S. Cordova doesn’t want you to hear…he’s right – No Positive Case for IDism

Not long ago I was suggested to add here at TSZ a post that was (what do they call that?) fracked – scrambled – made into nonsense at UD by Salvador T. Cordova.

Now, Salvador has sent my words to spam and included the names of ‘welcome’ critics, some of whom post here at TSZ. Quite sadly, I am just not welcome at UD by big-hearted Sal the creationist-IDist, who’s finally sold IDism out. Here’s the thread: http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/am-i-the-only-id-proponent-that-doesnt-like-the-phrase-positive-case-for-id/

What’s funny about it is that I was actually agreeing with Salvador, and with Mike Gene, who rejects the scientificity of Uppercase Intelligent Design Theory. Sal is surely onto something when he says “there isn’t a positive argument for Design.” So, just a warning, if you want to get spammed at UD or sent away from one of ‘even-handed’ Sal’s threads, whatever you do, just don’t compliment him or tell him he’s right!

The contents of my deleted post are below:

“Mike never said he thought ID is science” – Salvador Cordova

Yeah, right, why would anyone ever think that, huh?! 😉

Mike Gene’s book (“The Design Matrix”) was published in 2007. Up to that point (on ARN, Telic Thoughts, here [UD] and elsewhere), he was not openly a theist, as far as I recollect. He was defending the possible ‘scientificity’ of IDT. He’s a biologist, after all, isn’t he?

His conclusion that IDT is not ‘scientific,’ that ‘Design’ is not a scientific concept says nothing about his ‘motivations,’ only about what he came to realize after many years of thinking about it.

My ‘nasty habit’ is therefore in exposing silly things that IDists say. As an IDist, Sal, this accordingly doesn’t sit well with you. You’d rather an IDist not say a silly thing ever!

However, in the case of this thread, Salvador, like I said: “Well done!”

Do you notice, folks, the capitalised ‘Design’ in “there isn’t a positive argument for Design”? Likewise, he properly uses lowercase ‘design’ when speaking about ‘human designs.’

‘Strictly scientific’ = Luskin. No positive case = Cordova.

You’ve sold the IDism farm in your OP, Salvador T. Cordova. And as a finance person, probably you estimate that it’s a good bargain. I’d bet it came ‘inexpensive’.

It would be better for honest, thinking theists (and atheists), surely, to hear such things as “there isn’t a positive argument for [scientistic] Design” from creationist-IDists more often.

Again, Salvador: Well done!

End of post.

That’s an easily angered or jaded man who deletes posts that actually agree with him. Let it serve as a warning to anyone who posts at UD: just don’t agree with Salvador that “there is no positive case for Design.” And surely don’t mention the Uppercase ID vs. lowercase id distinction. That’ll definitely sink a ship…

33 thoughts on “S. Cordova doesn’t want you to hear…he’s right – No Positive Case for IDism

  1. I’m not welcome either, but if I were, I would point out that the following is factually untrue:

    But let me make a little nuance. Life’s resemblance to human designs is overwhelming

    There isn’t anything in the chemistry of life that is like anything ever designed by humans. Humans are simply incapable of designing life in the same sense that they design airplanes. Unless plagiarizing and copy and paste are considered design.

    There is no route by which humans can design completely novel complex biological molecules other than by mimicking evolution. There is no way for a human to anticipate the usefulness of a coding or regulatory sequence.

    No way to predict the phenotype and no way to predict its effect on reproductive success.

    Any positive theory of ID would need to start by demonstrating that what I just said is wrong. Any positive theory of ID would need to demonstrate that design is possible without evolution.

    I am not welcome at UD, and I seriously doubt that Sal will come here to respond.

  2. Exactly so. Human designers do not strive for the “mess” that we actually observe in life.

  3. petrushka:

    There is no route by which humans can design completely novel complex biological molecules other than by mimicking evolution. There is no way for a human to anticipate the usefulness of a coding or regulatory sequence.

    No way to predict the phenotype and no way to predict its effect on reproductive success.

    Right. And not just limited humans, either. I suspect similar limits would apply to any embodied, non-supernatural designer, be it much-advanced humans with an actual time machine, aliens, whatever. No one can compute the ecological result of instantiating one’s design in a specific organism’s genotype and then turning that genotype loose in the wild. I claim it’s not computable even in potential, not merely that it’s impossible given our current technology.

