Monday, May 14, 2007
Dembski Draws Back
William Dembski recently published a post on his Uncommon Descent blog asserting that "a friend" in Australia claimed an ISI publication search turned up only three publications and three citations for Richard Dawkins.
Naturally, Dembski passed along this rather counter-intuitive finding without actually checking for himself.
Now he's had to take it back, admitting that "another acquaintance just emailed me that he did a search on ISI and came up with 104 publications for Dawkins cited 2174 times."
"However much I may despise what Dawkins stands for,"writes Dembski now, "my initial impulse to believe the worst about the man with regard to his publication record was wrong."
Perhaps Dembski might now re-examine his initial impulse about evolution by taking a look at the evidence. Perhaps a simple lesson in the mysterious ways of search engines might be an excellent way to start. Once that daunting task has been mastered, Dembski might go on to take the step of relying less on friends, acquaintances, and pastors, and more on the evidence before his eyes.
Naturally, Dembski passed along this rather counter-intuitive finding without actually checking for himself.
Now he's had to take it back, admitting that "another acquaintance just emailed me that he did a search on ISI and came up with 104 publications for Dawkins cited 2174 times."
"However much I may despise what Dawkins stands for,"writes Dembski now, "my initial impulse to believe the worst about the man with regard to his publication record was wrong."
Perhaps Dembski might now re-examine his initial impulse about evolution by taking a look at the evidence. Perhaps a simple lesson in the mysterious ways of search engines might be an excellent way to start. Once that daunting task has been mastered, Dembski might go on to take the step of relying less on friends, acquaintances, and pastors, and more on the evidence before his eyes.
