Denialism

A question for Luskin

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by

MarkH
in

Evolution news and views on me

That’s fascinating logic: apparently the widespread feeling that it is “sensible” to remove individuals of a particular viewpoint does not necessarily mean there’s a “conspiracy” to remove individuals with a particular viewpoint.

Mr. Luskin, is it the considered opinion of the DI, UD etc., that it is never acceptable to discriminate against a professor in a tenure decision based on their ideas?


You know, I tolerate lots of people with different ideas from mine, and there is a broad range of ideas that are perfectly acceptable to me. If other scientists hold these ideas, I’m fine with that. I don’t care about religion, politics, etc.

But that’s different from saying that there are no ideas I wouldn’t tolerate. Anyone who tolerates all ideas is an idiot. Some ideas have to be opposed, some are clearly wrong, and science, if an idea isn’t supported by the evidence, it should be abandoned.

For instance, if I were a history professor making a tenure decision about a colleague and it turned out that in his free time he promoted holocaust denial, I would never, in a million years, vote to grant him tenure. Academic freedom does not mean that we have to tolerate all ideas, or that academia should never discriminate against an individual because of his ideas. Just ask Ward Churchill.

However, in the intelligent design universe, if you ever just say no to a stupid idea, it’s a conspiracy! It’s against academic freedom! Our rights are being violated!

Nope. Some ideas are stupid. Intelligent design is stupid. There is no evidence for it. It’s a campaign to insert religion into science to undermine a well-established theory, their own wedge document demonstrated this. Their views on science are unproven, politically-motivated garbage, and a professor at ISU who promoted them as a scientist representing their university would be an embarrassment – just as a professor espousing holocaust denial would be.

This is very simple. There is no conspiracy here, just the sensible rejection of debunked and ridiculous ideas, supported by no data, no original research, and with solid evidence of an organized campaign to cast doubt on evolutionary science. That is, if that’s the reason they rejected them. If it was funding, hey, that’s fine too.

Comments

22 responses to “A question for Luskin”

  1. DragonScholar

    You make a good point. To clarify:

    What they’ve set up is the following:
    1) They hold a belief.
    2) The belief is not held by others.
    3) The others who disbelieve the belief argue that said belief is in violation of well-researched knowledge.
    4) Those others therefore feel, appropriately, that a person holding such a belief may not be reliable.
    5) The ID people then argue there’s a conspiracy, as opposed to EVER considering that someone can not only honestly disagree with them, but that they may have good reason.

    Essentially, what they do is set themselves up to claim victimhood. In fact, I can never recall seeing any of the prominent IDers ever say “Well, I can understand why people may disagree with us.” What I do see is bad science and conspiracy theories.

    Reply
  2. Mark C. Chu-Carroll

    The question that I’d like to ask the IDers is: Would you agree with a proposal to make an evolutionary biologist who didn’t believe in intelligent design a Discovery Institute fellow?

    Reply
  3. Forthekids

    Mark wrote:
    “However, in the intelligent design universe, if you ever just say no to a stupid idea, it’s a conspiracy! It’s against academic freedom! Our rights are being violated!”

    You want to talk conspiracy theories? How about the doosie the Darwinists tell claiming that there is a conspiracy among Christian “fundamentalists”, along with ID theorists, to establish a “Christian theocracy”?

    In the Darwinian universe, if anyone questions the all powerful and magnificent mechanism of natural selection, along with the other mechanisms of evolution, as being able to produce the information and astounding complexity we see in nature, they are tagged as conspiring “fundies” who are set on “reconstructionism”. We must ignore this “illusion” of design or lose our jobs/tenure/respect.

    By the way, it’s ~there~, not “their” in the following sentence:

    “But that’s different from saying that their are no ideas I wouldn’t tolerate.”

    Reply
  4. Forthekids

    MarkC wrote:
    “The question that I’d like to ask the IDers is: Would you agree with a proposal to make an evolutionary biologist who didn’t believe in intelligent design a Discovery Institute fellow?”

