J-Dog
Posts: 4402
Joined: Dec. 2006
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NEWS FLASH: Dembski Quote Mines on UD!
I followed your link, thank you, and realized that "somehow" the part of the quote that explains why Dembski is a fraud, is missing from the UD website!
Dembski quoted just enough of the response to outrage the sycophants and believers, leaving out the "money quotes". And speaking of believers, the words that Dembski put on UD are actually not even a post by a DePaul University Religious Studies Assistant Professor, but the Professors response to an ID backer attacking him for supporting ID! It must REALLY bother old Bill, when it seems that "one of his own" turns on him...even though ID is NOT about religion...
Sorry Kristine, but sooner or later, old WAD is going to to explode or go postal, trying to keep all his lies straight.
Full quote is as follows:
You¹re probably referring to the pseudo-mathematical posturings of William
Dembski. Dembski is a fraud whom nobody should take seriously. Here¹s why:
Dembski¹s model of ³specified complexity² assumes that when attempting to
determine the likelihood of a given pattern coming about randomly, that you
have the pattern in mind from the outset. In other words, that evolution is
a teleological process. But evolution is NOT teleological. It is not more
unlikely, from a mathematical perspective, that, say, an eye should develop
from a process of natural selection than that some other arbitrary result
should take place. It¹s only mathematically unlikely because you are
separating this singular event (i.e., the one that took place), from the
billions of other equally singular events that COULD have taken place, but
didn¹t. Those events were equally unlikely. PROSPECTIVELY, any one of them
could have occurred. It¹s only RETROSPECTIVELY that we look at the one that
did and say it¹s unlikely.
Any mathematician worth his salt knows this. Indeed, it¹s been pointed out
to Dembski. He chooses to ignore it, and that is what makes him a fraud.
Second, on the subject of ³chance.² Rhetoric alone is not argument, and
accusing evolutionary theories of ³linguistic desperation² is not a
demonstration that this is what¹s going on. I can only assume you mean the
arguments of people like Richard Dawkins, who argue, quite cogently, that
evolution is not ³random² in the same way that say, drawing letters from a
bag for scrabble is random. On the contrary, there is a mechanism that
governs the process of evolution, namely, adaptation to environment.
Variations that contribute to survival (and reproduction) are favored and
variations that don¹t are disfavored. Evolution is not, therefore, random
but follows a comprehensible pattern. But, and this is key, the pattern is
not determined by an outside consciousness (at least, from the limited
perspective of what science is competent to investigate), but it is
determined by the environmental effects on species, their abilities to
adapt, and their ability to pass those adaptive qualities on to successive
generations.
So you¹re right: ³chance,² in the scrabble drawing sense, is ³preposterous.²
It is equally preposterous to propose that this is what evolution theorizes.
Again, Dembski should know this, and so should Hick. If you¹re relying on
them, you¹ve hitched your wagon to a falling star.
> Now, fellow-confessors, why should we continue to let our children be in
> trouble (with transcendence being deprived of intellectual respectability)?
> Should not this intellectually fraudulent, disrespectfull, & disrespectable
> pseudo-science be in trouble--trouble caused by the likes of us?
I am all for causing trouble for the purveyors of pseudo-science, Willis.
And that¹s why I¹ll go to the mat to keep the ³intellectually fraudulent,
disrespectful, and disrespectable pseudoscience² of Intelligent Design out
of biology classrooms, where it has nothing to offer but obscurantism and
ignorance.
Scott
--
Scott Paeth, PhD.
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
DePaul University
(773) 325-4447
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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
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