Yesterday I received an e-mail from someone using the pseudonym ‘WinteryKnight, who said:
I was just wondering if you have any recent research publications on experimental biology? I am thinking about writing a blog post comparing you to Michael Behe, and I want to be as fair as possible when I compare your research publications on experimental biology in peer-reviewed journals. Please send me a list of the ones that involve lab experiments, like the Lenski experiments, in an e-mail so I can include and compare it with Behe’s research. I don’t want you to be "Marked Down" unless I find out what you can actually do in the lab.
This sounded a bit like Andrew Schlafly’s demand for Richard Lenski to hand over research data on the evolution of a novel trait in E.coli – although I hasten to add that I’m not in Lenski’s league! (I’m sure all this attention is doing wonders for my blog traffic, though!) In addition, WinteryKnight’s use of the words "Marked Down" made me think he could be another apologist for the Discovery Institute. In any case, I could guess which way this was heading, so I responded:
I don’t think so. I don’t respond favourably to ‘incognito’ requests like this, & I would also expect to be able to view previous posts by the writer to see their approach to the subject.
At which point, WK wrote:
That’s OK, I can use what you have on your web page. Thanks for your reply.
At the time I thought that my response would be quote-mined &/or misrepresented and lo! it has come to pass. (Gosh, I should give up my day job & set up shop as a psychic…) For WinteryKnight hath written… a considerable outpouring of spleen, based on inaccurate &/or sloppy research. I just know this is asking for another quote-mine, but if a student of mine turned out a bit of substandard work like this, their work would indeed be ‘marked down’.
WinteryKnight complains that I don’t appear to have any training in biology. This would be news to those who taught me, including my PhD supervisors at Massey University, and also those who have subsequently hired me to teach – wait for it! – biology. It also suggests a failure to check references, as a simple google search of my name & the phrase ‘PhD Massey’ (from my uni web page) turns up the details of my education. I am indeed a biologist by training (as well as a teacher.) He also complains that I’m not a researcher – before listing a reasonably large number of publications, the majority of which are peer-reviewed. You can’t have it both ways! In addition, he seems unaware that I have also published in the area of teaching evolution in NZ and that I regularly review new biology publications – despite his protestations, I think we can safely assume that I do know what I’m talking about. (By the way, a number of WK’s ‘intelligent design’ references are in the area of cosmology, not evolution. Sorry, WK, but you’d be ‘marked down’ for padding out your references list.)
He also fails in reading comprehension – WK has apparently failed to see my statement (in the comments thread of that original blog post) that I do encourage discussion of ‘intelligent design’ in classes looking at the nature & philosophy of science. Which is where it belongs. No mechanism, no evidence, special pleading – Not Science.
I would also deduct marks for failing to deliver on what his original brief suggested: Please send me a list of the ones that involve lab experiments, like the Lenski experiments, in an e-mail so I can include and compare it with Behe’s research. Yet I looked in vain for this comparison in WK’s post. Why is that?
Finally, & true to the example of Casey Luskin, it seems that WinteryKnight censors posts to his comments thread. As I said earlier, this is hilariously ironic. So, in the interests of free speech, I attach below comments posted – but not published – at WK’s place and cc’d to me by Grant:
You have contradicted yourself in trying to make out she has no idea what ID is then pointing to references where she has written about ID/creationism. Sloppy, biased reporting. But then what else to expect from someone trying to shore up their beliefs?
Additionally, as she’s not research staff, not it’s meaningful to complain about a lack of “research” publications. It wouldn’t have been hard to find that out yourself with a few minutes on google and the university website. You obviously didn’t try.
Her interests are with the school-university interface, as her publications clearly indicate, and those are publications; you can’t pretend they’re not with word games!
“It’s not clear to me that she actually knows any biology at this point.”
Actually, it’s quite obvious she does. You clearly haven’t even tried. In fact, you must have avoided what she wrote in the article that you link to.
“and she refused to give them to me”
Not in the way you’re making out.
& Number8Dave:
What a strange post. Since when was it necessary to be a research biologist to understand evolutionary theory?
