#35982: Les Lane — 08/16  at  11:38 AM
This is how one becomes an "Isaac Newton of information theory".

#35983: Rockstar — 08/16  at  11:40 AM
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! That's awesome.

#35984: jre — 08/16  at  11:42 AM
I was just reading Mark Perakh's commentary on Dembski in Unintelligent Design.

In it, he gives a good example of Dembski's "mathematism" (as distinct from mathematics). Dembski outlines his argument for a particular feature being the result of "design" as a series of linked syllogisms. It is understandable, logically self-consistent -- and, as Perakh points out, bogus. Dembski then proceeds to translate the whole thing into mathematical symbolism in a way that makes the whole thing really, really impressive-looking and totally impenetrable to the casual reader. The fancy symbols add nothing at all to the argument, but they do make it more difficult to point out its flaws.

#35985: Adam Ierymenko — 08/16  at  12:03 PM
... I hate to keep bashing postmodernism, but...

This strikes me as yet another example of how ID is "postmodern conservatism" (or maybe more accurately postmodern religious apologetics). I sometimes define postmodernism as: a collection of elaborate rhetorical and other tricks whose purpose is to jam and paralyze rational discourse. It's essentially a set of tricks to disarm enlightenment reason and skepticism in order to permit the survival of ideas that are inanely stupid once they are unmasked. One of these tricks is the use of unnecessary complexity in the presentation. "The subject is contextualised into a neomaterialist dialectic theory..." Huh? The gratuitous use of gratuitously complex mathematical notation is another example... what another poster called "mathematism."

When someone has something to say, they will say it. Although all ideas have complex nuances, the "gist of it" can usually be explained to a five year old. The use of unnecessarily complex language is a sure sign that one is dealing with pretentious rubbish. Presentation should be only as complex as is absolutely necessary to communicate an idea.

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/profundusmaximus.htm

#35991: dread pirate roberts — 08/16  at  12:21 PM
"One of these tricks is the use of unnecessary complexity in the presentation."

thank you adam lerymenko.

i find it charmingly hilarious that "unneccesary complexity" is used to argue for "irreducible complexity."

#35992: Wm Annis — 08/16  at  12:24 PM
This strikes me as yet another example of how ID is "postmodern conservatism" (or maybe more accurately postmodern religious apologetics). I sometimes define postmodernism as: a collection of elaborate rhetorical and other tricks whose purpose is to jam and paralyze rational discourse.

I've noticed this a lot in the last few years myself. That's a great definition of pomoism.

But the usual procedure gives off a strong whiff of Pyrrhonism, too. Require a standard of evidence of such Platonic purity that it is impossible to meet. Once epistemology has been sent packing you can say "it's impossible for you to know anything, so I get to believe whatever the hell I want."

#35995: Adam Ierymenko — 08/16  at  12:46 PM
A few people have posted about epistemology in light of this.

I have come up with a simple litmus test that condenses a lot of very sophisticated scientific and rational epistemology into one very simple idea. I call it the "inference of truth from practical result."

It could be stated as follows:

When human beings apply their intellect to solve a problem, the ideas that led them to solve the problem *must* contain at least some element of truth. The more frequently an idea appears within the intellectual background to the solution of a problem, the more likely that idea is to be true. An idea that never results in any solution to any problem is probably not true. An idea that could never result in any solution to any problem is arbitrary and worthless.

This is, for example, why I reject ID a priori: it will never and could never result in any technology because it does not propose a causal explanation for the "complexity" that it discusses.

Evolution, on the other hand, has already resulted in technologies (in agriculture, genetic programming, the use of antibiotics, evolutionary refinement of biocatalysts, etc.) and will probably result in even more advanced technologies in the future.

Even ideas like the big bang, though they are far from practical application, could at least *intersect constructively* with other ideas from physics that have practical import. By intersect constructively I mean that the big bang could at least contribute something nontrivial to our understanding of physics as a whole. I can't see how ID could possible do this, since it does not contain any content in the form of causal models of how the universe works.

From a blog article I wrote: "every rotation of a dynamo at a power plant constitues an experiment; every time you flip on a light switch the results of that experiment are confirmed." This is a great concrete example.

#35997: Jim Harrison — 08/16  at  12:55 PM
There's a latin proverb to the effect that everything becomes a weapon in a fight. Accusing the ID folks of postmodernism provides an instance. It's true that some ID writers have picked up on trendy jargon and dropped various names in an effort to score points--everything's a weapon to them, too--but if there is some relation between ID and POMO (however defined) it is surely on a deeper level than intellectual borrowing. Just as men did not evolve from apes but both evolved from something earlier, I expect both ID and POMO stem from the same set of cultural and social discontents that Jeffrey Herf described some years ago in Reactionary Modernism.

By the way, may I point out that the word "Postmodernism" has pretty much lost all of its specificity by now and no longer has much use outside of polemic? It would be pretty hard to define exactly what POMO was ever supposed to be about--even structuralism had a tighter set of themes and premises--and circa 2005, we're really trying to nail jello to the wall. By some law of intellectual taphonomy, all European intellectual movements eventually become cultural relativism as they fossilize in America. It's like plutonium
decaying in to lead. Only POMO wasn't very radioactive to begin with.

