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  Topic: The Discovery Institute Thread, Everyone's Favorite Propaganda Mill< Next Oldest | Next Newest >  
JLT



Posts: 740
Joined: Jan. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 03 2009,05:03   

BTW there's a good editorial in this week's Nature. The first couple of paragraphs:
 
Quote
The e-mail archives stolen last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, have been greeted by the climate-change-denialist fringe as a propaganda windfall (see page 551). To these denialists, the scientists' scathing remarks about certain controversial palaeoclimate reconstructions qualify as the proverbial 'smoking gun': proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence contradicting their doctrine that humans are warming the globe.

This paranoid interpretation would be laughable were it not for the fact that obstructionist politicians in the US Senate will probably use it next year as an excuse to stiffen their opposition to the country's much needed climate bill. Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real — or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails.


ETA: Science does have something about it, too.
Quote
Four e-mail exchanges have received most of the media attention. The first regards a research finding considered by most scientists as a canonical fact: that the globe warmed by roughly 0.7°C in the 20th century. That fact derives in large part from global temperature data recorded by stations on land and sea, as analyzed independently by groups at East Anglia, NASA, and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Referring to requests for climate data from critics, CRU Director Phil Jones wrote in 2005 that "I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone." In May 2009, Jones told Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, to "delete any emails" to a colleague about their work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and to ask a third colleague to do the same. (Mann says he conveyed the message but deleted no messages himself.) Through a spokesperson, Jones declined an interview request. But in a statement he said that "no record" has been deleted amid a bombardment of "Freedom of Information requests." CRU acknowledged in August that it deleted old data on digital tapes to make space for a move.

A second message relates to a chapter in the 2007 IPCC report that Jones edited. In 2004, he suggested that two recent papers on temperature trends didn't deserve to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," he wrote Mann. "Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is." But Trenberth, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, says the papers were indeed considered. Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, an official reviewer for the chapter, says the IPCC's peer-review procedures "were sacrosanct." Both papers wound up being cited.

A third message is viewed by critics as an acknowledgement that global warming has ceased. "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't," wrote Trenberth in October. Contrarians have noted the lack of record new highs in global temperature since 1998 (Science, 2 October, p. 28). But Trenberth was actually bemoaning something else. "The observing system we have is inadequate for tracking energy flow through the climate system," he observed, affecting the forecasting of year-to-year climate changes.

A fourth message, about assembling a diagram for a 1999 World Meteorological Organization report, has been misinterpreted, says Trenberth (see graphic). Scientists believe proxy data such as tree rings are valuable for reconstructing past climates, but certain tree-ring data became unreliable midway through the century. So scientists used proxy data for all but the final 40 years of the millennium before switching to instrumental data in 1961. "Reasonable people," writes Stephen McIntyre, a retired industry consultant and prominent blogger, might conclude that the decision not to show the divergence of the two data sets was "simply a trick" to avoid giving fuel to skeptics.


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"Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, [...]
Thus, a realistic [computer] simulation [of evolution] would allow the program, OS, and hardware to be affected in a random fashion." GilDodgen, Frilly shirt owner

  
RupertG



Posts: 80
Joined: Nov. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 06 2009,13:09   

Quote (J-Dog @ Aug. 10 2009,13:41)
     
Quote
ps: For a gift of $150 or more, we will send you a copy of Signature in the Cell.  You won't want to miss the book that Norman Nevi, one of Britain's leading genticists, is calling "a landmark in the intelligent design debate."


Norman who? I've never heard of the fellow, and neither has Google. I live in that Britain place (I like Marmite) and I can spell genneticyst, so if anyone should know...

R

--------------
Uncle Joe and Aunty Mabel
Fainted at the breakfast table
Children, let this be a warning
Never do it in the morning -- Ralph Vaughan Williams

  
fnxtr



Posts: 3504
Joined: June 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 06 2009,21:27   

That's a typo. Nevi called it a skidmark, not a landmark.

--------------
"[A] book said there were 5 trillion witnesses. Who am I supposed to believe, 5 trillion witnesses or you? That shit's, like, ironclad. " -- stevestory

"Wow, you must be retarded. I said that CO2 does not trap heat. If it did then it would not cool down at night."  Joe G

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 15 2010,04:52   

Rob Crowther, Again

Taking apart a short post from Rob Crowther demonstrates that a lot of explanation can be required to respond to even brief passages of BS.

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

    
Timothy McDougald



Posts: 1036
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2010,19:11   

I was at work today and received a mass email from one of our clients announcing that he was no longer in the mortgage business as he was going to work for the Discovery Institute. Can't be the same Disco 'Tute we all no and laugh at I thought. Then I followed the link provided in the announcement and sure enough it was. So how does one go from working in the mortgage industry in Cleveland to working for the DI???

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Church burning ebola boy

FTK: I Didn't answer your questions because it beats the hell out of me.

