Just Too Late For Christmas...!

Japan researchers unveil robot suit for farmers

At Physorg.com, "Japanese researchers on Friday unveiled a robot suit, seen here in action, designed to help reduce the heavy burden of harvesting as the nation\'s farm industry faces an ageing, shrinking workforce."

I'm an aging, shrinking farmer, and I need this!

A Salad Bar of Fallacy

In a recent post I made two points concerning evolution. First, the book by Jerry Coyne advertising evolution as truth is in error. And second that the standards used and accepted by evolutionary enthusiasts are below (“far, FAR below”, I said) that of other sciences.

In response, Scott, over at monkeytrials, posted a lengthy rebuttal in which he made several points, which I will try to capture here in condensed form. I imagine Scott will help correct me if my impressions are incorrect.

1. The first and abiding point concerns plumbers showing up to critique Darwin and non-chefs critiquing chefs. Scott has denied that this is an appeal to authority, yet insists that authority trumps “outsiders”, who are butting in and are out of their league. (also related is #6 below).

2. Stephen J. Gould is invoked in an excerpt that makes his case that evolutionary science is different and therefore is allowed to use different standards. The bulk of the Gould complaint compares evo-science to law. But Scott also uses a hoops/pigskin reference as an “apples and oranges” argument. Evidence, the argument seems to be, is relative.

3. Next he compares evo-science inferences to Einstein’s inferences as a means of justifying their use.

4. Then the existing record of empirical evo-confirmations is cited.

5. Scott repeats that an hypothesis cannot be argued against unless a competing, superior hypothesis is first presented.

6. Finally he categorizes me in a fashion that appears calculated to imply that I lack credentials satisfactory to the task, in his opinion.

Let’s discuss what is happening here.

1. There is no possible way to use the metaphors of plumber vs. Darwin and diner vs.chef and not be referring to lack of authority or a requirement of authority. This is a common syndrome within paleo- whatever: If you criticize, you show your ignorance: so begone, ignorant one. In fact I was not challenging the factoids produced by archaeology; dinosaurs of all stripes existed as did huge sloths, mastadons, etc. What I was challenging – and still challenge – is the rationalization that accompanies these factoids. So the challenge is about process: the logic and rational relationships that are being used to declare TRUTH. Does it take four PhD’s in paleo-whatever to examine logic? In fact, how many biologists even study logic?

The process of determining actual Truth is not restricted to biologists and is not dependent upon one’s knowledge of paleo-factoids. Logic is a separate and universal set of truths and can be an acquired skill set if it is studied and applied rigorously and with intellectual honesty. Logic is not dependent upon any information set derived by any scientific pursuit; conversely, science is dependent upon logic. Illogically obtained, science data has no value.

So there are two fallacies at play, here. First the obvious Appeal to Authority Fallacy, second a weak Red Herring Fallacy where a demand is made that is not even pertinent to the issue: being an expert in X is not essential when observing logical processes common to all rational pursuits. But being logical is essential to being an expert in X, if X is a rational pursuit.

2. Gould is making a plea that is a Special Pleading Fallacy: X is somehow “special” and this makes it OK to exempt X from the constraints placed on the rest of the alphabet.

3. Here is my favorite. Einstein did in fact infer certain things mathematically. He did not however declare them fact until empirical confirmation was accomplished. He never declared them to be Truth. This is just a false use of an authority.

4. As I have done many times, I again asked to be made acquainted with which of Scott’s list of evo-things are actual, incontrovertible, empirical proof of evolution. This request has never been answered. I again request just one (1) instance of this. Providing a lengthy list of inferential presumptions does not make the case that evolution is as robust as other sciences. Part of the problem here is that evolution is not even completely defined, as redefinitions are to be forthcoming in this, the year of Darwin. The hypothesis remains malleable.

5. To claim that fallacies cannot be cited when identified unless a Truth is provided as well…. is false. A fallacy is a fallacy, and is false, period.

6. I might have hoped for a better classification than “armchair philosopher”, but I can see that it served Scott’s purposes. Biologists seem to have an almost accountant-like drive to classify and categorize things; but I had hoped for something more along the lines of “Templar of Logic”. Oh, well. At any rate it is an Ad Hominem Fallacy, and as I said above it appears designed to imply a lack of acceptable credentials on my part, so it was applied in the name of the Appeal to Authority Fallacy. But again, I was not critiquing the details of the science, I was being critical of the conclusions of fact and truth being drawn, and there’s your apples vs. oranges.

In fact other sciences do use inference, and use it successfully and rationally. The process is to take data, draw an inference, form a hypothesis, design an experiment, limit the variables, take data, objectively analyze for conformance to the hypothesis, list deviations, draw another inference, repeat the above until deviations are under the instrumentation noise threshold. If this process converges, it will produce a factoid, which remains contingent, and therefore never becomes absolute Truth. There is no stopping at the pointin the process where the inference is made.

