Denialism Blog

Category: Evolution Denialism

  • Ben Stein loses all intellectual credibility

    On his blog Stein espouses one of the weakest attacks I’ve heard yet against evolution, and not even original. It’s a pathetic set of logical fallacies. Basically, he starts from the assumption that scientific theories arise if they serve the prevailing ideology of the time period, and because “Darwinism” was developed during the Victorian/imperialist age, it represents nothing but the worst aspects of that era.

    Let’s make this short and sweet. It would be taken for granted by any serious historian that any ideology or worldview would partake of the culture in which it grew up and would also be largely influenced by the personality of the writer of the theory.

    …

    In other words, major theories do not arise out of thin air. They come from the era in which they arose and are influenced greatly by the personality and background of the writer.

    …

    Darwinism, the notion that the history of organisms was the story of the survival of the fittest and most hardy, and that organisms evolve because they are stronger and more dominant than others, is a perfect example of the age from which it came: the age of Imperialism. When Darwin wrote, it was received wisdom that the white, northern European man was destined to rule the world. This could have been rationalized as greed-i.e., Europeans simply taking the resources of nations and tribes less well organized than they were. It could have been worked out as a form of amusement of the upper classes and a place for them to realize their martial fantasies. (Was it Shaw who called Imperialism “…outdoor relief for the upper classes?”)

    But it fell to a true Imperialist, from a wealthy British family on both sides, married to a wealthy British woman, writing at the height of Imperialism in the UK, when a huge hunk of Africa and Asia was “owned” (literally, owned, by Great Britain) to create a scientific theory that rationalized Imperialism. By explaining that Imperialism worked from the level of the most modest organic life up to man, and that in every organic situation, the strong dominated the weak and eventually wiped them out,

    Darwin offered the most compelling argument yet for Imperialism. It was neither good nor bad, neither Liberal nor Conservative, but simply a fact of nature. In dominating Africa and Asia, Britain was simply acting in accordance with the dictates of life itself. He was the ultimate pitchman for Imperialism.

    …

    Alas, Darwinism has had a far bloodier life span than Imperialism. Darwinism, perhaps mixed with Imperialism, gave us Social Darwinism, a form of racism so vicious that it countenanced the Holocaust against the Jews and mass murder of many other groups in the name of speeding along the evolutionary process.

    Wow. There are so many fallacies here I don’t know quite how to start. For one, if one assumed that his assumptions were correct, this would just be a genetic fallacy. But since we know this is absurd, and that evolution has persisted as a theory because of the consistency of the theory with observation of the natural world, we can reject this idiocy out of hand. But then he devolves into the fallacy of appeal to consequences – again based on false premises. Including the pathetic Darwin lead to Hitler canard. Again, even if this were true, it would be like saying we shouldn’t believe in physics because it leads to nuclear weapons. However, it decidedly isn’t true, and as we’ve discussed previously, is based on a disingenuous reading of history that the ADL has attacked as disturbing tactic to try to shift blame for the holocaust from anti-antisemitism to science. This is a doubly disgusting tactic. It attempts to shift the blame for the holocaust away from the antisemitic ideology of Hitler and Nazism (suggesting antisemitism is scientifically justified by evolution!), while simultaneously trying to exploit the victims of the holocaust for the benefit of the anti-evolution cause. Stein should be ashamed.
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  • Michael Gerson is taking cues from the ID cranks

    Or is unintentionally channeling them is my conclusion from reading his latest WaPo Op-Ed entitled, “The Eugenics Temptation”. This Watson nonsense has somehow convinced all these conservatives that lurking beneath the surface of every scientist is a seething eugenicist, biting at the bit to escape and kill off all we see who are inferior. I’ve agreed with Gerson on a thing or two, but this essay is a real stinker.

    “If you really are stupid,” Watson once contended, “I would call that a disease.” What is the name for the disease of a missing conscience?

    Watson is not typical of the scientific community when it comes to his extreme social application of genetics. But this controversy illustrates a temptation within science — and a tension between some scientific views and liberalism.

