Can We Agree To Disagree? No!

It's only been recently that I've heard people actually use the expression "We can agree to disagree!".  Before that people disagreeing didn't require any sort of statement because what was usually happening was two people arguing about something inconsequential and couldn't find a way to end the argument, so without stating it, they would simply drop it.  The key for me was that it was always something inconsequential, like two fans of different sports teams or an opinion of a movie or restaurant.  Both parties recognized not only were they never going to agree, but whatever they were arguing about was really nothing important.

According to Wikipedia the phrase actually has a long history, much longer than I had realized, dating back the to 1770:

"There are many doctrines of a less essential nature ... In these we may think and let think; we may 'agree to disagree.' But, meantime, let us hold fast the essentials"

Note the phrase 'less essential nature', in other words 'inconsequential.  The problem is that when I hear the phrase being used, it's not an inconsequential argument.  As I said previously the argument would end without having to declare agreeing to disagree.  But nowadays when I hear it, it's taken on a very different connotation for me.

There is an example in this blog, you might remember a commenter named 'Rory'. He responded to one of my posts: "Intelligent Design, Sh** or get off the Pot!", in it he claimed  . . . well, here is his comment:

"Actually, an increasingly large percentage of today's scientists believe in an intelligent designer of the universe and life, and this is now an established one way trend. To understand this turn of events, including perspectives of many leading scientists, see Intelligent Design vs. Evolution — The Miracle of Intelligent Design."

The link is to a webpage of his own which didn't do a very good job of making his case that 'an increasingly large percentage of today's scientists believe . . .'.  I didn't respond in a comment, but drafted a separate post: "In response to a comment".  In my response I went searching for independent confirmation of Rory's claim:

• I visited the Discovery 'Institute' (D'I') to see if they showed a significant increase in signatories to their anti-evolution petition -- which they did not.
• I also checked out the Biologics 'Institute' (D'I' private pseudo-lab) to see if they were publishing anything supporting Intelligent Design -- which they had not!
• I searched on Pub Med to see if there was an increase in the number of Intelligent Design-friendly papers being posted and used for further research -- and found none.
• I also hit several secular and non-secular universities to see if ID appeared in their curriculum -- which it has not.
• Finally I reviewed Rory's link and found it to be mostly quote-mines and showed a severe lack of scholarship and hardly any research at all.

Bottom line, Rory had absolutely nothing to support his claim and I said so in my response post. Of course he had to respond and before repeating some of the same stuff over and over again, he started his long-winded response with:

"Thanks for your comments and rebuttal. We can agree to disagree."

So, can we really 'agree to disagree'?  At the time I said 'Yes, we can', but the more I hear the phrase, the more I realize that we cannot.  I see two reasons, the first is that 'agreeing to disagree' is a tacit agreement that the arguments being made are equivalent.  My second issue is that such arguments are not about inconsequential things.

Arguments such as the one with foolish Rory was about Science and scientific methodology.  Rory was in it to praise his version of a deity.  Since that is something not addressed by science or any rational scientific methodology, Rory was doing nothing but preaching and using lies and distorting other people's words (quote-mines) to do so.  How can anyone agree to disagree when faced with such disreputable tactics?

Arguments concerning Evolution, Vaccinations, and Climate-change are not inconsequential!  These are important areas that should not be trivialized because of one's religious beliefs.  Belief in a deity is not going to save children from getting preventable diseases, it's not going to develop cures and new medical techniques, and it's certainly not going to change how humans have impacted our environment!  That's why most Christians have no issue with those areas at all!

So I have come to the conclusion that when someone says "We can agree to disagree" really means they have lost the argument and are looking for way out without having to actually concede.  In recent conversations, the people who uttered that ridiculous phrase seem to be trying to equate their complete lack of factual support with the opposition's facts and evidence.  But, it doesn't work that way.

My example of Rory should how little factual support he had for his arguments, so he tried the 'agree to disagree' BS.  No, I do not agree to disagree, particular when your arguments are based on lies and distortions.  Bring the evidence that supports your arguments and then we can discuss.  If you have no evidence, don't expect me to let you off the hook by agreeing to disagree.

Look at the parent who says something like "I know what's best for my child!"  In many cases that's true, but when it comes to vaccinations and medical treatment, is the opinion of a parent the same as a trained medical professional?  It's not even close!  Yet groups, like the Discovery 'Institute' (New Discovery Institute Key Word: "Intuition") keep trying to sell folks that their intuition is as good as scientific methodology!  Show me one scientific breakthrough that is based on intuition or even opinion?  Intuition and opinions do not keep buildings standing, that's called engineering and it's based on sound scientific principles.

So if you ever say to me 'We can agree to disagree' and we are talking about something more important than the NY Giants chances for the Superbowl, you can forget it -- because we cannot agree to disagree and we never shall!

Does Appearance = Fact? Only If You Refuse to Engage the Brain!

In a recent post I commented on the following quote.  It's from an announcement post by the Discovery Institute (DI) about a new group joining their Intelligent Design Network in Colorado:

"In other words, the fact that the world appears to be designed is a testament to the truth that it is, in fact, designed." (The Announcement)

I wanted to expand on it a bit. One of my peeves about the quote is the idea that if something 'appears', then it must be as it appears. I listed a few examples in my previous post (And There is Still Nothing Religious about Intelligent Design) where that isn't the case.  You cannot reliably assume that the appearance of anything is the fact of that same thing.

This quote is a paraphrase from the guest speaker,Doug Axe, for this new group's first meeting.  I've spoken about Doug before, about his book "Undeniable" (Design Intuition . . . is that really a Thing?), which certainly doesn't live up to its title.  All it takes is one example of someone's intuition not being accurate, that makes intuition easily deniable!  The tack Dougie is on is trying to sell people on the idea that their intuition is as valid and useful a way of making determinations about any subject as anything else, such as scientific investigation.  Here is a quote that states what they want to sell pretty clearly:

"We don't need to rely slavishly on what scientists say because, in an important sense, we are all scientists, capable of judging a big scientific idea like evolution, if not necessarily the technical details, for ourselves." (More Scientists Praise Douglas Axe's Undeniable)

Harvard Business School has an interesting way of raising some issues about 'Intuition'. At this site: (Test Yourself: Are You Being Tricked by Intuition?). The article briefly discusses that people generally use two 'systems' for processing information, they call them System 1 and System 2 . . . I know, silly names, but the point is that System 1 is an intuitive approach, System 2 is when you think about it before making a judgement.  In general System 1 is used when we either don't have time to think things through, or are unwilling -- for whatever reason -- to think things through.  They make this comment:

"Of course, it's easier to simply rely on our intuitions than to bother to check them, but performing that check can improve the quality of our judgments and choices."

So what the DI is really asking you to do is to not think things through.  It's as simple as that.  They do not want you to think, they want you to rely on your intuition about a subject, intuition that can easily be led astray by appearances.

Don't tell me, but think about it, can you think of a situation where your intuition about something or someone let you down?  If you want, go ahead and comment here about it.  I'll tell you one:

One of my favorite people is a lady who I will call 'Mary'.  I didn't work with Mary, but would pass her office two or three times a day.  She looked to be considerably younger than myself, dark hair with a streak of dark red in it, and dressed most often in black and other dark colors.  My intuition said 'goth', or as near as you can get in this particular workplace.  Now this wasn't a negative thing, I just never bothered taking the time to do more than pass by. 

