This deserves its own post. Yesterday I pointed to a post at Larry Moran’s Sandwalk about a Discovery Institute video showing Ann Gauger, a “researcher” at the Disco ‘Tute’s BioLogic Institute, in which she mangles phylogenetics and population genetics. Commenters on Youtube and both Sandwalk and here have identified the laboratory in which Gauger was supposedly speaking. It is a stock photograph from a commercial photo site. It’s a green screen job, which is a peculiarly appropriate method by which to present the DI’s pseudoscience. Fake lab, fake science.
Can we say “pathetic”?
Since it’s a stock photograph from a commercial photo site, do you suppose they paid for its use? It would be perfectly in character for them to have stolen it, rather than paying for its use. How can we find out?
The use of the photograph isn’t the real issue, assuming they paid for the right to use it rather than just stealing it. The issue is why they don’t even have an appropriate lab looking environment that they could use to film the actual interview in. They are basically admitting that no such thing exists in the entire organization. With the “research” budget these guys have, they should be ashamed. I have a small lab that would be perfect for such a background and I don’t even have a big grant let alone the type of money these guys waste, er I mean spend, on “research” every year. That’s the real issue here. We should drive that message home every time someone is fooled into thinking that they are anything other than charlatans and cheats. No wonder they never publish any research. I’m surprised they didn’t just break into a real lab somewhere and then claim that that university “sponsored” their “research”. If they want the respectability of science so much, why don’t they do something about it instead of just faking it and hoping that no one notices?
Then there is the issue of the mangling that she did of the actual topic of her little tirade, but that’s something else altogether.
It speaks more to the moral character and integrity of the kinds of people who are immersed in ID/creationism.
Back when they were still doing debates, ID/creationists would often be caught telling bald-faced lies not only about the things they said about science concepts but in their penchant for quote mining and blatantly distorting facts and the statements of others.
And what did these ID/creationists do about that? Well, they turned right around in the very next venue and told exactly the same lies without flinching. There was no hint of remorse or any recognition of the fact that they were caught red-handed and exposed and so maybe they shouldn’t do that again. They just bulled ahead as though nothing happened.
The same has been true about thoroughly debunked ID/creationist misrepresentations of science concepts. All the debunking could be in print and on record; nevertheless ID/creationists, while occasionally issuing a word of caution to their followers to not use the debunked notions, would nevertheless proceed to ram them through again; debunking be damned.
There is something about these rabid fundamentalists that screams mental illness of some sort. I know of a character like this being shown a video of his demeaning other religions in front of his classroom; and while watching that video, denying ever doing it even as other people sit there watching him doing it and denying it at the same time.
It is almost impossible for normal, healthy minds to grasp what must be taking place in the minds of the people caught up in ID/creationism. It is clear, however, that when ID/creationists clump together and reinforce their collective illusions – witness the activity that goes on every day over at UD – they can be engaging in a continuous stream of intellectual atrocities while at the same time demonizing and accusing the scientific community and “atheistic materialists” of doing exactly what they, the ID/creationists themselves, are doing with impunity and with total lack of self-awareness.
Propaganda has been around for centuries, but ID/creationism has become a different kind of template for propaganda organizations like Fox News and the Far Right here in the US. Lee Atwater and his protégé Karl Rove immersed themselves in these kinds of fundamentalist subcultures and learned the tactics of fundamentalist mind control from these kinds of people. There is something about fundamentalist religious thinking that is far more deadly to rational thinking than any non-religious political ideology. Mix in a hint of Satan along with fundamentalist fear and loathing into any attempt at political dialog and the result will be nothing but dogged eternal gridlock.
We snicker at the blatant stupidity of videos like this; but when we consider the monetary cost and deadlock this behavior has imposed on our national political dialog, it ceases to be funny. This kind of idiocy has serious consequences.
Extremely cheap fraud, to boot. They couldn’t even spring for Gauger to have some photos shot in Behe’s lab?
