Posted on 01/10/2002 8:12:15 AM PST by Exnihilo
January 9, 2002: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOLLOW-UP STATEMENT BY WILLIAM A. DEMBSKI ON THE PUBLICATION OF ROBERT PENNOCK'S NEW BOOK WITH MIT PRESS
How STILL Not to Debate Intelligent Design By William A. Dembski
Robert Pennock has just published _Intelligent Design Creationists and Their Critics_ with MIT Press. It includes two essays by me. In a press release dated yesterday, I claimed that Pennock never contacted me about their inclusion. Pennock now claims that he did. He said. She said. Who's right?
Consider the facts. Pennock published two essays of mine in his new book: "Who's Got the Magic?" and "Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information." With regard to the second essay, did he ever in any way refer to that essay, whether directly or indirectly, in any of our correspondence prior to the release of his book? No. He never even hinted at it, and there's no way it could be said that he contacted me about its inclusion in his volume. Pennock therefore never laid out which essays of mine he intended to include.
What about the other essay, "Who's Got the Magic?" Did Pennock ever advert to that essay in any of our correspondence? In April 2001, Pennock sent an email to my colleague Paul Nelson asking him to forward it to me. Nelson did forward Pennock's message to me. I had received no email from Pennock before that date and nothing after until the publication of his book. I read Pennock's email with only two pieces of relevant background knowledge: (1) that he was putting together an anthology for MIT Press titled _Intelligent Design Creationists and Their Critics_ and (2) that my colleague Paul Nelson was a contributor to the volume and that he had been explicitly informed that he would be a contributor. My working assumption before receiving Pennock's email was that I would not be a contributor since I had not been similarly informed.
Pennock's forwarded message contained two items relevant here: (1) a short biosketch of me with a request that I correct it for inclusion in "my anthology" (no description of the anthology beyond this was mentioned -- Pennock simply assumed I knew what he was referring to) and (2) an engimatic reference to being able to "add our Meta exchange when I sent in the ms [sic]."
Regarding the biosketch, Pennock did not state that this was a contributor biosketch. With a title like _Intelligent Design Creationists and Their Critics_, I took it that Pennock was compiling a "rogues gallery" of ID proponents and simply listing me as one of the rogues. He never used the word "contributor" or anything like it to refer to me in connection with his anthology.
Regarding Pennock's reference to "our Meta exchange," he never referred to my actual essay by title. The Meta exchange comprised my piece on www.metanexus.net titled "Who's Got the Magic?" and his response there titled "The Wizards of ID." I had never signed over the copyright for "Who's Got the Magic?" to Pennock or anyone else for that matter. Was it therefore our entire exchange that he was planning to add, with copyright permissions requests (that never came) still down the road ? Or was it just his portion of the exchange and a summary of mine that he was planning to add to "the ms"? Was his mention of adding it to "the ms" a reference to the MIT anthology or to some other work? Finally, the one other ID proponent whom I knew to be a contributor to Pennock's anthology (i.e., Paul Nelson) had been explicitly contacted about being a contributor. I hadn't.
Pennock's forwarded message was ambiguous at best. Indeed, it came as a complete surprise when I learned last week that my essays were included in his volume. My surprise was not unjustified. I therefore continue to maintain that Pennock never contacted me about the inclusion of my essays in his volume. Indeed, the very fact that Pennock's one piece of communication with me was a forwarded message should give one pause. Pennock, who casts himself as the defender of scientific correctness against ID reactionaries, has been remarkable for being able to uncover obscure work of mine (cf. his previous book with MIT Press titled _Tower of Babel_).
Pennock has been following the ID movement intently for at least ten years. I'm one of the most prominent people in the ID camp. My association with Baylor University and Discovery Institute is common knowledge. Pennock could easily have contacted me directly and informed me explicitly that I was to be a contributor to the volume. Instead, he sent a letter through an intermediary. There was a hint in that forwarded letter that one paper of mine might be appearing in some mansucript, which after the fact proved to be more than a hint. But I saw no reason to give it a second thought without further clarification from Pennock -- clarification he never offered. And what about the other paper, about which there was no hint?
So much for he-said-she-said, my-word-versus-your-word. Such clarifications are needed to clear the air. But they really sidestep the central issue. By not contacting me about the inclusion of my essays in his volume, Pennock merely added insult to injury. The central issue, however, is not the insult but the injury. The injury is that Pennock situated my essays in a book that from its inception cast me and my colleagues as villains and demonized our work.
