Intelligent design creationist William Dembski is speaking here on August 19; his topic is how his own mathematical analysis shows that natural selection can’t produce evolution. What surprises me is that Dembski doesn’t seem to have taken on board the fact that artificial selection can produce huge evolutionary change, which should also be impossible under Dembski’s claims. Further, we now have many examples—ranging from bacteria evolving antibiotic resistance and new biochemical pathways for digesting nylon to finches evolving bigger beaks when forced to eat tougher seeds—of natural selection causing evolution.
The other day I posted a few email exchanges I had with the person who invited Dembski, a professor at my university. I’m still receiving emails, apparently as part of a group interested in Dembski’s visit. Although I don’t want to reveal “backchannel” material, Dembski’s “invitor” emailed one comment to the group that I thought was worth highlighting. Urging people to make appointments to chat with Dembski, the invitor said this, which I reproduce verbatim:
We do not often get a chance to someone who does not share out views about evolution. That is interesting thing to do. The workings of the discovery institute and of the creationist movement is an interesting subject also. If we only talk to people who share our basic view of the world, we will understand the world less well.
I was tempted to respond, as I did before, by saying that we learn nothing from talking to people about their theories that have already been discredited (why not invite a Holocaust denier?). But what I really wanted to say was this, “Hey, folks, I can get you dozens of creationists dying to talk to professors about why evolution is wrong!”
I refrained.
But I don’t understand this person’s attitude. Of course we should challenge our views by exposing them to disparate ideas, and by seeking criticism. That’s how science works. But I’d never send one of my scientific papers to a creationist for vetting. When someone has shown themselves blinded by an a priori commitment to Jesus, as Dembski has, all we learn from such interaction is how willing they are to distort the evidence to buttress their views. One of the commenters on the previous thread about Dembski had asked him if any evidence would change his mind about intelligent design. Dembski simply answered, “No.” Such a person is not a scientist—not in my world—and none of their claims about reality can be taken credibly. In science (and Dembski claims he’s doing science), what can never be refuted by evidence can never be accepted as true.
The person who wrote the above is not a biologist, but a smart and accomplished academic. How can someone like that have the attitude that all views are worth airing—or invite (and pay) someone to talk about them at a good university? \
Once again, I’d ask why we don’t have seminars on homeopathy at the University of Chicago Medical School, or seminars on astrology at the University’s Department of Psychology? I could call my friends at those places and ask them those questions, but I know what I’d hear: “Why would we want to do that? That stuff is bullshit?”
So what does intelligent design have that homeopathy and astrology doesn’t?
We already have plenty of evidence that natural and artificial selection can effect substantial evolutionary change. What does it benefit us to hear from someone to tell us that it can’t? It’s like the old mathematical “proof” that honeybees can’t fly. We don’t need the math; we can just watch the bees.
“I don’t understand this person’s attitude.”
It may be that he’s an ID sympathizer and is merely dissembling.
I had the exact same thought. The only justification that I can think of is that he thinks Dembski has at least *some* valid points. Maybe he’s not a full creationist but someone who finds evolution uncomfortable but at this point it is clear that he does not view Dembski as someone with completely debunked and out-dated ideas. He definitely has some sympathy.
How do you know it is a “he” who invited, rather than a “she”. JAC never referred to a specific gender in the above or in previous posts, only to “person who invited”.
Stereotypes re academics at U.Chicago, or universities at large, or other?
The English convention is to use “he” when the gender is unknown. There is something of a debate in modern times on what to replace this convention with that is non-sexist. You sometimes see “he or she”, or an alternating of gender, or even “them”, even though the subject is singular. All of them are awkward.
And don’t forget “te” and “se”, along with the objective case, “hir”.
My preference is Gollum’s use of “it” for a certain invisible Hobbit.
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Oh I see, so by this logic, someone who is depressed should make sure, in addition to a psychiatrist, to see a Scientology st to treat their malady as they hold different views from psychiatrists, who they believe are quacks.
After all, don’t we really want to understand the natural world?
I meant scientologist and also I must sub.
