Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Outsider Meddling — Skeptics Need Not Apply (or, Just Have Faith)

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Someone by the name of skeech is cluttering up UD with impervious sophistry and wasting a lot of our time.

His/her latest thesis is that “according to biologists…” there is a “credible possibility that small incremental changes could have developed massive increases in biological information in a short time — followed by stasis.”

So, skeech assures us that “biologists” are universally agreed upon this proposition?

How about this and this?

Darwinian evolutionary theory is a boiling, ever-changing, amorphous cloud that is impenetrable and completely immune to critical analytical scrutiny. It was designed that way, for obvious reasons.

It should be noted that the “scientific” consensus in the early 20th century was the steady-state universe theory (that is, the universe is eternal, and has no beginning and no end). Those subscribing to the consensus were wrong (including Albert Einstein), and they put up a big fight until the end, when the evidence became overwhelming.

Continental drift theory was also ridiculed.

Wegener was the first to use the phrase “continental drift” (1912, 1915)… During Wegener’s lifetime, his theory of continental drift was severely attacked by leading geologists, who viewed him as an outsider meddling in their field.

The criticism we always hear from Darwinists is: Outsiders are not permitted to question the dogma, because they don’t understand the subtleties and the “science.”

The essence of Darwinian philosophy, presented as “science,” takes about 15 minutes to learn and understand: Random variation and natural selection explain everything — never mind the details, we’ll make up stories later to explain away the anomalies, contradictions, and improbabilities.

In the meantime, just have faith, and don’t ask any annoying questions.

This is not science, it’s religious indoctrination.

