ID Foundations, 21: MF — “as a materialist I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random so for me that is not a third type of explanation” . . . a root worldview assumption based cause for rejecting the design inference emerges into plain view
In the OK thread, in comment 50, ID objector Mark Frank has finally laid out the root of ever so many of the objections to the design inference filter. Unsurprisingly, it is a worldview based controlling a priori of materialism:
[re EA] #38
[MF, in 50:] I see “chance” as usually meaning to “unpredictable” or “no known explanation”. The unknown explanations may be deterministic elements or genuinely random uncaused events which we just don’t know about.
It can also includes things that happen as the result of intelligence – but as a materialist I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random so for me that is not a third type of explanation.
But, just what what is the explanatory filter that is being objected to so strenuously?
Let me present it first, in the per aspect flowchart form that I have often used here at UD, that shows it to be a more specific and detailed understanding of a lot of empirically grounded scientific methods of investigation.
Galileo’s leaning tower exercise, showing mechanical necessity: F = m*g, of course less air resistance. NB: He did a thought expt of imagining the light and heavy ball tied together, so on the “heavier must fall faster” concept, the objects now should fall even faster. But, shouldn’t the lighter one instead have retarded the heavier? As in, oopsie. The expt may have been done and the heavier may have hit just ahead, as air resistance is as cross section but weight is as volume. (HT: Lannyland & Wiki.)
One that explicitly invokes mechanical necessity as first default, then on high contingency rejects it — if a lawlike necessity is at work, it will produce reliably similar outcomes on similar initial circumstances, just as a dropped heavy object near earth’s surface has initial acceleration 9.8 N/kg due to the gravity field of the earth.
However, this does not cover all phenomena, e.g. if the dropped object is a fair common die that then falls to a table, it will tumble and settle to read a value from the set {1, 2, . . . 6} in a way that is close to the mathematical behaviour of an ideal flat random variable.
But also, chance and necessity cannot cover all outcomes. Not only do we routinely experience being intelligent designers — e.g. by my composing this post — but we often see a class of phenomena which is highly contingent but not plausibly accounted for on chance. For, if we see 500 – 1,000 bits or more of functionally specific complex organisation and/or information [FSCO/I], the needle in haystack challenge faced by the atomic resources of our solar system or cosmos will be overwhelmed by the space of possible configurations and the challenge of finding cases E from narrow and isolated target or hot zones T in such spaces, W.
Citing Dembski’s definition of CSI in No Free Lunch:
p. 148: “The great myth of contemporary evolutionary biology is that the information needed to explain complex biological structures can be purchased without intelligence. My aim throughout this book is to dispel that myth . . . . Eigen and his colleagues must have something else in mind besides information simpliciter when they describe the origin of information as the central problem of biology.
I submit that what they have in mind is specified complexity [[cf. here below], or what equivalently we have been calling in this Chapter Complex Specified information or CSI . . . .
Biological specification always refers to function . . . In virtue of their function [[a living organism’s subsystems] embody patterns that are objectively given and can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these systems are specified in the sense required by the complexity-specificity criterion . . . the specification can be cashed out in any number of ways [[through observing the requisites of functional organisation within the cell, or in organs and tissues or at the level of the organism as a whole] . . .”
p. 144: [[Specified complexity can be defined:] “. . . since a universal probability bound of 1 [[chance] in 10^150 corresponds to a universal complexity bound of 500 bits of information, [[the cluster] (T, E) constitutes CSI because T [[ effectively the target hot zone in the field of possibilities] subsumes E [[ effectively the observed event from that field], T is detachable from E, and and T measures at least 500 bits of information . . . ”
So, design thinkers reject the default explanation for high contingency– chance — if we see FSCO/I or the like. That is, we infer on FSCO/I and related patterns best explained on (and as known reliable signs of) design, to just that, intelligent design:
Accordingly, I replied to MF at 59 in the OK thread, as follows:
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>>> the pivot of the issue is now plain from MF at 50 above:
[re EA] #38
[MF:] I see “chance” as usually meaning to “unpredictable” or “no known explanation”. The unknown explanations may be deterministic elements or genuinely random uncaused events which we just don’t know about.
It can also includes things that happen as the result of intelligence – but as a materialist I believe intelligence to be a blend of the determined and random so for me that is not a third type of explanation.
Here we have the root problem, that for MF, design reduces to chance and necessity.
