Talk:Dawkins could not give an example of increasing information
From EvoWiki
I believe that it is not unjustified to claim that Dawkins had been "systematically lied to" by the Creationists who put together that bogus 'interview'. Here is what Dawkins himself has to say on the subject: "In September 1997, I allowed an Australian film crew into my house in Oxford without realising that their purpose was creationist propaganda. In the course of a suspiciously amateurish interview, they issued a truculent challenge to me to "give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome." It is the kind of question only a creationist would ask in that way, and it was at this point I tumbled to the fact that I had been duped into granting an interview to creationists - a thing I normally don't do, for good reasons." (emphasis added) As well, Dawkins states that "I had been suckered into admitting them into my house in the first place" (emphasis added). Given that the Creationists in question "suckered" and "duped" Dawkins, is it really unjustified to assert that they "systematically lied" to Dawkins?
- I personally think this is a bad set of responses merely because one of the people involved in the project claims he has recorded proof that Dawkins is lying/mistaken about his side of the story. I have no idea if it's true or not since I don't have a copy of the recording, but I'd be careful to state that Dawkins is right without viewing/hearing it first. [1] TheIncredibleEdibleOompaLoompa 22:52, 28 Aug 2005 (BST)
- Looking at their side, they just wanted an interview, and they asked for one and it was granted. Gillian Brown [2] says: "It is not customary for an interviewee to inquire into the personal views of the producer and refuse interviews to those with whom the interviewee disagrees, and in this case my personal views were not discussed, nor are they relevant." Lying is something else entirely. Dawkins considered himself "suckered" and "duped", and I bet he has been asking every interview team since then: who do you work for? Then, if they are creationists and say they are not, they are lying. For the situation at hand, "lying" is the wrong word. Now that I think about it, "false pretenses" and "deceived" don't really fit either.
- I think this is, at the outset, a misunderstanding. For Brown, an interview of a biologist by creationists is just an interview. For Dawkins, it's an attempt at getting quotes to be abused. So Brown thinks it's OK, and Dawkins thinks it's not. That's why Dawkins paused, and that's why Brown's only explanation for the pause was that he could not answer the question - she couldn't have found the real reason except by asking, and had no reason for asking. And Dawkins did not explain his reason for pausing because he thought it was clear anyway, or because in that stress situation he did not think of the possibility of the pause being misconstrued, or whatever.
- The thing stopped being a misunderstanding when AiG continued spreading the video after they knew the reason for the pause. Now it is lying. --tk (t) 09:51, 29 Aug 2005 (BST)
- I guess I can buy your explanation. I just don't think that the current responses are appropriate unless the person who wrote them is familiar with Brown's side of the story and whatever is on his recording. A better response would be something like "Examples of information increasing exist regardless of whether or not Dawkins was unable to think of one when put on the spot by creationists." TheIncredibleEdibleOompaLoompa 23:59, 29 Aug 2005 (BST)
I removed this response:
- Dawkins thought that he'd been "set up" and refused to play a sematic game with his creationist opponent. In natural science, there is no such thing as "information" and answering the question the way it was asked would have given the opposite impression.
I don't think this fits. Shannon information, measured in bits, is what DNA carries. Of course it does not have the crazy properties creationists think it has ("always has an intelligent sender"), but it's there. Strictly, any time DNA reduplicates, information increases. But that's not what a creationist wants to hear. What they really want is new features, but in Creationese this is called "increasing information". That's how Dawkins realized they were creationists. --tk (t) 09:34, 30 Aug 2005 (BST)
Missing the point altogether
I personally have a copy of the Video From a Frog to a Prince , as well as a video containing the actual unedited footage of the interview.
I will state honestly and truthfully that there is no funny business with the video from a frog to a prince at all. Just as Gillian Brown states the question was re-dubbed later using Philip Hohnen the narrator of the program as the one asking it, but the actual question itself is verbatim the question that Gillian Brown asked Dawkins off camera. You can hear Gillian's voice in the background behind the camera, and then see the infamous pause, and then after about 19 seconds, Dawkins asks for the camera to be switched off so he can think. When the camera starts rolling again, after Dawkins has gathered his thoughts, he proceeds to waffle on with all sorts of "just so" stories about what happened aeons ago, but never actually answered the question. This kind of irrelevant rhetorical gymnastics that answers the question without actual answering it, can only be rivalled by politicians who are masters of the art of verbal evasion.
Dawkins does NOT answer the question even though he was given a perfect opportunity to silence these silly "unscientific creationists" and set the record straight, once and for all, about their ignorance of countless examples of increased complexity, in an evolutionary context, in the biological record.
Instead Dawkins flounders and appears very nervous and sheepish, and yes, appears to be caught on the hop!
