The Discovery Institute Has a Strange Idea of 'Free Speech'

I really had a hard time reading this foolish post. Little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer is trying to equate the outcry supporting professional football players exercise of their freedom of speech with The Discovery Institute's (DI) desire to teach religion as if it were science in science class! Here is klingy's post: "Freedom on the Football Field – How About in the Science Lab?"

After briefly discussing what's been happening on the football field, klingy says this:

"But I can’t help noticing that many of those suddenly rushing to the barricades for free speech have said nothing about a far more disturbing reality. As we know from years of reporting and hearing from scientists and science instructors in private, the machinery of censorship arrayed against Darwin skeptics is formidable, yet little remarked upon. Most people are hardly aware it exists. Some atheist scientists candidly justify it, or call for more."

Before addressing the idea of censorship, I have to ask, does anyone simply number the DI as a Darwin skeptic?  That is not what the DI is.  They are not simply skeptical of Darwin's work, they are trying to tear down all of science to make it more religious.  Those aren't my words, those are the words from their own guiding document!  Here's a screenshot from it:

These people are not the simple skeptics they call themselves here, but are part of a religious ministry trying to replace actual science.  OK, now on to this idiotic idea they are being censored.

I have to ask what censorship?  Freedom of Speech does not mean you get to publish anything you want, wherever and whenever you want to publish.  If there really was censorship, then would the DI been able to publish their myriad of books, articles, their own pseudo-journals and website postings of their pseudo-scientific concept of Creationism/Intelligent Design?  No!  No one is stopping them from expressing themselves, often to a nauseating level.  They publish everywhere except in the one area where their ideas will be taken seriously as science, scientific journals.

While they like to cite this as an example of censorship, that is very far from the truth.  Scientific journals have scholarship standards, and the Discovery Institute has refused to meet those standards.  I have posted this before, and it still applies:

"Religious studies professor examines Intelligent Design academically", Dr. Mark Chancey, Chair of the Religious Studies Department at SMU said:

"Many religious groups-Christian and other-do not regard evolutionary theory as a threat. For many people of faith, science and religion go hand in hand. When scholars criticize ID, they are not attacking religion. They are only asking ID proponents to be transparent in their agenda, accurate about their representations of scholarship, and willing to play by the same rules of peer review and quality control that legitimate scholars and scientists around the world follow every day."

Little klingy, it's not censorship keeping you relegated to the popular press and religious imprints for your publishing, but your own refusal to be transparent in your scholarship and follow the same methodology actual scientists follow for publications.  If your Freedom of Expression was really being abridged, then where you currently publish would be closed to you as well.  But I can walk down the Christian section in my local book store and see many of your books.  The fact I cannot find them in the Science section isn't censorship, but the testament to what your books represent.

Little klingy ends with this:

"In biology as in cosmology, an ultimate question is at stake: the origin of life and of the universe, with many vital issues downstream from that, including ethics and the meaning of being human. I’m not aware of any comparable stakes in the game of football. Yet about Darwinist censorship you won’t hear a peep across a vast swath of the media, including writers who are currently standing, or kneeling, in solidarity with the pampered athletes, beset by a “troubling assault on free speech.” Pardon me while I gag on the irony."

The only irony is reading this foolishness in which you misdirect and try to redefine the concept of the freedom of speech.  As I said, Free Speech does not mean scientific journals are required to remove their standards of scholarship just so you can publish in their journals!  Free Speech does not mean you can demand a place at the science classroom lectern!

Follow the actual scientific methodology, use real peer-review -- not your bastardized version of it -- and address the actual critiques instead of simply dismissing them.  If you would do these things, you may actually get published in real scientific journals and be taken seriously by scientists as scientists.  But your refusal sends a very different message, one requiring you to use tactics such as imaginary censorship.  But if you did follow the rules of science, that would mean you will have to support your religion with more than just wishful thinking and unsupported conjecture.

To the DI, you need to remember that real science demands evidence.  Failing to provide such evidence is what keeps the you in the religious corner of the bookstore.  It's not censorship keeping you out of the science classroom and scientific journals, but your own continuous failure to provide any evidence.  The real question isn't are you being censored, but is your failure an unwillingness to play by the rules of scientific methodology, or the inability to do so.

Is it Peer-Reviewed?

One of my usual haunts is the Discovery Institute's (DI) Evolution 'News' and Views (E'N'V) site.  On it I read about all the cutting edge marketing the DI spews forth, offering much more Views than anything resembling News.  Caught this one "Peer-Reviewed Article on Transposable Elements Cites "Irreducible Complexity" and Other "Teleologic" Factors" and it drives a question, at least from my point of view, is this article really peer-reviewed?

The article little casey luskin is referencing is one posted in 'eLS', which is a online cite-able source published by Wiley as part of their Wiley Online Library.  One point to make, there is nothing in the Wiley Online Library that requires submissions for publication to be peer-reviewed, absolutely nothing.  So the fact it is available to be cited through Wiley doesn't mean that it is actually peer-reviewed, it also doesn't mean anyone has cited it as a reference.  So by what standard does little casey support this being a 'peer-reviewed' paper?  Absolutely none.  Little casey calls it peer-reviewed, but that doesn't mean it's actually peer-reviewed by the same standard actual science papers are peer-reviewed.

Over recent years the DI has been self-identifying a small number of papers as peer-reviewed, but the reality is their peer-review process is considerably different than the scientific community's peer-review process.  We've noted it time and time again, and frequently used this quote from Dr. Chancey, Chair of the Religious Studies Department at SMU said:

"Many religious groups-Christian and other-do not regard evolutionary theory as a threat. For many people of faith, science and religion go hand in hand. When scholars criticize ID, they are not attacking religion. They are only asking ID proponents to be transparent in their agenda, accurate about their representations of scholarship, and willing to play by the same rules of peer review and quality control that legitimate scholars and scientists around the world follow every day."

I added the underline to make my point.  ID 'theorists' would be welcome to submit their work for peer review if they are willing to play by the same rules. So again, by what standard does little casey support his claim of peer-review?  He doesn't.  Which leads me to believe that there is no standard!

Here is another example of using a term, like 'peer-review' and then sneaking in behind it and changing the definition.  I've noted in the past that they have been doing this for years by re-defining terms like 'Theory', 'Academic Freedom', and 'Free Speech'.  Now we can certainly add 'Peer-Review' to the list.

How the scientific community defines peer-review is surprisingly simple:

"Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people of similar competence to the producers of the work (peers). It constitutes a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards of quality, improve performance, and provide credibility." (Wikipedia: Peer-Review)

In other words, your work gets reviewed by others with similar qualifications in the same field, your peers.  Is this what happens when the Intelligent Design community peer-reviews?  Case in point the Sternberg Peer Review Controversy.  While the DI likes to cite the Meyer's paper as 'peer-reviewed', the journal in question rescinded the paper saying that the actual peer-review process was circumvented by Richard Sternberg.  In addition, Sternberg did the review in spite of the fact he is unqualified to review any paper on that subject, in other words he's not a qualified peer -- by science's standards.  So that tends one to think that the DI's definition of peer-review is more like:

'Getting a few people who already agree with you to say or write some positive comments about it.  Then  claim peer-review status because the people who already agree with you are your peers within the ID Movement.'

