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Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Uncommon Descent took notice
Well, the creationists at Uncommon Descent have taken notice of us and wear their denialist badge with pride!
I think that there may be some fodder in the current "witch hunt" attitude towards “deniers” for us to use. Consider the following example: There's a big difference between changing scientific paradigms and being a denialist, although, most denialists like to make egomaniacal claims that they are "paradigm shifters", the HIV denialists are especially this way. The difference between people like BarryA, Dembski, the other IDers etc., and nobel prize winners (like Marshall who he cites for the H. Pylori discovery - he was here at UVA by the way) is that these real paradigm shifters actually had data rather than conspiracy theories, cherry-picking, fake experts, impossible expectations and fallacious arguments. This also makes the silly assumption that everything that is thought to be true should be challenged, as if this is a univerally healthy behavior. Think about some of our other denialists, like the HIV/AIDS denialists, or the holocaust deniers, does BarryA think they're heroes too to be compared to Einstein Pasteur and Darwin? There are some theories that are ripe for change, some ideas that incompletely describe the natural world, then there are things that are so well documented and supported that to challenge them really means you're just an idiot. In reality the proper comparison is between BarryA, Dembski, O'Leary, Ham, etc., and Peter Duesberg, or David Irving. We do make that comparison, not with the goal of guilt-by-association with holocaust deniers and HIV/AIDS denialists, but because they use the same tactics! Everybody who upsets scientific consensus is not a denialist. To re-iterate, a denialist is not just someone with a non-mainstream idea (after all evolution is a minority belief in this country so in BarryA's comparison it's the IDers that are the sheep). A denialist is someone who believes that the consensus scientific opinion can be brought down with conspiracy theories, selective data, fake experts, impossible expectations, and fallacious reasoning. If the IDers actually had data that supported their view maybe they'd have a shot at being paradigm shifters. Instead they're just liars who are determined to distract from real science with their tactics of doubt and confusion for their (barely) hidden agenda of propagating religion, not science. Labels: Evolution denialism, uncommon descent |
Denialism (n): the practice of creating the illusion of debate when there is none.
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13 Comments:
It's always interesting when folks look at Galileo and Pasteur and Marshal & Warren, et al and conclude, "Of course they were right." It ignores the fact that most of the opposition to their views was from within the scientific community. Marshal & Warren were ridiculed for years for their work. Galileo was mainly opposed by his scientific peers. Pasteur's battle was, again, with the establishment scientific view.
To look back and ignore the fact that these folks were viewed as genuine cranks before their views were accepted is the result of either ignorance or dishonesty.
You say that denialism is "the practice of creating the illusion of debate when there is none." Before Marshal & Warren, there was no debate on the cause of ulcers; it was a closed topic, an established fact. Before Copernicus and Galileo, there was no debate that geocentrism was obviously true. Before Pasteur, there was no debate that spontaneous generation was true. In other words, at the time when they were presenting their data, these folks all fit your definition of a denier perfectly. The inconvenient fact that history has subsequently vindicated their views doesn't change how their views were originally treated.
March 29, 2007 1:37 AM,
Trust me, people might have disagreed with Barry Marshall, but no one ever thought he was a crank, they just thought he was wrong.
Then he provided data, incontrovertible data, and that was it, the science establishment changed their minds.
You guys are elevating being a crank to some kind of hero status, as if by just being a crank you're magically made a hero. This is simply nuts.
Also, none of these men fit the definition of a denier. Did you read my definition? A Denier is someone who alleges conspiricies, cherry-picks data, hires false experts to promote their agenda, moves the goalposts of debate so their side is never satisfied, and uses logical fallacies to argue.
Further you need to read a better history of science. Paradigm shifters != deniers. These people had data that they could hang their hats on, they didn't have to rely on cheap rhetorical tactics to make their points. They had science on their side. Granted, they had to change the scientific consensus, but they did it with data, and evidence, not rhetorical tricks and lies.
