Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Outsider Meddling — Skeptics Need Not Apply (or, Just Have Faith)

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Someone by the name of skeech is cluttering up UD with impervious sophistry and wasting a lot of our time.

His/her latest thesis is that “according to biologists…” there is a “credible possibility that small incremental changes could have developed massive increases in biological information in a short time — followed by stasis.”

So, skeech assures us that “biologists” are universally agreed upon this proposition?

How about this and this?

Darwinian evolutionary theory is a boiling, ever-changing, amorphous cloud that is impenetrable and completely immune to critical analytical scrutiny. It was designed that way, for obvious reasons.

It should be noted that the “scientific” consensus in the early 20th century was the steady-state universe theory (that is, the universe is eternal, and has no beginning and no end). Those subscribing to the consensus were wrong (including Albert Einstein), and they put up a big fight until the end, when the evidence became overwhelming.

Continental drift theory was also ridiculed.

Wegener was the first to use the phrase “continental drift” (1912, 1915)… During Wegener’s lifetime, his theory of continental drift was severely attacked by leading geologists, who viewed him as an outsider meddling in their field.

The criticism we always hear from Darwinists is: Outsiders are not permitted to question the dogma, because they don’t understand the subtleties and the “science.”

The essence of Darwinian philosophy, presented as “science,” takes about 15 minutes to learn and understand: Random variation and natural selection explain everything — never mind the details, we’ll make up stories later to explain away the anomalies, contradictions, and improbabilities.

In the meantime, just have faith, and don’t ask any annoying questions.

This is not science, it’s religious indoctrination.

