original and impeccable reasoning, Jones uncritically took extensive material from the ACLU’s proposed “findings of fact and conclusions of law” and either copied it directly or modified it ever so slightly. Outside the legal system this is called plagiarism. But since judges are allowed to draw on briefs of the parties, this is called legal scholarship. Even so, courts frown on decisions in which judges extensively copy and paste from other briefs — which is exactly what Jones did! Wired Magazine voted Jones one of the sexiest geeks of 2005. Time characterized him as a legal genius. Truth be told, Jones is a narcissistic putz.

In case you have trouble downloading the Discovery article cited below, i.e., “A Comparison of Judge Jones’ Opinion …”, I’ve uploaded it on the UD server here: www.uncommondescent.com/documentation/Comparing_Jones_and_ACLU.pdf.

“Masterful” Federal Ruling on Intelligent Design Was Copied from ACLU

Seattle — The key section of the widely-noted court decision on intelligent design issued a year ago on December 20 was copied nearly verbatim from a document written by ACLU lawyers, according to a study released today by scholars affiliated with the Discovery Institute. [Go here.]

“Judge John Jones copied verbatim or virtually verbatim 90.9% of his 6,004-word section on whether intelligent design is science from the ACLU’s proposed ‘Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law’ submitted to him nearly a month before his ruling,” said Dr. John West, Vice President for Public Policy and Legal Affairs at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.

“Ironically, Judge Jones has been hailed as ‘an outstanding thinker’ for his ‘masterful’ ruling, and even honored by Time magazine as one of the world’s ‘most influential people’ in the category of ‘scientists and thinkers,'” said West. “But Jones’ analysis of the scientific status of intelligent design contains virtually nothing written by Jones himself. This finding seriously undercuts the credibility of a central part of the ruling.”

The study notes that, while judges routinely make use of proposed findings of fact, “the extent to which Judge Jones simply copied the language submitted to him by the ACLU is stunning. For all practical purposes, Jones allowed ACLU attorneys to write nearly the entire section of his opinion analyzing whether intelligent design is science. As a result, this central part of Judge Jones’ ruling reflected essentially no original deliberative activity or independent examination of the record on Jones’ part.”

Jones’ copying was so uncritical that he even reprinted a number of factual errors originally made by ACLU attorneys.

For example, Jones claimed that biochemist Michael Behe, when asked about articles purporting to explain the evolution of the immune system, responded that the articles were “not ‘good enough.'” Behe actually said the exact opposite: “it’s not that they aren’t good enough. It’s simply that they are addressed to a different subject.” Jones’ misrepresentation of Behe came directly from the ACLU’s “Findings of Fact.” Read More ›

Controversial scientist predicts planetary wipeout Billions of people could be wiped out over the next century because of climate change, a leading expert said. Professor James Lovelock, who pioneered the idea of the Earth as a living organism, said as the planet heats up humans will find it increasingly hard to survive. He warned that as conditions worsen, the global population which is currently around 6.5 billion, may sink as low as 500 million. Prof Lovelock also claims that any attempts to tackle climate change will not be able to solve the problem, merely buy us time. I’m sure glad that’s settled. Now we can stop worrying and enjoy the little time we have left. It’s a race to see Read More ›

The Center for Inquiry’s new branch office in DC has issued a “Declaration on Science and Secularism” in which they lament the increasing appeal of ID among the unwashed masses. There’s a simple way for this problem to go away: stop stealing the money of the unwashed masses (in the form of taxes) to underwrite an ideologically driven materialistic conception of science; instead, get your money from secular elites like Paul Allen, George Soros, Charles Simonyi, etc. For the text of the Declaration, go here: http://www.cfidc.org/declaration.html.

