Re: Duane Gish in Peru

I think the premise of computing probabilities in an attempt to infer
impossibilities is fundamentally flawed - particularly when it applies
to a real natural event. The problem (as I see it) is that virtually any
natural occurrence you care to choose happens as a result of a very
lengthy chain of contingent linking events. The result is than ANY real
occurrence is almost an impossibility probability-wise, but happened
nonetheless. I happened nonetheless..... I'm sitting at a PC and
communicating with folks thousands of miles away.... Oh, there a
peculiarly mottled pebble lodged in the tread of my shoe...... Mmmm, I
just suffered a hunger pang. I think I shall go attend to this
particular impossible occurrence. :-) JimA

Dawsonzhu@aol.com wrote:

> In Glenn Morton's post, it was quoted:
>
>> "Actually, The Design Inference contains little of genuine
>> mathematics, but is full of mathematism, that is, the use of
>> mathematical symbolism as embellishment, often only to create an
>> impression of a scientific rigor of the discourse."
>>
>
>
> This is probably a bit harsh. There were two main
> problems I saw with The Design Inference.
>
> (1) You still need to find a way to assign correct
> probabilities to the system you are considering
> before you can apply the model. Winning hands in
> a fair card game can be estimated accurately. Estimating
> the likelihood that a sequence of signals from outerspace
> are not noise can also be assessed with additional
> information. It's application to evolution is dubious
> because we simply don't know the odds for a lot of
> things.
>
> (2) Given you have a correct description of the probability,
> you can then assess whether something was designed by setting
> a lower bound on the probability. That boundary, although
> reasonable, is not really a rigorous proof. So winning
> 10 random drawings in a row is clearly suspicious, but where
> to draw the bar still seems to be based upon opinion.
>
> So it does examine some very important questions,
> however it is not so strong at answering any of them.
Received on Sun Oct 17 11:42:26 2004