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Thursday, November 17, 2005

Open Thread

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This is not going to become the all-Scott-Adams blog, and this will be my last post on the subject, but he has put up another comment—a request that people write in and show specifically where he was wrong. Of course, Adams moderates his comments, and is going to use this as an excuse to whine editorially. For instance, there's one comment there that says that "Scott claims that the Darwinism/ID debate is scientific", and that ID doesn't meet the standards of science; Adams says he didn't say that and dismisses it. But of course, what Adams did do was assume parity of the scientific and creationist arguments, and present the ID arguments against evolution as if they had some legitimacy. You can tell that he's just going to hide behind his excuse of "I'm a humorist just reporting what some people have said," and that thread is going to go nowhere.

So, instead, I'll take advantage of the open thread mechanism here and invite you all to put your rebuttals here. Remember, take specific things Adams has said and explain why they are wrong.

It is really silly and hypocritical for Adams to be doing that. My original comment on this business was a list of specific things Adams got wrong with explanations for how they were wrong, and he just ran away and said he didn't say any of it. Expect much hairsplitting from him.

Anyway, here's the short list of things I said in that first post. Add some more!

  • Adams claims the Designists only differ from us in answering the question of how change occurred. I pointed out that they don't try to answer the "how" question, and asked him to list some specific hypotheses.
  • Adams made a vague statement that "Darwinism" was full of flaws; it sounded much like the usual Discovery Institute claims, most of which are cataloged in Wells' Icons of Evolution. I linked to a refutation of the book.
  • Adams made a specific claim that all hominid fossils would fit in a small box. I gave a link and a quote from a source that shows that is wrong, and also mentioned that it was irrelevant—ID creationists argue against evolution of properties common to all chordates or all eukaryotes.
  • Adams made claims about biologists that are completely wrong. He says that "90%+" of all scientists think Darwin got it right; I pointed out that this is not the case at all, we are well aware of parts that he got wrong, and this is why we object to the silly business of calling us "Darwinists".
  • Adams says that it is a "not-so-kooky argument" that scientists are so specialized that they don't understand the big picture, that all scientists are thinking their own fields lack evidence for evolution, and we're all cluelessly assuming the other guy has the data. This is not true at all for most of us. He seems to reject the arguments of scientists, though, because they are scientists. Apparently, cartoonists are supposed to be better able to understand what scientists know than scientists themselves.

(Oh, and since this is an open thread, feel free to say anything else you want, too. I agree that Adams is rather boring, and I'm sorry that recent server problems have limited what I can post.)


Trackback url: http://pharyngula.org/index/trackback/3371/et7U6W7P/

Comments:
#49260: — 11/17  at  07:55 AM
"Darwinists often argue that Intelligent Design can’t be true because we know the earth is over 10,000 years old."

Wrong, if he refer to scientists. Of course it depends
on his definition of "darwinists". It's a bit difficult
though, to find one which render his claim true.



#49261: Cyde Weys — 11/17  at  07:58 AM
Scott Adams appears to be exhibiting signs of paranoid schizophrenia (I'm not making this up, in another blog post he's afraid of radiation from his microwave). A common sign of schizophrenia is that you get paranoid and won't trust anyone but yourself. When Scott Adams rails against scientists for not being "credible" and then throws out his own "theory," he's showing how hypocritical he is, because by any measure of his definition of credibility he is most definitely not credible.

Also, Scott Adams said something about not believing in evolution or creationism -- he thinks panspermia is the way to go. He doesn't realize that panspermia simply shifts the location where life evolved to some place else.



#49262: John Emerson — 11/17  at  08:00 AM
The thing that made up my mind for me was Adams' ridicule (in his comments section) of the idea that he should read some books by Gould or Dawkins. He essentially said that he wouldn't trust them because, as biologists, they had a conflict of interest.

His silly little squibs have helped me to crystallize my abhorrence of the cheap cynicism of a whole sector of American society. These are people who believe that everyone is a scam artist, and that no one's reasoning is honest, so that what you need to do is just to figure out the angles and decide which of the players you feel best about, rather than deciding which one is right. (This kind of know-nothingism was a major factor both in Bush-Gore and Bush-Kerry. The media gaggle is full of Scott Adams closes.)

