Of course none of this, even at its worst before truces were achieved, ever remotely resembled the kind of social-science tong wars between different “schools” that Albert (no doubt indulging in a bit of projection) was imagining occur in contemporary science. Just goes to show that while sociology of science is good, some sociologists of science- those who understand far less than they think they do about how science is done- are bad. (Fuller, of course, is in a class by himself for badness.)

I’m guessing that albert is referring to the shift in emphasis of graduate programs and new faculty positions at public universities away from conventional breeding disciplines toward molecular breeding and biotechnology that occured 15 years or so ago. The fears of strangulation and lost art have since disipated. The primary reason is that conventional breeding methods have benefited enormously from the molecular revolution, especially the widespread application of molecular markers and mapping techniques. Second, if anything biotechnology including GM techniques have increased the demand for convention methods augmented by molecular markers, etc. The reason is simple, GM methods modify or add a single gene – you still have to manage the other 30-40000 genes that make up the organism.

a. gods (ie beings who capture our consciousness when we die) exist; or

b. LGM* and/or TMA** (beings who do not capture our consciousness when we die) exist.

c. all science is enriched by the idea that gods, lgm and/or tma have played and/or are continuing to play a role in everything.

All biologists should thank me for this shattering insight and devote their time and energy to developing research protocols to prove my hypothesis. Astronomers, you’re next.

[hat tips to Panda’s Thumb, Monty Python and Arthur C. Clarke.]

• little green men

** tycho magnetic anomaly

If I have an axe to grind in all this, it doesn’t involve making room for God but retaining a privileged space for humans in a science whose default world-view is currently ‘species egalitarian’.

You keep on saying things like this but you never explain how something as anti-scientific as ID is supposed to open up anything. It has no research programme. It has no testable hypotheses. It makes no predictions. But most importantly, it is founded on the principle of “If I don’t understand how evolution could have made this, the Designer must have.” Do you not see how profoundly unlikely adopting such an attitude is to generate research? I commend your willingness to respond to your many critics but your repeated failure to address this central point really calls into question your sincerity.

Well, it would be nice to have some RESULTS first, Dr. Fuller.

Otherwise, you’re simply arguing for pink unicorns as a causative agent. And that’s simply idiotic and divorced from reality.

Frankly, you’re being naive beyond all conception; money is out there for at least a pilot program….and positive results from THAT are what’s needed, not this armwaving political stuff.

[ID]’s a live political concern with a real constituency that is more heterogeneous than its opponents acknowledge.

Yes, it’s a live political concern, no, we fully acknowledge the heterogeneity of its proponents (in fact, I’ve noted often that it’s most ardent supporters don’t actually believe in the vague hypotheticals of ID), but…

…and this is a goddamned huge but….

…IT ISN’T SCIENCE.

If you are going to push some revolutionary new ‘paradigm’ in science with the idea that even if it proves wrong, it will at least shake up the status quo, it would be like, really keen if the idea you were peddling were at least in some general sense actually scientific.

Two questions:

(1) is it this alleged “world-view” (whatever that means) really the “default” or is it a “world-view” that contemporary scientists adopted because it has proven more useful to them than the alternative(s)?

(2) what do you think about the earth-centered solar system “world-view”, Steve? Is there any more milk in that teat? I guess there’s no way to tell unless we go back in time and suck as hard as we can.

plant breeding/plant genetics recently

Huh. Do the revolutionaries understand that this “evolutionary ladder” is a scientifically bogus concept?

From a longevity and adaptability perspective, the most successful organisms on earth are microbes and—I confidently predict—that will remain the case for the next billion years (as was the case for the previous four billion years).

Humans are interesting—my personal preferences include the “rock star” and “innocent teen”—but rather fragile.

If I have an axe to grind in all this, it doesn’t involve making room for God but retaining a privileged space for humans in a science whose default world-view is currently ‘species egalitarian’.

Clear as mud.

ID has two advantages in this context: (1) It’s a live political concern with a real constituency that is more heterogeneous than its opponents acknowledge.

It’s nearly impossible to know where to begin with desconstructing this sort of bullcrap.

How about we ask Steve to tell us: what is the degree of heterogeneity of ID “constituents” that has been acknowledged by the opponents of ID?

The “live” proponents of the notion that “intelligent design” is science are overwhelmingly conservative Christians who consider themselves “born again”. Sure, there’s some folks there who belong to other Christian sects and probably a couple Jews and maybe some alleged “agnostics.”

There is far more heterogeneity among scientists, however. So what is Fuller’s point? He says

So while it can potentially attract a lot of resources, I don’t believe it can be fully controlled by any of those attractors.