Certainly not the same thing as the scientific community.  Here is another take on Peer-Review, this one from the DI itself.  They have a link to "Peer-Reviewed Articles Supporting Intelligent Design" where they discuss and list what they claim are peer-reviewed papers that support ID.  Here is a couple of paragraphs that I found interesting:

"Other scientists around the world are also publishing peer-reviewed  scientific papers supportive of intelligent design. These include biologist Ralph Seelke at the University of Wisconsin Superior, Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig who recently retired from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Germany, and Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe.

These and other labs and researchers have published their work in a variety of appropriate technical venues, including peer-reviewed scientific journals, peer-reviewed scientific books (some published by mainstream university presses), trade-press books, peer-edited scientific anthologies, peer-edited scientific conference proceedings and peer-reviewed philosophy of science journals and books. These papers have appeared in scientific journals such as Protein Science, Journal of Molecular Biology, Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics, Quarterly Review of Biology, Cell Biology International, Rivista di Biologia / Biology Forum, Physics of Life Reviews, Quarterly Review of Biology, Annual Review of Genetics, and many others. At the same time, pro-ID scientists have presented their research at conferences worldwide in fields such as genetics, biochemistry, engineering, and computer science."

What I noticed was that they claim that other scientists have published peer-reviewed scientific papers in support of ID in the first paragraph . . . and then they justify that these, and other, scientists' have had work published in a number of very influential scientific journals and give a pretty impressive list.  Do you see a small disconnect?  It stood out to me.  While these two paragraphs imply one thing, do they actual say that any of these 'peer-reviewed scientific papers supportive of ID' were actually published in any of those prestigious journals?  No they do not!  There is a difference with what they are implying and what they are actually saying!

To be sure, if they ever managed to get something honestly peer-reviewed, and by that I am using the scientific communities standards of peer-review, they will be doing more than just using the term as a label, the way little casey does.  They will be crowing from every damn platform they can find.  But since that hasn't happened, I will continue to question their use of the term 'peer-review'.  It reminds me of "That's it? An admission of failure?" when we looked at who was addressing the critiques from "Darwin's Doubt", all Meyer's friends from the Discovery Institute.  Why didn't they call that one 'peer-reviewed' as well?  Maybe that was too obvious, even for the DI.

So There is Nothing Religious About Intelligent Design (Part VIII)

As usual, amidst all the cries from the DI about how their ideas are science there comes one more piece of evidence to the contrary.  One of the things that I know I have mentioned before that the Discovery Institute only find support within communities that already share their religious beliefs.  Recently they posted an article: "Ideas Have Consequences: A Report from the National Conference on Christian Apologetics".  I added the bolding for a little emphasis, just in case you missed it.  Apparently over 1500 apologetics attended this conference.

The DI's talking head, Paul Nelson (of the infamous 'Paul Nelson Day'), not just attended, but gave three presentations.  He hosted a showing of their latest bit of propaganda, "Living Waters" in which they try and sell their Intelligent Design . . . again.  Later he gave two other presentations "Dr. Seuss Biology: How Evolutionary Theory Hinders Biological Discovery." and "The Fall of Darwin's Tree of Life, and What That Means for 21st Century Biology."

First of all about 100 people attended the screening.  Wait, let me get this straight, 1500 attendees at the conference and about 100 attend the screening.  So 6.7%, and yet they crow about it?  You know what they call a baseball played with a .060 batting average?  Unless they are a 100 mph pitcher, you can call them unemployed.  Yet in spite of this, they claim to have:

" . . . received many positive comments and excellent queries . . ."

 So out of 6.7%, exactly how many does it take to be defined as 'many'?  My guess would be not very.  Now one small confusing note is this later line about the screening:

"All who had seen it said how terrific the film is."

So after the screening to a very small percentage of attendees -- of whom some unknown number that quantifies as 'many' in the eyes of the DI suddenly becomes "all who saw it", really?  You know in a college paper, any one of my professors would have been all over that one!

Of course they offer no attendance figures for the other presentations, which seems a little suspicious.  I suspect that if the numbers exceeded the screening, they would have been front and center of this article.  I mean if they made it all the way past 13.4% they would claim to have doubled the screening attendance.  You can picture the headlines:  "Nelson doubles attendance figures", or some such nonsense.

The article goes on to mention other pro-ID presentations, one of which bragged about a three-year old article by Michael Denton published in a journal called BIO-Complexity.  Now before you get too impressed, please remember that BIO-Complexity is the in-house journal of the DI's pet lab, the Biologics Institute.  Reminds me of one of the things Mark Chancey (SMU Chair of the Department of Religious Studies) said a few years back, and still applies today:

"They [ID proponents] have created their own in-house journals that they describe as "peer-reviewed." . . . universities do not consider a self-serving house organ as truly peer-reviewed; such venues are regarded as fake journals"

OK, enough of this.  At the start I said that the DI only seems to find support within certain communities and while they doesn't seem to be all that much support (6.7%), this article is a prime example.  I can only imagine if they tried these tactics at a legitimate scientific conference, their level of support would be even less.  Of course they would never try and give such a presentation . . . they prefer to claim some sort of discrimination than actually attempt such a presentation.

So once more, with feeling, there's nothing religious about ID?  Not in this lifetime!

When Spin starts with a Lie, is it still Spin? I don't think so!

A couple of days ago little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer told a lie.  I know that probably surprises few people, but it typically made me laugh.  First off, let's discuss the lie, then we can discuss the rest of his post "Countering Arguments You Don't Like, the Passive-Aggressive Way".  Klingy discusses an article by Kristin Powers on assisted-suicide.  Well more accurately he was talking about comments made about the article by another Discovery Institute talking head.  So it is possible that klingy was just repeating a lie?  Maybe, but that would just mean that he failed to do his homework and validate the facts before repeating a lie.  Here is what klingy and his buddy Wesley Smith, another senior fellow at the DI, said:

"The article by Kirsten Powers is all about public policy, and about language -- how "verbal cloaking is the stock in trade of the 'right-to-die' forces" -- not religion. There's no mention of religion or anything to do with it, but the newspaper published the piece under the prominent heading, "Religion."" 

It's a real article, published by Washington Post under the prominent heading of 'Religion'.  Klingy's whine is that since the article didn't mention 'Religion' it shouldn't have been published under that heading.  I can see his point, since ID does it's best to distance itself from religion, obviously anything else labeled as religion must be in error if it fails to use the word 'religion'.  But is that a viable position?

I Googled for the article and found it at the Washington Post, I also saw that the source of the article was listed right there as the 'Religious News Service'.  Here's the screenshot:

I also found the article at USA Today, "Kirsten Powers: Suicide by any other name", they listed it under 'Opinion'.  Most of the sites I saw the article, or discussions of the article, were under the heading of Religion.  So I think the whole whine by klingy and Smith is nothing but a spin.  They have an unsupportable objection and then klingy has to try and use it to his advantage.  To me this spin attempt is basically a lie.

Now to his whining.  His angle is he doesn't like the fact that places like Barnes and Noble put Intelligent Design books in places like "Religion" or "Christian Living".  So he basically tells a lie and then tries to use that as justification for putting ID in the science section in the bookstore.  Does that make any sense to you?  I find it more humorous than anything else.  

So why would booksellers put books like "Darwin's Doubt" and "Signature in the Cell" under Christian Living? 