Adams was basically asking for an authority to trust -- someone whom he liked, and who talked his language. He wasn't asking for reasons at all. In this he's oddly like my very nice, anti-intellectual right-wing cousins who get their political opinions ready-made from Pat Robertson and James Dobson, who they think are very nice people and who talk their language.

Adams' credibility wasn't helped when someone pointed out that he was already writing cheesy little anti-evolution squibs more than five years ago.



#49265: — 11/17  at  08:08 AM
Never argue with people who take pride in their "common sense". Look out the window: common sense will tell you the Sun goes around the Earth, and from there the argument can only go downhill.

Sample 1 (from a radio talk show): 1998 was the warmest year on record. That was 7 years ago! If there really is global warming, shouldn't it be getting warmer???

Sample 2: Besides that, they didn't have thermometers 10000 years ago, so how do we know what the temperature was then???



#49266: — 11/17  at  08:09 AM
For the record, I just submitted a comment to Adams containing the following, referring to definite statements that he said in the original post (without disclaimers), that were incorrect.

* You claimed that all human-like fossils would fit inside a small box. This was just plain wrong.

* You said more than 90%+ [of scientists] are sure that Darwin got it right. This is also not true - evolution has moved on a hell of a lot since Darwin's time due to inaccuracies in his original theory.

* You use the term Darwinist, something only generally employed by Creationists/ID folk. "Evolutionary biologist" would be more appropriate.

* You stated "Better yet, no one seems to understand their own side’s argument". I think if you had a discussion with the faculty of a biology department, you'd experience firsthand how untrue this is.

* Your assertion that effectively no scientist can be credible because they all have intrinsic bias is terrible. Do you have any idea how famous a scientist would become if they found real evidence against evolution? Sadly, the only people that can be impartial in this debate is those that are ignorant of the facts.

* Finally (on a different topic), the idea that gravity is caused by the expansion of matter is simply laughable. On the other hand, I'm not sure if you consider this a valid hypothesis, although I've heard that you mention it in The Dilbert Future. However, this last point may be incorrect.



#49268: Alon Levy — 11/17  at  08:09 AM
These are people who believe that everyone is a scam artist, and that no one's reasoning is honest, so that what you need to do is just to figure out the angles and decide which of the players you feel best about, rather than deciding which one is right.

Actually, most cynics aren't like that at all. Rather, the cynic assumes everyone is a scam artist and nobody is honest, and then tries to extract the truth from the evidence he can be sure about and the hidden subtexts of what the scam artists say. Evidently Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce managed to be cynical without descending to lunacy or idiocy.



#49271: — 11/17  at  08:14 AM
Better yet, no one seems to understand their own side’s argument.

this is of course false. What he means is that his grasp of the arguments of both sides is so bad, that he doesn't understand either sides arguments.

I’ve been doing lots of reading on the subject, trying to gather comic fodder. I fully expected to validate my preconceived notion that the Darwinists had a mountain of credible evidence and the Intelligent Design folks were creationist kooks disguising themselves as scientists. That’s the way the media paints it. I had no reason to believe otherwise. The truth is a lot more interesting. Allow me to set you straight.

The fact is that science does have a mountain of evidence, and ID people are creationists - another false statement from mr Adams.

For example, Darwinists often argue that Intelligent Design can’t be true because we know the earth is over 10,000 years old. That would be a great argument, supported by every relevant branch of science, except that it has nothing to do with Intelligent Design.

Scientists do not OFTEN argue that the age of earth disproves ID - Adams should be able to provide multiple examples of this if this was true - perhaps someone somewhere HAS made the argument, but Adams claim that the claim is used OFTEN!

/Søren



#49272: Martin Brazeau — 11/17  at  08:14 AM
Adams writes: "If you make a good argument on your side, I respond by attacking your bad argument instead." I could respond by saying that the IDists have yet to make a good argument, but that would simply be question-begging rhetoric. The fact is, 'good' or bad, I don't know of a single ID argument that hasn't been attacked and thoroughly demolished. Even their 'flagship' example of the bacterial flagellum has been thoroughly destroyed by Ken Miller.

