“Really helpful” to what? ID propaganda, yes, but helpful to a real and productive discussion?
Again, remember: the judge at a bench trial usually asks the parties for proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, and usually makes extensive use of them. The notion that he should not have done so is seriously, extremely bizarre. You will find nobody, anywhere, who practices law and thinks there is anything the least bit unusual about this.
It is a really helpful summary of what DI disputes in the decision, and where/how that derived from the prosecution’s recommendations.
Ah. Well, yes, it is that, in part. It is also typical DI dishonest culture-war-mongering.
I particularly like the way they keep calling the plaintiffs the “ACLU.” The DI never can resist the culture-war stuff. The plaintiffs were ordinary parents, victims of a vicious and willful attack upon their constitutional liberties by their own school board, aided and abetted by deceptive DI propaganda. When their own local government turned against them, they turned to the courts and obtained the relief to which they were entitled. Having sought and obtained justice, they will always be villains to the DI and its ilk.
Do either West or DeWolf have any particular expertise on the issue of what is, and what is not, good litigation practice, such that we should view their complaints as anything more than simply sour grapes?
This is kind of what I say in my upcoming Skeptical Inquirer article. When IC was first introduced, it helped to draw focus to molecular evolution in terms of fleshing out the theoretical framework of particular examples (blood clotting, flagellum, etc.) and especially in how this stuff is presented to the public (especially the evolution of the eye, which went from hand-waving to extremely detailed accounts). So, in this way, Darwin’s Black Box could charitably be seen as a contribution to science. But the challenge was always rhetorical, not scientific. There were no weaknesses exposed, just gaps in theoretical development.
I, too, was shocked by this. He doesn’t seem to know how his very poor use of these estimates makes him look very uninformed.
We have talked about doing this together, the three of us, and I’m still game.
He doesn’t seem to know any of this, but I cover it in my Skeptical Inquirer article and Josh is working on something also (not yet for public consumption). @swamidass, since Art did a lot of this, and is known to the folks where you will be submitting your article, you should engage him in the effort. I’m here to help as well, but my fingers are already all over this even though, in reality, it wasn’t me who did most of the heavy lifting.
I would even say that the requisite knowledge often times already existed in the literature, it’s just that it was scattered among numerous different publications, and so there hadn’t really been many attempts to draw it all together in once place and really flesh out how it ties together using a particular example (like Nick Matzke’s 2003 flagellum article).
The presentation-to-the-public part is what frustrates me. Most people (myself included) do not have formal training in biology past high school, and this is a weakness which the DI exploits. The interest level of most high-schoolers in biology simply isn’t that great, and the time available is not exactly unlimited, and it makes it hard to imagine how we should prepare people to understand the nature of creationist propaganda and understand the nature and quality of modern biological science.
I am not sure that many people ever have an understanding of evolutionary theory that goes much beyond the “giraffes with longer necks were able to reach the higher leaves” level of discussion. It makes these people easy victims for deception, because as soon as you start pointing out that growing that neck is perhaps more complicated than it looks, and that other animals inexplicably haven’t also developed ultra-long necks even though it would also help THEM reach higher leaves than their fellows, and so on, it’s easy to make them think that evolutionary biology is just a bunch of “just-so stories.” And show them just a wee bit of microbiology and start talking about the flagellum – well, now this is something they’ve never even thought about, and their conceptual framework for “building a motor” kicks in at the Ford V-8 factory level, and they’re lost
Maybe reaching a lot of people is a hopeless cause. But there are public outreach vehicles that reach SOME of that public – NOVA and the like – and some kids absolutely love dinosaurs. I wish I knew what we could do, with the limited attention span most people have for this, to inoculate people against creationism.
I doubt it. DeWolf may have practiced law for a few years between academic posts, but I’m not even sure he was ever a litigator.
As for claims that particular minor statements in the findings are in error, well, there are methods for asking the judge to revise an opinion, of which I have availed myself on more than one occasion, successfully. But the DI would rather yell at the wall and shriek about having been mistreated, however, than acknowledge that the system works.
And, on the subject of pushing creationism and then being angry when educated people refuse to be fooled and the whole thing spectacularly unravels: those who sow the wind may reap the whirlwind. They boasted and gloated about how one of these days they’d get the “Darwinists” on the stand and then the vacuousness and shallowness of evolutionary biology would be laid bare for the world to see. The world saw something, for sure, but it wasn’t that.
They absolutely have expertise on the Discovery Institute’s position on The Dover Trial. There certainly are sour grapes, but I also would expect that they did identify some factual inconsistencies. I don’t expect there was any factual inconsistencies that would undermine the ruling, but perhaps some of the language might be adjusted.
Of course, they could be justifying their disagreement with misleading quote-mines. If that were the case, a closer look at the transcript would be really interesting. I want to see @Puck_Mendelssohn’s (or someone else’s) assessment of some of the specific cases they raise, to determine which have any validity and are not quote-mines.