That changed one day when she sneezed.  I know, pretty silly, but you should have seen it.  I was carrying a cup of ice and a soda coming up on a corner.  She was just about to come around the corner from the opposite direction when she sneezed.  There was no warning, no inhalation, no sound telling me someone was there, just this sharp, and loud sneeze.  She startled the hell out of me -- I didn't drop my drink, but it was close.  The two of us laughed about it and talked for the first time. 

What I discovered was a lady older than my estimation, with an incredible sense of humor, a hair trigger on her bullshit meter, and someone who shared a surprising number of the same interests as myself.  I got into the habit of stopping by her cubicle at least once a day to talk for a few minutes, share some news, pass on a joke or pictures.  She even got along with my granddaughter over a shared appreciation for a Gothic version of Barbie called 'Monster High'.  OK, I didn't say we had everything in common, just a surprising amount. 

My intuition failed me when I pigeon-holed her as someone with whom I would have little in common.  What I ended up with is a friend!  I don't work in that area any longer, so we don't see each other that often.  But we do have lunch on occasion and email/text each other often.

That's only one example.  I'm sure you can think of many others for yourself, I know I can!  Anyone reading this a gambler?  I love to play poker and the number of times my intuition has let me down is why I do not make a living as a professional poker player!  One of my uncles likes to play the ponies, in fact he took me on my first ever visit to Aqueduct in NY.  His 'intuition' was also why he didn't make a living picking horses!

Our intuition rarely helps us make good decisions!  Yes, it does sometimes, but not as often as you might think.  I know someone reading this will probably come up with more than one occasion when their intuition was dead on, but I want to raise two points about that.

First of all, how did you know your intuition was right?  It was after you used System 1 and started thinking about things (System 2), wasn't it?  You had to think about things, gain some experience with whatever, or whomever, you intuited about and come to a conclusion based on more than just your intuition, didn't you?  You had to go further to reach a point of deciding your intuition was correct, but do you always get that chance or even take that opportunity?  So in the end, it's not that your intuition was correct, but you had to rely on something other than your intuition, didn't you?  You might remember the times when your first instinct about something was correct, but do you really remember all the times when it was not?  Be honest, at least with yourself!  I know when my intuition fails, I don't blame my intuition, I simply move on and rarely consider it.

My second point is buried in my story about 'Mary'.  If I hadn't gotten to know her, I would have left that job believing that my intuition was correct, if I gave her any thought at all.  I would have no idea how wrong I was because we would have never interacted.  How often do you really get your intuition confirmed or denied?  That's something you have to consider.  Often we never go past our intuitive judgment for any number of reasons, possible time or simply circumstances don't allow it.  You assume your intuition was correct, not because it is correct, but because you have this inflated view of your intuition because it may never had gotten tested.

Have you ever been disappointed in a meal at a restaurant?  Especially trying a dish or a new restaurant for the first time?  You go to a new place because of your intuition.  Maybe you heard some good things, read a good review, or someone you know said something about it.  You have no first-hand knowledge so you go there based on what, a hunch?  Usually it works out OK, not often spectacular, but OK.  Sometimes you are severely disappointed.  You go from your belief to actual knowledge and come to a final decision.  There are a number of places I will never set foot in again!  I'm sure you know a few yourself!  In those rare cases when the results are spectacular, you pat yourself on the back for 'knowing' it was going to be good -- but reaching that conclusion wasn't intuitive, but based on actual experience.  It could have just as easily gone to other way.  Intuition is a crap-shoot.

One last story of how my intuition nearly cost me a terrific job opportunity:

I was working as a government contractor for a small company and the contract was re-competed and awarded to a different company.  I had contact with several people from that company previously and I was less than impressed.  It wasn't their technical skills, but their religious beliefs.  Yes the three I had contact with were very narrow-minded evangelicals who made damn sure everyone around them knew it and kept trying to preach to everyone around them -- often whining about their religious freedom when the government supervisors would basically tell them to knock it off!  I even wrote a little about one of them here.  You can imagine how well that goes over with me!

Well, I very nearly didn't go to my interview because my impression of the company was colored by these three religious nut jobs and because I had already had a couple of other very promising interviews, so I wasn't worried about continuous employment.  However, since I had already made the appointment, I went and it resulted in a pretty terrific job for a pretty terrific company -- I stayed there many years longer than any of the religious idiots!  To give you an idea of how good the interview went, I even raised my concern over the three amigos to the owner of the company, and he handled that part of the discussion in a very professional manner!  I was impressed.  I would have missed out if I let my intuition guide me.

There is my problem with this whole argument from the DI.  They want you to stop thinking, to take everything at face value, because that's all they have.  They have no real science, they have made no scientific advances, they have nothing but their religious beliefs and they certainly do not want anyone 'thinking' about those beliefs.  They want you to make decisions based on your religious beliefs and fight anyone who wants and expects you to think!

Intuition is fine when you have to make a snap judgment occasionally, but as a regular part of your decision making, I would encourage you to think more often.  I would also encourage you to consider careful any calls that want you to stop thinking!  When they want you to disengage the brain is when you should rev it up into high gear and think even harder!  Odds are someone is trying to hide something from you.  In the DI's case, the sheer vacuous nature of their arguments.

I want to toss one more thought.  The DI uses one tactic where they claim to not want to push Intelligent Design, but to engage students with 'critical thinking' to show the weaknesses in Evolutionary Theory.  I believe this whole intuition argument shows you how that critical thinking tactic has failed, because when you think critically about ID, you find there is nothing there!  So now they switch gears and don't want you to think at all.  Interesting, isn't it?

Give Teachers in Texas a Fighting Change to Actually Teach Science!

My very first blog post, just over a decade ago, concerned the Great State of Texas (is Texas stepping backwards?), it was about the questionable action of firing your science curriculum head just before a science curriculum review because she did her job.  Over the years I have posted quite a bit about Texas, things like:

• The openly Creationist head of the State School Board
• Texas Governor wanting to teach Evolution and Creationism
• The Institute for Creation Research moving to Texas and trying to get permission to award Master degrees in Science (they failed).
• Two members of the Discovery Institute asked to 'help' develop science curricula by the head of the school board.
• Finally getting rid on that one avowed creationist and appointing another in his place.

Just to name a few posts.  Creationism advocates have been constantly working on turning Texas into a theocracy by any means possible.  A few years back they won a semi-victory -- they didn't win outright and get their dream of tossing Evolution completely out of the state, they did get to introduce wishy-washy terms that follow the DI's whole 'strengths and weaknesses' marketing campaign.

Well, the latest news is more positive.  The Texas School Board has a chance to remove that whole strengths and weaknesses wording from their standards.  Guess who doesn't like that idea?  The Discovery Institute (DI), of course.  Sarah Chaffee's turn to complain.  I'm sure little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer will follow-up like he usually does.  Sarah's post: "Texas Ed Board Pressured to Make It Harder for Teachers and Students to Evaluate Evolution Evidence".  I will say one thing for Sarah, when she toes the company line, she really toes that line.  Here is part of her opening:

"Amid much media and Darwin lobby pressure, the biology committee presented draft streamlined science standards in the fall. These streamlined standards removed good language from the 2009 standards that protected examination of evidence both for and against major origins issues — the fossil record and abrupt appearance, the origins of life, and the complexity of the cell."