    The temptation is eugenics. Watson is correct that “we already accept” genetic screening and selective breeding when it comes to disabled children. About 90 percent of fetuses found to have Down syndrome are aborted in America. According to a recent study, about 40 percent of unborn children in Europe with one of 11 congenital defects don’t make it to birth.
    …
    This creates an inevitable tension within liberalism. The left in America positions itself as both the defender of egalitarianism and of unrestricted science. In the last presidential election, Sen. John Kerry pledged to “tear down every wall” that inhibited medical research. But what happens when certain scientific views lead to an erosion of the ideal of equality? Yuval Levin of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a rising academic analyst of these trends, argues: “Watson is anti-egalitarian in the extreme. Science looks at human beings in their animal aspects. As animals, we are not always equal. It is precisely in the ways we are not simply animals that we are equal. So science, left to itself, poses a serious challenge to egalitarianism.”

    “The left,” Levin continues, “finds itself increasingly disarmed against this challenge, as it grows increasingly uncomfortable with the necessarily transcendent basis of human equality.

    Aside from the obvious absurdity of such statements, I find it offensive how willing these conservative commentators are to deny the humanity of scientists and liberals. For one, the data quoted in the article stands in direct contradiction to this statement. Think about it. “…90 percent of fetuses found to have Down syndrome are aborted in America” so are 90% of us liberal? Are 90% of Down’s kids born to liberal parents? 90% of Down’s kids are born to evil eugenicists scientists? Of course not. But 100% of us are human, and humans have a very real tendency to want their children to be born with every advantage possible, as close to perfect as the parents can manage. This isn’t liberalism, this is human freaking nature, and if anything it exposes the hypocrisy of the right wing’s stance against abortion. They yell and scream it should be banned but clearly for large numbers of conservatives aborting fetuses for genetic disorders abortion is only proscribed for other people.

    These attacks from Gerson and the ID cranks deny the humanity of scientists and liberals. They are based on small-minded and simplistic bigotries of right-wingers, that ignore their own participation in this problem, and try to lay the blame with those who have the decency to at least not be hypocrites. Further, there is not a trend towards eugenics among scientists as a group. This is a tendency in people, to want to improve their fitness and the fitness of their offspring. Scientists know that eugenics, historically, was not practiced in a scientifically-legitimate way but was instead racism masquerading as science. Ideology and bias was the basis of the eugenics movement, not rigorous observation and collection of data. If anything it’s the the Disco Institute’s behavior that resembles the bad science of eugenics. I tire of having members of my profession, and a broad swath of people being denigrated for being somehow morally incomplete and inhuman as if we are to blame for this tendency.

    We will have to address the ethics of eliminating and propagating certain traits in our offspring as the science improves and we have the ability to screen for positive or negative traits. We’ve all seen Gattaca, we get it. But it doesn’t help when these assholes sit around saying it’s our problem, or a defect in our morality, when clearly they engage in this behavior too, only while hypocritically mouthing platitudes against it. We should acknowledge the desire to artificially improve the biology of our offspring is ultimately a very understandable motive for people, and instead of casting blame on the scientists who have figured out how it all works, come to an understanding of what will be acceptable and unacceptable based on a balance between the rights of individuals and society.

  • Denialists should not be debated

    Orac has brought up the interesting point that debating the homeopaths at U. Conn might not be a good idea.

    On a related note, in a post derriding attacks on consensus I was asked by commenters if isn’t it incumbent on science to constantly respond to debate; to never let scientific questions be fully settled. And I understand where they’re coming from. These ideas represent the enlightened ideals of scientific inquiry, free speech, and fundamental fairness.

    However, they’re also hopelessly misplaced in regard to the problem at hand. That is, denialists, cranks, quacks, etc., are not interested in legitimate debate or acting as honest brokers trying to bring clarity to a given issue through discussion. Orac dances around this issue a little bit, talking about the challenges of debates with pseudoscientists because they are hard to pin down, but the fundamental problem, simply put, is the absence of honesty and standards. Academia and science are critically dependent on debate, this is true, but the prerequisite for having the debate is having people who are honestly interested in pursuing the truth and operate using the same rules of evidence and proof. It’s not about censoring dissent, which the cranks insist is the issue in their eternal pursuit of persecution. It’s about having standards for evidence and discussion. This is why these debates, when confined to a courtroom, often fare so disastrously for the denialists. In the presence of standards that exist before evidence can be introduced, they are left with nothing.

