"Exposing Discovery Institute": video series by "Professor" Dave Farina

[Laird]

The Discovery Institute is referenced fairly often on our board. Often, too, it is criticised and dismissed as a source. Until watching this video series by Dave Farina, I had considered those dismissals to be a case of the genetic fallacy. After watching the series, it now seems reasonable to dismiss it as a source given its apparent unreliability. I'm simply a layman in all of this though, so perhaps others will come to its defence against "Professor" Dave's detailed attacks.

Exposing Discovery Institute

Cross-referencing with my post linking to Dave's critical series on Professor James Tour.

The Discovery Institute is referenced fairly often on our board. Often, too, it is criticised and dismissed as a source. Until watching this video series by Dave Farina, I had considered those dismissals to be a case of the genetic fallacy. After watching the series, it now seems reasonable to dismiss it as a source given its apparent unreliability. I'm simply a layman in all of this though, so perhaps others will come to its defence against "Professor" Dave's detailed attacks.

Exposing Discovery Institute

Cross-referencing with my post linking to Dave's critical series on Professor James Tour.

Curious - Do you think the entire field of ID-in-biology can be dismissed, or just certain specific arguments?

I confess I've never done a deep dive into the arguments - for or against - because it seems to require a lot of expertise. 

I contrast this with Cosmic Fine Tuning where every[one] can agree on what the constants are while debating whether the odds of getting said constants is showing Design or not. But if I understand your recent posts on the matter you don't accept Cosmic Fine Tuning either?

[Laird]

Curious - Do you think the entire field of ID-in-biology can be dismissed, or just certain specific arguments?

I don't feel qualified to say, just that I won't take anything the DI says at face value anymore. I think Dave has demonstrated that they have actively misrepresented the truth on too many occasions for that.

I confess I've never done a deep dive into the arguments - for or against - because it seems to require a lot of expertise. 

In hindsight, your agnostic approach on all this has been wise. I had been a little gung-ho in accepting anti-evolution arguments based on discussions in this (PQ/Skeptiko) community without investigating the mainstream view.

But if I understand your recent posts on the matter you don't accept Cosmic Fine Tuning either?

Oh, no, you've misunderstood. I accept fine tuning. I just don't accept the arguments that have been proposed against the multiverse explanation for fine tuning. I also, though, don't think that the multiverse explanation is a good one anyway, for different reasons.

Like I posted in the other thread, don't go just by what Farina says, see how DI responds to his criticism.

start here:

https://evolutionnews.org/2022/11/debunk...hen-meyer/

Like I posted in the other thread, don't go just by what Farina says, see how DI responds to his criticism.

start here:

https://evolutionnews.org/2022/11/debunk...hen-meyer/

Great article exposing how shallow "Professor" Dave actually is.

So is it correct that Farina only has a bachelor’s in Chemistry as his highest level STEM degree?

A degree isn’t necessarily a sign of expertise or honesty, but I do wonder about the fact Josephson has a Nobel in physics but was very complimentary toward Signature in the Cell. The physicist-mathematician Wolfgang Smith has also incorporated the idea of Irreducibly Complex Information into his current ideas about QM.

So it seems to me you have two luminaries [unaffiliated with the ID movement] in STEM giving ID consideration, which makes me hesitate to accept the word of a YouTuber with an undergrad degree as the final word…

All that said I don’t actually think ID gets you to God, as noted by theologian Feser, but I think at the very least it would suggest the possibility of non-material minds influencing the corporeal progress of evolution. And as such it’s indirect support that our own minds will not need to be embodied, something strongly suggested by Survival evidence.