So, according to Sarah, it's the media and Darwin lobby that apply pressure to change the science standards.  I guess the actions of the people who actually teach and work in biology doesn't matter, it's all the media's and lobbyists.  So . . . Creationists aren't being represented in the press and Creationist groups, like the Discovery Institute, aren't lobbying?  I think Sarah is doing a bit of cherry-picking here, don't you?

Here is where I think she gets a bit off track:

"The proposed change is a bad idea. Learning how to evaluate scientific explanations is a key skill needed by future scientists and citizens alike; and students are certainly capable of evaluating scientific claims under the guidance of a teacher. "

Teachers receive an education in 'Education', which includes something called Bloom's Taxonomy, which is a set of hierarchical models used to classify educational learning objectives into levels of complexity and specificity.  These models are used in everything from lesson planning to building tests and setting evaluation criteria.  In the Cognitive Domain (knowledge-based) there are 6 levels, briefly stated these are:

• Remembering:  involves recognizing or remembering facts, terms, basic concepts, or answers without necessarily understanding what they mean. An example might be to name three common varieties of apple.
• Comprehending: involves demonstrating understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating the main ideas.  An example - compare the identifying characteristics of a Golden Delicious apple with a Granny Smith apple.
• Applying: involves using acquired knowledge—solving problems in new situations by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules. Learners should be able to use prior knowledge to solve problems, identify connections and relationships and how they apply in new situations.  As in would apples prevent scurvy, a disease caused by a deficiency in vitamin C?
• Analyzing: involves examining and breaking information into component parts, determining how the parts relate to one another, identifying motives or causes, and making inferences and find evidence to support generalizations. An example - list four ways of serving foods made with apples and explain which ones have the highest health benefits. Provide references to support your statements.
• Synthesizing: involves building a structure or pattern from diverse elements; it also refers to the act of putting parts together to form a whole. An example - convert an "unhealthy" recipe for apple pie to a "healthy" recipe by replacing your choice of ingredients. Explain the health benefits of using the ingredients you chose vs. the original ones.
• Evaluating: involves presenting and defending opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas, or quality of work based on a set of criteria. An example - which kinds of apples are best for baking a pie, and why?

As you can see High School spends most of it's time working in the first three layers of the taxonomy, which can be explained as 'Remembering, Comprehending, and Using'. Analyzing, Synthesizing, and Evaluating are much more at the upper levels of education, including graduate studies. The committee is concerned that the evaluation of scientific explanations would take too much class time and require too much detailed knowledge on the part of students -- and they are right.

Seriously, look at the level of understanding it would take to Evaluate the validity of ideas based on a set of criteria.  Sarah, and her bosses, don't really want that -- which might explained why they never seem to give us any objective criteria about ID.  Actually many scientists, real working biologists, have examined the validity of ID and dismissed it.  Maybe Sarah and the DI do want high school-ers evaluating them?

While you might not think 'Evaluating' seems too complicated, let's just look at the simply example of which kinds of apples are the best for baking.  If we ask 10 different bakers, we would probably get 10 different answers.  So how do you evaluate such a question?  Let's start with how many variety of apples are there?  My local grocery store has about 12 depending on the season.  According to Wikipedia, there are over 7500 different varieties.

Think of the process we would have to go through to answer the question.  The collection of the apples and other ingredients, the formulation of a standard recipe -- remember apple pies are more than just apples -- then we would have to bake enough pies of the apples -- but if you wanted to do it right it's not just one type of apple per pie, but most often a mix.  So how many possible combinations would we have to test?  We would then have to establish a set of criteria and find a panel to judge the pies according to that criteria.  Think of the knowledge required, skill needed, and sheer amount of time you would have to have at your disposal to perform an actual evaluation, not Sarah's 'evaluation is easy, can be done with a little guidance from a teacher', no real education level Evaluation, with the upper-case 'E'.

Now if you weren't willing to go that route, what are you left with?  The Discovery Institute's favorite methodology, intuition.  Yes, the DI is the organization of Douglas Axe who wrote 'Undeniable', a religious book explaining how intuition is as valid a scientific tool as education, experience, and experimentation.  We've written about Doug, his religious tract, and intuition a number of times, I think the most recent was here.

So let's use the same example for how high school-ers students would 'evaluate' and address the same question.  A DI staffer, maybe even Sarah herself, would get up in front of a carefully selected group of students who already buy into their apple pie concept and describe an apple pie in the loosest possible terms while watching their core student group nod their heads at every word.  No ingredients, no cooking method, no recipe, just describe the most generic apple pie with terms like round, crust, and apples and 'other stuff'.  They wouldn't even identify who baked this phantom apple pie.  Then they would say, "And those are the best apples for pie" and hurriedly walk out of the room to avoid being questioned.  Later in press releases and pontificating to religious groups, they would declare their success at answering a complex question with only their intuition.  Sound familiar?  No actual cooking, no testing, no evaluating, just words with no support at all.  And then they would start to whine and complain because no one takes them seriously!  After all, no one does.

So maybe that's part of the problem.  The DI needs to learn about Bloom's Taxonomy and realize that education isn't the idea of forming an opinion and then only listening to other carefully filtered opinions that validate it.  It's a much more complicated process, at least when you want to do it right.

Well I certainly hope that Texas does the right thing and dumps anything left over from the DI's last visit, especially the additions to their last set of science standards.  I doubt they will get rid of it all, there are simply too many Creationists on the board who think the only education is one that agrees with their narrow religious views, but hopefully the board will water down that religious influence to give science teachers a fighting change to teach actual science, as opposed to the pseudo-science variety.

The Paucity of Design 'Theory'

Paucity is not a word I use often, I had to double-check the spelling to make sure I had it right.  For those of you who also don't often use, or even see 'Paucity', here is the definition:

"the presence of something only in small or insufficient quantities or amounts" (Google: Paucity)

The reason I bring this up is a post from the Discovery Institute's Evolution 'news' and Views (EnV) website.  It's by a Howard Glicksman, and according to Howard, he saw Doug Axe's 'Design Intuition' in action.

For those of you not terribly familiar with Axe and his 'Design Intuition', Axe is one of the directors over at the Biologic Institute, which is the DI's in-house Lab tasked to prove the scientific validity of Intelligent Design.  I can see why you might not be too familiar with Doug or his lab, since they have been extremely quiet on the subject after firing one of their original directors for mentioning the purpose of the lab in public.  Doug's 'Design Institution' has been one of the latest tactics from the DI, trying to sell people on the idea that their intuition on any subject is as valuable as scientific investigation.

Since empirical studies have shown that intuition is basically a 50-50 crapshoot of being correct on concept and nothing on details.  Think about it, you intuitively 'know' something is correct.  You have no actual support, no validation, no understanding of why it is correct, you just 'feel' it's correct.  So now what?  Do you think engineers who build building and bridges do so with intuition?  Do you think intuition keeps airplanes in the sky or your car moving on the road?  Show me where 'intuition', which is fancy way of saying 'an opinion', does anything in the real world? 