• Could it be that most books about ID are published by religious imprints like Harper-One?  That would be one clue.  
• Could it be that Intelligent Design has been found to be a religious argument in Federal Court?  In fact any defense put up by the DI during the Dover Trial failed to separate ID from Creationism in any way.  That might count as part of the reason.  
• Could it be that ID has yet to do any of the scientific methodology that would earn them the designation of 'Science'? 

How about all of the arguments from the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at SMU, Dr. Mark A. Chancey that I have posted about before in  "So there is nothing religious about ID? Part IV".  In fact let's repeat of a few of those and see a list of reasons ID might be well deserving of it being filed under 'Christian Living':

• Intelligent Design originated within certain religious circles
• [ID] has credibility only within those same circles-mostly theologically conservative Christian groups that find aspects of evolutionary theory threatening
• Many ID proponents with academic positions work at religious institutions devoted to promoting particular theological views
• IDers sometimes publish books-but most of these are with religious, not academic, presses
• ID research is not rigorous, substantial or convincing enough to be published in genuine academic venues
• Unable to publish their work in legitimate academic venues, they nonetheless present it as cutting-edge science
• They deny or obscure the fact that ID is grounded in a particular religious worldview and yet regard it as a tool to promote socially and theologically conservative Christian positions.

Klingy use another phrase I am not sure he understands:

"B&N would undoubtedly be smarter to shelf Darwin's Doubt under Science where it belongs, rather than under "Christian Life,""

Would that be smarter?  Taking a religious argument and positioning under 'Science' would give their 'work' a validity they have yet to earn through scientific work.  I've made this argument before, just like the error journalists make by assuming two opposing arguments deserve equal time in an effort to appear unbiased.  When you artificially inflate any argument and make it appear equal to another argument, you are in fact being biased and granting them a position they do not deserve.  Putting books like 'Darwin's Doubt' in the Science section would be granting it a level of validity that it has yet to gain through honest means.
 
Now from my point of view, I think Barnes and Noble put it under Christian Living because they do not have a section called 'Pseudo-Science'.  Now that would be much more honest and much smarter.  But imagine the hue and cry from klingy and his buds if Barnes and Noble did just that!  I think that would be absolutely hilarious.

Can we simply agree to disagree?

Short answer, No!  But you know me, I can't leave things with just a short answer.

Recently the DI posted on Facebook about their new film:

I responded to the post on Facebook:

"Let's see . . .One of Intelligent Design's proponents Michael Behe stated that no one was doing the work to support ID as an actual scientific theory. One of the founders of the modern Intelligent Design Movement, Phillip E. Johnson was disappointed that their scientists haven't been able to formulate a actual theory of Intelligent Design. One of the frequent claims is that Intelligent Design has nothing to do with religion, yet the only people who seem to support it support it for philosophical (religious) reasons. A twenty-minute video isn't going to fix that. If it is really science then do what the Chairman of the RELIGIOUS STUDIES at SMU said http://sciencestandards.blogspot.com/.../so-there-is..."

A few folks responded including one that said this:

"Just say you have a strong ideological objection to ID and be done."

He said a bit more, generally re-hashing the continual whine about imagined conspiracies of silence, but this was the part I wanted to discuss here.  Is addressing it in such a simple way reasonable?  I don't think so.  Here is the part of my response that addressed this:

"The reason I don't simply say that I have issues with ID and leave it at that is because it creates a false dichotomy. Agreeing to simply disagree gives the impression that ID is somehow equal to real science and that any disagreement is based on philosophical grounds. The difference is that after 150+ years of evolutionary study and the mountains of evidential support for evolution, Evolution is science. ID boils down to nothing but wishful thinking. The two are not equal sides of an argument."

Hopefully you see my point.  Simply agreeing to disagree implies that the two sides of the argument are equal and when they are not, it comes across as a victory for the weaker argument to at least be considered equal.  To me it falls into the same area as scientists who refuse to debate Intelligent Design proponents.  Even though ID proponents arguments get crushed by their own lack of evidence, the fact the debate happened is crowed about claiming some equality between their arguments and real science.  You can see the headlines "We are Valid because Real Scientists talk to us!", which certainly misrepresents the two arguments.

I've made the argument for a while that journalism constantly makes that same mistake, providing equal time to opposing arguments in an effort to appear unbiased.  But when the arguments are clearly not equal, granting equal time is a mistake and inflates the weaker argument.  When comparing Evolution with ID, Evolution is science and has evidential support and ID is pseudo-science and is a philosophical marketing scheme that benefit from people trying to appear fair by granting it equal standing.

So There is Nothing Religious about Intelligent Design (Part VIII)

Back a few years ago the Discovery Institute (DI) had one of their revival meetings.  It was sponsored and organized by PULSE and Victory Campus Ministries and held at Southern Methodist University.  The reason I bring this up is partially a reminder and also because it does relate.  At the end of that meeting Stephen C. Meyer thanks for SMU Administration for hosting it, which was a lie!  The location was SMU, the host was this PULSE and Victory Campus Ministries.  I blogged about it in "4 nails in the coffin containing the remains of the Discovery Institute credibility."  My point, other than pointing out the basic dishonesty of the Discovery Institute was to also remind you that there is a difference between being the location for an event and hosting it.  The University, like many organizations allow the use of their facilities for a multitude of purposes.

Today caught a post on the DI's Evolution News and Views site, "Register for Christian Scientific Society Conference, Hosted at Discovery Institute".  Not only are they hosting it, but they are advertising it.  So, Intelligent Design has NOTHING to do with religion, yet the Christian Scientific Society is having a conference and the DI is doing more than just being the location.  Hasn't the lie about not having anything to do with religion finally faded?

I do love this:

"The theme of the meeting will be "What is Information?"

Wouldn't it help if the folks at the DI actually knew something about the topic first?  Seriously, to the DI the whole idea of information has been twisted around to the point they pretty much use it as a knee-jerk comment about just about anything, it's gotten so messed up even little kennie ham's folks use it.  I think those self-described Christian Scientists could learn more from "Information Theory and Creationism" than anything they might hear at the DI.  But then since they are already "an ID-friendly organization", they probably won't listen.

Kirk doesn't like Peer Review

Kirk Durston wrote his first 'faith in science article' and he takes aim at 'Peer Review'.  Does he do a good job, well sort of.  He's not saying much of anything new.  Peer Reviewed journals, well real ones anyway, need to be very careful because when they mess up, they can look pretty bad.  Nothing really new here!  Have there been problems, certainly!  Will there be problems in the future?  More than likely.  But what does Kirk offer instead of peer review?  Nothing!  He just doesn't like it.

Actually that makes a certain amount of sense, I mean the Discovery Institute, whose blog he is posting on, has numerous reasons for not liking peer review.  Imagine you have come up with a way to package and market your religion under the guise of science.  Remember, that's where Intelligent Design started, a repackaging of Creation Science.  But you have your own package and you try and market it and real science gets in the way.  One, of many, of the arguments is that your 'work' hasn't been properly peer reviewed.  I've used this quote before, and it is still applicable.  Dr. Chancey, Chair of the Religious Studies Department at SMU said:

"Many religious groups-Christian and other-do not regard evolutionary theory as a threat. For many people of faith, science and religion go hand in hand. When scholars criticize ID, they are not attacking religion. They are only asking ID proponents to be transparent in their agenda, accurate about their representations of scholarship, and willing to play by the same rules of peer review and quality control that legitimate scholars and scientists around the world follow every day."

