Don't Lose Weight! Because...
...you might rewrite the laws of gravity and make everything fly apart! Because, you see, William Dembski, still having a problem with a computer program that Richard Dawkins wrote back in the 1980s, in Apple BASIC no less, makes yet another claim that Dawkins is perpetuating a fraud *yawn* on the public (and naturally I had a problem with that).
*Gasp*
WilliamD: Gentlemen: If Dawkins is tuning the parameters differently for the program as described in the book and for it as exhibited in the BBC documentary, isn’t he in effect using a different program?
Me: Uh, duh, no! Great job, Mr. Isaac Newton of Information Theory.
This man is a mathematician? Would he like a secretary/quasi-librarian/archivist and belly dancer to explain programming principles to him? He and his followers still have a problem understanding how an algorithm in a program that was, yes, programmed by Dawkins is an analogy for natural selection?
Of course, Dr. Dr. "I'm not jealous of Dawkins at all" has been verrrry quiet since making that gaffe.
I have news for you Dr. Dr. Dembski - April is fast upon us. You can run but you can't hide (or add, it appears).
UPDATED: Wesley has a post up about how long it's taken Dembski to "reproduce" Dawkins' code, and so does Ian Musgrave. Of course PZ has weighed in. I don't have time for this - I'm writing a paper about how archival theory could be informed by anthropology, evolutionary theory, ecology, and information theory, and I've already wasted too much time trying to get Joe G. to answer me about what he really knows about information theory.
SECOND UPDATE: I love this sarcastic riposte by "CS." Remarks by wags like that convince me that even if intelligent design belonged in schools, only an anti-IDist would be qualified to teach it.
*Gasp*
WilliamD: Gentlemen: If Dawkins is tuning the parameters differently for the program as described in the book and for it as exhibited in the BBC documentary, isn’t he in effect using a different program?
Me: Uh, duh, no! Great job, Mr. Isaac Newton of Information Theory.
This man is a mathematician? Would he like a secretary/quasi-librarian/archivist and belly dancer to explain programming principles to him? He and his followers still have a problem understanding how an algorithm in a program that was, yes, programmed by Dawkins is an analogy for natural selection?
Of course, Dr. Dr. "I'm not jealous of Dawkins at all" has been verrrry quiet since making that gaffe.
I have news for you Dr. Dr. Dembski - April is fast upon us. You can run but you can't hide (or add, it appears).
UPDATED: Wesley has a post up about how long it's taken Dembski to "reproduce" Dawkins' code, and so does Ian Musgrave. Of course PZ has weighed in. I don't have time for this - I'm writing a paper about how archival theory could be informed by anthropology, evolutionary theory, ecology, and information theory, and I've already wasted too much time trying to get Joe G. to answer me about what he really knows about information theory.
SECOND UPDATE: I love this sarcastic riposte by "CS." Remarks by wags like that convince me that even if intelligent design belonged in schools, only an anti-IDist would be qualified to teach it.
Labels: army of dorks, computer science, genetic algorithms, Uncommon Descent, William Dembski
posted by Kristine | Saturday, March 21, 2009
12 Comments:
Kristine, many shimmies. You are so right. Your cake post was...well...the proverbial icing on the inanity at UD this week.
(lifting, with a quizzical look, an imaginary glass in honor of, can you believe it, DaveScot?)
Reading that just made me sigh and blech at the same time. :) Thanks, fun times!
There is good news and bad news: the bad first. According to an article in the February 2009 issue of "Astronomy," dark energy will rip the Universe apart, scatter the Cosmos to infinity and beyond.
The good news: it's not supposed to happen for another eighty-six billion years.
SG
Scott, I can believe it, but that's a long traumatic story!
SunnySkeptic, it's a good thing that all those students crammed into a room to see Dawkins changed the size of that room, didn't it?
And I'm going to miss that ripping cosmic party? Look, SG - code a simulation in BASIC and we can all watch right now! :-D (Yes, I have actually coded in BASIC. I had to do it for a class, and not only in the 1980s. This century, if you can believe it. I love DOS. Do I need help?)
Darn, I think my stopwatch is melting.
I haven't done anything with BASIC since the '80's.
According to an article in a more recent issue of "Astronomy," the Big Rip ain't gonna happen. Our own local Universe will bump into the results of other Big Bangs, and there will be the Big Crunch. Don't hold your breath for that either. It occurs once every trillion years.
Recalling thise articles has been stimulated by your comment about losing weight and thereby affecting the Law of Gravity. My remarks are way off topic: Dumbski's inability to understand Dawkins.
SG aka Scotius
The very first program I wrote in BASIC displayed the treble staff, and asked the user to press a key from A to G, whereupon the corresponding note would appear on the staff, and the tone would play. *Beams proudly* "Peek" and "poke." Those were the days.
Of course, it's called music theory, not music law, right?
:-D
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Hi Kristine,
amusing to say the least...
thanks for the links to the other sites.. i have been surfing around in hear for quite a while
Hi Kristine,
i like your blog..it made me feel different in a way that i have not yet been ablr to put into words... thankyou..
Hello Kristine interesting read here, i'm not to familiar with some of it but would have been weird to see those students crammed into a room to see Dawkins change the size of the room...
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