I'm still a junior scholar, early in my academic career. I don't have tenure. When my contract runs out at Baylor University, I'll have to hustle for another academic job. Under normal circumstances, I would love to have articles of mine (popular or technical) appear with prestigious academic presses like MIT Press. But the inclusion of my essays in _Intelligent Design Creationists and Their Critics_ do not constitute normal circumstances.
To fair-minded individuals in the middle with no significant stake in the controversy over Darwinism and intelligent design, I ask: Would you like your work subjected to the same treatment that Pennock and MIT Press gave to my work and that of my colleagues? If you were a feminist scholar, would you want your work to appear in a book titled _Misguided Liberationist Women and Their Critics_? If you were a Muslim scholar, would you want your work to appear in a book titled _Fanatical Believers in Allah and Their Critics_? If you were a Marxist scholar, would you want your work to appear in a book titled _Marx's Theory of Surplus Value and Other Nonsense_?
"Creationism" is a dirty word in contemporary academic culture and Pennock knows it. What's more, as a trained philosopher, Pennock knows that intelligent design is not creationism. Intelligent design refers to intelligent processes operating in nature that arrange pre-existing matter into information-rich structures. Creation refers to an agent that gives being to the material world. One can have intelligent design without creation and creation without intelligent design.
The central issue is not that Pennock and MIT Press wanted to publish my essays but that they wanted to situate them in such a way as to discredit me, my work, and that of my colleagues. When I debated Darwinist Massimo Pigliucci at the New York Academy of Sciences last November, he stated: "Any debate between creationists and evolutionists is caused by the failure of scientists to explain how science works and should in no way be construed as a genuine academic dispute whose outcome is still reasonably doubtful." Pennock would agree, though he would add that the failure is also on the part of philosophers and not just scientists.
According to Pigliucci and Pennock, intelligent design proponents are not scholars to be engaged on the intellectual merits of their case. Rather, they are charlatans to be discredited, silenced, and stopped. That's the whole point of _Intelligent Design Creationists and Their Critics_. It's not a work of scholars trying to come to terms with their differences. It's not a work attempting to bring clarity to a "genuine academic dispute." It's a work of damage control to keep unwanted ideas at bay. It's what dogmatists do when outright censorship has failed.
--30--
File Date: 01.09.02
You're getting the old "bring me the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the SSW" runaround. You have to bring a fossil that's preserved exactly halfway out of the water, or forget it!
I emailed Pennock for his comments, & hopefully a pointer to his news release that Dembski alludes to in his news release. Pennock finally replied today:
Jennifer,This is Metanexus. Apparently it covers the relationship between science, religion, & ethics. And apparently Dembski's press release had been posted there (before it was pulled) as well as at ARN. BTW, here's the Table of Contents for Pennock's book:Dembski's unfounded ad hominem attack in METANEXUS does not deserve a response. You will note that METANEXUS removed it from their site last week.
I hope you enjoy the book and find it useful.
Robert Pennock
New Book: Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical,
Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological & Scientific Perspectives Robert T. Pennock (editor) The MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England $45.00 paper 0-262-66124-1 December 2001. 825 pp.
Available now online at <http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=459744DC-5D-4055-938 5-3120B191D4CE&ttype=2&tid=8606>
Table of Contents
- Preface - Contributors - Acknowledgments
I. Intelligent Design Creationism's "Wedge Strategy" 1. The Wedge at Work: How Intelligent Design Creationism is Wedging Its Way into the Cultural and Academic Mainstream Barbara Forrest
II. Johnson's Critique of Evolutionary Naturalism 2. Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism Phillip E. Johnson
3. Naturalism, Evidence and Creationism: The Case of Phillip Johnson Robert T. Pennock
4. Response to Pennock Phillip E. Johnson
5. Reply: Johnson's Reason in the Balance Robert T. Pennock
III. A Theological Conflict?: Evolution vs. the Bible 6. When Faith and Reason Clash: Evolution and the Bible Alvin Plantinga
7. When Faith and Reason Cooperate Howard J. Van Till
8. Plantinga's Defense of Special Creation Ernan McMullin
9. Evolution, Neutrality, and Antecedent Probability: A Reply to McMullin and Van Till Alvin Plantinga
IV. Intelligent Design's Scientific Claims 10. Molecular Machines: Experimental Support for the Design Inference Michael J. Behe
11. Born Again Creationism Philip Kitcher
12. Biology Remystified: The Scientific Claims of the New Creationists Matthew J. Brauer & Daniel R. Brumbaugh
V. Plantinga's Critique of Naturalism & Evolution 13. Methodological Naturalism? Alvin Plantinga
