Skepticism in all the wrong places and for all the wrong reasons

Skepticism Examiner has attempted (April 13, 2009) to shed some light on why Amanda Gefter's recent, foolish story on why materialism is right and design is wrong was pulled from New Scientist. The only copy I have been offered has a problem with its security certificate, so I cannot recommend going there, unfortunately.

I still don't understand what the problem with the story is.

I thought the story silly, but considered pulling it a gross shame. As I have made clear in all communications on the subject, despite the fact that Gefter misrepresents me and has persistently done so, I was not the person who complained.

I have no idea what happened, but fear that the most likely answer is - yet another cock-up due to Britain's unreformed libel laws. Today, people troll the planet looking for foolish jurisdictions that do not have clear libel laws.

Let me recommend a sound, traditional English Common Law approach:

A person can sue for defamation - without risk of simply wasting the court's time (and, in Canada, being forced to pay the court costs of the accused person - which is how we deter silly law suits) - if the false or unprovable statements made about him/her resulted in a specific harm (= lost a job opportunity, lost an election, was unfairly accused of throwing a sports match, etc.).

All the law of defamation really means - if rightly applied - is, you had better be sure of your facts before you go public with the accusation. In that case, the accused can claim as defenses:

1. Truth (= It's true.)

2. Fair comment (= I have the right to say that.)

3. Public interest (= I have evidence that this person - who is standing for public office - is not of good character.)

4. Good intent (This matter may be doubtful in your view, but I mean what I said for good. I did not intend harm to anyone. = "I honestly believe that those toadstools cause cancer.")

Having thought the matter over more thoroughly, I now think "honest mistake" should also be allowed as a defense in certain cases:

5. Here's a sample case: The journalist phones the home of Eusebius Actron, whose phone number shows that he lives in Saskatchewan. Journalist asks, "Are you the man who was just released from prison in the robbery and murder in the ABC Bank. But some lawyers say you might be innocent?"

Having acknowledged that his name is indeed Eusebius Actron, the man shouts "Get off my phone! I won't talk to the media! I''m calling my criminal defense lawyer!"

So the journalist reports that Eusebius Actron is now believed to be living in Saskatchewan.

Now suppose the man the journalist contacted wasn't actually the former bank robber, but someone who just happens, for some reason, to have exactly the same name, and also happens to be living somewhere in Saskatchewan?

It seems unreasonable to me that the non-criminal (?) Eusebius Actron could have a serious action for libel in such a case. He refused to acknowledge that he is not the convicted bank robber, which is all the journalist wanted to know in the first place. And his behaviour led the journalist to reasonably assume that he was.

I do not see why a journalist should be responsible for purveying false information that is not contested by the subject and perhaps not even easily checked, if the journalist does not have access to the police computer system.

I admit this is a more difficult area than some of the matters addressed above. But honest mistakes happen in all fields, and we certainly need to discuss levels of responsibility.

Okay, back to our main story: Amanda Gefter has - falsely - labelled me a creationist. But that doesn't really matter because - were it true - it would be of no real consequence. Gefter can define the term ''creationist" any way she wants, I suppose.

By contrast, if someone were to falsely label me a car thief, that would be another matter ... then, I might need to consider an action for defamation. That term is specifically defined, and I have never been convicted for any criminal offence. And false allegations that actually mattered might raise my insurance rates ...

In an apparent attempt to explain what happened, I love the sentence

If O'Leary is to be believed, then that leaves Le Fanu.

Well, I am to be believed.

I have never met Le Fanu, know nothing about him, and have not got to his new book yet, though I hear it is making something of a stir.

You will not find a scrap of evidence that I have ever sought legal redress regarding any foolishness that Amanda Gefter has written about me or about any of my colleagues.

In any event, it would be entirely contrary to principles to which I have dedicated my entire professional life. So you may just as well just believe that, and save yourselves a heap of wasted research.

"New scientists": Why not try to find out what is really happening, instead of telling yourselves dark tales in the dark?

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

New Scientist pulls post for legal reasons?

A friend writes to draw my attention to New Humanist wondering what is happening at New Scientist:

Last week we had Turkey's leading science magazine being forced to spike a story on Darwin, but could we now have a similar story somewhat closer to home? The blogosphere is awash with news that the New Scientist have pulled a piece from their website entitled "How to Spot a Hidden Religious Agenda", in which their book reviews editor Amanda Gefter explains the key signs she looks out for when deciding if a "science" book is in fact a creationist tract. At the URL where the article was, all that remains is the message, "New Scientist has received a complaint about the contents of this story. It has temporarily been removed while we investigate. Apologies for any inconvenience", along with the 643 comments the article must have received before it was pulled.The Skepticism Examiner give details of what was in the article, including what must have been the opening paragraph:

The rest is http://blog.newhumanist.org.uk/2009/03/whats-going-on-at-new-scientist.html" target="another">here.

Oddly, the blog post mentions me:

Some general sentiments are also red flags. Authors with religious motives make shameless appeals to common sense, from the staid - "There is nothing we can be more certain of than the reality of our sense of self" (James Le Fanu in Why Us?) - to the silly - "Yer granny was an ape!" (creationist blogger Denyse O'Leary). If common sense were a reliable guide, we wouldn't need science in the first place.

Well, I think Gefter should try a litttle common sense, and maybe she wouldn't be in this mess.

I presume that Gefter is annoyed with me for accurately describing New Scientist as the National Enquirer of pop science mags, principally based on this performance by herself.

