PZ Myers. 2005 Aug 21. Politicized Scholars…. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/politicized_scholars/>. Accessed 2008 Nov 20.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Sunday, August 21, 2005
Politicized Scholars…
I have mixed feelings about the latest NYT story on Intelligent Design creationism. On the one hand, it does clearly state how politicized the Discovery Institute is, describes the religious sources of their funding and how some charitable institutions find the DI repugnant, and gives a decent account of the Institute's history. On the other hand, Arthur Silber dislikes it intensely, and I can see why. It also allows a gang of pseudoscientific frauds to state their message loudly on the pages of a fairly prestigious newspaper. Even the title is objectionable: "Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive". The first word is good, but it's all downhill from there. They are not scholars, except in the loosest sense of the word. They have most emphatically not put evolution on the defensive; evolutionary biology is completely untouched by their posturings. Some biologists are on the attack now, because the creationists have made political gains in damaging public school education in biology. Basically, this article gave the creationists free rein to repeat their lies over and over again, such as that they are funding actual research. Carl Zimmer, while acknowledging that the article is a "useful overview", rips that claim apart.
A search for "Intelligent Design" on PubMed yields 22 results--none of which were published by anyone from the Discovery Insittute. There are a few articles about the political controversy about teaching it in public schools, and some papers about constructing databases of proteins in a smart way. But nothing that actually uses intelligent design to reveal something new about nature. ScienceDirect offers the same picture. (I'm not clever enough with html to link to my search result lists, but try them yourself if you wish.)
Here's another search: "Discovery Institute" and "Seattle" (where the institute is located). One result comes up: a paper by Jonathan Wells proposing that animal cells have turbine-like structures inside them. It describes no experiments, only a hypothesis.
Perhaps the other prominent fellows of the Discovery Institute (Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, and William Dembski) have published scientific papers that have a bearing on intelligent design, without identifying their affiliation. Aside from a couple letters to the editor, the databases yielded only one paper, in which Behe offers a simple model of gene duplication and expresses doubt that new genes could evolve by this process. Given that other scientists have published 2266 papers exploring gene duplication's role in evolution, it's safe to say that his is not a view held by most experts.
That's the kind of response I would have expected from the NYT—when someone says, "$792,585 financed laboratory or field research in biology, paleontology or biophysics, while $93,828 helped graduate students in paleontology, linguistics, history and philosophy", don't just report it, investigate and follow through and see where the money is actually going, because it sure isn't funding real science.
There are a few errors of fact that you should expect to see dismantled on The Panda's Thumb soon, and I was also surprised to see this statement fly by unchallenged:
…the institute has opposed legislation in Pennsylvania and Utah that pushes intelligent design, instead urging lawmakers to follow Ohio's lead.
They are setting Ohio as an example to follow? The Ohio situation is a clear case of biased backroom politicking, in which corrupt ideologues maneuvered to override the recommendations of qualified scientists and educators to impose anti-scientific changes on Ohio school curricula. Why not point out in an article on "politicized scholars" that they are representing the worst of politics, using croneyism and dishonesty to squirt their slime in through the back door? The Discovery Institute is very good at that, I will admit.
I won't be as harsh on the article as Arthur Silber…yet. There's supposed to be a second article in the series coming up, which I presume will express the views of real scientists and will attempt to counter the facade of "scholarship" the DI put up in the first one. I do wish the reporter had been more thorough in dismissing those claims in this first one, though.
- In the article's defense, it does explain that the DI is only putting evolution on the defensive in the political battle for public school curricula and that descent with modification is scientifically unchallenged.
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Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.
--Mark Twain -
Dr. Meyer, who had grown friendly enough with the Ahmansons to tutor their young son in science...
there you have it: child abuse.#: Posted by on 08/21 at 10:26 AM - The newspaper could be presenting this like a case in court, or like a traditional debate. First one side has the floor, and then the other. I think perhaps Arthur Silber has spoken prematurely.