I have found intuition to be less than reliable, as you might guess.  Personally, I have had two primary careers, one involving electronic equipment and the other writing computer programs.  I have repaired hundreds of electronic components and written easily hundreds of thousands of lines of computer code and I cannot tell you how often intuition has failed me.  When faced with a problem, frequently under a time crunch, you try and rely on your intuition to make that quick fix.  What I have experienced is that no matter time-crunch or not, intuition doesn't work very well, not even 50-50.

What actually works is not my intuition, but by stepping back and thinking about the problem, tracing through the code logic to determine what the problem is and then forming a fix.  In other words following a methodology, what we usually call a problem-solving methodology.  It takes longer than an intuitive "Oh I know what's wrong, change this", but the percentage of success is considerably higher than waiting for that intuitive lightening to strike.  I've had a number of problem where I would still be scratching my head because I received no intuitive idea at all.  I had to go through the methodology to fix my problem.

So, according to Doug, I should be right more often than I am wrong when my intuition tells me a particular fix would work.  In fact, according to Doug, my intuition should not just be right more often, but the overwhelming majority of the time my intuition should win out.  It doesn't!  Does that make me a bad electronics technician or computer programmer?  Well, my employers haven't thought so.  Even today I make my living writing code, and I don't often try and rely on my 'feelings' about a potential fix.

OK, why am I torturing you like this, well Howard's post, "A Son Realizes the Irrepressible Truth", is sort of interesting, from a decidedly lack of detail way.  Apparently Howard is a doctor and in discussing a patient's heart issues with the patient's son, the son suddenly exclaimed "What a beautiful design!", discussing certain human body related issues.  Howard, upon hearing the magic word 'design' immediately declared it a success for Doug's idea of Design Intuition.  Really?  So now that the son seems to grasp that the human . . . wait, let me quote the things Howard claims to have told him:

" . . . anatomy of the heart  . . . the cardiovascular system,  . . . heart fails . . . how water is either inside or outside the cell . . . hydrostatic and osmotic pressure  . . . lymphatics"

So, now that the son has this amazing grasp, I guess he's ready do perform heart surgery?  If you think that's extreme, how about letting the son prescribe your medication?  Why not, he has an intuitive grasp of the biology involved, doesn't he?  You mean he's not ready to develop the next great heart medication or develop the next incredible surgical breakthrough?  Why not?  It seems obvious to me.  I do not believe Howard relies on his intuition to diagnose and treat -- after all he went to medical school, didn't he?  I bet there were no classes on 'intuition', but plenty on biology including evolution.

Here's the thing, has the patient's son supported his intuition?  No, not in the least.  What he offered was 'an opinion'.  In fact it's the same opinion offered for Intelligent Design proponents over and over again.  To paraphrase: 'I see what looks like design to me, so therefore it must have been designed.'  Yet has any of the DI talking heads, or any other ID proponent offered anything other than opinion?  No, which is why they are trying to elevate such exclamations of 'design' to the level of scientific investigation, because they seem to have nothing else.  Now you can see the tie in to 'paucity'.

Sorry, Howard.  You didn't get a medical degree based on your intuition, and while ID proponent MD's like to claim evolution has nothing to do with the practice of medicine, if you were honest you might recognize where many of the medicines and treatments came from and the role evolution, common ancestry, comparative anatomy played in the development of what you learned in medical school.  Intuition, no, I prefer a doctor who relies on much more than their feelings.  I have to know, do you go to a doctor who practices what you are trying to preach here?

Here's a hint, you drive into the small town with only two barbershops.  You need a haircut and you check out the first shop, the barber has unkempt hair, looking like it was chopped rather than cut.  The second shop has a barber with a perfect haircut.  Which do you go to?  I know, logic problems aren't your forte, but take a stab . . . if you need a hint think about it from this angle, since the town only has two barbers, who do you think did the other barber's hair?

Facts, We Don't Need No Stinking Facts

I was following some of the news concerning the two big political conventions and noticed something strange about one of them, an overabundance of 'feelings' conversation.  I was mulling it over and what jelled it in my mind was John Oliver's Last Night on Tonight commentary about the Republican National Convention (RNC):

They really did spend a lot of time identifying peoples' feelings about something, much more than relying on anything resembling a fact.  Oliver said, "Believing something to be true is not the same thing as it being true" summed up the RNC pretty well.  I really was waiting for the RNC to use "Feelings" as their new theme song.

The interview with Newt really keyed in on it.  How he, as a politician, would go with feelings over facts any day. Shouldn't that be a warning flag?  I am not talking a little 3x5 inch flag on the end of a piece of straw.  I am talking about a room sized piece of red cloth run up to the top of a 90 foot flagpole signaling a serious disaster!  When someone wants you to go with your feelings, it usually means they don't have any facts to back something up, so they need you to 'go with your gut'.  Why would that be?

I have to wonder if the RNC 'feels' they are in a losing position.  Changing from 'facts' to 'feelings' is only a tactic when the facts don't back you up.  As we can see from the Newt's part of the interview, the facts do not back him up, so he tries to make the claim that his feelings, and the voiced 'feelings' attributed to 'the average American' are actually facts in themselves. Sorry, Newt, an unsupported opinion does not equal actual supported numbers, and it never will.

An analogy in Poker is called a 'chopped pot', which means splitting the pot evenly among the players who have yet to fold the hand.  There are two instances of a chopped pot, one is the hands are truly tied after showing them.  The other is when one player feels they are at a disadvantage and wants to minimize their losses, so they offer to chop the pot rather than take the risk and see the cards.  This is usually done because of a 'feeling' of having a weaker hand than one or more of your opponents.  In chess it's the offer of a draw rather than play out the rest of the game.

As you might have noticed the Discovery Institute (DI) has been spending a lot of time claiming that intuition is just as good as actual science.  That your 'feelings' about a subject are just as valid as someone who studies and works and has the evidence to back up their claims.  Why would they do so?

Because they must 'feel' they are in a losing position.  I wonder if donations are down or some of their big donors are questioning their lack of results?  Why else would they be celebrating 20 years of non-achievement.  That's why they are pushing books like Doug Axes "Undeniable" and re-releasing books like "The Design of Life". And that is why they make statements like:

"We don't need to rely slavishly on what scientists say because, in an important sense, we are all scientists, capable of judging a big scientific idea like evolution, if not necessarily the technical details, for ourselves." (More Scientists Praise Douglas Axe's Undeniable)

I really love this statement because after years of the DI telling us how scientific they are and how many scientists disagree with evolution -- suddenly the message is who cares what scientists say anyway!  This is the equivalent saying "Oh Yea!" after a telling insult for which you have no response.  I mean what do scientists know anyway, nanny-nanny-boo-boo!

Telling people to go with their gut shows how little they have in the way of facts to support their Creationism/Intelligent Design.  To paraphrase a favorite movie "Facts, we don't need no stinking facts!"

The Discovery Institute is again claiming "More Scientists Praise Douglas Axe's Undeniable"

Late last week I posted "Are Scientists really saying nice things about Doug Axe's new Book? Seriously?" in which we discussed how davey 'klingy' klinghoffer, of the Discovery Institute (DI), was claiming how scientists are saying very positive things about Doug Axe's new book "Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed".  If you recall klingy found three 'scientists' to say nice things and forgot to mention that the three were already deeply involved with the DI and their pet version of Creationism, Intelligent Design (ID), one was even a Senior Fellow at the DI.

