Design Disquisitions: William Dembski Moves on From ID: Some Reflections

_{Joshua Gidney

February 19, 2017

General interest, Intelligent Design}

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There’s a new article posted at my blog. I know this one is old news now, but my blog wasn’t around in 2015 and didn’t see any coverage on it here or at ENV. I wanted to take note of Dembski’s decision, and some of the reaction to it.

Everyone who has taken part in the intelligent design debate will know of William Dembski. For those who aren’t familiar, Dembski is the primary architect with regard to the theoretical underpinnings of ID. Since his involvement with the movement, he has published extensively in books, papers, and blogs, and has vigorously championed his ideas in many public lectures and debates.(1)

Back in 2005, Dembski wrote a sarcastic blog post on Uncommon Descent, announcing his retirement from ID, due to the ‘rancour and daily vilification'(2) by many critics of his views. Fast forward to ten years later, and again, Dembski announces that he is retiring from intelligent design, only this time it’s no joke.

Continue reading…

Comments

TA, I came back for a moment. I deal with just one point for now: 32 kairosfocusFebruary 23, 2017 at 12:17 am 31 timothyaFebruary 23, 2017 at 12:15 am 27 kairosfocusFebruary 22, 2017 at 6:18 pm 25 timothyaFebruary 22, 2017 at 3:13 pm --> This timeline tells the key story. KFkairosfocus_{February 23, 2017
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Origenes: "IMHO your position is untenable. For example, if I remember correctly, W J Murray put up a post, a few years back (sorry no link, I cannot locate it), about the discovery of an abandoned alien battleship on an newly discovered abandoned planet. Surely this alien battleship is obviously designed and not produced by blind particles bumping into each other, but there is no answer to the questions ‘what (who), when, where and how’. W J Murray’s hypothetical should have settled the mater, but much to my surprise some opponents of ID tried to defend the absurd position that an inference to design wrt the battleship is therefore invalid." Oh, for heaven's sake can't you see the fault in your reasoning? You've already assumed your conclusion by using the term "alien battleship". When will you ever learn?timothya_{February 23, 2017
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KF: you seem to have cross posted above — did you see the TWO MINUTE difference in posting times? Did you notice, I commented and was offline for a time, as in we gotta sleep some time? I have no idea what you are talking about. You inferred that I deliberately ignored your comment and in effect lied, showing the underlying attitude. You are at the threshold of insult to honour to one who has literally put life as well as career on the line on matters of truth, and I would advise you to back off on your attitude, bigtime. Repeat as above. It seems you are shaking your hoary locks and howling at the wrong moon. I will comment on points in brief, just for record: a: You refuse to acknowledge the pivotal issue of inference to design on FSCO/I, which is the underlying issue with the design inference. if the Kangaroo Court at Dover cleverly arranged things so that the central issue on teh merits did not come up in court, but was shunted aside to impose a lie about the nature of the design inference — which is exactly what I recall happening — then that simply goes to just how injudicious this travesty was. FSCI/O is your invention and yours alone. Nobody else uses it, including no reputable scientist. That alone should be, as you so often say, "unfortunately revealing". b: You do the same again, refusing to acknowledge that here is such a thing as irreducible complexity — a common place phenomenon in the world around us of systems that are based on proper, properly arranged and coupled parts to function. What you are further suppressing is that Scott Minnich did extensive research on irreducible complexity on the flagellum, using knockout of proteins, thus directly demonstrating the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum he studied. His very presence in that courtroom raised this issue and put it in the centre of concern, next to the underlying basic design inference on FSCO/I. Your attempt to distract from the path of truth and justice speaks volumes. Please read what I actually said (a bit difficult for the famous onlookers, since you didn't include my comments above, but there we go). c: Judges, and especially this one, are not competent to understand the current state or the evolution across time of the balance of merits on a scientific case. His act of copy-catting the ACLU-NSCE post trial submission whole hog into his judgement’s scientific part, gross errors, misleading statements, and outright deceit alike, speaks directly to this. Courts may indeed traipse — that should ring a bell — on such ground, but that is an exercise in injudiciousness, not sound decision. The judge was presented with a defence of the