Fuller what?
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.
Thanks for pointing out Fuller’s [misleading statement]. I hadn’t read Dawkins’ letter when I first read Fuller’s comment. Damn, he’s got some serious issues with the guy.
Pointing out that Steve Fuller is a disingenuous nutjob is right up there with noting that circles are roundish, or that pain is, generally speaking, bad. Are you perhaps a bit bored today, OB?
;-)
Steve Fuller is the kind of Sociology professor who makes me ashamed of my degree in that much-(often justly)-maligned subject.
Thankfully he was never employed by the University of York…where I gained a thorough grounding in empiricism, sound methodology, trashing Freud, etc,etc. All the good stuff! And Laurie Taylor was great – usually too bloody funny to take notes from, but excellent in seminars. I did, however, submit one of my degree essays in the form of a sit-com script…albeit one with incisive & insightful dialogue discussing competing theories of knowledge in considerable depth…while simultaneously deconstructing ‘Allo ‘Allo…! And there were rude jokes, too! ;-))
I feel so much better for that small confession…
:-)
Pointing out that Steve Fuller is a disingenuous nutjob is right up there with noting that circles are roundish
I read the letter today on the tube today and though Ophelia would throw a (justified) hissy fit if she read it. Ah, the power of prediction, if only the lottery was as easy to know.
I also rather liked the last letter in that section, which was in rhyme.
Ends with…
“The earth’s not a closed system, it’s powered by the sun,/ so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!”
Oh, well, now, G, uh, er –
It’s a compulsion, I guess. Once I saw it I couldn’t not say anything. Hence predictability. Ah well…
Pointing out stupidity can be very compelling, in a slowing-down-to-rubber-neck-at-the-car-accident sort of way.
Difference being, I hate people who destroy the flow of traffic just to gawk, but I rather like people who point out stupidity and boldly call it such.
P.S. Mr. Gilmour, I am finishing a Ph.D. in Philosophy. Relatively speaking, you sociologists have little to be ashamed of.
;-)
Promotion of ID, fallacious reasoning, misrepresentation of the opposition viewpoint, [edit]. Could Steve Fuller be a Christian, do you think?
DO NOT CALL PEOPLE LIARS ON THIS FORUM. I DO NOT WANT TO BE THE SUBJECT OF A THREAT LIBEL ACTION.
IF PEOPLE CONTINUE TO DO THIS I WILL MAKE IT SO THAT THEY CANNOT SEE THE SITE AT ALL.
Sorry
Is it ok to call them Christians?
“IF PEOPLE CONTINUE TO DO THIS I WILL MAKE IT SO THAT THEY CANNOT SEE THE SITE AT ALL.”
Well you could just close the comments function, rather than disappearing B&W altogether. Or you could disappear N&C but leave the rest of the site.
I hope the ‘THEY’ refers to the transgressors.
By the way, when that all appeared in upper case, for a moment I thought Pratchett’s Death had shown up.
Yeah, it does, I got a clarification.
Fuller is probably huffy because of living in a place where 82% of the population think religion is a source of conflict. Ha!
Can I kind of recycle one of last year’s jokes and point out that you accidentally omitted the word “of” from the middle of your Note’s heading?
Not to take Fuller’s side (obviously), but I think Dawkins’ original letter contains a big non sequitur too – at least an implied one.
Dawkins says that because McIntosh asserts that evolution is incompatible with the SLOT, this means that his creationist views have a negative effect on his teaching as a professor of thermodynamics. However, McIntosh’s understanding of the SLOT could be (indeed, probably is) impeccable. All his assertion shows is that his understanding of evolution is wrong.
So Leeds Uni are correct in saying that McIntosh’s creationist views are “unconnected to his teaching or research [here]”.
Stewart – but the ‘of’ isn’t omitted, it’s implicit…provided one is a non-rhotic-pronouncing speaker of English. Fulla what, geddit?
‘So Leeds Uni are correct in saying that McIntosh’s creationist views are “unconnected to his teaching or research [here]”.’
Hmmm. I did wonder about that. But if he said that to Dawkins wouldn’t he say it to students too? And in that case, his creationist views would be connected to his teaching.
Yes, that would definitely be a connection. But I didn’t get the impression that Dawkins was accusing McIntosh of teaching creationism when Leeds Uni were paying him to teach thermodynamics.
The implication is clear:
In the light of this clear connection between McIntosh’s creationist views and his understanding of thermodynamics, Leeds University will presumably need to revise its press release.
It is McIntosh’s “understanding of thermodynamics” which Dawkins is calling into question (when it is actually his understanding of biology which is flawed). This is either innocently illogical, or underhand.
A strange one, for Dawkins.
McIntosh’s “understanding of thermodynamics” includes the conviction that it is compatable with a 6,000 year old earth (and presumably universe) and that the second law invalidates evolution. It seems reasonable to ask if his understanding of science in general is that it should be subordinate to the book of Genesis.
Professor McIntosh believes that the second law requires DNA mutations to tend to nonsense, never to advantage, unless a supernatural entity constantly intervenes. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of how to apply the second law. It is therefore true, as Richard Dawkins wrote, that there is a connection between McIntosh’s teaching and his creationist beliefs. There is also a connection with his research. McIntosh works on applying solutions that are found in nature to machines made by humans. McIntosh is of course right that human engineers can learn from the solutions that nature has arrived at. But I suspect that McIntosh pursues this research because he believes that these solutions are the work of a supernatural designer. The University’s carefully crafted press statement is therefore disingenuous in claiming no connection.
Provided that McIntosh doesn’t overtly preach creationism in lectures or the laboratory, the University is right not to make a martyr of him: British universities have a fine tradition of tolerating mavericks. And, as Richard Dawkins also writes, occasionally mavericks can be very right indeed.
