Bebbo
Posts: 161
Joined: Dec. 2002
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| Quote (jujuquisp @ Jan. 10 2007,13:13) | Here's an old gem I came across again recently, enjoy!:
http://jswynne.typepad.com/gropes/2006/07/prodigious_geni.html
| Quote | Prodigious genius DaveScot turns out to be high-functioning ignoramus
I wrote a while back about IDiot Joe G. and his repetition of a favorite phrase all over the web. DaveScot, who is William Dembski's alpha-lapdog at Uncommon Descent, seems to have a pet phrase himself. He loves to say that random mutation and natural selection aren't capable of "...creating novel cell types, tissue types and body plans."
He uses the same tired phrase over and over; see here, here, here, here, and especially here where he is informed why what he keeps repeating, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, is crap, but he doesn't listen. Like his little pal Joe, Davey recites empty phrases that he thinks sound impressive, but which have no actual mass. They're empty containers looking for something profound to hold.
Joe G. can at least use being intractably stupid as an excuse, but Davey likes to remind everyone that he has (allegedly) a genius-level IQ, although "idiot savant" would be a more likely description. Nonetheless, here DaveScot shares some info regarding his prodigious intellect:
...biology IS something that can be picked up in spare time depending on how much time we’re talking about and how fast the person can learn. I have certified IQ somewhere north of 150. If you’re much under that you really can’t even comprehend how fast people at my level can think.
and again here:
I’m an autodidact with a certified IQ north of 150 (MGCT and SAT tests). I had a college level vocabulary at 9 years of age and was reading everything about science I could get my hands on starting a few years before that. I’ve continued on that course for over 40 years. In my spare time I became a computer design engineer and self-made millionaire.
I bring all of this up because Davey continually demonstrates that having a high IQ doesn't necessarily mean that he knows anything, especially when it comes to science. His attitude seems to be, "I have a high IQ, which means that I can learn things, so that must mean that I know things. Problem is, though, he's always reminding us that he doesn't grasp even elementary concepts. Like most IDiots, Davey wants to go to intellectual heaven, but he doesn't want to have to die first.
Here's a good example. Davey demonstrates that he doesn't understand the statistical concept of randomness (without which you can't get to first base in science of any kind):
At Uncommon Descent commenter dene_bebo takes Davey to task over his repetitious blather:
Dave, since you think documented processes in nature (RM + NS as you put it) aren’t able to create novel cell types, tissue types, and body plans; can you explain what evidence there is for ID being able to do it beyond an analogy to human designers?
Davey snaps back:
First of all these are not “documented” processes in nature. To call any mutation “random” requires that you demonstrate 1) the unverse is not entirely deterministic and 2) you have demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that no unknown directed process is involved. I won’t hold my breath while you show me where these are demonstrated. What random in this case really means is “unknown cause”.
He almost has it, but not quite. What "random" means in its broadest sense-- that every member of a population has an equal chance of being selected each time a selection happens--refers to unpredictability as to occurrence, not necessarily cause. If you can successfully predict where, when and how a given phenomenon will occur, then it's not a random occurrence. It's possible to know the cause of a random phenomenon without knowing when it's going to happen. We know the proximate causes of thunderstorms, and can predict with reasonable confidence in the near term when and where they'll happen, but beyond a few weeks they're random as to time and place. Insofar as mutations are concerned, we can predict that they will happen, and might even know why, but not precisely when or what potential cause will be at work in each instance. It's as simple as that, but still, Davey doesn't get it.
Thus even if Davey's Grand Designer were not a figment of his very fertile imagination, and there were only a limited number of possible results of mutation, each individual mutation could still be "random." If, on the other hand, Davey is suggesting that every mutation in the history of life on earth might have been predetermined, as to time, place and results, there is simply no evidence, none, to support the assertion. But even if all mutations are predetermined, they still have the appearance of randomness to us, and we can make predictions based on our characterization of them as being random, so using randomness as a concept in evolution is evidentially useful. The same certainly can't be said for "Aliens did it."
In an earlier display of his statistical (and physics) ignorance, Davey opined,
As far as physics can tell us, at the atomic scale and upwards there is no such thing as random - every effect has a cause and this chain of cause and effect is in principle traceable back to the origin of matter. There is some debate whether quantum events are truly random but the mutations you refer to are chemical changes at the atomic scale and completely deterministic as far as anyone knows.
A lot of impressive-sounding jibba-jabba but Davey is making up his own definitions. At least that way, he can make some sense when he talks to himself, or to the livestock at UD who just love it when Davey talks all sciencey to them. But it's easy to tell when something pathological is going on, and that's clearly the case with Davey. He misrepresents (willfully or otherwise) basic concepts in math and science, and then inflates his own ego by pointing out the "errors" in the concepts.
The really funny thing is that he does all of this bloviating on a blog that belongs to a mathemetician who has to know that Davey has it all wrong, but there are no corrections. Seems that Dumbski Dembski is more interested in empty rhetoric than accuracy. He is not, in other words, Clever Beyond Measure™.
But ID is all about the science, right? |
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So Davey has a high IQ and boasts about it in such a way to imply that it coupled with his reading about science makes him an authority. Well, I've got a certified IQ of 154 (on the Cattell scale) but I've never bragged about it like Dave does with his IQ. Nor am I impressed with Davey's self-proclaimed talent of being such a massively quick thinker compared to those with lower IQs.
Anyway, as quoted, on UD I once said "Dave, since you think documented processes in nature (RM + NS as you put it) aren’t able to create novel cell types, tissue types, and body plans; can you explain what evidence there is for ID being able to do it beyond an analogy to human designers?"
Unsurprisingly Dave never answered my question. He's all mouth and trousers. I suspect this is because he and the other UDers are not really interested in exploring what ID means or developing a theory of it to explain what we know of the natural world. Instead they're largely fixated with what Darwinism supposedly cannot explain. AFAIK Dave has never progressed beyond arguments from incredulity about Darwinism and analogies to human designs and designers.
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