What I find most frustrating about this when I talk to creationists is the argument that adaptation and mutation have nothing to do with evolution. In their view, evolution only occurs if a completely new organism springs into existence. Creationists are wonderful at redefining the terms of the argument–even the opposing side!–to fit their worldview if something doesn’t quite mesh. Evolution doesn’t fit with the model that the bible lays out? Simple! We’ll just redefine evolution! Insane.
Yes, I see this line of thinking again and again on Twitter. I’ve been collecting some of the more inane Twitter comments, and this one may be my favorite:
“Where is observable and repeatable scientific evidence that chimps are becoming humans?”
Or this:
“So when does one species convert to another through natural selection? Does an ape mother spontaneously give birth to a human?”
And this:
“If you think walking catfish will ‘evolve’ into land animals. do you also think flying squirrels will ‘evolve’ into birds?”
Ugh. I don’t which is more sad: the fact that these comments exist or that I’m not at all surprised by them.
Here’s another one I read several years ago (I’m paraphrasing): It’s unlikely that when the first man evolved from an ape, the first woman just happened to evolve at the same time and the same place. The first man wouldn’t have had anyone to breed with!
Straw men all. One of the first refuges of a creationist scoundrel.
Is there no process to follow to make a claim that this talk brings the reputation of the University of Chicago into disrepute? It seems to me to be the sort of thing that might be debated by a student body but certainly not be endorsed by the university itself.
I don’t necessarily see the invitation as an endorsement by the University.
And arguably it shouldn’t be seen that way: if we want our Universities to be places where kids get exposed to many different ideas, then that will of necessity involve them getting exposed to ideas that the University probably doesn’t like. If we only exposed them to ideas the University does like, our education system would be so much the worse.
Having said that, I hope the very smart and educated U. Chicago student body tears Dembski a new one in the Q&A.
It’s not whether they like the ideas, it’s whether they are FALSE. For the same reason, I wouldn’t invite a homeopath or a Holocaust denier to give a serious academic seminar. But I would invite a pro-Palestinian or an anti-abortionist.
The student free speech club at Berkeley invited a Holocaust denier to speak there while I was a grad student there. Given their club’s purpose, I can see the choice; they were intentionally trying to pick a speaker whose ideas are considered false, unpopular, and possibly even dangerous by the mainstream. (Aside: the student body reaction was generally negative but ranged from excellent counter-speech such as symbolic protests and silent vigils, to atrocious actions like threats of violence and throwing stuff).
But I agree with you that Dembski is a bad choice of speaker for any serious colloquium on the natural sciences. See my response to #17 for more detail on my position about that.
“But I agree with you that Dembski is a bad choice of speaker for any serious colloquium on the natural sciences.”
Yes, he’d be a much better fit for the department of Abnormal Psychology.
There’s also a difference between a club and an academic unit, too. Dembski is being invited by a unit of computational methods in the sciences or the like, which makes it even worse.
I see the distinction you are making, but it’s worth noting that many abortion opponents have their set of “facts” about human reproduction that contradict the science.
The “benefit” here seems to be dialogue as such. Your email interlocutor seems to prioritize discussion above truth. This isn’t that surprising considering the postmodern climate in many Western universities. It seems we have here a simple case of modern (Jerry et al.)-postmodern (etc.) disagreement. Understood this way it’s not difficult to understand how someone like Dembski would be invited. Notice what this does for the organizer: it places him/her in the role of enlightened mediator.
You have summed up the situation very well. The invitation to Dembski does implicitly suggest that the University values discussion above truth. As a scientist, I find that both ridiculous and deplorable. The truth is still the truth, even if we don’t like it or it doesn’t fit our preconceived notions.
Agreed and well said.
“If we only talk to people who share our basic view of the world, we will understand the world less well.”
___
The first usage of the word ‘world’ most likely does not connote the same meaning as the second which I suspect is something on the order of social dialogue.
Totally makes sense — pretty ironic, too… that the po-mo stance of the organizer (one that could presumably help reveal hidden power plays among sides in a culture war) is itself a power play (perhaps unwittingly so).
The Center for Inquiry invited Dembski to speak at at two conferences in both 2001 and 2002. I only attended the second one where he (with a fellow Discovery guy) was directly debating Ken Miller and another defender of evolution.