    In what is probably the best book on denialist tactics Deborah Lipstadt’s “Denying the Holocaust”, are the best arguments for not engaging in debate with denialists. Now, I realize we’re not talking about scum-of-the-earth holocaust deniers here, but the fact is, the tactics and the methods are ultimately the same no matter how noble or evil the motive. Just because the motives or ideologies of the other cranks or denialists are different, doesn’t mean that they don’t have the exact same flaws in their arguments, use of evidence, or fundamental honesty. Lipstadt explains the risks then of entering into debates with deniers:
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  • The DI has discovered Ioannidis too!

    I realize it’s fundamental to being a crank, but the persecution complex of the IDers is getting really old. The latest is Bruce Chapman at Evolution News and Views, who no longer satisfied with grasping at the mantle of Galileo, is now groping for Semmelweis and Lister as well. The idea being, as usual, if science has been slow to accept the theories of people in the past, surely the same flaws must be preventing ID from being accepted. Never mind that these other scientists actually had things like data or evidence, or did rather fantastic things like reduce the death rates in maternity wards by 90%. Further the word “persecution” in this case largely consists of not being immediately believed. Long gone are the days in which persecution meant being crucified or thrown to the lions. Nowadays, persecution apparently means actually having to provide proof for what you say. Oh the humanity!

    It’s just the same old Galileo Gambit being recycled to include new martyrs, who if alive today would laugh just as heartily at what the DI calls science as we do.

    While nothing in this essay is new to anyone who has read Thomas Kuhn, I noticed that embedded in this little tail of hyperbole and whining was a reference to Ioannidis’ work! This, of course, elevated this tired rehash of creationist nonsense from the ignore pile to the proof-that-I-was-right pile. I always knew the cranks would one day find Ioannidis’ work and use it for the benefit of their Galileo Gambits.

    Robert Lee Hotz in the “Science Journal” column of The Wall Street Journal two weeks ago called attention to what you might call a “study of studies” that was conducted by Dr. John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist in Greece and at Tufts University (in Massachusetts). After examining 432 published research reports from science journals (peer reviewed reports, for those of you who entertain the superstition that peer review is some kind of academic prophylactic), Ioannidis wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association that “There is an increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims.”

    Mr. Hotz writes that an earlier essay by Dr. Ioannidis in the journal PLoS Medicine, “Why Most Published Research Findings are False” is “the most downloaded paper the journal PLoS has ever published.” Here it is, in case you are interested.

    Mainstream journals have to correct errors after publication, which, of course, is just good practice and fully in the spirit of sound science. Some papers (all peer-reviewed, remember) are retracted. However, many that are shown to be flat wrong on any number of grounds simply sit out there, uncontested. Why? Might not the sloppiness have something to do with greed? The federal government is funding scientific research like never before, and, of course it is never enough. The checks on quality seem deficient, since the people who vote the funds and many who administer them are not conversant with the scientific issues.

    The DI, however, is late, as the global warming and HIV/AIDS cranks found and used his research first (for my coverage of Ioannidis see this post). The fundamental misunderstanding this crank makes is that Ioannidis doesn’t show that previous papers were fraudulent, he merely shows that many effects that appear in the literature aren’t replicated. It’s a big difference. The data were real, they were just irrelevant. It’s a problem of statistical significance. If a p < 0.05 is considered significant, a false positive effect will still appear real, and significant, about 5% of the time. Take that into account, along with the file-drawer effect and the reluctance of journals to publish negative results, and inevitably, the literature gets contaminated with a large number of false-positive results. These results should not be retracted, or disavowed, because the data are actually real. There wasn’t fabrication, nor necessarily sloppiness. False positives are bound to occur with the limitations of biomedical research, which is why you don’t consider single papers in isolation, but instead evaluate the literature as a whole.

    The redeeming feature of science is repetition. And the mere fact that Ioannidis could do this study shows that ultimately these incorrect results were not replicated, and the literature was corrected. It should also be noted that this is largely an effect in biomedical research because of problems of human studies, variability in biological effects, costs etc. It is largely irrelevant for other scientific fields which aren’t (usually) limited by things like how many cases of say, ankylosing spondylitis you can find within the time limits of a study. There’s a big difference between a gene-association study in which researchers try to link a single-nucleotide polymorphism to a multi-factorial human disease and the types of observations that are made in physics. Further, even if this research did apply, replication saves the day. The problem with evolution isn’t that it hasn’t been sufficiently studied and replicated and confirmed across multiple different species, locations and times. Evolution has been replicated and found to be consistent in every context in which it has been studied; it is the strongest kind of theory.

