Evidence for the integrity of the Discovery Institute

[Puck_Mendelssohn]

@Eddie

Even supposing, for the sake of argument, that DI people (or some of them anyway) were guilty of all the intellectual dishonesty and political plotting that is here imputed to them, indignation about that is already well-represented here, and is expressed on almost a daily basis. It has whole topics (like this one) devoted to it, and it constantly comes up under just about every other topic. But who is expressing indignation here against culture-war motivated dishonesty on the other side? Only myself. You can hardly claim there’s a terrible imbalance in my favor here!

If you merely refrained from engaging in observations about the dishonesty of the DI, perhaps you’d have some small argument there. But, of course, you express your displeasure at people calling the DI dishonest, and you come to the defense of works like The Design of Life, generally without any substantive point to make about it at all. So let’s not pretend you’re being neutral or uninterested in the merits of ID, and merely have a difference of emphasis from the other posters here. You wish to intervene in demonstrations of DI dishonesty and break up the obvious, and inescapable, conclusion.

There are debates which are lopsided. The debate over the merits of Lysenkoism, in most places, is one where a person will be quite alone if he’s the guy who says, “waitaminnit, maybe the scholarship on that side isn’t dishonest at all.” And that debate is one where the scientific merit of the sides is similarly lopsided. But I hardly think that if such a fellow showed up and, in between sessions of defense of Lysenkoism, started hollering about the color of the other discussants’ shoes, he would be able to claim a lot of merit by saying, “who is expressing indignation at the color of your shoes? Only myself.”

@Eddie

Yet on this same site one of the leaders in the attacks on ID claims to profess religious beliefs which, based on everything he argues, it seems highly likely that he does not privately hold.

You seem to believe it is extraordinary for a Christian to wholeheartedly accept biological facts, and the inferences which flow from them. I don’t agree that that’s extraordinary, or even unusual.

@Eddie

Even you, as a non-Christian, surely must find that odd behavior for a Christian, no?

I don’t, actually. I find it rather ordinary. And as often as not, when you ask him these things, it is your usual pattern of trying to derail matters onto a track where you draw attention away from something unhelpful to your cause, such as the RNA world issues. So it hardly shocks me when he fails to take the bait.

And now I have taken the bait, and engaged on this issue which allows you to further distract from the fact that you are unable and unwilling to mount any substantive defense of the honesty of the DI at all, and that, faced with a record which can be accounted for only by dishonesty, you routinely suggest that this is a quibble over a few “errors” like – well, what? Meyer systematically excluding critical facts to obscure the centrality of RNA, and building a case rhetorically upon the foundation of that “error”? Meyer repeatedly saying there are no precursors of mammals, and/or that mammals originate in the Eocene (!??), and this also being a mere “oops”? Wells and Dembski lying and omitting facts about the homology between reptilian jaw bones and mammalian ear ossicles and attributing it to a mere “bone count” is, what, an “error”? Do you understand how silly it is to attribute these things to mere error? It’s absolutely implausible. And if I thought that a central belief of Christianity was the belief in the importance of honesty, I would think that it was time to question you about your faith, because you “claim[ ] to profess religious beliefs which, based on everything [you] argue[ ], it seems highly likely that [you] do[ ] not privately hold.”

[Art (Arthur Hunt)]

@Eddie

I thought that you stated long ago, or that someone else here stated long ago, that your area of research was plant life or plant genetics. That was the basis for my assertion. If I misheard or misunderstood, please correct me. In fact, why not restate right now, to prevent any future misunderstanding, what your past and present areas of research were and are?

That’s not the point, @Eddie. Remember -

@Eddie

But it’s a bit rich for some people here to be talking about the lack of “integrity” of the DI when many of them have shown they are completely lacking in academic integrity, because they routinely offer opinions about the contents of books they have not read and authors with whose work they are not familiar.

@Eddie, it seems that you are guilty offering opinions about “authors with whose work they are not familiar”, which is exactly the sort of behavior you are being critical of.