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Perhaps I've judged the article prematurely in certain respects; we'll see. But in that connection: PZ, how do you know about the second part of this article? Unless my eyes are going completely (in which case, I plead for tolerance based on my decrepit middle age...hehe...), I see nothing in the article at all (or at the beginning or end) to indicate a second part is coming. Inside info? ESP? Ah, THERE'S the proof we've been waiting for...:>))
But in terms of my criticisms and Wilgoren's lack of clear exposition, consider this sentence as just one example (and I hadn't commented on this before, or on many similar statements): "Mainstream scientists reject the notion that any controversy over evolution even exists."
Notice how Wilgoren conflates two separate issues. Obviously, there's a controvery about evolution -- but it's a *political* controversy. But Wilgoren fails to make clear WHY there is no SCIENTIFIC controversy about evolution. This kind of muddiness suffuses the article -- which is why I said it leaves the impression to some extent that those scientists are just crabbed, narrow-minded old meanies.
Which they may be, but that hardly speaks to the scientific issues involved...:>))
When is the supposed second part appearing? Any idea?#: Posted by Arthur Silber on 08/21 at 11:02 AM -
More than a second article is coming up. This is the first of a series of articles. I've no doubt that the supposed "scientific content" of ID will be thoroughly scrutinized, and laid bare.
One could certainly find fault here and there with this article, but overall I think it was brilliant. Because this is a series, each article will have a focus. The focus of the first article was to rip the mask off the Discovery Institute. Bearing in mind that most people are not invested in this debate, I suspect that the average person, on hearing about The DI and evolution/id, assumes that the Discovery Institute is a standard scientific enterprise that merely has come to different conclusions about the validity of evolution. The article demolishes such beliefs. It also connected the dots of the financing, motives, ideology and history of the institute in painstaking detail.
Again, this is the first of a series. I suspect the overall purpose here is to nail down every last detail of this conflict. And this is why you should not be disappointed that in the first article, the views of real scientists were not expressed as you might have wanted (though certainly scientists were cited as debunking DI even in this article). When a newspaper wants to do a thorough investigative piece of a subject like this one, it is limited by space. To condense the whole issue into a s ingle piece would render it superficial. That's why this is a series, and why each article will have a focus. The focus of this one was to expose the Discovery Institute. And that is what it did. -
Oh, I see where it says this is the beginning of a series. Not in the printer-friendly version, but on the regular page. Okie dokey. We shall see...
#: Posted by Arthur Silber on 08/21 at 11:15 AM
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We'll see. The article was also a mouthpiece for the DI to express their baloney...and one problem is that exposing the DI as a front for Jesus Christ may be damning to me, but will be considered an asset to many of the readers of the NYT, and can be used by the DI to flog more donors for money.
Like I said, I have mixed feelings about the article. If I'd been under the impression that it was a one-shot deal, as Arthur was, I would have been appalled (davidm had mentioned this before, and some people at the NCSE told me it was part of a series). Right now, I'll just hold fire until I see what happens.
Although, today's Safire piece sure doesn't make me feel confident. The NYT sure does let some crap trickle through. - I hope everyone here realizes that the New York Times has been hammering ID in its editorials. Arthur, I read your blog entry. Really, I hope you'll amend it. You're doing the Times a disservice. As I noted in my previous post, the focus of this article was to lay bare the history, means, motives, ideology and financing of the DI. The science part will come.
- PZ, if pointing out the religious ideology of the institute might prove to be an asset for it in the minds of some readers, how can that be helped? It's just a fact. Also, aren't you being a bit self-contradictory? In your blog you keep stressing that ID has a Christian creationist motivation; now when the Times lays bare this connection, you're unhappy with this being done. What am I missing?
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Davidm: I've added several updates, one at the beginning, two at the end. So I've covered that. BUT: I still object to many of the formulations in the article, which reveal a considerable sloppiness of thought and writing in my view. Whether Wilgoren clarifies these points in the subsequent parts remains to be seen. And in that connection, keep in mind the specific points that PZ mentions, for example, that are not challenged or followed up. Moreover, while those of us with a keen interest in this debate may be certain to read the further installments, many people will not. For them, this will be the entirety of what they read in this series. And that most certainly would be appalling.
