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RE: ID is not science - 7/16/2008 12:28:09 PM
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hellohellohi
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Here's another "for instance."
If ID's fundamental (or sole valid) assertion is that the mechanism behind the origin of life is not known, then it is redundant to call it something positive, or to give it a new name. It is already "known" that the origin of life is not known; however, testable hypotheses have been suggested. Might as well check 'em out. To reify the old observation that the QUESTION of the origin of life exists is to get nowhere but rather to add confusion needlessly by introducing redundant terminology for dubious reasons.
It is fine to remind scientists when they appear to admit the origin of life is not understood. However, it is simply a commentary of a jeering spectator to say that, you know, y'all will never find it, because it is actually supernatural. What if the jeers are right? As I said, this would simlpy be an irony sufferred by the witless pursuer of inquiry. And how would that be any different from those like the parody in The Onion -- the expert on anteaters whose biography would be that he had wasted his life studying anteaters? Science is not teleological: it just ask questions. In doing so, it occasionally finds novel phenomena in need of a name.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/16/2008 2:11:05 PM
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hellohellohi
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Further something for consideration:
What might the point of complexity in nature? It is not my interest to consider what the point would be for God, but I suppose it would be charitable to say, to give us something to ponder.
However, I think it is interesting at the present moment to consider what the purpose of complexity would be to nature -- that is, to natural selection. What advantage does complexity or larger scale molecules have over smaller scale? Well, to be rather elementary, larger molecules or small ones working in concert would be necessary to sequester smaller ones.
Mainly, I wanted to offer this: A complex molecule coudl be pragmatically described as one that is less or not at all amenable to effects of a smaller scale molecule or a whole class of specific molecules.
That is, if ANY organic molecule of appreciable size is generated, its "big" effects may trump the smaller ones. Trumping of that molecule could only be done by some -- and it may not even need a specific structure -- bigger molecule.
However, if a big molecule also displays a discernible pattern or repetitive microstructure, then this structure may be amenable to effects of the small classes. So, what I am saying is, perhaps natural selection favored complexity SIMPLY because whenever and because it is random -- that is, it is not only BIG but also hard to answer to by the competition.
Let's test this: Are large randomly structured proteins, for example, resistant to chemical "cutting" by a broader class of smaller molecules. I.e.: Does it take a more specific type of molecule to eventually undue it (accepting that all proteins are denatured by heat.) Are these proteins relatively resistant to reduction (as in "redox") for instance?
Do these "support" my theory? No, but they are what I formulated to begin inveistagting this line of thought. If they are false, woudl they falsify my idea? I suppose. (Incidentally, could I have rephrased the null hypothesis to "random proteins are resistant to cutting" with the alternative being "they are not resistant to cutting.")
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RE: ID is not science - 7/16/2008 3:10:47 PM
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Method
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quote:
ORIGINAL: hellohellohi
Further something for consideration:
What might the point of complexity in nature? It is not my interest to consider what the point would be for God, but I suppose it would be charitable to say, to give us something to ponder.
However, I think it is interesting at the present moment to consider what the purpose of complexity would be to nature -- that is, to natural selection.
Complexity allows for metabolic flexibility, the ability to fill new niches (which reduces competition), and greater variation through genetic recombination, just to name a few. All of the niches available to simple organisms are quickly filled, so there is often only one direction to go, become more complex.
quote:
Mainly, I wanted to offer this: A complex molecule coudl be pragmatically described as one that is less or not at all amenable to effects of a smaller scale molecule or a whole class of specific molecules.
Natural selection can only "see" fitness at the level of the organism. Natural selection can not see the chemistry behind fitness.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/16/2008 3:50:14 PM
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hellohellohi
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quote:
All of the niches available to simple organisms are quickly filled, so there is often only one direction to go, become more complex.
Natural selection can only "see" fitness at the level of the organism. Natural selection can not see the chemistry behind fitness.
No, I was trying to raise a "prior" question of the origin of life rather than what evolution currently does amogn organisms.
I think it is interested to contemplate natural selection among molecules -- i am not saying it would "see" chemical interaction exactly. Rather, I am obviosuly interested in the present context in how the "macro" gets established in the first place.
Please consider what I am saying as a "primitive" purpose of complexity. Niches, you see, are built on top of other organisms. If organisms originated as molecules, then niches may have developed through a process of "upping" the scale of such molecules.
