Month: December 2006

Another goofy item. (I know. Like counting sand on the beach, pointing out all the goofy things people say. I know. But we all have our recreations. This is mine. It keeps me out of bar brawls. One day I’ll tell you about my louche past, but not now, not now.)

While reading Johann Hari’s quote of Richard Dawkins, “In the absence of any evidence whatsoever for a belief , we should assume it is untrue”, I am reminded of the conversation between the Astronaut and the Brain Surgeon. To counter the Surgeon’s belief in God, the Astronaut says, “In none of my travels throughout the Universe, have I encountered any evidence indicating the existence of God, and so I think you are wrong.” “Funny that”, replies the Brain Surgeon. “In all my neurosurgical experience, I have yet to encounter any evidence proving the existence of a thought”.

But God as commonly understood isn’t the same kind of thing as a thought. A giant person who created everything and is good and all-knowing is not the same kind of thing as a thought. That’s not to say that it’s impossible to think of the source of the universe as a thought – or a thinker, and the universe as a thought; it’s an interesting idea; but it’s not the usual meaning of the common English word ‘God,’ so the neurosurgeon’s reply is not all that relevant unless both parties had already agreed that they were talking about God as thougt or a source of thoughts. But that can’t be the case for this particular anecdote, since it wasn’t said, so the neurosurgeon’s reply is irrelevant.

And then there’s Steve Fuller’s amazing non-sequitur.

Richard Dawkins complains (Letters, December 19) that Leeds University has not done enough to silence Professor McIntosh’s creationist views. He should take a lesson from his own university, Oxford, which has done nothing to silence his open promotion of atheism.
Professor Steve Fuller
Professor of sociology, Warwick University

Oh, and now that I look at the Letter in question, I see that Fuller also misrepresents what Dawkins said. What a bad man he is. Dawkins simply said that Leeds University ought to revise its press statement distancing itself ‘publicly from theories of creationism and so-called intelligent design, which cannot be verified by evidence.’ The press statement said ‘McIntosh’s directorship of Truth in Science, and his promotion of that organisation’s views, are unconnected to his teaching or research’ and Dawkins disputes that claim because McIntosh told Dawkins on a BBC programme that ‘evolution is incompatible with the second law of thermodynamics.’ Neither Leeds nor Dawkins said anything about ‘silencing.’ Fuller thinks everything is ‘silencing’ – that was much of the point of his testimony at Dover: that saying a theory is wrong amounts to silencing it. And then to make a thorough job of it, he pretends that creationism and atheism are the same kind of thing. Bad, bad, very bad.

Theo Hobson is strange. He starts with a guess about what an atheist might say, then reviews the saying as if it actually existed.

The atheist might respond that they do all these things because they believe the story to be literally true, and want to create propaganda for it. But this is his interpretation, and on close inspection it’s rather odd, and it’s pretentious in the sense of claiming to know more than it does. In reality he does not know exactly why people do these things, or what sort of belief in the story they have. He does not know the motivation of my aunt who sends me a card with a nativity scene on it, or my friend who attends a carol service.

That’s really quite funny, and a sign of a desperately woolly mind – to project a guess, and then in the very next sentence treat his own guess as if it were a well-attested fact. That ‘this’ in ‘But this is his interpretation’ is hilarious – what ‘this’? Where? What are you pointing at, Theo? I don’t see anything. You made it up, don’t you remember? You made up what the atheist might say, and you made up the atheist too – but you forgot your own process so quickly that now you think you even know what gender the atheist is. Tell us, what’s he wearing? Where did he go to school? Does he like quiche? And then Theo races on to fume about the atheist who doesn’t know the motivation of his aunt or his friend. That bastard! That pretentious bastard, with his interpretation! Who does he think he is?

At Christmas religious culture is rich and complex, full of depth and nuance, and the atheist’s little yapping dogmas about what religion is “really” about are just laughable.

