In a message dated 10/8/2000 7:59:07 PM Pacific Daylight Time, DNAunion
writes:
> >FMAJ: You are now conflating to meanings of the word elimination. In
> science indeed competing hypotheses are eliminated based on performance and
> probabilities.
>
> DNAunion: No, you are missing my point. Science automatically eliminates ID
> and automatically establishes purely-natural explanations. It does use
> elimination. Furthermore, the only way I am conflating the meaning of
> elimination
You are still equivocating on the word elimination. Of course science
eliminates by finding new hypotheses and deciding which one is the best. ID
does not provide pathways and infer design by elimination of alternative
explanations. As such it has to eliminate all possible pathways before it can
infer design reliably. Also science does not automatically eliminate ID. So
you are wrong on two vary fundamental issues
that you point out is based on this fact I mention: if science did not
automatically eliminate ID, then it too would need
> to eliminate all possible pathways before one would be established. So have
> it your way: if I am conflating terms, it is only because of the built-in
> naturalistic bias in science.
>
Of course science has a naturalistic "bias" but that does not mean that it
eliminates ID. Unless you now conflates ID with supernatural. Science does
not have to eliminate ID, it's up to ID to provide science with a hypothesis,
pathways and evidence. If ID can provide a better pathway then science will
accept it. But so far this is not how ID works.
> >FMAJ: ID (Dembski, Behe) however has to eliminate all natural pathways
> before it can infer design. ID does not propose a pathway that is then
> compared with existing hypotheses.
>
> DNAunion: The first part confirms exactly what I am saying. Naturalists
> demand that IDists MUST EXPLICITLY eliminate ALL other possible natural
> explanations before an ID explanation can be granted any credence, but
> naturalistic explanations have no burden of proof.
That's because ID is based fundamentally on elimination of alternatives. Have
you read Dembski?
It is fine for naturalists to state as scientific fact - to school children,
college students, and those exposed to pop-
> science media - that life arose on Earth by purely natural means: yet they
> have no idea which of the dozens of potential pathways - none of which have
> been supported empirically - was the supposed actual historical one.
>
And therefore science is not presenting any of these pathways as the "correct
one". Does ID have a pathway to present ? I doubt it. If ID wishes to add
its own pathways then they are free to do so. Actually they have already done
so in the form of panspermia.
> >DNAunion: or do you claim that OOL researchers give alien design and divine
> design consideration each time before eliminating them as plausible
> explanations. (Even "natural" alternatives like panspermia and directed
> panspermia are eliminated for the most part: abiogenesis here on Earth is
> the default accepted position).
>
> >FMAJ: Based again on the probabilities of the events and the supporting
> evidence or lack thereof.
>
> DNAunion: Although I could ask many question, I will limit myself to just
> one: Could you explain to me how the appearance of two RNA replicases -
> close enough in space and time to find each other - is highly probable
> under plausible prebiotic conditions?
>
Non sequitor. Are you saying that this is the only accepted pathway?
> >FMAJ: Nope, the origin of life argument is not based on elimination of all
> other hypotheses.
>
> DNAunion: Yes, as I have been stating for some time now, purely-natural OOL
> is given approval not because it has been scientifically validated, but
> because it is purely-natural: as the current definition of science demands.
> It is the ground rules themselves that establish purely-natural OOL as
> "fact" - not research.
>
Are you now saying that ID is not all natural? That's interesting. So science
should address the non-natural? How do you intend science does this? Also OOL
is not given approval because it is purely-natural, there are many scenarios.
What is accepted is that science can only deal in natural explanations.
> >FMAJ Nor does science claims to have no false positives.
>
> DNAunion: I believe that Dembski's claim is based on his experience: he has
> submitted many events of known cause into his filter and has never come up
> with a false positive. I may be wrong, but I believe Dembski's statement
> might be more induction than a absolute claim (I have not reread his
> material on this, so I don't doubt that I might be wrong).
>
An inductive argument is even more prone to false positives. Of course
Dembski has only applied the filter to instances in which no false positives
were possible. Will the filter do similarly under more realistic conditions?
That's up to Dembski to show. But I could think of several scenarios where it
would fail.
> By the way, isn't the statement "evolution is fact, Fact, FACT!" an example
> of an infallible scientific claim?
>
Nope. And also the meaning of infallible here is quite different from the
infallibility claim of a filter. Conflation of terms.
> >DNAunion: It seems the main difference between the two is not objective,
> but subjective: it is that as others have stated, "you guys" get a free
> ride: the burden of proof is thrust upon "us" and off of "you guys", who
> automatically win because "you guys" were the ones that made the current
> rules.
>
> >FMAJ: Non sequitor. You are avoiding the issue: If Dembski claims
> infallibility of the filter, should he then not support his claim?
>
> DNAunion: Could you quote his actual statements? Is Dembski stating that in
> his many attempts to create a false positive that he hasn't, or is he
> claiming that his filter will absolutely never generate a false positive?