March 29, 2007 7:43 AM,
Mark, Mark, Mark, you are being too unkind to our denialist buddies. Have you forgotten that the "cdesign proponentists" have a SOOPAR DOUBLE SEKRIT RESEARCH PROGRAM which will no doubt be churning out revolutionary data any day now...?
...any year...?
...any decade...?
Oh, wait, more like never.
March 29, 2007 8:23 AM,
Minimalist, I love you man.
March 29, 2007 8:48 AM,
The uncommonly dense folks don't seem to have heard the Carl Sagan quote, "They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Copernicus, they also laughed at Bozo the Clown!"
March 29, 2007 12:04 PM,
I just love how the deniers like to deliberately avoid the core of the argument: The whole thing isn't about which side you're on: It's about evidence.
Galileo had real, verifiable data.
Pasteur had real, verifiable data.
Marshal & Warren had real, verifiable data.
Biologists today have real, verifiable data.
What do the Cretinists have? Rhetorical tricks, subject changes, arguments from ignorance and lack of imagination, creatively vague definitions, eternally shifting goal posts, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
What don't Cretinists have? Real, verifiable data.
They're so predictable. They're exactly like all the alties, denialists, and other generic woos out there, pretending to the be persecuted scientists when their actions stand in direct opposition to science.
March 29, 2007 12:07 PM,
"Galileo was mainly opposed by his scientific peers."
Not true at all. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, Galileo was tried by the Church, not his scientific contemporaries, and he was tried for contradicting Scripture, not for being scientifically heterodox. His views on heliocentrism were rapidly accepted because they were well supported by the evidence.
Similarly, Darwin's views were and are accepted precisely because they comport so well with observation. Now -- when and if Darwin Denier comes up with a theory with anything like the explanatory power of evolutionary biology, then his claim to being among a lonely platoon of heroic iconoclasts will have some merit. Until then, DD, we are not laughing at you because you're like Einstein. We're laughing at you because you're like Bozo the Clown.
March 29, 2007 2:05 PM,
I don't get this "most of the resistance was from scientists" argument. Isn't that precisely what you want from a scientist? Just claiming something shouldn't make rational people change their minds, you have to prove it first. By the way, those scientists ideas didn't convince anyone, the reams of data and meticulous observations did. Ideas divorced from evidence are mere sound.
March 29, 2007 2:47 PM,
Mark said:
"Trust me, people might have disagreed with Barry Marshall, but no one ever thought he was a crank, they just thought he was wrong."
dd responds:
Rather than trust you, I decided to check some reputable sources.
Here's an article from NewScientist.com
http://tinyurl.com/32evc6
The salient passage is as follows:
"At conferences, [Marshall and Warren] were subjected to abuse and ridicule..." (emphasis mine)
This is reported in a number of places and is (so I thought) generally well known. Folks didn't just disagree with them, they thought they were nuts. Peptic ulcers had been explained; there was no need to postulate some new species of bacteria. Notice that these guys weren't just talking about pixies and fairy dust, they were sharing hard data and were still ridiculed.
Hmm... sounds like they were treated like deniers to me. Of course, given that this site has at least two competing definitions for denier, it's hard to tell what is and what isn't a denier.
jre, you might want to go back and check your history. Pope Urban (a boyhood friend of Galileo) was an ally of Galileo until he put Urban's argument into the mouth of his character Simplicico, making Urban look foolish. The issue wasn't contradicting scripture, it was being arrogant and attacking your own supporter. Galileo was a friend of the church, and vice versa (his daughter was a nun) until he insulted Urban.
March 29, 2007 3:08 PM,
So what if he took abuse at a meeting? We take abuse all the time. You'll see scientists yell and scream at each other at meetings. It happens, people are passionate about this stuff. But he wasn't a crank. He had a faculty position at my university, he was getting his papers published, he was changing minds, and most importantly he had data. What do you ID cranks have? Nothing. Analogies. Conspiracy theories. Quotes and papers out of context. Junk. Bullshit. Lies. You've been called liars by a federal judge! Now that's something else.
