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 what is being shown, really? Scientific garbage. But one has to merit grants to survive. Part of the fault is unthinking sources of money. Part is publish or perish. Part is the buddy system in peer review. Hurray for Tallis.”
A Darwinist commenter, Joealtle, responds: “Uh are you questioning the validity of fMRI? Wow you must have some serious evidence to back that one.”
Did anyone see turell question the validity of fMRI generally? Far from it, he specifically notes that an fMRI in fact does what it purports to do in the studies – i.e., measure blood flow increases to areas of the brain. Turell is not questioning fMRIs as such. He is questioning the interpretation of data obtained through the use of fMRIs. Yet Joealtle treats turell as if he is questioning fMRIs as such.
Joe’s comment startled me. It is such an obvious non sequitur. I wondered what he could be thinking. Then it occurred to me this should not surprise me, because Joe is behaving like Darwinists generally behave – confusing their interpretation of the data for the data itself. Joe appears to be convinced that the conclusions drawn from the brain scan studies are valid and when turell questions those conclusions he attacks him as if he questioned the brain scans themselves, rather than the conclusions drawn from the brain scans.
Where have we seen this before? Well, if you think about it, pretty much everywhere:
ID Guy: I am skeptical of Darwinian processes’ ability to account fully for the complexity and diversity of the biosphere.
Darwinist: IDiot, don’t you know that we have actually observed germs develop antibiotic resistance though Darwinian processes?
ID Guy: Of course, I know that.
Darwinist: Then you know that Darwinian evolution is as well demonstrated as the law of gravity.
ID Guy: No, your interpretation of the antibiotic resistance data is not the data. Let me try to explain this for you in terms adapted to the meanest understanding. The data indicate that species clearly undergo small changes through Darwinian processes. Examples abound: antibiotic resistance in germs, the size of finch beaks during times of drought, etc. You extrapolate from that data and conclude that the same process that creates these small changes within the species created the species in the first place. In other words, you infer that Darwinian processes not only change the size of finch beaks, they create finches to begin with. Please understand that the small changes within a species that have been observed are the data. The creation of species through these processes has not been observed, and therefore is not the data. It is an inference from the data. The inference may be valid. It may be invalid. The point is that you do not seem to understand that your preferred inference from the data is not the same thing as the data itself.
Joealtle, I am going to clue you and your Darwinist comrades in here, so please pay close attention now: Your interpretation of the data is not the same thing as the data. Write that down.