Annyday
Posts: 583
Joined: Nov. 2007
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O'Leary is mega rotten at, like, clarity of understanding and communication and sheezy, fo real. Not that you'd know for all her huffing and puffing and slang-talkin'. Frankly, it reminds me of being ten. I'm a language freak, so maybe I stopped speaking like a retard early, but Jesus Christ the woman writes badly.
What the hell, I'll dissect the thing in the name of science.
| Quote | | People who can force the taxpayer to fund their activities are generally mega rotten at understanding the point of view of people who make a living offering goods and services to a public that actually has a choice in the matter. But that is a story for another day. |
Mega rotten?
That aside, I agree with her statement, except for the part where it does not correspond with any reality to do with the sciences. People pay taxes. Governments fund research and education. Useful research and education. Biologists are not doing any kind of "forcing", but she can think it if she likes.
| Quote | | Anyway, predictions, predictions. What does Darwinian evolution predict? |
It depends on what the term actually means, since "Darwinian evolution" can refer to Darwin's originals, the modern synthesis, or - if you happen to not know what you're talking about - nothing that is known to actually exist.
| Quote | | Strictly speaking, nothing. By definition, it is the one form of evolution that banished purpose (teleology) from nature. That was supposed to be its big advantage, right? So by definition, it makes no predictions. Not that you’d know, from Darwinist huffing. |
"Nothing that is known to actually exist" it is, then. I like how removing creationist teleology from evolutionary processes supposedly removes predictive power. Shockingly, our current theory of gravity does not directly involve any form of "purpose", and yet we continue to predict the ways in which things fall with fair precision. By definition, this should be impossible, since it is a theory without teleogy.
(Edit: Credit to Bob for the much more pithy and timely reference to intelligent falling.)
| Quote | That doesn’t mean no one can predict anything. Here are some more of of my predictions:
If Darwinian evolution predicts anything at all, other than grants for its promoters and persecution for its doubters, it should predict that such an event as the beefalo does not happen, yet it does. |
The woman who pimps her books on no fewer than four blogs at once is calling scientists greedy for wanting grant money to do research.
I'm just gonna let the irony sink in.
... and then goes on to claim without any argument Darwinian evolution predicts something, when she's already said she doesn't think it can, and that this prediction has been falsified. As a side note, the prediction is retarded and does not follow in the least from any version of evolution I know of. If anything, bizarre hybrids seem a perfect example of evolution's consequences, but that shows what I know.
| Quote | | And lots of other similar events happen too, some of which we will unfold in due course at The Design of Life blog. |
Blog number three, isn't it?
| Quote | However, at this point, I think Darwinian evolution mainly predicts:
Lo, I saw a great grant machine, and behold, it was funded by the taxpayer, and – what marvel yet again! – it is administered by a small class of people who are ideological atheists and have learned how to turn that into an excellent financial proposition. |
I think she called all biologists greedy, manipulative atheists again. Because clearly, if you're smart enough to become a scientist, you did it because you knew teaching and research are where all the big money and easy jobs are, right?
| Quote | And a couple of further predictions (since I am here anyway),
Doubters who dare to offer facts in support of their views are hounded in a thoroughly unprofessional way.
Allegedly Christian institutions abet the persecution because they need to suck up to elite atheists in order to think well of themselves (I confess I do not know why. It is inconceivable to me how anyone could take those people’s opinions seriously, given that the entire twentieth century has been a vast disconfirmation of same.) |
Might it be because there is no persecution? It is hypothetically possible that a group of loud underachievers have decided that there is a conspiracy aligned against them soas to lay responsibility for their failings and problems at the malice, rather than the indifference, of potential benefactors.
It is also hypothetically possible that the emperor has clothes, and the loud underachievers just don't like them.
| Quote | | The idea that the universe shows evidence of intelligent design is treated as a threat to human rights. |
It's not the idea we fear. Ideas are all but harmless. At worst, they're wrong. The political agenda holding this particular idea aloft, however, is trouble.
| Quote | Oops, all this has already HAPPENED! A day late and a dollar short.
Okay, so let me make three predictions that - to the best of my knowledge - haven’t already happened: |
Note in advance: these are not scientific predictions. They're guesswork on par with Tarot. Not that I don't enjoy Tarot, it's just not a very good predictor, statistically.
| Quote | | 1. Academic institutions will force students to sign statements saying that they renounce the idea that the universe could be intelligently designed. So students from most normal human traditions will be forced to sign a statement saying that their tradition is actually lies, garbage, and drivel. Even though the evidence of the fine tuning of the universe actually supports their traditions’ most basic elements. And if they appeal to the judiciary, the judgebots will demand that they sign, if they want an education. |
Never going to happen. "Academic institutions", or higher ones, at least, don't care to control students' private opinions this much except in Denyse's head. Professors aren't thought police, they're students who grew roots in the academy and decided they couldn't stand to leave.
| Quote | | 2. Many religion profs, divinity profs, chaplains, alleged Christians in science, etc., will urge the students to sign the statement, because - whether they know it or not - they are totally in the materialist camp. They hope that they can get a salary while they sell out their tradition. It is unclear why these profbots and revbots should not be booted, given that the evidence from science actually supports rather than undermines traditional beliefs about the basic nature of the universe. But lots of people get a salary to pretend otherwise, and they will go on doing so. |
Nope. Not everyone with an advanced degree is out to get you. That is insane. If an Orwellian declaration like the first postulate brings up were to exist, everyone would hate it, from the biologists to the most creationist of theologians.