Comments
Sal,
There is no materialistic explanation of OOL to falsify — no “mechanism” has been advanced.
You know better than this.
You’re challenging the fundamental approach of science, not just an explanation or a paradigm.
I'm challenging the conclusions of materialistic ideologues in science. "Placemat"is a perfect definition. If science wants to empirical, then fine, lets get down on it.Upright BiPed
March 31, 2009
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Upright BiPed,
In any case, it does not follow that we should blindly continue cramming the slipper on the Drizella’s fat foot.
Well said.
And it certainly does not mean that the falsified mechanism should remain as an ideological placemat.
I don't believe you're using "falsify" in Popper's sense. There is no materialistic explanation of OOL to falsify -- no "mechanism" has been advanced. What you're claiming is that the failure to explain is evidence against the adequacy of the mode of explanation. I've said this to you before: You're challenging the fundamental approach of science, not just an explanation or a paradigm.
I think Trevors and Abel side stepped the mindless and pointless debate over “intelligence”; they instead stood at the precipice of what it means “operationally.”
I read one or both of their ID-friendly papers, but have forgotten what was there -- perhaps I'll go back.
Try volitional agency.
Interesting, but I think it's too broad. A robot operating on random inputs can exhibit volition. I don't intend to argue the point.Sal Gal
March 31, 2009
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I’d still like to hear from IDers who believe that scientists eventually will accept that the design of life requires intelligence, but then may find a better explanation.Sal Gal
March 31, 2009
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Sal Gal: You wanted an operational defnition of intelligence. Problem-solving is commonly regarded as an indicator of intelligence. However, this definition will not do; for on a very broad definition, any process which effects a transformation from state A to state B might be regarded as having solved the "problem" of getting from A to B. Accordingly, we need to specify the kind of problem-solving which signifies intelligence. Let's try this. The operational definition of intelligence is: problem-solving that demonstrates foresight of some future state of affairs which is pertinent to the problem at hand. Let's apply this to ID, and see how we go. According to the front-loading hypothesis, life was created with information which was designed to be of assistance to its descendants billions of years in the future. Accordingly, we should expect to find in the oldest organisms genes which were not expressed for billions of years, and which code for structures that are only found in complex organisms such as plants and animals. If this turns out to be the case, we would be warranted in saying that life was created by an entity possessing foresight - i.e. an intelligent entity. The discovery that genes for eyes can be found even in so-called "primitive" animal phyla, which do not possess or require eyes, is a result that certainly suggests that these genes were designed by an Intelligence - unless it turns out that the genes in question serve some additional function in the "lower" animal phyla. However, if some scientist discovered that plants and even bacteria possessed the genes coding for eyes in animals, that would be truly remarkable, and it would constitute powerful evidence for ID. "Strong ID" is the name I shall give to the following set of radical proposals, which follow from the hypothesis that the Universe was designed by a maximally intelligent, maximally powerful, maximally liberal (i.e. hands-off) and maximally friendly Creator: (1) the Universe was designed to have physical constants that are optimal for the emergence and preservation of life, and in particular intelligent life; (2) the Universe was designed to enable each race of intelligent beings in the cosmos to solve all the practical problems that it might need to solve, in order to (a) survive, (b) maintain its civilization, and (c) make further scientific and technological discoveries in order to solve its own future problems; (3) the Universe was designed to enable each race of intelligent life-forms to arrive at a certain knowledge of its Creator, based on natural theology. Proposal (1) would be falsified by the discovery of an alternative set of values for the physical constants of nature, which would render the emergence of intelligent life in the cosmos more likely; or by the discovery of an alternative structure to DNA, which could have evolved into intelligent life-forms either more quickly or in a more reliable manner than the process of evolution which has been taking place on our Earth during the past four billion years. Proposal (2) would be falsified by the discovery of a natural process which was certain to either wipe human beings out or destroy our civilization. For instance, if there turned out to be no technical fix to the ozone hole, ocean acidification or global warming, then strong ID would be rendered untenable. Strong ID also entails that humanity should be able to keep growing indefinitely, and that it will find a technical solution to every major environmental and social problem it encounters, thus avoiding collapse (cornucopianism). Proposal (2) also entails that we don't need to worry about alien invaders: even if aliens exist, they cannot destroy us. Proposal (3) entails that any computational process that we need to perform in order to demonstrate that the cosmos, or life, or intelligent life, was designed by an Intelligent Creator, must be do-able, somehow, even if we currently lack the