Inscribing the Ground Rules
by MikeGeneI've been reading through the exhanges between Krauze and The Questionable Authority (TQA). From my reading, the essence of TQA's point boils down to this:
When I raised those points about testability and the supernatural, I was not trying to substitute my own reasoning for that of the judge. I was attempting to explain why there is a "centuries-old ground rule" against invoking the supernatural in science. To put it as plainly and simply as possible, nobody has been able to conduct an empirical test for the hypothesis that "God did it," nobody has been able to design an empirical test for the hypothesis that "God did it," and nobody has been able to conceive of an empirical test for the hypothesis that "God did it."
But ID is not about trying to show a supernatural cause or that "God did it." ID is about trying to find patterns that signal an origin through intelligent causation. According to current expressions of ID, irreducible complexity signals design and complex specified information signals design (the validity of this inference is not relevant to my argument here). Just because Behe or Dembski may take the additional step and attribute design to God does not mean this additional step is entailed in the design inference.
Let's go back to Judge Jones' decision:
We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.
It would seem to me that points (2) and (3), coupled with the "additionally important" point and the apparent religious motivation of the school board, would have been more than sufficient for Jones to rule as he did. But by tacking on criterion (1), I get the impression the judge has over-reached. ID does not invoke supernatural causation (does IC or CSI help us distinguish between a supernaturally designed flagellum and a naturally designed flagellum?), but it does permit such an explanation. That is, it is possible for someone to tack on a supernatural dimension to design, just as Ken Miller himself tacks on the possibility of supernatural intervention in the quantum realm.
If science is not allowed to come up with explanations that can merely permit a supernatural cause, then those explanations would have to rule out supernatural cause. But how can this be done? You must first permit something in order to rule it out in a scientific fashion? According to the scientific experts in the court, "science tries to provide natural explanations for natural phenomena." That's it; those are the ground rules.
Since ID is widely perceived by the scientific community to be religion and the judge has now ruled that it is something that violates these ground rules of science, we can now see that science rejects ID on a priori grounds. When someone complains that science (the community of scientists) has not found evidence for ID, well, of course science has not detected evidence of ID. That outcome is inscribed into the ground rules. Even if ID was true, science would not detect such evidence as those ground rules prevent it from exploring that angle.
Of course, many want to posture is if it is all about open-ended inquiry into "the evidence" and ID has simply failed to deliver the goods. After all, it's a little awkward being a debunker when it becomes clear the ground rules do all the debunking. But their opinions are simply their opinions. The scientific experts and judge have spoken. As Simus1 commented, "Like it or not, most legal decisions change culture in the general direction of those decisions, not in the opposite direction, because people (non-scientists and scientists alike) generally equate law = truth, and slowly but surely adjust their cultural, ethical, and logical lenses according to the law."
Thus, the ID critics have suffered a serious blow with this decision. They can no longer make a convincing argument about the lack of pro-ID papers/research being indicative of the vacuity of the ID concept.
December 30th, 2005 at 4:37 pm
Ummm…..What year did Dembski publish The Design Inference in? What year did Behe Publish his book in? That's a pretty long dry spell before the judge sounded off, and frankly, I doubt most (say) molecular biologists folow the Dover saga that carefully.
Are you really trying to say that there is no way you can get money for research, and no one who would publish it?
Comment by poikilotherm — December 30, 2005 @ 4:37 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
poikilotherm asks:
What year did Dembski publish The Design Inference in? What year did Behe Publish his book in? That's a pretty long dry spell before the judge sounded off,
But both have written more since those publications. Why would you ignore "No Free Lunch", "The Design Revolution", "Darwinism, Design and Public Education", "Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe" and the more recently released "The Privileged Planet" And i am sure I missed many articles and other writings of note.
poikilotherm:
Are you really trying to say that there is no way you can get money for research, and no one who would publish it?
Please explain how you come to that "vague accusation" from reading MikeGene's blog. Thanks.
Comment by Joe G — December 30, 2005 @ 5:28 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
Joe G:
and the peer reviewed literature in biology?
Look: any idiot can write a book. You want to complain about how marginal ID is: get lots of papers in the literature. Its that hard (and yeah, it is hard), and that simple.
As to the "accusation", it wasn't an accusation, it was a question, and I got it from here:"Thus, the ID critics have suffered a serious blow with this decision. They can no longer make a convincing argument about the lack of pro-ID papers/research being indicative of the vacuity of the ID concept. " If Mike Gene wants to address it, that's great. I rather think he can fend for himself.
Comment by poikilotherm — December 30, 2005 @ 5:35 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 5:57 pm
MikeGene says Thus, the ID critics have suffered a serious blow with this decision. They can no longer make a convincing argument about the lack of pro-ID papers/research being indicative of the vacuity of the ID concept.
Darn, now they have nothing to rely on except the actual vacuity of the ID concept.
Comment by Aagcobb — December 30, 2005 @ 5:57 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
poikilotherm, moving the goalposts, asks:
and the peer reviewed literature in biology?
Typical.
So let's try this:
What is the peer-reviewed literature, in biology, that demonstrates a population of non-humans can evolve into a population of humans, preferably demonstrating it occurred via some blind watchmaker-type process?
That way we have a reference as to what the reigning paradigm has so we know what is required to come to a design inference.
MG:
Thus, the ID critics have suffered a serious blow with this decision. They can no longer make a convincing argument about the lack of pro-ID papers/research being indicative of the vacuity of the ID concept. "
from which poikilotherm asks:
Are you really trying to say that there is no way you can get money for research, and no one who would publish it?
That's not the point. The point is regardless what the outcome of the research it wouldn't be science- even if it did get published. THAT is the point of the blog.
Comment by Joe G — December 30, 2005 @ 5:59 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 6:01 pm
Still upset (understandably) over the Dover decision, MikeGene attempts to shift the blame for ID's lack of research to"“guess who
Hey MikeGene, did you know you were upset and are STILL upset? What is wrong with you?
It upsets me to hear that…
Comment by Joe G — December 30, 2005 @ 6:01 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
I would argue that it is design that is far more influential than either "science" or "law" in determining culture.
(But design is not what anyone is really arguing about! Is it?)
It works there under the radar, influencing everything, science and law, but w/o anyone even recognizing it!
I find that amazing!
I find amazing what is being excluded from the discussion is exactly what the discussion is supposed to be about!
Comment by Rock — December 30, 2005 @ 6:27 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 7:31 pm
Heaven:
This claim misrepresents me in two ways. First, I would think it obvious to anyone who reads this blog that I have been pleased, not upset, with the Dover decision. Secondly, I am not making any argument about blame. Because Heaven has been so rude to misrepresent me in twice in one sentence, I have deleted his trackback.
The point I make in the blog in the same one I have been making for years. If the vast majority of the scientific community equates ID with religion/supernaturalism, and religion/supernaturalism cannot be addressed by science, the vast majority of the scientific community cannot address ID. The Dover decision has simply worked to strengthen this point.
Comment by MikeGene — December 30, 2005 @ 7:31 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 7:40 pm
Poikilotherm:
Darwin published his Origins in 1859. It wasn't until 1930 that Fisher published The General Theory of Natural Selection. In other words, it took about 70 years to turn Darwin's work into modern science. During those years, Darwin's work mostly found its greatest utility among those who had philosophical agendas.
Look, perhaps you are under this impression that I think ID has a powerful case to make that is being suppressed by the scientific community. Let me assure you that is not what I think. I am simply point out one aspect of the sociology of science. When the majority of scientists, scientific experts in the courtroom, and judges rule that ID = supernaturalism, don't you think that comes with some implications?
Call my a cynic - If there was truth to ID, I don't have any confidence in the non-teleologist's ability to detect and acknowledge it. Is there evidence to think I should?
Comment by MikeGene — December 30, 2005 @ 7:40 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
Aagcobb:
Yes, that is your personal opinion.
Comment by MikeGene — December 30, 2005 @ 7:47 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 8:13 pm
Hi Mike,
"Because Heaven has been so rude to misrepresent me in twice in one sentence, I have deleted his trackback."
Aww, you shouldn't have done that. Now he gets to complain about being censored by the evil Telic Thoughters.
Comment by Krauze — December 30, 2005 @ 8:13 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 8:17 pm
Yes, but we all moderate our own blogs. He can thus do the crybaby routine about mean MikeGene censoring him. I feel no obligation to host comments that amount to character assassination. After five years of it, my belly is full.
