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In the spring of 2011, a diverse group of scientists gathered at Cornell University to discuss their research into the nature and origin of biological information. This symposium brought together experts in information theory, computer science, numerical simulation, thermodynamics, evolutionary theory, whole organism biology, developmental biology, molecular biology, genetics, physics, biophysics, mathematics, and linguistics. This volume presents new research by those invited to speak at the conference.
The contributors to this volume use their wide-ranging expertise in the area of biological information to bring fresh insights into the many explanatory difficulties associated with biological information. These authors raise major challenges to the conventional scientific wisdom, which attempts to explain all biological information exclusively in terms of the standard mutation/selection paradigm.
Several clear themes emerged from these research papers: 1) Information is indispensable to our understanding of what life is; 2) Biological information is more than the material structures that embody it; 3) Conventional chemical and evolutionary mechanisms seem insufficient to fully explain the labyrinth of information that is life. By exploring new perspectives on biological information, this volume seeks to expand, encourage, and enrich research into the nature and origin of biological information.
Let’s not forget the story behind the book:
Censorship Loses: Never Forget the Story of Biological Information: New Perspectives
Casey Luskin August 20, 2013
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....75541.html
Intelligent design: Why can’t biological information originate through a materialistic process? – Stephen Meyer – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiXNxyoof8
Every reference to this meeting heavily emphasizes the word “Cornell.” I have read elsewhere that Cornell did not sponsor this event, and that its only connection to the meeting was that the organizers rented space at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration.
Is that true? If so, isn’t it disingenuous to constantly stress “Cornell?” I don’t see any purpose behind it other than to create the apparently false impression that a serious research institution is affiliated with this conference.
Disingenuous? False impressions? Welcome to the world of ID.
Pro Hac Vice @ 3
Should they refer to as ‘Conference’?
“Conference on Biological Information” seems to be a unique name. Even if it weren’t, it could be specifically identified by year. I don’t see any purpose to pounding the “Cornell” drum other than to create the (false) impression that Cornell had anything to do with the content of this conference.
This appears to be a consistent effort to mislead. The background article bornagain77 links makes the same attempt, more explicitly, by claiming that “we present research papers at a scientific conference at a top research university (Cornell)”. Anyone reading that sentence, without further information, would believe incorrectly that Cornell endorsed the conference, rather than renting space to it.
In other words, calling this the “Cornell” conference is both unnecessary and misleading. Repeating the word “Cornell” in every reference serves no purpose other than to mislead. What other purpose might it have? Can you find any example of mainstream academic conferences named after the venue?
Pro Hac Vice.
In this blog or other ID forums, it seems fine to refer to it as the Cornell Conference for brevity, imo. I see no problem with that.
However, that is nearly how the above title was identified by year & venue.
Cornell Conference on Biological Information (2011)
With a quick google search I found venue used in identifying several conferences:
13th Annual Oxford International Conference on the Science of Botanicals April 15th – 17th, 2014
10th Oxford Dysfluency Conference (ODC)
3RD ANNUAL STANFORD CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE
75th Annual Cornell Nutrition Conference for Feed Manufacturers October 22-24, 2013
Caltech Conference on Very Large Scale Integration
Seventh M.I.T. Conference on Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics
Pro Hac Vice, thanks for your single minded focus on distancing the great name of Cornell from any association with Intelligent Design with that the prestigious institute for higher learning. I appreciate your, and other Darwinists, continued efforts at clearing up any misunderstanding in that regards. Along that line, for the sake of clarity, I was hoping you could clear up a misunderstanding I have about Darwinists reaction to the conference that was held at Cornell. My misunderstanding is this. If Darwinism is such a well supported theory that only the ignorant, stupid, and insane disbelieve it, then why did Darwinists try, and fail, to have the proceedings censored from publication? I find it peculiar that such a supposedly well established theory of science would have to resort to such underhanded tactics. And if you hold that the proceedings were simply ‘not science’ and that is why Darwinists tried, unsuccessfully, to censor them, then can you please show me the exact empirical evidence that refutes the following paper from the proceedings?:
I simply can find no weakness in their argument from the empirical evidence:
Thus Pro Hac Vice, I hope you can see my misunderstanding in all this. I find a paper from a conference, which Darwinists had tried to censor the publication of, that has a very clear critique as to what is claimed for Darwinian processes. Yet instead of forthrightly refuting to critique with empirical evidence, we find Darwinists tried to cover it up. Am I missing something Pro Hac Vice? Any help will be appreciated.
Do you think it’s fine because it’s not misleading, or because it’s fine to mislead? Take, for example, the link in BA77’s comment, where the author specifically tries to trade on Cornell’s reputation as an institution. Is that also fine?
Thanks for the references. I don’t think these are good counterexamples, though. The MIT, Stanford, CalTech and Cornell conferences seem to actually be affiliated with the named universities. (In fact, they don’t seem to be held AT the universities, but at nearby hotels. The names refer to institutional affiliations, not venues, as far as I can tell.)
The Oxford Botanicals conference isn’t using Oxford University’s name–it’s using the name of the town where the meeting is held. No one would read their conference proceedings and think it was referring to Oxford University!
The Oxford Dysfluency Conference might be a good coutnerexample. I can’t tell whether it’s actually affiliated with Oxford University or simply leasing space. Apparently it’s been held at St. Catherine’s College for 30 years; by this point I assume Oxford University doesn’t mind having its name attached to the conference proceedings. Do you think the same thing is true of these proceedings?
My point stands; the only reason to throw the name “Cornell” around is to make people think that the conference is affiliated with a prestigious university. See, again, BA77’s link.
13th Annual Oxford International Conference on the Science of Botanicals April
Oxford, Mississippi
Nice.