Since it’s a stock photograph from a commercial photo site, do you suppose they paid for its use? It would be perfectly in character for them to have stolen it, rather than paying for its use. How can we find out?
The picture at the website has a “Shutterstock” watermark on it and is probably too small to use as a background. It only costs $19.00 to get it and even the DI can probably swing that.
Can we say “pathetic”?
I think “hilariously appropriate” is also a good description.
Behe’s lab? Think again. Don’t think he’s done much experimental in the last decade or so. But doesn’t Gauger have a few Bio-Logic publications? These would require a decent lab-PCR machine, UV-vis, incubators. Or is the data as fake as their “lab” in the photo?
There seems to be a disturbing increase in flat out reality denial in a decent sized subset of the US population.
I apologize to rational people who may hold some conservative views for using this example, but we all know that there is a major overlap between ID/creationism and right wing politics…
The 2012 election was the first one in my lifetime that was characterized by denial of polling results by a large subset of the public. This was remarked on by many political pundits, including some conservative political pundits. We saw things like the “Unskewed Polls” web site, which insisted before the election that the “correct interpretation” of the polls was that Romney would win by a wide margin, and now insists that massive fraudulent conspiracy prevented that, and television personalities exploding with rage at a statistic oriented blog that suggested that Obama would probably win. In reality, the aggregate polling data predicted the election results rather well, as usual.
Clearly, at least so far, there is some level of abstraction to what is being denied. So far, these people are only denying evolution, geophysics, climate change, the health effects of tobacco, HIV as the cause of AIDS, the effectiveness and safety of vaccination, the principle of using a sample to form conclusions about a larger population, and so on. There is not yet any tendency to, say, deny that cars fall rather than fly when flown off cliffs.
But one has to wonder, as the abstraction level of what is denied becomes increasingly closer to the concrete. Republicans misinterpreting polling data? That would have sounded absurd to me even a few years ago.
It’s bizarre, they rail against “materialistic science,” then fake a photo as if they were doing it.
When you don’t need evidence of design in order to claim “design,” you hardly need to bother with a laboratory.
Glen Davidson
You’re confusing the Biologic Institute with a science laboratory. It’s in fact an apologetics laboratory and I should think that green screen in entirely appropriate for apologetics.
I saw an interview with one of the Republican pollsters. The gist was that these polls have two distinct purposes. The primary purpose is to tell voters in key jurisdictions that your guy is well ahead, so you are in good company when joining theirs, etc. But the secondary purpose was to figure out what issues people had with Romney, in the hopes of recovering late in the campaign.
What was deeply disturbing to the interviewed pollster was that he had Romney anywhere from slightly to comfortably ahead (in thie “real” evaluation) in all eight “toss-up” states, yet Obama won every single one of them. His tentative conclusion was that he and other Republican poll takers, designers, and analysts were suffering from genuine conformation bias, despite every attempt to face hard facts. Somehow, somewhere along the line, they were introducing it. Maybe in the wording of the questions, maybe in the locations or other aspect of responder selection, whatever.
Now, I noticed that the Obama folks had Obama winning all these states. Yes, in fact he did win them all, but surely Republicans have no monopoly on confirmation bias.
As for the stock lab photo, it was probably a cost measure and the ID folks saw no harm done, anymore than the car wax people who dressed an actor up in a white coat and put him in front of an oscilloscope! And you never see real beer in the beer ads, because the head doesn’t last long enough for the shooting. Most food and drink in ads is faked to look more appealing than the real thing. Green screens are replacing location shots throughout the movie and advertising biz if just for cost reasons.
Of course, we all realize that in creationland it’s props all the way down.
But with nothing propping it up. :-)
My latest hypothesis is that fundie xianity causes serious cognitive impairment.
There is a huge amount of data on this.
1. Michele Bachmann. Two degrees, on in law, passed the bar. These days she shouldn’t even cross the street without her minder.