I added the underline to make my point.  ID 'theorists' would be welcome to submit their work for peer review if they are willing to play by the same rules.  The question is why aren't they?  I look at things pretty simple, either they cannot play by the same rules, or they will not play by the same rules.  For example anyone remember the Sternberg Peer Review Controversy?  There was a clear example of trying to bypass the process in order to get a paper published.  If you get bored one day look it up in Stephen C. Meyer's 'Signature in the Cell' and see how Meyer re-wrote history in his rationalizing the controversy.  Wikipedia seems to have a much more objective read on what happened.  Funny where Sternberg ended up working.  According to the DI website:

 "Dr. Sternberg is presently a research scientist at the Biologic Institute, supported by a research fellowship from the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute."

So he works at Meyer's place, and Meyer was the author of the paper Sternberg violated procedure to publish.  You know if a HS football coach gets caught helping a particularly talented player get into college and then shortly thereafter gets a job coaching at the same college, the NCAA takes a very long and hard view, frequently to the detriment of the coaches involved.  But I guess that's not an issue at the DI.

So the DI doesn't like the current peer review process.  No surprise there.  They don't seem to like the legal system or even the Vatican.  Remember the legal system is where they lost a landmark case (Dover et al.) and the Pope didn't invite them to the Vatican to discuss Religion and Evolution.  So what does the DI do when there is something they don't like?  I am not surprised to find the DI attacking peer review.  After all, how successful have they been at having their papers published in legitimate peer review journals?  Actually to be more honest, I am not aware of them submitting much to peer review journals, they just keep claiming some sort of discrimination.  Of course there isn't any proof of it, other than their whines.  

Grab a name and hit PubMed and see how often a paper by someone like Meyer, Dembski, or Marks is cited.  You might not be surprised at the answer.  I wasn't able to find any, can you?  There was one Dembski W listed, but it wasn't wild Bill.  Meyer we've discussed numerous times.  Marks is Robert J. Marks, the current editor and chief of Bio-Complexity.  he is also an old friend of Dembski and involved in the Baylor Evolutionary Informatics Lab controversy with him.  He was also one of the alleged victims of intelligent design persecution so hilariously discussed in the Ben Stein abortion 'Expelled'.  On last note on Marks, he is an Electrical Engineer, which makes his just a qualified to head a journal supposedly about biology as Meyer (philosopher of science)  is to write books on it or Dembski (mathematician/historian) to develop theories about it.

Well their first effort seems to be to try and co-opt it.  Since peer reviewed journals don't take them seriously, invent their own!  Their current attempt at co-opting peer review is the in-house online journal called 'Bio-Complexity'.  There they claim to have peer-reviewed articles.

The National. Center for Science Education had a lot to say about Bio-Complexity shortly after it was announced.  Here is my favorite comment:

"Unable to convince the scientific establishment of the merits of their views, creationists have long been engaged in the project of constructing a counterestablishment, which mimics — or perhaps the mot juste is “apes” — not only peer-reviewed journals but also professional societies, textbook publishers, media organizations, natural history museums, and graduate programs at accredited universities."

 Real science peer review is not the same thing as having a few people who already agree with you read your papers and pat you on the head.  Real scientific peer review is more adversarial than that.  It's not people who agree with you, but other experts in the same field.  That's one of the reasons Sternberg got into hot water, he was unqualified to be a reviewer for Meyer's paper for several reasons first he was the journal's outgoing editor so reviewing the paper himself was more an ethical conflict of interest.  His support of ID was well known, as was his relationship with the author so he should have disqualified himself.  Secondly the paper dealt more with Paleontology than his expertise in Taxonomy and Systemics, so he was certainly not a peer based on the subject.  Finally the organization had many much more qualified reviewers, yet Sternberg failed to have one of them review the paper.  So setting himself up as a reviewer violated policy.  So in order to claim their 'work' can be peer reviewed in the future, they create their own journal.  Actually they've done this before (Origins & Design from ACN and Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design  from Dembski) and it hasn't worked yet.

In fact on the subject of peer review, Dembski's PCID had it's own little controversy about the subject.  More than likely one of the things that helped in it's demise.

"PCID's peer review process where ISCID Fellows are reviewers is in contrast to the process described as proper peer review by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where "reviewers are experts in the relevant scientific fields who have no conflict of interest with or especially close personal relationships to the authors or requestors" and refers to ISCID specifically. (from Wikipedia)"

No one actually buys into their stuff being peer-reviewed, except maybe Access Research Network (ARN) or the Institute for Creation Research (ICR).  But then would that surprise anyone?

So if co-opting doesn't work, go on the attack!  That's what I see Kirk's post as, an attack on peer review.  If you are unable or unwilling to play by the rules, you try and discredit it to weaken science in general.  Will it work?  Doubtful.  Yes, peer review has issues, but the Discovery Institute isn't the group that's going to fix them.  In fact has the DI fixed anything?

Kirk's, and the DI's attacks on peer review sort of remind me of the kid who takes his football home because the other kids don't want to play with them.  Only in this case, they are trying to take away a football that doesn't belong to them, the Peer Review Process.

About me

One of the commenters over on Professor Campbell's blog made note of the fact that I am not a biologist and would probably not get any negative feedback on a biology blog because I am anti-ID. I responded with a comment of my own and I decided to post it here as well. So if any of you are interested in why I blog here, at other sites, like the Professor's BioBlog, and the Evolution debate on Topix, here is my reasoning:

Lee,
I have never pretended to be working in any biology related field -- my bio on my own blog makes that clear. My education, as you rightly said, is in Information Technology. My education in biology is that of a pretty typical high school, college, and graduate school student. That being said I comment for several reasons.

First of all I am a target of the groups that push pseudo-science like Creationism/Intelligent Design. Not me personally, but I am the exact type of person at which the Discovery Institute, the Institute for Creation Research, and Answers in Genesis (to name a few) take aim. They aren't trying to convince scientists, if they were, they might actually do scientific work. No, they are after those of us who are not biologists and who are not scientists. We are the people who elect school boards, attend parent-teacher meetings, and rant and rave at our politicians. When my children's teacher is wrong, I have no issue letting them know that! If those groups can sell me on their ideas, I would be doing their job for them at my local and state school board and voting for various politicos! That's why they spend orders of magnitudes more money marketing and politicking than supporting actual science.

Secondly, I am not against Intelligent Design. When I first heard the idea I was intrigued, if you read back in my blog you might realize that. What I am not in favor of is teaching Intelligent Design as if it were science, because right now it is not. No one is doing the scientific leg-work. No one seems to be able to move past the appearance of design. Yet they make unsupported claims as they publish in popular and religious press -- including the Stephen Meyer diatribe (published in Harper One, the religious imprint of Harper-Collins) and never seem to offer anything actually peer-reviewed. They opened their own lab, which hasn't done it. They have started their own journal, and still haven't done anything with it. They even opened their own publishing house so they can get more of their material into bookstores without any requirement of actually supporting their ideas. Professor Campbell already mentioned the Sternberg controversy. I know ID proponents claim all sorts of conspiracies against them, but the one arena where their ideas would gain traction with biologists, and other scientists, is the one arena they seen to avoid like the plague -- the scientific lab. Until they do the work, I am against them being included in the science classroom. As I am against Astrology for Astronomy and Alchemy for Chemistry. The world isn't flat either.

