Evidence for the integrity of the Discovery Institute

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Done, and done. Of course the latter depends upon inference, as one cannot view motives directly, but in most cases stupidity is too implausible. Surely Stephen Meyer knows it’s simply a lie, for example, to claim that there are no fossil precursors to mammals. The suggestion that he doesn’t is far more insulting than the more reasonable inference of lying.

And that’s just one example. Many more are above, in this thread. None of these are reasonably attributable to mere gross stupidity on the part of ID advocates. Every one of them is a clear case of flagrant dishonesty.

So, again: everyone understands why, when you are defending a liar, you’d like to say it’s bad practice to point out that he’s lying. And everyone understands why that’s simply wrong, and that the ID proponents lie: consistently, purposefully, and often. They would have nothing to talk about if they didn’t.

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Not moving on to something else until you explain how something in that explanation is so epically dishonest.

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Another evasion, Marty. If you believe Meyer, why don’t YOU tell ME?

p. 304:
Problem 2: Ribozymes Are Poor Substitutes for Proteins
…Other studies have shown that the RNA in ribosomes (rRNA) promotes peptide-bond formation within the ribosome [15] and can promote peptide bonding outside the ribosome, though only in association with an additional chemical catalyst [16].

Accurate, or are these also misrepresentations that support the most blatant one?

There’s much more.

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Another evasion @Mercer. Because I have already explained the only thing wrong, and it is utterly irrelevant to the context of the book.

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I didn’t evade, Marty. After my question, I provided additional complementary misrepresentations for you to consider. Only one of us is evading here.

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You evaded, John. What is wrong with the first quote that qualifies it for absolute disdain? If you can’t explain that, why should I go further?

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I am explaining it by pointing out the complimentary misrepresentations. There are three in the excerpt above. Seeing that the most blatant falsehood requires more subtle ones to complement it clearly demonstrates intent to deceive.

The closest to the truth is, “Other studies have shown that the RNA in ribosomes (rRNA) promotes peptide-bond formation within the ribosome,” with “promote” being the deceptive part. The heading preceding it and the phrase following it are objectively false.

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Marty, how can a chapter dedicated to discrediting a hypothesis be honest if it misrepresents:

  1. the hypothesis itself,
  2. its most important prediction, and
  3. the fulfillment of that prediction?

There are a host of additional, obviously deliberate, dishonest tweaks that were needed to support those central deceptions.

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Standard, perhaps, but it’s in response to a standard established by the greater Intelligent Design movement. It’s still the case we might all be doing better things. :wink:

The Discovery Institute, and ID as a movement, has really shot itself in the foot in this regard. When has anyone representing ID ever committed an error, admitted it, retracted the statement, and acted to prevent others from repeating that same error? I’m pretty sure the answer is “never” or close to it.

Dembski’s paper Specification: The Pattern That Signifies Intelligence (2005) is an example I have studied carefully, and it contains some major errors in methods and interpretation. IF Dembski ever submitted it to a peer review mathematical journal, THEN it certainly would have been sent back for correction. More likely it would have been rejected entirely, which may be why it appeared in a theological journal with no mathematical review at all.

The point being, there are major problems in Dembski’s methods, but there has been no acknowledgement or correction of even the most simple error (Dembski allows probabilities greater than 1.0, and presents an example actually using a probability greater than 1.0). No correction or retraction; Dembski allows others to repeat his errors even though he ought to know better (he has an MS in Statistics). In a later paper, On the improbability of algorithmic specified complexity,, the math/stat methods are correct, and the claims made far weaker, likely because co-authors Ewert and Marks set him straight on the math. Dembski cites his 2005 here with no acknowledgement of the change in methods, or that his previous paper was in error.

The problems with Dembski’s interpretation of CSI are far greater, but there is never any admission of error. I don’t see the need to go into depth here, it get technical and I don’t think that would contribute to the discussion. The most generous statement I can make, is that even if Dembski’s math were correct it would still be useless.