Today klingy posted a new article "More Scientists Praise Douglas Axe's Undeniable", now you know I can't just take his word for it.  But before that, I want to quote klingy:

"We don't need to rely slavishly on what scientists say because, in an important sense, we are all scientists, capable of judging a big scientific idea like evolution, if not necessarily the technical details, for ourselves."

Do you see what he's doing here?  In one line he tries to denigrate scientists and claiming that we all can make our own judgments . . . sure . . . let's all go build a new rocket, after all, we are all rocket scientists . . . or let me perform knee replacement surgery on my wife . . after all,  . . . do you see where I am going?  This has been a recent theme in klingy, and the DI's postings.  Trying to tell people their opinion on scientific matters is just as good as actual scientists.  Why would they do this?

It's simple . . . when you don't have any science to support you, you have to rely on something else.  This tactic wants people to go with their own opinions, their 'intuition' and not give any credence to the people who are deeply educated and who study the subject at hand on a daily basis.  So . . . how many of you are going to take your car to a psychic the next time it breaks down?  Let's ignore MD's because they can't know as much as we do about disease and medicine, can they?  After all 'we are all scientists', right?  BTW, guess what the topic of Doug's book?  Yup!

OK, back to the immediate subject, are these 'scientists' also known supporters of the DI and ID?  Let's find out.  Here are the three, along with the credentials klingy posted:

• Russell W. Carlson, Professor Emeritus, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia
• Matti Leisola, D.Sc., Professor Emeritus of Bioprocess Engineering, Aalto University, Finland
• Mark C. Biedebach, Professor Emeritus, Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, Long Beach

On the surface, it looks like klingy may have something.  I mean Biochemistry, Bioprocess Engineering, and Biological Sciences.  But shall we look a little deeper.

• Professor Carlson . . . it took me a minute to remember where I had heard that name before.  He was one of the people who testified in Kansas back in 2005.  Do you remember when Kansas was dealing with adopting school standards that would have made it legal to teach religion as science.  They held a hearing on it and it does make interesting reading.  Needless to say, Carlson wasn't on the side of Science.  He's also a signatory of the "Dissent from Darwin" petition, the DI has tried to use so often to cast doubt of the scientific viability of Evolution.  You know, the list that everyone pretty much laughs at.  I think they have topped 800 names and they've only been collecting names since 2001. 
  
  
• Professor Leisola . . . it was harder to find stuff on Matti because so much of it is in Finnish . . . and as a born-and-bred Brooklynite, you are lucky I speak English.  But I did find that Matti is on the editorial team of 'Bio-Complexity'.  Bio-Complexity is the journal of the Biologic Institute, the Discovery Institute's in-house 'lab', and guess who runs it . . . Doug Axe.  Yes, that Doug, the author of the book Matti said nice things about.  Like Carlson, he's another signatory of the Dissent petition.
• Professor Biedebach . . . There is lots about Mark, just do a quick Google.  I just looked at the first few.  Just like the others, he's is a signatory on the DI's petition.  He's also previously said lots of nice things about one of Stephen C. Meyer's books, "Darwin's Doubt", which we have also discusses many times.  Mark's hooked up with Catherine Crocker, you know one of the martyrs for ID after her contract wasn't renewed at a college because she wasn't teaching the subject she was hired to teach, yea, that one.  Anything else . . . oh look, it looks like he's writing a new lesson plan to revolutionize the teaching of Evolution called Evolution vs Creation and right there on the page it says "Views expressed in the following are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent a position that could be taken by the University, The Department of Biological Sciences, or other faculty."

I think we can safely say these three are not very ringing endorsements for Doug's book.  Like everyone else who the DI has identified as a fan, they already support the DI and ID.  Why doesn't klingy just come out and say so?  At least I would respect if he would make the connections out in the open, but that's too much to expect.

I know why he fails to identify such potential conflicts of interest, because many people will just see the comments and the brief description without digging deeper to realize that the DI is doing what the DI does, it's their version of 'peer review'.  They publish something and get a few folks who already agree to say nice things then they start bragging.  It's one of their favorite tactics and one that means very little.  It took me more time to type this than it did to find out how closely aligned these 'scientists' are to the DI and ID.  I am sure I'm not the only one who will look, and I am also sure I'm not the only one that will be pointing this out to anyone interested.

So, to date, klingy has bragged about 6 people who said nice things about Doug's book . . . and as we found that all 6 have lots of ties to the DI and are known ID supporters . . . and not only that, klingy failed to mention that little fact.  Certainly should make you think.

Are Scientists really saying nice things about Doug Axe's new Book? Seriously?

One of the common themes the Discovery Institute is constantly rallying against is 'scientific consensus'.  Their group complains pretty loudly about how bad it is when scientists agree, because that is the path to intolerance and censorship . . . well you know the whine.  However, they also do like to publish claims about 'scientists' who agree with them.  Does anyone else find this amusing?  Scientific consensus is a bad thing, unless they are agreeing with us then it something to crow about!  But, as expected, what we are seeing here isn't really consensus among a group of actual scientists, all we have is typical DI spin.

Here's the post, by 'our favorite' little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer: "Axe and Undeniable -- What the Scientists Are Saying".  Before looking at the article, re-read the title.  The words that jumped out at me are 'the Scientists'.  So the question that follows is did a group of actual scientists say positive things about Doug's book on how intuition is more viable than rational thought when it comes to forming scientific conclusions?  Now read the article and you will find that there was no large group of scientists, there wasn't even a small group . . . what you have is several -- which is defined as more than two but not many.

As the Sensuous Curmudgeon pointed out, it's three . . . yes . . . three, which does meet the definition of several, but just barely.  I can see why they wouldn't accurately report it as "Few Scientists say nice things about Doug and his latest religious tract" . . . after all that would be a counterproductive spin.  But klingy implies more than just several by using 'the Scientists!

But here is the kicker, it's not just three . . . it's three who already agree with the DI and their many marketing schemes of the past.

• Michael Behe, who klingy forgot to mention is a Senior Fellow of the DI.  
• Marcos Eberlin, Professor of Chemistry at Brazil’s University of Campinas and the author of 'Life and the Universe by Intelligent Design'.  
• J. Scott Turner, Professor of Biology, State University of New York and someone previously identified as an ID supporter by none other than casey luskin himself.

