A Peer-Reviewed Creationist Paper?

You will have to reach your own conclusion on this one, dear reader. We found an astonishing announcement at the blog of the neo-theocrats at the Discovery Institute‘s creationist public relations and lobbying operation, the Center for Science and Culture (a/k/a the Discoveroids, a/k/a the cdesign proponentsists).

It’s an article by Casey Luskin, a Discoveroid non-fellow, the title of which proclaims: Pro-Intelligent Design Peer Reviewed Scientific Paper Argues for an “Engineered World”.

This is potentially important, because creationists are always trying to get their peculiar “science” into respected, peer-reviewed journals, and until now their efforts have been rather dismal. The best example is the notorious peer review controversy involving Stephen Meyer, a Discoveroid vice president and senior fellow.

Have the creationists finally broken the respectability barrier? We’ll take a look at some excerpts from Casey’s article and let you decide. The bold font was added by us. Casey begins:

A pro-intelligent design peer-reviewed scientific paper has been published in the International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics by Dominic Halsmer, a signer of the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism and Dean of the College of Science and Engineering at Oral Roberts University.

Multiple questions arise. First, what is that journal? Here’s their website. We haven’t heard of either them or their field of specialization — but that means nothing. Despite our ignorance, it’s possible that getting a paper accepted by that journal is a major accomplishment. Your Curmudgeon has doubts but we don’t know, so we express no opinion.

The next question we have is about the author. He’s said to be a signer of the much-touted Discoveroid statement they call Dissent From Darwinism. They’ve gathered the signatures of a few hundred social scientists, dentists, proctologists, and others. The author of the paper Casey writes about today is on that list. But who is he?

Casey says that Dominic Halsmer is Dean of the College of Science and Engineering at Oral Roberts University. Most of you know about Oral Roberts University. It seems like a fine place to go if one wants to be a creationist. As for Halsmer, here’s his webpage at Oral Roberts. We are told that he has a Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA, so we can add to our errata file that we have now encountered a creationist mechanical engineer.

Fine, now what has Casey so excited? This is a link to Halsmer’s article: The coherence of an engineered world. Casey’s Discoveroid piece mostly consists of excerpts from it, but we’ll skip those and tell you only what Casey says:

[Halsmer's] article looks at various facets of the natural world, particularly instances of cosmic fine-tuning, and argues that it is “engineered.”

At the threshold, we suspect this is little more than a regurgitation of William Paley’s watchmaker argument from 200 years ago, but we’ll keep an open mind. Let’s read on:

One reason the authors feel the universe is engineered is the fact that it is mathematically and scientifically comprehensible.

Okay, that’s Halsmer’s first argument — the universe is comprehensible. There was a time when nature’s incomprehensibility was an argument for supernatural design (e.g., see Job 37:5 “God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend.”) but we’ll ignore that and continue:

Another aspect of the universe they claim shows evidence of engineering is its “biofriendliness.” They focus on the life-sustaining properties of water: [excerpts deleted].

Biofriendliness of the universe. The universe? We recall other creationists arguing that the unique life-sustaining properties of our privileged planet are evidence of a supernatural designer, but we’ll ignore that too. What else does this peer-reviewed paper say?

They then explore why the very elements that are most common in life — hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen — are so prevalent in the universe: [excerpts deleted].

But why did the designer — blessed be he! — create so much helium? That’s something else we’ll have to ignore. Anything more to report? According to Casey:

The authors then quote Fred Hoyle on the subject, who stated, “I do not believe that any scientist who examined the evidence would fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce inside the stars.”

Creationists often quote Fred Hoyle, the astronomer whose reputation is unlikely to recover from his claim that evolution is as likely as the assembly of a jet aircraft by a tornado in a junkyard — a howler now known as Hoyle’s fallacy. Casey concludes with this teaser:

The article will be discussed further in two additional posts.

So there you are, dear reader. Is this a major milestone in establishing Intelligent Design as a genuine scientific concept; or is it merely more evidence of the Salem hypothesis, which suggests that engineering types have a tendency toward the creationist viewpoint? We suspect it’s more that latter than the former; but as we said at the beginning, it’s up to you to make the call on this one.

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Creationists and Noble Savages

We can’t find any news this weekend about The Controversy between evolution and creationism, so we’ll have to create our own.

We were thinking (more or less) about some half-remembered snippets of old Western movies involving conflicts between American settlers and American Indians. Yes, we know that nowadays they’re called Native Americans, but for this essay we’ll use the old term. It struck us that there are some loose analogies between Indians and creationists. This is quite a stretch, but bear with us.

What made us think along these lines was the way the Indians (at least as portrayed in movies) were so insistent on rejecting reality. They imagined that they could appeal to their tribal deities and be immune to the Cavalry’s gunfire (see Ghost Dance). They practiced tribal medicine. They generally rejected all of the science and technology that the settlers enjoyed — unless (according to the movies) they could find some rascals who would sell them guns.

As with creationism, attitudes about American natives have fluctuated wildly over the generations. The concept of the noble savage has gone in and out of fashion. It seems to be back in these days. We have no knowledge of such things, and therefore we have no opinion, but if you want an example of when that concept was really out of fashion, take a look at Charles Dickens’ The Noble Savage written in 1851. Rough stuff indeed. Dickens was a man of his time. Were he around today, we’d like to see what he’d say about creationists.