Also, I would not go along fully with MF’s definition of chance {“uncaused events” is a very troublesome concept for instance but my focus here is,} having identified that chance processes come about by two major known physical processes:
Chance:
Tumbling dice — a chaotic phenomenon thanks to eight corners and twelve edges interacting with uncontrollable surface roughness etc. (HT:Rosendahl, Flicker)
TYPE I:the clash of uncorrelated trains of events such as is seen when a dropped fair die hits a table etc and tumbles, settling to readings in the set {1, 2, . . . 6} in a pattern that is effectively flat random. In this sort of event, we often see manifestations of sensitive dependence on initial conditions, aka chaos, intersecting with uncontrolled or uncontrollable small variations yielding a result predictable in most cases only up to a statistical distribution which needs not be flat random.
TYPE II:processes — especially quantum ones — that are evidently random, such as quantum tunnelling as is the explanation for phenomena of alpha decay. This is used in for instance zener noise sources that drive special counter circuits to give a random number source. Such are sometimes used in lotteries or the like, or presumably in making one time message pads used in decoding.
In reply to MF’s attempt to reduce design by intelligence to the other two sources of cause, I suggest that this approach radically undermines the credibility of mind as a thinking and knowing function of being intelligent humans, in a reductio ad absurdum. (Cf my remarks here yesterday in reply to Dan Barker’s FFRF and my longstanding observations — in the end they go back to the mid 1980′s in answer to Marxist materialism as well as evolutionary materialism — here on.)
Haldane sums up one of the major problems aptly, in a turn of the 1930′s remark that has often been cited here at UD:
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
Let me clip my more extended discussion:
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>> 15 –> In short, it is at least arguable that self-referential absurdity is the dagger pointing to the heart of evolutionary materialistic models of mind and its origin . . . . [It can be presented at a much more sophisticated way, cf. Hasker p. 64 on here as an example, also Reppert, Plantinga and others] but without losing its general force, it can also be drawn out a bit in a fairly simple way:
a: Evolutionary materialism argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature; from hydrogen to humans by undirected chance and necessity.
b: Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws of chance and/or mechanical necessity acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of happenstance initial circumstances.
(This is physicalism. This view covers both the forms where (a) the mind and the brain are seen as one and the same thing, and those where (b) somehow mind emerges from and/or “supervenes” on brain, perhaps as a result of sophisticated and complex software looping. The key point, though is as already noted: physical causal closure — the phenomena that play out across time, without residue, are in principle deducible or at least explainable up to various random statistical distributions and/or mechanical laws, from prior physical states. Such physical causal closure, clearly, implicitly discounts or even dismisses the causal effect of concept formation and reasoning then responsibly deciding, in favour of specifically physical interactions in the brain-body control loop; indeed, some mock the idea of — in their view — an “obviously” imaginary “ghost” in the meat-machine. [[There is also some evidence from simulation exercises, that accuracy of even sensory perceptions may lose out to utilitarian but inaccurate ones in an evolutionary competition. “It works” does not warrant the inference to “it is true.”] )
c: But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this meat-machine picture. So, we rapidly arrive at Crick’s claim in his The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994): what we subjectively experience as “thoughts,” “reasoning” and “conclusions” can only be understood materialistically as the unintended by-products of the blind natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains that (as the Smith Model illustrates) serve as cybernetic controllers for our bodies.
d: These underlying driving forces are viewed as being ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance shaped by forces of selection [[“nature”] and psycho-social conditioning [[“nurture”], within the framework of human culture [[i.e. socio-cultural conditioning and resulting/associated relativism]. And, remember, the focal issue to such minds — notice, this is a conceptual analysis made and believed by the materialists! — is the physical causal chains in a control loop, not the internalised “mouth-noises” that may somehow sit on them and come along for the ride.
(Save, insofar as such “mouth noises” somehow associate with or become embedded as physically instantiated signals or maybe codes in such a loop. [[How signals, languages and codes originate and function in systems in our observation of such origin — i.e by design — tends to be pushed to the back-burner and conveniently forgotten. So does the point that a signal or code takes its significance precisely from being an intelligently focused on, observed or chosen and significant alternative from a range of possibilities that then can guide decisive action.])
e: For instance, Marxists commonly derided opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismissed qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? Should we not ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is little more than yet another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? And — as we saw above — would the writings of a Crick be any more than the firing of neurons in networks in his own brain?
f: For further instance, we may take the favourite whipping-boy of materialists: religion. Notoriously, they often hold that belief in God is not merely cognitive, conceptual error, but delusion. Borderline lunacy, in short. But, if such a patent “delusion” is so utterly widespread, even among the highly educated, then it “must” — by the principles of evolution — somehow be adaptive to survival, whether in nature or in society. And so, this would be a major illustration of the unreliability of our conceptual reasoning ability, on the assumption of evolutionary materialism.
g: Turning the materialist dismissal of theism around, evolutionary materialism itself would be in the same leaky boat. For, the sauce for the goose is notoriously just as good a sauce for the gander, too.