For the record, I was not the one who complained, although I am not in fact a creationist in any meaningful sense of the word. People like Gefter typically just say whatever they want anyway; it's better not to get into it with them. I am pretty sure that, in any event, the blogosphere isn't really awash with a tsunami of news about this. These people all take themselves way too seriously.


Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Britain's New Scientist drops the ball on intelligent design?

Britain's science magazine, New Scientist weighed in in July with an alarm piece on intelligent design, "A sceptic's guide to intelligent design" by Bob Holmes and James Randerson.

(Note: If this is not the story you were looking for, see the Blog service note below or the stories listed in the sidebar. )

The interesting part is that, as Bill Dembski relates, reporter Bob Holmes told him,

I’m a Canada-based reporter for New Scientist magazine, an international newsweekly of science and technology. I’m working on an article about intelligent design, and would very much like a chance to talk with you by phone in the next few days. It seems to me the media coverage of intelligent design has mostly failed to present your case on scientific grounds, and I’d like to remedy that.

Dembski agreed to talk to him and relates the following:

During the phone interview, which lasted well over an hour, Holmes asked good questions and seemed to be tracking at key points in the discussion. For instance, on the question of testability of ID, I remarked that proponents of materialistic evolution invariably invoked as evidence for their theory experiments in which structures of biological interest evolved reproducibly. But for the results of an experiment to be reproducible, they must occur with high probability. Thus, if high probability confirms evolutionary theory, shouldn’t, by parity of reasoning, low probability disconfirm evolutionary theory? If not, the theory is insulated from empirical falsification. I offered as an example the original success of the Miller-Urey experiment in origin-of-life research and the subsequent failure of that origin-of-life research to explain information-rich biomacromolecules. Holmes seemed to “get it” during our interview, but none of this appears in his story.

No indeed. When the cover story appeared, it was merely the usual canards, claimimg among other things that ID is not testable, which is clearly not true. Dembski notes:

The article, instead, continues in exactly the same vein as the other media stories against ID that Holmes seemed to want to rectify. In other words, it constitutes media coverage of intelligent design that yet again fails to present our case on scientific grounds. Indeed, all the cliches and stereotypes are there. ID is repeatedly conflated with creationism. Additionally, the designer of ID is claimed to be “supernatual,” when in fact the nature of nature is precisely what’s at issue, and the designer could be perfectly natural provided that nature is understood aright.

I think the problem here is that Holmes — and indeed most current science writers — assume that science IS naturalism. The purpose of science, as they understand it, is to find explanations for all phenomena that depend entirely on chance events governed by natural law. Thus, the purpose of science is not to address Darwinism but to defend it. Design is, by definition, not part of science, even if design is part of a correct explanation.

Thus, even if Holmes had wanted to address Dembski's point above (that Darwinism — as it is currently held — is unfalsifiable), I can't imagine his editor letting him. Darwinism is indeed an unfalsifiable belief tenaciously held by almost all of New Scientist's subscribers, and that's why they cannot examine the arguments against Darwinism or for design, only raise alarms about them.

Dembski provides a .pdf of the article at the link above, so you can read it for yourself.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Science on settlement of intelligent design defamation lawsuit

Science magazine reported recently on the settlement of California attorney and ID sympathizer Larry Caldwell's defamation action against the California Academy of Sciences, for statements made about him in California Wild'st. The magazine will have to publish both an explanation by Caldwell of the facts of his involvement in the intelligent design controversy through Quality Science Education for All and a retraction by Scott for statements made. Caldwell notes that the article "is surprisingly accurate and balanced –except for the title."

The title is "Creationism Skirmish". As it happens, many titles are not written by the author of the article, but by a clever person who may not have had time to clearly grasp what the article is about. The title should have been something like "Defamation suit settled." Meanwhile, Caldwell has written to thank the author.


For more on the agreement by the California Academy of Sciences to correct the potentially libelous statements, go here.

Blog service note: Did you come here looking for any of the following stories?

- The op-ed by Catholic Cardinal Schonborn in the New York Times? Note also the Times's story on the subject, some interesting quotes from major Darwinists to compare with the Catholic Church's view, as expressed by the Cardinal, and an example of the kind of problem with Darwinian philosophy that the Cardinal is talking about.

- the Privileged Planet film shown at the Smithsonian, go here for an extended review. Please do not raise cain about an "anti-evolution" film without seeing it. If your doctor forbids you to see the film, in case you get too excited, at least read my detailed log of the actual subjects of the film. If you were one of the people who raised cain, ask yourself why you should continue to believe the people who so misled you about the film's actual content ...

- the showing of Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian, go here and here to start, and then this one and this one will bring you up to date.

- Bill Dembski threatening to sue the Thomas More Law Center in the Dover, Pennsylvania ID case, click on the posted link and check the current daily post for updates. (Note: In breaking news, this dispute has apparently been settled. See the story for details. )

Blog policy note: This blog does not intentionally accept fully anonymous Comments, Comments with language unsuited to an intellectual discussion, URLs posted without comment, or defamatory statements. Defamatory statement: A statement that would be actionable if anyone took the author seriously. For example, someone may say “O’Leary is a crummy journalist”; that’s a matter of opinion and I don’t know who would care. But if they say, “O’Leary was convicted of grand theft auto in 1983,” well that’s just plain false, and probably actionable, if the author were taken seriously. Also, due to time constraints, the moderator rarely responds to comments, and usually only about blog service issues.