Shermer in campanie in Romania...

"Scepticul" Michael Shermer, un "science writer" cu un doctorat in istoria stiintei de la Claremont Graduate College in 1991, e intr-o campanie de propovaduire a darwinismului in Romania. Timpuri grele :-) Un expert in "crashing the parties" ar fi trebuit sa-l invite simultan si pe William Dembski, sustinator al designului inteligent, cu doctorat in matematica de la Univ. of Chicago in 1988. Despre dezbaterea Dembski - Shermer, castigata de Dembski, ce a avut loc la Bridgewater College in 2007:

Shermer attempted to discredit intelligent design by arguing the evidence for common ancestry. Shermer really shined when he cited the writings of Evangelical Christian and renowned scientist Francis Collins. He said Collins’ defense of Darwinian evolution in the book The Language of God was one of the best ever written, and Shermer read almost verbatim from chapter 5 of Collins’ book. That was a brilliant move by Shermer (especially before a crowd sympathetic to Dembski), but the move was brilliantly repulsed when Dembski reiterated, “ID is not inherently against the idea of common ancestry”. Thus Dembski neutralized Shermer’s best argument.

Shermer in the end said he was open to ideas like self-organization, or other evolutionary scenarios, and thus contradicted his own thesis on the importance of natural selection. When Shermer said he was open to the possibility of other mechanisms for evolution (like self-organization), Bill pulled out Shermer’s book and reminded him of Shermer’s own words: No one, and I mean no one, working in the field is debating whether natural selection is the driving force behind evolution

Bill put together a wonderful arsenal of slides, videos, and compelling arguments making constant references to engineering. The audience was full of wonder as he showed the marvelous complexity of life graphically. He cited peer-reviewed articles demonstrating that debate was active on various ID topics. Bill Dembski mentioned the infamous Wistar Convention of 1966 where the world’s top neo-Darwinists were bludgeoned by mathematicians and computer scientists.

During the Q & A, Jason Rosenhouse (of Pandas Thumb) vigorously objected to Dembski’s citation of Wistar. Rosenhouse used a line of argumentation that he used in the essay CAN PROBABILITY THEORY BE USED TO REFUTE EVOLUTION?. Rosenhouse makes a formidable and convincing argument, but there is actually a more formidable and almost invulnerable counter argument (which I will give briefly). But rather than using his best counter to Rosenhouse, Dembski chose to avoid formalism and appeal to a popular audience by pointing out the selective use of probability theory by evolutionists. He showed Rosenhouse’s objections based on uncertainty regarding the conditions of the deep past were equally fatal to proponents of Darwinian evolution if Rosenhouse’s standards were equally applied, thus demonstrating Rosenhouse was arguing for a double standard.

Mai mult la articolul-sursa pentru fragmentul citat mai sus, “Bill Dembski is world famous” says creationism’s prodigal son Michael Shermer. Apropos, de la acelasi blog, un articol publicat ieri - John von Neumann, an IDer ante litteram