Get it?
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RE: ID is not science - 7/17/2008 9:15:36 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
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3H and Glu,
I'm overwhelmed at the moment. Too many kvestions! I will get to them as I can. Right now I'm just trying to understand what the heck Dembski is saying. ID 101 for the time being.
It appears that ID rests on an inductive generalization. IOW, because design is the best explanation in cases where there is SC and direct, empirical corroboration is possible, we can infer design wherever we find SC.
Let's say we are presented with a 1000 cases of alleged data falsification akin to the Schoen case at Bell labs. At issue in that case was whether a graph in a journal article, which was identical to one in a previous article, was due to chance or to the researcher falisfying the data. Let's say that the jury employs the explanatory filter and in 500 cases concludes the books were cooked. And then, let's assume that in each of those 500 cases the guilty scientists confessed, thus vindicating the design inference based on the presence of SC in each case. IOW, all other explanations have been ruled out.
And so we get the bright idea of applying the explanatory filter to biological phenomena. After all, in the cases of data falsification, every time we found SC, there was design. Dembski says (p. 96) "But since design is uniformly associated with specified complexity when the underlying causal story is known, induction counsels attributing design in cases where the underlying causal story is not known."
OK. But, shifting our object under examination from cheating scientists to, say, the bacterial flagellum, where we don't know the causal story, we have a whole different situation. In the former cases we, in addition to circumstantial evidence, can rely on the direct evidence of a confession. Chance is eliminated. But with the BF, we have to come up with a way to evaluate the probabilities that the specification (the exact structure and function of the BF) arose by chance. Dembski says (p. 96): "Indeed, to attribute specified complexity to something is to say that the specification to which it conforms corresponds to an event that is vastly improbable with respect to all material mechanisms that might give rise to the event."
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RE: ID is not science - 7/17/2008 9:28:19 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
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So how the heck do we determine the probabilities? This gets to Glu's earlier objection. Dembski first reminds us that our "probablistic resources" resources are not unlimited. They are finite. Then he goes on to say (p. 96):
quote:
Thus, for specified complexity to detect design, the probability of the thing in question must be small with respect to every probability distribution that might characterize it. Where that is the case, a design inference follows. The use of chance here is very broad and includes anything that can be captured mathematically by a stochastic process. (Stochastic processes constitute the most general mathematical model for describing the interplay of chance and necessity over time.) It thus includes deterministic processes whose probabilities all collapse to zero and one (such as necessity, regularities and natural laws). It also includes nondeterministic processes, like evolutionary processes that combine random variation and natural selection. Indeed, chance so constructed characterizes all undirected natural processes. In eliminating chance, specified complexity therefore sweeps the field of all processes that could preclude design. The only reasonable possibility left, in that case, would be design.
Whew!
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RE: ID is not science - 7/17/2008 9:42:25 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
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As Glu has reminded us, ID has set forth for itself an ambitious (impossible?) task, for it not only must eliminate known material mechanisms, it must also eliminate the unknown. How does it do that? Dembski claims it can. SC can dispense with unknown material mechanisms "provided there are independent reasons for thinking that explanations based on known material mechanism will be be overturned by yet-to-be-identified unknown mechanisms (p. 97)." He uses the example of alchemy, which was largely rejected before chemistry provided the theoretical grounds.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/17/2008 10:09:02 AM
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hellohellohi
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quote:
And so we get the bright idea of applying the explanatory filter to biological phenomena. After all, in the cases of data falsification, every time we found SC, there was design. Dembski says (p. 96) "But since design is uniformly associated with specified complexity when the underlying causal story is known, induction counsels attributing design in cases where the underlying causal story is not known."
The important thing to consider here is that the fact that in all cases where design is known complexity can be observed (as well as many instances of designed "noncomplex" things, eh?) is only adequate to establish a SUFFICIENT condition for complexity. However, the important question when discussing whether complexity of unknown origin is designed or not is whether we can use this sufficient condidtion as a NECESSARY one. This would be a mistake without DEDUCTIVE backing.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/17/2008 10:12:26 AM
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hellohellohi
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quote:
"Indeed, to attribute specified complexity to something is to say that the specification to which it conforms corresponds to an event that is vastly improbable with respect to all material mechanisms that might give rise to the event."
