There is something fundamentally flawed in the way that Dembski
constructs his argument for design.
Scientific knowledge advances through a process of proposing
hypotheses, testing them, and then, based on the results, confirming,
rejecting, or, most commonly, modifying them.
This is not Dembski's approach. On page 68 of The Design Inference
(TDI), he writes "Indeed, confirming hypotheses is precisely what
the design inference does not do. The design inference is in the
business of eliminating hypotheses, not confirming them." And in
a reply to Wesley Elsberry in this mail list, he wrote "Design
inferences are among other things eliminative arguments, and what
they must eliminate is a chance hypothesis (or more generally a
family of chance hypotheses)."
(http://www.calvin.edu/archive/evolution/199909/0383.html) His
explanatory filter implements his eliminative approach. The filter
eliminates all "regular" and "chance" events -- presumably, all
naturally caused events, Dembski does not define his terms very
carefully -- and labels as "design" any event that survives.
But his approach cannot not work. The problem is that anyone using
the approach must identify "all the relevant chance hypotheses H
that could be responsible for some event" (page 222 of TDI). (Note
chance hypotheses can include regular hypotheses by setting
parameters appropriately.) But how can anyone do this? It is not
enough to identify all the relevant hypotheses that one knows. One
must also identify all the relevant hypotheses that one does not
know. Otherwise, some events that the filter labels as design will,
in fact, be due to unidentified natural causes. One can not exclude
the possibility that all of the events that pass through the filter
will be due to natural causes. Obviously, such an imperfect filter
is useless for Dembski's purpose, which is to show unmistakable
evidence of an intelligent designer that might be his God. And, so
far as we know, the number of possible hypotheses about natural
causes is effectively infinite.
Dembski claims that there are real events that are "complex" and
"specified." Complex, specified events will pass through Dembski's
filter and, hence, are supposed to be design events. Dembski's
examples include the creation of DNA, Shakespeare's sonnets, and
Behe's irreducibly complex (IC) systems. But, Dembski has never
explained in detail, step-by-step, how we can infer such events are
design events using his explanatory filter (or using anything
similar). In particular, he never lists all possible relevant
hypotheses. He takes it for granted that his conclusions are obvious.
But they are not. And, since Dembski cannot identify all possible
relevant hypotheses, he never can apply his filter to anything
interesting like these examples.
If you think it obvious that Shakespeare wrote the sonnets, try
applying Dembski's eliminative approach. I agree that an intelligent
being wrote the sonnets. It was probably Shakespeare but this is
controversial. But my reasoning is scientific. There is historical
evidence of man called Shakespeare, the sonnets exist, we can observe
today poets writing sonnets, etc. All of this persuades me that the
sonnets are the product of a designer. What I cannot do and what
Dembski cannot do is prove that the sonnets were not generated by
some unknown natural process. Unlikely yes. Proof, no.
Ivar Ylvisaker
Engineer
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