Huh. It seems to me that a scientifically useless concept requires discipline from the top to bottom if it’s to be sold to rubes as something that it is not. But that’s the rub isn’t it? Even the Discovery Institute—a decidedly Christian organization—has trouble keeping the targets of its propaganda campaign on message. Funny that the Discovery Institute can’t find some credible honest and well-spoken atheists to help push its garbage. Why do you suppose that is, Steve? Please share your thoughts. After all, you are an “expert” on these matters, aren’t you?

(2) Unlike earlier forms of creationism, ID quite explicitly adopts a ‘pick and mix’ attitude toward Neo-Darwinism rather than treating it as something that is accepted or rejected in toto.

Ah yes, the Big Tent. You’ll also find ID supporters waffling about the age of the earth, depending on the audience that is present. ID peddlers pick and mix from anything and everything that is useful to them at the moment. What difference does it make, after all, when the idea your selling boils down to, “Or mysterious aliens did it using their mysterious powers.”

Haven’t you noticed how ID peddlers behave, Steve? After all, you’re the “expert.”

Everyone should re-read Nick Matske’s recent post here on the subject of ID as Creationism Redux if they have any doubts about the insignificance of alleged distinctions between traditional creationist baloney and neo-creationist baloney.

it’s harder than ever for radically opposing scientific views to attract sufficient resources to become credible.

How many millions of dollars of US taxpayer money have been spent in the last four years studying the effects of third party prayer on medical conditions? The idea that the benevolent responses of God can be quantified statistically and reproducibly is truly radical from a scientific viewpoint, Steve, in case you didn’t know. Nevertheless, my tax dollars are being used to support “research” into this “radical” venue (which is to say, my tax dollars are being flushed down the toilet—nothing new).

Also, Steve, how about letting everyone know the best estimates of how much money the Discovery Institute has had at its disposal over the past five years? And please provide the breakdown of how much of that money was spent on scientific research to support the claims of ID peddlers versus propaganda.

You should be interested in these facts, Steve. After all, you’re the “expert.”

Where does post #37 say that?

Hint: it doesn’t.

For me ID is a means to an end, namely, to open up the field of biology to alternatives. Why biology and not other sciences? Well, it’s always been the natural science closest to the human condition, and we now live in a time when it has become the most important field of science – whether you measure this in terms of the concentration of human, material and financial resources. Even on the ideological front, biology has eclipsed physics as the centre of gravity among historians and philosophers of science. If I have an axe to grind in all this, it doesn’t involve making room for God but retaining a privileged space for humans in a science whose default world-view is currently ‘species egalitarian’.

Now, you say that biology already debates alternatives, all located somewhere in the Neo-Darwinian paradigm, which is of course true. However, the positions in these debates resemble those surrounding Marxism in its heyday. Yes, there are lots of competing views afloat, but a full airing of differences is hamstrung by the need to harmonize a contemporary focus that tends to be very proactive and revolutionary with a more strictly historical focus which tends to be much more precautionary and even quietistic. Corresponding to the eager revolutionaries are the transhumanist enthusiasts who would genetically modify us up to the next step on the evolutionary ladder, and corresponding to the ‘no revolution before its time’ historicists are the biodiversity mongers who treat the earth like an organism in search of equilibrium with the cosmos.

ID has two advantages in this context: (1) It’s a live political concern with a real constituency that is more heterogeneous than its opponents acknowledge. So while it can potentially attract a lot of resources, I don’t believe it can be fully controlled by any of those attractors. (2) Unlike earlier forms of creationism, ID quite explicitly adopts a ‘pick and mix’ attitude toward Neo-Darwinism rather than treating it as something that is accepted or rejected in toto. Of course, this involves magnifying differences among Darwinists, but I don’t see a problem here because, unlike Kieran, I actually think it is possible to plan a successful scientific revolution. Lavoisier did so in chemistry, and was recognized as such in his own lifetime by the Marquis de Condorcet, who explicitly drew the parallel between political and scientific revolutions. (Condorcet had the American, not the ongoing French, Revolution in mind as his reference point: see I.B. Cohen, Revolution in Science, Harvard 1985.)

Of course, the fact that some planned scientific, like some planned political, revolutions succeed sometime does not mean they always will. But it’s worth a shot, especially if you believe – if I do – that it’s harder than ever for radically opposing scientific views to attract sufficient resources to become credible. Here I think the quote from Elster, who I normally think is very astute, should be taken with a grain of salt. because it’s not clear that the individual self-deception described in the quote scale up to an account of the sources of dissent in an entire scientific discipline. What Elster says about the perils of tolerating error and sloppiness makes sense only against the background of shared assumptions. But if the assumptions themselves are under dispute, then what he says is not so obviously correct.