Over at UD, KF has started a new thread criticizing Toronto. He had earlier started a thread criticizing Petrushka.
It would have been nicer if KF had joined here to launch his criticism, instead of taking pot shots from UD where it is my understanding that both Toronto and Petrushka have been banned.
In any case, this is where the two accused can set the record straight by explaining what they actually meant. Others can join in. I may add something later.
Let’s keep it polite. No character attacks. Let’s stick to clear explanations of positions that KF might have misunderstood. And let’s remember the rules of The Skeptical Zone and keep it civil.
Open for discussion.
Neil,
I think you bring up a good point in keeping it civil.
I also believe we shouldn’t be answering real points made over there unless they have the courage to make them here.
Thanks to Elizabeth, we can all post on this site and there’s no need to talk across blogs.
If KF has any legitimate arguments, he should post them here, not on a site that prevents our open responses.
I’ll answer anything kairosfocus asks, but I’ll do it here.
If you want to correct all the errors Gordon “KairosFocus” Mullings has made… you’ve got job security that a tenured professor would envy. Given the existing evidence of… well… pretty much everything Mullings has ever posted in response to criticism of ID, there’s a good chance that the phrase “positions KF might have misunderstood” includes every ID-criticizing position KF has ever read. The only question is whether Mullings genuinely is as comprehension-challenged as his writings make him appear to be, or, instead, whether he understands it all and writes the responses he does because he’s Fighting For Jesus.
Cubist,
I’m predicting kairosfocus will muster a “little” courage again, and write a post about you next, …over there of course.
I predicted that mphillips would soon be banned based on a post by KF indicating he required additional correction. I haven’t seen many posters survive long after such a warning. Certainly none that maintained their argument. When mphillips stopped posting I assumed he was banned or in moderation. All based on liklihood and past experience. Petrushka was banned or moderated three times after warnings from KF. I guess this time it’s permanent. I have no idea who mphillips is. I have never had a different screen name at UD.
My point was and is that people get banned at UD for expressing unpopular ideas, ideas that the leaders at UD don’t want to hear. This site exists because of such bannings. If Barry Arrington wants to dispute that let him come here or unban me so I can defend myself there. It is cowardly to hide behind censorship. If they argued like adults they would still face opposition, but a lot less derision.
They have killed off some of their credibility by banning dissent to the point that UD is now more of a Christian Creationist site.
A lot of brotherly love but no good heated scientific debates anymore.
I have thought many times of adopting a sock-puppet but in reality that just gives them more traffic.
Why give them the extra traffic just so they can ban us again?
They should just dig deep and find some courage to go against us where science isn’t muzzled.
Does Barry have more courage than kairosfocus?
Stay tuned!
In a perverse way I have enjoyed watching their reversion to creationism. ID is suddenly enamored of a literal Adam and Eve. This will make any future Dover trial very short. But when gpuccio was posting I had to learn stuff; now the content is boring. I suppose it’s always been boring for people with degrees in biology, but at least in the past you had some motivation to polish your argument.
Heh; not just degrees in biology. The “physics” stuff is so bad one just has to sit back and laugh. I would not want to disturb such a pristine habitat of spoofers. More fun to just watch. But yeah; then it gets boring.
Does Kiros Focus think he is ‘doxing’ posters by posting pictures of their avatars? It’s a bizarre pantomime where he preaches from the pulpit of this highly censored environment. I suspect he’s reticent to engage folks directly after ‘the weasel incident’:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/dawkins-weasel-proximity-search-with-or-without-locking/
I really can’t see why anyone should take kairosfocus seriously.
A professional pearl-clutcher, he spends inordinate amounts of time searching the internet for things at which to take offence.
If there’s one thing the internet is good for, it’s being a source of offence for anyone predisposed to be offended.
Recent pages at AtBC, where UD and its denizens are closely monitored as much for hilarity as anything else, have ample evidence of this – why, he even takes offence at the very existence of TSZ, one of the most civil and intelligent members of its species to be found anywhere.
And for a man who so decries and castigates those unwilling to accept his “corrections”, he is singularly unwilling to be corrected himself.
Google kairosfocus/weasel/latching for a classic example.
He lurks here, all right – but I should be amazed if he ever uncloaks
kairosfocus and his weasel episode makes me feel very nostalgic.
A classic case if there ever was one of someone who can’t admit they’re wrong.
KF has said that “only about 1 adult in 3 at best under present circumstances is able to follow an abstract case.”
The creationist’s problem is one of reality.