I didn’thave time to plough through all the references you copied and pasted, but the first one is an unremarkable piece on echinoderm biochemistry. No mention of Intelligent Design anywhere, though I see it’s partially funded by the Discovery Institute. Presumably the DI aim to quote from this and declare "How could anyone suggest something as complex as this could have arisen by chance?" They, and you, seem incapable of learning that complexity is not something that evolutionary theory has ever had a problem with.
Intelligent Design is not some bold new theory challenging the hidebound evolutionist orthodoxy. It dates back at least as far as William Paley’s Natural Theology in 1802. ID has really not moved beyond Paley in more than 200 years – its proponents still have no mechanism beyond "God did it", while evolutionary theory has moved ahead in leaps and bounds. We now have a reasonable understanding of how diversity and complexity arise through evolution, although as in any active field there is much still to learn. People such as yourself who reflexively insist that life is too complicated to be natural, and therefore must be supernatural, do nothing but provide amusement and occasional irritation to the rest of us.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Edit, 13/03/2011: While it seems that Grant & Number8Dave have now had their comments approved by WK, Ted tells me he’s still waiting on his remarks on a second round of WK’s writings to see the light. Since it addresses some of the points I was going to make, I see no point in duplication. Here’s what Ted said:
WK:
Did you even read her post? Where did she call you a creationist? Why bring the Big Bang into the conversation at this point.
You questioned her training, she addressed it. You asked for links to her writings in order to perform a specific analysis and she pointed out where you failed to perform this analysis, even saying you had enough from her University site. So you were asking for information under false purposes. One lie.
She also pointed out that many of your own supposed scientific papers supporting ID not only failed to mention the subject, but were not about biology at all, but cosmology.
You failed to address ANYTHING she commented on. Then you wrap up your post with another an out-and-out lie. Her site requires the same three pieces of information to post on your site. Her site also holds comments for moderation, just like yours. Don’t try and claim that the syndicated site has a different policy than her University blog, because YOU poste d the link to her own blog, not the syndication site. So don’t bother trying that lie. See, I just saved you from having to make another lie.
So you not only do not read for comprehension — which she also accurately identified — but after being criticized you make up stuff. I thought lying was against the rules? So you’re an interesting sort of Christian, aren’t you?
Grant says:
Now I don’t even get a moderated notice if I comment over there. It would seem that he has “banned” me from his blog for the comment you quote.
Alison Campbell says:
And yet according to Mr Luskin I’m the one suppressing free speech?
herr doktor bimler says:
I am thinking about writing a blog post comparing you to Michael Behe,
I don’t know what you’ve done to deserve an insult like that.
Darcy says:
Grant he’s approved and replied to your comment now. Hasn’t directly addressed any of your points and implies you are rude.
Alison Campbell says:
Hah! Pot, meet kettle.
Grant says:
Darcy,
Methinks he blocked, then unblocked after comments & posts appeared here. Seen that one before.
Funny he should think me rude – he ought to take a look in the mirror first. Y’know, get your own house in order before criticising others, etc.
He’s just walked around what I wrote by repeating himself. Ignore all his own errors, then repeat himself. Typical from what I’ve seen of his type of creationist. But never mind.
Number8Dave says:
To be fair, he’s now passed my post for publication as well. But then he grumbles about how you make it difficult to post comments on your blog because you require registration first. Think he must have been looking at the Sciblogs mirror. As if registration was arduous anyway.
And yes, given that he called you a fascist in one of his comments, Alison, he has a strange idea idea of what constitutes rudeness!
Alison Campbell says:
Well, the uni site does ask you to fill out the anti-spam thing. But what’s his beef with registration anyway?
Steve Parkes says:
I linked him to Alison’s response (this was before he started approving the comments), but I used the Sciblog site ’cause that’s what comes up in my Twitter feed. I didn’t notice it had rego. I’ve since pointed him to this version.
Number8Dave says:
Well, looks my next comment didn’t make it through moderation. I didn’t save a copy of it, but as far as I recall it went something like this – hope you don’t mind me posting it on your blog given that Wintery Knight is suppressing debate on his:
“Sorry, but no. Paley was definitely an ID proponent. All Behe and Co. have done is to wrap the same kinds of ideas in sciencey-sounding language in an attempt to wheedle them into the science classroom. ID is a political movement, not a scientific one.
