Title Author Date

Your article on Dembski's comments Shokooh, Arsalan Aug 21, 2005

Dear Dr. Perakh,

I read your counterattack against William Dembski's unwarranted and
malicious personal remarks about you. You are, in the opinions of many
well respected scientists and many other reasonable people, a
qualified and established scientist. Their opinions about you count,
but not that of Dembski. His is worthless.

In the past few months I have read numerous philosophical, logical,
scientific, and mathematical books and articles that have focused on
various parts of ID and mercilessly shown its fundamental weaknesses,
irreparable inconsistencies, and nonsensical claims. You have your
fair share of exposing the rubbish involved in ID folks' claims. I
started reading ID and arguments against ID with an open mind even
though I view all metaphysical claims very skeptically. Three things
made me get disgusted with ID:

1. To a challenge to a dubious claim by Dembski, he (Dembski) replies
"Prove me wrong." This is not arrogance, it is childish. Only feeble
minds reply this way.
2. The ID assumes the old and discredited first cause argument. The
logical inconsistency involved in such a claim was established long
time ago.
3. His designer, even if we assume it exists, is by no means a
creator, it is simply an architect. Even if we take the incredibly
long leap from a designer to a creator, it is by no means clear that
it is the Christian God, an entity with a woman, a son and holey
ghosts (whatever that is) all put together (now, that would be an
interesting design).

Comparing Dembski with Newton? Newton stood on the shoulders of
giants. On whose shoulders is Dembski standing? And even though
Newton's conjectures were shown to be false, no one shed a tear and he
did not loose his preeminence. His conjectures were based on
observations interjected with profound insights, and they were put to
exceedingly rigorous tests from the very beginning. Is ID conjecture
going the same route, or is it demanding faith in its claim to
correctness? From what I see, the latter is the path it is taking.

You have stated that Dembski has many talents. I disagree. In my
opinion he is an incompetent and naive thinker. The claims and
assertions of a scientist or mathematician who contradicts himself
within a couple of pages are not worth the paper the stuff is written
on.

You have done a great job in both exposing Dembski's nonsense and
bringing together highly readable and sophisticated books and articles
that collectively demolish every claim and inference he makes. For
your incomparable efforts and insight you have rightly earned the
gratitude of many people. I hope Dembski's utterances will not prevent
you from writing about his rubbish. Perhaps his remarks were intended
to discourage you from further attacking his claims. That should not
deter you. You have got a job to do regardless of what he thinks.

Best and most thankful regards,

Aris

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