KF has gone so far as to mention the FSC shooting in the same breath as AtBC and TSZ posing a ‘credible threat’. He calls upon Elizabeth to clean the place up … but I really don’t see, beyond fundamental disagreement, where the source of that bitterness lies.
TSZ is unmoderated, beyond the removal of personal snark off-thread (a location inhabited mostly by the more unguarded utterances of Joe, still regarded by WJM, UB, KF and others as an able lieutenant). And yet people manage to be generally civil to opponents – as much as a disparate group of personalities can be expected to be, at least. Meantime, he dubs us ‘crocodiles’ from whom he may contract some ‘loathsome taint’ were he to venture here. He would struggle to get over the very low bar: assume good faith. Harrumph! Onlookers! etc etc etc.
The thing that KF and all of them, WJM, StephenB, Barry, UPB, are trying to avoid is their possible loss of faith in their god.
This could only happen when one cannot properly switch between thinking in the abstract and reality.
Bible thumping may get you on a school board but it also prevents critical thinking, such as we’ve seen in the weasel episode.
KF and Dembski put a lot of faith in their abstract concept of the “UPB” of 500 bits.
Reality however can do better with just 2 bits.
Take two bar magnets and put them in a paper bag, then shake the bag.
While in the “abstract” you could end up with two north poles oriented in the same direction when the magnets attract each other, the “reality” of physics won’t let that happen.
This applies to evolution also but for some reason, the reality of chemistry is completely ignored by the KF crowd.
Physics both restricts and insists on different combinations of “information”.
Regarding ‘best inference’, we are frequently reminded of Newton’s Rules (rules, mind, not laws):
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances . . . .
Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.
This would appear to warn against the invocation of the ad hoc. Extending the observed human capacity to program and send information to the very DNA that has given rise to those same humans is disfavoured precisely because it is ad hoc. The things we can do are no guide to what could be achieved before our tiniest ancestors even started to make the protein that would ultimately take part in the formation of, among other things, our brains.
No amount of logical contortion disengages ID from the charge of inserting an ad hoc cause. ‘Materialist’ scientists (that is, the vast majority of ’em) consider that throughout its history, replication must obey physical laws. The energy gradients involved in it must be a net flow ‘downhill’. Intelligence per se cannot change that – the intelligent designer must design a system tapping a net ‘downhill’ energy flow, else that system will not be self-sustaining.
Is it reasonable to infer that there was ever a point at which energy flowed ‘uphill’, against the overall thermodynamic gradient? I’d say no, pace Granville Sewell. What the ID seems to be ‘for’ is the task of gathering the components of an early replicator from an entropically ‘diffuse’ state into a ‘localised’ one. Even the ID may be expected to be thermodynamically bound, on ‘best inference’ – there are no known ‘intelligent violators’ of the actual 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. So their job is the gathering-together of a molecular system with the capacity of self-replication, because that task is felt to be beyond unaided physics and chemistry. (There is no reason to suppose that its first task was to devise a system for the manufacture of protein, BTW). But like physics/chemistry, ID’s need to ‘borrow’ the energy to do that from somewhere. There are no known instances of entities that can achieve such molecular precision, and certainly none that can do it without expending energy themselves.
There is nothing wrong with ad hoc causes per se, of course. But ID wants people to accept, on ‘best inference’, an entity that is either outside of physics, or operates within physics but whose own means of evading entropic dissipation is simply glossed over. Such an entity may well exist, but I can see no demand for invoking its action, under Newton’s oft-quoted rules.
We cannot demonstrate a ‘pure-physics’ OOL – but then, neither has anyone yet demonstrated a Designed one.
I think the violation of the UPB (not to be confused with UBP) is due not to the general phenomenon of chemistry, so mich as the specific phenomenon of natural selection. (See my own thread here for a numerical example and an article of mine for discussion of why William Dembski is thought by his friends to have proven that the example in my post is impossible).
Kairosfocus has his standard repertoire of claims, quotes and arguments which have been answered many times and in detail over the years. All the respondents have got for their efforts is a ban from <i>Uncommon Descent</i> – usually on the grounds of incivility or some such manufactured excuse. Apparently, it is impolite to beg to differ over there. The counter-arguments have been brushed aside, not surpisingly, because, like others at that site, kf already has his truth and nothing can ever change that.
For example, one common complaint over at UD is that the exclusion of immaterial or supernatural explanations from consideration by science is arbitrary. Coming from a site that decrees so many things by fiat that you’d think they had a promotional deal with an Italian car maker, this is ironic to say the least. In vain has it been pointed out that the very concept of ‘supernatural’ is ill-defined, that in common useage it is incoherent, that science as an enterprise distinct from philosophy or theology must start somewhere and that is with what can be observed in the broadest sense.
