Michael Egnor

A while ago Larry Moran at Sandwalk asked:

Let’s stop the whining about how “know-nothing” atheists are ignoring the very best arguments for the existence of God. Come on, all you theists and accommodationists, put your money where your mouth is. Give us something of substance instead of hiding behind The Courtier’s Reply. Let’s see the angels…I’m betting that [theists] haven’t the foggiest notion of any new and sophisticated arguments for the existence of God that the New Atheists haven’t already addressed. I’m betting they’re just blowing smoke in order to provide cover for their theist friends in the hope of saving them from intellectual embarrassment.

Moran got 551 comments. Not one argument for theism satisfied him:

I shouldn’t drink my morning coffee while reading P.Z. Myers. I almost choked. Myers, avant garde of the cult of atheism, commented on Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell’s observation that the First Amendment contains no phrase “separation of church and state.”
Myers:

Larry Moran has a post on Royce Murray’s editorial in the journal Analytical Chemistry titled, “Science Blogs and Caveat Emptor.” Murray, a highly respected scientist, bemoans the unedited candor of science bloggers:

It seems that climate scientists aren’t just nasty and unprofessional in emails. Dr. Andrew Watson, a leading climate scientist from the scandal-plagued School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, appeared December 4th on BBC’s Newsnight program with global warming skeptic Marc Morano. Morano, who runs the superb Climate Depot site, took Watson to task for his denial of the scandal that has rocked the Climate Research Unit at Watson’s university. Watson, who bears an amusing resemblance to Richard Dawkins, clearly was not accustomed to vigorous questions from his lessers, and appeared angry, defensive, and arrogant. At the close of the interview, after telling Mornao to “shut up” and still on live television, Professor Watson commented “What an Read More ›

Editor’s Note: Dec. 20 was the 4th anniversary of the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision banning the mention of intelligent design in Dover, Pennsylvania classrooms.

Prominent philosopher and legal scholar Thomas Nagel, an atheist, endorses an argument that is obvious: if the argument against intelligent design in biology (Darwinism) counts as a scientific argument, then the argument for intelligent design in biology must count as a scientific argument, because the two differing conclusions are just the negative and affirmative denouement of the same argument. That is of course not to say that one or the other argument about design is true; it is merely to say the obvious: that for either to be true, the question of intelligent design must be a scientific question.

Nagel applies this self-evident observation to the teaching of evolution in schools:

Pour yourself some hot cider, and enjoy some music for the season:link

Some very prominent members of the American Physical Society are circulating an email asking the Society to withdraw a position statement adopted on 2007 that supported the theory of global warming. It’s a powerful statement by leading physicists who are obviously furious about the ClimateGate fraud and about the impact it will have on science. Compare this statement to the cowardly and arrogant editorial in Nature and to the spinning of this transparent fraud by faux pro-science journalists and blogs.

Note that the authors of the email have tried to get the APS management to withdraw the 2007 statement supporting global warming theory because it was based on the fraudulent science. They were unsuccessful, and the APS management has also refused to bring the issue to the membership. Establishment science is circling the wagons to protect this fraud.

Ethical scientists are mortified by the scientific misconduct and fraud in climate science; the question is: are there enough ethical scientists to bring integrity back to science? These courageous folks are trying very hard. I hope they succeed.

The email:

Round-up of some recent noteworthy articles on ClimateGate:

Sheril Kirshenbaum, who blogs at Chris Mooney’s blog Intersection, seems to have an better understanding of the ramifications of the ClimateGate fraud than Mooney does. This fraud will unravel the global warming hoax in short order (public opinion was moving against it even before ClimateGate), and it will likely lead to a civil war within science, pitting scientists who adhere to high standards of integrity against opportunists and ideologues who use science for their own purposes.

But Kirshenbaum gets the problem and the solution completely wrong.

Her post:

Post modernism is creeping into science. The bizarre rationalizations for the self-admitted scientific fraud perpetrated in the ClimateGate scandal are a radical departure from traditional scientific standards. Scientists are rushing to defend the indefensible: manipulating data, faking data, destroying data to prevent examination by other scientists, and conspiring to take control of peer review to advance a particular scientific theory. All of these acts constitute gross scientific misconduct, and several decades ago commission of any of these transgressions would have ended a scientific career. No so any more. The leading scientific journal Nature has defended all of these scientific crimes by asserting that these scientists were under stress, and the Nature editors have made the bizarre claim that evidence for Read More ›