I have no problem with this. The question is, have they adequately explored the probabilistic -- but the random as well as non-random selective considerations -- factors that would be involved in a hypothetical process of natural selection. Not hardly. Such would require a more throrough science of early earth than is available, it seems. This only reinforces my assertion that ID's BEST point is only to point out the obvious: WE DON'T KNOW.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/17/2008 10:15:35 AM
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hellohellohi
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quote:
It appears that ID rests on an inductive generalization. IOW, because design is the best explanation in cases where there is SC and direct, empirical corroboration is possible, we can infer design wherever we find SC.
If this is so, it rests on a false inductive inference. I was being more charitable to ID than this by calling it deductive.
Induction would entail a generalization made concerning all observations of instances of complexity. There are many that are known to be designed, human-made. However, there are many -- the one's in question -- of which we can honestly say it is not certain. To suppose that these -- probably the majority of instance, too, if we are simply counting -- fall under the design camp is obviously begging the question. I don't think it is charitable to interpret ID as doing such.
< Message edited by hellohellohi -- 7/17/2008 10:26:57 AM >
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RE: ID is not science - 7/17/2008 10:25:51 AM
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hellohellohi
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quote:
SC can dispense with unknown material mechanisms
Honestly, I don't follow the quote you provided. I think I need to look at in context because it does not apparently state what you say.
However, it is very apt to point out that if ID as a program is explicit in its belief that the unknown can be sewn up a priori, then it is exactly illustrative of what I am saying science is not. Science asks questions about the unknown -- provided that that unknown appears empirically open, i.e.: amenable to observation.
Origins studies ought to consist in investigating different material (read: observable) mechanisms behind things such as life. If it strays from the observable, it is not science -- not to say it would be wrong, it just wouldn't be science. If ID, however, would like to posit omnipotent design or something as a material cause, I am interested in hearing what questions it would pose. For instance, might it try to investigate whether the intelligence employed any superfluous aesthetic criteria in its design much as human designers do when they paint flames on a Camaro?
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RE: ID is not science - 7/17/2008 10:56:47 AM
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Method
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ferdgoodfellow
As Glu has reminded us, ID has set forth for itself an ambitious (impossible?) task, for it not only must eliminate known material mechanisms, it must also eliminate the unknown.
And this is why ID is not science. Theories are not supported by showing every other theory is wrong. Theories must be able to stand on their own with their own predictions, own evidence, etc. It would be very silly to claim that unless someone observes a supernatural deity producing organisms in the lab that the theory of evolution is true by default without ever producing a shred of evidence itself.
In fact, can you imagine the howls from the ID crowd if evolutionists used their tactics?
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RE: ID is not science - 7/17/2008 11:08:17 AM
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hellohellohi
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quote:
Right now I'm just trying to understand what the heck Dembski is saying.
quote:
quote:
Thus, for specified complexity to detect design, the probability of the thing in question must be small with respect to every probability distribution that might characterize it. Yes, as gluady has pointed out, SC seeks to eliminate ALL other possibilities. Including one's we haven't thought of? Let me simply point out that this is a negative venture, which already has a name: refutation. Giving it a positive title, "design" is dubious. quote:
Where that is the case, a design inference follows. Because of deductively (mathematically or near mathematically if statistically) ruling the other valid narratives out? quote:
The use of chance here is very broad and includes anything that can be captured mathematically by a stochastic process. Stochastic simply means the analysis of a set of discrete random events. Hence this sentence reads: The use of chance is very broad and includes anything that can be captured mathematically by a process of discrete chance events. quote:
(Stochastic processes constitute the most general mathematical model for describing the interplay of chance and necessity over time.) I don't know where he is coming from on this. quote:
It thus includes deterministic processes whose probabilities all collapse to zero and one (such as necessity, regularities and natural laws). Yes, a determined event either has a probability of "one" -- it will happen -- or "zero" -- it won't happen. He APPEARS to me to be dressing up the obvious. quote:
It also includes nondeterministic processes, like evolutionary processes that combine random variation and natural selection. Suspiciously obvious statement. Stochastic process are about chance -- of course they include analysis of nondeterministic, i.e.: chance, processes. quote:
Indeed, chance so constructed characterizes all undirected natural processes. I think this sentence is saying: the world as we know it is comprised of apparently causally determined events and others which are not apparently determined. Strange thing to hinge a rather profound claim on. quote:
In eliminating chance, specified complexity therefore sweeps the field of all processes that could preclude design. First let's observe that this sentence is more visual and less techinical than the ones that preceded it, even when those were circular non-statements. Rather, I believe the point of SC is to provide a pragmatic though I say non-scientific explanation for a phenomenon that does not appear to have originated through any known determined process and seems far to unlikely based on our understanding of the random forces also in play. quote:
The only reasonable possibility left, in that case, would be design. Sure, but it would still not be science, though clearly ABOUT the natural world. However, perhaps scientists would be open to considering a DEDUCTIVE incompleteness theorem about biology. Perhaps there is an ironic, self-referential reason why we cannot peer into the origin of life. This would still not confirm the existence of a designer. Ask yourself how science even confirms that you and I are conscious intelligences! It doesn't; it only proceeds with what it can investigate, which is observable correlates of consciousness. And if the creator is not thought to be conscious, then such intelligence is such only in the sense that a computer also is, which is to say, we could investigate how the thing works. Perhaps we will come to think of natural selection as intelligent in much the same way that a computer is. That is, we might call it an algorithm. If you want to call algorithms intelligent, okay, but please don't call them conscious or we'll have to start a new thread about the Turing Test and Searle's Chinese-speaking room and such.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/17/2008 3:38:12 PM
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gluadys
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ferdgoodfellow
3H and Glu,
I'm overwhelmed at the moment. Too many kvestions! I will get to them as I can. Right now I'm just trying to understand what the heck Dembski is saying. ID 101 for the time being.
While you are reading Dembski, you might also like to check out Kenneth Miller's book: Only a Theory:Evolution and the Battle for the American Soul.
As I see it, the real weakness in ID is not in identifying specified complexity, but in the assertion that SC must come about as a whole, and cannot be built up incrementally. Miller covers several examples in biology which counter this assertion. Including the famous bacterial flagellum.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/18/2008 9:20:13 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
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Guys,
Here's the critical part, I think. Dembsksi says the SC can eliminate unknown material mechanisms if there are "independent reasons for thinking that explanations based on known material mechanisms will not be overturned by yet-to-be-identified unknown mechanisms."
He says this done by 1) positing "arguments from contingency that invoke numerous degrees of freedom" and 2) arguments from exhaustion. The latter I understand from his alchemy example. If I try to change lead into gold and fail a 1,000 times, I am justified in thinking it ain't possible. But what does he mean by the former? Apparently this: establish that the object in questions is "compatible with known material mechanisms involved in its production but that these mechanisms also permit any number of alternatives to it. (That is, they permit a wide range of initial and boundary conditions, which constitute the degrees of freedom under which the material mechanisms may operate.)" IOW, the object is one "choice" among many. It is compatible with the known underlying physical mechanisms but not required by them.
OK, so what? Dembski says this means that the object becomes irreducible not only to the known mechanisms but also to any unknown mechanisms. Why? "Because known material mechanisms can tell us conclusively that a phenomenon is contingent and that it allows full degrees of freedom. Any unknown mechanism would then have to respect that contingency and allow for the degrees of freedom already discovered."
After making reference to the work of Michael Polanyi, Dembski plays Scrabble. That is, he compares the method for establishing contingency and degrees of freedom to throwing Scrabble pieces on a Scrabble board. The position of the pieces on the board is irreducible to the natural laws governing the motion of the pieces, just like the configuartion of ink on paper is irreducible to the physics of paper and ink and sequencing of DNA bases is irreducible to the bonding affinities between the bases, etc.
In this way Dembski "sweeps the field of all mechanisms that could preclude design" in theory.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/18/2008 9:26:58 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
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Can someone help me put this in laymans terms? and Why must unknown mechanisms respect the range of possibilities (degrees of freedom) apparently established by the known?
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RE: ID is not science - 7/18/2008 9:29:45 AM
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hellohellohi
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quote:
arguments from exhaustion.
There might be a de facto point of exhaustion, but it seems to me that origin studies have only just begun, let alone have been exhausted.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/18/2008 9:40:29 AM
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drj11
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quote:
ORIGINAL: hellohellohi
quote:
arguments from exhaustion.
