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Sealawr



Posts: 54
Joined: Feb. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: June 07 2011,18:14   

Anybody hear anything about this?

Que pasa?

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011....21.html

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DS: "The explantory filter is as robust as the data that is used with it."
David Klinghoffer: ""I'm an IDiot"

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: June 07 2011,22:13   

Casey invokes my name:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011....61.html

I was pleased that AML was responsive to David's letter. I have been less pleased that AML chose to issue an apology over a manuscript that is substantially a re-publication of stuff Sewell has done elsewhere. It's an issue that Casey (wisely) fails to take notice of, since it is hard to argue that re-publication is a good thing and the fact that Sewell had already published his stuff elsewhere would make it tougher to push the "censoring Darwinists" line like he does.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: June 07 2011,22:15   

Oh, yeah, and comments are not open on Casey's post. What's the matter, Casey?

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
olegt



Posts: 1405
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 07 2011,22:26   

After some huffing and puffing, Casey gets to the point of contention:

Quote
Dr. Sewell is fully aware of objections made to the classical version of the second law of thermodynamics argument, and that's why he is not offering the classical (unsophisticated) version of the argument. In particular, Sewell accepts as true the observation that entropy/disorder can decrease when energy is input from outside the system is true--but he argues that this fact is only relevant when the what is being input tends to create the type of order we're seeking to increase.

In the peer-reviewed article he wrote for Applied Mathematics Letters, Sewell argued that the basic principles underlying the second law of thermodynamics, when properly applied, might be a bar to Darwinian evolution after all. I'll further discuss Sewell's thesis in a second article later this week.


I look forward to the next installment. Casey does physics. This should be fun.

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Seversky



Posts: 442
Joined: June 2010

(Permalink) Posted: June 07 2011,22:31   

The DI owes me a new irony meter for allowing Luskin to write

Quote
I already know that Sewell would love to have this debate in the journals. But having a real scientific debate is the last thing the Darwin lobby wants.


in an article for which comments are disabled.

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: June 07 2011,22:46   

Casey Luskin, expert on everything:

 
Quote

There's an old unsophisticated argument against Darwinian evolution that goes something like this: The second law of thermodynamics holds that entropy/disorder always decreases. Darwinian evolution holds that entropy/disorder has increased. Therefore, Darwinian evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics.


Emphasis added.

Say what you will about Duane Gish, but at least Gish knew which way the 2LoT went.

But Casey inadvertently said something correct, which I highlighted in italics. Evolution means that entropy increases, as Brooks and Wiley discussed in their book, "Evolution As Entropy".

Casey does get the direction right in the next paragraph.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
sparc



Posts: 2089
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: June 07 2011,23:36   

The UTEP handbook of operating procedures doesn't list re-publications as scientific misconduct. However, plagiarism, though not self-plagiarism, is listed.

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"[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God."

- William Dembski -

   
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: June 08 2011,06:01   

The journal's listed standards puts self-plagiarism into a maybe-it-is, maybe-it-isn't light. If Sewell informed them up front that, oh, yeah, this manuscript is substantially the same thing that I published before, then it is up to editorial discretion as to whether they accept it on those terms. If he didn't inform them of that fact, though, that would be against the journal's policy.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
dvunkannon



Posts: 1377
Joined: June 2008

(Permalink) Posted: June 08 2011,06:48   

My response:

http://dvunkannon.blogspot.com/2011....ie.html

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I’m referring to evolution, not changes in allele frequencies. - Cornelius Hunter
I’m not an evolutionist, I’m a change in allele frequentist! - Nakashima

  
Bob O'H



Posts: 2564
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: June 08 2011,08:56   

Has anyone heard from the journal about this?

Ironic that Casey is complaining that the news of the retraction was broken by people her before the author was notified, if EN&V is now breaking this news before giving the journal a chance to put out its public statement.

I've tweeted Ivan Oransky of Retraction Watch (and Reuters), hopefully he'll follow up.

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It is fun to dip into the various threads to watch cluelessness at work in the hands of the confident exponent. - Soapy Sam (so say we all)

   
Sealawr



Posts: 54
Joined: Feb. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: June 08 2011,11:45   

Quote (Bob O'H @ June 08 2011,08:56)
Has anyone heard from the journal about this?