The first rule of holes probably needs to be mentioned at this stage in the conversation.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Puck_Mendelssohn

You seem to believe it is extraordinary for a Christian to wholeheartedly accept biological facts, and the inferences which flow from them.

No, I don’t believe that, nor did I say or imply that. Did you read carefully what I wrote?

@Puck_Mendelssohn

I don’t, actually. I find it rather ordinary. And as often as not, when you ask him these things, it is your usual pattern of trying to derail matters onto a track where you draw attention away from something unhelpful to your cause, such as the RNA world issues. So it hardly shocks me when he fails to take the bait.

You clearly are ignoring that fact that the person to whom you seem to be referring and I have had an ongoing online debate about the nature of this person’s putatively Christian beliefs going back more than a decade. You clearly are also ignoring the fact that not long ago, when asked whether he assented to a description by John Harshman of what a Christian believes about creation, he ducked the question, and that several attempts to get him to answer the question subsequently failed. And that was when the topic was not on the RNA world, but on Christian belief, and therefore when an answer might reasonably be expected.

The rest of your answer is mere diversion. I will repeat my question in cruder form for you, since subtle expression doesn’t seem to work:

Suppose for a moment that you are a Christian, a traditional Christian who holds to the orthodox doctrines of historical Christian faith. Suppose you have met someone who claims to be a Christian, but, based on hundreds of pieces of evidence gathered over more than 12 years on various websites, evidence drawn both from the person’s behavior and from the person’s explicit theological and religious statements, you suspect that this person is not a Christian, and further, does not believe in any God at all. Suppose you strongly suspect that this person is saying he is a Christian in order to gain argumentative advantage in culture-war debates about ID and creationism. Would you not try to expose this person as someone lacking in Christian faith, so that other Christians on the website would not be misled by him? Would you not consider it your Christian duty to do so?

And just to make my point absolutely clear, since you seem to be uncommonly unperceptive about the undercurrent in these discussions, note that it is not any position that a person takes on RNA world or on the validity of design inferences or any other scientific matter that has aroused my indignation; nor is it the lack of Christian or theistic faith that arouses my indignation; the only thing that aroused my religious indignation is people who are dishonest about their religious beliefs. I’m absolutely fine with Bertrand Russell expressing the de facto atheist views he expresses in a “A Free Man’s Worship”; what I’m not fine with is someone privately holding to a view identical with or very close to that of Russell, but who calls himself Christian.

You asked me why I was so exercised about this matter, and I have answered. In answering your question I was not pretending to deal with questions about the integrity of the Discovery Institute; I was only explaining the lack of integrity that gets me angry. If you want to ignore my comments and keep bringing me back to the DI, you can do so, but I was only interested in explaining to you my motivation for particular expressions of indignation about a religious matter.

If you have never been a religious believer of any kind, it may be impossible for you to put yourself in the place of one, and imaginatively reconstruct how you might feel if you thought someone was dishonestly mouthing the words of your faith for culture-war ends. If that is the case, then don’t bother replying on this point further. But if you can imagine how a believer might feel, then you should be able to understand all that I have written above without any difficulty.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Art

@Eddie, it seems that you are guilty offering opinions about “authors with whose work they are not familiar”, which is exactly the sort of behavior you are being critical of.

No. You are neither reading carefully nor reasoning accurately.

My remark was about the contents of books and articles, not about “what is the field of a particular scientist”. Someone who says that Denton’s books are crap (as Faizal has said) without reading them lacks intellectual integrity. Someone who says that Einstein was a physicist without actually doing research to establish that Einstein was a physicist, because he trusts ten thousand sources that tell him Einstein was a physicist and not a biologist or geologist, is not lacking in intellectual integrity. He may be making an error, but if so it’s an understandable error committed out of innocence. My belief that your field is not origin of life, but plant genetics, may be an error, but if so it’s an error committed out of innocence. And I’ve invited you to correct the error, if there is one. You have not taken the opportunity to do so, which suggests to me that you are less concerned that I hold the correct view about your field than in “catching me out” in a contradiction. Which, if so, would indicate a certain pettiness on your part.