The telling arguments for ID and against Darwinism that have been developed by DI researchers and thinkers have no valid rebuttals. And understanding them doesn't really require masters degrees or PhDs in biology or evolutionary biology. These arguments are understandable by laypersons, and include the following: 

(1) The ubiquitous and widespread presence of large numbers of irreducibly complex biological systems that could not have come about by slow accumulations of tiny changes via Darwinian RM + NS - the concept of irreducible complexity is just that most all complex biological systems and subsystems consist of biological machines of many separate parts that are so organized that they simply can't come about through a long series of small changes. The primary reason is the fact that each step has to be fully functional or the species will die out. A prominent example is the obvious irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum, just one of many irreducibly complex molecular machines identified to exist. Many human and animal organ subsystems have also been identified as being irreducibly complex, including the human and animal immune system and the blood clotting mechanism. 

(2) Long term lab evolution experiments with short generation time microorganisms that have shown that even under great environmental stress these organisms just don't demonstrate any significant undirected Darwinian RM + NS evolution - no real innovative jumps in complexity. 

(3) The evidence of the fossil record which demonstrates that there are no examples in the fossil record of the Darwinist-expected and predicted slow gradual accumulation of tiny selectively advantaged mutational genetic changes via natural selection - the actual fossil record shows time and time again a pattern of major evolutionary innovations happening in drastic jumps, the most notable example being the Cambrian Explosion of virtually all the animal phyla about 500 million years ago appearing in a very short period of time. 

(4) Research conducted by the DI has shown both theoretically and from the evolutionarily recent fossil record that the slow semi-random-walk Darwinian evolutionary changes inevitably involve a rapid degradation of the genome. 

(5) The Darwinists accuse Intelligent Design advocates and researchers of claiming the Designer(s) of evolution are the Christian God and are trying to promote their Christian beliefs, whereas the truth is that Intelligent Design merely looks for and develops evidence that existing and fossil life forms absolutely must have had a conscious intelligent designer or designers. ID deliberately does not try to identify what they were.

The telling arguments for ID and against Darwinism that have been developed by DI researchers and thinkers have no valid rebuttals. And understanding them doesn't really require masters degrees or PhDs in biology or evolutionary biology. These arguments are understandable by laypersons, and include the following: 

(1) The ubiquitous and widespread presence of large numbers of irreducibly complex biological systems that could not have come about by slow accumulations of tiny changes via Darwinian RM + NS - the concept of irreducible complexity is just that most all complex biological systems and subsystems consist of biological machines of many separate parts that are so organized that they simply can't come about through a long series of small changes. The primary reason is the fact that each step has to be fully functional or the species will die out. A prominent example is the obvious irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum, just one of many irreducibly complex molecular machines identified to exist. Many human and animal organ subsystems have also been identified as being irreducibly complex, including the human and animal immune system and the blood clotting mechanism. 

(2) Long term lab evolution experiments with short generation time microorganisms that have shown that even under great environmental stress these organisms just don't demonstrate any significant undirected Darwinian RM + NS evolution - no real innovative jumps in complexity. 

(3) The evidence of the fossil record which demonstrates that there are no examples in the fossil record of the Darwinist-expected and predicted slow gradual accumulation of tiny selectively advantaged mutational genetic changes via natural selection - the actual fossil record shows time and time again a pattern of major evolutionary innovations happening in drastic jumps, the most notable example being the Cambrian Explosion of virtually all the animal phyla about 500 million years ago appearing in a very short period of time. 

(4) Research conducted by the DI has shown both theoretically and from the evolutionarily recent fossil record that the slow semi-random-walk Darwinian evolutionary changes inevitably involve a rapid degradation of the genome. 

(5) The Darwinists accuse Intelligent Design advocates and researchers of claiming the Designer(s) of evolution are the Christian God and are trying to promote their Christian beliefs, whereas the truth is that Intelligent Design merely looks for and develops evidence that existing and fossil life forms absolutely must have had a conscious intelligent designer or designers. ID deliberately does not try to identify what they were.

I think the challenge here is terms like "slow semi-random-walk".

That already puts things beyond a layperson, or even a STEM educated person. I did an undergraduate degree in Maths but it has been some time since I looked at random walks.

