Podcasts

Physicist Frank Tipler on the usefulness of refereed journals, then and now

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I really enjoyed this episode of the ID the Future podcast.

Description:

Is the only good science peer-reviewed science? Are there other avenues to present important scientific work? On this episode of ID The Future, Professor of Mathematics Dr. Frank Tipler discusses the pros and cons of peer review and refereed journals. More than fifty peer-reviewed papers discussing intelligent design have been published, but critics of the theory still proclaim a lack of peer-reviewed work as an argument. Listen in as Tipler shows how things have changed with the peer review process and what we can do about it.

About the speaker:

Frank Tipler was born and raised in Andalusia, Alabama. His first science project was a letter written in kindergarten to Werner von Braun, whose plans to launch the first earth satellite were then being publicized. Von Braun’s secretary replied, regretting he had no rocket fuel for Tipler as requested. By age five, he knew he wanted to be an astrophysicist. But he’s always been a polymath, reading widely across disciplines and into the history of science and theology. After graduating from MIT and the University of Maryland, he did postdoctoral work at Oxford and Berkeley, before arriving at Tulane in 1981.

William Lane Craig often cites a book by two physicists named “Barrow and Tipler” called “The Anthropic Cosmological Principle” (Oxford University Press, 1988) in his debates to support the fine-tuning argument.  This Tipler is that Tipler! Dr. Tipler is a master of the physics of cosmology and fine-tuning. However, I definitely disagree with him on some of his ideas.

The MP3 file is here. (17 minutes)

Topics:

  • the changing nature of refereed journals and peer-review
  • previously, the refereed journals were more about communication
  • now, ideas are not taken seriously unless they are published in these journals
  • the problem is that referees can be motivated by ideological concerns
  • before, an obscure patent official named Einstein submitted a physics paper and it was published
  • now, an uncredited person would not be able to have a brilliant paper published like that
  • today, there are so many scientists that many more papers are submitted
  • although it restricts BAD ideas, it can also end up censoring NEW ideas
  • the problem is that any really brilliant idea has to go against the prevailing consensus
  • peer-review may actually be holding back the progress of science by censoring NEW ideas
  • some referees are motivated to censor ideas that undercut their reputation and prestige
  • Dr. Tipler was told to remove references to intelligent design before one of his papers would be published
  • how scientists with NEW ideas can bypass the system of refereed journals when they are censored
  • peer-review has value when it finds errors, but not when it suppresses new ideas

I think this one is a must listen. I like to refer to peer-reviewed evidence when arguing, but it’s not perfect, for sure.

News

Is it wrong to pass incremental pro-life laws?

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I'm Scheming Unborn Baby, and I approve this decision
I’m Scheming Unborn Baby, and saving a life is a good thing

Pro-life debater Scott Klusendorf summarizes a recent debate between a pro-life incrementalist and a pro-life abolitionist. An incrementalist is a pro-lifer who wants to pass laws that save lives right now, while still working for a full ban on abortion. An abolitionist is a pro-lifer who does not want to pass laws that solve part of the problem, preferring to hold off on laws that save lives until they can get all abortions banned.

So there was a debate, and Scott watched it, and here is his review.

First, the intro:

T. Russell Hunter issued a very public challenge calling for any pro-life leader to debate him on incrementalism. Gregg Cunningham, a former member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and Executive Director of the Center for Bioethical Reform, accepted. The formal debate structure was as follows: 20-minute opening statements, 15-minute rebuttals, 15-minute cross-examination, 5-minute closing statements. An informal audience Q&A followed the formal debate.

[…]Gregg Cunningham won the formal exchange handily and he did so early by pointing out a fundamental flaw in Hunter’s argument—namely, the mistaken claim that pro-lifers have the power to end abortion immediately but won’t. Again and again, he exposed Hunter’s fallacious either/or reasoning by demonstrating that pro-lifers don’t have to choose between incremental legislation that saves some children right now or total abolition that saves all at a later time. Rather, they can advance both strategies simultaneously and save many lives in the process. Cunningham also demonstrated a superior grasp of social reform history, noting that while Wilberforce, Lincoln, and Martin-Luther King were in principle moral absolutists, in practice they functioned as strategic and tactical incrementalists—as do pro-lifers today. During cross-examination, Hunter stumbled badly when asked if those babies saved through incremental legislation should have been left to die. When he refused to give a clear answer—despite being repeatedly pressed to do so—the debate was effectively over. In short, Hunter could not preach his way to victory, even when invoking his understanding of Scripture. His claim that incrementalism is not found in the Bible was decisively refuted when Gregg cited three examples from Scripture where God dealt incrementally with His people.

I watched this video clip to get a feel for how it went down:

In the clip, Cunningham asks if the babies who are saved by incremental legislation should be allowed to die instead. He has some evidence from a law professor saying that incremental laws do save some lives, and he is asking the AHA person should we not enact these incremental laws that save the lives of unborn children.

Scott has the transcript:

GC: I’d like to return to the question with which I began, which Russ hasn’t answered. Should we allow these babies to die rather than enact incremental legislation?

TRH: No.

GC: I’m sorry?

TRH: Like, should we allow – should we allow babies to die?

GC: Should we allow these – because…

TRH: The charade is – the charade is not even what we’re talking about – the incrementalism/immediatism debate. Focusing the ax at the tree, getting all the people who follow incrementalism to become immediatists and help put that ax to the branch – to the root…

GC: Would you answer this question?