#: Posted by Arthur Silber on 08/21 at 11:35 AM
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The fastest-growing category on surveys that ask people to give their religious affiliation, says Patricia O'Connell Killen of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., is "none." But "spirituality," the impulse to seek communion with the Divine, is thriving. The NEWSWEEK/Beliefnet Poll found that more Americans, especially those younger than 60, described themselves as "spiritual" (79 percent) than "religious" (64 percent). Almost two thirds of Americans say they pray every day, and nearly a third meditate.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9024914/site/newsweek/#: Posted by on 08/21 at 11:36 AM -
I didn't think it was too bad. As PZ mentions, they don't really report on the lack of science from the DI. They mention number of fellowships supported, but not anything about the paucity of actual journal publications. They do mention books, which are not peer-reviewed.
They do mention the religious backers of the DI, including Ahmanson, but they don't mention just how extreme he is or that he has supported theocracy.
Near the end, they seem to take West at his word when he complains of others acting prematurely and not concentrating on the science. Since they mentioned the religious purpose and backing of the DI, and the Wedge Document, they could have nailed him outright as a posturing hypocrite.#: Posted by on 08/21 at 11:37 AM -
... can be used by the DI to flog more donors for money.
for some reason that struck me as very funny. i got this image of a prospective donor, back bared, tied with rope to a wooden stake, eyes raised to heaven in rapture as the whip cut into their skin.
maybe i should go back on that medication ...
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The NEWSWEEK/Beliefnet Poll found ...
Beliefnet is a crock, IMO.
hey, what's inherently wrong with meditation? it's a practice that improves physical and mental well-being. it needn't have religious connections at all. -
Reading the article and the commentary on it made me think of a quote that I think summarizes my view:
"When thinkers accept those who deny the existence of thinking, as fellow thinker of a different school of thought-it is they who acheive the destruction of the mind. They grant the enemy's basic premise, thus granting the sanction of reason to formal dementia. A basic premise is an absolute that permits no co-operation with it antithesis and tolerates no tolerance. In the same manner and for the same reason as a banker may not accept and pass counterfiet money, granting it the sanction, honor and prestige of his bank, just as he may not grant the counterfeiter's demand for tolerance of a mere difference of opinion..."
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 35th anniver. ed. page 390#: Posted by on 08/21 at 12:00 PM -
Arthur, people, especially experts in their fields, are constantly accusing newspapers of superficiality. There is some truth to this charge, but the single most overlooked reason for the problem of superficiality is limited space. You simply can't present a non-superficial treatment of this subject in the space of a single article. That's why it's going to be a series. If people read only one or two of the articles and not the whole thing, there's no help for it. You can't blame the Times for that.
I appreciate your alterations to your blog entry, but I think your characterization of the Times as a "know-nothing" paper based on a single article that blew the cover off the Discovery Institute -- something you guys try to do every day, and which the Times just did before the whole world -- is peculiar, to say the least. I should think you'd be cheering this unmasking of DI, especially now that you know this is the first of a series of articles. - *Sees Ayn Rand quote, makes desperate gestures to ward it off while dissolving into spasmodic shuddering...*
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PZ, if pointing out the religious ideology of the institute might prove to be an asset for it in the minds of some readers, how can that be helped? It's just a fact. Also, aren't you being a bit self-contradictory? In your blog you keep stressing that ID has a Christian creationist motivation; now when the Times lays bare this connection, you're unhappy with this being done. What am I missing?
That the NYT article did a poor job of bringing up the contradiction between the DI's claim of being a scientific institution, and the reality of their religious foundation.
Being religious is not a damning problem for the DI. Being dishonest is. While the article did a fairly good job of laying out the DI's story, it did a poor job of playing that against their purported purpose. -
PZ's mention of the Safire piece made me curious. So I checked it out. And I had a few things to say about it: Safire's Dangerous Folly. Heh. Indeed.
