David Berlinski went crying to the Discovery Institute weblog after I cussed him out here. I mentioned that he sent me one e-mail message, which I posted here, but there were also several others, one of which is posted at the DI. He exhibits his usual arrogant blindness, claiming that my dissection of his editorial was "supported neither by argument nor a rational appeal to the evidence", which is astounding in its dishonesty. I went through his article point by point and explained how it reflected a thorough lack of understanding about how science works, and included links to refute specific claims.

He also sent me a third letter, after I criticized his failure to understand the Kingsolver article. Here it is:

Much better. You have managed to cite a reference. But you have not -- in any way -- demonstrated that my own citation is inappropriate or in any way misguided. "Adaptation by natural selection," Andrew P. Hendry observed in the February 17th issue of /Nature/, " is the centerpiece of biology." Just so. It is. "Yet evolutionary biologists may be deluding themselves," he at once added,"if they think they have a good handle on the typical strength of selection in nature." My view entirely and the view I expressed by observing that "field studies inevitably report weak to non-existent selection effects." Now Hendry does not take this as a criticism of Darwin's theory. It is entirely possible that those weak or non-existent selection effects reflect statistical imperfections in various studies, a hypothesis that Kingsolver et al also entertain. But it is possible as well that a great number of studies have reported weak or non-existent selection effects because they are not there. Insofar as field studies are at issue, the burden of proof is hardly mine to meet. A physicist proposing a new force of nature, and proposing to make that force the cornerstone of his far-reaching theory, must demonstrate its existence before championing his theory. Elementary, no? It is only among evolutionary biologists that the reverse is true.

My own view is that neither random variation nor natural selection play an important role in evolution and that /au fond /evolution occupies a space with precisely as many degrees of freedom as embryology. I have not argued for this view and it plays no role in any criticisms I have made of evolutionary doctrine.

Read that first paragraph carefully. He's a mathematician, but he doesn't seem to understand statistics at all, and he definitely doesn't understand biology. I get the impression he's trying to suggest that we need to postulate an underestimate of the strength of selection to 'rescue' evolutionary theory. But, as I said multiple times, strong selection is not a requirement for evolution to occur; selection happens with even weak effects, and evolution will continue in the absence of selection. That he is oblivious to this reveals that he is deeply ignorant of basic principles of evolutionary theory, and has no business criticizing it.

But look at this comment: "it is possible...that...studies have reported weak or non-existent selection effects because they are not there". Berlinski has confused the magnitude of an effect with its statistical significance! I look forward to seeing him tell the physicists that since the charge on an electron is so tiny, 1.602 x 10^-19 coulombs, they should be prepared to consider the possibility that its value is actually 0.

Quite contrary to his claim, the existence of natural selection has been demonstrated, and the magnitude of the measured selection coefficients are entirely compatible with the observed rates of change over evolutionary history.

As for his bizarre idea about how evolution occurs…Teilhard de Chardin would be pleased, I'm sure. He still has one acolyte clinging to orthogenesis; one who knows nothing about the evidence or the concepts of biology, and one who will willingly lie about what biologists actually say to advance his cause. And of course he has no cause to believe in his theory, or he'd be championing it, but I'm sure he has faith.