I feel a bit like a cat with a fat mouse between its paddy paws—although the temptation is there to bite its little head off and crunch on its itty-bitty bones, I think I’ll bat it around a bit and extrude a single needle-like claw and stick it in somewhere non-vital and twist, and maybe pluck out something pink and stringy and wet, and elicit a few squeaks for the sadistic fun of it all.
Yes, Fred Hutchison has replied to my challenge. We’ve swapped some email back and forth. I’ll see how long I can keep him on the hook—I’m hoping that he’ll try to turn this into another triumphal column. My email to him will appear here sometime after I’ve finished playing with him.
It’ll be rather like the cat who drops the bloody bits and pieces of his prey on his master’s carpet, thinking he’s done something so nice…but you won’t mind, will you?
Love to eat them mousies
mousies what I love to eat
bite they little heads off
nibble on they tiny feet…
*gets popcorn*
*waits for the show to start*
Ummmmm. Sounds juicy. I can’t wait to read the whole story.
Why am I reminded of the phrase “like shooting fish in a barrel”?
You’ll be providing a valuable service to anyone who might be predisposed to be seduced by him, but you know you won’t make a dent in his head at all. That’s, unfortunately, the sad part. However, it does put me in mind of the guys who lead on Nigerian scammers like this …
this is going to be the bomb.
while everyone’s waiting, check out Official Uncommon Pissant Discussion Thread, where we watch Uncommon Descent and point and laugh.
http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=440ed4e3dcf8683d;act=ST;f=14;t=1274
My cat back home used to leave dead birds for us on the mat outside. Except most of the time the birds weren’t quite dead. So when we opened the door to say “good kitty, thanks for protecting us against these mean birdies,” the near-carcass would get up and flop into our house, leaving a gnarly trail of blood, wet feathers, and mystery innard juices. So just make sure you kill old Fred off, because you don’t want his animate cadaver mucking up your well-appointed home.
I imagine the main problem will be his apparent inability to separate material, scientific fact from philosophy… I had the longest-running debate with a crackpot “physicist” once who persistently denied relativity, with the most elaborate mathematical and theoretical logic, as he believed it required a non-deterministic universe, something he couldn’t accept.
Don’t be so cocky. By his own rules he cannot lose, and those who pay attention to his rantings trust his rules, not ours. I foresee this to be an exercise in frustration and exasperation for anyone who thinks it’s possible to reason with the irrational.
I had an uncle who was diagnosed with bipolar disease, which during the mania phase manifested itself in delusions of grandeur. He thought he was an artist of renown, a vocalist of uncommon sensitivity and talent. The fact that he wore garish, tattered clothes, had the worst, most pretentious comb-over ever and couldn’t sing at all did not prevent many people from being sucked into his delusion. He would manage to borrow money, stay in expensive hotels on credit, etc. People wanted to believe him because they wanted to believe that they were in the presence of a famous person who took the time to ask something of them. It’s the same with Fred Hutchison (is that a garish rose on his lapel)?
PZ, this is not worthy of you. Take on a real challenge, a creatiosist that really has his head screwed on straight, an IDiot with solid scientific evidence behind him, a fundamentalist that argues convincingly that god exists and really did dictate the bible.
Or you could just take on the Easter Bunny in a cage fight, he would be as easy to find as the above mentioned nythical creatures.
Meany
Oh, I don’t expect to change his mind at all. All I expect to do is document all the places where he is simply making stuff up. That’s the tenor of the exchanges so far — he’s just saying stuff that is flat out wrong.
Ah, you put up one of my all time favorite dumbass cartoons! The blues-slingin’, mousy-crunchin’ cat. Well, good luck with your medieval contest. Back in the good old days that feller and his cohort seem to pine for, they had ways of making people face the facts…(or non-facts!)
If it’s anything like his “debunking” of Einstein, then I’m reasonably sure that he’s just making stuff up anytime he actually uses letters, numbers, or punctuation.
PZ, we need you to lay waste to guys like Phil Skell some more – he’s actually being listened to in my neck of the woods:
http://greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060307/OPINION/603070305/1016
(He’s basically still touting that evolution is a useless theory.)
Alex Blaze, re cat habits:
The reason your cat was leaving not-quite-dead critters for you was that this is the behavior of a parent cat trying to train the baby cats to kill. They give them half-dead critters to finish off. I had a friend whose cat was always doing this, and my friend, softie that he is, was always rehabilitating or attempting to rehab the wounded creatures. We always imagined the cat walking away shaking his head. “Idiot!” Ansd then of course heading back out into the shrubs to find something else to use in the stupid human’s training to be a proper predator.
What? You mean my prior demolition of Skell didn’t end his career as an apologist for creationism? What a surprise.