Are there charlatans out there? Yeah. But regardless, the attacks on character typically show this is about something other than science. It may just reflect your sad belief that they are dishonest. People who can’t get over that may be just projecting.

Is Dembski a charlatan? He made some basic errors, he should know better, it appears that Ewert, Marks, and Dembski were aware of these errors because they did not repeat them. We still see people making claims based on CSI even tho some ID supporters have admitted it cannot be calculated. At what point does honest error slip over the line into neglectful or deliberate deception?

OK, I have picked on Dembski enough. The point is that if ID is any sort of science we should be seeing SOMETHING to indicate that not every single previous claim is 100% correct. We see this process in mainstream science all the time, as most publications are striving to build on and improve science that came before. That never happens in ID. That is very rarely ever acknowledged among supporters of ID. How many repeated erroneous claims should we allow before we suspect that people on the ID side are not being completely honest?

Even Answers in Genesis have retired certain old claims against evolution that are known to be erroneous. When will ID make the same admission?

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I have tried both Meyer and Dembski. Meyer didn’t respond, Dembski just repeated the falsehoods in response to my pointing him to the evidence.

Another 3 misrepresentations:

p. 305:

Problem 3: An RNA-Based Translation and Coding System Is Implausible
…RNA-world advocates offer no plausible explanation for how primitive self-replicating RNA molecules might have evolved into modern cells that rely on a variety of proteins to process genetic information and regulate metabolism.
…These mRNAs would need to be able to direct protein synthesis using, at first, the transitional ribozyme-based protein-synthesis machinery and then, later, the permanent and predominantly protein-based protein-synthesis machinery.

It’s kinda hard to claim that this just isn’t important when there’s so much of the text devoted to it.

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Since I am responding to Dan, please let us hold our conversation without interruption by others.

Totally agree with that!

Thanks for the detailed discussion of Dembski. I think you are more of a maths person than I, though I can usually follow the arguments. By contrast, biochemistry is much more linear and while not simple, it’s more obvious what is right or wrong. I would have to look into Dembski in more detail to see if I think he’s dishonest, but I don’t start with that. It’s the energy on most of the disagreement that I find telling. You don’t seem to have that.

The problem of error in science is very broad, and not limited to whatever we might think about DI. I am shocked sometimes at the claims made in the science press that vastly exceed reason, and no one from that side seems to care. James Tour has pointed that out regarding Origins of Life (he’s a bit severe, and he has apologized for accusations, but generally he’s right). I could point (with some digging) to an argument I had on the Biologos site about utterly bogus claims around the covid vaccine in a paper on the CDC site. People were defending utter BS.

You and I could have a productive conversation over coffee. Message me if you’re ever near Palm Beach.

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That’s good. But John, there’s no gentle way to say this, your style sometimes screams so loudly that it’s hard to hear what you are saying. You’re often triumphalist and disrespectful. My opinions don’t deserve that. I don’t think theirs do either. If you want to engage with them, you can’t start there.

Offering an olive branch here, so please accept it. Willing to engage a second quote, since I’m guessing the first one didn’t capture your point.

So are you saying that his disbelief in the RNA world hypothesis is grounded on arguments that are false? AFAICT your quoted text does not establish that. Can you be more specific what you find objectionable in this statement? Your bolded stuff is, I think, a fair summary of the requirements. Right? Do you object to “no plausible explanation” whereas you find it plausible?

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I think you’re trying not to listen.

Here’s my message to Dembski:

On p. 230 of the Design of Life, you wrote, without any citations:
“It follows that without some catalyst that promotes peptide bonds (for amino-acid sequences) or 3-5 phosphodiester linkages (for nucleotide sequences), there can be no materialistic route to proteins, DNA, and RNA. But the only catalysts we know capable of handling this task are enzymes and other protein-based products (e.g., the ribosome), and these in turn presuppose the entire DNA-RNA-protein machinery. This machinery, however, is precisely what origin-of-life research may not presuppose but rather must explain.”
You published this in 2007, but it was shown in Nobel-winning work in 2000 that the ENTIRE catalytic center of the ribosome is a ribozyme:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/289/5481/920.long

See anything wrong with the tone of that, Marty?