In another example over at UD, Barry Arrington is <a href=”http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/on-self-evident-moral-truth/”>attempting to resurrect</a> the claim that morality has an objective existence. In this case it is in the form of a challenge to materialists to respond to two propositions. Using a standard tactic of cross-examination, Arrington wants to confine answers only to those which he can turn to support his case. There’s that Italian car make again. If I were to follow his legal precendent I would object that counsel for the plaintiff was attempting to introduce facts not yet in evidence, that the objective existence of any morality has not yet been established, that it has not yet been shown that moral claims are capable of being true or false and that it has not yet been established that they are self-evident as distinct from some simply being widely-held. Arrington ends his OP as follows:
<i>Do you have the courage to face the questions head on? In my experience, some materialists do but most do not. We’ll see.</i>
To which I would respond by asking if <i>he</i> is prepared to demonstrate that he has the courage of <i>his</i> convictions by discussing the issues he is raising in an open forum where he does not get to dictate the terms of the debate. We’ll see, but on past evidence, I doubt it.
Since Kairosfocus has so far not responded here, this discussion is a meta-discussion of what happens here versus what happens in the closed-bubble world of UD. Under SZ’s original rules I think this is not supposed to be allowed here, but I think it is appropriate when matters that could be sensibly discussed here are instead aired inside the closed bubble, together with the implcation there that their discussion is a free and open one, and ours here is just insults. Elixabeth should perhaps comment on how her rules on discussion of other web sites do or do not apply to the present thread, and whether those rules need modifying,
I note that the UD discussion is talking about abduction (not the kidnapping kind but the inference kind). I think that their argument is that if they see something that is best explained by ID then one logically must ascribe it to ID. Now that is fine but ignores the issue of prior probability of ID versus prior probability of ordinary natural causes. A creaking noise in my house at night is best explained as being from a burglar, but is most probably explained by the house’s heating system, or one of us getting up in the middle of the night. The “abduction” argument for ID ignores the fact that important ID proponents such as Michael Behe regard intelligent design as a relatively rare occurrence, with natural selection and other routine natural causes working in the meantime. Of course intervention by an omnipotent, omnipresent, and inscrutable being explains and predicts anything you might observe. Methodological naturalism rules it out, in effect assigning it vanishingly low prior probability. Over at UD they like to complain about that and invoke what they call abduction, and argue that methodological naturalism violates the rules of abduction.
The Wikipedia page for “Abductive Reasoning” contains a whole section on probabilistic induction — basically it just presents a calculation using Bayes’ Theorem to infer causation. The UD use of “abduction” removes the part about priors and thus reaches silly conclusions. A kind of kidnapping, I suppose.
So which is the best explanation for Christmas morning? Your mom and dad lied to you, oe Santa Claus is real? I think that captures the emotional quandry faced by true believers.
In my (probably over-simplified) view, KF et al have in no way shown by any form of logic that the existence and actions of an Intelligent Designer is the best explanation for anything.Their problem, at least in part, is that they, in the lump, understand very little of the rules, laws, properties, constraints, or necessities of chemistry and the underpinning physics.
Two observations support my opinion in this.
1. As a proportion very, very few biologists, chemists, or physicists actively support ID (although a surprising number are openly open-minded on the subject, in no fear of losing their positions)
2. Conscious of their own ignorance, they obviously feel very threatened by those who know much more than they about the science, and must needs eliminate their contributions, however civil the tone in which they are offered.
I and my sockpuppets have been banned several times from UD. Not once were we insulting, profane, or uncivil – merely contributing counterarguments in whatever debates were ongoing, drawn from the recent scientific literature.
It is the common tactic at UD actively to avoid the arguments put up by the likes of petrushka and Toronto, by simply eliminating them from the ring, reiterating their own arguments, and claiming victory.
I note in passing that, in the “Toronto” thread at UD, KF has actually issued a mild reproof to the unfortunate Joe: although Joe’s posts by Joe’s standards were quite restrained. Content-free, but restrained.
Perhaps the charges of hypocrisy have been heard!
Personally, I prefer IBE to abduction to avoid any ambiguity but that’s just me.
Whichever, kairosfocus, perhaps unwittingly, reveals the problem they have with IBE when he quotes Gilbert Harman:
The problem with the highlighted sentence is that while you can infer to the better or best available hypothesis by various means that is all you can do. To conclude from there, without any other supporting arguments or evidence, that the best hypothesis must also be true is an inference too far. Yet it is clear from what he writes about it that kf is looking to IBE to provide that kind of certainty.
