Quoting claymisher: I gotta get a copy of George's conspiracy theory book, Architects Of Fear ... hey, it's out of print! Arrg.

17 used from $25.41.

Quoting AemJeff: 17 used from $25.41.

I ain't paying $25 for a used book! I'm checking it out from the library. Come to think of it, given the sudden Republican/Tea-Party/Obama-Hitler/LaRouche convergence, George ought to write a new chapter and get that back into print.

How could you guys NOT name this diavlog Kumbaya in honor of Joan Baez, who is John Baez's first cousin?
Someone’s laughing, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s laughing, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s laughing, Lord, kumbaya
O Lord, kumbaya

Quoting Wonderment: How could you guys NOT name this diavlog Kumbaya in honor of Joan Baez, who is John Baez's first cousin?

Someone’s laughing, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s laughing, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s laughing, Lord, kumbaya
O Lord, kumbaya

Heheh. At least George and Bob are getting some laughs out of this. It is pretty funny. I'm 45 minutes into this and I don't think Bob's mentioned the Templeton deal, his book, or his recent NYT op-ed, which together with Nelson and Behe add up to a lot of something.

I'm 45 minutes into this and I don't think Bob's mentioned the Templeton deal, his book, or his recent NYT op-ed, which together with Nelson and Behe add up to a lot of something.

Just you wait! He's about to cover that AND play the Daniel Dennett card (Jesus, Bob, give that a rest, por favor!)

The sidebar link to Bob's response to Coyne is bad.

Dennett frames himself as more of a realist regarding intentionality than George suggests (though his earlier accounts of the intentional stance, e.g., in Brainstorms, did look much more instrumentalistic).

Quoting Wonderment: ... AND play the Daniel Dennett card (Jesus, Bob, give that a rest, por favor!)

Second that.

Quoting AemJeff: The sidebar link to Bob's response to Coyne is bad.

Yes. It looks like it's missing an http:// at the beginning. Here is the correct URL. Also: the link in Bob's response to Coyne's piece in TNR is broken (I think TNR recently did a(nother) site redesign). Here is an updated link to Coyne's piece.

First, thanks for Bob for making such a sincere effort to clear the air/inform the audience/call it what you like, and thanks to George for sitting there and helping to move things along. Kudos and more thanks to George for not budging on creationism = ID. Second, I said in another thread, probably the Behe one, that I thought McWhorter -- and by extension, any single diavlogger -- should have the right to ask to have a diavlog pulled. Bob convinced me in this diavlog to change my mind on that. I now agree that it is in principle unfair to the other person. (I suppose it would be different if both asked to have a diavlog pulled, but that's not at issue here.) On a related note, I still think it would be good for John McWhorter to write something up, describing everything that went through his mind from the time he first got the idea to do a diavlog with Behe up through his asking to have it pulled. (So far, there's nothing here.) To my mind, his credibility has taken a fairly severe hit in connection with all this, and staying silent and hoping it

Oh, and on the diavlog title? I can't let it go by without sharing one of my favorite neologisms of all time. William Schneider called "mistakes were made" an example of a new grammatical tense: the past exonerative. ========== [Added] It just occurred to me that I got another new (to me) piece of information from this diavlog. I did not know that the Templeton Foundation had made a clear statement about ID. Here's an excerpt from their page on it, for anyone who's interested:

Does the Foundation support I.D.?

No. We do not support the political movement known as “Intelligent Design.” This is for three reasons 1) we do not believe the science underpinning the “Intelligent Design” movement is sound, 2) we do not support research or programs that deny large areas of well-documented scientific knowledge, and 3) the Foundation is a non-political entity and does not engage in, or support, political movements.

It is important to note that in the past we have given grants to scientists who have gone on to identify themselves as members of the Intelligent Design community. We understand that this could be misconstrued by some to suggest that we implicitly support the

I missed the Behe diavlog, I'll be going back to watch it but I can't understand why he was paired with John McWhorter??
I'm surprised at Sean Carroll for leaving in protest, not that I'm criticizing him for doing it, I fully understand his reasons for doing so.

Since when is dope weed? Talk about old. http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/223...8:54&out=29:28

Quoting themightypuck: Since when is dope weed? Talk about old.

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/223...8:54&out=29:28

I also believe the correct phrase is "Don't harsh my mellow". But dope is and always will be weed in addition to whatever else you young people call it. Time for my glaucoma treatment.

Brendan, I think you are the right person to answer this totally unrelated to the diavlog question: where does the word "provability" come from? Here is the reason I ask: "to prove", as far as I know, comes from the Latin word "probare". Note that the English version substitutes the "b" for a "v". However, another word also derived from the same root is "probability". In this case, for some odd reason, the "b" was kept the same. But now there is this other spelling "provability". I do understand that it may have a different connotation as a result of making each of the meanings more specific, but does the word exist? or are we (you) making it up? Wonderment may also know about this (?). I apologize in advance for my OCD attack...

Quoting Ocean: Brendan,

I think you are the right person to answer this totally unrelated to the diavlog question: where does the word "provability" come from?

Nothing as sophisticated as you go on to hypothesize, unless my nether region can be said to be sophisticated. I never knew any of this ...

Here is the reason I ask: "to prove", as far as I know, comes from the Latin word "probare". Note that the English version substitutes the "b" for a "v". However, another word also derived from the same root is "probability". In this case, for some odd reason, the "b" was kept the same.

... so, thanks.

But now there is this other spelling "provability". I do understand that it may have a different connotation as a result of making each of the meanings more specific, but does the word exist? or are we (you) making it up?

I would say that I extrapolated it (prove + ability, and then dropping the e), and then noted with surprise that the spell-checker did not give me the red underline.

Wonderment may also know about this (?).

Let's hope.

I apologize in advance for my OCD attack...

Nothing to apologize for, but wouldn't you say this was more of an OED attack?

Forget Waldo... Where's McWhorter? Thanks for the explication. Mistakes were made, traffic was lost after attempting to be gained. Content generators are responsible... but excused because it's all your fault Bob... except you did nothing wrong. I got it. It's still a big happy mess at bhtv. My mellow is less harshed than my incredulity is expanded.
Of course your an honest guy Bob, but your truth is nothing if not self-serving. Self-deprecation notwithstanding.

Consider that Zimmer, George and Carroll take the same "don't discuss this" approach to questions about global warming as they do questions about how bio chemistry of cells and micro organisms came to be. I am reading a book by Sahotra Sarkar which refutes the IC arguments. Behe does a much better job than Sahotra of informing the reader as to the marvels of the bio chemical inner workings of cells. For that alone I am grateful that he is in the mix, educating the public in his area of scientific expertise. It is very upsetting that these democrat scientists, always with the condescending attitude, are actively working to limit the dissemination of alternate scientific ideas and approaches. It appears that little progress has been made in science in recent decades as democrats have come to dominate large institutions. NASA is seemingly doing nothing. We should be sending fleets of robots to Mars and the Moon. No super collider is active or planned in the US. Nuclear power, fusion reactors - nothing. Science is not developing new antibiotics, people are defenseless against a flu outbreak. Cancer still kills with certainty. The Earth is defenseless

Thank you for your response.

Quoting bjkeefe:
Nothing to apologize for, but wouldn't you say this was more of an OED attack?

As for this part, I thought you were Teh Official OED proxy...no?

Quoting thprop: I also believe the correct phrase is "Don't harsh my mellow". But dope is and always will be weed in addition to whatever else you young people call it. Time for my glaucoma treatment.

Agree with mellow over buzz as more common, but I have heard both. The latter would be called for, I would think, when one had ingested a particularly pleasant and hard to obtain controlled substance. Bob, if he is to be believed, had not (he is against killing weeds now, right?), so he should have preferred mellow. I don't know how George lives in New Mexico and doesn't know this phrase. Moving along ... Also agree that several slang terms for marijuana seem never to go out of style; e.g., pot, dope, weed, herb, and maybe grass. Just be glad no one says mary jane anymore. (If, in fact, anyone ever did -- I've always been suspicious that this term was made up by someone in the Nixon White House when writing anti-drug propaganda for school children.)

I have tried and tried to understand what Bob is saying in a way that does not take him into non-materialist or illogical territory, and I can't do it (and seem to be in good company with George, John, Coyne, Myers, et al). I just get the sense that extrapolating from his point leads to very indefensible positions. It seems to me he is saying something along the lines of: Evolution has led to X and X and X, and since X and X and X are good, or are better than Y and Y and Y, (good and better are not the right words, maybe, but exactly what the words should be is part of, if not the crux of, my problem with this whole issue), it’s not beyond the realm of possiblility that some divinity is behind the creation of the system that has led to X and X and X (I also have problems with the leap to this conclusion). Since I have a lot of problems with the implications of the above, I wonder if I have not got it right, since whatever Bob's point is, he seems not to have problems with its implications. Can anyone here help explain Bob's point?

re: materialist teleology. This is, as logicians like to say, a contradictio in adjecto. It will also shock anyone familiar with the history of philosophy. I wonder why Bob thinks it is possible to combine a conception of reality as governed by mechanistic or efficient causality (materialism) with a conception of reality that encompasses purpose (teleology). Does he think that biology is different from physics? Natural selection, as Darwin and his successors understood it, is a mindless and purposeless process. It says (condensed version): The fittest individuals in a population will survive and leave the most offspring because surviving and reproducing are what the fittest individuals do. A perfect tautology, but also a perfect example of a purposeless process since survival and reproduction have been the characteristics of life since the most primeval bacteria. Why should we consider a process that culminates in us (if it does culminate in us) to be any more purposeful than a process that culminates in earthworms, if our only purpose is to survive and reproduce like the lowly earthworms that so fascinated to Darwin? So where lies the purpose? In the mutations of DNA molecules? No, because these are

Bob, you sound quite reasonable to me. Question: how do you call people (like me) that have the following reaction "wow evolution through natural selection is such an amazing and complex phenomenon that nobody could have possibly designed it". In other words, the beauty and high level of complexity makes design by a single mind even more implausible. Is there a word that describes this point of view? The "inhumanist" point of view?

Another "Science Saturday" wasted.

Quoting bjkeefe: Agree with mellow over buzz as more common, but I have heard both. The latter would be called for, I would think, when one had ingested a particularly pleasant and hard to obtain controlled substance. Bob, if he is to be believed, had not (he is against killing weeds now, right?), so he should have preferred mellow.

I don't know how George lives in New Mexico and doesn't know this phrase.

Moving along ...

Also agree that several slang terms for marijuana seem never to go out of style; e.g., pot, dope, weed, herb, and maybe grass.

Just be glad no one says mary jane anymore. (If, in fact, anyone ever did -- I've always been suspicious that this term was made up by someone in the Nixon White House when writing anti-drug propaganda for school children.)

As someone who has not gotten high since college (herb put me to sleep), I would tend to agree but my opinion is not worth much. Is "getting high" still used? I would not even know how to buy marijuana these days. I assume I could ask my nieces and nephews. Damn - I am such an old fogey. I still know most of the words to "Don't Bogart that Joint My Friend." Does that

Bob must be a great husband. His wife doesn’t have to list his mistakes in excruciating detail, he does it himself. George: “yeah, so anyway.” Bob must have been raised Catholic. “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” Apparently Bob doesn’t think there are any scientists out there who can go toe to toe with an IDer without being inaccessible to a lay audience, except Dawkins, who I presume won’t attend because of the Templeton connection. As I said in a post a few months ago, any one who is not an atheist is by definition a creationist. I faced some criticism for this analysis, but after hearing this diavlog, I think it stands. Either one believes there is a purpose/creator/force or one believes this whole experience humans are having is an accident. In other words….it could have gone differently, but it didn’t.

Dope has a strong correlation to heroin around here. I guess it sounds weird to me because of that.

Quoting thprop: As someone who has not gotten high since college (herb put me to sleep), I would tend to agree but my opinion is not worth much. Is "getting high" still used?

As far as I know, but it's been some years for me, too.

I would not even know how to buy marijuana these days.

I think you just move to California. ;^)

I assume I could ask my nieces and nephews.

Don't do that. They would be horrified.

Damn - I am such an old fogey.

Embrace it, as Bob and George have.

I still know most of the words to "Don't Bogart that Joint My Friend." Does that make me cool or more of an old fogey?

I might have said the latter up until a few years ago, but I've become aware that there is no shortage of kids these days who like music from our hell-raisin' days. (There's something jarring about watching my nephew choose the classic rock station.) I have to say in the case of this particular song, though, that anyone who would call you an old fogey over it should be understood to be not yet hip. Little Feat will always be good. (Added: That's how I learned it -- I just noticed you

Quoting Ocean: Brendan,

I think you are the right person to answer this totally unrelated to the diavlog question: where does the word "provability" come from?

Here is the reason I ask: "to prove", as far as I know, comes from the Latin word "probare". Note that the English version substitutes the "b" for a "v". However, another word also derived from the same root is "probability". In this case, for some odd reason, the "b" was kept the same. But now there is this other spelling "provability". I do understand that it may have a different connotation as a result of making each of the meanings more specific, but does the word exist? or are we (you) making it up?

Wonderment may also know about this (?).

I apologize in advance for my OCD attack...

I had never heard that word until I took courses in formal logic and theory of computer science. It still only seems to come up in that context - my guess is that it was a bit of technical jargon invented by some mathematician, Frege or Boole or somebody like that.

Quoting themightypuck: Dope has a strong correlation to heroin around here. I guess it sounds weird to me because of that.

You get away from the drug culture for 30 years or so - and it just passes you by. From the Urban Dictionary -

People who do not do drugs call Marajuanna Dope.
People who do Marajuanna call Heroin Dope.
Word has also been used to describe how good somthing is.
Don't you be somkin' dope! ( AKA Marajuanna )

Is a "slang" word for Heroin. Since heroin is 'considered' the lowest form of drug addiction.

(& weed is not dope.)

not weed but heroin. only dumbasses call weed dope.

Quoting badhatharry: ...
Apparently Bob doesn’t think there are any scientists out there who can go toe to toe with an IDer without being inaccessible to a lay audience, except Dawkins, who I presume won’t attend because of the Templeton connection.

...

Most of Behe's act is to play dazzle 'em with bullshit, such that the problems in what he describes are buried in the technical jargon. So yeah, that's pretty much inevitable.

a "free" definition: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/provability

Quoting thprop: You get away from the drug culture for 30 years or so - and it just passes you by. From the Urban Dictionary -

Heh. Back in the day, we called marijuana dope purely for the irony -- part in reaction to the scare tactics we'd grown up with, and partly in reaction to the hipsters of the day, who insisted, as do the UDers today, that "dope is unhip." (I had one friend who would always say, "Anybody wanna smoke a marijuana cigarette?") 'Course, dope (as an adjective) meant cool for a little while, a few years back, so you can see the problem just feeds on itself.

Quoting mvantony: I don't know where it comes from, but here's one context in which it's used.

Yes, thanks. I was wondering about its etymology...

There is a book: http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-.../dp/0151010986 promotional podcast: http://www.pointofinquiry.org/carol_...kes_were_made/

Quoting AemJeff: I had never heard that word until I took courses in formal logic and theory of computer science. It still only seems to come up in that context - my guess is that it was a bit of technical jargon invented by some mathematician, Frege or Boole or somebody like that.

Yes, again, I think it's one of those situations when a more subtle second meaning attached to a word deserves a different spelling. The alternative would have been "probability" but it doesn't capture the exact same meaning. Thanks.

Quoting Unit: Bob,

you sound quite reasonable to me. Question: how do you call people (like me) that have the following reaction "wow evolution through natural selection is such an amazing and complex phenomenon that nobody could have possibly designed it". In other words, the beauty and high level of complexity makes design by a single mind even more implausible. Is there a word that describes this point of view? The "inhumanist" point of view?

I'm not sure if you consider yourself an athiest, but I think a lot of people think that atheism is a dark and dreary outlook to have. On the contrary, I think it awakens one to the amazing confluence of events which have created life and ultimately human beings. I think what you describe would be called materialism.

But a skilled and knowledgeable debater should be able to get passed that, certainly not by making Behe admit anything, but by standing strong and not allowing the debate to get away.
Tricky, yes, but certainly not entirely impossible.
It's those thought experiments that need to be disallowed. They go nowhere fast.

Quoting bjkeefe: I might have said the latter up until a few years ago, but I've become aware that there is no shortage of kids these days who like music from our hell-raisin' days. (There's something jarring about watching my nephew choose the classic rock station.) I have to say in the case of this particular song, though, that anyone who would call you an old fogey over it should be understood to be not yet hip. Little Feat will always be good.

My nephew spent a good part of his summer ripping my music collection before heading off to college. I have a few post 1980 albums but he wanted the early stuff - Grateful Dead, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Hendrix, Kinks, etc. He did not know about Little Feat before I had him listen to Dixie Chicken. I also gave him recording of a few of my favorite Dead shows - the 10/29/77 show at Northern Illinois is a gem. Most of the best and worst concerts I have seen were by the Dead. Consistency was not their hallmark. My nephew has most of my tie dyed shirts now too - no way they would fit me in any case. I have seen

Quoting badhatharry: But a skilled and knowledgeable debater should be able to get passed that, certainly not by making Behe admit anything, but by standing strong and not allowing the debate to get away.
Tricky, yes, but certainly not entirely impossible.
It's those thought experiments that need to be disallowed. They go nowhere fast.

Then Behe scores points by leaving behind a trail of authoritative sounding, unanswered assertions. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in the "never engage" camp. I think that as long as he has the power to convince people, even if only those without some training in the sciences, then he ought to be debated. But not by unqualified people, and not under a rubric imputing to him a scientific imprimatur.

Quoting Ocean: As for this part, I thought you were Teh Official OED proxy...no?

Heh, thanks for the compliment, but no. Besides, the OED sometimes makes me impatient. It's like the Bible -- you can use it to support any point you want. There's always some citation from 1347 or something where one guy used some word in some weird way that no one has since, and this will count as "correct" to some people.

Quoting thprop: [...] Not sure if that is sad or not.

Not to me. Tastes change as we get older. I no longer like apple bubblegum,
for example. I mean, I shudder to think that I would still be listening to The Doors.

Actually, I think that version is the original by The Fraternity of Man which appeared in Easy Rider.

Thanks. I thought they were the same, from something else I saw on the "related" sidebar.

Quoting SkepticDoc: There is a book:

http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-.../dp/0151010986

promotional podcast:

http://www.pointofinquiry.org/carol_...kes_were_made/

Thx.

Quoting badhatharry: I think a lot of people think that atheism is a dark and dreary outlook to have.

IMO, that's because most people either have not actually thought about it or have but are too unwilling to accept the implications of that thought (e.g., that it takes a lot of proactive, thoughtfully considered energy to make this life meaningful). So much easier to sit around squandering or bemoaning this one waiting for the greener grass in the next one. What could make life on earth less meaningful than the idea that it's just a crappy holding cell on the way to something better (or infinitely and eternally worse, if you've been so foolish as to choose the wrong dogma)?

Quoting bjkeefe: Not to me. Tastes change as we get older. I no longer like apple bubblegum,
for example.

I can't believe you ever liked apple bubblegum. Gross.

Quoting DenvilleSteve: I think the fault derives from the mindset of control freak democrats.

Oh Steve! And here I was, not but a week ago, advancing the theory that you believe most of what you say. Ignore list FTW.

Quoting Ocean: Brendan,

I think you are the right person to answer this totally unrelated to the diavlog question: where does the word "provability" come from?

Here is the reason I ask: "to prove", as far as I know, comes from the Latin word "probare". Note that the English version substitutes the "b" for a "v". However, another word also derived from the same root is "probability". In this case, for some odd reason, the "b" was kept the same. But now there is this other spelling "provability". I do understand that it may have a different connotation as a result of making each of the meanings more specific, but does the word exist? or are we (you) making it up?

Wonderment may also know about this (?).

I apologize in advance for my OCD attack...

In mathematics (and mathematical logic), the issue is whether a problem is decidable. Courtesy of Kurt Godel and his Incompleteness Theorems. Rather than trying to explain it, read the Wikipedia entry Undecidable problem.

A decision problem A is called decidable or effectively solvable if A is a recursive set. A problem is called partially decidable, semidecidable, solvable, or provable if A is a recursively enumerable set. Partially decidable problems and any other problems that are not decidable are called undecidable.

Quoting thprop: You get away from the drug culture for 30 years or so - and it just passes you by. From the Urban Dictionary -

People who do not do drugs call Marajuanna Dope.
People who do Marajuanna call Heroin Dope.
Word has also been used to describe how good somthing is.
Don't you be somkin' dope! ( AKA Marajuanna )

Slander. I don't smoke marijuana but I'd probably bang dope if it was legal. That said, the usage rule makes some sense since people who use drugs care that a word points to a specific drug while people who don't use drugs probably don't care so much that a word might point to a number of drugs.

Quoting bjkeefe: I mean, I shudder to think that I would still be listening to The Doors.

Get some good mushrooms, eat them on a glorious summer day in the north woods of Wisconsin - then a pretentious, self destructive pseudo-poet like Jim Morrison has great meaning. Very high volume (maybe 12 - 11 would not be enough) required.

I am sorry indeed to hear of Carl Zimmer's decision not to return. I respect his integrity completely, but wish he would reconsider - I have learned more from him on Science Saturday than from any other single source I can think of.

Quoting Me&theboys: Can anyone here help explain Bob's point?

No.

Praise Jesus!

Quoting badhatharry: I'm not sure if you consider yourself an athiest, but I think a lot of people think that atheism is a dark and dreary outlook to have. On the contrary, I think it awakens one to the amazing confluence of events which have created life and ultimately human beings.

I think what you describe would be called materialism.

I don't really understand what "atheist" means, or "god" for that matter. My level of understanding is this area is very limited. My definition of "transcendent" is reduced to "counterfactual". This is something I can grasp: every action could have taken different paths and generated parallel histories.

Quoting thprop: In mathematics (and mathematical logic), the issue is whether a problem is decidable. Courtesy of Kurt Godel and his Incompleteness Theorems. Rather than trying to explain it, read the Wikipedia entry Undecidable problem.

Undoubtedly clear now. Thanks.

I'm at the 27 and some minute. I couldn't help but burst in laughter. Bob is working hard on enlightenment through suffering. He is self-torturing by trying to explain the sequence of events that lead to the fall out. I can't help it. I have to say it... Bob, it wasn't your fault. It's that invisible hand...

Quoting AemJeff: I had never heard that word until I took courses in formal logic and theory of computer science. It still only seems to come up in that context - my guess is that it was a bit of technical jargon invented by some mathematician, Frege or Boole or somebody like that.

Have you ever seen The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs? They first introduce assignment (as in "x = 12") about 150 pages into the book, and with they do it's with handwringing because at that point it becomes too hard to prove that your programs are correct. It's a hoot.

Bob gets "groovy" http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/223...8:53&out=29:21

Quoting claymisher: Have you ever seen The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs? They first introduce assignment (as in "x = 12") about 150 pages into the book, and with they do it's with handwringing because at that point it becomes too hard to prove that your programs are correct. It's a hoot.

The publishing date puts that almost twenty years too recent for me too have seen it in school. I honestly couldn't even name the texts we used at this point. Too bad it can't be had on Amazon for less than forty bucks.

Too inside.

First, the point that should be stated more clearly about Behe is that he isn't just wrong, but disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. He keeps making claims about incorrect facts for years after they have been discredited. This is the problem. If he had a sincere scientific mindset where he was actually trying to find examples in the natural world that couldn't be explained by incremental mutation, and moving on when his attempts fail, that could lead to some interesting study. (Contrary to claims, scientists would be _extremely_ interested in a genuine discovery of a biological feature that seemed like it couldn't have arisen through slow incremental change driven by natural selection.) Second, what bothers me about Zimmer and Carroll's decision is that I am an adult capable of making up my own mind. If I see two people agreeing that ID is the most important idea of the millennium, I'm not forced to suddenly give it credit and admit it as a serious position. I don't want a site that nurtures me and protects me. Give me the ideas, and I'll decide. If this were a school, then I'd be on board with

Quoting WilliamP: ...
Third, Carroll and Zimmer's diavlogs here are themselves a great service toward increasing interest in science and educating the public. If that is their aim, aside from standing for a general principle, it's hard for me to see how not appearing here helps them with their cause.

I agree with this entire post, but this, in particular, is an excellent argument.

CCCP!!

I think its too strong an assumption that no scientist would be able to debate with Behe without being inaccessible. I am sure there would be many people interested in such a daivlog, but unfortunately, it seems unlikely now. But maybe Bob would surprise us!

Quoting thprop: You get away from the drug culture for 30 years or so - and it just passes you by. From the Urban Dictionary -

And here I thought heroin was still junk. Burroughs, you done me wrong, don't harsh my buzz.

In Zimmer's post, he linked to a Behe paper, I think in the journal Biochemistry. (I could be wrong.) I went over and took a look; haven't put in the time to really grok it yet, but it seemed like Behe played by the rules, didn't grandstand, wrote a normal paper. Of course, most papers are flawed in some way, and some are outright wrong. Zimmer said it was fairly uncited, which means it is essentially a dud. This is the way it's supposed to work. If there's one thing the public should learn, it is that just because a paper exists, and passed peer review, that doesn't mean it's true. Nothing of the sort. Sometimes people seem to think "the literature" (i.e. the peer-reviewed scientific literature) need to be protected from this kind of stuff. But I say, as long as they play by the rules, then why not. The literature is not a fragile piece of china that needs to be protected. Rather, the literature is a goddam bonecrusher. Go ahead and feed stuff into it, give it your best shot. It will spit it out it's not up to snuff. To be clear: I'm saying this believing Behe is wrong, wrong, wrong. But I'm going to look at

Third, Bob made a point when talking about not wanting to promise a zero crackpot policy from here on out that sounded pretty good; e.g., that certain people think neocons have been so discredited that they shouldn't be given a platform.

Is there any moral criterion for not appearing on the site besides being a creationist, and if so why wouldn't it apply to people complicit in war crimes? I'm not taking a point of view on this subject, but presumably Dick Cheney John Bolton and David Frum are welcome here, for example, but not a Jihadi suicide bomber or David Duke. There is plenty of moral outrage about Behe;he has been shunned as though he were a child molester. McWhorter is disgraced just for talking to him. But the criteria employed to banish people are not clear at all. I don't see any real clarity coming from your remarks, Brendan (or Bob's or George's, although John Horgan took a nice chunk of the apple in his piece). I think you raise the right questions, but the right answer is up for grabs. I'm inclined to support Bob's defense of

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/223...2:20&out=42:40
Yeah, no, you dont know anybody like that.

Quoting ERV: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/223...2:20&out=42:40

Yeah, no, you dont know anybody like that.

Ouch. For what it's worth, I think it would be great if Bob would pair you up with Behe. My memory may be faulty, but didn't you say Behe's been ducking you for years now? Anyway: hope you'll be back on BhTV soon, without Behe, or with.

Quoting Ocean: I'm at the 27 and some minute. I couldn't help but burst in laughter. Bob is working hard on enlightenment through suffering. He is self-torturing by trying to explain the sequence of events that lead to the fall out. I can't help it. I have to say it...

Bob, it wasn't your fault. It's that invisible hand...

LOL. Pure genius.

Quoting ERV: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/223...2:20&out=42:40

Yeah, no, you dont know anybody like that.

ERV, the point was about accessibility, not competence, right? Maybe you'd be able to keep a discussion with Behe grounded and comprehensible to nonspecialists - and I'd love to see you get the opportunity - but is Bob Wright really being disingenuous about his belief here?

Quoting Wonderment: I'm inclined to support Bob's defense of his position (to be flexible and not to ban anyone) because it's probably impossible to spell out ANY coherent policy. Remember that the problem with creationists was not that one was on the site; it was that two were on the site in the context of Bob's God book and the Templeton sponsorship. A pattern was emerging. It was not a case of one instance causing a violation, but rather one straw finally breaking the camel's back.

This sums up what I think.

Is there any moral criterion for not appearing on the site besides being a creationist, and if so why wouldn't it apply to people complicit in war crimes?

I'm not taking a point of view on this subject, but presumably Dick Cheney John Bolton and David Frum are welcome here, for example, but not a Jihadi suicide bomber or David Duke.

These are examples of why you can't have black and white rules. It will always be gray areas and someone's best judgment (unless they are in a Buddhist retreat, of course). Can we send a letter (or electronic substitute) to

Here is the reason I ask: "to prove", as far as I know, comes from the Latin word "probare". Note that the English version substitutes the "b" for a "v". However, another word also derived from the same root is "probability". In this case, for some odd reason, the "b" was kept the same. But now there is this other spelling "provability". I do understand that it may have a different connotation as a result of making each of the meanings more specific, but does the word exist? or are we (you) making it up?

Wonderment may also know about this (?).

They all come from the same roots. It's just that spelling conventions get things confused as they pass from French and other languages to Spanish and English. Vs and Bs get mixed up and pronounced differently. That's why in Spanish we can only make one SOUND out of what are two words in English: provable and probable are pronounced identically in Spanish. Como tú saves, Ocean, las bes y las ves en español son idénticas. Te lo boy a comproVar en esta oración, pero como bos sos terca, es provavle que no me creas. Es como la "h". No tiene función en español. Es

These are examples of why you can't have black and white rules. It will always be gray areas and someone's best judgment (unless they are in a Buddhist retreat, of course).

I thought Uncle George was the Buddhist when Bob was practically screaming and George admonished him to "calm down." Pobrecito de Bob. I really did feel sorry for him there. I almost called you up (telepathically, of course) to prescribe some Xanax. I would sign the petition to Sean and Carl, but alas I suspect the mistrust may be too great at this point for that kind of "let's just forget about it" reconciliation.

The appropriate turn of phrase is actually "don't harsh my mellow."

. William Schneider called "mistakes were made" an example of a new grammatical tense: the past exonerative.

Ha! That is terrific.

Quoting Wonderment: They all come from the same roots. It's just that spelling conventions get things confused as they pass from French and other languages to Spanish and English. Vs and Bs get mixed up and pronounced differently. That's why in Spanish we can only make one SOUND out of what are two words in English: provable and probable are pronounced identically in Spanish.

The equivalents of "provable" and "probable" are the same in Spanish : probable.

Como tú saves, Ocean, las bes y las ves en español son idénticas. Te lo boy a comproVar en esta oración, pero como bos sos terca, es provavle que no me creas.

¿Cómo que soy terca? ¿Quién te dijo? No es berdad.

Es como la "h". No tiene función en español. Es simplemente un vestigio de las normas ortográficas de otras lenguas.

Podríamos decir que es un vestigio de la "f", por lo menos en algunos casos. Y en otros casos son los errores de traducción o de incorporación de palabras originadas en otros idiomas.

Can anyone here help explain Bob's point?

I can lovingly (I love you, Bob!) explain two things: If you need to assert a) that electrons don't really exist and b) that Dan Dennett agrees with you when he doesn't, you have damaged (perhaps beyond repair) whatever case you might have been trying to make for your Higher Power. Non-overlapping magisteria, Bob. Don't fuck with them.

Quoting Wonderment: I thought Uncle George was the Buddhist when Bob was practically screaming and George admonished him to "calm down."

Yes, George shows some good skills there.

Pobrecito de Bob. I really did feel sorry for him there. I almost called you up (telepathically, of course) to prescribe some Xanax.

Xanax! Nope, not even for "pobrecito" Bob... You should have called me telepathically though. I'd love to see (?) that!

I would sign the petition to Sean and Carl, but alas I suspect the mistrust may be too great at this point for that kind of "let's just forget about it" reconciliation.

There's a time for "let's just forget about it", a time for re-negotiation, or whatever. I don't know the people involved or their level of trust/mistrust, so I can only suggest.

Quoting Ocean: The equivalents of "provable" and "probable" are the same in Spanish : probable.

¿Cómo que soy terca? ¿Quién te dijo? No es berdad.

Podríamos decir que es un vestigio de la "f", por lo menos en algunos casos. Y en otros casos son los errores de traducción o de incorporación de palabras originadas en otros idiomas.

Niños, paz en la tierra, por favor.

This did clear up some things, it sounds like the biggest straw that broke the camels back was the confrontation between Bob and Sean/Carl that got a bit.. heated?
In terms of the break that was probably the biggest thing to turn them away, or maybe not.
In terms of the policy going forward, just do the following, for logs titled Science Saturday, only bring on people/topics that are accepted in the mainstream of science circles. Do NOT ban creationists or ID (creationist lite) from the site, just do not put them on under the aegis of a Science discussion. Problem solved. For the most part. If it bothers people that the issues are discussed at all in other formats on the sight, THAT I consider stepping out of the bounds of reasonableness. The issue with the behe discussion and him not being sufficiently challenged is more an issue of having the right pairing as opposed to allowing an ID person on at all. But guys, if anyone actually wants to make the case that a creationist or ID person should not be allowed on the site at all in ANY format... (excluding science saturday), go ahead

Quoting Ocean: Brendan,

I think you are the right person to answer this totally unrelated to the diavlog question: where does the word "provability" come from?

Here is the reason I ask: "to prove", as far as I know, comes from the Latin word "probare". Note that the English version substitutes the "b" for a "v". However, another word also derived from the same root is "probability". In this case, for some odd reason, the "b" was kept the same. But now there is this other spelling "provability". I do understand that it may have a different connotation as a result of making each of the meanings more specific, but does the word exist? or are we (you) making it up?

Wonderment may also know about this (?).

I apologize in advance for my OCD attack...

If this helps, from the Oxford Dictionary of English (note - no entry for provable or provability) -

prove /pru:v/

→ verb (past participle proved or proven /'pru:v()n, 'pr-/)
1. [with obj.] demonstrate the truth or existence of (something) by evidence or argument: the concept is difficult to prove | [as adj.] (proven) a proven ability to work hard.

• ( (US) prove something up ) (Law) establish the genuineness and validity of (a will).
2. [with obj. and complement] demonstrate to be the specified thing by evidence or argument: if they are proved guilty

Quoting Wonderment: Is there any moral criterion for not appearing on the site besides being a creationist, and if so why wouldn't it apply to people complicit in war crimes?

Sure, and you give a couple of potential examples ...

I'm not taking a point of view on this subject, but presumably Dick Cheney John Bolton and David Frum are welcome here, for example, but not a Jihadi suicide bomber or David Duke.

... although I guarantee you Bob would put Cheney or Bolton on in an instant. Hard to think an actual suicide bomber would be able to speak much. ;^) Actually, if we had an opportunity to hear from a suicide bomber who was prevented from acting, or withdrew from the mission for some reason, I'd be interested in hearing from him or her, unless it was just going to be the same old "death to the infidels" sloganeering.

There is plenty of moral outrage about Behe;he has been shunned as though he were a child molester. McWhorter is disgraced just for talking to him.

As far as moral criteria go, the only one I really care about for Bh.tv is intellectual honesty. Thus, I am

Quoting thprop: Get some good mushrooms, eat them on a glorious summer day in the north woods of Wisconsin - then a pretentious, self destructive pseudo-poet like Jim Morrison has great meaning. Very high volume (maybe 12 - 11 would not be enough) required.

Nah. That's how I used to do it. And if I remember correctly, it was during one of those times that I had the insight that Morrison was an embarrassment. Or not. Okay for teenagers, I guess, same as liking apple bubblegum is an okay taste for a little kid (sorry Me&!).

Quoting WilliamP: First, the point that should be stated more clearly about Behe is that he isn't just wrong, but disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. He keeps making claims about incorrect facts for years after they have been discredited. This is the problem. If he had a sincere scientific mindset where he was actually trying to find examples in the natural world that couldn't be explained by incremental mutation, and moving on when his attempts fail, that could lead to some interesting study. (Contrary to claims, scientists would be _extremely_ interested in a genuine discovery of a biological feature that seemed like it couldn't have arisen through slow incremental change driven by natural selection.)

Agreed. Well put.

Second, what bothers me about Zimmer and Carroll's decision is that I am an adult capable of making up my own mind. If I see two people agreeing that ID is the most important idea of the millennium, I'm not forced to suddenly give it credit and admit it as a serious position. I don't want a site that nurtures me and protects me. Give me the ideas, and I'll decide. If this were a school, then I'd be on board

(NB: Just responding to bits and pieces here -- many of your sentences aren't quoted.)

Quoting osmium: In Zimmer's post, he linked to a Behe paper, I think in the journal Biochemistry. (I could be wrong.)

Assuming you're talking about this Zimmer post, you are. The paper was published in Protein Science. More to the point are these lines from Carl (emph. added):

The closest he’s got is a single paper on a computer model he published five years ago, which doesn’t even mention intelligent design. What’s more, it was promptly and effectively rebutted by the evolutionary biologist Michael Lynch for making all sorts of unwarranted assumptions about biology.

(If you're talking about a different post from Carl, of course, the above does not apply, and please give a link to the post you have in mind.)

Sometimes people seem to think "the literature" (i.e. the peer-reviewed scientific literature) need to be protected from this kind of stuff. But I say, as long as they play by the rules, then why not.

Is this really true? I can't think that I've ever heard that about the scientific literature. The whole idea is that the peer-review system is the protection. I grant there are complaints about the details

As far as moral criteria go, the only one I really care about for Bh.tv is intellectual honesty.

We've probably covered this as much as we can, but I'll give it one more approach: What do you think is more intellectually dishonest...? A) Distorting science for theological purposes or B) Concocting a pack of lies in order to kill tens of thousands of civilians? If there is no dispute about creationism and ID being false then there is also no (serious) dispute that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Powell lied to invade Iraq and were facilitated in doing so by hired guns like frequent Bheads guest David Frum (among others). Many of the criminal lies are set out here. In both cases of intellectual dishonesty you have people making claims they know are false. In the first case, the result is the spread of rather easily refuted misinformation and religious propaganda. By no stretch of the imagination is a crime committed. In the second case, the result is mass murder and all the immense suffering that is the consequence of an entirely unnecessary and unjustifiable war. If our system worked properly, the perps would be in

ERV is itching for a fight! Somebody get her an opponent!

Quoting Wonderment: We've probably covered this as much as we can, but I'll give it one more approach: What do you think is more intellectually dishonest...?

A) Distorting science for theological purposes or

B) Concocting a pack of lies in order to kill tens of thousands of civilians?

I think the intellectual dishonesty is equivalently bad in the two cases. Obviously, I think (b) is more reprehensible, but for other reasons. (The consequences, largely.)

If there is no dispute about creationism and ID being false then there is also no (serious) dispute that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Powell lied to invade Iraq and were facilitated in doing so by hired guns like frequent Bheads guest David Frum (among others).

I do not believe that Frum can be said to have blood on his hands to the degree that the other four do. His judgment in working for the Bush Administration was bad, and I think it's contemptible that he hasn't apologized for the contributions he made to the selling of the war in light of additional information that has come to light, but I cannot call him a criminal for what he did. I don't even think that he was willfully dishonest, because I doubt

Quoting SkepticDoc: Niños, paz en la tierra, por favor.

Gracias por lo de niños. Y se dice: "que haya paz en la tierra para todos los hombres (y mujeres) de buena voluntad".

Quoting ERV: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/223...2:20&out=42:40

Yeah, no, you dont know anybody like that.

Yes, but there's a presupposition that any candidate would have to be one Behe would agree to go up against, and as you yourself have pointed out several times in recent days,

"Ive been trying to debate Behe for several years now, and hes told the mediators of those proposed debates to fuck off."
(see here, for one instance)

That's no doubt due to a combination of Behe's temper or lack of self-control, and your "irreverent" writing style, as exemplified in bits like the following:

"...sentiment you [Behe] gurgled ad nauseum in 'Edge of Evolution"
(source)

"...you, Behe, hump your credentials on the legs of every book you write"
(source)

"...your loser friend who sold his soul for a shot at fame, Michael F. Behe."
(source)

"Behes gotten older and dumber"
(comment 74)

"I have been *actively trying* to debate Behe for *over two years*. But he doesnt want to debate me. He wants to get his Jimmy sucked by McWhorter."
(comment 106)

Etc.

One can see how Behe might have gotten upset at your offers to debate him. Many people would respond precisely as he did. Also, if you want to debate Behe on BhTV, this isn't a good

Do the tough questions always need to be a part of the initial thing? I don't have an objection to getting a primer where Behe is unchallenged for an hour. Just because it is not right there, criticism will out, flaws will out. To fight Behe and curtail his influence, it helps to know what he thinks. Take Jerome Corsi - if you want to decrease the odds that he will prevent Obama from winning the presidential election, maybe you don't put him on the defensive on bloggingheads with a firebrand, maybe you do it in two pieces - a flat platform where he feels comfortable enough to talk, and do the gloss separately. Dingalink his points one by one and run the rebuttals. I don't really buy that there are clusters of fringe ideas so insignificant that merely running a bloggingheads about them gives them legitimacy beyond whatever is happening in the ebb and flow. If it's big enough for the editors to have heard of it, it's probably big enough to do some harm, which means it's important to effectively fight it, which means it's important to effectively

Quoting Kevin: [...]

Very nice post.

Quoting Kevin: Do the tough questions always need to be a part of the initial thing?

Yes, when the diavlogger in question has been so thoroughly and repeatedly exposed elsewhere as a charlatan. Otherwise, you are just letting him have another opportunity to spread misinformation. This even assumes that a guy like Behe should be invited on in the first place, something of which I do not approve.

I don't really buy that there are clusters of fringe ideas so insignificant that merely running a bloggingheads about them gives them legitimacy beyond whatever is happening in the ebb and flow.

Even if you don't buy this, you should buy that something can be a matter of principle.

Both have blogs, and if I recall correctly both have comment sections. Anyone interested could surely go to those sites and present any ideas or feelings about them coming back.

The "ignore the fringe" arguments don't make much sense to me as long as the fringe - like Behe - is able to get books published. Isn't the fact that McWhorter read his book and didn't know it had been refuted multiple times evidence to the fact that Behe hadn't been criticized enough? There were multiple dismantling reviews of Behe's book, and McWhorter who is an intelligent, well-read man had no idea, and simply assumed it was credible. How are laymen supposed to know? Shouldn't the public criticisms be louder?

Quoting HLeaf: The "ignore the fringe" arguments don't make much sense to me as long as the fringe - like Behe - is able to get books published. Isn't the fact that McWhorter read his book and didn't know it had been refuted multiple times evidence to the fact that Behe hadn't been criticized enough? There were multiple dismantling reviews of Behe's book, and McWhorter who is an intelligent, well-read man had no idea, and simply assumed it was credible. How are laymen supposed to know? Shouldn't the public criticisms be louder?

If McWhorter had managed to stay ignorant of the criticism of Behe as long as he did, what makes you think having Behe on Bh.tv would have changed that? And meanwhile, the IDiots get to crow about being invited to another (usually) respectable forum.

Bob, Several points: 1) First, if Darwinists want to portray themselves as Spock-like scientists interested only in truth, facts, and science (as opposed to those c-r-a-z-y ID types) then they'd better start telling us layman why they are right - and the ID types are wrong. Telling us that "Its just too complicated" or "We don't want to give them credibility" or "It'd just be too boring" is bullshit. Why do you think John W. had the Divalog with Behe? 2) We need a Divalog that lays out the flaws in Darwinian theory and the counter-arguments. And it'd be nice if the Diavlog actually focused on the science as opposed a lot political/religious crap. I'm tired of listening to English majors and journalists with an ax to grind propagandize for Darwin. Propaganda isn't SCIENCE and I don't give a crap whether the facts and science support the "Fundies" or the "God-haters". 3) So, quit trying to suppress debate to "Protect us" or because your worried "we won't understand the truth". The constant refusal to debate and ad hominen attacks on Darwinian critics simply convinces open-minded people that Darwinist Evolution isn't really science but the same sort of nonsense that

Quoting rcocean: ... convinces open-minded people that Darwinist Evolution isn't really science but the same sort of nonsense that Freud-ism and Marxism were.

The mind reels. I guess "open-minded" here means "gets all of his information from wingnut blogs." Tell me, rcocean, how many biology courses have you taken?

I gave up on this diavlog after 25 minutes or so - who cares about Bob's psychological problems. Instead, I listened to the Behe piece. I make the following points: 1) 80% of Americans (and probably humans) disagree with evolution. As a person who has taught evo to college students, I can attest to that. 2) As per many Bh diavlogs, intentionality is a core human attitude. Thus, despite overwhelming evidence, evolution is and always will be a tough sell. 3) Telling people that they're a bunch of idiots is not usually good public relations. Specifically, George Johnson thinks anybody besides George Johnson is an idiot. He is thus a poor candidate for promoting an honest discussion of evolution (or anything). 4) John McWhorter was MUCH more successful (despite dropping the ball at the end). The reason was that he took Mr. Behe seriously enough, and then caught him in some essential contradictions. This works. The trick - gee, George should have learned this in kindergarten - is to take your adversary seriously. 5) Creationism is NOT the same as holocaust denial. The latter is a conspiracy theory. The former is a natural human attitude toward the world that one can unlearn only with great effort. 6) I think Bhtv should air intelligent people from

Quoting dankingbooks: I gave up on this diavlog after 25 minutes or so - who cares about Bob's psychological problems. Instead, I listened to the Behe piece.

I make the following points:

1) 80% of Americans (and probably humans) disagree with evolution. As a person who has taught evo to college students, I can attest to that.

As usual, what you attest to is at odds with the data. I gave up on your comment after that -- who cares what a misogynist has to say.

Hi BJ, Since you brought it up, my supposedly misogynistic book (an unfair characterization, but since you haven't read it, you wouldn't know) can be found a www.dankingbooks.com. Your data doesn't disprove any point that I made. Your data doesn't include India, or China, or the Middle East, or Africa - but rather a list of (mostly) smaller countries in Europe. In the event, I hope you're right - I strongly support evolution, and I hope it becomes widely accepted. I simply doubt the likelihood of that outcome. Beyond that, neither your data nor your mischaracterization of my book has any material bearing on my comment.

Quoting DenvilleSteve: It appears that little progress has been made in science in recent decades as democrats have come to dominate large institutions. NASA is seemingly doing nothing. We should be sending fleets of robots to Mars and the Moon. No super collider is active or planned in the US. Nuclear power, fusion reactors - nothing. Science is not developing new antibiotics, people are defenseless against a flu outbreak. Cancer still kills with certainty. The Earth is defenseless against asteroids and extreme solar events. People are increasingly illiterate in the sciences. I think the fault derives from the mindset of control freak democrats.

Honestly, sometimes I think you must be writing this stuff as a joke just to see if anyone will buy it. Also, can you please approach a topic without thrusting your political agenda into it? Seriously, the paragraph above has nothing to do with this diavlog.

Hi Brendan. Sure, I mean, that's fine too. Keep them off Bloggingheads on principle. The visceral horror of original sources can be useful, to find out for yourself just how whacked someone is. But it doesn't need to be on BH. I could imagine Will Wilkinson talking to Jeff Sharlet about The Family on here, (to take a variation on a theme of weird-Christians-with-influence) and over on the right side, there could be a link to a video taken at the Family's annual picnic or something, footage of believers, shot by believers. The context of the link makes it OK in that situation: "tread with care, you are about to be watching original sources for the purpose of fleshing out Sharlet's journalism." (I'm making it up - I don't think they actually linked to anything like that.) Or the BHers can just reference it once in conversation, like Horgan/Johnson briefly referencing antigravity without legitimizing that.

Quoting epiphanius: I am sorry indeed to hear of Carl Zimmer's decision not to return. I respect his integrity completely, but wish he would reconsider - I have learned more from him on Science Saturday than from any other single source I can think of.

This is a major loss.

Back to Buddhist camp, Bob! You seem to be harshing your own buzz with all the frantic verbalization. Remember to take some time for quiet breathing.

Bronze: To George for calling Bob's retreat "Buddhist Camp" as if Bob were a 9-year-old Cub Scout. Silver: George again for getting Bob to preemptively renounce the Templeton Prize (for his own good), while simultaneously making sure that everyone who never dreamed that Bob was angling for a Templeton Award now suspects that he is, was and forever will be. Gold: Bob for accepting responsibility for everything from Original Sin to the Rwanda genocide, while shifting blame to staff, creationists, McWhorter and the bad back.

Quoting dankingbooks: Hi BJ,

Since you brought it up, my supposedly misogynistic book (an unfair characterization, but since you haven't read it, you wouldn't know) can be found a www.dankingbooks.com.

I've read some of it, through Amazon. I was also referring to your history of comments on this forum.

Quoting dankingbooks: Your data doesn't disprove any point that I made.

You said in your previous post:

Quoting dankingbooks: 1) 80% of Americans (and probably humans) disagree with evolution. Your data doesn't include India, or China, or the Middle East, or Africa - but rather a list of (mostly) smaller countries in Europe.

The chart I linked to certainly shows your assertion about America to be incorrect -- about 40% don't believe in evolution, about 40% do, and the rest are "not sure." It also shows that your assertion is incorrect for more than thirty other countries, where the percentage of those who don't believe in evolution is lower than in the US in all but one case (Turkey). If you would like to start cherry-picking other data in the face of data you don't like, well, okay, but maybe you should, you know, go look at some data. For example, regarding China, India, and parts of Africa, as well as some other countries not listed in my previous reference

Quoting Wonderment: Gold: Bob for accepting responsibility for everything from Original Sin to the Rwanda genocide, while shifting blame to staff, creationists, McWhorter and the bad back.

I'm guessing you're speaking somewhat tongue-in-cheek here, but if not, I'm going to say that this seems unfair. Bob took responsibility under the "buck stops here" rule and, further, acknowledged responsibility for the problems caused by his having delegated authority without providing sufficient guidance. I would say the discussion related to the staff, etc., fell more under the heading of explanation.

DenvilleSteve,
are you for real?
Did you read the Science-page in your local newspaper in the past twenty years? Or does your local paper not have a Science-page once in a while? In that case, you should consider changing subscriptions. Cern, anyone? Mars, anyone? Nano-technology, anyone? Retroviral drugs? Your allegations are so absurd, that the theory must be true that you are just pulling our chain.

Quoting Wonderment: Gold: Bob for accepting responsibility for everything from Original Sin to the Rwanda genocide, while shifting blame to staff, creationists, McWhorter and the bad back.

Bullseye! So I had a policy (even a generalized Behe plan... as in let's get him), I have a policy and yet we may not apply a policy if it happens again. Except to say that I want to please 'em all... just not those that take a principled stand (goodbye Sean and Carl)... if it conflicts with my loose application of a general policy that may or may not factor into further editorial decisions. Hits baby, hits. Chaos theory, hang loose and don't hate on weeds. Bhtv boardroom meeting:
Bob: So does it look bad that we got Behe and then we disowned him and then we left McWhorter out to dry?

Staff: Well we credited the value of real scientists and the intelligence of our viewers. Then by removing the video, we gave Behe the boost he so cherishes. And now we have sufficiently muddied the waters so that no clear sense is possible. And people will choose sides according to their predilections anyway. Win/win baby.

Quoting dankingbooks: 2) As per many Bh diavlogs, intentionality is a core human attitude. Thus, despite overwhelming evidence, evolution is and always will be a tough sell.

4) John McWhorter was MUCH more successful (despite dropping the ball at the end). The reason was that he took Mr. Behe seriously enough, and then caught him in some essential contradictions. This works. The trick - gee, George should have learned this in kindergarten - is to take your adversary seriously.

5) Creationism is NOT the same as holocaust denial. The latter is a conspiracy theory. The former is a natural human attitude toward the world that one can unlearn only with great effort.

6) I think Bhtv should air intelligent people from all sides of the debate. And nobody - not even George Johnson - is the arbiter of the limits of scientific discussion.

7) I don't care if these shows happen on Saturday or not. I don't care if Bob lies awake all night and gets angry e-mails. I do think it is important that Behe, et. al, be shown for what they are: theologians, but not scientists.

Bottom line: air the dirty laundry. It smells better afterwards.

Excellent points! I have omitted a few to save space, but they are all worth taking seriously. I think it would be

Quoting rcocean: Bob,

Several points:

1) First, if Darwinists want to portray themselves as Spock-like scientists interested only in truth, facts, and science...

Hey RC, thoughtful stuff. And interesting, also that Darwin himself left the door open to the creator. I don't understand the problem people have with the ID
(and other creationist) debate as though the airwaves shouldn't be polluted with such talk. As you say and others have said, there are lots of people who remain on the fence about the subject and may not be as informed about the debate as they should be. Discussions will give those folks an opportunity to weigh things for themselves.

Osinium said:
Am I ignoring the "legitmacy" argument? And if so, why don't we work on changing that perception--that simple appearance makes something legitmate? Because it doesn't.
Long rambly post, sorry. Just thinking out loud. Yeah, but good. It would be good to understand what the peer review process is like and also why 'the literature' is such a bone crusher.
There seems to be a lack of consensus about these issues even amongst the comments.

Quoting Me&theboys: IMO, that's because most people either have not actually thought about it or have but are too unwilling to accept the implications of that thought (e.g., that it takes a lot of proactive, thoughtfully considered energy to make this life meaningful). So much easier to sit around squandering or bemoaning this one waiting for the greener grass in the next one. What could make life on earth less meaningful than the idea that it's just a crappy holding cell on the way to something better (or infinitely and eternally worse, if you've been so foolish as to choose the wrong dogma)?

Well yes, but also people do seem to have a predilection to believe in an afterlife. This features so heavily in human history it has to be deeply ingrained at the physical level. This brings up the idea of intentionality which is always present and seems to be one of the ways humans and other animals have relied on to survive.

Quoting Unit: I don't really understand what "atheist" means, or "god" for that matter. My level of understanding is this area is very limited. My definition of "transcendent" is reduced to "counterfactual". This is something I can grasp: every action could have taken different paths and generated parallel histories.

Well if you don't understand god then you wouldn't understand athiest. What you describe, I think is the essence of evolution....that all of this you see could have gone another way, possibly, but didn't because of....what?chance?

Quoting Lyle: Praise Jesus!

troll! troll!

Quoting HLeaf: The "ignore the fringe" arguments don't make much sense to me as long as the fringe - like Behe - is able to get books published. Isn't the fact that McWhorter read his book and didn't know it had been refuted multiple times evidence to the fact that Behe hadn't been criticized enough? There were multiple dismantling reviews of Behe's book, and McWhorter who is an intelligent, well-read man had no idea, and simply assumed it was credible. How are laymen supposed to know? Shouldn't the public criticisms be louder?

I think you've pegged McWhorter incorrectly. What if, as I think based on his comments on the diavlog, McWhorter was fully aware of the criticisms and was unable/unwilling to accept their implications? I think this describes much of the believing public. They're not really that stupid - they just ignore and deny inconvenient and/or undesirable facts. In which case, having Behe on bhtv with an informed interlocuter does nothing to disuade such people that creationism and ID are wrong but does give a varnish of legitimacy to creationism and ID, and having Behe on bhtv with a sympathetic interlocutor simply reinforces such people's original

I haven't seen the Behe interview, but did watch Nelson/Numbers. I thought that given Nelson described himself as an agnostic, he did a fine job of disputing Numbers when he saw a conflict with good science or rational ways of thinking. He is just a quiet guy! The problem with agnosticism is that it still admits the possibility that a creator exists but doesn't dabble in the details and may still be on the lookout for a rationale for believing in the almighty.

Quoting Me&theboys: I think you've pegged McWhorter incorrectly. What if, as I think based on his comments on the diavlog, McWhorter was fully aware of the criticisms and was unable/unwilling to accept their implications? I think this describes much of the believing public. They're not really that stupid - they just ignore and deny inconvenient and/or undesirable facts. In which case, having Behe on bhtv with an informed interlocuter does nothing to disuade such people that creationism and ID are wrong but does give a varnish of legitimacy to creationism and ID, and having Behe on bhtv with a sympathetic interlocutor simply reinforces such people's original positions. It's a zero-summ game with id and creationism on the winning side every time.

I pretty much agree with the above.

As PZ Myers said, "You can't use reason to talk someone out of a position they didn't use reason to arrive at." Anyone who is truly curious about the issue does not need to wait for bhtv to have a diavlog in order to become educated about the issue and make up their mind.

This is a very important point. But instead of using this argument

Quoting badhatharry: The problem with agnosticism is that it still admits the possibility that a creator exists but doesn't dabble in the details and may still be on the lookout for a rationale for believing in the almighty.

Whose agnosticism is that? For what I know, agnosticism is an acknowledgment that the more abstract conceptions of a god may not be accessible to scientific inquiry, and therefore the possibility --whether remote or not may vary-- cannot be denied. I think that the original idea of agnosticism stemmed from atheistic-agnosticism. But there are religious agnostics who, although they are religious, they realize there is no way of proving their belief and maintain an ultimately agnostic position. Britannica has a nice summary.

I'm certainly in favor of Bob consistently implementing any editorial policy he chooses. However, I doubt any sin committed in a past life justifies accepting this kind of abuse from mainstream reporters not wanting to "associate" themselves with his "publication." The NYT's science section is very well written, but the treatment elsewhere in the paper of hot topics like global warming and string theory can be very sloppy. And if they want to be fussy about softball fluff across the NYT, they should consider articles on Bernadine Dohrn's cookie recipes and the like. Of course, they're entitled to publish/appear where they like, but they shouldn't fool themselves: the editorial quality of old and new media are converging, and it's not just because new is getting better. Gambatte, Bob!

Quoting Ocean: Whose agnosticism is that?

For what I know, agnosticism is an acknowledgment that the more abstract conceptions of a god may not be accessible to scientific inquiry, and therefore the possibility --whether remote or not may vary-- cannot be denied.

I think that the original idea of agnosticism stemmed from atheistic-agnosticism. But there are religious agnostics who, although they are religious, they realize there is no way of proving their belief and maintain an ultimately agnostic position. Britannica has a nice summary.

Yes, and interestingly Huxley was a friend of Darwin's. I guess I just find it hard to understand that people are actually in such a suspended state. It would seem that on this issue, one would be wanting to make a decision other than "I don't know".
Of course there will be things we will never know and things we can't ever know. But it also seems that one first must admit the possibility and therefore some belief in God to say that we can't ever know.

Quoting Wonderment: Bronze: To George for calling Bob's retreat "Buddhist Camp" as if Bob were a 9-year-old Cub Scout.

Silver: George again for getting Bob to preemptively renounce the Templeton Prize (for his own good), while simultaneously making sure that everyone who never dreamed that Bob was angling for a Templeton Award now suspects that he is, was and forever will be.

Gold: Bob for accepting responsibility for everything from Original Sin to the Rwanda genocide, while shifting blame to staff, creationists, McWhorter and the bad back.

Seek Peace and Pursue it

Quoting Namazu: I'm certainly in favor of Bob consistently implementing any editorial policy he chooses. However, I doubt any sin committed in a past life justifies accepting this kind of abuse from mainstream reporters not wanting to "associate" themselves with his "publication." The NYT's science section is very well written, but the treatment elsewhere in the paper of hot topics like global warming and string theory can be very sloppy. And if they want to be fussy about softball fluff across the NYT, they should consider articles on Bernadine Dohrn's cookie recipes and the like. Of course, they're entitled to publish/appear where they like, but they shouldn't fool themselves: the editorial quality of old and new media are converging, and it's not just because new is getting better. Gambatte, Bob!

Well said. This tempest in a teapot will result in everyone coming out ahead. In the short run, I think Carl and Sean will be considering their bottom lines, and even ERV, the Impetuous One, will have increased her exposure. Bob should send her flowers and have her on to smooth her ruffled feathers. Heh. As a pretty savvy poster recently said, "It's all good."

Quoting badhatharry: Of course there will be things we will never know and things we can't ever know. But it also seems that one first must admit the possibility and therefore some belief in God to say that we can't ever know.

....which is why the conversation between Numbers and Nelson may not have been as rigorous as some had hoped for. From what I have seen the conversations between IDers and others have been more centered around the possibility of a creator and what it might look like if there is/was in fact a creator.
If you want a really interesting discussion, I suggest pitting a young earther against a geologist. That would be a purely scientific discussion.

Quoting Kandigol: DenvilleSteve,
are you for real?
Did you read the Science-page in your local newspaper in the past twenty years? Or does your local paper not have a Science-page once in a while? In that case, you should consider changing subscriptions.

Cern, anyone? Mars, anyone? Nano-technology, anyone? Retroviral drugs?

Your allegations are so absurd, that the theory must be true that you are just pulling our chain.

Behe, who is an excellent teacher, great at explaining the details of his branch of knowledge, is run out of the science community by the establishment. Republican types are put off by the excessive reliance on rules and procedure that democrats engage in. I think the US science community suffers from their absence. How ridiculous for Zimmer and Carroll to demand that other diavloggers teach science a certain way. Where are the antibiotics and antivirals people need to defeat disease? You mention Cern, a.) that thing is still not working and b.) why is there not a competing American version? Regarding Mars, when are the follow up explorations going to launch? We should be sending a fleet of robots to that planet, build a nuclear power plant there to provide the power the robots need. Find out

Quoting badhatharry: Osinium said:
Am I ignoring the "legitmacy" argument? And if so, why don't we work on changing that perception--that simple appearance makes something legitmate? Because it doesn't.
Long rambly post, sorry. Just thinking out loud.

Yeah, but good. It would be good to understand what the peer review process is like and also why 'the literature' is such a bone crusher.
There seems to be a lack of consensus about these issues even amongst the comments.

I don't follow that last sentence. Except for taking note of the lack of general success Behe&Co have had achieving a body of peer reviewed work, and what that seems to imply about the quality of their work, I haven't noticed much discussion on the topic.

Quoting Wonderment: Bronze: To George for calling Bob's retreat "Buddhist Camp" as if Bob were a 9-year-old Cub Scout.

Silver: George again for getting Bob to preemptively renounce the Templeton Prize (for his own good), while simultaneously making sure that everyone who never dreamed that Bob was angling for a Templeton Award now suspects that he is, was and forever will be.

Gold: Bob for accepting responsibility for everything from Original Sin to the Rwanda genocide, while shifting blame to staff, creationists, McWhorter and the bad back.

Ouchie-wawa.

Quoting badhatharry: ....which is why the conversation between Numbers and Nelson may not have been as rigorous as some had hoped for. From what I have seen the conversations between IDers and others have been more centered around the possibility of a creator and what it might look like if there is/was in fact a creator.
If you want a really interesting discussion, I suggest pitting a young earther against a geologist. That would be a purely scientific discussion.

That's a pretty good suggestion.

Quoting AemJeff: That's a pretty good suggestion.

It is.

Quoting AemJeff: I don't follow that last sentence. Except for taking note of the lack of general success Behe&Co have had achieving a body of peer reviewed work, and what that seems to imply about the quality of their work, I haven't noticed much discussion on the topic.

agreed, not too clear.
Maybe what I am saying is that we all (or some of us) may need a little lesson in what the peer review process looks like. That could be a Science Saturday, couldn't it?

Quoting badhatharry: agreed, not too clear.
Maybe what I am saying is that we all (or some of us) may need a little lesson in what the peer review process looks like. That could be a Science Saturday, couldn't it?

That's another excellent idea. Harry's on a roll!

Quoting mattcbrown: Honestly, sometimes I think you must be writing this stuff as a joke just to see if anyone will buy it.

Also, can you please approach a topic without thrusting your political agenda into it? Seriously, the paragraph above has nothing to do with this diavlog.

Zimmer, Carroll, Johnston and Horgan are not political? Where is the discussion of global warming lately? Liberal scientists don't want to discuss it because evidence is showing that the sun has something to do with global warming ( duh! ). Behe does a great job of explaining science to his audience because he does not condescend to people. ( He is also very learned and a gifted communicator. ) Liberals in politics seem the same to me as the liberals in academia. In both settings the liberals talk down to their audience and attempt to limit the terms of the discussion and debate. Zimmer and Carroll insist that Behe not be allowed to communicate his ideas and knowledge on BHTV. How absurd.

Quoting badhatharry: I guess I just find it hard to understand that people are actually in such a suspended state. It would seem that on this issue, one would be wanting to make a decision other than "I don't know".

Wanting to make a decision, sure. But, if you realize that you don't have all the solid evidence to make up your mind one way or the other, what do you do? Flip a coin? Decide on one by using what criteria? There is a decision being made in practice, in action. Do you consider yourself agnostic but go to church? Or pray? Or none of that? Do you ignore the topic completely? That's the only level at which I can see there is more than a wanting but a need to make a pragmatic decision as to how you are going to live your life.

Of course there will be things we will never know and things we can't ever know. But it also seems that one first must admit the possibility and therefore some belief in God to say that we can't ever know.

You suggest that the possibility implies some form of

Quoting look: It is.

wow! someone tell Bob!!!

Why pick on creationists? They are far from the only people who oppose evolutionary theory. Many feminists (the PC sort, who believe in the social construction of gender) subscribe to a theory that has even less merit than intelligent design. The standard model of social science (e.g., Franz Boaz and descendants) who believe that individuals are created (mostly) by their culture, make statements in direct conflict of evoPsych. Freudians famously have no place in their scheme for evolution. Neither do Marxists. Indeed, most modern sociologists, old-school psychologists, and lefty economists are adamantly opposed to any evoPsych, or indeed, any application of evolution to human behavior. On this very page (BJKeefe's comment) I've been accused of being a misogynist - a charge that only makes sense if evolutionary psychology is "misogynist". BJ confuses misogyny with political incorrectness - a false equation. (Or put another way, anybody who disagrees with BJ is a misogynist.) All these people show up on Bhtv - and nobody objects. I don't object, either. But then why all the hubbub about creationism - it's no worse than any of this other crap.

Quoting mvantony: Jennifer Ouellette chimes in here.

Thanks for the link. Great post, and a great xkcd cartoon. I was happy to see her make the same point I have been trying to make about the difference between science and politics. And did you notice the link to Phil Plait's post? Looks like we lost another one.

not to belabor the point...The possibility of the existence of a god is present in all cultures, there is no way around it.
I agree wholeheartedly with this, in part. It does exist in all cultures. However, there is a way around it if you believe that our belief systems are subject to change. It would seem that science and the understanding of how the earth/universe was actually formed will begin to change those deep seated beliefs.
Those beliefs were formed, perhaps not because the possibility actually exists, but as an explanation of the world, which the ancients had no real way of explaining.

Quoting mvantony: Jennifer Ouellette chimes in here.

These establishment science journalists really are full of themselves. Here is another one who says he will not do BHTV again and throws in disparaging remarks about those who simply ask for the chosen one's birth certificate:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...apo-non-grata/ FWIW, the science presented by Ouellette, Carroll, Zimmer, Horgan and whatever the name of this latest discussion blocker is, has not been very interesting or informative. I learned much more science reading Behe than listening to this bunch.

Quoting dankingbooks: Why pick on creationists? They are far from the only people who oppose evolutionary theory.

Many feminists (the PC sort, who believe in the social construction of gender) subscribe to a theory that has even less merit than intelligent design.

The standard model of social science (e.g., Franz Boaz and descendants) who believe that individuals are created (mostly) by their culture, make statements in direct conflict of evoPsych.

Freudians famously have no place in their scheme for evolution. Neither do Marxists.

Indeed, most modern sociologists, old-school psychologists, and lefty economists are adamantly opposed to any evoPsych, or indeed, any application of evolution to human behavior.

On this very page (BJKeefe's comment) I've been accused of being a misogynist - a charge that only makes sense if evolutionary psychology is "misogynist". BJ confuses misogyny with political incorrectness - a false equation. (Or put another way, anybody who disagrees with BJ is a misogynist.)

All these people show up on Bhtv - and nobody objects. I don't object, either. But then why all the hubbub about creationism - it's no worse than any of this other crap.

Hear!Hear! or is it Here! Here!
Although I would say that some evopsychologists have marxist leanings, in that they believe that human nature is something

Quoting bjkeefe: Thanks for the link. Great post, and a great xkcd cartoon.

I was happy to see her make the same point I have been trying to make about the difference between science and politics.

And did you notice the link to Phil Plait's post? Looks like we lost another one.

we? There must be enough of the secessionists to establish a quorom by now. You should go join them and have video discussions amoungst yourselves.

Quoting badhatharry: Hear!Hear! or is it Here! Here!
Although I would say that some evopsychologists have marxist leanings, in that they believe that human nature is something which could do with some changing. Gould, for instance...an ongoing debate.
The Blank Slate by Pinker does a phenomenal job of spelling out the modern denial of human nature.

You're going to have back that up. What exactly did Gould say?

Quoting badhatharry: not to belabor the point...The possibility of the existence of a god is present in all cultures, there is no way around it.
I agree wholeheartedly with this, in part. It does exist in all cultures. However, there is a way around it if you believe that our belief systems are subject to change. It would seem that science and the understanding of how the earth/universe was actually formed will begin to change those deep seated beliefs.
Those beliefs were formed, perhaps not because the possibility actually exists, but as an explanation of the world, which the ancients had no real way of explaining.

I have written about this topic in the past and I didn't want to go on and on. But, I'd like to make clear what I meant in my previous comment. I mentioned that religious beliefs exist in all cultures as a statement of fact. I made no statements about why they exist, or whether they can change or not. As a matter of fact, I tend to agree with your statement, at least partly, that religious belief may have originated in an attempt to explain natural phenomena, create an illusion of having some control

Quoting dankingbooks: Why pick on creationists? They are far from the only people who oppose evolutionary theory.

Many feminists (the PC sort, who believe in the social construction of gender) subscribe to a theory that has even less merit than intelligent design.

The standard model of social science (e.g., Franz Boaz and descendants) who believe that individuals are created (mostly) by their culture, make statements in direct conflict of evoPsych.

Freudians famously have no place in their scheme for evolution. Neither do Marxists.

Indeed, most modern sociologists, old-school psychologists, and lefty economists are adamantly opposed to any evoPsych, or indeed, any application of evolution to human behavior.

On this very page (BJKeefe's comment) I've been accused of being a misogynist - a charge that only makes sense if evolutionary psychology is "misogynist". BJ confuses misogyny with political incorrectness - a false equation. (Or put another way, anybody who disagrees with BJ is a misogynist.)

All these people show up on Bhtv - and nobody objects. I don't object, either. But then why all the hubbub about creationism - it's no worse than any of this other crap.

This is an interesting point but I think you exaggerate the Bhtv's tolerance for "bullshit." Bhtv has never, at least since I have been

Quoting DenvilleSteve: we? There must be enough of the secessionists to establish a quorom by now. You should go join them and have video discussions amoungst yourselves.

I understand how you think of everything in terms of your secessionist fantasy, but by "we" in "we lost another one" I meant "the Bloggingheads.tv community."

Quoting bjkeefe: I understand how you think of everything in terms of your secessionist fantasy, but by "we" in "we lost another one" I meant "the Bloggingheads.tv community."

It is your people who are seceding from BHTV. Why does this not compute in your view? I say good riddance to the petty bunch. They had a great forum to teach science and failed because they do not have Behe like communication skills.

Quoting claymisher: You're going to have back that up. What exactly did Gould say?

Lot's of stuff, of as an example: " The reason for the recurrence of these determinist theories is that they consistently tend to provide genetic justification of the status quo and existing privileges for certain groups according to class, race or sex.....These theories provided an important basis for the enactment of sterilization laws....and for eugenics policies.

What Wilson's book illustrates is the enourmous difficulty in separating out not only the effects of environment (cultural transmission) but also the personal and social class prejudices of the researcher.....Wilson joins the long parade of biological determinists whose work has served to buttress the institutions of their society by exonerating them from responsibility for social problems. If you want to know more about the marxist connection, you'll have to give me a bit more time. But this is a good representation of his views an nurture/nature. Ironically, this goes back to our argument a few months ago when evo psychologists were (eroneously, I think) described as good, progressive, liberal democrats. Aparently they weren't including E.O.Wilson.

Quoting badhatharry: Well if you don't understand god then you wouldn't understand athiest. What you describe, I think is the essence of evolution....that all of this you see could have gone another way, possibly, but didn't because of....what?chance?

What is your definition of God?

Quoting DenvilleSteve: It is your people ...

I'm honored to be thought of as being in the same group as Sean Carroll, Carl Zimmer, and Phil Plait. Even -- maybe especially would be better -- by someone like you.

Quoting badhatharry: Osinium said:
Am I ignoring the "legitmacy" argument? And if so, why don't we work on changing that perception--that simple appearance makes something legitmate? Because it doesn't.
Long rambly post, sorry. Just thinking out loud.

Yeah, but good. It would be good to understand what the peer review process is like and also why 'the literature' is such a bone crusher.
There seems to be a lack of consensus about these issues even amongst the comments.

Yeah, bone-crusher is a bad metaphor, but I think I was trying to be non-cliche and avoid saying "crucible." But really that's what I mean. Maybe I feel something off in Carl and Sean's response. Like, I think the pairing with McWhorter was terrible, and that is something to criticize, but the very appearance of Behe doesn't feel offensive to me. Like, BhTV is a crucible, so put him in it, let him take his lumps. The problem is that McWhorter wasn't up to it. Which isn't his fault, necessarily. Just a fact.

Quoting badhatharry: Lot's of stuff, of as an example:

" The reason for the recurrence of these determinist theories is that they consistently tend to provide genetic justification of the status quo and existing privileges for certain groups according to class, race or sex.....These theories provided an important basis for the enactment of sterilization laws....and for eugenics policies.

What Wilson's book illustrates is the enourmous difficulty in separating out not only the effects of environment (cultural transmission) but also the personal and social class prejudices of the researcher.....Wilson joins the long parade of biological determinists whose work has served to buttress the institutions of their society by exonerating them from responsibility for social problems.

If you want to know more about the marxist connection, you'll have to give me a bit more time. But this is a good representation of his views an nurture/nature.

Ironically, this goes back to our argument a few months ago when evo psychologists were (eroneously, I think) described as good, progressive, liberal democrats. Aparently they weren't including E.O.Wilson.

You failed to back up your previous statement -- "Although I would say that some evopsychologists have marxist leanings, in

Hits baby, hits.

A cynic might think that even as we speak the cameras are being set up for a mano-a-mano between the blogger who thinks the only way to get a gang of men's (has anyone noticed the gender of all the players in this?) attention is by talking about blowjobs and Satan Behe himself.

Seek Peace and Pursue it

Speak truth to power.

Quoting badhatharry: agreed, not too clear.
Maybe what I am saying is that we all (or some of us) may need a little lesson in what the peer review process looks like. That could be a Science Saturday, couldn't it?

My conception is that peer-review is to keep out incorrect facts, careless mistakes, math errors, and amateurs not up to snuff. Also to help re-organize badly-presented ideas. Sometimes, though, peer-review becomes an obstacle course when someone whose work you are challenging reviews the paper. Generally they will behave responsibly and say they think you're wrong but that it's fine. But, if they are a jerk, they might put up strong resistance and try to force you to put your work in a 'lower' journal. I'm young, so I get reviewed more than I review. Ergo my POV is limited. I've recommended several papers be rejected, but it is always because they haven't done enough work to justify a paper yet. What I am trying to decide: is BhTV analogous to the scientific literature? I mean, it is a dialectic process. And by extension, the mere presence of a 'crackpot' will not hurt anything.

Quoting badhatharry: That could be a Science Saturday, couldn't it?

Yeah! Have a young researcher and a more established one talk about it. Like that girl with a blog who's a grad student and the dude who sequenced the genome. (I don't remember anyone's name.) Not cosmologists, physicists, etc, though, would be my recommendation. Something more nutsy-boltsy. Like genomoics. Bio. That's hot, has a lot of activity, is probably more typical of science.

Quoting bjkeefe: (If you're talking about a different post from Carl, of course, the above does not apply, and please give a link to the post you have in mind.)

Is this really true? I can't think that I've ever heard that about the scientific literature. The whole idea is that the peer-review system is the protection. I grant there are complaints about the details of the implementation; e.g., unqualified reviewers, the anonymity of reviewers, the credibility of a given journal's editor, etc., but I'm unaware of the worry you describe.

Yeah, that's it. Mmm, maybe that's what I'm getting at: the peer-review system is not the protection. It is the first bar, but that bar should be low. The process of the literature itself is the protection. I mean, I'm not saying publish every piece of shit available. But things that have a point, obey the conventions, and are of at least minor interest and attempt to engage: these things have their place. The real protection is the fact that citations matter. Getting in print is not the goal. Changing minds is the goal. And I am maybe drawing a debatable parallel: being on BhTV is not the goal. Changing minds is. Having your idea go viral. Not having the circus

Quoting osmium: Yeah, that's it.

Mmm, maybe that's what I'm getting at: the peer-review system is not the protection. It is the first bar, but that bar should be low. The process of the literature itself is the protection.

I mean, I'm not saying publish every piece of shit available. But things that have a point, obey the conventions, and are of at least minor interest and attempt to engage: these things have their place. [...]

As I understand it, material published in the peer-reviewed literature is generally supposed to be new work -- new research, new syntheses, or at least new hypotheses drawn from meta-analysis. It's supposed to be the cutting edge. Seems to me that just "having a point" and "attempting to engage" aren't sufficient. Such arguments could of course be published elsewhere. However, I don't really know the policy details of the whole peer-review world.

And this is the obvious counter to what I'm saying. But it feels wrong to me to alter the scientific process, which should allow for all challenges, for what I think amount to political reasons.

First, there are always political considerations. I think the cartoon in JO's post that mvantony linked to makes the point well enough. Second, how many times do we have

Quoting bjkeefe: As I understand it, material published in the peer-reviewed literature is generally supposed to be new work -- new research, new syntheses, or at least new hypotheses drawn from meta-analysis. It's supposed to be the cutting edge. Seems to me that just "having a point" and "attempting to engage" aren't sufficient. Such arguments could of course be published elsewhere.

In theory, yes, but I don't think there's a hard line separating cutting edge from non. And a legit challenge to something is always fair. That's what I mean by having a point, I guess. Now I'm suffering from not knowing what Behe exactly publishes. I suspect it is not totally drool-on-the-chin raving nonsense. (If it is, I take it back.) I think he's trying to analytically prove that random processes can't result in certain complex systems. So I guess here's the brass tacks: is he saying something that's been thoroughly gone over and digested and been done with? If so, then yeah, the reviewer or editor should say, "[someone's name] directly addressed this and proved it not to be the case," end of story, rejection. However, if it's a new perspective, then it's fair. And if his idea is easy to counter, and someone does, then it means he was at the cutting edge, he

A few random thoughts about today's Bloggingheads: For at least 45 minutes, George gave Bob for free what most clients have to pay $150/hr. to a therapist. I thought George was magnificent and Bob was a great client. Bob after being in Buddha-camp incommunicado for a week should have realized what every paranoid Italian (like me) knows, which is let down your guard and relax and in due time all hell will break loose. Bob also seems to be feeling excessive pangs of guilt about all this brouhaha and I wonder, just wonder mind you, if there's some excessive guilt springing from a fear of success with all the wonderful publicity he's earned regarding his latest book, still 126th in sales at Amazon.com this minute! Finally, if there's anyone still reading, I have to disagree with you, Bob, regarding through a higher entity setting up the blueprint of natural selection “intelligent design” (my words, not yours) of living organisms. It seems to me (similar to Gould's Panda's Thumb) that there is the “un-intelligent design” of organisms. An organism is not like a watch in any way in terms of the simplicity of form over function. It was demonstrated to

Quoting Ocean:
Can we send a letter (or electronic substitute) to Carl and Sean and tell them we want them back? It looks like George could also mediate diplomatically.

I actually went looking a bit for Sean's email address, to send a brief, polite message that I wish he would come back. I didn't immediately find it. I would participate in any joint effort. (Sean, please!) Carl, ditto. Please!

PS Bob says in there somewhere that intelligence is a likely result of natural selection. This is not true. Rather, I believe no one knows. This is what Gould would say, and is a debated point. Seems like that point comes up in the Dennett interview, too, but I'm not sure. Complexity of some kind is likely, e.g. skunks are likely, but intelligence could be unique. Or, a dime a dozen.

Osmium, I have never understood this sentiment that there is any reason to think that intelligence would be different than any other attribute. We see varying levels of intelligence in different species, all the time. Whether it's slugs, ants, dogs, dolphins or primates. We see variation in brain size between species and growth and development of brains within the species over time via fossil records. We even see on a microscopic levels, things like E-coli evolve adaptive behaviors that almost would appear to be "intelligent" when viewed from the right lens. We can also see the connections between the functionality or dysfunction of human brains on the level of intelligence or retardation of an individual's mental acuity. The brain is an organ that seems directly tied to intelligence. If natural selection

Quoting uncle ebeneezer: Osmium, I have never understood this sentiment that there is any reason to think that intelligence would be different than any other attribute. We see varying levels of intelligence in different species, all the time. Whether it's slugs, ants, dogs, dolphins or primates. We see variation in brain size between species and growth and development of brains within the species over time via fossil records. We even see on a microscopic levels, things like E-coli evolve adaptive behaviors that almost would appear to be "intelligent" when viewed from the right lens. We can also see the connections between the functionality or dysfunction of human brains on the level of intelligence or retardation of an individual's mental acuity.

The brain is an organ that seems directly tied to intelligence. If natural selection can design a stronger muscle, a more efficient heart, a complex immune system, sonar vision, acoustic hearing, etc., why would the brain be any different with regards to what it does, ie: think? I'm not that familiar with arguments about intelligence, so I'm asking honestly out of curiosity. To me, the connection between brain evolution and intelligence seems like um...a no brainer (sorry I couldn't resist;-)

I'm not

Quoting osmium: I actually went looking a bit for Sean's email address, to send a brief, polite message that I wish he would come back. I didn't immediately find it. I would participate in any joint effort. (Sean, please!) Carl, ditto. Please!

I left a comment in Sean's blog and I'll do the same in Carl's. Better late than never...

) Creationism is NOT the same as holocaust denial. The latter is a conspiracy theory. The former is a natural human attitude toward the world that one can unlearn only with great effort. It is not that hard. For me all it took was about three weeks of biology 101 as a freshman in collage. That is why I don't understand the hysteria about science teaching in high school. Sure it would be better if evolution were taught. But learning about the scientific method, the classification of plants and animals, the life cycle of the frog or whatever, like I did, is not exactly a waste of time. I do not think this is ideal - evolution should be taught, but I think people should chill a little. It is not the end of the world if kids have to wait until the get to collage to learn about evolution.

So Claymisher...
I went on a hike and as soon as I got home I dug out a book of essays by Gould. The one I am focusing on is called Nurturing Nature.
In it he says:” The straw man set up to caricature biological determinism is cultural determinism or the tabula rasa in its pure form. Although biological determinists often like to intimate, for rhetorical effect, that their opponents hold such a view, no serious student of human behavior denies the potent influence of evolved biology upon our cultural lives. Our struggle is to figure out how biology affects us, not whether it does." This does sound quite reasonable and something I would agree with, but notice, if you would, how he describes “the other side”… biological determinist, and as you can see from the quote I presented before, biological determinism is a very dirty couple of words. I think one of the reasons I associated Gould with Marx is because he ends this essay with the Marxist idea: “philosophers thus far have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point however is to change it." But the other reason I have associated Gould with Marxism is that

Quoting osmium: In theory, yes, but I don't think there's a hard line separating cutting edge from non.

Sure. Just to name one aspect, some journals are more (less) prestigious than others, which means it's harder (easier) to get a paper published in them.

And a legit challenge to something is always fair. That's what I mean by having a point, I guess.

You'd have to be more specific than "legit challenge." My impression is that no reputable journal is going to publish a paper that amounts to saying, "I don't see how evolution can explain this -- it's too complicated."

Now I'm suffering from not knowing what Behe exactly publishes. I suspect it is not totally drool-on-the-chin raving nonsense. (If it is, I take it back.) I think he's trying to analytically prove that random processes can't result in certain complex systems. So I guess here's the brass tacks: is he saying something that's been thoroughly gone over and digested and been done with? If so, then yeah, the reviewer or editor should say, "[someone's name] directly addressed this and proved it not to be the case," end of story, rejection. However, if it's a new perspective, then it's fair.

As I noted a few posts ago, via Carl Zimmer: Behe has one (1) published paper to

If Bob had gone to this hardcore Buddhist boot camp instead of the yuppified version, he would have emerged a) a full 3 years after everyone forgot everything about the Behe/Sean/Carl controversy and b) enlightened (so he wouldn't give a shit even if someone remembered).
Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm LA Times today:

Reporting from Bowie, Ariz. - Deep in a remote desert valley, where rattlesnakes lurk in the scrub, Stéphane Dreyfus and several dozen other Buddhists are preparing to undergo a mind-altering journey:

Three years, three months and three days of silence.

There will be no word from the outside world in the Great Retreat, only the deafening quiet of rock and cactus, with seemingly endless time to ponder the emptiness of life.

Dreyfus and his fellow adherents hope to find enlightenment in the silence, a gift they plan to share when they emerge from their long seclusion.

A cynic might think

I'm nothing if not that.

Quoting Wonderment: ... that even as we speak the cameras are being set up for a mano-a-mano between the blogger who thinks the only way to get a gang of men's (has anyone noticed the gender of all the players in this?) attention is by talking about blowjobs and Satan Behe himself.

The nERVe of some people. bhtv... Crackpots considered... Roll tape.

Quoting bjkeefe: As I noted a few posts ago, via Carl Zimmer: Behe has one (1) published paper to his credit. It ran in a journal called Protein Science, it didn't mention ID, and it was promptly rebutted. See Carl's posts for links to the two abstracts.

Yesterday evening I looked at the rebuttal paper, Simple Evolutionary Pathways to Complex Proteins, by Michael Lynch. Seems fairly savage. I love it. And that's why the Behe and Snoke paper is nothing to fret about--because something nice and lethal and explicit followed it up, and probably always will. A true point: since Lynch seems to go at them pretty effectively, is this stuff that should have come up before the paper was accepted? I dunno. Another true point: I understand that your real objection is that Behe or the Discovery Institute point to the paper and say "Look at our paper! We are so smart!" But I think that is the fault of the general public and science education over the past generation, that people fall for that. Let's make the next generation understand these things a bit better, e.g. how the process works.

Quoting osmium: Yesterday evening I looked at the rebuttal paper, Simple Evolutionary Pathways to Complex Proteins, by Michael Lynch. Seems fairly savage. I love it. And that's why the Behe and Snoke paper is nothing to fret about--because something nice and lethal and explicit followed it up, and probably always will.

A true point: since Lynch seems to go at them pretty effectively, is this stuff that should have come up before the paper was accepted? I dunno.

On the surface of it, maybe, maybe not. On the one hand, it was a new computer model and/or new analysis based on that computer model, so how could anyone say without reproducing the work? On the other, Lynch was able to point to "all sorts of unwarranted assumptions about biology," according to Carl Zimmer, so it seems like the sort of thing a proper peer review process should have caught. But, ultimately, as far as the paper itself goes, it was published, shown not to be a useful contribution, end of story. There are thousands of papers like that, if not millions. However, as you acknowledge ...

Another true point: I understand that your real objection is that Behe or the Discovery Institute point to the paper and say "Look

Quoting bjkeefe: ... Behe, the Disco'tute, the larger ID PR machine, and Behe's acolytes haven't shut up about this paper since. "Michael Behe, Intelligent Design, peer-reviewed!" That's all they care about, and that's all most people ever learn, and that includes well-read and intelligent people like John McWhorter.

I am still head-scratching, because I thought linguists knew about this stuff. I guess I don't really know what the curriculum for a linguist is.

Quoting bjkeefe: ... I can only respond, again, that I welcome your suggestions for how we ought to go about doing this. Just saying "we should educate the public" isn't good enough in a situation like this, because it's not just a matter of getting the information out there. You also have to be aware that there are determined and well-funded groups looking to hamper those education efforts, and that's all they do, every damned day.

1. Science classes should not be thought of as hurdles and hoops by liberal arts students the world over. They are equal. Consilience, etc. Science is daily life. Science is all around you. [I'm saying how I would change the approach to science education.] 2. More of an education of how actual day-to-day science happens, i.e. the literature, introduced to young students. Helps to explain that a paper is not the unmitigated truth. 3. A culture where educated people are just as embarrassed

Quoting bjkeefe: ... I can only respond, again, that I welcome your suggestions for how we ought to go about doing this. Just saying "we should educate the public" isn't good enough in a situation like this, because it's not just a matter of getting the information out there. You also have to be aware that there are determined and well-funded groups looking to hamper those education efforts, and that's all they do, every damned day.

I agree with this point to the extent that we are dealing with a well funded non-science based effort to exploit peoples ignorance and superstitions to forward an essentially religious/political agenda. I now say to those who believe that the talking/debating/confronting IDsters ONLY gives them credibility, what should we do about these pesky scientists that DO talk/debate/confront creationists in all of their various guises ? Based on the responses in forums, the actions of scientists who won't be on BHTV ( not that there is anything wrong with that ), if you really want to stop IDsters from gaining attention how do you stop scientists and those interested in science from giving aid and comfort to the enemy so to speak ?

Quoting claymisher: You failed to back up your previous statement Gould wasn't an evopsychologist. He's the guy who wrote Against "Sociobiology. Read it. Tell me where he says people are blank slates.

I don't think I said he thought people were blank slates. And I said I needed a bit more time and I did present what might suffice last night as far as the marxist connection. You're right about Gould not being an evopsychologist (paleontologist, right?), so that in itself makes me wrong, but he was certainly interested in the subject and wrote an awful lot about it, probably in the same way Pinker who is a linguist writes about it. There seems to be some kind of scales out there with nature on one side and nurture on the other. It seems also that the academics are divided. Some want to put more weight on one side or the other, while at the same time agreeing that the interaction between the two is where the truth lies. It's teasing it apart that is the biggest problem.
And the two sides call each other names....biological deteminist!!! cultural determinist!!!!
BTW, by marxist, I mean the propensity for wanting

Meyers et al are political and scientists. That's their privilege. However, I'm surprised that they fail entirely to recognize that bhtv is a work in progress, not a finished product. The staff did their best to respond to viewer criticism. I thought both Creationist interviews useful; just as I think the criticism will ensure Bob and the staff do a better job next time. And I do hope Behe and others are invited back. I wonder how frequently Myer's own experiments blow-up in his face? Anyone imagine PZ gets it perfectly right; first time, every time? I doubt it. Scientists tweak and refine their efforts. All the scientists I know insist upon the right to get their work wrong, repeatedly; and still get funding and support. His decision to drop the hammer on Bob and bhtv after two unsuccessful efforts to conduct the creationist interviews betrays a vicious indifference to the problems inherent in trying to get any new project to work. Churlish and indefensible.

Quoting mvantony: Jennifer Ouellette chimes in here.

She makes an interesting point at the end. " But I remain uneasy in my mind, with lingering trepidation, and will be watching what happens on the site over the next few months. Maybe it's time for a new channel, in the interests of healthy competition. And it saddens me that I even have to write those words.
" Hopefully severing ties with BHTV might encourage either sean or carl or discover to come up with their own version or variation. If that is what it takes for a little non-zero-sum dynamic to occur then so be it.

Quoting mvantony: PZ Myers has now jumped ship too. Personally, these guys are looking a little bit silly to me. I left a post (#27) on Myers' blog Pharyngula.

move evidence to me that the left is bad for science. Just like Scientific American never held my interest, Science Saturday has frequently been disappointing.

Quoting thouartgob: She makes an interesting point at the end.

" But I remain uneasy in my mind, with lingering trepidation, and will be watching what happens on the site over the next few months. Maybe it's time for a new channel, in the interests of healthy competition. And it saddens me that I even have to write those words.

"Ca-ching!" I think it was also interesting that she, herself, did not withdraw from being a Head. She essentially takes her husband's side to the hilt, calls Bob an overlord, but doesn't take her marbles and go home. Jennifer and Sean are a charming couple, and I wish them well, however this plays out.

Quoting mvantony: PZ Myers has now jumped ship too. Personally, these guys are looking a little bit silly to me. I left a post (#27) on Myers' blog Pharyngula.

This is weak. Having a few diavlogs in which ID people/creationists/"crackpots" are paired with interlocutors who put them at ease has it's own benefits: it allows the individual to express him or herself freely, in a way that's entirely different from what would ensue if the person were defending against an unrelenting one-hour onslaught by someone who thinks they're vile scum. That's educationally highly valuable; and you, Sean, Carl, and Phil, seem to me to be a bit blind, frankly, if you don't see it. Bloggingheads of course should also pit creationists against strong knowledgable critics like yourself, and that they haven't done. Yet. But there's no reason on Earth to think that Bob Wright wouldn't happily do that, and wouldn't have happily done that even without your protest. In my opinion, you jumped too soon. That said, I highly value all of your contributions to BhTV, and hope you come back -- e.g., if Bob ensures that he'll also subject ID/creationist perspectives to the sort of criticism you wish it had been subjected to from the

Here is a proposal for addressing the issues discussed in this diavlog: Peer Review for Bloggingheads. Thanks for considering this.

Quoting osmium: I am still head-scratching, because I thought linguists knew about this stuff. I guess I don't really know what the curriculum for a linguist is.

??? Why would you think a linguist would know about biology? (Or creationism, for that matter?)

1. Science classes should not be thought of as hurdles and hoops by liberal arts students the world over. They are equal. Consilience, etc. Science is daily life. Science is all around you. [I'm saying how I would change the approach to science education.]

2. More of an education of how actual day-to-day science happens, i.e. the literature, introduced to young students. Helps to explain that a paper is not the unmitigated truth.

3. A culture where educated people are just as embarrassed to admit they've never read Origin of Species as they are to admit they've never read The Sound and the Fury.

3a. Full disclosure, I've never read Origin of Species.

4. More American youth going into science.

These are all good "oughts." I still am keen to hear how we actually implement them.

Quoting thouartgob: I agree with this point to the extent that we are dealing with a well funded non-science based effort to exploit peoples ignorance and superstitions to forward an essentially religious/political agenda. I now say to those who believe that the talking/debating/confronting IDsters ONLY gives them credibility, what should we do about these pesky scientists that DO talk/debate/confront creationists in all of their various guises ?

Based on the responses in forums, the actions of scientists who won't be on BHTV ( not that there is anything wrong with that ), if you really want to stop IDsters from gaining attention how do you stop scientists and those interested in science from giving aid and comfort to the enemy so to speak ?

I wouldn't advocate much beyond attempts to persuade -- "don't do that" or "don't do that again." While I am in the "do not engage" camp, I can still see the arguments that say it's better to defeat them head-to-head, or to "let people decide for themselves," or not to give the IDiots an excuse to whine about being "shut out of the debate." I think personal withdrawal* from affiliation can be a

Quoting mvantony: PZ Myers has now jumped ship too. Personally, these guys are looking a little bit silly to me. I left a post (#27) on Myers' blog Pharyngula.

Thanks for the heads up. As you probably already know, I disagree with you -- I can easily see their reasoning, and the only real thing I have against it is my own personal wish to be able to see these guys in diavlogs. You do make reasonable points in your comment over there, but I don't at all agree that "these guys are looking a little bit silly."

Three years, three months and three days of silence.

I guess three years, three months, and two days of silence won't cut it. Did you ever read _The Empty Mirror_? Dude never did figure out his koan.

Quoting bjkeefe: ???

Why would you think a linguist would know about biology? (Or creationism, for that matter?)

Languages evolve on the cultural (meme-y) level, and the hardware of language (gene-y) is a major topic in both evolutionary biology and linguistics (I thought). Darwin's Dangerous Idea has a huge section on Chomsky. I thought that even de Saussure style structuralist studies would certainly have a wing dealing with cultural evolution of how language units connect to things and concepts; AND I assumed that this wing would be mathematical and rigorous. I might have made ALL THAT UP. I mean, it just seems obvious too me. How about a science saturday where Dan Dennett interviews John McWhorter about just what the hell a linguist does. Like, I would watch that.

Quoting bjkeefe: These are all good "oughts." I still am keen to hear how we actually implement them.

Make it to where science is just as cool as Shakespeare studies. I do not think there is any one obvious thing to do, except maybe have scientists stay with BhTV instead of packing up and going home. (See my post on Greg Laden's blog.) Maybe I am being a drama queen, but on your average campus, science is just not cool. It may not be

Quoting kidneystones: And I do hope Behe and others are invited back.

That blows whatever credibility the rest of your post might have had. If you can't acknowledge what a charlatan Behe is, then either you simply haven't looked into his background and the reams of proper scientific criticism that's been published about him, or you're being political yourself. Based on your history on this site, I'm inclined to think the latter is part of it, independent of the former -- you're basically just, once again, adopting the position that is the most annoying one you can think of. Behe has been shown -- many, many times -- not to be a scientist, and not even to be honest. You don't give a guy like that repeat chances under the guise of Bh.tv being a work in progress. If you're sincere about that last bit, then you acknowledge Behe was a dreadful mistake and vow not to make it again.

Quoting kidneystones: Meyers et al are political and scientists. That's their privilege. However, I'm surprised that they fail entirely to recognize that bhtv is a work in progress, not a finished product.

The staff did their best to respond to viewer criticism. I thought the both Creationist interviews useful; just as I think the criticism will ensure Bob and the staff do a better job next time. And I do hope Behe and others are invited back.

I wonder how frequently Myer's own experiments blow-up in his face? Anyone imagine PZ gets it perfectly right; first time, every time? I doubt it. Scientists tweak and refine their efforts. All the scientists I know insist upon the right to get their work wrong, repeatedly, and still get funding and support.

His decision to drop the hammer on Bob and bhtv after two unsuccessful efforts to conduct the creationist interviews betrays a vicious indifference to the problems inherent in trying to get any new project to work. Churlish and indefensible.

Agreed, except I think part of this is Bob's self-admitted lack of diplomacy during the conference call. Everyone needs to stand on their dignity for awhile, but I do think the ship will right.

Quoting osmium: Yeah! Have a young researcher and a more established one talk about it. Like that girl with a blog who's a grad student and the dude who sequenced the genome. (I don't remember anyone's name.)

Not cosmologists, physicists, etc, though, would be my recommendation. Something more nutsy-boltsy. Like genomoics. Bio. That's hot, has a lot of activity, is probably more typical of science.

James Watson, he's a trip.

Quoting SkepticDoc: What is your definition of God?

Good question. I recently asked someone to define racism and he declined saying 'everyone knows what racism is'. Really? So, instead of saying that everyone knows what god is, I will say that as a westerner, my definition of god is a supreme and supernatural being who made the world/universe. From there things get muddy and have spawned much description and controversy, particularly since we humans have been able to unearth the physical causes of the universe. I also think that the idea of god was initially a valiant attempt to explain physical phenomenon by people who had no other means to do so. Conversely, I would say that the atheist accepts no supernatural causes for what exists and that an atheist is essentially a materialist.

Quoting osmium: Languages evolve on the cultural (meme-y) level, and the hardware of language (gene-y) is a major topic in both evolutionary biology and linguistics (I thought). Darwin's Dangerous Idea has a huge section on Chomsky. I thought that even de Saussure style structuralist studies would certainly have a wing dealing with cultural evolution of how language units connect to things and concepts; AND I assumed that this wing would be mathematical and rigorous. I might have made ALL THAT UP. I mean, it just seems obvious too me.

There may be some linguists who go that route, but from what I understand of McWorter and many other linguists, lots of them don't. Instead, they tend to focus on a specific language or group of languages, and just study the hell out of them. In McWhorter's case, IIRC, it was a creole, or creoles, until he got sick of being an academic and moved into his current public intellectual role.

Make it to where science is just as cool as Shakespeare studies. I do not think there is any one obvious thing to do, ...

That is the million-dollar question.

... except maybe have scientists stay with BhTV instead of packing up and going home. (See my post on Greg

Quoting bjkeefe: You do make reasonable points in your comment over there, but I don't at all agree that "these guys are looking a little bit silly."

I'm open to the possibility that that may reflect a bit of insensitivity on my part. I'll think about it some more. I have thought that many people have positions/perspectives/etc. on any number of topics that are deeply important to them and others they're highly critical of; and that, if BhTV were to go too far giving voice (in an unbalanced and sustained way) to the positions one is highly critical of, one might find it difficult to continue feeling good about the site. I know I've come close a few times to feeling that way regarding BhTV's coverage of Israel-related issues. And clearly everyone is free to feel that, with respect to some topic(s), BhTV is too this or too that for their tastes (or to associate themselves with, etc.). So in this light, at least, I can see Carroll et al's emotional reaction as perfectly natural and legitimate. There's still something that bugs me about the rightness of their decision, however. I'll need to think more about it.

I thought your observations up-thread very solid. Myers and company are posturing for effect. That's their business. There's an appalling double-standard at work. Bob's being punished for straying from atheist orthodoxy. He's being criticized for his book, for 'allowing' Behe on bhtv, and for generally treating bhtv as his own personal media juggernaut. I think the bhtv staff really got the short-end of the stick. In my view they're heros, both showed initiative and sensitivity. And stepped right up to take responsibility. There's an argument to be made that Behe and Numbers don't have any business appearing on Science Saturday. One appearance does not a pattern make. Hence Myer's need to drag Bob's other deviations into the mix. Hopefully, we'll see Behe and other controversial figures back on bhtv, more suitably matched and situated. McWhorter was frankly dreadful. But so what? I read mvantony's comment and agree that we learn far more about the weaknesses and strengths of an argument in a non-combative environment. Cheers.

Quoting kidneystones: Churlish and indefensible.

Prissy, too. Kindred with the common scolds that dominate diavlog comments.

Quoting badhatharry: James Watson, he's a trip.

OOOOPS, not James Watson, so sorry!
but he's still a trip

Quoting badhatharry: Good question. I recently asked someone to define racism and he declined saying 'everyone knows what racism is'. Really?

So, instead of saying that everyone knows what god is, I will say that as a westerner, my definition of god is a supreme and supernatural being who made the world/universe. From there things get muddy and have spawned much description and controversy, particularly since we humans have been able to unearth the physical causes of the universe.

I also think that the idea of god was initially a valiant attempt to explain physical phenomenon by people who had no other means to do so.

Conversely, I would say that the atheist accepts no supernatural causes for what exists and that an atheist is essentially a materialist.

"Valiant?" How do you understanding the meaning of this adjective?

Sad and right on the mark. Nicely put.

Quoting bjkeefe: That was Sean, Carl, Phil, and PZ's original impetus to participate in Bh.tv, I'm sure, or at least a big part of it. However, since there are plenty of other routes for them to go, and since none of them are a magic bullet, and since there are more possibilities than they have time or energy to travel, it is worth it to them to consider the credibility of the various routes. Bh.tv did not measure up, in their estimations.

Sure. But BhTV is the forum I like, and you must be the same, Brenan, judging solely by your output. I cannot keep up with the entire internet. BhTV is far more manageable. Their leaving, and the way it happens, carries its own message. I think they are hurting more than they are helping. This is not the NYT; this is something with more disorder to it. Science is comfortable with disorder. Science also tries not to get its feelings hurt.

Quoting bjkeefe: [...]

Sorry Brendan, but I also hope Behe, Nelson, and other like minded people come back -- either for more theologically oriented discussions, or for diavlogs with scientifically knowledgeable critics, or in other types of pairings. I say this not to launch a debate with you on the matter (something I'm not interested in now, and I suspect you might not be either), but simply to express this hope to Bob and the BhTV people from one of their viewers (me). While I'm at it, I'll add that I'm glad, Bob, that you're going to continue having the kind of people on that you want. While the Israel coverage, as I've said, is sometimes a bit unbalanced for my tastes, the science/religion/philosophy/culture offerings are on the whole fantastic in my view. I'd find it especially disappointing if you changed the amount and kind of religion-related content on the site. Please keep it up!

I think this was a missed opportunity, and Bob's post shows why. Rather than have a true dialogue with George, say, by answering questions that George was clearly prepared to pose, Bob had an agenda - copping to the four "mistakes that were made" and thereby innoculating himself from further investigation or criticism for "the controversy." (The subtext of Bob's soliliquy seeming to be "I've admitted my mistakes, there's been too much inside baseball discussed already, let's move on.") Of course, that destination may have been reached even had George been more in charge of the direction of the conversation, but I guess Bob wasn't willing to take that risk. Mostly, I'm disappointed at seeing one of my favorite Bloggingheads so ill-used.

Quoting badhatharry: BTW, by marxist, I mean the propensity for wanting to change things and feeling qualified to do so.

You might want to consider dialing down the name-calling. Aside from Glenn Beck nobody uses "Marxist" like that.

Quoting Anyuser: Prissy, too. Kindred with the common scolds that dominate diavlog comments.

You mean, like the kind of commenters who log in only to complain about other commenters?

Quoting badhatharry: Good question. I recently asked someone to define racism and he declined saying 'everyone knows what racism is'. Really?

So, instead of saying that everyone knows what god is, I will say that as a westerner, my definition of god is a supreme and supernatural being who made the world/universe. From there things get muddy and have spawned much description and controversy, particularly since we humans have been able to unearth the physical causes of the universe.

I also think that the idea of god was initially a valiant attempt to explain physical phenomenon by people who had no other means to do so.

Conversely, I would say that the atheist accepts no supernatural causes for what exists and that an atheist is essentially a materialist.

The inevitable follow up question is, what evidence do you have for that statement? The other logical questions involve evil, incompetence, maleficence, cruelty, etc... the field of philosophy and belief, not science.

Great post! And great point about scientists being human and like all humans, capable of failure and imperfection. Hopefully that will hit home with them. Hubris has gotten the best of these particulars scientists, I think, and I'm delighted Bob Wright and bh.tv have the humility to allow scientists like Behe and others to come on. Amen.

I agree with this dig.

I think PZ in one way actually has a better case for quitting BH, and in another way a worse one. Better, because he is one of those militant atheists (that Bob often disses) who is dedicated and committed to the Debunking God Cause full-time on his blog; worse, however, because he presumably wasn't involved in the conference-calling and misunderstandings that added insult to injury for Sean and Carl. This reminds me of the factionalism and self-cannibalism you often see on the left. People who agree on 90% of things manage to fight with each other over relatively minor issues, and everyone comes out the loser (except their enemies). I have to add that I thought PZ was a pretty bad BH guest, so not such a great loss. Sean and Carl, however, were awesome. Even though Sean's topics were usually way over my head, I was always engaged in the dialogues. And Carl was just consistently top-notch -- intelligent, accessible, a good interviewer, and in general a great asset to the site.

Quoting Jon:
Bob after being in Buddha-camp incommunicado for a week should have realized what every paranoid Italian (like me) knows, which is let down your guard and relax and in due time all hell will break loose.

Would this speak to the fact that paranoid italian is redundant ? :-)

Quoting Jon: Finally, if there's anyone still reading, I have to disagree with you, Bob, regarding through a higher entity setting up the blueprint of natural selection “intelligent design” (my words, not yours) of living organisms. It seems to me (similar to Gould's Panda's Thumb) that there is the “un-intelligent design” of organisms. An organism is not like a watch in any way in terms of the simplicity of form over function.

While I quibble with Bob's phrasing on the subject ( I would not see any use in thinking of a supposed "designer" of natural selection as intelligent ) I will say his description of his opinion has nothing to do with whether a creature's "design" is optimal. Natural Selection in all of it's random and not so random manifestation is what Bob points to and added to that he speculates on what Natural Selection "says" about Nature as

Quoting Wonderment: A cynic might think that even as we speak the cameras are being set up for a mano-a-mano between the blogger who thinks the only way to get a gang of men's (has anyone noticed the gender of all the players in this?) attention is by talking about blowjobs and Satan Behe himself.

Is the bolded part something that she has expressed or is it something that is evoked in you by her language. I remember vaguely her diavlog with PZ I believe and found her very attached to her work and her chosen profession. I can understand why she might use colorful language to express her outrage at Non-science being taught as science.

Given the remarks you quoted, I think that if I were Behe, I would happily agree to debate ERV, as long as it was in a public forum that he could expect to be more or less neutral. Unless it was at the Center for Secular Inquiry (or whatever), ERV's no doubt constant, intemperate outbursts, eye-rolling, and what have you would turn off the audience even if her points were completely debilitating of his view.

Quoting osmium: I'm not super familiar with them either, I guess, but I'm developing this hobby of trying to figure out what the major malfunction between Gould, Dawkins, Dennett, etc is. This seems to be an important point.

It seems unprovable how likely or unlikely natural selection is to create a given intelligence level. Such as self-awareness. In that interview with Dennett that Bob has on meaningoflife.TV, this is part of what they disagree about, if my memory is correct. Dennett says if you decimate life on earth and "replay the tape," you will get complexity again, but there is no reason to assume you'll get self-aware intelligence every time. Gould's argument for this was saying the dinosaurs were a meta-stable evolutionary state (presumably not self-aware) until some 'contingency' re-shuffled the deck, e.g. a mass extinction.

Complexity would arrive and intelligence would be just another form of complexity. Dinosaurs had the complexity inculcated in their body structure and whatever life forms resided inside that structure ( the human gut, amongst other things, is an ungodly petri dish full of mostly helpful microscopic passengers I cannot begin to the of the biological scaffolding needed to keep those creatures alive

Quoting thouartgob: Would this speak to the fact that paranoid italian is redundant ? :-)

While I quibble with Bob's phrasing on the subject ( I would not see any use in thinking of a supposed "designer" of natural selection as intelligent ) I will say his description of his opinion has nothing to do with whether a creature's "design" is optimal. Natural Selection in all of it's random and not so random manifestation is what Bob points to and added to that he speculates on what Natural Selection "says" about Nature as we know it or might know it. He points to examples of our reality being a simulation etc. but the larger point is not the there is an intelligent designer but that natural selection might point, directly or indirectly, to some more encompassing natural phenomenon.

The easiest analogy that comes to mind is that of group selection. If we "stumbled" upon group selection FIRST ( not knowing anything about genetics or any microscopic landscape for that matter ) and then later asked questions about what could be driving group selection. Another way of saying this, is there a more general "selection" process going

Quoting bjkeefe: \

So, shorter: rather than thinking of sanctions, maybe it's better to think of leading by example.

==========

* BTW: As I noted in a comment over at Sean's, when I first saw Behe's diavlog posted, I went directly to the comment forum, 75% decided to post a message that I would be leaving this site myself (this was long before I heard about Sean and Carl's reactions). I decided before I did that that I would first post a few rebuttal/debunking links. That led me to think it would be more meaningful/useful for someone in my position (as opposed to being someone in the respected diavlogger position) to stick around and complain loud and long. Make up for lack of clout with increased volume, in other words -- the teabaggers taught me well.

Indeed leading by example. If Sean and the other guys who take such offense at the issues raised by the bhtv diavlogs feel the need to exclude themselves then in the future they should not be shocked if people ask them why contribute to any media outlet that has similar characteristics such as writing for NYT etc. I would like to think that they would follow your

Quoting Ocean: Just as an aside comment, group selection isn't accepted by everybody.

Absolutely correct thanks for adding that.

Quoting Ocean: But, going to the core of your comment, if we were to accept group selection, and we later found natural selection at the individual level as the basic precursor mechanism, we could then imagine another level of selection above the current (group). Is that what you are saying?

Yeah. Again this is more of an analogy or model of how to understand where Bob is coming from as opposed to a statement of fact that another meta-level of selection ( as a for instance ) exists.

Quoting Ocean: If so, what would the next level be? Do we have any evidence that there is a process like that already in place? Does is mean that in order for survival there is one (or at least a limited number) of possible paths of evolution?
How does the idea of god enter the equation?

This is what you get for posting an interesting idea!

Yeah well welcome to the eduction of robert wright :-) Bob's Möbius strip explanations aren't as enlightening as they might be and Bob's honest

Quoting thouartgob: Indeed leading by example. If Sean and the other guys who take such offense at the issues raised by the bhtv diavlogs feel the need to exclude themselves then in the future they should not be shocked if people ask them why contribute to any media outlet that has similar characteristics such as writing for NYT etc.

Well, Sean does have significant cred in this regard -- he walked out on some serious money when he found out it was coming from Templeton. So it's not just making a cheap statement and giving up a volunteer gig for him, at least. I suspect as far as the NYT goes, you'd get the TV station/TV program response.

I would like to think that they would follow your example and see if elucidating is better than eluding.

Good word play. Thanks for the compliment, too, but I think they made a good choice from where they sit, compared to me, in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery.

Quoting Bobby G: Given the remarks you quoted, I think that if I were Behe, I would happily agree to debate ERV, as long as it was in a public forum that he could expect to be more or less neutral. Unless it was at the Center for Secular Inquiry (or whatever), ERV's no doubt constant, intemperate outbursts, eye-rolling, and what have you would turn off the audience even if her points were completely debilitating of his view.

I highly doubt behe would come back either to go up against ERV, Bob Wright, or anybody else. He gets more mileage from the controversy than he does from being debated by someone on this site. As time goes on and the number of "irreducibly-complex" systems he relies upon to "prove" ID continue to wane so will his media outlets. In the end he will find the fringe he now inhabits to be a garden of Eden comparatively speaking. If he does come back to face someone here he would deserve my praise ( which added to a fiver would get you a decent latte )

As a non-accomodationist atheist who has been given a platform by BHTV to argue that science and religion are not the tiniest bit compatible, I would like to announce that: I am willing to trust Robert Wright’s explanation of the Behe affair;
I applaud BHTV for making a commitment to discuss controversial matters including the intersection of science and religion, while most of the world is pretending the controversy doesn’t exist;
I accept that this noble commitment may sometimes go wrong, as in the admittedly and admitted foolish mistake of having Behe interviewed by a non-biologist who couldn’t call his BS;
I observe that noble commitments to repeatedly discuss dangerous controversies cannot possibly be expected to go right every time;
I put forth that people who have served us well in the past, should be allowed more chance than this to recover from their (or their coworkers’) errors - even more than one error, so long as mistakes don’t seem to be happening systematically;
And I announce my intention to stay on Bloggingheads.tv.

Quoting EliezerYudkowsky: As a non-accomodationist atheist who has been given a platform by BHTV to argue that science and religion are not the tiniest bit compatible, I would like to announce that:

I am willing to trust Robert Wright’s explanation of the Behe affair;
I applaud BHTV for making a commitment to discuss controversial matters including the intersection of science and religion, while most of the world is pretending the controversy doesn’t exist;
I accept that this noble commitment may sometimes go wrong, as in the admittedly and admitted foolish mistake of having Behe interviewed by a non-biologist who couldn’t call his BS;
I observe that noble commitments to repeatedly discuss dangerous controversies cannot possibly be expected to go right every time;
I put forth that people who have served us well in the past, should be allowed more chance than this to recover from their (or their coworkers’) errors - even more than one error, so long as mistakes don’t seem to be happening systematically;
And I announce my intention to stay on Bloggingheads.tv.

Bravo.

Quoting EliezerYudkowsky: I accept that this noble commitment may sometimes go wrong, as in the admittedly and admitted foolish mistake of having Behe interviewed by a non-biologist who couldn’t call his BS;

What I am afraid of is that this whole incident would stop (or at least delay) any such discussion from taking place in near future. I would like to see more Creationists debating their points with Scientists and I hope that bhtv is not discouraged in pursuing such debates because of all that took place. If Bob's position is that what happened was indeed an oversight and in future things would be screened more carefully, then I think people who left might have over-reacted. I am inclined to think that their leaving has more to do with the "tone" of the phone conversation than the real matter, which quite obviously has been handled deftly by Bob.

Quoting EliezerYudkowsky: As a non-accomodationist atheist who has been given a platform by BHTV to argue that science and religion are not the tiniest bit compatible, I would like to announce that:

I am willing to trust Robert Wright’s explanation of the Behe affair;
I applaud BHTV for making a commitment to discuss controversial matters including the intersection of science and religion, while most of the world is pretending the controversy doesn’t exist;
I accept that this noble commitment may sometimes go wrong, as in the admittedly and admitted foolish mistake of having Behe interviewed by a non-biologist who couldn’t call his BS;
I observe that noble commitments to repeatedly discuss dangerous controversies cannot possibly be expected to go right every time;
I put forth that people who have served us well in the past, should be allowed more chance than this to recover from their (or their coworkers’) errors - even more than one error, so long as mistakes don’t seem to be happening systematically;
And I announce my intention to stay on Bloggingheads.tv.

Thanks Eliezer. I was beginning to fear that we would lose just about everybody with an opinion on this.

Quoting whatsinthename: What I am afraid of is that this whole incident would stop (or at least delay) any such discussion from taking place in near future. I would like to see more Creationists debating their points with Scientists and I hope that bhtv is not discouraged in pursuing such debates because of all that took place.

If Bob's position is that what happened was indeed an oversight and in future things would be screened more carefully, then I think people who left might have over-reacted. I am inclined to think that their leaving has more to do with the "tone" of the phone conversation than the real matter, which quite obviously has been handled deftly by Bob.

What do you mean by "more Creationists debating their points with Scientists?" That's what we have yet to see.

Whats wrong with angling for it as long as it's temptation is not polluting the intellectual work?

Quoting whatsinthename: Whats wrong with angling for it as long as it's temptation is not polluting the intellectual work?

I'm not against it, assuming reasonable ground rules. McWhorter/Behe doesn't qualify for the description I quoted.

Quoting bjkeefe: Well, Sean does have significant cred in this regard -- he walked out on some serious money when he found out it was coming from Templeton. So it's not just making a cheap statement and giving up a volunteer gig for him, at least.

Sean does state he works with outlets that take money from Templeton. I think a more stricter standard might be suggested in the future.
Whatever he did or did not give up the fact is that BHTV is a volunteer gig and as such it is his time and energy ( as well as the others ) As I said in this forum and Sean's forum everybody here gives a damn about science and it's propagation and while we might quibble on the strategies we share an interest in the same outcome. It took a "perfect storm" of events to give the rise to these actions and reactions and I doubt there will be another situation that will rise to this level of drama again but here is hoping :-D

Quoting bjkeefe: Good word play.

Oh no it gets worse as the next subject will attest.

Thank you, Eliezer.

From this dingalink: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/223...2:55&out=03:05 So mistakes were made cause Bob was busy denying his Self. What did you expect. Welcome back Conditioned Process formerly known as Bob Wright
I couldn't have been more pleased with the diavlog. Not only because of the obsessive level of detail in bob's response to the controversy but the fact that George and I might have shared a somewhat similar epiphany. http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/223...0:48&out=61:20 Alright maybe it was a similar type of indigestion, in any case it help me grok where bob is coming from and provided us with a dingalink of classic non-verbal proportions. George's wince at the beginning made it seem like Bob just said the word "fuck" or something just as egregious. I can't think of a better pairing on this subject and it shows how committed to understanding both sides can be when both sides are interested in communication and education. I was very impressed when george discussed his experience in listening to the creationist diavlog and how it's context provided him some valuable and humanizing insight into the working of someone who does not share his science-based thinking ( not

Quoting AemJeff: I'm not against it, assuming reasonable ground rules. McWhorter/Behe doesn't qualify for the description I quoted.

I disagree with the suggestion that allowing Behe to be interviewed by a linguist is angling for the prize. I am a firm believer in evolution, but I do not get mad every time a Creationist gives an interview. In a pure academic setting, if Behe's points are unscientific, then they would loose out eventually. Stifling their thoughts would not help convince people what is scientific and what is not.

I will also object to PZ on other grounds. The following is indefensively stupid and suggests a need to take PZ's other rants with a grain of skeptical salt. Describing the site as a place "where peculiar ideas were never confronted" and one that became "open mic night for loons" is just a cheap smear job that PZ ought to be ashamed of.

The problem with bloggingheads wasn't simply that creationists were given a venue — it was that creationists were given a venue without voices opposing their ideas. It was setting up crackpots with softball interviews that made them look reasonable, because their peculiar ideas were never confronted. That's what has to be rejected, not the idea of arguing with bad ideas (although Sean Carroll makes a good case that some ideas are so bad they don't even deserve debate), but a site that promised discussion yet became open mic night for loons.

Quoting whatsinthename: I disagree with the suggestion that allowing Behe to be interviewed by a linguist is angling for the prize. I am a firm believer in evolution, but I do not get mad every time a Creationist gives an interview. In a pure academic setting, if Behe's points are unscientific, then they would loose out eventually. Stifling their thoughts would not help convince people what is scientific and what is not.

Behe doesn't spend much time debating qualified people, in real time. McWhorter's effort was perfectly characterized by ERV. I don't "get mad" because somebody gets access to a mic. I don't like it when people play the system, and that's exactly what I think Behe's major project is.

Quoting Wonderment: ...
"open mic night for loons" is just a cheap smear job that PZ ought to be ashamed of.

It's politer than I would be regarding Behe/McWhorter. As I alluded to a moment ago, ERV said it better.

Quoting Wonderment: I will also object to PZ on other grounds. The following is indefensively stupid and suggests a need to take PZ's other rants with a grain of skeptical salt. Describing the site as a place "where peculiar ideas were never confronted" and one that became "open mic night for loons" is just a cheap smear job that PZ ought to be ashamed of.

From what I've read of his, he appears to be a meanspirited and embittered failed academic. edit: REMOVED stupid joke.

It's politer than I would be regarding Behe/McWhorter. As I alluded to a moment ago, ERV said it better.

He dissed the whole site in those terms, which --- presumably -- would include you and me who are parties to loondom by commenting here. That's the way I read his diatribe anyway. I'm sure it will be open to different interpretations --- somewhat like OBama's healthcare speech to the AFL-CIO today. I heard in it "I'm still going to mention public option, even though I am walking away from it as fast as is humanly possible," while Richard Trumka, the incoming president of the AFL-CIO, heard a different speech with the same words (reported in WaPo)

[Trumka said] Obama's support for a public option helped make his speech "the best Labor Day speech I've ever heard from a president."

"You have to take the president at face value," he said. "He said the public option is necessary, he's going to fight for it, and we're going to fight with him."

Quoting Wonderment: He dissed the whole site in those terms, which --- presumably -- would include you and me who are parties to loondom by commenting here. That's the way I read his diatribe anyway.

I'm sure it will be open to different interpretations --- somewhat like OBama's healthcare speech to the AFL-CIO today. I heard in it "I'm still going to mention public option, even though I am walking away from it as fast as is humanly possible," while Richard Trumka, the incoming president of the AFL-CIO, heard a different speech with the same words (reported in WaPo)

I don't read it the same way, but I'll certainly grant that the widest reading is consistent with your interpretation.

Quoting nikkibong: From what I've read of his, he appears to be a meanspirited and embittered failed academic. rcocean said it better than most: he teaches at a community college. Must hurt.

Community College? I'm not sure you should have trusted your source on this.

Quoting AemJeff: Community College? I'm not sure you should have trusted your source on this.

TY for the link, I removed the remark. What I won't remove are the words "embittered" and "failed."

Quoting AemJeff: It's politer than I would be regarding Behe/McWhorter. As I alluded to a moment ago, ERV said it better.

Well ERV at least will show up for a debate. I get the anger since I had to skim the diavlog and couldn't finish for the same reason everybody else couldn't, but what I don't understand is why the mis-characterization of the controversy and more importantly I don't get why PZ would need to bad mouth the site after how many years ?? I appreciate that he battles the ID forces on his site and by all means more power to him but he does himself no justice with his witless remarks on the subject. By all means don't volunteer your time and exude whatever bile plagues you, but why the lack of veracity. It was a singular loon and Bob has given his maya-culpa on the subject. At least mention there was a diavlog with George on the whole subject if linking to it is such a immoral act.

Quoting nikkibong: TY for the link, I removed the remark.

What I won't remove are the words "embittered" and "failed."

What makes you an expert on failure?

Quoting nikkibong: TY for the link, I removed the remark.

What I won't remove are the words "embittered" and "failed."

from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers "Pharyngula won the 2005 Koufax Award for Best Expert Blog. The science journal Nature listed Pharyngula as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist." Embittered maybe but failed ???

Quoting thouartgob: Well ERV at least will show up for a debate. I get the anger since I had to skim the diavlog and couldn't finish for the same reason everybody else couldn't, but what I don't understand is why the mis-characterization of the controversy and more importantly I don't get why PZ would need to bad mouth the site after how many years ?? I appreciate that he battles the ID forces on his site and by all means more power to him but he does himself no justice with his witless remarks on the subject. By all means don't volunteer your time and exude whatever bile plagues you, but why the lack of veracity. It was a singular loon and Bob has given his maya-culpa on the subject. At least mention there was a diavlog with George on the whole subject if linking to it is such a immoral act.

If somebody dangled the guarantee of a fair public debate, in any unaligned forum, with Behe before PZ, I'm pretty skeptical that he'd be able to ignore the challenge. (I could be wrong.) I think he expresses himself, in writing, pretty intemperately (as does ERV) and

Quoting thouartgob: from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers

"Pharyngula won the 2005 Koufax Award for Best Expert Blog. The science journal Nature listed Pharyngula as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist."

Embittered maybe but failed ???

I won't credit "embittered," either. He's clearly having plenty of fun. "Impassioned," and "pig-headed," those I buy.

Quoting claymisher: What makes you an expert on failure?

I know a bunch of women (and professors) who would be happy to enlighten you... But seriously. Anyone with that level of anger has got something eating him up inside. Your beloved phrayngula is clearly not a happy man.

Quoting nikkibong: I know a bunch of women (and professors) who would be happy to enlighten you...

But seriously. Anyone with that level of anger has got something eating him up inside. Your beloved phrayngula is clearly not a happy man.

Aw, c'mon nikkibong. How angry can the guy who posted this actually be?

Quoting AemJeff: I won't credit "embittered," either. He's clearly having plenty of fun. "Impassioned," and "pig-headed," those I buy.

embittered by way of arguing with IDsters. He makes himself a target for their bile and I pat him on the back for it and I believe that over time it affects him but maybe I'm wrong there as well. I wouldn't have the time or patience for it and maybe he get a charge out of it.

I think he expresses himself, in writing, pretty intemperately (as does ERV) and he'll never work for the State Department. I don't necessarily endorse that trait, at least not entirely, but it also doesn't seem to be the most important thing to know about the guy.

I get ERV's irreverent vulgarity. She has created this online persona of a kick-ass, trash-talking science smarty-pants. Goes to prove that it's still hard to get attention in a male-dominated profession. PZ, on the other hand, DOES strike me as someone who'd be good as a hack politician (maybe not a State Department diplomat, except in the Bush regime). He is quite willing to unfairly ridicule everything he opposes. I've seen it before on his site, and this smear of Bheads epitomizes his style. He takes cheap shots, and uses an atom bomb when a peashooter more than suffices. The caricature of BH is beyond the pale. Since you are not insulted, Jeff, I am delighted to take offense on your behalf

Quoting Wonderment: ...He takes cheap shots, and uses an atom bomb when a peashooter more than suffices.

I concede this point.

Quoting Wonderment: Since you are not insulted, Jeff, I am delighted to take offense on your behalf

ROFL!

Quoting AemJeff: Behe doesn't spend much time debating qualified people, in real time. McWhorter's effort was perfectly characterized by ERV. I don't "get mad" because somebody gets access to a mic. I don't like it when people play the system, and that's exactly what I think Behe's major project is.

That explanation is not sound enough. One could apply this argument to almost anyone who he disagrees with. The only right way to go about dealing with people like Behe is to confront them and make them admit that what they propose is not scientific.

Quoting whatsinthename: That explanation is not sound enough. One could apply this argument to almost anyone who he disagrees with. The only right way to go about dealing with people like Behe is to confront them and make them admit that what they propose is not scientific.

What is it that you think I was explaining? I'd love to see Behe forced to debate in a setting that highlights the scientific credibility of his ideas. I just don't see that happening, and it's not as if there's nobody willing to take him on.

Quoting kidneystones: I thought your observations up-thread very solid. Myers and company are posturing for effect. That's their business. There's an appalling double-standard at work. Bob's being punished for straying from atheist orthodoxy. He's being criticized for his book, for 'allowing' Behe on bhtv, and for generally treating bhtv as his own personal media juggernaut.

I think the bhtv staff really got the short-end of the stick. In my view they're heros, both showed initiative and sensitivity. And stepped right up to take responsibility.

There's an argument to be made that Behe and Numbers don't have any business appearing on Science Saturday. One appearance does not a pattern make. Hence Myer's need to drag Bob's other deviations into the mix.

Hopefully, we'll see Behe and other controversial figures back on bhtv, more suitably matched and situated. McWhorter was frankly dreadful. But so what? I read mvantony's comment and agree that we learn far more about the weaknesses and strengths of an argument in a non-combative environment.

Cheers.

I feel very badly about McWhorter's unforced error. I agree there is some posturing, and consciousness of profile-raising, but also, these scientists are truly aghast. In the parlance of Haidt, I think we have a purity issue.

Bob is posting over at Myer's site. I can understand the logic of climbing right into PZ's backyard, but it's pretty revolting stuff. Osmium, Eliezer, and mvantony offer good comments. For any who haven't yet viewed the David Dobbs diavlog, I strongly recommend it. The dogs bark, but the caravan marches on. (And on that note, I see a glowing banner ad for Scientology displayed on bhtv. Ain't capitalism grand?)

Quoting EliezerYudkowsky: As a non-accomodationist atheist who has been given a platform by BHTV to argue that science and religion are not the tiniest bit compatible, I would like to announce that:

I am willing to trust Robert Wright’s explanation of the Behe affair;
I applaud BHTV for making a commitment to discuss controversial matters including the intersection of science and religion, while most of the world is pretending the controversy doesn’t exist;
I accept that this noble commitment may sometimes go wrong, as in the admittedly and admitted foolish mistake of having Behe interviewed by a non-biologist who couldn’t call his BS;
I observe that noble commitments to repeatedly discuss dangerous controversies cannot possibly be expected to go right every time;
I put forth that people who have served us well in the past, should be allowed more chance than this to recover from their (or their coworkers’) errors - even more than one error, so long as mistakes don’t seem to be happening systematically;
And I announce my intention to stay on Bloggingheads.tv.

Glad to hear that, Eliezer.

Quoting kidneystones: Bob is posting over at Myer's site. I can understand the logic of climbing right into PZ's backyard, but it's pretty revolting stuff. Osmium, Eliezer, and mvantony offer good comments.

For any who haven't yet viewed the David Dobbs diavlog, I strongly recommend it.

The dogs bark, but the caravan marches on.

(And on that note, I see a glowing banner ad for Scientology displayed on bhtv. Ain't capitalism grand?)

There is a poster there replying to Bob in full umbrage mode: "Posted by: mk Author Profile Page | September 7, 2009 6:09 PM if any future diavlog is going to feature someone arguing that creationism/ID has merit, his/her counterpart should be Stop right there! Why would you allow anyone on who thinks creationism or ID has merit? Are you going to allow astrologers on because they think there is merit in that? Flat-earthers? Unicornists? Fairyists? Moon-hoaxers? Holocaust denialists?"
MK ??? surely not Senor Kaus :-)

Quoting nikkibong: TY for the link, I removed the remark.

What I won't remove are the words "embittered" and "failed."

Quoting nikkibong: I know a bunch of women (and professors) who would be happy to enlighten you...

But seriously. Anyone with that level of anger has got something eating him up inside. Your beloved phrayngula is clearly not a happy man.

I don't know where you get off saying things like this, since I doubt you've spent much time reading PZ Myers or listening to him. (Aside: If you got your "community college" line from rcocean, and trusted that source on this topic, especially when the CC claim was debunked right away, then I can only think you really have no ground to stand on here.) Sounds like another one of your snap judgments where you don't like one thing about somebody, so you immediately construct a narrative in your imagination where everything about that person also has to be bad. I read Pharyngula regularly, and I've heard PZ interviewed numerous times, as well as hearing him debate. My impression of him is that he is happy with his life -- he has a good marriage, a good kid, he likes his job, both the research and teaching aspects, and in his

thouartgob writes... Noted. I agree. I have to tip my hat to Bob on many fronts, many of which you enumerated earlier. I rather pride myself on my ability to talk at people who are screaming at me. But here, too, Bob seems to have the superior skill. His extremely dry wit helps. I wonder whether we'll actually see PZ and Behe on together. Perhaps the tempest is all about negotiating the cat-bird seat. I'm listening the Salmon/Kwak diavlog right now. Wonderful stuff. Have you listened, yet, to David Dobbs? Also excellent. Let PZ preen and pout. I hope he sulks a good while longer. I really wouldn't reward PZ with a place on bhtv anytime this year.

Quoting kidneystones: thouartgob writes...
ut here, too, Bob seems to have the superior skill.

His extremely dry wit helps. I wonder whether we'll actually see PZ and Behe on together. Perhaps the tempest is all about negotiating the cat-bird seat.

Some would say dry others would say withered. :-D
Stole that one though.

His wit and good humor fails him on occasion, ahem. But he's plugged into something larger, perhaps of his imagination. My guess is we'll see nothing but more great diavlogs. The Salmon/Kwak diavlog is extremely good. Go listen, really.

Quoting Wonderment: He dissed the whole site in those terms, which --- presumably -- would include you and me who are parties to loondom by commenting here. That's the way I read his diatribe anyway.

I'm sure it will be open to different interpretations --- somewhat like OBama's healthcare speech to the AFL-CIO today. I heard in it "I'm still going to mention public option, even though I am walking away from it as fast as is humanly possible," while Richard Trumka, the incoming president of the AFL-CIO, heard a different speech with the same words (reported in WaPo)

Did you happen to catch Trumka on Hardball on Friday? Really came across as...not the sharpest tool in the shed. Matthews was gracious.

Quoting kidneystones: Bob is posting over at Myer's site. I can understand the logic of climbing right into PZ's backyard, but it's pretty revolting stuff.

Just in case there's anyone here who still takes kidneystones's assessments at face value, I recommend reading Bob's comments for yourself. Here are links to PZ's post and the first (#39), second (#48), and third (#53) comments Bob left. I'm not sure why kidneystones couldn't be bothered to offer these and let you make your own evaluations, but I have my suspicions. Facts are troublesome things.

Did you happen to catch Trumka on Hardball on Friday? Really came across as...not the sharpest tool in the shed.

Why am I not surprised

Quoting nikkibong: I know a bunch of women (and professors) who would be happy to enlighten you...

But seriously. Anyone with that level of anger has got something eating him up inside. Your beloved phrayngula is clearly not a happy man.

Who's the angry one here? "Your beloved phrayngula"? Really? I don't read the guy because I'm not interested in whatever antics the creationists are up to. But if he's angry, so what? Angry doesn't equal wrong. Same goes for you.

what a bunch of babies...HOW DARE A CREATIONIST TALK ON BLOGGINGHEADS...MY INTERNET!!!!!!!!!!!! for the record, I'm an atheist, but I am not an insecure baby so I don't throw tantrums about shit like this

Quoting Username: what a bunch of babies...HOW DARE A CREATIONIST TALK ON BLOGGINGHEADS...MY INTERNET!!!!!!!!!!!!

for the record, I'm an atheist, but I am not an insecure baby so I don't throw tantrums about shit like this

But tantrums on shit like this are ok, right?

Quoting kidneystones: I rather pride myself on my ability to talk at people who are screaming at me. But here, too, Bob seems to have the superior skill.

You're both impressive from where I stand. I'm terrible at it.

How dare all you people who like to comment on the quality/standards of this site, comment on the quality/standards of this site!!1! How dare these science writers who dedicate their lives to protecting/promoting the integrity of science, take a principled stand based on protecting/promoting the integrity of science!!1! BABIES, ALL OF YOU!!1!!

mvantony writes... Depends, to a degree, who is doing the screaming and where. Bob is remarkably and subtly thick-skinned. I think the retreat helped. Nice to hear from you and thanks for making so much sense here and with Myers. cheers!

One can appear to be a thin skinned whiner without actually being a thin skinned whiner. Publicly ditching a site like bhtv that is pretty much an island of rational thought compared to most media outlets because of two stupid editorial decisions seems pretty thin skinned at first glance. There are very good historical reasons for scientists and rationalists to be skeptical of the media (see a billion shows on the Discovery Channel or Oprah Winfrey and so on) but bhtv is nothing like them. I know a bit about the history of scientists getting scammed by the media and I've paid attention to debates in the skeptical community over the last few years about engaging with the enemy and so I can understand having a hair trigger when things like this crop up. I suspect most people won't pick up on such nuance and will see this as some thin skinned whiners taking their ball and going home.

Quoting DenvilleSteve: How ridiculous for Zimmer and Carroll to demand that other diavloggers teach science a certain way.

Well, here's the thing: when you teach science "a certain way" so as to scrub it free of actual science, it tends to be a little off-putting to scientists.

Quoting DenvilleSteve: Zimmer, Carroll, Johnston and Horgan are not political? Where is the discussion of global warming lately? Liberal scientists don't want to discuss it because evidence is showing that the sun has something to do with global warming ( duh! ).

Behe does a great job of explaining science to his audience because he does not condescend to people. ( He is also very learned and a gifted communicator. )

Liberals in politics seem the same to me as the liberals in academia. In both settings the liberals talk down to their audience and attempt to limit the terms of the discussion and debate. Zimmer and Carroll insist that Behe not be allowed to communicate his ideas and knowledge on BHTV. How absurd.

Absolutely! And it's time we had finally paired Stephen Hawking with a gifted and learned astrologer!

Quoting osmium: Sure. But BhTV is the forum I like, and you must be the same, Brenan, judging solely by your output. I cannot keep up with the entire internet. BhTV is far more manageable.

Their leaving, and the way it happens, carries its own message. I think they are hurting more than they are helping. This is not the NYT; this is something with more disorder to it. Science is comfortable with disorder. Science also tries not to get its feelings hurt.

I don't agree with the end. Science is all about finding the underlying order. It's also about stamping out misconceptions, removing superstitions, and exposing charlatans. You know whose feelings are hurt here? People who want to cling to a belief that humans are so special, God had to have intervened in their creation. I grant the feeling of loss concerning the wish that Bh.tv be a one-stop shop. However, one of the keys to making Bh.tv worth spending time with is the maintenance of high standards. Evidently, Sean, Carl, Phil, and PZ felt that Bh.tv wasn't doing this in the science department. If you don't want to seek them, and other good science, out elsewhere, that's up to you. But it's out there if you want it. In the meantime, I think you should respect

Quoting uncle ebeneezer: How dare all you people who like to comment on the quality/standards of this site, comment on the quality/standards of this site!!1!

How dare these science writers who dedicate their lives to protecting/promoting the integrity of science, take a principled stand based on protecting/promoting the integrity of science!!1!

BABIES, ALL OF YOU!!1!!

ROFL!

Bob, for the last couple diavlogs, you've mentioned your Vipassyana retreat, and in discussing Buddhism, you make a number of factual mistakes. They're not egregious or particularly misleading, but since meditation has become a target of your interest, it would be good if you knew some of the basic party line points. (I've been a practicing Buddhist since the mid-90s, and my undergraduate and graduate education was in Buddhism, so I think--I hope--I can speak to the party line.) It's particularly relevant to you, given the new spectacularly-successful book and all. In this diavlog, you commented that the "SE Asia, where there's the most athiestic form of Buddhism--I guess it is athiestic..." This represents one of the more common misunderstandings--it's the mistake someone coming from a theistic culture makes when looking at Buddhsim. Let's start with our own frame, where the extraordinarily strong meme of a monotheistic god dominates. Our debates begin with this God (Christian, Islamic, or Jewish) as the referent. You are either a believer, an agnostic, or an atheist--all positions rotating, planet-like, around the bright, sunny concept of God. Encountering Buddhism, one then easily pegs Buddhism into the "atheist" hole. Buddhists, however, come from a culture outside this cultural model. If you wish to represent a Buddhist's

I am aware that we don't regularly throw grist into the fire. I've mixed my cliche.

Quoting Alworth: .....but suffice it to say that the bodhisattva, yidam, protector, and buddha iconography represent something very different in a culture that denies separate selfhood.

I visited Tibet a few years ago. I was frankly astonished by the exuberant iconography on display in the monasteries. The representation of Buddha and of all the bizarre demons who play an important role in popular Buddhism puzzled me a bit. Some of the statues of Buddha are colossal. Are they awe-inspiring or merely ridiculous? I suppose Buddhists have a similar reaction to Christian iconography. In any case, my purely literary and historical knowledge of Buddhism didn't prepare me for what I saw.

Google took me to this site: http://www.wildmind.org/ as the Massachusetts "Buddhist Camp" that Bob attended. I completed a "secular" course in Cleveland http://www.cleveland.shambhala.org/E...html#shambhala http://www.awakeatwork.net/about/carroll.html (some New Yorkers may know him, he worked at the Columbia University Library some years ago) I directly asked about the issue of laying flat on my back because of chronic back pain, and the answer was unequivocally that meditation had to be practiced with the back straight, that one could sit at the edge of the chair or use a kneeling bench if sitting on the floor was unbearable. Any comments?

Quoting Wonderment: I get ERV's irreverent vulgarity.

No you dont. You dont hang out in the same corners of the internet as I do, and you dont read ERV regularly to get the in jokes. Certainly you get the obvious ones (har har blow-job! huuur!), but you are missing probably 80-90% of the jokes, even if you understand *something* is going on. If you hang around ERV and read my posts, youll start to catch on rather quickly, and its a lot of fun. Oh, and you will learn things about viruses.

Quoting Wonderment: She has created this online persona of a kick-ass, trash-talking science smarty-pants. Goes to prove that it's still hard to get attention in a male-dominated profession.

Virology is not particularly male dominated. The top people in my fields of interest are women, or are men who have trained the next tier of scientists (women) who will inherit the top ranks when they retire. Furthermore, HIV-1 research is so competitive, if youre driving off top-rate post-docs because of their sex, you are digging your own grave. I dont particularly care if a top-rank man decides I am too much boobie for his lab. There are other labs that will happily support my skillz, and the sexist

thanks for that Mvantony - i had about had the same reaction to her comment and started to put together a post when i saw yours. another ERV:

"every time I hear Behe/Wells/whoever speak Im shocked the men can figure out how to feed themselves, much less get a goddamn PhD."

Francoamerican, you're not alone. The first English visitors to Tibet didn't even recognize it as Buddhism, and for decades the term "lamaism" persisted. (Though that's closer to the mark than polytheism, another inaccurate label Tibetan Buddhism was regularly tagged with.) I've heard the iconography described as "gothic," and I like that. One could go into a lot of nuanced discussion about what those images represent, but it's probably not the best first introduction to the subject of Buddhism. SkepticDoc, the Shambhala program is a stripped-down version of Tibetan Buddhism, created by the late Chogyam Trungpa for Westerners. Buddhism lends itself quite easily to Western secularization because it's not a belief-based religion. This is strange for many westerners, who think that the very definition of religion is a system of beliefs. For Buddhists, belief is often a symptom of the problem that creates suffering, so they do their best to avoid it. Zen Koans are a famous manifestation of this urge to leave fixed views behind. Lying down is great. It's known as the "corpse pose" in the Sanskrit, and for Westerners who didn't start out sitting cross-legged (particularly those of us getting long in the

Quoting badhatharry: Y I guess I just find it hard to understand that people are actually in such a suspended state. It would seem that on this issue, one would be wanting to make a decision other than "I don't know".
Of course there will be things we will never know and things we can't ever know. But it also seems that one first must admit the possibility and therefore some belief in God to say that we can't ever know.

no. admitting the possibility does not imply belief. and i don't feel "suspended" any more than the question of alien minds leaves me "suspended" - someday we may discover alien intelligences - it doesn't mean i have to agonize over whether we will get to know the answer to that question in my lifetime.

I'm pretty much down with all of the reasons people find to complain about allowing espousers of ludicrous notions like Young Earth Creationism to enter serious dialog -- I understand that they are (generally) categorically wrong in their opinions; I understand that it is largely a waste of time and resources to accommodate them since their very stance is one of unwavering faith and/or denial; and I certainly understand that while it may do no *harm* to let them talk about their opinions, it is unfortunate to make a real scientist spend his or her time defending, countering, and explaining the tenants of accepted standards and reason. BUT. Censorship does not sit well with me. And people who dramatically encourage it such as our two "Science Saturday" boycotters are particularly angering. No one thinks that having a creationist on regularly is a good idea in any sort of reasonable forum -- but to deny them, explicitly for that reason? That is just as much nonsense. The things creationists believe are unfortunate and should be discouraged -- and forums like bloggingheads should be discouraged from letting crazies run willy nilly. But reasonable viewers

Quoting bjkeefe: I don't agree with the end. Science is all about finding the underlying order. It's also about stamping out misconceptions, removing superstitions, and exposing charlatans. You know whose feelings are hurt here? People who want to cling to a belief that humans are so special, God had to have intervened in their creation.

There is a lot of disorder, from which order arises. Maybe I am the only person who thinks this way, but the world is just a canonical ensemble of people, and when looking at something like 'does Behe do harm,' you have to think statistically. This is basic thermodynamics. I am a working academic scientist, and I'm calling those statements about science as I see them. Not all the people I work with agree, which seems to indicate it is an open question. What I'm saying is that a random Behe doesn't hurt things any more than a random gene mutation does.

Quoting bjkeefe: I grant the feeling of loss concerning the wish that Bh.tv be a one-stop shop. However, one of the keys to making Bh.tv worth spending time with is the maintenance of high standards. Evidently, Sean, Carl, Phil, and PZ felt that Bh.tv wasn't doing this in the science department. If

Quoting osmium: There is a lot of disorder, from which order arises.

And what's our best way of being sure about the order? Science.

Maybe I am the only person who thinks this way, but the world is just a canonical ensemble of people, and when looking at something like 'does Behe do harm,' you have to think statistically. This is basic thermodynamics.

Sounds more like basic woo.

I am a working academic scientist, and I'm calling those statements about science as I see them. Not all the people I work with agree, which seems to indicate it is an open question.

What I'm saying is that a random Behe doesn't hurt things any more than a random gene mutation does.

Don't at all agree, but clearly, our visions of reality do not sufficiently overlap to make it worth talking about this any longer.

This incident has received far more attention then is warranted.

Quoting bjkeefe: Sounds more like basic woo.

What's basic woo?

Quoting osmium: What's basic woo?

A definition here. More here. Some discussion here.

Quoting bjkeefe: A definition here. More here. Some discussion here.

I thought we were friends till your accusation of belittling there, then getting grumpy and saying somehow I don't live up to the sceptic community. BTW, I am very serious about a connection between humans in a complex system and gas particles. It is not woo-woo, whatever that means. At some point in the future, I would like to do like E.O. Wilson says and delineate ways that science informs the social sciences.

Quoting osmium: I thought we were friends till your accusation of belittling there, then getting grumpy and saying somehow I don't live up to the sceptic community.

BTW, I am very serious ...

Don't be. It's really not worth it. It makes you overreact to offhand comments.

Quoting bjkeefe: Don't be. It's really not worth it. It makes you overreact to offhand comments.

Yeah, sorry. I was posting to the internet today after going to the doctor and being sedated. Better than Bob's usual coffee excuse, but not much. But, I am no new ager.

Quoting osmium: Yeah, sorry. I was posting to the internet today after going to the doctor and being sedated. Better than Bob's usual coffee excuse, but not much. But, I am no new ager.

Okay. All I can tell you is that statement sounded that way. If you're not a New Ager, then you're not. Good.

Quoting bjkeefe: Okay. All I can tell you is that statement sounded that way. If you're not a New Ager, then you're not. Good.

I didn't say it right then, because I was talking about statistical mechanics. Once you get a large number of particles in a system, its state is easily predicted, even though the position/velocity of each particle is random. I wonder occasionally if mathematics could be brought to bear to prove that the actions of individuals in society are similarly of no consequence. Maybe not a tractable problem, but I wouldn't know, being fairly bad at math. Still, colors my philosophy, perhaps only because of intuition and metaphor, and causes me not to worry about individuals like Behe. This is not hard science, but is certainly not a foo-foo thing to think about in spare time. Come to think of it, maybe I should reconsider my stance on Bob's moral arrow, because maybe I am trying to get a handle on a similar thing. But once again, it could be the drugs talking.

Quoting osmium: I didn't say it right then, because I was talking about statistical mechanics. Once you get a maximum number of particles in a system, its state is easily predicted, even though the position/velocity of each particle is random. I wonder occasionally if mathematics could be brought to bear to prove that the actions of individuals in society are similarly of no consequence. Maybe not a tractable problem, but I wouldn't know, being fairly bad at math. Still, colors my philosophy, perhaps only because of intuition and metaphor, and causes me not to worry about individuals like Behe.

This is not hard science, but is certainly not a foo-foo thing to think about in spare time. Come to think of it, maybe I should reconsider my stance on Bob's moral arrow, because maybe I am trying to get a handle on a similar thing.

But once again, it could be the drugs talking.

I hope so, because I can't begin to take seriously the assertion that individuals don't matter. [Added: Or, to use your phrasing, are of no consequence.] And I'm not even talking about "the individual matters" in a human rights sort of way -- I'm saying that specific people can have highly significant effects, both good and bad, because there is something about

Quoting bjkeefe: I hope so, because I can't begin to take seriously the assertion that individuals don't matter. [Added: Or, to use your phrasing, are of no consequence.]Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Gandhi, ML King, Hitler, Churchill, Beethoven, Bach, Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix, Sarah Palin, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, etc., etc., etc. You can't just average across people like this in any meaningful sense.

Yes, yes, I know what you mean. But I highly doubt you can prove it. Any more than I can prove the inverse. Regardless, I am not talking about Gaia or Jesus or anything like that--this is meant to be a materialistic, mechanistic question.

That is laugh out loud funny. Although I am a creationist hating rationalist (well, I think I'm rational) I can't help but hope that the defection of the ideologically pure creates an all publicity is good scenario for Mr. Wright. I dread the day when the only media outlets where contributors reflect my (decidedly atheist) views are boring echo chambers.

Quoting osmium: I thought we were friends till your accusation of belittling there, then getting grumpy and saying somehow I don't live up to the sceptic community.

BTW, I am very serious about a connection between humans in a complex system and gas particles. It is not woo-woo, whatever that means. At some point in the future, I would like to do like E.O. Wilson says and delineate ways that science informs the social sciences.

The whole Universe is the evolution of hydrogen gas...

Quoting osmium: Yes, yes, I know what you mean. But I highly doubt you can prove it. Any more than I can prove the inverse. Regardless, I am not talking about Gaia or Jesus or anything like that--this is meant to be a materialistic, mechanistic question.

All right, I take back the label woo, but I'm not budging from hand-wavy. Besides, Hari Seldon was way ahead of you.

Quoting themightypuck: That is laugh out loud funny. Although I am a creationist hating rationalist (well, I think I'm rational) I can't help but hope that the defection of the ideologically pure creates an all publicity is good scenario for Mr. Wright. I dread the day when the only media outlets where contributors reflect my (decidedly atheist) views are boring echo chambers.

You think not pretending that creationism is science, and therefore not engaging on those terms, means there's nothing else for atheists/scientists/rationalists to debate with others? And just because the a/s/r bunch are nearly unanimous on this one point, what makes you think we don't have plenty to argue about, just amongst ourselves?

I don't want to overplay my hand here as I can see why people might not want to be associated with a forum that makes them look like fools by association. On the other hand, I don't think Bob Wright thinks creationism is science and I think there is an enormous amount of evidence to suggest that bhtv doesn't think creationism is science. If I had to rank talking heads media outlets in order of rationalist friendliness I think bhtv would be at or near the top. I just hate to see some of my favorite contributors quit over what I see as a tempest in a teapot. I grant that said contributors don't see it this way but there is a reason I watch a lot of bhtv content and only check out pharnygula when I get a link. I think this is in large part about how much people trust Bob Wright. He is maddeningly obtuse in some of his deistic beliefs (check out his Colbert appearance where he gleefully renounces atheism). On the other hand his site is an island of peace for the rational thinker. I hate to

Quoting osmium: Yesterday evening I looked at the rebuttal paper, Simple Evolutionary Pathways to Complex Proteins, by Michael Lynch. Seems fairly savage. I love it. And that's why the Behe and Snoke paper is nothing to fret about--because something nice and lethal and explicit followed it up, and probably always will.

A true point: since Lynch seems to go at them pretty effectively, is this stuff that should have come up before the paper was accepted? I dunno.

Another true point: I understand that your real objection is that Behe or the Discovery Institute point to the paper and say "Look at our paper! We are so smart!" But I think that is the fault of the general public and science education over the past generation, that people fall for that. Let's make the next generation understand these things a bit better, e.g. how the process works.

Did you see me and Jeff talking about Lynch over here?

Two things: 1. Is there any discussion anywhere about Bob's dreadful appearance on Colbert. Please point me to the discussion. I'd like to hear what people are saying. 2. 'Jumped the shark' pretty much nails it. I'm not sure Bob can get this thing back on the rails. Too bad.

I wouldn't call it "dreadful", I just don't think Bob really had the space to be himself. I love Colbert, but I'm far more impressed with the humor that Bob displays off the cuff on a regular basis, than with the stuff that Colbert does, with the help of a team of writers. Although the Colbert speech at the Press Corp function a few years ago was absolutely brilliant. I wopuld love to get Colbert on bhTv with Bob getting a chance to interview him. Something tells me that without the pressure of fitting into a 6 minute window and trying to push book sales, that Bob and Colbert would be a pretty killer combo. Colbert could be like a slightly less right-wing version of Mickey;-)

I love Bob and I don't really think his appearance on Colbert says that much about him. I only mentioned it because it was his most prolific "I'm not an atheist" moment. It takes a real craftsman (and probably some luck) to both have something meaningful to say and look good on Colbert at the same time.

Quoting claymisher: Did you see me and Jeff talking about Lynch over here?

That looks cool. Thanks!

Quoting themightypuck: I don't want to overplay my hand here as I can see why people might not want to be associated with a forum that makes them look like fools by association. On the other hand, I don't think Bob Wright thinks creationism is science and I think there is an enormous amount of evidence to suggest that bhtv doesn't think creationism is science. If I had to rank talking heads media outlets in order of rationalist friendliness I think bhtv would be at or near the top. I just hate to see some of my favorite contributors quit over what I see as a tempest in a teapot. I grant that said contributors don't see it this way but there is a reason I watch a lot of bhtv content and only check out pharnygula when I get a link.

I think this is in large part about how much people trust Bob Wright. He is maddeningly obtuse in some of his deistic beliefs (check out his Colbert appearance where he gleefully renounces atheism). On the other hand his site is an island of peace for the rational thinker. I hate to