I think theirs definitely deserve that. If you run away from engaging, yours do too, because you’re complicit in the con.

OK, good.

  1. Belief is irrelevant. I don’t believe in hypotheses.
  2. An entire chapter of the book is grounded on misrepresenting the hypothesis, its predictions, and the evidence itself.

The first I quoted is the most blatant falsehood in an interlocking series of misrepresentations. Everything else I’ve quoted, including headings, is misleading. There’s no way that the combination is just an innocent mistake or incompetence. It’s crafted.

I’m not sure what you mean by “requirements.” Both of the bolded phrases are gross misrepresentations.

Try answering a simple question: Do you think that the current protein-synthesis machinery is RNA-based or protein-based?

Maybe an analogy will help; I presume that you know that Van Gogh’s Starry Night was painted on canvas. Let’s say I’m touting myself as a know-it-all art historian, but never an artist myself. I claim that canvas is clearly an inferior substrate for oil painting.

To support this, I write, in a book aimed at not at artists, but at credulous laypeople:

Canvas doesn’t work well. Starry Night was painted on wood.

In a later chapter, I write:
Starry Night is a wood-based painting.

When challenged with the truth, I handwave with, "Well, there’s a wood frame under the canvas and the outer frame is wood. That means it’s wood based!

Would that be deceptive? Does the second, more subtle, misrepresentation not demonstrate that I know that the first is false?

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Just a small reminder, and while on the topic of “integrity” of ID proponents:

Screen Shot 2019-02-14 at 7.55.16 PM
Screen Shot 2019-02-14 at 7.55.16 PM845×736 265 KB

And then there’s the part where he either forgot to mention, or wasn’t aware because he didn’t do his homework, that the software that evaluates the mutational effect on the protein is not capable of yielding a score other than benign or possibly/probably damaging, because the software is made to simply assume that any mutation that is likely to affect function or structure is negative.

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Maybe the scientists who spend their lives researching these things, only to have their work misappropriated or denied by ID proponents, and ignored or dismissed by the general public?

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And it was based on the human, not polar bear, protein IIRC.

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What I notice from you is a total disinterest in discussing scientific evidence and that you, instead, try to divert the discussion to irrelevant issues. That is so very typical of ID defenders and a big reason why you are all considered dishonest.

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Mathematics had objective truths, or at least proofs. These are not always intuitive. ID tends towards introduce arguments that do not hold under mathematical rigor.
I’m not a biochemist, but I wouldn’t characterize biochemistry as “linear”. To the extent that biochemical and statistical arguments overlap, ID again tends towards intuitive arguments that cannot withstand close scrutiny. We have working biochemists here who can (and do) apply their expertise to these questions, so I usually stick to the math where it applies.

I’m a research biostatistician, and error is my bread and butter. :wink: My job descriptions could be “applying the scientific method with mathematical rigor.” This isn’t just individual studies, but published science as a whole. I assure you that many people are working hard to find and correct errors, or update methods to reduce error (don’t let me catch you guys using p<0.05, is not good enough any more!).

That’s really a different topic, the short version is the scientific process works, and works very well. I should note that science and the science press are two different animals. No one should take what appears in science press headline at face value. You need to look past the hype to understand what it really means. (The latest example is the fusion power breakthrough; yes it’s a big breakthrough but practical fusion power is still decades away.)

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Do you ever get up to Milwaukee for Spring Break? :smile:

Not to belabor the point, but this is another example of error in ID that remains included (and not acknowledged) within ID. Whatever errors may occur in mainstream science, *science is self-correcting, and ID is not. Again, at what point does a repeated error cross the line to become an international falsehood?

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Hi Dan
ID arguments are around a different mechanism then most scientific arguments. The output of a mind is hard to model vs the output of an electric circuit where we can make a prediction based on the repeatable laws of physics.

We do know however from experience that the output of a mind includes the capability to produce functional information and make other complex arrangements as confirmed by our exchange.