In a message dated 9/17/2000 3:51:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
sejones@iinet.net.au writes:
<< [...]
>SJ>But Dembski points out that ID would be compatible with "the most far-
>ranging evolution" because "an evolutionary process can exhibit such
>`marks of intelligence' as much as any act of special creation."
FJ>So my question again to ID'ers is that if ID can detect design but cannot
>exclude "the most far ranging evolution" because en evolutionary process can
>exhibit marks of intelligence then what does ID have to offer that science
>presently does not offer?
How many times do I have to say it? A WAY OF RELIABLY DETECTING THE MARKS
OF *REAL* DESIGN IN NATURE! :-)
>>
That's what needs to be proven not asserted. Where is the evidence that ID
can reliably
detect real design in nature? Certainly IC is not a reliable detector since
natural pathways
to IC systems have been shown. Dembski's ID merely excludes chance and
regularity but does not
take into account "we don't know" nor does it provide evidence that it does
not generate false
positives.
Wesley Elsberry wrote on talk.origins:
"I 've read it. Dembski merely claims that one can *detect* "design".
Detection is not explanation. Dembski's "design" is just the residue
left when known regularity and chance are eliminated. Dembski's
arguments that natural selection cannot produce "specified complexity"
are, to say the least, highly unconvincing. If "specified complexity"
exists at all, Dembski has not yet excluded natural selection as a
cause of events with that property."
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/evobio/evc/argresp/design/rev_tdi.html
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/zgists/wre/papers/dembski7.html
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/ae/dembski_wa.html
But even if design can be infered there is another problem:
ID identifies design, not the designer. This means that ID cannot exclude
natural forces as the intelligent agent of design.
Wesley Elsberry:
"The apparent, but unstated, logic behind the move from design to
agency can be given as follows:
1. There exists an attribute in common of some subset of objects
known to be designed by an intelligent agent.
2. This attribute is never found in objects known not to be designed
by an intelligent agent.
3. The attribute encapsulates the property of directed contingency
or choice.
4.For all objects, if this attribute is found in an object, then we
may conclude that the object was designed by an intelligent agent.
"This is an inductive argument. Notice that by the second step, one
must eliminate from consideration precisely those biological
phenomena which Dembski wishes to categorize. In order to conclude
intelligent agency for biological examples, the possibility that
intelligent agency is not operative is excluded a priori. One large
problem is that directed contingency or choice is not solely an
attribute of events due to the intervention of an intelligent agent.
The "actualization-exclusion-specification" triad mentioned above also
fits natural selection rather precisely. One might thus conclude that
Dembski's argument establishes that natural selection can be recognized
as an intelligent agent. "
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/zgists/wre/papers/dembski7.html
<< >FJ>SE also wrote that:
The name is Steve Jones, i.e. "SJ", not "SE".
>>
My handle is FMAJ not FJ. :-)
<< SJ>If design is empirically detected it will be public property. *All*
religions
>and philosophies which claim there is design would find it confirmatory of
>*their* position, including Christianity as only one among many.
SJ>So design can confirm all positions from evolution to religion alike.
FJ needs to read more carefully. I said "*All* religions and philosophies
*which claim there is design*".
Materialism and Darwinism, for example, deny there is real design.
>>
Not at all. They merely point out that there is no supporting evidence for
ID. But
even better they show how natural pathways exist.
<< FJ>People already 'detect design' through their faith
*How* exactly do they "'detect design' through their faith"? >>
I see "Design" all the time in the wonderful world around me. It's my faith
that
makes me marvel at what my God has created.
<<
And what about those who have no religious "faith"? How would they
detect design?
>>
For that a scientifically reliable design inference needs to be formulated.
<< FJ>and ID changes nothing about the interpretation of this
>"design".
Is FJ's "faith" empirically detectable, i.e. objectively real for everybody?
That is the sort of design the ID movement is trying to establish.
>>
Faith is subjectively. That ID is trying to achieve objective reality is one
thing, that they have done it is another. I agree with the former but doubt
the latter.
<< BTW if FJ already believes in design through his "faith" why would
he oppose the ID movement empirically detecting design?
>>
I am not opposing their efforts, I am opposing their conclusions and
assertions that they have managed to detect design empirically.
<< If the design FJ is detecting with his "faith" is real, what is his
objection to ID making design objectively real for everybody?
>>
Nothing. So far however ID is far from reaching that point.
<< FJ>SE seems to contradict himself when he claims:
The imnitials are "SJ".
>>
What are imnitials?
<< SJ>Only those scientific philosophies which deny design (e.g.
materialism,
>Darwinism, etc) would find the empirical detection of design
>disconfirmatory.
FJ>Are you now using the same definition of design Steve?
Yes.
>>
Then Darwinism does not deny design. It merely shows that there is no
evidence of an intelligent designer and that nature is quite an apt designer.
<< FJ>It's clear that the main strength of ID, removing the designer
>from design has also become its main weakness since design can point to a
>large variety of designers, even natural forces.
