Darwinism and academic culture: Mathematician Jeffrey Shallit weighs in

You can tell that Darwinism is failing when it attracts completely ridiculous attacks like
this one, on Signature in the Cell (Harper One, 2009). The gist of Shallit's complaint is that Nagel thought Meyer's book a prize.* But Shallit says,

Meyer claims, over and over again, that information can only come from a mind -- and that claim is an absolutely essential part of his argument. Nagel, the brilliant philosopher, should see why that is false. Consider making a weather forecast. Meteorologists gather information about the environment to do so: wind speed, direction, temperature, cloud cover, etc. It is only on the basis of this information that they can make predictions. What mind does this information come from?

What mind indeed? If we experience either snow or dull, freezing rain here tomorrow, why should I be surprised? This is the season officially known as winter.

So, maybe Nagel, the brilliant philosopher, knows more than Shallit, the University of Waterloo prof.

I thought Thomas Nagel's discussion of animal mind, in "What is it like to be a bat?" was the best of its type, in elucidating the difficulties of a materialist explanation of mind. I would commend it to all.

For example, the information that explains how the butterfly emerges from the mess of the pupa, after the caterpillar has done its bit by constantly eating leaves, is vastly more complex than the information that explains why rain falls or snow blankets. We seek an explanation for metamorphosis, not for why rain or snow falls.

Here is an example:



So how is the trick done inside the "magic box" of the pupa? As one biologist told me, "The entire caterpillar dissolves, and is reconstructed as a butterfly." The stored energy from the caterpillar's voracious eating habits creates that? ... ridiculous. Let's hear more explanations, and subject them to tests, based on the life of the universe.

*Signature in the Cell (Harper One, 2009) was indeed literally a prize at Uncommon Descent recently. I hope for more copies soon, for more contests and more prizes.

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Darwinism and academic culture: So now we admit there are problems?

A friend draws my attention to this paper by a materialist, in which we read,

"Incremental changes in an existing biological structure the alterations in beak shape of the finches that so impressed Charles Darwin during his voyage to the Galapagos Islands, for instance - can indeed be attributed to natural selection. Even most creationists do not deny this. But when it comes to the innovation of entirely new structures (‘‘morphological novelties’’) such as segmentally organized bodies (seen in earthworms, insects, and vertebrates such as humans, but not jellyfish or molluscs), or the hands and feet of tetrapods (vertebrates with four limbs), Darwin’s mechanism comes up short. This is a reality that is increasingly acknowledged by biologists, particularly those working in the field of evolutionary developmental biology, or ‘‘EvoDevo.’’ "

“Derision of a traditionalist segment of the public for not immediately jumping into line with standard selectionist narratives (however far-fetched they may be), is not the answer here. The scientific mainstream should rightly be prevailing in the evolution debate, since the living world is manifestly a product of evolution. But it and its liberal advocates are so wedded to a neo-Darwinism that has effectively become the house philosophy of the market economy that they are barely holding on in their attempts to prevent naturalistic accounts of the history of life from being expunged from school curricula. Unless the discourse around evolution is opened up to scientific perspectives beyond Darwinism, the education of generations to come is at risk of being sacrificed for the benefit of a dying theory.”

Much of SCIENCE AT THE CROSSROADS: Evolution: The Public’s Problem, and the Scientists’ by Stuart A. Newman is nonsense, but the author has certainly got one thing right: People don't believe it because it is not believable.

Newman, if you do not have a better story (and you obviously don't), it is okay to say you don't know. I don't either. But please discourage people from insulting the public any more with the Big Spenders or Big Bazooms theories of human evolution.

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Darwinism and academic culture: ID film banned

Apparently, California's Science Centers refuses to show Darwin's Dilemma, about the Cambrian explosion , which was a big problem for Darwin.

He blamed the incomplete fossil record, but now that it is more complete, the significance of the explosion is all the more obvious.

Basically, almost all basic animal life forms came into existence about 550 million years ago and have pretty much developed from there. This is not good news if you are fronting a theory of evolution that depends on random, meaningless mutations (= Darwinism).

