Design problems at Airbus

"If experience shows that there is always an error rate in any design..." - That rate can approach zero. I can do a simple demonstration by designing a perfect "Hello world!" function. I also read something about NASA programmers having to follow a specific regiment and "prove" their code, resulting in almost no errors in their shuttle programming. "The answer, of course, has to be that if the universe was designed, the designer must be super-intelligent — which, IMHO, means teleological / design arguments have to point to God, not to an unidentified designer" Interesting point, but to play Devil's Advocate, there can exist a non-god super-intelligence. Therefore it doesn't follow that just because the Designer has the attribute of super-intelligence they must be a god. (But as more and more of these attributes build up, such as supreme galaxy-forming power, time transcendence, etc, we would begin to rule out unlikely candidates, such as "stupid" aliens. : )) Atom

Rather, he was saying that since the best engineers’ minds are so fallable, it seems ridiculous to conclude that mindless processes could do a better job of producing the complexity we observe in nature. Ok, I see that reference -- though it's contradicted by the reference to climate science. One could also argue the converse: if highly intelligent creatures can't properly design something as relatively simple (compared to the human body, say, or the universe) as an airplane, why is it reasonable to assume that something as complex as the universe was designed? If experience shows that there is always an error rate in any design, and that the error rate tends to increase as the design's complexity increases, wouldn't that suggest that a designed universe would be grossly disfunctional? (The answer, of course, has to be that if the universe was designed, the designer must be super-intelligent -- which, IMHO, means teleological / design arguments have to point to God, not to an unidentified designer). dopderbeck

I think I was the one who pulled the suboptimal design implication out of Dr. Dembski's post. I was just being my usual sarcastic self… I realize his post didn't directly concern that particular argument. But I did see a connection there and it struck me funny and so I thought I'd comment. I didn't mean to deflect the discussion into an area that wasn't directly relevant to the post. TRoutMac

Guys, I'm with you on the argument that a flaw in a design says nothing about whether the thing was designed. The anti-ID argument that apparent flaws in biological design belie any notion of design always seemed stupid to me. I don't think that was the point of the original post, though -- or if it was, it flew right past me. dopderbeck

Dopderbeck, I don't think Dr. Dembski was arguing that since engineers are imperfect, we should reject engineering (or science). Rather, he was saying that since the best engineers' minds are so fallable, it seems ridiculous to conclude that mindless processes could do a better job of producing the complexity we observe in nature. russ

"Yeah, and this morning my laptop crashed, so therefore I conclude that all scientific conclusions are equally junk and Microsoft is an atheistic cabal." - Dopderbeck D., I think the correct analogy would be as follows: "Yeah, and this morning my laptop crashed, so therefore I conclude that it's unlikely that living creatures, far more complex than my laptop, are the result of blind evolutionary processes in which the badly-functioning assemblies were filtered out by natural selection. Right." russ

Incompetent Design? Unintelligent Design? I'm with you TRoutMac. We now have conclusive, logical, scientific, overwhelming evidence that the planes were not designed. Wait......what, that doesn't follow? Atom

In other words, humans don’t know everything and we make mistakes. Nothing controversial about that, is there? No, but there's nothing terribly interesting about that vis a vis either global warming or ID, either. I made a mistake this morning and misspelled a word in an email. Can I therefore conclude that all the science behind global warming is mistaken too? all scientific conclusions are subject to revision when the next piece of data comes in. Well, sort of. For most research programs, one anomalous datum is unlikely to overturn the whole program (cf. Lakatos here), though it could be possible depending on the specific program and datum. If you want to say we shouldn't act on climate models concerning global warming, you have to do more than suggest generally that "people make mistakes." dopderbeck

dopderbeck: The comparison is that such failures highlight the fact that humans have finite knowledge, not infinite knowledge. Yes, our knowledge does expand. But it's still far short of infinite. It's not that "all scientific conclusions are junk," as you put it, but rather that all scientific conclusions are subject to revision when the next piece of data comes in. In other words, humans don't know everything and we make mistakes. Nothing controversial about that, is there? TRoutMac

oops, the URL didn't show up: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/profile.cfm?Sort=Target&Target=Mars&MCode=MCO&Display=ReadMore ofro

Maybe we shouldn’t throw with stones while in the glasshouse… Remember the Mars orbiter? ofro

Yeah, and this morning my laptop crashed, so therefore I conclude that all scientific conclusions are equally junk and Microsoft is an atheistic cabal. Reading the linked article, it's clear that it's talking about static measurement scale differences in different versions of CAD software, not inaccurate projections in weather, wind, stress, or other software used to model dynamic systems. There's no comparison here to climate models. dopderbeck

You mean to tell me that there are aspects of the design of that airliner that are "suboptimal"? Well then I guess that means those airplanes are really just the product of random mutation and natural selection or some other blind, unintelligent process. Surely an intelligent agent would not have done such a poor job of routing those wires. Oh, it's just too funny. TRoutMac

Oh, sarcasm. Gotcha. Definition of Sarcasm: The lowest form of wit; the highest form of intelligence. No wonder I could not understand it! Robo

Robo, I think he was sarcasticly implying that Boeing, being in a country dominated by non Darwinist, would suffer... because. as you know ;), evolution is the foundation of all science. JG-- JGuy

John Maynard Smith video lecture "The Origin of Life" here: http://www.vega.org.uk/video/programme/63 Robo

"is going to suffer in competition" I'm confused? Airbus is based in France; Boeing is in the USA. Why will America suffer in competition? I thought this would be good for Boeing. Robo