The only pursuit of which I am aware that uses “mountains” of inferences to generate “facts” and “Truth” is evolution. I maintain that this is an error, no matter how compelling the mountain of inferences might be. It might be asymptotic to factuality due to sheer bulk, weight of numbers, and might even be used as fact, but it is not fact. It remains hypothesis until it is verified empirically (a la’ Einstein, if you will, to reverse the Appeal to Authority). And it is never absolute truth.

The reason that I object strenuously to the perpetuation of such fallacies is not for either the benefit or detriment of evolution. The reason is that the persistent, erroneous use of the words “fact” and ”Truth” on the behalf of evolution are a part of the culture war we find ourselves in now. The war to instill relativism benefits from these fallacies and will ultimately result in complete relativism and denial of standards. This removes rational thought from the process, and results in intellectual and ethical chaos. This skid has started, and is nearly out of control. That’s why I object.

This brings me to the final point: “scientists need not be either aware or concerned about culture wars or social aspects of their work” (a point that Scott forgot to make this time around). This is valid; but only if they are scrupulous about their claims in the first place. Intellectual integrity demands it.

Anti-Semitism never dies...

Never far below the surface, the hatred of Jews is now erupting overtly. In Ontario, a union has called for banning Israeli professors from campuses, unless they speak the proper words. Freedom of speech on campuses has been pretty much banned anyway unless it comes from the left; this move attaches the left to anti-Semitism in a direct and overt fashion.

In Florida, an "anti-racist" group spawned a protest that contained calls for Jews to "go back in the oven"..."You need a big oven, that's what you need," screamed one woman.

"She does not represent the opinions of the vast majority of people who were there," said Emmanuel Lopez, who helped plan the event, one of many sponsored nationwide on Dec. 30 by the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism ) Coalition.

Lopez, a state coordinator for ANSWER, admitted there is a problem with anti-Semitism within his organization's ranks. But then he went on to call the supporters of Israel across the street "barbaric, racist" Zionist terrorists.

"Zionism in general is a barbaric, racist movement that really is the cause of the situation in the entire Middle East," Lopez said.

Presumably Lopez and ANSWER are OK with the random, indiscriminate bombing of Israel's citizens by Palestinian terrorists.

In Britain, the website ummahis looking for a list of prominant Jews to hit, according to haaretz.com.

Across Europe, violence has started in protest of the "ethnic cleansing" that Israel is visiting upon the Palestinians.

Israel is not ethnic cleansing, of course. Certainly not in the same vein as the Palestinians wish for the Jews. It is customary amongst the Palestinians to over state their case in such a fashion they can no longer be considered credible in any statement. To parade around fake dead people, stage bogus disasters and so on does not compare to sending rockets into Israel.

The violence now is real, and it has been brought by Palestinians upon themselves; they cannot seem to abide living peaceably next to Jews.

The old wisdom was that all Palestinians wanted was autonomy and their own place. When they got that, they became an officially beligerant neighbor to Israel. It's not that they just won't learn, it's that they can't; to do so is outside their religion and worldview. To live in peace with Israel would require the destruction of their culture. So they will always continue to send their children to their deaths and blame it on the Jews.

Stem Cells and Birth Defects

The stem cell revolution marches on, this time into the realm of birth defects. According to this article in technologyreview.com's biomedicine file, birth defects that were induced into embryonic mouse brains by the use of heroin by their pregnant mothers were subsequently reversed by injection of neural stem cells directly into the brain. An interesting effect called the "chaperone" effect comes into play. Even though a sizable number of the injected stem cells die, they induce activity in resident cells that go on with the repair activity.

Joseph Yanai, director of the Ross Laboratory for Studies in Neural Birth Defects at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, in Jerusalem, says that stem-cell therapies are ideal for treating birth defects where the mechanism of damage is multifaceted and poorly understood. "If you use neural stem cells," says Yanai, "they are your little doctors. They're looking for the defect, they're diagnosing it, and they're differentiating into what's needed to repair the defect. They are doing my job, in a way."

The article goes on to say:

Transplanted stem cells have previously shown promise in reversing brain damage caused by strokes, as well as by neurological diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's. But their use in treating birth defects is relatively new.

While these stem cells were from embryonic mice, the next thrust will be into stem cells derived from the defective mouse itself, regressed from normal cells. This is intended to reduce the propensity for tumors and cancers inherent with embryonic stem cells.

The revolution in medicine that is needed to reduce health costs might well be contained in such research. And the need for human embryonic destruction might well be eliminated by procedures just like these.

Scott Defends Inferences.