Dover School Board's actions, buttressed by expert witnesses from the intelligent design camp. He weighed the evidence, including the blatant lying on the part of some of its members, and concluded that it was, on balance, a load of religiously freighted nonsense. d: Peer review is now notoriously a broken phenomenon. And your resort to appeal to consensus shows just how in a controversial matter, censorship by the dominant school of thought can thwart progress to sounder science. Which is exactly what happened with a case directly relevant to the court’s ruling, implicating staff of the Smithsonian in highly questionable behaviour. Now wait a second. All off the most recent cases of peer-review failure were uncovered by scientists. Cold fusion, cancer cascades, even if we want to go back far enough, the Piltdown fraud. In the particular case you refer to, let the famous onlookers know what the response was from the organisation that owns the journal in which Sternberg published Meyer's article. They repudiated it. e: The epistemology of empirically grounded knowledge claims is at the heart of what science is about, and it is what governs how certain or uncertain scientific inferences and conclusions can be. That you imagine this is irrelevant to the ruling, on fair comment, speaks tellingly to your lack of competence to seriously address this matter. Got no idea what you are saying here other than that I am incompetent. Happy to let the famous onlookers judge for themselves. f: The imposition of a priori evolutionary materialism on science and science education is actually censorship, and this case is a stunning illustration of how that happens. On law, that evolutionary materialists and fellow travellers have seized institutional power and are abusing that power to censor and impose destructive agendas is a telling sign of where our civilisation is headed, heedless of warnings. Over the cliff. Anyone who has material evidence that methodological naturalism is a bad basis for science is free to publish their ideas whenever they wish (in fact, there is a conference on exactly this topic under way exactly now, without any censorship). But unless you can produce a testable hypothesis explaining what, when, where and how the putative intelligent designer did its work, then basically, you got nothing. g: The court ruling implied the imposition of a priori evolutionary materialism as a criterion of what science and its methods are, and also on the teaching of science in schools. This is dangerous, destructive censorship. And the wider context shows where this imposed ideological redefinition of science heads, for now science is just politics. It has no claim to being a credible path to truth, just a propaganda device because many still imagine it is credible. This is some of the fire that is being played with: utter corruption of science. That is complete rubbish. The court asked a simple question: show me the scientific evidence that intelligent design has a basis outside of religious belief. and from the defence's own star witness came the answer (apologies to patient onlookers who have got this far): "On cross-examination, Professor Behe admitted that: “There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred.” (22:22-23 (Behe)). Additionally, Professor Behe conceded that there are no peer-reviewed papers supporting his claims that complex molecular systems, like the bacterial flagellum, the blood-clotting cascade, and the immune system, were intelligently designed. (21:61-62 (complex molecular systems), 23:4-5 (immune system), and 22:124-25 (blood-clotting cascade) (Behe)). In that regard, there are no peer-reviewed articles supporting Professor Behe’s argument that certain complex molecular structures are “irreducibly complex.”17 (21:62, 22:124-25 (Behe)). In addition to failing to produce papers in peer-reviewed journals, ID also features no scientific research or testing. (28:114-15 (Fuller); 18:22-23, 105-06 (Behe))." h: Science in society is a term of art for the ethics and professional praxis, which needs to be informed by key case studies. One of the critical issues to be addressed is that ever since Plato in the Laws Bk X, 2350+ years ago, it has been known that evolutionary materialism is inherently amoral, invites nihilistic, power-mad factions to impose agendas by might and manipulation, and ends in ruin of community as testified by the fate of Athens. This is HIGHLY relevant to the educational context of the case. Plato's theory of abstract forms was wrong from top to bottom. Including the ethical conclusions he drew from them. For some reason, you never include those conclusions. But even you should know this, despite your continual touting of Plato as the last word on ethics.timothya_{February 23, 2017
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Timothya: We infer an intelligent design of an artefact when we have reliable evidence of an intelligent origin for the artefact (that is to say, we have reliable evidence of what, when, where and how the intelligent designers did their work).