Comment by MikeGene — December 30, 2005 @ 8:17 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 8:32 pm
Hi Mike,
You're right, we all moderate our own threads as we think it best. I didn't intend my comment as any kind of official decree - take it as "Krauze, the individual behind his monitor" having some belly-aching.
Comment by Krauze — December 30, 2005 @ 8:32 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 8:38 pm
MikeGene,
How do you define "supernatural causation"
I asked this same question to Krauze, but he hasn't had a chance to respond.
If we define it as meaning "not subject to natural laws," then we are saying that a supernatural force is acausal, i.e., that things happen without correlation to prior conditions.
To admit the supernatural is to claim that a phenomenon has no explanation (i.e., there is no natural law dictating that the phenomena was due to prior causes). Invoking supernatural cause just puts a name to ignorance. Thus, the term "supernatural explanation" is an oxymoron.
So, does ID inherently admit supernatural cause? I think it would be better to say that, in practice, ID is indistinguishable from invoking supernatural cause. Here's why.
What IDists have done is cook up some formulae that register true on human artifacts, and false on known mechanistic phenomena. They then theorize that these formulae are predictors of intelligent design.
Notice that IC and CSI are not predictions of ID. The prediction is that IC and CSI correspond to ID. However, the only method proposed by IDists to test the claim is to show that something that has IC or CSI is actually not designed, i.e., it is a negative test against mechanistic explanation. This simply amounts to the claim that science cannot explain the object under study. How is this different from the claims of religionists throughout the ages?
So, ID is equivalent to invoking the supernatural as long as it relies on real scientists failing to find mechanistic explanations. You cannot build an explanation out of a failure to find an explanation. For example, the failure to explain the origin of the flagellum is not positive evidence for ID. So, it's no surprise that ID has no supporting evidence whatsoever.
Can ID escape the supernatural? Most certainly. It just needs to come up with a sufficiently mechanistic model of the designer in question. Then, it would be possible to make predictions on utilitarian grounds.
So, in the Dover case, the ruling was correct on point (1). In practice, ID is no different from supernatural causation because it merely questions the ability of science to find mechanistic explanations of phenomena.
Now that I think about it, what would be the operational difference between an ID research program and a supernatural causality (SC) program? The SCists would claim that that a supernatural force just poofed purposeless structures into existence without any actual design phase. The SCists strategy would be to point to complex stuff and say "scientists can't explain that."
Comment by doctor(logic) — December 30, 2005 @ 8:38 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 8:50 pm
DocLogic:
That's irrelevant. I am not making an abstract, philosophical case about the nature of science, arguing what should and should not be allowed. I'm simply relying on observations to make a sociological case about the reality I live in. It doesn't matter how I define "supernatural causation" as the judge himself mentions it 25 times in the ruling and most scientists perceive ID as supernaturalism. The point I make in the blog in the same one I have been making for years: if the vast majority of the scientific community equates ID with religion/supernaturalism, and religion/supernaturalism cannot be addressed by science, the vast majority of the scientific community cannot address ID. The Dover decision has simply worked to strengthen this point. When the majority of scientists, scientific experts in the courtroom, and judges rule that ID = religion/supernaturalism, don't you think that comes with some implications?
Comment by MikeGene — December 30, 2005 @ 8:50 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 8:59 pm
DocLogic:
Since you seem to think the designer-centric approach is the only valid way to approach these questions, why not flesh out this suggestion? Feel free to use a hypothetical example illustrating how the "mechanistic model of the designer" would work.
Comment by MikeGene — December 30, 2005 @ 8:59 pm
December 30th, 2005 at 11:56 pm
doctor(logic)
A causal agent that exist outside of 4 dimensions of space and time, such as string theory. The interesting aspect of this supernatural hypothesis is that it is capable of interacting with our natural world. String theorists believe that the supernatural can interact with the natural world. This interaction might exhibit itself in the form of Kaluza-Klein particles. Can the supernatural interact with the natural world? Yes. Can we detect the supernatural? Yes. It is comforting that governments are willing to spend billions to pursuit a metaphysical hypothesis.
Comment by teleologist — December 30, 2005 @ 11:56 pm
December 31st, 2005 at 12:02 am
Some words have to be defined here. First, something can be "non-natural," in the sense of being immaterial, without being supernatural (in the sense of being "beyond the universe"). For example, one could argue that moral properties, numbers, intentions, minds, etc. are non-natural material entities, in the sense that they do not result fom mateiral causes. These things–though non-empircal–do seem to have certain characteristics that we can know and detect. For instance, when we say that "Mother Theresa is good," we seem better equipped to make that judgment than we have to make the judgment, "Quarks exist." I'm more certain of the former than the latter. Or what about this claim: "Design advocates are irrational or immoral in defending intelligent design." But it's difficult to know in what sense rationality and morality are empirical entities. And yet, this judgment is offered against design advocates.
I'm just thinking out loud here. But it seems that some you guys need to read more widely in the literature. Let me recommend "World Without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism" by Michael Rea (Oxford University Press, 2002); and "Naturalism: A Critical Approach," eds. William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland (Routledge, 2000).
Frank
Comment by fbeckwith — December 31, 2005 @ 12:02 am
December 31st, 2005 at 12:11 am
DocLogic: "The prediction is that IC and CSI correspond to ID."
This is not a prediction, but rather a rule of inference, (which is assumed to be reliable but not infallible, as with all ampliative inferences). In other words, what you've described is a part of the methodology of the Intelligent Design research program, and not a prediction at all.
The burden of justifying this rule of inference is one that Dr. Dembski has attempted to discharge in his books and articles, especially "The Design Inference" and "No Free Lunch".
DocLogic: "However, the only method proposed by IDists to test the claim is to show that something that has IC or CSI is actually not designed, i.e., it is a negative test against mechanistic explanation."
In the case of CSI, what makes a given pattern embody complex specified information is partly that it is too improbable to have been plausibly brought about by natural laws. That's what the "complex" part means. Thus, to make a claim that something is complex IS, implicitly, to make a prediction about it, one which will be falsified if or when someone can bring up a mechanistic explanation for it.
It is SPECIFICATION together with complexity which allows one to infer the activity of an intelligently designing agent. And one basis for this rule of inference is that it is a straightforward application of the general principle "Similar effects have similar causes."
Where is the "supernatural" (whatever that means) in all of this?
DocLogic: "This simply amounts to the claim that science cannot explain the object under study."
No. It amounts to the claim that science cannot explain the object under study IF SCIENCE IS RESTRICTED TO MECHANISTIC EXPLANATION.
I have yet to see any good reason why science should be restricted to mechanistic explanation (unless of course we are determined to be philosophical materialists).
DocLogic: "How is this different from the claims of religionists throughout the ages?"
The claims of religionists usually involve something to do with salvation and the spiritual life, claims of which ID is entirely devoid.
Comment by Omar — December 31, 2005 @ 12:11 am
December 31st, 2005 at 1:43 am
DocLogic: "Now that I think about it, what would be the operational difference between an ID research program and a supernatural causality (SC) program?"
The difference would derive from the goals of the two programs.
The SC program would have to show that the cause of a given phenomenon was not only intelligent, but also that it had powers beyond those of any possible natural agent. So yes, demonstrating the impossibility of a mechanical explanation for a phenomenon would be part of it. But then the SCist would have to go further, and show that the intelligence in question had powers beyond those of any possible natural agent. This, of course, is no part of the ID program, because there is no way to carry it out based on the observation of CSI.
In fact, we have an SC program already: the attempt to prove, via the Cosmological argument, the existence of a necessary being reponsible for the existence of all contingent beings. Such a being, if it existed, would be supernatural in an obvious sense, as it would literally go beyond the world of nature (by vurtue of being responsible for that world of nature). I fail to see how ID is comparable.
Comment by Omar — December 31, 2005 @ 1:43 am
December 31st, 2005 at 2:32 am
Omar: In the case of CSI, what makes a given pattern embody complex specified information is partly that it is too improbable to have been plausibly brought about by natural laws. That's what the "complex" part means. Thus, to make a claim that something is complex IS, implicitly, to make a prediction about it, one which will be falsified if or when someone can bring up a mechanistic explanation for it.
