Dr. Evil's Bunny

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18 Responses to “Dr. Evil's Bunny”

Aagcobb Says:
June 6th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Joy,

Since I ended up going off on a wild tangent on the CSI thread, I will now post on what we were discussing here. I'm not terrified of IDism. I hope anti-gay hysteria has pretty much run its course. Of course, if had I lived in the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, the notion that a comic opera character like Hitler would have ended up with the power to slaughter millions of innocents would have been inconceivable as well.

Inconceivable-but it happened anyway. On the Holocaust Memorial thread, you wrote

Hope my children and grandchildren who will outlive me will carry on my promise - Never Again!

Holocaust denial is creepy and evil. When it comes from modern scientists and science groupies, it's not made socially acceptable. That was the very mistake made in the first half of the 20th century, and it's not something that needs forgetting.

Those who forget - or simply DENY - history are doomed to repeat it.

The DI is just a bunch of academics whose kooky ideas aren't a theat to anyone, just like the academic eugenicists in tweed jackets before the war. Waiting until the Nazis were an obvious threat to humanity in the 1930s to denounce eugenics would have been too late-the time for scientists to act against the immorality of promoting the notion of breeding humans like cattle was no later than the 1920s. That was the mistake that was made, that is the lesson which must not be forgotten. You don't wait for evil to get strong before you grapple with it, you strangle it in its crib.

The DI is evil. Their ID "science" teaches that humans have a biological destiny designed into them-and those who defy the intent of the designer are perverse. Their intent is that laws be enacted based on that "science" to suppress those who defy the will of the designer. The religious right is thankfully ebbing in power, but so were the Nazis after the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch-then the Great Depression happened. The Nazis had a scapegoat to blame for the people's misery, and offered a plan to return Germany to greatness, and just enough Germans (about a third) bought into it to bring Hitler to power. Is such a thing really impossible here? Are you sure? The time to fight the DI is now, not when its too late. You don't want someone demanding an apology for what you failed to do 80 years from now, do you Joy? I know you don't, thats why you promised Never Again!

Comment by Aagcobb — June 6, 2008 @ 11:12 pm

MikeGene Says:
June 6th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
The DI is evil.

Was that the caption?

Comment by MikeGene — June 6, 2008 @ 11:43 pm

nobody Says:
June 7th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Caution: This thread may cause mental whiplash.

Comment by nobody — June 7, 2008 @ 1:30 am

Krauze Says:
June 7th, 2008 at 1:57 am
"I'll hold the world hostage for one million carrots."

Comment by Krauze — June 7, 2008 @ 1:57 am

Wonders For Oyarsa Says:
June 7th, 2008 at 2:45 am
I'm confused here - did Aagcobb just call me a Nazi?

Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — June 7, 2008 @ 2:45 am

Farshad Says:
June 7th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Their ID "science" teaches that humans have a biological destiny designed into them-and those who defy the intent of the designer are perverse.

hmm… umm… well, to me it sounds better than believing that humans are natural descendants of hydrogen atoms! don't you agree?

Comment by Farshad — June 7, 2008 @ 6:29 am

Aagcobb Says:
June 7th, 2008 at 11:17 am
The DI is evil.

That would be a good caption Mike!:wink:

Comment by Aagcobb — June 7, 2008 @ 11:17 am

Aagcobb Says:
June 7th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Farshad,

Thanks for making my point. There are lots of people out there who would gladly use ID "science" to support their personal bias against gays.

Comment by Aagcobb — June 7, 2008 @ 11:19 am

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
June 7th, 2008 at 11:32 am
I'm surprised that you didn't receive credit for your work. The information cost of no free lunch devotes considerable space to an analysis of Avida but they don't even mention your name. It's standard practice: I even had an undergraduate co-author a paper a couple of times.

There were several papers that were to be released.

The paper pertaining to my work and Avida was never published because the work was incomplete and never really got off the ground….

The other papers (and the ideas involved in their writing) which referenced Avida did not involve me, but rather helped motivate some of the research I was working on and would have worked on…

As far as my involvement, I had worked on dismantling Avida long before I came in contact with Robert Marks. You'll see discussions at ARN and ISCID with my anti-Avida analysis, one part which resulted in Evan Dorn admitting the Avida Group had an error somewhere in their source documentation.

It was partly that analysis, that encouraged Bob Marks to consider recruiting me….

