One more thing to be consistent with the scientific method - my prediction is that your comment gets an absolute pass. I’m much less confident, but nevertheless will be delighted to see it get some likes.
At what point are you going to progress from arguing about arguing and instead look at actual substantive criticisms of ID? When all you do is complain about style or tone one can’t help but suspect you don’t know how to deal with any of the actual substance of the criticisms of ID.
You’ve explained this is because you think it is essentially impossible for you to understand the details of the science, but I have to tell you that just isn’t true unless you’re (and I mean no offence) dealing with some sort of severe cognitive deficit. Did you once get hit in the head by a crane and is missing like three quarters of your cerebral cortex? Have you lost the ability to do simple arithmetic? If the answer is no I think you should stop wasting your own time with meta-arguments and look at the substance. There’s quite a lot of us here who would like to do that with anyone who is willing.
Shall we?
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There we go! That is the pass to @Mercer I was predicting. Would you now please like his comment?
I’m ready to discuss the merits of ID with specific examples any time you’re ready.
Let me know.
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I would disagree with that. It’s not that Sam doesn’t know how, he’s afraid of what he’ll learn if he makes any substantive effort.
It’s easier to obfuscate and go on about who said what and how someone else reacted.
Why wouldn’t it? What’s objectionable or incorrect about it? Do you not see that your response is consistent with the hypothesis?
It’s still not at all clear exactly what you think Joshua ought to have asked Axe. “Did you actually write that thing that is in the book you wrote?” What is Axe going to say? “No”?
Or should Joshua have asked “Do you actually believe evolutionary biologists now take the position that life has been perfected to the point where modern forms no longer evolve?” I suppose it might be of some mild interest if Axe answered “No”, because why, then did he write that in his book? But if he answers “Yes”, what else is there to say? Axe is obviously so rankly dishonest or so utterly uninformed about the current state of evolutionary science that his opinions on the subject should simply be dismissed out of hand.
What answer can you imagine Axe giving that would somehow exonerate him?
In case further evidence was needed that Lewis was an absolute lunkhead.
Well, he wouldn’t be the first person around here who needed a debate to happen before he would accept a scientific fact. At least he doesn’t insist the debate occur on Youtube.
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You don’t need to understand the science to see that some-one has written an article that Behe says they haven’t, or that Luskin has added extra words when ‘quoting’ some-one, or that Sarfati has mentioned a ‘mystery’ without mentioning that it’s been solved, or that Denton has concatenated snippets from two different books written years apart into a single ‘passage’.
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I’m not surprised that anyone is willing to discuss things that are way beyond my ability to discuss.
Are you willing to discuss whether or not, in this debate between @swamidass and Behe, Josh challenges Behe on any science that Behe was in disagreement on or to which he was challenged to respond?
Josh spent considerable time discussing common descent to which Behe apparently subscribes. Josh himself admitted that. Then he discusses that not all science is intuitive. Behe apparently agrees with that too.
It may well be that Josh never intended to challenge Behe. But for you to admit to what I’m suggesting, that he didn’t or alternatively challenge it, would seem to be a good-faith place to start.
Something I can have an opinion on rather than something I can’t begin to discuss.
I learned a new word!
I don’t know if it’s surprising that you keep doing that yourself (i.e attempt to discuss things that are way beyond your ability to discuss). But it sure is funny.
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I think you’re selling yourself unnecessarily short, and I think there’s value in finding out where and if you might run into obstacles. You know, if you’re willing to just ask questions and say when you find something difficult to grasp (happens to me all the time, believe me), you can probably get a lot further than you suspect.
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase self-fulfilling prophecy. You can’t know if you won’t be able to understand something if you don’t even try.
Honestly not really because I don’t think that really matters to me.
It is the ideas that matter, not how well someone can advertise for them in live stage debates. Josh might even have wanted to not debate the technical details because he might have goals different from trying to settle technical matters in a format that is intrinsically hostile to that goal (matters are settled in writing, with data, over time, in the peer reviewed literature).