As an aside, but referring to Bully Arrington’s post arguing for the existence of objective morality, the Wikipedia entry for Gilbert Harman includes the following:
I tend to think of abductive inference as the “and then a miracle occured” step. That is to say, people use the term “abductive reasoning” when they don’t know how we got from step A to step C, but they like the final conclusion.
Yes, I almost made that point rather than the ones I did – Elizabeth did not want this to turn into a ‘peanut gallery’. There are grounds in this instance, since UD is directly referencing TSZ comments in posts to which TSZ-ers cannot respond, but I guess Lizzie might wish to make the call.
It would be a better rebuke if it had not committed much the same crime! In response to Joe’s use of the term ‘septic zone’, we get: “you do not need to resort to what simply helps those who are comfortable in swamp mud “justify” themselves.”.
You’re too kind, KF!
KF obviously learned his debate methods from Saul Alinsky and Sandra Harding. If you can’t outscience them, make it political. Or better yet, moral.
This is sarcastic only in the sense that I used the word learn.
I think is an overreaction to think of abduction as “and then a miracle occurred”. Obviously creationists want to use it that way, but philosophers of science will use the word abduction for rather more sensible inferences that A might be the cause of B, or if in a probabilistic framework, to figure out what the probability of A is given B, when there are prior probabilities.
No, UD is not adequate.
If UD had not banned most of us who saw through poorly thought out “ID/creationist” arguments, you might have a case though.
Why don’t you and Barry work up some courage and actually argue your case where you can’t ban your debating partners?
Are your arguments so weak they can’t win the day on their own merits?
True enough, so stop banning those that disagree with ID.
Muster whatever courage you have and show your “onlookers” that you have a case.
UPB tried and failed, but he’s one up on you because he presented his case.
True. So Barry should step up and do the right thing like Elizabeth did by banning Joe.
I note that Dembski has used Bayesian inference when it suited his purpose, as in detecting election irregularities, but has declined to apply it to design detection.
There are also consequences to a policy of banning and censoring those who disagree simply for the act of disagreeing; the major one of which is an absence of any semblance of productive debate in a tedious procession of sycophantic posts
If one of the inputs to this logic is is “CSI > 500 bits”, where is the evidence that supports the premise that a designer can actually deliver “CSI” of this complexity?
How powerful does the designer have to be?
Are his capabilities beyond human capabilities?
How would we then measure the premise that he has the ability to design at this level?
I started arguing a year or two ago that biological design is impossible except via evolution or by an omniscient being. That was voted the dumbest argument against ID in a UD thread. I don’t understand why they object. It doesn’t rule out their designer. You Know Who. I think it might be a good idea to start referring to the designer as You Know Who, or He Who Must Not Be Named.
Well, KF has now reacted to all this at UD. I guess it would be hard to say that he has underreacted …
The irony is that Pretrushka’s guess that mphillips had been banned was reasonable, given abductive reasoning over the facts of his sudden disappearance and UD’s long history of bannination.
KF to Joe:
The bizarre conjunction of KF’s hysteria over civility and his tolerance of Joe G needs no comment.
Here is a compilation of remarks authored by another esteemed commenter at UD:
“So if you are, perhaps, a slow learner or have difficulty with modest conceptualizations, then I simply did not pick up on it. More than likely I may have overlooked it given your pompous certainty…
I apologize for not being more empathetic to any special needs you might have.…
I simply assumed that you were just another materialist bigot… I am more than willing to slow down for you.”
“As it becomes obvious, Diffaxial cannot allow himself the burden that he might be wrong – even to the extent of being able to have a reasoned conversation about the possibilities. He is a coward in this regard.”
“This is an out and out lie. You are now lying to make your point.”
“That was the most baited and sophmoric attempt witnessed since the recent talking donkey episodes (or perhaps watching Diffaxial’s laborious and repeated sholveling of the ground under his feet).”
“I think that all regulars at this site have come to understand that Diffaxial cannot say anything in which he does not assume his conclusion. It is, apparently, a pathological trait from which he has chosen not to allay himself.”
“Why would you ask such an ignorant and misplaced (dumbassed) question? Was it meaningful to you in some fashion personally?”
“The glaring difference between our positions is that I rationally incorporate what we observe in nature, while you irrationally ignore it.”
“In other words, [Diffaxial’s] response was a nonsensical load of crap. Which was then immediately followed by a return to obfuscation.”
“In Diffaxial’s case, he was simply a fool.”
