Phillip E. Johnson — father of ID — lax, unpersuasive and simply wrong

I'm now up to chapter 13 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God, which is approximately one-eighth of the way through its "50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science". As I feared, it's proving a tedious affair. Given that this is a recent book I'd hoped it might contain some really good up-to-date arguments, or at least a challenge of some sort. So far, however, it's been disappointing. The first section, The Question of Philosophy, should have been challenging, but seems to comprise what I (a non-philosopher) can only describe as philosophically bankrupt arguments. The current section, The Question of Science, appears to be all over the place; some of its chapters don't offer an argument at all, so I fail to see how they count towards the "50 Arguments".

Nor do I understand why every one of the first 13 chapters is either identical or very similar to an article on 4truth.net. That website doesn't reference the book, and the book only briefly references the website (in the introduction) as a place to find "still more articles". Shouldn't there be at least an acknowledgement that the book contains reprints? Or that the website does? (At this stage I'll not be surprised to discover that the whole book is available on the website, which could explain why there's nothing new.)

Curious though that is, what of chapter 13? It's titled "Darwin's Battleship — Status Report on the Leaks This Ship Has Sprung" and is by Discovery Institute co-founder and major intelligent design proponent Phillip E. Johnson. He begins by citing his 1993 book Darwin on Trial, quoting the epilogue in which he predicts that ID will win out over evolution. He then goes on to list how he perceives progress in this regard. It's actually a bit comical:

Science organizations regularly mischaracterize ID, calling it "creationism in a cheap tuxedo." They dream up conspiracies and make false accusations. They try to make sure that no one who is friendly to ID is allowed to publish articles in the peer-reviewed literature and then use the lack of such articles to prove that ID is not science. They try to prevent ID-friendly scientists from attaining research or teaching positions. They enter into local school district decision-making processes to make sure that Darwinism is not allowed to be questioned in any way, bringing in the ACLU if there is any attempt to offer an even-handed approach to the teaching of evolution. (p. 74)

Who's "dreaming up conspiracies and making false accusations" here? I seem to remember a somewhat disreputable film (that's putting it mildly) called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed that was chock-full of conspiracy theories, every one of which was promptly debunked by people who actually investigated the facts.

Johnson goes on to state that the "Darwinian mechanism of evolution" has no explanation of how the complex living world came about. This is just plain false. Anyone who reads Richard Dawkins' latest, beautifully illustrated book, The Greatest Show on Earth, cannot fail to understand the stunning simplicity and elegance of Darwin's idea. As for explaining "how life came into being from chemicals" — Johnson must surely know that evolutionary theory has practically nothing to say on the subject because that's not what it's about. He complains that Edward O. Wilson gives no concrete examples of evolution in an article in Harvard magazine, while providing no examples himself — nor does he provide a reference to Wilson's article. In fact the only reference Johnson gives is to his own book. His final paragraph is telling:

Recently, Harvard opened a new major research project, especially to study the origin of life. This may be in response to the criticisms of the Intelligent Design movement. Other recent articles suggest that scientists in the biological establishment are doing research specifically to answer the challenges raised by ID. If this is the case, it should be seen as a good thing by everyone. We in the ID movement are proponents of good science. If our criticisms and questions lead to better research, we are unafraid of the results. In the meantime, our current concern is to keep evolutionary scientists honest about the current state of the evidence and to allow young people to understand why there is a controversy about the subject of evolution. (p. 75)

It sounds entirely reasonable, until the last sentence. In evolutionary science — the kind supported by peer-reviewed research — there isn't a controversy about the subject of evolution. The controversy is entirely in the minds of ID proponents who want biological science to be based on a religious idea.

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4truth.net
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952913

"What Genetics Can Really Tell Us" — Adam Rutherford — Winchester SitP

The ubiquitous Adam Rutherford gave a fascinating talk at Winchester Skeptics in the Pub on Thursday evening. Ubiquitous? Well, he's been on telly this week, and last, with his new BBC Four series The Gene Code (which reminds me — I wonder if there are any of those fridge magnets left...), and his previous series The Cell began a re-run that very evening. Also he's had several recent Radio 4 appearances: Science Betrayed, for instance, and last week's Start the Week with Andrew Marr.

Adam's appearance at TAM London 2010 detailed his experiences on the Alpha Course, but on Thursday he was on his own territory with a talk entitled "What Genetics Can Really Tell Us". We learned, for instance, that compared to indigenous Africans the majority of western humanity is extraordinarily inbred. We learned that except in a very few cases there isn't a "single gene" responsible for specific human attributes — or diseases. This is something the tabloid press (or at least the Daily Mail) hasn't yet caught on to, and we saw slides of several articles that claimed that "the gene for" various specific things had been found. Bizarrely, several of these disparate characteristics were attributed, in different articles, to the same gene. Adam also managed to outline the history of genetics (including the scientific principles) in about 20 minutes, which is no mean feat.

I should also mention that despite this being the first time Adam had delivered this talk he was engaging and funny throughout. While he may or may not keep the bingo cards (don't ask) in subsequent talks, if you get the chance to hear him on this subject don't pass it up. It's unlikely, however, that he'll be able to arrange a flypast of the International Space Station every time he delivers his talk. (During the break we all paraded into the pub car park to watch the ISS go by.)

Winchester SitP's regular venue, The Roebuck — now under new management — has been done up, which contributed to the general success of the evening.

Burnee links for Thursday

Amis on Hitchens: 'He's one of the most terrifying rhetoricians the world has seen' | Books | The Observer
This is almost a eulogy, by the one person probably most qualified to deliver it.

Jack of Kent: An Atheist on Easter Sunday
David Allen Green ponders his atheism.

Mocking and satirising are marks of respect | HumanistLife
An unusual slant on the idea of respect for religious (or any) views.

Cristina Odone “loathes” Terry Pratchett | HumanistLife
A quick way to tell if someone is ideologically against assisted dying: they refer to it as "assisted suicide". HumanistLife analyses Cristina Odone's Telegraph article and finds it has no substance. Odone says she loathes Terry Pratchett because he wants people to have a choice at the ends of their lives. I highly recommend Pratchett's Dimbleby Lecture on the subject, as it was a paragon of calm assessment of reality. All the arguments against assisted dying are seriously flawed — most are based on faulty logic or religious dogma.

Sir Terry Pratchett, poster-boy of assisted suicide, has the BBC doing his bidding – Telegraph Blogs
The Odone article referred to above.

Terry Pratchett, Patrick Stewart and Ian McEwan back assisted dying | HumanistLife
More about the BBC's forthcoming documentary on assisted dying.

NonProphet Status » Blog Archive » Why Do We Need New Atheists? Can’t We Just Spruce Up The Old Ones?
Pretending to be the voice of reason, Karla McLaren uses military metaphors and straw men to perpetuate the notion that New Atheists are strident, shrill and "not helping". Serious irony failure here.

Graham Linehan at TAM London 2010 (plus Fry and Minchin on video)

Richard Wiseman introduced the last thing before lunch on Sunday: a video conversation between Tim Minchin and Stephen Fry. This was interesting, if fairly relaxed and rambling, and was a substitute for Stephen Fry appearing in person as billed (though his appearance had always been "commitments permitting"). The discussion was philosophical, and — because it was Stephen Fry — also philological.

After lunch Graham Linehan joined Jon Ronson (who was making yet another unscheduled appearance) on stage for a discussion ranging from Linehan's TV writing work (among them Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd), to his use of Twitter and other internet social media.

There were quite a few of these on-stage discussions and panels at TAM London 2010. Frankly I could have done with fewer of them. Too often the discussion format seems to allow the person scheduled not to prepare anything, and unless the "interviewer" is extremely skilled in the chat-show format the whole thing can become a bit unfocussed.

"Miracles for Sale" — Derren Brown — Channel 4

Derren Brown is first and foremost a showman. He may be a skeptic, and he may be seriously concerned about widespread fraud apparently perpetrated by so-called faith-healers predominantly in America, but his own claim to fame is as a stage mentalist. His TV shows are often highly controversial but they are primarily entertainment. So whether we think that what he demonstrated on TV on Monday night was a good thing, an ethical thing, or perhaps a cynical thing — or not — we should not lose sight of the fact that it was a TV production with the aim of maximizing ratings.

We know from Brown's book Tricks of the Mind that he's serious about fraudulent psychics, mediums and faith-healers, so we can take it at face value when he says his aim in Monday's show is to demonstrate that anyone — without paranormal ability — can perform what appear to be miracles of healing. To this end Brown spent time to train someone to pretend to be a preacher, and together they went to the US to hold a faith-healing service — and to heal the sick.

The premise of the show was similar to that of Brown’s recent “Hero at 30,000 Feet” and to a lesser extent his series “Trick or Treat” — taking an ordinary member of the public and training him or her up to do something extraordinary. In some respects those shows were more straightforward entertainment, because the audience knew that it should expect the unexpected. “Miracles for Sale” was different. It set out with a specific agenda, and expectations were such that anything less than spectacular success was bound to be a disappointment. And so it proved.

Perhaps it was over-hyped. If it had been presented like Brown’s previous “Messiah” the audience could enjoy the suspense of whether the scam could be pulled off at all, without being too concerned with the ethical considerations. Trying to mix up a reality TV show with a fly-on-the-wall documentary and an attempt at hard-nosed investigative journalism just didn’t work, because it was impossible to tell what it was actually about. Brown has done the exposé before, and done it well. The series "Derren Brown Investigates" about the Bronnikov method, Joe Power and Lou Gentile were examples of concerned ethical journalism that worked. But perhaps he doesn’t want to be treading too much on the toes of Jon Ronson and Louis Theroux.

Will "Miracles for Sale" have any effect in curbing the activities of fraudulent faith-healers? Are the people who are taken in by the fraudsters the kind of people who watch a Derren Brown TV programme? There may be some marginal raising of awareness, but I doubt that faith-healing scams will much diminish as a result of the show. As Derren Brown explained in his programme, James Randi exposed preacher Peter Popoff's faith-healing fraud live on the Johnny Carson show in 1986, but Brown also mentioned that Popoff is back today doing the same faith-healing routine much as before. This is disheartening to a skeptic. It shows that there's still much work to be done — educating and informing people about critical thinking. It isn't enough to expose the frauds. Their victims' unwarranted credulity needs to be exposed too, which may yet prove to be the most difficult task of all.

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Watch Derren Brown's "Miracles for Sale" at Channel 4's 4od:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/derren-brown-the-specials/4od#3182173

Melinda Gebbie at TAM London 2010

After her skilful moderation of the Technology and New Media panel, Rebecca Watson was on stage again in discussion with writer and artist Melinda Gebbie, who talked about her collaboration with Alan Moore in the production of erotic comic-book Lost Girls. One might reasonably ask what a discussion about an erotic comic-book has to do with skepticism, but there were issues of free speech and censorship involved, so it was as relevant as one wanted it to be. (For a discussion of TAM London's skeptical relevance in general, including an approximate way to quantify it, see my blogpost of 19 October 2010, plus the ensuing comments.)

Burnee links for Sunday

Science has vanquished religion, but not its evils | Nick Cohen | Comment is free | The Observer
A forthright take on Templetonian "respect".

Truth isn't reached by a dissembling path : Pharyngula
P. Z. Myers elaborates on his distaste for the corrupting influence of Templeton.

Religious studies: The good god guide | The Economist
This article has a misleading title. It's about research into why religions exist — some of the results may be useful, but much might be thought to be pretty obvious.

My bright idea: Mary Collins | Technology | The Observer
Remarkable stuff (using HIV as a kind of benign carrier) but the article is sloppily written, halfway between reportage and verbatim interview — highly confusing.

A bright spot at The Chronicle and an open letter « Why Evolution Is True
Jerry Coyne laments the NCSE's and BCSE's alienation of the gnu-atheist scientists.