The value of going after really bad arguments is that in real life, most of us encounter really bad arguments. It’s good to see them dealt with competently. We get a handle on how to approach them, and — at least in my case — it helps me relax.
The way you have to work these guys always has to be veyr methodological. You have to demand that they answer questions you pose to them, and not let the discussion proceed until they answer. Instead of telling them what’s what, you make THEM supply the definitions for everything, so that they cannot weasel out of it later. There’s this guy I’ve encountered called Aron Ra who is a paleo grad student, and he’s just masterful at doing this. He doesn’t let anyone get away with anything.
And afterwards, PZ can have debates with other mythical creatures, such as ogres, fairies, and unicorns.
If this guy is talking to Alan Keyes, who inexplicably still has a big following, then I think it’s worth it, PZ. Just because Hutchison is a raving lunatic doesn’t mean that the people who may be convinced by him necessarily are; they’re just credulous and willing to believe. They may, after seeing the debate, be willing to disbelieve. I agree with attacking nonsense wherever it is in order to, at least, not let it bask too long in the sun (and let’s be honest, what creationist is “worth” any scientist’s time, anyway?). I say, go for it!
The whole thing reminds me of the druggist in Halifax, Nova Scotia who made the front page many years back for his attempt at a unified field theory reconciling relativity and quantum theory. The basis of his effort, and the soon-to-be-forthcoming conclusion was blindingly simple: both theories were too damned mathematical. No wonder nobody could reconcile them. But a non-mathematical Unified Field Theory…AHHH!
I have this fire-breathing dragon that lives in my garage …
Is it invisible?
That would be silly – no, it’s just not visible in our lightspectrum.
I can’t wait to see what tact Fred takes. Haul out the old tripe, or try a new differnet tact.
Can’t wait!
I have a seal that lives above my bed, and a unicorn in the garden.
“I had an uncle who was diagnosed with bipolar disease, which during the mania phase manifested itself in delusions of grandeur.”
It is *amazing* how the supreme *confidence* exuded by manic bipolars can get other people to go along with what are clearly delusional ideas. I think it is because we are conditioned to assume that there is a correlation with confidence and reality – and the mentally ill, con-men and creationists play on this conditioning.
Keith: I think it is because we are conditioned to assume that there is a correlation with confidence and reality – and the mentally ill, con-men and creationists play on this conditioning.
Did anyone else think immediately of our dear leader?
so what is the format of discussion to be? Are you both going to publish an exchange of emails?
just curious…
“Hello,” he lied.
Anyone who calls himself a polymath is but an ignorant dilettante.
irrelevant comment, but i’m having junior high school flashbacks. one of the class clowns of my math classes back then wore a t-shirt with that cat on it pretty much once a week.
“Did anyone else think immediately of our dear leader?”
Yes, and the other religious leaders who “hear god and voices”.
Schizophrenia?
KiethB: I think it is because we are conditioned to assume that there is a correlation with confidence and reality – and the mentally ill, con-men and creationists play on this conditioning.
It is a correlation of expressed confidence and the perceived truthfulness of the speaker. This is what happens with hypnosis, too. Folk become confident of the ‘memories’ they supposedly recover, however those memories may be entirely fabricated or even ‘implanted’ by the hypnotist. The subject has no real source of information memory either so it must have come from outside and is therefore not made up.
Due to the fact that hypnosis, then, only increases the confidence of the hypnotized, and does not involve anything related to improved recall or even truthfulness, courts have ruled that such testimony is irretrievably tainted and is excluded from trials.
Anyone who calls himself a polymath is but an ignorant dilettante.
That does take a remarkable amount of hubris, doesn’t it? I love the standard blurb that follows his spew, which basically says: “Fred’s qualification for shooting his mouth off is that he has lots of practice at shooting his mouth off”. The only thing missing is claiming Mensa membership.
“you won’t mind, will you?”
Not at all, I _love_ cats.
“most of us encounter really bad arguments. It’s good to see them dealt with competently. We get a handle on how to approach them”
Since they always stink terribly, I usually poke and fend them off with a big stick until they hide in their hole.
The problem is that you can seldom eradicate bad arguments – you can merely try to keep the little buggers from procreating too freely.
“Did anyone else think immediately of our dear leader?”
I didn’t. I have never felt that he truly believes what he says. His eyes dart around too much – like he is looking for support from the audience.
The only person who seems less sure of herself in this administration is Condi. The quaver in her voice makes me think that she is not sure of anything she says.
Oh, our fearless leader probably believes what he says–his eyes dart around because he’s watching floaters in his eyes that he thinks are Jesus molecules.