know-how. It must therefore be possible to mathematically demonstrate in a rigorous fashion that there is NO pathway that blind processes could have followed, to arrive at life, and in particular intelligent life. Proving that would require a huge amount of computational resources. A corollary of strong ID is that those resources must exist somewhere in the cosmos, even if we have not found them yet. Finally, it should be noted that the foregoing proposals are compatible with the existence of widespread disruption of the cosmos and (in particular) the biosphere, caused either by entropy (a natural process) or interference by malevolent intelligences at work in the cosmos. What strong ID asserts is that the most general and pervasive features of the cosmos (i.e. the laws of nature, and the conserved features of our DNA) are robust, and sufficiently well-designed to withstand any kind of attempts at tinkering by malevolent intelligences, including ourselves. If you want to know which scientists are working on these questions right now, I suggest you contact Guillermo Gonzalez. I understand that he has formulated similar proposals to those put forward above.vjtorley
March 31, 2009
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uoflcard (104): The tu quoque argument is fallacious. I agree entirely with Mike's response to you. Science is not some ideal in the mind of God. There is no Book of Science. Science is as scientists do. Scientists are almost unanimous in requiring that explanations of nature be in strictly materialistic terms. This is a methodological stricture, not an ontological stance. I will emphasize in Mike's statement what you did not: "Well, from a scientific perspective, life must have arisen from non-living physiochemical systems." Science is not the final word on truth, though some people make it that it their personal belief systems. Science does not lead to an "abiogenesis is true" statement analogous to "ID is true." Scientists regard all their explanations as tenuous. They eschew ontology, but restrict the domain of scientific discourse. Research pursuing materialistic explanations of OOL does not imply the non-existence of the non-material. And there is no guarantee that a good materialistic explanation will emerge. Most IDers believe that a good ID explanation is sure to emerge, and will never be replaced:Sal Gal
March 31, 2009
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D.A.Newton @ 85 I hope you'll consider posting here more oftenUpright BiPed
March 31, 2009
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Animateclay, Long ago, someone told me that the ends of the spectrum meet, and I have always found it to be true. The atheists and theists who "prove" they're right are barely distinguishable in personality and rhetorical style. Their "proofs" are usually, if not always, invalid. When it comes to formation of beliefs on matters of ultimate concern, there is no way to proceed rationally. You must make your decisions by unutterable means -- in fear and trembling, as Kierkegaard wrote. This requires courage, as Tillich wrote. My favorite of all sayings attributed to Jesus:
Jesus sad, "Let the seeker, seek until he finds. That which he finds, shall cause him grief. That he grieves, shall puzzle him, and he who is puzzled shall rule over all."
Another translation:
Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."
Troubling difference. And both translators neglect to mention that the saying continues with something barely legible -- perhaps:
[And after they have reigned they will rest.]
At any rate, I have problems with anyone who would lead you to blessed assurance, rather than provoke you to seek until you find for yourself that which troubles and astonishes you.Sal Gal
March 31, 2009
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Welcome aboard, Animateclay. Sal, "It does not follow that we should thrust something..." For the sake of argument I can agree, but I don't think that is what Kenyon, Behe, and Denton are/were doing. In any case, it does not follow that we should blindly continue cramming the slipper on the Drizella's fat foot. And it certainly does not mean that the falsified mechanism should remain as an ideological placemat. It should also be remembered that the design inference comes from many directions. I think Trevors and Abel side stepped the mindless and pointless debate over "intelligence"; they instead stood at the precipice of what it means "operationally." Try volitional agency.Upright BiPed
March 31, 2009
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Clive Hayden @98
“but this kind of willful ignorance is nothing to be proud of…” Don’t be condescending JayM.
I wasn't condescending to gpuccio, I'm actually angry with him, or at least the attitude he presented. (Where's the Mr. Potatohead "angry eyes" emoticon?) gpuccio is one of the more articulate commenters here, so I am doubly appalled when he claims to be "proud" of "misrepresenting mainstream science." I want to see ID taken seriously. I believe that Dr. Behe's work on finding the limits of evolutionary mechanisms is the most likely way this will happen. When we do have a predictive, falsifiable theory of ID, I don't want us to have to fight yet another battle for credibility with an enemy we have armed with comments like that. If ID is going to supplant modern evolutionary theory, it is going to have to explain everything that MET currently explains, plus demonstrate greater predictive power. We can't prove that without fully understanding MET. We're not likely to get a fair hearing when ID opponents can say "Even the sane ID supporters admit to not understanding mainstream science." We can't prove ourselves right without first proving ourselves credible. JJJayM
March 31, 2009
