Those rascals at antievolution.org are like the Baker Street Irregulars of the evolutionary forces—they’re always doing the legwork to come up with interesting bits of data. Like, for instance, this wonderful example of hypocrisy/inconsistency at Uncommon Descent.
This is what Dembski spat out today, complaining about us manipulative elites (he really deserves a Pastor Ray Mummert Award for it, too):
“Framing,” as a colleague of mine pointed out, is the term that UC Berkeley Professor of Linguistics George Lakoff uses to urge Democrats that the public will agree with liberal policies if only the policies are described in different terms — “framed” in other words. Politics aside, framing is part and parcel with the condescension of our secular elite that the masses cannot be reasoned with and must therefore be manipulated.
And here’s what Grima DaveScot said last year:
I will remind everyone again — please frame your arguments around science. If the ID movement doesn’t get the issue framed around science it’s going down and I do not like losing. The plain conclusion of scientific evidence supports descent with modification from a common ancestor…
I am amused, and I shall deign to give you peons leave to chortle quietly, if you promise to be decorous about it and not go on too long. … … … that was long enough. Stop now, and go back to being mindlessly subservient.
The irony is that intelligent design creationism is, ultimately, nothing BUT framing, as the Wedge Document so eloquently displays.
BWAHAHAHAHAH, what a couple o’ dumb sh….. Oh wait, you said decorous – bwahahahaha, I say old chap did you see that deep pile of twittle twattle over there?
I don’t think Dembski wants it framed quite like that.
This belongs on PT as well because it involves our board.
Yeah, and with this at the bottom of his quotes:
“Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be. ”
Which reminds me: Where is my damn bible anyways?
On the contrary, it is very consistent with ID. It doesn’t really matter what has been done and said in the past where rhetoric is prized above actually doing science. They can believe six impossible things before breakfast; it’s in their training routine.
Framing IS conversation.
As someone who works in public relations and politics, there is nothing inherantly “dirty” about PROPERLY framing an issue for discussion.
Using strawmen arguments, on either side on an issue, does nothing to educate the masses. We, on the side of science, have the onus of education on us. Quite simply, if we educate, we win. The truth is clearly on our side.
Demski is making a purely political point here in claiming that the other side is “framing the issue” (read: lying), when in fact any reasonable person would understand that is the only context under which to hold a rational conversation. He is appealing to the ignorant masses to scare them into thinking that non-IDists are confusing the issue through fancy “framing”. Sadly, it is a damn effective tactic that will resonate well with his folks.
I beg DaveScott to frame his points in science. It would be a refreshing change, for once.
And speaking of hypocrisy/inconsistency …
Anyone at UD want to put money on whether Bush and his advisors talked about *framing* the war in Iraq as part of a larger war on terror? The conservatives like to throw around the “secular elite are manipulating you” meme, but we all know very well the manipulativeness of the Bush administration.
“Politics aside, framing is part and parcel with the condescension of our secular elite that the masses cannot be reasoned with and must therefore be manipulated.”
That’s Dembski.
Now, compare that to someone else’s take on the same issue:
“Science literacy and public engagement models are limited, esp. when thinking about the “mass public.”
“For strategic communication, there is nothing essentially unique or different about science from other political issues.”
“Battle for public opinion is about activating favorable predispositions and these predispositions are then used as powerful filtering devices by public.”
“Frames are the primary tools of activation. Miserly citizens use frames in combination with their value predispositions to cut down on information costs.”
Guess who made the last group of four statements?
Matt Nisbet, in “Framing Science: understanding the Battle Over Public Opinion in Policy Debates”
Dembski obviously doesn’t know his history and classics either:
He said…”Politics aside, framing is part and parcel with the condescension of our secular elite that the masses cannot be reasoned with and must therefore be manipulated.”
Hmm, sounds familiar – like this:
“Since the masses of the people are inconstant, full of unruly demands, passionate and reckless of consequences, they must be filled with fears to keep them in order.
The ancients did well, therefore, to invent gods, and the belief in punishment after death.”
Polybius (203 – 120 BCE)
Hur hur hur, nice one, Centurion.
Louis
Dembski mumbled, “Politics aside, framing is part and parcel with the condescension of our secular elite that the masses cannot be reasoned with and must therefore be manipulated.”
I think you are all overlooking the adjective ‘secular’ that our good friend Dembski used.
Apparently it’s perfectly all right if the framing is part and parcel with the condescension of our religous elite that the masses cannot be reasoned with and must therefore be manipulated.
“Framing IS conversation.
As someone who works in public relations and politics, there is nothing inherantly “dirty” about PROPERLY framing an issue for discussion.”
As a journalist, a lot of my job is reframing, because PR and politicians have deliberately set a frame to spin a particular fact or set of facts. In particular, my job is to find the frame which best defines the reader’s experience, and then to map what the PR has told me out of the delivered frame and into that of the reader. The people I write about would rather I just assumed that the first frame was the second…
Is that dirty? It’s certainly deceptive, a lot of the time.