Blogger Tacitus makes a weak argument that Intelligent Design may be good for science. What caught my attention is a comment under the heading “Andromeda Strain” by user Irving, who writes: Certainly normal statistical models “do not work for such things.” That’s the point of the research…to find new models and frameworks. …and we may not need to rely on merely statistical models either. Let me put this another way in a story perhaps more attuned to the Tacitus readership… ...

I can see that the combination of work, calculus, and an attempt at having some sort of a life is going to make it difficult for me to contribute to this blog all that often, but after Jeff Downs put up the link to a Greg Bahnsen article on Tom Wanchick’s The Good Fight, I just had to say something. Calculus can wait a few minutes while I riff on some of the stupider things in the article. [The Apostle] Paul asserts that all men know God so inescapably and clearly from natural revelation that they are left with no defense for their unfaithful response to the truth about Him. Well, then, if Paul said it, it must surely be true! After all, it’s in the Bible! This argument is so bald-faced in its arrogance (what the hell does Paul–or anyone else, for that matter–know about my beliefs and mental states?) and stupidity (it assumes, after all, what it is trying to prove) that it makes me want to… well… beat up a Christian fighter! Christianity can be shown to be, not ‘just as good as’ or even ‘better than’ the non-Christian position, but the only position that does not make nonsense of human experience…. Christianity is proved as being the very foundation of the idea of proof itself. [my emphasis] The first question that comes to mind, here, is: Which “Christianity”? The second one is this: If the whole of logic and epistemology is dependent on the fact that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the grave 3 days later, then wouldn’t it be possible–in fact inevitable–that people engaged in philosophical or scientific inquiry would be able to derive Jesus’s sacrifice entirely independent of exposure to the Bible? Has such a thing ever happened in the history of science or philosophy? And how, then, does one account for the inconsistencies between the 4 gospels? The article goes on for a considerable stretch after that. It would be tiresome to attack the rest of it, since its foundation is entirely baseless, anyway. Calculus awaits. ...

The twenty-first Carnival of the Godless may be found here. The P.Z. Myers (Pharyngula) contribution is particularly noteworthy.

Here’s an interesting essay/review from The New Yorker about Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit, Simon Blackburn’s Truth: A Guide, and the difference between liars and bullshitters (the former care about the truth but want to lead away from it, the latter have complete disregard for truth). Historical Comments Einzige (2006-12-09): This section resonated with me:"How would one defend philosophers like Hegel or Heidegger from the charge that their writings are bullshit? Not, Cohen says, by showing that they cared about the truth (which would be enough to get them off the hook if they were charged with being bullshitters under Frankfurt's definition). Rather, one would try to show that their writings actually made some sense."As a part of trying to better understand and appreciate Max Stirner I picked up a copy of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. My copy has a line-by-line analysis of the text by some philosopher--at least I presume he's a philosopher. I was struck by the fact that this guy's "analysis" was just as incomprehensible as Hegel's discourse. I gave up on it after about 20 pages. Go ahead and call me a moron, I guess. ...

An, uh, interesting excerpt from Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy: The God that Failed: “In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one’s own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance towards democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal." ...

German Catholics who can’t attend a talk from the Pope can get it text messaged to themselves. Historical Comments Einzige (2006-12-09): I can imagine that they'll have a hard time using all 160 characters for what the Pope is going to say.

MIT remains on the forefront of robotics and AI with the CatsupCrapper. Thanks to Jerry Goodenough via the SKEPTIC mailing list for the link.

Richard Bejtlich of Tao Security (a prolific Amazon.com reviewer) has posted a four-star review of Extreme Exploits, a book I did the technical editing on.

The Intelligent Design movement recently hired a PR firm to promote its views. A critic using the name “vax” commented on this at William Dembski’s (the “Isaac Newton” of ID) blog: Why would ID need to be ‘promoted’? If it is science (as claimed) then the arguments and facts and should speak for themselves. If it’s just a public relations exercise combining religion, politics and deceptive scientific-sounding jargon, however… This led to a response from “Dan”: ...

Christian apologetics is the process of defending the faith by constructing rational arguments to particular predefined doctrinal conclusions, and presenting those arguments as a defense of the faith. The presentation of the arguments may either be in the form of monologue (such as through printed publication in a forum where no responses are possible) or in a dialogue, where the only acceptable outcomes are a revision of the steps of the arguments, but not the ultimate conclusions. Sometimes, those involved in the process do not even bother to make sure their apologetic arguments are consistent with each other–they engage in a shotgun approach of throwing out whatever arguments they can come up with to reach the desired conclusion. Examples of this may be found at Tom Wanchick’s “Christian Fighter” blog. In a discussion of an essay by agnostic Paul Draper, Wanchick notes that “Draper goes through the arguments for theism and naturalism and finds the cases for both worldviews equally compelling. Neither has a clear advantage.” But then, Wanchick notes: But Draper makes an interesting statement at the end of his contribution. He notes that this situation with the ambiguous evidence appears almost intentional, as if humans have been given enough evidence to find God, but not enough to give them utter certainty regarding His reality.In other words, the fact of the ambiguity is itself evidence for theism. But Wanchick goes on to say: I disagree with Draper in that I think the evidence for theism is far greater than any purported evidence for naturalism. Thus, theism is the clearcut winner. But even granting his point, the Christian position comes out on the winning end.Wanchick’s has thus argued that (a) there is an ambiguity, which is evidence for theism, and (b) there is no ambiguity, theism is the clearcut winner. He clearly favors (b), which is inconsistent with (a), but he seemingly still wants to advocate (a), since it leads to a conclusion he favors, as he writes that “the apparent ambiguity seems intentional,” implying that he thinks the ambiguity exists. (Thanks to Einzige for pointing out this last point–Wanchick really does seem to advocate both contradictory positions.) ...