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Sal,
Knowing before the research has been done that “ID is true” is certainly not scientific belief. It is religious belief for some of you, and for others, it’s an untested intuition.
Yet Mike Klymkowsky of Oklahoma University was given a $500,000 grant from the NSF to have abiogenesis taught in HS chemistry classrooms. But that IS science, right? Read this statement Mike e-mailed me after I questioned him about the situation (emphasis added):
Well, from a scientific perspective, life must have arisen from non-living physiochemical systems
But that's not "untested intuition"? Tell me how that does not PRECISELY line up with what you said. And it's important to not that this is not some random blogger, it's a guy funded by the National Science Foundation, a FEDERAL agency. But yeah, it's those damn ID-ers who are attacking the sanctity of scienceuoflcard
March 31, 2009
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My response to the OP, which suggests that ID is an alternative paradigm meeting with undue resistance, is that ID is not "good to go" as science, even if we open up scientific explanation of design to non-material entities. To invoke intelligence in an explanation is to write in Jello. I should add that I have no rigorous argument that inference to non-material cause is impossible, and that I watch with interest, and a healthy mix of openness and skepticism, the new arguments of ID proponents.Sal Gal
March 31, 2009
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Upright BiPed, I knew that you had a pairwise interaction going in the midst of the thread. If you review what I've posted, you'll see that I've stayed on the theme of skepticism. Challenging whether it is even possible to answer some questions is a strong form of skepticism. I read every comment of yours I come across, and I know how often you say that "chance and necessity cannot coordinate independent results for function within nucleic sequencing." I should have made it clear, I suppose, that I was letting go with a pent-up response: Suppose you have identified a phenomenon that materialistic science cannot explain well. It does not follow that we should thrust something as nebulous as intelligence alongside the physical primitives of matter and energy. If the objective is to make ID science, rather than counter-indoctrination of the masses, then IDists must define intelligence operationally. We know matter and energy by operations, after all.Sal Gal
March 31, 2009
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Hi everyone, I'm new to this site - a YouTube video led me to it and after going through it I decided to bookmark it. I'm glad I did because it seems to be a really rational group of thinkers here and not just the usual hater comments you find all over the web from atheists. Actually I've gone through a period of atheism myself - but once my son was born I forced myself to learn as much as I could so I can know what to teach him. It's been an interesting path of new discovery for me, and ID makes a lot of sense. Skeech seems to be a typical one track minded guy. I noticed after really studying the way peoples' additude are linked to their way of thought - if you watch enough YouTube videos on atheists or pro-darwin videos "they are always linked" you can see how that group tends to shut off part of their mind that is open to new possibilities in a very forceful arrogant way in most cases. It is said - so it is so. Don't ask questions! It's a choice NOT to think that ID is possible. I realized this in myself, that I too was dragging myself into a scientific belief system that had a lot of problems. Not just scientifically but spiritually as well. Once I educated myself a bit more in science and physics I started to realize that what science can explain is actually extremely limited. To say that the Darwinistic ideas are 100% truth and 100% accurate is like saying there are no options, even when they make just as much sense as ID does. I asked myself - why have I and why do so many others limit themselves this way? Maybe Skeech needs to ask himself that same question. Anyway I'm an intellectual light weight, but it's fun to read these posts and comments. I'm learning a lot, so thank you.Animateclay
March 31, 2009
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Sorry about the lack of blockquote tags. I copied and pasted from the final comment, not the source.skeech plus
March 31, 2009
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Upright Biped, whoever that is. It is John A. Davison, not Davidson. It is not my personal need to know that is the issue. Isn't wanting to know ones adversary perfectly natural and doesn't it help to understand his position? I think so. I am convinced that if we all knew who we all were, commentary would be both vastly reduced and greatly improved. At present, with few exceptions, internet dialogue is a virtual Tower of Babel. That is of course only my opinion, an opinion anonymous users are not likely to share, especially on those weblogs where the A/K ratio is on the order of 7/1. Furthermore, I and many others have presented plenty of concrete evidence for Intelligent Design. It is in our papers and requires neither argument, debate nor any other form of defence. Here is an early example - "Evolution is in a great measure an unfolding of pre-existing rudiments." Leo Berg, Nomogenesis, page 406, 1922.JohnADavison
March 31, 2009
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JayM, "but this kind of willful ignorance is nothing to be proud of..." Don't be condescending JayM.Clive Hayden
March 31, 2009
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gtk,
