Yet Another Fisking of a DI MCD Post

It's been several hours since I put up my first response over on the Austringer, and still no trackback showing up over on the DI site. I've also set a trackback from this post; we'll have to see whether that one goes through or not.

And, as standard operating procedure with any post on the DI MCD, I've saved off an MHT of the version of the page I responded to, just in case.

DARWINIST GOALPOST-MOVING!!!

1995: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed, published articles.
1996: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed, published articles.
1997: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles.
1998: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles.
1999: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles.
2000: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles about intelligent design.
2001: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles about intelligent design.
2002: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles about intelligent design.
2003: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles about intelligent design.
2004: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles about intelligent design that were not immediately repudiated and called an abuse of process by the publishing journal.
2005: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles about intelligent design that were not immediately repudiated and called an abuse of process by the publishing journal.
2006: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles about intelligent design that were not immediately repudiated and called an abuse of process by the publishing journal...

THEY'RE SLIDING DOWN A SLIPPERY SLOPE AND WILL CONTINUE TO SLIDE DOWN IT AS ID-PROPONENTS CONTINUE TO PUBLISH MORE AND MORE RESEARCH!!!

2006: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles about intelligent design that were not immediately repudiated and called an abuse of process by the publishing journal.
2007: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles about intelligent design that were not immediately repudiated and called an abuse of process by the publishing journal.
2008: Intelligent Design has not produced any peer-reviewed-by-biologists, published articles about intelligent design that were not immediately repudiated and called an abuse of process by the publishing journal. Also, wikipedia does not count as "a peer reviewed journal", even if they are publishing print editions now...

Just think where Intelligent Design will be by 2051!

Those goalposts haven't moved particularly far...

"by biologists" -- this is pretty much assumed by 'peer', I would think.

"about intelligent design" -- If they want to do unrelated research, that's just fine. It just doesn't affect ID's status one way or the other.

"that were not immediately repudiated [etc etc...]" -- Well, if they *are* immediately repudiated, does that really bode well?

"Also wikipedia does not count as a peer reviewed journal..." -- Wikipedia, while a wonderful starting point, explicitly do not consider themselves a scientific journal. Note their "no original research" policy. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOR

Just think where Intelligent Design will be by 2051!

I'd be willing to place some money in a trust for a bet. Any ID'ers want to match the offer? Winning side gets the money for a party.

Hmm. Another clause every few years? That resembles the rate of growth of the periodic table of elements. :)

Henry

"DARWINIST GOALPOST-MOVING!!!"

[chuckle.wav]

I don't know who "Coin" is, but that looks like a Loki post to me. On the off-chance that it isn't, I'll point out that each additional clause is only there because it had to be added for clarification after IDers tried to exploit a loophole in the original language. For example, any rational observer would assume that when the subject is biology, the "peers" involved in "peer review" would be biologists. IDers tried to claim that articles reviewed by nonbiologists, or by complete nonscientists, qualified as "peer-reviewed." Thus it was necessary to say "peer-reviewed by biologists" to close that particular loophole.

The fact that IDers make this kind of legalistic hairsplitting necessary, and that they think it really means something, is the clearest demonstration I've seen that their ideas are garbage. If they had any real facts on their side, they wouldn't need to do this stuff.

Where will Intelligent Design be in 2051?

2051: William Dembski died today aged 91. His obituary, penned by Michael Behe, was immediately hailed as a published paper peer reviewed by a biologist (the coroner). Phillip Johnson Jr loudly proclaimed the publication as a landmark in the fight against godless materialism.

Ok, I've been lurking on the Panda's Thumb for a while, but I had to respond to this comment. Wikipedia has a strict policy of No Original Research see . I'm an administrator on Wikipedia, and the idea that an entry on Wikipedia could somehow count as peer review literature is possibly the most absurd thing I have ever heard from an IDer. Anyone who thinks that a Wikipedia would count as "peer review" must have either no experience with Wikipedia or no experience with science and most likely both.

Where will ID be in 2051?

2051: The Intelligent Design movement was rocked today by the death of its long time choirboy William Dembski, aged 91. Mr Dembski's obituary, written by his aging friend Michael Behe, was immediately hailed as a landmark ID paper peer-reviewed by a biologist, the coroner, by the Phillip Johnson Jr.

Where will be ID in 2051?

The leader of Nonrandom Assembly movement today strongly refused that the NA movement - gaining in acceptance in mainstream science, as he claims - has or ever had any ties with Creationism, Scientific Creationism, Intelligent Design, "Teach the Controversy" movement, The True Critical Analysis of Evolution movement, Intervention Theory, Cause and Purpose theory, We're Not Creationist - Honest! movement, Teach Only Comfortable Facts movement, or Nonspecific But Scientific Objections movement.
In the rebuttal, the science representative pointed out that the list of "Dissenters from Mainstream Science" is currently signed by only three living people, but that all of them seem to have curiously long names so it looks more like nine to ten people.
The Nonrandom Assembly movement claims that current science is wrong in some critical things, but refuses to tell what they are or how you can tell.

Last debate was before an audience of zero. In today's debate, the audience was actually negative, as the computerized chairs got bored and left the room en masse.

DARWINIST GOALPOST-MOVING!!!

The reason why the goalposts APPEAR to move is because the ID movement is trying to define everywhere outside the goalposts as legitimate scoring areas. If that was the case, I would have sporting contracts from all over.

