Thoughts on the first three chapters of Dembski and Witt's "Intelligent Design Uncensored"

Jack; I can well understand your disgust over what looks to be typical creationist schlock. But consider this: the emphasis in the ID camp has shifted from "teach the controversy" to "academic freedom." The "uncensored" in the title points to a pitch in that direction. And the tone of the writing indicates a "pop-sci" approach. In light of this a full review of the book would be timely.

It's sad how much delusional abuse of "censorship" is prosecuted by people who can't accept that their ideas just don't pass muster and try to blame everyone else for not seeing their brilliance. It cheapens genuine issues of censorship and cases of systematic ignorance cultivation. I'm sure many IDists, even a lot of the leading lights, believe they are being censored instead of rejected for lack of merit. I don't think that even a trip to a genuinely censorial nation like China would disabuse them of the notion, because it's a defense mechanism to protect their carefully nurtured views.

-Wheels

You might look at the "one star" reviews of 'siggy' over at Amazon dot com.

Evolution: No Intelligence Allowed.

In your reading of Signature don't neglect to also read Dennis Venema's review

This sounds like Dembski's previous book The Design Revolution whose subtitle promised that it was Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design. That sounded promising, since by then a number of Dembski's arguments had been seriously called into question. His original two arguments were

1. The Design Inference which would only work if his Law of Conservation of Complex Specified Information was both true and applicable in the right way, and

2. His No Free Lunch argument, using Wolpert and Macready's theorem and applying it to fitness surfaces.

By 2004 both of these had been seriously called into question. And guess what? The Design Inference did not address those issues.

Since then Dembski and his co-thinker Robert Marks have added some more arguments:

3. The "smuggling" argument in which designers of successful computer simulations of evolution are alleged to have smuggled the information that ends up in life into the computer program in advance, and

4. The Search For A Search argument in which if fitness surfaces are typically ones on which evolutionary algorithms would succeed in substantially improving fitness, this means that some Designer has specially chosen those fitness surfaces and thus smuggled in information just like the program designers.

Points 1 and 2 are totally refuted. Point 3 is wrong for some successful evolutionary algorithms. Point 4 is likely to be invalid because the properties of physics make infinitely-rough fitness surfaces unlikely (and in any case Point 4 is talking about how you get into a situation where natural selection does in fact work). Let me give my usual reference to my article on all this.

So question: which of these major arguments does Dembski still uphold as valid in the new book? And does he deal with any of these counter-arguments? If he does, that would be a first for him.

Well, what else can you do when you don't have the facts on your side? What else can you do when you can't be bothered to even come up with a testable hypothesis, let alone actually test it? What else can you do when you don't understand the real science and don't even know enough to criticize it in a meaningful manner? In short, when else is a self respecting pseudo scientist to do? You can't actually go into the lab and get any real evidence. You can't actually review the literature. You can make up cute little stories trying to sell your strained metaphors to the ignorant. You can just pitch woo woo and cry and moan about censorship and "academic freedom" as if that had anything to do with it. Apparently that's all you can do. Of course, nobody has to be fooled by such nonsense.

The woman beside you – the physicist – interrupts. “How crude could it have been if it could build copies of itself? We’ve never managed to build a factory that could build a factory that could build a factory that could build a…”

I’m not sure how long Jack Scanlan can hold to his commitment to review as much ID/creationist material as he has chosen for the holidays.

I’ve slogged through many papers and books of creationist and ID writers and have come out of it pretty disgusted for having wasted the time. Once I hit the first few misconceptions and misrepresentations of science within the introduction or the abstract, I already know how the rest will go. And, guess what; my slogging through the rest of the crap confirms exactly want I already learned from the first couple of pages.

By now it has all become pretty much cookie-cutter crap. If you’ve read one, you pretty much have the gist of the rest.

On the other hand, I suspect that anyone who has had to deal with misconceptions and misrepresentations in science does, at some point, have to choke back the nausea and plunge into the crap to get the “full, robust flavor” of how ID/creationists think and “reason.”