Pro Hac Vice.
The point is that location are used in identifying conferences.
If it was desired, as you implied would be, to have a more unique/identifiable conference title, a more specific location would be a reasonable choice.
Town name is a large location – a venue is just a more specific location. And if the venue is unique, as Cornell is, then it seems reasonable enough to use for it’s specificity. It could have read the Ithaca Conference… but Cornell is just more specific. Sobeit.
I think there have been, if not mistaken, conferences identified even by names of hotels they were held at… but I’m not sure.
JGuy,
I don’t think that is the point. Haven’t we established that the much, much more common use of university names is to identify academic affiliation? What seems to be driving our disagreement is that I think that is what IDists–specifically News and Casey Luskin, in this case–are trying to do by calling this the “Cornell” conference.
If you don’t think they’re trying to mislead people, then sure, you don’t see anything inappropriate about using the name. But that seems like one hell of an assumption, given Luskin’s explicit attempt to tie the conference to “a top research university (Cornell)”. He’s not talking about the School of Hotel Management. He wants people to draw an inaccurate conclusion.
That’s evidence that convinces me that the name is being used to intentionally mislead people. I also think there’s evidence that this isn’t just an innocent use of a common name to label the conference. The proceedings are published as “Biological Information:New Perspectives – Proceedings of the Symposium.” Why don’t they use the Cornell name, if it’s just a common way of identifying conferences? I think it’s because it’s not a very common practice, and that they don’t want to provoke Cornell and its lawyers. They know that would be seen as implying an endorsement of the legitimacy of the conference, which is an improper use of the name.
At the end of the day, though, it sounds like this is the cleavage point: if you believe the Cornell name is being used to mislead, this seems like sneaky and improper thing to do. If you don’t, you give it a pass. Fair enough.
Pro Hac Vice @12,
There is no denying the fact that the publication contract was cancelled due to lobbying by Darwin group. That is not the way to oppose contrary views. All that is needed is publish papers countering the contrary views.
selvaRajan,
I don’t follow. Is that a non sequitur?
elephant in the living room! what elephant?
Pro Hac Vice:
Here’s the opening sentence from Luskin’s post from August of this year:
In the spring of 2011, the “Biological Information: New Perspectives” symposium was held at Cornell University. (It wasn’t sponsored by Cornell, though it did take place on the campus.) – See more at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/ . . . .
Is that good enough for you?
However, maybe you have a point: maybe it should have been called the “MIT Conference.”
Let me give you my reaction when I first read, “Cornell Conference.” I thought, “Are you kidding me? Is Cornell now backing up ID?” And the very next thing I did was to read a little further, confirming my hunch that Cornell did not, indeed, ‘sponsor’ the Conference as an institution.
It wasn’t hard to do. Really.
If you don’t like “MIT Conference,” then what about the “Somewhere in Manhattan Conference”? Is that better?
If you don’t get my sarcastic point yet, it’s this: you’re being whiny.
Why aren’t you, instead, upset that the scientific community saw fit to pressure a publisher not to print something that challenges the prevailing orthodoxy? Are you really happy to live in an academic world that requires a “Nihil Obstat” before something can be published?
The scientific community bans thought and destroys academic lives. Is this good for science? Wake up, please.
PaV,
Yes, that actually is a good disclaimer. It’s not present in the article BA77 linked, which is inappropriate. Even worse, Luskin specifically tried to use the Cornell name to imply that the conference proceedings were prestigious. It’s not only the failure to make a decent disclosure, it’s the intentional misuse of the Cornell name to mislead readers. Both of those things are wrong.
Of course, as we’re discussing elsewhere, I’m a moral relativist. Maybe Luskin thinks it’s fine to mislead people as long as it benefits his employer. I disagree.
Luskin’s intentional effort to attach the conference proceedings to the ID name shows that he really does expect people to misunderstand. Do you not agree? I’m honestly curious–I don’t expect you to jump on a desk and denounce him, but do you really think he’s being straightforward and honest there?
Why aren’t you, instead, upset that the scientific community saw fit to pressure a publisher not to print something that challenges the prevailing orthodoxy? Are you really happy to live in an academic world that requires a “Nihil Obstat” before something can be published?
Because I don’t think that’s what happened. I think what happened is that a conference that generated unserious work* lined up a serious academic publisher, and wanted to use it to give the proceedings an appearance of legitimacy. I think people who disagreed with that tactic, which is just the misuse of the Cornell name writ large, tried to keep the organizers from taking unearned credibility.
I would indeed be upset if anyone kept the organizers from publishing. But that didn’t happen, was never going to happen, and couldn’t happen. All that happened was they kept a specific name off the imprint. The proceedings were always going to be published, if not by Springer then by some other publisher or the internet.
* This is obviously a controversial opinion around these parts. I should probably explain why I think the work was unserious. I’m not qualified to judge it myself. But as far as I can tell, no one who is qualified takes this work seriously, other than people who share the authors’ religious biases.
The stock answer is that ID would be taken seriously if not for the shadowy cabal of Darwinists suppressing information. But these materials touched on mathematics, information science, computer science, physics–and who in those worlds is taking this stuff seriously? Sewell’s work on entropy is well regarded by whom, exactly? If the proceedings aren’t making any waves, it might be because the publisher wasn’t the right publisher. It might be because the work isn’t very good. I think it’s the latter. I understand that you disagree with me on that point, and don’t expect that I’ve persuaded you. But your question deserved an answer.
Isn’t it sad that people would be more willing to accept a research paper not for it’s content but because it originates from some specific institution? Imagine if Einstein’s numerous papers were not accepted and debated just because he was employee of a patent office.