“I am familiar with the work of Dembski and Meyer, and may be prepared to debate it with you. But I want to be clear what sort of person I am dealing with here. I see that you say you are not a young-Earth creationist, but there are many flavours of creationism. So before we get on to the scientific evidence for ID, would you please answer the following questions:
“(a) Were Adam and Eve actual historical figures?
“(b) Was Noah’s Flood an actual historical event of global proportions?
“The answers I’m looking for here are of course No, and No. These responses are entirely uncontroversial in scientific circles, and if you are prepared to give your unequivocal assent to them it would give me some assurance that you are capable of rational debate of scientific matters. So how about it? Do we have a basis for further discussion?”
Rather than post this, Wintery Knight then sent me the following email:
“Stop talking about the Bible and God. Talk about science. And don’t talk about the presupposition or materialism or naturalism. That’s religion. Just talk about what can be observed, tested, repeated, falsified. Just science.
Wintery Knight
—
…integrating Christian faith and knowledge in the public square
http://winteryknight.com/“
I then fired off the following reply:
“I didn’t mention the Bible or God. Read my post again. I asked you about your views on a couple of questions of history. Your refusal to answer is all the answer I need though. I see no point debating the minutiae of cellular chemistry with someone who believes our ancestors were persuaded to eat forbidden fruit by a talking snake, or that all land animals are descended from a boatload that landed on a mountain top in eastern Turkey. I’m happy to talk about the scientific evidence against these views for as long as you like.
“Your trouble, Mr Knight, is that you have a variety of religious views, which range from belief in Adam and Eve, through to there being bits of a cell which are irreducibly complex. None of them are supported by science. You are plainly incapable of rational discussion of your beliefs, and it would be a waste of my time to engage you.
“I also find it extremely ironic that you call Prof Campbell a fascist for allegedly suppressing free speech, yet you refuse to publish my post on your blog. You, sir, are a hypocrite and a poseur.”
Alison Campbell says:
Thanks for posting all this. The exclusion of materialism is a bit of a laugh since he did (as I remember) call me a materialist at one point 🙂
As I said over on the SB site, I think he doth protest too much: telling you to leave the bible out of it (when you didn’t mention it) & also chiding me for calling him a creationist when in fact I didn’t; I did say I suspected him of being an apologist for the Disco Tute, however….
Number8Dave says:
Wow. If any of you heard a booming noise a short while ago, it was probably Wintery Knight’s head exploding, from clear across the Pacific! Here’s the continuation of our exchange; normally I wouldn’t re-post private emails on the web, but Wintery Knight is such an ardent supporter of free speech I’m sure he won’t mind 😉
First, he said:
Stop talking about the Bible and God. Talk about science. And don’t talk about the presupposition or materialism or naturalism. That’s religion. Just talk about what can be observed, tested, repeated, falsified. Just science.
I replied with:
I didn’t mention the Bible or God. Read my post again. I asked you about your views on a couple of questions of history. Your refusal to answer is all the answer I need though. I see no point debating the minutiae of cellular chemistry with someone who believes our ancestors were persuaded to eat forbidden fruit by a talking snake, or that all land animals are descended from a boatload that landed on a mountain top in eastern Turkey. I’m happy to talk about the scientific evidence against these views for as long as you like.
Your trouble, Mr Knight, is that you have a variety of religious views, which range from belief in Adam and Eve, through to there being bits of a cell which are irreducibly complex. None of them are supported by science. You are plainly incapable of rational discussion of your beliefs, and it would be a waste of my time to engage you.
I also find it extremely ironic that you call Prof Campbell a fascist for allegedly suppressing free speech, yet you refuse to publish my post on your blog. You, sir, are a hypocrite and a poseur.
He then came back with:
Again with the talking snake and the ark. Feel free to leave a comment about science when you are ready to talk about science. Leave the Bible for church time.
To which I replied:
But you do believe in the talking snake and the ark, don’t you? Scratch an ID proponent and you’ll find a creationist. (Or a Raelian, I suppose…) Your inability to answer a couple of straight questions clearly marks you as such.
