Comments on: Scientific Prejudice

By: Robin Green

Robin Green — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 18:30:33 +0000

nat whilk: in simple words so that you can understand: Charles Copeland is a nutcase. A crackhead. A fool.

By: Nat Whilk

Nat Whilk — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:29:13 +0000

Robin Green wrote: “nat whilk – I think you are confused. Charles Copeland is a highly obnoxious reader of Crooked Timber and is certainly not a Crooked Timber author. So what’s your point?” Again with the “what’s your point?” query, Robin? Either I need to work on my writing or you need to work on your reading comprehension. My point is that it would be nice to see some consistency—both by Crooked Timber authors and Crooked Timber readers—in their individual reactions to the claims of evolutionary psychology, or, failing that, a reason for the inconsistency. Are evolutionary psychologists’ explanations for religion somehow more legitimate than their explanations of those things that humanists hold dear?

By: john c. halasz

john c. halasz — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 07:17:48 +0000

Perhaps the real point should be that, even if complex biological “systems” were designed, they would not be predictable, so what is gained by claims to design? But then, that point would tell against “reverse engineers”, as well as against crypto-creationists.

By: loren

loren — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 03:14:35 +0000

robin: “Still no direct response yet to Behe’s argument that ID is falsifiable. … another post claims that Behe’s absence of evidence for ID is tantamount to evidence of absence of ID - which is a bit like throwing stones in glass houses, since the same could be said about neo-Darwinism’s shaky foundations” Design conjectures and hypotheses can be falsifiable: we use falsifiable design claims in the social sciences all the time (“that policy was intended to have that outcome.” “Doesn’t seem that way to me—give me evidence!”) In spite of what you read from Behe and Dembski, the fruitfulness of ID does not turn on the vague question of whether or not there is evidence of design in nature. Hey, hypothesize away. Here, I’ll go: I hypothesize that really complex biological systems are designed, by which I mean they are artifacts. So what? The really hard work would then have me testing specific claims about who designed these systems, how they did it, and why. ID theorists have proven time and again that they really aren’t interested in exploring these sorts of scientific questions about design. And that leads me to think that they really aren’t much interested in science.

By: Robin Green

Robin Green — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 21:51:41 +0000

Hi, a skeptic of neo-Darwinism chiming in here. nat whilk – I think you are confused. Charles Copeland is a highly obnoxious reader of Crooked Timber and is certainly not a Crooked Timber author. So what’s your point? That Crooked Timber allows dissent to be posted? asg – Still no direct response yet to Behe’s argument that ID is falsifiable. One post claims that Behe doesn’t understand the concept of falsifiability – without explaining what exactly is wrong with the experiment Behe proposes. Another post claims that Behe’s absence of evidence for ID is tantamount to evidence of absence of ID - which is a bit like throwing stones in glass houses, since the same could be said about neo-Darwinism’s shaky foundations (see for example Richard Milton’s writings or book on the subject).

By: loren

loren — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 20:43:33 +0000

C.J.Colucci: “What would an Intelligent Design research program look like?” They’d be looking for evidence of design, and then testing hypotheses about the methods used by the designers, and the aims behind their designs. Of course we do this in the social sciences all the time, so I’d say ID would look a lot like, say, anthropology and archeology, with maybe some good historical digging, interpretive clarity, and clever survey research (“when you designed this planet, did you have a specific goal in mind? if not, please skip to question 6. If yes, was it (a) …”). An uncomfortable fact for ID’ers is that, for all their griping about naturalistic bias in the sciences, we study design scientifically all the time. What the likes of Behe and Dembsky presumably don’t like is that, when you apply scientific scrutiny to the question of design in nature, you just don’t find very much to study outside of human societies, and maybe a few other terrestrial organisms at the outside. That may change, but I’m not holding my breath.

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:54:37 +0000

I wasn’t interested in the story as an argument against astrology, because as I said I think it’s utterly ridiculous and doesn’t particularly need arguing against. Rather I was interested in it as a little bit of folksy sociology of science. In particular, it was evidence for a proposition I’d rather hope is true, namely that scientists empirical curiosity will often overcome any bias towards prior beliefs as long as there’s a nice, clean experiment to perform. A lot of people whose views are not accepted by the scientific mainstream resort to shouting “BIAS!” to explain the poor reception of their views, and this story (along with many others) helps undermine that ‘explanation’.

By: C.J.Colucci

C.J.Colucci — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:50:48 +0000

This may be a dumb question, but what does an Intelligent Design scientist DO all day? What kinds of experiments or investigations do they do? What would an Intelligent Design research program look like? “I can’t figure this out, therefore God” doesn’t take a lot of time or laboratory equipment.

By: Nat Whilk

Nat Whilk — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 15:14:01 +0000

Charles Copeland wrote: “Reommended reading on the evolutionary inevitability of religion, superstition, astrology, etc : ‘In Gods we Trust’, by Scott Atran” So, this is good evolutionary psychology unlike the bad evolutionary psychology that Crooked Timberites were fulminating against a few days ago, right?

By: Charles Copeland

Charles Copeland — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 14:20:51 +0000

Matt McIrvin writes: “As a general rule, seemingly ridiculous fringe beliefs have more intellectual pull than the highly educated imagine them to have …” They may have pull, but it’s hardly INTELLECTUAL pull. And why ‘fringe’ beliefs? Islam is certainly a ridicuous belief system, but Moslems aren’t on any fringe in Arab countries—- or in ‘Eurabia’ for that matter. Perhaps I’m too much of a tragic realist—but I doubt whether the 50000 members of The Skeptics Society will ever catch up, number wise, with the 50 million churchgoers (I think Daniel Dennett made that point somewhere, so I msy be inadvertently plagiarising him). Reommended reading on the evolutionary inevitability of religion, superstition, astrology, etc : ‘In Gods we Trust’, by Scott Atran (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/ref=sr_sp_go_as/026-4258854-8727628)

By: Matt McIrvin

Matt McIrvin — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 13:48:44 +0000

As a general rule, seemingly ridiculous fringe beliefs have more intellectual pull than the highly educated imagine them to have, and their proponents can often blindside skeptics with advanced sophistry, especially if the argument is in front of an audience hostile to the skeptics. It’s always good to discuss strategies for dealing with them, even if nobody who is actually reading needs to be convinced.

By: PZ Myers

PZ Myers — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 13:06:01 +0000

Well, that was my point. Astrology is ridiculous. Like Brian says, it can be dismissed without budging from one’s comfy chair. But giving some scientifically trained people an easily testable claim is like throwing chum to sharks—we can’t resist taking a bite.

By: Barry

Barry — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 12:24:22 +0000

Charles, keeping the ball from moving in the wrong direction is worth doing. And this actually does move the ball down the field in the right direction, IMHO. It does so by demonstrating the idea of testable/falsifiable hypotheses, and experimentation.

By: Charles Copeland

Charles Copeland — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 07:30:40 +0000

Good stuff, that. But isn’t astrology-bashing a bit like hitting a barn door, or like taking the Mickey out of Christian doctrine? Two, four, six, eight—trying to trans-substantiate. Or arguing that homeopathy is a load of bullshit—so obvious to the typical Crooked Timber devotee as to be preaching to the converted. I subscribe to Shermer’s quarterly ‘The Skeptic’ and get a dose of this every few months. It’s fun. But does it move the ball down the field?

By: Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 05:11:35 +0000

Thanks for linking to this Brian. I’ve got to forward it to all the scientists I know; it’ll crack them up.