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
>>
This presumes that one can eliminate all hypotheses, especially the unknown
ones.
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.
>>
Again this presumes that one can identify unknown hypotheses or processes.
Wesely improved significantly on the "design inference" by adding this
category. I have always wondered if the design inference would correctly deal
with the times where people thought that circles of mushrooms were witch
craft related.
I would say that lacking the understanding of the natural mechanisms that
create this structure and the specificity of this structure it would likely
be misclassified as design. Until of course our knowledge increases and we
realize that it was actually natural.
<< 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. >>
Indeed that one must eliminate all natural hypotheses before one can infer
design and that this requires that all hypotheses and mechanisms are known in
advance makes design inference a tough sell.
<<
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.
>>
I have to agree, complex specificity needs some careful definition and one
needs to show why it would not lead to false positives.
<< 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
>>
That seems to be the major flaw in the design inference. Also interesting to
note is that the design inference can also not exclude a natural designer. So
even if design is infered despite all the problems identified above, it will
still not be able to state more than what we know without applying the design
inference. In the instances were design is detected in science it is based on
independent knowledge of the designers.
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