It is SPECIFICATION together with complexity which allows one to infer the activity of an intelligently designing agent. And one basis for this rule of inference is that it is a straightforward application of the general principle "Similar effects have similar causes."
Can you please provide a scientifically rigorous definition of Complex Specified Information as applied to a biological entity? I've been asking this for years and have yet to get a definition that doesn't involve even more undefined, vague terms.
I've read Dembski's and Behe's definitions ad nauseum, but nowhere do they give a rigorous enough definition to be able to actually apply it to anything except the most trivial non-biological examples.
Also, could you please explain how to measure the CSI of a biological entity? A specific example showing the calculations would be even better.
Omar: In the case of CSI, what makes a given pattern embody complex specified information is partly that it is too improbable to have been plausibly brought about by natural laws.
How can you calculate the odds of something being "too improbable" when you cannot possibly know all possible results that natural law may produce? That is the huge flaw in Dembski's Explanatory Filter, which is why no one has been able to use it in a practical case it in the seven years it has been around.
I'm not trolling - I am seriously interested in the answers to these question. Thanks for your consideration.
Comment by tika — December 31, 2005 @ 2:32 am
December 31st, 2005 at 6:28 am
tika,
"Intelligent Design" is NOT by definition LIMITED TO biology. It's a general, theoretical, idea. Given that biology is one of the more complex and untameable of the sciences (as compared to, say, physics or chemistry, for example), trying to use some of the current methods of ID to "analyze" aspects of biology would be incredibly difficult, at best. But, as Mike Gene pointed out, it took science and scientists around 70 years before Darwinism could be "applied" (I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to this claim) to biology. When was the "Design Inference" published? Around 10 years ago (rounding). So, why not extend the same patience to ID that scientists did to Darwinism?
Comment by Douglas — December 31, 2005 @ 6:28 am
December 31st, 2005 at 9:20 am
tika sez:
I'm not trolling - I am seriously interested in the answers to these question.
All evidence to the contrary. Ya see tika if you really are interested you would get off of your lazy butt, take some initiative and actually do some research. Then you could ask specific questions pertaining to the rigorous definitions provided in the ID literature.
Wm. Dembski, in "No Free Lunch" tells us how to measure CSI.
Then when you ask the following it demonstrates you don't understand science or the issue:
How can you calculate the odds of something being "too improbable" when you cannot possibly know all possible results that natural law may produce?
THAT is why it is called an inference. IF we knew all possible results it would no longer be an inference but a given. Science does not work by providing proof.
It would help your case if you showed a little good faith by providing a scientific rigorous definition on how scientists determine that the design obsrved in nature is illusory.
That way when your query is answered you can't back peddle. IOW you give a little and perhaps you will get something in return.
However when you show up and start demanding things that have been published for years and act as if it doesn't exist it demonstrates that you really are not interested. That is just the reality of the situation.
BTW how Wm Dembski's definition of CSI applies to biology (in simple very understandable terms)-
Page 141 of "NFL" defines CSI as The coincidence of conceptual and physical information where the conceptual information is both identifiable independently of the physical information and also complex.
CSI & specified complexity are basically the same thing. CSI can be understood as the convergence of physical information, for example the hardware of a computer and conceptual information, for example the software that allows the computer to perform a function, such as an operating system with application programs. In biology the physical information would be the components that make up an organism (arms, legs, body, head, internal organs and systems) as well as the organism itself. The conceptual information is what allows that organism to use its components and to be alive. After all a dead organism still has the same components. However it can no longer control them.
The bacterial flagellum- It is a physical part. The physical information is the specific arrangement of amino acid sequences required, as well as their configuration- the "propeller" filament is comprised of more than 20,000 subunits of the flagellin protein FLiC; The three ring proteins (Flgh, I, and F) are presnt in about 26 subunits each; The proximal rod requires 6 subunits, FliE 9 subunits, and FliP about 5 subunits; the distal rod consists of about 25 subunits; the hook (or U-joint) consists of about 130 subunits of FlgE . The conceptual information is that which allowed for its assembly, i.e. the assembly instructions, as well as for the operation, i.e. the speed and direction of rotation.
Now if you expect us to put into a blog what it took others books to do, you are sadly mistaken. No one is here to spoon feed you. However if you have specific questions that would be another story.
Comment by Joe G — December 31, 2005 @ 9:20 am
December 31st, 2005 at 9:28 am
to doctor(logic),
Everything turtles down to the non or super natural. There isn't anyone who can escape that fact. Ya see natural processes only exist in nature and therefore could not have been responsible for the origin of nature. So if nature did not have a natural cause by your logic it can't be explained. Strange logic but that is what you are saying.
Perhaps you can tell us how it was determined that the design observed in nature is illusory. Thanks.
Comment by Joe G — December 31, 2005 @ 9:28 am
December 31st, 2005 at 9:42 am
Just a note to tika and doctor(logic)
A link or a reference would be fine.
I would rather have the source that demonstrates how it was determined that the design we observe in nature is illusory.
Thanks
Comment by Joe G — December 31, 2005 @ 9:42 am
December 31st, 2005 at 11:30 am
MikeGene,
Isn't this just tautological? The only interesting question is whether the premises are met.
A designer-centric approach would require you to unearth evidence such as:
1) Evidence of the designer's civilization - writings, starships, bio-engineering labs, fossilized caterpillar tracks, titanium girders, etc.
2) Evidence that life on this planet serves some utility to its designer that is counter to natural selection. Evolution predicts one utility: survival. Though a designer might design exclusively for survival, a designer could have designed for any of a million different purposes.
Evidence like this should lead to predictive theories.
Without any such evidence, the mechanistic design theory would be that an advanced designer created (or deposited) primitive life on this planet just for kicks, then abandoned it. As far as I can tell, there are no predictions that can be made from a story about an unknown alien who builds a useless artifact using undetectable hardware. This is why ID in its current form makes no predictions.
Comment by doctor(logic) — December 31, 2005 @ 11:30 am
December 31st, 2005 at 11:45 am
teleologist,
String theory and other unified theories are not outside of spacetime. They propose that our spacetime dimensions are part of a larger manifold, and that the invisible dimensions get compacted. These extra dimensions are responsible for things like electric charge. Furthermore, these theories are predictive in the sense that they make definite predictions about cosmological inflation, supersymmetry, gravity waves and so on. If these theories had no hope of validation, physicists wouldn't be studying them as physical theories.
However, we might rescue your definition by proposing that we live in a giant simulation. Outside the simulation, some intelligent agent (naturalistic, perhaps) might be pulling the strings. By fiat, the system operator could cause events to occur without prior cause.
It doesn't really matter. The empirical consequence of supernatural cause isn't that we don't observe what we observe. It is that we cannot explain what we observe. Again, the signature of the supernatural is that the execution of the algorithm of science never terminates at an explanation.
Comment by doctor(logic) — December 31, 2005 @ 11:45 am
December 31st, 2005 at 12:06 pm
Frank,
As a fairly radical empiricist, I would say that logic and mathematics are empirical. We can do mathematical experiments repeatedly and get the same answer (as long as we get our sums right!). A priori, moral properties and intentions are experienced in much the same way we experience day and night, so I would agree that they are empirical. As it happens, we now have good reason to believe that our minds are no more than the self-awareness in biological machinery. When we chip away at the physical machinery of the brain, we chip away at the mental machinery of experience. There seems to be no aspect of our mental selves that cannot be altered by chemistry.
So, to me, none of the things you mention seems supernatural, but merely natural.
Comment by doctor(logic) — December 31, 2005 @ 12:06 pm
December 31st, 2005 at 12:25 pm
doctor opines:
A designer-centric approach would require you to unearth evidence such as:
1) Evidence of the designer's civilization - writings, starships, bio-engineering labs, fossilized caterpillar tracks, titanium girders, etc.
Not necessarilly. All we have to do is "unearth" signs of design. Then we investigate- is the design real or illusory? We know how to detect design- how would you determine the design was illusory?
2) Evidence that life on this planet serves some utility to its designer that is counter to natural selection. Evolution predicts one utility: survival. Though a designer might design exclusively for survival, a designer could have designed for any of a million different purposes.
How does evolution "predict" survival? How did the knowledge of survival originate? Do rocks survive?
I blow up things as part of my job. If the explosive wasn't strong enough to destroy a rock we say it survived the blast.