PaV: I suppose for me to be pried away from what I do to focus long and hard on that particular problem would take, quite honestly, hundreds of thousands of dollars to begin to pique my interest.

   
J-Dog



Posts: 4402
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2010,19:35   

Quote (afarensis @ Mar. 01 2010,19:11)
So how does one go from working in the mortgage industry in Cleveland to working for the DI???

Aferensis - Dude, repeat after me:

"There's A Sucker Born Every Minute".

When your done fleecing souls for the Mortgage Industry, it's a natural switch to fleecing souls for The Jesus Industry The Designer Industry.

--------------
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

  
Timothy McDougald



Posts: 1036
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2010,20:18   

Quote (J-Dog @ Mar. 01 2010,19:35)
Quote (afarensis @ Mar. 01 2010,19:11)
So how does one go from working in the mortgage industry in Cleveland to working for the DI???

Aferensis - Dude, repeat after me:

"There's A Sucker Born Every Minute".

When your done fleecing souls for the Mortgage Industry, it's a natural switch to fleecing souls for The Jesus Industry The Designer Industry.

Apparently I was wrong about Cleveland- this is the guy - based on his profile I can see how he got there. Apparently he is bi, that is he fleeces for himself and for Jesus.

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Church burning ebola boy

FTK: I Didn't answer your questions because it beats the hell out of me.

PaV: I suppose for me to be pried away from what I do to focus long and hard on that particular problem would take, quite honestly, hundreds of thousands of dollars to begin to pique my interest.

   
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2010,23:40   

Quote (afarensis @ Mar. 01 2010,17:11)
I was at work today and received a mass email from one of our clients announcing that he was no longer in the mortgage business as he was going to work for the Discovery Institute. Can't be the same Disco 'Tute we all no and laugh at I thought. Then I followed the link provided in the announcement and sure enough it was. So how does one go from working in the mortgage industry in Cleveland to working for the DI???

Could you share with us the Email?

PLLeeeeazzzzzzzzzzzzzze!!!!!!

--------------
"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

   
Timothy McDougald



Posts: 1036
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2010,19:05   

Quote (Dr.GH @ Mar. 01 2010,23:40)
Quote (afarensis @ Mar. 01 2010,17:11)
I was at work today and received a mass email from one of our clients announcing that he was no longer in the mortgage business as he was going to work for the Discovery Institute. Can't be the same Disco 'Tute we all no and laugh at I thought. Then I followed the link provided in the announcement and sure enough it was. So how does one go from working in the mortgage industry in Cleveland to working for the DI???

Could you share with us the Email?

PLLeeeeazzzzzzzzzzzzzze!!!!!!

No, unfortunately it was a work email and they have some serious security rules.

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Church burning ebola boy

FTK: I Didn't answer your questions because it beats the hell out of me.

PaV: I suppose for me to be pried away from what I do to focus long and hard on that particular problem would take, quite honestly, hundreds of thousands of dollars to begin to pique my interest.

   
sledgehammer



Posts: 533
Joined: Sep. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 04 2010,10:23   

From the NYT on the politics of linking AGW to EvoDenial:
Quote
The linkage of evolution and global warming is partly a legal strategy: courts have found that singling out evolution for criticism in public schools is a violation of the separation of church and state. By insisting that global warming also be debated, deniers of evolution can argue that they are simply championing academic freedom in general.

Quote
John G. West, a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute in Seattle, a group that advocates intelligent design and has led the campaign for teaching critiques of evolution in the schools, said that the institute was not specifically promoting opposition to accepted science on climate change. Still, Mr. West said, he is sympathetic to that cause.
“There is a lot of similar dogmatism on this issue,” he said, “with scientists being persecuted for findings that are not in keeping with the orthodoxy. We think analyzing and evaluating scientific evidence is a good thing, whether that is about global warming or evolution.”

Larry Krause weighs in:
Quote
“Wherever there is a battle over evolution now,” he said, “there is a secondary battle to diminish other hot-button issues like Big Bang and, increasingly, climate change. It is all about casting doubt on the veracity of science — to say it is just one view of the world, just another story, no better or more valid than fundamentalism.”

and the NCSE:
Quote
After that, said Joshua Rosenau, a project director for the National Center for Science Education, he began noticing that attacks on climate change science were being packaged with criticism of evolution in curriculum initiatives.
He fears that even a few state-level victories could have an effect on what gets taught across the nation.


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The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny is alleviated by their lack of consistency. -A. Einstein  (H/T, JAD)
If evolution is true, you could not know that it's true because your brain is nothing but chemicals. ?Think about that. -K. Hovind

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: June 02 2010,18:51   

DI bleating self-denial.

Go ahead, DI; admit that you have a creation science problem. It's the first step toward recovery...