Adams can't hide behind his chosen profession as a humorist and commentator. So's Lewis Black, and he's got the balls to come out and say to creationists: "We have the fossils! We win!" As we saw on the Daily Show's "Evolution Schmevolution" special, Lewis Black demonstrated himself to be informed and critical with respect to the creationist movement and their attacks on evolution.



#49273: Rick @ shrimp and grits — 11/17  at  08:15 AM

Wrong, if he refer to scientists. Of course it depends
on his definition of "darwinists". It's a bit difficult
though, to find one which render his claim true.


I've never heard anyone (aside from Scott Adams) make that claim - and I'm not a biologist. What I have heard is people saying that evidence for an old Earth is a problem for young earth creationism.

I guess the question now is - Did Scort Adams confuse arguments specifically against YEC with arguiments against ID? Or is he deliberately misrepresenting one side of the discussion? Or is he just too lazy to look up what both sides are saying and making sh*t up?

Alternate theory: Scott Adams died shortly after the publication of his first Dilbert collection. He has subsequently been replaced with a Perl script that dutifully fills in recycled cartoon bubbles for his strips, but a problem with his server has corrupted his code, causing him to spit out random snippets of nonsense on science - physics and biology in particular - that the script pieces together from internet search engines.

Now, since I have no financial stake in whether Scott Adams is a malfunctioning Perl script or, in fact, any knowledge of whether he is a Perl script at all, I think my theory hasw acheived perfect credibility.

Right?



's avatar #49274: Raven — 11/17  at  08:16 AM
Let's see: In his bizarro-world, I'm not credible to write about anatomy informatics/knowledge representation, because I get paid for doing so, even though I took a 75% pay cut when I left software consulting to go back into academia. Yet Scott "One-Joke Wonder" Adams is supposed to somehow be credible on evaluating evo-devo scientifically, and we're just supposed to somehow accept that uncritically?

Personally, I don't see where he has demonstrated expertise on any topic other than how to continue to flog the same old joke long after its sell-by date.



#49275: Matt Dunn — 11/17  at  08:19 AM
Adams hasn't a clue. Moving on...

This remark reminded me of a question I'd like to hear your thoughts on:

"Apparently, cartoonists are supposed to be better able to understand what scientists know than scientists themselves."

What do you think about historians and philosophers? Do you think that they can know what scientists are doing even if it disagrees with what scientists say? This is something that comes up now and again in history and philosophy and recently, over at the philbio blog, consistent pain-in-the-ass Keith Burgess Jackson has slammed a rather well respected philosopher of biology for not having any degrees in biology and claiming that we shouldn't listen to her because of that.

What do you think?



#49276: — 11/17  at  08:25 AM
Adams made a specific claim that all hominid fossils would fit in a small box.

This is another Creationist/IDCreationist claim that Adams credulously presents without the slightest effort to check it out.

Apparently it's derived from miss-quoting Henry Gee, who said in his book In Search of Deep Time, "Between about 10 and 5 million years ago - several thousand generations of living creatures can be fitted into a small box." The creationist trick is to ignore the fact Gee was only talking about Hominid fossils from 5-10 million years ago and to pretend that he's doubting the fossil record overall.

In no way can the hominid fossils fit into anything that could be characterized as a "small box". Adams tries to evade by saying he obviously only meant the individual species, one representative of each. But this ignores the fact that even within a species there is evidence of evolution in the fossil record...not all Homo erectus' are equal. Even so, it's hardly relevant what size box the bones could fit into, although you'd still need to streatch what "small" means just for those fossils.



's avatar #49277: Raven — 11/17  at  08:29 AM
consistent pain-in-the-ass Keith Burgess Jackson has slammed a rather well respected philosopher of biology for not having any degrees in biology and claiming that we shouldn't listen to her because of that


That's nothing more than an appeal to authority, so his argument's already a non-starter. Does the evidence back her up? That's the only relevant question, not her degrees.



