Television Appearances [Further Update]

_{William Dembski

August 2, 2005

Intelligent Design}

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Below is what I wrote earlier. The appearance on Fox has been cancelled because of technical difficulties getting their truck to hook up with the satellite. CNN still appears to be a go. Steve Meyer will be appearing with Bill O’Reilly tonight [Meyer’s interview was cancelled. I expected all discussion of ID on the O’Reilly Factor to be cancelled on account of the Toronto crash, but it appears — see comment #3 below — that the other side got their say].

In the last two hours I’ve heard from Fox News and CNN. I’m to appear on The Big Story w/ John Gibson this afternoon (August 2nd) and on CNN tomorrow midday (August 3rd). This interest is in response to President Bush coming out today publicly supporting ID.

Comments

Dave, As I said earlier, I don't have time for an indepth comment, but I will make a short response for the time being. First, no I do not thing that science is outside of political funding. However, I do not think that politics makes or breaks the progress of science overall. It seems like you are hinting at a postmodern idea of science, which I disagree with wholeheartedly. Secondly, I will quote from Dembski, "I want therefore in this section to show how irreducible complexity is a SPECIAL CASE of specified complexity, and in particular I want to sketch how one calculates the relevant probabilities needed to eliminate chance and infer design for such systems. Determining whether an irreducible complex systems EXHIBITS specified complexity involves two things: showing that the system is specified and calculating its probability" (NFL pg. 289; emphasises added). Dembski does attempt this (thus your argument is refuted), but Dembski compares the calculations to a linguistic context and becomes a reductionist model since no part of any organism exists in distinction to another part. It is OUR categories that create these distinctions. In addition, Dembski states, To be sure, there is plenty of biological work to be done. The big challenge is to firm up these numbers and make sure they do no cheat in anybody's favor. Getting solid, well-confirmed estimates for perturbation tolerance and perturbation identity facotrs will require careful scientific investigation" (NFL 301-02). So, has scientific investigation been carried out? I have not found any, that is why I am asking you. So I ask you why, if you are such a devout IDist, why didn't you tell me about this calculation. It seems like you haven't heard of it? Have there been any other attempts in these calculations. How do they differ in human artifacts. These questions have not been answered as far as I know.sartre_{August 8, 2005
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Satre "ID is the one who tries to use politics to get into the public domain" NeoDarwinists don't seem averse to using politics to keep ID out of the public domain. Pot, kettle, black... Anyone that thinks science is disconnected from politics is naive. They are inextricably intertwined. Public funding of scientific research, as in the spending of any other public moneys, is determined by political means. Science doesn't go on, or goes on at a retarded pace, without funding. On the CSI of bacterial flagella I'll answer again. Flagella are held out as examples of irreducible complexity not as examples of CSI.DaveScot_{August 8, 2005
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What you said, Dave, has nothing to do with what I said. You are talking about the media and left-wing groups, I am talking about the actual nature of science. That may be ID's problem. They cannot distinguish the two. Remember, ID is the one who tries to use politics to get into the public domain. So I am not surprised that left-wing groups attack. All of this trial crap, Santorum's legislation, etc. This is not how science works. As I noted above, science that works eventually makes it into the mainstream because they produce results. If ID is an actual science, it will make it eventually. No matter what the left-wing groups say. But again, I'm talking about actual science conspiracies. Instead of using money for political gain, ID should be using it in the lab for research. Asking for sympathy is not going to make your ideas into the science books. Actual science will. As I said above, there is science that is against natural selection as the beginning force and make it into peer-reviewed journals and have respect (the same descent as ID). How can you account for that? Your post had nothing to do with what I said. So I ask (now I may have missed it somewhere so point to where it exists if it does): What is the CSI of the bacteria flagellum? I am NOT asking for a physical mechanism, but rather the specific patterns that show design. How is this CSI similar to Mount Rushmoore? It cannot be DNA since the latter does not have DNA (obviously). Answering this will most assuredly help ID's progress.sartre_{August 4, 2005
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"There is no conspiracy theory." BS. There's a vast left-wing conspiracy to keep ID out of the public eye. Look at just two recent events at the Smithsonian. Look what happened to Sternberg for allowing an ID article to appear in a science journal. http://www.rsternberg.net/ Shortly thereafter look what happened when "The Privileged Planet" was permitted a screening at the Smithsonian. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/02/AR2005060201659.html What's happened is that a number of scientists have created a conspiracy theory around ID, painting it as a covert effort to entangle science and fundamental Christianity. That conspiracy theory is mentioned at every opportunity by ID opponents. In doing so they reveal a conspiracy of their own to censor anything sympathetic to ID in any form in any public venue. They've gone so far as to employ the ACLU to prevent citizens from using the democratic to determine what can and cannot be taught in science classes as in Cobb County and Dover public schools. There is a vast and real left-wing conspiracy afoot to censor ID.DaveScot_{August 4, 2005