I had a feeling that Scott would have a thing or two to offer about my evolution comments. Over at Monkey Trials, Scott's blog, he gives a good long look at some points, and kindly reduces the matter to some questions for me to answer, which I will, of course:

"Well and good. Then, my questions for Stan are these:

Where is the inferential reference mountain for a young Earth?

Where is the inferential reference mountain for millions of separate acts of creation?

Where is the inferential reference mountain to account for the (presumably false) appearance of common descent?

Where is the inferential reference mountain for a non-evolutionary explanation for homologous structures, vestigial organs, common biochemistry, common embryological features, the fossil record, the origin of sex, neoteny, Hox genes, pseudogenes, mutualisms, ecological niche occupation, the origin of the eukaryotic cell, adaptive radiations, haplodiploidy in social insects?"

My thanks to Scott for simplifying this so that I don't really need to address the entire post. Now Scott knows that I am not a YEC, nor an ID enthusiast; I am for intellectual integrity and the use of the principles of logic and rationality, and I can spell out precisely what that means. So Scott also will probably expect my answer, which is: If you choose inferential wars, bolstered by the simplicity of Parsimony, then ID has it hands-down. ID is not a stack of loose inferences, it is one inference, and it is therefore parsimonious.

But Scott knows that is not my position. My position has always been that ID is not science.... precisely because it is an unprovable inference, no matter how persuasive it might seem. And that also is the position on ID taken by evolution enthusiasts. The kink comes here: the statement also applies to evolution itself because evolution is as inference-driven as ID.

Now this is painful to evolution enthusiasts, but it is the logical outcome of an objective look at both viewpoints.

I asked the following question over at Scott's place a short while back (unfortunately I didn't return to see if it was answered): How many inferences does it take to produce a fact? And now I add: How many inferences does it take to produce TRUTH?

What I am trying to address here is the use of the words "fact" and "truth" where they cannot be justified. Science does not produce either. And Scott is the first to admit that information generated by science is "contingent". We've been through all that before. But the evolution enthusiasts can't quit declaring that evolution is both fact and truth. They are wrong.

So now to answer Scott's questions: Scott, the inferential mountains to which you refer do not produce either fact nor truth; they produce a presumed liklihood which is contingent on competing theories not conforming more closely, theories which you rightly say do not exist, except for my theory of graduated abiogenesis, of course. That is the point, not whether a competing theory exists at the moment. (Of course my theory includes abiogenesis, and is therefore more complete, robust, parsimonious and justifiable than evolution, but oh well).

And as for the parable, it seems simpler to declare that biology is too deep for anyone but biologists so just shut up and go home. Well, my position there is that an intelligent application of logical discernment is applicable to all disciplines and that evolution is not immune due to its perceived excessive complexities, which are declared inaccessible to non-insiders. (In fact doesn't this sound cult-like to you? It does to me).

So I respectfully await hard, empirical evidence of evolution, and I am in the process of evaluating Science magazine's 15 evidences for such hardness. Otherwise, I see no reason to accept inferences as Truth, as Coyne insists that it is, or as fact, as you frequently aver.

Hope this answers your questions.

Ten Atheist Commandments FOR God

God: Listen up!

1. You must show yourself. Now.

2. You must eliminate natural disasters; they are evil.

3. You must eliminate evil people (those I don't like).

4. What I do with my sex organs is none of your business.

5. Happiness is the only virtue; you must make me happy (hint: think sex organs).

6. You must admit that you are evil.

7. You must declare that the Bible is false.

8. You must declare that Philosophical Materialism is absolutely TRUE.

9. You must declare that absolute TRUTH doesn't exist.

10.You must declare that it is absolutely TRUE that I have no FREE WILL. None. Whatsoever.

Reviewing a Review, and a promise of more..

There is a New Scientist quickie review of a book by Jerry Coyne called, "Why Evolution is True". I have not read the book, and don't intend to review the book itself, just the review... at least for now. I don't need another book on evolution, what I need are hard, incontrovertible facts. But that's for later.

The reviewer, Rowan Hooper, is convinced that there is, in the standard evolutionary parlance, "a mountain of evidence", and lauds Coyne for "carefully leading the reader through the overwhelming evidence, that evolution is a fact."

Here's why I won't bother with the book: First, the mountain of evidence that so impresses Hooper and Coyne is all - 100% - inferential, extrapolated forensic story telling. (more on this in a minute or two). Second, the idea that science of any stripe produces the "Truth" that Coyne advertises is beyond misguided, it is irresponsible in a person of Coyne's prestigious position.

The standards of evidence that are used and enjoyed by evolutionary biologists are far, FAR below the standards of other sciences. These folks are so accustomed to such low standards that they cannot comprehend why others object to their mantras of TRUTH based on inferences that are claimed "scientific".

