> Reflectorites
>
> On Mon, 24 Apr 2000 11:52:45 -0500, Susan Brassfield wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >SJ>No. If Tedd claims that I have made an out-of-context quote, he should
be
> >>able to state objectively what the context is and why my quote does not
fit
> >>it.
> >>
> >>If I am wrong I will admit it and thank Tedd. I have no desire, or need,
to
> >>post out-of-context quotes.
>
> SB>But I've already done that in this thread:
> >http://www.calvin.edu/archive/evolution/199911/0210.html
>
> We fully debated that at the time. Susan was simply wrong. The words I
> omitted with ellipses were not relevant to the particular argument I was
> making. I said at the time I would be happy to reinsert the omitted words
> and debate the point, but Susan declined.
Chris
There was no need; *she* had already given the full quotation, showing how
his deletions did in fact change the apparent meaning of what Gould had
said.
And, as she pointed out at the time, Gould was *not* disagreeing with my
claim that evolution proceeds by a process of cumulative variation (by which
I mean *any* naturally-occurring genetic change, such as those that
animal-breeders take advantage of (they do not *induce* change, they only
*select* changes that occur naturally). Stephen tries to argue, by reference
to Gould's remarks, that *my* views are controversial among evolutionists,
but the passage quoted, with the second missing piece put back in, does
*not* support his claim that my views are controversial (it would not matter
much if they were controversial, though, unless there were good *reasons*
for my views to be controversial among evolutionists). Thus, the statement
he makes above is in fact falsified by the original post and the *correct*
version of the quotation.
I don't think Stephen would like it if we gathered up *all* of the posts in
which he has done this or similar things. If the reader goes back and reads
the posts, he or she can clearly see that Stephen's deletions *do*
significantly change the meaning of what is quoted. I think Stephen could
only claim that they weren't relevant if he is claiming to have been arguing
for some very technical point that itself was not relevant to the issue of
whether naturalistic variation-and-selection evolution occurs. But, even if
he were thus to escape from charges of dishonesty in this one case, the
overall *pattern* of his manipulations of quotations and of opposing views
demonstrates amply that Susan is right. A few instances could be innocent
mistakes. Even *many* instances of it could be innocent (but extremely
biased) mistakes. But Stephen has gone on doing it for at least a *year*
now since I saw my first post pointing this out to him -- and it had clearly
*not* been the first time these "innocent" mistakes had been pointed out!
And he is *still* doing it!
He has, thankfully, ceased responding to my posts, if only because he
filters them out, in yet another act of preventing information from getting
through and triggering thought. Now, he is filtering Susan's posts as well.
If we could *only* get him to cease responding to posts altogether! It
might then be possible to make considerably more progress, because there
would then be no need to spend so much time pointing out Stephen's
misrepresentations and "innocent" mistakes.
I suggest that *everyone* who has recognized Stephen's pattern of
misbehavior *call* him on it.
Make a big point of it. Perhaps then he'll either *get* the point (that we
do not appreciate such intellectual dishonesty, even if it's "only" the
dishonesty of failing to compensate for his automatic mental distorters by
paying extra attention to what his opponents (and, for that matter,
non-opponents, whose views he also misrepresents to make them seem to be
supporting his views strongly when they support them either weakly or not at
all) -- *or* he'll withdraw and let *honest* design-theorists have the
field.
Thus, I address the following to those people:
Do you *really* think it's in the interests of your views to have them
promoted dishonestly? Do you really think that having someone *devotedly*
catering to the ignorant, unthinking, mentally sloppy, or dishonest
supporters of design theory is a good thing? Do you think that the
persistent and *basic* lies and "innocent mistakes" of people like Stephen
and Phillip Johnson will somehow bring about a better world? If the truth
isn't good enough, does it help to "create" truth by manipulating opponent's
views, scientific theories? Does it really help to have these people
persistently defying logic and reason generally?
I doubt it. What good will it be to have a world full of people who believe
the conclusions you believe, but who believe them on the basis of lies they
were accepted too incautiously, too casually, and because they didn't have
the real-world background knowledge to enable them to realize they were
being had? What good is it to have people accept and hold a theory that can
only be maintained on the basis of ignorance of observable facts and/or a
lack of thought?