In behaving the way you do, you illustrate Judge Brown’s finding in the Dover trial that ID is just a rebranding of creationism. You have no science to engage with, just a lot of empty, religiously-motivated verbiage. And you’re beginning to sound like a stuck record.
He then said:
The Big Bang is the greatest ally that theism has ever known. It disproves atheism. Your worldview has basically been reduced to flat-earthism because of the progress of science in discovering the Big Bang. The Big Bang is the greatest ally that theists such as myself have ever had. It means that your side is left affirming that the entire physical universe appeared out of nothing.
Here is a peer-reviewed article in a science journal that explains it to you. It might be a little over your head, because it doesn’t mention Noah’s ark and the talking snake. But try. Stretch your little mind and embrace the progress of science.
Link to article:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j66361146539wh38/
Full text:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/ultimatequestion.html
Don’t write to me again. If you don’t understand that the Big Bang has disproved materialism, then there is no point in talking to you. You are a flat-earther. You are anti-science. I can pick up scientific articles like that one, and it reduces you to Ken Ham.
Science has reduced you to praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and wishing and hoping that all of the discoveries that led to the Big Bang (cosmic microwave background radiation, redshift, helium/hydrogen abundances, second law of thermodynamics, radioactive element abundances). You disagree with all of those evidences, because you are anti-science.
Basically, I think of you as though you were Kent Hovind. That’s what you are. You deny science in a vain effort to save your religion – materialism. You are a dinosaur. Only dinosaurs don’t believe in magic. So I guess you would be an insane dinosaur. Literally out of your mind – believing in fairies and leprechauns. You hate science. That’s your problem.
Why don’t you just go back and live in a cave and rub sticks together to make fire? Or is fire too advanced for you?
After that, what could I say but:
Thanks for telling me what I think and believe, Wintery old boy. Ever considered getting professional help?
😀
I guess I really got under his skin. Don’t think I’ve ever had a creationist melt down on me to quite that extent.
herr doktor bimler says:
Science has reduced you to praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster
The secret is out!!
The article he links to was published in “Astrophysics and Space Science”, a journal best-known for publishing a theory that extra-terrestrial cells keep washing down to earth in red-tinted rain in India. Not to mention papers supporting “modern geocentrism”, or the 2001 Hoyle / Wickramasinghe paper arguing that we should increase our output of CO2 to avoid the problem of global cooling
RickK says:
Just to keep WK honest, I posted the following on his blog:
WK said: “Please don’t comment any more until you show me that you actually know what ID is, and what are the arguments for it. If you comments get rejected, that will be the reason why – because you refuse to engage with what ID theorists actually argue, and what they measure in the lab.”
Stephen Meyer’s argument in “Signature” is:
1) DNA makes use of a “code”, an abstraction for communicating information between processes.
2) we’ve never witnessed a natural process forming a “code”;
3) we have seen intelligent agents (people) make codes; therefore
4) an Intelligent Designer is the best explanation.
Signature takes something like 700 pages to say this, and no – I didn’t read all of it. I skipped the self serving autobiographical bits once I realized that nowhere in the book does Stephen Meyer address his complete lack of education in evolution or biology.
Bit I’m more interested in the argument than the author’s lack of qualification. But we’ll get to that in a moment. Let’s look first at “The Wedge”.
In “The Wedge” Meyer (and Douglas Axe) are named as members of a group dedicated to using scientific language to promote a Christian creationist agenda – to promote a version of science more compatible with a world created by God.
Therefore, Meyer and Axe are motivated by religious and political ideology first, not by science.
So in this context, I looked in “Signature” where Meyer is open and honest about his promotion of the Christian God as the “Designer”. Funny – I couldn’t find that anywhere.
OK, so knowing that “Signature” is first and foremost a sophiticated propoganda piece, I read it carefully.
In selecting “best explanation”, Meyer utterly fails to address the historical record of how often throughout human history the divine/supernatural has been put forward by VERY intelligent men and women as the “best explanation”, only to fall to later generations of natural philosophers and scientists.
Meyer fails to demonstrate the difference between:
1) what we can’t explain yet; and
2) what we will never be able to explain.
And like YOU, WK, Meyer fails to put forward a base case. He fails completely to indicate what “undesigned” life would look like and how it would differ from “designed” life.