As far as the EIL, to this day, I don't think anyone (including Bill Dembski and Bob Marks) has gotten a dime for their work there. It has all been volunteered time as far as I know….

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 7, 2008 @ 11:32 am

olegt Says:
June 7th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Interesting story, Sal. I don't know what you took away from that experience, but to me it looks like the tactics chosen by Marks and Dembski—to chip away at evolutionary algorithms—did not work very well, judging by the lack of any publications (so far). In fact, it backfired when David vun Kannon exposed errors in a Matlab script used by Marks and Dembski to test ev. The preprints and code were withdrawn from the EIL web page, rewritten manuscripts are still undergoing review.

This isn't surprising, really. It's okay to look for errors in other people's work: that's what peer review is about. However, you can't build a career in science by just pointing out other people's mistakes, you need to make a positive contribution to your field. Debates are the stuff of humanities where it's your thoughts against mine. In sciences, Nature is the ultimate judge and she is much less forgiving than any of your human opponents: your theory can be logically consistent and yet wrong. That's why I no longer bother to publish criticism of demonstrably wrong theoretical works: they are weeded out naturally. (I do that as a journal referee but referee comments are usually not published.)

It's strange that Marks doesn't get this: he's an engineer with a distinguished career and a solid publication record.

Comment by olegt — June 7, 2008 @ 1:46 pm

Aagcobb Says:
June 7th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Wonders For Oyarsa,

I'm confused here - did Aagcobb just call me a Nazi?

Nope, the eugenicists weren't Nazis-they just provided some intellectual justification for Nazism. Dembski clearly thinks that ID science provides a scientific basis for discrimination against homosexual and transgendered persons.

Comment by Aagcobb — June 7, 2008 @ 10:51 pm

Bradford Says:
June 7th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Dembski clearly thinks that ID science provides a scientific basis for discrimination against homosexual and transgendered persons.

Interesting Aagcobb in light of the fact that the gay movement has cited studies indicating that homosexuality has a genetic basis or at least that some are biased toward it by their genetic make-up. That would appear to open the door to counter evidence unless we are dealing in dogma. In any case Dembski's position is derived from his religious convictions which he believes are in harmony with science- a subtle distinction you seem intent on ignoring.

As Joy has pointed out the juggernaut is racking up one victory after another in advancing the gay agenda so in the matter of practical evidence you are short on suppression data. Many states already have statutes in place that provide homosexuals with special legal protections. Why the obsession with this tangent?

Comment by Bradford — June 7, 2008 @ 11:06 pm

TeleAboveGround Says:
June 8th, 2008 at 2:15 am
I guess the best caption according to this discussion is…

Fascist Christian Bunny! Or, Fascist Christian Bunny Plots Evil Takeover by the millions… aahahaha.., uh psssst. Dr. Evil's bunny? Ja? Don't you mean Billions? Uhhh, ja, ja, Tausend Dank! Tak, Fascist Christian Bunny Plots Evil Takeover by the Billions! hehehehe.

Works well when one has no real argument to make.

Since we're off-topic. In other unrelated news as controversial:
Forum to focus on math and mechanics behind life processes

Using better math and mechanics in biology. Forum meeting in Woods Hole, Mass. Is this the Venter meeting? Anyway, some interesting thoughts and quotes…

"The dominant view in biology has been that cellular behavior is largely chemistry-driven, but there's a growing recognition of something else at work. A lot of what the cell does is mechanical. It needs to move things around. It migrates," said Krishna Garikipati, an associate professor in the U-M Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics.

Dumais says more researchers are looking to math now as a way to connect and comb through decades worth of observational molecular biology data. "Now, there is enough data to make meaningful models," Dumais said. "Models tell us there's something predictable about a system."

Taber is seeking a mechanical source for laws of biology that would explain tissue responses and growth.

"Biological systems have to obey the laws of physics, but I believe there are additional laws that govern the behavior of cells and proteins," Taber said. "But it's a very complex system. In physics, objects don't have a mind of their own."

Dumais says more researchers are looking to math now as a way to connect and comb through decades worth of observational molecular biology data. "Now, there is enough data to make meaningful models," Dumais said. "Models tell us there's something predictable about a system."