I want to underscore what Aris said. By his definitions, he cannot lose. He will shrug off, distort, or ignore anything you say that makes him uncomfortable. Then he will accuse you of being 1) elitist, 2) locked into the scientific party line or 3) too simple minded to understand the brilliance of what he is saying. Be very, very careful. No kidding.
Cats bring their “conquests” to the back door because they think you are their dominant other. So thanks, Paul, for the confirmation ;-)
I’m sorry….at this point, reading all the references to our fearless leader, all I can think of is “get moose and squirrel!”
Well, but note again PZ’s earlier comments, Kayigo. He expects Hutchison to declare (and probably believe) victory. The point of this exchange (aside from the nearly nonexistent possibility of actually making progress with educating the man) is to draw out as much detail of his “brilliant” scientific theories as possible, in order to deconstruct them for the benefit of others.
As Emperor Dukhat said:
“When others do a foolish thing, you should tell them it is a foolish thing. They can still continue to do it, but at least the truth is where it needs to be.”
I hate to say it, but trying to convince Hutchison that he’s wrong is like trying to convince a Cat Piss Man that Ed Wood was really a better writer and director than George Lucas: it simply wastes your time and annoys the pig. Feel free to leave guts all over the place, though: at times, I enjoy debates that resemble a GWAR concert…
>”Did anyone else think immediately of our dear leader?”
>I didn’t. I have never felt that he truly believes what he says. His eyes dart around too much – like he is looking for support from the audience.
Rove tells him to act that way, and he believes in Karl even if he doesn’t believe in himself.
Gad’s nads… I can’t get over the fact that Fred is probably the crown prince of the useless nerds. That combover is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen… and he’s wearing a ROSE? Then he goes on to blather about:
Which leads me to think he fantasizes about that… a lot.
I think he’s a breather. Next time a breather calls you, just yell “God damn it, Fred! Quit calling me!”
He said that General Relativity are “child-like” equations. Actually said that.
If he tries to break out some ‘philosophy,’ I really think someone with more than my minimal competence at philosophy of science/biology should take him to task. I’ve read some of his attempts at relating events from the history of philosophy- see, e.g., here – and they’re appallingly bad! Just like everything else he writes. He decries Wittgenstein as a Humean skeptic (err, not quite), and sums up German Idealism (which includes Nietszche, btw– news to me!) by the claim that “if a tree falls in a forest and there is no-one to hear it, it makes no sound.” — At last! Hegel explained!…. or not. — Basically, almost everything he has to say about philosophy suggests that he’s working with a high school-level understanding of the material, or, as in some cases, that he’s never actually encountered the stuff at all, & is just going with what his “Christian intellectual” cronies tell him. It’s really, really bad.
Farcical, even: can I confess to taking a certain sick pleasure in reading his drivel? Since I’m purportedly studying to become an academic, I should probably rid myself of the impulse toward mocking delight in another’s self-assured idiocy, but at this point, I find it awe-inspiring and extremely amusing just how ill-informed-but-confident one imbecile can be. Thank goodness I get to treat him as the voicebox of the other side.
Addendum to the last post: I just read the column in which Hutchison is “debating” the scientists (I know, I know, I shoot first and ask questions later)– and can add that his reading of Thomas Kuhn is very bizarre, and definitely not something Kuhn himself would have endorsed. It is a bit better than his flippant name-dropping in the other article. But then, there’s a lot more popular misinformation about Kuhn’s thought out there to pull from. So, again, if he tries to break out the philosophy, I’m sure there would be *no* trouble in finding someone with greater philosophical expertise than my own to authoritatively indicate how full of crap he is.
heck, that’s the entire damn Republican leadership. consider yesterday’s Rumsfeld, impugning those damn doubt-seeding journalists out there, spawn of bin Laden as they are.
Dawn wrote:
How far is Morris from Frostbite Falls?
The Minbari don’t have emperors; he was the leader of the Gray Council.
Now that’s just insulting. A while back, some of our graduate students got together to bother one of our theoretical physicists about teaching a rigorous course in general relativity. These were all graduate students in mathematics and physics, mind you. The professor’s response was: “I’m not going to do that. I want you all to take differential topology first.”
Does Fred think he’s impressing us by declaring general relativity to be “child-like”? Because he’s making it pretty clear to anyone who has seriously studied (or even attempted to study) the subject that he hasn’t. He probably looked at a book on the theory and attributed his own lack of ability to understand the topic to the fact that it’s a jumble of d’s and t’s and x’s, and he declared it to be child-like.
What a jackass.
Heh, this reminds me of that time when Fred went on that big stupid diatribe about quantum mechanics being responsible for all kinds of immoral crap. So, Relativity is bad. Quantum Mechanics is bad. I figure Lie Algebras must be next on his list — I’ll bet he thinks that they’re the cause of 56% of abortions in the world.
