I was originally going to post this as a response to David Coppedge’s post, but it got too long. The relationship between Freud and Darwin – both intellectually and institutionally – is more complicated than has been suggested here. Although Freud had top-notch academic credentials, his career was always that of an outsider, whose main constituency was in the larger public intellectual culture and well-educated middle class people who were his client base. (Freud’s books won literary prizes, not scientific ones.) One way you can see Freud’s outsider status is that he was never granted a professorship even though he tried several times. While his theories were somewhat embraced by medical schools (peaking in the US in the 1950s), experimental Read More ›

I mean, really, whodathunkit? I haven’t got the book Greatest Show on Earth yet – Bantam’s publicist could always get in touch with me at oleary@sympatico.ca, if she wants to send me a copy.

What’s interesting to me is that Randy “Flock of Dodos” Olson, referring to Dawkins’s constant free insults, says

Dawkins provides a transcript of his interview with the president of Concerned Women for America which reads like a Monty Python skit as the woman, a bullheaded creationist, simply answers all of Dawkins’s sophisticated argumentation by saying she’s not convinced – like a cartoon character standing in front of a hail of bullets taunting, “You missed me.”

It’s a shame Dawkins couldn’t take a few tips from his atheist colleague Jerry Coyne. Coyne’s powerful and popular book [Why Evolution Is True] was, to quote Booklist, “far more presentational than disputatious”. That is a desperately needed attribute these days in making the convincing – and persuasive – case for evolution.

In short, Olson is virtually admitting that, in his view, Dawkins did not make a very effective case, but he does quite the fancy dance around admitting it.

Dawkins refuses to debate educated people who doubt his theories, like Michael Behe. People like Olson and institutions like New Scientist help him get away with this because they need to believe so badly that if they suspect he laid an egg, they could not admit it to themselves, never mind to others.

Anyway, Olson’s suggestion won’t work. Read More ›

Why People Believe What They Do
Scientific American April 10, 2009

On Scientific American’s Science Talk, Steve Mirsky interviews cognitive psychologist Tania Lombrozo from the University of California, Berkeley detailing some surprising data on understanding of vs belief in evolution. Particularly amazing is Steve’s positing: “So it may be justifiable to say, “Here’s what we understand about evolution as a science. We don’t care whether you accept it; we just want you to understand it.””

. . .Lombrozo: Sure. So I think one of the most surprising findings has to do with the relationship between understanding the basics of evolutionary theory and accepting it as our best account of the origins of human life. So most people, I think, [or] in particular scientists, tend to think that if people reject evolution and in particular evolution by natural selection, it’s because they don’t understand it very well; they don’t really understand what the theory is telling us. But in fact, if you look at the data from psychology and education, what you find is either no correlation between accepting evolution and understanding it or very, very small correlation between those two factors, and I think that’s surprising to a lot of people and in particular to educators and scientists. Read More ›

As recently noted on this site, in his letter to the Boston Globe, Harvard University psychology Professor Steven Pinker began SHAME ON you for publishing two creationist op-eds in two years from the Discovery Institute, a well-funded propaganda factory that aims to sow confusion about evolution. Virtually no scientist takes “intelligent design’’ seriously, and in the famous Dover, Pa., trial in 2005, a federal court ruled that it is religion in disguise. (bold added) Virtually no scientist takes “intelligent design” seriously? There appear to be more than a few in the chemistry/chemical engineering community that do. Kudos to a chemist for alerting me to this. Two weeks before Professor Pinker’s letter, Chemical & Engineering News (July 6th issue, pp 5-6) Read More ›

A friend draws my attention to “Defenders of the Faith: Scientists who blast religion are hurting their own cause.” by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum (Newsweek, July 14, 2009), in which they warn against new atheist attacks on Francis Collins:

The critics, though, have it exactly backward: the United States needs more scientists like Collins—researchers who show by their prominence and their example that a good scientist can still retain religious beliefs. The stunning irony in the longstanding tension between science and religion in America is that many scientists who merely claim to be defending rationality from religious fundamentalism may actually be turning Americans off to science, doing more harm to their cause than good.

The poster boy for the so-called New Atheist movement today is biologist Richard Dawkins, author of the bestselling book, The God Delusion. He and other New Atheists attack faith without quarter, and insist that science and religion are fundamentally irreconcilable. In the process, they are helping to keep U.S. society polarized over science and likely helping to make it still harder for many religious believers to accept scientific findings in areas like evolution.

This is all well-meaning rot, of course. Read More ›

Issue 9 of Salvo (Summer 2009) has come out, with many fine articles. The feature article is on the explosion of kids watching Internet porn.*

A number of interesting features on topics related to the intelligent design controversy:

Gimme that Spacetime Religion: Seeking Salvation in Science by Regis Nicoll, about the effort to transform Darwinism into a religion with all the trappings – except actual guilt for sin.