#: Posted by Arthur Silber on 08/21 at 12:38 PM
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a single article that blew the cover off the Discovery Institute -- something you guys try to do every day, and which the Times just did before the whole world
Maybe they were goaded into doing some actual journalism by Nightline beating them to the punch with their 'follow the money' expose'.#: Posted by on 08/21 at 12:58 PM -
I'm as annoyed as PZ about the article's title and display of the DI crowd. But the piece is one in a series, a fact PZ didn't mention. So we wait until next Sunday and see what happens.
#: Posted by rob skipper on 08/21 at 01:01 PM
- Umm, my last paragraph plainly says, "There's supposed to be a second article in the series coming up".
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Davidm: My description of the NYT as a "know-nothing" newspaper was hardly "based on a single article...."
I had in mind the performance of the Times for many years past on a variety of subjects, and more particularly in recent years. As just one rather monumental example: how "even the liberal NYT" helped propagandize on behalf of the Bush administration in the leadup to the Iraq war -- repeating administration talking points, even those from entirely disreputable sources, without question, without analysis, and without reflection. And then injecting that propaganda directly into the center of the national dialogue.
"Know-nothing" is much too kind a term for this kind of intellectual crime. Perhaps the rest of Wilgoren's series will redeem at least part of the Times' despicable record. But if the entire series on evolution manages to do that (which I frankly consider unlikely in terms of a full intellectual case), it will redeem only a very, very small part of that reprehensible legacy.#: Posted by Arthur Silber on 08/21 at 02:48 PM -
That the NYT article did a poor job of bringing up the contradiction between the DI's claim of being a scientific institution, and the reality of their religious foundation.
Being religious is not a damning problem for the DI. Being dishonest is. While the article did a fairly good job of laying out the DI's story, it did a poor job of playing that against their purported purpose.
But, PZ, that's why this is the first of a series of articles. The first article was intended to rip the mask off DI. And that's what it did. I can see how you might think that to be insufficient if this article were the only article, but it's not.
Arthur, your points are well-taken, but irrelevant to this particular issue. - And I keep saying that's why I have mixed feelings about it. I can't say whether I'm happy with it on the basis of this article, until I've seen the rest of the series.
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You'll like this one: Intelligent design lacks intelligence by Diane Carman, Denver Post columnist
#: Posted by on 08/21 at 04:51 PM
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A Life With No Purpose
GEORGE MONBIOT
OutlookIndia.com
...
The controversy fascinates me. This is partly because of its similarity to the dispute about climate change. Like the climate change deniers, the advocates of intelligent design cherry-pick the data that appear to support their case. They ask for evidence, then ignore it when it’s presented to them. They invoke a conspiracy to explain the scientific consensus, and are unembarrassed by their own scientific illiteracy. In an article published in the American Chronicle on Friday, the journalist Thomas Dawson asserted that "all of the vertebrate groups, from fish to mammals appear [in the fossil record] at one time" and that if evolution "were true, there would be animal life fossils of particular animals without vision and others with varying degrees of eye development … Such fossils do not exist."(8) (The first fish and the first mammals are in fact separated by some 300 million years, and the fossil record has more eyes, in all stages of development, than the CIA).
...
#: Posted by on 08/21 at 04:56 PM - Hey! I was just about to post something about the Carman editorial.
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The second article in the series is now up:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/22/national/22design.html -
Kenneth Chang's piece in the NYT today is much more satisfying than Wilgoren's. It's an interesting contrast: Chang writes on science, Wilgoren on politics. Chang has a knack of using fairly simple prose without dumbing down the concepts, and lets 'mainstream biologists' beat the living pucky out of the Discovery Institute.
It touches on all the issues that IDers cite, and lets the real scientists get the best lines. (The IDers, with their 'cool' and 'lame', sound unserious.) And the last few grafs are priceless.#: Posted by on 08/22 at 12:01 AM -
Wait 'til you see today's installment, by Kenneth Chang. It makes Dembski and Behe look like paragons of scientific integrity.
