(Sorry, Patrick, for stealing your meme.)
Let me begin with a little history.
My interest in “Intelligent Design” was first piqued by a chance encounter with someone in a completely unrelated discussion forum in 2005, almost exactly 10 years ago, which led me to the Pandas Thumb website. On reading a comment there by Sal Cordova, I followed a link and found myself at the Uncommon Descent website, then owned and run by Bill Dembski. In my naïvety, I registered and attempted to post an initial comment, asking for some clarification on what “Intelligent Design” was (this was mid 2005, before Dover). I was puzzled that my comment never appeared and my registration was scrambled. I made several more attempts to register before coming to the conclusion that this was not just a glitch.
Thus began my love-hate relationship with UD moderators. I have had spells of reasonable to and fro as Renard and been invited back under my own name by then-moderator, Dave Springer, I think, twice. Fast forward to an “amnesty” declared by current owner, Barry Arrington. I only need to say that for me, as for the majority of those who took up Barry’s offer, the amnesty was short-lived. Unable to to resist the siren call of the sock-puppet, I armed myself with VPN software and a new persona, Aurelio Smith.
One thing that seemed bizarre to me at Uncommon Descent was the lack of any development in “Intelligent Design” ideas and the lack of discussion about ID at the only remaining site where critics could have some dialogue with ID enthusiasts. So a regular point in my comments was to ask where was there any progress in ID and why was no-one interested in discussing or developing such ideas.
One issue that struck me was that a post at Pandas Thumb by Joe Felsenstein and Tom English had gone virtually unnoticed at Uncommon Descent and the recent papers by Dembski, Ewert and Marks had raised a similar level of interest (i e none). On my mentioning the fact that “active information” had received no attention in a thread at UD, Jonathan Bartlett, an author at Uncommon Descent, offered me (as Aurelio Smith) a guest post on the subject.
Well, I am no mathematician and I did not seriously think this would happen but I thought the opportunity was worth taking. I did a fair amount of background reading and received helpful advice while preparing my post from several people, notably Joe and Tom. I forwarded a draft to Jon Bartlett, asking him if there was anything he objected to as I didn’t want to invest too much more time without being sure the post was going to be acceptable. I also “outed” myself to Jon so that he was aware that Aurelio Smith was really Alan Fox. This did not worry him at all! Unfortunately, Jon received the link to the draft but the covering email ended up in spam and he published it together with the messy list of references which I hadn’t intended for publication. No matter, all turned out well. 🙂
Should I be miffed that Aurelio Smith invested a fair amount of time and effort into comments that have now disappeared without trace? I’m actually feeling quite sorry for Barry Arrington. Defending the indefensible is a hard job, even for someone who had the necessary skills.
However, I’d like to make a suggestion that may help Barry come to his senses. How can anyone contemplate going to the trouble of composing (maybe researching) and publishing a comment at Uncommon Descent without being reasonably confident that that comment will be respected, not edited or deleted, and maybe your complete contributions evaporated at the push of a button? I think UD needs a little input from critics to spice up life there. I think if all critics agreed to withhold further participation until Barry agrees to behave responsibly and fairly in matters of moderation, we could effect a change. So, let’s all please try a boycott and let’s all spread the word to any ID critics we know that might post at UD and might not see this post.
On moderation, my views have changed a little. I started a blog back in 2006 as a venue to encourage dialogue across the science/religion divide. I thought moderation was anathema and a bar to free communication. Lizzie has won me over. Allowing a plurality of view does involve limits and respect for the person with whom you disagree. I think she does an incredible job in leading and encouraging open and honest dialogue. I wonder what she will think about boycotting Barry?
I think, in the early days, an argument could be made for “protecting ID” from critics. Perhaps the ideas needed time to mature, research needed to be done, experiments performed. Years have passed and non of these things have been contemplated, let alone attempted.
Uncommon Descent itself is a strange place. Although it should be “where the cutting edge ID action is”, it isn’t, and they don’t even understand the ID arguments or their intersection with science, preferring to do their own thing – FIASCO, etc.