The humanist C of I decided to have both the 2 creationist and 2 evolutionist debaters be all Christians, although the moderator was Massimo Pugliucci. (spelling?).
Of course, in both cases Dembski was in the “lion’s den” confronted by an audience consisting mostly of strong skeptics, and he will likely get a softer reception even at U of C.
I’m a member of CFI in Ottawa (though would not have been that long ago) and would have no problem with D. showing up there, especially back then, before he was lying, or there abouts. Now is different, since he has been refuted repeatedly. An academic setting is also different because CFI is just a popular organization, not a scholarly one. (Albeit one with education, etc. goals.)
Is this not simply part of the pseudo-controversy culture? I see it on the news all the time.
They’ll get a doctor to talk about the importance of condom-use and then put on a religious person for a “different perspective”. Sparks fly, yada-yada, more people watch.
Dembski probably just sees a chance to use the popularity of this psycho-social method to promote himself.
P.S. See how good I’m being. I didn’t use the word opportunist! 😀
blockquote fail. Here goes again.
Because emotions often trumps reality regardless of educational level.
And he/she knows the guy so friendly relations are more important than whether the “science” presented is true or not.
No doubt he/she is hoping that those who meet Dembski will be surprised at how intelligent and rational his approach to anti-evolution sounds and that some will leave a bit more “open-minded” than when they came.
Again, the truth of the matter be damned.
There are people who will sacrifice everything to preserve the relationship. Those people are deadly to work with because nothing gets done.
I think there’s a quote floating the web that states something like that.
Something about hoping to choose your closest friend over truth if they collide….Hitchens maybe?
I’ll take it, but only with a grain of salt.
Doesn’t sound like Hitch to me. He celebrated strong friendships, but always revered truth above everything.
He very well may have been quoting someone else….can’t remember it.
And google isn’t much help when you can’t remember the bloody words. 🙂
It doesn’t have to be a friendship – it can be a working relationship or a business relationship. I have worked with people that would never say anything that might upset a person if they thought they would need that person’s support somewhere down the line. They couldn’t figure out that it was damaging to allow someone to do things incorrectly and that there are tactful ways of dealing with such things.
I think the quote you’re looking for is attributed to Oscar Wilde, and it goes “If I ever have to chose between betraying a friend or betraying my country, I hope I have the decency to betray my country”.
That’s the one. Thanks.
Not quite how I remember it, but close enough. 🙂
I just looked up that quote. It comes from E.M. Forster though it does sound like something Wilde might have said!
Here’s the link, if you’re interested:
http://www.quoteyard.com/if-i-had-to-choose-between-betraying-my-country-and-betraying-my-friend-i-hope-i-should-have-the-guts-to-betray-my-country/
Thanks, Barry.
That page will come in handy for future references.
The curse of the cult of decisiveness.
Once the decision to invite is made then one can’t appear weak by changing ones mind.
It’s either that or else they were trying to be so open minded that their brain fell out and now they are afraid of moving lest they step on it.
Somewhere on YouTube is a great vid of Mike Shermer and Depak Chopra talking at Cal Poly. Chopra goes full in on his new physics/magic rant and at the end of the show someone stands and says (para fm memory): I teach nuclear physics here at Cal Poly and, while I know all the words you use when you speak, I haven’t the faintest clue as to what you’re talking about. chopra hems and haws but is clearly put down by real science. I see a similar story here…
That was Leonard Mlodinow.
It’s sort of like that line in Annie Hall, “Well, that’s funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here.”
That would be great to see.
Here ’tis
Sadly I think Joe Felsenstein lives in Seattle, not Chicago, so he probably won’t be there. But I’m sure the U. Chicago does not lack for mathematicians who can point out that the sort of ‘search space’ Dembski is talking about has nothing to do with the real world.
The real question is whether any of them have bothered to read or worry about Dembski’s work, as outside of the creation-evolution debate, I gather his work is pretty academically insignificant.