Three current advocates of the DI and Intelligent Design (ID) support Doug.  That's a huge drop from the implied 'Scientists' to three already true believers, don't you think?  But it does repeat a common DI theme: one of the DI publishes a book and they gather a few of their current supporters and elicit comments they can publicize.  I remember commenting on this before, "That's it? An admission of failure?", where, if you recall, I listed a bunch of editorial reviews for one of Stephen C. Meyer's less laudable books -- although finding one that is actually laudable might be a stretch.  The list of 'reviews' was seriously stacked with DI and ID supporters:

•  Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lonnig, senior scientist emeritus (biologist) at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research.  Isn't he on the editorial board of 'Bio-Complexity', the DI in-house pro-ID journal.  He's written often for the DI and even been interviewed by casey luskin!  LOL!
• Dr. Mark McMenamin, paleontologist at Mt. Holyoke College and coauthor of 'The Emergence of Animals'.  And a long term critic of evolutionary theory.
• Dr. Norman C. Nevin OBE, BSc, MD, FRCPath, FFPH, FRCPE, FRCP; Professor Emeritus in Medical Genetics, Queen's University, Belfast.  Currently Nevin is President of the Centre for Intelligent Design in Scotland, sort of a low-rent version of the Discovery Institute.  I wrote about Nevin in "Intelligent Design, Sh** or get off the Pot!"
• Dr. Richard Weikart, Professor of History at California State University, Stanislaus; Author of 'From Darwin to Hitler'.  Did he forget to put on his resume that he's a senior fellow at the DI?
• Dr. Matti Leisola, Professor, Bioprocess Engineering, Aalto University, Finland (emeritus); Editor-in-chief, Bio-Complexity.  Bio-Complexity is the in-house journal of the Biologic Institute, a wholly owned subsidiary of the DI, in other words their pet lab.
• George Gilder, Technologist, economist, and New York Times bestselling author.  Who is, among other things a founding member of the Discovery Institute, a Senior Fellow at the DI, and also cited 129 times in the article database.

As you can see, the deck was stacked. You might also recall that Stephen [C. Meyer] was once claiming this about one of his ID books:

"First, the scientific community is not uniformly opposed to ID. My recent book on the subject received enthusiastic endorsements from many scientists not previously known as advocates of ID, such as chemist Philip Skell, a National Academy of Sciences member, and Norman Nevin, one of Britain's top geneticists."

I responded to this with:

"In my humble opinion Stephen C. Meyer is a liar. According to this quote Meyer states that Philip Skell and Norman Nevin were not previously advocates of Intelligent Design. Let's set the record straight, Skell is a Signatory of the very discredited "A Dissent From Darwinism", the list used in Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns in an attempt to discredit evolution and bolster claims that intelligent design is scientifically valid by claiming that evolution lacks broad scientific support. Meyer is a liar, Skell may not have published a pro-ID fluff piece, but he is an advocate. Nevin is a supporter of "Truth in Science" a United Kingdom-based organization which promotes the "Teach the Controversy" campaign. It uses this strategy to try to get intelligent design taught alongside evolution in school science lessons. Meyer is once again, in my opinion, lying!"

What I find most amusing is that this time around, klingy could only round-up three?  What are the rest of them doing?  Trying to teach Donald Trump the intricacies of Intelligent Design?  Normally that would take about five minutes, but we are talking about 'the donald'.  The DI should be practiced at this, a while back they taught all of it to Ann Coulter, who then screwed it all up in another bombastic book.

In any event, there you have it.  The DI is really scraping up support for Doug and his effort to replace rational thought with feelings.  But instead of asking real scientists, maybe even objective scientists, they gather 'several' known ID supporters and stack the deck again.  And they wonder why real scientific journals don't take them seriously?

The Discovery Institute (DI) doesn't like Neil DeGrasse Tyson

OK, we all know the Discovery Institute (DI) doesn't like Neil DeGrasse Tyson. They didn't like him before his very popular re-vamping of Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos' aired, and they thoroughly detested him afterwards, so much so they even wrote a book,  'The Unofficial Guide to Cosmos: Fact and Fiction in Neil deGrasse Tyson's Landmark Science Series', by . . . guess who . . . little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer.

Today klingy himself wrote a new post over on the DI's Evolution 'news' and Views (EnV) site and its sorta scary: "#Rationalia? Neil deGrasse Tyson's Authoritarian Daydream" is his latest post.  If you read it you take one one very simple idea, that the requirement for actual evidence equates to fascism.

Huh?

I had to read through it twice to make sure I wasn't missing the point.  He couches it a number of different ways, but the bottom line is that any requirement for evidence equates to fascism.  As I thought about it for a few, it did make some level of sense, at least from the DI's point of view.  

Science is evidence based, no one can successfully argue against that fact, although many have tried -- especially the DI.  But no matter how you want to look at it, evidence is the determining factor when performing science.  Yes, you can scare up examples of 'extrapolation' and even 'interpretation' that didn't fit the bill, and while those can sometimes be a stumbling block, as work on any scientific subject continues, those things are eventually pushed to the side for an explanation that matches the evidence better and more reliably!  We've discussed the self-correcting activity of science any number of times.

That's why the DI is using one of their favorite tactics, equating something they do not like with something people generally don't like, the more evil the better.  How many times have they tried to claim Darwin and his theories are the cause of the Nazi's?  How often have they blamed racism and all sorts of societies ills on evolution . . ..  The list of them using this tactic is pretty long!  Now why would they be against evidence-based science to the point of trying to equate is with fascism?

For one reason, they haven't got any, evidence that is.  Seriously, where is the evidence for Intelligent Design?  Have they actually shown any?  Not yet!  Oh they have made the claim often . . . but the only ones who buy into their 'evidence' are people who already agree with their religious philosophy.  Their best is their intuition that biology must be designed because it looks like it must be designed!  So when faced with a requirement to put up or shut up, you have two options:  either you produce the evidence or you attack the requirement.  Since they have so far failed to produce any evidence, they are attacking the requirement.

In a few recent posts, we discussed their tactic of claiming the superiority of 'intuition' over scientific investigation ("New Discovery Institute Key Word: "Intuition" and Should Science Peer Review be replaced with Public Opinion? DI says yes . . . No Surprise There!), so you can see how they are trying to attack anything that smacks of a requirement of evidence.  They would much rather go with what they are calling 'intuition' and if you aren't sure, they'll tell you what to intuit . . . why 'design' of course!

I don't think they are going to get very far with this one.  The problem with explanations that 'feel good' are that they rarely meet the evidence.  Common sense and intuition are notoriously unreliable, pretty much a crap-shoot.  While you might get a nice warm feeling for a while when trusting your gut, all to often the evidence overrules you and one of the measure of success is how you deal with the results.  Yes, everyone can tell you stories about how their 'gut' did them good . . . but really think about it.  Much more rarely sre stories where their gut led them astray.  Is that because there are fewer stories, or because they don't like telling them?  Honestly consider your own gut, how reliable has it been for you?  How many times have you backed down from something because of your gut and it turned out that it would have been a good idea?  And how many times do you tell that story?  Like I said, a crap-shoot!.

Apparently when you are the DI and you get hit smacked in the face with the evidence, you deny,. prevaricate, and spin to keep your donations rolling in.  But those of us who don't rely on the belief system of strangers to keep sending us money, we have to rely on doing actual work . . . on producing results . . . unlike the DI, we get paid for results and the evidence supports that!

As I have said before, imagine how far you can get in your car while relying on intuition and wishful thinking.  If you want to get further than what's currently in your gas tank, you are going to have to stop for gas sooner or later!  Oh you can pray for divine guidance, but a gas station will get you going faster and more reliably.  When the feeling that you have plenty of gas runs smack into the gas gauge, guess who wins?

I believe that the DI will continue to dislike Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I consider it a very positive thing . . . for Professor Tyson!  If I could award a prize for annoying the toothless attack chihuahuas from the DI, He would be the first recipient!

New Discovery Institute Key Word: "Intuition"

I posted once about this already (Design Intuition . . . is that really a Thing?), but it popped again in a post by davey 'klingy' klinghoffer.  I think it's going to be the latest thread running through any number of posts.  I'm sure other Discovery Institute posters will be having their say on 'Intuition'.  It might soon join the other DI arguments, like the Odds Argument, the Design Argument, and the most recent Information Argument.  These older arguments are never discarded, you just see them less and less.