IMHO your position is untenable. For example, if I remember correctly, W J Murray put up a post, a few years back (sorry no link, I cannot locate it), about the discovery of an abandoned alien battleship on an newly discovered abandoned planet. Surely this alien battleship is obviously designed and not produced by blind particles bumping into each other, but there is no answer to the questions 'what (who), when, where and how'. W J Murray's hypothetical should have settled the mater, but much to my surprise some opponents of ID tried to defend the absurd position that an inference to design wrt the battleship is therefore invalid.Origenes_{February 23, 2017
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TA, you reveal your want of appreciation of the epistemological challenge of origins science. The point is, we have no ability to directly observe the remote past. Ever since Newton, we have recognised that what is remote can be analysed from its traces, where if we see that we can identify a reliable distinct cause of the like traces, then we have an empirically reliable sign of the cause, subject as usual to the provisionality inherent in inductive reasoning. On trillions of cases, we know FSCO/I is a reliable sign of design as cause, and this is backed by the search challenge analysis that Dembski highlighted in his early books and underlying PhD work. In simple parallel, deer tracks in the bush are a highly reliable sign of deer. So, even if we do not directly and independently see who, where, when, how etc -- which would obviate the need for an inference -- we can safely and reliably infer to the process of intelligently directed configuration as cause. Where, in the key case of DNA, what we are dealing with was recognised since 1953 as copious quantities of TEXT in the heart of the living cell [I here allude to Crick's March 19, 1953 letter], and central to its operations. So, the origin of cell based life has to have a credible explanation of codes, symbols, text, algorithms expressed in that text, and tightly coupled execution machinery, all in a coherent whole. it is an inadvertent testimony to the force of this inference that in order to deny it, you are forced into such rhetorical contortions and question-begging. That question-begging and that associated rhetorical gymnastics then further inadvertently show that you are ill-equipped to cogently comment on the Dover case. I suggest it is time for you to do some serious re-thinking. KF PS; RVB8, I have just a moment as other things call, the Quran fails the basic historic test by denying the crucifixion of Jesus and it fails the basic accuracy test by misrepresenting the Scripture-based creedal views of the Orthodox Christian Faith. I believe I have already drawn to your attention this basic 101 I wrote, which is nearly 20 years old now. Here is a declaration and call to action I had a part in. Here is a paper I presented at that conference as a co-author, which shows that the pattern of historical inaccuracy and manipulation is unfortunately a common feature of Islamic apologetics and the work of Islamic agents of influence -- and this one is directly connected to the Journal founded by Huma Abedin's family (I was amazed to see that connexion recently). Just for record, I am not going to go off on yet another of your side tracks.kairosfocus_{February 23, 2017
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PPS: Plato warned, long since:
Ath [in The Laws, Bk X 2,350+ ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ --> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity] . . . . [Thus, they hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.-
[ --> Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics and law: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by "winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . " cf a video on Plato's parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]
These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might,
[ --> Evolutionary materialism -- having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT -- leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for "OUGHT" is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in "spin") . . . ]
and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [ --> Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ --> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush -- as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them [--> nihilistic will to power not the spirit of justice and lawfulness].
kairosfocus_{February 23, 2017
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PS: Note, this from Lewontin in NYRB Jan 1997, as marked up, on the issues at stake:
. . . to put a correct view of the universe into people's heads [==> as in, "we" have cornered the market on truth, warrant and knowledge] we must first get an incorrect view out [--> as in, if you disagree with "us" of the secularist elite you are wrong, irrational and so dangerous you must be stopped, even at the price of manipulative indoctrination of hoi polloi] . . . the problem is to get them [= hoi polloi] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations,
[ --> as in, to think in terms of ethical theism is to be delusional, justifying "our" elitist and establishment-controlling interventions of power to "fix" the widespread mental disease]
and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth
[--> NB: this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting]
. . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists [--> "we" are the dominant elites], it is self-evident
[--> actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question , confused for real self-evidence; whereby a claim shows itself not just true but true on pain of patent absurdity if one tries to deny it . . . and in fact it is evolutionary materialism that is readily shown to be self-refuting]
that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality [--> = all of reality to the evolutionary materialist], and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test [--> i.e. an assertion that tellingly reveals a hostile mindset, not a warranted claim] . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us [= the evo-mat establishment] to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [--> another major begging of the question . . . ] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute [--> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door . . . [--> irreconcilable hostility to ethical theism, already caricatured as believing delusionally in imaginary demons]. [Lewontin, Billions and billions of Demons, NYRB Jan 1997,cf. here. And, if you imagine this is "quote-mined" I invite you to read the fuller annotated citation here.]
