paralepsis

They don't really: not in a direct way. Most of what he writes seems to sink without a ripple. A writer both prolix and pointless, kairosfocus produces an impact-per-word number that must be so small as to be homeopathic. It's hard to imagine people changing their minds based on the writings of kairosfocus; at best, he may reinforce already-held beliefs. Rhetorically, this makes his work (whatever its outward appearance) neither forensic nor deliberative, but epideictic . To quote Aristotle quoting Socrates in a discussion of epideictic, "it is not difficult to praise the Athenians to an Athenian audience." Yet Kairosfocus's distortions may matter indirectly, by propagating falsehoods that will be used by others. Now, back to Alinsky. The argument that Alinsky was a kind of Marxist is, I think, wrong, but it's a possible argument. However, kairosfocus has done more than make that claim: he has distorted Alinsky's words to support it. To repeat, ...

I'll accept your characterization of Saul Alinsky as "Neo-Marxist" if you accept that Intelligent Design is "Neo-Creationist." The relationship between ID and creationism is at least as close (I'd say much more) than between Alinsky and Marxism.

[ reposted from Intelligent Design is not Science ] I have been reading William James' book Pragmatism and came across a really interesting passage. I post it here because I can't recall its being used in the ID debate before. Back in 1904, James anticipates some issues about the identity of the designer. This is from Lecture III, entitled "Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered," and is quoted from the Project Gutenberg version of the text: Let me pass to a very cognate philosophic problem, the QUESTION of DESIGN IN NATURE. God's existence has from time immemorial been held to be proved by certain natural facts. Many facts appear as if expressly designed in view of one another. Thus the woodpecker's bill, tongue, feet, tail, etc., fit him wondrously for a world of trees with grubs hid in their bark to feed upon. The parts of our eye fit the laws of light to perfection, leading its rays to a sharp picture on our retina. Such mutua...

Plagiarism and intelligent design: two of my favorite topics. Turns out they taste great together. Intrepid grad student blogger and creationism-whacker ERV has discovered an interesting factoid: Dr. Dr. William A. Dembski , whose co-authored Darwin-destroying textbook has just been vanity published , has been poaching a legitimate animation while lecturing about Intelligent Design around the country. The animation, called "The Inner Life of the Cell," is fascinating both with and without narration. Beth Marchant described it last July: Created by XVIVO, a scientific animation company near Hartford, CT, the animation illustrates unseen molecular mechanisms and the ones they trigger, specifically how white blood cells sense and respond to their surroundings and external stimuli. But Dr. Dembski's lecture takes the non-narrated version, clips the credits, and adds his own woo-filled ID-friendly narration. Is it a mashup? A remix? ERV has another name for it: Fr...

Welcome, Uncommon Descent members ! For the record, I don't ban users or arguments (I will delete threats and suchlike.) As long as you're here, you might check out the reality behind ICON-RIDS (if you haven't heard about this before). A letter to GilDodgen, responding to this : I, Hermagoras, am banned at Uncommon Descent but apparently still discussion-worthy. Indeed, a whole post devoted to refuting someone (me) who is not allowed to respond. You guys are certainly committed to fair debate! I was trying to make a fairly simple point, which I would have thought IDers agree with: that all observations and all "facts" are theory-laden. It's simple enough. I elaborated it in a post which Dembski apparently thought was off-topic and led him [to] ban me in precisely the terms I previously discussed on my blog . Hilarious. Then continued discussion (again I can't respond) about how I'm trying to be the clever one . Nothing in my banned posts ...

"Pixie is no longer with us." That's a comment on Uncommon Descent , the intelligent design (and global warming denialist) blog. Apparently the user "Pixie" was kicked off the comment board for saying terrible things like this : Tribune [another commenter], there is some ambiguity in both those cases; we do not know for certain why Gonzales failed to get tenure (maybe Iowa State did want anyone associated with anti-science, rather than someone who criticised evolution). Micheal Behe, Granville Sewell and Michael Denton still hold university positions despite their criticisms of evolution. Larry, why do you think it is the teacher? Do teachers often have to write lines on the blackboard in your experience? A general comment: Why should we suppose from this cartoon that there is a “Church of the Living Darwin”? Is a rejection of any and all criticism a distinguishing feature of religion? No longer with us . The kind of thing you say when someone has died, or y...

Just following up on the previous post: the first parody comment on Dembski's link seems to have made it past the censors (though really, it's hard to tell what's not parody). I thought I'd link to it here before Dembski et al. erase it along with the whole embarrassing episode. The poster calls him/herself "NoeticGuru," and writes : Heh, long time lurker, first time poster here. But I’m glad that organizations like ICON-RIDS are showing up, and that proponents of ID are taking notice of them. I think that it will help show that ID isn’t a single religious doctrine since it can incorporate so many different non-materialistic philosophies. ICON-RIDS, for example, will probably attract a lot of followers with its ethical philosophy (you’ll probably need to scroll down a bit to get to his Transparadigmic Pleasurian socio-ethical paradigm, but it’s worth a read). Since I’m also a dabbler in mathematics, I’ve been particularly impressed with Dr. Brookfi...

From time to time, I surf over to Uncommon Descent to keep tracks on the intelligent design folks. They're an odd bunch over there: constantly proclaiming that this or that study is the stake in the heart of Darwinist Orthodoxy TM -- but then, nothing changes, and so a new stake must be discovered next week. I commented there for a while but then I got banned, I guess -- anyway, my comments stopped showing up. I guess they were considered too snarky: this at a site where Dembski actually began a post by comparing the face of Jerry Coyne with Herman Munster. What. An. Asshole. Today Dembski posts the following : It will be interesting to see how the National Center for Science Education Selling Evolution deals with the growing number of non-religious ID proponents. Check out the following link: icon-rids.blogspot.com . Yes, very interesting. No doubt the NCSE will be shaking with fear at this guy : I don't hold any degrees from any university of any kind. My job as a citize...

Haven't posted in a while -- busy busy busy. But I did notice some funny bits related to the folks out in never-never-lan -- excuse me, Intelligent Design Theory TM . But first, Inkling magazine had a contest to design a new species of Darwin fish. The total set of contributions is pretty great, as is the winner . Check it out. Meanwhile, the ID folks at the DI have been having themselves a conference . The folks at Red State Rabble point out that the IDDI people only pretend to be interested in a free exchange of ideas. What a surprise.