14. Methodological Naturalism Under Attack Michael Ruse
15. Plantinga's Case Against Naturalistic Epistemology Evan Fales
16. Plantinga's Probability Arguments Against Evolutionary Naturalism Branden Fitelson & Elliott Sober
VI. Intelligent Design Creationism vs. Theistic Evolutionism 17. Creator or Blind Watchmaker
Phillip E. Johnson18. Phillip Johnson on Trial: A Critique of His Critique of Darwin Nancey Murphy
19. Welcoming the 'Disguised Friend' - Darwinism and Divinity Arthur Peacocke
20. The Creation: Intelligently Designed or Optimally Equipped? Howard J. Van Till
21. Is Theism Compatible with Evolution? Roy Clouser
VII. Intelligent Design and Information 22. Is Genetic Information Irreducible? Phillip E. Johnson
23. Reply to Phillip Johnson Richard Dawkins
24. Reply to Johnson George C. Williams
25. Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information William A. Dembski
26. Information and the Argument from Design Peter Godfrey-Smith
27. How Not to Detect Design Branden Fitelson, Christopher Stephens & Elliott Sober
28. The 'Information Challenge' Richard Dawkins
VIII. Intelligent Design Theorists Turn the Tables 29. Who's Got the Magic? William A. Dembski
30. The Wizards of ID: Reply to Dembski Robert T. Pennock
31. The Panda's Peculiar Thumb Stephen Jay Gould
32. The Role of Theology in Current Evolutionary Reasoning Paul A. Nelson
33. Appealing to Ignorance Behind the Cloak of Ambiguity Kelly C. Smith
34. Nonoverlapping Magisteria Stephen Jay Gould
IX. Creationism and Education 35. Why Creationism Should Not Be Taught in the Public Schools Robert T. Pennock
36. Creation and Evolution: A Modest Proposal Alvin Plantinga
37. Reply to Plantinga's 'Modest Proposal' Robert T. Pennock
YOU: For instance, paleontological evidence shows that legs developed among fully aquatic animals to facilitate movement in plant-filled shallow water. It is quite easy to postulate a gradual move by animals from sea to land and voila! The fossil record pretty much backs this up.
ME: Give me examples of how the fossil record backs this up. In other words, showing the progression from the species which could live only in water and had no legs or lungs, to the one which had the legs and lungs but was still primarily aquatic, to the one which lived out of water entirely.
I'm asking for three different species in the fossil records. All you're giving me is something which lived in the water and had some kind of legs and lungs. Actually, what I should have asked for is four different species, with the second one being the aquatic creature which had legs and lungs, which is what you gave me.
Also, I don't understand how getting lungs for an entirely aquatic species conferred a survival advantage, which is what drives evolution, but that's another issue.
Junior gave this species as an example of one of the life forms that proves, or at least indicates the likelihood, that aquatic life turned into land life. The site itself said that the species probably didn't evolve into anything. I'm supposed to accept that as evidence for evolution?
Just because you have something which had some kind of appendages like legs and lungs in itself proves nothing about eventual evolution into a land life form. Of course, you can just assume that since we know evolution occured, this species must have evolved into one which lived on land. But that's circular reasoning.
I don't know why I'm bothering with you. Legs and lungs on a fish mean nothing about evolving toward land? How about if it has hair, teats, and looks like a cow?
Ah, but we do know speciation has occured; we see it in nature and the laboratory on a fairly regular basis, now:
Now, as scientists are wont to do, we can say "we know that speciation occurs today and we can use that knowledge to predict that speciation has most probably occured in the past." Working from this premise, we discover that an aquatic life form a third of a billion years old had legs and lungs but evidently lived its entire life in the water (based upon the type of material in which the fossil is preserved). We find another fossil a tad bit younger than the first (I actually gave three species), and it bears some resemblance to the first and it has the added benefit of clearly being somewhat of a land dweller. Can we not draw some conclusions from these related facts, or are we forever to shrug our shoulders and say, "didn't see it happen, can't prove anything?"
The massive evidence that you think you see is just inference, nothing more. It's kind of ridiculous that you attack the ID people for drawing inferences, when that's all you're doing. I doubt you're even familiar with the ID arguments.
In fact the evidence fits much better into intelligent design, because of problems with evolutionist theory created by irreducible complexity, as Michael Behe has shown, and the calculations that have been made of the astronomical probabilities of such random mutations having occured in the way evolutionists say they did, the lack of the transitional forms in the fossil record, etc.
As I say, evolutionism is basically circular logic. Someone proposes an alternate theory, and evolutionists won't take it seriously. Why? Because we "know" evolution occured, because of the massive "evidence" (which are all inferences). Therefore, the competing theories can't be right. Therefore, evolution is right.