I repeat: I have not, to my knowledge, ever criticized any part of any article or book you have ever written that I have not myself read. If I did that, I would be lacking in academic integrity. I would retract any such criticism if you pointed it out to me. So if there is any comment of mine along the lines of “In a very poor article, Art Hunt fails to answer Sanford’s challenge” concerning a piece of writing of yours that I have not read, please inform me and I will immediately admit that I had no business writing any such sentence.

I have also offered to retract my characterization of your field of research, if you point out any error to me.

I have behaved with academic integrity here. Your attempt to intimate otherwise (by conflating a statement about what a scientist’s field is with statements made against the unread contents of particular pieces of writing by a scientist) fails.

I have already explained why I thought your field was not origin of life: I thought you had said your field was something else. And there is no lack of academic integrity on my part for taking your word for what your own field is.

I don’t intend to respond to further caviling on this point.

[Tim]

@colewd

Why not just point out the inadequacy of specific claims?

Asked and answered Bill!

I will note in answering you I stated:

All the creationist has to do is ignore the claim or quibble over red herrings. Then they will go on the next day as though their argument was never defeated.

Which is exactly what you are doing here.

@colewd

People here are trying to paint the narrative that they are dishonest.

Because “people here” have also repeatedly presented evidence of DI dishonesty.

I will note that when @Rumraket reminded us of evidence of blatant dishonesty through data manipulation, you carefully ignored it, even when I explicitly drew it to your attention to it.

@colewd

This strategy of painting a narrative of dishonesty looks like an attempt to have what ever argument they make ignored.

When all their individual arguments have already been debunked, it would seem unproductive to simply repeat the debunking, but more productive to fit these arguments into a pervasive pattern – that of fallacious anti-evolution propaganda.

@colewd

I think the discovery institute has a wide variety of people with different ideas.

Yes, but they can all be sumarised under the umbrella of "evolution didn’t do it, God did.

@colewd

Like all organizations some are good and some are bad.

I think you’d be hard-pressed to find an idea of theirs that has won widespread acceptance outside the ID echo chamber.

The closest I can think of is the Fine-Tuning argument – but even that is fairly peripheral to the DI’s general body of work.

I will note that you have not even attempted to answer @misterme987’s question:

@misterme987

If the DI is actually honest, then why haven’t we seen any positive evidence for this, in over 200 posts on a thread which is ostensibly about the integrity of the DI?

If the DI were honest, the most obvious evidence would be that they frequently correct their errors and falsehoods when they are pointed out to them. I’m not saying that they never do so, but the shear volume of uncorrected errors and falsehoods would imply that this is a vanishingly rare event.

[lee_merrill]

@Tim

Are the DI’s defenders willing to explicitly admit what their continued silence has implicitly admitted – that Behe’s omissions are indefensible?

The omissions were because Behe was interested in damaging mutations, in particular, the APOB mutations. “Put differently, 65 to 83 percent of helpful, positively selected genes are estimated to have suffered at least one damaging mutation. It seems, then, that the magnificent Ursus maritimus has adjusted to its harsh environment mainly by degrading genes that its ancestors already possessed.” (Darwin Devolves, p. 17).

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@lee_merrill

The omissions were because Behe was interested in damaging mutations, in particular, the APOB mutations.

He was not just interested in them, he was interested in constructing the view that they will always in net amount, outnumber “constructive” mutations in adaptive evolution, so as to give the appearance that evolution can only ever amount to a net destruction of things. As your quote says that is what he apparently thinks happened to polar bears.

So mutations that conflicts with the view that the net effect of evolution might actually not be damaging were left out. That’s dishonest.

And then there’s the fact that the software that scores the effects of mutations isn’t capable of rendering a positive score. It can only score things as benign or damaging. That makes it misleading to knowingly use the output of such a program to highlight mutational effects since the viewer who is not aware of this fact(how the program works, what the terms “benign” and “damaging” refers to and that no other score is possible) could be left thinking the mutations either had no effect (“benign”) or they degraded or destroyed something. So that things either, in a sense, stay flat or they go downhill. A conclusion that program simply can’t support.