kairosfocus_{February 23, 2017
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TA, you seem to have cross posted above -- did you see the TWO MINUTE difference in posting times? Did you notice, I commented and was offline for a time, as in we gotta sleep some time? You inferred that I deliberately ignored your comment and in effect lied, showing the underlying attitude. You are at the threshold of insult to honour to one who has literally put life as well as career on the line on matters of truth, and I would advise you to back off on your attitude, bigtime. I will comment on points in brief, just for record: a: You refuse to acknowledge the pivotal issue of inference to design on FSCO/I, which is the underlying issue with the design inference. if the Kangaroo Court at Dover cleverly arranged things so that the central issue on teh merits did not come up in court, but was shunted aside to impose a lie about the nature of the design inference -- which is exactly what I recall happening -- then that simply goes to just how injudicious this travesty was. b: You do the same again, refusing to acknowledge that here is such a thing as irreducible complexity -- a common place phenomenon in the world around us of systems that are based on proper, properly arranged and coupled parts to function. What you are further suppressing is that Scott Minnich did extensive research on irreducible complexity on the flagellum, using knockout of proteins, thus directly demonstrating the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum he studied. His very presence in that courtroom raised this issue and put it in the centre of concern, next to the underlying basic design inference on FSCO/I. Your attempt to distract from the path of truth and justice speaks volumes. c: Judges, and especially this one, are not competent to understand the current state or the evolution across time of the balance of merits on a scientific case. His act of copy-catting the ACLU-NSCE post trial submission whole hog into his judgement's scientific part, gross errors, misleading statements, and outright deceit alike, speaks directly to this. Courts may indeed traipse -- that should ring a bell -- on such ground, but that is an exercise in injudiciousness, not sound decision. d: Peer review is now notoriously a broken phenomenon. And your resort to appeal to consensus shows just how in a controversial matter, censorship by the dominant school of thought can thwart progress to sounder science. Which is exactly what happened with a case directly relevant to the court's ruling, implicating staff of the Smithsonian in highly questionable behaviour. e: The epistemology of empirically grounded knowledge claims is at the heart of what science is about, and it is what governs how certain or uncertain scientific inferences and conclusions can be. That you imagine this is irrelevant to the ruling, on fair comment, speaks tellingly to your lack of competence to seriously address this matter. f: The imposition of a priori evolutionary materialism on science and science education is actually censorship, and this case is a stunning illustration of how that happens. On law, that evolutionary materialists and fellow travellers have seized institutional power and are abusing that power to censor and impose destructive agendas is a telling sign of where our civilisation is headed, heedless of warnings. Over the cliff. g: The court ruling implied the imposition of a priori evolutionary materialism as a criterion of what science and its methods are, and also on the teaching of science in schools. This is dangerous, destructive censorship. And the wider context shows where this imposed ideological redefinition of science heads, for now science is just politics. It has no claim to being a credible path to truth, just a propaganda device because many still imagine it is credible. This is some of the fire that is being played with: utter corruption of science. h: Science in society is a term of art for the ethics and professional praxis, which needs to be informed by key case studies. One of the critical issues to be addressed is that ever since Plato in the Laws Bk X, 2350+ years ago, it has been known that evolutionary materialism is inherently amoral, invites nihilistic, power-mad factions to impose agendas by might and manipulation, and ends in ruin of community as testified by the fate of Athens. This is HIGHLY relevant to the educational context of the case. KFkairosfocus_{February 23, 2017
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Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. We infer an intelligent design of an artefact when we have reliable evidence of an intelligent origin for the artefact (that is to say, we have reliable evidence of what, when, where and how the intelligent designers did their work).timothya_{February 23, 2017
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Timothya: in every other field of human endeavour, that is exactly the conclusion (not assumption) that we make. Why is it absurd for Judge Jones to hold the Dover defendents to the same standard?
