Are there any anti-ID writings that the Panda’s Thumb won’t endorse?

_{William Dembski

June 2, 2007

Intelligent Design}

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Mark Chu-Carroll* goes after Behe’s new book here. Judge for yourself whether this deserves to be called a review (Chu-Carroll thinks it does). Nick Matzke endorses Chu-Carroll’s blog post against Behe here. Are there any anti-ID writings, no matter how ill-conceived or mean-spirited, that PT won’t endorse? It might be an interesting exercise to attempt a Sokal-style hoax to see what exactly PT is prepared to believe about ID. I herewith offer a prize, worth up to $200, to anyone who can pull this off and afterward reveal that it was all a hoax (the precise amount to be determined by how cleverly it is pulled off).

——
*Chu-Carroll names his bog GOOD MATH, BAD MATH: FINDING THE FUN IN GOOD MATH, SQUASHING BAD MATH AND THE FOOLS THAT PROMOTE IT. Perhaps I’m missing something, but Chu-Carroll’s expertise is in computer programming, where he has a Ph.D. How much math does he actually know?

Comments

By the way, I don't know who else took both chemistry and computer science courses in college, but I did, and I'm here to tell you there was more math in chemistry than in computer science. Compare: Computer Science Curriculum Biochemistry Curriculum Behe didn't get a PhD in biochemistry without advanced mathematics courses. Electrical engineering has more math in it than either. Electrical Engineering Curriculum But of course nothing has more math than a Mathematics major. Dembski's expertise with PhD's in both mathematics and the philosophy of science makes him an exceedingly well qualified expert where math and science intersect.DaveScot_{June 4, 2007
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atom Since you have Behe's book why don't you write a review of Carrol's review? If you think you're not qualified then that is precisely the point. To critique Carrol's critique one should be qualified to critique the original work. And if you're qualified to critique the original why would you bother with Carrol's unqualified ramblings instead of writing a review of the book itself? The Panda's Thumb crew made a mistake in promoting an unqualified review. Can't they get a real biochemist to review the work of a real biochemist? The fact that they used a blog loudmouth/computer science expert to review the work of a biochemist in the field of biochemistry looks suspiciously like the book can't be criticized by an expert in biochemistry. Perhaps the biochemists, who would put their reputation at stake in the review of another biochemist, aren't willing to do that because they can't make a credible counter-argument. Carrol on the other hand has nothing to lose. If Behe's book was about computer science and Carrol's review appeared in a peer reviewed computer science journal then it would be a qualified opinion and he would be expected to have exercised due diligence within his field of expertise. But that's not the case. Carrol's review is nothing more than an unqualified personal blog opinion piece and should be treated as such. I suggest we wait for a review written by one of Behe's peers to be published in a peer reviewed trade journal and not bother responding to unqualified hatchet jobs published on personal blogs. There will undoubtedly be a plethora of opinions about Behe's book published on blogs. To say they'll be a dime a dozen is inflating their worth.DaveScot_{June 4, 2007
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MCC:
Anyway, the new book is based on what comes down to a mathematical argument - a mathematical argument that I've specifically refuted on this blog numerous times. I'm not mentioning that because I expect Behe to read GM/BM and consider it as a serious source for his research; even if I were an expert in the subject (which I'm not), a blog is not a citable source for real research.