And it generally comes down to some very fundamental misconceptions and lack of knowledge on the part of ID/creationists. Despite their constant appearance of delving into the “arcane” and “advanced” topics in the sciences, they fail miserably with the most basic concepts. It is for this reason that they build all their complicated scaffolding of “information,” “complex specified information,” “conservation of information,” “irreducible complexity,” and all the rest of their pseudo-science. It not only hides all evidence of their ignorance of the basics, it makes them appear to be highly educated renaissance men to their followers (and as idiots to those who really know).

daijoboukuma said: Jack; I can well understand your disgust over what looks to be typical creationist schlock. But consider this: the emphasis in the ID camp has shifted from "teach the controversy" to "academic freedom." The "uncensored" in the title points to a pitch in that direction. And the tone of the writing indicates a "pop-sci" approach. In light of this a full review of the book would be timely.

Joe Felsenstein said: So question: which of these major arguments does Dembski still uphold as valid in the new book? And does he deal with any of these counter-arguments? If he does, that would be a first for him.

Mr Scanlan, would it be safe to assume that Dembski deliberately forgot, again, to explain why and or how Intelligent Design is supposed to be a science in this latest book of his?

Jack Scanlan said:

Joe Felsenstein said: So question: which of these major arguments does Dembski still uphold as valid in the new book? And does he deal with any of these counter-arguments? If he does, that would be a first for him.

If he does, they'll be very, very superficial treatments of his critics. As I've said, the book reads like slick, severely dumbed-down popular science, which means that the topic needs to be changed every few pages (at the most) before the audience gets bored.

"Better to keep God tucked away, safely outside the universe." Now that makes sense.

DS said: What else can you do when you can't be bothered to even come up with a testable hypothesis, let alone actually test it?

TomS said:

DS said: What else can you do when you can't be bothered to even come up with a testable hypothesis, let alone actually test it?

Why can't they even describe their hypothesis? Who, what, where, when, why, how?

Jack Scanlan said:

daijoboukuma said: Jack; I can well understand your disgust over what looks to be typical creationist schlock. But consider this: the emphasis in the ID camp has shifted from "teach the controversy" to "academic freedom." The "uncensored" in the title points to a pitch in that direction. And the tone of the writing indicates a "pop-sci" approach. In light of this a full review of the book would be timely.

Hmm, perhaps you're right. And since the ID movement has gladly accepted that Dembski and Witt have accurately represented their arguments, skewering this book (most likely) won't produce cries of "You're going after strawmen!"

I think it's important for scientists to continue to review the ID Movement's silly books. Their target audience is people without a scientific background who can be easily swayed. When an ID nut tries to get me to read one of their books, I like being able to refer them to a review by a real scientist.

Why can’t they even describe their hypothesis? Who, what, where, when, why, how?

Karen S. said:

Why can’t they even describe their hypothesis? Who, what, where, when, why, how?

The answer is always the same: "Don't ask, don't tell"

…[Dembski and Witt are] writing for theists who are unsure about whether or not to accept ID, and their case is that if you don’t accept ID (or at least reject “Darwinism”) you’re not a proper theist…

DavidK said: "Better to keep God tucked away, safely outside the universe." Now that makes sense.

sorry - here's punctuation
“safely outside the universe” - isn’t that the definition of ‘supernatural’ ? When will IDiots learn? God is supernatural, God works miracles. A claim of the miraculous is by definition an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary EVIDENCE (in science/rational persuits)

here's an interesting set of questions:

if ID is supposed to be science, why don't they frame scientific questions correctly (in scientific journals etc.)?

if we accept ID is not science, it is proselytizing (a ministry), why do ID fellows SELL thier books? shouldn't the discovery institute GIVE the books away?

the answer to both quuestions is that ID is a SCAM, it's FRAUD - just a way to prey on religious folks who have a particular misndset in order to make money

court cases - PR stunts (eventually to sell more books, lectures etc)

I believe that there is a special place in hell reserved for those folks that would squander public money (court cases, school district $$ to defent lawsuits) and scam the faithful in the name of what they hold to be holy.

-JasonMitchell

Karen S. said: I think it's important for scientists to continue to review the ID Movement's silly books. Their target audience is people without a scientific background who can be easily swayed. When an ID nut tries to get me to read one of their books, I like being able to refer them to a review by a real scientist.

It is a public service that we in the science community owe to the people who support our research.

Which takes megadembskis of chutzpah given their pretense of ID not being “creationism.” What they call “creationism” (old style YEC and OEC) states plenty of “whats, where’s whens” - mutually contradictory ones in fact - so the least that the ID peddlers could do is put their money where their mouths are and show where the real weaknesses are. Especially since the only clear position taken by any of them (Behe) concedes ~4 billion years of common descent.

Karen S. said:

Which takes megadembskis of chutzpah given their pretense of ID not being “creationism.” What they call “creationism” (old style YEC and OEC) states plenty of “whats, where’s whens” - mutually contradictory ones in fact - so the least that the ID peddlers could do is put their money where their mouths are and show where the real weaknesses are. Especially since the only clear position taken by any of them (Behe) concedes ~4 billion years of common descent.

If you want to see the extent of "don't ask, don't tell" You must watch The Great Debate, where The American Museum of History in NYC invited the ID guys in for a debate. The best part is where Robert Pennock becomes an ID theorist to see what he is allowed to teach, and asks Dembski to take a stand!

All that remains for Dembski is to wind it all up with the remaining but oh so boring trifles: Who did what how and when?

All that remains for Dembski is to wind it all up with the remaining but oh so boring trifles: Who did what how and when?

DS said: Thanks for the link Karen. I especially liked the part where Dembski states: "ID is completely compatible with descent with modification." Seems his gap has gotten a lot smaller. I wonder if he mentions this in any of his new books?

Joe Felsenstein said:

DS said: Thanks for the link Karen. I especially liked the part where Dembski states: "ID is completely compatible with descent with modification." Seems his gap has gotten a lot smaller. I wonder if he mentions this in any of his new books?

Given that maybe half or more of his audience are Young Earth Creationists, and even many of the Old Earth Creationist ones are against common descent, he might feel pressure to fudge on the issue, if he believed in common descent. Here he is disclaiming belief in common descent. I believe that the school he teaches at requires its teachers to reject it (and even an old earth). Those issues aside, the theorems he put forward (the Design Inference, the associated Law of Conservation of Complex Specified Information, and the use of the No Free Lunch Theorem) are supposed to make it impossible to explain almost any adaptation by natural selection. So even if he were inclined to accept common descent, he does not accept natural selection as an explanation for most adaptation. By contrast, Michael Behe has accepted common descent and the role of natural selection in bringing about adaptations, except for the ones for which he invokes ID.

Dembski makes the statement about ID and common descent at about 14 minutes and 45 seconds into the video if anyone is interested in listening to that part of the debate.

Joe Felsenstein said:

DS said: Thanks for the link Karen. I especially liked the part where Dembski states: "ID is completely compatible with descent with modification." Seems his gap has gotten a lot smaller. I wonder if he mentions this in any of his new books?

Given that maybe half or more of his audience are Young Earth Creationists, and even many of the Old Earth Creationist ones are against common descent, he might feel pressure to fudge on the issue, if he believed in common descent. Here he is disclaiming belief in common descent. I believe that the school he teaches at requires its teachers to reject it (and even an old earth). Those issues aside, the theorems he put forward (the Design Inference, the associated Law of Conservation of Complex Specified Information, and the use of the No Free Lunch Theorem) are supposed to make it impossible to explain almost any adaptation by natural selection. So even if he were inclined to accept common descent, he does not accept natural selection as an explanation for most adaptation. By contrast, Michael Behe has accepted common descent and the role of natural selection in bringing about adaptations, except for the ones for which he invokes ID.

apokryltaros said:

TomS said:

DS said: What else can you do when you can't be bothered to even come up with a testable hypothesis, let alone actually test it?

Why can't they even describe their hypothesis? Who, what, where, when, why, how?

