From: Howard J. Van Till (hvantill@chartermi.net)
Date: Fri Aug 08 2003 - 09:03:29 EDT
Hi Glenn,
Thanks for your comments. I'll respond briefly (in reverse order).
First: you said,
> The numeric or alphabetic sequences play the role, in Dembski's thought, of
> mixing semantic meaning with Shannon information. [followed by supportive
quotation]
I think you may be correct in this. The distinction between semantic
"meaning" (which is not a single-valued, quantifiable property of sequences
but is wholly dependent on some supplementary interpretive scheme) and
"information" (which is a single-valued, quantifiable property of a
sequence) is often lost in a sea of ambiguity in ID literature.
Second: I had said,
>>However, this business of numerical sequences might also be considered
>>irrelevant by an ID advocate. For example, when Dembski argues that the
>>bacterial flagellum is specified he uses an entirely different strategy.
>>Here is another excerpt from my essay review of No Free Lunch: [quotation can
be found in one of my Aug. 7 posts]
>
> I simply disagree with what I understand you to be saying here. Dembski has
> over and over used numeric or alphabetic sequences to illustrate intelligent
> design.
Correct (and your criticism of confusing semantic meaning with information
is especially relevant here).
> If he uses them, how can it be said that he could consider them
> irrelevant?
He uses them in trying to establish what he means by the quality "specified"
in abstract, theoretic terms. However, when he develops his case in No Free
Lunch that the bacterial flagellum (or any other biological system) is
specified, he switches to the strategy embodied in the four sentences that I
quoted. "Biological specification always refers to function. An organism is
a functional system comprising many functional subsystems. In virtue of
their function, these systems embody patterns that are objectively given and
can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these
systems are specified in the sense required by the complexity-specification
criterion." [NFL, p. 148]
> If he considers them irrelevant, it would raise the problem of
> why he is using irrelevancies to support his position. I don't think he is
> that bad.
That is a judgment call that you can best make by a careful reading of No
Free Lunch.
Howard Van Till
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