However the scientific research that led to "The Privileged Planet" appears tohave uncovered a purpose- the universe was designed for scientific discovery:
"The same narrow circumstances that allow for our existence also offer the best overall conditions for making scientific discovery."
There are predictions based on that premise.
Comment by Joe G — December 31, 2005 @ 12:25 pm
December 31st, 2005 at 12:28 pm
doctor:
There seems to be no aspect of our mental selves that cannot be altered by chemistry.
But the question is the origin of our mental selves. We know once things exist they may be able to be altered but possible alterations do not explain its origins.
Comment by Joe G — December 31, 2005 @ 12:28 pm
December 31st, 2005 at 12:34 pm
Omar,
In terms of activity, there's no difference between this and the SC program I mentioned. And as you say,
Neither program ever reaches validation. Both programs are premised on the claim that mechanistic research programs will never terminate to a satisfactory conclusion, i.e., that no satisfactory mechanistic explanation will be found.
This is very different from SETI and archaeology which make positive predictions that do not rely on the failure of all other explanations.
More to the point, if you don't make any predictions about future observations, you can't really be said to have an explanation at all. ID doesn't make predictions about observations. If it can be said to make predictions at all, it predicts that we won't be able to explain observations, not what observations will be made. It's a negative prediction about the investigation, not the investigated.
Comment by doctor(logic) — December 31, 2005 @ 12:34 pm
December 31st, 2005 at 12:43 pm
doctor (keeps repeating as if it will make it come true):
ID doesn't make predictions about observations.
But ID just wants scientists to be able to reach a design inference when doing research. What part of that don't you understand?
And why isn't CSI a prediction of ID when it can be said that every time we observe CSI an intelligent agency is always responsible? That sounds exactly like a scientific prediction to me.
"Everytime we do X. Y happens." "Everytime Y happens it is always caused by X." Therefore we can predict when we do X, Y will follow.
ID is based on three premises. The first two are positive claims. I don't know how anyone could say otherwise.
Comment by Joe G — December 31, 2005 @ 12:43 pm
December 31st, 2005 at 12:45 pm
MikeGene says:
Call my a cynic - If there was truth to ID, I don't have any confidence in the non-teleologist's ability to detect and acknowledge it. Is there evidence to think I should?
This is why it is required that doctor or tika provide the data I requested. That way we have a reference. However that is exactly why we most likely will not get an answer from either.
Comment by Joe G — December 31, 2005 @ 12:45 pm
December 31st, 2005 at 1:40 pm
DocLogic:
Let's take a look. First, there is a boatload of anecdotal evidence where scientists writing articles and editorials equate ID with supernaturalism, religion, and God. There was a survey that showed over 90% of scientists equate the concept of ID with a religious belief. And now we have the Judge, relying on scientific experts, ruling that ID is an appeal to the supernatural. It doesn't matter if ID truly is an appeal to the supernatural; all that matters is that it is perceived to be so. Second, the scientific experts and judge have clarified that a necessary ground rule of science is to invoke only natural causes. I'd say both premises are met.
Of course. The designer-centric approach has us first unearthing details about the designer's methods and psychology and only then can be begin to search for evidence of design. That's one way of going about it, but the whole idea of ID is to begin with the awareness that we lack such independent information and then ask whether we can still find ways of detecting design.
There is no reason to look for any civilization or psychological profile unless you have reason to think something is designed. But according to you, you have to first have evidence of the civilization and psychological profile before you can infer design. The evidence you want unearthed is the type of thing you stumble over, not something that is unearthed through an investigation.
And even if you relax the standards of the designer-centric approach in order to allow it to be applied in an investigative manner, what good is it? If I assume X was designed by some intelligent agent, where do I look for those lab notes and diaries?
Let's assume life was indeed designed by some intelligent agency. Does this mean someone should be able to go into the lab and find evidence of the designer's civilization? Does it mean we should be able to find the designers in order to study them?
Comment by MikeGene — December 31, 2005 @ 1:40 pm
December 31st, 2005 at 2:11 pm
Douglas: "Intelligent Design" is NOT by definition LIMITED TO biology. It's a general, theoretical, idea. Given that biology is one of the more complex and untameable of the sciences (as compared to, say, physics or chemistry, for example), trying to use some of the current methods of ID to "analyze" aspects of biology would be incredibly difficult, at best.
The main claim of the ID movement is that biological life was too complex to have evolved, so biological life must have a designer.
CSI was put forward specifically as evidence of the above claim. For it to be applicable, you must define CSI as it relates to biological life.
Please provide a scientifically rigorous defintion of CSI as applied to biological entities.
Please describe how to measure CSI in biological entities, and give an example.
The current definition of CSI that Joe G. keeps parroting is totally subjective depending on the whims observer. There are no guidelines or formal parameters provided for the level of detail necessary in describing the "physical component". There are no guidelines or formal definitions of what constitutes "conceptual information". There are no guidelines or formal definitions provided as to what the "coincidence" or "convergence" of the two means. CSI as currently defined is just a verbose way of saying "it looks too complicated to me, so it must be designed", nothing more.
None of what you wrote which has any pertinence to my questions, unless you are admitting that there is no way to quantify or qualify CSI, so it is worthless as evidence for ID in biological life.
Douglas: But, as Mike Gene pointed out, it took science and scientists around 70 years before Darwinism could be "applied" (I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to this claim) to biology. When was the "Design Inference" published? Around 10 years ago (rounding). So, why not extend the same patience to ID that scientists did to Darwinism?
Because Darwin provided positive evidence for his theory before it was introduced into the school system. Only after enough positive evidence was accumulated and verified did ToE become accepted into scientific circles. ID is trying to get into the science classrooms now, based solely on negative attacks upon existing theory. That is not science "“ not now, not tomorrow, not ever.
I've got plenty of patience with ID. It's an interesting philosophical idea, and IF and WHEN someone comes up with some positive evidence for it I'll be glad to listen. Until then, it stays in Philosophy class.
Are you ready yet to admit I was correct about Joe G. and to apologize for calling me a liar?
Comment by tika — December 31, 2005 @ 2:11 pm
December 31st, 2005 at 2:35 pm
Joe G. Now if you expect us to put into a blog what it took others books to do, you are sadly mistaken. No one is here to spoon feed you. However if you have specific questions that would be another story.
All I'm expecting you to do is discuss and defend the details of the stuff you keep C&Ping. You haven't demonstrated the slightest hint that you understand the stuff you keep parroting. And you certainly haven't been able to defend it.
Here are some specific questions
How detailed does the "physical description" have to be when measuring CSI?
Define "conceptual information", and describe how to measure it. An analogy is NOT a rigorous scientific definition.
You made the claim that the "conceptual information" in a living creature is higher that in that same creature after it has died. How did you determine this? How much "conceptual information" is lost through dying?
There is a natural stone bridge at the seashore near where I live. According to your definition, it has CSI. It has "physical information" that meets your vague definition ( the arch dimensions itself, the materials it is composed of) and "conceptual information" that meets your vague definition (the erosive action of the waves that allowed for its assembly). Does that mean the arch was intelligently designed?
Comment by tika — December 31, 2005 @ 2:35 pm
December 31st, 2005 at 5:25 pm
DocLogic: "This is very different from SETI and archaeology which make positive predictions that do not rely on the failure of all other explanations."
Both SETI and archaeology definitely do rely on the failure of all mechanistic explanations not involving the action of an intelligent agent, just as ID does.
Suppose an archaeologist discovers some rocks which he thinks are arrow-heads, and thus indicative of a civilization that existed at that place. His conclusion will be defeated if another scientist can demonstrate the existence of natural processes which were not unlikely to have produced the rocks in question, and the archaeologist would be rationally obligated to withdraw his conclusions. Thus, the archaeologist is implicitly presupposing that no such explanation will be given when he concludes that the rocks are artifacts: he is implicitly relying on the failure of mechanistic explanations, and is tacitly assuming that no such explanations will be forthcoming. If he can't make such a tacit assumption, he can't infer that the thing in question is an artifact.
What the SETI researchers look for is a persistent, narrow-band signal, an endless sinusoidal signal, a dead simple tone. Why? Partly because, as SETI researcher Seth Shostak says "Such a tone just doesn't seem to be generated by natural astrophysical processes."