h: That is, on its own premises [[and following Dawkins in A Devil’s Chaplain, 2004, p. 46], the cause of the belief system of evolutionary materialism, “must” also be reducible to forces of blind chance and mechanical necessity that are sufficiently adaptive to spread this “meme” in populations of jumped- up apes from the savannahs of East Africa scrambling for survival in a Malthusian world of struggle for existence. Reppert brings the underlying point sharply home, in commenting on the “internalised mouth-noise signals riding on the physical cause-effect chain in a cybernetic loop” view:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [[But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [[so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions. [[Emphases added . . . ]
i: The famous geneticist and evolutionary biologist (as well as Socialist) J. B. S. Haldane made much the same point in a famous 1932 remark:
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
j: Therefore, though materialists will often try to pointedly ignore or angrily brush aside the issue, we may freely argue: if such evolutionary materialism is true, then (i) our consciousness, (ii) the “thoughts” we have, (iii) the conceptualised beliefs we hold, (iv) the reasonings we attempt based on such and (v) the “conclusions” and “choices” (a.k.a. “decisions”) we reach — without residue — must be produced and controlled by blind forces of chance happenstance and mechanical necessity that are irrelevant to “mere” ill-defined abstractions such as: purpose or truth, or even logical validity.
(NB: The conclusions of such “arguments” may still happen to be true, by astonishingly lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” or “warranted” them. It seems that rationality itself has thus been undermined fatally on evolutionary materialistic premises. Including that of Crick et al. Through, self-reference leading to incoherence and utter inability to provide a cogent explanation of our commonplace, first-person experience of reasoning and rational warrant for beliefs, conclusions and chosen paths of action. Reduction to absurdity and explanatory failure in short.)
k: And, if materialists then object: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must immediately note that — as the fate of Newtonian Dynamics between 1880 and 1930 shows — empirical support is not equivalent to establishing the truth of a scientific theory. For, at any time, one newly discovered countering fact can in principle overturn the hitherto most reliable of theories. (And as well, we must not lose sight of this: in science, one is relying on the legitimacy of the reasoning process to make the case that scientific evidence provides reasonable albeit provisional warrant for one’s beliefs etc. Scientific reasoning is not independent of reasoning.) >>
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In short, there is a major issue that materialism is inherently and inescapably self referentially incoherent, undermining its whole scheme of reasoning.
That is a big topic itself.
But, when it comes to the issue of debates over the meaning of chance and inferences to design which implicate intelligence, it is an underlying assumption that plainly leads to endless debates.
In this context, however, the case of 500 coins in a row on a table reading all H or alternating H and T or the first 72 characters of this post in ASCII code, strongly shows the difference in capacity of chance and design as sources of configurations that come from independently and simply describable clusters that are deeply isolated in a space of configs that are such that the atomic resources of our solar system cannot credibly search a big enough fraction to make it reasonable to believe one will stumble upon such configs blindly.
In short, there is a major and directly experienced phenomenon to be accounted for, self aware conscious intellect and related capacities we subsume under the term mind. And this phenomenon is manifest in capacity to design, which is as familiar as composing posts in this thread.
Such designs are well beyond the capacity of blind chance and mechanical necessity, so we have good reason to see that intelligence capable of design is as fundamental in understanding our empirical world as chance and as necessity.
Whatever the worldview consequences — and I think they are huge.>>>
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In short, it seems that one key root of objections to the design inference is the notion that intelligence needed for design in the end reduces to cumulative effects of blind chance and mechanical necessity.
Only, that runs into significant self referential incoherence challenges.
A safer approach would be to recognise that intelligence indisputably exists and indisputably exerts capacities not credibly observed to emerge from blind chance and mechanical necessity. Indeed, on inductive and analytic — needle in haystack — grounds, it is arguable and compelling that certain phenomena such as FSCO/I are reliable signs of design as cause.
Then, we run into the challenge that from its very roots, cell based life is chock full of such signs of design, starting with the genetic code and the size of genomes, from 100 – 1,000 kbits on up.
Then, the observed cosmos itself shows strong and multiple signs of being fine tuned in ways that enable the existence of cell based life on terrestrial planets such as our own — where fine tuning is another empirically grounded sign of being designed.
So, there are good reasons to extend the force of the design inference to the origin of cell based life and of major body plans for such life, and to the origins of the observed cosmos that hosts such life. END
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F/N: I must update by posting this all too aptly accurate debate summary by no less than UD’s inimitable WJM, done here on Christmas day as a gift to the blog and world. WJM, I CANNOT let this one just wash away in the stream of comments! (You ought to separately headline it under your monicker.) Here goes:
Typical debate with an anti-ID advocate:
ID advocate: There are certain things that exist that are best explained by intelligent designed.