If that's what you want, and if that's what you *should* want, then you are
right to sanction and implicitly support Stephen's behavior. But, if your
interest is the truth, and if you *honestly*
believe in designer theory, then I don't see how you can continue to let
Stephen get away with his constant misrepresentations.
And yet, I suspect that some people on this list have seen the pattern and
have let it slide, in the belief that, since he was arguing for what they
believe, it was best to let him do it.
But, though demagoguery is still effective, it has *never* been effective to
any good end, and it's effectiveness is becoming less and less as the
Internet becomes more and more widespread. It's just becoming way too easy
for even the casually interested to check up on people like Stephen and
Phillip Johnson and Duane Gish (which makes their behavior all the more
amazing, because, despite the ease with which their lies and "innocent"
mistakes can be detected and publicized, they *still* continue to do it!).
The ignorant and mentally sloppy will not be the leaders of the information
age. They will, instead, be left behind, sitting in their intellectual
caves wondering why people can't see that the Earth really is flat and that
magnets in bracelets really do cure cancer.
> SB>none of us who debate you have any confidence in your quotes. They are
too
> >often obviously out of context and quite dishonest.
>
> [...]
>
> I am getting a bit tired of Susan's "lie" and "dishonest" ad hominems as a
> substitute for rational arguments. It is a complete waste of everybody's
time
> me defending myself from such `shoot the messenger' attacks. Since Susan
> continues doing this, I have now inserted a filter in my emailer to
delete
> anything from Susan also unread.s really are.
Chris
The problem is that Stephen is not a messenger when he twists other people's
words and ideas. In one response to one of my posts pointing out his
misrepresentations, he misrepresented my remarks about his
misrepresentations. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
When he does this, he becomes a liar, not a mere messenger, transferring a
message intact from sender to receiver. As I've pointed out, since many of
the issues on this list depend on empirical facts that the average list
member may never have personally experienced, we need to be able to assume,
for the most part, the simple intellectual integrity of our opponents with
respect to things like quotations. Otherwise, debate on issues grinds to a
halt while people hash out whether Stephen J. Gould actually said what
Stephen Jones (or others like him) *claim* he said. This is a waste of time.
The Internet can allow us to gather information more widely than we readily
could without it, but we should still be able to depend on our opponents at
*least* to be honest and accurate in such issues as quotations and the
nature of opposing views, and not to try to take advantage of people's
ignorance and habits of casual thought to foist on them ideas and beliefs
that they would never accept were they significantly more knowledgeable or
paying significantly more attention.
SJ
> I note that Mike B. Gene has also unsubscribed from the Reflector. I
> don't blame him. In fact I am considering doing the same in order to
> concentrate on my studies, a book I am writing, my web page, and
> the other List I am on.
>
> Personally I think that the Moderator should immediately enforce a
> minimum standard of debating etiquette, e.g. ad hominems like "lie"
> and "dishonest" not be tolerated.
Chris
They are not ad hominems if they are true and if they are rationally based
on the evidence, and if they are not aimed at actual arguments but at member
misbehavior. Neither Susan nor anyone else has attempted to pseudo-refute
an actual *argument* by imputing dishonesty to Stephen. His arguments, such
as they are, fall on their own lack of merit. What is galling is the
*continued* intellectual dishonesty of misrepresenting quotations and
opponents' views and arguments. And it is not irrelevant, either (see
above). It is best by *far* to bring such intellectual dishonesty out in
the open where everyone can see it. If we don't, we effectively sanction
it. It's like watching a murder being committed without even bothering to
call the police. By remaining silent after the point of no longer being
able to sustain a reasonable doubt, we effectively say, "Well, it may not be
nice for him to do that, but I don't want to be the one to rock the boat and
say anything. Remember Kitty Genovese?
If he would simply state his *own* arguments and reasoning, and correctly
represent the views and arguments he opposes, there would be no problem, but
he won't do either of these, apparently because he is incapable of
independent thought, except for that minimum needed in order to distort the
views of others.
