Radio 4 returns to Dirk Gently

Finally an actual, useful trailer on R4: it seems that Harry Enfield is returning to play Dirk Gently in The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, the first episode of which is going out tomorrow.

Hurrah!

Yet more Dissent over Descent

Via the Guardian, here's a gem from Steve Fuller's response to AC Grayling's critique of Descent Over Design in New Humanist:

Generally speaking, ID is defended on the basis of what philosophers of science call "inference to the best explanation" for the plausibility of design over chance in nature. To be sure, the design inference has been strongly contested, but the dispute ranges over who bears the greater burden of proof: defenders of design or chance. Which general form of explanation is simpler? Intuitions have varied across history, but what comes through clearly in these debates is that some combination of chance and necessity of the sort associated with Neo-Darwinism are today presumed to be more plausible than Intelligent Design until shown otherwise.

Needless to say, Grayling has little difficulty in knocking back this embarrassing series of mistakes and misstatements:

I am, says Fuller, ignorant (sheerly so; this is the glaring deficiency in my case) of "ID's argument structure", which is - argument to the best explanation! Oh pul-eese! I ignored this bit in my review out of a kind of residual collegiality, for even among the toxicities that flow when members of the professoriate fall out, embarrassment on others" behalf is a restraint. But he asks for it. Argument to the best explanation! Look: there is a great deal we do not know about this world of ours, but what is beautiful about science is that its practitioners do not panic and say "cripes! we don't understand this, so we must grab something quick - attribute it to the intelligent designing activity of Fred (or Zeus or the Tooth Fairy or any arbitrary supernatural agency given ad hoc powers suitable to the task) because we can't at present think of a better explanation." They do not make a hasty grab for a lousy "best explanation" because they have serious thoughts about the kind of thing that can count as such. Instead of quick ad hoc fixes, they live with the open-ended nature of scientific enquiry, hypothesising and testing, trying to work things out rationally and conservatively on the basis of what is so far well-attested and secure. What looks like having a chance of being both an "explanation" and the "best" in a specific case turns on there being a well-disciplined idea of "best" for that specific case. But an hypothesis has no hope of becoming the best explanation (until a better comes along) unless it survives testing, is specific, and is consistent and conservative with respect to much else that is secure. This is a far cry from the gestural "best explanation" move that ID theorists attempt, which - and note this carefully - does not restrict itself to individual puzzles only, but applies to Life, the Universe and Everything. It has to, at risk of incoherence; and yet by doing so, it collapses into incoherence.

I don't think that Fuller's reply has done him any favours. As Wittgenstein said, in relation to verificationism but equally applicable to academic spats: whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.