Anti-ID advocate: Whoa! Hold up there, fella. “Explained”, in science, means “caused by”. Intelligent design doesn’t by itself “cause” anything.
ID advocate: What I meant is that teleology is required to generate certain things, like a functioning battleship. It can’t come about by chance.
Anti-ID advocate: What do you mean “by chance”? “By” means to cause. Are you claiming that chance causes things to happen?
ID advocate: Of course not. Chance, design and necessity are the three fundamental categories of causation used to characterize the outcomes of various processes and mechanisms. You’re taking objection with colloquialisms that are commonly used in mainstream science and debate. Here are some examples of peer-reviewed, published papers that use these same colloquialisms.
Anti-ID advocate: Those aren’t real scientists!
ID advocate: Those are scientists you yourself have quoted in the past – they are mainstream Darwinists.
ID advocate: I’m using the quotes the same way the authors used them.
Anti-ID advocate: Can you prove it?
ID Advocate: It’s not my job to prove my own innocence, but whatever. Look, it has been accepted for thousands of years that there are only three categories of causation – necessity, or law, chance and artifice, or design. Each category is distinct.
Anti ID advocate: I have no reason to accept that design is a distinct category.
ID advocate: So, you’re saying that battleship or a computer can be generated by a combination of necessity (physical laws) and chance?
Anti-ID advocate: Can you prove otherwise? Are you saying it’s impossible?
ID advocate: No, I’m saying that chance and necessity are not plausible explanations.
Anti-ID advocate: “Explanation” means to “cause” a thing. Chance and necessity don’t “cause” anything.
ID advocate: We’ve already been over this. Those are shorthand ways of talking about processes and mechanisms that produce effects categorized as lawful or chance.
Anti-ID advocate: Shorthand isn’t good enough – we must have specific uses of terms using explicitly laid-out definitions or else debate cannot go forward.
ID advocate: (insert several pages lay out specifics and definitions with citations and historical references).
ID advocate: In summary, this demonstrates that mainstream scientists have long accepted that there are qualitative difference between CSI, or organized, complimentary complexity/functionality, and what can in principle be generated via the causal categories of chance and necessity. Only intelligent or intentional agency is known to be in principle capable of generating such phenomena.
Anti-ID advocate: OMG, you can’t really expect me to read and understand all of that! I don’t understand the way you word things. Is English your first language? It makes my head hurt.
Comments
GP: I think that for those of pantheistic worldview persuasion, intelligence and personhood are not to be equated -- I recall talk about "a field of pure creative intelligence" back in the 70's. We may beg to differ but they are indeed design thinkers. KFkairosfocus
January 27, 2014
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3) Nobody can scientifically prove intelligence is irreducible to material processes
Science does NOT prove negatives and materialists cannot demonstrate tat intelligence is reducible to material processes.
RDF is still a loser.Joe
January 27, 2014
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RDFish:
Even Dembski agrees on the point that ID cannot infer conscious agency from the evidence.
No, he does not say that. He said we cannot infer a conscoious PERSONAL agent. A conscious agent does NOT have to be personal.
What is wrong with you RDF?Joe
January 27, 2014
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An impersonal telic process still comes from a conscious agent- it just doesn't have each of us personally in mind.
And Meyer just says a conscious agent. He does NOT say the evidence points to a conscious and personal agent.
Again RDFish's inability to think is the problem here.Joe
January 27, 2014
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RDFish:
1) Meyer vs. Demski on Consciousness
a) According to William Dembski, ID critics are wrong to assume that “intelligent design” refers to the product of a conscious personal agent. He insists that ID cannot determine anything about the designer, such as if the designer is a conscious personal agent or an impersonal telic process.
Just to be clear, I definitely disagree with Dembski here. And I agree with you that the two positions are not compatible. One is right, the other is wrong. And I have no doubts about which is which.
I believe that the central claim of ID is that design can be detectable. About that, Dembski, Meyer, and probably all IDists, including me, agree.
I believe that the only way to define design is as the product of a conscious agent. Frankly, I don't even understand what "an impersonal telic process" can mean.
Obviously, I have not read Dembski's whole argument. When his new book is published, maybe I can reconsider. But, to be sincere, I don't believe it likely that I will change my mind on this important point.
Just to be clear beyond any possible doubt:
a) I absolutely agree that, to infer design, it is not necessary to know any special detail about the designer.
b) I absolutely believe, however, that design and the designer can only be defined in connection to a conscious agent. The words themselves have no other possible meaning that makes sense. Therefore, for me, a design inference is in itself an inference to a conscious agent (the designer).gpuccio
January 27, 2014
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Hi Eric Anderson,
Well, I suppose you could stretch and call a river an agent. But the cute point you thought you were making completely backfires, because we are discussing the definition of an intelligentagent.