The wording's progression is not really the shifting of goalposts. Just giving an even more concrete definition of what and where the goalposts actually are.

Us evilutionists unfortunately give the naysayers too much respect for their intelligence in the assumption that we could have pointed and said "that's where the goalposts are" and IDiots will have understood. Instead, they are either playing dumb or are born stupid and lack the cognitive ability to recognise the goalposts. They kind of remind me of an episode of The Simpsons where Lisa is babysitting Bart and Bart resists all attempts to listen by playing dumb.

LISA: Go to bed!
BART: Okay.
LISA: What are you doing?
BART: You said: "go to bread".
LISA: I said "BED"!
BART: Oh, "BED"!
(upstairs, Bart jumping on Lisa's bed)
BART: You didn't say WHO's bed!

The goalpost simply are to get to a point where your assumptions are applied. Anti-evolutionists complain that evilutionists can't make a human from a pile of dirt, neglecting the fact that they can't even achieve the things evolutionary theories already can DO.

One of the ways to assess this is being published. It's one of the basic things. It is being presented as a goalpost because that's part of it. But it's not all of it. The unwritten assumption about being published is that it is the result of actual research, not as a showpiece that lets people know that they can put together an article.

DARWINIST GOALPOST-MOVING!!!

DARWINIST GOALPOST-MOVING!!!

Luskin slides by the point. How do you tell that something isn't ready for inclusion in high school textbooks? If there is no scientific literature on it, that's a slam dunk. But even when there is a body of literature, the mere fact of its existence doesn't mean that testbooks authors should stop the presses and get out a revision. There are quite a few fringe ideas that are nowhere close to textbook ready (cold fusion and homeopathy come to mind) with hundreds of actual research papers bearing upon those concepts. It takes more than just publication. It takes making a convincing case to the scientific community for an idea. This is something that ID is very far away from yet. So far, publication that touches upon ID remains relentlessly negative: eliminate natural causes, and accept (for no clear reason) "intelligent design". That's not how science gets done. The goal post has remained in place all along: convince the scientific community that you have a good idea. When there are no publications, that says that you aren't even trying. When there are a few that don't do anything to support the idea, that indicates that you don't know how to go about making a convincing case. When most of your effort goes into public policy programs, that's an indication that you don't have a clue about what is right.

Casey's Evolution News site has been unreliable on Trackbacks since the Jay Richards affair.

(For the newbies, last year IDiot Jay Richards wrote an essay on Evolution News explaining that Einstein was confused about special relativity and didn't understand the subject of absolute vs relative time. Richards's deep understanding of relativity came from a magazine article he'd read. Subsequently, the bottom of the page started filling up with trackbacks from physics blogs, where physicists were saying things like "Get a load of what the huge morons at the Discovery Institute said about Relativity..." and ever since, trackbacks have been hit or miss.)

The TalkOrigins webpage cited by Derbyshire concludes that "ID proponents appear to have no interest in conducting original research that would be appropriate for peer-reviewed journals." To see some examples refuting that accusation, leading pro-ID scientists such as Jonathan Wells, Michael Behe, Scott Minnich, William Dembski, and many others have all done laboratory, computational, theoretical, and mathematical research as well as literature-reviews of current data, all relevant to the scientific evidence supporting ID.

The claim of Darwinian goal post moving depends on ones perspective. If someone moves the observers goalpost post either laterally or away from the other goalpost then it would give the appearance of the other goalpost moving. Goalpost movement must be measured against a stationary object. In the case of ID and creationism before it, the stationary object has been the judiciary. Despite the complaints of the DI, the judiciary has found that it is ID theorists that have been moving the goal posts and not the other way around. The courts will continue to be the final arbiters but it is the science that will be used to show that ID has no merit.

Delta Pi Gamma (Scientia et Fermentum)

DARWINIST GOALPOST-MOVING!!!

For those of you with the uncalibrated satire meters, you can at least address why current Wikipedia policies are relevant to DI claims that won't be made until 2008.

And, yes, the difference between the stupidest thing you could make up and the actual argument of an IDCist can be vanishingly small.

Re "Hey! I just realized,the Flying Spaghetti Monster has never been reviewed, does not address ID, and has been repudiated by pasta chefs worldwide! Maybe there is something to this idea after all!"

Really? And what fraction of pasta chefs worldwide have even heard of the FSM? ;)

Henry

"the Flying Spaghetti Monster has never been reviewed, does not address ID, and has been repudiated by pasta chefs worldwide!"

NOOOOO!!! These pasta chefs are obviously just evil athiest evilutionists attacking my sacred religion! They're heretics I tell you! Heretics! And they will BURN in the hot spicy sauces of hell!

RAMEN! ;)

Anon says:
Anti-evolutionists complain that evilutionists can't make a human from a pile of dirt....

From the
Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian
.

9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

Well, a large fraction of the atoms in our bodies probably were in dirt fairly recently, ergo we are/were "made" from dirt. :lol:

Henry

...and before that we were suns. I quite like that idea.

And at least some of our matter is contributed by our biological parents. So we've got the Father, the Sun, and...
... are there ghost atoms?

There are virtual photons.

Wikipedia has a strict policy of No Original Research

http://amoxicillin-new.blogspot.com

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