I am forced to conclude that UD is part of IDs propaganda war on materialism, nothing more.
You don’t “develop” faith. Oh, a faith develops, but ostensibly it’s only a movement toward the unchanging “truth,” and once you’ve hit that it’s over.
“Proving the faith” is appropriate. So, praise some books, marvel at those who do not see “the truth,” and be happy you were right all along. To them, that is science–at least as it should be.
Glen Davidson
What I find odd – and indeed intriguing, and it was one of the motivations for starting this site – is the apparent symmetry between what “we” think of “IDists” and what “they” think of “us”.
There are a few differences – UD (and the ID movement generally) makes no claim to be in favour of free speech or open dialogue. Whereas I am. That ought to mean that things are politer there than here, but I’ve never found that with moderated sites. People just find subfusc ways of being rude. I’m not actually a great fan of politeness anyway – what I want to foster here (and I know it’s a tall order, and we are all sinners in need of grace) – are genuine attempts to get beneath the mutual suspicion and anger, and to drill down to the actual arguments.
I think it’s a bit fruitless in some respects because of that apparent “symmetry” – “we” think that they must have an “agenda” otherwise how could they possibly resist the call of the “obvious” – and exactly vice versa.
So there’s a serious language problem. Attempts to explain complex thought on either side are met with the assumption that the other is “obfuscating”. Attempts to simplify on either side are met with the assumption that the other “doesn’t understand the complexity”. And both sides think the other is ignoring the facts and making fallacious inferences.
I dunno.
Language is most definitely a problem. If we don’t have the same referents for the same signifiers how can we possibly communicate? Especially if any attempt to define terms is regarded as “argument by dictionary” and any failure to do so is regarded as “equivocation”.
So back to the one overt difference – where communication is failing us, the last thing we need is to shut down communication. That’s why this site will remain as free as I can make it, with as few bannings as I can possibly manage, and rules as simple as possible.
UD denizens are welcome to join us. I don’t promise that everyone will always remember to “assume the other poster is posting in good faith” but I will endeavour to make that more of a feature than it is at UD.
Sometimes I think it’s part of the Evilutionist propaganda war on ID.
I refuse to register by more than one name, so it’s easy to boycott UD. I’ve been reinstated and re-banned three times. Always for the content of my argument. I’ve never engaged in name calling.
The first time I was banned, it was for mentioning the 400 years elapsed from Galileo’s description of gravity to the present, all without a comprehensive theory of gravity.
The second time was for suggesting that perhaps science was just a wee bit secular, and not entirely the product of Christianity.
More recently, I have been banned by Arrington for failure to bow to his infinite rectitude. Basically banned for disagreeing.
My simple theory of Barry’s rules are that he can only keep track of half a dozen enemies, so he keeps a fairly constant number of pet opponents. I think the long time commenters are pretty good, so I do not accuse him of banning the best. I think it’s simply a matter of keeping the number down.
I think evolution is simply a difficult concept. On the Gregory threads I have described myself as an unrepentant evilutionist. (Goodness, that word didn’t light up the spell checker.)
I think all emergence is evolutionary. Not everything is “Darwinian” or shaped explicitly by selection, but all complexity emerges by incremental steps. I think brains implement a kind of evolution. I think economies evolve. Languages, cultures, religions, civilizations. I think there is massive resistance to this idea. Not just from the little crowd at UD and ENV.
Its not my fault they’re not good at it.
Well, yes, but there’s actually something wrong with thinking that non-poof evolutionary theory comes from a precommitment to “Epicurianism” or some such thing, rather than from the evidence. And there is not actually something wrong with thinking that ID comes from a precommitment to religious concepts.
There has to be a kind of “symmetry” because both sides are claiming to follow the evidence. If you’re not, though, you have to be as sure as you can be that it’s the other side not following the evidence.
It’s similar with other pseudosciences. If you’re anti-vax, the vax side is selectively hyperskeptical and unwilling to follow the evidence of harm from vaccines. If it’s psi, well, there are all of these studies and I saw something or bent something once, so why do you deny it could be true? Whether you’re right or wrong, there has to be an “explanation” for why the other guys are so dogmatically opposed to “plain evidence.”
