Re: How Our Brains Ignore Unpleasant Facts was: Re: The Reasonable

On Dec 22, 9:44 am, Evopeach <keaton1...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

(snip)

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Sure... at least I'm not in the group that sees a turtle on top of an
8 foot fence post and beliefs it got there by itself.

Turtle positioning is not part of our science.

Turtles often leap from very short posts, to slightly taller ones in a
series of transitional stump jumping steps.

While quite improbable, in geologic time a turtle would inevitably
jump eight feet vertically at least once....that's the one that did.

We don't know how it happened but we're working on it and will
eventually get the purely rational, scientific answer.

Any intelligent agent would have found a better fencepost to put the
turtle on.

Have you examined all the fenceposts in the universe to see if such is
not a common event in the universe?

The finding has not appeared in a peer reviewed journal on turtle
excursions.

The observer is not a biologist and has no training in detailed
turtleology.

I must say you've undergone an interesting regression. From a
promising start where you might have been educable regarding the
problems implicit in the sciencey sounding claims of Dembski et al,
you have descended to the cracker-barrel analogies of the Gish/Morris/
Wysong era of primitive creationism. When you post this crap, do you
think it in any way advances the notion that you have even an inkling
of what is contained within the literature?

Should we just save you a bunch of time and bundle together a packet
of Chick tracts for your perusal? When you're rolling around on the
ground speaking in tongues down at the revival tent, do you ever get
gum stuck on your suit?

KP- Hide quoted text -

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After you finish building your Wicken straw demon be careful striking
the match .....remember last year when you set fire to the family dog
instead. of the beheaded sacrifical rooster.



It isn't clear whether you are trying to say "wicker" or "Wiccan", but
I suppose it doesn't really matter since neither is required or
helpful in elaborating the concept of a strawman. A concept you
perhaps do not understand, since you then fail to demonstrate how it
might apply here.

But let me review (for the benefit of late arrivals) my point - that
you have failed to support the claims made in your initial post, and
have studiously avoided addressing any and all refutations of them.

You described Dembski's work as "well reasoned" and went on to extol
the virtues of "open inquiry, critical thinking, rational debate and
mutual respect". You decried the breakdown of the relationship
between science and religion. To those familiar with Dembski, his
claims, and his responses to criticism, this seems an oddly ill-
informed juxtaposition of concepts. To help you understand why, let
me first provide an example of how this sort of thing works when
actually approached with the methodology you endorse above.

Prior to the 1980's there had been an off and on debate about the
causes of peptic ulcers, with excess acidity and other etiological
factors generally being favored over bacterial infection. In the
early '80's Marshall and Warren hypothesized a relationship between H.
pylori and peptic ulcer disease. To make a long story short, their
hypothesis was met with much skepticism and resistance. They and the
group that came to work on the subject published on the order of 250
papers on the subject. Papers that followed the path of critical
thinking - that is, they examined their own hypothesis by repeatedly
setting up and testing scenarios that could have falsified it. By
2002 there was a general consensus that antibiotic treatment of H.
pylori was the treatment of choice for peptic ulcers in most
situations. That change in consensus was brought about by simple
research and by the presentation of evidence.

There are some things to note in this story. Marshall and Warren did
not publish hard cover books to the general public. They did not set
up blogs (of course that would have been impossible in the early
years, but you take my general point). They did not host innumerable
lectures to undergraduates and church groups sponsored by Campus
Crusade for Gastroenterology. They did not found an Institute. They
did not claim persecution or martyrdom. They did not introduce the
supernatural. They simply did the work necessary to support their
claims and published the results of that work to their peers for
criticism. Over two hundred times.

Compare this style of real science with Dembski's version. To change
a relatively small paradigm in medicine they published over two
hundred papers. Contrast this with Dembski, Meyer, Behe, et al, who
studiously avoid their peers and have published next to nothing on a
subject they claim to be revolutionizing. That was my point in
directing you to the Febble thread. Dembski publishes to the public
and hides from actual scientists. On the occasions when someone like
Elizabeth Liddle goes to the trouble of actively seeking him out on
his blog and raises technical issues that are not easily answered, his
response is to ban her from posting. Yet you read that thread (or
claim to have) and found nothing amiss? And you wonder why people
mock you for blathering on about critical thinking and rational debate
on this subject?

And now, instead of following through on your claims, instead of
rebutting the initial criticisms, instead of presenting the "well
reasoned arguments for ID" you claim to see, you are reduced to ad
populum fallacies, misdirected one-liners, and geriatric creationist
analogies about turtles. Why don't you return to your original post
and support your claims about Dembski and the nature of rational
scientific debate? Why don't you get off your ass and do the work
required to find out where the actual roadblocks to the acceptance of
this "well reasoned" idea are located? Does your understanding of
this subject really end at the level of turtle analogies from musty
Bible tracts? I suggest that the reason you have sunk to a style you
initially deplored is that you cannot support your own claims of
having a grand and open vision. I suggest that you, like Dembski and
his other followers, deliberately and actively avoid the kind of real
debate and research that you claim to champion. By conflating
religion and science while misrepresenting your motives, it is you who
bring science and religion into conflict and your version of religion
into disrepute.


KP

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