I'm not saying that everyone who subscribes to Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC) is anti-science. There are some, like Michael Behe, Michael Denton, and Scott Minnich who are clearly not anti-science in any meaningful sense of the word. They're not personally guilty of the crime but they're intellectual cowards for not speaking out against the worst offenders.There is a hard core of IDiots who are against everything that real science stands for. They attack evolution, for example, at every opportunity. They claim that "Darwinism," as they call it, is just plain wrong.
You can find this hard core of creationists in the usual places such as Post-Darwinist, Evolution News & Views, and Uncommon Descent. Most of the people who blog at those sites are supporters of Bill Dembski and Jonathan Wells and all the other kooks at The Discovery Institute.
You need only read their books to see how much Wells and Dembski hate science and how far they will go to discredit evolution. Anyone who stands under the big tent with those people will be assumed to condone their opinions of science.
The IDC crowd is now all a twitter over the Gonzalez case. Guillermo Gonzalez was recently denied tenure in the Physics Department at Iowa State University. His case is under appeal. Gonzalez is an Intelligent Design Creationist sympathizer and a Senior fellow at the Discovery Institute [Guillermo Gonzalez, Senior Fellow - CSC]. One suspects that Gonzales is anti-science. Either that or he is an intellectual coward for not speaking out against those who are anti-science.
The creationists are hoping to influence the outcome of the appeal by writing letters of support to the President of the University. They have also recruited right wing religious conservative politicians to speak out on behalf of Gonzalez.
At least they're being consistent. Their attack on the scientists at Iowa State is no different than their attack on all other scientists.
But, don't they get it? As a group who are known to be anti-science do the IDC's really think they're helping Gonzalez by confirming the worst fears of the tenure committee? Their stupid meddling has made it almost certain that Gonzales will be denied tenure. Or maybe it wasn't stupid at all. Maybe that's what they really want—a martyr.
I almost feel sorry for Gonzales. With friends like that ...
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Not only will DI's meddling undoubtedly cause Dr. Gonzalez's appeal be turned down, he will very likely find it difficult to find a tenure track position at any reputable research university.
Once again, the Disco Institute has shown what a contemptible collection of bozos that it is.
Gonzalez hasn't been much help to his own cause. In a news item in the current issue of Nature (Darwin sceptic says views cost tenure by Geoff Brumell, Nature 447, 364 (24 May 2007) | doi:10.1038/447364a; Published online 23 May 2007) Gonzalez is quoted:
He is now appealing the decision on the grounds that his religious belief, not the quality of his science, was the basis for turning down his application. "I'm concerned my views on intelligent design were a factor," he says.
Say what? Isn't he on the record as claiming ID is science, not religion? For example here:
Is intelligent design science?
By William Dillon, Staff Writer, Mid-Iowa News
09/06/2005
Intelligent design is a method of detection, looking for and detecting particular objective elements of design in nature," Gonzalez said, noting that "objective" means it does not depend on any prior philosophical or religious assumptions.
"Anybody with any religious background can look at the data and reach the same conclusions," he said.
That same article covers the petition by faculty at Iowa State objecting to the injection of religion into science by Intelligent Design advocates.
Gonzales is toast.
Re Gonzalez
The DI doesn't give a s**t about Gonalez. They are only interested in him as a martyr. If the tenure decision were overturned or he got another position, he wouldn't be a martyr any more.
Gonzalez has built himself an interesting rock and hard place here. On the one hand, his best chance by far of trying to force a tenured position out of ISU is to claim a civil rights violation. Absent that (as far as my research has gotten in this rather convoluted area of law) he has to show that the university acted in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner, a very tough legal standard to meet. But if he goes the religious discrimination route, then he raises the possibility of his own misconduct in representing his religious beliefs as if they are science which, if I read ISU's conduct standards aright, is sufficient to deny him tenure. As long as there is another good and valid reason for the university's actions, the fact that religious bias may have entered into the decision is not enough for the courts to interfere.
Waldteufel (and Ed Brayton) are right that this will likely keep Gonzalez from getting a job in a university other than a evangelical one (and how many of those have astronomy departments?). The lawyers for the schools would be screaming "who needs the headaches?"
He may have finagled himself into a career of writing religious tomes and lecturing at churches.
Larry says:
I'm not saying that everyone who subscribes to Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC) is anti-science. There are some, like Michael Behe, Michael Denton, and Scott Minnich who are clearly not anti-science in any meaningful sense of the word. They're not personally guilty of the crime but they're intellectual cowards for not speaking out against the worst offenders.
Huh? This is unexpected.
Michael Denton I have not studied in any detail. Scott Minnich I've looked into a bit. Let's consider Behe, where I have put in the work to see what he's proposing.
Michael Behe strikes me as anti-science. His testimony at Dover was famous for proposing a redefinition of science. His work on "IC" is sophormoric in its ineptitude. It is also anti-science in two important sense. First, it is running down perfectly good science for idiotic reasons that betray complete incompetance with the material he alleged criticises. Second, his proposed alternative is anti-science in the sense that he tried to describe as science the process of fitting god into an alleged gap and saying nothing whatsoever about how god actually the filling of the gap works.