I’m no mathematician, but Meyer seems completely unable to impress other mathematicians with his math. And outside of the Fellows of the Discovery Institute, it is difficult to find biologists who are impressed with Meyer’s book as well.
Finally, returning to the propoganda argument – Meyer writes a dense book heavy on science and directs it not to the scientific community but to the general public. Why? Why direct it to people largely unable evaluate the science?
Well, the “Best Explanation” is that he did it so people like you can wield it as if it were definitive science.
————-
He didn’t post it (surprise!). So I posted the following:
So what was wrong with my description of Stephen Meyer’s argument in “Signature”? I compared it to a summary Meyer himself gave to a critic. Here is Meyer’s summary:
“The central argument of my book is that intelligent design—the activity of a conscious and rational deliberative agent—best explains the origin of the information necessary to produce the first living cell. I argue this because of two things that we know from our uniform and repeated experience, which following Charles Darwin I take to be the basis of all scientific reasoning about the past. First, intelligent agents have demonstrated the capacity to produce large amounts of functionally specified information (especially in a digital form). Second, no undirected chemical process has demonstrated this power. Hence, intelligent design provides the best—most causally adequate—explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life from simpler non-living chemicals.”
Here is my summary:
“1) DNA makes use of a “code”, an abstraction for communicating information between processes.
2) we’ve never witnessed a natural process forming a “code”;
3) we have seen intelligent agents (people) make codes; therefore
4) an Intelligent Designer is the best explanation.”
Here is your statement, WK:
“Please don’t comment any more until you show me that you actually know what ID is, and what are the arguments for it. If you comments get rejected, that will be the reason why – because you refuse to engage with what ID theorists actually argue.”
So tell me, WK – who doesn’t understand the ID argument? Meyer? Me? or you?
—————-
Can’t take the heat, WK, stay out of the kitchen. If you want to talk about “Signature”, then we certainly can. But you can’t separate the arguments in “Signature” from the author’s agenda, dishonesty, lack of qualifications, and complete inability to gain acceptance from actual scientists.
As for Behe – LOL!
Number8Dave says:
WK has just posted this comment on his blog – I presume he’s talking about me. No point me trying to respond there, obviously. He’s such a dishonest little creep – google his name and you’ll find pages and pages of people who’ve had similar experiences.
“This one stalker keeps e-mailing me asking me about Noah’s ark and the flood. I try and try to get him to talk about protein sequencing and Lenski experiments, but he keeps quoting Genesis at me and telling me to have faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I don’t know what to do with people who are stuck in the 19th century. What do you do? He’s not familiar with a single discovery that occurred in the last 150 years. I am not joking. I fully expect him to send me a link to Haeckel’s fraudulent embryos any minute. Or try to cast demons out of me. One never knows with these people.”
herr doktor bimler says:
Second, no undirected chemical process has demonstrated this power.
I am impressed that Meyer was willing to beg the question so blatantly. “Life uses large amounts of functionally specified information, but I am not considering life to be an undirected chemical process, therefore life was directed.”
Ted Herrlich says:
Wintery Knight actually did post my comment, the one you mentioned above. He/She then commented back. Here it is, so you don’t have to bump up the numbers on his site any higher:
No surprises there, really. But since he basically tried to tell me to shut-up and color — which is how I took his last paragraph, i decided to comment again and post on my own blog. (http://sciencestandards.blogspot.com/2011/03/professor-campbell-responds-to-request.html) I doubt he will put my last comment on his site. He’s not nearly that interesting is communicating, only pontificating. He thinks he put me in my place and will probably dismiss me. No worries on my part, I mean i git under his skin a little bit, so it’s worth it. i guess I should poat my return comment or it would look like i was just looking to bump up my own site stats, so here is:
Cheers,
Ted
tedhohio@gmail.com
http://sciencestandards.blogspot.com
Steve Parkes says:
Number8Dave, that email exchange is hilarious. That last email rant from Wintery is particularly grand. If there was ever any doubt that he was not to be taken the least bit seriously, the isn’t now.
Ted Herrlich says:
Note to self . . . Spell-check and check format when using >>! How embarrassing! I think I deserve to be marked down 🙂
Ted