As a side note, it's kind of uncharitable to paint all scientists, professors and theologians, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist alike as atheist conspiracy sellouts. Also, paranoid.
| Quote | | 3. Social workers will come out from under the floorboards from every direction to urge the young people to be “nice” and sign. |
See above.
| Quote | | Some of these young people will face a very difficult challenge. They will begin slowly to realize that some of their elders are a disgrace. All the worse for them, as they are traditionalists and think that they should be polite to elders. It is best to deal with family disgrace discreetly, so I assume they will. After all, the sellout of the “theistic evolutionists” is a disgrace in the eyes of the whole world and of history, so we need our best resources to address it decently and minimize the damage it has caused. |
"Theistic evolutionists" are sellouts, and disgraces in the eyes of the whole world and history. Everyone who believes in evolution is a sellout. Everyone who dislikes Dembski is part of the conspiracy, though you can't say why a Baptist college would be part of an atheist conspiracy because it's a stupid idea.
Also, this story of "perfect young idealistic family-values traditionalists against the atheist conspiracy" is only getting crazier the longer it drags out. I hadn't heard anyone declare either a living or future person to be a disgrace to the eyes of History since I last spoke to my rabid Marxist friend last spring. The man is padded-cell crazy, and a mean drunk. Regardless, I am coming to suspect that Denyse is crazier.
| Quote | | Please write to me if these predictions have already happened. |
I wonder if she'll get any responses. I strongly suspect that, if so, they will be complete lies.
| Quote | | Sure, I’d like to be a prophet, but I am really just a journalist. |
Okay, in order.
1) Scientific "predictions" have little to no relation to prophecy. Playing prophet is not a form of "prediction" in the scientific sense.
2) Denyse's predictions are insane. If she's a prophet, the whole world will have to lose fifty IQ points and go viciously, cruelly mad to accommodate. She seems to hope for this.
| Quote | | I don’t need to be ahead of the news, just not too far behind it. |
Over a hundred and fifty years behind it and counting. If she starts reading real biology now, she might get to the present day by 2010.
| Quote | New at The Design of Life and The Mindful Hack
Why did you say goodbye just like that? What do we know about extinction? |
A lot. Also, it doesn't contradict the Darwinismus, sadly for Denyse and against what she seems to think. It just throws a few wrenches into the gear. The Darwinismus is robust, it can survive such things, it just gets bent a little out of shape by them.
| Quote | | How do unconscious people know when to wake up? They shouldn’t, but they do, and so … |
They don't "know". It's a simple physiological process on a biological clock. How do unconscious people know to breathe with suitable regularity?
| Quote | | To make sense, any theory of mind needs to address the data from physics. Notice, I said data from physics, not from Materialism 101. |
A theory of mind that is based in physics is naturalistic. Physics deals with natural phenomenon. Assuming this is roughly what she means when she says "materialism", she doesn't seem to understand that using physical data for a dualistic philosophy is illogical and trite (after all, you don't think it can actually tell you anything, right?)
| Quote | | This reviewer of The Spiritual Brain thinks that the God Helmet is as funny as I did. |
I have no idea what this is. Denyse might try writing for people other than the half-dozen people who can stand to follow her closely enough to get her weird in-jokes.
| Quote | | (Look, why don’t atheists get out more? They could try going to church, for example, if they want to attack religion effectively. You can learn way more about the down side of religion at church than in some atheist think tank.) |
They do. Also, this seems to be a complete nonsequitor, but maybe I'm missing something since the first part of this paragraph- the part not in parentheses- made no sense.
| Quote | | Is human consciousness a trick to ensure survival? Well, let’s start with the question of whether it even helps much to ensure survival. Do animals commit suicide? Start wars over ideology? Consciousness creates numerous risks to life that would not otherwise exist. |
Her argument: The Golden Bough, Frazer's awesomely written and extremely long account of many widespread religious practices, describes some destructively and wastefully weird shit. This weird shit would probably not happen if we were not conscious. Therefore, although consciousness appears to be good for us now, it must have been bad for us in the past, so it can't have evolved.
It's like a very badly argued just-so story, only worse. Like a badly argued just-so story being told by someone who refuses to study evolution in any depth on religious grounds.
I'm starting to feel bad for picking on her. She's a grandmother. A demented old lady, even. It's like nagging an ancient Alzheimer's patient for losing his keys. He can't help it! It's not his fault! He got old, he cannot hack it anymore, and that's it. Poor old bastard ought to be left alone to die in peace.
I mean, she literally can't seem to write a single paragraph without saying something ridiculous. That's just not fair.
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"ALL eight of the "nature" miracles of Jesus could have been accomplished via the electroweak quantum tunneling mechanism. For example, walking on water could be accomplished by directing a neutrino beam created just below Jesus' feet downward." - Frank Tipler, ISCID fellow
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