I suspect I'm missing something here. I think Behe is thoroughly anti-science and Larry is one of the last people I would have expected to say different. Help?
I'm going to echo Duas Quartunciae here and say that Behe has shown himself to be anti-science more than once.
First, as menmtioned, he proposed a redefinition of science in the Dover trial where he was forced to concede that astrology would have to be included under his new, bogus, definition.
Second, he has written in Darwin's Black Box utter crap that runs counter to basic genetics, such as:
Suppose that nearly four billion years ago the designer made the first cell, already containing all of the irreducibly complex biochemical systems discussed here and many others. (One can postulate that the design for systems that were to be used later, such as blood clotting, were present but not 'turned on.' In present-day organisms plenty of genesare turned off for a while, sometimes for generations, to be turned on at a later time.)
Seriously, this speculation is complete nonsense, and as a professor of biochemistry, I have to suspect that Behe knows that this paragraph was crap. And yet there it is, in plain view.
Behe disregards fundamentals of genetics in his writing, so I'd say he's very anti-science.
I will echo the above two posters in saying that I definitely regard Michael Behe as anti-science. I can appreciate Larry's position here: someone doesn't have to go wholesale anti-science in order to engage in teleological musings. I would say that most scientists who engage in them are only guilty of sloppy thinking. Behe has attempted to redefine science and has pimped his scientific credentials to promote an anti-science theo-political ideology.
Gonzalez was a triple fool. First, his production didn't keep up after taking the ISU job and he didn't get a grant. That will kill your tenure chances 10x dead at many places. Second, he was a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, a distraction from the work he should have been doing to get tenure. Third, he participated in ID proselytizying, contributing to the book and doing lecture tours etc, a distraction from the work he should have been doing.
His behavior made it seem likely that once given tenure, he would slow way down on the production of any good science he could do and would use his bully tenured pulpit to promote ID relentlessly. What department (*cough* Lehigh Biochemistry *cough*) wants that sort of albatross around its neck??
Any form of "scientific" creationism is not proper science and actually also not proper faith.
Behe disgusts me. A coauthor of pandas and peopele: that should say it all, since this book denies common descent. He does'nt care much about anyhting but his church and it shows.
I am also almost sure that Behe has expressed "doubts" about common descent. Thta's a no no on my list.
As some others, I am somewhat at a loss how to not regard Behe as anti-science.
"His work on "IC" is sophormoric in its ineptitude. It is also anti-science in two important sense."
In my view, while his work is anti-scientific for exactly the reasons described I note that "subtractive IC" is one of two falsifiable, not entirely religious claims that ID makes. (The other being about a narrow configuration space of proteins.)
Unfortunately it is both a negative claim on evolution, so inconsequential to ID, and immediately flying in the face of known biology. Interlocking complexity is already defined and expected. So if we look at prior art, it is as you say running down good science due to incompetence.
Behe is not anti-science in the same way as those who attack Darwin and who attack scientists. As a general rule, Behe looks for scientific explanations behind his beliefs. He accepts evolution and common descent.
Yes, it's true that he's guilty of doing bad science and it's true that he wants Intelligent Design Creationism to be part of science. That's not the same as being anti-science. He hasn't completely gone over to the dark side.
When I say that someone is anti-science I mean that they express hatred toward scientists and disgust at the current practice of science. Behe doesn't do that but Jonathan Wells does. Where I find fault with Behe, more than anything, is that he's an intellectual coward for not speaking out against the Christian fundamentalists who reject evolution and common descent.
He's a theistic accommodationist.
"He's a theistic accommodationist"
Larry, Behe IS anti-evolution and Anti-common descent, or at least he doubts it. His silly arguents about the bloood clotting system are argues against common descnet and nothing else; that's the idea of "irreducible complexity", that complex things cannot come into existence by steps but only suddenly, with everything already "in place".
I think this post is very weird, Larry. It's almost like you are pulling our legs.
Behe is a creationist, a veiled one for sure, but don't let him fool you. Behe may accept microevolution, but his arguments about the origin of complex adaptations are targeted to produce creationist explanations. Period.
Behe is obviously one of the biggest disfavors to science that walks the earth. He has repeated some some legitimate scientific questions and criticisms of neodarwinism but confuses the issue heavily by answering them via supernatural hanky-panky. He taints those questions with an issue that divides people and WILL draw many mindless advocates and deniers as well.
Re Behe
I would have to agree with the others who have labeled Prof. Behe anti-science. Even though he endorsed common descent in his Dover testimony, when he speaks before church groups, he fudges his acceptance. I suspect that Behe would reject common descent if he thought he could get away with it and still maintain a modicum of credibility in the scientific community.
Re Denton
Having downloaded an interview which Prof. Denton gave to the Un. of California extension service in 2002, it is my impression that his viewpoint has considerably evolved since his Evolution in Crisis book was published. Based on that interview, it appears that his major dissent from the synthesis is his claim that natural selection is only a partial explanation for speciation, although at the same time admitting that he has nothing to offer as an alternative.
"When I say that someone is anti-science I mean that they express hatred toward scientists and disgust at the current practice of science."
Ah, I see. Well, my own attempt to definition would also incorporate practices that are antithetic to science, such as pseudoscience, woo and similar crankery, since they all are damaging for science.
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