Sandbox (1)

Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.

1,772 thoughts on “Sandbox (1)”

  1. What they never deal with is the issue of whether FSCO/I or dFSCI or CSI or FCSI of whatever can also be produced (or if you think it is already lying around in the environment, put into the genome) by natural selection.

    As I keep trying to point out, William Dembski’s “proof” that CSI cannot be put into the genome by natural selection plus random mutation are proofs that don’t work, they don’t do the job.

    They have a 100% record over at UD of ignoring this point, and they keep ignoring it. And they keep asserting, again and again, that if you see FCSO/I or dFCSI or CSI or FCSI, that diagnoses Design, that it shows that natural selection cannot be responsible. But it can.

    For all that they try to wrap themselves in the mantle of science, this makes clear that their arguments are weak. Fatally weak. 

  2. Allan Miller:

    despair – Hoyle’s Fallacy has been batted around for years. Without a handle on the density distribution of ‘targets’ in the space – including the subspace of shorter strings – calculations of impossibility based upon the size of the combinatorial space are utterly meaningless.

    Yes, let’s pretend that Hoyle was clueless.

     

  3. Joe Felsenstein:

    As the Original Post here argues, niwrad in effect argued that protein evolution was impossible.

    The debate is stalled. What is the essence o a protein?

  5. I don’t think you can. But if you can, here is how:

    Go to the comments page. You can get there clicking on the little bubble/cloud/whatever on the bar at the top of the screen. In the left column of the comments page, there will be a “Move” entry. Click on that. If there is no “Move” in the menu, then you can’t do it.

    Assuming you get to Move, you select the thread, then the comments in the thread, then the destination thread. It still might not work for you. It works for me as moderator.

    If it won’t work for you, then give me a list of comments that you want moved. Just use the comment numbers (appears in the url for the comment).

    If you use the “contact me” form in the “about” page of my blog, I might see it quicker than a post here. Also, that will be more private. My name on this post should link to my blog.

  6. Yes, let’s pretend that Hoyle was clueless.

    Hoyle made genuinely Nobel-worthy contributions to astrophysics. On biology: yes, he was clueless.

     

  8. Too late.  I can’t remove some of the comments because people replied to them. My lack of ability as a thread-level moderator to move anybody to the Sandbox is now working against having a sensible discussion, when trollish behavior occurs.

    Neil, “Sandbox” does not show up in the list of threads I can Move anyone to. The only alternative I can think of (aside from you informing me how I could Move comments to the Sandbox) is to create a new thread, which would be a dumping ground for trollery. 

  9. Neil, “Sandbox” does not show up in the list of threads I can Move anyone to.

    I only know three ways around this:
    (1) you ask an administrator to move them;
    (2) I temporarily change the sandbox thread to make you the listed author – perhaps that allows you to move to sandbox;
    (3) I make you an administrator – I hesitate on that, since it should be Elizabeth who makes that kind of decision.

    I will await reactions.

    [addendum] Another option would be for you to mark the offending comments as unapproved, and send me a note that you want them moved. That allows a quick reaction and a longer period to straighten things out.

  10. Neil, interestingly the list of threads that I am asked to choose from when I want to Move a comment includes mostly ones for which I am not the thread author. Of course, perhaps the blog software will refuse to let me complete the Move for most of them. I don’t know.

  11. In that case, I’m guessing that “Sandbox” is there, but you are having trouble finding it.

    It is around 50% down (going by the scroll bar). The topics are probably arranged in date-order.

    Whether or not it will allow you to move, I do not know.

  14. Now that Uncommon Descent is focusing on religion and philosophy instead of science, there’s not much “science” from their side to be skeptical about.

    I would love to see kairosfocus defend his views here, but that will never happen.

     

  15. Hi Petrushka,
    I’m having a good time reading old posts and comments.  

    I was brought up in a YEC church.  I was taught to fear evo as it was a lie of satan.  Studying science at a state school showed me reality.  A few years ago, PZ linked to a story about profs at one of the church colleges getting in trouble for supporting evolution.  I found some rather liberal church related sites and tried to talk reason and tolerance in support of evo but comments seem to turn into heated bible debate with theologians and lawyers.  My presence seemed counter-productive in that, not only do I support naturalistic science, I’m also a non believer and they don’t want their kids ending up like me.  So I’ve stopped commenting.  The debate still fascinates me.  Im glad I found this site.  It’s great reading scientific argument on the subject by experts.

