William Dembski continues to avoid answering my detailed criticisms of his work.  Instead, he continues his personal attacks.  Ever more desperate, he now resorts to quoting anonymous e-mail messages attacking me.  I guess this is yet an…

Sorry. Too much professional wrestling. Bill “Piledriver” Dembski accuses Jeffrey Shallit of some pretty nasty stuff. Shallit responds calmly and reasonably. [...]

Isn’t that a tacit admission that they are substantive criticisms? Why would you go to the trouble to develop a whole new line of argument if the critiques were “trivial”?

Since you’re confident you’ve already “render[ed] the previous criticisms passé”, why not simply acknowledge that your opponents had made a good point and move on? You’d be the bigger man for it. I mean, did Darwin ever roll up into a defensive ball and snipe at his critics? No! He regularly gave his opponents their props for bringing up arguments that deserved a serious response. Admittedly, for his trouble Darwin ends up getting characterized by the more mendatious creationists as harboring private doubts about his theory. But I’m sure you agree that among respectable, honest scholars on both sides of the debate, Darwin has retained enormous respect after all these years for his open & gracious attitude to the debates over his theory.

I’m not familiar with the details of too many of the great scientific feuds, so I don’t know who’s the negative example to cite. All I can think of is Nixon & his enemies list. Eeew!

Jeff Shallit has issued a response on Panda’s Thumb to accusations made (in lieu of a response) by William Dembski to his criticisms of Dembski’s work. Dembski’s response to the criticism of Shallit and Wes Elsberry is pretty standard stuff…

[As I've indicated, one can answer somebody by responding directly to his/her criticisms or one can develop a new line of argument that renders the previous criticisms passé. I've adopted the latter approach to responding to Shallit in my recent papers on searching large spaces and specification (see http://www.designinference.com). As for Shallit reviewing my work if submitted to "real journals," I'm afraid that's unlikely to happen -- his area is computational number theory, mine is probability theory. I frankly doubt that he is in a position, for instance, to evaluate my paper "Searching Large Spaces." He would need to know a fair amount of functional analysis and measure theory -- certainly beyond the usual exposure of grad students in math who are not specializing in analysis/ probability theory. --WmAD]

In a recent blog entry, William Dembski alleges I am guilty of various and sundry offenses, but avoids once again answering my critiques of his work.  I doubt his smokescreen will convince anyone except the usual sycophants, but in case…

1) Your letter seems to be characterizing Shallit’s arguments and points by characterizing Shallit. I think you should attack Shallit’s arguments but not Shallit himself.

2) If Shallit’s arguments are as bad as you allude that they are, it will make your case better.

[There are three ways to respond to critics. One is to speak to the credibility of the critic -- that was my point in this post. Another is by going through their arguments point by point. I've done plenty of this on my website http://www.designinference.com -- see, for instance, my responses to Richard Wein and Allen Orr in 2002 or my response to Miller in 2003. A final way, which I find more satisfying and fruitful, is to develop and clarify one's case so that the criticisms of the past don't amount to anything anymore. I've done that with Shallit in my papers "Searching Large Spaces" and "Specification: The Pattern That Signifies Intelligence." The ball is in Shallit's court, and he has indicated that he's not going to play ball any more. To quote him again: "I do not intend to waste my time finding more errors in more work of yours." --WmAD]

I’m glad you didn’t waste time his criticisms of your work. It wasn’t worth the effort. Anyway, the paper you referenced by Elsberry and Shallit was more than adequately refuted by someone over at ISCID.

As always I look forward to reading your latest paper.