Should the moderator enforce a minimum standard of honesty? I don't think
so, but we, the list members should, by exposing dishonesty and keeping the
light on it until it shrivels back into the darkness from whence it came.
Like vampires, with which such dishonesty shares important traits, (at least
metaphorically) such dishonesty does not handle bright light well. If we
remain silent, it is allowed to grow, to expand, and to find new victims
among the innocently ignorant and intellectually lazy or undeveloped.
A better solution would be for people like Stephen to simply quit twisting
the truth about their opponents' views and arguments, whether he does it by
mistake or not. Then, there would be no need for anyone to make a public
issue over his lack of intellectual honesty.
Failing the unlikely event of Stephen taking up ordinary intellectual
honesty, what we *should* perhaps do is *all* of the rest of us, design
theorists and naturalistic evolutionists both, put in e-mail filters to
screen out *his* posts (or at least not respond to them). If he finds that
his tactics fail to gain the desired responses from people, he will
gradually give up and at least develop a better *pretense* at honesty - or
become an official member of the tin-foil helmet brigade.
SJ
> Otherwise, if all the posting creationists and anti-evolutionists continue
> to leave this Reflector, then it will just be a debate between theistic
vs
> atheistic evolutionists.
>
> In that case, I doubt that there would be much to debate about and
> the Reflector would probably just die.
Chris
I wonder. Since design theorists do not really *have* a theory, except in
the broadest and most philosophical sense, the only things really to debate
have been actual and potential flaws in various versions and interpretations
of naturalistic evolutionary theory. Nearly all of Stephen's arguments, for
example, have been nothing more than *criticisms* of naturalistic views
rather than positive arguments for his own views. He excuses this on the
grounds that we're having a
*debate*, but this is not an adequate response to the charge. If your only
debating tool is criticism of your opponents view, even though your own
views have a massively *heavier* burden of proof, then something is wrong
with your own views.
It is legitimate to criticize your opponents views and arguments, of course,
but, if this is the only form of "evidence" you have for your own views,
then it's time to criticize *them*. Of course, the situation is even worse
if your main form of criticism is not of your opponent's *actual* views and
arguments, but of *misrepresentations* of them. Since criticizing such
misrepresentations and under the pretense of refuting the *actual* views and
arguments is Stephen's *main* method, it will be no loss to us,
design-theorists or not, if he leaves the list.
If those left cannot find anything to debate, what does that indicate? If
design theory does not get a causal principle that yields empirically
testable implications, why bother to try to support it?
Can *anyone* even think of a *possible* design-theory principle that could
be empirically tested and that, if true, would fare better than naturalistic
evolutionary theory in such tests? Could it be there really *is* nothing to
debate in this area, except, given the shortcomings of designer theory,
*whether* there is anything to debate?
Mike thinks that there is something *inherently* different between designed
things and non- designed things, but, so far, he has not done any better
than Paley in showing that this is really the case, and it has been
demonstrated
*many* times empirically that "dumb" processes in both nature and
laboratories can yield results that have the kinds of structural/functional
complexity and relatedness to an environment that designed things can.
One way of "generating" musical sounds is to generate so-called "white
noise" and then *filter*
out of it the tones one wants to produce. In fact, one way to generate
almost *any* pattern is to produce "white" signals of the required type and
then provide some kind of filtering mechanism that eliminates everything
except the desired pattern.
Reproduction with variation is a means of introducing "noise" into
information. In fact, noise *is* information. Survival of the fittest (for
the local environment) is a means of *filtering* that information, so that
only "fit" information survives. The constant production and filtering of
such molecular "noise" *must* yield (relatively) clear (if not perfectly
*pure*) genetic "tones," because the ones that are not "clear" enough *must*
die out; they *cannot* survive (because, for example, the organism they
produce cannot assimilate some nutrient that it needs, or because it can't
run fast enough to escape predators, or because its reproductive mechanism
is defective, etc.). Since surviving "tones" are themselves subject to
*further* variations (i.e., "noise") (empirically observed fact), and since
these variations are subject to the same general kinds of information
filtering as were previous generations, evolution *must* occur unless there
is something to *stop* it from occurring, such as conditions that do not
support *any* of the variations, or an outside influence.