>
The latter. He provides two arguments why he argues, the filter will not give
false positives.
> >DNAunion: Sounds kind of unfair: absolute proof required for Dembski, while
> only a couple successes here and there - out of millions or trillions of
> steps - are sufficient to establish biopoesis as scientific fact.
>
> >Chris: Nice strawman.
>
> > DNAunion: Nice ad hom.
>
> >FMAJ: How can pointing out a strawman being an ad hominem argument.
>
> DNAunion: If Chris can't support his claim.
Please explain?
>
> >DNAunion: Care to explain how mine was a strawman?
>
> >FMAJ: First you explain the ad hominem argument.
>
> DNAunion: No, Chris should explain first. After all, it was he who made the
> first charge - shouldn't he be the first to support a charge?
>
You misattributed statements to Chris.
> >FMAJ: Okay, just this time then: Dembski claims infallibility of his filter.
>
> DNAunion: Got a long unedited quote to support this?
>
"And this brings us to the problem of false positives. Even though the
Explanatory Filter is not a reliable criterion for eliminating design, it is,
I argue,
a reliable criterion for detecting design. The Explanatory Filter is a net.
Things that are designed will occasionally slip past the net. We would prefer
that the net catch more than it does, omitting nothing due to design. But
given the ability of design to mimic unintelligent causes and the possibility
of
our own ignorance passing over things that are designed, this problem cannot
be fixed. Nevertheless, we want to be very sure that whatever the net
does catch includes only what we intend it to catch, to wit, things that are
designed.
I argue that the explantory filter is a reliable criterion for detecting
design. Alternatively, I argue that the Explanatory Filter successfully
avoids false
positives. Thus whenever the Explanatory Filter attributes design, it does so
correctly.
Let us now see why this is the case. I offer two arguments. The first is a
straightforward inductive argument: in every instance where the Explanatory
Filter attributes design, and where the underlying causal story is known, it
turns out design actually is present; therefore, design actually is present
whenever the Explanatory Filter attributes design.
My second argument for showing that the Explanatory Filter is a reliable
criterion for detecting design may now be summarized as follows: the
Explanatory Filter is a reliable criterion for detecting design because it
coincides with how we recognize intelligent causation generally. In general,
to
recognize intelligent causation we must observe a choice among competing
possibilities, note which possibilities were not chosen, and then be able
to specify the possibility that was chosen. "
> >FMAJ: Do you see any such claims made by scientists?
>
> DNAunion: How about, "evolution is fact, Fact, FACT!"
>
It's not a claim of infallibility.
> >FMAJ: Not to mention your unsupported claim of "biopoesis as scientific
> fact" Any references to support this?
>
> DNAunion: I have only one that I have a flagged in my notes - if you read a
> lot of OOL material, you will see what I am talking about. Here is the one
> quote I mentioned:
>
> "These experimental results and the findings that considerably higher
> concentrations of REE [Rare Earth Elements] might have been dissolved in
> the primitive sea water (Bowen, 1966; Cloud, 1968), suggest that
> accumulation of phosphate monoester compounds, such as AMP and GMP, the
> concentrations of which in the primitive sea were expected to be
> sufficiently high to produce nucleic acids in the later process of chemical
> evolution, might have been impossible. Therefore, the origin of life as a
> consequence of chemical evolution might also have been impossible. HOWEVER,
> LIFE ON EARTH DEVELOPED VIA CHEMICAL EVOLUTION."" (Misuhiko Akaboshi, et.
> al., Inhibition of Rare Earth Catalytic Activity by Proteins, Origins of
> Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, Vol 30, No 1. Feb 2000, p 25)
>
More context please.
> Despite what looked like damning conditions, the authors firmly stated - and
> the statement made it past any peer-review - that life on Earth arose by
> chemical evolution.
I'd have to see the full context.
> >DNAunion: So we can't accept it until it is fully proven? But the
> purely-natural origin of life is elevated to scientific fact on flimsy and
> scant evidence?
>
> >FMAJ: Strawman again. I never made such an assertion.
>
> DNAunion: Nice ad hom. (Here we go again!)
>
Still confused about the meaning of ad hominem. Please show that I made such
an assertion or admit that you used a strawman. Crying ad hominem is not
going to help you since it's a fallacious argument
> >FMAJ: But ID has made some claims of certainty, these need to be supported.
>
> DNAunion: Double standard. You demand that ID support its claims, but that
> naturalists (such as OOL researchers) don't have to.
>
Misrepresentation of statement plus false assertion. Please show that I
demand that naturalists do not support their claims. Shame on you dear DNA.
> >FMAJ: Furthermore since ID is based on elimination of all competing
> hypotheses …
>
> DNAunion: Because of the bias built-in to science by naturalists.
>
Nope. Based on the Dembski filter. Please support your assertion though.
> >FMAJ: … and naturalistic origin of life is not so restricted
>
> DNAunion: Yes, the double standard again.
Nope. You are still confused about how ID is infered. Please read the
explanatory filter.
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
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