The plot thickens! Robin Hanson likes Expelled!

Wow, how did this happen? The brilliant Robin Hanson, though not endorsing Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, actually speaks pretty favorably of it on his blog post here:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/expelled-beats.html

Now, Robin Hanson is no lightweight. He's basically the father of prediction markets (intrade.com and such) a fellow of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford. He has formed powerful, far-reaching critiques of health care spending, the internal consistency of paternalistic policies, the possibility of disagreement between honest/rational people, and much much more. Did I mention his atheism? Check out his website:

http://hanson.gmu.edu/

Is Ben Stein onto something, or will he take down respected people with him too?

Category:

Education

Tags:

• expelled
• no
• intelligence
• allowed
• ben
• stein
• robin
• hanson
• disagreement

[MikaylaStarstuff]

So what creds does a economist, atheist or not, to give expert testimony about evolution or ID? Should we care what he say about it any more than what we care about what any ordinary joe would say?

[UbuntuMacDupe]

Robin Hanson hasn't simply studied economics; his original specialization was in artificial intelligence and software, which qualifies him to speak on the (very important) information-theoretic aspects of evolutionary theory. Combined with his ability to earn a PhD in a semi-related field, to get tenure, and to get controversial ideas published in peer-reviewed journals, puts him above a joe on the street.

[conradjulian]

Robin isn't nearly as rational as he thinks he is. He engages in special pleading for the rationality of his involvement in cryonics, when the market has consistently rejected cryonics over the past 40 years as a waste of resources with no prospect of ever working.

[MikaylaStarstuff]

Whoops, I mean the only reason evolution is controversial in the public eye (though not in scientific circles) is that it touches human origins.

[MikaylaStarstuff]

Ok, he's an above-average joe :)

If he knows what it takes to get published in a peer reviewed journal, I figure he should know about the stiff competition of ideas. If there ever was any good evidence for ID that was not just misrepresentation of evolution, then maybe it might get treated as a scientific idea. It just appears to me that the ONLY reason evolution is that it touches on human origins--and people just don't want to think that their existance is not part of some big cosmic plan.

[BobChaos23]

perhaps, but discussing artificial intelligence (which doesn't exist, and if it ever were to would have clearly had a designer...um, us) as contrasting evolution (which may or may not have a designer, though it seems more likely there was not, maybe it moves in mysterious ways) is pointless, especially as AI seems more and more like a pipe dream...but he is above "joe on the street"

[busymartian]

Robin Hanson is retarded.