Comments
An anti-ID person might wish to remain anonymous if that person is, for example, employed by a religious tradition that frowns on evolution, among a family of creationists, a believing member of a church but dissenting from its views on origins, and so forth. You have no reason to assume anything. Either allow people to post anonymously or not, but if you do, be consistent, and don't gripe about your own policy.David Kellogg
March 29, 2009
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Another example of the new moderation policy? Different standards for the pro- and anti-ID crowd?David Kellogg
March 29, 2009
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Also, there are many ID proponents here who also do not use their real names... I explained this. ID proponents risk having their reputations and lives destroyed by Darwinian religious zealots who wish to suppress dissent from state-sponsored Church orthodoxy, especially if the heretic is employed in academia. It was against such abuse of power that our founding fathers rebelled.GilDodgen
March 29, 2009
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I strongly disagree with Gil. First, one of the nice things about internet discussions is that credentials don’t matter: it’s the quality of the ideas and how well they are expressed that matter. I don’t have to have a degree in computer science to discuss Weasel, for instance, or a degree in theology to discuss religion. Professionally, I teach young adults to read, write and think well: I am nothing more than a well-educated layperson on all the topics I discuss here, but I think my ideas matter because I can articulate and defend them with facts and logic, and that is what should count. Also, there are very good reasons for being anonymous on the internet. I have publicly identified myself as an atheist here in other discussions, but many of my students are religious, and many are fairly conservative Christians - I teach at pretty conservative school. The vast majority of my students have no idea what my religious beliefs are because it doesn’t come up in my teaching, and I strongly believe in keeping my religious (and political) beliefs out of my teaching. (Most of them feel that I am a very fine person, by the way.) But I wouldn’t want them googling Ms. xxx and finding me here arguing for the non-existence of God. So one of the attractions about discussing on the internet is that it can free us from some of the social and personal limitations we otherwise have. Of course there are those who abuse this freedom, but that is true of all freedoms. For me, being “hazel” on the internet lets me have an intellectual life apart from that of my regular daily life, and I think that is very good. My 2 cents.hazel
March 29, 2009
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Also, there are many ID proponents here who also do not use their real names - e.g., tribune7, "jerry", etc - so OK for them to remain anonymous but not others?JTaylor
March 29, 2009
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Is JohnADavidson's ad hominem attack on Skeech going to be tolerated by the moderators? Looking at previous comments by skeech, he/she seems to have been careful to ensure avoiding any personal comments. Skeech is direct, yes - but always polite. Is there a double standard here? Is the modus operandi of this site that if a person doesn't reveal their identify or doesn't ask the right kind of questions they are open to personal attack? If I also do not wish to reveal my identify does that mean to say I'm not permitted to ask legitimate questions? (and I prefer to remain anonymous on the internet at least on matters that do not concern me professionally)JTaylor
March 29, 2009
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Let me just note one irony here. The opening post complains that:
Outsiders are not permitted to question the dogma, because they don’t understand the subtleties and the “science.”
But in the last few posts, we see JAD and GilDodgen asking to see skeech's "credentials" so they can "vet" him.madsen
March 29, 2009
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To seversky in #4... What about Darwinian *philosophy* takes more than 15 minutes to understand?mtreat
March 29, 2009
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JohnADavison: It would be useful if skeech, whoever that is, would reveal his real identity as well as those credentials which justify his arrogant pontifications. John, You make a good point. Those who are members of, and true believers in, the state-sponsored Church of Darwin (especially in academia) are immune from criticism, vilification, excommunication, or worse. In fact, they get bonus points and lots of taxpayer-supported funding for supporting Church Doctrine and punishing heretics. On the other hand, those who challenge Church Doctrine with facts, evidence, logic, and mathematical analysis can look forward to unbridled torment. It is understandable that heretics who challenge Church-of-Darwin dogma wish to remain anonymous, but why would skeech choose to do so? He might get bonus points and a promotion by revealing his identity -- and maybe even government funding to help defeat the evil ID proponents who want to destroy science, establish a theocracy, and destroy public education by suggesting that students should actually evaluate evidence and logic. Anyone can look me up on the Internet and find out just about everything about me. I've been married for 32 years. I have two daughters. My father is the most brilliant scientist I have ever known. He worked on the Manhattan Project during WWII. I have a love of science and mathematics. I have three college degrees in music and foreign language. I earn my living as a software engineer in aerospace R&D, with specialties in guidance, navigation and control software for precision-guided airdrop systems, as well as transient, non-linear, dynamic finite-element analysis using a program developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It is called LS-DYNA. My hobbies include artificial-intelligence research and classical piano (see my website), and computational number theory. I am a former militant atheist who suddenly realized that my atheistic religion was based pseudo-science. How about you skeech? Give us your name and let us vet you. What do you have to hide?GilDodgen
March 29, 2009
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Woops, I tried to use the tags in the last response - but incorrectly - here is the quote from Justfinethanks (which should precede my statement):
Uh, that’s right. The scientific community does indeed have a habit of shedding off old ideas once sufficient evidence for better ideas are presented. It’s a little strange for an Intelligent Design proponent to admit this.
CannuckianYankee
March 29, 2009
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JustFineThanks:
I don't think the "scientific community" is a unified whole, but a community of individuals with varying insights and opinions - some informed and some not. Therefore, there is room for the observation that some scientists look for the truth whenever and wherever it can be found, while some hold onto older ideas despite the evidence, and often for ideological rather than scientific reasons. To say that the scientific community came to their senses as a whole in rejecting many of the old ideas is a huge exaggeration. Furthermore, teleologic arguments in the past have been primarily philosophical and theological. ID is different. Many ID proponents still hold to the philosophical and theological arguments because they are confirmed by the science. I think you will see in your own lifetime, that it is mainstay Darwinism that will be largely "shed" and abandoned; however, if my observation is correct, there will still be Darwinists desperately cluthing the Darwinian paradigm.
CannuckianYankee
March 29, 2009
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allanius, that's an interesting proposition. I assume "biologists" in the original sentence means "most biologists," and that you're talking in the same terms. So, going through the statements and inserting "most" beforehand, "[Most] Climatologists say that anthropogenic global warming is fact, not theory." That seems true. "[Most] Paleontologists say that Lucy is the missing link." False. Most paleontologists don't use a term like "missing link." "[Most] Theologians say that the Resurrection never occurred." I don't really know what most theologians think. I tend to agree with Mencken that theology amounts to "explanations of the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing." "[Most] Teachers say that testing harms students’ self-esteem." False. A fair number of teachers object to high-stakes standardized testing or its implementation, and for a variety of reasons, but most teachers use tests in their own practice. "[Most] Journalists say that George Bush is like Hitler." False. "[Most] Critics say that “The Piano” is great cinematic art." I wouldn't know. It seems overrated, though. "[Most] Professors claim that Marx’s economic theories are true." False.David Kellogg
March 29, 2009
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“According to biologists”? Aren’t “biologists” guys who went to school to study biology? And aren’t we told that no skepticism of Darwin can be tolerated at biology schools? But really, this appeal-to-authority thing could make quite a fun parlor game. Guess which of the following statements are true: Climatologists say that anthropogenic global warming is fact, not theory. Paleontologists say that Lucy is the missing link. Theologians say that the Resurrection never occurred. Teachers say that testing harms students’ self-esteem. Journalists say that George Bush is like Hitler. Critics say that “The Piano” is great cinematic art. Professors claim that Marx’s economic theories are true. Sheesh! We could go on and on…..allanius
March 29, 2009
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archtype = archetype. Stupid fingers.angryoldfatman
March 29, 2009
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JustFineThanks wrote
The scientific community does indeed have a habit of shedding off old ideas once sufficient evidence for better ideas are presented. It’s a little strange for an Intelligent Design proponent to admit this.
No it's not. You obviously didn't get your mental archtype of ID proponents from frequenting this site. Seversky wrote:
On the one hand, science is demonised as some sort of quasi-religion whose dogmas are impervious to change
Incorrect. Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theory are being demonized. Darwinian theory does not equal the whole of science. A portion of science dips dangerously close to dogma when the proponents of its mainstream theory have a vested interest in keeping the theory in place, such as Ptolemaic geocentrism in Galileo's day, or stress-caused stomach ulcers, climate change, and (neo-)Darwinism today.angryoldfatman
March 29, 2009
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It would be useful if skeech, whoever that is, would reveal his real identity as well as those credentials which justify his arrogant pontifications. I suspect that if he had any professional status he would, like Allen MacNeill, Wesley Elsberry, Paul Zachary Myers and Richard Dawkins, be happy to reveal it. So how about it skeech. Who are you and what do you do for a living? If you fail to answer you can be certain that this investigator will evaluate everything you present here or elsewhere as the ravings of an intellectual coward. If anyone knows the identity of skeech or of any other anonymous blowhard, let me know via email so I can expose that person to his immediate supervisors and the intellectual community in general. I no longer accept comments from anonymous users on my weblog unless I know why they must hide their identity. "A doctrine which is unable to maintain itself in clear light, but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind with uncalculable harm to human progress." Albert Einstein It is true that Einstein never accepted the Big Bang hypothesis (not theory) of the origin of the universe. He also questioned black holes and so do others. Skeech apparently regards the Big Bang as settled science. It is no more settled than aimless, purposeless Darwinian evolution. I recommend "Dismantling the Big Bang" by Alex Williams and John Hartnett for a reasoned alternative to the Big Bang unverified hypothesis.JohnADavison
March 29, 2009
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Gil writes:
Someone by the name of skeech is cluttering up UD with impervious sophistry and wasting a lot of our time.
Wow -- a thread in my honor! Thanks, Gil! Readers are undoubtedly wondering what's got you all riled up and whether your complaints about time-wasting and "impervious sophistry" are justified. I've linked below to the first comment of mine in each of the threads I've participated in, so that readers can see for themselves what constitutes "impervious sophistry" in the Dodgen playbook. More tomorrow. Grammar Checker Harvesting Co-option Simulation Wars Conceptual Leaps Phineas Gage Metaphorsskeech
March 29, 2009
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Correction: Ehm, I suppose that should have been "add" and not "ass". I apologize...gpuccio
March 28, 2009