Wesley J. Smith, describing himself as a “Human Exceptionalist” talks about the effect that the growing practice of equating humans with animals and plants has on bioethics, pointing out, “If they really wanted to be reductionist, they could also say that because carrots are made out of carbon molecules, there is no distinction between carrots and humans either. You can’t get far enough ahead of these guys in terms of satire.”

Read More ›

Check out the following at fedbizopps.gov (click here):

Solicitation Number:
DARPA-SN-09-35
Notice Type:
Special Notice
Synopsis:
Added: May 05, 2009 11:23 am

Special Notice DARPA-SN-09-35: Physical intelligence (PI);
Proposers’ Day Workshop, DATES: June 9th and June 11th, 2009;
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May 29, 2009; TECHNICAL POC: Dr. Todd Hylton, DARPA/DSO, Email: Todd.Hylton@darpa.mil; URL: www.darpa.mil/dso/solicitations/solicit.htm

In anticipation of a potential program on the topic of Physical intelligence (PI), DARPA is hosting two Proposers’ Day Workshops that will provide critical information on the program vision, the milestones, and opportunities associated with the development of interdisciplinary teams to respond to an anticipated Broad Agency Announcement (BAA). The Physical Intelligence program aspires to understand intelligence as a physical phenomenon and to make the first demonstration of the principle in electronic and chemical systems. A central tenet is that intelligence spontaneously evolves as a consequence of thermodynamics in open systems. The program plan is organized around three interrelated task areas: (1) creating a theory (a mathematical formalism) and validating it in natural and engineered systems; (2) building the first human-engineered systems that display physical intelligence in the form of abiotic, self-organizing electronic and chemical systems; and (3) developing analytical tools to support the design and understanding of physically intelligent systems. If successful, the program would launch a revolution of understanding across many fields of human endeavor, demonstrate the first intelligence engineered from first principles, create new classes of electronic, computational, and chemical systems, and create tools to engineer intelligent systems that match the problem/environment in which they will exist. Concepts relevant to the objectives of the Physical Intelligence program can be found in numerous disciplines and areas of research including statistical physics, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, dissipative systems, group theory, collective behavior, complexity theory, consciousness theory, non-linear dynamical systems, complex adaptive systems, systems analysis, multi-scale modeling, control systems, information theory, computation theory, topology, electronics, evolutionary computation, cellular automata, artificial life, origin of life, microbiology, evolutionary biology, evolutionary chemistry, neuropsychology, neurophysiology, brain modeling, organizational behavior, operations research and others. Read More ›

From Nature:

Classic behavioural studies flawed

Nobel prizewinner took short cuts to show that the way gulls feed is instinctive.

John Whitfield

One of the most famous experiments in biology isn’t the solid piece of work it’s usually portrayed as, say Dutch researchers who have replicated the study. Instead, it’s more like an anecdote that became slightly more legendary each time its author retold the story.

The work in question was done in 1947 by the Dutch researcher Niko Tinbergen on the begging behaviour of herring-gull chicks. At the time, the dominant idea in animal behaviour was that learning was all-important. Tinbergen argued that animals come into the world with instincts already adapted to their environments.

Adult gulls have a red spot on their lower bill. Tinbergen, who shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1973, presented wild chicks with model birds bearing spots and measured how much they pecked at the model.

The story that made it into the textbooks is that chicks have a powerful innate tendency to peck at red dots, which has evolved as a way of getting their parents to feed them. The original paper, however, shows that Tinbergen found that chicks actually pecked more at a black dot than a red one.

In a follow-up paper written in 1949, Tinbergen concluded that this strange finding resulted from a mistake in his methods. He had tested red, black, blue, white and yellow spots, but he presented the ‘natural’ red spot much more often than any other. The chicks, he decided, became habituated to the red spot and stopped pecking at it.

Of course, Tinbergen has his defenders: Read More ›

Ari N. Schulman, “Why Minds Are Not Like Computers,” The New Atlantis, Number 23, Winter 2009, pp. 46-68.
Article Review

“The problem, therefore, is not merely that science is being used illegitimately to promote a materialistic worldview, but that this worldview is actively undermining scientific inquiry.”—UncommonDescent

Read the entire article here.

Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from the article, “Why Minds Are Not Like Computers,” are italicized.

Mr. Schulman walks the tightrope of analysis and criticism, describing how a materialistic worldview actively undermines scientific inquiry in the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Analysis and (self-criticism) should be part of all scientific endeavor; the strict materialist does no such thing; instead, he plays dodgeball.

Much of the article, especially the discussions of the brain, computers, Turing Machines, the Turing Test, and the Chinese Room Problem were all helpful in understanding the state of affairs in AI for the layman. My comments are those of a such a layman, included that you might see what a layman might take from such an article. Never-the-less, questions remain . . .

Read More ›

In case anyone cares, this item generated a dramatic uproar among third- and fourth-rate Darwinist tax burdens because – following a usual practice of file management, I had cross-posted it at the Post-Darwinist. Assuming any reasonable person cares, here it is.