    Aren’t our public school systems supposed to encourage people to think outside of the box? Isn’t that how new discoveries are made and weak theories are laid to rest or revised as new information arises?

    The DI would be more appropriately compared to the NCSE in your example rather than a public university, and MOST CERTAINLY, the NCSE would never hire someone who was pro-ID.

    Reply
  5. MarkH

    I corrected my grammatical error.

    The difference is we have evidence, they do not. Also, they have a wedge document, that describes their intent for the DI as an organization designed to introduce religious beliefs into science.

    Allegations of a “theocracy” don’t make a lot of sense, as we don’t think they have such influence. They clearly have more limited objectives, to inject religious arguments into the scientific debate about the evolution of organisms, which has been well documented.

    Reply
  6. creeky belly

    FtK wrote:
    “In the Darwinian universe, if anyone questions the all powerful and magnificent mechanism of natural selection, along with the other mechanisms of evolution, as being able to produce the information and astounding complexity we see in nature, they are tagged as conspiring “fundies” who are set on “reconstructionism”. We must ignore this “illusion” of design or lose our jobs/tenure/respect.”

    It’s called empiricism; look into it.

    “You want to talk conspiracy theories? How about the doosie the Darwinists tell claiming that there is a conspiracy among Christian “fundamentalists”, along with ID theorists, to establish a “Christian theocracy”?”

    Again, the pesky evidence gets in the way of your Wedge denial.

    “Aren’t our public school systems supposed to encourage people to think outside of the box? Isn’t that how new discoveries are made and weak theories are laid to rest or revised as new information arises?”

    Yeah, instead of coming up with theories that can be tested with observation and experiment, let’s just make some s*** up and present it as science.

    Reply
  7. gwangung

    Aren’t our public school systems supposed to encourage people to think outside of the box? Isn’t that how new discoveries are made and weak theories are laid to rest or revised as new information arises?

    No.

    Obviously, the school system has failed you.

    Reply
  8. Tyler DiPietro

    “Aren’t our public school systems supposed to encourage people to think outside of the box? Isn’t that how new discoveries are made and weak theories are laid to rest or revised as new information arises?”

    Not if “think outside the box” is a euphemism for “think without any regard for facts.” To wield this sort of Kuhnian bullshit to defend a version of creationism watered down for political purposes is the height of dishonesty. We don’t teach kids to “think outside the box” in health class by teaching HIV denial alongside the overwhelming consensus view that HIV causes AIDS. Or are you of the opinion that such is also the result of an evil conspiracy? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if you were.

    Reply
  9. kamimushinronsha

    Excellent post, lets take bets on the response. Which do you think will happen?
    1. No response
    2. Response reminiscent of Forthekids?
    3. Blah, Blah, Blah, discrimination!
    4. Complete regress and admittance of error?

    I’m giving 100 to 1 odds on number 4.

    Reply
  10. G Felis

    Kamimushinronsha: You’d have to give much longer odds than that before I’d take a bet.

    Everyone who responded to Forthekids: Every time you feed a troll, God kills a kitten. Please, think about it.

    Reply
  11. creeky belly

    “Everyone who responded to Forthekids: Every time you feed a troll, God kills a kitten. Please, think about it.”

    She showed up at AtBC for a while and created a dialog, but ended up using one person’s tone as an excuse to refuse discussion (I’m surprised she continued to post after being outed Valerie Plame style). She’s completely wrong, but I’m hesitant to use the word ‘troll’. Any questions can be directed to:

    http://reasonablekansans.blogspot.com/

    Reply
  12. Teresa

    So here we have an organization (The DI) with a deomonstrated (The Wedge Document) and stated political and social agenda that explicitly states their intent to undermine the fundimentals of the scientific method (materialism)and somehow it’s a conspiracy that a discipline that relies on the scientific method will not allow ID to represent a discipline that they have a stated intention of destroying?