Gaaah.#: Posted by on 08/22 at 06:27 AM -
Meyer is quioted as saying:
"Imagine you're an archaeologist and you're looking at an inscription, and you say, Well, sorry, that looks like it's intelligent but we can't invoke an intelligent cause because, as a matter of method, we have to limit ourselves to materialistic processes, "
Note how in a scientific world view, actions of humans are materialistic process and how Meyer doesn't seem to get that. (Or rather, he's likely brushing it under the table.#: Posted by on 08/22 at 06:36 AM -
The ID-friendly tone of this second article doesn't surprise me one bit. Wasn't it just a few months ago that the Times' editors proclaimed a need to change their editorial focus somewhat, so that they could better pander to - er, I'm sorry, I clearly meant "so that they could produce journalism that is relevant to" - people of faith, military families, and the NASCAR crowd?
This is just Step One. - How is the tone of it "ID-friendly"?
- The second article is a classic example of he-said-she-said reporting. 70 biologists doubt evolution, the article quotes the DI as saying. What it doesn't say is that about 350 biologists named Steve don't. Whereas the first article makes it clear that the DI's purposes are political, with science only serving as a convenient cover, the second article really gives the DI equal time.
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I just read the second NYT article... the author was polite to Behe, Dembski, and ID proclaimers in general--but he didn't pull his punches. Chang makes it perfectly clear: here are the claims of ID proponents, and here's what science says. Scientific statements are presented in concrete language, including a brief but fairly good layman's explanation of what actually happened during the Cambrian Explosion.
As a previous commenter mentioned, the last few paragraphs are a neutral-toned but deliberately aimed shot at Behe's credibility.
Dr. Behe said that if he was correct, then the E. coli in Dr. Lenski's lab would evolve in small ways but never change in such a way that the bacteria would develop entirely new abilities.
In fact, such an ability seems to have developed.
I vastly prefer this article to the first one.#: Posted by on 08/22 at 07:14 AM -
It is he-said-she-said reporting, but the presumption is that the reader will be intelligent enought to draw their own conclusions from the facts and opinions that are presented. For instance, you note that the article quotes DI as saying that 70 biologists doubt evolution. But, look at how the paragraph containing that information begins:
Although a vast majority of scientists accept evolution...
So, the reader is given to understand that evolutionary theory is rock-solid among scientists. And the article repeatedly uses the pharse "mainstream scientists," implicity putting ID on the fringe. -
Even as the "DI's turn" part of a muti-parter it's still appalling. The press's stubborn adeherence to the convention that there are always two "sides" to every "controversy", both of which the reporter is to allow to have their respective innings, is death to competent science journalism. And indeed to any story with actual technical content, eg. the undue respect with which the Bush Adminstration's many economic whoppers are treated (not to mention, as Arthur Silber notes, the prewar "intelligence" about Iraq's "weapons). American journalism is brain-dead.
#: Posted by on 08/22 at 07:23 AM
- Steve, I find it curious that you and others wish to focus on "he-said-she-said," without noting that every claim of ID was sledgehammered in this article. Irreducible complexity, information theory, gaps in the fossil record, the argument to the Cambrian Explosion: all refuted.
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I'm sorry, it's just not good enough to treat their nonsense with respect in one article and then "sledgehammer" it in the next. To the scientifically naive reader (and yes, even the NYT has plenty of those), this is too easily interpreted as a case of "duelling experts", where you can take your pick of which "side" to believe. I guarantee that the DI guys laugh all the way to the bank about this "sledgehammering"; they know there's no such thing as bad publicity.
#: Posted by on 08/22 at 07:34 AM
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If you want a brilliant one-article dissection of ID, see the New Yorker article ("Devolution" by H. Allen Orr), from May 30:
http://www.refuseandresist.org/culture/art.php?aid=2028#: Posted by on 08/22 at 07:48 AM - Steve, if there's no such thing as bad publicity, then this very blog is giving ID good publicity.
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I call red herring. With all due respect to pz's superb blog, it certainly doesn't have the credibility-boosting mojo in the wider world that the NYT has.