This is not Darwin science, this is Design science. Where "models" can ascertain repeated and verifiable observations of predictiable outcomes within boundaries. Inherant to such models of systems is functional purpose. Where predictable outcomes for the ordinary, not so ordinary and degraded fucntionality can be charted maybe; say, if looking at how the male human body is designed with purpose and intent, or deleterious reactions to the body which are against the original design:

Male Semen makes HIV more potent

The study points out a protein fragment distributed from the prostate gland, than in some cases can enhance HIV up to 100K times more potent than the virus alone in sexual transmission. More studies need to be madde. But, it appears to go along with the cascading or tumbling effects upon genetic information…

A gene may cause a part of a cell to contract, for example. The cells next to it feel that stress and respond to it, perhaps contracting too and generating stress that more cells feel. This stress could act as a signal. In embryo development, Taber said, cells tend to take the shape of an organ, such as a heart, before they differentiate into the proper type of tissue.

While the above is in relation to embryonic studies, a similar statement can be made of the deleterious reactions to cellular abuse sustained over long periods of time. This does not relate only to HIV, but can relate to something as simple as drinking to many sodas, both sugar and diet into the system not made for anything other than nature's water, oranges and apples for example.

It is interesting to see more and more EE and ME engineers get involved at this level and thinking mechanically or signal wise of laws for biology along the lines of physics and also mathematical precepts which can be as universal as f=ma.

Comment by TeleAboveGround — June 8, 2008 @ 2:15 am

kornbelt888 Says:
June 8th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Caption: "Ex–cellent - that carrot was Ex—–cccccellent"

Comment by kornbelt888 — June 8, 2008 @ 9:30 pm

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Interesting story, Sal. I don't know what you took away from that experience, but to me it looks like the tactics chosen by Marks and Dembski"”to chip away at evolutionary algorithms"”did not work very well, judging by the lack of any publications (so far).

Even though I devoted probably 40 hours of my time to the projects over the course of a year, I wasn't very effective partly because there was too much to learn. I was probably a year of serious full-time work and study before I would have been qualified to put forward anything worthwhile….

I also felt I had invested too much of my free time to volunteer work with ID already, it was time to get on with other things.

I opted for an applied physics MS since it was oriented toward engineers who were not physics undergrads. I also felt my elementary understanding of science was lacking in basic areas.

By the way, here is what I'll be studying at APL part-time in the evening through 2011.

Math methods for Physics & Engineering
Quantum Mechanics
Classical Mechanics
Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics
Electromagnetics
Directed Studies
Quantum Information Processing
Introduction to Relativity
Plasma Physics

It certainly is not the pace which the full-time students are put to at the Homewood campus. I can only imagine how hard it is for your students! My professor got his MS at APL and his PhD at the Homewood campus. He said it's pretty hard at the Homewood campus!

Even though my original declared concentration was Condensed Matter Physics, I realized I was lacking in so many of the basics, that I opted to focus on the fundamentals and I have no room now for all the pre-requisites and courses in a condensed matter concentration. It seems like there is so much more to learn and I'll only be scratching the surface….

I already completed a Modern Physics course, and my hardest course will be this Fall 2008: Math methods. Everyone says it will be brutal…

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 9, 2008 @ 12:02 am

Salvador T. Cordova Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 10:23 am
For the reader's benefit, here is an interesting exchange with physicist John Baez critiquing some work of Eugene Wigner that was used in the 1984 pro-ID work, Mystery of Life's Origin.

Is Life Improbable.

Albert Voie, a biologist with background in Artificial Intelligence cited the von-Neuman and Bohr in his pro-ID paper published in the journal of Chaos, Solitons, and Fractals 2006: Biological function and the genetic code are interdependent.

Though Wigner's paper is not mentioned in Voie's paper, the problem of "self-measurement" is mentioned which appears related to Wigner's work. The problem of self-measurement also appears at the heart of Goedel's incompleteness, artificial intelligence, and OOL…..

All this to say, the OOL problem is fairly nuanced, and there is a lot to learn. I can't say that I know enough comment expertly on the work of Wigner, Baez, von Neumann, Godel, and Voie — but it seems all the issues they raise are relevant to the question of ID. I list these papers for the benefit of those interested parties with relevant backgrounds…..

Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 9, 2008 @ 10:23 am

chunkdz Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Aagcobb,

"The DI is evil…You don't wait for evil to get strong before you grapple with it, you strangle it in its crib."

So what's your plan?

Comment by chunkdz — June 9, 2008 @ 11:17 am

Bradford Says:
June 9th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Thanks for those links Salvador. That will keep me busy.

Comment by Bradford — June 9, 2008 @ 12:24 pm

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Dr. Evil's Bunny

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