KF has annotated some TSZ posts in a pdf document here, with comments as to what he finds objectionable and why.
In my view he is entitled to right of reply, and in that spirit I post his annotated document.
26 thoughts on “Kairosfocus’ response to TSZ posts”
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Link doesn’t work on tablets.
Link works on the desktop.
It would have saved KF a lot of trouble if he had simply posted links to ID research or had posted a summary of the ID research program (or proposed program) or had posted the theory of ID.
As it is the claim that ID is not creationism falls flat.
And since creationists (using the word creationism) are hard at work this very moment in Texas trying to get creationism (using that word) into textbooks, the claim that ID is not a political movement falls flat.
Yeah.
*sigh*
and KF seems utterly incapable of looking in the mirror. Oh well.
Well, that is a stunning waste of time. Poor KF, what a misery it must be to be within his mind.
What on earth can he imagine is the point of all his yellow highlighter and comments and arrows?
I’m reminded of this American classic:
Hey, KF, if you’re reading this, you can google it yourself if you need the reference.
There was a time a couple of years ago when explicit creationism was forbidden at UD. Any reference to the Designer had to be veiled. There are a few holdouts for this position, but most IDists have abandoned the ploy.
Since this threaad is for Kariosfocus, I’d like to ask him how the Designer navigates the impossibly large search space if He is not omniscient.
Shouldn’t a scientific theory of ID have at least some demonstration that design is possible without small incremental probes of the space adjacent to known functional points?
Yes, if the search space is as disconnected as he claims then an important part of ID must be about how such disconnected spaces are navigated by an intelligence. Yet KF seems satisfied to simply point out (on the basis of nothing at all mind) that they are so disconnected.
It seems the actual hard work of taking the next step to make a mere claim into something more will never be taken by KF as he’s too busy putting red lines around comments on a backwater blog, as that’s obviously far more important then progressing the science of ID.
There are 2000 results for the search “Nazi” at UD. Most of them linking Darwinism to Hitler. Yet the merest mention of it from a non-ID supporter is apparently worth tens of thousands of words and legal threats.
I suggest you purge UD of such trash first KF then you can look at the mote in others eyes.
It’s come to something when DaveScot’s is the voice of reason at UD:
Posted 5 years ago.
DaveScot nostalgia. Who woulda thunk?
My problem with ID is that a designer would need a brain bigger than a universe, but assuming He does, He has chosen to make His work look just like evolution by small, incremental steps.
I always figure we (our whole universe) actually are a giant science experiment by an entity exterior to our universe, of course (but not necessarily bigger-brained than a universe, merely with some capability to instantiate a Big-Bang type creation). That entity had/has zero idea how it would all turn out, and had/has no particular desires as to the outcome, and was/is perfectly happy to have physics, chemistry, and unguided evolution make whatever effects they make. The whole point would be to witness if there were any delightful surprises in the way it turns out.
No wonder it all looks just like evolution by small, incremental steps – because that’s exactly what it is! There wouldn’t be any point to the experiment if the entity was going to cook the data by giving evolution a shove now and then into some “design” or other.
Of course, I did not say that Christians were the enemies of humanity, or even creationists. The enemies of humanity are those at the heart of the ID movement in America. That is, those figures associated with Phillip Johnson and/or the Discovery Institute.
“Upgraded Canaanite storm god” is accurate. I will happily do an OP on the history of the god of the Hebrew bible once I have finished my current series of posts.
As for KF’s objection to “theocratic”, he can respond to my posts on ID and Totalitarianism Part I and Part 2 if he likes, and the other parts of the series as I post them.
The dislike of characterizing the DI (the public face of ID) as political is noted. Or perhaps KF thinks he is part of the public face. In which case lol, and also a suggestion he stops going on about Marxists.
Or maybe the “designer” had some target in mind but incompetently blew itself up in the Big Bang.
Now everything just runs amok.
KF is being delusional and is trying to rewrite history.
The socio/political history of the ID/creationist movement is written in stone now; it is publicly available in books and in court records. And the followers of this movement, such as those currently in Texas, are simply etching that record ever deeper.
Hee hee. Now if either of us can figure out a way to test either of our imagined scenarios, and if either of us can get the big boys with the big toys in physics to perform our tests, then maybe …
Naw, too much like work. I’d rather follow the lazy ID method and stick to idle speculation. 😀
KF could have a point, if ID were a science, not a fraudulent attempt to rebrand creationism, both in order to attempt an end-run around court cases and in order to create “the big tent.”
