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  Topic: Uncommonly Dense Thread 2, general discussion of Dembski's site< Next Oldest | Next Newest >  
JohnW



Posts: 3217
Joined: Aug. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,13:44   

Quote (Ftk @ July 18 2008,11:25)
Yeah, start a birthday thread and make it a real challenge.  Try to actually say something nice about him or to him.

No problem, F.  I can do that.

He makes great farty noises.

--------------
Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers

There isn't any probability that the letter d is in the word "mathematics"...  The correct answer would be "not even 0" - JoeG

  
lkeithlu



Posts: 321
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,13:47   

Quote (Ftk @ July 18 2008,11:56)
Thanks, boys!!  Goodness knows you people are up on your birthdays!!!  And, Icky of all people points it out...who'd of thunk it.

;)  ;)

Tweren't Icky-was me, as I has the dubious honor of sharing it with him-same year, in fact.

  
simmi



Posts: 38
Joined: Aug. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,13:58   

Quote (lkeithlu @ July 18 2008,13:47)
   
Quote (Ftk @ July 18 2008,11:56)
Thanks, boys!!  Goodness knows you people are up on your birthdays!!!  And, Icky of all people points it out...who'd of thunk it.

;)  ;)

Tweren't Icky-was me, as I has the dubious honor of sharing it with him-same year, in fact.

Twins? Separated at birth?

Also, I can say something nice: it's pretty impressive he has two PhDs - I know how hard it is, and I'm just trying to get one

(MDs on the other hand ... pshhh ;) )

  
Ftk



Posts: 2239
Joined: Mar. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,14:08   

Quote (lkeithlu @ July 18 2008,13:47)
Quote (Ftk @ July 18 2008,11:56)
Thanks, boys!!  Goodness knows you people are up on your birthdays!!!  And, Icky of all people points it out...who'd of thunk it.

;)  ;)

Tweren't Icky-was me, as I has the dubious honor of sharing it with him-same year, in fact.

Whoops...sorry.

Happy birthday to you too!!!

--------------
"Evolution is a creationism and just as illogical [as] the other pantheistic creation myths"  -forastero

  
Ftk



Posts: 2239
Joined: Mar. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,14:08   

Quote (simmi @ July 18 2008,13:58)
Quote (lkeithlu @ July 18 2008,13:47)
     
Quote (Ftk @ July 18 2008,11:56)
Thanks, boys!!  Goodness knows you people are up on your birthdays!!!  And, Icky of all people points it out...who'd of thunk it.

;)  ;)

Tweren't Icky-was me, as I has the dubious honor of sharing it with him-same year, in fact.

Twins? Separated at birth?

Also, I can say something nice: it's pretty impressive he has two PhDs - I know how hard it is, and I'm just trying to get one

(MDs on the other hand ... pshhh ;) )

Okay, that was really nice!

:)  :)  :)

--------------
"Evolution is a creationism and just as illogical [as] the other pantheistic creation myths"  -forastero

  
lkeithlu



Posts: 321
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,14:19   

Quote (simmi @ July 18 2008,13:58)
Quote (lkeithlu @ July 18 2008,13:47)
     
Quote (Ftk @ July 18 2008,11:56)
Thanks, boys!!  Goodness knows you people are up on your birthdays!!!  And, Icky of all people points it out...who'd of thunk it.

;)  ;)

Tweren't Icky-was me, as I has the dubious honor of sharing it with him-same year, in fact.

Twins? Separated at birth?

hmmmm.. that's possible, if he was born in L.A. I don't look much like him, tho. Very short, and female too, although fraternal would still be possible.

  
lkeithlu



Posts: 321
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,14:21   

Quote (Ftk @ July 18 2008,14:08)
Quote (lkeithlu @ July 18 2008,13:47)
Quote (Ftk @ July 18 2008,11:56)
Thanks, boys!!  Goodness knows you people are up on your birthdays!!!  And, Icky of all people points it out...who'd of thunk it.

;)  ;)

Tweren't Icky-was me, as I has the dubious honor of sharing it with him-same year, in fact.

Whoops...sorry.

Happy birthday to you too!!!