If you want someone with out-of-the-mainstream views about evolution, then you invite group selectionists, not creationists. Or better yet, you set up a symposium to discuss the relative contributions of natural selection and genetic drift – now that would be something of value.
The problem with “basic world views” is that they may be entirely unhinged from reality. Once you open that gate, all manner of crap can pour in. As Behe was forced to admit at Dover, if you open the door to ID, you open it to astrology, etc.
The organizer’s comments smack too much of “teach the controversy” for me.
When your primary occupation is apologetics, you keep using the same “argument” until it no longer does the job. Dembski’s CSI and CoI must still be able to persuade people to retain their God belief in the face of evidence to the contrary. That he can get a gig at the U of C will only help his ability to persuade those having doubts. It is big win for anti-evolutionists everywhere….
Perhaps what one can learn from an encounter with Dembski is how convoluted logic can get in defence of something indefensible. Usually called a snow job, or counting angels etc.
Hopefully someone in the audience will be astute enough to point out where logic takes leave of reality.
lolz.
He knows the guy.
As you’ve said, he was Dembski’s former supervisor.
It’s as simple as that.
I notice that Dembski has a new book coming out, Being as Communion. Sounds sciencey to me. It looks like he’s already got blurbs lined up by the likes of Michael Egnor and Rupert Sheldrake.
And the title is ripped off from a 1985 book by Jean Zizioulas.
This calls to mind a quote the internet attributes to Isaac Asimov:
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
And you know what? The Laws of Nature certainly don’t take the University’s position on “intelligent opinion”. For example, the Second Law of Thermodynamics has NO RESPECT for ANYTHING. Gravity similarly couldn’t care less about entertaining the “widest possible dialogue” on the subject. Why should science?
Interview in Newsweek, 21 January 1980.
/@
Larry Moran has just posted about this issue over at Sandwalk. He sides with the organizer of the Dembski talk, stating that this can be valuable b/c one can learn a lot about the views of an opponent, and about how they think by listening to them talk. History students should hear the views of a holocaust denier (he says (!)), I suppose b/c a university is where one should experience a range of views and and to see first hand how to use facts and evidence to robustly rebut views that are discredited.
Although I think he makes the best case that one can for being on that side of the issue, I find that I do not agree with him b/c those are not the only issues at play here. As Jerry has said, this event only plays into the strategy of the C/ID people to garner credibility. Seeking to expose students and faculty to other opinions does not immunize the university from getting a diminished reputation by inviting the inmates of a madhouse to have a romp on the campus. As Jerry had said, the talk will look a lot better on Dembskis’ academic record than on the record of the university.
I had to leave a comment on his site.
The bloody arrogance of some people pisses me off….
And Moran quite rightly reamed you a new one…
Yeah, I guess I deserved it. I was being an ass, too.
Oh well, can’t win ’em all.
I don’t think you were being an ass. I’d go over there and give my opinion but I’m way too tired to argue with Larry this evening.
Calling him a part of the problem may have been a bit much. 🙂
But there’s an excuse waiting if he wants it so hopefully that’ll be the end of that.
You have nothing to apologize for. Larry plays rough. I’m still waiting for him to respond to my comments about “junk DNA”. He has been going after the ENCODE people since they released their results a few years ago, claiming that 80% of the human genome is “functional”. I asked him if he wanted them to continue to make their flawed claims, or stop.
Maybe he really thinks ID isn’t religion anymore which would explain why he as a principle has no problem with lectures being given at universities.
But why he thinks continuing giving airtime to failed hypotheses is a sign of tolerance and open-mindedness is beyond me.
It’s not exactly like new shit has come to light in favour of the designer.
Yahweh truly works in mysterious ways. 🙂
From what I can gather, Larry is NOT of the opinion that ID is “not science”, but that it is “bad science”. But without a set of testable hypotheses, I don’t know how he can justify this position.
Makes sense.
If it’s just bad science instead of dishonest science then the preaching aspect of it is less relevant because they’re not lying on purpose.
To me it sounds like Yahweh’s fans have pulled a fast one on him and that he’s buying into the “it’s not religion. Pinkie swear.” apologetics of ID.
Bad science becomes *pseudoscience* by being repeated despite clear refutations. When? I dunno, but surely after a decade or so.