If there’s an idea Behe expressed you want to hear my take on, I’m willing to do that. Whether Josh challenged Behe on any details is irrelevant to me. I want to discuss ID itself(the ideas advanced by it’s proponents), not discuss how someone else debates ID proponents in live stage debates.
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Seconded. The extent of my formal education in these matters is a B in high school biology in the 1970s. A person can learn things. And when one accepts correction from the experts gladly, as I do (I have been corrected here any number of times!), one learns even more. If you (meaning Sam, not Rumraket to whom I just realized this is marked as a “reply”) really feel completely out of your depth, grab a nice college biology textbook and dig in to the bits you find most interesting. My favorite, for introduction to friendly and interesting topics, is Janis et al’s Vertebrate Life, a recent-but-not-current edition of which will probably set you back five bucks, ten at worst.
Interest in argument as argument is for pikers, and lawyers. Interest in the underlying merits of the arguments is where it’s at.
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I will agree with that. As you don’t need to understand a lot of science to see that
But as I’ve suggested, it doesn’t seem that one needs to understand the science to begin to consider,
It doesn’t matter to you whether, Behe, being the fool and charlatan so many here claim him to be, is nevertheless able to support his claims in the face of an opponent as capable as @swamidass?
I find it completely inconsistent that those who perpetually vilify and impugn Behe would be unconcerned with his ability to stand a face to face with a qualified opponent.
I’m astounded. And yet again …
Correct. Not a care in the world.
I’d much rather discuss Behe’s ideas here than rely on how someone else addressed him in a staged debate.
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Speaking for myself – no it doesn’t – quite emphatically! Debates, by their nature, are more about who is more persuasive, not who has the better evidence or the more rigorous logic. They are confections of rhetoric.
This is perhaps why they are so highly favored by apologists – who likewise are creatures of persuasion and rhetoric – but hold little (if any) standing in terms of molding the scientific consensus.
I would note that the fact that Clive Staples Lewis was an English Literature expert, and thus would have deep contact with the art of rhetoric, is one of the more prominent apologists of recent history, is consonant with this viewpoint.
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It would at least allow you to say to the perpetually and irredeemably confused as well as to the one you apparently
are,
that you have watched it or watched it again in order to help the poor deranged individual.
And if perchance in an event with less than a zero probability of being true, it turns out the deranged is right, well, if you find yourself confused, there is a gaslighter here who may have the ability to reverse gaslight and thereby remove your confusion.
I’d like to hear you discuss Behe’s ideas with Behe. Short of that I’ll listen to your proxy (@swamidass)
It would be like shooting fish in a barrel to expect me to be Behe’s stand in.
I think that you are missing something here. Many people (including those here at Peaceful Science) have responded to Behe about his ideas. There have been people directly employed at various organizations like DI that have responded to and discussed things here (and other places of course). You seem to want some form of direct verbal conversation between Behe and Rum or another. How is this superior than discussing the evidence in any way? There have been various communications back and forth. You already explained that you currently have no desire to delve deeper and learn more in this; therefore, what should they discuss then?
If someone points out the something out such as the episode with polar bear genetics (read Siu et al 2014; then read the relevant chapter of Darwin Devolves by Behe, then read Nathan Lents critique and then finally read Behe’s response and the chart that he shows with some editing to be “relevant” and compare to the original chart from the paper). How would the conversation proceed after this? Also people would be their public selves and have a variety of aims and pressures.
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But what possible good would that do? @Sam has already made it clear he has no interest whatsoever in understanding the relevant science. It would appear he sees the “debate” between ID and evolutionary science as primarily a rhetorical exercise. He is not alone in this, far from it. But most ID believers, much like the ID proponents they lionize, at least make a pretense being interested in the science.
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I find it strange how you can have such low opinions of your own ability to understand the science, yet also think it is a significant point how well ID proponents do in debates you watch. Doesn’t that imply either that science isn’t even discussed in those debates, or that you don’t understand it when it is? And if it isn’t even discussed, or you don’t understand the science, how can you then think anyone does well or not?
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