Shit, I've been an asshole to other people at meetings, it doesn't mean I think the other scientist was a denialist, I just think he was wrong.
Further, we have competing definitions, I don't think so. I have shorter and longer definitions, but I don't think they're in competition.
March 29, 2007 3:19 PM,
DD, I've checked my history, and your argument (that Galileo was not tried for contradicting scripture) is, well, wrong. Galileo was in hot water with the Church more than seven years before his boyhood friend became Pope:
"[In February 1616] A committee of consultants declares to the Inquisition that the proposition that the Sun is the center of the universe is absurd in philosophy and formally heretical and that the proposition that the Earth has an annual motion is absurd in philosophy and at least erroneous in theology."
Your position -- that Galileo was being persecuted by narrow-minded scientists, and that his prosecution by the Church was motivated purely by Urban's hurt feelings -- is not just contrary to history. It is, frankly, goofy. And when someone says anything that goofy, I have to wonder about the cause. In this case, it seems fairly clear: you want to draw an analogy between Galileo and [insert creationist of your choice], and it just doesn't work if Galileo was prosecuted as a (literal) heretic, and not a scientific maverick. That dog won't hunt, and here's why: Galileo Galilei was a brilliant scientist, who made many careful observations and proposed a theoretical framework that made sense of those observations better than any had previously. Charles Darwin was a brilliant scientist, who ... well, see above. Observation, theory, explanation.
Both Galileo and Darwin had 'em in spades.
In contrast, our modern deniers of Darwin have ... what, exactly? Careful observations? No. A new theoretical framework? Still waiting for it. A superior explanation? Nothing, zip, zero, nada. That, and not knee-jerk opposition by hidebound scientific orthodoxy, is why creationism / ID is not taken seriously. To be taken seriously, DD,ou have to build a vehicle that will take the scientific enterprise forward, not just launch one hot-air balloon of rhetoric after another.
March 29, 2007 6:35 PM,
jre,
You seem to be ignoring the fact that Galileo was in trouble with the Aristotelean establishment (the closest thing to scientists of the day) long before the church took notice. Geocentrism was the view espoused by Aristoteleanism so to oppose geocentrism was to oppose the contemporary scientific view.
As far as data, Galileo, in fact, had no data (a fact he himself bemoaned a number of times) that directly supported heliocentrism. Indeed, such data was centuries away. Both his arguments and Copernicus' original arguments were largely theoretical, relying largely on Neo-Platonism (which further inflamed the Aristotelean establishment).
As far as his dealings with the church, he himself was a fair Bible scholar. He worked hard at coming up with a hermeneutic that would both support heliocentrism and satisfy the literalistic requirements of the Council of Trent. Indeed, Urban was extremely supportive of him (sometimes at significant political cost to himself) until, as I pointed out, Galileo put Urban's own words into the mouth of his simpleton-character in "The Dialogues." After that, Urban withdrew his support and let Belarmine go after his boyhood friend.
http://www.galilean-library.org/galileo1.html
April 2, 2007 7:41 PM,
darwin denier -
It is true that Galileo's slight to Urban was the precipitating event for his trial. But, as noted, he was already in deep trouble with the Church on doctrinal grounds -- precisely the reason that losing Urban's support was so devastating to him. You seem to think that, because Galileo ran afoul of Vatican politics, we can dismiss the whole affair as political circus, even assigning blame to the scientific establishment of the time. That seems to me an awfully tortured interpretation of events, considering that Galileo was accused, tried and convicted by ecclesiastical authorities, and that his views were quickly adopted by his fellow scientists. Although his astronomical observations did not provide direct support for heliocentrism, his reasoning was sound and his conclusions essentially correct. Galileo's science was methodical and observation-based -- much like Charles Darwin's. That's the parallel you might want to be considering.
April 8, 2007 2:07 PM,
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