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"[Gross] can still get away with making claims that there is no evidence against Darwinism." What Gross was sayig was that there is no evidence in the scientific journals. I know that Dembski's monograph was peer-reviewed, but journals are much more rigorous (books usually have more freedom because they are more easily open to the public). I know that ID theorists and its supporters think that there is a conspiracy theory against ID, but science has always been against new ideas that provide little results. Here is an example, Walter Freeman (Reclaiming Cognition; 1999) shows that Ramon y Cajal Ã¢â‚¬Å“told [Rafael Lorente de No] that his inference [for a neuron feedback loop] was unacceptable because brains were deterministic and could not work if they had feedback. Lorente withdrew his report from publication until Cajal died in 1934. After he published it, it became an enduring classicÃ¢â‚¬Â (161). In addition, Einstein did the same thing where he criticized an up and coming physicist who's idea was against the current idea of matter. As I have said before, there are scientists who are against neo-Darwinism (they deny that natural selection does not answer the beginning of evolving life because there is an idea that states that the Earth is a global unity as a population of ONE [hence no natural selection can begin the process], known as gaia.). However, they are not forcing the issue because they are using the scientific process and waiting for more evidence. This idea has been in the literature since the 70s and they made it to the peer-reviewed journals. There is no conspiracy theory.sartre_{August 3, 2005
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"He [Gross] touted the usual nonsense that no evidence exists to support intelligence in nature and that no evidence exists that undermineÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Darwinism. " And yet there are science students and science faculty at his school who believe in intelligent design and reject Darwinism. However, regrettably, at a school near Gross's school, Caroline Crocker, a professor of cellular biology, after coming forward with her views in the prestigious journal Nature, has since lost her job as a professor a few weeks after the article. Thus, the intimidation and bullying continue. Gross is free to appear on these shows, but only a handful of scientist have sufficient immunity that they can speak out on the very evidence which Gross claims does not exist. And at least for now, he can still get away with making claims that there is no evidence against Darwinism. What is also sad is the media gives air time to people like Gross and hardly any air time to the brave biology professors at secular schools who are willing to come forward with evidence against Darwinism. There is some degree of satisfaction however in knowning a growing core of science students at Gross's school reject Darwinian evolution, and I will do what I can to see that this happy trend continues.scordova_{August 3, 2005
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Paul Gross was ineffective as a speaker. Considering that he had no opposition, he should have been able to make stronger points; since they were unopposed. I think OReilly flustered him a bit with his abortion question...it was a wierd question, but it really threw him off.Dan_{August 3, 2005
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O'Reilly is completely ignorant as usual. Gross is promoting his Atheism's Trojan Horse as usual. O'Reilly was playing like the straightman setting up ID as a personal morality for Gross to shoot it down. Darwinism is once again promoted as the defacto accepted scientific theory.teleologist_{August 3, 2005
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morpheusfaith, I agree but I think that it is unrealistic to think that someone with as little interest in the issue as O'Reilly would dedicate that substantial of a time slot. At any rate, you should send O'Reilly a *pithy* email.Qualiatative_{August 2, 2005
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Stephen Meyer never made it on O'Reilly's show. Paul Gross showed up instead. He touted the usual nonsense that no evidence exists to support intelligence in nature and that no evidence exists that undermine's Darwinism. And, of course, O'Reilly was inequipped to counter such claims effectively. So the whole segment was pointless. In his talking points memo, O'Reilly himself referred to strawmen that inequivocally demonstrate his unfamiliarity with the subject. He entitled his talking points memo as "God vs. Science" and then inferred that ID is somehow inherently contra-evolution. O'Reilly really needs to sit down with an ID theorist and spend at least 2 full segments in dispatching strawmen and clarifying the debate. Not everyone has read The Design Revolution, and a nationwide interview with O'Reilly (absent any Darwinian fundamentalists), can only help to introduce ID as the empirical inference that it truly is.morpheusfaith_{August 2, 2005
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Good work gentlemen. I would love to see a list of colleges that have a student ID club and atleast one faculty member teaching the controversy. Dan [Casey Luskin at the IDEA Center is the person to contact about this: http://www.ideacenter.org. --WmAD]Dan_{August 2, 2005
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Oh look, I can't read. Sorry for the redundancy. I hate it...Charlie_{August 2, 2005
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Also try to catch Stephen Meyer on the O'Reilly Factor tonight. Of course AAAS and NAS are up in arms regarding President Bush's statements on ID.Charlie_{August 2, 2005
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