    I admit that if we accept, for the sake of argument, the existence of some impossibly omniscient supernatural entity (entity’s name withheld to get along with the con-artists at UD who pretend that ID is not all about YHWH/Allah) then it’s barely possible to imagine said entity computing/knowing in advance what would result when it twiddled its noncorporeal fingers in an actual strand of DNA.

    But that hypothetical entity is a contradiction of the typical ID claim “Design, it’s obvious!”, in needing a type of computing/knowing which we can never perform and can barely imagine. Not obvious at all, quite the opposite!

    If it existed, that kind of capital-D Design would bear zero resemblance to human design. They can’t use the fact that humans design things like we do (ice cream, houses, languages) as “evidence” that an unknown entity, using an almost-unimaginable and perhaps-logically-impossible type of knowing, actually in our reality designed things like it supposedly did (life, cells, souls). Maybe it did somehow, maybe it didn’t, I don’t know. What I do know is that:

    [per IDist/creationist] Life’s resemblance to human designs is overwhelming

    is utter bullshit when looked at with an honest mind.

    Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
    Makes every bit as much sense as “Design, it’s obvious”

  4. It’s an odd thing to contemplate, but emergent properties in chemistry are at once a regular consequence of quantum mechanics, and an irregularity in the sense that they are unpredictable.

    Unpredictable in principle or just in practice? Any opinions?

  5. petrushka,

    Well, intuitively I’d say in practice. After all, the universe itself does a good job of predicting them as systems progresses and unfold. In that the next time the same behavior emerges reliably.

    Reliable emergent behaviors? R.E.B?

    OT like BA but: http://golly.sourceforge.net/

  6. Sal has now banned Gregory from all his threads. I presume he wont get on his high horse about censorship anytime soon, then.

  7. I’m not sure I understand what you are saying.

    Chemistry is reliable and replicable, but emergent properties are not predictable.

    My own understanding of evolution is that chemistry implements a Markov selector. Coding sequences have reliable properties so that when a sequence proves useful, its replication produces reliable usefulness. But no one can know what a sequence does in advance.

    It just so happens that most single base substitutions have no effect, so they form causeways linking the infamous islands of function.

    The Markov selector could be imagined as a web along which evolution spiders its way to new islands.

  8. I think we can see the emergence of Sal’s modus operandi in his recent post over a UD.

    Sal is attracted to anomalous and irreproducible results in laboratories; and it appears as though he intends to compile a list of these for bamboozling people in “debates.”

    He doesn’t recognize or care about the sizes or rarity of these anomalous effects – if there are any effects at all – and he doesn’t seem to care that they are buried in noise to the extent that they are unverifiable at best. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sal is a fan of cold fusion.

    Furthermore, Sal manages to ignore the fact that the experts in these fields are acutely aware of any anomalies and try to steer clear of confounding factors that affect radiometric dating.

    Sal is one of these ID/creationists that took some science courses with the objective of being able to use terminology to bamboozle others and portray himself to the ID/creationist community as some kind of “expert guru.” We have seen this game many times before. Sal wants to be the next big thing in ID/creationism. It’s all about ego for him; the science be damned.

    There are a lot of characters like Sal who are attracted to woo-woo. The woo-woo television market, with programs on ghosts and paranormal phenomena as well as old programs like Unsolved Mysteries, are designed to specifically target these people.

    Sal needs to buy a franchise from Joe Newman in order to keep himself busy.

  9. Richardthughes:
    Sal has now banned Gregory from all his threads. I presume he wont get on his high horse about censorship anytime soon, then.

    I bet you’re wrong about that. “Freedom for me but not for thee” is a basic rule for RWA theists. Sal won’t ever see a contradiction when he whines about being “censored” where he doesn’t control the format while acting ban-happy where he does. No contradiction, ya see, because they were just trolls, not really equal humans, certainly not deserving of rights as upstanding citizens (like himself).

    Good for Gregory, though. I applaud him for standing up to Sal; at least in the little I saw, Gregory was behaving quite decently and had no reason to back down in the face of arbitrary censorship.

  10. Mike Elzinga:
    I think we can see the emergence of Sal’s modus operandi in his recent post over a UD.

    Hee hee.
    So, the actual title of his post is:

    Vodka! Can nuclear structure be affected by electrical, chemical, mechanical and biological means?

    and here’s the explanation:

    [The Vodka designation in the title indicates speculative ideas which may be wrong, but have data points worth considering]

    Huh? Is it that he can’t talk straight, or is the deeper problem that he can’t think straight?

    IDism/creationism is exemplified in just that one irrational word use: “Vodka!” Take a word which has a generally-accepted meaning, use it in nonstandard fashion for no reason, “explain” yourself in a way that is even less understandable than the original wrong word usage, then fly off. Declare-Victory comes next.