2. Creationist and fundie internet trolls. They never, ever seem very smart, educated, or even sane.
3. Even the statistics show it. Fundies score low on IQ and achievement tests.
I originally came up with this hypothesis as a half joke. But the data set supporting it is large. Just look at the data yourself and decide.
I don’t think it is an organic dysfunction. Could be cognitive dissonance or maybe they just avoid thinking and facing reality. Or even self selection. People leave US xianity at millions a year and the ones leaving seem to be the best and brightest.
Well, in this particular case the props look rather old (from the 1990s?) and scarcely “more appealing than the real thing” by modern standards. They Disco Tute folks should’ve chosen something flashier and more ‘spensive.
Well, we have to understand that the background isn’t supposed to look like a modern biology lab, but rather like what the audience (who have never seen one) THINKS a modern biology lab looks like. How could an oscilloscope help in developing car wax? Who cares, it LOOKS sciency as all hell - and precious few watching the ad have any clue what it is.
Sure, but remember these are the same people who claim that the peppered moths don’t prove anything because they were glued to the trees! Besides, how does it save money to pay for a fake background if you have a real lab in the building? It only saves money if they don’t.
Agreed. But they could have at least found a shot with a computer that was younger than the person in the video. Even someone who knows nothing about biology should be able to spot that.
A good point. Here’s a suggestion: http://vickielester.files.wordpress[…]stein_02.jpg
I must step in here to defend the lady. I too would use a fake photo for my background, because in my la-BOR-a-tory I’m doing top secret work on my anti-gravity device, my time travel machine, and my faster-than light drive. I’d be a fool to use a real photo. So it must be with the Discoveroids.
One of my friends, now in his mid 90s, was a Methodist minister his entire life and has had frequent encounters with fundamentalism in his role as a campus minister on a number of different university campuses in the Midwest. He had a saying about fundamentalism, noting that the emphasis in fundamentalism is on “mental.”
I just finished watching the Dover trial documentary “Judgement Day” with my students. IDC is fraud, inside and out, so this is no surprise whatsoever.
None of them would know the difference! I’m almost surprised there wasn’t a Jacob’s Ladder sparking away somewhere in the background.
OT, but even two months ago I would’ve agreed with you. Then someone challenged me to come up with a study or source for the idea that people are more likely to vote for someone they perceive as winning, and I couldn’t. I think this is one of those common sense memes that is actually not true.
Of course, if GOP planners simply believed to be true, like I did, that would explain their actions. But AFAIK there is no actual evidence that telling people someone is ahead in the polls* is not likely to significantly influence voting results.
*Prior to voting. Obviously, telling Hawaiians that Obama or whomever has already mathematically won the election is likely to reduce voter turnout. But even then, its not clear to me that it changes the votes of the people who do turn out.
One of my grad school roommates built several Jacob’s ladders because he thought they were cool. Seeing one in a lab may not be a sign of pseudoscience, it may just be a sign of a hard core physics nerd. :)
I am sure you all have seen this, but this clip illustrates your point. Before this clip, Karl Rove goes on a long discussion about why Fox News is wrong to call Ohio to Obama (which was the correct call that gave Obama reelection).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1lJ3tfQFpc
Kind of reminds me of Yourdon, who wrote whole books predicting the collapse of computerized economies due to Y2K bugs, which he predicted would show up in embedded systems and debilitate everything from power generation to safety systems everywhere.
So along comes the stroke of midnight, and the TVs across the globe are following the date change from time zone to time zone, with wild parties and celebrations and light shows around the world.
And Yourdon writes that it must all be being done with batteries!
Another couple Disco videos, http://youtu.be/pnFs5D-vvnI and http://youtu.be/8ZiLsXO-dYo, are set in http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-709[…]oration.html.
I assume the actual “Biologic Institute” spends most of its time rolled up in the back of a closet.
Gauger hardly needs a lab to challenge darwinism. The sophistry that is darwinism is easily refuted from an arm chair.
