Bill Hamilton replied: "In the software industry this is known as
vaporware."
As one who suffered through years of this at IBM, good analogy. Sometimes,
of course, the software that finally appears is really good -- sometimes it
never appears.
Does anyone know if this is a common/uncommon practice? Bill does it in his
chapter in THE CREATION HYPOTHESIS; he also does it in his NTSE paper. I
don't see anything "wrong" with the practice; it is frustrating though.
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Bill also wrote: "At this point his only definition of specified complexity
is an analogy. And the thrust of the analogy seems to me to be that
complexity that serves some intended function is specified complexity. I
will read his monograph when it comes out, in the hope that I'm wrong."
You can see the NTSE paper on the NTSE web site now; I have a copy.
In a broader sense, I have always been troubled by the "argument by
analogy" practice. It seems to me that while analogies are often the best
way to EXPLAIN something, they offer little or no support for an argument
for that something.
Burgy