Dembski's blog respons:
I continue to find it entertaining that many Darwinists are convinced that only religious fanatics, the uneducated, and/or not-very-brights don’t buy their arguments.Hell's Handmaiden responds:
On a lighter note, consider the suggestion he claims to have made to Behe that he (Behe) would find "more support for his ideas in mathematics, physics and computer science departments than in his own field". In other words, Behe would find more support for his biological theories in fields where people are not trained in biology. Of course he would! You can also find more support for astrology within fields where people are not trained in astronomy. Likewise, you can find more support for crackpot theories about division by zero outside the appropriate field of mathematics than inside it.
9 comments:
The difference is simple. Biologists are not trained in careful logic.
There is a standard joke told among mathematicians:
The math department is the second cheapest department on campus: We only need a pen some paper and a trash can. The philosphy department is the cheapest--they don't know need a trash can.
The biology department has a problem similar to the philosophy department: many biologists don't think clearly enough to know when to use the trash can, nor can they come up with clever solutions.
Mathematicians always begin with EXPLICITLY stated assumptions and they always reach true conclusions (after extensive peer-review). If the paper about evolution is proper math the assumptions in the model will be clearly stated. Go look at them. I think I will. (Even watson and crick could do math!)
My brother, and by extension, I am sick of what philosophy has become: Pseudophilosophy comes to the public mind much faster than real philosophy (critical thinking).
*Sigh*
No, the difference is that mathematicians like Dembski and Sewell aren't trained to use evidence. Mathematicians may be good at checking out logical axioms, but finding whether their premises fit with the facts is another matter. Here both do rather poorly, spouting such nonsense as "evolution violates thermodynamics."
Your remark about thermodynamics betrays ignorance. It is largely invalid rules of thumb that would lead you to state your conclusion with such arrogance. You are probably thinking something about earth not being a closed system.
I know thermodynamics inside and out and I'm going to tell you two things: (1) biologists should not talk about thermodynamics as if they understand it (2) You should not state things with such certainty. you are not yet an expert. I can recite classical thermodynamics, and the postulates of quantum statistical mechanics. I can derive the latter from the former and I can derive the former from basic thought experiments or from the Boltzman transport equation.
I could try to explain everything, but I doubt you'd understand. Prima facie thermodynamics does cast evolution into doubt, but nobody has been able to prove evolution impossible. (The reason has to do with information theory and the statistical interpretation of entropy) Physicists, like me don't really care about evolution, so we don't spend our time looking for proofs of this. Secondly. its a *very very very* complicated question; one which would require tons of time.
Physicists often believe in God for a more interesting reasons: The universe has finite life, which implies there is something that we can't observe. Secondly, quantum events are *truly* random (you do the EXACT same experiment twice, you will not get the same result), which means either there are hidden variables, eg, a God, or the universe is random.
Actually, if you ever become a biologist you'd be in a good position to help correct the problem in biology. Biologists need to learn about the difference between rules of thumb and scientific theories.
Let me try to explain. Rules of thumb are simple rules that are generally true, qualitative, imprecise, and they don't tell you when they are false. A good theory is always true unless it gives you some internal indicator to doubt it, and necessarily, its usually mathematical. Physicists gave up on rules of thumb when people realized the greeks had it wrong. If biologists want to transition from observing and naming to developing predictive theories they will need to learn both mathematical calculation and proof as well as physics.
I'm a sophomore biochemistry student whose had thermodynamics explained to him by more than one person with a Ph.D. in chemistry. They have told me why thermodynamics is not a problem for evolution, and I can follow their explanations. I have spent time listening to the attempts of creationists to argue that thermodynamics is a problem for evolution, and their stuff reads as gibbersih. If you want to claim I'm ignorant, go read the TalkOrigins pages on thermodynamics and then come back here and explain why they're wrong.
And if you don't want to do that, then in the future refrain from crapping on my blog by posting unsupported assertions that an entire field outside your specialty is wrong.
You seem have become very religious, or at least very emotional. Obviously, intellectual discussion is not welcome here. :-)
physical scientist has it wrong when he says that Quantum Mechanics points either to hidden variables (-> God) or true randomness. The hidden variables option was shown to be incompatible with QM by Bell's Theorem.
Go read wikipedia. You do not know what you are talking about.
Intellectual discussion is welcome. Unsupported assertions that an entire branch of modern science is wrong are not.
Seriously, I'm willing to read through material that seems to me to be gibberish (like creationist thermodynamics arguments) as long as they're trying to discuss evidence. Blind assertion that hides behind "it's too complicated for me to say why all the experts are wrong," I don't have so much tolerance for that.
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