So why did she do it? Its kinda like asking POTUS why they need to put a flag pin on. Or why they need to wear a red tie during speeches or kiss babies on the trail.
Heavens no, you don’t even need a brain for it.
At least that’s the sense coming from this ignorant troll.
Glen Davidson
Then how come you have never been able to present any challenge to “darwinism” (sic) from your arm chair? Still surprised that your lies are always revealed to be nothing but typed shit?
A independent minded women in science and they are commenting about her spatial looks. If its about labs then does it mean her ideas/criticisms could not be intellectually smashed even though claimed to be wrong? A creationist would smash any evolutionists arguments if they presented themselves to public view! Instead they are hiding in their labs. Define fake!
Back those claims up or shut up! I think it’s obvious you are lying out your @$$, like most Creationist hypocrites.
Oh wait, it must be that Stanton has experimental proof that distant lines converging on the same development solution is caused by Darwinian NS acting on RV.
google is your friend. invite it over for a cup of coffee.
In other words, you cannot meet my challenge because you have nothing. Google is irrelevant. Anyone can make things up and post it on the internet. That exactly what Creationists like you do.
The actual matter of science and peer review, contrary to the ridiculous rants of Steve P, are as follows: http://dalehusband.wordpress.com/20[…]iew-process/
Note again Steve P’s claim:
Even if his claim were true, it would not matter. Peer review exposes and debunks most of the errors in scientific research that occur. But his claim is actually unsupported, even by himself. There is no reason to take it seriously.
I’m not sure what you think you are trying to prove here Elzinga with your weak attempt at character assasination.
You’ve been steeped too long in your culture war to think straight now. You, like everyone else on this board desperately need to lump all design affirmers in the fundie camp. That’s the only way you can argue.
Heaven forbid intelligent people, who are not fundies, supporting intelligent agency in nature.
It really is getting harder and harder for you to argue against all the new discoveries taking place, isn’t it?. Hence all the bravado about this and that not being a problem for evolution.
How many ad hoc explanations do you now have on record now? How many discoveries will Darwinism absorb into its theory before it collapses from the weight of its own hedge bets and convoluted reasoning?
By the way, the ignorance is yours. You ignore the impact of what we are discovering due to this blind hatred of fundies you have. Understanding quorum sensing as an intelligent process, or rapid DNA repair as an intelligent process is hardly ignorance but simply the logical consequence of our observations.
You know that but you don’t care. Slamming fundies real or imagined is all that counts for you.
You are the one making the claim that this can’t happen. What proof do you have to show that you are not lying to us? That you are so eager to insult us for not agreeing with you, while refusing to prove to us that you’re telling the truth shows us that you are lying.
Mike Elzinga is providing an accurate profile of your behavior here, Steve P. You are a Creationist troll who hates and despises science, and who hates and despises everyone who doesn’t agree with your irrational hatred of science.
Then how come you refuse to support any of your inane claim? All you do is make inane claims, while insulting and belittling us for not mindlessly agreeing with your irrational hatred of science.
So how come you refuse to tell us why Intelligent Design proponents refuse to take part of any of these new discoveries?
The problem with this is that you’re making the same old prophecy of doom where “Darwinism” will die soon, even though Evolutionary Biology has been around for 150 years, and shows no sign of dying yet.
How can we not ignore Intelligent Design when Intelligent Design proponents refuse to explain how to detect Intelligent Design? What experiments or research has been done to prove that quorum sensing in bacteria or rapid DNA repair are intelligent processes? If there is no research done to detect or even explain Intelligent Design, then why do you demand that we abandon Evolutionary Biology in order to mindlessly accept Intelligent Design?
And yet, you hypocritically accuse us of being idiots simply because we do not share your irrational hatred of science.
SteveP’s source may be this:
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article[…]pmed.0020124
(We can’t know for sure, because SteveP’s gone all coy on us. Could it be that he thinks that if it isn’t found, it can’t be criticised?)