If one takes the revered "mountain of evidence" and separates it, piece by piece, into two sub-mountains, one of inferential evidence and one of hard, empirical, reproducible fact, one will still have only one mountain: the inferential evidence mountain.

Evolutionary enthusiasts cannot even agree on what evolution is, but they know it when they see it. The revered Year of Darwin, 2009, will see new definitions of evolution be foisted and argued. But one thing will be kept sacrosanct: "evolution happened".

Here's a promise. First, the Science Magazine List of 15 evidences of evolution will get my scrutiny, although I have already looked at some if not most of them. I will post my opinion on their "hardness" as evidence of evolution. Second, any new evidences that are proposed that are supposedly "hard" in their empirical content will also get my scrutiny.

It seems a shame that a supposed science has to be treated to such skepticism. But it brings it upon itself.

The Religion of Peace...

An article by Ze'ev Maghen in the Wall Street Journal has some interesting views into the Muslim mindset:

"Attempting to defuse the diplomatic tension occasioned by the call for Israel's destruction issued by the then-newly elected President Ahmadinejad at the previous month's "World Without Zionism" conference, Khamenei concluded his uncharacteristically moderate sermon with the following ringing remarks:

'We Iranians intend no harm to any nation, nor will we be the first to attack any nation. We do not deny the right of any polity in any place on God's earth to exist and prosper. We are a peace-loving country whose only wish is to live, and to let live, in peace.'

"Without missing a beat, or evincing a discernible hint of irony, the reporter who covered the event continued:

'The congregation of worshippers, some 7,000 in number, expressed their unanimous support for the Supreme Leader's words by repeatedly chanting, marg bar Omrika, marg bar Esra'il "Death to America! Death to Israel!"'

"This is not as strange as it sounds. Chanting "Death to America! Death to Israel!" has been the way Iranians applaud for over a quarter-century. When the soccer team from Isfahan scores a goal against the soccer team from Shiraz, its fans cheer wildly: "Death to America! Death to Israel!" At the end of an exquisitely performed sitar solo, the genteel audience in a concert hall in Tabriz shows its appreciation by loudly heaping imprecations upon "International Arrogance" (the USA) and "its Bastard Offspring" (the Jewish state). Even during the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Iranian participants have replaced their traditionally pious ejaculations of "I am at your service, O Lord, there is none like unto you!" with responsive Persian cursing sessions aimed at the Hebrew- and English-speaking enemies of everything that is holy. Like the daily "Two Minutes Hate" in George Orwell's "1984," this venom-spewing is the mantra upon which an entire generation of Iranians has been raised."

Rosanne and the Grand Mufti

Sometimes the Left can't hold back its ignorance and lets fly with complete inanities. Rosanne Barr, queen of filth stand-up comedy and dysfunctional family TV, has proclaimed that Israel is a Nazi state. This is so preposterous that most Leftists will probably buy it. The Left is anxious to dump on Israel despite the obvious news that the elected terrorist government of Palestine, Hamas, has attacked Israel first, and well, they are addicted to attacking Israel and just can't seem to stop.

In fact the Arab word, "hudna", is said to have two meanings. First it means cease-fire when used in communicating with the enemy; second, for internal use it means regroup, rearm, restock, and prepare for more attacks, to be mounted at leisure.

Here's some history to consider. There is a direct connection between Hamas and Adolf Hitler through the Grand Mufti of Jeruselem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini (1895-1974). Al-Husseini used suicide bombers against moderate Muslims to gain power in the 1930's and wound up in Hitler's confidence, being made in charge of Bosnian Muslim Nazi troop training and much more. There are many photos of him reviewing "his" Nazi Muslim Troops.

After the war the British made him Grand Mufti of Jeruselem against the protests of both Jews and moderate Muslims.

The Grand Mufti perpetuated the Nazi doctrines and methodology after the war. He ruthlessly purged dissenters and influenced the overthrow of moderate Muslim governments. He brought Nazism to Egypt, and moved on to other nations including Iraq, where he influenced the uncle of Saddam Hussein. The Grand Mufti is widely rumored to be the uncle of Yasser Arafat, and is shown in photos together with him.

The fascist methodology and the hatred of Jews with the intent to purge then from the earth is a continuation of Nazi policy, via the Grand Mufti. It's justification as a moral tenet of the Qur'an is a cover for the Nazi worldview.

For a detailed view of this, the book by C. Morse, "The Nazi Connection To Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini" is an invaluable resource, with documentation from many sources including the Nuremburg Trials, the Eichmann Trial, etc. There is also considerable information available on the web, of course. The Leftist bent to fascism is outlined in a book by Jonah Goldberg, "Liberal Fascism".

If you see Rosanne, ask her for the sources of her information. Or better still, just walk away.