I wonder, do some of the illuminaries of Intelligent Design ever express regret that Intelligent Design will never be a science, or even develop even rudimentary explanatory power? Or do they delude themselves into thinking that by going GODDESIGNERDIDIT over and over again, while "teaching the controversy," they can vanquish the American scientific community and transform it into a Jesus-friendly cultural institute? (You know, as they've envisioned in the Wedge Document)

Karen S. said:

Which takes megadembskis of chutzpah given their pretense of ID not being “creationism.” What they call “creationism” (old style YEC and OEC) states plenty of “whats, where’s whens” - mutually contradictory ones in fact - so the least that the ID peddlers could do is put their money where their mouths are and show where the real weaknesses are. Especially since the only clear position taken by any of them (Behe) concedes ~4 billion years of common descent.

If you want to see the extent of "don't ask, don't tell" You must watch The Great Debate, where The American Museum of History in NYC invited the ID guys in for a debate. The best part is where Robert Pennock becomes an ID theorist to see what he is allowed to teach, and asks Dembski to take a stand!

He also says later that he takes the flud figuratively.

Frank J said: Which takes megadembskis of chutzpah given their pretense of ID not being "creationism."

DS said: ... Once you have admitted that speciation and even macro speciation can occur naturally, you have reduced the thing you have to explain to a few of the more "complex" examples. At least I guess that is what he is going for. Of course, his math doesn't give the faintest clue what can evolve and want can't, so I guess the gap can be as big or as little as you want. Having admitted publicly that he finds the argument of plagarized errors convincing, I guess he must accept the evolution of whales and humans by natural means. That leaves a very small gap indeed.

Isn't most of Dembski explainable as the effect of having got himself stuck in "between the devil and the deep blue sea" with no escape in sight?

I wouldn't want to be in his shoes!

Dembski makes the statement about ID and common descent at about 14 minutes and 45 seconds into the video if anyone is interested in listening to that part of the debate.

— DS

Joe Felsenstein said:

DS said: ... Once you have admitted that speciation and even macro speciation can occur naturally, you have reduced the thing you have to explain to a few of the more "complex" examples. At least I guess that is what he is going for. Of course, his math doesn't give the faintest clue what can evolve and want can't, so I guess the gap can be as big or as little as you want. Having admitted publicly that he finds the argument of plagarized errors convincing, I guess he must accept the evolution of whales and humans by natural means. That leaves a very small gap indeed.

I am not sure what you mean. Dembski does not just say speciation can't happen (in fact he basically doesn't talk about it). His theorems say (he thinks) that natural selection cannot be invoked to explain any adaptations, leaving only a few that might have happened by random mutation without natural selection. All adaptations other than these few then need to be explained by the Designer. In this sense he rejects far more of evolutionary biology than does Behe. He is very far from almost-conceding that the processes of the Modern Synthesis work.

That doesn’t make any sense. Why would god copy the mistakes?

Frank J said: Thanks! Here's where, in 2001 he even said that IC can accommodate all the results of "Darwinism." That masterpiece of wordmithing strains to pretend that ID is science and "Darwinism" (they always make sure not to say "evolutionary biology") is not. It's essentially their "plan C," of "subsuming" "Darwinism" to ID. That's in case anyone notices their game of first pretending that ID is science (plan A), then retreating to "Darwinism is a religion too" (plan B) when plan A does not seem to be convincing the audience. ...

DS said: What I meant was, that if the argument of plagarized errors is correct, then cetaceans must have evolved from terrestrial ancestors, presumably by natural means. If that is the case, then it seems there is nothing left for ID to explain. The natural mechanisms of evolution are apparently sufficient to explain speciation and macroevolution. Likewise, humans had to have evolved from primate ancestors. What is left for ID to explain? ...

Dembski later added his (and Robert Marks’s) Search For a Search argument. That one is an argument that can subsume all of natural selection – it argues that if natural selection works, it is only because a Designer “front-loaded” the Universe, building the information into the shape of fitness surfaces, information that natural selection later builds into life.

— Joe Felsenstein

Behe accepts common descent, Dembski doesn’t.

— Joe Felsenstein

"Frontloading" strikes me as yet another similarity between preformationism and ID. Many of the arguments are similar. The one major difference being that the 18th-century naturalists who supported preformationism had a real scientific theory and engaged in actual experimentation.