Here is klingy's post "Chimps "Grieve" for a Lost Loved One, Just Like People?". Of course klingy disagrees with anything that can show a link between humans and any other species on the planet, but that's not the point I want to focus on. Here's the line:

"Of course it's another attempt to undermine our intuition that human beings are unique, including in our reactions to death"

But the main point here isn't the idea of uniqueness that theists like to claim for humanity, but the  . . . method, to use the word loosely, . . . that klingy and his buddies want us to use to justify that perception of uniqueness, intuition.  What he is really wanting people to do is to stop thinking.  Yes, you heard me.  Pardon the pun, but if you simply rely on your intuition to make decisions, aren't you refusing to think?  Seriously, look at the line and also look at the previous post on 'design intuition'. If your intuition is saying that humans are unique and special then why bother to think any further?  If your intuition tells you humans, the Earth, or the Solar System are designed, then why look any further?  You already 'know' the answer.  I wonder why that would sound appealing to klingy and his friends?

But do you really 'know' the answer, or do you just simply believe you know it?  There is a difference between the two.  If I had a choice between playing poker with nine intuition-based players or nine professional poker player who do not rely on their intuition at all, I know which table I would prefer! Doug Axe and klingy would make easy pickings on a poker table!  Mirriam-Webster defines intuition as:

: a natural ability or power that makes it possible to know something without any proof or evidence
: a feeling that guides a person to act a certain way without fully understanding why
: something that is known or understood without proof or evidence

it further defines it as :

1: quick and ready insight
2  a : immediate apprehension or cognition
    b : knowledge or conviction gained by intuition
    c : the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference

I have a little trouble with Merriam-Webster using the word 'knowledge' and 'know' because that implies the knowledge you may acquire through intuition to be correct. 'Conviction' I can understand, because intuition gives you the feeling of being correct, but that is not the same thing as being correct. As noted in my last post on this subject, Yale tested intuition in the 70's and found:

"Their level of accuracy, however, did not differ from that of non intuitive subjects."

So if intuition is just as accurate as non-intuition, what benefit do you gain?  There is nothing that implies that the knowledge gained through an intuitive process is in any way accurate.  Basically it's being sure you know something without being sure how you arrived at it, regardless of whether or not what you feel confident in what you know is correct. It does sound like a great tool for the Discovery Institute, doesn't it?

Plus you cannot forget that it is an individual activity, not a group-think.  For example if you intuitively believe something, you cannot pass that intuition along to me to share your belief.  So how is this better than a systematic approach to supporting ideas through science?  Simply put, it's not! Intuition can only take you so far, if you want to be successful, you have to step beyond your belief and support it with actual thought and even, dare I say it . . . evidence.

But klingy and his buddies don't want you thinking and they certainly don't want you looking at actual evidence.  They much prefer you share their belief set and argue against any who do not share it . . . like the majority of the rest of the world when it comes to Creationism/Intelligent Design.  They want you to accept a vague intuition on a subject and avoid taking it to the next level and engaging your brain.  What he forgets to intuition usually does have a basis.  Ah . . . once again I will use words that klingy hates . . . I ask that you think it through.

When someone who has an intuition about something finally does think about it, they usually find that their intuition is based on something else they already believe.  Not that what they already believe is correct or not, just that it is already something they believe to be true.  They just didn't make the connection at the time of their 'intuitive' event.

For example, someone who uses certain processes, like problem-solving, may intuitively come to a conclusion without having worked through the details of the problem-solving process. It's not that they have come to the correct, or even the best, answer, but that they believe they have an answer intuitively.  Remember, nothing about intuition requires the answer to be correct. Another example, someone who intuitively believes something about another person is often interpreting non-verbal behavior without consciously thinking about the behavior itself.  They are getting an impression, a feeling, without thinking how or why they got that feeling.  Are they right? Again, nothing gained through intuition is necessarily correct or incorrect, just a feeling. Have you ever misjudged someone based on first impression?

Problem-solving is a process, as is interpreting non-verbal behavior.  But when you rely on your intuition, people that are truly interested in solving a problem or ensuring their impression of a person is correct will go beyond their 'feeling'. Intuitively you might feel you have come to a good answer, but how you validate that is to go through the process. Examine the potential impact of your solution and examine other solutions. Your intuition might 'feel' OK, but what if someone has a better answer than yours? A good problem-solver isn't interested in playing the 'mine is better than yours' game, they want to implement the best solution, regardless of source.

Non-verbal clues are equally error prone.  In order to know if your impression is correct, it usually means learning more about the person you have some 'feeling' about.  Cultural mis-cues are especially telling.  I was teaching a class and one student never, ever looked me in the eye.  It drove me crazy!  My intuition said one thing, but the reality was the culture he was brought up in was to never make direct eye contact with an authority figure.  My culture says always make direct eye contact.  If I hadn't taken a small step and learned more about this one student I would have had a much harder time communicating with him.  My intuition led me astray, because it was based on how I grew up, not taking into account a very different culture.

So intuition has a basis . . . usually from something you learned previously.  Again, that doesn't mean it's correct, just that you arrived at a feeling without thinking things through.  So what might be the basis for klingy's intuition about human uniqueness or Dougie's design intuition?  Isn't that something people have been previously taught?

One of the cornerstones of Creationism is claiming that human beings are unique, of course religion squarely places that uniqueness in the hands of a Deity.  Objectively when you look at any animal, or really any organism, from some perspective there is something unique about all of them.  But I would say it's an example of human hubris to claim that we are the only unique organism on the planet.  But many religions do exactly that.  How many time have we heard "We are made in God's Image" or "God created the Heavens and the Earth" religious foolishness?  Is it any wonder when someone will believe something because of those teachings and later simply call them intuitive?

I have had a multitude of conversations with folks about their 'belief' and how they 'know' their belief is true.  It often centers around religious beliefs, but not always.  I've run into bigots who are just as bad.  They 'know' things about many types of people and are usually dead wrong.  Stereotypes are a poor measure of other people, but try explaining that to a bigot or racist.  Funny how you get an answer remarkably similiar to hard-core theists, "I know!" without a single clue how they 'know', they just 'know' so therefore why bother to think.

Klingy, and the DI, want you to use your 'intuition' to come to some conclusion and end any thought past that.  It could be because their belief set is the right one, but if that were true then it could withstand any level of scrutiny.  Has it?  Really?  Or do they prefer to avoid anything resembling scrutiny?  We all know the answer to that one.  If you want to know why, just look at the failure of their belief set within the realm of science.  The one area where their 'intuition' about design and Creationism can be validated is the one area where it has failed each and every test.  They have to resort to marketing, politics, and lawyer-ing word tricks to convince people they have something worth intuitively believing.

People who disagree with the DI and their pet version of Creationism have never once asked you to stop thinking!  That in itself is something to think about!  So, what I think is going to happen is a full-court press on the concept of 'intuition' in an effort market it to folks, after all, thinking is hard!

Design Intuition . . . is that really a Thing?