Anyway, it’s described as an “essay”. It doesn’t actually show any studies that (a) are “untrue”, and (b) were discredited by anything other than the repeated testing and peer-examination procedures that are essential parts of the scientific method, and that are meant to do just exactly that.
The article is a theoretical treatment of a possible defect of some research procedures, with a hypothesis about bias, if bias there be. It uses some highly polemical language, but that’s still all it is. It certainly doesn’t make out its highly provocative title.
But even at that, it doesn’t say what SteveP wants it to say.
The first four sentences of the abstract run:
That is, more repetition, more different observers remote from each other, more rigorous double-blinding, more studies on a larger scale, constructed differentially, more disinterest - these factors help to avoid the bias the author fears - fears, mind you - may be productive of false results.
Um… yes. That’s called the scientific method. I can’t think of a scientist anywhere who’d disagree with one word of that. The only thing obstructing the adoption of these very highly salutary measures is lack of resources.
But SteveP extrapolates from this very highly speculative essay on methodology - which comes down in favour of more peer review and more repetition of results, not less - to this:
and by doing so demonstrates a level of malice, curdled bile and misrepresentation that stands witness only to his own irrational hatred of science.
Hey, I don’t have to lift a finger to prove anything; your attempts to taunt, insult, bully, and pick fights do the proving all by themselves.
All we have to do is just sit back and watch you make a complete ass of yourself. It’s not our fault you flunked out of school and hate smart people. That was your choice; suck it up and live it. I really don’t give a damn.
No way. And don’t insult aspies by comparing them to Steve P.
A lot of scientists are at least Aspergerlike, including biologists.
I generally ignore Steve P. as a defective and evil human failure, a troll.
It’s simply not worth my valuable time reading repetitive gibberish. I’m going to die someday and why waste a few seconds on nothing?
But the truth is:
We scientists lifted humankind from the stone age to the space age. We created our modern Hi Tech 21st century civilization.
What have the xians ever done? Nothing, except sponsor xian terrorism and shoot a few medical doctors. And get in the way whenever they can.
Name two “new discoveries” that prove intelligent design creationism is true. Provide URLs.
Ah, that’s what this is all about.
Raven extolling the virtues on being non-xian.
If anyone’s doing any hating, its people here on this board, gnashing their teeth at fundies but more so phantom fundies.
Raven, get a f#cking life would you and stop thinking bashing fundies is gonna somehow solve Humanity’s problems.
It won’t. Its just showing your infantile behavior.
Your fundie atheism is just as bad as fundie Christianity. The scary part is you are none the wiser.
None of you are.
SteveP. is making serious allegations here. The burden of proof is on him. So: SteveP., provide us links or citations of evidence for these claims or go the f*ck away.
I also propose that SteveP.’s comments go into moderation and not appear anywhere on PT until he provides something to support these claims.
Oh, you give a damn all right. Or you wouldn’t keep up your repertoire of repetitions.
FYI, didn’t flunk out of school and doing well in life and work. Why are you people so hung up on the fact that intelligent people see through the sophistry that is darwinism and want to clean up the mess. Shapiro is one of these people. and you bash him too. anyone that touches your precious ‘no gods needed here’ schtick.
Intelligence is embedded in nature whether you like it or not. There is mountains of evidence piling up that ‘no purpose, no goal’ is out right wrongheaded and more pointedly preventing further insight into biology.
You really need to step aside and let those without all that cultural, religious hangup baggage take the wheel.
yup and (from the same link)
“Note that, in general, truth in advertising laws require that the product being advertised should be the same as the one shown (though some of the tricks described above are still applicable), so, for example in a commercial for chocolate syrup, the syrup will be real, but the ice cream onto which is is poured is just as likely to be made of plasticine* In the director’s defense though - YOU try keeping ice cream from melting for several takes under hot studio lights. . The cereal shown in the bowl is, indeed, the product, but the pouring stream of milk is almost always watered down glue. “ ——————————————————————————–
I’m not critisizing - I am agreeing with you - advertisers will bend the truth as far as it’ll bend (to the limit of the law) and THEY have MORE integrity than the DI!