    On one of the threads I came across a comment of yours: “An empiricist is a philosopher with appendicitis.”  -did I remember it right?  xlnt.  May I steal it?  🙂
    Cheers,  dl 

  16. That’s my comment, but it seems a bit odd out of context. It’s a takeoff of Tom Lehrer’s joke about a Christian Scientist with appendicitis.

  17. Sorry.
    It wasn’t odd when I read it.
    It fits perfectly for many with whom I tried to talk on the christian forums.  Theologians and lawyers can write long and wordy paragraphs defending their beliefs yet totally miss the real world (appendicitis).  I loved it.
    Cheers 

  18. Petrushka

    Yes – check in once in a while, but lazily let other people start topics.

    I am tentatively working on a piece on the OoL, but cannot guarantee it will ever see the light of day. Calls on time, but also anticipation of the level of response. No matter how often Hoyle’s Fallacy is disinterred and reburied, someone pops up with a great calculation that no-one thought of before regarding the enormity of protein space … 🙂

    Weren’t you working on KF’s essay challenge?

  19. I’ve been snoozing here in the corner. A bit of drool on my shirt to prove it.

    I’ll admit to feeling sated by UB’s fatal concessions over at UD.

      

  20. I’ll admit to feeling sated by UB’s fatal concessions over at UD.

    Can you recap or post a link?

  22. I found a famous creationist book at my local library branch, and am working on a post on an argument in it. May take a week or so. But anyway I’ve been accounting for too much of the bandwidth here, so someone else please post in the meantime.

  23. This has to be my favorite response in the thread:

    RB: If your definition of “plausible” is “That which UB and the Budweiser toads (Joe and Mung) find it plausible,” I’ll pass.

  24. I peeked at that thread. How sad. 

    What did interest me was Upright noting that a “more formal” version of his “argument” will be forthcoming soon. 

    It might be the publication that tips ID over the edge.

    What edge? Well, that’s up to Upright.  

  25. I’m sure his “more formal” version will address every criticism raised here.  I’m personally looking forward to the answer to the question “Assuming your argument is sound, how exactly does it support ID?”
     

  26. I believe that would require a slight edit of the question. Here’s my proposed version: “assuming you can stop making contradictory claims concerning your semiotic concept, how exactly does it support anything?”

  27. A topic I’ve been rolling around for a while now is ‘How completely can ID be described without once referring to Evolution/Darwinism (i.e. any non ID explanation of biological objects)‘? 

    A statement is often made for reality based methods of understanding the world like “were we to throw away all our textbooks and forget everything, we’d still rediscover all the same things again. Water will still be h20 whatever particular symbols we were using for “h” and “o” and even “2”.

    Whereas if the Bible (or take your pick) was to be forgotten, it would not be recreated in any way similar to the Bible we know now. Just look at the wide selection of origin myths out there. 

    So, along those lines, if we were to “forget” all we know about biology and the origin of species etc, what would “Intelligent Design” look like? How well could it be described? To what depth? Would it actually then “explain” anything?

    As if, as Behe thinks, the “designer” just edges things (somehow) over the edge, then they’d still end up with exactly what we have now. And, the strange thing is, we have that now. So without Darwin Behe could never have written his book. Odd. 

    So if the powers that be want to let me post a new thread along these lines, I’ll do so, I’ll be equally as happy to take part in a thread someone else starts along these lines.  

  28. One of my favorite Penn Jillette quotes:

    If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again.  There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense.  If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.

    Your question “…if we were to ‘forget’ all we know about biology and the origin of species etc, what would ‘Intelligent Design’ look like?” is one I would like to hear an ID proponent answer.  More generally, I’d like to see an ID proponent detail the observations they are attempting to explain, provide an hypothesis to explain those observations, and describe the tests that would serve to confirm or disprove the hypothesis.

