Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 04/10/05 12:36pm
In reply to:
Damoclese
's message, "A baloney filter" on 04/ 9/05 6:07pm
>>Sounds good on the surface, but how well does that
>>objection work really? Suppose for instance I claim a
>>watch in the desert came about through the currents of
>>nature. Appealing to the “humongous ocean” argument
>>isn’t going to be plausible. At some point we can
>>reasonably say artificial intervention is probably
>>necessary.
>
>Not really. As I've stated a million times before, the
>only reason we know the watch was designed is because
>we know that watches ARE designed by people, and we've
>seen a bunch of them and realize that PEOPLE produce
>them. That is why we can infer a watch was created.
That's not the only reason. We also believe the currents of nature are not reasonably capable of producing them. We know ice can be made by people too, but we don't always appeal to design to make ice because nature can make it too.
And note this can carry some problems with organic evolution. After all, we have seen human scientists make DNA, RNA, AMP etc. from scratch but haven't seen nature (outside of the cell of course) do it; instead we've got a number of nasty problems for the naturalistic scenario.
>If
>one just showed up in the soil one day and we had
>NEVER seen a watch, or the parts that make up a watch,
>we wouldn't know if it had been designed or if this
>watch occurernce was something that nature produced
>once upon a time
William Paley would disagree, and I think Paley would be right. Even if our culture had never invented a watch and yet one was found in the desert, we would almost certainly conclude it was designed (though it may have to be opened up and examined to make a reasonable conclusion; just as ID theorists do with life).
>>One problem I’ve noticed with such arguments is that
>>they’re too vague and strained (reminds me of some
>>old-school creationist arguments). We can after all
>>legitimately detect design; it’s done all the time in
>>and out of science. Strained arguments like appealing
>>to natural processes not yet discovered can also be
>>applied to the Rosetta Stone.
>
>When we infer design, we do it with reference points
>that we know humans CAN design.
Among other things, that is sometimes the case yes. But then what does that say about some aspects of life (remember what I said about abiogenesis)?
>>No middle ground: if the currents of nature at the
>>primitive earth were capable of producing life, then
>>they were capable of producing life. The currents of
>>nature “here” hardly makes sense, since the laws five
>>billion years ago still hold today, and we can
>>empirically test combinations of those laws today.
>
>You misunderstood. Just because the conditions on
>EARTH aren't capable of producing life on their own
>(in theory) does not mean that the conditions
>ELSEWHERE in the universe weren't capable of producing
>life.
But we're not talking about life elsewhere, we're talking about life on Earth. And even so, we still don't have any naturalistic means to overcome the known chemical problems and naturally produce life.
>>>This sounds a little like the old "lord, liar, or
>>>lunatic" argument couched in quasi-psychological
>>>terms.
>>
>>Given the premises from which it started from, the
>>“lord, liar, or lunatic” is actually quite valid. And
>>in any case, you still haven’t shown anything wrong
>>with the explanatory filter.
>
>Being valid doesn't make it true
True, but the point is the same. The premise of explanatory filter is that event E began to exist (which is true by definition) and the inputs are correct. You haven’t shown why it can’t give valid outputs.
>The explanatory filter is a childishly
>simple model that leaves the concept of the
>"situation" out of the calculation of the attriubtion,
>and thereby makes it incomplete; after all, we don't
>form attributions in a vacuum. So integral is the
>situation that to leave it out is to make the model
>worthless.
I don't see how. True, it doesn't calculate the inputs per se, but that doesn't imply that given correct inputs it's not a valid, rational means for detecting design. Again, you still haven't shown what's wrong with its validity.
>>Then maybe you should read The Design
>>Inference, which successfully passed through heavy
>>peer review before being published.
>
>Obviously, the crowd that "heavily reviewed it" did
>not contain members who were academically astute
>enough to point out this mistake that any intro
>psychology student could have highlighted.
What mistake? And what would it have to do with psychology? And not academically astute? Are you aware that it was Cambridge who published it as part of a Cambridge monograph series: Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction, and Decision Theory? To quote Dembski:
Academic monograph series, like the Cambridge series that published my book, have an academic review board that is structured and functions identically to the review boards of academic journals. At the time of my book’s publication, the review board for Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction, and Decision Theory included members of the National Academy of Sciences as well as one Nobel laureate, John Harsanyi, who shared the prize in 1994 with John Nash, the protagonist in the film A Beautiful Mind. As it is, The Design Inference had to pass peer-review with three anonymous referees before Brian Skyrms, who heads the academic review board for this Cambridge series, would recommend it for publication to the Cambridge University Press editors in New York. Brian Skyrms is on the faculty of the University of California at Irvine as well as a member of the National Academic of Sciences.