Ironic that Casey is complaining that the news of the retraction was broken by people her before the author was notified, if EN&V is now breaking this news before giving the journal a chance to put out its public statement.

I've tweeted Ivan Oransky of Retraction Watch (and Reuters), hopefully he'll follow up.

I stumbled across this yesterday when my Google Alert for "Intelligent Design" activated.

There was no other mention of this on the internet and the publication itself seems silent.  Of course, I believe nothing from EN&V without independent verification from knowledgable and honest sources, but I've heard nothing so far.

I'm wondering if there had been a "nuisance settlement" and the DI let confidential terms out of the bag.  Often such settlements are limited to a public announcement of "Neither side admits libaility, we did nothing wrong and we won't do it again."

It won't be the first time that the DI suffered a self inflicted gunshot wound, requiring a podiatrist's attention, in legal proceedings.

Still, it should be news that a journal rescinding an article would be sued and then pay $10,000 to the aggrieved author.  There are significant First Amendment issues at play that should have attracted attention.

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DS: "The explantory filter is as robust as the data that is used with it."
David Klinghoffer: ""I'm an IDiot"

  
olegt



Posts: 1405
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 08 2011,11:52   

Quote (Sealawr @ June 08 2011,11:45)
It won't be the first time that the DI suffered a self inflicted gunshot wound, requiring a podiatrist's attention, in legal proceedings.

Still, it should be news that a journal rescinding an article would be sued and then pay $10,000 to the aggrieved author.  There are significant First Amendment issues at play that should have attracted attention.

Once again, the $10k did not go to Sewell. The journal paid his attorney's fees. Sewell got nothing.

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carlsonjok



Posts: 3326
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 08 2011,12:10   

Quote (olegt @ June 08 2011,11:52)
Quote (Sealawr @ June 08 2011,11:45)
It won't be the first time that the DI suffered a self inflicted gunshot wound, requiring a podiatrist's attention, in legal proceedings.

Still, it should be news that a journal rescinding an article would be sued and then pay $10,000 to the aggrieved author.  There are significant First Amendment issues at play that should have attracted attention.

Once again, the $10k did not go to Sewell. The journal paid his attorney's fees. Sewell got nothing.

Granville got something better than money.  He got Expelled! That kinda street cred cannot be underestimated.

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It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it.  We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

  
J-Dog



Posts: 4402
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 08 2011,13:02   

Quote (carlsonjok @ June 08 2011,12:10)
Quote (olegt @ June 08 2011,11:52)
 
Quote (Sealawr @ June 08 2011,11:45)
It won't be the first time that the DI suffered a self inflicted gunshot wound, requiring a podiatrist's attention, in legal proceedings.

Still, it should be news that a journal rescinding an article would be sued and then pay $10,000 to the aggrieved author.  There are significant First Amendment issues at play that should have attracted attention.

Once again, the $10k did not go to Sewell. The journal paid his attorney's fees. Sewell got nothing.

Granville got something better than money.  He got Expelled! That kinda street cred cannot be underestimated.

Quote
Granville got something better than money.  He got Expelled! That kinda street cred cannot be underestimated.


I think you are right.  He should be in line for a lot of extra book / dvd sales, bad cookies and worse lemonade in church basements all over the USA.

And since ID is All About The Science, this could even move him up on the Rapture Scale!



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Come on Tough Guy, do the little dance of ID impotence you do so well. - Louis to Joe G 2/10

Gullibility is not a virtue - Quidam on Dembski's belief in the Bible Code Faith Healers & ID 7/08

UD is an Unnatural Douchemagnet. - richardthughes 7/11

  
Doc Bill



Posts: 1039
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: June 08 2011,18:21   

I'm a stupid son-of-a-bitch for missing a chance to snag a beautiful line written by that moron of morons, John West, on the DI site.

In his blather about Granville, West wrote something to the effect that "Smithsonian journal editor Richard Sternberg lost his job because he published Meyer's paper."  I'm quoting what I remember not the actual text which I should have snagged, but didn't because I'm a StUpiD SoB!

I'm sure that's the way the DI views Sternberg but it was so wrong in all aspects that I spit my coffee OVER my screen.