One example this one may be technically correct:
Judge Jones claimed that “ID is not supported by any peer-reviewed research, data or
publications.”15 (emphasis added) Again, the actual court record shows otherwise.
University of Idaho microbiologist Scott Minnich testified at trial that there are
between “seven and ten” peer-reviewed papers supporting ID,16 and he specifically
discussed17 Stephen Meyer’s explicitly pro-intelligent design article18 in the peerreviewed biology journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.
Additional peer-reviewed publications, including William Dembski’s peer-reviewed
monograph, The Design Inference (published by Cambridge University Press),19 were
described in an annotated bibliography of peer-reviewed and peer-edited publications
supporting ID submitted in an amicus brief accepted as part of the official record of
the case by Judge Jones.20 Judge Jones’ false assertions about peer-reviewed
publications simply copied the ACLU’s erroneous language in its proposed “Findings
of Fact.”21
Now, 7 to 10 disputed papers is not nearly enough to justify inclusion of ID in textbooks. However, if that is true, it is certainly more than no publications. Charitably speaking regarding Judge Jones, it seems he is using hyperbolic language, because 7-10 publications might as well be none in this particular context. Though, and my ignorance about law comes through here, I don’t know if that inaccuracy/imprecision is legally significant. I don’t think it would materially affect the conclusions, but I can see how that would tweak people sympathetic to ID.
That is just one example where I’d like to have more information and to get an assessment from those with more information about the trial and legal process in general. Of course, we can’t take that 7-10 publications for granted either. I’m wondering what they actually were and if the publications mentioned here were even peer-reviewed.
The most prominent example of this was Dembski’s ‘Vice Strategy.’
Yes, it might have been. But the DI did not consider the value of that to be as great as the value of post facto bellyaching. That, I am sure, was a strategic decision as their counsel cannot have been unaware that petitioning the court to modify particular statements, if in error, was likely to succeed.
I’ll try to put some time into this. It may take a while. I have a colonoscopy on Thursday, and my nation has one tomorrow, so other commitments may intervene.
It seems that if the board had decided to appeal the decision, which they didn’t, some of the information here would legitimately be part of the appeal. At the time, it does not seem they knew if the board would appeal or not. So I don’t think it is very productive to be so dismissive. Yes, they were complaining, I’m more interested in understand the substance of their complaint.
This is new to me and fascinating! Taking center stage are Ken Miller, Eugenie Scott, and Richard Dawkins. Maybe I should invite Richard onto the podcast? @NLENTS, can you ask him?
Dembski writes, ironically,
In summary, the essence of the vise strategy is to interrogate Darwinists on what they mean by
the terms science, nature, creation, design, and evolution.
That is actually quite interesting. I’m willing to submit myself to interrogation on the meaning of these five terms, but I am not a Darwinist.
He doesn’t do anything like this, especially since the stroke. He only does really high profile stuff or things that are his own foundation or pet projects, like CFI.
Jones’ full statement is as follows:
The evidence presented in this case demonstrates that ID is not supported by any peer-reviewed research, data or publications. Both Drs. Padian and Forrest testified that recent literature reviews of scientific and medical-electronic databases disclosed no studies supporting a biological concept of ID. (17:42-43 (Padian); 11:32-33 (Forrest)). On cross-examination, Professor Behe admitted that: “There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred.” (22:22-23 (Behe)). Additionally, Professor Behe conceded that there are no peer-reviewed papers supporting his claims that complex molecular systems, like the bacterial flagellum, the blood-clotting cascade, and the immune system, were intelligently designed. (21:61-62 (complex molecular systems), 23:4-5 (immune system), and 22:124-25 (blood-clotting cascade) (Behe)). In that regard, there are no peer-reviewed articles supporting Professor Behe’s argument that certain complex molecular structures are “irreducibly complex.” (21:62, 22:124-25 (Behe)).
As you will see, they quoted the summary, but not the extensive detailed analysis.
I do not have Minnich’s testimony immediately to hand, so cannot tell if the DI accurately summarise his testimony and/or any push-back on cross-examination, that might have undercut its credibility. Did Jones simply forget its existence, or did he omit it because he did not consider it to be credible?
In any case, the two publications listed are problematical, as is a third I remember being at issue. Meyer’s article has been repudiated by the journal’s publisher. Most books (such as The Design Inference), most probably due to their length, are not subjected to rigorous peer review. The same holds for Darwin’s Black Box, which I remember as having peer-review claimed for it at the trial, with its problems being compounded by issues that were recently discussed here.
Addenda:
The relevant testimony can be found here.
I’ve only parsed some of it, but Minnich also refers to a paper presented at the Wessex Institute, whose peer-review process has apparently been questioned – see their Wikipedia page here.