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

    
Kristine



Posts: 3061
Joined: Sep. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 02 2010,19:43   

Quote (afarensis @ Mar. 01 2010,19:11)
I was at work today and received a mass email from one of our clients announcing that he was no longer in the mortgage business as he was going to work for the Discovery Institute. Can't be the same Disco 'Tute we all no and laugh at I thought. Then I followed the link provided in the announcement and sure enough it was. So how does one go from working in the mortgage industry in Cleveland to working for the DI???

Maybe the DI is in danger of having its P.O. box foreclosed on? :p

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Which came first: the shimmy, or the hip?

AtBC Poet Laureate

"I happen to think that this prerequisite criterion of empirical evidence is itself not empirical." - Clive

"Damn you. This means a trip to the library. Again." -- fnxtr

  
Henry J



Posts: 5787
Joined: Mar. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: June 03 2010,12:34   

Without a P.O. Box, would they become the Disgruntled Institute?

  
Steviepinhead



Posts: 532
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 03 2010,13:46   

Quote (Henry J @ June 03 2010,10:34)
Without a P.O. Box, would they become the Disgruntled Institute?

Mmm.  If the 'x' mutated to the 'y,' then they'd at least have a PO Boy sandwich, which ought to give them something to chew on in their disgruntlement...

  
J-Dog



Posts: 4402
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 03 2010,14:24   

Quote (Steviepinhead @ June 03 2010,13:46)
Quote (Henry J @ June 03 2010,10:34)
Without a P.O. Box, would they become the Disgruntled Institute?

Mmm.  If the 'x' mutated to the 'y,' then they'd at least have a PO Boy sandwich, which ought to give them something to chew on in their disgruntlement...

BUT...

Since ID is all about magic, it's much easier, and I think appropriate, to use alchemy and transform the P to Fe, and the O to C and La, thus leaving the DI with a nice Fecal(a) Sandwich... "which ought to really give them something to chew on in their disgruntlement...

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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

  
Henry J



Posts: 5787
Joined: Mar. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: June 03 2010,14:40   

Or, maybe they could use the Fe to iron out their problems?

  
Occam's Aftershave



Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 03 2010,15:08   

Quote (Henry J @ June 03 2010,14:40)
Or, maybe they could use the Fe to iron out their problems?

Ya know, you don't have to repeat some old, tired, and decidedly unfunny pun every time someone posts.

Just sayin'.

--------------
"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."

- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.

  
carlsonjok



Posts: 3326
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 03 2010,15:24   

Quote (Occam's Aftershave @ June 03 2010,15:08)
Quote (Henry J @ June 03 2010,14:40)
Or, maybe they could use the Fe to iron out their problems?

Ya know, you don't have to repeat some old, tired, and decidedly unfunny pun every time someone posts.

Just sayin'.

Fluorine Ununhexium Potassium Uranium.

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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!)

  
Henry J



Posts: 5787
Joined: Mar. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: June 03 2010,22:16   

Ununhexium? What's element 116 got to do with it?

Henry

  
Doc Bill



Posts: 1039
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: June 06 2010,11:47   

Appropriate for D-Day, Steve Matheson has dropped Da Bomb on Stevie Meyer and the Disco Tute.

Steve's Blog

Nothing that hasn't been said before in one forum or another, but he kicked the ant hill pretty hard.

Fun and games to follow, no doubt!

  
Hermagoras



Posts: 1260
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: June 06 2010,21:01   

Quote (Doc Bill @ June 06 2010,11:47)
Appropriate for D-Day, Steve Matheson has dropped Da Bomb on Stevie Meyer and the Disco Tute.

Steve's Blog

Nothing that hasn't been said before in one forum or another, but he kicked the ant hill pretty hard.

Fun and games to follow, no doubt!

Wow, that's nice.  The whole thing should be shared widely, but point 3 is especially delicious:  
Quote
3. Your Discovery Institute is a horrific mistake, an epic intellectual tragedy that is degrading the minds of those who consume its products and bringing dishonor to you and to the church. It is for good reason that Casey Luskin is held in such extreme contempt by your movement's critics, and there's something truly sick about the pattern of attacks that your operatives launched in the weeks after the Biola event.  It's clear that you have a cadre of attack dogs that do this work for you, and some of them seem unconstrained by standards of integrity. I can't state this strongly enough: the Discovery Institute is a dangerous cancer on the Christian intellect, both because of its unyielding commitment to dishonesty and because of its creepy mission to undermine science itself.  I'd like to see you do better, but I have no such hope for your institute. It needs to be destroyed, and I will do what I can to bring that about.

Emphasis added.  
I like this guy.

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"I am not currently proving that objective morality is true. I did that a long time ago and you missed it." -- StephenB

http://paralepsis.blogspot.com/....pot.com

   
Quack



Posts: 1961
Joined: May 2007

(Permalink) Posted: June 07 2010,03:25   

Awesome! His writing skills are superb; he is crystal clear and a joy to read. I believe he even knows what he's talking about.
Too many people don't.