Now, suppose a SETI researcher claims he has found such a signal coming from a planet. Then a physicist comes along and demonstrates the existence of natural processes on planets which were not unlikely to have caused a signal of the kind the SETI researcher thought was indicative of intelligence. Then the SETI guys conclusion will be defeated, and he will be left with no proof of any intelligence. The SETI guy, when he concludes to the activity of an intelligent agent, is therefore tacitly presupposing the failure of mechanistic explanations which do not involve intelligence. If he did not make this tacit presupposition he could not rationally draw his conclusion.
What Dembski does is to *make explicit* what is tacitly presupposed by SETI researchers and archaeologists. The assumption of the failure of mechanistic non-design explanations for a given phenomenon is *essential* for design inferences. Dembski just says it up front in the Explanatory Filter.
Comment by Omar — December 31, 2005 @ 5:25 pm
December 31st, 2005 at 5:33 pm
Tika: you raise some good questions about Demsbki's theory in your first post to me, but with your permission, I would like to avoid them in order to focus on what you assert in the following
"ID is trying to get into the science classrooms now, based solely on negative attacks upon existing theory."
I agree that ID shouldn't be in the classrooms for the moment.
But what I am concerned with is the claim that ID involves nothing more than negative attacks on existing theory, and that (assuming this is so) this is a defect.
I am not convinced by either part of this claim.
Comment by Omar — December 31, 2005 @ 5:33 pm
December 31st, 2005 at 9:07 pm
tika,
"The main claim of the ID movement is that biological life was too complex to have evolved, so biological life must have a designer."
Yes, but "the ID movement" is NOT the same thing as "Intelligent Design". Note that "the Intelligent Design MOVEMENT" has an extra word tacked on to "Intelligent Design".
"CSI was put forward specifically as evidence of the above claim. For it to be applicable, you must define CSI as it relates to biological life."
That's utterly and clearly untrue. Dembski uses several NON-biological examples to describe or illustrate CSI. CSI is NOT dependent upon biology. The claim is that it can be APPLIED TO biology. You seem to not be able to discern the difference between CSI and APPLYING CSI to biology.
"Are you ready yet to admit I was correct about Joe G. and to apologize for calling me a liar?"
Sure, once YOU are ready to provide EVIDENCE (and not second-hand agreement) that Joe G actually "threatened" you. Have you lost track of where he actually did so? You seem unwilling or unable to post the actual evidence for all to see.
Comment by Douglas — December 31, 2005 @ 9:07 pm
January 1st, 2006 at 12:12 am
tika: "The main claim of the ID movement is that biological life was too complex to have evolved, so biological life must have a designer."
Douglas: Yes, but "the ID movement" is NOT the same thing as "Intelligent Design". Note that "the Intelligent Design MOVEMENT" has an extra word tacked on to "Intelligent Design".
In the context used they mean exactly the same thing. Are you just incredibly dense or deliberately obtuse about what was written?
tika: "CSI was put forward specifically as evidence of the above claim. For it to be applicable, you must define CSI as it relates to biological life."
Douglas: That's utterly and clearly untrue. Dembski uses several NON-biological examples to describe or illustrate CSI. CSI is NOT dependent upon biology. The claim is that it can be APPLIED TO biology. You seem to not be able to discern the difference between CSI and APPLYING CSI to biology.
Then show how it can applied to biology, and quit playing childish word games. No one has said that CSI was dependent on biology.
I still can't figure out if you're just incredibly dense or deliberately dishonest about what was written. I'm leaning towards dishonest, since no one could be so stupid and avoid natural selection very long
Dembski's claim is that CSI is present in biological life, and is evidence of design. Do you dispute that? What part of these questions
Please provide a scientifically rigorous defintion of CSI as applied to biological entities.
Please describe how to measure CSI in biological entities, and give an example.
is unclear?
I'm beginning to detect a clear pattern in your answers. You "quote mine" part of someone's post, severely misstate what was asked of you, then go off on a rant about your red herring subject.
Dense or deliberately dishonest - which is it?
Tika: "Are you ready yet to admit I was correct about Joe G. and to apologize for calling me a liar?"
Douglas: Sure, once YOU are ready to provide EVIDENCE (and not second-hand agreement) that Joe G actually "threatened" you.
Go here for evidence. There is testimony by five separate, independent witnesses to the events described.
Douglas:Have you lost track of where he actually did so? You seem unwilling or unable to post the actual evidence for all to see.
Two of the boards where this occurred (BaptistBoard, CreationWeb) have gone defunct. NAIG is space limited does not archive older posts. The direct testimony of five independent witnesses is evidence.
Comment by tika — January 1, 2006 @ 12:12 am
January 1st, 2006 at 12:42 am
Omar:
Tika, you raise some good questions about Demsbki's theory in your first post to me, but with your permission, I would like to avoid them in order to focus on what you assert in the following
"ID is trying to get into the science classrooms now, based solely on negative attacks upon existing theory."
I agree that ID shouldn't be in the classrooms for the moment.
But what I am concerned with is the claim that ID involves nothing more than negative attacks on existing theory, and that (assuming this is so) this is a defect.
I am not convinced by either part of this claim.
Fair enough, but consider:
ID has not put forward one scrap of positive evidence in its own behalf. Every argument to date is based on a variation of the theme "the Theory of Evolution can't explain it, so it must be designed".
Irreducible Complexity as put forward by Behe is solely based on negative evidence. Behe first claimed that evolution can't explain the IC structures at all. When plausible developmental pathways for IC structures were found, Behe changed his tune and now demands a detailed step-by-step genetic history of every single creature in the lineage. In other words, it's still "ToE can't explain it to my satisfaction, so I win!"
Claims about CSI are also based solely on negative evidence. The claim is made that features are too complex to have occurred through known evolutionary processes. Once again it's "ToE can't explain it to my satisfaction, so I win"
The Explanatory Filter which is supposed to detect design is fatally flawed because it uses faulty probability assumptions based on a lack of evidence. "The ToE can't show a high enough probability of being correct for my satisfaction, so I win"
All of ID is based on the false dichotomy "If ToE is wrong, then ID is right", but negative evidence against one theory is not positive evidence for another.
In science, all theories must provide their own positive evidence, no exceptions. ID hasn't done this, and most likely never will.
Comment by tika — January 1, 2006 @ 12:42 am
January 1st, 2006 at 8:40 am
Tika: "In science, all theories must provide their own positive evidence, no exceptions."
I have to disagree with this, for a number of reasons, one of which I will describe in this post.
Here's an exception to your rule: if T1 and T2 are two mutually exclusive and exhaustive claims, then negative evidence against T1 is automatically evidence for T2, and vice versa.
To apply this to the present case, let
T1 = "No intelligent designer was involved in causing the existence of complex structures"
and let
T2 = "Some intelligent designer was involved in causing the existence of complex structures"
Note that if T1 is true, then the only remotely plausible way it can be true is for neo-Darwinian evolutionay theory (NDE) to be true. In other words, given the current state of our knowledge, if T1 is true, then NDE is true.
Thus, evidence against NDE is evidence against T1 (by virtue of the rule of inference modus tollens), and this is in turn evidence for T2.
Comment by Omar — January 1, 2006 @ 8:40 am
January 1st, 2006 at 9:32 am
tika sez:
The main claim of the ID movement is that biological life was too complex to have evolved, so biological life must have a designer.
That is false. Complexity is only one component. Had you understood ID you would have known that,
tika sez:
Are you ready yet to admit I was correct about Joe G. and to apologize for calling me a liar?
But you weren't correct, and you have yet to provide any evidence to that effect. IOW the evidence says you lied.
tika sez:
There is testimony by five separate, independent witnesses to the events described.
Five witnesses? You mean 5 anonymous "witnesses" who would say anything. What a joke. Only an imbecile would think that is "evidence" and it surely wouldn't fly in any courtroom.
But anyway, it all boils down to this:
It would help your case if you showed a little good faith by providing a scientific rigorous definition on how scientists determine that the design obsrved in nature is illusory.
Neither tika nor doctor(logic) bothered with this very important aspect of the discussion. Whuch means neither are interested in an honest discussion.
No surprise there. But thanks for exposing yourselves as the trolls you are.
People there isn't any data that would convince these guys about ID.
When someone sez this, you know they are clueless:
Irreducible Complexity as put forward by Behe is solely based on negative evidence.