But this incredible statement: that "there is strong evidence that random mutation is extremely limited", he doesn't even attempt to support. The rest of the book focuses an this alleged problem: that random mutation is somehow constrained, and can't produce the necessary changes to explain the diversity of life.
lol.Mung_{June 3, 2007
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One thing that troubles me is the quick dismissal of Chu-Carrol simply because he is not a certified Mathmatician™ or Biologist™. It reminds me of how people dimiss Walter ReMine's work because he is not a Biologist™. Now, I'd gladly concede his review is bad or even arrogant. I bought Behe's book and it is sitting next to me waiting to be read, so I'm not trying to defend Carrol. But I'd like to see his argument spoken against rather than his lack of credentials.Atom_{June 3, 2007
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Chris Hyland What on earth makes you think anyone will bother dissecting Carrol's "review"? He's not an expert in any field related to Behe's book. If Behe had written a book about network architecture or parallel processing then Carrol would be in a position to review it. Or even if his review were published somewhere other than a personal blog someone qualified to fisk it probably would. Otherwise it's just unqualified personal opinion that's not at all noteworthy.DaveScot_{June 3, 2007
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jgrr (Josh Rosenau) If anyone here who isn't a biologist writes a review about a biology book and publishes it as a personal blog entry the same standards must of course apply. Comparing Carrol to Dembski is laughable. Dembski is a double PhD in math and the philosophy of science. He's eminently qualified to give expert opinions on whether something is science or not science as well as expert opinion on statistics. He has also published a quite number of books, edited even more, and is regarded as perhaps the foremost expert on intelligent design along with Behe. Dembski has also written forwards for God only knows how many other books. Carrol is quite comparable to me and I don't feel anywhere near qualified to write a critical review of Behe's book. Carrol's hubris is laughable. A blogging blowhard extraordinaire. Wake me up when someone credible writes a review in a venue more trustworthy than a personal blog. In the meantime you and Carrol both bore me so put a sock in it . DaveScot_{June 3, 2007
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Is there anywhere I can read a rebuttal of CarrolÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s (or a similar) argument, or an explanation of why he is misrepresenting Behe?
Well I think you'll need to wait until Behe's book is officially out. It's due after 2 days I think. But searching for a response right now when almost no body has read the book won't be effective :)IDist_{June 3, 2007
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Is there anywhere I can read a rebuttal of Carrol's (or a similar) argument, or an explanation of why he is misrepresenting Behe?Chris Hyland_{June 3, 2007
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Well, if you want to overlook the fact that Carroll is not employed as a book reviewer,
Which is irrelevant. I would call this a blog, even though the author isn't employed as a blogger. Given the number of IDolators who aren't employed in any relevant field, this really isn't the path you probably want to go down.
his expertise is computer science not biology or evolution,
And Bill Dembski's expertise is in theology and math, but you have no objection to his attempts at biology.
and itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s a personal blog post then I guess it qualifies as a Ã¢â‚¬Å“reviewÃ¢â‚¬Â
I don't suppose you'll edit the OP to reflect this acknowledgment.jgrr_{June 3, 2007
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IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m not sure I fully grasp everything Chu is saying, but it seems like a rational argument for rejecting BeheÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s assumptions of a static, low dimension, Fitness Landscape. He even seems to have found a wedge to drive between The Edge of Evolution and No Free Lunch. Despite his petulant prose, it deserves a real response, not a prank. In critiquing The Edge of Evolution, Chu doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t offer any alternatives, and seems to be saying a Fitness Landscape is impossible to model, reducing Natural Selection to a tautology. Whatever survives must be the most fit. And if a strain of bacteria was never observed before, then it MUST be a recent mutation, not a simple change in population ratios. So even if ChuÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s critique of Behe is correct - Darwinism remains squarely under faith based naturalistic philosophy Ã¢â‚¬â€œ not fact-observation science.RogerW_{June 3, 2007
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Jehu: "Front loading would be where the phrase is already contained in the sequence. Dawkins ME THINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL program is however an example of teleology, where some force is guiding random mutations to an ultimate predetermined goal." Thanks for the clarification Jehu. Either way it seems ID wins the debate by virtue of their own argument. Shouldn't someone tell them?Webwanderer_{June 3, 2007