#49280: — 11/17  at  08:36 AM
Unfortunately I think this is going to be a pointless battle. Mr. Adams has constructed a very nice argument-by-paradox with his pox-on-both-your-houses defense. Anyone who has an opinion is obviously biased by the fact that they have an opinion. Ergo, the only people qualified to have an opinion about the subject are people who don't have opinions about the subject. Which they can't have, because it would bias them.

Toss in some presumed equivalence of facts to opinions - after all, nobody can present facts unbiased, right? - and it's a nice little self-reinforcing argument. It's 100% bull, of course.

(It's also more of the anti-elitist strategy of "well, I obviously know better because I'm just a regular guy" that our good buddy Mr. Lileks is so fond of, discounting the fact that Mr. Adams is not a regular guy by mere virtue of his profession)

I say we skip the facts and go straight for the ad hominem attacks. smile



#49281: — 11/17  at  08:36 AM
Here's the one that ruffles my feathers.

Each branch of science, [IDers] say, has pro-Darwinists who acknowledge that while they assume the other branches of science have more solid evidence for Darwinism, their own branch is lacking in that high level of certainty. In other words, the scientists are in a weird peer pressure, herd mentality loop where they think that the other guy must have the "good stuff."

Let me offer that there is a branch of science in which practitioners are very well versed in the evidence for evolution from many biological disciplines. This branch of science is called Evolutionary Biology.



#49282: — 11/17  at  08:37 AM
"Darwinists often argue that Intelligent Design can’t be true because we know the earth is over 10,000 years old."

Wrong, if he refer to scientists. Of course it depends on his definition of "darwinists". It's a bit difficult though, to find one which render his claim true.

I commented to this effect at Adams' latest post. I fully expect, however, that you are right, eviledv, and that he will weasel out on an idiosyncratic definition of "darwinist". Or maybe, based on his wriggling so far, he has his own definitions of "Intelligent Design", "often", or "true"...



#49284: — 11/17  at  08:44 AM
Scott Adams = Johnny Hart, except BC is drawn better. As far as the ol', "I'm just a humorist..." shuck and jive is concerned, that is so right wing bs 101. Rush Limpbutt and Bill "Osama" O'Lielly use that hackneyed dodge every time they step on their crank.



#49285: — 11/17  at  08:52 AM
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20050718-120338-9682r.htm

Churches get thumbs-up at theaters

By Keyonna Summers and Amy Doolittle
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 18, 2005

From the article-

"We're not trying to be hip for hip's sake," said Bill Craig, pastor of Summit Trace. "We're just trying to meet people where they are and take them where God wants them to be."

Mr. Craig said the comfortable setting of a movie theater is perfect for those who feel intimidated by more traditional religious settings.

"We get to see them on their own turf, in their own place, [yet] there's still a sense of anonymity," he said, adding that people often stumble in expecting to see a movie and end up staying for church. "There's the smell of popcorn, and there's no hint that this could be a church other than the people there demonstrating God's love."



I've noticed a movie theater where I live is doing the same thing, renting out
a theater for church services. While I certaintly recognize the owners can
run their theater the way they want, I wonder if this trend continues this will
be a way to exert pressure on theater owners to not show certain movies-
"if you show this movie we may have to take out services and money elsewhere..."
Has anybody else noticed movie theaters renting out for church services?

Permeation, permeation, permeation into every aspect of the culture........
I wonder if they are actually trying to create the Magisterium of the
"His Dark Materials" novels?



#49286: — 11/17  at  08:55 AM
I had some brief email correspondence with Adams over this (given the flurry, I'm amazed he took the time to respond directly, I do give him credit for that.) He specifically stated in his last email that reviewing TalkOrigins is what started his tirade. He feels that TO is poorly done, and that they misrepresent the ID people, and attack the misrepresentation. There's also a comment that by default implies the TO/science side do not argue rationally.