    That’s never going to happen, of course, because ID isn’t about biology, it’s about subverting the US Supreme Court rulings prohibiting the teaching of creationism in public schools.  Both the Wedge Document and the work done by the NCSE culminating in the “cdesign proponentsists” smoking gun make the history and intent of ID painfully clear.
     

  29. What if we had all the detailed knowledge of biology, but no theory of change? What would we come up with?

    Now pretend that religion doesn’t exist and never has. What then? 

  30. I found a famous creationist book at my local library branch, and am working on a post on an argument in it. May take a week or so. But anyway I’ve been accounting for too much of the bandwidth here, so someone else please post in the meantime.

    I don’t think anyone objects to you posting here as much as you want, Joe. I did, in a desultory way, start on one on semiotics but there doesn’t even seem any spark of interest even over at UD and I couldn’t sustain the little enthusiasm I had.

    It feels like we have all stayed too long at the party. Things are winding down but we might just stick around to watch the sunrise and share a bacon sandwich. I guess this site relies to a large extent on something new or challenging coming out of the ID movement, or at least some ID proponents venturing out to have their ideas tested. I can’t seem to get much of a rise out of them on their home ground either. Now the religious nature of ID is openly admitted (even UB is happy to talk about “agency”), ID loses its raison d’être and will continue the slide into obscurity.

    While it’s quiet, what is the consensus on upgrading to the current version of WordPress? The upgrade process seems pretty bombproof when I tried it on a couple of my WordPress-format blogs.

  31. While it’s quiet, what is the consensus on upgrading to the current version of WordPress?

    My one concern would be whether that could leave the site in a state where it is inaccessible, and only Elizabeth could fix.

  32. You’re right, Neil. It’s just the lure of that yellow banner… I do  occasionally export content using the export/import facility on the dashboard to an external hard disc which in theory could be reimported to reconstruct the site. I did experiment to see if it worked by attempting to re-import to a blank site. The upload kept timing out which I put down to a slow upload speed as I am at the end of over 6 km of copper. Maybe Lizzie is still lurking and still doing the odd database save.

    Edited to add

    I have added a plugin intended to save back-ups and have downloaded the file. I’m just seeing if it’s possible to restore the backup into a blank wordpress blog on my server but with a slow connection it’s taking forever to upload. Anyone with a fibre-optic connection like to try?

  33. We’ve looked at the turgid writings of David Abel, ripped apart Granville Sewell’s inability to check units when plugging things into equations, tried to make sense of the pseudo-metaphysical arguments over at UD, and put up with feces flinging from the UD trolls.

    But once it is clear the there is nothing to ID/creationism but a lot of pretentious hot air, there is nothing left to discuss and no hope that there ever will be anything to discuss.

    ID/creationism is just not an intellectually challenging or engaging topic once it has been given a cursory evaluation.

    Much of the effort to combat ID/creationism has to take place in the political realm where the ID/creationist zombies still plod on and on.

  34. I think there still is reason to refute ID arguments (unless they find one that actually works). Because although we have drawn our conclusions, they are still using these arguments, and those arguments look sciency to undecided people.

    Granville Sewell is still proving plants can’t grow, and lots of ID commenters are still saying that if CSI can be found (basically if organisms are adapted a lot better than they would be if formed by a “tornado in a junkyard”) then it means that this could not have happened by natural selection. And semiotic something-or-other semi-proves something-or-other.

    So there is a need for repeated, and ever-clearer explanations of why none of those arguments work. Otherwise it will be easier for them to say that no one has ever refuted their arguments.

    Things are winding down but we might just stick around to watch the sunrise and share a bacon sandwich,

    A bacon sandwich?  Oy vey!!  (Actually I love bacon, but not to the point of putting it into chocolate or ice cream). 

  35. I did wonder whether I had slipped into non-politically-correct mode there (after posting). Your surname should have alerted me!

      

    And semiotic something-or-other semi-proves something-or-other.

    Following mung’s hint that posting privileges were restored, my initial comments were merely checking whether mung actually had access to admin by the back door. But then posting seemed to have a sort of liberating effect. I was not constrained by any consideration for upsetting apple-carts and it’s not in my nature to be abusive or foul-mouthed even when provoked. I could post whatever I felt like saying and it was of no concern to me whether Barry banned me again. So – win/win! But I really felt like the small boy at the emperor’s parade over this semiosis nonsense. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one to think so.