Make me asshole.
Still no answers Stevie Pee Pee?
Still haven’t got a clue what homoplasy is? Google is your friend remember? You shouldn’t defend charlatans and frauds if you have no idea what kind of lies they are spreading, asshole.
Still no rebuttal for the papers in the latest edition of Evolution? How predictable. I don’t want to move the goal posts or anything, but how about the Journal of Molecular Evolution? Got any rebuttals for any of the papers in the latest issue of that? How about Molecular Biology and Evolution? How about anything at all? See the thing is that the people you are so incompetently defending publish nothing but lies and crap from their fake labs in their fake journals. Funny how that doesn’t seem to bother you at all asshole.
Until you have answered these questions, any further responses by me to you will be on the bathroom wall where know-nothing assholes like you belong.
How about just a description of “intelligent design”? Something positive and substantial. Rather than “something is wrong with evolutionary biology”. Tell us what it would look like if an intelligent design event took place. Or even what it would look like if an intelligent design event did not take place.
Name two items in the “mountains of evidence” that prove your contention. Provide URLs.
Or tell us what “intelligent design” scientists would actually DO – that is, beyond proving design or disproving evolution. What would they ACCOMPLISH using the premise of design that could not be accomplished using the premises of evolution?
If you can’t think of anything that “design” science could do better than evolutionary science – then what’s the point?
And if they can get us more quickly to, say, a cancer vaccine, then why haven’t they?
Why would Steve P.’s mountains of evidence matter anyway, if as he says, “The majority of research is shown to be false. And a minimum of 25% of experiments are shown to be unrepeatable. And thats being charitable. What the f*ck good are peer-review and correction mechanisms? They are worthless; jury jobs; insider trading.” After all if what Steve P. says is true (heh, heh), and “the majority” of evidence resulting from research is false, that would apply to ID research too, no? Actually, saying that a minimum of 25% of the experiments done by the DI are not repeatable is being charitable. It’s more like 100%, especially since its kind of hard to do any experimental research without a real working laboratory.
Or without a real, testable theory.
If one of the arguments presents a puzzle for evolutionary biology, there is still the question of how much better “intelligent design” handles the issue. No matter how improbable evolution, is ID any more probable? Indeed, can we even estimate the probability that ID would produce humans with a vertebrate eye or a bacterium with a flagellum?
Yeah: I agree. This character has some serious emotional and psychological issues. His only objective is to try to pick fights. Typical internet and school yard bully who can’t control himself.
Every year, at every talk, the Dishonesty Institute asks for donations to further their cause. The result, as we see in this article, is a fake lab that cost them pennies, if that, whereas the bulk of any donations from the rubes they sucker goes to their inflated, unearned salaries. It’s a real, self-promoting con game they have going.
Why do you think Steve P could complete a task that not even the greatest luminaries of the Discovery Institute could do? The closest anyone came to giving a positive description of Intelligent Design was Michael Behe’s description of “Irreducible Complexity,” i.e., “a biological structure too complicated to ever hope to understand or pretend that it evolved, and that the absence of even a single piece causes the entire structure to stop functioning.” And of course, all of the claims Behe has made have been shredded into confetti.
Steve P. will never do that because using facts or URLs to support his claims, instead of whining and insults, is against his religion.
Remember that Steve P. said that “darwinism” (sic) can be disproven from an arm chair, so why bother spending wasting money on doing science in the first place? After all, science is evil, and stupid, and worthless, and blasphemy, and when the Theocratic Dictatorship For Jesus has been set up, the evil, stupid scientists are going to be first in line at the Concentration Camps For Jesus.
Welp, this thread has degenerated into a troll fest. Thanks for playing, folks.
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