One objection to a point I made about understanding how human health relates to animal studies:
similiar biochem assumed as “proof” of evo-mat theses
Actually, that’s a very simplistic view of the matter. The point is that evolutionary processes, and nothing else, entails not only homologic similarities, but also homologic dissimilarities, in related organisms, depending on when they ceased to exchange genetic information (obviously in organisms with little or no horizontal genetic transfer). So that all three major groups of flying vertebrates had substantial homologies, but bird, bat, and pterosaur adaptations for vertebrate flight are non-homologous.
How do we test theories? By figuring out what is specifically entailed by the causal processes in the theory, and seeing if these specific patterns exist. If these produce unique effects (and evolutionary processes do, so far as we know), and if these unique effects are found, these effects are considered to be very strong evidence for this theory–so long as there is no fatal objection to such cause-effect results.
By contrast, ID by no means entails either the similarities or the dissimilarities that evolution does. That’s why it only tries to pretend that these entailments of evolution don’t matter, under the assumption that some unknown design processes just could follow such bizarre (from a design standpoint) limitations, but without any reason to suppose that any design process actually does occur with these limits (no, even evolution-mimics like GAs don’t count, as these occur in conjunction with design elements).
So yes, biochemical similarities and dissimilarities are “assumed” to indicate that evolution has occurred, something that most creationists/IDists themselves accept until some unevidenced, usually theology-derived, point is reached, where they assume, without evidence or reasonable cause, that such a distinctive set of markers no longer counts.
Such inconsistencies are the marks of frauds like ID.
Unfortunately for KF, only if ID were good science would the majority of his objections count at all. Since it isn’t good science, but merely bad apologetics, most of his objections are exactly why most of us see no reason to be charitable toward such egregious nonsense, nor to purveyors of such nonsense who fail to deal properly with evidence like biochemical similarities, and dissimilarities.
Regarding the DI as the plausible deniability wing of creationism, I suggest that ID must stand for Implausible Deniability.
KF,
I would hardly call equating homosexual men with paedophiles a “principled objection”. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it was part of a campain to malign a specific sub-group of people, to dehumanize them so that ultimately whatever “cure” KF has in mind for such people can be applied with little to no outcry. After all, they are sub-human…
Here’s a few comments where “gay” and “paedophile” are used interchangeably.
There’s others too. But meh, I’ve had enough of his screeds for now.
KF, just do what I tried to do during my time at UD: respond calmly and rationally even when you’re insulted and ignore those who treat you with malice. Joe, for example, treated me like a rabid dog no matter how I treated him.
OMagain,
But, you know, I say all this tongue in cheek (obviously, I hope…) as KF as no more chance of getting into a position of power and able to mould society as he sees fit then he does of flying to the moon unaided.
So whatever cure he has in mind for the evils of homosexuality will never come to pass. But when he attempts to dress up what is fundamentally ignorance (does he not know any gay people? I can only surmise that if he does then they’ve not let him know!) in principle then, meh, ridicule is all I got to give.
But, fundamentally, it’s possible to be nasty yet never use a nasty word. But the ideas that lurk behind that pleasant façade are nonetheless despicable and should be, I believe, exposed to the light at the very least.
Blue Lotus.
Faux outrage allows them to be on the offensive. They don’t want to answer uncomfortable questions about their lack of a hypothesis or experimentation or any mathematically rigorous design inference or their constant reference to the Christian God.
But, but, but . . . that would make UD a fever swamp of incivility! Kairosfocus would never frequent such a place!
hotshoe:
You can get anything you want…
Curiously, UD had a post remarking on a similar notion only a short time ago. Post Link Usual tripe in the comments but one.
Didn’t someone post a link a few days ago to a book on amazon exploring just this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God%27s_Debris
There truly are no new ideas under the sun. 🙁
There are probably a few, but the well-cited (and well referenced) book I have is The Early History of God by Mark S. Smith. It’s a weighty academic tome at 600-odd pages, but very interesting. I haven’t finished it yet.
Hah! Scott Adams. Funny!
I would have thought Douglas Adams would have been more likely to come up with such an idea.
From The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:
Mike Elzinga,
The absolutists could wish if only logic was that powerful.
Mike Elzinga,
I have a plausible ID scenario in which the Designer’s task was to come up with a basic self-replicating chemical system. She got an A. At the end of the day the brew was flushed down the sink. The rest is history.