I am a neglectful nemesis. I told you before that the Slymepit had died, and it took me six months to find out. Now I learn that Bill Dembski’s blog, Uncommon Descent, has expired. I’m only about 2 months late to the party, so I’m getting better.
As his blog sank, Dembski was crowing in triumph.
In closing this farewell, I want to say special thanks to Jack Cole, who was the webmaster all these years and put in so many unremunerated hours; to Denyse O’Leary, whose quick pen and sharp insights supplied a never-ending stream of fruitful content; and to Barry Arrington, whose work in administering the site and writing for it kept the trains running. And finally, thanks to all the contributors and commenters over the years who, in supporting ID, have been on the right side of truth and will ultimately be vindicated for being on the right side of history.
Nothing in any of the Intelligent Design creationism blogs were on the right side of truth. Dembski has always been fond of making grandiose proclamations that fly in the face of reality, like this one.
In the next five years, molecular Darwinism – the idea that Darwinian processes can produce complex molecular structures at the subcellular level – will be dead. When that happens, evolutionary biology will experience a crisis of confidence because evolutionary biology hinges on the evolution of the right molecules. I therefore foresee a Taliban-style collapse of Darwinism in the next ten years. Intelligent design will of course profit greatly from this. For ID to win the day, however, will require talented new researchers able to move this research program forward, showing how intelligent design provides better insights into biological systems than the dying Darwinian paradigm.
He wrote that in 2004. It’s a standard trope in creationism to announce the imminent death of Darwinism even as they are being stuffed into a grave. See also the Wedge document from 1998, where they predicted major legal and scientific victories within a few years, and instead they got the Kitzmiller trial in 2005…and we all know how that turned out for them.
(Of course, one could argue that “Darwinism” sensu stricto has been dead for over a hundred years, but that would be an admission that the creationists have been flailing ignorantly against a straw man.)
Well, one metaphor, while clearly intended rudely, turned out to be pretty apt.
The Taliban survived everything thrown at them, too, and are back in charge over there.
Beyond Darwinism, the most interesting think about molecular evolution is that we have so much junk in our trunk. A certain Canadian biochemist has just published a book…
Please tell me the blog was buried under a crossroads, or it may come back.
BDW when the synthesis of genetics and evolution was sorted out in the 1940s one may say original “darwinism” came to an end, but the knuckle-draggers keep using the term.
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As Noah Lugeons mentioned, the game “Zelda” provides a look into what a designed world really looks like, and our world is far more chaotic and devoid of rewards for journeys.
If you are interested in eukaryote evolution, preserved steroids prove the existence of a now extinct eukaryote biota that lasted very long before being supplanted by new eukaryotes once the oxygen level permitted it.
So there is a lot of very old junk beyond stromatolites and skewed isotope ratios.
With the ascendency of Trump, I was expecting Creationism to get a renewal. I guess the Bible-fuckers figure that going after LGBTQ folks is easier than biology.
Oh, and PAT ROBERTSON HAS FINALLY DIED!
Yes, we all recall how the Taliban collapsed and no longer exist.
You beat me to it!
Things we are still waiting for:
Jesus
Godot
Evidence for IDC
Pat Robertson aka grumpy guy yelling at clouds was 93, so not unexpected.
A lot of these guys have scandinavian-sounding names. Are we more vulnerable to BS than other demographics?
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The Taliban did collapse, but a southern baptist president pulled out the troops when they were about to mop up.
Something about ‘urgent to find WMD’s ‘.
Things we are still looking for
A honest man.
WMDs
The stuff trickling down from the billionaires.
Pat Robertson died ! Well I guess God is telling him he screwed up some things now.
I just saw this headline and smiled.
One less monster in the world.
He was a routine fundie xian hater.His one semi-original thought was to claim that Mainline Protestant denominations were owned by the spirit of the antichrist.
It seems quaint now, the being known as the antichrist in fundie mythology is fading. It has now been replaced by the being known as “woke”.
“Research.”
birgerjohansson@3:
As others have often noted, when someone’s entire worldview is based on authoritarian principles and the idea that ‘truth’ is what is handed down from on high, they assume that attacking and discrediting the source of that ‘truth’ is equivalent to discrediting the truth itself. Science, of course, doesn’t work that way…
So all in all, a good day.
The right side of truth”. I don’t think those words mean what you think they mean.
That’s OK, just this morning, someone tried to convince me that scientific terms don’t have meaning and are just politically correct words that have no meaning.
All, to try to convince me that glass is a crystal and water is intelligent (!).
Oh, and gases and liquids are crystals.
Complete with word salad crap that looked like an AI melted down producing it.
Same levels of illogic as the ID crowd loves to engage in.
@PZ, if you really want to feel included, I’ll invite you to my funeral, just as soon as I get a confirmation on the date. Hopefully, I won’t be too busy for it.
Hey, when my mother graduated from high school in the 1950s in Romania, one of the required subjects was ‘Darwinism’. You mean she wasted her efforts studying for that exam? (Somehow she managed to skip the subject of ‘Marxism and Leninism’).
Trump indicted over classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Multiple charges, to appear on Tuesday before the federal court in Miami.
Speaking of, what’s Hemant Mehta up to these days?
Sorry to bring it up, but everytime Slymepit is mentioned, just can’t stop thinking of that smug bastard.
@ ^
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