Thus, it would be a *stronger* argument for design theory if there had not
been an obvious "progression" of life forms, because it would indicate that
the information in living forms had not been accreted from noise in the
naturalistic evolutionary way. *If* there were no obvious candidates as
precursors for genetically more-complex organisms, for example, that would
be a bad sign for NET (Natrualistic Evolutionary Theory).
Indeed, this is why non-naturalists and creationists put so much effort into
"proving" that there are signficant "gaps" in the appearance of different
kinds of organisms. And yet, the best they have been able to do is to show
that there are no known such candidates in *some* cases. They wish to argue
from the *lack* of evidence to the conclusion that NET is false and that,
therefore, their theistic design theory is true (even though these are not
the only prospective possibilities, so they are committing a
false-alternative fallacy as well as arguing from ignorance).
Thus, *objectively*, because of the horrendous deficits in all known types
of design theory (and
especially *non-naturalistic* design theory), and because the general
pattern of the history of life on Earth follows the pattern of NET (combined
with our modern knowledge of geology, geophysics, climatology, physics,
chemistry, genetics, astronomy, information theory, and the gross physical
history of the Earth (including volcanic action, comets, continental plate
movement, ice ages, and so on)), perhaps there really *isn't* much to
debate, except the relative details. If NET *isn't* true, it is certainly
*extremely* veridical. That is, it is extremely isomorphically *similar* to
whatever the truth is (at NET's level of detail and discourse). At worst,
it is the equivalent of a Newtonian approximation to an Einsteinian reality:
Close enough for nearly all practical purposes, including the furthering of
productive scientific research. What currently available *scientific*,
empirically testable theory could replace it? In any case, whatever *is*
true would have to be a *lot* like NET or it would severely conflict with
the evidence. It would have to encompass it, in effect, in the same way
that Einstein's General theory effectively encompassed Newtonian theory.
Theistic designer theory, as such, cannot do this, because everything is
simply up to the whims of the designer.
And, the theistic designer theorists won't accept the old "deistic" approach
of assuming that God made the Universe to behave a certain way but does not
intervene in it to manipulate it on the fly. They can't accept this because
it has *nothing* to scientifically distinguish it from pure NET. Design
theorists want design to be introduced *specifically* at the origin of life
and at points along the way. Otherwise there is nothing empirical to say
that pure NET is not true, since they would then be claiming that NET *is*
true except that the universe it is occurring in did not arise
naturalistically. But, if *that's* the case, why bother with non-naturalism
at all? Why not just say, "Well, there's this universe, and it works in
such a way that NET is true"?
Again, there seems to be little of fundamental significance to debate,
except the *philosophical* question of whether the Universe was in fact
created, etc.
But, of course, that won't stop people from debating, because that's a lot
easier than actually studying the physical world or even locating
certifiably reliable sources on the Internet or in books. Theists will
continue to want to urge their beliefs upon us without all the bother of
actually determining, *objectively*, whether their beliefs are strongly
supported by evidence and rational argument (most theists, like many
non-theists, don't have the epistemological knowledge and skills to
determine this, anyway).
Fringe extremist demagogues like Stephen may drift away from lists like
this, but others will stay or go to new lists. If they are basically
honest, they may learn enough to change their views, and they may stimulate
over-casual evolution supporters (of which I have come across plenty) into
being more cautious about both their claims and how they defend them (and
into actually studying the facts their case rests on). And, if, by some
weirdness, some real evidence is found that truly does support their views,
*we* (naturalistic evolutionists) may have to change our views, at least to
the degree of accepting that life originated elsewhere in the Universe, or
something of that sort. This seems extremely unlikely, and it's also a
relatively extreme proposal that would require relatively extreme support
(scientifically), support that is not currently in the offing.
The distinguishing feature of life is that it *actively* manipulates
information for the furtherance of itself or its own internal (usually
genetic) information. This is why viruses are not considered to be living
organisms. They reproduce, but only by passively tapping into the host
cell's active following of what it takes as "instructions" (which,
unfortunately for the cell, usually have the effect of producing more copies
of the virus).