    So nice try DI. The mixed Galileo/Ioannidis attack is truly on the leading edge of crank attacks on science, yet like all the other cranks that have attempted the link, they once again fail to understand their source material.

    Update – John P.A. Ioannidis responds after I sent him links to cranks using his work.

    This is a very important issue that you are raising. I was not aware of this, but it is hard to understand how some people may use my work to fuel attacks against science per se. HIV/AIDS denialism, global warming denialism, and evolution denialism/intelligent design have nothing to do with science, they are dogmas that depend on beliefs, not on empirical observation and replication/refutation thereof. Perhaps we should just take it for granted that such “currents” may try to use anything to support their views. I think that one of the strongest advantages of science is that its propositions can be tested empirically and they can be replicated, but also refuted and contradicted, and improved. Obviously, this cannot be the case with any dogma, so all my research makes absolutely no sense in the setting of dogmatic belief. Science should gain respect in the wider public, especially because of its willingness to test and refute its hypotheses, in contrast to any type of dogma. In a letter to PLoSMed following my 2005 paper (2007;4:e215), I recently clarified that “Scientific investigation is the noblest pursuit. I think we can improve the respect of the public for researchers by showing how difficult success is.” Obviously this has nothing to do with dogma (religious, political, corporate, or otherwise) that really needs no hard work and by definition cannot be countered in its absurdity.

    Well, he may be shocked, but I’m not. It’s part of a paradoxical behavior of the crank. While on the one hand they struggle futilely for scientific recognition of nonsense, they simultaneously try to drag science down by any means necessary to try to lower it to the level of their own discourse. Someone who is actually interested in science and is not “anti-science” as the title of this essay suggests biologists are, wouldn’t be interested in smearing the reputation of science and the integrity of the process. A sure sign of a crank is one who rejoices in every perceived mistake or slight against science, as they mistakenly believe it makes their nonsense appear more legitimate.
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  • Creationists are idiots – Part 8,246,532

    I’ve largely been ignoring their stupid lately. But the sheer idiocy of a ID “mathematician” Granville Sewell takes the cake for this truly idiotic straw-man argument.

    It starts with an interesting question though:

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  • Casey Luskin – Game show audiences and national intellect: a study

    I am always amused by this statement at the bottom of the Evolution News and Views website. It says:

    The misreporting of the evolution issue is one key reason for this site. Unfortunately, much of the news coverage has been sloppy, inaccurate, and in some cases, overtly biased. Evolution News & Views presents analysis of that coverage, as well as original reporting that accurately delivers information about the current state of the debate over Darwinian evolution. Click here to read more.

    That being said, Casey Luskin shows just how accurate and unbiased his little news service can be, as he castigates the French for being scientifically illiterate. His evidence? A game show audience flubbed on heliocentrism.

    Earlier this summer, Mike Gene posted on Telic Thoughts a YouTube video where a contestant on a French version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” was asked a question where he had to decide whether it was the Sun, or the Moon that revolved around the Earth. The contestant (see below) wasn’t sure, so he polled the audience for the right answer. After the poll, 56% of the French audience thought the Geocentric model of the Solar System was correct, i.e. they thought the sun revolved around the earth, rather than visa versa. After much deliberation, this French contestant went with the majority vote and decided that the Sun revolves around the earth. What does this say about scientific literacy in France? Bear in mind that Eugenie Scott’s survey in Science found that in France, “80% or more of adults accepted the concept of evolution.” Her supplementary data also boasted that French adults were among “the least likely to believe in divine control and to pray frequently.” If those numbers are true, this video suggests that accepting evolution and rejecting religion does not necessarily mean you are scientifically literate. The funny YouTube video is below:

    I shudder to think how much worse we Americans would look if we were evaluated based on the intelligence of our game show audiences. But there you have it. Luskin bases his analysis of scientific literacy of foreign populations not from specific studies testing scientific knowledge, literacy and competence across populations but from French “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.”

