Nov 13, 2005

what we've come to expect from William A. Dembski

Another Update [ed. note: minor spelling error fixed]

I've moved this update to the top because Dembski is too amazing, too stupefying. Now, going beyond deleting others' comments, Dembski has deleted old posts on his blog, claiming they were a bit of "street theater."

In the posts in question--Shallit Yet Again and Shallit Yet Again - P.S.--Dembski engaged in speculation that was shot down by Ed Brayton (see below). Instead of admitting that he was factually in error, Dembski changed tactics, saying that they were some kind of game or joke, and tried to erase the evidence.

That is classic dishonesty. To call it "intellectual dishonesty" would be an insult to intellectuals.



(As an aside, Ed's other prediction is being fulfilled by Dembski's commentators.)


The Original Entry

I had to stop reading Dembski's blog, since it was bad for my blood pressure. Ed Brayton, though, kept slogging through the crap that Dembski flung about the Dover trial, and why Jeffrey Shallit never testified. Dembski had claimed that the ACLU withdrew Shallit because he was an "embarrassment." There was one small problem: this was wrong, obviously wrong, embarrassingly wrong.
Having posted that, I then placed the odds of Dembski actually admitting that he was wrong about this at being well beyond the "universal probability boundary" that he places at 1 x 10^150. A few people wanted to place one penny bets at those odds, but it appears I was right. Here is his latest post on the subject and he continues to get virtually everything wrong in this situation. And much to no one's surprise, he continues to refuse to admit he was wrong and tries to change the subject....
Read the whole thing--but only if you have an automatic external defibrillator handy.

Update: It gets worse.

2 comments:

mynym said...

I've moved this update to the top because Dembski is too amazing, too stupefying. Now, going beyond deleting others' comments, Dembski has deleted old posts on his blog, claiming they were a bit of "street theater."

He's already written about his view of the internet lacking the permanency of books. So he tests out his ideas and so on, on it. Two words: Google cache

Jim Anderson said...

Six words: Already done. Note the links provided.

(As the cache is itself impermanent, I've saved copies.)

When you make bald-faced claims about someone--calling him an "embarrassment"--and then delete your posts as if they never happened, you are artificially creating the impermanence of the internet. You're a coward covering your tracks because you've made an ass of yourself.

In the comments, Dembski snapped at others for not having their facts straight. So you can add hypocrisy to his list of faults.