Thanks! I'm the ripe old age of 29-have been for 19 years now! Maybe I'll start counting backwards...

  
simmi



Posts: 38
Joined: Aug. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,14:48   

Quote (lkeithlu @ July 18 2008,15:19)
   
Quote (simmi @ July 18 2008,13:58)
   
Quote (lkeithlu @ July 18 2008,13:47)
         
Quote (Ftk @ July 18 2008,11:56)
Thanks, boys!!  Goodness knows you people are up on your birthdays!!!  And, Icky of all people points it out...who'd of thunk it.

;)  ;)

Tweren't Icky-was me, as I has the dubious honor of sharing it with him-same year, in fact.

Twins? Separated at birth?

hmmmm.. that's possible, if he was born in L.A. I don't look much like him, tho. Very short, and female too, although fraternal would still be possible.

Hmmm... if you suspect your parents are pulling a 29 year con on you regarding the circumstances of your birth, maybe you should look up the good Dr Dr... (happy birthday, by the way!)

Also Ftk, I should mention (in the spirit of full disclosure) that I think Dembski completing two PhDs is an admirable achievement but doesn't add any credence or weight to his anti-evolution arguments.

  
sparc



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Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,15:09   

Quote
Like, pick out an outfit that you think he looks nice in to make up for all the times you've poked fun of his sweater, etc., etc.
Maybe he should try ManU's current outfit

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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 -

   
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,16:02   

Try to say something nice about Dr. Dr. D.???????  That is a challenge.

Let's see.  

(About half an hour....)
No, I've really got nothing.

It's tragic that he feels he has to turn his back on the Enlightenment in order to support his religious beliefs.  It's near-criminal that he can't just go off and indulge in his superstitious beliefs as a matter of private eccentricity, but has to try to drag the rest of us into a replacement Endarkenment.  It's comic / horrifying that someone who has the smarts to get two Ph.D.s can be so stupid as to engage in large-scale denial of science just because it conflicts with his superstitions.

How about this? -  He couldn't possibly be more deserving of his followers.

IDists in general these days are just too pitiful even to rise to the level of being contemptible.

  
steve_h



Posts: 544
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,16:47   

Quote (N.Wells @ July 18 2008,22:02)
Try to say something nice about Dr. Dr. D.???????  That is a challenge.

Let's see.  

(About half an hour....)
No, I've really got nothing.

He does make exceedingly good cakes!

  
dhogaza



Posts: 525
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,16:58   

Off topic, but Olegt will be glad to see this, apparently the leadership of the APS is not happy with Monckton's being given space to spew his anti-science crap in the Physics and Society online newsletter.  Methinks the editor's bottom may've been spanked red.  Regardless, they've added this (in red font to match his bottom?):

Quote
The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions.


Politely said, a fair number of our 50,000 physicists are appalled by the appearance of this crap and we've been flooded with e-mails and phone calls all day asking why suddenly we've become a poster child of the anti-science denialist community...

  
ppb



Posts: 325
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,17:10   

Quote (steve_h @ July 18 2008,17:47)
Quote (N.Wells @ July 18 2008,22:02)
Try to say something nice about Dr. Dr. D.???????  That is a challenge.

Let's see.  

(About half an hour....)
No, I've really got nothing.

He does make exceedingly good cakes!

To paraphrase Mozart from the movie Amadeus, as he tries to say something nice about Salieri's opera:

One reads such logic as this, and what can one say but... Dembski!

--------------
"[A scientific theory] describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept Nature as She is - absurd."
- Richard P. Feynman

  
olegt



Posts: 1405
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,21:36   

I might add that Bill's two doctorates are from excellent schools: U. Chicago and Northwestern.  Not to mention a M. Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, another top-notch place.  

Dembski has a good pedigree: one of his Ph. D. advisors at U. Chicago was Leo Kadanoff, a renowned theoretical physicist and applied mathematician, who has just stepped down as President of the American Physical Society (hehehe).  Here's what Kadanoff said recently of his former student's work.
Quote
Behe and Dembski start from a different presupposition.  They do, I think, believe in a Creator and then find this Creator in their studies.  Their main conclusions are not, as I see it, compelling---but they are possible.  However, in my view, as we shall understand more about complexity,  Behe’s  examples and Dembski’s arguments will become less and less convincing.