#: Posted by on 08/22 at 07:57 AM
- Steve, my point is that when you say "there's no such thing as bad publicity," then if that's true, any publicity for ID must, by definition, be good publicity.
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Behe profile in the Morning Call
Behe's first book on the subject, ''Darwin's Black Box,'' was published in 1996. He is working on a follow-up book.
So presumably he'll include a section on how well his examples from the first book have held up.
It says he teaches a freshman seminar at Lehigh covering Intelligent Design, where his own book is required reading.
'A lot of high-powered scientists have taken this on and, in my mind at least, have not answered my questions … All in all, it makes me feel pretty good about the status of intelligent design,'' Behe said.
Let me repeat a line from that quote of Monbiot:
They ask for evidence, then ignore it when it’s presented to them.
#: Posted by on 08/22 at 08:15 AM -
Free version of the second NYT article by Kenneth Chang at the Herald Tribune
While Chang gives the scientific refutations, the amount of copy given to the IDC view is about equal.#: Posted by on 08/22 at 08:36 AM -
That's true, but so what? The claims were refuted.
Having said that, I found the article disappointing in certain ways. It was good, but it could have been better. -
The second article is a classic example of he-said-she-said reporting. 70 biologists doubt evolution, the article quotes the DI as saying. What it doesn't say is that about 350 biologists named Steve don't. Whereas the first article makes it clear that the DI's purposes are political, with science only serving as a convenient cover, the second article really gives the DI equal time.
Alon gets it exactly right. That's precisely how the second piece is ID-friendly.
Frankly, any story that doesn't make it explicitly clear that there is absolutely nothing to ID in scientific terms is in my opinion an ID-friendly story. - The very fact that, even here, different people see it differently is a proof positive that it is not an effective article. We KNOW which side is correct and see that each ID argument is debunked, but, the way the article is written, lay people can choose between the two sides according to their own preconcieved notions.
- If each claim is debunked, why would people choose to believe debunked claims? If it is because of their preconceived notions, then I'd suggest that no conceivable article is going to shake those notions. The article wasn't directed at those with preconceived notions, but at the average person who is not invested in this issue.
- If facts counter one's prior worldview, facts are dismissed - the easy way to avoid cognitive dissonance. Reasonable people will find the article persuasive - but those are probably already on the right side. The first article, by pointing to political and financial connections and shenannigans is, IMHO, more effective.
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Chris Mooney agrees:
http://scienceg8.com/those-nyt-stories/ -
#36877: davidm
If each claim is debunked, why would people choose to believe debunked claims? If it is because of their preconceived notions, then I'd suggest that no conceivable article is going to shake those notions. The article wasn't directed at those with preconceived notions, but at the average person who is not invested in this issue.
What are the latest poll results on how many "average persons" still believe that Iraq had WMD and that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the 9/11 plot?
Do not confuse "rational, informed person" with "average person".#: Posted by on 08/22 at 10:12 AM -
To safeguard decent science education from the zealots over a the Discovery Institute, what is being done to politically support High School science teachers who pledge to help keep Creationism/Intelligent Design out of the classrooms?
This seems to me what we should be discussing - in the last 5 years we've found out just how extensive the Republican infrastructure has become over the last ~30 years, with the Discovery Institute, the Heritage Foundation, etc, and how far back progressive America has fallen. What unified, independant organization is in place to combat the Discovery Institute, and how are we supporting those science teachers who demonstrate scientific integrity? -
I would add, davidm, that the refutations offered in the article are not as good as they should be, and that the average reader is not familiar enough with biology and evolution to understand that some of them ARE refutations. Mix in a desire to disbelieve anyway, and it becomes really easy to ignore the refutation.
I understand print space and simplicity are factors here.
But as an example, the refutation offered for the Axe paper claim of proteins being improbable amounts to "well, it's not random ('cause we say so) and they borrow the parts from something else." That leaves an impression that biologists are passing the buck--that the complexity still existed somewhere, unexplained. No criticism of the Axe paper itself, no clear criticism of the "all or none" probability calculations of ID proponents, no explanation of what "not random" means.
