A note to our friends at Uncommon Descent

I see that Denyse has taken time away from misinterpreting / misrepresenting decade old articles she found on google to visit our little home. Come on in Denyse! Would you like a cuppa? Don’t worry, there are no “Brit Toffs” here.

Listen, as you’ve stopped by, we’d like to have a quick chat about UD:

Frankly, we’re a bit disappointed. We were hoping for some design science to chew on, some CSI calculations to review. But instead we were saddened when we learned that neither Barry Arrington nor KairosFocus understand CSI. We’re going to give you a little time to get up to speed with the literature so that we can re-engage when you know the stuff. You don’t need to make up more acronyms like FIASCO: FOCUS on mainstream ID concepts. We may find fault with Dembski’s work but he was leagues ahead of where you are now.

Start here:

http://www.designinference.com/documents/2005.06.Specification.pdf

There’s an EleP(T|H)ant in the room that you need to come to terms with. Perhaps when you understand the source material we can have a better chat (and therefore more posts).

We also note that UD has expanded to more general science denialism / Republican talking points. Are you sure you want to do that? Pretending to be a science blog was more entertaining.

Well thanks for dropping by. We’ll keep our ears to the ground and report back if scientists ever isolate the specific, “selfish gene”.

218 thoughts on “A note to our friends at Uncommon Descent

  1. Kantian Naturalist,

    There is, I think, a genuinely hard question here for humanists and naturalists about how to respond to Nietzsche’s provocation. I think Arrington is deeply mistaken to think that we’re being inconsistent by not being nihilists, but I also think that Nietzsche’s challenge can’t be brushed aside lightly.

    I think the truly hard part is in saying anything to which he would listen. Morality strikes to the core of the reason many people believe in God. As such, that’s something they do not wish to expend much mental effort exploring – simply defending, with their ragbag of insults and dogged misrepresentations.

    For my part, I would say that the fundamental answer to Nietzsche is that God is not dead; he was never alive. Christians did not invent morality; they codified an existent sense. Christian virtues were not imposed upon followers against their ‘better natures’; they appealed to those natures. Humans simply value those things they term ‘good’ or ‘right’, and deprecate those things they term ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ or ‘wrong’. We cheer the ‘good guys’, and celebrate when the ‘bad guys’ get their comeuppance at the end of every movie. There is only so far below that one can go with ‘yes, but why?’ questions, just as with aesthetics or the need to pee.

    Of course one cannot just make a simplistic appeal to genetics. Culture must play a part too. But the role of culture is little different from the role of the local faith, as a moulder of sensibilities on the more ‘negotiable’ questions.

    On an evolutionary viewpoint, the Atheists simply carry on being human, just as the originators and disseminators of the Christian faith, and its predecessors, were. Religion must have started at some point, and did not have a blank canvas on which to work. Yet theists would disbar all others from even possessing a view on moral questions. They have stolen the concept!

  2. Allan Miller: I think the truly hard part is in saying anything to which he would listen. Morality strikes to the core of the reason many people believe in God.

    I think children are taught to believe in god because god is good. In a rather simplified sense, we choose sides in the cosmic Miltonic struggle on the basis of which side is the good guys.

    Otherwise, we are just hoping to choose the winning team and to be rewarded.

  3. Bonus Hilarity:

    “I think a discussion about CSI, probabiity and other means of discerning ID artifacts from the natural would be much better advanced here and would be much more interesting than wading through post after post after post of the nonsense you get at TSZ.” – William J Murray at UD.

    That’s right William. FIASCO fishing reels in the walled garden vs. ASC in an open forum. You’ve found your level.

  4. From UD: “153
    Winston EwertMay 2, 2015 at 9:04 pm
    I was under the impression that he was trying to further develop the ideas of other people such that a wider audience can understand and appreciate them. And the acronym just further specified the subset of CSI- Dembski’s CSI.

    Perhaps, I really haven’t followed FSCO/I enough to know. My only thought is that if it is a worthwhile development, I’d really like to see it published in a paper or conference.”

  5. Thank you both, Gents.

    I see Joe is getting quite chippy with EL. Just remember when asked how he knows things, he replies “Those questions are for future research programs to answer.”

  6. Rich,

    Has Joe said anything lately about the book he’s writing? it might be time to remind him.

  7. keiths,

    Thank you for the reminder. I will go and ask him over at untelligent reasoning, where he’s currently having another nested hierarchies fantasy,

  8. I can see he also nurses a bet-winning fantasy. Since Joe is evidently following this thread, I shall take this opportunity to remind him that I can’t discuss nested hierarchies or anything else with him on UD, because a certain c****dly g****g has blocked my IP there.

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