I asked him for specific examples of what he's talking about in TO's material, and haven't heard back. I don't think I can ding him for that in my specific case, again given the volume of email I'm sure he's gotten and the surgery he had in the middle of all this. But it doesn't surprise me that he's trying to put the ball back into our court, asking us to prove our case, when he's the one who needs to back up his own claims. I run into this argument all the time with creationists--often, very specifically "well, you're the one who has to prove me wrong!" "Uh, no...you're the one who has to prove it RIGHT, it's your claim."



#49287: — 11/17  at  09:01 AM
I am not a scientist, so when I became interested in this debate, I did what every intellegent and inquisitive human being does, I read some books.

Adams is typical of the cube farm drones that he speaks for. Their professional lives are so pathetic and meaningless that they rationalize their ignorance and smugly flaunt it every chance they get. They are the most intellectually lazy class of people I have ever encountered, nearly equal to fundamentalist christians. They base their opinions on what they hear from the guy in the next cube and not by exerting any mental effort.

It doesn't surprise me that he is comfortably ignorant about ID/creationism and evolution. Understanding it would entail some research and effort, and that would be too much like work.



#49288: — 11/17  at  09:04 AM
I fully expected to validate my preconceived notion that the Darwinists had a mountain of credible evidence and the Intelligent Design folks were creationist kooks disguising themselves as scientists. That’s the way the media paints it.

FALSE! Ever read any Evolution Vs. Creationism Articles from the New York Times?



#49290: — 11/17  at  09:09 AM
I am not a scientist, so when I became interested in this debate, I did what every intellegent and inquisitive human being does, I read some books.

Adams is typical of the cube farm drones that he speaks for. Their professional lives are so pathetic and meaningless that they rationalize their ignorance and smugly flaunt it every chance they get. They are the second most intellectually lazy class of people I have ever encountered, nearly equal to fundamentalist christians. They base their opinions on what they hear from the guy in the next cube and not by exerting any mental effort.

It doesn't surprise me that he is comfortably ignorant about ID/creationism and evolution. Understanding it would entail some research and effort, and that would be too much like work.



#49291: — 11/17  at  09:15 AM
They are the most intellectually lazy class of people I have ever encountered

That's because most of them are Business Majors. A business major is the hallmark of intellectually laziness - or at least that what I've found from experience.



#49292: Ron Zeno — 11/17  at  09:16 AM
Adams is lost in his own distrust of expertise and possible bias. If only there was a way to learn things that was very good at identifying and elminating bias and error in all their forms (error, fraud, unconscious cheating, self-deception, etc.) What we need is a process for gathering and analysing knowledge based upon standards of logic and ethics that is self correcting over time, a process where all the data, rationale, and methodology is required to be available to anyone who's interested in learning or evaluating what others have done and concluded. Maybe this process couldn't answer all of life's questions, but at least it should provide immense benefit to all mankind. I wonder what such a process would be like...

Oh, wait! There's science. Nevermind.



#49293: Orac — 11/17  at  09:19 AM
It wasn't so much Adam's parroting of ID creationists fallacies that irritated me. I've seen that before too many times from the uninformed. Rather, it was Adams' nihilistic concept that no one who has a preexisting opinion or "a financial/career incentive" regarding an issue can be considered "credible" about that issue definitely flirts with wingnuttery. Also, it implies an unwillingness even to try to think for oneself. Apparently, Adams wants to be spoon-fed the information and can't be bothered to try to learn about evolution a bit himself.

Adams' position implies that he considers people who don't know enough about a topic to have formed an opinion and who have no professional connection to the issue at hand to be "more credible" than experts who have dedicated their professional career to studying a problem. It's one thing to have a healthy skepticism about the claims of experts (a good thing), but it's another thing entirely to blithely dismiss all experts as "not credible" just because they have a preexisting opinion or because they make their living studying an issue. That's a simplistic and childish approach. Basically, because he can't understand the arguments for evolution and against ID and because he perceives advocates on both sides of the issue to have behaved badly, he just sticks his fingers in his ears and starts saying, "Nah nah nah, I can't hear you" and declares both sides to be "not credible."

--
Orac “A statement of fact cannot be insolent.”
http://oracknows.blogspot.com



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