The reviewers not being academically astute regarding what Dembski was publishing doesn’t strike me as very plausible.
> Or at least find
>>something wrong with it before denouncing it.
>
>It leaves out consideration of the situation in which
>an attribution is formed. The model should, if
>anything, have an array of options that depend on the
>situation.
And that is precisely what it does when it factors in the probabilities and the specification criterion. And you still haven’t given any reason why it can’t legitimately and validly detect design.
>>It seems evolutionists are a little too “trigger
>>happy” when it comes to the explanatory filter,
>>wanting to disbelieve it even though there’s nothing
>>inherently wrong with it and even though it doesn’t
>>inherently confirm that ID theory is true for life on
>>Earth. (The same thing holds true for the actual book
>>The Design Inference itself.)
>
>If you say so.
Indirectly you have said so by not pointing out anything wrong with the validity of the filter.
>>>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.
>>
>>Technically both are capable, but it is very
>>unlikely that chance is the correct
>>explanation.
>
>How does one assign odds to design?
I may not know the mathematical details, but it seems pretty evident here that design is the most likely explanation. Would you really believe it happened by chance?
>(hint: one
>doesn't, but rather it's the SITUATION...the guy being
>a magician that makes one think that chance PROBABLY
>isn't the explanation)
And the magician is factored into the specification criterion!
>>To use perhaps a better example, suppose
>>the magician said in advance what he was going to do.
>>He shuffled the deck, and the cards are all in the
>>predefined order. Could chance have done it? Sure,
>>but it’s extremely unlikely.
>
>I don't think it's any MORE OR LESS unlikely, as far
>as the math goes.
You better check your calculations again. The odds of chance choosing that order of the cards are less than one in 1067.
>I think the situation simply makes
>one form the attribution that it PROBABLY is not
>chance that makes the cards fall into order.
And that situation is factored into with the specification criterion, because it reasonably establishes a non-ad hoc pattern. Again, you haven’t said anything about the explanatory filter not being able to legitimately detect design, i.e. if the filter selects “design” then design is the most likely explanation of the event. Even if it wasn’t able to take into account literally every factor (which to some extent I think may be true), you’ve said nothing about it giving unreasonable answers, i.e. nothing about its actual validity.
As an analogy, many integration estimates don’t take in every factor. They can’t. Nonetheless they can make a reasonable estimate of the true value. Similarly, science is far from perfect, but it can try to make reasonable estimates of what the truth is. You haven’t shown why the explanatory filter can’t do the same.
>>Design is by far the
>>most reasonable explanation (blind faith in chance
>>notwithstanding).
>
>Based on the situation, I'd agree. Based on the
>numbers alone (as I know of no way of saying how
>likely design is) I'd say I'd disagree and you are
>equovicating mathematical reasoning with everyday
>imprecise reasoning.
Except it is not numbers alone: you’ve neglected the specification criterion.
>>Supposedly, it’s verified every time we detect design
>>(and that’s a lot of times).
>
>In theory the theory is verified. That's reassuring.
You misunderstand. Supposedly, the filter is empirically verified when we detect design.
>>Who? I don’t even think organic evolutionists have
>>such blind faith that they are willing to believe
>>their theory even though they know it’s
>>probably false! Given that life began to exist, if
>>the odds of the theory (of naturalistic origin) being
>>true are less than 1 in a trillion, design is the
>>logical choice, because artificial intervention was
>>probably necessary.
>
>But of course you don't know the situation.
On the contrary, it is you who don’t know the situation.
>The
>universe is BIG and the time it has existed is also
>LARGE. A trillon might not be too bad when it comes to
>odds knowing those two things. The fact of the matter
>is that when one gets to pondering something the scale
>of the universe with the TIME the universe has
>existed, basic human probability calculations begin to
>fall short.
Except you’ve gravely twisted what I meant, unintentionally using the fallacy of equivocation. I was talking about the odds of the theory itself. All you did was present an entirely different scenario in which the odds are completely different. If the theory of naturalistic origin was one in one trillion (taking into account all relevant factors, including billions of years, other worlds in this universe etc.) design would be the most logical choice. Now, given the scenario that I have actually presented how could design not be the most reasonable inference? You see, it isn’t the explanatory filter itself that should be disputed; if law and chance are not sufficient for the origin of life, then design is indeed the most reasonable inference. Would you honestly believe organic evolution even if you knew it had odds of less than one in one trillion?
>>The Design Inference did pass through
>>rigorous peer review, so methinks you’re just being
>>trigger happy.
>
>I'm sure it did, by a bunch of toddlers.
See above. The peer reviewers were not a bunch of toddlers.
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