You guys might also enjoy my favorite ID article: The Perimeter of Ignorance by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Joe Felsenstein said:

Frank J said: Thanks! Here's where, in 2001 he even said that IC can accommodate all the results of "Darwinism." That masterpiece of wordmithing strains to pretend that ID is science and "Darwinism" (they always make sure not to say "evolutionary biology") is not. It's essentially their "plan C," of "subsuming" "Darwinism" to ID. That's in case anyone notices their game of first pretending that ID is science (plan A), then retreating to "Darwinism is a religion too" (plan B) when plan A does not seem to be convincing the audience. ...

At that point Dembski is discussing Behe's argument, and backing it. But recall that Dembski's own argument is not IC but is Complex Specified Information (Law of Conservation of) and also No Free Lunch. Those are arguments about the ineffectiveness of natural selection to do anything. They attempt to utterly invalidate 150 years of work on natural selection. (As it happens they don't work). Dembski later added his (and Robert Marks's) Search For a Search argument. That one is an argument that can subsume all of natural selection -- it argues that if natural selection works, it is only because a Designer "front-loaded" the Universe, building the information into the shape of fitness surfaces, information that natural selection later builds into life.

TomS said: "Frontloading" strikes me as yet another similarity between preformationism and ID. Many of the arguments are similar. The one major difference being that the 18th-century naturalists who supported preformationism had a real scientific theory and engaged in actual experimentation.

Plants and animals don’t come all apart and then reassemble in slightly different configurations in subsequent generations. All these things are slipping around into gradually shifting potential well configurations due to the gradually changing forces coming from the environment in which these structures are immersed. They don’t continually explode and then reassemble in the presence of some kind of “intelligent guidance.”

Karen S. said:

Plants and animals don’t come all apart and then reassemble in slightly different configurations in subsequent generations. All these things are slipping around into gradually shifting potential well configurations due to the gradually changing forces coming from the environment in which these structures are immersed. They don’t continually explode and then reassemble in the presence of some kind of “intelligent guidance.”

Humpty Dumpty science. The intelligent designer could have put him back together again.

apokryltaros said: Mr Scanlan, would it be safe to assume that Dembski deliberately forgot, again, to explain why and or how Intelligent Design is supposed to be a science in this latest book of his?

Helena Constantine said:

apokryltaros said: Mr Scanlan, would it be safe to assume that Dembski deliberately forgot, again, to explain why and or how Intelligent Design is supposed to be a science in this latest book of his?

Behe already explained that, under oath. It is science in the same sense as astrology is science.

apokryltaros said: I'm surprised the Discovery Institute didn't fire Behe for making such a monstrous gaffe like that.

Paul Burnett said:

apokryltaros said: I'm surprised the Discovery Institute didn't fire Behe for making such a monstrous gaffe like that.

Behe doesn't work for the Dishonesty Institute - he works for (and has tenure at) Lehigh University, in the Department of Biological Sciences. They have formally distanced themselves from his support of the scientific illiteracy of intelligent design creationism, stating "It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific." - http://www.lehigh.edu/bio/news/evolution.htm

apokryltaros said:

Paul Burnett said:

apokryltaros said: I'm surprised the Discovery Institute didn't fire Behe for making such a monstrous gaffe like that.

Behe doesn't work for the Dishonesty Institute - he works for (and has tenure at) Lehigh University, in the Department of Biological Sciences. They have formally distanced themselves from his support of the scientific illiteracy of intelligent design creationism, stating "It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific." - http://www.lehigh.edu/bio/news/evolution.htm

If Behe isn't employed by the Discovery Institute, then what is his official position/association there?

I’m surprised the Discovery Institute didn’t fire Behe for making such a monstrous gaffe like that.

But Morris and all subsequent ID/creationists completely miss the fact that we already knew that matter assembles in the myriad of ways we observe it in our universe.

— Mike Elzinga

So I don’t think the great Behe will be let go unless he explicitly forsakes ID.

— Karen S.

Karen S. said:

I’m surprised the Discovery Institute didn’t fire Behe for making such a monstrous gaffe like that.

Behe also agreed that there might be multiple competing designers, or that the designer might be dead. But ID is compatible with everything, and nobody knows what it really is. It's like nailing jello to the wall. So I don't think the great Behe will be let go unless he explicitly forsakes ID.