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Rocks have no biology.
              Robert Byers.

  
J-Dog



Posts: 4402
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 07 2010,08:14   

Quote (Quack @ June 07 2010,03:25)
Awesome! His writing skills are superb; he is crystal clear and a joy to read. I believe he even knows what he's talking about.
Too many people don't.

Like any / all at the Discovery Institute!

emphasis added

--------------
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 09 2010,21:48   

Over at the Dishonesty Institutes "website" our intrepid Luskin wannabe, Anika "The Tank" Smith writes an article for Dr. Dougie Axe, who, apparently can't write for himself, defending Axe's "work."

Damn, it's hard writing about the Dishonesty Institute because you have to put so many words in quotes!  Otherwise you'd think they have a real website and did real work.

Hey, Axe, you moron, how's it feel having your "research" written up by The Tank?  Whazzamatta, weasel got your tongue???

  
Doc Bill



Posts: 1039
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: June 09 2010,22:16   

Oh, my bad, a thousand apologies!  

I misrepresented, misconstrued and conflated DOCTOR Douglas Axe's "argument" with some sort of fiction reported by Anika "The Tank" Smith.

My bad.

Actually, Axe responded at the non-peer reviewed, closed, creationist propaganda website from the BioIlogic institute who's URL I seem to have lost.

Anyway, Axe responds from the echo chamber up there in Seattle something like he has a PC running Windows 3.1 and it crashed and therefore Darwin screwed nutria, or something like that.

I can't figure it out even though I have 4 PhD's for which I paid a pretty penny.

(Actually, I paid for 3 and the other I stole from Louis.)

  
Bob O'H



Posts: 2564
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: June 10 2010,01:55   

There used to be a Biologic Institute thread, but I can't find it. Anyway, here's the lost link. Axe declares Matheson wrong, because of a calculation based on a 747-in-junkyard model. Even wMad isn't that dumb any more.

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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)

   
Louis



Posts: 6436
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 10 2010,05:52   

Quote (Doc Bill @ June 10 2010,04:16)
[SNIP]

(Actually, I paid for 3 and the other I stole from Louis.)

Damn! I wondered where that had gone. Which one did you steal, was it the PhD in Beeronomics from the Institute of Applied Drunkenness or the PhD in Truthiness from the Department of Creationist Emulation?

Louis

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Bye.

  
sledgehammer



Posts: 533
Joined: Sep. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: June 10 2010,11:21   

Quote (Bob O'H @ June 09 2010,23:55)
There used to be a Biologic Institute thread, but I can't find it. Anyway, here's the lost link. Axe declares Matheson wrong, because of a calculation based on a 747-in-junkyard model. Even wMad isn't that dumb any more.

It's telling that in his response, Axe correctly restates Matheson's criitique (that probability based on the size of the sequence space is irrelevant in a nested hierarchy), but doesn't even address that issue.  Instead, he throws out the usual "Gee, Look! BigNumber!" probability argument.
 Now Axe is not stupid, and I know that he knows very well what Matheson's argument implies, so I can only conclude that he knows or suspects that Matheson's argument is correct, he has no rebuttal, and is being purposely deceitful.
This is the same kind of intellectual dishonesty that Durston and Abel demonstrate whenever the subject of protein sequence space in an evolutionary context comes up.

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The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny is alleviated by their lack of consistency. -A. Einstein  (H/T, JAD)
If evolution is true, you could not know that it's true because your brain is nothing but chemicals. ?Think about that. -K. Hovind

  
fnxtr



Posts: 3504
Joined: June 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 10 2010,12:29   

Quote (Louis @ June 10 2010,03:52)
Quote (Doc Bill @ June 10 2010,04:16)
[SNIP]

(Actually, I paid for 3 and the other I stole from Louis.)

Damn! I wondered where that had gone. Which one did you steal, was it the PhD in Beeronomics from the Institute of Applied Drunkenness or the PhD in Truthiness from the Department of Creationist Emulation?

Louis

Maybe he meant that out of the pretty penny he paid for 4 Fuds, he paid for 3 himself.

He owes you a farthing.

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"[A] book said there were 5 trillion witnesses. Who am I supposed to believe, 5 trillion witnesses or you? That shit's, like, ironclad. " -- stevestory

"Wow, you must be retarded. I said that CO2 does not trap heat. If it did then it would not cool down at night."  Joe G

  
oldmanintheskydidntdoit



Posts: 4999
Joined: July 2006

(Permalink) Posted: June 12 2010,08:35   

A poster on pharyngula notes the Disco tute's 990 forms are also available.

http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org/990_pdf....990.pdf

Some sick amounts of money being paid out to Meyer etc.

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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

  
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