Nevertheless, the side that begins with skepticism is usually right at any given time, and even if wrong it’s likely that it will eventually end up right. And the non-skeptical side will rarely end up right even if they stumbled into a truth at one time.
Glen Davidson
That’s dangerously close to the dreaded Lewontin assumption, that only regular phenomena can be investigated by science.
Maybe, but how it may be is important. That it’s not very intuitive to people (children seem to have difficulty with it even if not religious) seems to be one way that it’s difficult.
I think the main difficulty for adults is that evolution is complex, so that there are many ways of getting it wrong (teleology is another way, but that could be subsumed under “complexity”). Anyone predisposed to disbelieve seems able to find many problems, most of which really aren’t problems (evolution causing “opposite” adaptations is supposedly a problem–why isn’t meteorology with its often “opposite” effects “false” too?). Clear up some problems, and they just find some others, usually as faulty as the first ones. That’s one reason why geocentrism and the like tend to leave objectors behind, while evolution continues to genuinely baffle some, and to encourage others to find every fault that they can.
Evolution via natural selection is really a fairly simple concept. But it has hugely complex results that probably are fairly difficult to see as reasonable results of evolution, plus, how could anyone ever predict what we see in life from evolution? That’s why empiricism is so essential to evolutionary thinking, since the patterns within that complexity are in fact evolutionary, and that not in a design sense of “evolution.” Yet starting with the empiric is not something that comes naturally to people, as they usually have some sort of “theory” of the world already, and resist another way of understanding the issues.
Then, if the empiric way of looking at things can be made toxic, as a “materialism” that opposes puppies and eternal life, you’ve got some strong prejudices against, basically, empiricism. All that remains is to find as many ways of getting evolutionary theory wrong as possible and to attack those. UD seems to be intent on finding every last way to get evolutionary theory wrong.
Glen Davidson
You sure it wasn’t 2006?
Ah, yes, the dicsussion that started the Sal Cordova vs. DaveScot (aka Dr. Atevad), conflict. Bill Dembski ruled in favor of my interpretation of Design Detection, something DaveScot never got over.
LIzzie,
Years ago when you first started posting on UD I remember you expressed an interest in really understanding your opponents position: how they came to the understanding they did etc. Now matter how much they baited you with nasty comments you showed the patience of a Saint in explaining your position and where you thought they went wrong. So I’d like to ask if you have any thoughts or observations based on your last few years of debate. I’ve been thinking about asking this for weeks, but after your comments above I just decided to post
I think the symmetry in this debate goes a bit deeper. ID has so many integrated topics in support ( that mirror the ones in science) that one cant just make sweeping arguments against it. One has to pick apart each topic and show that each is misunderstood, unfounded, irrelevant etc….but this is precisely how IDers argue against evolution. One side is completely wrong, the other side is probably mostly correct. Does this mean the symmetry must be an illusion?
That particular Lewontin interpretation is true. You can’t, by definition, investigate the “supernatural” by natural methods. If you did use natural methods, and discovered, say, psi, then psi, like all the other once-supernatural effects, like lodestones and lightning, would simply become yet another natural force.
It would be interesting to find out its laws and constraints.
“Supernatural”, I suggest, is best defined as “something that natural methods can’t detect”.
But by the same token we can’t infer that it’s real by the methods of natural science. Or only by reference to “gaps”, and gaps always get smaller.
It could still be real, though.
Much of ID’s criticism of evolution is probably correct as a criticism of how evolution could be misinterpreted in Epicurian terms. And they insist in seeing evolution that way, and take offense when Elizabeth suggests that they don’t actually understand evolution.
He was my sock …*sniffle*
The thing about evolution that makes it counterintuitive is that cause follows effect.
This is not true of the physics of evolution, but it is the underlying dynamic.
The “shape” of a population is the result of consequences or results.
There have been some interesting analogies — the pond that follows the contours of its bottom, gas molecules that find the sides of their container — but these do not really model evolution.
Evolution invents things that are genuinely new, and which are not the shape of a constraining container.