“Diffaxial, try to make sense – and try to be consistent as well.”
“I am more than happy to consider you no more than highly-trained idiot. Moreover, if you think that I am impressed by the idea that (gasp) modern philosophers disagree with one another about a subject, then you are not even as smart as I might have given you credit for. You perhaps have the training, yet you lack the basic wisdom of a matured farm hand…”
Guess who.
Neil Rickert: I tend to think of abductive inference as the “and then a miracle occured” step. That is to say, people use the term “abductive reasoning” when they don’t know how we got from step A to step C, but they like the final conclusion.
If you use the common meaning of abduction as a mental leap, an aha moment, then an abduction can be considered as the generation of a hypothesis. The hypothesis still has to be tested, either by new experimentation or by comparison with other hypotheses.
Thanks to all for keeping this calm and civil.
Let’s avoid any over-reaction to the provocation in a recent UD thread by kf.
KF has already started the wrestling match but prefers to enjoy “home mud advantage”.
Seriously though we have a situation where neighbours are shouting across the street at each other instead of sitting down in one of our living rooms and having a serious discussion.
Since Barry has banned us from KF’s house, KF should really think to himself, “Can my arguments carry the day when my objectors don’t have to fear their counter arguments will be constrained, muzzled or censored?”
So again, it’s strictly a case of faith in the strength of your argument kairosfocus.
Do you have that faith?
I agree and that’s where the ID side fails.
They take their “aha” moment and claim they’re done.
When ID says it “appears to be designed by a designer” they should take that as a starting point to test the designer’s capabilities and see if their logic has been correct.
What kind of designer can know 100 years into the future what will be required for life forms?
How do you know whether “Rev 2.028” of a polar bear will work before you actually try it?
Is there a testing ground or lab somewhere where the designer can see if his mods are going to work?
Neil Rickert: “I tend to think of abductive inference as the “and then a miracle occured” step. That is to say, people use the term “abductive reasoning” when they don’t know how we got from step A to step C, but they like the final conclusion.”
But how did you come to that conclusion?
Kairosfocus is right that abductive reasoning can be used in science. His problem is that he does the abductive bit without the reasoning bit. His mechanism to explain life has to be a non-living intelligent designer, and no such thing has ever been observed to exist, let alone design things with FSCI (or whatever he’s calling it now) in them. To put it another way, it’s no good pointing to the actions of intelligent living beings for whom FSCI is a prerequisite to explain life or FSCI.
First you tell us about the power and limitations of your designer.
How do you test his capabilities?
Living things.
I don’t judge posts and posters by a scale of rudeness. Glass houses and all that. I judge them by whether they use rudeness and bluster instead of content. As far as I can tell ID has only one hammer and that is incredulity. They simply refuse to extrapolate the evidence of observed microevolution to large time scales.
The most sophisticated version of this is Behe’s Edge. That’s their best shot. Everything else in their armory just makes noise. Hence the bluster and censorship.
I thought Maus was one of them. He seems to be experiencing the consequences of principled disagreement with Barry Arrington. Perhaps he’d like to continue here at the alligator pit. Can new people register and post here?
Over at UD, Joe asks me to show my work when I say that design is impossible except by an omniscient being. More specifically, why the being has to be omnisicient.
It’s rather simple, and I have shown the reasoning a number of times.
I start with KF’s calculation of the probability of 500 bits of information coming spontaneously into existence. He asserts He estimates that 500 bits of dFSCI exceeds the number of particles in the universe.
Ergo, the designer would have to have storage and processing capacity exceeding the material resources of the universe.
I would point out that gpuccio reinforced this view of the designer by asserting that a minimal protein coding string approaches this level of complexity. GP also asserts there is no incremental path to functional sequences.
The alternative is that GP is simply wrong, and there are minimally functional sequences arising from random sequences, or from mutated non-coding DNA. Or from duplicated genes that are no longer needed for their original function.
So Joe. take this back to UD, without quote mining or screwing up the argument. Your designer has to have capabilities exceeding the physical resources of the universe. Prove me wrong.
It’s not the rudeness, but the hypocrisy inherent in whining about incivility while selectively tolerating same in their own ranks that this points to.
It is the hypocrisy that highlights we are not in their group and thus can be treated with disrespect.
It’s very frustrating trying to talk to that type of superior personality.
Petrushka,
Somehow my reply to Reciprocating Bill ended up in your comment.
Sorry.
It is the hypocrisy that highlights we are not in their group and thus can be treated with disrespect.
It’s very frustrating trying to talk to that type of superior personality.