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Friday, April 20, 2007
Selectivity alert!
PZ points out, and the expert agrees, this new paper from PNAS on the evolutionary underpinnings of the bacterial flagellum is a dog.
So, what's the problem? Lots of papers appear in the literature of dubious quality, why should this one be so worrisome? Well, because it happens to be on the topic of the evolution denialists' favorite example of a "irreducibly complex" biological machine. Now, Matzke, the expert here, has written extensively on why the irreducible complexity argument is absurd, generally and specifically. He also has proposed a model for evolution of the bacterial flagellum. And it has already occurred with the DI (Behe specifically) quoting Matzke out of context to imply that all understanding of the bacterial flagellum from an evolutionary perspective is somehow flawed.
Well, Matzke's writings on this are more than adequate to provide an evolutionary explanation for the origin of the flagellum. Notice how Behe also drags out the tired and debunked mousetrap analogy. Not only is argument from analogy an irrelevant contribution to scientific discussion, the analogy isn't even apt. As it has been pointed out again and again, the component parts of a mousetrap are individually useful, and the correct evolutionary analogy (that also applies to the flagellum) is that it could be composed of parts that were already in use in the cell, and simply recombined in a new way. But this is again a distraction. Note how they selectively use Matzke's pre-emptive criticism of a bad paper and the bad paper itself to generate an argument that would seem to cast doubt on an evolutionary mechanism? This is the problem with science, we are self-correcting our literature, but the literature never goes away, and a denialist selectively quoting Matzke's criticism, this dog of a paper, and ignoring all the other writing on the topic can make it appear we know nothing about the evolution of this mechanism. So, I give this latest argument a 3/5 on the denialism index. Behe being a bogus expert on anything, the terrible mousetrap analogy serving for our logical fallacy, and the blatant cherry-picking to misrepresent Matzke's writings serves the selectivity category. By the way, I was sitting in the bar talking to Peter Griesar (who does great work with the One Campaign) about the blog, and he came up with a great suggestion. A visual depiction of each of the criteria of denialism. For instance, for conspiracy theories we would have to have a little gif of a tinfoil hat like this.  For selectivity a cherry would do nicely (for cherry-picking).  For false experts I really want a picture of a chimp in a white coat or maybe a puppet with strings attached. For now this creative commons chimp "thinker" will have to do.  For impossible expectations/moving goalposts, well, goalposts.  And finally for logical fallacy I was thinking a picture of a old-timey robot waving it's arms with sparks flying out of its head (does not compute). This is what I did quickly.  This argument from Behe would therefore garner the following honors. Labels: Evolution denialism, Michael Behe |
Denialism (n): the practice of creating the illusion of debate when there is none.
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11 Comments:
I think the complaints about the paper may be misguided. I need to re-read the paper, and re-read the complaints, but I think that there are some things that are written in the paper in a slightly sloppy fashion that don't mean what Matzke thinks they mean.
I shouldn't write so vaguely, but I'm going to try to re-read this all tonight and comment more on it, but my first impression is that Matzke is mistaken...
April 20, 2007 8:47 AM,
If someone cherry picks three facts, but doesn't display any of the other behaviors of denialism, will money shoot out of my computer?
:-)
Seriously, great visuals.
April 20, 2007 9:32 AM,
nice icons. i love the chimp.
April 20, 2007 12:06 PM,
Matzke's criticisms do seem to stem from the paper making sloppy statements as well as missing one critical citation.
Also, it sounds to me that the homology comparisons they made were too simplified.
It's probably not as terrible as Matzke makes it out to be, but since it's kind of his baby, he's going to be over-protective of it.
This is part of the problem of having a fight about science, it doesn't matter what the specifics are, the creationists like Behe will just take the comments of the critic out of context and make it sound like we're all confused all the time despite there clearly being a number of papers on this mechanism.
April 20, 2007 12:23 PM,
Oh, and Behe actually has the nerve to criticize this paper for being all thought and no experiment. As if using computational biology is somehow not really an experiment and like the IDers have a single example of wet work to point out. At least it wasn't another "review" based on a non-existent field.
April 20, 2007 12:25 PM,
Let's see. Matzke is trained in geography but has studied a bit of mol bio. Mike Behe has a PhD in mol bio. Of course, now it makes sense why you would naturally assume that Matzke is the "real" expert here.
*roll eyes*
April 20, 2007 2:50 PM,
Nice try anon.
Matzke has data and facts on his side. Behe has denialism and crankery. Matzke about 4-5 years ago took this issue by the horns and really worked on it. He is the expert.
Behe is a denialist using BS arguments. Being a fake expert has nothing to do with credentials, it's about knowing the field, and not being a hack.
April 20, 2007 6:42 PM,
Mark, you mean experts become acknowledges as experts through the quality of their argumentation and the solidity of the facts they can marshal to their side?
You gon' make our resident creationist trolls' heads asplode, man.
April 20, 2007 10:13 PM,
Yeah, well one current thing the cranks attack is Al Gore as an expert since he apparently didn't bother to get a PhD after being Vice President and writing two books about the environment.
It's not about credentials. Hell, Egnor is a neurosurgeon and they have half a dozen PhDs spouting their BS.
A real expert is someone who is familiar with a field, knows the science, and can tell you accurately the current understanding of the field and where it's going. It not just some asshole with a degree who says whatever you want. It's about a demonstrable knowledge of the literature and what the science says.
A good lay expert, like Gore, doesn't have degrees but has educated himself to the point where he can speak expertly about a topic. Matzke, similarly, was interested in this topic, studied up, and has contributed a model based on the science despite being trained in a different field.
This is to be distinguished from the fake expert who has an advanced degree but is cited as an expert simply because of letters after his/her name while they spout BS about things they clearly don't understand. Pretty much any asshole can get some advanced degree then spout of creationist, or AIDS denialist, or holocaust denial bullshit. That doesn't mean anything.
April 20, 2007 11:55 PM,
Why do you call Behe an "evolution denialist" ? He accepts universal common ancestry
April 21, 2007 3:15 AM,
Denialism is about methods. Behe is a denialist who has repeatedly defended ID using deceptive techniques, including in Kitzmiller vs Dover. As a defender of ID, and as the author of this pathetic attack on science of evolution he is a denialist. Read the criteria.
April 21, 2007 6:17 AM,
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