Science cannot detect the cause of a particular atom undergoing radioactive decay. I’ve heard people argue that the phenomenon is deterministic, but still not something that can be predicted.
I think one could argue by extension that a psi phenomenon, or an esp phenomenon could be observed in the absence of any explanation. I think one could construct a thought experiment, a carefully controlled laboratory, in which supernatural phenomena could be observed under tight controls.
To make such an experiment worthwhile, the phenomena would have to be frequent enough to be observed in a reasonable amount of time.
That he espoused that view seems doubtful, however. He seems to have been criticizing science’s assumptions using a kind of postmodern critique.
Would it? What if it didn’t regularize as magnetism and lightning have, but seemed inclined propitiously toward wishes and incantations?
What if it lacks strict laws and constraints?
Others would suggest that it’s something that involves intelligence or semi-intelligence, without the kind of bodies (at least “material bodies”) that we inhabit. And/or, that it is an unexplained (unexplainable?) extension of our minds, like telepathy or some such thing. Usually, it seems to have to do with minds in some way, and not to reduce down to science explanations. If telepathy were real and never could be adequately explained, it might be considered by some, at least, to be a sort of supernatural phenomenon demonstrated by empiricism. If telepathy were real and turned out to be due to radio waves (why didn’t Designer give us that kind, at least?), then it would become part of science/”naturalism”.
The problem is that there aren’t many “things” conceived by human minds that could not be real. Just a few that contradict the real, and even then many would assume that there could be a way around the supposed “contradiction.”
Glen Davidson
I would not be shocked if there were some day a wish machine.
Add some brain scanning software to a 3D printer. Make it interactive and iterative.
Absolutely. Though that link reminds me of another disappeared thread at ARN, where you made the daft claim that a company called Genetic-ID (who offer a GMO testing service) were using the “explanatory filter” in their work. Happy days!
I agree that there are individuals engaged in a propaganda war but some ID proponents are sincere and mistaken. Without some effort at genuine dialogue, how do you find out? Well, perhaps Barry Arrington has made his position clear enough.
I think if ID proponents were not sincere, they would be able to come up with a more effective strategy. If they were truly mercenary, they would project a more consistent image.
Look at Ken Ham. In his organization, everyone is on the same page.
While everyone’s arguing about supernaturalism versus naturalism, a quick comment about the OP (remember that?). Aurelio/Alan, in a back-channel email you characterized the final comment that you made just before the Great Evaporation. It was not one of the ones that ReciprocatingBill recovered and posted. For completeness of record, could you describe it here? I don’t want to post material from your private emails.
In my opinion, very second-hand owing to not actually seeing that comment, it would be one that might enrage Mr. Bannington, and he might well disappear it. But disappearing all your previous comments was a huge overreaction. Open-Carry Barry was blazing away with both six-shooters, and hitting his own feet every time.
Well, it would be surprising, but it would still be “natural”. It might be another life form.
Then we wouldn’t be able to detect it!
Predictive models only work on predictable phenomena. That might well include spooks, though. I mean even people are a bit predictable, and spooks are quite people-like.
I’ve said it before, and perhaps it’s worth repeating now: As best I can tell, the word “supernatural” doesn’t actually mean anything. If I look at how the word “supernatural” is used in ordinary discourse, and try to reverse-engineer a definition which fits the word’s common usage, the word “supernatural” ends up meaning something like I don’t understand this thing I’m calling ‘supernatural’, often with a helping of —and nobody else ever will understand it, either.
The word “supernatural” is a meaningless noise which adds nothing to human understanding. At best, it maybe provides whatever degree of psychological comfort may be derived from not having to actually, you know, say out loud that you don’t understand something.
Lizzie,
It’s an admirable goal, but I suspect that you are projecting your values onto them. In my experience, ID proponents and other creationists don’t care about the actual arguments. The point of a discussion for them is not to identify a better approximation to the truth. They already know the Truth (capital T intentional). For most, there is literally nothing that they could learn that would shake their faith or cause them to change their minds in the slightest.