Are we now expected to vet our credentials to post here? Near the top of the thread it looked like this might get legs, but now not so much.
ID is about evidence, not scientists or other personalities. Often, the discussion tacs off into the weeds, such John Davidson's need to know who he's berating, or antagonists popping on a set of blinders and arguing over teaching policies. All the while, the fact remains that chance and necessity cannot coordinate independent results for function within nucleic sequencing. As a supporter of blinders, you no doubt ignore this as well.Upright BiPed
March 31, 2009
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Next time I'll try reading before hitting submit. The intended text was:
Excellent points: LeVake was reassigned for good reasons. In my view, the reasons are analogous to why a teacher should fail a student who, say, refuses to learn the subject material of a class.
gtk
March 31, 2009
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freelunch, Excellent points: LeVake was reassigned for good reasons. In my view, the reaosns analogous why a teacher should fail a student who, say, refuses to learn the subject material of a class. Are we now expected to vet our credentials to post here? Near the top of the thread it looked like this might get legs, but now not so much. For what it's worth, I'm what might be called a bona fide scientist (David Kellogg can vouch for me on this), but for the convenience of keeping personal life separate from professional have a mild preference for the convenience of anonymity.gtk
March 31, 2009
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Thanks for the list, Gil, I notice that the first two were high school teachers. Rodney LeVake was not fired, but was reassigned to a different class after he refused to follow the curriculum. He lost his case in the Minnesota Supreme Court, because, as the decision held: "LeVake's position paper and his statement to Hubert make it clear that LeVake would not teach the required course curriculum in the manner established by the school board, LeVake has not presented any genuine issue of material fact regarding his free exercise, free speech, and due process claims. Thus, the district court did not err in granting respondents' motion for summary judgment." Roger DeHart is another high school teacher who wanted to add material to the curriculum that wasn't authorized. Some of it had come from Pandas and People which Judge Jones has dealt with adequately. Mr. DeHart appears to be upset that he wasn't allowed to teach his religious views in a public school science class. I'm getting this from the transcript of the Kansas Evolution hearings. If there is better information, I'm open to it. I'll look over the other ones, but I'm not looking for high school teachers who were no longer allowed to ignore the curriculum, but college professors who were treated improperly.freelunch
March 31, 2009
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KRiS_Censored, The video was posted here about a month ago.jerry
March 31, 2009
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gpuccio @64
And if, in the opinion of JayM, I am “misrepresenting the mainstream view”, I am very happy and proud of that.
gpuccio, you're usually one of the commenters here I make a point of reading, but this kind of willful ignorance is nothing to be proud of. If we want ID to, dare I say it, evolve into a real scientific theory, we need to understand the existing science. A new theory must explain the existing evidence at least as well as the old theory, and must make better predictions about new phenomena. We also need to demonstrate brutal honesty, presenting our opponents positions in the best possible light and showing how our alternative is still better.
And yes, this (like many other things) is MAJOR evidenciary support for ID!
Again, it's not even close. No ID researcher predicted anything like this and it does not directly follow from any previously stated ID hypothesis. Nothing about this new observation serves to falsify a major tenet of modern evolutionary theory, nor does it support an ID prediction that is distinguishable from modern evolutionary theory. Too many ID proponents assume that evidence against modern evolutionary theory is evidence for ID. Nothing could be further from the truth. If ID is to become a real science, it must make positive testable predictions that could potentially falsify the theory. We're not there yet. JJJayM
March 31, 2009
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PS: You leave out one thing SG: Evolutionary materialism is in profound but unacknowledged crisis as a paradigm: it cannot explain a fine tuned cosmos, it cannot explain origin of cell based information rich life, it cannot explain body plan level biodiversity, it cannot explain mind and morality. It has resorted to all the techniques of a dogmatic, institutionally entrenched orthodoxy under threat, short of outright PHYSICAL violence. And, it has -- on sadly abundant evidence -- set out on SUPPRESSION not answering cogently, challenges that point out that we routinely observe intelligent designers, who create phenomena that look very much fine tuned for a purpose, that are information rich and use that info as a means to carry out key functions. ID is the title for that insight and argument today, but it is abundantly well supported by thousands of years of observation.kairosfocus
March 31, 2009
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SG, et al: ASSERTION: It is a necessary condition of science being a credible enterprise that we are intelligent creatures who can a significant proportion of the time carry out valid reasoning, and accurately observe facts. RELEVANCE: In short, it seems to at least some of us that you are sawing off the branch on which you are sitting; tree-ward of where you are sitting. INTELLIGENCE, WHAZDAT: As to what intelligence is, let us start from this, which is in the UD 101 glossary, being excerpted from Wikipedia:
Intelligence – Wikipedia aptly and succinctly defines: “capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn.”
1 --> Do you deny that the above is reasonably observable and acceptable as a description of a concept describing a real life phenomenon, experience and observation that many find of significant utility? If so, why? 2 --> Do you accept that "definitions" address borders of concepts and may sometimes have all sorts of qualifications designed to deal with pathological oddities? If not, why not? 3 --> Do you accept that precising definitions meant to address experienced or observed, "real world" phenomena [as opposed to abstract mathematical entities, e.g. what is a function, post "Dirac Delta function"] are subject to the test of comparison vs known examples and cases holding strong family resemblance thereto? If not why not? 4 --> Do you accept that there are cases of significance to science where no-one has been able to get such a definition, but for which the example and family resemblance description is deemed good enough to live and work with, e.g. life? Why or why not? 5 --> Is your reasoning therefore coherent and balanced, or are you getting into self referential inconsistencies because of selective hyperskepticism on mattes of observed fact and explanatory models connected thereto that are therefore subject only to warrant to moral certainty or even to provisional best, empirically anchored explanation? Why or why not? GEM of TKIkairosfocus
March 31, 2009
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Off Topic: There's been something nagging at me. Some kind of almost-but-not-quite-grasped analogy pertaining to JohnADavison's posts. I've finally figured it out. My friends, a scene from Monty Python that reminds me of JohnADavison. For those who may not know this sketch, a man walks in looking for an argument. He's directed to a room down the hall, but walks into the wrong room and this is what he encounters:
Abuser(A): WHAT DO YOU WANT? Man Looking for Argument(M): Well, I was told outside that... A: Don't give me that, you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings! M: What? A: Shut your festering gob, you tit! Your type really makes me puke, you vacuous, coffee-nosed, maloderous, pervert!!! M: Look, I CAME HERE FOR AN ARGUMENT, I'm not going to just stand...!! A: OH, oh I'm sorry, but this is abuse. M: Oh, I see, well, that explains it. A: Ah yes, you want room 12A, Just along the corridor.
John's post feel like this, but in reverse. In other words, he's looking for abuse (or rather to abuse) and accidentally walked into the argument room instead. Yeah, I know it's not entirely accurate, but it feels like it is at times. Sorry for wasting your time with an off topic comment. Moderators feel free to delete this comment if it's too off topic.KRiS_Censored
March 31, 2009
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I don’t know, and neither do you.
Sal, I wasn't addressing you, nor was I asking a trivial question without immediate implications. By the way Sal, you can be one of the most interesting and profound contributors on this board, but this isn't about you. It's not about your intellectual wars either.Upright BiPed
March 30, 2009
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Sal Gal: I thing I had given an answer to that post of yours. If you remember which thread it was, I will plagiarized myself too, and repost it here for completeness. That could be a good idea, reposting our positions when it is necessary, instead of having to write it all again in new form any time the fundamental issues come out.gpuccio
March 30, 2009
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Upright BiPed,
Which combination of these would be the First Cause of formerly inanimate chemicals self-organizing into three-dimensional energy-metabolizing structures driven by highly-coordinated information processing systems that spontaneously initiate the recording of their existence into a conventional code of digital information that is not contingent on material need?
I don't know, and neither do you. And I'm not going to glorify the hypothetical construct of intelligence and use it to fill the gap. Dembski waves his hands in the direction of SETI to indicate that it's given intelligence scientific legitimacy. Having researched the matter, I can tell you that SETI uses the term quite casually. (In fact, the project searches for anomalous signals of very low CSI.) I studied experimental psych before moving into AI, and I have long observed that my colleagues say really dumb stuff when they drift away from their work in operationally defined intelligence (getting machines to do as well as people at particular types of information processing) and pronounce on what it will take to make a machine "really intelligent." I object to attempting to get intelligence to do heavy lifting in any science, and my "outsider meddling" here is not constructed to undermine ID. The appropriate response would be, "We really do need to give that term a more restrictive definition." [plagiarizing myself:] Your belief, based purely on introspection, that your invisible intelligence causes you to create designs out of nothing has precisely the same epistemological status as the belief of some people that their invisible love causes them to emit certain sorts of behavior. Many people have claimed that an invisible love, much like that they experience inwardly, permeates the universe, just as some claim that an invisible intelligence, much like that you experience inwardly, permeates the universe. What