For clarity, are you saying that we can only infer intelligent design wrt X if we know how X was intelligently designed?Origenes_{February 23, 2017
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Origines: "Judge Jones’ absurd underlying assumption seems to be: unless you do know how to do it, any inference to design is invalid." In every other field of human endeavour, that is exactly the conclusion (not assumption) that we make. Why is it absurd for Judge Jones to hold the Dover defendents to the same standard? Leaving aside the Dover defendents' blatant lying about their methods and motivations.timothya_{February 23, 2017
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Timothya: Behe: “There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred.”
And anyone would agree with Behe. We don't know how intelligent design of the cosmos and/or life works. We do not even know how Beethoven, Da Vinci or Shakespeare came up with their ideas or how to frame them into mathematical calculations. Under materialistic assumptions, 'we' don't know how we do science or write posts. And we certainly do not know how alien scientists, God or some telic force produced the design we find in nature. Judge Jones' absurd underlying assumption seems to be: unless you know how, any inference to design is invalid.Origenes_{February 23, 2017
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Origines: "Even if this is true, was Behe testimony the only source of information for Jones? Did you read post #26?" Do you realise how law cases are decided? That is, the judge (or jury, depending on the jurisdiction) is obliged to decide the case in front of them on the basis of the testimony provided by the plaintiff and the defendant. That is exactly what Judge Jones did. He took Michael Behe's plain speech into account in forming his opinion. That is to say, he took Professor Behe to be speaking the truth of his opinion when the witness, under oath, said, "There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred.".timothya_{February 23, 2017
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rvb8: Living involves knowing and discerning truth: Behe, in court, denied any peer reviewed work of ID ...
Even if this is true, was Behe testimony the only source of information for Jones? Did you read post #26?
Judge Jones shows no awareness of several other peer-reviewed and peer-edited publications explicitly supporting both intelligent design and Behe’s idea of irreducible complexity, even though a list of these publications was submitted as part of the record in the case. See appendix D of the amicus brief filed by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE) here. This appendix lists such articles as ..... [see #26]
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Timothya:
KF: ... controversies on search challenges in config spaces of scale 3.27*10^150 – 1,07*10^301 cells and drastically up, ...
What controversy exists on this matter that was raised in the court?
The 'controversy' about whether evolutionary processes are up for this (search) task or not. And in case they are not, if this constitutes a (scientific) argument in favor of intelligent design.
Timothya: Since evolutionary processes don’t “search” across all possible configurations, this is irrelevant to the court’s central question.

Dembski: Go to Google and search on the term "evolutionary search," and you'll get quite a few hits. Evolution, according to some theoretical biologists, such as Stuart Kauffman, may properly be conceived as a search (see his book Investigations). Kauffman is not an ID guy, so there's no human or human-like intelligence behind evolutionary search as far as he's concerned. Nonetheless, for Kauffman, nature, in powering the evolutionary process, is engaged in a search through biological configuration space, searching for and finding ever-increasing orders of biological complexity and diversity.