I know, I know, I’m committing the sin of assuming they have an agenda. I spent my formative years in a strict Congregationalist church, down the street from the real evangelicals who spoke in tongues, though, so I have some evidence for my views.
It’s still worth arguing with them because, unfortunately, they vote. Here in the U.S. we need to stop them at the ballot box and from the jury box if we want to avoid the ammo box. It’s important to refute their nonsense publicly.
petrushka,
I don’t think Barry is that smart. My hypothesis (which is mine, etc., etc.) is that we’re watching evolution in action. When too many reality-based commenters participate at UD, the ID proponents get crushed too handily. When too few scientifically knowledgable people are there, the creationists start to eat their own. Barry responds like a nematode, with the gross tools at his disposal as he gropes for some kind of equilibrium.
I am more inclined to think of “supernatural” as meaning “exempt from ordinary requirements of evidence.” And that would seem to make it a scammer’s tool.
</cynicism>
Elizabeth,
“So there’s a serious language problem. Attempts to explain complex thought on either side are met with the assumption that the other is “obfuscating”. Attempts to simplify on either side are met with the assumption that the other “doesn’t understand the complexity”. And both sides think the other is ignoring the facts and making fallacious inferences.”
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Hanlon’s Razor
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don’t rule out malice.
Heinlein’s Razor
I think Heinlein’s Razor is a better fit to UD.
Nematodes are an ancient and respectable phylum. What have they done to you to deserve this comparison?
Patrick: “In my experience, ID proponents and other creationists don’t care about the actual arguments.”
I think they care deeply about the argument, but they take the ‘ends justify the means’ approach. All you have to do is look at Barry’s responses to Elizabeth. Or his claim that stating that Meyer isn’t a palaeontologist is an ad hominem, but his calling people stupid, fools and pathetic are just statements of fact.
This coming from someone who claims to currently be ‘irreligious’?! Is this meant to be some kind of ‘secular’ sinning, Elizabeth on your part, or just a play on words from your believing past, or…?
Harking back to your quasi-Buddhist claims, Elizabeth, since now I am visiting a majority Buddhist country, I wonder how or why you prefer to and claim to be nothing rather than something? As if you hold no beliefs, no ideologies, as anti-philosophy as you are anti-theology. Iow, why do you intentionally choose language that negates yourself?
Since my name was called out in this thread, let me reiterate my position as an anti-evolutionist, i.e. anti-evolutionism as ideology. The elderly gentleman who spoke of me here doesn’t seem to be aware of the philosophy of ’emergence’ and how it differs from 19th & 20th c. ‘evolutionary’ theories. That’s not surprising, since most people use terms like change, evolution, emergence, development, growth & progress nearly interchangeably. To speak more clearly about these terms and to distinguish appropriate differences seems to be a nearly impossible task for many people.
To believe all ‘cultures, religions, civilisations & languages’ categorically ‘evolve’ is to commit oneself (like Piotr G. does in Poland) to accepting a particular type of change in society: random, goalless, unintentional, environmentalist, ateleological.
Repeat: ‘change is the master category.’ That there are non-evolutionary changes in societies and individuals seems to escape loose thinkers (especially those stuck in 20c evolution vs. creation discourse). This is mainly due to personal ideologies and worldviews, rather than to rigorous science or scholarly discernment of how evolution & change are not synonymous.
I’m really uninterested to dance with Alan Fox, though at least he gets the capitalisation correct in referring to it as ‘Intelligent Design’, which is distinct from the ‘intelligent design’ that all believers in the Abrahamic religions worldwide accept. IDT as Discovery Institute pushes it is a fading fantasy, a dark shadow of the scientism ideology that they still claim to oppose, baked PR-style in Gilder-like Dembskian delusion of self-importance.
p.s. memetics is pretty much dead, as the closing of the Journal of Memetics, while the ‘highjacked’ sense of ‘meme’ (as signified above) as internet sensation is a stark reminder of the actual emptiness and irrelevance of ‘cultural evolution’ theory and what its proponents are (often intentionally) missing
That thing 🙂
Although actually, I still have a slot in my worldview for Grace. It’s what’s left to me of my God.