I inserted into that post the following message, which should also do for this post, and justfor the record, really:

Note: This post appears to be exceedingly popular and I want to thank all the generous new donors to my PayPal button. Also, this post has garnered a large amount of attention (assuming site meter stats are accurate) and I am astonished at the number of third- and fourth-rate tax burdens who have written privately, proclaiming their faith in propositions like the Big Bazooms theory of human evolution. No wonder our economy is in the tank, and a thorough housecleaning is needed. I had no idea how bad it all was – but then I have usually had the privilege of working with productive, intelligent, and interesting people. Wow. I have always had the highest respect for my friends and colleagues, but I had no idea how lucky I have been, compared with the current Deleted Items box, mostly from Darwin’s Faithful.)

In “Darwin’s “dangerous idea: Top ten evolution articles,” the inimitable New Scientist advises us,

Scientists continue to respond to the latest attacks from creationists, and at the same time propose profound new ideas about evolution. This year has seen perceptions of the virus change from disease-causing villain to evolutionary hero, and the emergence of a new force of evolution – the absence of natural selection.

In other words, this year has seen the emergence of even more aggressive attempts to just plain make stuff up.

Put another way, everyone except the Darwinists has long since observed “the absence of natural selection.” It’s the presence of natural selection – as a source of new species – that we look for in vain.

A couple of years ago, after I had been following the controversy for several years, I found myself listening to a long lecture by a Darwinist, replete with bafflegab and pretty lame examples. Finally, sensing (correctly) that I was unconvinced, he proclaimed to me, “You just don’t understand how natural selection works, do you?”

And suddenly, the penny dropped. What he meant was that I just don’t believe in magic. I can’t make myself believe in magic; I haven’t been able to since I was a child. And I was no longer going to give the matter any attention. What I really wanted to know then and now is  – how magic became so important a principle in science? And I think I know of at least one reason.

Looking over New Scientist’s top ten evolution articles, I am struck by how paltry it all looks, how inadequate to the matter to be explained. I can’t believe that they are still fronting the peppered moth, for example, but they are, and under the windy title, “reclaiming the peppered moth for science.” (= In order to qualify as “science,” the moth must be reinstated as the notorious “peppered myth.”)

Who ever doubted that dark coloured moths might have a selective advantage over their light coloured kin in a polluted environment? The key problem, of course, was that, as Judith Hooper showed in Of Moths and Men, experimenter Kettlewell interfered with the moths’ normal behaviour during his research. So, while the legend blossomed in textbooks and popular science presentations, the very minor fact of a change in population frequencies between the two variants that Kettlewell was attempting to demonstrate may never actually have occurred. And if it did occur, it was soon reversed by widespread industrial cleanup. In other words, to the extent that natural selection does occur, it is apparently easily reversed.

The fact that so many people have put so much energy into defending the peppered myth merely shows how important the popular science myth of “evolution” is to their world view. Following the story, I learned far more about them than about moths.

So now, as to why the magic of Darwinism is so important to some people: Read More ›

In The Ottawa Citizen, Robert Sibley advises

Oh? In the ascendant? In the legacy mainstream media, maybe, but not in the world at large.

In fact, this year – for the first time in a long while – I noticed a decisive pushback against their efforts to stop people from saying “Merry Christmas!”

Be a Christian, don’t be a Christian, … it’s your choice. But December 25 is Christmas Day. In Canada, both December 25 and December 26 are statutory holidays – and pretty popular ones, too, so you need to keep that fact in mind if you intend to try litigation. No one is going to thank you for forcing them to work on one of those days, if they are not in an essential service field.

Anyway, I don’t think the new atheists’ movement is really going anywhere because what they don’t have is any important new ideas.

I mean, once you get past Richard Dawkins explaining to Ben Stein in Expelled that space aliens might have created life – but not God – or Lee Smolin’s zillions of flopped universes, theirs are not new ideas that we can compare with, say, the discovery of neuroplasticity in the brain.

Now THAT was a discovery – oh my heavens, what a discovery! Just think of all the old people who realize that they are not consigned to involuntary senility after all! But that discovery did not help materialist atheism one bit. Neuroplasticity makes way more sense if your immaterial mind is real and directs your brain.

Which reminds me: What discoveries would have helped materialist atheism? Here are some:

Read More ›

Last night, the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C. offered a panel discussion on the theme of the book, edited by an old friend Paul Marshall, Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion.

By the by, in Chapter 8, “Getting Religion in the News Room,” Terry Mattingly discusses a recent “dropped ball” in coverage of the intelligent design controversy:

When assessing media coverage of the intelligent design controversy, the first thing you should do is forget what defenders of legacy mainstream media say about their media. You’ve already heard it all anyway: “We’re objective.” “We’re not biased.” “We only report the facts.” Et cetera. Not only isn’t that true, but it couldn’t possibly be true, as I will explain below. And it wouldn’t be a good thing if it were true. Modern media grew up self-consciously aware of their key role in promoting materialist ideas. You know the sort of thing: “Science has shown/research has demonstrated/studies have shown” .. what? The Big Bazooms theory of evolution? Due to the rise of citizen-directed, Internet-based, new media, they currently face a Read More ›