Jonathan Wells has made the horrible error of trying to deny evolution in
PZ Myers' field. The results are pretty catastrophic for Wells. Not only does PZ show that he's wrong, but that the paper he cites selectively actually
contradicts his interpretation.
He better go back to harping on Haeckel's embryos and keep his creationists hands out of PZ's territory if he want's to keep all his fingers.
Labels: Evolution denialism, Jonathan Wells
18 Comments:
In the interest of fairness:
Wells' response
darwin denier
April 6, 2007 12:27 AM,
PZ's response to the response.
Sorry, PZ makes a really good case that Wells just invented a straw man and is now just lying.
April 6, 2007 12:27 PM,
If only PZ could evaluate Wells without the juvenile-sounding ad hominems. It just seems to me to be beneath someone of PZ's stature as a professional scientist to say some of those taudry things, not to mention that ad hominem attacks is on your list of denialist tactics.
*SIGH*
April 6, 2007 6:44 PM,
Mark,
I didn't know where to post this but I wanted to suggest another denialist category:
Resurrection denialists
Reading Anne Rice's comments about resurrection denialists in her new book, it sure seems that they fit the bill, based on your criterea.
Anne Rice remarks
April 6, 2007 6:47 PM,
Boy, I don't know what to tell you guys. I really like PZ and when he gets pissed like this I understand why. Wells is actually insane enough to step right into his territory and spout lies. PZ explains explicitly why these are just lies and in the meantime describes Wells as what he is, that is beneath contempt. Wells' clever rebuttal is to restate his straw man then cry that PZ called him names. I'm unimpressed.
Al, these cranks don't deserve to be treated civilly. This seems to be a recurring theme, that you feel like IDers should be treated as honest brokers in a legitimate debate. They aren't honest, they bring nothing to the debate, and they really don
t deserve to be treated with anything but contempt.
April 7, 2007 5:42 AM,
Fred,
There's no there, there. Rice doesn't give anything even resembling a convincing argument -- either for the resurrection or against the "skeptics".
Her sole evidence for the resurrection is that "the apostles went out to preach it." Uh... and? People "go out into the world" to preach things that aren't true all the time, and you (presumably as a Christian) have to believe this of all other faiths. Otherwise you'd be compelled to believe in Islam and every other religion out there. Why would Mohammed's (PBUH) followers go out into the world to spread Islam, if he were not the Prophet? It's a ridiculous argument and placing it at the level of established science is, frankly, insulting.
Rice doesn't quote a single argument or passage from any of the skeptics. She gives, at best, sketchy one-sentence outlines of what they say, which could well be strawmen for all we know, and then simply dismisses it by saying "But I don't find it convincing!"
Sorry, but Rice is clearly the denialist here. She certainly displayed several tactics of them in that sad little passage.
April 7, 2007 8:21 AM,
Mark,
That's an interesting response that shows that you haven't given it much thought but are merely supporting what you feel is the "correct" position. I would be willing to bet real money that you can't come up with a sufficient argument to disprove the resurrection that doesn't involve attempting to discount the gospel accounts as late (2nd to 3rd century) documents.
fred
April 9, 2007 12:56 AM,
Sigh.
I get one of these about once every couple days, usually by email though. People insisting that atheists are "god denialists" in one way or another.
Fred, you might need medication if you think your link presented some kind of coherent argument. Further, you haven't read this site thoroughly. Denialism is not about calling whatever you don't agree with denialism. It's about tactics.
Now run along and troll elsewhere.
April 9, 2007 7:35 AM,
Mark,
Since someone mentioned the G-word, I'd be interested to hear your take on Anthony Flew.
aw
April 10, 2007 1:11 AM,
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
April 11, 2007 1:09 AM,
I'm not going to allow that kind of trolling.
Also, I don't feel like talking about religion with this site, sorry. It's just not the point. Several people have tried to steer it that way (especially the persistent atheist=god denialists pains in the ass).
The point of this blog isn't to argue with cranks. It should be obvious that we think this is pointless. It's to discuss the how where and why of cranks.
April 11, 2007 6:56 AM,
Well I disagree with you there, Mark. I feel arguing with cranks is worthwhile in one sense: not to convince the cranks, but to ensure that everyone else sees that their arguments hold no water and that they can't answer real debates.
I mean, I'm with you on this topic; the Rice link is incoherent and silly, barely worth dealing with at all and I trust most sensible people to see that as well. But where unfounded smearing accusations are made (as, for example, against the Smithsonian by Sternberg and the ID clown parade), that can have real-world political repercussions, I feel it's important to refute the accusations directly.
But it's your blog and if you feel I'm kind of pissing on your carpet, let me know and I'll rein it in a bit. But that's just how I feel.
April 11, 2007 9:10 AM,
Tim,
You got me all wrong. I feel guilty you're spending so much time on them.