    Quintuple hee hee. The first five responses are Sal himself, adding to the nonsense in his OP. And throwing in a couple more VODKA!(s) for some kind of unparsable effect.

    I hear they have a saying in Texas which applies to Sal Cordova:

    Big Hat, No Cattle.

    I think I’ll start randomly sprinkling BHNC into my replies. It will make a lot more sense than throwing around VODKA!

  11. [The Vodka designation in the title indicates speculative ideas which may be wrong, but have data points worth considering]

    “I know this is nonsense, but I’m going to go ahead and post it anyway.”

  12. Oooh! Jeopardy!

    “What’s the difference between propaganda and science?”

  13. I guess the routine over at UD is; if you don’t have any ideas worth considering, get attention by just acting weird.

  14. I hope Mung pokes xis head in, because I want to say Bravo! for this reply in a more-recent but still pointless Sal Cordova thread (about Nick Matzke v. Stephen Meyer’s stupid “Cambrian explosion” book):

    [Alan Fox] So did the Cambrian explosion happen before or after the Flood?

    [Mung] During. Silly man.

    Well played, Mung, well played.

    I hope steam came out of Sal’s ears when he read that.

  15. Speaking of VODKA, I was at the vodka museum/restaurant in St. Petersburg a couple of months ago; complete with a life-size model of Mendeleev doing his ‘science of spirits’ thing. Amazing varieties and types for the world’s largest vodka producer and consumer. Couldn’t tell if all that vodka was lowercase ‘intelligently designed’ or not or if some of it was unintended or accidental, or at least I can’t remember which one was what. = )

    As for on-going censorship at UD, perhaps it might make Elisabeth think if Salvador T. Cordova is welcome to post here at TSZ. Alan Fox mentions that Salvador deleted one of his comments here at TSZ and it seems to me there should be some kind of a strikeout policy for that. I’m for shortening the leash on Cordova as much as possible because he demonstrates no goodwill to post here and has said he only uses TSZ as a plaything, much as Mike Elzinga notes above. Credit to Elisabeth for her goodwill, but sometimes invitations can go too far and be abused.

    The latest deleted post by Salvador at UD was today on a comment directed to KF/G.E.M. Alan Fox and Mark Frank are also there, being abused as usual by KF and Joe, the latter one of the strangest, most infantile, foul-mouthed people in the conversation. I really don’t see how UD thinks it helps their case to allow these people to represent them as ‘IDists’. Perhaps that’s just ‘a sinking ship welcomes anyone’ kind of attitude.

    In any case, the deleted post is copied below:

    KairosFocus/G.E.M.,

    Have you ever tried/succeeded to publish an academic quality, peer-reviewed paper in a registered scientific journal on the topic of ‘FSCO/I’? If so, where and what was the result? If not, why not? We know your name already, so the anonymity issue involved with Expelled Syndrome is likely not part of your story.

    Thanks,
    Gregory

    Background: The term ‘FSCO/I’ first appeared in post #119 in this thread as if it either is or should be meaningful and significant to everyone on Earth (and even to aliens!):

    “FSCO/I (etc) is empirically observed with billions of cases and is uniformly observed to result from intelligent design; where this is backed up by config space and blind search analysis, thus it is a testable hyp that FSCO/I is a reliable sign of design”

  16. Mike Elzinga,

    I think the Vodka! thing is a play on Denise’s Coffee! thing, which I confess I never understood either.

    Both are useful however, as a quick indicator that you can safely ignore the threads. Something I found out after spending a bit of time on one of them.

    fG

  17. faded_Glory:

    Mike Elzinga,

    I think the Vodka! thing is a play on Denise’s Coffee! thing, which I confess I never understood either.

    Both are useful however, as a quick indicator that you can safely ignore the threads. Something I found out after spending a bit of time on one of them.

    fG

    The same thing is going on in that other thread with ericB. Nothing is registering with this character. He is in pure Gish Gallop mode and doesn’t even perceive his external environment. He is rattling around inside his head trying to be original.

    The Gish Gallop requires that he recite every ID/creationist talking point. Eventually he will have to get to the second law of thermodynamics, irreducible complexity, complex specified information, and microevolution.

    Whenever these characters put out a “challenge” – and this goes all the way back to Morris and Gish in the 1970s – scientists are supposed to respond by trying to explain away the “problems” raised by the creationist. But the creationists will simply proceed with the Gish Gallop.