Finally I am also against just about every tactic used by groups such as the Discovery Institute. You can read back in my blogs and see some of them. They lie, mis-direct, make unsupported claims, build straw-men arguments and then tear them down -- never advancing their own pet ideas past the wishful thinking stage. I mean look at what Casey Luskin tried to do with a teacher who simply said 'if a student answers a biology question with intelligent design will get down graded' (paraphrase). Why would anyone have an issue with that? But Casey is trying to use this down grade of an ID answer to support a law that Casey previously said would not bring Intelligent Design into the classroom. And that is not even close to one of the worst tactics in their quiver.

So while I am not, nor have I ever pretended to be, a biologist. That has no bearing on what I have commented on. I fully expect Professor Campbell and others to correct any errors I do make. She's a teacher, I think it comes with the job. The reason is not because I am pro-science, but because I am entitled to my opinion and I haven't tried to pass off bad information as if it were correct. I will leave you with the words of Dr. Chancey, Chair of the Religious Studies Department at SMU to place my participation in a better perspective:

"Many religious groups-Christian and other-do not regard evolutionary theory as a threat. For many people of faith, science and religion go hand in hand. When scholars criticize ID, they are not attacking religion. They are only asking ID proponents to be transparent in their agenda, accurate about their representations of scholarship, and willing to play by the same rules of peer review and quality control that legitimate scholars and scientists around the world follow every day."

Ted

I hope it makes as much sense to you as it did when I wrote it. I'll probably re-read it tomorrow and want to make massive changes. But I think the gist is there. I know it's wordy, but if you have been reading my blog, you already know about that character flaw.

Follow-up. I did re-read this and made a couple of grammar and spelling changes. I was tempted to re-do it and tighten it up, but since the original was posted on the Prof's blog, I left it intact. Unlike most ID/Creationism sites, the Prof allows for commenting. She does moderate, but she doesn't use that moderation to eliminate anyone who disagrees with her. I've tried to post before on the Discovery Institute, and other anti-science sites, those rare times they allow comments, but they never seem to let mine though their filters (Censorship is such an ugly word and Are computers evolving or is the Discovery Institute getting bored?).

Intelligent Design Tolerance

Over on the Discovery Institute (DI) mis-information page casey luskin has taken up a common theme - 'Viewpoint Discrimination'. You can read it, but it really doesn't say much more than his normal rant. My question is does ID deserve tolerance?

SMU recently hosted a screening of 'Darwin's Dilemma', the same film luskin is whining about. I don't really care about the film, but something that happened at the end of the meeting at SMU:

"At the end of the presentation Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute thanked the “SMU administration” for hosting the event. That is just another lie. The SMU Administration had nothing to do with the seminar."(http://faculty.smu.edu/jwise/big_problems_with_intelligent_design.htm)

This is the SAME tactic they used at the end of the original meeting at SMU in 1992.

Let me be clear, what SMU supports is Free Speech. At no point did the administration or faculty sponsor either of these events. They simply allow campus organizations, like the campus ministry, to use facilities as an exercise in free speech. I respect them for it. But what I do not respect is the DI trying to even imply that the administration had some hand in supporting the event.

The DI, and by connection their pet idea of Creationism/ID doesn't not suffer from 'viewpoint discrimination' nor does it deserve any sort of 'tolerance'. Remember the "How to respond to requests to debate Creationists" post and Professor Nicholas Gotelli's response to a request to 'sponsor' a debate on the campus of University of Vermont, his hilarious response!

This is not a discrimination issue of any kind. It's the DI trying to use their typical disreputable tactics to push their religious agenda. When the Cincinnati Zoo discontinued their business relationship with kennie ham's folly, the Creation 'Museum', it didn't stop the 'Museum' from selling tickets, it did prevent kennie from claiming a relationship with a scientific organization. That is the same tactic the DI tried with SMU at the end of each of the meetings there.

When an organization resorts to such tactics, anyone has to be careful in any sort of involvement -- it's not discrimination, but common sense. As Dr. Chancey, Chair of the Religious Studies Department at SMU recently said:

"Many religious groups-Christian and other-do not regard evolutionary theory as a threat. For many people of faith, science and religion go hand in hand. When scholars criticize ID, they are not attacking religion. They are only asking ID proponents to be transparent in their agenda, accurate about their representations of scholarship, and willing to play by the same rules of peer review and quality control that legitimate scholars and scientists around the world follow every day."

One of the things we have been asking for is such transparency -- but that's apparently not on the DI's agenda.

How old is Intelligent Design?

I guess I am a little confused. You see -- I have been pretty busy this past week and hadn't seen the Discovery Institute's (DI) spin on Dr. Mark A. Chancey comments in Intelligent Design (ID) until just now. I originally wrote about Dr. Chancey's comments in "So there is nothing religious about ID? Part IV". Like I said, I didn't think they would like it -- and they didn't -- especially coming from the chair of the Department of Religious Studies at SMU.

So what's a group of apparent pathological liars to do? Change the goal posts, of course. Dr. Chancey made mention that ID had its beginnings at SMU at yet another meeting sponsored by a religious group that just happened to take place at SMU. At that meeting, like this one, they [the DI] tried to insinuate some sort of acceptance and sponsorship by the SMU administration -- which of course is just another lie.

The DI, in the guise of yet another mouthpiece, Michael Flannery -- I guess little casey must be on vacation -- takes exception to that, claiming a much longer lineage for Intelligent Design. What I find interesting is that rather than complain about anything Dr. Chancey said about ID, he took exception to something that was originally stated by Phillip E. Johnson in 1999:

"The movement we now call the wedge made its public debut at a conference of scientists and philosophers held at Southern Methodist University in March 1992, following the publication of my book "Darwin on Trial". The conference brought together key wedge and intelligent design figures, particularly Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, and myself." The Wedge Breaking the Modernist Monopoly on Science Phillip E. Johnson. Touchstone. July/August, 1999.

Gee so who was/is lying? Phillip E. Johnson or Michael Flannery? Flannery is looking more and more like a casey luskin clone -- and Mike, that's not a compliment.

So if ID has such a long lineage, why did William Dembski claim that it is in it's infancy in 2006?

"Dembski and other ID proponents say intelligent design is in its "infancy" and not yet ready to be taught alongside evolution in the science classroom. "ID Supporters Say Theory in 'Infancy' "

So was Dembski lying as well? Here is how I see it. It's another Marie Antoinette thing. When anyone says something bad about ID, the DI has a pretty typical knee-jerk reaction and claims that ID has been around for . . . well some length that makes them feel good. However when anyone questions the lack of science in ID they respond by how ID is still really, really young and no one should expect it to be scientific yet. See what I mean? They want their cake and . . . well you get my meaning.

Bottom line is that can you trust anything the DI says? I have yet to see them represent anything honestly. I have been following them since they LIED to the Ohio State School Board in 2002 (Intelligent Design Bibliography Misleading). They are consistent, but like my comparison of flannery to luskin, it's not a compliment.

