Some people, after seeing the recent Dover documentary (now available online), have been wondering who the heck this Steve Fuller wanker is, and why he’s defending Intelligent Design. Here’s a philosopher to explain Fuller to you. You’ll wish you hadn’t asked.
The Discovery Institute is spreading misinformation again. They have a document that implies that it would be OK for schools in at least some states to “teach the controversy”, by which they mean that it is alright for teachers to promote Intelligent Design creationism in their classes. I wonder if the DI would also consider themselves liable if any teacher followed their advice, and discovered that they were costing their district an awful lot of money, as in Dover? Somehow, I doubt it.
On the front page of their screed, they quote Charles Darwin: “A fair result can be obtained only by fully balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.” What they neglect to mention is the importance of that word “balancing”: we have been balancing the arguments, and the scientific side weighs tons while the creationist side is a puff of air. They also omit any mention of facts on their side, because they have none. Darwin’s quote is not advocacy for equal time for nonsense.
Clive Thompson wants us to simply redefine the “theory of evolution” as the “law of evolution”. This is possibly one of the worst ideas I’ve heard yet for overcoming the problem of the colloquial definition of theory. It is not correct. The theory of evolution is a whole collection of ideas describing complex phenomena; it is not reducible to the kind of clear and simple mathematical description we associate with scientific laws. When somebody asks me what the ideal gas law is, I can say PV=nRT; when someone asks me what the law describing the gravitational attraction between two bodies is, I say Gm1m2/R2; when they say, “OK, smartie pants, what is the law of evolution?”, what am I supposed to do? Recite Hardy-Weinberg at them (which, by the way, is called a law already, but is not the sum of all of evolution by any means)?
It’s a bad idea that sets us up for more confusion and will play right into creationist hands. Why not go all the way and just call it the “Truth of Evolution”? It’s the same strategy — it’s all avoiding the issue by an attempt at redefinition, and mangling the idea in the process.
(Larry Moran sees it the same way I do. He must be a very smart man.)
(And Wilkins was way, way ahead of us both.)
I’m not a fan of the Huffington Post — I see too much support for clowns like Chopra and anti-scientific thinking like Robert Kennedy’s — so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at this. Matthew Chapman posted his suggestion for a presidential debate on science there. This is the same issue I thought was a good idea, but cynically suspected none of the candidates would ever go for it. The response on HuffPo was to a large part deranged.
The Canadian Cynic points out one of Denyse O’Leary’s less endearing habits: her penchant for constant self-promotion and linking profligately to herself. Reading it, what came to mind was the idea of a one-person circle jerk, and then I realized what that implied, and what we were seeing if we read any of her blogs where she’s … ack, snarfle … herself … yikes, beebadabeebada <tilt>. Doesn’t she know that’s a sin?
Well, I’m not going to look at those blogs anymore.
I checked out a few of the blogs by the usual suspects this morning, and noticed that the creationists are largely silent (so far, give ’em time) on the Dover documentary from last night…with one exception. The Discovery Institute’s Media Complaints Division is wound up over it. They have an eight-point “rebuttal” of the documentary that consists of many picked nits and regurgitated whines, and I thought about taking them on point by point, but then decided it wasn’t worth it. For one thing, it’s written by Casey Luskin, the DI’s small mammal mascot, who is something of an incompetent pipsqueak, so it’s hardly worth flicking him around any more. Most importantly, it misses the point of the program entirely.
The new PBS documentary on the Dover trial, Judgment Day (optimistically reviewed by NCSE! The Discovery Institute in frantic denial!) starts here in the midwest in about a half hour. I’ve got my diet coke, I think I’ll pop some popcorn, and maybe I’ll take a stab at liveblogging the show. Let’s hope it’s lively!
Feel free to chime in with comments as we go.
Remember: watch your local PBS station tonight for the premiere of the documentary on the Dover trial, Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. Imagine how the creationists will writhe and squeak about all the people seeing their fraud and failure exposed.
Last June, we goaded science-fiction author, blogger, and professional wise-ass John Scalzi into promising to visit Ken Ham’s Creation “Museum” (actually we bought his attendance by sending him money, which he turned around and donated to Americans United for Separation of Church and State).
Well, Scalzi finally makes good on his promise. It was worth it. There’s both an essay and a photo tour. He was amused by it all.
Indeed, it’s over the top enough that I never could actually get angry with the place. Not that I was planning to; I admit to dreading coming to the place, but that’s primarily because I thought it would bore and annoy me, not make me angry. In fact, I was never bored, and was genuinely annoyed only by the “paleontologist” at the start of the walk-through. The rest of the time I enjoyed it as I suspect anyone who is not some stripe of creationist could enjoy it: As camp. At some point — specifically the part where the Scopes Monkey Trial was presented as the end of decent Christian civilization as we know it — I just started chuckling my way through. By the time I got to the Dinosaur Den, with its placards full of patent misinformation about how soft tissue fossilization strongly suggested a massive, worldwide flood, I was a little loopy. It was just so ridiculous.
There’s some understanding for why the silly place is popular (apparently, attendance is quite good), and a recognition that it’s all one big, ridiculous joke.
The middle-aged man named Ian Musgrave has replied to the grey-haired man Michael Behe in response to his recent condescending dismissal of the young woman Abbie Smith (don’t these irrelevant signifiers of age, sex, and status add so much to our understanding of the discussion?) It’s really all about fun with viral proteins, and Behe’s failure to understand the basics of the evolution of the same. I think I’d be reluctant to refer to him as “the middle-aged biochemist Michael Behe” anymore — a biochemist should know this stuff.
Behe replies. He seems to be in a bit of a snit.