    When I first saw this routine in a creationist versus scientist debate, my first impression was that the creationist was in some kind of trance, mindlessly reciting a menu without hearing anything that the scientist was saying. If the creationist was asked a direct question, he would respond with the next items on his menu; even though it had absolutely nothing to do with the question that was asked. It was weird.

    At the end of nearly every debate, the ID/creationist would then make a sneering assertion; “Well, you haven’t been able to answer 99% of my arguments.” The audience would go wild.

    After seeing a couple of these “debates,” it became clear to me that the purpose of the “debate” was not to discuss anything or respond to anything; its purpose was to get stage time and publicity on the back of the scientist that, as it turned out, was simply being abused in front of a stacked audience. It was all theater.

    My impression of the UD people who show up here at TSZ is that they are simply vying for attention and a chance to practice their shtick. Every one of them seems to think they have a unique “argument” that refutes science. Yet none of them knows any science. They are totally numb when it comes to even the most elementary concepts. You can whack them in the face with a two-by-four of some solid scientific concept, and they don’t have a clue that they have been hit. They just drone on; perseveration.

    And then there are those Mung and Joe G characters; but their shtick is simply to toss out juvenile insults and throw feces. I think that is why the UD site finds them to be useful mascots.

    Elizabeth has been a gracious host; and she has displayed remarkable patience with these characters. Perhaps she is studying them up close also. But I have been watching ID/creationist tactics for over 40 years now; and I have never EVER seen an ID/creationist fail to abuse a discussion. They are all stamped out of the same socio/political mold and filled with the same fear and loathing. That is why the scientific community no longer debates them, but simply notes their tactics, misconceptions, and misrepresentations.

  18. Mike Elzinga,

    Up thread you mention their obsession with the noise. I have in the past argued many times that the issue they should focus on is the signal, not the noise. They seem to be unwilling to understand or accept that in the natural sciences noise-free data doesn’t exist, and so they argue that every anomalous point means that the signal is wrong, instead of merely noisy.

    As a consequence of this obsession with the noise they never ever present a signal of their own – the elusive Positive Case. Only once in decades have I seen an attempt by a ‘Flood geologist’ to present a geographic and temporal account of the Flood, as far as can be derived from the geological observations. The sort of regional geological account that we find thousands of times in the literature.

    It was beyond pathetic, not even high school level, and has disappeared without a trace. As with ID, there is no positive case for YEC, only attempts to discredit the mainstream signal by obsessing over the noise.

    Years back on ARN I presented actual case studies on biostratigraphy to show how regular the fossil distribution can be, especially at microfossil level, and the impossibility for a Flood to ever deposit sequences like those. Nobody ever engaged with the post. Likewise I presented radiometric dating case studies to show how consistent the signal is when one dates volcanic associations from many outcrops, and how vanishingly improbable the results would be if the methodology would be unreliable because of contamination etc. Again, never got any response to those posts.

    I no longer waste my time trying to show them what the geologists really say and do. My response to Sal on the dating thread was to recommend he spends a few weeks in the library of a University geological department to go through the material first hand. He is smart enough to pick up the basics if he would do that. Sadly, I predict he won’t, but instead we will be reading the same tired old arguments over and over for years to come. What a waste.

    fG

  19. faded_Glory: I no longer waste my time trying to show them what the geologists really say and do. My response to Sal on the dating thread was to recommend he spends a few weeks in the library of a University geological department to go through the material first hand. He is smart enough to pick up the basics if he would do that. Sadly, I predict he won’t, but instead we will be reading the same tired old arguments over and over for years to come. What a waste.
    fG

    Yup; I agree.

    I bent my own rule – of not trying to teach them anything – with Cordova here on this site several months ago just to see if there was any possibility he might be smart enough to figure things out and not play the usual creationist games.

    He wasn’t. All he did was the usual creationist game of passing himself off as someone who can “disagree” with and “stay in the game” with working scientists, something all these creationist “guru” wannabes try to do.

  20. Years back on ARN I presented actual case studies on biostratigraphy to show how regular the fossil distribution can be, especially at microfossil level, and the impossibility for a Flood to ever deposit sequences like those. Nobody ever engaged with the post. Likewise I presented radiometric dating case studies to show how consistent the signal is when one dates volcanic associations from many outcrops, and how vanishingly improbable the results would be if the methodology would be unreliable because of contamination etc. Again, never got any response to those posts.

    If Lizzie gives you author privileges, or if you want to post your essay in the coment section at UD I’ll cross post your essays at UD unedited and make it separate discussion. Your criticism should be heard.