So that’s dishonest too. Of course Behe could also be ignorant about the function of the program. But then it’s shoddy scholarship on top of being misleading by leaving out all the “benign” mutations.

None of it is good evidence for integrity on behalf of Behe.

[Puck_Mendelssohn]

I am always amused when the defense actually makes things sound even worse.

[Faizal_Ali]

@colewd

People here are trying to paint the narrative that they are dishonest. Why not just point out the inadequacy of specific claims? This strategy of painting a narrative of dishonesty looks like an attempt to have what ever argument they make ignored.

You do have a bit of a point here. Whether due to dishonesty or plain old ignorance and incompetence, the plain fact is that ID is a failed hypothesis. So the question of whether its proponents are dishonest is largely moot.

@Mercer

The most important empirical evidence predicted by the RNA World hypothesis is that RNA continues to play essential roles in organisms today. That’s the evidence that your heroes both omit (making readers think that there are only a few cases of RNA having activity in labs) and outright lie to conceal.

It’s so amusing to watch @Eddie desperately prevaricate and squirm as he tries to divert attention from this point. It’s a good illustration of how much integrity is possessed by the apologists for the Discovery Institute.

@Eddie

Someone who says that Denton’s books are crap (as Faizal has said) without reading them lacks intellectual integrity.

To be clear, my opinion of Denton’s books are based on articles intended to be taken as peer-reviewed publications which summarize the main ideas of those books. as well as public lectures and statements made by Denton intended to do the same. In addition, I have made careful and specific inquiry of those who do claim to have read those books (such as yourself) as to whether the errors and shortcomings found in that material are addressed and corrected in those books. That inquiry produced no evidence to that effect.

So there are two options to consider:

1. Those who have read Denton’s books, as well as Denton himself, are not actually aware of the contents of those books.

2. Denton’s books are full of crap.

My considered judgment is that option 2 is the more plausible of these.

I do not believe it betrays lack of integrity to form an opinion based on such careful scrutiny and inquiry.

It does betray lack of integrity to lie about a basic prediction of a scientific hypothesis, as well as to defend such a lie.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Eddie

Yet on this same site one of the leaders in the attacks on ID claims to profess religious beliefs which, based on everything he argues, it seems highly likely that he does not privately hold.

13 Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light. 14 Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. 15 You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 16 For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly.

Science is about using hypotheses to predict objective measurements.

@Eddie

Is it not morally evil, intellectually dishonest, reprehensible, sneaky, underhanded, etc. to represent oneself as holding to a particular religion when in fact one does not do so?

Indeed, as it is to misrepresent the beliefs of others.

@Eddie

Where is the indignation when someone does that?

It’s right in front of you.

@Eddie

But who is expressing indignation here against culture-war motivated dishonesty on the other side? Only myself.

You haven’t presented any dishonesty except your own. Take a break.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@lee_merrill

@Tim

Are the DI’s defenders willing to explicitly admit what their continued silence has implicitly admitted – that Behe’s omissions are indefensible?

The omissions were because Behe was interested in damaging mutations, in particular, the APOB mutations.

Real scientists are interested in ALL of the mutations. They don’t hide the ones that don’t support their hypothesis from gullible laypeople like you.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Eddie

My remark was about the contents of books and articles, not about “what is the field of a particular scientist”.

No, it was about judging the authors of those books and articles:

@Eddie

authors with whose work they are not familiar.

The conjunction “and” does not make it only about books. Your clause stands on its own.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@lee_merrill

@Tim

Are the DI’s defenders willing to explicitly admit what their continued silence has implicitly admitted – that Behe’s omissions are indefensible?

The omissions were because Behe was interested in damaging mutations, in particular, the APOB mutations.

Behe didn’t just omit all the benign mutations, he also omitted results of a second evaluation that classed some of the mutations he did include as ‘benign’.

