| Subject: Necessary |
Author:
Damoclese
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Date Posted: 04/ 7/05 7:20am
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "Are they really what?" on 04/ 6/05 8:56pm
>>
>>Except that life isn't a watch.
>
>No, but the same basic principles still apply (e.g.
>the explanatory filter). If the watch began to exist
>and the currents of nature are not reasonably capable
>of creating a watch, intelligent design is the most
>rational explanation. If life on Earth began to exist
>and the currents of nature are not reasonably capable
>of creating it, then intelligent design is the most
>rational explanation.
The problem is that the "currents of nature" is a humongous ocean of which we've only begun to explore.
This reasoning is a little faulty too, because there is a middle ground wherein the currents of nature HERE could theoretically be inadequate, but elsewhere they might be just right.
>
>I only know the basics. For more mathematical and
>technical detail feel free to read The Design
>Inference by William Dembski.
>
>Basically it works like this:
>
>{Start}
> |
>[HP?]-->Yes-->{Law}
> |
> NO
> |
>[IP?]-->Yes-->{Chance}
> |
> NO
> |
>[sp/SP]-->Yes-->{Design}
> |
> NO
> |
>{Chance}
>
>The explanatory filter attempts to discern the cause
>for event E. In short, it asks three questions: does
>Law explain it? Does Chance explain it? If neither,
>then design is chosen. To start off with, the filter
>asks if event E is highly probable (HP). HP means
>that given certain antecedent conditions, event E will
>always or practically always happen. If yes for HP,
>then “law” is the explanation. Any event the result
>of physical laws will of course stop here. If law
>does not explain it, we go down to intermediate
>probability (IP). If the event E can be expected to
>occur by chance under ordinary circumstances, then it
>stops here and “chance” is the explanation chosen.
>Rolling snake eyes with a pair of fair dice is an IP
>event. A person winning the lottery (once we factor
>in other people playing) is also an IP event. Next we
>get into the sp/SP (specification/small probability)
>node. We must also ask if it meets the specification
>criterion. If so, then “design” is chosen. What is
>the specification? Dembski explains it:
This sounds a little like the old "lord, liar, or lunatic" argument couched in quasi-psychological terms.
Attributional thinking, I'm sorry to say, is not quite as simple as Dembski seems to think it is. In fact, this sounds a lot like something Dembski pulled out of his ass rather than something that was shown to be true through research. Where did he find that this is, indeed, a style of thinking people actually go through when they make choices?
>
>
>The problem is that the exceeding improbability is by
>itself not enough to preclude something from happening
>by chance.
>
>Invariably, what is needed to eliminate chance is that
>the event in question conform to a pattern. Not just
>any pattern will do, however. Some patterns can
>legitimately be employed to eliminate chance whereas
>others cannot.
>
>A bit of terminology will prove helpful here. The
>"good" patterns will be called specifications.
>Specifications are the non-ad hoc patterns that
>can legitimately be used to eliminate chance and
>warrant a design inference. In contrast, the "bad"
>patterns may be called fabrications.
>Fabrications are the ad hoc patterns that
>cannot legitimately be used to eliminate chance.
>
>For instance, suppose someone says they’re about to do
>a trick with a deck of cards. After shuffling, every
>card in the deck is ordered from ace to King, the
>suits in alphabetical order. The specification
>criterion has passed, and you can rationally attribute
>design. If however the order is something like: 9 of
>diamonds, King of Clubs, 2 of hearts, 7 of hearts… the
>specification criterion has not passed. And you can
>probably attribute chance to the shuffled deck and
>conclude no special trick was done.
This is a really shoddy model. If a deck of cards was in alphabetical order the fact of the matter is that there is absolutely no way to choose between chance and design because both are capable of providing the end result. We can be SUSPICIOUS because the person with the deck of cards might be a magician and the fact that he wanted to show us a card trick might make us more suspicious that he set it up that way because he's a magician. It doesn't have anything to do with the ORDER of the cards themselves because we can't draw any conclusion based on the order of the cards by themselves. Rather, it's all the extraneous information and the SITUATION (that's out of real attributional research) that cause us to think that maybe something is a bit askew.
>
>The basic logic of the explanatory filter is hard to
>argue with.
(I guess it would be when you make something up that hasn't been verified)
Indeed, it is merely a representation of
>what is commonly done and how copyright offices
>identify theft of intellectual property; how forensic
>scientists deduce the cause of death (natural causes,
>accident, or murder); how the SETI (search for
>extraterrestrial intelligence) works; and how
>statisticians and computer scientists distinguish
>between random and non-random strings of digits.
I guess he did some experiments to confirm this. Lemme help out here, NO he didn't, because attributional thinking is a bit more involved that juggling between three choices. Those three choices may be the OUTCOMES of some very seriously complicated attributional thinking, but it's those complications and the situations that make all the difference, not some silly fill in the blank three choice test.
>Nobody denies that if the event of life on Earth is a
>trillion to one shot (by chance), it was probably
>designed.
uhhh....Yes they do.
The real disputable point is whether or not
>the explanatory filter legitimately concludes design.
No, the real disputable point is how Dembski makes stuff up.
>After all, if law or chance adequately explain life on
>Earth, ID theory is falsified.
One would hope, but one would probably be shown to be wrong I suspect.
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