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'K', to me @30 you ask to consider my immortal soul. Is that like an Islamist calmy lecturing you to consider the divinity of the Koran before it's too late? Is it like any other belief system, (Taoism, Jainism, Islam-both flavours, Hiduism, Shamanism, Voodooism, Judaism, West Borough Churchism), asking you to ponder your own immortal soul before the clear rediculousness of Christianity is made evident? Luckily I never 'ponder' these questions, (being an atheist they are really irrelevant), as far more serious ones concerning family, and friends, work, and life are infinately more satisfying. You sit on your sack-cloth, and flagellate your, "soul", all you wish, I prefer living. Living involves knowing and discerning truth: Behe, in court, denied any peer reviewed work of ID; save things like Jonathan Wells's laughable 'The Icons of Evolution'. Beautifully mauled by Hitchens; "Mr Wells's book is unlikely even to rate a footnote in the history of piffle," 't', at @31, and @33, also has some pretty sound rebuttal you should address; briefly!rvb8_{February 22, 2017
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KF: "TA, You know the answer, and that you have consistently ducked the material issue regarding the design inference, twelve years ago and today alike." You made nine claims of fact and I directly addressed all nine. That is not "ducking the material issue". It is up to you and the partisans on your side of the argument to produce scientifically acceptable evidence of what, when, where and how the designer of your theory did its work. Should you do so, I am confident that a great many evolutionary biologists will jump on board the new paradigm. Pony up, now is your chance.timothya_{February 22, 2017
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TA, You know the answer, and that you have consistently ducked the material issue regarding the design inference, twelve years ago and today alike. I suggest you seriously stop, ponder, and go in a better direction. KFkairosfocus_{February 22, 2017
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KF: Worse, a court is simply not the right place to properly resolve: a: controversies on search challenges in config spaces of scale 3.27*10^150 – 1,07*10^301 cells and drastically up, What controversy exists on this matter that was raised in the court? Since evolutionary processes don't "search" across all possible configurations, this is irrelevant to the court's central question. b: the phenomenon of systems that require several correct, correctly arranged and coupled components to interact to achieve core relevant function [similar to say the parts of a watch or car engine etc] — and the linked issue that self-replicating systems require a von Neumann kinematic self replicator tuned to the particular entity (which vNSR is itself of the like, irreducibly complex nature), Irrelevant to the question asked of the court. The existence of such systems in nature is not, in itself, any argument in favour of intelligent design. In any case, since the leading proponents of intelligent design refuse to propose, let alone experiment on, questions of what, where, when and how the putative designer did its work, you have, in the words of Christopher Hitchens, "all of your work still before you". c: the state of empirical evidence and conclusions on controversial scientific matters as they evolve across time, Do you live under a rock? Courts rule on such matters all the time. In fact, much of patent law is intimately concerned with exactly such controversies. On this matter, you are simply wrong. d: strengths and limitations of peer review and edit, The only limitation that I can see would be where the subject matter is so narrowly prescribed that there are insufficient reviewing scientists to form a decent consensual view of the merits of a candidate paper. This is clearly not the case in evolutionary biology and your claim must be judged irrelevant to the issue raised in court (that is, the parties to the case had no trouble ponying up their viewpoint experts). e: the epistemology of empirically grounded knowledge claims (especially when addressing the remote, unobservable past), Irrelevant to the question before the court. Or are you implicitly criticising Stephen Meyer, who wrote several documents making claims about the "remote, unobservable past". f: implications of worldview level impositions and linked ideologically driven power plays (especially regarding evolutionary materialism) on doing science, This is laughable. The entire notion of "law" is exactly an imposition of a worldview on the jurisdictional community. What on earth do you think that legislators and judges do all day? What, in your view should be the basis of law otherwise? g: the merits and demerits of radical revisions of definitions of science and its methods [yes, plural] in science education syllabi as informed by the above and by history of science, The court decision did not, nor did the plaintiffs' arguments call for any revision in the ground rules of science. In fact, the plaintiffs called for no more than application of the normal rules of science procedure to the claims of intelligent design. The result in the court's decision was a simple re-affirmation of the core scientific behaviour that scientists should try to connect material results with material causes, and the counter-claim that anyone wishing to introduce non-material causes into the explanations for the material world must produce evidence equivalent to that demanded of science as it is actually practised. That is: explain what, when, where and how the non-material cause did its work. Nobody from the defence attempted to do this, and they lost as a result. h: impacts of all these on science in society, ethics, governance and wider culture i/l/o experiences such as eugenics, the holocaust, the case of Marxism and Maoism, The technology of the machine pistol, IG Farben and the bulldozer has had a far more brutal and direct impact on people's lives that any argument about intelligent design being taught in schools. Get a grip and get some perspective. i: and more. I can't resist: I'm sure there will be, and I hope it includes bush rum.timothya_{February 22, 2017