I love that you're willing to really get down and dirty and fight with them. My only worry is that when they troll and hijack a thread this way it ends up wasting your time.
I'm trying to tell them that I'm not going to be endlessly tolerant of thread-hijacking. After all, we should be having more of a meta-discussion about crankdom, and not why every individual crank doesn't feel like their brand of crankery is really denialism.
I would never suggest you were pissing on my carpet, that would be bad, because it really ties the room together.
April 11, 2007 9:51 AM,
Mark,
I'm confused. I simply asked what you thought of Anthony Flew. I haven't checked this thread in a couple of days but now I see a deleted post and then you and Tim talking about not wanting to talk about religion. The question about Flew is a philosophical question, not a religious question.
aw
April 11, 2007 12:36 PM,
Wasn't referring to you Al, don't worry. Some troll showed up and because I hadn't immediately explained why Flew is some evil ID traitor that I was a coward and stupid. I was reacting to a pretty standard thread-hijacking.
I don't know what to think exactly of Flew. It seems the case that he backs ID is highly exaggerated, but more importantly, I don't know what significance an atheist convert to a weak deism has to do with evolutionary science. It's interesting that he ended up feeling this way, I understand those kinds of feelings, but doesn't really strike me as a big deal.
April 11, 2007 12:59 PM,
The arguments used on Flew (biological, or rather the ID distortions of biology) were well out of his area of expertise (philosophy). Not to mention out of the area of expertise of Schroeder, the ID physicist who "converted" him. It's easy to see how someone could be misled, and it seems Flew has admitted to as much:
This is a secondhand source, really, consisting of a lot of Flew's words as related to Richard Carrier, so take it as you will. But it is corroborated by some of Flew's published content since then. Also, Flew has not contradicted Carrier's account.
In the end, though, it doesn't make one whit of difference to me whether Flew converted to ID. What matters is the quality of the evidence, and the stuff Schroeder used is all the standard ID crud that's been debunked repeatedly. I don't know why one person's opinion should make a difference, especially when that person doesn't really have in-depth knowledge of the field to measure against, and what he was told about ID was a one-sided account from an ID promoter.
April 11, 2007 1:45 PM,
Thanks for the clarification, Mark.
Tim,
I understand what you're saying, that one person's opinion might not be all that convincing. However, Anthony Flew isn't just any person. You seem to be arguing that he was just duped (I apologize if I'm misreading your intent) but He is widely considered the most important atheist philosopher of the 20th century, with his arguments against God being among the gold-standards. He doesn't seem like the type who would be easily swayed by substandard reasoning, as you suggest (again, my apologies if I am misreading you).
I'm not really sure what to make of Carrier's article. He seems to be alternately arguing that either Flew is old and confused and that he is backpeddling to such an extent as to make knowing what he really believes difficult. Based on this, his article almost has the tone of "Flew can't really belief this" and grasping for an explanation.
I also find the Carrier's claims to have (successfully) refuted arguments that Flew found convincing to be a bit dubious but I must admit to being a bit of a neophyte to this particular situation (hence my questions).
aw
April 11, 2007 2:17 PM,
Al,
Not necessarily duped or swayed by substandard reasoning, but he doesn't have the knowledge base to measure the typical ID stuff against.
Essentially, you can be told that A proves B, and the reasoning may be perfectly sound as far as that goes. But if your interlocutor leaves out the fact that C through Z contradict A (and that he is misrepresenting what A really says), then that's deceit.
Was Flew too trusting? That's the most generous interpretation, and I actually favor that one. His blaming Dawkins for not setting him straight beforehand seems to kind of suggest an overreliance on authority when discussing outside of his field.
Less generous interpretations might be that he's getting senile (as he seems unwilling to devote much effort to clarify his position) or that he's starting to feel the touch of death's cold hand and starting to grasp, emotionally, for something that gives him comfort. Both are plausible but I disfavor them.
Ultimately, though, we'll never really know his true motives and it's fruitless to guess. That's why it's dangerous to rely on "well, this one guy believes it" as validation of a certain position. Evidence is king, and ID fails that test spectacularly -- all they have are arguments from incredulity, carefully constructed by omitting contradictory evidence. See for example: the many debunkings of Behe, who conveniently ignored research on immune system evolution and the flagellum prior to publication of DBB. Flew wouldn't know about that, though, having no familiarity with biologicical research.
I have to say, too, that I never so much as heard of Antony Flew before this whole flap a couple of years back, nor did many atheists I know. Myself, my reasons for being an atheist stem from the lack of evidence of any sort. There's nothing to convince me that the holy books of Christianity are any more valid than the Rig Veda, or vice versa.
I have no philosophical reasons to believe that there are NO gods, I just have no reasons to believe IN any gods. Maybe someday I'll read Flew's old stuff, but it's just not a relevant question to me, like reading the philosophical reasons for why unicorns cannot exist.
April 11, 2007 2:45 PM,
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