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idnet.com.au, I actually got from a reliable source that Prof Behe is involved in witchcraft, canibalism, sun worship, and smoking pot! But don't quote me on that, ok? /sarcasm off On a serious note, it's easy to understand why militant darwinists get so offended when we criticize darwinism: it's THEIR religion. Think in how devout religious believers react when their faith is attacked. The condescending atitude, and the pratonizing remarks are a sign of deep insecurity. Darwinists know that biology has plenty of signs of real design, therefore their fear anyone who uses that design to point to the Designer. Here in Lisbon, it's exacly the same way. Portuguee darwinists answer to critices with the same patronizing and condescending mentality, AS IF that actually deals with the issues. I guess we can say that darwinists world wide are at the same stage of evolution.Mats_{June 3, 2007
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Jehu : RE: -------------------- "Unfortunetaly for Darwinists, it has been shown that to achieve even a simple modification of a protein, let's say two amino acid residues, evolution must cross a sequence space of mutations that provide no selective advantage." ----------------------- I would be grateful if you could show me which journal and which article(s) actually shows this. A lot of papers do show actual mutation by adaptive changes. I find it hard to believe that they are all in error. Thanks.SeekAndFind_{June 3, 2007
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The thing that impresses me the most about the "review" is the vitriolic rage it expresses against the gentle Prof Behe. Mike is even accused of being a money grabber! Obviously the anger comes from some underlying personal belief system, not from an objective assessment of the opinions and data presented by Behe.idnet.com.au_{June 3, 2007
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Call me crazy, but isnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t creating a Ã¢â‚¬Å“target PhraseÃ¢â‚¬Â front loading? It sounds like an argument for design
Front loading would be where the phrase is already contained in the sequence. Dawkins ME THINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL program is however an example of teleology, where some force is guiding random mutations to an ultimate predetermined goal.Jehu_{June 2, 2007
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Webwanderer: It is both an argument for design and design in action. Carroll is an air headed flop when it comes to reasoning - strange when one's field is computer science which depends on rigid logic. He probably ought to go back and redo his courses on "discrete math" - generally obligatory for a degree in CS. The only bad reasoners one encounters in CS are Darwinists. At least in my 15 years experience in that field.Borne_{June 2, 2007
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Chu-Carroll/Dawkins: "The computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases, the Ã¢â‚¬ËœprogenyÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ of the original phrase, and chooses the one which, however slightly, most resembles the target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL." Call me crazy, but isn't creating a "target Phrase" front loading? It sounds like an argument for design.Webwanderer_{June 2, 2007
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Jehu, The point is that "all fitness functions" is different to a subcollection of the fitness functions. NFL depends on your looking at the collection of all functions to work. There are particular sets of fitness functions where specific search algorithms work much better than others.Patrick Caldon_{June 2, 2007
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Okay, I just read Chu-Carroll's attack on Dembski, which begins as follows
It's time to take a look at one of the most obnoxious duplicitous promoters of Bad Math, William Dembski. I have a deep revulsion for this character because he's actually a decent mathematician, but he's devoted his skills to creating convincing mathematical arguments based on invalid premises.
Chu-Carroll then goes on to claim that Dembski's No Free Lunch therom is based on an invalid premise. For those of you not familiar with No Free Lunch, here it is from Dembski in a nutshell
The upshot of the No Free Lunch theorems is that averaged over all fitness functions, evolutionary computation does no better than blind search.
Here is Chu-Carroll's stunning rebuttal
[I]f you limit yourself to competitive fitness functions (loosely defined, that is, fitness functions where the majority of times that you compare two edges from a node, the target you select will be the one that is better according to the desired fitness function), then the result of running the search will, on average, be better than a random traversal.
I don't know if I completely understand Dembski's approach to this challenge but I can't help noticing that Chu-Carroll is making the same deeply flawed argument Dawkins made in The Blind Watchmaker with his ME THINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL program. Dawkins sought to show how a competitive search is more efficient than a random walk. Here is how Dawkin's competitive search program works