  36. Much of the effort to combat ID/creationism has to take place in the political realm where the ID/creationist zombies still plod on and on.

    Whilst I’m a continent away, I’m not immune from the effect of influence on foreign and trade policy. US government strategy in these areas is scary enough without the help of fundamentalist thinking! 

  37. Just a quickie. I know it has only been an occasional problem, but I think we should consider an automatic closure of comments on old threads (I was thinking 90 or 120 days, say). Anyone who has a genuine point to make has the option (on request or as a default) to start a thread and a thread that stays active can be reopened with one click if necessary. I am viscerally opposed to censorship but I can’t really see an issue here.

    Feedback appreciated or can I assume “silence gives consent”?

    Hat-tip to mung for the idea!

  38. I don’t have a problem with closing old threads. However, it is not clear to me how that works. In particular, it isn’t clear whether it can be overridden on individual threads.

    At one time, I set my blog to close comments after 90 days. Later, I had second thought and removed that setting. But I did not have to go through all of the older posts and individually unset them. So I am suspecting that this setting is a global rule, rather than an automatic applying of per-thread rules.

    There’s no harm trying, since it can be turned off as easily as it can be turned on.

  39. But I really felt like the small boy at the emperor’s parade over this semiosis nonsense.

    I have mostly stayed out of those threads. And that’s because I tend to think of semiotics as an entirely bogus discipline.

  40. But I really felt like the small boy at the emperor’s parade over this semiosis nonsense. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one to think so.

    Just a few thoughts about chemistry and physics dispel any temptation to think things like “semiosis” are worth trying to figure out.

    UD has become a magnet for pseudo-philosophers attempting to construct rationales for dismissing science while giving those arrogant dismissals the appearance of highly erudite sophistication that soars far above the puny mental abilities of scientists.

    I visit the site from time to time to see if there is anything new, but all I see is kvetching and pretentious “philosophical” posturing.

    While I myself don’t choose to interact with them – I would rather observe them “in the wild” without disturbing their habitat – there appears to be some value in watching them interact with people they despise; especially when they think they have the upper hand.

  41. You have to wonder how long it is before hollow declarations of victory (Upright, KF etc) will pale and they’ll turn and look at how little they’ve achieved in the name of ID. 

    I mean, if UD was wiped out then there go tens of thousands of hours of KF’s life with no recourse.

    Whereas if he’s published a single paper…..

  42. The difficulty is that some old issues keep flaring up (e.g. Granville Sewell keeps saying the same thing in different posts and places, no matter how many times he’s been refuted). So to comment on his latest, it is easiest to just add comments to one of the threads refuting him. Posting a new post each time is more work. If you add new comments to an old thread, hopefully they’ll be visible in the New Comments list, at least for a while.

  43. The only problem that I can see in Alan’s proposal is that it may result in a reverse version of the “ignore the refutation and keep posting the same old claim”. If old threads remain open, then at least they act as Strange Attractors for ideas of more or less the same oeuvre. Even if threads are long (or old), the search button is your friend.

    This is not a site that has to thrive on the number of its threads, but on the thought given by contributors to clarifying a smaller number of key ideas. The narrower and deeper the better, I say.

    But what would I know.

  44. @ Neil

    The global setting that closes threads automatically after a fixed time can be over-ridden by the plugin that allows individual thread comments to be switched on or off.

    As the recent spate of spamming old threads seems to have abated and as the majority expressing a view suggest leaving things alone, OK.

  45. Ohh…you need to broaden your horizons there Joe. I’ve been to this southern-food restaurant in Chapel Hill, NC called Crook’s Corner that sprinkled bacon on homemade butter pecan ice cream. I gotta admit, it was amazing!

  46. As is clearly evident from the “activity” going on over at UD at the moment, ID/creationists are engaging in pretentious debate with Nick Matzke.

    This is ID/creationist heaven; getting a free ride on the back of a scientist who is willing to confront them, and then putting on pretentious airs that they are engaging in erudite refutations of the scientist without ever having a clue about what the scientist is saying.

    Classic ID/creationist tactics.

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