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RVB8, surely, you know what a loaded, wickedly twisted question that forces a half-truth into the record is? where, too many crooked lawyers specialise in manipulating the gap between the half and the whole material truth. And, that your half-truth repeated as though it were the whole story -- in the teeth of repeated correction as already given -- is therefore a sadly telling witness against your character and intent. For the sake of the soul you disbelieve you have, please think again. KFkairosfocus_{February 22, 2017
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Kairos, sworn testimony, on a Bible. What is it about the ABC of English writng that so flummoxes you and BA? "A" = Accuracy, be accurate. You both have work to do here. "B" = Brevity, be brief. Oh Lord if only, if only you could grasp the importance of this in good communication. "C" = Clarity, be clear. The amount of down right obfuscation in your endless posts is astounding. Behe swears there are no peer reviewed articles on the topics here mentioned, and you lanch into a parallel universe of 'double speak', and non-information.rvb8_{February 22, 2017
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KF: "There has not been a framework or standing in the US judicial system to do an appeal." Complete nonsense. The school board certainly could, and probably any of its individual members.timothya_{February 22, 2017
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Origines, Thanks for giving details that flesh out my recollection. TA, There has not been a framework or standing in the US judicial system to do an appeal. That has absolutely nothing to do with and is yet another distraction from the manifest injudicious nature of the ruling. Worse, a court is simply not the right place to properly resolve:
a: controversies on search challenges in config spaces of scale 3.27*10^150 - 1,07*10^301 cells and drastically up, b: the phenomenon of systems that require several correct, correctly arranged and coupled components to interact to achieve core relevant function [similar to say the parts of a watch or car engine etc] -- and the linked issue that self-replicating systems require a von Neumann kinematic self replicator tuned to the particular entity (which vNSR is itself of the like, irreducibly complex nature), c: the state of empirical evidence and conclusions on controversial scientific matters as they evolve across time, d: strengths and limitations of peer review and edit, e: the epistemology of empirically grounded knowledge claims (especially when addressing the remote, unobservable past), f: implications of worldview level impositions and linked ideologically driven power plays (especially regarding evolutionary materialism) on doing science, g: the merits and demerits of radical revisions of definitions of science and its methods [yes, plural] in science education syllabi as informed by the above and by history of science, h: impacts of all these on science in society, ethics, governance and wider culture i/l/o experiences such as eugenics, the holocaust, the case of Marxism and Maoism, i: and more.
It is time for a sober realisation of what we have done collectively, the harm that has stemmed from it, and our need to undertake reform. KFkairosfocus_{February 22, 2017
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Timothya: He [Behe] was asked a simple question: where is the published research on intelligent design? He might have said: here’s mine, here’s Scott Minnich’s, here’s Bill Dembski’s etc etc. But he didn’t. He said there isn’t any. In sworn testimony.
Maybe that particular question was about peer-reviewed publications by ID-scientists which explicitly reference ID?
John G. West: Judge Jones writes that “a final indicator of how ID has failed is the complete absence of peer-reviewed publications supporting the theory.” (p. 87, emphasis added) Again, he claims that “ID is not supported by any peer-reviewed research, data or publications.” (p. 87, emphasis added) In a footnote, he glancingly mentions one peer-reviewed article in the journal Protein Science by Michael Behe, but complains that this article does not explicitly reference ID. (footnote 17, p. 88).
Not likely ...
John G. West: Judge Jones shows no awareness of several other peer-reviewed and peer-edited publications explicitly supporting both intelligent design and Behe’s idea of irreducible complexity, even though a list of these publications was submitted as part of the record in the case. See appendix D of the amicus brief filed by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE) here. This appendix lists such articles as Stephen Meyer’s peer-reviewed technical article on the Cambrian explosion and intelligent design in The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, and a more recent technical article on irreducible complexity and intelligent design in the scientific publication Dynamical Genetics. Judge Jones did not deny that these articles were peer-reviewed. He simply ignored them. He also ignored the peer-reviewed academic books like William Dembski’s The Design Inference (Cambridge University Press) and Campbell and Meyer’s Darwinism, Design and Public Education (Michigan State University Press). A number of the peer-reviewed articles supportive of design were referenced by biologist Scott Minnich during his testimony at trial. Was Judge Jones asleep during that part of Dr. Minnich’s testimony?