Steven Pinker has published an interesting op-ed in today’s Harvard Crimson, criticizing the current report of Harvard’s committee on general education. If one could reformulate Pinker’s dogmatic pronouncements as questions to be examined, this would be a good essay. For example, What is faith? Is Earth truly an undistinguished speck in the cosmos, or is there something special about it? How is the paramount value of “reason” affected if the mind and its thoughts are merely products of chemical activity in the brain? Opinion –Less Faith, More Reason Published by The Harvard Crimson On 10/27/2006 4:36:48 AM By STEVEN PINKER … [T]he picture of humanity’s place in nature that has emerged from scientific inquiry has profound consequences for people’s understanding Read More ›

With Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, et al. on a rampage against religion, its worth putting the sins of atheism in perspective:

Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history

By Dinesh D’Souza

RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIF. – In recent months, a spate of atheist books have
argued that religion represents, as “End of Faith” author Sam Harris puts
it, “the most potent source of human conflict, past and present.”

Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. “The Crusades
slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the
torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did
bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries.”

In his bestseller “The God Delusion,” Richard Dawkins contends that most of
the world’s recent conflicts – in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in
Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka – show the vitality
of religion’s murderous impulse.

The problem with this critique is that it exaggerates the crimes attributed
to religion, while ignoring the greater crimes of secular fanaticism. The
best example of religious persecution in America is the Salem witch trials.
How many people were killed in those trials? Thousands? Hundreds? Actually,
fewer than 25. Yet the event still haunts the liberal imagination.

It is strange to witness the passion with which some secular figures rail
against the misdeeds of the Crusaders and Inquisitors more than 500 years
ago. The number sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition appears to be
about 10,000. Some historians contend that an additional 100,000 died in
jail due to malnutrition or illness.

These figures are tragic, and of course population levels were much lower
at the time. But even so, they are minuscule compared with the death tolls
produced by the atheist despotisms of the 20th century. In the name of
creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph
Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no
Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants
murdered more than 100 million people. Read More ›

Baylor University, which in the past has figured large in the debate over ID (see here), continues to struggle with its Christian identity. Check out the following blog entry by Hunter Baker, and especially comment #5: http://www.southernappeal.org/index.php/archives/2124.

Obviously this new think-tank is not about science as such but about pushing a materialistic, Darwin-undergirded conception of science. Question: Did Kurtz ever get the memo from the NCSE that evolution is religiously neutral? Mission statement: A Global Federation committed to science, reason, free inquiry, secularism, and planetary ethics Source: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=221 By Center for Inquiry PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Nathan Bupp Phone: (716) 636-4869 x 218 E-mail: nbupp@centerforinquiry.net Washington, D.C. (November 14, 2006)—The Center for Inquiry/Transnational, a think tank devoted to promoting reason and science in all areas of human interest, announced today that it is opening a new Office of Public Policy in Washington, D.C. This initiative will mark an unprecedented drive to bring a rigorous defense Read More ›

1. Paul Nelson is such a cool and brilliant guy
2. I’ve never met him before
3. There are lots of extras at the event he is speaking at, such as:
Read More ›

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone–two guys who are not exactly known for refraining from pushing buttons–have made an episode of the show which addresses the topic of opposition to evolution in public schools. It airs tomorrow night at 10:00 EST (9:00 PST) on Comedy Central. Go here for a synopsis and a teaser clip.

Read the following and ask yourself which side in the ID vs. Darwinism debate exhibits the groupthink syndrome: The groupthink syndrome: Review of the major symptoms Source: http://www.swans.com/library/art9/xxx099.html In order to test generalization about the conditions that increase the chances of groupthink, we must operationalize the concept of groupthink by describing the symptoms to which it refers. Eight main symptoms run through the case studies of historic fiascoes. Each symptom can be identified by a variety of indicators, derived from historical records, observer’s accounts of conversations, and participants’ memoirs. The eight symptoms of groupthink are: 1. an illusion of invulnerability, shared by most or all the members, which creates excessive optimism and encourages taking extreme risks; 2. collective efforts to Read More ›