I applaud their work: Good skeptics make good science.  Behe and Dembski’s work will drive further studies of complexity. However, many of their followers want their work to replace science in the school curriculum.  I cannot applaud that.

It's a good idea to read the entire presentation.  Here it is in PDF.

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olegt



Posts: 1405
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(Permalink) Posted: July 18 2008,22:13   

dhogaza,

I think the editors are safe.  Monckton's letter appeared in the Forum on Physics and Society, a section of the APS that was created to deal with exactly such hot-button issues.  By putting out a bazillion disclaimers all over the place, the APS leadership is overreacting.  Consider this statement:
Quote

he Forum on Physics and Society is a place for discussion and disagreement on scientific and policy matters. Our newsletter publishes a combination of non- peer- reviewed technical articles, policy analyses, and opinion. All articles and editorials published in the newsletter solely represent the views of their authors and the Editors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Forum Executive Committee nor those of the American Physical Society.

The executive committee of the Forum on Physics and Society, however, believes that the statement in the July 2008 edition of our newsletter, Physics and Society, that "There is considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution," exaggerates the number of scientists who disagree with the IPCC conclusion on anthropogenic CO2 and global warming. That statement does not represent the views of APS or the Executive Committee of the Forum on Physics and Society. The FPS Executive Committee strongly endorses the position of the APS Council that "Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate.

This is a silly semantic game.  "Considerable presence" is too vague to represent an exaggeration.  Of course GW deniers immediately jumped on this, but what else do you expect from them?  They would do it no matter how carefully the editors worded their introduction.

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dhogaza



Posts: 525
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,03:17   

Quote
Of course GW deniers immediately jumped on this, but what else do you expect from them?  They would do it no matter how carefully the editors worded their introduction.

My question is why give a pulpit to Monckton's crap in the first place?

There's nothing new in his piece, and the errors in it have been pointed out  any number of times elsewhere.  It's the equivalent of the APS online newsletter giving Dembski the opportunity to mathematically "prove" that evolution is impossible through one of his "tornado in a junkyard" probability calculations.  One can give voice to controversy without giving an additional outlet for previously disproven crockpottery.

The fact of the matter is that the editor should've known that the appearance of Monckton's piece would be jumped on as giving credibility to the denialist side, just as an appearance by Dembski would be jumped on as giving "science cred" to ID.

Climate science denialism and ID are both alike in the sense that they're political movements that have nothing to do with science itself.  Both movements exist to undermine science.  There's no reason to give their pseudoscientific arguments room in any venue that purports to be about science.

(There are, of course, unanswered questions about climate science and evolution that lead to legitimate skepticism about certain details of the science, otherwise there'd be no work to do, I'm not talking about that.)

And that's the irony about the APS physics and society lead editorial.  In it, the editor says, "stick to the science, please!" but the last lengthy paragraph of Monckton's piece isn't about science at all, but policy.

"even if I'm wrong, even if ... even if ... even if ... we should do nothing".

Letting a largely political piece go through along with an editorial comment that responses should stick to the science and not discuss implications is just ... wrong.

I don't think the APS is overreacting at all, BTW.  The publication of this piece is going to be trotted out endlessly in venues ranging from Congressional hearings to influential press outlets like the Wall Street Journal.  And the story will be "if there's a scientific consensus, why did the APS state that a large number of scientists disagree, and then publish a scientific rebuttal to the IPCC AR4?".

You are going to be reading that for years.  And unlike the ID movement, the climate science denialism movement has been extremely effective in meeting their goal - primarily blocking meaningful action by the United States.

  
olegt



Posts: 1405
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,07:38   

I would reserve my judgement until responses to Mockton's letter are printed in the next issue of the newsletter.  That should be interesting.  It won't make the conservative press, though.

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dhogaza



Posts: 525
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,08:23   

Quote
 It won't make the conservative press, though.

Exactly, and that's what Monckton counts on.

  
Quack



Posts: 1961
Joined: May 2007

(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,08:38   

Quote
Dembski has a good pedigree: one of his Ph. D. advisors at U. Chicago was Leo Kadanoff, a renowned theoretical physicist and applied mathematician, …


Likewise,  
Quote
Wikipedia:
Kurt Patrick Wise is an American young earth creationist with a degree in paleontology from Harvard University where he studied under the supervision of Stephen Jay Gould
.