Besides, universities have limited budgets. Why not invite a speaker who is doing something new and interesting and controversial but not *known* to be ridiculous?
I liked your comments. I do not comment there very often, as I do not have time to track comments in more than one site. So here I will stay.
I liked your comments too.
In theory, one should certainly educate ones’ self on the ideas outside the mainstream.
But in practice, we all have limited time and the real question is whether such a thing is worth ones’ time and consideration. There is an opportunity cost associated with such speeches: what else could the students be learning with that time, and what other speaker could the University have invited to fill that slot?
Now I suppose it depends on what department and what lecture series is playing host to this event. If its a philosophy or political science colloquium on the Evolution/Creation in public education, he’s a good choice. If it’s a mathematics colloquium related to search algorithms or search spaces, its an odd but okay choice. But if it’s a biology colloquium, no, it’s bad choice, because there are so many other better choices the University could have made. In terms of education in biology, Dembski has too high an opportunity cost – there are too many other ways to use that time which would result in the students being better prepared, better educated.
Déjà-vu…
This is deeply embarrassing for Chicago.
When I was an undergraduate, my alma mater invited Michael Behe to give a talk. I was invited to have breakfast with him, and I happily declined. Our biology program did not invite him, thankfully. The religious studies program did (surprise), but the embarrassment and and head lowering were made no better by that simple fact.
Sean Carroll was invited several weeks later to give a talk on evolution. He was unaware of Behe’s talk (it was set up as a “dialog”) and was floored when he learned of it. He gave a great talk but was met with idiotic comments from the audience during the Q+A phase (one commenter wanted to see a fossilized strand of DNA). No doubt, many of the religious came out to his talk because Behe was in town several weeks prior.
I never forgave my undergrad institution for that. I won’t donate a penny until the admit it was a stain on our reputation.
I hope your institution doesn’t suffer too much from this; Chicago has a lot of admiration and prestige academically. It would be a sad day to see it tarnished, even slightly.
I think that Dembski has been given a pass with regard to his invitation to speak, in contrast with a discourse on homeopathy, astrology, or other suspect topics, because of his impeccable and very extensive academic credentials. He’s one of our own, so to speak, even though, in my opinion, his beautiful mind has slipped off the rails. He holds two doctorates, one in mathematics granted by The University of Chicago and a later degree in philosophy from The University of Illinois. He also holds a degree in theology and has been a professor at several Southern Baptist seminaries (no surprise here). Thus, to the extent that his dissertations were supervised, his work based upon them may even be considered peer reviewed.
His expansion of his most recent dissertation has been taken seriously in academia, and not just by those who are ignorant of the power of natural selection. Consider the following endorsement written for the back cover of Dembski’s 1998 edition of The Design Inference. The author of this blurb is is a U of Chgo professor who is a current and long time member of the University’s Committee on Evolutionary Biology and is well versed in the subject indeed. I have great respect for this professor’s knowledge and intellect; although not from my department, he was my dissertation chair (which is more than a little unsettling in this context). I do not know if he has had anything to do with Dembski’s invitation to speak at the University.
Here is what he wrote:
“Dembski has written a sparklingly original book. Not since David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion has someone taken such a close look at the design argument, but it is done now in a much broader post-Darwinian context. Now we proceed with modern characterizations of probability and complexity, and the results bear fundamentally on notions of randomness and on strategies for dealing with the explanation of radically improbable events. . . .Dembski’s analysis of randomness is the most sophisticated to be found in the literature, and his discussions are an important contribution to the theory of explanation, and a timely discussion of a neglected and unanticipatedly important topic.”
In short, there is precedent for dialogue with Dembski on this campus. I personally wish he had never been invited. No matter how fascinating any discussion might be, to the extent that The Discovery Institute benefits (and it will), science loses, as do the children he “protects” from knowledge of the facts of evolution. The latter is especially sad.
Said committee member also was a participant in this fairly recent Templeton sponsored event: The Humble Approach Initiative
Which claims the following:
I feel the need to paraphrase Kevin Henkes from Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse: “Wow! That’s just about all I can say, Wow!