It should be obvious by now that your Curmudgeon is no expert on native Americans. We admit it, and we openly declare that we’re relying on Hollywood stereotypes. Our ignorance isn’t important because it’s the idea — true or not — of Indian reality-denial that made the connection for us between Indians and creationists. All that we’re doing here is using the Hollywood image of Indians as an excuse for another anti-creationist rant. As you know, we’re contemptuous of creationists because they’re the supreme masters of reality-denial, refusing to accept evidence that contradicts their mythology.

Is there anything other than reality-denial to our analogy of Indians (Hollywood style) and creationists? Yes, and here the analogy gets a bit stronger. The Indians were resentful that the Americans were moving into and taking over what had for ages been exclusively their territory. We can’t blame them for that. The analogy here is that creationists are resentful of how science is moving into what they assume is their territory — understanding and explaining the world. Unlike the Indians’ attitude toward their lands, the creationists are totally unjustified, because reality has never been theirs.

Creationists only imagine that the task of explaining reality belongs to them. That attitude exists because for thousands of years they had no competition. Now they do, and their millennia of explanatory efforts aren’t holding up very well in comparison to the discoveries of science. Instead of embracing the new knowledge, they reject it — and wherever possible they attack it. Creationists’ behavior is worthy of Jefferson’s seldom-quoted phrase in the Declaration: “the merciless Indian savages.”

Where are we going with this little essay? Not very far. In fact, we’ve probably said way too much because, as we’ve already admitted, we know nothing about Indians except what we’ve seen in the movies, and we’re using that image only as metaphor. But we note that cultures based on reality-denial don’t have a very good success record when they compete with better-informed societies. Perhaps the creationists could learn something valuable from watching some old movies.

So there you are. That’s what happens around here when there’s no news to report. From now on we’ll leave the Wild West to John Wayne.

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Discovery Institute: Way Beyond Quote-Mining

Our readers know what quote-mining is — see Lies, Damned Lies and Quote Mines, edited by John Pieret. It involves plundering the writing of someone to quote them out of context, thus distorting the meaning of the quote. The victims are usually dead people, because they can’t speak out to criticize the perversion of what they’ve said.

Among the most experienced practitioners of that black art are the neo-theocrats at the Discovery Institute‘s creationist public relations and lobbying operation, the Center for Science and Culture (a/k/a the Discoveroids, a/k/a the cdesign proponentsists).

We’ve posted before about some of the Discoveroids’ more outrageous efforts. For example, see High Risk Quote Mining, and also Workin’ in the Quote Mine, and also Quote-Mining Where No Quote-Miner Has Gone Before.

But for our purposes today, the most appropriate example is Discovery Institute Quote-Mines Eugenie Scott. Why is that appropriate? Because today the Discoveroids are quote-mining Eugenie Scott again.

Actually, this time it’s not really quote-mining. It’s more like — what shall we call it? — quote shifting. They’re taking something Scott said (or so they claim) and blatantly applying that quote to something else entirely. It’s amazingly brazen, and you may find it amusing.

The quote-miner in this case is Casey Luskin, our favorite creationist. He’s the only non-fellow among the Discoveroids, which is a considerable distinction. His post at the Discoveroid blog is Eugenie Scott Endorses Discrimination Against Darwin-Doubting Scientists.

Casey starts out talking about Martin Gaskell, the astronomer who didn’t get hired by the University of Kentucky because they were worried about his attitude regarding evolution. Casey has posted about him before, and so have we — most recently here: Discovery Institute Discovers Martin Gaskell. Today Casey says, with bold font added by us:

Gaskell alarmed the Darwinian thought police at UK because in online notes from a talk, he favorably cites the works of proponents of intelligent design like Michael Behe and Phillip Johnson, and states, “there are significant scientific problems in evolutionary theory,” and “these problems are bigger than is usually made out in introductory geology/biology courses.”

Speaking favorably about Discoveroids certainly is an alarming thing for a scientist to do — but Casey’s a Discoveroid, so he looks at it differently Let’s read on:

Apparently Eugenie Scott thinks that such apparent doubts about the Darwinian consensus justified UK in denying Gaskell the job:

As you know, Eugenie Scott is Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education . Casey purports to quote Scott speaking about the Gaskell affair:

Pro-evolution advocates say the university was well within its rights. “It’s an employment law case,” says Eugenie Scott … . “Can an employer discriminate based on the scientific knowledge of an employee?” she asks. “Well, yeah.”

She’s correct. So what can Casey do with that quote? You’ll see. He says:

Scott is right about one thing: this is an employment law case.

Casey knows about employment cases — at least those involving creationists. He’s some kind of adviser to the lawyers for David Coppedge. From that perspective, what does he say about Scott’s remark? Here it comes:

Two of the questions at stake in this case are:

1. Can a university deny a scientist a job simply because they believe he holds scientific doubts about Darwin?
2. Does a university have the right to discriminate against a job applicant based upon his perceived religious affiliation?

Most rational observers would answer “Yes” to Casey’s first question and “No” to the second (a question that Scott didn’t address). Okay, brace yourself, because here’s how Casey concludes his post:

It would seem that Eugenie Scott thinks the answer to both questions is, “Well, yeah.”

As we said, this isn’t really quote-mining; it’s quote-shifting — or something. It seems to be a new tactic. Be careful, dear reader. If you get quoted answering “Yes” to a question, the Discoveroids may “quote” that as your answer to a totally different question. Isn’t creationism fun?

Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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