Reality demonstrates that IC is based on positive evidence. THAT is how any structure is determined to be IC, by conforming to a defined criterion.
MikeGene is right:
Call my a cynic - If there was truth to ID, I don't have any confidence in the non-teleologist's ability to detect and acknowledge it. Is there evidence to think I should?
tika & doctor(logic) provide us with more than enough evidence that would substantiate what MikeGene says.
Comment by Joe G — January 1, 2006 @ 9:32 am
January 1st, 2006 at 10:11 am
Go here to see how stupid and frail tika's accusations are.
Just her tactics here should be evidence enough that she couldn't tell the truth if her life depended on it.
Comment by Joe G — January 1, 2006 @ 10:11 am
January 1st, 2006 at 10:53 am
tika,
In reviewing the evidence presented at both the link you provided, and the link Joe G provided, it is clear to me you have no case whatsoever, other than, as Joe G describes, misunderstanding clouded by something akin to guilty paranoia. I am sure you will ascribe my judgment in this to bias, but you'd be wrong.
tika: "The main claim of the ID movement is that biological life was too complex to have evolved, so biological life must have a designer."
Me: "Yes, but 'the ID movement' is NOT the same thing as 'Intelligent Design'. Note that 'the Intelligent Design MOVEMENT"'has an extra word tacked on to 'Intelligent Design'."
tika: "In the context used they mean exactly the same thing. Are you just incredibly dense or deliberately obtuse about what was written?"
No, I just went back and traced our various relevant posts in this thread, and it is YOU who have forgotten the context which gave rise to our comments here. That "context" is OMAR's description of "Complex Specified Information" - it is YOU who, CONTRARY TO CONTEXT, tried to misdirect the conversation to CSI as applied to biology, as though the concept of CSI itself is invalid unless it can be applied to biology.
tika: "CSI was put forward specifically as evidence of the above claim. For it to be applicable, you must define CSI as it relates to biological life."
Me: "That's utterly and clearly untrue. Dembski uses several NON-biological examples to describe or illustrate CSI. CSI is NOT dependent upon biology. The claim is that it can be APPLIED TO biology. You seem to not be able to discern the difference between CSI and APPLYING CSI to biology."
tika: "Then show how it can applied to biology, and quit playing childish word games. No one has said that CSI was dependent on biology."
No, I was attempting to point out to you that, GIVEN THE CONTEXT OF OMAR's explanation of CSI, you would be wrong to claim that CSI itself was "put forward" as evidence that biology was designed. Do not hold me responsible for your poor wording which led to an incorrect understanding of your meaning in the context of this discussion, since it was YOU who went astray of the context - that is, in the CONTEXT of discussing CSI itself, "putting forward" CSI in relation to biology implies that CSI is BASED ON biology. You have yet to even demonstrate an understanding of CSI, so why should I have thought you wanted to see proof it had been applied to biology?
tika: "I still can't figure out if you're just incredibly dense or deliberately dishonest about what was written. I'm leaning towards dishonest, since no one could be so stupid and avoid natural selection very long."
Well, if those were the only two choices, then it would HAVE TO BE "dense", as I am in no way dishonest. And perhaps I should have been able to pick through your points and comments to understand what you meant, but generally I don't go back several posts in order to make sure whether or where someone has taken a detour from the original context.
tika: "Dembski's claim is that CSI is present in biological life, and is evidence of design. Do you dispute that?…."
No. But that is not Dembki's ONLY claim, nor even his PRIMARY or most FUNDAMENTAL, claim regarding CSI.
tika: "Please provide a scientifically rigorous defintion of CSI as applied to biological entities. Please describe how to measure CSI in biological entities, and give an example."
I respond by quoting myself from an above reply I made to you: "But, as Mike Gene pointed out, it took science and scientists around 70 years before Darwinism could be 'applied' (I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to this claim) to biology. When was the 'Design Inference' published? Around 10 years ago (rounding). So, why not extend the same patience to ID that scientists did to Darwinism?"
tika: "I'm beginning to detect a clear pattern in your answers. You 'quote mine' part of someone's post, severely misstate what was asked of you, then go off on a rant about your red herring subject."
Speaking of "quote-mining", you yourself appeal to likely "quote-mines" of several individuals, of things which apparently NO LONGER EVEN EXIST FOR COMPARISON, and then act as though their misstatements or misunderstandings of those "quote-mines" actually suffice as EVIDENCE for your accusation that Joe G "threatened" you. Hypocrisy combined with a guilty conscience often leads to "projection".
tika: "Dense or deliberately dishonest - which is it?"
In my case, it would have to be "dense". As much as I try to avoid it, I'm not always able to. On the other hand, in your case it would appear to be both, unless I'm just dense.
Comment by Douglas — January 1, 2006 @ 10:53 am
January 1st, 2006 at 11:37 am
Douglas,
tika isn't interested in an honest discussion nor is she interested in reality. All she is interested in , as evidenced from her posts, is to inflame. It is really the only position she has left.
Again I apologize to this blog for the internet stalker who thought it would be OK to stalk me to this blog and pollute it.
Comment by Joe G — January 1, 2006 @ 11:37 am
January 1st, 2006 at 2:07 pm
tika Says:
I think your challenges are thought provoking. Allow me to turn your questions around, and substitute "fitness" or "natural selection" for CSI.
Comment by RogerRabbitt — January 1, 2006 @ 2:07 pm
January 1st, 2006 at 2:14 pm
Omar: I have to disagree with this, for a number of reasons, one of which I will describe in this post.
Here's an exception to your rule: if T1 and T2 are two mutually exclusive and exhaustive claims, then negative evidence against T1 is automatically evidence for T2, and vice versa.
To apply this to the present case, let
T1 = "No intelligent designer was involved in causing the existence of complex structures"
and let
T2 = "Some intelligent designer was involved in causing the existence of complex structures"
Note that if T1 is true, then the only remotely plausible way it can be true is for neo-Darwinian evolutionay theory (NDE) to be true. In other words, given the current state of our knowledge, if T1 is true, then NDE is true.
Thus, evidence against NDE is evidence against T1 (by virtue of the rule of inference modus tollens), and this is in turn evidence for T2.
The big flaw in your logic is that the current knowledge used to support NDE does not represent the total knowable quantity that supports T1.
Saying "NDE does not explain complex structures" only means that that our current knowledge set that supports of T1 is incomplete, a fact that biological scientists have always admitted.
Saying "NDE cannot explain complex structures ever" is a false conclusion, because that would require complete knowledge of every single piece of data to support T1 that ever existed, a logical impossibility.
All available evidence we do have now (and there is plenty) supports T1. In fact, our knowledge set that supports T1 continues to grow every day. In contrast, the data to support T2 remains at zero.
Pointing out that our current knowledge of T1 is incomplete in no way, shape, or form can be construed as positive evidence for T2.
ID still has not produced one iota of positive data
Comment by tika — January 1, 2006 @ 2:14 pm
January 1st, 2006 at 2:59 pm
tika:
What an incredibly inane line of argumentation! NDE exists to support a negative philosophical assertion, even though it doesn't actually support the negative philosophical assertion, but someday it might. And that's supposed to be "positive data?"
Hopeless drivel.
Comment by Joy — January 1, 2006 @ 2:59 pm
January 1st, 2006 at 3:21 pm
To further support the inference I made about CSI vs. NS / fitness re:tika's questions:
On Not Admitting You Are Wrong, or What Dembski and Wolfram Have in Common
Alright, on a track similiar to what tika seems to be asserting about CSI. Now, let us look at Talk Origins, and their take on natural selection:
Evolution and Philosophy A Good Tautology is Hard to Find
IOW, to use the terminology of Shallit, it suffers from subjectivity, as it depends critically on the knowledge base of the observer
Comment by RogerRabbitt — January 1, 2006 @ 3:21 pm
January 1st, 2006 at 3:21 pm
tika sez:
ID still has not produced one iota of positive data
Scientists conducting scientific research has produced plenty of positive evidence for the design inference.
Can you tell us what is the positive evidence that we exist due to unintelligent, blind/ undirected (non-goal oriented) processes?
It would help your case if you showed a little good faith by providing a scientific rigorous definition on how scientists determine that the design obsrved in nature is illusory.
Comment by Joe G — January 1, 2006 @ 3:21 pm
January 1st, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Omar,
Thanks for your good questions. They have been most stimulating for the little grey cells.