So there is nothing religious about ID? Part IV

Recently the Discovery Institute held a little gathering at SMU. I and many others have already posted about it (here, here, and here). We've also heard from some SMU faculty who detailed a number of exceptions with how loose and fast the DI seems to play with science ("Big problems with Intelligent Design").

Well now we have heard from the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at SMU, Dr. Mark A. Chancey, with an opinion piece in SMU Daily Campus.com. "Religious studies professor examines Intelligent Design academically" probably had Casey Luskin all excited as he read the title -- but he would have been cringing after reading the text. The Chair doesn't address the scientific concerns, but he does explain why SMU is more than a little bit sensitive when it comes to ID. Of course this isn't the DI's first visit and each one seems to leave a typically slimy trail. He recognizes that ID isn't gaining much traction in the scientific community and gives a pretty good breakdown as to why:

• Intelligent Design originated within certain religious circles
• [ID] has credibility only within those same circles-mostly theologically conservative Christian groups that find aspects of evolutionary theory threatening
• Few ID advocates hold full-time professorial positions in pertinent fields at mainstream colleges and universities
• Many ID proponents with academic positions work at religious institutions devoted to promoting particular theological views
• ID proponents have published very few articles in peer-reviewed journals
• They have created their own in-house journals that they describe as "peer-reviewed." . . . universities do not consider a self-serving house organ as truly peer-reviewed; such venues are regarded as fake journals
• IDers sometimes publish books-but most of these are with religious, not academic, presses
• ID research is not rigorous, substantial or convincing enough to be published in genuine academic venues
• Unable to publish their work in legitimate academic venues, they nonetheless present it as cutting-edge science
• Unable to gain acceptance in the scientific community, they nonetheless claim to be gaining momentum
• They deny or obscure the fact that ID is grounded in a particular religious worldview and yet regard it as a tool to promote socially and theologically conservative Christian positions.

His closing comment is something many have been asking, for years now:

"Many religious groups-Christian and other-do not regard evolutionary theory as a threat. For many people of faith, science and religion go hand in hand. When scholars criticize ID, they are not attacking religion. They are only asking ID proponents to be transparent in their agenda, accurate about their representations of scholarship, and willing to play by the same rules of peer review and quality control that legitimate scholars and scientists around the world follow every day."

How many times have the motives and tactics of the Discovery Institute been uncovered. Their lies and deceit cannot stand up to the light of day and here is one Chair of the Department of Religion who is not fooled!

More on the pretty dull '4 Nails in Darwin's Coffin'

A couple of others have a few words on the '4 Nails' presentation I posted about the other day ("4 nails in the coffin containing the remains of the Discovery Institute credibility") It's rare that the DI would step in it so easily, but when they do, it's nice to know there will be folks to point it out to them.

My favorite reporter, author, and blogger -- Lauri Lebo -- had a few choice words in her post on Religious Dispatches. In "4 (More) Nails in Discovery Institute’s Coffin". She points out that their presentation is also fairly typical of the tactics they have been using for years:

" . . . one of Discovery Institute’s featured tactics is to pretend that Darwin’s theory exists in a vacuum and that the scientific world has learned nothing in the past 150 years "

As we all know that their tactic to demolish Darwin will automatically elevate Intelligent Design (ID) to the only workable theory (please note the extremely heavy sarcasm in that last statement). A point that has been made by many that the tactic of attacking Darwin does little to effect modern evolutionary theory, and their toothless attacks on the theory of evolution has done even less to push their pet idea of ID. The real problem is they have yet to bother actually supporting their idea and elevate it to the level of a hypothesis let alone a scientific theory. This really does keep their evolution attacks impotent.

Ms. Lebo also linked to the SMU professors response ("Big Problems With Intelligent Design") and end her post with

"Still, after looking over all this, I do have one question. If the DI folk argue that evolution can’t account for the living diversity of the 60 million year time span of the Cambrian explosion, what exactly are they arguing? Are they saying that the omnipotent designer intentionally created all those various extinct life forms just to kill them off later?"

I think the nearest thing I have seen as an answer to her question is that the DI folks really don't care to offer an actual alternative explanation -- all they care about is closing the door on evolution -- which does follow the strategies laid out in their wedge document, as espoused in the goals set in that document:

• "To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies"
• "To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God"
  

In addition to Ms. Lebo's post, another poster was at the presentation and offers this YouTube video:
I hope you watch it, it was interesting to actually hear part of the presentation and also to hear the poster's comments. Plus there are a few other related videos that are just plain hilarious like the 30 part series "Why do people laugh at creationists."

4 nails in the coffin containing the remains of the Discovery Institute credibility.

In my post "So there is nothing religious about Intelligent Design? " I mentioned a Discovery Institute seminar at physically located at Southern Methodist University (SMU) called "4 Nails in Darwin's Coffin". My post was concerning the constant efforts the DI makes to distance their work from religion, yet they continually seek religious organizations to present their work.

Well some faculty members at SMU decided to set the record straight and offered their own 'side' of the story. In a letter posted in the SMU Daily Campus a number of faculty members said a few not-very-surprising things, casting more doubt into the Discovery Institute's credibility, knowledge, and intellectual honesty . . . well please read both the letter (SMU Professors Speak Out Against Darwin Presentation") and the link within the letter for yourself. Here is a touch:

"We were outraged by the dishonesty of Thursday's presentation, but not entirely
surprised by it. The Discovery Institute is a well-financed organization that
has repeatedly attempted to discredit Darwinian biology and thereby advance its
brand of religion called Intelligent Design. We do not object to religion as
such. But we do object to blatant distortions of Darwinian thinking, and to
pseudo-scientific alternatives to it that are falsely alleged to be better
supported by the evidence."

Gee, would the Discovery Institute be less than honest? Nothing new there, but it certainly is a fun read.

The link within the letter is absolutely priceless. Here are a few highlights from "Big Problems With Intelligent Design", which addresses not only this presentation, but Intelligent Design and the Discovery Institute.

• [The Discovery Institute] presented a film and live presentations filled with distortions of the legitimate scientific literature
• Misquoted, misrepresented, falsely interpreted, grossly exaggerated and outright silliness tangentially derived from the scientific literature concentrating on four real scientists (Darwin, Gould, Conway-Morris and Valentine) slickly mixed with deception, misinterpretations and long-windedness from five Discovery Institute employees (Meyer, Wells, Nelson, Axe and Sternberg).
• Contrary to what the film asserts, transitional forms between animal phyla have been found in Cambrian rocks.
• The movie didn't consider the positive evidence for thinking that the various animal phyla are related, including genetic similarities that they share distinct from other phyla, and the fact that all earthly life employs basically the same genetic code for translating triplets of DNA base-pairs into amino acids.
• Richard Sternberg showed a figure depicting whale evolution and the large numbers of known transitional forms that looked like it was taken from Don Prothero's evolutionary classic, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters. Sternberg tried to use the figure to attempt to assert that population genetics (mathematical descriptions of evolution) predict that this transitional series couldn't possibly have occurred. He did this without presenting the mathematics used, nor did he talk about the computer programs that actually crunched the required numbers.
• Deceptive tactics were used to produce the DVD: The producers of the DVD shown by the Discovery Institute did not inform and apparently hid from Prof. James W. Valentine, a renowned member of the scientific community, professor at UC Berkeley, and an expert in the evolution of animal phyla, the fact that they were making a creationist's film on the Cambrian Radiation. He felt he was so misrepresented by the producers of the film (Statement available at "Was the DI being Honest".
• At the end of the presentation Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute thanked the “SMU administration” for hosting the event. That is just another lie. The SMU Administration had nothing to do with the seminar. If you really want to know what SMU thinks of Darwin try http://smu.edu/darwin.