we experience inwardly is of enormous value to us as human beings, but it will never be, in and of itself, empirical in character. When people give similar verbal reports of non-empirical observation, the reports themselves are empirical data, but not the reported observations. IDers appeal illogically to the wisdom of the ages and the vox populi regarding the existence of the process of intelligent design. They do nothing to confer empirical status on introspective experience of intelligence in action. Introspection was a key component of the work of Wilhelm Wundt, at the advent of experimental psychology. But it was soon abandoned by experimental psychologists, not out of philosophical commitment to materialism, but because experimental results based on the reports of subjects asked to introspect proved difficult to replicate. I should point out also that we know from anthropological studies that there are huge cultural differences in what people say about their inward sense of self. It is hardly a given that an organism we consider to exhibit “intelligence” explains its actions in similar terms. IDers are not the empiricists they make themselves out to be. Show me intelligence. That failing, show me even that there might be something non-diffuse you refer to with the term. I contend that you cannot make even “design-generating intelligence” clear-cut. Exceedingly few people are good both at designing software systems and at designing fugues. You might think that people who do well at designing mathematical proofs usually would do well at designing software, but it is often not the case. (Remember the vanished Matlab program of Dembski and Marks?) It is abundantly clear that there is a wide range of cognitive processes generating phenomena we casually refer to as “designed.” The entity you would appeal to in explaining biological phenomena is nebulous even in human psychology. The fact that a term seems clear in meaning in ordinary discourse does not imply that it has much scientific utility. There was a time when earth, air, fire, and water seemed like good elements. Only when people worked at framing explanations in terms of those elements did it become apparent that they were scientifically useless. The ethologists and psychologists who study phenomena that fall under the rubric of “intelligence” do not use the term to explain — not without restrictive operational definition, anyway.Sal Gal
March 30, 2009
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I couldn’t pass this piece of "what you know that ain't so" by, although I rarely comment in this forum.
Conclusion: If common design is true, then the designer specifically chose a method of design that both conforms to a nested hierarchy and limits itself to incremental changes. In other words, out of a huge number of possible design strategies, he chose the only one that makes it appear as if he’s not there at all.
A nested hierarchy is one of the most powerful arguments against the Darwinian model: stochastic variation + selection. It has about as much chance of generating a nested hierarchy as the Fokker-Plank equation has of generating the periodic table of the elements. A stochastic process (local, independent, uncorrelated change) has a characteristic distribution, namely Gaussian. Similarly, selection is mostly a matter of sheer dumb luck as well, and, one should remember that each organism that formed an element in the alleged Darwinian sequence of inter-grading species was successful in passing on its genes. So, one would expect, not a nested hierarchy (it's very clumpiness is non-Gaussian), but a thick bush with some holes in it; the holes being the extinct members of the sequence, some of which will have left a fossil trace. The size and location of the holes should also have a Gaussian distribution in the large, simply because extinctions are also close to arbitrary and random, hence stochastic. A nested hierarchy, on the other hand, requires that just those variations, which alonewould produce it, are the only ones that occurred, and just those extinction events, which coincidentally left not a trace and which alone would produce it, are the only ones that occurred. By asserting this, one is cavorting on the banks of the great grey-green greasy Limpopo river all set about with fever trees. The only way that I can see this assertion arising is as follows: the Darwinian model is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; the pattern of life is a nested hierarchy; therefore the Darwinian model generates a nested hierarchy. QED! I believe that Michael Denton has an extended discussion of this in Evolution, a Theory in Crisis.D.A.Newton
March 30, 2009
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Gil accused me of sophistry when I brought up the relevance of Rice's theorem to design detection. The scenario is this (oversimplifying): You have a program and a computer. How do you apply the explanatory filter (Dembski: "the best thing since sliced bread") to characterize the function of the program when it is run on the computer? The explanatory filter is a flowchart with yes-no decision nodes. Each decision regards what is known formally as a non-trivial property of the program's function. It follows from Rice's theorem that there is no algorithm for any of the yes-no decisions. Don't know is a possibility at each node. So a meddling, skeptical outsider -- a sophist -- has just made a contribution to ID theory. Why would I do this? I believe that the Creator of the universe is unknowable by the logic and science of entities within the universe. Thus I gladly tell you that don't know is a possibility for each decision in the explanatory filter.Sal Gal
March 30, 2009
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