| Subject: chortle |
Author:
Damoclese
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 04/11/05 5:57pm
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "Tee hee" on 04/10/05 10:28pm
>
>That’s not quite true. Many analogies have been made
>regarding the complexity of life and machines (read
>Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box and you’ll
>see what I mean). And if we do attribute design based
>on experience, what happens when our experience tells
>us humans can artificially create life but no known
>natural causes can?
It tells me we can manipulate life and the building blocks as we know them. Adding a chocolate-coated syrup to a cookie isn't exactly MAKING a cookie, just as modifying RNA and DNA isn't EXACTLY making life.
Wouldn’t ID at least be a
>reasonable scientific theory? Or is it
>something to be avoided at all (evidential) costs?
It is a possibility, but it's not really rigorous enough to be called a scientific theory.
>
>Well, that’s what I’ve been talking about. IF
>the filter is fed accurate information, it reliably
>detects design. If law and chance are inadequate,
>design is chosen. I really don’t see why that should
>be so controversial.
Because there is one scenario that I'd already pointed out where it would fail. Let's say we see order in the pattern of electrons hitting a detector screen via some quantum mechanical process. It APPEARS that these electrons were specifically ordered a certain way by a designer; in other words the order produced LOOKS designed, (the specification criteria is met) but we know that by their very nature the process that produced them is entirely random. Hence, design is chosen, but it's wrong. The law attribution falls short too,(or more specifically something being due to regularity) because we know we are dealing with something that is at its core random.
>
>But it is used in practice all the time. If
>law and chance are inadequate, design is chosen. That
>is often how it works.
Those attributions are chosen all the time. The model isn't necessarily at all.
The
>filter can’t possibly work without taking into account
>the situation.
It apparently does, because it only takes pieces of the situation into consideration.
>
>Given the title of the book (The Design
>Inference) I’m sure Dembski would agree with you
>on some level. But you didn’t answer my question.
>Would you really believe the precisely ordered cards
>happened by chance?
Given the situation that a magician was the one doing the trick, I'd be suspicious that it wasn't chance. If it were a complete novice, well then, that changes everything doesn't it?
>By describing the pattern in advance, he was perfect
>for helping the specification criterion being met.
Yeah, but the fact that he is a MAGICIAN is not accounted for at all, and it should be. As I stated above, a complete novice touching a deck of cards for the first time and saying the same thing leads one to a bit of a different attribution.
>Given this scenario, I’d say the odds of design being
>correct are 1 – 10-67. But even if I
>couldn’t give the precise odds, it doesn’t really
>matter. Why? Science has no rigorous procedure for
>determining to what extent the evidence confirms a
>theory. It has no percentages. But this does not
>take away the validity of the explanatory filter.
>Given the small probability and the specification
>criterion, design really is the most rational
>explanation.
No, it isn't the most "rational" explanation. It's AN explanation in an area where there is quite a lot that isn't known.
>
>
>
>But it is consistent with reality. The filter
>has a pretty big tendency to work whenever it’s used.
Just because something has a "pretty big tendency" to work does not mean it is a model consistent with reality. If I throw my dart and by chance alone detect design with 75 percent accuracy, is that good enough to say that my model with paper and dart is consistent with reality?
>
>With such events, it picks law/chance whenever the
>situation warrants.
How? (remember my above example about QM)
>>1) It's an inadequate model in light of modern
>>psychological research.
>
>Psychological research on humans is irrelevant.
So a model about the way humans make attributions which falls under the authority of psychology makes psychological researh irrelevant when it comes to examining it eh?
>What
>matters is whether the filter yields
>reasonable/correct answers. And it does.
Well then, I suppose I should hail my dart/paper combo as the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Even if
>humans did a completely different means of estimating
>integrals, it wouldn’t change the fact that the
>mathematical estimations still work.
But just because something WORKS doesn't mean it is RIGHT. My dart and paper WORK but they aren't a good model to begin with because they aren't representative of the reality of making decisions.
>
>Can you name an event that doesn’t? Didn’t think so.
Already did. See above.
>
>It’s unclear what you mean by “DRIVES” the numbers.
I mean that the specification criteria is meant to lend credibility to the numbers used as probability.
>The specification criterion is used after the
>probability has been determined.
Yeah, but it means to try to legitimize those numbers. After all, if the probability pertains to a random string of numbers, it's pretty meaningless.
>
>I disagree. I honestly believe that people think
>that, for the Rosetta Stone, Stonehenge, Mount
>Rushmore etc. the currents of nature are not
>reasonably capable of producing such things.
Actually, the currents of nature COULD produce those things, but it isn't very likely. One of the reasons we know they are designed is because they have utility be they mathematical, aesthetic, or language oriented.
More importantly than THAT though, is that we know basically how to predict other human beings; we know what another car is going to do in traffic before it does it the vast majority of the time. We know what other humans enjoy, and we know how other humans THINK. (basically) Therefore, we know the sorts of things that might be designed WITH RESPECT to human nature.
ID proposes a designer and conveniently doesn't mention with respect to WHAT KIND of designer we might expect which makes our design inference weak because everything that has ever been known to be designed has BEEN designed by humans. (Nature doesn't really design because it lacks intention)
Hence, EVEN if aliens designed robots on Pluto, we still could ONLY make the inference that they were designed because these particular aliens were enough like humans to make robots; something we know humans make because they have utility. If they had made something they called arehaouaasdfa and looked NOTHING at all like anything ever designed by humans we'd have no idea whether or not they were indigneous to the planet or not because patterns of design by themselves are inadequate for determining whether or not something has IN FACT been designed. (see my above QM paragraph for more on that)
>So if the odds of organic evolution being true are
>less than one in a trillion, you still wouldn’t accept
>design? And if asked why, you’d say, “Because design
>has no odds of its own”?
No, I'd do one of those things, but not for the attributed reason. I wouldn't accept design as THE answer because design is just a possibility--a possiblity without much supporting evidence from anywhere else.
Well, guess what. Atomic
>theory has no odds of its own either, i.e. no rigorous
>procedure to determine the percentage of its being
>true based on the evidence. Nonetheless, we can
>reasonably accept atomic theory as a reasonable
>inference of the empirical data.
That's true, but in your hypothetical scenario you asked me to accept design as true because something else was remotely likely. Science doesn't ask me to accept atomic theory as true because other models are remotely likely ALONE, it gives me supporting evidence from other fields and observations from other areas.
I pointed out that you can't assign odds to design at all in part to highlight this above fact.
If it were somehow
>known that the odds of organic evolution being
>true were one in a trillion, design would similarly be
>the most reasonable inference. I don’t see how you
>can reasonably believe otherwise.
No, it would be A inference.
At the end of the day, the name of the
>game is inference to the best explanation.
And when you only have two that you pull from, I suppose that makes your job much easier.
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 