Backfires? I don't think so. Your definition of "agent" admits rivers. Dembski's definition of "intelligence" is much the same: “the power and facility to choose between options”. Looks like according to Dembski's own definition of intelligence, rivers are intelligent too. Are you saying Dembski's own definition is inadequate? Quite a mess!
And you have yet again demonstrated that you are not interested in substance, but in rhetorical obfuscation and definitional games.
That's a ridiculous accusation. ID pretends to be a scientific theory, but complains when people ask for technical definitions. What a joke!
In contrast, if “empirical” includes things like observations and analyses and current experience and principles of uniformity, then, yes, there is certainly plenty of empirical support for ID.
No, there is none at all. There is only evidence that other theories are inadequate.
I have to confess I’m not completely clear on what your complaint about ID is. It seems to be focused in this thread on the failure to affirmatively prove a negative about intelligence being non-reducible to material processes. I’ve adequately shown to the objective observer why this is (i) not a reasonable complaint, and (ii) irrelevant to the design inference, but you continue to pound the pulpit, so it is unclear how much more can be gained.
ID claims to demonstrate the existence of a type of cause that cannot be reduced to material processes. This is tantamount to disproving materialism. But of course ID does no such thing! Instead, all ID ever does is find observations for which we have no current explanations. That does not disprove materialism. Perhaps the answer can be found within our current understanding of physics, or perhaps it will require a radically new understanding of reality, but just because we have no current explanation does not justify belief in a conscious agent that was responsible.
Even Dembski agrees on the point that ID cannot infer conscious agency from the evidence.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 27, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
1) Meyer vs. Demski on Consciousness
a) According to William Dembski, ID critics are wrong to assume that "intelligent design" refers to the product of a conscious personal agent. He insists that ID cannot determine anything about the designer, such as if the designer is a conscious personal agent or an impersonal telic process. You can deny this if you'd like, but you'd be lying.
b) According to Stephen Meyer, ID does in fact provide evidence that the designer is a conscious personal agent. Again, you would be lying to deny this.
c) Clearly one would have to be delusional in order to imagine these two positions do not contradict each other. Is that really your position?
2) We can't eliminate what we don't know
This is what you said: If we don’t know what we are ruling out, then we can’t rule it out.. I point out that in order to use the EF to establish design, you must rule out all lawlike causes. But we do not know all of the lawlike causes.
You complain that what you meant to say was that we can’t rule out what we can’t define in categorical terms. But obviously you can't define "lawlike causes" in categorical terms, because you do not understand the extent of "lawlike causes". What if there is a set of "lawlike cause" that underlies human intelligence?
Which leads to the next point you're wrong about:
3) Nobody can scientifically prove intelligence is irreducible to material processes
You've never even attempted to respond to this. Where's your evidence? ESP? NDEs? Poltergeists? Exorcisms?
4) The steeples argument is a perfect analogy that illustrates ID's error
Your only attempt at a rebuttal was so pathetic that you've dropped it. Just another dodge of an argument you have no response to.
You're drowning, Stephen. Glub, glub, glub, sputter.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 27, 2014
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RDFish @422:
Let me illustrate: I declare that a river is an agent, using your dictionary definition, since rivers are things that have the power to act, and do act all day long. Their actions involve moving earth and stones, carving out canyons, and emptying water into the sea.
Do you agree with me that rivers are agents? If not, what part of the dictionary definition does a river not satisfy?
Well, I suppose you could stretch and call a river an agent. But the cute point you thought you were making completely backfires, because we are discussing the definition of an intelligentagent. (Even in those cases where someone (by laziness or lack of time or otherwise) just refers to an "agent," if we are talking about ID, everyone knows good and well what we are talking about.) And I specifically gave you a definition of an "intelligent agent."
So, yes, the dictionary definitions are quite adequate. And you have yet again demonstrated that you are not interested in substance, but in rhetorical obfuscation and definitional games.
What you just said is a non-sequitor. Inferences can be drawn from empirical data, in which case they are empirically supported (in other words, they are scientific). Or they can be drawn from assumptions that seem reasonable to people, but cannot be tested empirically, in which case they are not empirically supported. I am only interested in ID to the extent that it is claimed to be the former, a scientific theory.
Good grief. All you've demonstrated, yet again, is that you don't understand the design inference. Or perhaps you don't understand science. Or maybe both. "Empirical" does not equal "scientific."
If by "empirical" you mean something akin to "provable by experiment," then no historical science, not Darwinian evolution nor ID, is empirical in the sense of being able to carry out a lab experiment of a historical reality such as, say, the origin of life. So if you don't think ID is science in that regard, fine. Neither is Darwinian evolution nor any other idea that deals with events in the remote historical past.