TRH & GC: [unintelligible]

Moderator: That was the last question. Russ, go ahead and answer that, and then we’re gonna end this.

GC: Just for the record, Russ didn’t answer the question: Should we have allowed these babies to die, which this university professor says would have died had that legislation not been enacted. Should we have allowed them to die rather than enact the incremental legislation?

Moderator: Okay, Russ, answer that question, then we’ll change.

TRH: Um, well, I firmly believe that abortion is evil, and it is one of these things that the powers and principalities of darkness and high places are very in to. It’s the crown jewel of darkness, and I actually believe that if they can keep abortion going by deceiving people into becoming gradualists, they will do it. And if to deceive them they have to give them empty, illusory victories, and law professors may claim that babies were saved, they’ll do it. But I – if someone goes to an abortion mill and shoots a doctor, a baby might be saved that day, but that’s not going towards abolishing abortion. It’s not establishing justice that day [unintelligible] a baby that day.

GC: May I ask for clarification for your answer? You’re saying this guy’s making this up?

TRH: Uh, no, I have to read it. But I’m just saying that convincing people to be gradualists by saying, “Hey look, we saved some,” while they’re still being – I’m pretty sure that you can convince people to be gradualists for the next 40 years…

GC: Hey Russell, let’s do both. Let’s do both. Let’s do both.

Honestly, I am not sure why anyone pays these AHA people any mind. Just judging from that one clip, I don’t think that Hunter has anything of value to say in this debate. His group seems to be more concerned with attacking other pro-lifers who actually are getting the job done than doing anything. In the real world, incremental pro-life laws save lives. To be persuasive on those incremental laws, you have to talk about the logic and science that supports the pro-life view. That will be persuasive to Christians as well as non-Christians. Building consensus for incremental pro-life laws by appealing to a bigger audience that includes non-Christians makes sense – it solves the actual problem.

News

What policies can we enact to help poor children out of poverty?

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Teacher union says no to vouchers
Teacher union says no to vouchers

Well, obviously pro-marriage policies will help – encouraging people to get married before they have children, then sticking together to raise the children. That will help.

Economist Stephen Moore has another idea, which I support.

He writes about it at the Daily Signal.

Excerpt:

The scenes of Baltimore set ablaze have many Americans thinking: What can be done to rescue families trapped in an inner-city culture of violence, despair and joblessness?

There are no easy answers, but down the road from Baltimore in Washington, D.C., an education program is giving children in poor neighborhoods a big lift up.

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which George W. Bush signed into law in 2004, has so far funded private school tuition for nearly 5,000 students, 95 percent of whom are African-American. They attend religious schools, music and arts schools, even elite college-prep schools. Last month at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, I met with about 20 parents and children who participate in the program. I also visited several of these families in their homes—which are located in some of the most beaten-down neighborhoods in the city, places that in many ways resemble the trouble spots in Baltimore.

These families have now pulled together to brace for a David vs. Goliath fight to save the program. For the seventh straight year, President Obama has proposed eliminating this relatively tiny scholarship fund, which at $20 million accounts for a microscopic 0.0005 percent of the $4 trillion federal budget.

Why would Obama want to end the program? Because if children can choose schools that don’t fail them, the teachers are the failing schools might lose their jobs. Since Obama needs the votes and the political support of the teacher unions, he cannot put the interests of the children above the interests of the unionized teachers.

More from the article:

An Education Department-funded study at the University of Arkansas recently found that graduation rates rose 21 percentage points—to 91 percent, from 70 percent—for students awarded the scholarship vouchers through a lottery, compared with a control group of those who applied for but didn’t get the scholarships. For all D.C. public schools, the high school graduation rate is closer to an abysmal 56 percent.

“If you’ve got a program that’s clearly working and helping these kids, why end it?” asks Pamela Battle, whose son Carlos received a voucher and was able to attend the elite Georgetown Day School. He’s now at Northeastern University in Boston. She says Carlos “almost surely wouldn’t have gone to college” without the voucher. “We send all this money overseas for foreign aid,” she adds, “why not save the kids here at home first?”

Well, as I said, the Democrats don’t like the law:

Amazingly, these energized parents are opposed by almost every liberal group, even the NAACP, and nearly every Democrat in Congress—including Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents the District of Columbia in Congress but opposes a program that benefits her own constituents.

There is little question what stirs this opposition. The teachers union sees the program as taking away union jobs, and it is so powerful that the Democratic establishment falls in line. “It is so sad that our public schools aren’t doing what’s best for the kids,” laments Ford, but instead are looking out for “the adults.”

[…]Obama won’t even meet with these parents. A few years ago the voucher supporters held a rally with 3,000 minority and disadvantaged families in front of the Capitol to protest President Obama’s proposed elimination of the program for all new students. Republicans in Congress, including House Speaker John Boehner, one of the program’s strongest supporters, stood in solidarity with the families, while Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues were nowhere to be seen.

So, the next time someone accuses conservatives of not caring about children, be sure and tell them the story of the D.C. voucher program. We conservatives are very much in favor of helping poor children. It’s the people on the left who are not. Don’t let your conversations with leftists be about vague things like racism and “the rich”. Bring it down to the level of details – “I support voucher programs for poor children to get out of failing schools. Do you? Why don’t your Democrat leaders support them?” Go on the attack with the facts.

By the way, read the whole post by Moore – it’s chock full of parents giving their opinion about the program, and telling stories of how vouchers worked for them. Children first, adults second. That has to be our rule.