In fact, I remember a stupid Darwin lobbyist announcing that she had arguments against the "Cambrian explosion argument", only to be rebuked by mathematician David Berlinski, who pointed out that there is no Cambrian explosion argument. There is a Cambrian explosion, period. Deal with it or get lost, but please don't demand public or donor funding for your emotional problem with it. Anyway,

Today the Los Angeles Daily News reports that the California Science Center, a “department of the State of California,” cancelled the screening of Darwin’s Dilemma after the screening became public knowledge and the Center came under intense pressure to cancel, possibly from the Smithsonian Institution, with which they are affiliated. The Center’s IMAX Theater had been rented by a private group, the American Freedom Alliance, to hold the Los Angeles premiere of the film as part of a series of activities commemorating the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

This will help the American public believe that there is something to be said for Darwinism as surely as the Canadian Human Rights Commission's pretend Nazis convinced Canadians that there is something good to be said about the Commission. Like I have said before, there is fire all along the northern border, due to exercises in completely stupid, censorious, and intrusive government and its funded agencies that never address real issues.

Love it, hate it. Oh, way better you should hate it.

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Darwinism and academic culture: Why so many scientists no longer believe Darwinism

British physicist David Tyler notes some reasons for thinking "survival of the fittest" is not good science:

Darwin regarded the fossil evidence as potentially providing a valid test of his theory. He predicted gradual transformation. Since he did not observe it, he invoked "extreme imperfection" to preserve the theory. This explanation is no longer credible. The fossil record must now stand as evidence that refutes Darwinian gradualism. Those examples of gradual morphological change represent, at best, 5% of observed trends, but it is possible they are simply extreme cases of random walk trajectories. In a eureka moment of clear thinking, Stephen Jay Gould declared that Neodarwinism "as a general proposition, is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy". Those who represent analyses like this as religiously motivated and out of bounds for consideration in school science lessons are doing a great disservice to education and to the students they claim to be defending.

Also, people do eventually figure out when they are being snookered.

See also:

Newly discovered life forms raise old question?: 600 Antarctic deep-sea animals

The new mutation theory

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Academics as conformists?: No, they just want to be non-conformists, like everybody else

Or so Nicholas Wade tells us is the view of Thomas Bouchard, the Minnesota psychologist who studied twins raised apart ("Researcher Condemns Conformity Among His Peers," New York Times, July 25, 2009). Now retiring, in an interview with Constance Holden, Bouchard assails his colleagues (paywall). Wade writes,

Journalists, of course, are conformists too. So are most other professions. There’s a powerful human urge to belong inside the group, to think like the majority, to lick the boss’s shoes, and to win the group’s approval by trashing dissenters.

The strength of this urge to conform can silence even those who have good reason to think the majority is wrong. You’re an expert because all your peers recognize you as such. But if you start to get too far out of line with what your peers believe, they will look at you askance and start to withdraw the informal title of “expert” they have implicitly bestowed on you. Then you’ll bear the less comfortable label of “maverick,” which is only a few stops short of “scapegoat” or “pariah.”

Whether you are right or wrong on the facts makes no difference because facts are what the academic monoculture chooses to recognize as such.

David Tyler notes here:

A bit of history of science will help here. Why is it that science did not flower after the young plant started so well among the ancient Greeks? Why did Islamic science falter in the Middle Ages? Why did Chinese science not get beyond some promising technological innovations? The answer is that in each case, the thinking of the scholars was dominated by a consensus ideology. Instead of testing ideas by reference to the natural world, they showed their allegiance was to Aristotelian philosophy (or to the equivalent in the cases of the Arab and Chinese cultures). Why did science develop in 17th Century Europe? It is because the scientists were consciously throwing off Aristotelianism and resolving to test their theories of the natural world by reference to observations of nature. The experimental method was the hallmark of their enquiries.