[whispers] Theo…Theo…there are no little yapping dogmas – because there is no ‘the atheist’ – you made him up – remember? Scroll up – where it says ‘might’ – that’s you making a guess. Your pretentious dog-like atheist doesn’t exist, Theo, you dreamed him. You really need to learn to distinguish between your own fantasies and the real world.

Before I say Merry Christmas to my readers, I have a modest proposal. Let there be a public Boxing Day burning of all the unwanted copies of the God Delusion that are received at Christmas. Merry Christmas to my readers!

[whispers] Theo…Theo…it’s called persecution mania. I’d take care of that if I were you.

Dembski seems to be losing it. Or maybe he always has been, but regular observers seem to think he’s getting worse. There’s the whole fart joke, which we’re too dignified to discuss. But there’s also a little matter of really pathetic hypocrisy. To wit:

From December 18:

Since Richard Dawkins thinks he has the right to reprint my letters to him by posting them over the Internet (go here), I’ll assume the same privilege applies to me.

That’s (in the technical sense) bullshit. That ‘Since’ is misleading, as is the clause it introduces. That makes it sound as if Dembski wouldn’t dream of publishing or posting other people’s emails to him, except that Dawkins posted one of his so now the rule is overthrown. That is brazenly, shamelessly misleading. Dembski himself posted the emails of a third party, emails that were not to him, without permission, last February. You may remember. I did some comments on the matter here. Michael Ruse emailed Daniel Dennett, there was a short exchange, then Ruse sent the whole exchange to Dembski, who promptly posted all of it on Uncommon Descent. As far as observers knew, Dembski didn’t have permission to post the exchange, but at the time we didn’t actually know that. However, I later emailed all three parties in order to pin down the facts for a news feature for TPM, so I no longer have to say ‘As far as I know…’ Ruse admitted (cheerfully and unrepentently) that he hadn’t asked Dennett for permission to send the exchange to Dembski, Dennett told me he hadn’t given anyone permission to send or post it, and Dembski…Ah well, Dembski now. Maybe there was an email breakdown. Twice. Or maybe not. At any rate, I asked Dembski, twice, why he hadn’t asked Dennett for permission to publish his emails to Ruse, and I got no reply. Maybe my emails never reached Dembski. Or maybe his never reached me. Or maybe he just didn’t reply. If so, why? Well…especially in the light of what he says about Dawkins in that post…probably because he knows perfectly well it’s at the very least not good manners to publish someone else’s emails on the internet without permission. It’s doubly not good manners when the emails in question are not even addressed to oneself but are addressed to a third party. If I email Sally and Sally emails me and then sends our correspondence to Jane, Jane has a damn nerve if she then publishes the exchange on her website without damn well asking me first. So unless in fact there was a surprise double email failure, it seems reasonable to think that Dembski didn’t reply to my two emails asking him why he published Dennett’s emails to Ruse without permission because he couldn’t think of anything to say. What could he say? ‘Because I’m so rude’? ‘Because I wanted to’? ‘Because I’m a Christian so all’s fair’? ‘Because Dennett’s an atheist and that pisses me off so I don’t have to be polite’? ‘I forgot’?

Well, whatever the reason, that’s what happened. He published the exchange, on his website, without asking the other party to the exchange. I thought that was remarkably unpleasant behavior, and I said so at the time. Now here he is bleating about Dawkins publishing emails that Dembski sent (unsolicited, just as Ruse’s to Dennett were) to Dawkins. There’s no third party involved, so Dembski committed a much grosser violation of etiquette himself less than a year ago, yet he has the nerve to complain now. He did it again yesterday:

Richard Dawkins continues to publish my past emails to him without permission and I continue to return the favor.

Without permission. Does he. He publishes your past emails to him; you published Dennett’s emails not to you but to someone else, without permission, yet now you kick up a fuss.

The guy has no shame.

It was a bit unnerving recently to see that he apparently reads B&W. I hope he read the comments about him and felt very hot around the face.