What use are good schools, when (see my sig.):

--------------
Rocks have no biology.
              Robert Byers.

  
J-Dog



Posts: 4402
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,09:00   

Quote (olegt @ July 18 2008,21:36)
I might add that Bill's two doctorates are from excellent schools: U. Chicago and Northwestern.  Not to mention a M. Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, another top-notch place.  

Dembski has a good pedigree: one of his Ph. D. advisors at U. Chicago was Leo Kadanoff, a renowned theoretical physicist and applied mathematician, who has just stepped down as President of the American Physical Society (hehehe).  Here's what Kadanoff said recently of his former student's work.
 
Quote
Behe and Dembski start from a different presupposition.  They do, I think, believe in a Creator and then find this Creator in their studies.  Their main conclusions are not, as I see it, compelling---but they are possible.  However, in my view, as we shall understand more about complexity,  Behe’s  examples and Dembski’s arguments will become less and less convincing.

I applaud their work: Good skeptics make good science.  Behe and Dembski’s work will drive further studies of complexity. However, many of their followers want their work to replace science in the school curriculum.  I cannot applaud that.

It's a good idea to read the entire presentation.  Here it is in PDF.

No, No, NO!  Dr. Dr. got NO degree from Northwestern.  He was a post-doc in maths at NU - before they figured out that something about the young Doc just didn't add up.  Northwestern is WAY too cool for Dr. Dr.

He has PhD from U of Chicago in Mathematics, and MA and PhD in Phililosophy from UIC (University of Illinois Chicago).

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

  
olegt



Posts: 1405
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,10:19   

Quote (dhogaza @ July 19 2008,08:23)
Quote
 It won't make the conservative press, though.

Exactly, and that's what Monckton counts on.

And he's already milking it.

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bfish



Posts: 267
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(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,11:42   

Quote (J-Dog @ July 19 2008,07:00)
No, No, NO!  Dr. Dr. got NO degree from Northwestern.  He was a post-doc in maths at NU - before they figured out that something about the young Doc just didn't add up.  Northwestern is WAY too cool for Dr. Dr.

Didn't he teach a freshman seminar or something there?

When I attended NU, the football team was really, really bad. But getting better! When Michigan, or Purdue, or really anybody, was pounding us 50-0 or some such, the crowd would cheer:

That's all right.
That's OK.
You will work for us someday!

But I always thought I heard one thin voice yelling, "I'll blog on ID some day." Odd.

  
olegt



Posts: 1405
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,13:25   

Quote (J-Dog @ July 19 2008,09:00)
No, No, NO!  Dr. Dr. got NO degree from Northwestern.  He was a post-doc in maths at NU - before they figured out that something about the young Doc just didn't add up.  Northwestern is WAY too cool for Dr. Dr.

He has PhD from U of Chicago in Mathematics, and MA and PhD in Phililosophy from UIC (University of Illinois Chicago).

Actually, we're both off a bit.  According to Dembski's CV (available in PDF here), he worked as a math postdoc at MIT, U. Chicago and Princeton and then went on to study philosophy and theology at UIC and Princeton, respectively.  He did a philosophy postdoc at Northwestern.

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Aardvark



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(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,13:53   

Dembski links to something Anthony Flew supposedly wrote.

There's some fluff about Flew, then it starts out:

 
Quote
Professor Antony Flew writes:


But it gets a bit strange:

 
Quote
What is important about this passage is not what Dawkins is saying about Flew...


Then there's this at the end:

 
Quote
Note on Lord Gifford (Adam)
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes Lord Gifford as ‘judge and benefactor’. He endowed lectureships at four Scottish universities ‘for promoting, advancing and diffusing natural theology, in the widest sense of that term, in other words the knowledge of God’ and ‘of the foundation of ethics.’


Am I just imagining the puppet strings?


???

  
dhogaza



Posts: 525
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,13:59   

Olegt points out ...
Quote
And he's already milking it.

Yeah, and more ...
Quote
The
commissioning editor referred it to his colleague, who subjected it to a
thorough and competent scientific review.

