In 1996, Physics professor, Alan Sokal tried to see if “a leading journal of cultural studies would publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions?” It did.

Here is a challenge - I think it would be fairly easy for a life-science professor to write a deliberately nonsensical hoax article in defense of Intelligent Design and get it published in the Sunday Times (UK or US!) - then publish a dissection of it elsewhere, in the manner of Sokal.

Every time I come back to the UK and pick up the Sunday Times (UK) it gets worse but this week’s Bryan Appleyard piece was an absolute classic.

The setup is now common - place Intelligent Design as a balance to Darwinism and assume that by being somewhere in the middle you are being balanced and reasonable, then lecture about the subject using half understood metaphors and buzzwords.

This is what Appleyard has to say about evolution:

“The co-decipherer of DNA, Francis Crick, for example, once defined the

New Scientist Premium- Evolution: Blink and you’ll miss it - Features

“commercial fishermen use large-meshed nets to spare smaller fish… working on the principle that by reducing their haul this way, they can keep fish populations vigorous and healthy. But they could be making a terrible mistake. It is becoming increasingly clear that such well-meaning strategies may actually have the opposite effect to what the fishermen intend.”

‘Intelligent Design’ in the Schools (washingtonpost.com):

“Many school boards are arguing about whether to include “intelligent design” in their curriculums, The Post’s editorial said. If they are serious, the appropriate way is not to have scientists trying to discuss intelligent design in classes such as biology or physics…As the editorial said, such discussion is legitimate, however, in a history or philosophy class.”

Ford said - ‘history is bunk’. If you can relegate discussion of meaningless nonsense away from science to philosophy and history classes, then you prove him right.

(Oscar Wilde described fox hunting as the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable. My dad always describes philosophy as the unintelligible in pursuit of the unanswerable.)

A Pennsylvania school district has decided that alternative theories to Darwinism must be taught, including Intelligent Design.

Since there is no evidence for Intelligent Design (it is a hypothesis not a theory), then presumably other ‘theories’ that are backed by no evidence are equally valid examples to teach.

One such theory, as pointed out by Richard Dawkins and held by a certain African tribe is the much more logical creation theory that the earth, the whole thing including the brown stuff under our feet that looks like crap, is actually crap - created from eons of termite defecation.

The problem with arguing with Creationists and the like is that it is not worth it and no fun. Who can be bothered to read through 5 pages of futile debate?

If someone persists in holding a view that they try and defend in quasi scientific terms, despite overwhelming contradictory evidence, then it isn’t likely that rational argument will change anything. A better challenge is to argue against irrational belief from that very standpoint.

In order to do this for evolution I have invented the notion of ‘Spiritual Darwinism’ a spiritual challenge to Creationism much as Intelligent Design is an attempt at a scientific challenge to Darwinism. Now you can use religious debating techniques:

Creationist: Blah blah blah - goes on for ages.

Spiritual Darwinist: You are wrong.

Creationist: Prove it.

Spiritual Darwinist: God spoke to me and told me that you are wrong.

Creationist: No he didn’t.

Spiritual Darwinist: You do not respect my faith - and you are wrong. Lucky for you that we Spiritual Darwinists do not burn heretics.

In 1848, in Georgia, it was illegal to teach a black person to read. Two years ago it was illegal to teach women in Afghanistan. Today Georgia is considering banning the word evolution from its school text books, making it illegal to fully educate anyone.

Decisions in Texas next week over school textbooks could change the way the that science is taught in many US states.

“Holt, Rinehart & Winston has submitted a change that directs students to “study hypotheses for the origin of life that are alternatives” to the others in the book. Students also are encouraged to research alternative theories on the Internet.”

Seattle think tank behind Texas textbook challenge / Northwest -The Olympian

Jeff Jarvis on why consolidated media depends on professionals to uphold the truth whereas decentralized media powered by enough amateurs leads to the truth automatically.

There is something reassuring about the democracy of many to many publishing. If you are a capitalist then this is a what you could call a marketplace, if you are socialist then this is power to the people and if you are a libertarian then this is, well, libertarian.

Microdoc picks up on the same problem of lack of diversity within networks, outlined in my last post. Microdoc: Email, Google, Microsoft and the Lack of Diversity

If this threat is real - and I believe it is, I also think that it can be modeled so that notional danger thresholds can be set for when the code in any one market varies by less than a certain percentage.

The danger threshold would fluctuate over time according to two variables: the density (degree of connectedness - of machines connected to the Internet , not links within the Internet - which being one directional would reduce this factor by a half) and trends in viral activity (i.e. the amount of malicious code).

In order to provide provable evidence and monitor results an industry independent organization could provide empirical evidence and suggest anti-trust measures to protect against the specific dangers of the combination of homogeneity and connectedness within networks.

Interesting empirical study of rules of meme spreading from looking at weblog postings, from the excellent Microdoc News. via Doc Searls

“Rarely can an individual blogger get a story going.”

“The best blog stories are those that are branded with a word or phrase that is highly identifiable with that story.”

“The stories that get going are not usually subject specific blogs but stories that cut across all interests of the blogging community.”

“When bloggers action is not requested, most often stories get up and running for longer.”

“Perhaps the last conclusion we came to in this study is that blogs cannot be read in isolation from each other. Blog stories are understood and appreciated in aggregate and not in isolation. On the other hand, mainstream media stories tend to be read in isolation rather than read and compared. ”

Microdoc News: Dynamics of a Blogosphere Story