Thus, the first life may have been no more than a kind of "enzyme" that did
not *merely* provide a kind of passive catalyzing effect in producing more
copies of itself, but which actually took in energy and used that energy to
*actively* promote the production of more copies of itself. As you can
imagine, this could provide it with a tremendous reproductive advantage over
otherwise nearly identical but passive (and therefore non-living) precursors
of itself. Though non-living reproducers (i.e., viruses and even some
simple molecules) still exist, there is not a lot of room for their
evolution except as reproductive parasites in living organisms, because, in
most cases, they'd eventually evolve into *living* organisms themselves and
thus take over the most of the niches held by non-living precursors, or
they'd cease reproducing if their ability to evolve was not sufficient to
keep up with the local changing demands of continued non-living
reproduction.
Whether life on Earth *did* originate this way is not known, of course.
But, the point is that all of the monstrous arguments designed to show the
alleged extreme improbability of life arising naturalistically fail because
they rest on at least unsupported *assumptions* of their own about what life
is and what the first living thing must have been and how, as simple as it
was, it must have differed radically from the most sophisticated
*non-living* precursors of itself.
*Amazingly* bad assumptions about life have plagued both this kind of
argument and the very similar but oppositely-oriented fine-tuning argument.
In the fine-tuning case, it is argued that there must be a God because the
Universe is so "finely-tuned" for life that it would be too unlikely for it
to have occurred by "accident." In the other case, it is argued that *life*
must be designed because the Universe (or at least Earth 3.8 bya) was so
*grossly-tuned* that life could not arise by unplanned accident.
These are somewhat antithetical views, though I suppose they could be
reconciled by a little trimming and jiggering here and there. But, in any
case, both are unsound because they make extreme assumptions about the
conditions for and the nature of life (and, in the case of the fine- tuning
argument, about what universes could logically have existed instead of ours
and about what "universes" actually *do* exist (they assume that only ours
or some small number exists)).
Stephen Jones, as our role-model of (in)consistency, argues that the
Universe is *both* finely tuned for life that, by implication, life should
be able to arise by accident *and* that it is so *grossly* tuned for life
that life could not possibly arise by accident.
But, if it *is* so finely tuned, perhaps it is (or was) *so* finely tuned
that life could arise without further intervention. Sadly for theism, such a
degree of fine-tuning would not support the general fine-tuning argument for
the existence of God (which rests also on other bad premises), but it
*would* undermine the "gross-tuning" argument for the necessity of a
designer-God.
Personally, I think these issues are interesting to debate on their own
merits, and that we don't need the continued dishonesty of Stephen Jones to
interfere with our discussing of these issues.
If there are *enough* design-theorists who are genuinely interested in
working through these issues and others like them related to evolution, then
the list will survive. If there are not enough such people, then it may be
just as well that the list dies out and is replaced by another,
evolutionarily "fitter" list. One way or another, evolution of some sort
will occur, though not always for the better (by our standards), of course.
Anyway, Stephen's unwillingness to deal with his own egregious intellectual
habits (and his pretense that, despite his manipulations of the truth, he is
only a "messenger") is something we can do without.
P.S.: Damn! I just retrieved my e-mail, and I see that Steve, "as a mark of
good faith," is removing all his filters. I hope that he will at least do as
he exhorts *us* to do: Stick to the issues. Would that he would, rather than
distorting both the issues and what people say about them. Oh well, let's
wait a day or so and see how he behaves. But, from now on, if he resumes his
"normal" career path, perhaps we should simply point out his
misrepresentations but not bother to deal with them otherwise, not bother to
try to explain, for the billionth time, what evolutionary theory *actually*
says and implies. On those (rare?) occasions in the future when he actually
properly quotes someone or responds to a post as it was actually written
instead of to some weird twisted and deformed version that exists only in
his mind, I see no harm in treating such responses civilly, even if his
response does not adequately answer our points. It will be miracle enough to
get him to "stick to the [actual] issues," I think.
-Chris
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