See above and previus posts. One of FJ's main problem is he just bandies
words around without respect to their meanings. >>
I still maintain that removing the designer from design has become ID's
achilles
heel. If one cannot say anything about the designer then natural forces can
not
be excluded from the set of designers.
<< FJ>You seem to be jumping to conclusions here based on a logical leap from
the
>quote to an assertion that the minority is large
I said in the context that this was the *heyday* of Neo-Darwinism
and even then it says of "this silent segment ... that the numbers are
not inconsiderable."
>>
They are more than zero. Does the article address why people object?
<< That sounds like "minority is large" to me. Obviously it doesn't
to FJ.
>>
Indeed.
<< FJ>and that their arguments are
>based on scientific rather than emotional arguments.
It is interesting how FJ has just castigated me for "attributing motives to
people you do not know" and here he is attributing motives to people he
does not know!
>>
Not at all. I am merely pointing out that one need to show on what basis
they reject it.
<< Olson says they were "students engaged in biological pursuits", so
presumably he thinks their "arguments are based on scientific" grounds.
>>
That does not follow from his comment. Being involved in pursuing biology
does not mean that they base their arguments on science.
<< But it is interesting how FJ can just write off critics of Darwinism by
assuming "that their arguments are ... emotional"! It must be wonderful to
have such certainty!
>>
I did not write them off I merely doubted your interpretation of the article.
<< FJ>Is it btw so bad to assume that which has worked so well in the past
and >admit that we do not presently know all the details.
If science used that argument we would be back with Ptolemy's epicycles
and phlogiston!
>>
That does not follow. If you have a better alternative then present it. So far
however we should not let our ignorance dictate a change in direction.
<< FJ>Or should we instead let our ignorance lead us to infer 'design'?
ID is not an argument from what we don't know, but an argument from
what we *do* know:
>>
Why is it then inferred from the absence of knowledge?
<< "In particular this is not an argument from ignorance. Just as
physicists reject perpetual motion machines because of what they
know about the inherent constraints on energy and matter, so too
design theorists reject any naturalistic reduction of specified
complexity because of what they know about the inherent
constraints on natural causes. >>
It needs to be shown that indeed CSI or specified complexity is a reliable
detector. So far this has been asserted not proven. How does ID deal
with "we don't know yet"? What if we think we know and we were wrong?
Natural causes are too stupid to keep
<< pace with intelligent causes. We've suspected this all along.
Intelligent design theory provides a rigorous scientific
demonstration of this long-standing intuition. Let me stress, the
>>
Again that is an assertion that needs to be proven.
<< complexity-specification criterion is not a principle that comes to us
demanding our unexamined acceptance it is not an article of faith.
Rather it is the outcome of a careful and sustained argument about
the precise interrelationships between necessity, chance and
design." (Dembski W.A., "Intelligent Design," 1999, p.223)
>>
Wesley Elsberry wrote on talk.origins:
"I 've read it. Dembski merely claims that one can *detect* "design".
Detection is not explanation. Dembski's "design" is just the residue
left when known regularity and chance are eliminated. Dembski's
arguments that natural selection cannot produce "specified complexity"
are, to say the least, highly unconvincing. If "specified complexity"
exists at all, Dembski has not yet excluded natural selection as a
cause of events with that property."
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/evobio/evc/argresp/design/rev_tdi.html
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/zgists/wre/papers/dembski7.html
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/ae/dembski_wa.html
<< "Indeed, the whole point of Michael Behe's irreducible complexity
and my own specified complexity is that these are empirical features
of mundane objects that reliably signal intelligent causation.
>>
And as has been shown they do not reliably deteact intelligent causation.
See for instane "A classification of possible routes of Darwinian evolution. "
Richard H. Thornhill1 and David W. Ussery. Published in The Journal
of Theoretical Biology, 203: 111-116, 2000.
<< Whether these mundane objects trace their causal histories through
mundane or transcendent designers is irrelevant. When we see
irreducible complexity or specified complexity, we know that an
intelligent cause has been present and acted even if we know
nothing else. This is not an argument from ignorance. Behe and I
>>
Assertion rather than proof of such. "We know" is a subjective measure.
"When we see" is a subjective measure.
<< offer in-principle arguments for why undirected natural causes (i.e.,
chance, necessity or some combination of the two) cannot produce
irreducible and specified complexity. Moreover we offer sound
>>
Actually Behe admits that natural processes can lead to IC systems in
principle.
He merely does not think that this is how it happened.
<< arguments for why intelligent causation best explains irreducible
and specified complexity. The ontological status of that intelligent
cause simply does not arise in the analysis." (Dembski W.A.,
"Intelligent Design," 1999, pp.276-277).
FJ is like someone who denies that a message received by SETI could not
be designed because we don't know every possible naturalistic cause.
>>
Wesley again:
"This is also my viewpoint on the significance of the SETI
project: SETI identifies certain attributes of radio signals
that are known from human use of radio signals, and SETI does
not show us any detection of a novel design/designer
relationship."
http://x62.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=490853642.2
Behe's IC does not provide us with positive evidence of design of IC systems
in nature.
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