#36001: — 08/16  at  01:31 PM

#35982: Les Lane — 08/16 at 11:38 AM
This is how one becomes an "Isaac Newton of information theory".

Dembski (note proper vowel usage) is the Fig Newton of Information Theory.

Trackback: Peezee Myers on Bill Dembski Tracked on: Huperborea (72.9.234.70) at 2005 08 16 13:50:49
Peezee Myers posted the following to Panda's Thumb...

#36006: — 08/16  at  02:28 PM
I'm not sure what Huperborea is supposed to be; I was trackbacked there once, too, on account of my "nonsensical scientism" (I probably really had overstated my case a tad). Anyway, my response to this trackback was to post the question, "Haven't you ever heard of synecdoche"?

#36008: PZ Myers — 08/16  at  02:33 PM
That guy is a known troll, and something of an idiot. Ignore anything from Huperborea or Robert O'Brien; he's just not worth the effort.

#36010: — 08/16  at  02:46 PM
Isn't that the same Robert O'brien that Ed Brayton of Dispatches from the Culture Wars has named his Idiot of the Month after?

#36011: PZ Myers — 08/16  at  02:48 PM
Yes.

#36015: — 08/16  at  03:10 PM
BWAAAHAAAHAAA HAAAAHAAA!!!
They laughed at me at the Institute!
Scoffed at my theories... Said I was mad!

#36016: — 08/16  at  03:16 PM
The current issue of Skeptic (the one with a portrait of Ernst Mayr on the cover) features an article by Perakh eviscerating Dembski's sophistry.

#36031: John Wilkins — 08/16  at  05:04 PM
BWAAAHAAAHAAA HAAAAHAAA!!!
They laughed at me at the Institute!
Scoffed at my theories... Said I was mad!

Which goes to show some "theories" can be spot on...

#36036: rob stowell — 08/16  at  05:46 PM
There's a perennial debate here about whether the IDistas are morons or liars. This New yorker article may provide the answer. Mostly they seem to come under the wide mantle of "the bullshitters". That's not to say they have no regard for "the truth"- just not the independently verifiable truth as we know it.
Its a great article: putting forward the idea that the truth is under more threat from bullshitters (those who don't care what the truth is, that from liars- who do care- and intend to steer us away from it.

#36046: — 08/16  at  06:43 PM
Check out this brilliant statement and see if you can parse it without going insane:

Now, real science does not pretend to answer “why” questions, it only answers “how” questions. By insisting there is no “why” – a proposition which real science is manifestly not equipped to discuss - evolution is shown to be nothing more than nihilistic philosophy dressed up as science.

Got that? Evolution doesn't try to answer "why" questions, it focuses on "how", but it is not a real science because... Well, it just isn't, okay? What a good argument. It's from a turgid essay by one of those Catholics who loves so-called Intelligent Design and can't accept the fact that John Paul II ("of happy memory", as they are wont to say) tried to close the book on evolution denial. The author is one Steve Kellmeyer, who has the audacity to name his diatribe Galileo Redux. A man with no sense of irony or shame.

#36060: — 08/16  at  08:04 PM
I love the fact that our conservative Christian fundamentalists draw on an idea (the relative nature of all "metanarratives") that was most prominently promoted by a gay French neo-Marxist.

If there is a god, she's got a HELL of a sense of humor.

#36081: — 08/17  at  01:14 AM
Bill Dembski wrote:
"These results have been thoroughly vetted. I first presented an overview of them at a technical seminar at the Niels Bohr Institute last year. There was no challenge to the mathematics."

Obviously the attendees at the NBI symposium had no problems, so why not submit your ideas for publication in peer reviewed journals from your relevant fields of information theory and biology? They will be only too willing to vet your ideas with the the utmost thoroughness. It can be rough, but you'll learn a lot. I bet you'll be a better scientist for the experience!

#36088: — 08/17  at  04:35 AM
It should be mentioned that Dembski was invited by the Theological Faculty of the University of Copenhagen. One of the active people behind Dembskis visit was Jakob Wolf, who is a defender of ID, not as science, but as an "extended" way to achieve knowledge. JW claims that science uses a causal way to knowledge, whilst faith gives us a theological route. The connector between the two is the analogical, which is the ID way.


You can find some of JW's work here:
http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-6-t-000223.html

/Soren

#36101: — 08/17  at  06:41 AM
Somebody needs to start a betting pool on how long it will take for Dumbski to become so delusional that he has to be institutionalized.

#36107: — 08/17  at  07:46 AM

Bill Dembski wrote:
"These results have been thoroughly vetted. I first presented an overview of them at a technical seminar at the Niels Bohr Institute last year. There was no challenge to the mathematics."

I imagine it would be really embarassing to be invited to give a presentation at a prestigious institute and to have problems with your mathematics handed to you on a plate.

Whether the maths is right is important to a degree, but more important is that assumptions he's using are correct. If the assumptions are incorrect then his math is irrelevant.

#36129: — 08/17  at  10:06 AM

#36101: Steve LaBonne — 08/17 at 06:41 AM
Somebody needs to start a betting pool on how long it will take for Dumbski to become so delusional that he has to be institutionalized.

Too late. The lucky institution is the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary