A casual disregard for facts

A little while back I linked to Sahotra Sarkar's review of Steve Fuller's Science versus Religion. Now Fuller has put up a defence at the Intelligent Design website, Uncommon Descent, under the gerrymandered image of a bacterial flagellum (if you want to know what a real flagellum would look like at that scale, see this).

While I haven't yet read the book (I'll be reviewing it for Metascience), a couple of points that Fuller's post make clear:

1. He has a really casual dismissal of factual accuracy so long as the "spirit" is right

2. This explains why he's allied himself with ID.

Intelligent design is (as the link above showed) very cavalier with details and facts. The "impression" of design is reason enough to ride roughsod over the details. In fact, as the flagellum indicates, mostly their argument is argument ab cartoon - if you squint hard, then it looks like a machine. Imagine a physicist doing that and coming up with a cartoon physics!

Fuller derides Sarkar for caring about factual claims in detail, when the point is that... what? That you can make history say anything you like if you ignore historical data? Here is his defence of a few claims:

Let me take the following two criticisms together:

"Logical positivists, and not just Popper, are supposed to have labeled Darwinism a "metaphysical research program" (p. 133). I am not aware of a single logical positivist (or logical empiricist) text that supports this claim. Given that for the logical positivists (in contrast to Popper) "metaphysical" was a term of opprobrium, it is unlikely that any of them would have embraced this formulation. The logical positivists may well have believed physics to be of more fundamental importance than biology, but the latter science nevertheless belonged to the pantheon. The foundations of biology were intended to be part of their Encyclopedia of Unified Science."

"Around the same time, Lamarck is supposed to have held that "lower organisms literally strove to become higher organisms, specifically humans, who at some point in the future would be Earth's sole denizens" (p. 146), a view to be found nowhere in the Lamarckian corpus."

These criticisms illustrate what I have called the 'New Yorker magazine view of the world' that afflicts some analytic philosophers. (I originally made this claim against a philosopher who actually began his career as an editor. Oops!) It basically reduces the history and philosophy of science to checking for facts and grammar, respectively. However, as so often is the case when dealing with editors, the fact-checker goes astray when he decides to venture opinions of his own. So even if it is strictly true that only Popper called Darwinism a 'metaphysical research programme' and the official logical positivist line was anti-metaphysical, it is equally true that the positivists themselves did metaphysics in everything but name (e.g. Carnap's Aufbau), not least in the IEUS volume on biology that attempted to lay down the discipline's axiomatic foundations. Perhaps it comes as no surprise that Popper wrote the obituary for its author, Joseph Woodger, in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science in 1981.

On the point concerning the 'Lamarckian corpus', again I am happy to concede that the man himself never explicitly stated the thesis I attributed to him. As it turns out, the passage Sarkar quotes refers to Lamarck and Comte together as representatives of a pro-human line of evolutionary progress that was opposed to the more ecocentric line taken by Darwinists attempting to influence British sociology in its early years. Whatever Lamarck's actual views on the ultimate fate of humanity (which are up for debate), it is clear that the Lamarckian tradition has been generally committed to what the historian Charles Gillispie called an 'escalator of being' on which all creatures were moving, with humans currently on the top floor. A clear expression of the view I attributed to Lamarck can be found in his most visionary 20th century follower, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who envisaged the Earth as someday becoming one 'hominised substance'.

Now anyone who has studied logical positivism and Popper knows well that Popper resiled from the LPs' claims to be metaphysics free. They held that metaphysics was something one ought not to do, in favour of positive knowledge. They held the famous Verification Principle, which Popper among others used as a reductio of the LP program. To say that they "were" doing metaphysics is to fundamentally mischaracterise what was going on. They claimed not to be. It was the critics, including Popper, who said they were. And so when Popper called Darwinian evolution a metaphysical research program, he clearly did not intend that as a criticism, even before his retraction. The positivists thought that was a criticism, but they didn't make it. Post hoc assertions that they were one and the same is to completely mischaracterise what was going on then.

Fuller is well read. He should and probably does know this, so only two other interpretations are possible: carelessness, which undercuts the veracity of the argument, or mendacity, which also does. I like to think that Fuller is being careless rather than trying to deliberately mislead. But if that is his approach to the history of ideas, then I think there is a problem, Houston. Of course Popper wrote Woodger's obit - that's what victors do if they can. It doesn't mean they get amalgamated with their former opponents. To say otherwise is to completely misunderstand the nature of dialectic.

Likewise the point about Lamarck. Lamarck, in what I have read (hey, the Zoological Philosophy is online in French and English; check for yourself) held that there was an impetus driving evolution "upwards" (a physical impetus, by the way - since Vance Alpheus Packard's 1901 work, we have known that Lamarck did not mean "will" by "besoin") but that individual lineages could not enter a filled "rung" on that ladder. And so far as I know, he never said anythign even remotely like that view that only humans would remain. Appealing to what others might have thought after Lamarck is in no way a justification of that very bad claim. And even Teilhard did not think there would be nothing but the Omega Point, merely that humanity would become one at that point in a kind of cosmic salvation.

This disregard for facts, so far from being a corrective to the "New Yorker" approach, is merely a Marvel Comics form of philosophy and history, and it's the only kind that can support ID. I think the less of Fuller just for this one claim. I can only imagine what the full work will lead me to think of him.

Packard, Alpheus. 1901. Lamarck, the founder of evolution: His life and work. New York: Longmans, Green and Co.

More like this

Seemed to me that just about every one of Fuller's "rebuttals" simply confirmed Sarkar's accusation. Reading through, it's just non sequitur after non sequitur. (There should be a buzzer sound after each of Fuller's points.)

1. "I can say that logical positivists considered Darwinism metaphysical because the positivists were themselves engaged in metaphysics!" (*buzz*)

2. "Yeah, Lamarck never said what I attributed to him, but Teilhard de Chardin did!" (*buzz*)

3. "I can ignore natural selection when discussing Darwinism b/c some other guy conflated neutralists and selectionists." (*buzz*)

4. "I wasn't wrong when I said that scientists rejected Mendel's work. After all, here's a historian who says that scientists didn't understand the proper context for Mendel's work!" (*buzz*)

5. "The only way to account for the fact that we can understand the universe is to postulate an Intelligent Designer." (*buzz*)

And those are just the highlights.

I've never read any of Fuller's work, but I've got to say: This reply of his makes me think I'm not missing anything.

By Physicalist (not verified) on 22 Aug 2008 #permalink

"Vance" Packard - subtle joke (too subtle for me), sly allusion, or typo - you decide.

..or maybe it was meant to be subliminal!

yours is one of my favorite blogs - not least because of your sense of humour ... go evolution!!!

I'm still baffled with how much importance you give to creationists. Can't we just laugh at them, and continue to work on serious stuff?

I find hostile contempt to be a better antidote to sheer stupidity than counter-argumenting. On this side of the atlantic, at least. Is it *that* rampant that something more "educational" must be done, you think?

By Vasco Figueira (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

Can't we just laugh at them, and continue to work on serious stuff?

On this side of the Atlantic (that happens to connect to the Pacific through Kansas), laughing and contempt hasn't worked. And we've been damned close to not being allowed to work on the serious stuff (unless MBAs and religious studies count). It's simplistic, but operationally true, that roughly half our population is no more delusional than people in the rest of the developed world and half think that reality is something you get to vote on. The reality-as-reality set is playing for the political margins at the moment.

Is it *that* rampant that something more "educational" must be done, you think?

It is when you're over here. How important it is for the rest of the world kinda depends on what you guys think of 300 million armed-to-the-teeth Americans being educated and led by folks who think (even more than they do now) that reality is something decided by politics.

I, for one, greatly appreciate the help John's willing to give.

And Bill Dembski bans me for pointing out that Fuller's claim that Mendel's work was rejected is not supported by the quotation he offers:

... in 1865, the listeners did not understand that he addressed the research question that had arisen from the discussion between local breeders and naturalists thirty years ago.

By "civil, thoughtful comments" Dembski means those lacking all criticism: e.g. the sole remaining comment there, which fawningly reports having purchased the book (real "thoughtful"!). The intellectual cowardice never ceases to amaze me.

@ Vasco Figueira: Well, Fuller is an academic with a prominent soap box on (what I assume is) your side of the Atlantic. I for one am glad that someone is tearing apart his foolishness.

By Physicalist (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

Thanks for the reference to the Talk: Reason article about images of the bacterial flagellum. It's fascinating. This little dig is especially enjoyable, too:

ID advocates often point (see, for example, [18]) to the allegedly fraudulent "icons of evolution" supposedly utilized by the "Darwinists" for their nefarious purposes. One of such allegedly fraudulent "icons" is the images of embryos by Haeckel. In fact, Haeckel's embryos images were shown to be erroneous not by any creationists but rather by the "Darwinists" themselves. On the other hand, ID advocates, including Dembski and Behe, incessantly reproduce images of flagella which are heavily doctored, without any disclaimers as to the great degree of idealization inherent in these images. Indeed, look again at the real electron photographs of flagella and/or at the images of their actual molecular structure, as shown above in Figs 4, 5, 6, and 7, and it becomes obvious that real natural flagella are far from looking like man-made machines like those whose artificially constructed images are shown in Figs 1, 2, and 3.

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

Physicalist wrote

And Bill Dembski bans me for pointing out that Fuller's claim that Mendel's work was rejected is not supported by the quotation he offers:

Are you really surprised, though?

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

Are you really surprised, though?

No, I'm not. But it's still slightly unsettling in that Fuller lives in academic circles, where such blatant intellectual dishonesty/cowardice is (a) very unusual, and (b) strongly frowned upon.

But I suppose the fact that his reply to Sarkar was posted at Uncommon Descent is all we need to know.

By Physicalist (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

a physical impetus, by the way - since Alpheus Packard's 1901 work, we have known that Lamarck did not mean "will" by "besoin"

And just knowing French wasn't enough? After all, it means "need", not "will". I have a hard time imagining this was less clear in the 18th century.

By David Marjanović (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

Vasco Figueira wrote @#6

I'm still baffled with how much importance you give to creationists. Can't we just laugh at them, and continue to work on serious stuff?

Having lived on both sides of the Pond now, I would say that the social and political influence of creationists in the United States is greatly underestimated in the UK and possibly in Europe as well.

There appear to be substantial areas in the US where science teachers prefer to simply not mention evolution in science classes for the sake of avoiding any controversy that might disrupt the students education. There are smaller, but still significant, areas where teachers do not dare refer to evolution for fear of the outright hostility this will provoke from students and their parents. Even worse, these teachers are further isolated by the fact that they cannot rely on any support from their school administration or local education authority. As far as I was aware, this simply did not happen in the UK when I was going to school.

I was also shocked by the nature and the sheer volume of religious broadcasting in the US. Back home in Blighty, religious TV shows were largely confined to what was thought of as a 'ghetto' area of the schedule early on Sunday evening and they consisted of broadcast services, medleys of hymns and other 'inspirational' music and chat shows - all very polite, all very reserved, all very British and all very boring.

As an aside, it was an object lesson in how to destroy a faith, just make it so boring that people will go elsewhere to be uplifted.

In the US, the number of channels carrying religious shows of some sort or another is astonishing. You have the impression after a while that it is just another consumer product with different brands competing for a share of the market. The TV shows tend to be brash, loud and aggressive and the megachurches rival any European cathedral in their ostentation.

And it works. The programming and the megachurches do not come cheap. It takes deep pockets to pay for it and those pockets are filled by contributions from the large numbers of would-believers attracted by all the feel-good flamboyance. 'They's gold in them thar shills!'

The combination of wealth, conservative theology and evangelical zeal makes creationists a force to be reckoned with and amused contempt will have no more affect on them than it would on a tank. That is why, like John (Pieret), I value whatever John (Wilkins) is able to contribute. It offers something other than the crude jeering heard from some sections of the atheist crowd. Jeering at creationists is unlikely to be any more effective than sneering at them.

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

... a Marvel Comics form of philosophy and history...

C'mon, the Marvel universe shows no trend towards perfection or enlightenment, just a shifting dynamic of competitiveness in high tension amid non-trivial mutations within increasing populations.

By Pierce R. Butler (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

Brilliantly explained John, I can hardly wait for the full treatment of the book, but, I suppose because of my age or the condition of my bifocals (scratched, dirty and covered with the tears of laughter), I seem to have missed the tight puns, the intriguing references to Pratchett and the witty Monty Python quips.

By Gary Bohn (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

Physicalist wrote @#11

No, I'm not. But it's still slightly unsettling in that Fuller lives in academic circles, where such blatant intellectual dishonesty/cowardice is (a) very unusual, and (b) strongly frowned upon.

I can't say I find it unsettling. I would expect the academy to embrace as wide a range of views as possible, which would include many I would find challenging, uncomfortable, incomprehensible, etc.

What I find disappointing is the weakness, although not the length, of Fuller's response. The long-windedness of his reply fully lives up to my expectations but the content does not. It reminds me of all those stronger and more sophisticated arguments for God which, we are told, atheists critics of religion never address but which seem to be conspicuous by their absence.

For example, I find it disappointing that a scholar of Fuller's experience, erudition and credentials could write the following:

However, the idea is not so ridiculous if one takes seriously that the God of Genesis creates in a resistant material medium - the world does not simply arise from a divine snap of the fingers. God may be omnipotent in the sense of ultimately getting what he wants but how he manages it is up for science to discover - and, depending on one's reading of the Bible - improve and complete.

Is this the God of Christianity under discussion or some plasticine deity that can be molded into whatever shape Fuller finds convenient?

What is this "resistant material medium" in which God works? Does it co-exist with or pre-exist God? If it does, then in what sense is God the necessary, perfect First Cause required by creationist theology? If it is just another creation of God, was it molded from an even more intractable material medium - is there an infinite regress of "resistant material media" - or was it 'poofed' into existence by a snap of the divine digits. And why should God choose to work in some "resistant material medium" rather than 'poof' things into existence? I assume that someone as widely read as Fuller is familiar with Mill's comments on design:

It is not too much to say that every indication of Design in the Kosmos is so much evidence against the Omnipotence of the Designer. For what is meant by Design? Contrivance: the adaptation of means to an end. But the necessity for contrivance--the need of employing means--is a consequence of the limitation of power. Who would have recourse to means if to attain his end his mere word was sufficient?

And what does it actually mean to say the medium is "resistant" given that an omnipotent God can impose his overriding will any time He chooses?

This is feeble stuff from a professional academic although I suppose he is doing the best he can defending the indefensible.

But I suppose the fact that his reply to Sarkar was posted at Uncommon Descent is all we need to know.

He's certainly nailed his colours to the mast of a sinking ship over at Uncommon Descent; and that reminds me a bit of Moby Dick with Captain Dembski stomping the quarterdeck of the good ship PequUD bent on revenge against the great white whale of evolution which, he believes, has crippled his career but against which the flimsy structure of Intelligent Design is doomed to be shattered.

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

This is feeble stuff from a professional academic.

Indeed. Almost without exception, his "arguments" just leave me shaking my head. The core of his position appears to be that scientists already accept Intelligent Design because they believe the universe can be understood:

Intelligibility implies that all of reality . . . is constructed in such a way that we can make sense of its fundamental nature. And why would anyone think such a thing? The answer is that whoever or whatever produced reality, it has a mind rather like ours.

The first sentence is a tautology, and the last is a non sequitur. I can understand that 2+2=4, why should this imply that numbers were created by an intelligent being? I can understand that an inverse square law will result in elliptical orbits. Where's the need for a creator? Or, more to the point, how would the existence of a creator enable or explain such understanding?

Further, while Fuller is siding with ID, he apparently ignores (as Sarkar notes) the explanatory strategy (such as it is) that constitutes ID -- viz., the god-of-the-gaps argument. Even if past and current scientists are motivated by religious convictions (which claim is, I suspect, being over-sold by Fuller), this does nothing to support the current ID movement, which is trying to question the explanatory adequacy of modern biology.

I think many of the shortcomings of Fuller's reasoning can be explained by the fact that he makes interesting sociological observations, but then believes that these can resolve issues in history, philosophy, and science. But he is unapologetic about his weakness as a historian, he disparages argument--the foundation of philosophy, and his knowledge of science seems abysmal.

I wouldn't want people to think that this is representative of all researchers in history and philosophy of science.

By Physicalist (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

David @ 12: besoin was translated into the somewhat constrained English of the day as "want", which can be understood as "need" or as "desire" both in French and English. Lyell read it as "desire", but Lamarck intended it as "need".

Notice that it is not just facts that Fuller is confused about, but logic. He said that the logical positivists claimed that Darwinism was a metaphysical research program. He says he's entitled to this claim, even if they didn't make it, because they were doing metaphysics themselves. Here's a parallel claim:

Steve Fuller says that Steve Fuller is garbage.

I am entitled to this claim, because though he didn't say it, he is engaged in the production of garbage.

Well said, Neil.

By Physicalist (not verified) on 23 Aug 2008 #permalink

I find it stunning that anyone puts any credit to someone who censors his critics. Personally, if I had to do that for myself, I would question my own motives.

But then, that is the difference between us and them. And I am very sad of that difference, even more so than I am sad that it is an "us and them" mentality in the first place.

But I cannot think of anyone with such disregard for logic and intelligence and the simple development of ideas and principles as anything other than "them" if they choose to fight so strongly and with such affect on "us." Especially when we would be content to ignore them and go about our work if they didn't get in our business. But no, so hostile, so stupid, so intent on making others believe what they do. Whatever that belief may be, that is always wrong. It's very simple.

Unfortunately we do have to fight against them and work for power in politics in this country (the US) as they actually are affecting the country in very real ways that should not be allowed to continue. Stupidity is enveloping the country... religion I don't care about, believe whatever you want, but the stupidity and insolence to force it on others -- I'll have no part of that.

I'm going to preface this by saying that as an atheist I am not in the ID camp. Never the less, I think that Fuller makes some very cogent points. Chief among them is that Mr. Wilkins (and Sarkar) does exactly what Fuller complains about. Reducing himself to little more than a fact checker and a grammarian. Address the argument honestly, don't pick nits.

"To say that they "were" doing metaphysics is to fundamentally mischaracterise what was going on. They claimed not to be. It was the critics, including Popper, who said they were."

True but that's not what Fuller said and misses the point of his criticism. He said "the positivists themselves did metaphysics in everything but name" or in other words, they were doing metaphysics without being aware they were, that was his point and any honest reading will get you there.

Fuller graciously concedes a couple of glaring errors but he also points out some errors by Sarkar. The last one is really pretty bad. Natural selection is the first "non-teleological account of the world"? Wow, Fuller is correct, that is an undergraduate level howler.

I think that Fuller is on solid ground when he suggests that the Neo-Darwinian synthesis will be eventually dismantled and for the reasons he gives. I don't think it will be replaced with ID, perhaps an entirely new paradigm will arise. Perhaps we will discover that symbiosis and/or parasitism drive speciation more than mutation does. Or perhaps it will be something else entirely, or nothing at all.

Physicalist
"I can understand that 2+2=4, why should this imply that numbers were created by an intelligent being? [...] Where's the need for a creator?"

From the quote you give I don't see that he is saying because 2+2=4 there must be a Creator. He is just raising the question of intelligibility. It's a perfectly legitimate question. Mathematics is not Nature's own language. It's ours.

"Fuller is siding with ID"

I have not read his book, this is really the first time I've read anything by him but in this particular article Fuller doesn't seem to me to be "siding with ID". He is making the more general point that religion and religious ideas have informed what those people we call scientists do for a very long time. Historically he is correct but I don't think he is correct to call that ID. Let's take a look at what he says:

"The overarching sense of scientific progress and its concomitant faith in greater explanatory unity and increased predictive control of nature over time: All of these trade on an ID-based view of the world, in which human beings enjoy a special relationship to reality that enables us to acquire a deep knowledge,"

You have to wonder if most ID proponents share this view of what ID is. Fuller here is making a very general claim that religion, and my guess here is that he is thinking especially of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, imposes a "frame" that is particularly conducive to scientific inquiry. That seems like a good and legitimate argument to make and honestly not that threatening to me. But to go from that to ID as it is currently understood I don't accept, but I'm not sure I see him doing that. He's being a bit cagey with both sides. Today's ID is a non-scientific ideology created out of the failure of vulgar creationism. If I were to critique Fuller I would focus on separating him from the rest of the ID'ers.

Finally, Fuller seems awfully worried about formulating a response to post-modernism and relativism and is quite unhappy with naturalism. I agree that naturalism isn't nearly enough but I don't think the answer is a retreat into mysticism.

Physicalist
By "civil, thoughtful comments" Dembski means those lacking all criticism: e.g. the sole remaining comment there, which fawningly reports having purchased the book (real "thoughtful"!). The intellectual cowardice never ceases to amaze me.

That's not a fair assessment of that thread. Care to share the full text of what you posted? People can get pretty rude and offensive and I don't blame anyone (Fuller has nothing to do with moderating comments anyway) for deleting posters who can't keep a civil tongue in their head. Internet Tough Guy syndrome is epidemic.

Fuller's claim that Mendel's work was rejected is not supported by the quotation he offers

Gregor Mendel
"When Mendel's paper was published in 1866 in Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brunn, it had little impact and was cited about three times over the next thirty-five years. His paper was criticized at the time, but is now considered a seminal work."

"At first Mendel's work was rejected, and it was not widely accepted until after he died. The common belief at the time was that Darwin's theory of pangenes were responsible for inheritance."

Yeah I know, it's Wikipedia but the point is valid. Mendel was not accepted at first. Saying that Fuller's claim is not supported by the quotation offered is being trite and pedantic.

Fuller said, and you just repeated, that Mendel's work was rejected. It was not. It was ignored. Nobody rejected him, they simply didn't read him. Darwin's theory of pangenes, by the way, was rejected almost immediately by everyone except Romanes and a couple of others.

And this is not nitpicking; these are the foundations of Fuller's claims. If the foundations are false, one has little confidence in any of the conclusions. They may still be true, but not because of anything Fuller has adduced.

History of Biology
"The origin of genetics is usually traced to the 1866 work of the monk Gregor Mendel, who would later be credited with the laws of inheritance. However, his work was not recognized as significant until 35 years afterward. In the meantime, a variety of theories of inheritance (based on pangenesis, orthogenesis, or other mechanisms) were debated and investigated vigorously."
Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought, pp 693710

So his work was criticized and went unrecognized as being important for 35 years yet you don't think that merits "rejected" but somehow "ignored" is completely different? I'm sorry John but this is truly semantic quibbling at it's finest.

I don't know that Mendel being rejected is the basis of his argument (I don't see how it could be) but if it is you're in deep trouble if that's the best you can do. Rather, I suspect that Sarkar and yourself are just making technical complaints because you don't know what else to do. Oh, they are right about your complaint about the flagellum image too. That was just silly.

You know, the only real resolution to this issue is education. I don't want to see creationism taught as science anymore than you do. But if you (ID critics) can't engage your opponents honestly and respectfully you'll lose in the long run. That's what I believe and why feel a need to speak up. I know I know, people feel that our very civilization is at stake from the barbarian hordes so we must fight! I rather doubt that is true for one and I strongly disagree on the method for the other.

Like your heroes, you don't read very carefully, do you? What you have quoted does not say Mendel was criticised. It says he was ignored. If you can't tell the difference between criticism and being ignored, then you have real problems...

John, stop ignoring noen, it's not polite!

noen - try an experiment. Try posting a polite but critical comment on that thread, and see what happens. Many people have been polite and still been banned (myself included).

I've posted this once on the wrong thread so I thought I would try it on the right one ;)

Fuller writes:

Newton is supposed to have "presented his mathematical physics as the divine plan that was implicitly written into the Bible [emphasis added]" (p. 54). Fuller must have access to an otherwise unknown veridical edition of the Principia."

No, of course I do not have access to any such edition. However, once one adds some context - Newton's correspondence, successive editions of the long interpretive essay he attached to the Principia, called the General Scholium, as well as his other major work, the Opticks - it becomes clear that Newton intended his physics to be a decoding of hidden biblical truths.(1) Again this point should be obvious to anyone schooled in HPS.(2) Such a person would be mindful of the tricky 17th and 18th century conventions concerning the expression of theological opinions in scientific tracts.

Fuller gives no justification for his statements so I shall not either, other than to say this is a subject on which, although I would never call myself an expert, I am very well and very extensively read.

My comments:

(1)No! He didn't intend that at all and nothing in his writings or the context gives any grounds what so ever for making this claim.

(2)No it wouldn't because it's simply not true.

noen wrote @#25

Physicalist
By "civil, thoughtful comments" Dembski means those lacking all criticism: e.g. the sole remaining comment there, which fawningly reports having purchased the book (real "thoughtful"!). The intellectual cowardice never ceases to amaze me.

That's not a fair assessment of that thread. Care to share the full text of what you posted? People can get pretty rude and offensive and I don't blame anyone (Fuller has nothing to do with moderating comments anyway) for deleting posters who can't keep a civil tongue in their head. Internet Tough Guy syndrome is epidemic.

At @19 on that thread, DaveScot wrote:

I'm afraid Professor Fuller does not want to field questions in the comments here. His only desire was to publically respond to a critical article in a trade
journal. In fact he wanted comments disabled so no one would expect him to respond but Bill convinced him that the comments would be at least worth reading and should be enabled. Personally I would have left the comments disabled. If Professor Fuller doesn't want to wallow in the mud with the pigs who inhabit scienceblogs.com sometimes as authors and in the majority as commenters that's certainly something I can understand under the rubric "Never wrestle with a pig. You'll both get covered in pigsh*t but the pig enjoys it."

Anyone who has followed Uncommon Descent will know that DaveScot is the 'enforcer' at the blog, a prime example of "Internet Tough Guy Syndrome" and personally responsible for the majority of the bannings. If you go to the blog The Panda's Thumb you will find a tally of all those banned which, if you are truly interested, you could use to test the hypothesis that only those being "rude and offensive" were banned.

I attempted to post at UD under a pseudonym some years back. I restricted myself for the most part to simply asking questions although my evolutionary sympathies would have become evident very quickly. After a short time my posts simply stopped appearing. There was no formal announcement of a ban and I continued to try for a period in case it was simply a glitch in the moderation system but nothing happened so eventually I gave up.

From DaveScot's comment it is apparent that Fuller want to post his reply to Sarkar but did not want to face any questions or comment. This is a little odd as Fuller has a perfectly serviceable website of his own where he can post whatever he wants and allow as many or as few comments as he chooses. Why post it at Uncommon Descent and why did he want the comments disabled? Nobody is going to force him to read any comments let alone reply to them if he doesn't feel like it.

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

Oops! Hit the 'Post' instead of the 'Preview' key there.

Just to conclude, Uncommon Descent, apparently like Fuller himself, is not only acutely sensitive to to challenging - let alone critical - commentary, it is extremely intolerant of it. If you read it for any length of time you will see constant questions or challenges issued by contributors to critics of ID which go unanswered simply because the critics have been banned.

Dembski & Co can do whatever they like on their blog, of course. If they want to shut out anyone who is remotely critical if ID then that is their prerogative. But it is disingenuous, to put it mildly, for them to congratulate themselves on having an unanswerable case or that their opponents are too cowardly or incompetent to face them when they themselves are hiding behind an almost impenetrable moderation screen.

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

@ noen #25

Care to share the full text of what you posted? People can get pretty rude and offensive and I don't blame anyone . . . for deleting posters who can't keep a civil tongue in their head.

I posted two comments: the second I reproduced rather faithfully here. In full, it would have looked as follows (I didn't save a copy, despite having heard warnings that one should always save an independent copy of anything posted to UD):

"... in 1865, the listeners did not understand that he addressed the research question that had arisen from the discussion between local breeders and naturalists thirty years ago."How does this support the claim that (in Sarkar's words) Mendel's work was "rejected by scientific experts before he published it in a local journal in Brünn"?

A perfectly civil post pointing out a glaring error. I even made a point to recognize that I only had access to Sarkar's characterization, thus opening the possibility that Fuller's actual point had been different.

I was astounded in reading Fuller's reply, that over and over again, his proposed rebuttals simply confirmed Sarkar's criticisms. For some of the issues, I'd have to see what Fuller actually said in the book (though now Fuller's convinced me that there's little or nothing of value to be found there), but for many of them, Fuller himself is wittingly or unwittingly admitting that he's in the wrong. The above quotation was just the strongest and most succinct case of this, because the quotation obviously doesn't make the point that Fuller needs it to. Sure, it's a minor point, but the failure to recognize and correct the error makes it noteworthy.

My first comment actually was a bit snarky, but I'll defend its thoughtfulness. I put some effort into figuring out what the core of Fuller's argument was (as presented in his reply), and this is what I came up with (again, reproduced in full as best I'm able):

Shorter Fuller: Some old-timey scientists believed in God. ID folks believe in God. Therefore ID should be taught in high-school science classes.

Now, that isn't the most respectful of posts, but it isn't exactly uncivil either (I even capitalized the "G" in "God"). It's a challenge for Fuller or his supporters to flesh out the general line of reasoning presented -- in light of the fact that it seems to me to be a non sequitur. And it's highly pertinent in that Sarkar's review raises this very criticism, and Fuller's response is woefully inadequate. (Apparently ID should be taught b/c some people think that nothing can be intelligible unless it was created by something intelligent??? We might discuss that in a philosophy class, no reasonable person would think it's an issue for a biology or physics class.)

Further, my post is far more civil than Fullers piece (so I'm elevating the discourse!). Compare the above with Fuller's quips:

[Sarkar's] is the sort of argument that would be unwittingly funny if found in an undergraduate exam, but pathetic coming from someone holding a Ph.D. in HPS....Sarkar's biggest howler . . . it should be obvious to anyone who has taken HPS 101 . . .

Sure, Sarkar's review is just as snide, but it's a bit hypocritical to demand respectful scholarly replies when one has already stooped to name-calling in the debate. My posts were focused exclusively on the content of the argument, and didn't even contain a single disparaging word. It's obvious that these comments weren't considered to be "civil and thoughtful" by Dembski primarily because they were critical. Might I have phrased the points in a more congenial way, and is it likely that they then would have been allowed? Sure, but at the cost of making the posts longer -- and everything else would have just been sugar coating. Indeed, after the comments were chopped, I did resubmit with some glowing words of praise for Fuller (I thought perhaps the comment might be allowed after moderation), but it was automatically junked.

On the topic of hypocrisy, I also can't resist the irony of pseudonymous DavidScot requiring (after my banning) that all critics use their real names. That still makes me chuckle.

Noen:

you don't think that merits "rejected" but somehow "ignored" is completely different? I'm sorry John but this is truly semantic quibbling at it's finest.

It might have been semantic quibbling when Sarkar first objected to it. Then the proper response would be for Fuller to group it with the other errors that he admits to, but dismisses as trivial. You get enough of those, and people start to think you're a sloppy scholar, but at least you're intellectually honest. Once Fuller defends the formulation by presenting quotations that simply don't say what he needs them to say, then it looks like he's either dishonest or incompetent. Had my comment been allowed, he could have responded saying that by "rejected" he didn't mean that it was really rejected -- he just meant it wasn't accepted, and that Sarkar's tone masked what the criticism was. But now we're just left with the impression that ID folks aren't too bright, and that they're intellectual cowards as well.

And, again, this is just one among many missteps. Fuller's line of argument about metaphysics and the logical positivists is truly a howler (to use Fuller's term), as has been pointed out by Wilkins, me, and Neil. I strongly suspect that if we were to read Fuller's book, we'd see that several more of his "rebuttals" to Sarkar also fall on their face. After all, I'm just pointing to the fallacies and falsehoods that are obvious from the evidence that Fuller himself presents.

By Physicalist (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

First, let me say that I look forward to John Wilkins' "fair and balanced" examination of my book based on what he says here. I'm already used to Fox News, so I know what to expect. Second, I'm also glad you guys have abandoned Sarkar as a saviour, implicitly realizing just how feeble he is. I'm much more comfortable with your attacking me directly than siding with him. Nevertheless, since you guys seem to take facts so seriously, I'm a little disappointed you haven't noticed how many he gets wrong -- especially in relation to what I actually say (let alone his independent judgements about the history of science, which leave a lot to be desired). By the way, the scholastic 'head of a pin' dispute about whether Mendel was 'rejected' or 'merely' ignored is quite amusing.

By Steve Fuller (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

@ noen:

Also, Fuller's claim (as reported by Sarkar, and reinforced by Fuller's reply) is that Mendel's work was rejected before it was published (not after).

Sarkar:

Mendel is supposed to have had his work rejected by scientific experts before he published it in a local journal in Brunn, a rejection of which no other historian is aware.

Fuller w/ quotation from Orel:

(Keep in mind that Mendel's paper was published in 1866): "When Mendel explained 'the general application of the law of formation and development of hybrids' in his lectures to the members of the Natural Science Society in 1865, the listeners did not understand that he addressed the research question that had arisen . . . thirty years ago."

Thus your references to the reception of Mendel's publication seem irrelevant to me. Claiming that Mendel's work was rejected before it was published implies that he had trouble publishing it, or that scientists were opposed to it. But all Orel is saying is that it wasn't fully appreciated. Hardly surprising, since -- as you point out -- it wasn't appreciated after it was published either. One gets the impression that Fuller is just making things up, but presumably he's just being sloppy.

By Physicalist (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

Steve Fuller:

By the way, the scholastic 'head of a pin' dispute about whether Mendel was 'rejected' or 'merely' ignored is quite amusing.

The Orel quotation clearly doesn't support a claim that Mendel's work was rejected -- that's just obvious. The impression one gets from Orel is that folks thought, "Meh, OK, but so what?" -- not realizing that it addressed questions they actually cared about. Hardly a rejection.

A trivial point? Sure, but your response to it just digs you deeper in the hole.

As far as an evaluation of Sarkar's criticisms go, as I tried to say above, I'd have to do more reading to decide on many of them whether you or he are in the right. But I'm astounded that on several points (metaphysics, Mendel, intelligibility of the universe) your proposed defenses just prove the point Sarkar was trying to make.

By Physicalist (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

If you submitted the people you like to this degree of scrutiny, you'd probably end up hating them too. One thing that seems to me painfully obvious is that the standards of evidence and argument to which people are held on this matter wildly vary depending on whether you're predisposed to agree or disagree with them.

By Steve Fuller (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

This is an interesting point of philosophical ignorance or mendacity on Fuller's part.

"the idea . . . of an 'intelligible' reality as a necessary precondition for science . . . implies that all of reality--not just the bits we need for everyday living--is constructed in such a way that we can make sense of its fundamental nature. And why would anyone think such a thing? The answer is that whoever or whatever produced reality, it has a mind rather like ours--only much, much better."

The idea that the intelligibility of the world is a precondition for science (indeed for any knowledge) is indeed an important philosophical question, although it's only been posed explicitly as one since Kant. Fuller's rhetorical "and why would anyone think such a thing?" suggests he is proposing the only possible answer. In fact the entire philosophical edifices built by Kant, Hegel, and most or--I'll go out on a limb here--all major philosophers who have addressed the question since have been directed at showing that the intelligibility of the world is a precondition for experiencing it at all, even before one begins theorizing on it. Sense-data constructivism, phenomenology (Husserlian or Heideggerian), both Wittgensteins, Sellars, McDowell. But Fuller has already begged the question in using the word "constructed", suggesting it could only be a matter of how this particular world was assembled rather than a more basic issue of what it is to be a world at all.

This is comical given Fuller's repeated stress that Sarkar's criticisms lack an appreciation of the philosophical issues at hand.

By Jack Fortune (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

A clarification to my previous comment, in case it wasn't clear. The world has to be intelligible for us to understand it, but any number of philosophers hold that, given that there is a world at all, one need not appeal to divine activity to explain its intelligibility. Fuller, by contrast, suggest that there are no other options on the table.

By Jack Fortune (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

"John, stop ignoring noen, it's not polite!"

Being polite is important, it is the glue that holds a civilization together. We are asked to be more than a tribal warrior chucking our spears at the enemy. The project of civilization requires that we suppress our tribal differences for a greater good. Are you up to that task?

Physicalist - I accept that you were unfairly banned. I have enough familiarity with the extreme right to know that they do not tolerate criticism well. Still, there does seem to be a debate going on there so apparently some can manage to criticize without getting banned.

standards of evidence and argument to which people are held on this matter wildly vary depending on whether you're predisposed to agree or disagree

It's tribalism. I find that dismaying. And this:

"Fuller gives no justification for his statements so I shall not either"

is simply childish.

"What you have quoted does not say Mendel was criticised. It says he was ignored. If you can't tell the difference between criticism and being ignored, then you have real problems..."

I guess I need to repeat my point I made at #25:
"His paper was criticized at the time" and "At first Mendel's work was rejected". I'm quoting Wikipedia's article on Mendel here. I know that this could be wrong, it's wiki after all, but if your response doesn't survive even a first glance then what does say of the rest of your argument?

"He has a really casual dismissal of factual accuracy so long as the "spirit" is right".

Well then which is it, aren't you doing what Fuller complains of? Quibbling over details while the larger argument is correct?

Let me drive home my main objection here. Physicalist's very first post at #1 makes five detailed criticisms of Fuller's argument and then immediately follows this with:

"I've never read any of Fuller's work"

And neither has anyone else here including myself. Yet you all feel completely justified criticizing something of which you are wholly ignorant. This is what passes for intellectual debate these days?

The interesting question for Fuller is, why hitch his wagon to such an intellectually bankrupt con game such as ID, which, it has been exhaustively demonstrated, exists merely to fleece the rubes and try and get around the objections to Creationism?

Is it money? fame? The chance to shock his elders and betters?

Steve Fuller wrote @#34

First, let me say that I look forward to John Wilkins' "fair and balanced" examination of my book based on what he says here.

I think you can rest assured that John's examination of your book will be at least as "fair and balanced" as your treatment of Intelligent Design and evolution based on what you have said at your website and Uncommon Descent.

By the way, the scholastic 'head of a pin' dispute about whether Mendel was 'rejected' or 'merely' ignored is quite amusing.

Much like speculation about the extent to which belief in a unevidenced God influenced the development of scientific theories or the conduct of research rather than simply being coincidental.

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

A further question, although I appreciate it is off topic- What do Fuller and Noen think of the continued, indeed compulsive banning of any poster who makes any comments, no matter how intelligent and relevant, that the UD moderators do not like?
The banning has been documented for years at AtBc, and it is a highly relevant issue which should not be skirted.

Being polite is important, it is the glue that holds a civilization together. We are asked to be more than a tribal warrior chucking our spears at the enemy. The project of civilization requires that we suppress our tribal differences for a greater good. Are you up to that task?

I survived for about 2 years on UD before I was banned, so yes.

Now will you ask the same question of Prof. Fuller?

noen wrote @#40

"I've never read any of Fuller's work"

And neither has anyone else here including myself. Yet you all feel completely justified criticizing something of which you are wholly ignorant. This is what passes for intellectual debate these days?

I think you will find that there are some here who have read some of Fuller's work.

For example, he has published a book entitled Dissent Over Descent: Evolution's 500-Year War on Intelligent Design which, according to reviews, argues that Intelligent Design has been the driving force behind the last 500 years of scientific discovery. If true, that makes it the most fruitful scientific theory in history and must mean it has been developed, refined and confirmed to a very high degree. Yet, at the Dover trial, Fuller testified under cross-examination as follows:

Q. So you're not saying that intelligent design is the correct or the better explanation for biological life?

A. No, I'm not. I'm certainly not. They're not -- they haven't developed it enough to really be in a position to make any kind of definitive judgment of that kind.

So which is it, one of the most powerful concepts in science - responsible for the greatest flowering of research the world has ever seen - or just an embryonic speculation?

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

Q. So you're not saying that intelligent design is the correct or the better explanation for biological life?

A. No, I'm not. I'm certainly not. They're not -- they haven't developed it enough to really be in a position to make any kind of definitive judgment of that kind.

ID Defined at UD

The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID is thus a scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion.

(my bold)

Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don't have such a theory right now, and that's a problem. Without a theory, it's very hard to know where to direct your research focus. Right now, we've got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as "irreducible complexity" and "specified complexity"-but, as yet, no general theory of biological design

Paul Nelson, Touchstone Magazine 7/8 (2004): pp 64 � 65.

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

Steve Fuller:

If you submitted the people you like to this degree of scrutiny, you'd probably end up hating them too. One thing that seems to me painfully obvious is that the standards of evidence and argument to which people are held on this matter wildly vary depending on whether you're predisposed to agree or disagree with them.

We don't hate you, we just want to be a bit more intellectually rigorous -- in part because we believe that if you were, you wouldn't be supporting people who are trying to undermine science education.

(And, honestly, if you look at what the creationists are trying to get taught in science class, you can't see it as anything but intellectual subversion. ID is a grand argument from ignorance. Creationism -- as presented by current advocates -- is based on obscuring or denying thousands of well-established scientific facts.)

I agree that part of what's being played out here is nothing but heightened scrutiny for rhetorical/polemical ends. (I'll even say that you scored a point against Sarkar by pointing out that there were obviously non-teleological accounts before Darwin.) I also don't deny that one often holds one's opponents to higher standards than one's allies, nor do I deny that I am doing so here. Part of this, of course, is that one can often supply the premises or reasoning missing from an ally's arguments, but one might find oneself utterly unable to do this in for an opponent's argument that is wanting.

For example, I literally don't know how you could believe that the intelligibility of the universe requires an intelligent designer. Did many smart natural philosophers of the past believe this? Sure. But part of the reason for this is that they didn't have the vast supply of scientific explanations that we now have. I'm reminded of Comte, who (IIRC) believed that sociology would be the easiest science -- because it's about people, and it's people who are trying to figure it out. People should behave in intelligible ways. Physics, chemistry, and biology, on the other hand, might not submit themselves to our understanding. You can see why he would think things would work out this way, but clearly he was very very wrong.

I can understand why the planets follow elliptical orbits, and why there are tides, with absolutely no appeal to an intelligent creator. It's understandable because there are structures that fit together in a certain way, and once we recognize how it all works, we understand it.

An intelligent creator adds nothing to this. All we we really need are the physical laws and some historical events, it doesn't matter how those laws and event got there. A "creationist" understanding of tides that differs from the purely natural understanding (relying on how forces vary over the Earth -- or the geodesic structure of Schwarzschild spacetime, if you prefer) is simply wrong.

Now, I understand that the creationists then want to move to asking, "Ah! But who made the laws?! What caused the Big Bang?!" But that's irrelevant to the general question of whether a scientist needs to be committed to an Intelligent Designer if she is committed to the ability to understand the natural world. She can reasonably hope to understand tides, photosynthesis, and nuclear fusion -- as well as cancer, abiogenesis, and dark energy -- while ignoring the question of whether there's an explanation of the existence of physical laws or the universe itself.

Now, philosophers and cosmologists (and maybe even theologians) can certainly confront the question of what sort of explanations might be available for laws and the universe -- but this is just completely irrelevant for biology classes. Do you disagree?

By Physicalist (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

Should be, " . . . we just want you to be a bit more intellectually rigorous. . .

I blog under a pseudonym so I don't have to rigorous (intellectually, grammatically, or spellingly). :-)

By Physicalist (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

noen:

I accept that you were unfairly banned. . . . Still, there does seem to be a debate going on there so apparently some can manage to criticize without getting banned.

I am, of course, not personally offended/disappointed at the banning. I think it does, however, reflect quite badly on Bill Dembski. But it's probably best that I'm not over there trying to educate that crowd -- I'd want to be paid quite a bit for taking on that task, and I do have numerous projects on which I shouldn't be procrastinating nearly as much as I am.

I will say, though, that I just glanced over there, and I really don't see anything that looks like a debate on the Fuller piece. Liz Lizard has been polite enough (and obliging enough) to engage them in conversation, but they seem to be discussing general ID talking points (and cheering DaveScot silliness) while ignoring Fuller and Sarkar. I'm sure this surprises no one.

"I've never read any of Fuller's work" . . . Yet you all feel completely justified criticizing something of which you are wholly ignorant. This is what passes for intellectual debate these days?

As I emphasized from the first, what is noteworthy is that Fuller himself was providing the evidence that undermined his claims. I was not wholly ignorant of Fuller's position, because I had read his rebuttal to Sarkar -- and it was this rebuttal that I was commenting on. I gather (from Sarkar and Fuller) that there are many other claims of Fuller's that I would strongly disagree with (e.g., regarding Newton, information, etc.), but I didn't comment on these precisely because I didn't have enough information at my disposal to make a responsible assessment.

[earlier] From the quote you give I don't see that he is saying because 2+2=4 there must be a Creator. He is just raising the question of intelligibility. It's a perfectly legitimate question. Mathematics is not Nature's own language. It's ours.

The mathematical example was just supposed to be a simple preliminary case to point out that understanding rarely rests on something being designed. The example of a natural process followed -- viz. planetary orbits (your ellipses marks). See my reply to Fuller above.

By Physicalist (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

I am sorry guys, but I believe that God exists. I believe in Jesus Christ as well.

I do not believe that everything just "happened by accident" and that the earth and everything on it just happened to evolve from a few molecules getting together and then evolving into all the things we have on this planet.

There are plenty of Christians who do not take a purely "protestant" literal view of the Holy Bible. The Orthodox Christians for example tend to have no issues with Science at all, since they believe it actualy serves to expand on Gods work. Perhaps it is because they don't take the "literal" view that the earth is exactly 6000 years old or was created in 7 days...

Now, does that mean I think that Scientist shouldn't do what they are doing? Nope. I believe in the end, they are simply solving the mysteries of gods work, nothing more and nothing less.

I think you all need to chill out on this stuff.

George:

I do not believe that everything just "happened by accident" and that the earth and everything on it just happened to evolve from a few molecules getting together and then evolving into all the things we have on this planet.

George, I respectfully suggest that you educate yourself about the current scientific understanding of the evolution of the cosmos, the Earth, and life on Earth. Scientific knowledge is possible precisely because these are not all accidental. There are are orderly laws, processes, and structures, and science has produced an impressivve understanding of a good many of these.

By Physicalist (not verified) on 24 Aug 2008 #permalink

"A trivial point? Sure, but your response to it just digs you deeper in the hole."

I wouldn't even concede that. The distinction between thinking a discovery lacks profundity and thinking a claim itself is false is certainly a non-trivial distinction. That Fuller likens this to counting angels on pinheads (that is, a question regarding things that don't exist) just shows how far out of his depth he is.

On August 22nd 2008, John Wilkins wrote: 'Of course Popper wrote Woodger's obit - that's what victors do if they can. It doesn't mean they get amalgamated with their former opponents.' This is a very odd comment about the obituary -which I wonder if Wilkins had read - as Popper is highly appreciative of Woodger, and does not discuss points on which they may have been in disagreement.

By Jeremy Shearmur (not verified) on 26 Jan 2009 #permalink