From: Howard J. Van Till (hvantill@chartermi.net)
Date: Thu Aug 07 2003 - 11:28:05 EDT
Concerning Dembski's definition of "complexity" I had written:
>>> Complexity is related inversely to probability. Highly complex objects
> have a low probability of being actualized naturally.<<
"Old Seashells" commented:
> This is also a peculiar definition.
Agreed.
> Perhaps the standard idea of
> complexity (having lots of parts) is assumed, but highly complex structures
> can readily be actualized naturally. For example, naturally occurring
> polymers are quite complex, yet clearly formed naturally (regardless of
> whether ID advocates are right in claiming that the instructions to produce
> some of them were not formed naturally).
ID advocates would have to include the probability of those genetic
instructions being actualized by natural means. Once the instructions are in
place, the "complexity" (ID definition) of what the system + instructions
produces is relatively small. So for ID advocates, the question of greatest
interest is, Could those instructions have been actualized by the joint
effect of all known and unknown natural causes?
> "Specified complexity" is
> supposed to solve this problem, but the biochemical systems popular with ID
> cannot be shown to have appropriate "specificity" with current knowledge.
After a thorough reading of Dembski's No Free Lunch I am convinced that,
given his definition of "specified complexity," there exist no actual
naturally occurring biotic systems that exhibit it.
Howard Van Till
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu Aug 07 2003 - 11:29:55 EDT