    Let’s try it this way, would it be a “conspiracy” for the Catholic church ot refuse to ordain Christopher Hitchens? It wouldn’t be? Wow, and as far as I know, his office has never leaked a document explicitly stateing that he wants to destroy The Church.

    Huh.

    Reply
  13. SLC

    Hey, good old FtK most recently a troll over at Red State Rabble has migrated over here. Ms. FtK raises a good point, namely that the public schools should be encouraging kids to think outside the box. Lets take that to its logical conclusion.

    1. Lets encourage kids to think outside the box by presenting evidence for a flat earth.

    2. Lets encourage kids to think outside the box by presenting evidence for geocentricism.

    3. Lets encourage kids to think outside the box by presenting evidence refuting the HIV/AIDS connection.

    4. Lets encourage kids to think outside the box by presenting evidence refuting the allegations that Nazi Germany was guilty of a holocaust against the Jews of Europe.

    5. Lets encourage kids to think outside the box by presenting evidence that the moon is made out of green cheese.

    6. Lets encourage kids to think outside the box by presenting evidence refuting the bacterial theory of disease.

    7. Lets encourage kids to think outside the box by presenting evidence that gravitation is the kicked back nut of the screwing bolt of radiation, thus refuting Einsteins’ and Newtons’ theories of gravitation.

    Reply
  14. George Cauldron

    FTK, of all people, is faulting others for spelling? The woman who is afraid that her belief in creationism has made her a ‘pirahna’ [sic] in the scientific community?

    BTW, it’s ‘doozie’, not ‘doosie’.

    Reply
  15. VHurtig

    Gee, I just wish our public schools actually taught kids to think.

    Reply
  16. Dunc

    Mark: please tell me you don’t actually think Luskin is making these claims in good faith, do you? The whine about being persecuted is all they’ve got, so they’re going to milk it as much as possible. It’s entirely deliberate.

    Reply
  17. MarkH

    Of course not dunc, but if one desires a response, which I do, one should at least pretend for the time being Luskin is an honest broker (even though he’s not).

    My expectation is they’d never respond to that question, because it will open them up to further ridicule.

    Reply
  18. Boosterz

    Anybody want to lay odds on how long it takes FTK to crank up the crazy to the point of getting yet another ban? 🙂

    Reply
  19. George Cauldron

    Not a problem. The way to deal with FTK is to demand she back up her loopy statements. Chases her away every time.

    Reply
  20. blipey

    Not a problem. The way to deal with FTK is to demand she back up her loopy statements. Chases her away every time.

    True. This is a shame as people like Ftk often show up demanding dialogue and to be included in discussions about the scientific issues. Then, when invited to provide content to such discussions, they run away. As Mark said above, trying to treat them as honet brokers is the best way to proceed. I just wish the rewards were greater for doing so.

    Reply
  21. Wesley R. Elsberry

    The question that I’d like to ask the IDers is: Would you agree with a proposal to make an evolutionary biologist who didn’t believe in intelligent design a Discovery Institute fellow?

    Some years ago, I briefly discussed with Paul Nelson the idea of the DI CRSC hiring essentially a “skeptic-in-residence”. They passed on doing so.

    Reply
  22. Wesley R. Elsberry

    The DI would be more appropriately compared to the NCSE in your example rather than a public university, and MOST CERTAINLY, the NCSE would never hire someone who was pro-ID.

    This is not a good analogy. NCSE’s mission is to defend the teaching of evolutionary science in the public schools. IDC advocates are uniformly inimical to that mission.

    The DI CSC, though, could easily hire people who believe in theistic design, but see no need to try to sell that view as if it were science. Instead, the IDC leadership has made clear that theistic evolutionists and evolutionary creationists, believers in design all, are not welcome in the “big tent”. This is one of the clearest bits of evidence that the IDC movement is pushing a narrow sectarian idea.

    Reply

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