It's been changed, now, and the original is probably lost to history.  It was sweet while it lasted.

  
olegt



Posts: 1405
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 09 2011,10:40   

As promised, Casey takes up the defense of Sewell's argument from the second law. Behold! Digging Into Granville Sewell's Peer-Reviewed Paper Challenging Darwinian Evolution.

     
Quote
As I noted in a previous article, many have argued that the second law of thermodynamics is not a valid argument against Darwinian evolution since the law holds that order can increase in an open system, and the earth and its biosphere do not comprise a closed system.  While that is correct, Granville Sewell, author of In the Beginning: And Other Essays on Intelligent Design, argues there is more to the story.  Sewell's article written for Applied Mathematics Letters argues that the second law of thermodynamics may be a problem for Darwinian evolution after all.


Casey makes some statements distancing himself from the second-law argument:

     
Quote
Now I am not personally convinced that the second law of thermodynamics is the right way to challenge neo-Darwinian evolution, and I prefer Dembski's formulation.  But I think that Sewell's article makes interesting points that contribute to this discussion, and it certainly did not deserve to be withdrawn just because some Darwin lobbyists didn't like its conclusion.


He defends Sewell nonetheless. (Why would a tenured professor of applied math need defending by a lawyer whose knowledge of physics ended with Physics 102?) Anyway, Casey does not advance any new arguments, just quotes a few passages from Sewell's manuscript. Here is the gist of it (emphasis mine):

     
Quote
Sewell observes that materialists claim that a reduction in entropy in a part of the universe can occur if it is compensated by an increase in another part. As he quotes Peter Urone: "it is always possible for the entropy of one part of the universe to decrease, provided the total change in entropy of the universe increases." Sewell then argues that this "compensation" rejoinder fails:
     
Quote

Of course the whole idea of compensation, whether by distant or nearby events, makes no sense logically: an extremely improbable event is not rendered less improbable simply by the occurrence of "compensating" events elsewhere. According to this reasoning, the second law does not prevent scrap metal from reorganizing itself into a computer in one room, as long as two computers in the next room are rusting into scrap metal--and the door is open.



This is totally, completely wrong. It shows that Sewell does not understand thermodynamics. (Neither does Luskin, but that is hardly a surprise.)

Here is a simple counter example. Pour a glass of water and drop a cube of ice into it. The water will get colder. The motion of water molecules will slow down and its entropy will decrease. We can even calculate by how much. Suppose the temperature of water drops by 1 degree centigrade. 200 g of water gives off about Q = 0.8 joules of heat. That flow of heat takes away entropy S_w = -Q/T_w, where T_w is the absolute temperature of water. Let's say it is 27 degrees centigrade, or 300 K. Let's also convert the entropy to bits by dividing it by the Boltzmann constant k and the natural logarithm of 2:

S_w = -Q/(kT ln(2)) = -2.9 x 10^20 bits.

This is an enormously large decrease in entropy. The probability of that happening spontaneously is 2 to the power S_w, roughly one in 10^(88 000 000 000 000 000 000). This is very, very improbable. What gives?

Of course, the decrease in the entropy of water is more than compensated by an increase in the entropy of ice. Ice receives the same amount of heat but does so at a lower temperature T_i, 0 centigrade, or 273 K. Its entropy increase is S_i = +Q/T_i = 3.2 x 10^20 bits.

The total entropy change,

S_w + S_i = Q(1/T_i - 1/T_w) = 3 x 10^19 bits,

is positive because ice is colder than water, T_i < T_w.

So in this example, water goes into an incredibly less probable state as a result of cooling. That probability decrease is compensated, and then some, by the heating of ice. In fact, the full system (water + ice) ends up in a much more probable state as a result of the overcompensation.

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olegt



Posts: 1405
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 09 2011,11:03   

Here is Sewell's silly paragraph again:
Quote
Of course the whole idea of compensation, whether by distant or nearby events, makes no sense logically: an extremely improbable event is not rendered less improbable simply by the occurrence of "compensating" events elsewhere.


The premise is wrong. An extremely improbable event can be made less improbable if a compensating event happens nearby. The cooling of water by ice is an everyday example.