Those are just a few, the entire document is fascinating reading. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Intellectual dishonesty, quote-mining, and out-and-out lies is pretty much the expectation of any DI presentation. The question I would have asked is simply does the Discovery Institute even know how to spell the word 'ethical'? They sure do not appear to know what the word means.

I think they should go back to peddling their wares at strictly small church audiences where they might receive more positive reviews because trying to preach to anyone who knows even the basics of evolutionary theory wouldn't sell much snake-oil. The only nails being driven were the ones into any possible chance of anyone believing the DI has a shred of credibility! Darwin's work -- even if it were wildly incorrect -- would still be safe from these pseudo-scientists and their religion.

So there is nothing religious about Intelligent Design?

So when "Scientists Converge on SMU to Discuss Death of Darwin's Theory" has nothing to do with religion.

OK, So that means SMU -- Southern Methodist University -- has nothing to do with religion.

"The event, sponsored and organized by PULSE and Victory Campus Ministries"

has nothing to do with religion. I guess 'Ministries' might give it away. Oh don't you know what PULSE is? It's a weekly gathering for . . . wait for it . . . Victory Campus Ministries. So in fact the talk is sponsored by the Victory Campus Ministries and the Victory Campus Ministries.

So, in other words, the audience that best accepts Discovery Institute propaganda are religion ones. Well this isn't something terrible new. But it certainly accents the relationship between Creationism and Intelligent Design. They can't seem to escape it.

Oh they do use their built-in excuse. Bobbie Crowther, also of the DI,

"At that event some of the faculty and other Darwin activists around Dallas said that such a discussion has no place on an academic campus and tried to shut down the event"

Gee, scientists who think a pseudo-scientific subject that has been ruled religion has no place on an academic campus. Of course I haven't seen a single article critical of this particular gathering -- but stuff like facts don't bother the DI. They want an audience that will be less critical in a setting where their ideas are partially already accepted, and where they can do their wink-wink at the identity of the designer. Always nice to play to receptive audience.

Yes, and if you thought the press release was a little . . . antagonistic . . . towards The Theory of Evolution, please note that the presenters and members mentioned in the article are from the Discovery Institute and the Biologics Institute -- which is just a sub-organization of the . . . wait for it . . . the DI. So you can say the attendees are from the Discovery Institute and the Discovery Institute.

Also note who was the source of the press release -- yup, the Discovery Institute. So that pretty well explains things. Wonder who is paying for this particular road trip?

Conversations with Creationists redux

There is a 'Conversation" that has been making the rounds on many websites and blogs and frequently referenced by many Creationists. It has been attributed to Albert Einstein, who -- supposedly as a young student -- brought a professor to his knees with a dazzling display of 'logic'. However according to many source, it NEVER happened. It is really nothing more than a diatribe written by some Creationist and has become an urban legend.

It goes something like this:

The university professor challenged his students with this question. Did God create everything that exists? A student bravely replied, "Yes, he did!"

"God created everything? The professor asked.

"Yes sir", the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are then God is evil". The student became quiet before such an answer. The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?"

"Of course", replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."

The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded, "Of course it does."

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

The young man's name — Albert Einstein.

There are variations involving evolution, about whether or not the Professor has a brain, because there is no empirical evidence, ie: no one can see or touch it, and such foolishness.

recently another Creationist put one up on Topix dealing with Evolution, but you can see it's pretty much in the same vein. As a professor myself I have a hard time with the caricature of the professor and even the student in this one, and believe me they are caricatures, grossly exaggerated ones, but that's neither here nor there.

I was passed a link to one where the professor acted a bit more like a real professor would act. I enjoyed it and I thought you might as well. It's also on Topix, and here is the link and here is the text. Now please note that UNLIKE the typical Creationist, this isn't a conversation that actually happened and I am not claiming it did. But it certainly reminds me more of the conversations in Philosophy classes than the first one.

A philosophy professor challenged his students with a form of the Euthyphro dilema: Did 'God' create everything that exists?" A student replied, "Yes, he did!" (The 'bravely' part is removed: civil disagreement is the very point of philosophy courses, no bravery is required for dissent! Civil dissent is rewarded! Agreement is the death of philosophy, disagreement is its life's blood.)

"God created everything?" the professor asked. "Yes," the student replied.(The 'sir' part is removed: no college student in the 21st century addresses a college professor as 'sir'- which demonstrates that whoever it was that made up the original story never went to college. In addition, the use of 'sir' is just a pretense of 'respect'- it comes off as passive aggressive anger more than anything else.)

The professor answered, "Well then, here's a logical puzzle for you: If God created everything, then God created evil; Therefore, according to the principal that 'our works define who we are','God' is evil."

The student became silently enraged over his worldview being 'attacked'. He began to project out his feelings of inadequacy as smugness coming from the professor.

The student then said: "Can I ask you a question professor?"

"Of course," replied the professor. That's the point of philosophical discourse.(The writer of the original story clearly has little experience with a real college classroom. The whole point of a philosophy or theology course is to foster discussion.)

Student: Is there such thing as heat?"
Professor: Yes, the professor replies.
Student: "Is there such a thing as cold?"
Professor: "Yes, there's cold too."
Student: "No, there isn't"

The professor doesn't grin or frown or react with any emotion other than curiosity. After all, he's heard bad arguments like this for more years than the student has been alive.(The desire to see the professors 'smug smile wiped off his face' is just another projection of the feelings of inadequacy found in theists who aren't able to argue their own points well...)

The student continues. You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat but we don't have anything called 'cold'. We can hit 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold, otherwise we would be able to go colder than 458. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, just the absence of it"

Professor:(Nodding his head in dismay, and working out how many times he's heard this bad logic by now. 100 times?). Do you remember the section in your workbook on semantic fallacies?

Student:( gives a confused look a dog might make)

Professor: Let me give you a quick review. Both 'heat' and 'cold' are subjective terms... They are what the philosopher John Locke properly called "secondary qualities". The secondary qualities refer to how we humans experience a very real phenomena: the movement of atomic particles. The terms 'heat' and 'cold' refer to an interaction between human nervous systems and various speeds of atomic particles in their environment. So what we 'really' have is temperature.... the terms 'heat' and "cold' are merely subjective terms we use to denote our relative experience of temperature.

So your entire argument is specious. You have not 'proven' that 'cold' does not exist, or that 'cold' somehow exists without any ontological status, what you have done is shown that 'cold' is a subjective term. Take away the subjective concept, and the 'thing in itself', the temperature we are denoting as 'cold', still exists. Removing the term we use to reference the phenomena does not eradicate the phenomena.

Student:(a bit stunned) "Uh... Ok.... Well, is there such a thing as darkness, professor?"

Professor: You are still employing the same logical fallacy. Just with a different set of of secondary qualities.

Student: "So you say there is such a thing as darkness?"

Professor: "What I am telling you is that you are repeating the very same error. "Darkness" exists as a secondary quality.

Student: "You're wrong again. Darkness is not something, it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word. In reality, Darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker and give me a jar of it. Can you give me a jar of darkness, professor?