In contrast, if "empirical" includes things like observations and analyses and current experience and principles of uniformity, then, yes, there is certainly plenty of empirical support for ID. You might disagree with the inference. You might feel that there is more support for another viewpoint. But ID stands as "science" just as much as any other theory attempting to explain -- by drawing an inference to the best explanation -- events in the remote historical past.
Well, enough on that.
I have to confess I'm not completely clear on what your complaint about ID is. It seems to be focused in this thread on the failure to affirmatively prove a negative about intelligence being non-reducible to material processes. I've adequately shown to the objective observer why this is (i) not a reasonable complaint, and (ii) irrelevant to the design inference, but you continue to pound the pulpit, so it is unclear how much more can be gained.Eric Anderson
January 26, 2014
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RDF:
I’ve provided the quotes to prove this and you’ve acknowledged them.
You are a regular riot. When you provide a quote, you put words into the mouth of the person that wrote it and then offer your perverted interpretation as proof of what you are saying--
----just like the time you accused me of saying a dog is a cat--
----just like the time that you said Dembski admits to presupposing libertarian dualism--
----just like the time you accused GPuccio of refusing to admit that we do not understand some things about our world
----just like the time you said GPuccio was adamant that we should never admit our ignorance, but instead take whatever idea we prefer and claim scientific support for it.
----just like the time,...Oh well, I am sure everyone gets the idea.
You’ve dodged the point I’ve proven regarding how we can’t rule out what we don’t know (You said it yourself!)
This is another perfect example of your inability to read with comprehension. I said we can't rule out what we can't define in categorical terms. You willful habit of misrepresenting people is becoming legendary.
You’ve dodged the point I’ve proven about ID’s inability to show that intelligence is not reducible to material processes (You haven’t even tried to answer this!).
I have answered it many times and in many ways. I proved it with my example of the burglar and the tornado. Even if you disagree with that argument, you can't truthfully say that I didn't make it. So, you are misrepresenting the facts, yet again.
It really is sad that you think you must continually misrepresent what people say in order to make your case. I really do feel sorry for you.StephenB
January 26, 2014
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Meyer and Dembski do not disagree. RDFish's "proof" is nothing more than his misunderstanding of what they said. RDFish thinks a that non-personal telic process is not conscious. He doesn't realize that such a thing isn't possible.
You’ve dodged the point I’ve proven about ID’s inability to show that intelligence is not reducible to material processes
Science doesn't prove a negative. So no one is dodging anything. You just don't know what you are talking about.Joe
January 26, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
RDF: 1) Meyer and Dembski disagree on the central claim of ID
2) Since we can’t rule out what we don’t know, we can’t rule out the category of all lawlike causes because we do not know all of the lawlike causes.
3) As far as we know, the three categories of the EF are all reducible to law+chance, or possibly even law alone
SB: For the record, I didn’t say any of those things, and I don’t believe any of those things.
1) I've provided the quotes to prove this and you've acknowledged them. Meyer's central argument (as he says) is that a conscious rational deliberative agent is inferred from the evidence; Dembski denies that inference can be made by ID. If you deny this, you actually have to say why. But you can't - you'll just dance around and pretend and insult me so you don't have to admit you're wrong.
2) You are the one who said we can't eliminate what we don't know. We don't know all law-like causes, so obviously we can't eliminate the entire class of all law-like causes. If you deny this, you actually have to say why. But you can't - you'll just dance around and pretend and insult me so you don't have to admit you're wrong.
3) You've never even attempted to rebut the fact that intelligence may reduce to material processes. If you deny this, you actually have to say why. But you can't - you'll just dance around and pretend and insult me so you don't have to admit you're wrong.
It isn’t necessary to know why lightning strikes churches more often than other places if you already know that lighting is a function of law-like regularity.
Ridiculous. People actually observed this happening, and had no explanation for it, and invoked intelligent agency for all the same reasons you invoke intelligent agency for the things you can't explain.
What uneducated people unfamiliar with or hostile to science once believed (or believe today)...
:-)
You've dodged the point I've proven regarding Meyer and Dembski disagreeing (I've provided their own quotes!)
You've dodged the point I've proven regarding how we can't rule out what we don't know (You said it yourself!)
You've dodged the point I've proven about ID's inability to show that intelligence is not reducible to material processes (You haven't even tried to answer this!).
Keep it up! You just look more and more like those poor folks ignoring Ben Franklin and refusing to install lightning rods on their churches, because they figured it was an "intelligent agent" aiming those lightning bolts.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 26, 2014
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Hi Mark
But I don’t propose to replay that debate yet again.
I understand why.
Thanks for your response.