There might be a de facto point of exhaustion, but it seems to me that origin studies have only just begun, let alone have been exhausted.
It's often unclear what types of systems ID'ers are really talking about when it comes to life. Are they talking about biogenesis and the creation of the first replicators, or just non-novel traits through regular ol' evolution?
You are right though, neither front has reached a point of exhaustion. There is a good article on Panda's Thumb outlining some of the more recent advances and discoveries on the biogenesis front. They also make an interesting point that most tend to shy away from talking about it (and hence, miss all the progress) simply because it's much more difficult to talk about, and understand. Evolution has dinosaurs and fossils and things many people outside the field think are interesting, but biogenesis quickly becomes talk about nothing but chemistry and molecules... stuff only the really really nerdy people like;). For that reason, many think we are just clueless as to how life could have formed, but in actuality, there's far less mystery there today than there ever has been. Really quite the opposite of 'exhaustion', there is much fast paced progress in the area of biogenesis, it seems.
The article:
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/07/what-critics-of.html
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RE: ID is not science - 7/18/2008 9:48:58 AM
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hellohellohi
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quote:
"arguments from contingency that invoke numerous degrees of freedom"
I like the way you are approaching this problem.
I think what Dembski is saying -- and I think it is high time I looked at his full article -- is that when all physical forces or parameters that could currently conceivably interact with a hypothetical evolutionary system are brough to bear and the complexity of DNA is still foudn to be unlikely, then we are moving toward an exhaustive demonstration that knowABLE forces may not be relevant to the understanding of this system, and that the complexity cannot be reduced to such. Degrees of freedom -- following the best interpretation I can think of in the present context -- simply means independent physical forces or mechanisms. Further, he seeks to include competing cohernt explanations based on known forces: "That is, they permit a wide range of initial and boundary conditions, which constitute the degrees of freedom under which the material mechanisms may operate."
He also is saying, as the physical forces which are known are not going to magically stop being forces or mechanisms, any currently unknown explanations will also have to take into account the current parameters (degrees of freedom.) These new parameters, apparently, would have to overcome the great apparent unlikelihood of the known parameters to produce the object in question. : "Any unknown mechanism would then have to respect that contingency and allow for the degrees of freedom already discovered."
However, I do not think there is any sense to this phrase: "known material mechanisms can tell us conclusively that a phenomenon is contingent and that it allows full degrees of freedom." I believe that a demonstration of the unlikelihood of a particular result based on specified mechanistic parameters is to cast great doubt on whether something IS contingent on said parameters. Rather, causality is in question; hence the opportunity to propose the fantastic mechanism of arbitrary design. Perhaps I need to further consider why Dembski felt this a valid statement.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/18/2008 9:55:04 AM
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gluadys
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ferdgoodfellow
Guys,
Here's the critical part, I think. Dembsksi says the SC can eliminate unknown material mechanisms if there are "independent reasons for thinking that explanations based on known material mechanisms will not be overturned by yet-to-be-identified unknown mechanisms."
After making reference to the work of Michael Polanyi, Dembski plays Scrabble. That is, he compares the method for establishing contingency and degrees of freedom to throwing Scrabble pieces on a Scrabble board. The position of the pieces on the board is irreducible to the natural laws governing the motion of the pieces, just like the configuartion of ink on paper is irreducible to the physics of paper and ink and sequencing of DNA bases is irreducible to the bonding affinities between the bases, etc.
In this way Dembski "sweeps the field of all mechanisms that could preclude design" in theory.
Except he is not really sweeping the field of all mechanisms that could preclude design.
This gets back to the same ID insistence that SC must happen all at once without precursors. To continue with the Scrabble analogy, Dembski is pointing out the high improbability of actually getting a scoring word by simply scattering the tiles on the board. To get a word you need an intelligence to assemble the letters in the correct order, even if it is the first word to go on the board.
The first problem with this analogy is that it assumes a target, a goal, one is trying to reach: a word. Evolution is not teleological. It does not work toward targets. Instead it is opportunistic, using the best of whatever is at hand.
The second problem is that it requires that there be no function before the final form is achieved. But most words can be assembled from smaller words or morphemes that can be used in other contexts. Just so, in evolution, typically older functions are modified or genes are recruited from earlier functions to establish new functions. One can build gradually toward the final form.