Anyone who views the unedited tape can see that Dawkins quite clearly cringes! It is NOT a display of anger or agression as he claims at all, it is a display of embarrassment! Just look at the very end of the tape where he is "casually" looking at books on his bookshelf in his house, he looks very nervous and sheepish.
In other words, the body language says it all!
In response to this Dawkins does not want to talk to creationists because they take him out of context bluff, is just that, bluff. The truth is, Dawkins is afraid to talk to creationists becuase they may trip him up!
You people need to stop all this arguing from a point of ignorance, and get the unedited tape for yourselves from Gillian Brown, otherwise I would be more than happy to send a copy on CD-R as a Video CD file for only those who are seriously interested.
By the way Barry Williams of the Australian skeptics, just like Dawkins himself, is a liar. They lie about the true events of the incident. As you will quite clearly see on the unedited tape. Anyways Barry Williams had not even seen the unedited tape at the time he wrote his long winded "refutation", so he was judging (or should I say condemning) Gillian Brown from a point of total ignorance of the truth, when on the other hand Gillian Brown was actually there, and asked Dawkins the question!!! Yet despite this, Barry Williams comes across as being a total expert on the subject! Amazing!!!
I don't know who put the section in about the "Falacies Contained In This Claim", but they obviously don't understand the issue at hand nor the definition of the word fallacy. Quote: "Arguement from Silence" (he was silent, so he didn't have an answer). If I asked you a question and you sat there staring in to space without a response, then after 19 seconds said, "hang on minute, while I think" and then finally proceeded to NOT answer the question with a whole lot of irrelevant verbiage, I think it would be fair to say that you were unable to answer my question, therefore you did not have an answer!.
Besides Dawkins has had stacks of time since, to clear up any misunderstanding over his ignorance of examples of increases in genetic complexity in an evolutionary context, but so far has failed to do so, but instead has offered up more of the same whitewash of the facts, and unrelated rhetoric, and "just so", "if you could have been ther x million years ago, you would have seen it happen" nonsense.
And what's with the quote: "Suppressed Evidence (cutting out of passages)? Are you implying like the liar Barry Williams that Gillian Brown and the Keziah team really doctored the tape? Well I suggest as a solution to this ignorance and false accusation on your behalf, that you view the unedited tape!
It seems some people will go to great lengths to try and discredit the opposition to try and protect the ego of their hero!
OK, I'm done. Thanks all for taking the time to read this, and I sincerely hope you will view the unedited tape for yourselves.
- In both the edited and unedited versions, I got the distinct impression that Dawkins was interviewed with the sole purpose of being made a fool of. It seems to be a great pity that the makers of the video didn't interview other experts about increasing genetic information. Then again, the producers probably only wanted to humiliate Dawkins, rather than, say, take their chances with asking a botanist about how we were able to develop domesticated wheat and rye from what should have been sterile hybrids of 4 or 6 species of wild European grasses.--Mr A. 22:57, 28 May 2006 (BST)
- Your impression of the video or your interpretation of body language is irrelevant. Rather, you should read the links. For example, in [3], Dawkins says "this was not a question that could be answered in a soundbite". It's a complex question, and you need lots of background information to understand it. Creationists expect scientists to have easy answers to everything, and if they don't, they are "waffling" or "evading". Why don't you just read Dawkins' books? Because it requires loads of time?
- "In response to this Dawkins does not want to talk to creationists because they take him out of context bluff, is just that, bluff." No, it is entirely justified. Read this [4] - there could be much more pages like this, but they require work.
- Your accusations of "lying" don't hold water. There is a discrepancy between your personal impression and what Dawkins and Williams say, so they are lying? Really? Maybe your impression is wrong, did you think of that possibility?
- "I don't know who put the section in about the "Falacies Contained In This Claim", but they obviously don't understand the issue at hand nor the definition of the word fallacy." - That was me, 14:00, 25 March 2005, as you can find out by looking at the history of the page [5].
- Sorry to disappoint you, but I do know what a fallacy is (and how to spell it, BTW). Regarding the first fallacy: Having creationists sitting in front of you and being faced with being misquoted is really not helpful in trying to think of an answer, so even if he had said nothing at all, that would not say anything about his ability in principle to answer the question. He should have thrown them out immediately.
- The "cutting out of passages" refers to one of the old responses that have been removed from EvoWiki for copyright reasons since:
- "He paused to think about how to handle them, and the change of subject occurred due to several minutes being cut out when he confronted them."
- That came from Mark Isaak's page [6]. Actually, you are partly right in that one point - some of the missing time is not even on the original video because the recorder was off. Mark Isaak has since changed that sentence in his page to:
- "He paused to think about how to handle them, and the change of subject occurred due to the several minutes when he confronted them being omitted from the video".
- I'll change the wording accordingly, but the fallacy of suppressed evidence is still there. So, thanks for finding a mistake, but no thanks for your overblown rhetorics. --tk (t) 11:24, 29 May 2006 (BST)