    Heckuva job there Casey. Keep it up, you’re making my job easy.
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  • How Dare They!

    Denyse O’Leary points us to an upcoming criticism of the New York Times from the crank journal First Things. Their great sin? Allowing Dawkins, a critic of Behe, to review his latest book.

    He notes the curious fact that the Times should never have given the book to Dawkins to review anyway, without giving Behe the right of reply (which it would never dare to do):

    You see, it’s only OK for critics to review their opponents when Behe does it for Time. How dare the New York Times allow Dawkins to then say something about Behe’s work?

    Then in yet another example of the ID cranks’ stunning lack of insight, she accuses “Darwinism” of being the Enron of biology. If peer-reviewed publications are the currency of science, is it ID or evolutionary science that is spending money it doesn’t have?

  • UD gets pwned

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    For a scene of pure hilarity and joy, get ye over to Uncommon Descent as they try spin the rejection of a “Evolutionary Informatics Lab” by Baylor University.

    Yesterday, the Baylor University administration shut down Prof. Robert Marks’s Evolutionary Informatics Lab because the lab’s research was perceived as linked to intelligent design (ID).

    Hah. Perceived as linked? It probably doesn’t help to have Dembski linking it as his one example of an ID research program. That’s a little damning. Continued:

    Robert J. Marks II, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor, had hoped that a late-August compromise would save his lab, but the University withdrew from the previous offer yesterday morning. While President Lilley was not at the meeting, an insider senses his hand in the affair, noting that Lilley was the only person with the authority to overturn what the Provost, who was at the meeting, agreed to.

    You see, when a Christian University, and a Baptist one at that, decides that ID is so distasteful and unscientific, that they won’t even lend their name to an off-site, non-existent lab associated with ID, this is a dark day for the cranks. It’s a real bind. Their usual refrain to events like these is to yell Conspiracy! Or even better yet, persecution! They’re like Galileo! But they can’t say that given how religious a university Baylor is. They can’t turn on the Baptists after all, that’s half of their constituency.

    Denyse still manages to crazy it up, and her take is pretty crankerific, ranging from “thought control” to evil materialist conspiracies.
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  • Contrarians?

    I think Naomi Oreskes is being charitable when she calls denialists “contrarians”, but to each their own. Stranger Fruit has her response to the latest nonsense being spread by these liars.

    They’ve tried this before, and it was swatted down rapidly, basically the only way they can show any significant disagreement with the consensus on global warming since 1990 is to lie and dissemble. This time appears no different.

    Maybe that’s why they’re cranks. They just keep cranking out the same nonsense over, and over.

  • Accidental Honesty from UD

    Granville Sewell describes the UD approach to science – in a word, quit early.

    In any debate on Intelligent Design, there is a question I have long wished to see posed to ID opponents: “If we DID discover some biological feature that was irreducibly complex, to your satisfication and to the satisfaction of all reasonable observers, would that justify the design inference?” (Of course, I believe we have found thousands of such features, but never mind that.)

    If the answer is yes, we just haven’t found any such thing yet, then all the constantly-repeated philosophical arguments that “ID is not science” immediately fall. If the answer is no, then at least the lay observer will be able to understand what is going on here, that Darwinism is not grounded on empirical evidence but a philosophy.

    The actual answer is that this is an idiotic question and exposes the fundamental misconceptions that IDers have about science. In fact, I think this is one of their most accidentally-honest posts yet.

    In science, if a problem emerges that we don’t have the technology or tools to understand we don’t throw our hands up in the air and say “god did it”. Historically this tactic is always premature.

    You want proof ID isn’t a science? There are few better examples this Sewell’s post.

    Also note Factition’s take on this very post.

    We refer to this in science as an answer that is uninformative. Sure, you’ve failed to divide something further, but what does that mean? That’s why “irreducible complexity” isn’t really a useful metric, and if the intelligent design movement is truly serious about science, they will abandon this metric as a measure of whether or not something is designed.

    You can’t base the test of your hypothesis on an uninformative answer. Just like I can’t base my understanding of bacteria based on my failure to find a particular bacterium. You have to base science on positive outcomes (otherwise known as informative outcomes).

    Damn right.