Related to this is the assumption that the function either works well or not at all. But, what we often see in an evolutionary development, is a weak or imperfect function that over time becomes more efficient. One of the most recent examples of that is the Cit+ E.coli developed in Richard Lenski's lab.
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html
My overall impression is that Dembski's ideas sound very good in theory. But they do not come to grips with biological reality. You will note that he almost never uses an actual biological organism as an example. In fact, most ID theorists use mechanical examples, not biological examples. I find that telling. It is as if ID can only work with things that do not naturally reproduce. And maybe in that context ID makes a lot of sense. But as soon as you have naturally occurring imperfect replication on the playing field, along with natural selection, ID analogies quickly break down under the reality of evolutionary processes.
In fact, Dembski's Scrabble example, combined with the natural selection of imperfect replication is exactly what we find in Dawkin's "Methinks it is like a weasel" simulation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_program
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RE: ID is not science - 7/18/2008 10:09:07 AM
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hellohellohi
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quote:
Scrabble. That is, he compares the method for establishing contingency and degrees of freedom to throwing Scrabble pieces on a Scrabble board. The position of the pieces on the board is irreducible to the natural laws governing the motion of the pieces, just like the configuartion of ink on paper is irreducible to the physics of paper and ink and sequencing of DNA bases is irreducible to the bonding affinities between the bases, etc
As far as I know, ID theorists such as Dembski, who argue from unlikelihood, choose to treat DNA as akin to a code string. They point out that if one is to consider the likelihood of the particular code of any particular gene as equally likley to other PERMUTATIONS of the set of amino acids, then any given gene beyond a certain length is incredibly unlikely. This is a very limited way to look at it. I will let you consider why for now.
Further, he makes the fallacious, and in my opinion, consciously dishonest, claim that because ink and paper are not reducible to ink and paper, so too DNA is not reducible to its physical constituents, i.e: nucleic acid. The obvious and trivial reason that ink and paper is not merely, trivially reducible to ink and paper is because it is useful to an intentionality. It is not clear whether DNA implies an intentionality, an interiority, or, that is to say, a subjective consciousness. Consider this obvious but unfortunately necessary explanation: Human language represents the attachment of symbols to referents through arbitrary convention. The "sense" of words happens when our brains match up the morphology of the spoken or written word to an image stored in memory. However, the sense is the conscious instantiation of that image. It is usually thought that the "sense" of DNA, on the other hand, is the physical production of objects. Now, it would be interesting to consider whether the purpose of DNA, instead, is actually to produce an instantiation in a mind -- which perhaps ALL living things have -- I cannot answer that question. However, allow me to point out that it is the current project of science to investigate the causal pathway between DNA and organism -- consciousness is not assumed on the part of mechanism. The task of consiousness, I must point out, is mysterious. Why couldn't the brain simply be a nonconscious information processor? Why couldn't it, even, match up linguistic, audible code with actionable information. What is the point of conscious instantiation from an information point of view? Why can't "signal" (in the sense of energy -- the capacity to do WORK) lead to signal (as in electrical/energy transduction) which leads to signal which leads to effect without the apparently superfluous intervention of conscious instantiation? Consciousness, I am saying, is apparently redundant to any theoretically chain of cause and effect. Really, it would be superfluous to a hypothetical agency, defined as random-action generation.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/18/2008 11:43:50 AM
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hellohellohi
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Take a look at Dembski's curriculum vitae: Mostly books, very few scholarly articles despite his multiple Ph.D.s. Book publication is not the same, as I understand it, as scholarly publication. Primary or novel claims ought to be made in scholarly articles. Compilation or summary of a number of claims which have already been covered in individual articles is then the task of scholarly book authorship.