Vividvividbleau
January 26, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
Hi RD:
Ok, I guess you’re conceding these points:
1) Meyer and Dembski disagree on the central claim of ID
2) Since we can’t rule out what we don’t know, we can’t rule out the category of all lawlike causes because we do not know all of the lawlike causes.
3) As far as we know, the three categories of the EF are all reducible to law+chance, or possibly even law alone
Every time I refute your arguments, you try to change the subject. For the record, I didn't say any of those things, and I don't believe any of those things. You know it, I know it, and readers know it. He who lives by the misrepresentation will die by the misrepresentation.
So, Stephen, please explain how someone who knew nothing of electricity could possibly explain the law-like causes of why lightning would strike the churches more than other buildings.
There you go again misrepresenting what was said. Why do you do that? Is that really all you've got? Don't you have any confidence at all that you can argue on the merits?
Please pay close attention. It isn't necessary to know why lightning strikes churches more often than other places if you already know that lighting is a function of law-like regularity. If you know that lightning is a function of law-like regularity, you will associate any abnormal patterns to law-like regularity as well. Hence, an ID scientist existing in the 17th or 18th century, would not attribute lightning bolts to the work of an intelligent agent.
In fact, as I’ve pointed out to you, people (religious folks at least) actually did attribute the pattern of lightning strikes to intelligent agency for a long time, even after Ben Franklin and others explained why the lightning was seeking out churches more than other buildings. Finally the science was so clear that most people conceded it wasn’t some intelligent agent after all.
What uneducated people unfamiliar with or hostile to science once believed (or believe today) about lightning is irrelevant. What matters is the evidence and the ability to interpret it in a rational way. Socrates figured out that lightning was not the direct product of an intelligent agent 2500 years ago. As he put it, "that's not Zeus up there, it's a vortex of air."StephenB
January 26, 2014
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PS: Let me clip and go on beyond Leibnitz in his monadology, in the analogy of the mill, from my always linked note:
perception, and that which depends upon it, are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is to say, by figures and motions. Supposing that there were a machine whose structure produced thought, sensation, and perception, we could conceive of it as increased in size with the same proportions until one was able to enter into its interior, as he would into a mill. Now, on going into it he would find only pieces working upon one another, but never would he find anything to explain perception. It is accordingly in the simple substance, and not in the compound nor in a machine that the perception is to be sought. Furthermore, there is nothing besides perceptions and their changes to be found in the simple substance. And it is in these alone that all the internal activities of the simple substance can consist.
8 --> We may bring this up to date by making reference to more modern views of elements and atoms, through an example from chemistry. For instance, once we understand that ions may form and can pack themselves into a crystal, we can see how salts with their distinct physical and chemical properties emerge from atoms like Na and Cl, etc. per natural regularities (and, of course, how the compounds so formed may be destroyed by breaking apart their constituents!). However, the real issue evolutionary materialists face is how to get to mental properties that accurately and intelligibly address and bridge the external world and the inner world of ideas. This, relative to a worldview that accepts only physical components and must therefore arrive at other things by composition of elementary material components and their interactions per the natural regularities and chance processes of our observed cosmos. Now, obviously, if the view is true, it will be possible; but if it is false, then it may overlook other possible elementary constituents of reality and their inner properties. Which is precisely what Leibnitz was getting at.
9 --> Indeed, Richard Taylor speaks to this too:
Just as it is possible for a collection of stones to present a novel and interesting arrangement on the side of a hill [i.e. "Welcome to Wales," on the Welsh border] . . . so it is possible for our such things as our own organs of sense [and faculties of cognition etc.] to be the accidental and unintended results, over ages of time, of perfectly impersonal, non-purposeful forces. In fact, ever so many biologists believe that this is precisely what has happened . . . . [But] [w]e suppose, without even thinking about it, that they [our sense organs etc] reveal to us things that have nothing to do with themselves, their structures or their origins . . . . [However] [i]t would be irrational for one to say both that his sensory and cognitive faculties had a natural, non-purposeful origin and also that they reveal some truth with respect to something other than themselves . . . [For, if] we do assume that they are guides to some truths having nothing to do with themselves, then it is difficult to see how we can, consistently with that supposition [and, e.g. by comparison with the case of the stones on a hillside], believe them to have arisen by accident, or by the ordinary workings of purposeless forces, even over ages of time. [Metaphysics, 2nd Edn, (Prentice-Hall, 1974), pp 115 - 119.]