Origenes_{February 22, 2017
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KF @24 "F/N: Onlookers should quietly note how the substantial issue is constantly diverted from and/or twisted into oh so convenient strawman caricatures by critics of the design inference on tested, empirical signs. That’s a huge clue on the actual balance on merits. And a further clue, watch how critics react — or studiously do not react — to my pointing this out." Onlookers should also note that in ten years nobody has appealed to a superior court against the Dover decision.timothya_{February 22, 2017
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F/N: Onlookers should quietly note how the substantial issue is constantly diverted from and/or twisted into oh so convenient strawman caricatures by critics of the design inference on tested, empirical signs. That's a huge clue on the actual balance on merits. And a further clue, watch how critics react -- or studiously do not react -- to my pointing this out. KFkairosfocus_{February 22, 2017
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The ideals and methods of science suggest that empirical evidence is a most precious thing. It's a thing we can rely on. We can share and return to in order test and adjust our understanding of reality. Yet we see that there are some people who this is just simply not the case. What is important to them is something else -- not an understanding of reality.Upright BiPed_{February 21, 2017
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TA, your remarks are doubly misleading, nay triply. First, grant your premise c 2005. It is 2017 now, cf here which lists to Dec 2015. (And this page began c 2005 to answer that assertion.) I already pointed to the Dembski-Marks Corpus. Second, at least two ID researchers were present at the time in the trial and their work was either discussed or was readily accessible, and a list was made available to the court, all of which were ignored in the rush to prejudice pivoting on the underlying deceit that ID is about inferring the supernatural and so can be deemed an attempt to inject religion into science and can be hammered on that. Linked, we had the early Dembski work, pivoting on his PhD work and linked matters, which provided context for the inference to design on empirical signs, especially complex, specified information, where in biology, specification pivots on function. Third, at about that time, we had a clear case in point that demonstrated censorship and abuse in the context of peer review. These were brushed aside and deceitful assertions were basically copy-pasted, slightly adjusted and presented as objective findings grounding a judgement that will at length be seen as yet another case of injudicious activism from the bench. Remember, the judge viewed Inherit the Wind -- a travesty -- to key him up for what he intended to do. No, the Dover ruling is and always was indefensible, but it did one thing very well: it gave a fig leaf for an establishment needing cover for naked censorship and ideological imposition on science and science education. KF PS: Let me add, that of the three main levers of persuasion, we can set appeal to emotion [including to anti-supernaturalist prejudice] to one side. Then, no appeal to authority -- including that of peer review teams and editors -- is any better than the underlying assumptions, facts and reasoning. In the end, it is only facts, reasoning and underlying assumptions that can confer soundness to a case. To distract from this or to distort materially what is being argued on merits, or to smuggle in hidden controlling assumptions are alike indefensible. Evolutionary materialism is smuggled in, as Lewontin noted. Science is question-beggingly redefined, as can be seen from many cases. Third, the fact remains that functionally specific complex organisation and associated information is an observable. Just look at text here, or at that in DNA. On trillions of cases, FSCO/I is invariably produced by intelligently directed configuration. On the search challenge in config spaces starting at 3.27*10^150 cells to 1,07*10^301 cells (500 - 1,000 bits), across sol system or observed cosmos scale resources, only a negligibly small fraction can be blindly searched, so we end in seeing why anything reasonably isolated will be facing the needle in a cosmic scale haystack challenge. Design is the only plausible cause of FSCO/I. Which is controversial because it undercuts the establishment's favoured myth of OOL and OO body plans by blind chance and mechanical necessity, not because it actually lacks empirical warrant.kairosfocus_{February 21, 2017
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Behe appeared for the defence. He was asked a simple question: where is the published research on intelligent design? He might have said: here's mine, here's Scott Minnich's, here's Bill Dembski's etc etc. But he didn't. He said there isn't any. In sworn testimony.timothya_{February 21, 2017
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Article I, Section. 2 Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of Free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
This is why courts shouldn't decide what is and isn't science.Upright BiPed_{February 21, 2017
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