Another, potentially serious problem with William Dembski's Explanatory
Filter has occurred to me.
Suppose there is a large bird cage on a table in the middle of a room.
The wires making up the cage are small enough so that the inside of the
cage is plainly visible. They are close enough together so that a bird
cannot pass in or out between them. The cage initially is empty.
Around the cage are scientists and religious leaders observing the
cage. They don't necessarily agree with one another about philosophy
but they are honest observers. Several TV cameras are aimed at the
cage and the video from each is continuously recorded.
A bird appears in the cage seemingly by magic. The bird is removed from
the cage and, with scrupulous care to avoid dishonesty, the bird is
taken to a laboratory for examination. A committee of scientists and
religious leaders accompanies the bird and observes the examination.
The findings are that the bird is an hitherto unknown species. The
bird's DNA is similar to that of other birds but there are significant
differences.
This situation will never happen. Scientists and religious leaders have
better things to do than standing around an empty cage hoping for a bird
to appear.
But suppose it did and suppose we apply Dembski's filter to this event.
Some will say that the event is clear evidence of God creating a new
species. Dembski is probably one of them. However, his "design
inference" does not consider the hypothesis that God did, in fact, do
this. Dembski's approach is to eliminate all alternative, natural
explanations and only then deduce "design."
One purpose of this note is to suggest that one can propose a non-design
hypothesis -- Dembski would say chance hypothesis -- that describes this
event. For example:
Hypothesis: Birds of unknown species will appear suddenly in cages on
occasion.
The wording of this hypothesis is a bit flippant except, possibly, for
modern nuclear physicists. But it looks OK. It is testable. In fact,
in my example, there is unambiguous evidence that it happened at least
once. A roughly analogous hypothesis that is widely accepted in science
is beta decay. Scientists do stand around "materials" waiting for
electrons to appear at random times.
A possible objection is that my hypothesis does not explain why the bird
appeared, that it is not the whole truth. But we can never be sure that
any scientific hypothesis describes the whole truth about an event.
There is no scientific test for "truth." Scientists are limited to
identifying ideas that work. And these ideas are often interesting and
useful even if we can never be sure that they are the whole truth.
Darwin's theory of common descent is still a useful way to understand
what is going on even if, unknown to us, God is micro-managing the
evolutionary process, using His miraculous powers to create new species,
I made up the story about the bird in the cage and the hypothesis that
explained it. The problem for Dembski is that many people can invent
non-design hypotheses about any real event that Dembski chooses.
Dembski, for example, says that Behe's irreducible complex (IC) systems
are designed because they cannot be explained by either regular or
chance hypotheses. But others counter that there could have been
earlier structures that enabled the development of the necessary parts
and that these earlier parts then adapted to a new function.
Some may argue that "design" is a better explanation than a non-design
explanation for many events. But, because of the way that Dembski
organized his filter, this argument is irrelevant.
If there is a plausible, non-design hypothesis about any event,
Dembski's explanatory filter fails to deduce design. I'm suggesting
that a plausible, non-design hypothesis can always be invented.
Therefore, Dembski's filter will always fail.
Ivar
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