The 7-10 figure actually came from the cross-examination here:
Q. Dr. Minnich, you're not aware of any research articles advocating intelligent design in any peer reviewed scientific journals, are you?A. I think yesterday there was, as I mentioned, there were around, between, I don’t know, seven and ten. I don’t have the specific ones. But Dr. Axe published one or two papers in the journal Biological Chemistry that were specifically addressing concepts within intelligent design. Mike Behe had one. Steve Meyer has had one.
So, you know, I think the argument that you’re not publishing in peer reviewed literature was valid. Now there are a couple out there. How many do we have to publish before it is in the literature and being evaluated? I mean, do we have to have 25? 50? I mean, give me a number.
Q. Let’s just talk about Dr. Axe. Those papers don’t advocate intelligent design, do they?
A. That’s the intent in terms of looking at protein sequence and domains and sequence space.
Q. He doesn’t mention the words intelligent design anywhere in those articles, isn’t that correct?
A. There’s a reason for that.
Q. And you mentioned something by Dr. Behe, is that right?
A. Correct.
Q. That’s the article with Snoke?
A. Yes.
Q. That wasn’t in a scientific journal, was it?
A. Well, refresh my memory. I haven’t read the papers.
Q. So you don’t know – if Dr. Behe testified that that wasn’t in a scientific journal, you wouldn’t question it?
A. I wouldn’t dispute it, no.
@Puck_Mendelssohn may offer more expert interpretation, but to this layman’s eyes this comes across as weak and ambiguous testimony, the sort that a judge might well dismiss.
IIRC, a new school board was elected during the trial but prior to the decision. Every single member who supported the creationist disclaimer was voted out, so it is no surprise that the new board would not appeal. I also suspect that such a clear repudiation from the vox populi was at least as stinging a defeat for the DI as was the loss in the court.
Maybe, but the findings they’ve questioned are really not central to the holding, so I doubt there’d be much leverage there.
Well, I don’t think you understand. You do not need an appeal to ask a court to revise an opinion. You may recall that just in the last week or so, Justice Kavanaugh revised an opinion when it was called to his attention, by a non-party, that he had made erroneous statements about the elections law in some other state (that is, other than the one whose law was under review).
Someone like Behe, if he felt his testimony had been mischaracterized, had very good reason to ask the court to revise its ruling. He’ll get asked about this stuff later. He’ll be confronted with things he is said to have said, which he evidently (and perhaps accurately) says he did not actually say. The DI, if it simply wanted the record to be clean and accurate – even in the face of negative findings – would have a strong incentive to ask the court to revise the ruling. And one needn’t be a party to do it.
I have not ever done this as a non-party, but I can assure you that courts are quite open to it. I once had an appeals court drop a line into a ruling which seemed to indicate what questions should be the subject of the consideration of the lower court on remand, and it looked like it could be construed as an instruction, over which we would have been arguing for the next several months. When I pointed out to the court that this offhand remark in the opinion was not the product of actual consideration by the court and was not accurate, it was amended. This is not that unusual.
So the question whether there would or would not be an appeal has very little to do with it. Indeed, it’s not a bad idea to get the ruling fixed before the appeal so that you’re not wasting time arguing about stuff like that anyhow.
And it does look to me like they may be right on some of these rather minor points. But I’ll have to get back to you on that.
Yeah, good luck with that. I can’t tell you how many times I have tried to explain this to some creationist besotted by Behe’s pseudoscience, without getting anywhere. This magical 10^20 number is up there in ID Scripture with Axe’s 10^77, and I don’t have to tell you how stubbornly that one persists despite it being thoroughly debunked.
You know, one thing I do not understand is why Behe feigned vindication over confirmation that chloroquine resistance required multiple mutations. If it were correct that it required 10^20 generations for CR to evolve, doesn’t the ID argument become stronger the fewer mutations such a trait required? That is to say, if it turned out that CR arose from a single point mutation, then Behe could (should) have argued “Look how long it took for this one, single mutation to arise and become fixed! Obviously, any evolutionary model that requires the fixation of even a handful of mutations is untenable.”
But, of course, if he argued that then it would be obvious that his claim is false, because it would be absurd to claim that a single mutation is fixed only every 10^20 generations. His argument in Edge is only slightly less absurd, but its absurdity is cleverly disguised by the complexity of his argument.
See how clueless scientists are? I had no idea this was the case.
Did they ever make an attempt to do this? What happened?
My philosophy is that we should eagerly take the opportunity to concede minor points. It is good practice in honesty and rigor, and it prepares us for those times we have to concede major points. So, as an intrinsic good, I want to know what minor points they were correct about in this case.
Since you have had Eugenie Scott and since Richard Dawkins will not be available, why not get Ken Miller. As he showed in his long discussion with Aron Ra ( I gave the link earlier), he likes to get into the detail of the case, his interaction with Behe and his views on irreducible complexity. Since the Aron Ra video was for a general audience interested in first-hand recollections about Dover, the technical discussion got choked off but you could take it on from there for exposure to the experts commenting here.