Another pan of “Darwin’s Doubt”

August 16, 2013 • 10:10 am

The National Review is a conservative magazine, so it’s all the more heartening that it just published a review of Stephen Meyer’s new pro-intelligent-design book (Darwin’s Doubt) that is a total pan.

The review is called “How nature works” by John Farrell, a reader here whom the NR describes this way:  “Mr. Farrell writes a science/tech blog for Forbes, and is the author of The Day Without Yesterday: Lemaître, Einstein, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology.”

It will cost you all of 25¢ to read the whole thing, but if you can’t spare a quarter, John’s given me permission to post a few excerpts.  One of his main beefs, which I won’t document here, is that Meyer repeatedly distorts the scientists he quotes in support of his bogus claim that because Cambrian Explosion was too quick to reflect naturalistic evolution, Jesus must have done it.  Here’s the conclusion of Farrell’s piece:

At no point in the book does Meyer ever actually discuss these issues with Marshall, or Davidson, or any of the scientists working deeply in the field. He simply lifts quotes from their papers as they seem convenient to his point.

This is the most disappointing aspect of Meyer’s book. It’s hard to read a book like Darwin’s Doubt in parallel, for example, with a book like New Yorker writer Jim Holt’s Why Does the World Exist? Holt spent months chasing down and interviewing a wide range of philosophers and scientists—simply to get their answer to the age-old question: Why is there something rather than nothing? It’s a delightful, thought-provoking read for all the reasons that Meyer’s is not. Holt lets none of his subjects off the hook—politely, but persistently, questioning their opinions and assertions.

In the last part of the book, Meyer criticizes what he believes to be scientists’ bias against ID, the predisposition never to entertain it as an explanation for the Cambrian Explosion: “They have accepted a self-imposed limitation on the hypotheses they are willing to consider. . . . If researchers refuse as a matter of principle to consider the design hypothesis, they will obviously miss any evidence that happens to support it.”

But the notion that scientists are not open to the possibility of agent action in the world is not accurate. In 1967, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a graduate student in astrophysics at Cambridge, discovered a radio signal coming from the Crab Nebula. It was a fantastically rapid pulse—too rapid to be natural, it was first believed. That it might be the work of an intelligence was seriously considered—until the lack of variation in the beacon-like pulses, accompanied soon by the discovery of other sources sending similar beams toward earth, persuaded scientists that there was likely a natural explanation. Ultra-dense stars called “pulsars” are now considered the culprits.

In the end, Darwin’s Doubt boils down to a fundamentally weak argument—the argument from personal incredulity about the origin and evolution of life on earth. As John Henry Newman wrote in 1872: “I have not insisted on the argument from design. . . . To tell the truth, though I should not wish to preach on the subject, for 40 years I have been unable to see the logical force of the argument myself. I believe in design because I believe in God; not in a God because I see design.”

Of course Meyer’s book is selling well to creationists and their sympathizers, but sales seem to have plummeted: it’s no longer on the top 25 list of New York Times bestsellers, and fell off after only a week.  I pronounce it thus:
Attack cat! copy

Dawkins event (avec moi) in Chicago

August 16, 2013 • 7:49 am

As many of you know, Richard Dawkins has written the first part of a two-part autobiography, An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist, which will go on sale September 24.  I have a prepublication copy, and if you have any interest in Richard or his science (a lot of it is about science), I recommend the book highly. This first volume goes up to the publication of The Selfish Gene in 1976, and volume 2, continuing up to the present, will be out in two years or so.

Richard will be appearing here in Chicago (Evanston, actually) on October 3 at the Pick-Staiger Concert Hall at 7 p.m.  There are links with details here and here, and I’m not sure whether there’s an entrance fee (I doubt it).  I’ll be interviewing Richard about the book—and other stuff—onstage for about 45 minutes, and then he’ll have Q&A with the audience. It should be great fun, and I’ll try to think up some good questions.

This is part of a national book tour covering cities from New York to California, and you can see the schedule here.

Just a note that you should keep your eye on the Chicago links, as tickets, whether free or not, are sure to go fast. Right now they haven’t said anything about how to reserve seats.

The 10 atheists “most wanted to debate” list, and the defeasibility test

August 16, 2013 • 6:07 am

From some organization called Dare2Debate.net, which I don’t know but seems loosely affiliated with the late Duane Gish, we get a list of the ten atheists most wanted for debate.

Their “challenge”:

Objective: To schedule and promote a one-day Creation Conference to be held in conjunction with each proposed debate.  Each conference will be held on a Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and the debate, if it happens (if the opponent accepts the challenge), will take place that night in the same facility.  The conferences will be held in the following cities….

Norman, Oklahoma @ the University of Oklahoma

They give a phone number.