I feel the need to roll my eyes.
I feel the need to stick my finger down my throat. What a bunch of New Agey, post-moderny crap!
16 years later, it has maybe lost a bit of it’s sparkle. I suppose it was a flag worth running up the pole at the time, but no one is saluting it anymore. It’s time to retire the topic.
If your model disagrees with the universe, throw out the model. I’m sure you could create a mathematical model that proves that humanity began only a few centuries ago, based on current population growth rates, but that doesn’t make you correct.
This is a very good point and it exposes flaws not just in the junk science of intelligent design but with metaphysical arguments for God which are compatible (in that they are logically possible) given what we know about reality. Someone who stumbled across the data about human population growth and saw that the population is doubling approximately once every 50 years could extrapolate that back about 1700 years and come to the conclusion that human life started around 300 CE. This would be a logically sound model and it would in all likelihood be useful for predicting the world population for several more generations going forward. But, we just can’t simply model (or argue as is attempted in philosophy) a claim into existence.
Believe it or not, I have actually run across arguments such as this in defending a 6000 year old Earth. The argument goes that we never could’ve been here for hundreds of thousands of years or else or population would far exceed what it is today. Pay no attention to the contradictory claims that we need to continue to be fruitful and multiply forever. God, in his infinite love, will either wipe out a good portion of the Earth again or rapture all the believers up into the sky before it gets too out of hand…
“So what does intelligent design have that homeopathy and astrology doesn’t?”
Superior PR, apparently. Or more cynically, seven years of most people’s childhoods in current US subcultures.
“The person who wrote the above is not a biologist, but a smart and accomplished academic. How can someone like that have the attitude that all views are worth airing—or invite (and pay) someone to talk about them at a good university?”
Someone like that has a religious agenda. I’d go so far as to say the academic who invited Dembski very likely believes evolution is the foundation of an immoral world view and his immediate intent is to help bolster Dembski’s credibility the better for him to persuade that the Theory of Evolution is rubbish.
“It’s like the old mathematical “proof” that honeybees can’t fly. We don’t need the math; we can just watch the bees.”
It’s actually a little worse. It’s like believing that bees can’t fly even after the math has been figured out. Because, deep down, your faith requires you to believe that the Creator holds each flying insect in his invisible hand.
Simply put, Prof K made a BLUNDER inviting a creationist to give a lecture on woo (jeeze louise, the word “teology” is in the abstract!) and he’s too CHICKEN to fix it.
So, Prof K is now on a crusade to rationalize his BAD DECISION as a teaching moment.
I suspect the only person in this entire mess who will fail to learn anything is Prof K. What a dumbass.
The price of admission for speaking at the Academy is honesty. Open inquiry, rational argument, evidence for claims, and following the evidence.
Dogmatic religionists must remain ticketless outside the gate. Denial of admission is not a denial of alternative viewpoints but an affirmation of the value of academia: honesty.
Dembski seems to inhabit a world which takes no account of reality. To normal people, it would be quite a big clue that their pet notion is wrong if there is masses of evidence against it. Dembski, however, appears to think the very many examples of evolution by natural selection are no reason to think that his theory that evolution by natural selection is impossible might be wrong.
It must be like trying to sustain belief in the notion that flying machines are impossible whilst whilst living under a flightpath.
Hi Rosa:
Good to see you again. Yes, Dembski appears to have problems accepting reality. By the way, I still visit your site, but I’m not a member of any of the remaining posting options, so I can’t post. However, I thought the first two paragraphs of your post from a day or two ago were a majestically concise explanation of the difference between science and religion, and thought I’d bring them to a wider readership here.
From Rosa’s post Human Evolution – Completing the Picture:
To me, watching a science grow and develop is what makes it more like an adventure than a dull, academic subject. Discoveries are made and fed into the mix; ideas and opinions are contributed by people who are experts in the field; old ideas are revised, reviewed and discarded if necessary and eventually a new consensus emerges which is, in the long run, a little closer to the truth. All the while the picture grows in clarity, sometime becoming more complex that we thought and sometimes simpler.