Quote
According to this reasoning, the second law does not prevent scrap metal from reorganizing itself into a computer in one room, as long as two computers in the next room are rusting into scrap metal--and the door is open.


Of course. The second law of thermodynamics does NOT prevent scrap metal from reorganizing itself into a computer in one room, period. The second law of thermodynamics has nothing to say on the subject. It deals with a total amount of entropy in a system, of which the configurational entropy of a computer is a minuscule part.

Garbage in, garbage out.

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Henry J



Posts: 5787
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(Permalink) Posted: June 09 2011,11:07   

But that explanation of the physics doesn't really have anything to do with evolution. Evolution is after all a side effect of the reproductive process, which is observed, so T D can't prevent evolution without preventing reproduction, which even they know it doesn't do.

Henry

  
Robin



Posts: 1431
Joined: Sep. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: June 09 2011,11:21   

Quote (olegt @ June 09 2011,11:03)

Quote
Quote
According to this reasoning, the second law does not prevent scrap metal from reorganizing itself into a computer in one room, as long as two computers in the next room are rusting into scrap metal--and the door is open.


Of course. The second law of thermodynamics does NOT prevent scrap metal from reorganizing itself into a computer in one room, period. The second law of thermodynamics has nothing to say on the subject. It deals with a total amount of entropy in a system, of which the configurational entropy of a computer is a minuscule part.

Garbage in, garbage out.


It seems to me that underlying Sewell's (and so many creationist 2LoT) argument is an equivocation of the microscopic state of molecular distribution (disorder) in a give system and the macroscopic properties associated with the system. In effect, he's trying to imply that disorder as used to describe energy and molecular distribution is the same thing as disorder of a broken vase.

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we IDists rule in design for the flagellum and cilium largely because they do look designed.  Bilbo

The only reason you reject Thor is because, like a cushion, you bear the imprint of the biggest arse that sat on you. Louis

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
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(Permalink) Posted: June 09 2011,12:31   

Quote
It seems to me that underlying Sewell's (and so many creationist 2LoT) argument is an equivocation ...


It seems to me that all of neoPaleyism is equivocation. It's all they have.

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Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
Henry J



Posts: 5787
Joined: Mar. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: June 09 2011,13:24   

So they aren't beyond the Paley?

  
Tracy P. Hamilton



Posts: 1239
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 09 2011,13:29   

Quote (Henry J @ June 09 2011,13:24)
So they aren't beyond the Paley?

That is a nice play on words - succinct and truer than any fact would ever be.

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"Following what I just wrote about fitness, you’re taking refuge in what we see in the world."  PaV

"The simple equation F = MA leads to the concept of four-dimensional space." GilDodgen

"We have no brain, I don't, for thinking." Robert Byers

  
oldmanintheskydidntdoit



Posts: 4999
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(Permalink) Posted: June 09 2011,16:39   

http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.discovery.org/

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I also mentioned that He'd have to give me a thorough explanation as to *why* I must "eat human babies".
FTK

if there are even critical flaws in Gauger’s work, the evo mat narrative cannot stand
Gordon Mullings

  
Robin



Posts: 1431
Joined: Sep. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: June 10 2011,08:25   

Quote (midwifetoad @ June 09 2011,12:31)

Quote
Quote
It seems to me that underlying Sewell's (and so many creationist 2LoT) argument is an equivocation ...


It seems to me that all of neoPaleyism is equivocation. It's all they have.


Good point.

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we IDists rule in design for the flagellum and cilium largely because they do look designed.  Bilbo

The only reason you reject Thor is because, like a cushion, you bear the imprint of the biggest arse that sat on you. Louis

  
sparc



Posts: 2089
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: June 10 2011,15:41   

A visualization of Sewell's self-plagiarism generated with
WCopyfind.
Identities are displayed in red

left = American spectator
right = Applied Mathematics letter

left = Mathematical Intelligencer
right = American Spectator

left = Mathematical Intelligencer
right = Applied Mathematics letter



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"[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God."

- William Dembski -

   
Schroedinger's Dog



Posts: 1692
Joined: Jan. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: June 10 2011,16:02   

Sparc, I think you have way too much time on your hands...

Still, delicious!

