Darwinian Trilemma

William Dembski has posted (from Ian Bibby) the following "Darwinian Trilemma":

1. Science cannot test the proposition that biological features are designed.
2. Darwinism explains the appearance of design in biology not as actual design but as the product of natural selection and random variation.
3. Darwinism is science.

Commentators have offered a number of responses, such as rejecting an apparent equivocation on "design" between premises 1 (an objective feature of nature) and 2 (a psychological appearance).

While I think there's something to this objection, I would also reject premise 1 as stated. Surely there are scientific mechanisms for distinguishing natural features from artifacts of the sorts we are aware of (e.g., forensic science can distinguish at least some murders from deaths by natural causes). What science cannot distinguish is a hypothesis that biological features are the product of evolution from the hypothesis that a divinity created biological features that look just like the product of evolution. Similarly, science cannot distinguish automobiles that are created by people from automobiles that are created by a divine being to look just like automobiles built in a human-built factory, nor can it distinguish human beings who were born of a man and a woman from human beings who are directly created to look exactly as though they were born of a man and a woman (Omphalos included). (In other words, God could choose to work directly, simulating evolution, or indirectly, using evolutionary mechanisms or setting up the initial conditions and letting evolution run its course, and those hypotheses are empirically indistinguishable. Some religious believers advocate a view where events have natural causes, yet are also caused by supernatural beings such as Satan. In such an anti-Ockhamite, unparsimonious view, there is no scientific way to distinguish an event with both natural and supernatural causes from one which didn't have the latter.)

If a God-based hypothesis can be formulated in such a way as to have empirically testable consequences which are distinguishable from evolution, I don't see why it couldn't be science. This means there *could be* an "intelligent design" that qualifies as scientific--but what's been promoted in Dover is simply a renamed creationism, rather than a new field with any scientific content.

The real problem for such God-based hypotheses is that there really are no limits or definitions around what God does or would do--no empirical evidence is ever considered to be evidence against God by the advocates. I think there actually is empirical evidence against many specific gods which have been endorsed through the millenia, including commonly held views of contemporary monotheism. If you say that humans are psychologically similar to God (being created in his image), that God is perfectly rational and desires particular outcomes, then actions (or inaction) inconsistent with those desires, intentions, and facts of the world are evidence against such a God's existence. This gives evidential weight to atheistic arguments such as the argument from evil, the argument from (reasonable) non-belief, arguments based on the dependency of consciousness on physical brains, the facts of evolution, religious disagreement, and on the distribution of religious beliefs (indicative of cultural transmission rather than supernatural intervention).

Dover School Board Swept Out of Office

In yesterday's election, the entire Dover School Board was voted out of office. Four of the new board members were Republicans running as Democrats; the incumbents were all Republicans. Four of the new board members are part of an organization called Dover CARES, which supports the teaching of intelligent design in a context such as an elective comparative religions course but not in the science classroom. The new board will take office on December 5 and have indicated that they will not change policy for a month, which presumably will be after the judge makes a decision in the lawsuit. This will likely mean that the decision (which I fully expect to go against the Dover school board) will not be appealed. More at the Panda's Thumb, Questionable Authority, Pharyngula, and Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Update: Pat Robertson warns the people of Dover that now that they've forsaken God, God will not be there to help them in time of need:

I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover. If there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don’t wonder why He hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for His help because he might not be there.

Nothing like argumentum ad baculum...

A New Explanation for Sea Serpents

Whale penises! Photos here and here. (Hat tip: Pharyngula.) (Note that this explanation doesn't work for the lake monsters like Nessie and Champy.)

Defending Against Botnets

My presentation on "Defending Against Botnets" for ASU's Computer Security Week is online in streaming video and MP3 audio formats.

Unfortunately, the audience was quite small. ASU's Polytechnic Campus is way out east of Phoenix, on the former Williams Air Force Base which ASU purchased and turned into its east campus. It doesn't appear that it has a very large student population yet. I was amused that the streets are named after military figures. To get to the Student Union I drove on a street called Twining, named after General Nathan Twining. Twining is a name well-known to UFO enthusiasts, as his name was used on one of the forged "MJ-12" documents known as the Cutler-Twining memo, and also authored a genuine document that discusses UFOs (and is often misinterpreted by UFO advocates as claiming that crashed saucers have been recovered).

My talk was followed by a talk on Wireless Security by Erik Graham of General Dynamics, which covered threats and defenses for 802.11 and Bluetooth.

Denver Legalizes Possession of Marijuana

Denver voters approved a measure to legalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by those 21 and older. Authorities say state laws against possession will still be enforced, and we already know the federal laws will be enforced regardless of what a state wants to do with the drug issue (Raich v. Ashcroft).

Sony's DRM--not much different from criminal hacking

Mark Russinovich at Sysinternals.com, a security professional who is careful about what software he installs on his computer, found a rootkit on his Windows machine. A rootkit is a set of applications designed to hide malicious activity from the owner or administrator of a machine. He found a hidden directory, several hidden device drivers, and a hidden application.