    I won’t insist I’m right about geological timescale, but I will note anomalies that haven’t been satisfactorily addressed.

    As far my participation here, I agreed with Mike and others about most of the 2nd law. I haven’t retracted my siding with Mike on that part.

    The only major disagreement is that I said that including position is customary in the derivation of entropy in many cases. That’s not a creationist issue, that’s one group of physicists wanting to define entropy purely in terms of energy microstates and others that don’t.

    My class texts used position in calculating microstates, and I would have flunked the class if I didn’t consider position in computation of microstates. If Mike doesn’t like it, he can take it up with Pathria and Beale. He interprets my opposition to his statement as stupidity on my part. Fine, accept for the sake of argument I’m stupid, but one can’t dispute inclusion of position in entropy calculations is part of mainstream physics literature.

    From wiki:

    a microstate specifies all molecular details about the system including the position and velocity of every molecule.

    It’s fair to say I don’t understand a lot of things, but it’s wrong to say that I took issue with Mike on the topic of microstates because I somehow ignore experts in the field…I studied under experts in the field. It doesn’t mean I fully grasped what I learned, but I did grasp that Mike does not represent a universal viewpoint about microstates. Apparently he took offense to me pointing out other textbooks have alternate methods of counting microstates than the ones he presented.

    I know very little about physics, but I don’t think it’s right that I be accused of belligerence merely because I studied statistical mechanics in a way Mike doesn’t approve of.

  21. stcordova: but I will note anomalies that haven’t been satisfactorily addressed.

    The proper way to do that and have it count for something is formally. A “blog post” is not going to change anything.

    Document your anomalies, propose and carry out tests. Write a paper!

    Otherwise, shrug. Just another in the 10,000 blog posts at UD right?

  22. Don’t endorse censors (Sal Cordova) by participating there.

    Sal, what’s the definition of dogmatic?

  23. I won’t speak to Sal Cordova.

    It’s against my religion* to speak to habitual liars and unrepentant offenders. By that I mean any such RWA who repeatedly and dishonestly implies Darwin characteristically beat puppies for fun, and does it deliberately to dogwhistle his fellow RWAs into decrying all evolutionary biologists as immoral for accepting the dogma written by ye old “puppy-beater”. Sal Cordova knows what he’s doing and he knows it’s despicable. But he either can;t stop himself because he’s been broken inside by his religion, or he actually wants to behave despicably because that’s the way to get a big paycheck from his political masters, or something …
    And this may be a genuine ad hominem, but when a person habitually propagandizes and lies, then I tell you, you should not trust that person’s word on any subject, no matter what.

    I think Sal Cordova should be shunned by everyone. I don’t think people should cross the street to avoid walking on the same sidewalk as him, that’s giving him far too much attention. I just think that people should never answer him personally because he hasn’t demonstrated the basic human decency that deserves a personal response.

    Talk about him, sure. Talk to him, gag me.
    .
    .
    .

    *Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
    Be not ye therefore partakers with them
    Eph 5 6-7

  24. hotshoe:
    I won’t speak to Sal Cordova.

    It’s against my religion* to speak to habitual liars and unrepentant offenders.By that I mean any such RWA who repeatedly and dishonestly implies Darwin characteristically beat puppies for fun, and does it deliberately to dogwhistle his fellow RWAs into decrying all evolutionary biologists as immoral for accepting the dogma written by ye old “puppy-beater”.Sal Cordova knows what he’s doing and he knows it’s despicable. But he either can;t stop himself because he’s been broken inside by his religion, or he actually wants to behave despicably because that’s the way to get a big paycheck from his political masters, or something…
    And this may be a genuine ad hominem, but when a person habitually propagandizes and lies, then I tell you, you should not trust that person’s word on any subject, no matter what.

    I think Sal Cordova should be shunned by everyone.I don’t think people should cross the street to avoid walking on the same sidewalk as him, that’s giving him far too much attention.I just think that people should never answer him personally because he hasn’t demonstrated the basic human decency that deserves a personal response.

    Talk about him, sure.Talk to him, gag me.
    .
    .
    .

    *Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
    Be not ye therefore partakers with them
    Eph 5 6-7

    I doubt it’s ad hominem, because you’re not really using it to argue a point. The Sad part is he’s destroyed any chances he has of having a productive life in any arena.

  25. Not long ago I was suggested to add here at TSZ a post that was (what do they call that?) fracked – scrambled – made into nonsense at UD by Salvador T. Cordova.

    munged.