I disagree that SETI and archaeology rely exclusively on negative tests against undirected phenomena. Utility plays a vital role. Let's look at the example you cite:
First, the archaeologist isn't making this hypothesis in a vacuum. An arrow-head has implicit utility.
Second, the rocks could have been used as arrow-heads whether they were natural or not.
Unlike generic ID, SETI and archaeology both make specific (if implicit) claims about the intelligence under study.
If you find arrow-heads, you're saying that the intelligence benefitted from the use of primitive weapons for hunting or for war. Your archaeological theory predicts we should expect to find species susceptible to attack by arrows, wood suitable for the construction of bows, nearby shelter for humans, remains of prey consumed, remains of the designers, and other low-technology artifacts they constructed.
SETI is founded on assumptions that life evolved elsewhere as it did here, that aliens would have similar physical limitations to our own (e.g., in terms of energy consumption), that they have achieved a level of intelligence capable of transmitting radio waves, that the civilization is relatively nearby, and so on. If SETI had to proceed without any theory, without any assumptions of utility, it would be incapable of making a prediction about what should be observed.
Let's go back to my "supernatural causation" (SC) program and do another comparison with ID. Recall, the SC proponent claims that we will not find a explanation (directed or otherwise) for some subset of phenomena. That is, SC is a purely negative claim about all other scientific approaches.
The IDist, attempting to establish a difference between the ID and SC programs, will claim that, unlike SC, ID admits natural intelligence that causally dictated the observed phenomena.
Yet, the SCist will counter that the IDist's proposal is mere handwaving, and that the IDist has the burden of demonstrating the detailed naturalistic mechanisms (forward planning, memory, data processing, manufacturing) that were behind the formation of life (or whatever else the SCist claims was poofed into existence). The SCist will demand of the IDist precisely what the IDists demand of the evolutionary biologists, i.e., no gaps.
As long as we are willing to accept that the lack of alternative explanations counts as confirmatory evidence for a "theory", we can't blame the SCists for demanding that IDists join the evolutionary biologists and "prove that the supernatural nature of the universe is illusory!"
The moral of the story is that ID must live by conventional, predictive scientific methods, or die by its own sword. If you admit meta-theories as scientific merely on the grounds that an alternative explanation would disprove them, then you have to acknowledge SC as a scientific program. I call that a defect.
Finally, you proposed tika consider T1 and T2 as mutually exclusive claims. However, evolutionists don't propose T1 per se. They propose specific, predictive mechanisms that partially explain how life evolved without forward planning. So, you have established something of a straw man.
Even if the NDE claim actually was that there was no designer for anything in life, then T1 and T2 would still not be mutually exclusive claims because SC might be another alternative. In any case, NDE makes no such claim.
There's a good (if long) analogy for why your argument for raising confidence in T2 is flawed in the general case.
Imagine that I have a deck of cards. I begin turning over cards, and after the first few cards are turned over, a pattern emerges. The deck appears to be largely a standard deck sorted in ascending order of rank, but the Spades have been replaced with identical Jokers.
Let's establish these theories:
Q1 = "this is a standard deck of cards sorted in order of rank, but Spades have been replaced with Jokers."
Q2 = "the Ace of Hearts has been removed and replaced with a Joker."
We turn over 30 cards, and Q1 is further validated, raising our confidence in Q1. Yet, still, the Ace of Hearts has not been seen. So, are we justified in raising our confidence in Q2?
If the deck had been randomly shuffled (and Q1 were false), we should be raising our confidence in Q2 as cards are overturned. This is because, without Q1, we would have no reason to expect that the Ace of Hearts should be at the end of the deck ("…if Q2 were false, on average, in a shuffled deck, we would have expected to find the Ace of Hearts by now").
However, our confidence in Q1 means that we don't expect to significantly raise our confidence in Q2 until we approach the end of the deck. So, our confidence in Q2 remains almost unchanged until the very end.
The reason why this works out the way it does is that Q2 makes no specific predictions along the way. As we make our way through an unsorted deck, our confidence in Q2 changes only because we can estimate the total number of cards in the deck, not because any sorting rule is predicted. That is, P(observation|Q2) is the same for any individual observation. It is only the integral over observations that hopes to change our confidence in Q2.
Comparing your T2 to Q2, we see that P(observation|design) is similarly undifferentiated by any particular observation (T2 is not predictive of actual observations). Therefore, confidence in T2 can only be founded on some nebulous estimate of the likelihood we would have solved the puzzle of mechanistic evolution given the number of observations we have made so far. This is analogous to having made our way through most of a shuffled deck.
All this presents two problems for T2.
First, we have high confidence in several partial theories of evolutionary mechanisms, and those theories tell us that we have a considerable amount of computation and research to do (e.g., cracking the protein folding problem) to complete our research program. This is analogous to knowing that there are lot more cards in the deck.
Second, even if we had no confidence in evolutionary biology, we would still have no idea how much data is enough to make an inference to T2 given that your theory isn't predictive. This is analogous to ignorance of how many cards there are in the deck.
Comment by doctor(logic) — January 1, 2006 @ 5:48 pm
January 1st, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Joe, you sound a bit like a broken record. Just what kind of evidence would you accept? Any piece of evidence given, you could just claim that an undetected intelligence is responsible. In other words, you have set up an unachievable burden of proof. At least we know that mutations occur and can change organisms over time. We don't, however, have any evidence that this 'Intelligent Designer' even exists.
If we look at the genomes of a chimp and a human, the processes that could turn one genome into another have been well-characterized. In other words, no barrier that would prevent one genome from gradually being transformed into another has ever been demonstrated, and in fact a mechanism exists that can explain the change.
Comment by TP — January 1, 2006 @ 6:48 pm
January 1st, 2006 at 10:30 pm
TP asserts:
I've noticed this very immodest charge a lot from ID critics here. Problem is for you and like Darwinian-net-cronies, is it's hardly a convincing statement that "we don't have any evidence" for intelligent design, when tons of intellectuals of a higher caliber than you have said that there is and have written about it in detail. With all due respect I must say that I've almost learned to totally ignore folks like you, when such statements have shown that they have little-to-no open mind toward the subject.
You also complain about Joe's repetitiveness. Apparently, your broken record detector is a very selective one, if he's the only one you think that about.
Comment by Dane Parker — January 1, 2006 @ 10:30 pm
January 1st, 2006 at 10:49 pm
I have explained that negative argumentation against non-Darwinian evolution (NDE) can be enough to provide evidence for ID. (However, I do not think that ID currently relies exclusively on negative argumentation against NDE.)
Tika and Doc(Logic) have responded to me. I now want to explain why I am not convinced by their objections.
Tika: "The big flaw in your logic is that the current knowledge used to support NDE does not represent the total knowable quantity that supports T1."
Response to Tika: I'm not convinced by this, because I'm not sure what you mean. So let me ask you some questions.
Do you think there is evidence for T1 that is not also evidence for NDE? If so, what is it?
Could you also explain which specific statements in my earlier post you object to, or which inferences you think are flawed? For example, do you accept the step "If T1 is true, then NDE is true" If not, at least we know where we disagree. If so, and if we have evidence against NDE, doesnt this translate to evidence against T1?
DocLogic: "Finally, you proposed tika consider T1 and T2 as mutually exclusive claims. However, evolutionists don't propose T1 per se. They propose specific, predictive mechanisms that partially explain how life evolved without forward planning. So, you have established something of a straw man."
Response to DocLogic: My argument was based on the mutually supportive evidential connection between NDE and T1, and the logical relationship between T1 and T2. These claims hold independently of whether or not evolutionists explicitly put forward T1. Thus it is irrelevant whether or not they propose T1 per se.
DocLogic: "Even if the NDE claim actually was that there was no designer for anything in life, then T1 and T2 would still not be mutually exclusive claims because SC might be another alternative. In any case, NDE makes no such claim."
Response to DocLogic: T1 and T2 are definitely mutually exclusive and exhaustive claims. This is clear if you put them into logical form in predicate (first-order) logic: one is just the negation of the other.
SC entails T1, but T1 does not entail SC. In other words, SC is just one version of T1. So SC does not represent some third alternative.