Wouldn't it be cheaper just to develop avatars of academics that would lecture students on TV screens? They'd all pretty much say the same thing, just like before, right. We could change the graphics now and then.

Darwinism and academic culture: Skepticism not allowed?

A friend draws my attention to an essay published in Nature (458, 30 (5 March 2009) doi:10.1038/458030a) by a sociologist, who advises that we cannot live by skepticism alone.

Scientists have been too dogmatic about scientific truth and sociologists have fostered too much scepticism — social scientists must now elect to put science back at the core of society, says Harry Collins.

Harry Collins is director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge Expertise Science at Cardiff University, UK. He is currently working on a book about tacit and explicit knowledge.

As a friend points out, this guy's views are chilling:

One can justify anything with scepticism. Recently a philosopher acting as an expert witness in a court case in the United States claimed that the scientific method, being so ill-defined, could support creationism. Worse, scientific and technological ideas are nowadays being said to be merely a matter of lifestyle, supporting the idea that wise folk may be justified in choosing technical solutions according to their preferences — an idea horribly reminiscent of 'the common sense of the people' favoured in 1930s Germany. Some social scientists defend parents' right to reject vaccines and other unnatural treatments because a lack of danger cannot be absolutely demonstrated. At the beginning of the century, President Thabo Mbeki's policies denied anti-retroviral drugs to HIV-positive pregnant mothers in South Africa. Some saw this as a justified blow against Western imperialism, given that the safety and efficacy of the treatment cannot be proven beyond doubt.

Well now, some responses:

1. The scientific method can support any evidence-based view, and that would include creationism (= the Big Bang, for example).

2. Common sense is the best deterrent to fanaticism based on ideological certainty. Fanaticism based on ideological certainty has killed far more innocent people than common sense ever did.

3. Compulsory vaccination is a bad idea because most people will simply choose to be vaccinated, which greatly reduces the prevalence - and danger - of an illness. That usually means that even the people who don't get vaccinated are much less likely to get it. So there is really no need for strong arm tactics.*

Because advanced modern societies can consistently exert more technical power over the average person than traditional ones could is all the more reason to be cautious about how that power is used.

4. I think that Mbeki's policies re anti-retrovirals must have been hatched on some planet other than Earth. But he is the head of South Africa. If South Africans do not care enough to do something about this problem, I would recommend that (1) we consider the possibility that they know something we don't; or (2) those of us who care should design inputs that do not cause more hostility to us than to him (easy to bring about, unfortunately, as the history of imperialism has shown).

In my view, there is currently way too little skepticism today, rather than too much.

Indeed, another friend writes to say that Collins's views sound like "consensus science" in the sense that outsiders have no access to truth, and have to rely on the votes of current science establishment figures. And they must not be skeptical. As my friend points out, this approach "closes the door to effective critiques, because the standard is 'expertise' rather than evidence."

*I remember when the Salk vaccine against polio came to Regina, Saskatchewan, in - I think - 1955. I was a small child in a lineup in front of the school house stretching way down the street, whining, "Mommy, I'm scared! I don't want a needle!" My mom was carrying my brother and holding my younger sister's hand, and she told me, "Just be quiet! You don't want polio either."

As per usual, it did not take long for average Canadians to figure out what science advances were really of use to us. We are way better at that than some would give us credit for.

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Darwinism and academic culture: Not another one for the Expelled files ... ?

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe Americans are getting sick of all this Expelled stuff:

Recently, I received a rare student complaint over an e-mail I had sent to all my classes. In the e-mail, which welcomed all of my students back for a new semester, I characterized myself as an “outspoken Christian professor.” I admitted that I had been critical of some aspects of Darwinism and that I saw my students as more than mere “random mutations.” Finally, I said my Christian views would cause me to treat them differently – namely, by holding them all to a high standard that would help them find their purpose in life: a Divine purpose given to them by their Creator.

[ ... ]

In his letter to the department chair, the student claimed that it was inappropriate and offensive for a professor to reveal his religious affiliation in class. He said he was also offended by what he perceived as an inappropriate put-down of Darwinism. Finally, he expressed his concern that he would become a victim of religious discrimination because he did not share my religious views.