However, I thought the refutation offered for the Cambrian explosion claim was almost perfect--it presented in simple words that we do have explanations and mechanisms for such rapid changes, and that these changes were spread out over more time than previously thought.#: Posted by on 08/22 at 11:35 AM -
Follow up to Baseyian Bouffant, FCD's comment "Behe profile in the Morning Call."
I actually took that freshmen seminar class in Fall of '96, and read his book. The book, and his entire logic structure, is based upon the "mousetrap analogy," which I think we agree is a false analogy.
At the time I was taking the seminar class, I was of course rather naive and unaware of any arguments against Evolution, or any need to defend Evolution. So it was a bizarre class for me. He was not an intellectual tyrant, bashing us students over the head with his logic, but subtley working the gaps and offering viewpoints which raised doubt to Evolution. These arguments didn't sit well with most of us, but the reasons why his Mousetrap Analogy and other arguments were invalid were difficult for young freshmen to articulate. That's the danger - the sensible-sounding and subtle points that he and other ID-ers make, which are persuasive to the uninformed.
A Concerned Scientist - rrt, I agree with much of what you say. The refutations were not as good as they could have been. The Axe refutation was not very good: it was far too hurried. The Cambrian Explosion discussion was good. And while the blood clotting discussion served as a good refutation of irreducible complexity, it wasn't enough. I was particuarly annoyed that early in the article, the author mentioned "biological marvels like the optical precision of the eye." Apart from the fact that the eye isn't always all that great (I'm 20/200 in my left eye, which makes me wonder what the designer was thinking when he designed my left eye), the seeming miracle of the eye is precisely what so many skeptics of evolution point to. They ask how the eye could possibly have evolved. Isn't it irreducibly complex? The article, then, should have talked about eye evolution. In fact, it could have profited from a sidebar devoted entirely to discussing the evolution of the eye.
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Kenneth Chang said:
{Darwin} observed that individuals in a given species varied considerably, variations now known to be caused by mutations in their genetic code.
This is not correct. Variations within a species are primarily due to homologous DNA recombination through crossover events that occur during fertilization. Robin Holliday proposed this elegant mechanism in 1964 and his theory was confirmed later by direct observation through X-Ray Crystallography. Homologous recombination explains in molecular terms how one can inherit both dad's big nose and mom's hirsutism.
At the rate mutations occur and given the fact that most mutations of the genome aren't manifest in the individual's phenotype, we'd all look the same if variations were dependant on mutation.
The error doesn't affect the balance of the article, though. One point on balance: It is not a journalist's role to convince the reader of anything; it is his role to present the facts accurately and concisely.#: Posted by on 08/22 at 01:53 PM -
It is not a journalist's role to convince the reader of anything; it is his role to present the facts accurately and concisely.
Yes, and accuracy is more than just making sure that you get everybody's words in the right order. I beleive that there is a consistent error in the Chang article, and it's an error of omission. The assertive voice of the article was, in most places, the voice of the design advocate. Chang would provide the ID point of view, and then allow the real scientists to provide countervailing evidence.
An article which more accurately reflected the position of intelligent design in the scientific community would have done something more like the inverse. That is, it would have laid out the arguments and evidence for evolution and discussed why there is no professional scientific society that doubts evolution, and why the DI doesn't get any funding from the NSF or NIH. In this context then the DI folks would have been allowed to provide their critques. This format would have shown the ID arguments to be what they truly are--unscientific fringe attacks against an established bedrock theory of mainstream science by a ideological think tank.
Overall, the stance of the scientists appears defensive and reactionary. This is not representitive of the position of ID, and so the article is inaccurate in how it protrays the threat level that ID "theory" represents to real science. And this was the article that was supposed to address the science.#: Posted by on 08/22 at 09:08 PM - My main problem with the refutations offered in the article is over-subtlety. Effective writing usually has to be blunt: "this argument is false because XYZ." That's what PZ does, which is why Pharyngula only gives ID very bad PR, not to mention that it's a blog for people who already know something about it. The NYT article has refutations you can recognize if you know them, but no clear conclusions.