After further investigation, he found that the software installed on his machine without his consent or authorization included files identified via Sigcheck as part of "Essential System Tools" from a company called First 4 Internet. Google revealed that First 4 Internet has implemented Digital Rights Management for several record companies, including Sony. It turned out that a recent CD he had purchased, "Get Right with The Man" by the Van Zant brothers, contained Sony's DRM.

Additional experimentation shows that the software is poorly written, and creates a load on the system by scanning the executable files associated with every running process every two seconds, and querying file information including size eight times per scan.

The End User License Agreement (EULA) gives no indication that this software will be installed to your machine, and provides no mechanism for removing it. (They have apparently since modified the EULA in response to Russinovich's analysis.) Russinovich took the trouble to take the steps necessary to remove the software (and return his computer to a functional condition), but as his analysis points out, this would be very difficult for an inexperienced user. A typical responsible computer user who saw the rootkit files and simply deleted them would cripple their computer.

This software appears to me no different from spyware, which was made illegal in the U.S. under the SPY ACT (Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass), and also appears (as a commenters on Russinovich's blog note) to violate California state law, UK law, and Australian law. Arizona's anti-spyware law doesn't seem to apply.

Russinovich's detailed step-by-step analysis may be found here.

Don't purchase CDs with such irresponsible and sleazy DRM software.

Discovery Institute attempts to backdoor testimony into the Dover trial

This is old news, but I haven't noted it here before--the two planned expert witnesses from the Discovery Institute for the Dover trial were Stephen Meyer and William Dembski, who both withdrew from the case. The DI attempted to back-door their testimony into the trial in the form of an amicus brief. The judge ruled that the brief was inadmissible, concluding:

In addition, after a careful review of the Discovery Institute’s submission, we find that the amicus brief is not only reliant upon several portions of Mr. Meyer’s attached expert report, but also improperly addresses Mr. Dembski’s assertions in detail, once again without affording Plaintiffs any opportunity to challenge such views by cross-examination. Accordingly, the “Brief of Amicus Curiae, the Discovery Institute” shall be stricken in its entirety.

A fuller quote (as well as a Fuller quote) may be found at Stranger Fruit.

I seem to recall reading a comment from the judge with respect to DI's legal representation that he wasn't running a law school... if I find it I'll update this entry with a link.

Murders pinned on suicidal, child molesting, gun toting priest

The February 5, 2002 murders of Dan O'Connell and James Ellison in a funeral home in Hudson, WI have now been pinned on Roman Catholic priest Fr. Ryan Erickson, who presided over O'Connell's funeral.

Erickson, who committed suicide this year after investigators started questioning him about involvement with O'Connell and Ellison's deaths, apparently had knowledge of those murders that had not been publicly disclosed.

The current theory is that a teenage boy in trouble with the law went to Erickson, a youth pastor, who on at least three occasions served that boy alcohol and molested him. Unnamed sources say that O'Connell, whose father is on the church council, learned of the charges and confronted Erickson, who killed him and his intern, University of Minnesota student Ellison.

While Erickson's parents said the evidence is "weak" and "our son had nothing to do with this awful crime"; a judge and DA considered it fairly conclusive, including a reported confession from Erickson to a deacon at the church.

Spoofer Captured by Spoof

Chris Elliott, the "man under the seats" on David Letterman's show, star of the movie "Cabin Boy" and TV series "Get a Life," and son of Bob Elliott (of "Bob and Ray") recently published his first novel--The Shroud of the Thwacker, from Miramax books. The book takes place in 1800s New York, where a serial killer is plaguing the city.

The book includes a mix of fact and fiction, with features such as wooden gas-powered cell phones and a time-traveling investigator named Chris Elliott. It also includes a Victorian-era mechanical robot named Boilerplate, which served with the Buffalo soldiers and Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish-American war.

This latter feature, which Elliott learned of from a website his brother Bob Elliott Jr. pointed him to, has resulted in a financial settlement between Elliott and graphic novelist Paul Guinan. Boilerplate, an invention of Guinan, also appears in his own book, Heartbreakers Meet Boilerplate (IDW Publishing), published in July.

Apparently Elliott thought it was a spoof, but an old, public domain spoof.

The full story is at the New York Times.

William Dembski's Obsessive Complaints of Obsession

Ed Brayton comments on the "Isaac Newton of Intelligent Design"'s crazy accusations of obsession against his critics. Dembski's latest is to accuse mathematician Jeff Shallit of being removed as a witness in the Dover trial because "his obsessiveness against me and ID made him a liability to the ACLU." Actually, Shallit did not testify because he was a rebuttal witness to Dembski, Dembski withdrew from the trial, and the defense did not use Dembski's ideas in their case.

Dembski then dug the hole deeper, stating that this couldn't be the reason. Why not? Because he withdrew before Shallit's deposition was taken. He went on to challenge the ACLU and Shallit to release a transcript of the deposition. Unfortunately for Dembski, it was the defense that took the deposition, to make sure they would be prepared in case Shallit would be used as a witness--and the deposition (at least in the preliminary, uncorrected transcript) is already a public record.

Perhaps Dembski should work on responding to his critics, rather than accusing them of stalking him.