Coffee’s here!!: The Wikipedians – “a bunch of egocentric introverts”?
| July 8, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
Perish the thought. People who say such things had better roll their own party sandwiches, right?
Yet Asher Moses for The Age (July 8, 2009) advises,
a study by Israeli psychology researchers found “the prosocial behaviour apparent in Wikipedia is primarily connected to egocentric motives … which are not associated with high levels of agreeableness”.
The study, published in the journal CyberPsychology and Behaviour, gave personality tests to 69 active members of the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit and 70 non-Wikipedians, finding the former “feel more comfortable expressing themselves on the net than they do offline”.
The researchers’ findings that Wikipedians were introverted, disagreeable and closed to new ideas is at odds with the notion that Wikipedia was built around community and knowledge sharing.
Feather, please. I can’t be expected to do my pro-gravity trick without the familiar prop.
The rest of the article goes on to provide details and to vindicate Australian Wikipedians as less messed in the head than others, and we must hope it is so.
Of course, anyone familiar with the intelligent design controversy will be well aware of the waste of time associated with trying to get reasonably neutral information posted.
To me, the scandal is not that the trolls are running the ‘pedia, but that profs actually send their students there for information.
48 Responses to Coffee’s here!!: The Wikipedians – “a bunch of egocentric introverts”?
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CY:
Re: the ID article
That’s because ID isn’t the same thing as the teleological argument aka argument from design:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument
nicholas.steno (#20) wrote: “…the liberal stranglehold on wikipedia will be broken by the keen and growing competition from conservapedia.”
I sure hope that was a joke, because it’s really funny.
Here, for instance, is the entire article on “Plastic” from Conservapedia: “Plastic is a durable, (sometimes) recyclable material formed from oil that is nearly ubiquitous in American consumer products. Plastics were discovered in the mid-1900s, and entered into wide use almost as quickly.” – http://www.conservapedia.com/Plastic
Wikipedia’s “Plastic” article takes over twenty screens to display (on my monitor). Conservapedia’s two-sentence article is mostly wrong, and far from “keen.” But, yeah, there’s definitely room to grow, so you are correct that Conservapedia is “growing” – but it’s got a long way to go to catch up to Wikipedia.
CannuckianYankee (#21) wrote: “Polanyi’s irreducible mechanistic structures inspired Dr. Michael Behe’s “irreducible complexity.”
Dr. Dick Bliss’ article in the June 1994 issue of the Creation Research Society Quarterly, from which Behe’s “theory” of irreducible complexity was plagiarized, provided lots more “inspiration” to Behe. This is discussed in Matthew Chapman’s book “40 Days and 40 Nights.”
PaulBurnett,
Dr. Dick Bliss’ article in the June 1994 issue of the Creation Research Society Quarterly, from which Behe’s “theory” of irreducible complexity was plagiarized, provided lots more “inspiration” to Behe. This is discussed in Matthew Chapman’s book “40 Days and 40 Nights.”
Matthew Chapman would appear to have a new twist on an old argument – actually accusing Behe of plagiarism. I hope he can present substantial evidence for this.
As it stands, a common scheme among Darwinists is to show ID’s ties to prior arguments from creationists so as to show that ID is in-fact, simply a new form of creationism with the same old arguments.
For a refutation of that argument, go here:
http://telicthoughts.com/to-be.....eationist/
“Wikipedia’s “Plastic” article takes over twenty screens to display (on my monitor). Conservapedia’s two-sentence article is mostly wrong, and far from “keen.” But, yeah, there’s definitely room to grow, so you are correct that Conservapedia is “growing” – but it’s got a long way to go to catch up to Wikipedia.”
Agreed. BTW, I took a look at both Wiki’s articla on Baraminology and Conservapedias. I found the Conservapedia one more ballanced. It presented what Baraminology is, allowed a section on disagreements, and was rather well ballanced. Not so with Wiki. They present a very sharp almost comical negation and that is all.
It would be interesting if we took both sides of the controversy on this forum to collectively write an article presenting ID to have published on Wiki. I bet all of us collectively could do a better job than what is currently there. Such an article would need to allow the pro-side to present what ID is first, then there could be a section discussing the cons, and how ID supporters respond.
PB, it wasn’t Dick Bliss, but rather Richard D. Lumsden in an article called “Not So Blind A Watchmaker”. abstract reads:
Interesting, to say the least. Especially that final sentence.
Here’s another interesting abstract from that June ’94 issue of the Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal:
Here’s a good one June 1967:
Sounds quite familiar. As I recall, Joseph has been using a variant of this argument on a current thread here, updated with some modern genetic details. I think he may have even proposed an experiment looking to confirm the existence of this “formal cause”.
Irreducible complexity by any other name…
From 1969 (bolding mine):
Of course, it’s not really ID because he, erm, IDed the Designer.
Also from that issue, a double-shot of “common design”. Just search and replace a few bits of vocabulary mentally as you read (and excise the Scripture):
Well, that was interesting. Others can post further examples if they wish. Here’s the page for abstracts by issue:
http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/abstracts.htm
#32
sorry about that i am quite unused to these html thingies
paragraphs 1 was quoted, 2 3 4 my response
dbthomas,
“That’s because ID isn’t the same thing as the teleological argument aka argument from design:”
Sorry so late – I try to respond to everyone who responds to me, but this one sort of slipped by me.
I’m confused. Are you making an argument that ID IS a teleological argument for the existence of God?