A new book, published by Harper-One, the religious imprint of Harper-Collins, basically seems to tell us that our intuition about a subject is equal to our intellect about a subject.  Really?  So what we 'feel' is an accurate as what we know.  Does that really work in the real life?

The topic at hand is this new book by Douglas Axe called "Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed" and the Discovery Institute (DI) is announcing it "Book by Douglas Axe Shows the Key to Understanding Origins Is the "Design Intuition" -- Pre-Order Now!" Obviously I haven't read Doug's book yet, since they are fishing for pre-orders you know it hasn't been published yet. But I wanted to address a few things.
 
First of all Doug, he is the head over at the DI's pet lab -- the Biologic Institute (BI).  While the DI seems to spend time trying to convince people that the BI is separate from the DI (including firing the original director after he tied the mission of the 'lab' to intelligent design much more closely than the DI seems to publicly want.)  We must never forget who started the BI (the DI), who funds the BI (the DI), and even whose address is the public face of the BI (the DI).  We've discussed some of this before (Is Biologics part of the DI?).  So if anyone thought it was strange that the DI's pseudo-blog, the Evolution 'news', and Views (EnV) site is announcing Doug's new book, now you know why.

Secondly, the publisher is Harper-One, which we've also discussed before.  For an organization [the DI] so hell-bent on denying their religious connections, why would you publish a book through a religious imprint?  The only answer I can tell is that the book is inherently religious . . . well, that and unlike scientific publications, there is no requirement on supporting your arguments in religious books.  If you doubt the basic religiousness of Doug's book, lets look at the Amazon listing:

"Throughout his distinguished and unconventional career, engineer-turned-molecular-biologist Douglas Axe has been asking the questions that much of the scientific community would rather silence. Now, he presents his conclusions in this brave and pioneering book. Axe argues that the key to understanding our origin is the “design intuition”—the innate belief held by all humans that tasks we would need knowledge to accomplish can only be accomplished by someone who has that knowledge. For the ingenious task of inventing life, this knower can only be God."

The same thing is on their own announcement.  Anyone have any doubt about it now?  I thought not. Anyone care to wager that when this book is finally published, it gets relegated to the Christian Living section of your local bookstore?  I do have to ask is the DI admitting officially that their designer is God?  Yes, they said it, finally!

OK, so we have yet another religious book, by a not-very-hidden member of the DI, pushing what exactly?  How human intuition is the equal to human intellect.  Really?

Let's look at something very simple, falling objects.  For how long did intuition tell us heavier objects fell faster than lighter objects?  I mean it makes perfectly logical sense, doesn't it? Well it did for a long time until a guy named Galileo came along and showed us that all objects fall at the same rate, regardless of weight.  Our intuition was faulty, even though it 'felt' like the right answer.  That's the problem with 'intuition', it might be right, but it might also equally be wrong.  How are you sure?  It's easy, you go beyond your intuition and investigate . . . just like Galileo.

But for some reason the DI doesn't want you to do that.  They want you to rely on your intuition, and if you don't have any intuition, they'll tell you what to think.  Seriously, look at the press release.  Without any support at all, they are trying to convince you that 'design intuition' is somehow going to magically explain away 150 of actual usable and useful science.  Ever see a movie knowing you are going to have to suspend disbelief in order to enjoy the movie.  It's kinda like that.  Before we go off on the DI again, let's look at intuition itself.

So just what is intuition?  Basically is it being convinced you know something without being aware of how you know it, that is without a rational thought or process to reach what you think you know.  You might be making decisions based on what you 'know', but in any event the knowing without knowing how you know is frequently called intuition.  It's also called instinct, experience, gut-feel, and a few other terms.

For example reading people's body language and facial expressions is a common example of intuition.  Without sitting there and rationally examining things like the frown on someone's face, their crossed arms, or posture, you get an idea of what that person might be like or what they might be thinking at that moment without going through a long, drawn out thought process.  That's an example of intuition because you don't consciously consider it, but you make a judgment on impression you are picking up, almost subconsciously.  You might be right, you might be wrong, but what you have done is convinced yourself to the point of a conclusion.  Think about any time you interviewed a person for a position within your organization.  Your impressions make up a larger part of your evaluation than many people realize.  That's intuition at work.  Have you ever hired someone that didn't work out?  Where was the failure?  It might have been in your gut-feel.  Be honest!

If you think about it, much of your intuition is based on experience.  You know what a frown means, or the crossing of the arms can be seen as defensive, or someone leaning forward or even backward. You've been interacting with people all your life and your brain catalogs these non-verbal clues and then uses then often with going through a conscious effort.  For example have you ever met someone you instantly disliked? You make those sort of judgements all the time, job interviews are a good example. 

I had an experience recently.  My boss introduced a gentleman to me.  He said his name and what the person's interest in our project was going to be and I shook the guy's hand . . . I shook his cold, clammy, and even slightly greasy, very soft handshake.  I instantly disliked the person and it took a great deal of effort not to wipe my hand on my pants leg as we stood there talking.  It wasn't until later when  my boss asked me about my reaction to the guy that I realized why I didn't like him.  I thought it was interesting that my boss picked up on it quickly, you might say intuitively.  But then, my boss knows me!

But how does 'knowing without thinking' really help us explore scientific topics?  I don't think it does to the degree this book seems to want us to accept.  A scientist might 'intuitively' come up with an idea, but it's the exploration that shapes the idea well past the intuitive first blush.  A scientist who relies on that 'intuition' without doing the leg work to not only confirm the idea, but build the rational support structure under the idea, isn't much of a scientist . . . more of a pseudo-scientist . . . which might explain why the DI, and their pet pseudo-scientist Doug Axe likes it so much.  Here's one of the things about 'intuition' from Wikipedia:

"Intuitive abilities were quantitatively tested at Yale University in the 1970s. While studying nonverbal communication, researchers noted that some subjects were able to read nonverbal facial cues before reinforcement occurred. In employing a similar design, they noted that highly intuitive subjects made decisions quickly but could not identify their rationale. Their level of accuracy, however, did not differ from that of non intuitive subjects." (Wikipedia: Intuition)

Interesting, their level of accuracy did not differ from non-intuitive subjects.  Sounds like intuition is more like a crap shoot than anything else.  So a scientist might use their intuition to develop a novel idea, but without the work to support it, it's nothing but conjecture and wishful thinking.  Sound familiar?

Of course the DI loves this idea.  They have been collecting other people's money and selling conjecture and wishful thinking for years, they just call it 'Intelligent Design'.  I know I have asked many, many times for them to get off their marketing asses and get into the lab and either do the work that will support their idea, or reach the conclusion that it is useless.  But either they refuse to do the work, are incapable of doing it, or unwilling to do it.  In any case they prefer marketing to actual science.  So there we have it.  The DI is trying to sell the idea that intuition is just as valid an investigative tool as intellect, but as we have seen.  They need this because they have nothing else!

There is a role for intuition for jump-starting ideas, but without the very things the DI doesn't seem able or willing to do, intuitive ideas simply fall by the wayside.  You cannot support ideas through intuition, you cannot force your wishful thinking on to other people.  You have to take the next step . . . it's called science.

I'm sure the DI will be hawking this book like they do all their religious material.  But my intuition tells me it will be just as successful -- which isn't very complimentary.  People who already share their religious beliefs will praise it and the majority of the scientific world will give it the attention it deserves, little to none.