If he’d bothered to approach me directly, I could have told this student a little of what I know about inappropriate and offensive religious expression in the classroom. In fifth grade I had a teacher named Barbara O’Gara. Mrs. O’Gara was my favorite teacher despite the fact that I was then a Baptist and she was an atheist. Mrs. O’Gara made no secret of this fact. She mentioned it on the first day of class, and she mentioned it throughout the year.

During the course of the year, though, it never occurred to me to report Mrs. O’Gara for simply stating her religious affiliation. If it offended me, I simply dealt with it. Even as a fifth-grader, I sensed that this was how mature people handled things. She had a right to her feelings, and I had a right to mine.

Strange that a fifth grader in those days would have more sense of what North American culture is about than many postdocs do today.

As students in the 1960s, the Baby Boomers fought for the right to be treated as adults. After they became college administrators in the 1990s, they began to fight for students’ right to be treated like children. The war was waged principally with speech codes, which give almost unlimited power to college administrators who wish to control the marketplace of ideas.

Those of us who oppose these speech codes should not be angry when college administrators try to enforce them. We should thank God for the arrogance that these codes foster. They embolden these administrators in ways that seldom play well in front of a jury of their peers.

My own view is that university is a privilege for those who can tolerate ideas they don't agree with. If that is a big problem, I recommend a good trade school where one will learn only practical information and can make a good living out of it.

While we are here anyway:

- Canadian columnist to the world Mark Steyn's "Live Free or Die!" talk at Hillsdale College. (He was being sued by three different Canadian "human rights" commissions last year and was named Journalist of the Year for standing up to these new totalitarians.)

- Here, the Ontario Press Council has the good sense not to interfere with a boorish letter to the editor (against immigrants) that contains no defamation against any individual, so far as I can see. I expect that the social ostracism will be quite enough in this case.

For the record: So far as I know, everyone who has ever lived in Canada - including our Aboriginal peoples - was originally an immigrant or descended therefrom. So Canada is by definition a nation of immigrants. And indeed, for the last 10 000 years, I suppose, boors have groused about immigrants, forgetting that they themselves are the children of immigrants.

Also, re defamation, I cannot stress this too strongly: English common law on defamation (and its many ramifications) is intended to protect individuals against demonstrable harm caused by demonstrably false statements about them.

It is not intended to protect anyone from feeling bad about something someone else says about the group he identifies with/is identified with. Nor does it protect dead people (who, we must decently assume, are with God and have nothing to fear from this world). Nor abstractions like religions, philosophies, causes, or political parties. That is just not what defamation law aims to do. It is aimed against concrete personal harm, not claims about abstract harm.

Fun trailer on Indoctrinate U

Starting back to school? Wanna major in science? Go to Indoctrinate U and forget all the questions you wrestle with. As columnist David Limbaugh writes,

Tom Bethell, in his Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, quotes author Michael Crichton as saying that consensus science "is an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had."

"Wallet? What wallet? We don't know nothing about no wallet. And if you had a wallet, that was against The Rules."

Profs and ID: Community college profs 5 times as likely to take intelligent design seriously.

"About 30 percent of community college professors considered intelligent design as a serious scientific alternative. Fewer than 6 percent of professors at elite universities took that position," according to a study by sociologists Neil Gross of Harvard University and Solon Simmons of George Mason University, who surveyed nearly 1500 US profs. This finding tracks other similar findings, and makes one wonder whether universities go out of their way to encourage and reward materialism.

The studies indicate that spirituality affects how professors teach and interact with the world, said Jennifer A. Lindholm, the UCLA project director.

Her study concluded that the more spiritual professors were more likely to use cooperative learning techniques in the classroom; to use their scholarship to address community needs; and to encourage students to perform community service.

Maybe the "more spiritual professors" think they will be judged one day or that they will have to spend eternity with their students or something like that.