If so, I disagree. ID is only concerned whether or not there is design, while a teleological argument takes apparent design as an argument for God’s existence.
Paley’s “Watchmaker” argument:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/paley.html
http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/paley.shtml
…is a teleological argument, but it is not quite ID. The evidence for design that ID detects supports teleological arguments, but is not itself one.
And this is part of what the Wikipedia article on ID gets wrong.
dbthomas,
BTW, ID supporters do not deny that much of ID thinking comes from creationist ideas – as you have taken time to point out. This is not surprising, since many IDists are either creationists in one sense of the word, or were creationists in the same sense or another. It’s important to distinguish one very important difference – ID does not appeal to biblical text as a test or guide for the veracity of it’s argument. ID looks only to the evidence from nature.
ID supporters for the most part don’t spend their time denegrating the ideas of creationists.
CY: OK, you kinda mistook my intent there. You were wondering why the ID article didn’t mention Plato or Aquinas and so forth. My point was that ID isn’t identical to the teleological argument in general. It certainly makes use of the basic idea, but ID also includes other arguments about the boundaries science, is characterized by a particular jargon, such as IC or CSI, which typically relies on more current knowledge, etc. By the same token, I wouldn’t say that Paley’s Natural Theology was the precisely the same thing either, because it had it’s own features, unique to its time and place of composition, that distinguished it from earlier versions of the AfD deployed by, say, Plato or Aristotle.
Here’s another thing: almost all of those historical versions, which you yourself brought up as antecedents to ID that should have been mentioned, explicitly were arguments for the existence of a deity of some sort. They weren’t just about saying “Look, that’s gotta be designed.” So, if I were an IDer, insisting that it’s not about proving God, I have to say I would not want to emphasize the connection with historical examples of the teleological argument like those you cited. I find it sort of odd that you want the Wikipedia article to do just that.
dbthomas,
“Here’s another thing: almost all of those historical versions, which you yourself brought up as antecedents to ID that should have been mentioned, explicitly were arguments for the existence of a deity of some sort. They weren’t just about saying “Look, that’s gotta be designed.” So, if I were an IDer, insisting that it’s not about proving God, I have to say I would not want to emphasize the connection with historical examples of the teleological argument like those you cited. I find it sort of odd that you want the Wikipedia article to do just that.”
I see now where the connection is. Let me clarify my thinking on this. The evidence for ID allows one to make a design inference. I don’t think ID supporters need to be embarrassed by the history of how humans have made design inferences. ID is not completely separated from that history, just as it is not completely separated from creationism.
However, as I pointed out in earlier posts, and as you have agreed, ID is not the same as a teleological argument. The teleological arguments in my view are valid, but not empirical. I believe ID is impirical.
So I think any thorough examination of ID would logically look at historical design inferences, to see how the thinking evolved into a more rigorous exploration of the evidence.
dbthomas,
Furthermore, design inferences in the past necessitated that the designer is a god or God. With more updated evidence we can see that such an assumption is not necessitated by the empirical data – while making the same inference is not at all invalid. Necessity and implication are different things altogether. Design implies God, and I think it is the most clear implication of design, but it doesn’t necessitate God. This is why I think there are a lot of agnostics and a few deists who accept ID. Antony Flew is an example of this.
We now have to accept that design inferences are metaphysically based. But metaphysical notions can have natural evidences. The danger is in ruling them out categorically – because in so doing, we forget that we are still making metaphysical assumptions.
As a theist, I have to allow others to come to their own conclusions, if I’m to be faithful to being a theist. I don’t believe God wants anybody to believe in a lie. The type of theism I accept allows that God is every bit a part of natural reality – although he is not a part of material nature – He is transcendent. As such, it is my belief that the empirical evidence will show and has shown that design is the better paradigm. But I have to allow the evidence to speak for itself, and not to force it to conform to a particular text, or interpretation of such a text.
So if somebody wants to infer that space aliens designed our biological nature via transpermia, fine; but I don’t believe that is the most parsimonious interpretation of the data due to the fact that it doesn’t sufficiently resolve the infinite regress problem.
I come to that conclusion not based on the empirical evidence, but based on my own metaphysical understanding.
You have probably noticed that I have interjected my own metaphysical understanding into my views on ID. Fine. We all do it. Darwinists interject “a god would not have designed the world as it is,” purely out of metaphysical assumptions. That is pretty much what this debate is about.
So when Darwinists come here to discuss and notice that we spend a lot of time talking about God and religion, they have to understand that we are doing what the evidence leads us to – not what we want to force on the evidence.
Wikipedia completely misunderstands this dynamic, and I think their article is intellectually shallow.
I wrote (#32) that “Conservapedia’s two-sentence article (“Plastic”) is mostly wrong…
…and nicholas.steno (#41) complained: “mostly wrong? i don’t see what is wrong with the factual content of the conservapedia article.
Thanks for that cogent observation. “Durable” is not a characteristic of all plastics; some plastics are not “formed from oil”; while plastics may be “nearly ubiquitous in American consumer products,” the audience for Wikipedia is purportedly planet-wide, not solely American. Plastics were not “discovered in the mid-1900s” but much earlier. Most of the “facts” in the two sentence “article” are wrong – or useless.
nicholas continued: “you seem to equate quantity with quality. trivial useless detail… I’m sure anyone looking at a wiki page isn’t looking for that sort of information. they just need the bare fact”
That’s the difference between a dictionary and an encyclopedia. Dictionaries can properly have a one or two sentence description. Encyclopedias are supposed to be…encyclopedic.