“Cats bring their “conquests” to the back door because they think you are their dominant other. So thanks, Paul, for the confirmation ;-)”
A friend of mine had a cat that would bring back dead mice and pile them with its toy mice. That cat seemed to understand what dead mice were for.
Bah! You caught me mixing my characters, Skemono. :P I blended Turhan and Dukhat. Worse, I was actually thinking Turhan, when it was Dukhat who said it. Ah well.
We used to have a cat – 1/4 siamese tabby, weighing in at 16-18lbs ( 7 kilos ) …
He didn’t usually bother with biries, but mice were good fun – however, what he really like was big, fat Rat.
Watching him play with a full-grown adult male rat (because he’d alredy killed two others, and was getting bored) was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen.
Pure carnivorous predator in action.
He was called Hermann (as in Goering) …..
He probably looked at a book on the theory and attributed….
FH has what I’d term a “nodding acquaintance” with SR. He’s picked up on the concepts of frames of reference and relativity of motion, and the assertion that motion causes time dilation — which is exactly enough to get you stuck on the Twin Paradox. He doesn’t understand the meaning of “inertial” in “inertial frame”, which really is the Golden Key that you need to get past the paradox and begin to understand where SR comes from. Given inertial frame invariance and a simple thought experiment, you can derive the Lorentz time-dilation equation for yourself (whence follows length dilation and magnetism). The silly thing is that, as an accountant, FH is probably not innumerate, and should have no problem handling the (high-school) algebra. So he really has no excuse for not getting it.
(Note: I consider myself to have a shallow understanding of relativity. Corrections welcome from the cognoscenti. Anyone dumber than I am has no business talking about it at all.)
…Lie Algebras must be next on his list…
Well, just look at the name. Obviously it’s a kind of math devised by the EvilAtheistEvoLiberal conspiracy specifically for the formal statement of falsehoods.
Yeah, to understand SR minus the connection to electrodynamics is quite straightforward mathematically speaking. On my website in various places is a reference to a book by Gibilisco (I believe that’s the name) that does that in reasonable detail, though not perfectly by any stretch.
As for getting a philosopher to plow through someone’s pseudophilosophy, well, find some way to make it worth my while and I’ll do it, but I do value my hair, at least in winter. :)
My worry about debating such people is that what they say is so weird and twisted that it’s hard to figure out exactly where they went off the rails or what they’re even saying. So what can happen is this: he seems to be claiming [crazy claim A]. So you say: but P and Q, so not-A. But apparently he was actually claiming [even crazier claim B – who knew?], to which P and Q (while true) are irrelevant. Now he feels entitled to claim (rightly, ironically) that you haven’t understood; and instead of defending B, he gets to mock your seeming claim that P and Q are relevant to B – you need to learn how to read, etc. So I agree with the advice to start by drawing him out. In any case I look forward to it.
I did take a look at some of the columns. I’m still enjoying the one noema linked to, where Hume = Wittgenstein (complete with picture!) = “Logical Positivism”. Yikes.
Well put.
PZ, I admire you a great deal. Visit your site daily. Enjoy it immensely. Agree 100% with your crusade (sic) against the forces of wilful ignorance.
But…
Remember how you mocked Dembski, just before the Daily Show Evolution/Schmevolution special, when he wrote about his Darwin Skull mug? Remember how right you were to mock, because he was being ridiculously smug about how right he thought he was?
I dunno… perhaps the whole cat metaphor’s a bit much, don’t you think? Perhaps we could leave the gloating until you’ve actually won…
I kind of feel sorry for this guy, just looking at his picture. ;-)
I’m with the very first commenters on this one: I’m salivating.
And my motives for doing that have nothing to do with rationality; they place me much closer to this jackass than I’m comfortable being; but the truth is that the main reasons I’m looking so much forward to this are frustration and anger.
Yes, I’m pleased that PZ is going to try and draw out the idiotic theorems that lie behind this sort of raving in order to deconstruct them; yes, perhaps that deconstruction will do some good for others who read it, though almost certainly not for FH. But I’m really looking forward to seeing this garbage leveled by someone who has the time to do it completely, someone intelligent and educated enough to rebut it properly, because I live and work in a place where I have to hear it from time to time, and the irritation factor in it is very, very high.
(And also, perhaps, a little because seeing that done will give me some ready responses (should it ever become possible for me to make one) to this sort of inane insanity.)
Ignoble (though not, sadly, IgNobel), but true.
About algebra: I wouldn’t be surprised if someone on the extreme right went after algebra. After all it is an arab invention, and as we all know ™ arab=moslem=terrorist. Even the word algebra is arabic (al-djabr) so don’t be surprised if someone tries to rename it to “freedom math” or something similar.