Madison? Brandeis?

Questioning the very basis of the current scientific viewpoint, i.e. the uniformitarity of phenomena.

Look � Darwin�s theory is open at one end since there are no plausible account for the origins of life.

If there are no plausible accounts, that would leave Intelligent Design out as well, no? It all depends on your definition of plausible. Berlinski would demand that any theory that explains life spring fully formed into view, accounting for every facet of biological existence, from origin to present, and from the micro realm of cellular structure to the macro level of the distribution of species.

The silliness of his position is that he believes ID can do this. ID is just an appeal to magic. An appeal to the designer explains nothing, since the designer's intentions cannot be queried. He is fond of asking the why questions of evolution - why does one species of fish spawn in freshwater while a related species spawns in saltwater? Why do some species exhibit odd behavior, ie a species of spider where the male is cannibalized by the female after mating? Ascribing these scenarios to the action of a designer adds no clarity, because the why questions are still there, but phrased differently: why did the designer make one species of fish spawn in freshwater while he designed a related species that spawned in seawater?

Unless and until intelligent design can be formalized as a scientific concept, with a rigorous definition of its terms, then it is right for scientific journals to bar its intrusion. Should mathematical journals accept articles on numerology? Should astronomical journals accept articles on astrology?

Robert:

Yes, it does. ID and Darwinism fail for all the same reasons.

Robert:

I thought we'd be hearing from you on this one. Some writers are just too hard to ignore, aren't they?

I'm quite sure Berlinski has written that he does not have scientific answers to these questions, so can you please provide a source for your claim that "The silliness of his position is that he believes ID can do this."

Mr. Duquette starts by quoting this sentence:

"Look � Darwin�s theory is open at one end since there are no plausible account for the origins of life."

And then takes it as an endorsement of ID, which is something that Berlinski does not do, in this article, or in his other articles that I have read.

More to the point I think the last clause of the sentence should be read:

there are no plausible account[s] for the origins of life [, within Darwin's theory].

At which point the sentence is pure attack.

BTW: OJ how did you post this an hour and 4 minutes before I sent it to you?

I must have been prophetic when I wrote this yesterday, invoking the straw-man of Astrology in reference to Berlinski's usual, ignorable rants against Darwinism. Hours later, while browsing through the new book section of the library, I came across this gem, Berlinski's latest book entitled The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky: Astrology and the Art of Prediction. The editorial review by Publisher's Weekly says all you need to know about Berlinski and his views on science, Darwinian or otherwise:

Spanning the development of astrology from Sumerian origins to Nazi court astrologers, Berlinski's ruminative but shallow history seeks to rescue it from what he sees as the misconceived derision of modern science. The author of A Tour of the Calculus remains coyly agnostic about astrology's validity. He calls it a "finely geared tool for the resolution of practical problems" and cites many successful predictions and a statistical study supposedly verifying the "Mars effect" on athletic talent, but when faced with the incoherent, metaphorical techniques by which astrologers interpret their charts, he can only shrug that since smart people used to listen to astrologers, there must be something to it. If not rational, Berlinski argues that astrology is at least "rationalistic," in that "the peculiar nature of astrological thought has returned in all the sciences, in disguised form." Unfortunately, this provocative point is made through facile comparisons-medieval notions of heavenly "influences" anticipate Newtonian mechanics, electromagnetism and sociobiology, for example, while 15th-century medical astrological charts are "the forerunner of such diagnostic devices as CAT scans"-that illuminate neither ancient nor modern thought. Physicists will object to Berlinski's contention that they account for "action at a distance" no better than astrologers do, while philosophers will blanch at his superficial take on the conundrums of causality and determinism. No more edifying are the self-consciously literary vignettes (the dying Copernicus "took his breath in long, slow, wet, ragged gasps, a bubble of pale phlegm forming on his lips") with which Berlinski "humanizes" this intellectual history. Readers looking for real intellectual meat behind the author's ostentatious erudition and metaphysical pseudo-profundities will go hungry.

The prosecution rests.

Robert:

You should get out more, Astrology is obviously a precursor of modern science, as was Alchemy, which Newton spent more time on than physics. Indeed, it's both an obvious question whether science would be as advanced as it is today absent these superstitious pursuits and why people like you think Darwinism differs from Astrology and Alchemy.

Robert:

Mr. Prosecutor: Your attempt to convict the accused of robbery is interesting, although fraught with hearsay, circumstantial evidence and completely biased witnesses. Your main problem, though, is that you seem to have forgotten that you charged him with murder.

The charge is, and always has been, quackery in the first degree, and aggravated ignorability.

OJ, if Darwinism were like Astrology then Berlinski would be defending it.

His grandson will be.

Robert:

So disappointing.

"OJ, if Darwinism were like Astrology then Berlinski would be defending it."

and yet Berlinski does not. Could it be that Darwinism is less factual and rational than Astrology?

Robert S,
More likely Berlinski is a closet science-o-phobe. He's a Romantic who favors the more spiritualized "truths" of religion and the arcane arts of old. He worries about the disenchanting effects of empirical science, and wants to preserve some room for the modern mind to believe in the supernatural workings of the pre-modern imagination.

Robert D.:

He'sw defending your predecessors, those who believed in what we now know to be nonsense for what were perfectly understandable reasons at the times.

Except that he doesn't agree that it is nonsense now. He thinks that there really is something to it.

There's obviously "something" to it. The sun and moon certainly influence people.

Your mind knows no boundaries!

PZ Myers at pharyngula.org demolishes Berlinski's pretensions to know anything about biology.

Berlinski tried to reply but put his foot in it.

Orrin is half-right about the place of astrology and alchemy. They were actual precursors to science by inspiring people to acquire a lot of data that they could not make head or tail out of -- though they invented heads and tails, cut to fit. As Edwards Deming used to say, you've got to have a theory. If you don't have a theory, how do you know when you're wrong?

Anyhow, they were no necessary precursors. The scientific approach could have been conceived of earlier (and must have been by individuals, though it was only in western Europe around 1600 that people began thinking explicitly about how they thought). In that case, astrology and alchemy would have had, from the beginning, about the status that santeria medicine has with most people today -- very low.

That alchemy and astrology coexisted so long with RECEIVED TRUTH is a pretty telling commentary on RECEIVED TRUTH.

Harry:

What is the comment?