    =P

  26. First, I don’t ‘own’ this thread, nor this blog, so even if I was tempted to delete Salvador’s usual self-serving, purposely ignorant and disrespectful approach, I didn’t and won’t pull that editorial trigger. Elisabeth has set a good example here at TSZ that is well to follow.

    Second, Mung, well we do disagree on a number of things, but in regard to this power-hungry IDist idiot, we’re surely on the same page (and he will likely relish in that). Denyse probably won’t interfere to discipline Salvador, letting him have free range to delete or edit anything he wants at UD. A ‘little man’ – surely that’s an appropriate label for such internet censorship behaviour as his.

    Honestly, I don’t think it is in Salvador’s heart to ask for forgiveness for wronging people, which is part of the religion he claims to represent. Representatives of that religion, whether they are IDists or not, should rebuke him for his attitude. His is rather a sad case to consider. The way he presents himself on the internet is a black mark on Christian communicative morality.

    Yet, that doesn’t make him always wrong, does it folks? And indeed he is right in this particular case: “there isn’t a positive argument for Design.” By noting this, Salvador sold the IDist farm, probably (still) without knowing it. By openly recognising that Uppercase ‘Design’ / ‘Intelligent Design’ differs technically and significantly from lowercase ‘design’ / ‘intelligent design’ he admits (even in ignorance) that the lifespan of the IDM is likely to be quite short (won’t last until 2030). What new neo-creationist ideology will he jump ship to before then?

    As we are used to, Salvador T. Cordova will likely not directly respond to me because he is a coward, one who thinks he is ‘very important’ in the IDM. Just having his name in the title of a thread here at TSZ, even if negatively associated, was enough to convince this Expelled Syndrome victim (a term I use quite rarely and always cautiously, with due attention) to write a message in half-hearted defense of him-Self and the IDism he represents along with ‘good friend’ Casey Luskin and the DI.

    Proverbs 9:8 – “Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.”

    Ecclesiastes 7:5 – “It is better to heed the rebuke of a wise person than to listen to the song of fools.”

  27. Cordova is doing what every ID/creationist celebrity wannabe has learned to do; namely keeping himself in the spotlight and pretending to be an expert arguing with experts. He pretends to be a honest searcher for “truth,” and he takes umbrage at people who call him out on his shtick.

    He will never go off and dig out the textbooks and sit down and work though the concepts; that takes far more effort and time than he is willing to put into the learning process. But he certainly will put in the time to set up a thread or a website that purports to “instruct” others about the “inconsistencies” HE has found in science (Look at ME!). This is nothing but crass self-promotion; passing himself off as someone who has knowledge he doesn’t have.

    ID/creationists have been largely responsible for propagating to the public memes that misrepresent and distort scientific concepts. They have done this in nearly every area of science; not just thermodynamics. They have been doing it repeatedly for something like a half a century now; they fool only the fools who follow them.

    ID/creationists like Duane Gish, Ray Comfort, Casey Luskin, Sal Cordova, and all the other self-promoters at the DI, AiG, and the ICR, are examples of why scientists no longer debate creationists. The debate format is a lousy way to learn science; especially when one of the debaters has a hostile agenda to throw in as many misconceptions and misrepresentations of science as possible while using the venue as a form of self-promotion.

    It is already difficult enough for members of the scientific community to instruct new students at every level of science. Most of the professional societies and teaching organizations have entire sections devoted to pedagogy and dealing with misconceptions. Every student is bound to encounter concepts that will be challenging at first. There is no value whatsoever in adding deliberate misconceptions and misrepresentations to that burden of trying to learn.

    Science already has a recorded history of instructive mistakes and dead ends; and these are used to good effect when handled properly by knowledgeable instructors.

    Sassy “debates” and “gotchas” on the internet may get some people the attention they want; but it is not a responsible and professional way to go about teaching anyone anything.

    And professional educators try to be careful not to put “bombs” in the hands of people who will misuse any information for self-promotion and deception.

    Sal Cordova has permanently wrecked his own reputation with his enormous ego and self-aggrandizement on the Internet. And he gives a bad reputation to religious people who are wiser and more circumspect in their relationships with others.

    We all know that ID/creationism is and always has been a political, sectarian war on secular society. Cordova is simply continuing the war under the tattered remnants of a sheepskin that is now so shredded that it can’t hide anyone. But Cordova’s ego and lust for celebrity don’t allow him to see what everyone else sees.

  28. It would appear that Sal is auditioning for a paying job with the Discovery Institute.

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