To accept the challenge, call 1-877-2DEBATE.

When you call it (I called via Skype just to check), you get a message that “You have dialed a number that cannot be reached.”  I suppose that’s a metaphor for the mentality of these creationists.

Picture 2

What good company I’m in! But I’m sad that they could find nothing better to pwn me with than this: “Jerry Coyne, professor of biology at the University of Chicago, runs a web site [at least they got that right] called ‘Why Evolution is true’ and has written a book entitled the same.” OMG: I’m humiliated! At least they could have dumped on me the way they did on Pinker: “With a smug look and condescending voice, Harvard professor Steven Pinker says, ‘The idea we were put here for some purpose is ignorance. . “.  Of course, anybody who knows or sees Pinker realizes that he doesn’t produce smug looks, and his voice is not condescending but passionate. 

What am I afraid of? Nothing, you lamebrains, except that debates aren’t the way to settle the question of evolution, which we already know is true. They are exercises in rhetoric and showmanship, with the creationist debaters engaging in the “Gish Gallop,” as Genie Scott called it.  I much prefer to engage the questions of creation vs evolution in either public lectures (where I do take questions) or, preferably, in print, as in the article I wrote on Intelligent Design for the New Republic, “The faith that dare not speak its name.” That brought me literally hundreds of  positive emails from readers and effected several conversions to evolution.

With articles, books, or longish lectures, the reader/viewer can contemplate the issues at leisure, which is really the only way to come to weigh the evidence dispassionately.

Oh, and debates give creationists an undeserved credibility. It’s like debating a homeopath or a flat-earther.

I received the most wanted list from professor Peter Boghossian, also one of the “wanted,” who was bursting with pride (“We made it!” he crowed).  When I asked Peter if he’d ever consider such a debate, he responded, “I don’t debate anyone until they’ve passed the defeasibility test.”

The test was devised by Matt McCormick, who defines it thusly:

So in the spirit of John Loftus’ Outside Test for Faith, I propose a test.  Before I or any other doubter, atheist, skeptic, or non-believer engages in a discussion about the reasons for and against God, the believer must look deep into his heart and mind and ask this question:  Are there any considerations, arguments, evidence, or reasons, even hypothetically that could possibly lead me to change my mind about God?  Is it even a remotely possible outcome that in carefully and thoughtfully reflecting on the broadest and most even body of evidence that I can grasp, that I would come to think that my current view about God is mistaken?  That is to say, is my belief defeasible?
If the answer is no, then we’re done.  There is nothing informative, constructive, or interesting to be found in your contribution to dialogue.  Anything you have to say amounts to sophistry.  We can’t take your input any more seriously than the lawyer who is a master of casuistry and who can provide rhetorically masterful defenses of every side of an issue.  She’s not interested in the truth, only is scoring debate points or the construction of elaborate rhetorical castles (that float on air).
In all fairness, we must demand the same from skeptics, doubters, and atheists.  They are just as guilty of conflict if they rail against religious beliefs for lacking rational justification, but in turn there are no possible considerations that could ever lead them to relinquish their doubts.

Peter considers this idea to be one of the “most important to come down the pike in a long time.” And I do think that Loftus’s related argument, in which he says that believers must apply the same standards to their own faith that they use when rejecting other faiths, is a great contribution to the science/religion debates.  And do note the last paragraph of McCormick’s quote, which argues that an evolutionist can debate only if you’re open to evidence and argument against evolution—and presumably for religion.  Well,  as I’ve always said, I am open to evidence for God and the truth claims of particular religions, and I’ve specified what would provisionally convince me of their existence. And all evolutionists are open to good arguments against the fact of evolution.  We just haven’t seen any. (Some, like P. Z. Myers, have specified that there is no evidence of any sort that could convince them of a god’s existence, and we differ on this issue.)

But you couldn’t convince me of these things in a debate: it requires lots of documentation and observation that isn’t on tap in a short exchange of views.

Peter added this in his email, ” [If] someone wants to debate you, just have them take the defeasibility test. 100% of potential debate opponents will go away.”

There I don’t agree, and for two reasons.  First, some believers claim that they are open to changing their minds, and have given on this website the evidence that would convince them.  (Whether one believes them or not is another issue.) In fact, many believers, including former pastors like Mike Aus, Jerry DeWitt, John Loftus, and Dan Barker, have given up religion when they rationally considered the arguments against it.

So I don’t think that 100% of opponents will go away.

Second, those opponents, since they’re already practiced in lying for Jesus, have a strong incentive to lie about accepting the defeasibility test so they can get you on the platform with them.

