From: Stephen E. Jones <sejones@iinet.net.au>
[...]
>If Richard can show that I (or Dembski) is wrong, I (and I am sure
>Dembski), would *thank* Richard.
This time I'm keeping my resolution not to waste time in futile arguments
with Stephen (unless one of our newly-found uncommitted lurkers asks to see
a rebuttal of his post).
However, I've just finished the first draft of my article rebutting
Dembski's Design Inference in detail, and will be posting it soon. In the
meantime, here's a copy of my Amazon review of "The Design Inference".
--------------------
Pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo, June 3, 2000
Reviewer: Richard Wein (see more about me) from Bristol, England
I'm hoping to find the time to write a web page analyzing this book in
detail, but here's a brief summary.
1. Dembski's Law of Small Probability relies on the ability to specify the
relevant pattern AFTER observing an event. Unfortunately, there is no
objective way to do this--in general we can fit many different patterns to a
given event. Dembski fails to note this problem, instead giving the false
impression that he is providing a definitive method for formulating
specifications. (His "tractability" requirement is worthless.)
2. Dembski's Design Inference amounts to no more than this: once we've
eliminated all the natural explanations we can think of, we must conclude
design, and the way we eliminate chance explanations is by using the Law of
Small Probability. However, he dresses up this simple idea with a lot of
pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo (almost the whole of Chapter 2 fits into this
category). In so doing, he obscures some important points. For example,
while the formalized statement of the Design Inference reveals that we must
consider and reject ALL possible chance hypotheses before concluding design,
the less formal description of the Explanatory Filter fails to mention this
vital point, and almost all the examples in the book deal with only a single
chance hypothesis (the only exception is a minor example relegated to a
footnote). Also, Dembski fails to note that there may be explanations of
which we're not aware, and so any inference of design must be considered
provisional. (In a separate article, Dembski falsely claims that "the
Explanatory Filter successfully avoids false positives".)
3. In this book, Dembski doesn't actually apply the Design Inference to the
question of design in nature (despite the reviewer below who writes:
"Dembski stands by his calculation"!). Elsewhere, he does claim to have
detected design in nature, but I've never yet seen him provide the
probability calculation needed to substantiate this claim. In "The Design
Inference", Dembski writes: "Do the calculation. Take the numbers seriously.
See if the underlying probabilities really are small enough to yield
design." But he never heeds his own advice! In reality, the calculation of a
probability for an event in nature is far too complicated to be practical.
(I've seen attempts to apply Dembski's methods to nature, but they're always
based on totally unrealistic assumptions, which make the results worthless.)
In short, this book says nothing of any value. However it is being used by
Dembski and his supporters to provide a false aura of legitimacy for their
claims to have detected intelligent design in nature.
-----------------------
Richard Wein (Tich)
--------------------------------
"Do the calculation. Take the numbers seriously. See if the underlying
probabilities really are small enough to yield design."
-- W. A. Dembski, who has never presented any calculation to back up his
claim to have detected Intelligent Design in life.
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