Comment by Omar — January 1, 2006 @ 10:49 pm
January 1st, 2006 at 10:55 pm
I should add, as an appendix to my last post, that DocLogic's card analogy, clever and ingenious though it is, does not apply to my earlier argument.
The reason is that his Q1 and Q2 are not mutually exclusive and exhaustive. My T1 and T2 *are* mutually exclusive and exhaustive, as I tried to point out in my last comment (and this is crucial for my argument). Hence the analogy breaks down.
Comment by Omar — January 1, 2006 @ 10:55 pm
January 1st, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Doc logic says:
Forgive me, but I fail to see the relevance of "utility" here, when utility is just another one of those things that negates something as being the result of undirected phenomena. But why, 'negating' implies negative testing does it not?
Comment by Dane Parker — January 1, 2006 @ 11:09 pm
January 2nd, 2006 at 12:33 am
Dane, first of all it might help if you read a bit more carefully. I said we have no evidence that an Intelligent Designer exists. This is a fact. What appears to be intelligent design may very well be illusory. Second, you don't know me from Adam. You know nothing of my intellectual caliber (I have published more scientific papers than Behe and Dembski combined), and to presume you can make a judgment of me based on 1 post shows that you are willing to jump to conclusions based on very little evidence. This is probably a character flaw that has helped you embrace ID in the light of no evidence for a designer.
Comment by TP — January 2, 2006 @ 12:33 am
January 2nd, 2006 at 1:00 am
Omar,
First, I want to point out that NDE is actually orthogonal to both T1 and T2, because NDE is compatible with both T1 and T2. Validating a theory of NDE does not rule out T2.
Second, in my analogy, Q1 is not intended to be equivalent to T1. Q1 is analogous to specific theories of NDE within T1.
The degree to which you gain support for T2 depends on the degree to which you have ruled out all of the theories in T1. A priori, you have no idea how large T1 is. It is like a deck of cards of unknown size.
Furthermore, T1 contains some NDE theories which, like Q1, tell us specifically that we are nowhere near the end of the deck of cards. The NDE program is successful and on track, but it will still take decades more research and orders of magnitude more computing power to simulate macroevolution and abiogenesis. By my analogy, you have no grounds to claim that we should have seen the Ace of Hearts by now when validated theories within NDE tells us that we should not have done so.
Comment by doctor(logic) — January 2, 2006 @ 1:00 am
January 2nd, 2006 at 1:24 am
Omar,
Also, I would be interested in hearing your further thoughts about the (non-ID) SC program I discussed.
BTW, you were correct about SC being part of T1 as you defined it.
Comment by doctor(logic) — January 2, 2006 @ 1:24 am
January 2nd, 2006 at 1:35 am
Dane Parker,
What on Earth makes you think I have a problem with negative testing? I have a problem with negative testing to the exclusion of positive testing when the search space is of unknown size.
But, since you bring it up utility…
A priori, a generic designer could have designed life for any of a million purposes. Yet, NDE predicts one "utility" - a "wild garden" of surviving species. Under Bayes theorem, fortune favors the bold. Evolution is overwhelmingly confirmed by our observation that life is just a wild garden.
Comment by doctor(logic) — January 2, 2006 @ 1:35 am
January 2nd, 2006 at 2:28 am
TP says:
Oh? And this changes the nature of my statement how? Evidence for intelligent design is evidence for an intelligent designer, tautologically so. And your "fact" is nothing of the sort, beyond your own mind. This blog attests to that, as does Mike Gene's own page, Behe's book, Michael Denton's books, etc, etc, etc. Your stating it as fact doesn't make it so. Or shall I bow to you based on your awesome paper publishing record?
TP also says:
My my. A little bit testy? And for little reason too. Seems to me, if anything you are either misguided on what I said, or projecting — or both. Who said anything about intellectual caliber? I didn't. Perhaps you would "care to read a bit more carefully?" I used 'intellectual' and 'caliber' in the same sentence and you "jumped to conclusions" by putting them together. How do you know I didn't actually mean what I actually meant? Namely, that you're not a very high caliber individual within the ID debate, in the sense that your criticisms mean little compared to higher caliber critics like Ruse, Miller, Berlinski and others. Now, affirm your credentials, get out there, pump out some solid critical articles and maybe even a book, and I might just change my mind regarding what I said. Also, I find it rather amusing in light of the accusation of conclusion-jumping that you assumed the above about what I had said, that I have a particular character flaw, and that I embrace ID. Hm, I'd like to hear how those other two conclusions you seemed to have reached are likewise not forced? Afterall, I do at least know myself from Adam, and I just don't see that those are exactly true either. This reeks of psychological projection, but I don't want to jump to conclusions
.
Comment by Dane Parker — January 2, 2006 @ 2:28 am
January 2nd, 2006 at 2:35 am
Doc Logic:
I'm not sure you got what I was saying. What I said was in terms of what I quoted of you. I am skeptical that the utility criteria changes anything about it being a negative test. Did I misunderstand you here? My apologies if so.
Comment by Dane Parker — January 2, 2006 @ 2:35 am
January 2nd, 2006 at 3:53 am
Omar: Do you think there is evidence for T1 that is not also evidence for NDE?
At this time, all current evidence for T1 also supports NDE. However, we are also aware of and accept that our current data set is incomplete. T1 and NDE are not the same thing.
Omar: For example, do you accept the step "If T1 is true, then NDE is true"?
No, I do not. It is logically possible (although highly improbable) that T1 could be true while NDE is incorrect. We do not and cannot posses every single piece of knowable data about every step in every natural process that has occurred over the last 4.5 billion years. It is logically possible (although highly improbable) that tomorrow will bring a new scientific discovery of a previously unknown set of completely natural processes that explain our empirical data better than NDE.
Omar: If so, and if we have evidence against NDE, doesnt this translate to evidence against T1?
No, it does not, for the reasons given above.
That is why the scientific community does not accept "NDE can't explain this phenomenon, so ID must be true". There are other possibilities for "NDE can't explain this phenomenon"
1. NDE is correct but the supporting data for that particular phenomenon hasn't been found yet.
2. NDE is incorrect but another purely naturalistic process may be responsible for the phenomenon.
Attacking gaps in NDE theory does nothing to further the case for ID.
If ID wants acceptance, it must do research and provide results that unambiguously point to an external agency being responsible for non-natural "intelligent design". It must provide positive evidence.
I'll repeat: All scientific theories must provide their own positive evidence - no exceptions.
Comment by tika — January 2, 2006 @ 3:53 am
January 2nd, 2006 at 5:03 am
Tika: "It is logically possible (although highly improbable) that T1 could be true while NDE is incorrect."
I agree with this, and it is exactly why I earlier claimed that "if T1 is true, then NDE is true". I think what you have just said implies that the statement "if T1 is true, then NDE is true" is highly probable, which is why I used it in my argument.
Let me explain my reasoning.
You and I agree that it is highly improbable that T1 could be true while NDE is incorrect, (although this is logically possible).
In other words, what is highly improbable is the statement
(1) "T1 is true, and it is not the case that NDE."
Using the symbol "~" for "it is not the case that", and the symbol "&" to stand for "and", you and I can agree that the following statement is highly improbable:
(2) T1&~NDE (this is just (1) rewritten with the symbolism I introduced)
But this means that the following statement (3) is highly probable, because it is just the negation of (2)
(3) ~(T1&~NDE)
But now note that, by simple rules of propositional logic, (3) is equivalent to
(4) If T1, then NDE
Thus, the statement "If T1, then NDE" is highly probable (since it is equivalent to (3), which is highly probable.)
And this statement is trivially equivalent to
(5) "If T1 is true, then NDE is true".
And so (5) is highly probable.
But (5) is just the statement I used in my earlier argument, and about which I asked you
"For example, do you accept the step "If T1 is true, then NDE is true""
To which you replied
"No, I do not."
I hope I have shown you that from your admission that it is highly improbable that "T1 could be true whole NDE is incorrect", it follows that a crucial step of my earlier argument is in fact highly probable.
In other words, I hope I have shown, (based solely on your admission above) that the statement "if T1 is true, then NDE is true" is highly probable, and hence rationally obligatory to accept (absent contrary evidence).
But once we accept it, then the rest of the argument goes through as before.
Hence, I am still obliged to disagree with you when you write
"All scientific theories must provide their own positive evidence - no exceptions."
While I agree that this is generally true, the present case is an exception (or so I have argued).
C