ENV: Behe and Swamidass Debate Evolution and Intelligent Design at Texas A&M

Ok. There are some seeming errors there but at least it seems like a comment that can be worked with.
First, whose opinion of my abilities especially when they tend not toward hubris but the opposite, whose opinion would be more likely to be an informed opinion? You may need to temper your optimism regarding my abilities using the ‘opinion’ or the ‘psychiatry’ of the gaslighter. Did you miss his diagnosis that I’m

There is more that needs to be sorted in your comment. There is a difference between my or anyone else’s, for that matter, 1) ability to understand things at the present moment with 2) their ability to learn and come to a greater understanding in the future.
I don’t believe I’ve made a comment on 2), but if you are aware of a comment that shows differently, please point to it. I could be a) wrong or b) stated things poorly.

I would say that this is largely the case, although you’ve seemingly expressed no interest in the topic,

My

confusion notwithstanding, I precieve that when they, (Behe and @swamidass) discussed the science they seem to express nothing but agreement on it.

You need to clarify by asking, does well at what? I think my position has consistently been that it was on Josh to take the ID hater’s position and as nice as Josh may be, challenge Behe, on at least some of the areas of disagreement. He brought up more than once that these areas exist and his intent to deal with them. This may be the clearest statement of that intent,
at, 25:35, “but like I said, what I really want to do is see if I can mark out and understand where some of our agreements and disagreements are.”

Even the moderator in the debate, (seemingly echoing the sentiment of @Roy below) says at, 1:07:54, “I think in your effort to be kind and winsome, some of the audience were like wait a minute, do they really disagree? So, well, especially on this question of whether we can scientifically infer design where do you really disagree with Dr. Behe?”
Behe responds immediately after (I encourage you to listen. I pointing you right to the specific location.) with the intuitiveness of science. But even here Behe totally agrees (1:20:10) “science might as Josh says, discover some counterintuitive things”

I may or may not come to a fuller understanding of the science, but for now am appealing to the inference to the best explanation that I do understand. Would you suggest that I count how many advocates there are on the respective side and just throw my lot in with the majority crowd?

So, I’m merely stating my opinion that Josh, non-confrontational as he may be, misses his mark of marking out any area of disagreement in any detail. I get that he disagrees with ID. I got that before listening to the debate.

Then I am all the more perplexed why you find them so important or valuable to watch. If the science is mostly not even debated, and you are convinced you wouldn’t understand it if it was, then why do you watch them? What do you think they will be able to tell you as to whether ID has scientific merit or not? I don’t see how you have any way out of this in terms of using debates to gauge whether ID has scientific merit when those two conditions obtain. You can’t make such a call if it’s mostly not discussed and you don’t understand it when it is.

I was under the impression that you used these debates to gauge whether ID has scientific merit, or whether there had been substantial and valid criticism of the ideas esposed by ID proponents such as Michael Behe, Bill Dembski, etc.

Perhaps that isn’t what you watch them for, or perhaps it is not even your opinion that ID has scientific merit. I don’t know. Please clarify what your opinion is on the putative scientific merits of ID, the criticisms that have been offered of it, and what you base that opinion on.

He’s already done so, in writing.

Here, to be specific. If one is able to read fine print well enough, institutional access will not even be necessary.

The end of evolution? | Science

@Sam can’t use fine print as an excuse, because control-+ (command=+ on a Mac) will enlarge it.

So predictable that the siloed talking heads would give the gaslighter the requisite pass with any piffle vomited.
Apparently, it is preferable to prefer,

to candor.

I’m sure such interest in his work

will give @swamidass the impression that what he is engaged in is of very great importance.

@sam – given both your quotes of @Faizal_Ali and @Rumraket were taking them both grossly out of context – why would any of give the proverbial pair of fetid dingo’s kidney’s about your whining?

You are unable to accurately characterise others statements, you are unable to marshal evidence to support your views, you are unable to refrain from petty ad hominems – you are quite simply unable to communicate anything worth listening to.

1 Like

Again with the out of context?
Up arrow to the right of the comment.
And I’m the one technically challenged?
Haven’t we already covered this?

How clever my theist brother is.

any of the

precisely. That would be to cross the thin blue line.

Your concern is heartwarming.

Anyway, can you offer the clarifications I asked for previously?

I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to drop engagement here again for a month or two. But like Wilde, I find that I can resist almost anything but temptation. And some of the piffle here has got the better of me. The gaslighter’s piffle which gets an absolute pass from the allegiance of the groupthink crowd, you included, I find practically irresistible.
Nevertheless, to attempt to formulate a response to your query, even for my own good, is something that seems like a good idea.
Hard as it may be, I do have to drop engaging here for a while as I have projects that demand my attention.
Engage with my questions on this video and I will engage with your question here, although it may take a while.
Did Josh bring up any science here to which Behe disagrees?
They both seem to agree on common descent.
They both seem to agree that not all of science is intuitive.
I’m guessing that they both think that as @swamidass says, “If this is a computer code it is a computer code, unlike any human-computer code that has ever been made.”
I’m guessing that they both acknowledge design being apparent in Mt. Rushmore, which is totally different than the design that some see in Mt. Everest.

Yes. @Faizal_Ali’s point was not encouragement to make pretenses left and right, and @Rumraket’s was not that he lacked “interest in [Joshua’s] work.”

Which showed me that these out of context quotes were misrepresenting them.

Emphatically, yes.

Obviously insufficiently, as you have not gotten the message that misrepresenting people, by quoting them out of context is dishonest.

It is, incidentally, their penchant for quoting-out-of-context, and other misrepresentations, that make many people see the DI’s members as dishonest, and lacking integrity – and one of the reasons (though not the only one) that their claims are generally viewed with extreme skepticism.

Nor did I attempt to say that it was his point. I don’t even know what your comment could mean in the context of Faizal’s comment or from my reply. Where does left or right come from? They could not have been farther from my mind in relation to this comment.

I don’t think you know what the term “gaslighting” means.

2 Likes

Quoting him as saying “at least make a pretense” without context certainly gave every impression that this was what you were attempting to say.

… would be a more accurate representation of @Faizal_Ali’s point – but rather ruins your claim.

Given that you seem incapable of accurately characterising others’ statements, discourse with you would seem to be pointless. I will however reserve the right to continue to point out any further, particularly egregious, misrepresentations on your part.

Are you kidding me? You had the context. You acknowledged it with your

So you had viewed the context, therefore you knew what the context was, made up some tripe about right and left, claimed your tripe was justified, ostensible because you didn’t know the context despite this obviously being false. What a crock of crap.

That’s rich. What a poser.

Obviously, at least making a pretense of being interested in the science is preferable (in @Faizal_Ali mind) to @Sam’s candor about not understanding the relevant science.
My point is that he prefers pretense over candor. That can easily be gleaned in the entirely quoted comment above as it could from

And how shallow you are.

I don’t know where you would get the idea that Swamidass is a proxy for any of us. You love those false dichotomies. Yet…

How is that “piffle,” exactly? How is that not addressing Behe’s ideas?

I don’t think it’s of great importance. What made you think we are Swamidass’s acolytes, exactly?

How can you drop engagement when you have never engaged?

My theist brother. The love!
Engaged with the content of the Behe and Swamidass Debate? Has anyone other than me engaged with it since this thread was reopened 4 days ago? How is that not delusional of you? Seriously! Who else has engaged?
Know any good Anti-Creationist Psychiatrists?