The fact is that debates are not the place to settle issues of science. I would no more debate a creationist than I would debate a fellow scientist in public about whether speciation is largely sympatric (occurring in one area) or more often allopatric (occurring in populations separated by geographic barriers). Such debates occur, and the issues weighed and often settled, in public lectures and scientific papers.

If you want to debate me about evolution, just read my book and publish a written response.  Good luck.

New boots

August 16, 2013 • 4:26 am

I recently got these, though they aren’t absolutely new.  They’re by Pablo Jass of Lampasas, Texas, a renowed bootmaker who makes his footwear in the style of his mentor, the even more famous Ray Jones, perhaps the best bootmaker of the 20th century.  Both of them made the sturdiest boots I’ve ever seen: they’re heavy and built like tanks. Particularly with this hide, these boots should last until I’m worm food.

By the way, Pablo Jasses are the only boots worn by Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of the New Republic.

Guess the hide.

boots

A tiny juvenile bird

August 16, 2013 • 3:13 am

From the Facebook page City Wildlife, out of Washington, D.C., comes this photo of a baby rubythroat about to be rescued:

Meet our smallest rehab patient- a baby ruby-throated hummingbird! (We held up a penny for size comparison!) It was brought into City Wildlife after falling from its nest. This baby is so small and delicate that it needs to be fed a few drops of nectar every 15 minutes! Because they are so fragile, hummingbirds typically do not do very well in rehab so the best thing to do if you find an orphaned baby is to try and reunite it with its parents.

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If you have an American penny, pull it out to see how small this bird is.

h/t: Amy

Canadian lemmings!

August 15, 2013 • 6:17 pm

After all the recent talk on this site about the distinctive politeness of Canadians, I thought I’d post this great cartoon from a recent New Yorker. (You can buy a high-priced print at Condé Nast):

Screen shot 2013-08-15 at 8.13.18 PMAddendum:  Reader Diana MacPherson sent me a copy of what Canadians see when they try to view videos on the Colbert report:

Screen Shot 2013-08-15 at 9.44.12 PM

I wonder if each country has a specific message. Russians, for instance, may see this one: “Sorry, in Soviet Russia the Colbert report views you.”

Double accomodationist fail

August 15, 2013 • 1:12 pm

Ceiling Cat help me, I’ve spent most of today rereading Francis Collins’s The Language of God and Ken Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God, both popular accommodationist books. (I reviewed Miller’s book, along with one by Karl Giberson, here).

Miller’s is far superior, largely because he spends a lot of the book dismantling intelligent design (ID).  (He also doesn’t mention C. S. Lewis, which Collins does repeatedly.) But what is distressing is that after decrying ID for relying on God-of-the-gaps arguments, Miller goes ahead and uses exactly that device when raising the “fine tuning” argument for God (“science can’t explain the laws of physics that make our existence possible—ergo God”), and speculating that quantum mechanics may be the way that God produces both mutations and free will.  It’s also distressing that Miller blames American creationism largely on atheists, without so much as a nod to religion.

“I believe much of the problem [Americans’ rejection of evolution] lies with atheists in the scientific community who routinely enlist the material findings of evolutionary biology in support [sic] their own philosophical pronouncements. Sometimes, as we have seen, these take the form of stern, seemingly dispassionate pronouncements about the meaninglessness of life. Other times, we are lectured that the contingency of our presence on this planet invalidates any sense of human purpose. And very often we are told that the raw reality of nature strips the trapping of authority from any human system of morality.”  (Miller, p. 277).

Miller seems unaware that creationism long antedates public scientific atheism, and that creationism has held pretty steady despite the growth in the number of nonbelievers.  I don’t get his statement about nature toppling human morality.

Collins falls into the same rhetorical trap: both decrying and employing God-of-the-gaps arguments. His most annoying one is the invocation of God as the only explanation for “innate’ human morality, which he calls “the Moral Law.” At any rate, I’ve written about the flawed logic of these books before.

But this post, which has gotten longer than the few lines I envisioned, is merely an excuse to put up this kitten fail:

catfail_zpsb1a25dcb

And it’s such a spectacular fail!

Pinker on Colbert: Calm down about terrorism

August 15, 2013 • 10:19 am

Steve Pinker made a five-minute appearance on Tuesday’s “Colbert Report.”  Pinker emphasizes that the TSA, and the news media, overemphasize the dangers caused by terrorism compared to other and deadlier threats. He also decries the failure of the U.S. government to perform cost-benefit analysis on things like Homeland Security.

Note Colbert’s joking reference to Pinker’s “helmet,” and, since we’re talking about his hair, I have to add that this is the first time I’ve seen Steve wear a sport jacket rather than a suit.

Note: If the YouTube video doesn’t work in your country, you can watch the segment on the official Colbert site here.