It again begins by choosing a random sequence of 28 letters, just as before ... it duplicates it repeatedly, but with a certain chance of random error Ã¢â‚¬â€œ 'mutation' Ã¢â‚¬â€œ in the copying. The computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases, the 'progeny' of the original phrase, and chooses the one which, however slightly, most resembles the target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL.
By using this type of "competitive" search, Dawkins is able to arrive at the target in only 43 generations. The obvious flaw in Dawkins' program, and in Chu-Carroll's argument, is that natural selection does not "know" the goal and therefore cannot make "competitive" selections based on some telelogical goal. Therefore, competitive selections can only occur where each mutation provides sufficient selective advantage. Unfortunetaly for Darwinists, it has been shown that to achieve even a simple modification of a protein, let's say two amino acid residues, evolution must cross a sequence space of mutations that provide no selective advantage. Crossing that space requires a purely random walk and that is where RM+NS fails and design is indicated.Jehu_{June 2, 2007
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FWIW: I think Mike Gene is the man to pull off the hoax.JGuy_{June 2, 2007
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Salvador [post #3], Interesting note. It looks like he (Chu) is acting as some kind of academic "royalty". And as if he is grading Dembski, as to almost, if not actually, suggest that he knows math better. I hope someone takes Dembski's challenge. JGuyJGuy_{June 2, 2007
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jgrr In what sense is it not a review? Well, if you want to overlook the fact that Carroll is not employed as a book reviewer, his expertise is computer science not biology or evolution, and it's a personal blog post then I guess it qualifies as a "review" but it's hardly something you're going to find in the New York Times or Nature if you get my drift. To others - Carroll's doctoral thesis was in the construction of compilers for general purpose parallel processing. Presumbly his position at Google Inc. is in the same area. There's very little in the way of math in compiler design but it's certainly heavily related to programming - it's hard to imagine anything more involved with programming and less involved with math. For someone who's been in commercial computer R&D for over 10 years Carroll's patent portfolio (2 patents, sole inventor on one of those) is abysmal especially for an uber patent-house like IBM where he spent most of his time so far. He's got a fair number of journal publications but that's a metric for academicians not industry. Both the patents were in client-server networking i.e. zero math content. I generated twice that many patents in half the time and I was just a non-degreed senior systems engineer. Even that was still short of my performance plan target which called for being a named inventor on two patent submissions per year.DaveScot_{June 2, 2007
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I'm sure Behe will respond to his critics, as he did when DBB was published, but when his book is officialy out and reviewed in professional journals. It's going to be interestingIDist_{June 2, 2007
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How much math does he actually know
I would reckon a lot, depending on the institute of study. For example, at University of California Riverside (where I got my own CS degree) our program was 8 classes or so shy of fulfilling the Math degree requirements. So although his review/reasoning seems sloppy, let's not attack the man...Atom_{June 2, 2007
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Chu-Carrol's PhD is in computer science, not "computer programming." It would be amazing if he managed to avoid learning something of the latter. However wrong he may be about ID, it's a mistake to conflate CS with programming, which is a subordinate practical art. Although he works for Google, whose management may be unfriendly to ID, know that some bright young people who work there are more receptive to arguments in favor of ID, so you might want to engage him in debate or blog exchanges.mathemos_{June 2, 2007
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In what sense is it not a review?jgrr_{June 2, 2007
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Wart Chu-Carrol once again trying to pull the sword from the stone to reveal his secret identity as the once and future king of blowhards.mentok_{June 2, 2007
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Chu on Dembski
he [William Dembski]'s actually a decent mathematician
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We have to understand another thing, when somebody with a PhD in any field (even if Religious Studies) speaks in favor of Darwinism he's a "real" scientist. While on the other hand if a PhD ID proponent speaks even if in his own field, he's a pseudo-scientist who's degree must be taken!IDist_{June 2, 2007
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"Elephant hurling" is one of the main tactics Darwnists use in the defense of their religious belief. We all know about the "overwhelming evidence" mantra, right?Mats_{June 2, 2007
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