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JustFineThanks and Seversky: Just coming here to say: "darwinian evolution is without fault, and you in ID are just misguided people" does not ass much to the discussion. Our point is very simple: science does proceed many times with mechanisms a la Kuhn (scientific revolutions). It is true that in the end the scientific community will accept evidence, and that will happen also for darwinian evolution and ID, but the time can vary. We do believe that the idelological role of darwinian evolution today, as a dogmatic support for the widely accepted "religion" of scientistic materialism, has achieved proporions without precedents in the history of science and of human thought. Darwinists, with few exceprions, defend their theory dogmatically, and don't even accept that it may be discussed and criticized. They even publicly try to pass it for a fact, and not a theory. That is epistemological shame, and intellectual dishonesty (I am not here attacking you personally, obviously, but those who do the things I am describing). So, Gil's frustration is IMO absolutely warranted. I personally appreciate really discussing here with sincere and intelligent darwinists who come to debate, even with passion like we do, in a spirit of true search for truth. I respect them and respect their ideas, while disagreeing and debating. But that is not the attitude of most defenders of darwinism, not even here, as is clearly visible to all. Those who came here just to provoke, in older days, were readily banned from here. I am very happy that no more happens, except maybe for extreme cases. It is very instructive to see the difference, bothb among darwinists and IDists, between true intellectual confrontation and mere defense of one's own "football team".gpuccio
March 28, 2009
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Darwinian evolutionary theory is a boiling, ever-changing, amorphous cloud that is impenetrable and completely immune to critical analytical scrutiny. It was designed that way, for obvious reasons.
Perhaps you find it impenetrable because you have not read enough about it?
It should be noted that the “scientific” consensus in the early 20th century was the steady-state universe theory (that is, the universe is eternal, and has no beginning and no end). Those subscribing to the consensus were wrong (including Albert Einstein), and they put up a big fight until the end, when the evidence became overwhelming. Continental drift theory was also ridiculed.
On the one hand, science is demonised as some sort of quasi-religion whose dogmas are impervious to change, on the other hand, you kindly cite two cases which are evidence that it is quite the opposite. Which do you think it is?
The criticism we always hear from Darwinists is: Outsiders are not permitted to question the dogma, because they don’t understand the subtleties and the “science.”
Critics are publishing books, magazine and newspaper articles, setting up websites such as this and even making documentary films. There is no permission required that could be withheld. What else do they want? If it is scientific respectability then they need to actually do the science. Testing the Explanatory Filter would be a good place to start.
The essence of Darwinian philosophy, presented as “science,” takes about 15 minutes to learn and understand: Random variation and natural selection explain everything — never mind the details, we’ll make up stories later to explain away the anomalies, contradictions, and improbabilities.
If that is what you really believe then you have just provided evidence to support the contention that critics of evolution "...don’t understand the subtleties and the “science".
In the meantime, just have faith, and don’t ask any annoying questions.
Ask away but don't complain just because you are not told what you want to hear.
This is not science, it’s religious indoctrination.
The evidence seems to suggest that religious indoctrination is more the design of critics of evolution than of evolutionists themselves:
Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.
Seversky
March 28, 2009
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@1: Perfect illustration on your part of not wanting to see the forest for the trees. Fortunately, we can agree that eventually science will be dragged kicking and screaming to confess that their current love affair with evolution was a match made in mythology.Brent
March 28, 2009
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Since I have been commenting on this site, we have asked at least three evolutionary biologists, and several biologists and anyone else to defend Darwinian macro evolution. I have also read several popular books that are pro naturalistic evolution. So far no one has been able to. So we are a little bit skeptical. Maybe the current crop of pro Darwinist or anti ID people might want to take a crack at it and along the way explain why all those others were not able to do so.jerry
March 28, 2009
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So, skeech assures us that “biologists” are universally agreed upon this proposition? How about this and this? What about this? It should be noted that the “scientific” consensus in the early 20th century was the steady-state universe theory (that is, the universe is eternal, and has no beginning and no end). Those subscribing to the consensus were wrong (including Albert Einstein), and they put up a big fight until the end, when the evidence became overwhelming. Uh, that's right. The scientific community does indeed have a habit of shedding off old ideas once sufficient evidence for better ideas are presented. It's a little strange for an Intelligent Design proponent to admit this. Continental drift theory was also ridiculed. And then it was accepted whole heartedly when evidence was sufficient enough to support it, even by scientists who had devoted their entire scientific careers to older geological models. The criticism we always hear from Darwinists is: Outsiders are not permitted to question the dogma, because they don’t understand the subtleties and the “science.” Oh sweet Lord. I'm willing to bet that the words "Outsiders are not permitted to question the dogma" has never parted from the lips of anyone you would consider a Darwinist. don’t ask any annoying questions. That's true, we do hate annoying questions. We do, however, love intelligent ones. This is not science, it’s religious indoctrination. So let me get this straight: as evidence of just how dogmatic and close minded the scientific community is, you present two accurate theories that were ACCEPTED once the evidence rolled in. This is really more of an argument that the scientific community is skeptical, but willing to change its mind when presented with the facts. Which is of course a far cry from the "THE DARWINIST ESTABLISHMENT IS OPPRESSIVE" stuff you usually hear. Frankly, this is a step forward, and I hope you will continue to recognize other instances in which the mainstream scientific community has been willing to adapt and change its mind in the face of good arguments and solid evidence.JustFineThanks
March 28, 2009
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