See how he's building a case for it being "peer reviewed", as a counter to the APS pointing out that the Physics and Society Newsletter is not a journal, and not peer reviewed.

Damage control on this one's going to be ongoing and difficult.  Every time the climate science community talks about the scientific consensus, Monckton's "invited, peer reviewed paper" is going to be trotted out.

The man's a politician, complaints about his competency don't lie in that realm ...

  
olegt



Posts: 1405
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,14:44   

BarryA responds to the question "What would happen to your faith if you found out that Jesus had died and not risen?"  His answer's bottom line:
 
Quote
It is a little difficult to discuss this issue, because it is like discussing the question “what would you do if you found out green is really red?” Well, green isn’t red and it is impossible for it to be red. Similarly, Christ has risen, and it is impossible for me to believe he has not.

Barry has chosen a bad counterexample.  About 6% of men and some women have the red-green colorblindness.  
 
Quote


The Creamer Color Chart is an easy to use test to screen for red-green colorblindness. Two easily recognized symbols are presented to the child. Difficulty recognizing  the red star indicates the need for further testing. The orange circle is seen by all.
http://www.colorblindtest.com/

Yes, Barry, sometimes green is red.

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GCT



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(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,15:11   

Quote (bfish @ July 18 2008,03:58)
Maybe I'm just a traditionalist, but I'd like to see the word "Official" in the title of this new thread. Can't have a bunch of unauthorized UD threads popping up hither and yon.

And can we get a show of hands....... how many people have read damn near every word of part I of the Official Uncommonly Dense Discussion Thread? I would be one. I'm sure I haven't missed more than 20 or 30 pages - and possibly none. Rather daunting, really, in retrospect.

Anyhow, thanks to all for the many giggles and LOLs over the past two and a half years.

Cheers!

*Raises hand*

All 1000 pages...when I think about all the tard I've ingested, I'm surprised I can write complete sentence

  
J-Dog



Posts: 4402
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,17:34   

Quote (olegt @ July 19 2008,13:25)
Quote (J-Dog @ July 19 2008,09:00)
No, No, NO!  Dr. Dr. got NO degree from Northwestern.  He was a post-doc in maths at NU - before they figured out that something about the young Doc just didn't add up.  Northwestern is WAY too cool for Dr. Dr.

He has PhD from U of Chicago in Mathematics, and MA and PhD in Phililosophy from UIC (University of Illinois Chicago).

Actually, we're both off a bit.  According to Dembski's CV (available in PDF here), he worked as a math postdoc at MIT, U. Chicago and Princeton and then went on to study philosophy and theology at UIC and Princeton, respectively.  He did a philosophy postdoc at Northwestern.

Damn You Wikipedia*! Damn you all to hell!



* My source of course.

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

  
J-Dog



Posts: 4402
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,17:38   

Quote (GCT @ July 19 2008,15:11)
Quote (bfish @ July 18 2008,03:58)
Maybe I'm just a traditionalist, but I'd like to see the word "Official" in the title of this new thread. Can't have a bunch of unauthorized UD threads popping up hither and yon.

And can we get a show of hands....... how many people have read damn near every word of part I of the Official Uncommonly Dense Discussion Thread? I would be one. I'm sure I haven't missed more than 20 or 30 pages - and possibly none. Rather daunting, really, in retrospect.

Anyhow, thanks to all for the many giggles and LOLs over the past two and a half years.

Cheers!

*Raises hand*

All 1000 pages...when I think about all the tard I've ingested, I'm surprised I can write complete sentence

Me too...

And I started re-reading it from the beginning too* - and wondering if I could print the whole thing...



*No!  I am NOT "addicted".  I can stop anytime I want to.
Really.

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

  
philbert



Posts: 20
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(Permalink) Posted: July 19 2008,18:03   

In linking to the "Anthony Flew" piece on The God Delusion, O'Leary writes:

 
Quote
Antony Flew, formerly the most prominent atheist in the English speaking world, goes after Dawkins, his successor as head atheist


"Head atheist"? This trope has always amused me, and you do see it a lot. It seems that some Christians, especially the Popeish ones, simply cannot got their heads around the idea that we atheists might not roll in the authoritarian way that they do.

  
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