Well, yes, capital G for Grace indeed. 🙂
You do seem to me to be a very self-centric woman, Elizabeth, even as an academic in your particular realm. The people who have gravitated to your anti-IDist blog are largely (95+%) atheists & agnostics, which is apparently your preferred flock in which to ‘flock together.’
Did you become a (quasi-Buddhist) Randist after losing your religious faith I wonder?
I don’t make any claims to be less self-centred than others, Gregory, but I don’t see your grounds for thinking I am more so.
And I’m neither a buddhist nor, good grief, a “Randist”. Blimey.
Gah – I approved Gregory’s comment in the spam filter – looks like it was a duplicate. Apologies. Welcome back Gregory. Any more TedX’s on the horizon?
More self-centred than average is the suggestion, Elizabeth. Based on that you’ve intentionally turned religious (communal) language into a tool of self-centredness – ‘me and my God’ – after having ‘lost’ Christian faith at age 55.
It just doesn’t sound like proper talk from someone once ‘received into the Catholic church’ who thinks 1 Corinthians 13 is ‘beautiful & spiritual.’ It sounds instead like a woman expressing self-contradictory spiritual confusion, which is reflected in the quasi-Buddhist overtures you made earlier at TSZ and having called yourself an atheist elsewhere (http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/uncommon-descent-gets-mail-from-christianity-today-mad-at-me/#comment-383158).
But by all means, keep up the capitalisation of terms like Grace – maybe (but not likely) a few of the 95+% atheists & agnostics that gravitate here at TSZ will inquire of you about it. Maybe a few people will realise that even evolutionists have acknowledged religion as a ‘human universal’ throughout history. To call yourself ‘religion-less’, Elizabeth is thus just such a statement of self-centredness (autonomy from capital G) that shows a mere cognitive scientist/psychiatrist isn’t willing to seek to elevate to humbly understand.
Gregory, comment in my threads and you’re gonna have to dance with me!
No thanks, but nice avatar.
Well, you are entitled to your opinion of me, Gregory, and you may be right. Though I have to say, it doesn’t sound like me! I have my faults, but being Gwyneth Paltrow isn’t normally one of them!
Also, I didn’t “lose” my religious faith. I put it down carefully in a safe place, and I know exactly where it is.
WTF? Jesus wept, Gregory.
Gregory, you are a very strange man!
Yes, indeed!
I recalled:
I was agreeing with another poster who pointed out that the sickle cell gene is advantageous in heterozygous form in an environment where malaria is rife. I also suggested that we should ignore Barry’s bad behaviour and linked to a wikipedia article on “tactical ignoring”.
On checking my records, I find I saved a copy of of the Active Information thread up to comment 404 . I find I have saved a few other odds and ends too.
I miss my Yarko Matkewski sock. But he got under Barry’s skin faster than I had hoped. I think that it was the sickle cell comment that did it.
Piotr,
I wish my Photoshop skills were up to creating a coat of arms for the Ancient and Respected Phylum of Nematodes to make up for my inadvertent slur.
Thank you for drawing the only rational conclusion supported by the superabundance of evidence we have.
To be honest, I think some folks here argue compulsively, and rationalize elaborately. I readily confess that it takes one to know one. Please stop to consider what it is that you want to accomplish, and whether what you’re doing serves to accomplish it. That’s what I did, after being immersed in UD for its first five years.
I’m giving TSZ a try now. There are a number of brilliant folks here, and they could make the site into something special. But if everyone keeps frittering away precious time and energy on UD drama, it’s not going to happen.
You’re one of them, Tom.
Edit to add. Okay, let’s repurpose all this intellectual horsepower. I agree, it’d be a shame to squander this opportunity. I want to know when to use a Chi squared vs. a T test vs. Anova!
The few “sincere and mistaken” individuals left at UD are apologists, which is to say that they commit to beliefs, and attempt to create the illusion that they have good reasons for arriving at those beliefs. Apologetics is inherently dishonest. I believe that it tends to corrupt people over the long term.
Welcome 🙂