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"Hail is made out of water? Are you really that stupid?" Joe G

"I have a better suggestion, Kris. How about a game of hide and go fuck yourself instead." Louis

"The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is that vampires are allergic to bullshit" Richard Pryor

   
Doc Bill



Posts: 1039
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(Permalink) Posted: June 10 2011,18:05   

Have you noticed on the EN&V site since they opened up comments (restrictedly) that  

1.  There are few comments.
2.  What comments there are sounds like UD or Joe G's site or Ham's AIG.

No real commentary, just cheerleading from the socks.

Pathetic level of detail if you ask me.

  
sparc



Posts: 2089
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: June 10 2011,22:59   

Quote (Schroedinger's Dog @ June 10 2011,16:02)
Sparc, I think you have way too much time on your hands...

Still, delicious!

Actually, I was trying the program anyway becasue I am tired of getting protocols with only minor changes or verbatim quotes from Wikipedia from our students again and again. In the future I will check their writings before reading. In contrast to Dr. Sewell students caught red-handed will have to face consequences, though.

ETA pm me if you need the same with a higher resolution or pdfs.

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"[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God."

- William Dembski -

   
Reciprocating Bill



Posts: 4265
Joined: Oct. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 11 2011,10:00   

Quote (Doc Bill @ June 10 2011,19:05)
Have you noticed on the EN&V site since they opened up comments (restrictedly) that  

1.  There are few comments.
2.  What comments there are sounds like UD or Joe G's site or Ham's AIG.

No real commentary, just cheerleading from the socks.

Pathetic level of detail if you ask me.

I see ~five or six threads that allow comments, out of the hundreds posted since January.

ENV, if so timid, why bother at all?

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Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be.

"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."
- David Foster Wallace

"Here’s a clue. Snarky banalities are not a substitute for saying something intelligent. Write that down."
- Barry Arrington

  
Tracy P. Hamilton



Posts: 1239
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 13 2011,10:19   

Casey Luskin, science kibbutzer:

Quote
Despite the high levels of skepticism of claims of arsenophilic bacteria, Nature reports that few scientists have taken the initiative to attempt to experimentally reproduce the claims made in the original paper:

   However, most labs seem too busy to spend time replicating work that they feel is fundamentally flawed and is not likely to be published in high-impact journals. So principal investigators are reluctant to spend their resources, and their students' time, replicating the work. "If you extended the results to show there is no detectable arsenic, where could you publish that?" asks Simon Silver of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who critiqued the work in FEMS Microbiology Letters in January and on 24 May at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans. "How could the young person who was asked to do that work ever get a job?" Refuting another scientist's work also takes time that scientists could be spending on their own research. For instance, Helmann says he is installing a highly sensitive mass spectrometer that can measure trace amounts of elements. But, he says, "I've got my own science to do."

Such admissions do not bode well for those who blindly believe in the perfectly objective, self-correcting nature of science. Indeed, in this case, it seems safe to experimentally critique these claims since so many respected scientists have already expressed vocal skepticism. Yet experiments are apparently not yet forthcoming.


Actually it bodes very well for science.  Nobody is stopping Wolfe-Simon from further supporting their argument with more experiments (that is how you answer arguments, not with a verbal nuh-uh!).  What this means is that the original paper was, how should I put it, lame.

Quote

What about areas of science where scientists are not able to express their dissent freely?


Translation: fields where we IDiots can't get unsupported crap published very easily.  Help, help, we're being expelled!

Quote
For example, who would take time to experimentally critique claims that are central to neo-Darwinian theory, especially if doing so could be dangerous to one's career?


Someone who wants to make a big splash, like Wolfe-Simon?  Jeez, an example on hand, yet Luskin ignores it with his IDiotic rhetorical question.

Quote
One hopes that science will become more self-correcting when it comes to claims made in support of materialism.


Actually, one hopes that Wolfe-Simon either backs up her claim, or admits the obvious - she is inadequate to the task.  Like IDiots have already proven to be over how many years now?

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"Following what I just wrote about fitness, you’re taking refuge in what we see in the world."  PaV

"The simple equation F = MA leads to the concept of four-dimensional space." GilDodgen

"We have no brain, I don't, for thinking." Robert Byers

  
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