The Unsatisfied Mind

Perfect

From Atrios:

Howard Dean to Sean Hannity, last night:

[Y]ou should watch "Outfoxed." It's a great movie that says why people like you say things like that on this television station.

Hannity is a fucking puke, a gutless, mindless yap for the right. Honestly, Dean could not have insulted him more effectively and hurtfully.

On a related note...

A common screech of the Intelligent Design camp is that scientists are leaving evolution theory in droves because of flaws in the theory and a supposed overwhelming lack of supporting evidence. Of course, this is far from true: evolutionary and molecular biology are some of the hottest areas of science right now. Further, as any slightly educated person who has read the materials that IDers put forward can tell you, there is not a single shred of evidence that supports ID over Darwinian theory.

However, that has not stopped William Dembski from presenting Uncommon Descent, a collection of essays presenting the views of intellectuals who believe that "Darwinism" is a theory in crisis. I'll let Jason of Evolutionblog take over from here:

The book's subtitle is: “Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing”. This subtitle was chosen carefully. There's a reason it does not say “Scientists Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing”. Very few of the contributors hold PhD's in any field related to biology. That is highly significant. The ID folks are constantly telling us that evolution is failing as a scientific paradigm, and that scientists are jumping ship in droves. But when they have a chance to put together an anthology of testimonials authored by people who dissent from modern evolutionary theory, they have to resort to philosophers, lawyers or scientists who do not work in any field related to biology.

The contributors to the volume are: Robert Koons, Phillip Johnson, Marcel-Paul Schutzenberger, Nancy Pearcey, Edward Sisson, J. Budziszewski, Frank Tipler, Michael Behe, Michael Denton, James Barham, Cornelius Hunter, Roland Hirsch, Christopher Langan and David Berlinski. Dembski wrote the introduction but does not contribute a chapter.

Koons and Budziszewski are philosophers. Johnson and Sisson are lawyers. Barham, Langan and Pearcey have no particular academic credentials.

Berlinski, Dembski and Schutzenberger are mathematicians. Dembski makes his living hawking ID, while Berlinski is a science writer who seems to make his living as a gadfly. Neither carries out research in any branch of math or science. Schutzenberger, who died a few years ago, was a very good mathematician. His contribution to this volume is a reprint of an interview he gave shortly before his death in which he says some dispargaing things about Darwinism. Sadly, his criticisms here are so vague as to be difficult to respond to.

Tipler is a physicist with some genuinely good work to his credit. He also has some crackpot work to his credit, most notably his book The Physics of Immortality. His contribution to the volume is mostly an argument that peer-review stifles new ideas. He says almost nothing about ID until the end of the essay. He does not endorse ID, but does parrot the idea that there are grave problems with Darwinism. Like Schutzenberger's, his criticisms are too vague too respond to.

That leaves Behe, Denton, Hunter and Hirsch as the only contributors with credentials in biology. I will pay particular attention to their essays as I work my way through the book.

Not a very impressive line-up. In his public presentations Dembski is fond of telling people about all the underground support he has among serious scientists. His books are littered with vague encomiums, occasionally from people with actual credentials. But when Dembski sets out to produce an anthology to show that there are people who are knowledgeable, serious, and not at all motivated by religion, who dissent from Darwinism, he does not feel he can go to them for contributions.

This was Dembski's big chance to convince us that Darwinism is in trouble as a scientific enterprise. He blew it.

A more technical treatment of the essays may be found here. Overall, it is pretty damning, and exposes IDers for the frauds they are.

The way science works

The attribute that seperates the scientific method from other discovery paradigms is self correction, or the ability to change or correct errors. Anyone can challenge any part of any theory, provided that they introduce data that support their challenge. Further, the scientific method allows for the unbiased exploration of theories or beliefs that are not the result of scientific inquiry. Those that use the scientific method for exploration are bound by its conventions; if the data does not support your theory, there is no way that you can continue to proffer that theory as sound. You are obliged to change your stance in light of contradicting data.

Imagine William Dembski, the crackpot posterboy for the Creationism/Intelligent Design movement, changing his mind and denying his pet theories about earth history and evolution after being presented with irrefutable evidence. Not gonna happen. Dembski is not constrained by the scientific method: he has repeatedly been exposed as a fraud motivated by his religious beliefs, selectively choosing outdated or unsound data and continuing to repeat "facts" long after they have been disproved. Dembski will never change his mind, since is livelihood depends on the proliferation of his fairytales.

However, changing his mind is exactly what Stephen Hawking has done. Hawking is the posterboy for the modern theoretical physics movement when he began to explicate his theories about Black Holes in the 1970's. Hawking has sold millions of lay-audience books explaining these and related theories.

From The Discovery Channel:

In 1976, Hawking said that a black hole starts radiating energy, losing mass as soon as it forms — so-called Hawking radiation. Once the black hole evaporates, he said, it's gone. But the theory doesn't account for the laws of quantum physics, which state that so-called information can never be completely destroyed. As an explanation, Hawking said the intense gravitational fields of black holes bend the laws to their wills.

Now, Hawking is saying that black holes don't eat everything, according to New Scientist. They emit radiation for a long time before eventually opening up and allowing some information out.

Gary Gibbons, a colleague of Hawkings' at Cambridge College, attended the lecture at which Hawkings revealed his new theory. He told New Scientist that unlike the decades-old black hole model, in the new model there is no clearly-defined event horizon that hides the information contained in black holes.

The physics community is eager to see the math behind Hawkings' new theory.

"It's possible that what he presented in the seminar is a solution," Gibbons said. "But I think you have to say the jury is still out."

Hawking, after being presented with new data, has convinced himself that one of his most original and interesting contributions to his field may be wrong. He then goes to work refining his theory, and then presents his new findings based on what he knows presently.

Imagine if everyone ascribed to this method of discovery. Think about how much farther ahead we would be as a people.

Traveling for the month of July

Well, I'm on vacation for the next few weeks. Seeing the parents and such. A few good things happened this week in politics:

1. Edwards was chosen as VP with Kerry. Best possible ticket.
2. F911 is still #2 at the box office.
3. The chemical warheads found last week that were thought to contain bio agents did not.
4. Rush got caught posting a doctored photo of Kerry and Edwards, and probably will not change his rant regarding the warheads discussed above.

A good week, all around. I just spend July 4th weekend in Sunriver, OR. It was beautiful, played some golf, hiked, just hung out.