What source have you been quoting? Please accept that I am not goign to go out and buy a book, but you can assume that I have access to a full range of scholarly articles through an institutional database. I woud consider searchign for a hardcopy of a book at a library. However, I am unimpressed even if a book is published by a major university press like Cambridge or Oxford: it does not mean they won't contain rather dubious or lazy arguments in imprecise, journalistically-inclined writing -- that is, they are geared to the buying public rather than scientific peers, it's that simple.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/18/2008 12:04:09 PM
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hellohellohi
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Consider the introduction from a larger essay by Dembski:
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Naturalism currently dominates science, both in the secular and in the Christian academy. According to naturalism, science is best practiced without reference to anything "non-natural." Granted, science's proper object of study is nature. Naturalism, however, assumes an impoverished view of nature that artificially limits nature to brute material processes subject to no intelligent guidance or control. The problem with naturalism is not that it limits science to the study of nature, but with its hidden assumptions about the nature of nature. Is nature a seamless causal web controlled solely by undirected natural processes--what Jacques Monod called "chance and necessity"? Or do intelligent causes also play a fundamental and ineliminable role within nature? Naturalism answers Yes to the first question, No to the second.
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I am very interested as to what "intelligent cause" would mean. Does that mean that a conscious intelligence intervenes in the otherwise presumably causal chain of events observable in the universe? Is this a continual process or rather one like the scenario of the "the blind watchmaker" or Laplace's demon? What considerations does this intelligence employ -- does it have any criteria tha it follows or are its actions rather arbitrary, or are its criteria arguably arbitary, though predictable, in the way an aesthetic system can be constructed from axioms of visual interest? How are we to separate the possibility that the will of the intelligence is not redundant to or epiphenomenal to causal factors? How are we, also, to separate the difference between inexplicably random events (QM) and those guided by an arbitrating, ever-watching intelligence? Are these scientific questions? Ah, I can answer that one -- no.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/18/2008 12:44:18 PM
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hellohellohi
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Consider another introductory excerpt from what was originally Dembski's doctoral thesis (in philosophy) at UIC:
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What is the difference between a randomly strewn arangement and one that spells coherent sentence? Improbabilty by itseld isn't decisive. In addition what's needed is conformity to a pattern.
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Now, consider what the criteria for the devlopment of a system of symbols that would entail a possible set for use in by a spoken language. Is it the case that the serial juxtapositions of symbols and spaces ought to display a pattern? What is meant by patter? Isn't it "self-similarity," so that a pattern would entail an algorithm shorter than the string of symbols itself that would nonetheless describe that string? However, when developing symbols for a words (or, to be precise, referents) in a language, isn't it crucial that each permutation for distinct words ought to differ often enough to remove cause for over-much ambiguity? Is sense conveyed through the repetition of self-similar components within broader statements? For instance, when I say a stone is a stone, one can observe without being able to read English that I have just repeated a part of this structure. However, is it possible at that point to say whether that repetition was definitive of a discrete phrase "a stone is a stone" with a meaning arising not inparticular from its parts but in its entirety? Or should it be taken that the meaning is PRECISELY in the visual repetition of elements? Could we plausibly devise a system that based arbitrary meanings based on numerical repetitions? I suppose, but I am glad we don't have to think that hard, it seems, to understand English. Not that learning English isn't hard -- but it seems to involve a rote process of associating words with their referents as well as perhaps an in-born tendency to look for particular features in language a la Chomsky?
Rather, it seems to me that language is characterized by APERIODICTY. This is not a controversial or novel idea. However, it leads me to wonder what Dembski is referring to when he talks of language's "conformity to a pattern." However, I will grant that perhaps DNA demonstrates the same aperidocity that language does. I have not undertook to consider operable definitions of complexity at the present moment. Only to question Dembski's discourse.
< Message edited by hellohellohi -- 7/18/2008 12:51:13 PM >
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RE: ID is not science - 7/18/2008 1:08:12 PM
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Method
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quote:
ORIGINAL: hellohellohi
Consider another introductory excerpt from what was originally Dembski's doctoral thesis (in philosophy) at UIC:
"
What is the difference between a randomly strewn arangement and one that spells coherent sentence? Improbabilty by itseld isn't decisive. In addition what's needed is conformity to a pattern.
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Like gluadys has mentioned, Dembski's work fails when it enters the realm of biology. If we carry this analogy into biology then we find there are around 6 billion ways to spell "human" in DNA. Can anyone think of a word that can be spelled 6 billion different ways? I can't. Even if we focus on a single gene it fails once more. There are thousands and thousands of ways to spell cytochrome C, as one example.
The development of modern languages sheds even more light on the situation. It was not the goal of Olde English speakers to create modern english. There was no goal or | | |
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