But this is evidence for Behe not having integrity. Where is the evidence that Behe and the other members of the DI do have integrity? You haven’t produced any, and nor has anyone else.

[lee_merrill]

@Mercer

Real scientists are interested in ALL of the mutations. They don’t hide the ones that don’t support their hypothesis from gullible laypeople like you.

And Behe includes all the mutations in his statement “Put differently, 65 to 83 percent of helpful, positively selected genes are estimated to have suffered at least one damaging mutation.” (Darwin Devolves, p. 17).

[lee_merrill]

@Roy

Where is the evidence that Behe and the other members of the DI do have integrity?

When Behe acknowledged the existence of VPU in HIV as an example he missed in his discussion in The Edge of Evolution.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

Real scientists are interested in ALL of the mutations. They don’t hide the ones that don’t support their hypothesis from gullible laypeople like you.

And Behe includes all the mutations in his statement “Put differently, 65 to 83 percent of helpful, positively selected genes are estimated to have suffered at least one damaging mutation.” (Darwin Devolves, p. 17).

No he doesn’t. That’s a percentage of genes, not mutations.

And can you show some sign of having understood that the software that scores these mutational effects literally can’t output other scores than damaging or benign? That too is a huge problem and I hope you can see why. Can you?

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@lee_merrill

@Mercer

Real scientists are interested in ALL of the mutations. They don’t hide the ones that don’t support their hypothesis from gullible laypeople like you.

And Behe includes all the mutations in his statement “Put differently, 65 to 83 percent of helpful, positively selected genes are estimated to have suffered at least one damaging mutation.” (Darwin Devolves, p. 17).

No, he does no such thing. Mutations are not genes.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@lee_merrill

@Roy

Where is the evidence that Behe and the other members of the DI do have integrity?

When Behe acknowledged the existence of VPU in HIV as an example he missed in his discussion in The Edge of Evolution.

Could you please provide a link to this acknowledgement?

I ask because there is no mention of VPU on the Edge of Evolution website either as errata or as links to the articles by Ian Musgrave or Abbie Smith or Behe’s responses. Nor does there seem to have been a change to later editions of the book to correct the error. Furthermore, a timeline of the back-and-forth shows that Behe tried to evade admitting his error multiple times.

So while this could be an example of DI members’ integrity, the reluctance to acknowledge a definite error, the lack of corrections, the lack of links to the criticisms and the partial deletion of Behe’s side of the discussion all appear to be evidence of the DI’s lack of integrity.

Added: I did initially say that Behe’s acknowledgements had been deleted. While they don’t seem to be on the main Uncommon Descent website, I found copies here. However, they’re not really an acknowledgement of error, more a continued attempt to avoid doing so and/or keep using the same flawed argument.

[Sam (Sam Foerster)]

@Tim

(who surely understand their own work better than some ID-Creationist apologist).

What is one to make of a statement like that? Is that supposed to represent reason? Sounds ridiculous. So no one can build upon the understanding of the work of those that come before? It would seem to fly in the face of Sir Isaac Newton’s, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@Sam

@Tim

(who surely understand their own work better than some ID-Creationist apologist).

What is one to make of a statement like that?

Not a lot. But adding context helps:

That the bunch of charlatans and/or incompetents that constitutes the Discovery Institute “have been caught repeatedly grossly misrepresenting the scientific evidence” is widely documented. In fact it was this forum’s documentation of Michael Behe’s misrepresentations in Darwin Devolves that brought me here in the first place. Both Behe and Stephen Meyer have even had their claims contradicted by the very sources they cite (who surely understand their own work better than some ID-Creationist apologist).

Is that supposed to represent reason? Sounds ridiculous. So no one can build upon the understanding of the work of those that come before? It would seem to fly in the face of Sir Isaac Newton’s, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

The context makes it clear that it’s not about with building upon, but about misrepresenting; and not referring to the work of those that came before, but those that are still around to point out the misrepresentations.

With that context it’s not ridiculous, and Newton’s comment doesn’t apply.

What is less clear is why you posted.