Whenever evolutionists talk about ID, they attack it as having religious people behind it. Therefore, it doesn't have to be taken seriously. This is essentially another form of circular reasoning, which goes something like this:
Religious people are kooks/idiots/brainwashed etc. Why? Because there is no God, or at least not the God of the Bible. How do we know there is no Biblical God? Because evolution occured, which contradicts the Bible! Therefore, competing theories proposed by Bible believers are a priori BS.
Now, when we look at the fossil record armed with what we know (not what we "believe") and see that organisms appear to change over time, which "theory" do you think a rational scientist is going to choose? The one backed up by observation or the one supported by iffy mathematics and a particular interpretation of 3000-year-old writings?
Do you understand now?
You can draw an inference. That's all. That's not the same as evidence that it actually did happen, or even could happen. The question of whether it COULD happen is hardly proven or even shown to be likely. Evolutionists generally skip this step, not feeling it necessary in view of the overwhelming evidence, etc. According to irreducible complexity theory, it can't happen.
I also can't figure out how, within the evolution theory, you account for a fish with lungs. What survival advantage did it confer? That's the only way a mutation can result in a new species under evolution theory, if it increases their survival, survival of the fittest, etc. There's a hell of a lot of fish that have no lungs, so this hardly seems plausible. Or did the fish in some sense "know" it was supposed to evolve into an amphibian?
A feature of creationist arguments is the total unwillingness to imagine beforehand even the most obvious rebuttal. This amounts to playing dumb. Take your plaintive cry quoted above.
A fish whose fins are showing some adaptation to leg-like functions, and which has rudimentary lungs to go with its gills, is already adapted for a certain ecological niche. That niche is one that puts a premium on behaviors besides swimming. This fish lives in the shallows along shore and occasionally finds itself out of the water. It may not be very good out of the water, but an ability to cope with the problem and thrash its way back to the wet stuff comes in handy. The ones that can handle getting beached (maybe even beaching themselves on purpose chasing food) eat better and live longer than the ones that try to live along shore but can't handle not being wet all over all the time.
It's a strawman to assume that all changes from some A to some later B must have happened all at once, that one day an A suddenly gave gave birth to a B. (But how did it live, and what did it mate with?)
Whole populations drift along together, adapting to changing environments. Junior's given you most of the links already. Don't make us read them to you line by line.
What's an example of speciation in the laboratory?
From Observed Instances of Speciation:
From Some More Observed Speciation Events:5.7 Speciation in a Lab Rat Worm, Nereis acuminata In 1964 five or six individuals of the polychaete worm, Nereis acuminata, were collected in Long Beach Harbor, California. These were allowed to grow into a population of thousands of individuals. Four pairs from this population were transferred to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. For over 20 years these worms were used as test organisms in environmental toxicology. From 1986 to 1991 the Long Beach area was searched for populations of the worm. Two populations, P1 and P2, were found. Weinberg, et al. (1992) performed tests on these two populations and the Woods Hole population (WH) for both postmating and premating isolation. To test for postmating isolation, they looked at whether broods from crosses were successfully reared. The results below give the percentage of successful rearings for each group of crosses.
They also found statistically significant premating isolation between the WH population and the field populations. Finally, the Woods Hole population showed slightly different karyotypes from the field populations.WH X WH - 75%
P1 X P1 - 95%
P2 X P2 - 80%
P1 X P2 - 77%
WH X P1 - 0%
WH X P2 - 0%
Two strains of Drosophila paulistorum developed hybrid sterility of male offspring between 1958 and 1963. Artificial selection induced strong intra-strain mating preferences.
(Test for speciation: sterile offspring and lack of interbreeding affinity.)
Dobzhansky, Th., and O. Pavlovsky, 1971. "An experimentally created incipient species of Drosophila", Nature 23:289-292.
Once more:
Speciation has been observed. It is a known phenomenon. Would it not be likely that speciation occurred in the past, too? In other words, it COULD happen. Evolutionists do not skip this step, generally or particularly. As for irreducible complexity, have you not read the links?
Actually, according to several of my at-home library sources, primitive fish had both gills and primitive lungs (I've read somewhere the latter became the air bladder in modern fish). In other words, lungs were pretty much there from the start. As for the survival benefits, the lung/bladder allowed fish to regulate their depth without the energy-consuming method of constantly swimming (which sharks use -- no sharks do not drown if they stop swimming, they simply sink). The lung/bladder also allowed surface and shallow-dwelling fish to breathe air directly which comes in handy in low-oxygen water and should the fish need to leave the water for any length of time (to catch prey, or to escape a predator).
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