Professor: Sure, right after you give me a jar of light. Seriously, "light and dark' are subjective terms we use to describe how we humans measure measure photons visually. The photons actually exist, the terms 'light' and 'dark' are just subjective evaluations, relative terms... having to do, again, with an interaction between our nervous systems and another phenomenon of nature - this time, photons. So again, doing away with a subjective term does not eradicate the actual phenomena itself - the photons. Nothing actually changes. If we humans tend to call 'x number of photons''dark'(while cats refer to it as 'bright enough for me&quotEye-wink those number of photons we denote as 'dark' exist, and they continue to exist even if we do away with the term 'dark.'

Do you get it now?

Student:(gives a look not unlike a 3 year old trying to work out quantum physics)

Professor: I see your still struggling with the fallacy hidden in your argument. But let's continue, perhaps you'll see it.

Student: Well, you are working on the premise of duality, the christian explains.

Professor: Actually, I've debunked that claim two times now. But carry on.

Student: "Well, you assume, for example, that there is a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure.

Professor: Be careful. If you want to place your god beyond the grasps of reason, logic, and science and make him 'unmeasurable', then you are left with nothing but a mystery of your own devising. So if you use this special plead your god beyond reason to solve the problem, you can't call your god moral either. You can't call 'him' anything. You can't say anything else about something that you yourself have defined as beyond reason other than that the term you've created is incoherent. So your solution is akin to treating dandruff by decapitation.

Student:(Gulps. Continues on, oblivious to what was just said) Sir, science cannot even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism but has never seen, much less fully understood them.

Professor: You just said that science cannot explain a thought. I'm not even sure what you mean by that. I think what you mean to say is this: there remains many mysteries in neuroscience. Would you agree?

Student: Yes.

Professor: And, along the same line of thought, we accept that there are things like thoughts, or electricity or magnetism even though we have never seen them?

Student: Yes!

Professor: Recall the section in your textbook concerning fallacies of false presumption. Turn to the entry on 'Category error'. You'll recall that a category error occurs when an inappropriate measure is used in regards to an entity, such as asking someone what the color of a sound is... Asking someone to 'see' magnetism directly (and not just its effects) commits such an error. However, there is yet another error in your argument: your assumption that empiricism or even science is based on 'real time observation' alone. This is false. Sight is not the sole means of knowing the world, nor is science merely the study of whatever we are currently looking at. We can use other senses to detect phenomena. And we can also examine their effects upon the world.

Furthermore, you are importing yet another erroneous presumption into the discussion: you are conflating the fact that science is incomplete with the implication that a lack of an answer from naturalism automatically means that your theistic assertion is correct. So you'll also want to review the section on 'arguing form ignorance.'

Do you have more to say?

Student:(The student, continues, mainly unfazed, due to the protection his shield of ignorance affords him.).... Um....... to view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, merely the absence of it"

Professor: You are really in love with this secondary quality fallacy, aren't you? You are again confusing a secondary quality with the phenomena in of itself. "Death" and "life" are subjective terms we use to describe a more fundamental phenomena - biology. The phenomena in question, however, does exist. Biological forms in various states exist. Doing away with the subjective term does not eradicate the existence of death.

Nonplussed, the young man continues: "Is there such a thing as immorality?"

Professor:(Reaches for an aspirin in his desk) You're not going to again confuse a secondary quality for an attribute, are you? Please... what can I do to help you see this problem?

Student:(Continues on, fueled by ideology and oblivious to reality) You see, immorality is merely the absence of morality. Is there such thing as injustice? No. Injustice is the absence of justice. Is there such a thing as evil?" The christian pauses. "Isn't evil the absence of good?"

Professor: So, if someone murders your mother tonight, nothing happened? There was just an absence of morality in your house? Wait, I forgot... she's not dead... she's just experiencing an absence of life, right?

Student: Uh.....

Professor: You're beginning to see that something is missing in your argument, aren't you? Here's what you're missing. You are confusing a secondary quality... a subjective term that we can use to describe a phenomena, for the phenomena itself. Perhaps you heard me mention this before?(The class erupts in laughter, the professor motions for them to stop laughing.)'Immorality' is a descriptive term for a behavior. The terms are secondary, but the behaviors exist. So if you remove the secondary qualities, you do nothing to eradicate the real behavior that the terms only exist to describe in the first place. So by saying that 'immorality' is a lack of morality, you are not removing immoral intentions and behaviors, or the problem of immoral intentions and behaviors from existence, you are just removing the secondary attribute, the subjective term.

And notice how dishonest your argument is on yet another level... in that it speaks of morality and immorality devoid of behavior, but 'evil' exists as a behavior, evil is an intent to do harm and an act committed with such an intent.

By the way, are you really trying to imply that immorality or evil are merely subjective qualities?

Student: Gulp!(Reeling from the psychological blows to his corrupt worldview....) Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, professor?"

The professor soothes his aching forehead, and prepares for the 1 millionth time that he will be subjected to the 'can you see the wind' argument.

Professor: What an interesting turn this conversation has taken. Can I advise you to read Brofenbrenner's suggestion against arguing over subjects over which you are uninformed? It's in your textbook. Page 1.

Student: "Professor, since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a priest?

Professor: Interesting indirect comment on the priesthood. But let's leave that aside... We do observe the process of evolution at work, for the process works at this very moment. As for the implication in your argument that one must 'be there' to observe a process at it occurs, surely you realize that we can infer the process through examining the evidence that these processes leave behind? In a sense, we are there when we observe artifacts.

Consider for example the science of astronomy. How do we know about super novas? Because we can observe different supernovas in different stages of super nova, by observing their 'artifacts' in the night sky. The same stands for any historical science. Your mistake here is that you think science is merely 'real-time-observation'. This is a strawman of science. By your logic trees can't grow - after all, who's actually witnessed a tree growing?

Science is both direct and indirect observation... it also allows for inference. If, for the sake of consistency you were asked to follow your own rule, you'd have to concede that we have no evidence tree growth, or mountain formation - after all, I've never actually seen a seed grow into a tree, I've only seen it in stages.

Student: "But professor! You stated that science is the study of observed phenomena.

Professor: No, this is a strawman of what science is... Science is more than just real time observation, we also observe artifacts and make inferences. But continue....

Student:(Responds to this as a goat might respond to a book on calculus) May I give you an example of what I mean?"

Professor: Certainly.

Student: "Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen air, oxygen, molecules, atoms, the professor's brain?"

The class breaks out in laughter. The christian points towards professor, "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain... felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain?" "No one appears to have done so", The christian shakes his head sadly. "It appears no one here has had any sensory perception of the professor's brain whatsoever. Well, according to the rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science, I declare that the professor has no brain!"

(So much for the student's pretense of respect, clearly his goal is to ridicule).

Professor: You mean, according to your strawman view of science.
I am glad that you are here in my class so that I can help you better understand what you criticize. Science is not merely 'looking' at things. Science is empirical, but also rational. We can make inferences from evidence of things that we do see, back to phenomena that we might not be able to directly see. Such as a functioning brain.

And one inference I can make from observing your behaviors here today is that you've wasted the money you've spent on your logic textbook so far this year. I strongly advise, for your own sake, that you crack open that book today, and start reading. From page 1.

Certainly a fun read.