Despite that, I do think Leeds University should tell McIntosh not to mention his professorship when he is pushing creationism to schools.
24 December 2006
“Professor McIntosh believes that the second law requires DNA mutations to tend to nonsense, never to advantage, unless a supernatural entity constantly intervenes. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of how to apply the second law.”
Does McIntosh really believe that? If he does, he ‘just doesn’t get it’, because it is indeed a fundamental misunderstanding – so fundamental that any intelligent layman can grasp the point. It is very neatly put in another letter under the same heading, from Professor Mike Owen (extract):
“The maximum entropy production principle, which has applications in all branches of science, goes one step further than the second law. It states that systems tend to achieve the state that maximises the production of entropy in the system and its surroundings. In other words, all physical, chemical and biological processes are constrained to maximise disorder: highly ordered living organisms adapt by maximising the disorder in their environment. The second law is therefore not only compatible with evolution, it is the reason for it and for the consequent disorder.” [my italics]
I suspect that McIntosh himself has been misquoted or misunderstood or uncharitably interpreted. But who knows? At any rate this is Thermodynamics 101, not rocket science.
Cathal,
I suspect he has not been misquoted, as his other pronouncements show a similar tendency, for example;
‘Flight is one of the clearest examples of irreducible mechanisms on a macro scale. An aeroplane has an irreducible number of parts necessary for flight. An aeroplane requires a set of wings for lift, wing flaps and rear rudder for control and engines for propulsion. Engineers spent over one hundred years of intense research designing the first aeroplane because a flying machine could not be evolved from any land machine. Exactly the same principle applies to birds. A bird needs wings for lift, tail feathers for control and lightweight bones. A bird cannot have evolved from any land creature because all the mechanisms needed for flight are very different from anything required for land.’
http://www.rationalist.org.uk/newhumanist/issue02summer/creationism.shtml
His general overview, that Eden, the serpent, the ark and a six day complete creation are literal truths which disprove mundane scientific theories would indicate he is capable of some convoluted double-think;
http://www.eauk.org/theology/key_papers/upload/andy%20mckintosh.pdf
Except that it would appear (correct me if I’m wrong) that Fuller does seem to have deliberately told untrue stories about what Dawkins has said/written/spoken ….
But, as others have pointed out, he’s a christian nutjob, so why should we expect anything different?
Don,
Thanks for the references — most appreciated. McIntosh really does seem to believe this stuff. I liked in particular his argument that “… evolution by natural selection is mindless and cannot create.” Priceless.
To reciprocate, here’s a link to a recent posting by Dawkins on his own website concerning l’affaire McIntosh.
See here.
Yes to several of the above. Dawkins writes trying to make clear – if McIntosh is right and almost all other scientists are wrong – just how wrong the rest of us are. Now, if McIntosh is onto something scientific all others have missed or haven’t grasped and it can be lucidly explained to them, then he, by rights, ought to become a new star in the scientific firmament. If, on the other hand, he is rejecting something merely because he realises it doesn’t square with a text he refuses point blank to question, then he deserves everything Dawkins can sling at him.
My favourite part is how he asserts that bats must have been created fully fledged as there is no way intermediate stages of mammalian flight could have existed – no gliding from branch to branch – but talking snakes are unquestionable truths.
It will be exciting to see which of the two turns out to be the case.
Which of the two of Stewart’s possibilities, I mean.
The talking snake conundrum is a good synechdoche for the whole joke, in a way. Evolution of eye, impossible, but giant person designing everything, no problemo.
This is almost so obvious we never even think of it, but forget magic mumbo-jumbo Designer versus eyes evolving on their own. How about people rejecting the possibility of species changing over millions of generations who have no difficulty with two cells turning into an adult human capable of reproducing (and writing symphonies, destroying skyscrapers and, come to think of it, founding religions) within less than fifteen years, with not even one intermediate generation, happening regularly as the creationists watch? I mean, honestly, which one is more mind-boggling? How can anyone who sees the changes occurring in just a small part of the lifetime of one individual organism play skeptic about what could happen over countless generations? Yes, Dawkins is right: to believe only tales about what we never see in real life and deny the reality of what is right under our noses all the time is just beyond stupidity.
I don’t think that argument really flies, Stewart. Creationists would typically not deny the very existence of DNA, which codes for the developments of eyes, fingers and brains – whereas they might point to some Divine origin of mental attributes, soul, etc. It would be the evolutionary origin of eye-coding DNA which they would deny.
Maybe. And creationists, while possibly not denying the existence of DNA, do believe that Eve was fashioned from a small piece of Adam’s body that he didn’t really need. Divine superfluity, I guess…
Stewart wrote: “Dawkins writes trying to make clear – if McIntosh is right and almost all other scientists are wrong – just how wrong the rest of us are.”
Dawkins wrote:”The Second Law recognizes a similar downhill slide towards disorder in any closed system such as the universe, which lacks a source of externally supplied energy. In a local region with externally supplied energy, on the other hand, we may see what look like reversals, but the stress must be on ‘local’ and ‘externally supplied'”. I’d like to stress to those who have not studied thermodynamics that what Dawkins’ wrote is part of the standard explication of the law given to every student of the subject at university level in physics, engineering and so on.
It is also vital to understand that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a human concept and that what is in question here is not whether evolution is physically impossible but whether it can be reconciled with this human concept. To give an analogy, it is as if McIntosh were to claim that this post is written in Greek. His mistake is that he does not, on the evidence, understand the concept involved in the Second Law. If he wrote this sort of stuff in an exam on the subject then the physicist marking his script would give him a failing grade on the relevant exam question.