Comments on: Dembski’s teaching method

By: Dembski’s latest paper – stillborn, alas. « a simple prop

Dembski’s latest paper – stillborn, alas. « a simple prop — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 19:11:42 +0000

[...] quibblings and thus shutting the comments off.” This is somewhat ironic for a professor who sends his students onto the internet to drive-by comment on sites that oppose ID. For Dembski, valid criticisms are [...]

By: Is Bill Dembski Using Students as Foot Soldiers? - Science and Religion Today

Is Bill Dembski Using Students as Foot Soldiers? - Science and Religion Today — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:12:28 +0000

[...] 3,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade).” As John Lynch notes, the problem “isn’t that Dembski is encouraging students to post on ‘hostile’ [...]

By: J-Dog

J-Dog — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:32:48 +0000

How many times do you have to post for Dembski before you get one of them there cool sweaters?

By: DLC

DLC — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:51:51 +0000

Back in the day, I had an instructor who insisted that each person join a specific newsgroup and post 1 reply per week to a topic. However, the idea here was to get the students answering questions on the newsgroup to broaden their problem-solving skills. The post had to be in response to one put out by another member and not simply copied and pasted out of a text or web page.
But Dembski does not require actual discussion, just drive-by posting.

By: Norm

Norm — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:47:08 +0000

I think he’s not training them to be trolls as much as he’s training them to be “Soldiers for Jesus”. That’s why he doesn’t care if his students engage in any dialogue; their job is simply to get the good word out into the “hostile” blogosphere.

By: Wes

Wes — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:13:16 +0000

As far as I can tell, Dembski appears to be training his students to be trolls. But the trolling isn’t the worst part of his curriculum. The part that really makes my jaw drop is his “critical thinking” course:

Course Description:
How do we get people to believe things? This course examines the means by which we
convince ourselves and others that something is true. Of special interest here are the
pitfalls to logical thinking that prevent us from coming to the truth.
Course Objective:
The goal of this course is to help students become adept at making a persuasive case for
the truth of the Christian worldview.

http://www.designinference.com/teaching/2007_spring_crit_thinking/syllabus_crit_thnk_spr07_SWBTS_5373A.pdf

[The following questions is worth 50 points. Answer it in 500 words or less.]
13. You are the head of a large public relations firm in New York. A consortium of Christian
businessmen and foundations is fed up with the godlessness of our society and approaches
you to run a “rhetorical campaign” to make Christianity and its moral values credible again
to the wider culture. You have $100,000,000 a year for five years to make the campaign
work (i.e., half a billion dollars total over five years). What programs are you going to
institute and how are you going to allocate that money to restore Christianity as a credible
world view? What objectives could you realistically hope to accomplish? [Example of a
zero-credit answer: give all the money to the ACLU or to the UN.]

http://www.designinference.com/teaching/2007_spring_crit_thinking/Final_Exam_PHREL_5373A_Spr07.pdf

At Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, “Critical Thinking” means exercises in how to conduct an effective PR campaign.

By: John M. Lynch

John M. Lynch — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:21:48 +0000

Actually James, if you repeat that a further 666 times, you’ll have more or less reproduced the output of the DI, though you should perhaps throw in a “Darwin is Hitler” every now and then just to spice things up.

By: James

James — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:12:15 +0000

ID is science.

Okay, only 9 more posts and 1,997 words to go…

By: The Ridger

The Ridger — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:48:01 +0000

Yes indeed: post AND respond

By: Lewis Thomason

Lewis Thomason — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:41:02 +0000

I have always wanted to have a Phd to tack onto my name,but have been to lazy and not smart enough to earn one. Thank jebuss that I now have a chance. Thank you Bill.

Look for my ignorant ravings to be showing up soon.