How unlike religion where the entire effort is devoted to excusing yet again that which is nothing more than evidence-free dogma, finding new and ever more creative workarounds for the fact of no evidence, and inventing new ways to bamboozle a diminishing following into believing that, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and despite the enormous gains of science and its contribution to human welfare since the enlightenment, their Bronze-Age belief in magic is the best explanation of reality.
Thank you. Glad you like it. I’m afraid I had to restrict who can post comments in my blog because of the volume of infantile gibberish and abuse I was getting, especially from one particular individual who was posting sometimes a dozen or more bizarre comments a day.
When Dembski spoke of the “Logos theology”, I don’t suppose it might have been a typo for this?
http://www.onpoptheology.com/2014/02/a-theology-of-legos.html
🙂
So there are a portion of academics who would argue that inviting Dembski is a good idea b/c a university should be a place where diverse views are heard, even if some are already demolished by the weight of evidence. Although the argument is sound, in principle, I think that applying it to invite a flat earther like Dembski is still a mistake b/c it helps to damage the reputation of the university that sponsors it.
If it is ok to invite the likes of Dembski, then it is also ok to invite Behe and other C/ID proponents. Why not invite these clowns regularly? Heck, let ’em come and talk on your campus as often as they would like. If a little bit of implied endorsement of these IDiots is ok, then a lot must be better, right? See how open an fruitful are our discussions? Gee, I feel edified! And my students? well, they can learn more about the give and take of real science in the real world after they graduate!
By Prof Kadanoff’s standard any woo master would be equal to any scientist. Hell, bring on Deepak and Wakefield and Osteen and Hinn and Hambo and Walt Brown.
Bring them all on because they have points of view!
The U of C should call this the Cluster Fuck Symposium where any thing goes, especially out of your ears!
I think you’ve hit it on the head. The world has become such a goofy place that simply having a ‘point of view’ puts you in the position of having something important to say.
What, no Jenny McCarthy?
Jenny McCarthy, University of Google
U of G – more respectable and less narrow-minded than the Discovery Institute
Not meaning, of course, that Ms. McCarthy’s views are respectable.
Dr. Coyne, it sounds like the cranks have persuaded otherwise respectable academics in your own backyard to believe in woo. This is discouraging.
Perhaps someone at U of C should organize a symposium (or at least a single talk) demonstrating how and why Dembski and his ilk are cranks, why DI is a scam, and why it is a very bad idea for UofC to waste their precious credibility on folks like that.
“Cleanse the inner vessel first” and all that. It might be worth the effort in the long run.
I think Jerry should suck it up, and go to the seminar (apparently tomorrow Aug 13, not the 19th). At the end, when the host asks for questions, he should try to put Dembski’s reputation into serious doubt with the audience, with one well-thought out (and very polite) question.
Why? Because the crackpots need to be exposed regularly, until they are doing no harm. Here in Louisiana, the Discovery Institute, and their pseudo-scientists, are one of the main weapons used by creationists to discredit ‘evolutionist’ science. I can’t see any help for the continued success of their propaganda, except by public education. Showing up at their public appearances and throwing doubt on their ‘scientific’ views seems an essential part of that public education. And I am hoping Jerry can phrase a question that brings out Dembski’s crazy side.
My suggestion is:
After 20 years of proposing revolutionary ideas in evolutionary biology, why have you not found even a few supporters for your ideas within the large research community that works in evolutionary biology and genetics? I know that number is essentially zero, because I have spent my career there, and know the field. Are we just universally stupid?
(Note: Dembski has even dismissed James Shapiro and his ‘third way’ as a closet Darwinist.)
Most important for public education, is to hammer at the fact that for every scientist who knows the field and has sympathy for Intelligent Design, there are thousands who dismiss them as a waste of time. Even Prof. K ought to begin to entertain some doubts.
Ha! I got a free chapter of Shapiro’s book when I first got my iPad. I was really excited, in part because it was free, and in part because…iPad! I started reading it, and it wasn’t long before I got to the WTF? stage. Loony ideas that man has.
Ha ha, I love this line because I can so relate to being excited over those two things: “….in part because it was free, and in part because…iPad!”