There seem to be strong motivational reasons to accept OR deny ID, though there are also Christians who don't seem to find much value in ID. OTOH we do have a few scientists who aren't involved with ID either accepting certain aspects of the research/concepts. We also have non-ID scientists who suggest non-materialist views of biology like the Platonism Levin and Wagner have proposed.

So I would tentatively accept that some of ID could be true, but keep in mind there is a lot of debate on just the validity of the work. This contrasts with Cosmic Fine Tuning which involves a debate around constants that everyone accepts are within a narrow range to allow for life as we know it.

The telling arguments for ID and against Darwinism that have been developed by DI researchers and thinkers have no valid rebuttals. And understanding them doesn't really require masters degrees or PhDs in biology or evolutionary biology. These arguments are understandable by laypersons, and include the following: 

(1) The ubiquitous and widespread presence of large numbers of irreducibly complex biological systems that could not have come about by slow accumulations of tiny changes via Darwinian RM + NS - the concept of irreducible complexity is just that most all complex biological systems and subsystems consist of biological machines of many separate parts that are so organized that they simply can't come about through a long series of small changes. The primary reason is the fact that each step has to be fully functional or the species will die out. A prominent example is the obvious irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum, just one of many irreducibly complex molecular machines identified to exist. Many human and animal organ subsystems have also been identified as being irreducibly complex, including the human and animal immune system and the blood clotting mechanism. 

(2) Long term lab evolution experiments with short generation time microorganisms that have shown that even under great environmental stress these organisms just don't demonstrate any significant undirected Darwinian RM + NS evolution - no real innovative jumps in complexity. 

(3) The evidence of the fossil record which demonstrates that there are no examples in the fossil record of the Darwinist-expected and predicted slow gradual accumulation of tiny selectively advantaged mutational genetic changes via natural selection - the actual fossil record shows time and time again a pattern of major evolutionary innovations happening in drastic jumps, the most notable example being the Cambrian Explosion of virtually all the animal phyla about 500 million years ago appearing in a very short period of time. 

(4) Research conducted by the DI has shown both theoretically and from the evolutionarily recent fossil record that the slow semi-random-walk Darwinian evolutionary changes inevitably involve a rapid degradation of the genome. 

(5) The Darwinists accuse Intelligent Design advocates and researchers of claiming the Designer(s) of evolution are the Christian God and are trying to promote their Christian beliefs, whereas the truth is that Intelligent Design merely looks for and develops evidence that existing and fossil life forms absolutely must have had a conscious intelligent designer or designers. ID deliberately does not try to identify what they were.

I've always found that in a fair fight ID totally wipes the floor against ns rm but I do find the close proximity of the DI with a literalistic Christianity and a sibling relationship with creationism to be somewhat troubling. I also find it curious how Stephen Meher stands arm in arm with Michael Shermer against any form of parapsychology

The Discovery Institute is referenced fairly often on our board. Often, too, it is criticised and dismissed as a source. Until watching this video series by Dave Farina, I had considered those dismissals to be a case of the genetic fallacy. After watching the series, it now seems reasonable to dismiss it as a source given its apparent unreliability. I'm simply a layman in all of this though, so perhaps others will come to its defence against "Professor" Dave's detailed attacks.

Exposing Discovery Institute

Cross-referencing with my post linking to Dave's critical series on Professor James Tour.

I've never particularly liked Professor Dave's stuff, he's a bit heavy handed on the whole bashing religious people thing. But then I've never really liked the Discovery Institute either, so eh. 

The videos are a bit bombastic but they are good debunkings. The things he points out are so painfully, hilariously stupid that it hurts me to my soul that they were even ever made. The FIRST video demonstrating how they just selectively cut out gigantic swathes to make it seem like archeological evidence was being manipulated to disprove ID is just like WHAT, HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY DO THAT IN GOOD FAITH ARE YOU INSANE???