Intelligent Design

Mark Frank writes in a comment to a prior post: When reconstructing an evolutionary past I would say that scientists are doing two things which correspond to my Bayesian analysis: They are proposing explanations that 1) might well have happened – the prior probability is acceptable 2) would have a good chance of producing what we observe – the likelihood is acceptable When reconstructing a biological past I would say that ID scientists are doing two things which correspond to Mark Frank’s Bayesian analysis: They are proposing explanations that 1) might well have happened – the prior probability is acceptable 2) would have a good chance of producing what we observe – the likelihood is acceptable Mark Frank, do you Read More ›

In recent days Jeffrey Shallit and I have been discussing the differences between a random string of text and a designed string of text. I put the two strings up in this post; Shallit responded in this post; I responded to Shallit in this post; and Shallit replied here. After all of this back and forth, the one question that remains is the question in the title to this post. Has Jeffrey Shallit’s fundamentalism driving him barking mad? To remind readers, here are the two strings: #1:OipaFJPSDIOVJN;XDLVMK:DOIFHw;ZDVZX;Vxsd;ijdgiojadoidfaf;asdfj;asdj[ije888Sdf;dj;Zsjvo;ai;divn;vkn;dfasdo;gfijSd;fiojsadfviojasdgviojao’gijSd’gvijsdsd;ja;dfksdasdXKLZVsda2398R3495687OipaFJPSDIOVJN;XDLVMK:DOIFHw;ZDVZX;Vxsd;ijdgiojadoiSdf;dj;Zsjvo;ai;divn;vkn;dfasdo;gfijSd;fiojsadfviojasdgviojao’gijSd’gvijssdv.kasd994834234908uXKLZVsda2398R34956873ACKLVJD;asdkjadSd;fjwepuJWEPFIhfasd;asdjf;asdfj;adfjasd;ifj;asdjaiojaijeriJADOAJSD;FLVJASD;FJASDF;DOAD;ADFJAdkdkas;489468503-202395ui34 #2:To be, or not to be, that is the question—Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to sufferThe Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,And by opposing, Read More ›

Guillermoe has very quickly become one of our most ardent critics on these pages. That is why it was so interesting to watch him walk right into a trap that HeKS cunningly set for him. Here it is: THE TRAP Guillermoe: We know what designed Stonehenge: HUMANS!! HeKS: How do you know this? Guillermoe: PAST EXPERIENCE. We know humans build things because we have observed that they do. HeKS: How do you know it was humans rather than aliens? Guillermoe: Because our past experience proves that humans exist and does not prove that aliens exist, so it’s much much more likely that humans built Stonehenge. That allows us to say A LOT of things about the designers of Stonehenge. What Read More ›

New UD contributor HeKS notes: The evidence of purposeful design [–> in the cosmos and world of life]  is overwhelming on any objective analysis, but due to Methodological Naturalism it is claimed to be merely an appearance of purposeful design, an illusion, while it is claimed that naturalistic processes are sufficient to achieve this appearance of purposeful design, though none have ever been demonstrated to be up to the task. They are claimed to be up to the task only because they are the only plausible sounding naturalistic explanations available. He goes on to add: The argument for ID is an abductive argument. An abductive argument basically takes the form: “We observe an effect, x is causally adequate to explain Read More ›

For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter.  We might more accurately term them “materialists employing science.”  And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence.  That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms . . . Phillip Johnson Johnson’s observation came to mind when I read HeKS comment to a prior post.  That comment recasts Johnson’s observation in terms of Bayesian priors.  It would be cumbersome to put everything in block quotes.  All that follows is HeKS: Read More ›

When someone says “the science is settled” one of two things is true:  (1) they know better and are lying; or (2) they are deeply ignorant about the philosophy of science.  Geraint Lewis, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sydney writes: . . . science is like an ongoing courtroom drama, with a continual stream of evidence being presented to the jury.  But there is no single suspect and new suspects regularly wheeled in.  In light of the growing evidence, the jury is constantly updating its view of who is responsible for the data. But no verdict of absolute guilt or innocence is ever returned, as evidence is continually gathered and more suspects are paraded in front of the Read More ›