10 --> A more elaborate example, from cybernetics, will help reinforce the point. For, we can understand -- perhaps after a bit of study (cf. the biomedical applications-oriented discussion here too) -- how feedback control loop elements interact. But as already mentioned, the intelligence of the system that gives rise to its performance lies in the design and the resulting built-in active information, not mere physicality, accidental proximity and chance co-adaptation of physical components and their parts. Moreover, it is evident that the probability of spontaneous assembly of such a system by undirected chance + necessity, on the gamut of our observed cosmos, is vanishingly different from zero. This extends to case after case, once we see functionally specified, complex information at work and directly know the origin of the system.
11 --> Moreover, as C S Lewis aptly put it (cf. Reppert's discussion here), we can see that the physical relationship between cause and effect is utterly distinct from the conceptual and logical one between ground and consequent, and thus we have no good reason to trust the deliverances of the first to have anything credible to say about the second. Or, as Reppert aptly brings out:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions. [Emphases added. Also cf. Reppert's summary of Barefoot's argument here.]
12 --> Indeed, so obvious and strong are the implications of the Wales example, that in the relevant UD discussion thread, objectors repeatedly insisted on trying to turn the discussed case of lucky noise "credibly" making an apparent message into the very different one of creation of an intentional message by presumably human agents. The next step was to triumphantly announce that there is "no evidence" of other intelligent, verbalising, writing agents out there. One even went on to suggest that a pure mind could not interact with matter to form such messages; indeed, that an immaterial mind could not interact with the material realm, and so could not have "experiences." [Shades of Kant!] Later on, another objector tried to turn this into a discussion on origin of life (while pointedly not reckoning with the force of Sections A, B and C above). S/he also suggested that natural selection was a naturally occurring filter that would tip the odds substantially towards chance + necessity producing intelligent information and systems capable of handling it with reliability and accuracy. In short, sadly, we saw the insistent substitution of a convenient strawman or two for the actual case to be considered on the merits.
Mill gears care nothing for their context, they are blindly interacting under constraints of forces and inertia based on how they happen to be organised. That organisation is already something to be explained.
And there is a qualitative difference from that to conscious thought.
Whether or no ideologically controlled objectors of today -- as did the Marxists -- refuse to agree and come up with clever but in the end circular and/or self refuting arguments and distractors.
KFkairosfocus
January 26, 2014
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JWT:
Yes, different worldviews do constrain perceptions. But the matter of what computation a la Pentium etc is, or for that matter a neural network firing away is not an issue of semantics. It is a straight matter of organised, physically instantiated operations in networks, with at each stage inputs triggering outputs on blind cause-effect.
A NAND connexion of transistors acts as a set of switches like so:
Vcc 0---WWWWWW----|----/ ---/ ---GND
The o/p voltage at the takeoff point just after the resistor -wwwww- will be near Vcc unless the two switches are closed. If they are, it will be near GND. The trick in electronics is to electronically control the switches, often by making an input network:
Vi/p ----wwwww---/
That is, if we use some form of transistor, the inputs are putting bias voltages on the control terminals that open or close the relevant switches.
By a wonderful theorem and a linked result for digital feedback, anything in digital logic whatsoever may be reduced to a combination of NAND gates. Even, storage elements. To create that, just use cross-coupled NANDS with digital feedback. (I am alluding to an RS latch.)
That is, in principle the most sophisticated digital processing entity can be reduced to suitable arrays of NANDS. Which are essentially deterministic cause-effect elements. Save of course the race hazard for the RS latch, which can be managed in several ways (but is a nice way to envision injection of chance).
A computational fabric as described has no magical properties. That we can add, subtract, multiply, divide, do logic comparisons, take sequences of operations, branch on conditions, loop etc all trace to the underlying organisation. At no point is there self-aware conscious choice or decision, it is all designed consequences in cause effect chains including room for noise effects.
There is exactly zero rationality in the process of computation, hence GIGO, the machine will indiscriminately spew out garbage and not know the difference if you make a mistake in hardware or software.
Or, put another way (bearing in mind the silicon etc involved): a rock has no dreams.
Nor, can it be misled to imagine it has dreams.
This is radically different from the conscious reflective rational thought we have.
To claim the latter emerges spontaneously from the former, requires empirical demonstration, not smuggling in materialist a prioris in the back door.
And that demo just does not exist nor is it in prospect. Frankly, to account for the FSCO/I involved in the computational fabric of a brain, at many levels, is already several steps too far, once the materialist question-begging is excluded.
We have, by contrast, excellent empirical reason to see the known, empirically reliable source of such FSCO/I. Design. a reliable sign.
Now, I cannot cause ideologues to stop imposing materialist a prioris.
But I sure can point out the smuggling in and the self referential absurdities, cf the OP.
I couldn't cause marxists to change their minds either, but I sure did point out their absurdities and amorality leading to nihilism.
Then, eventually the absurdities told and systems that cost 100+ million victims their lives collapsed.
And if you look at the rationale behind the slaughter of 55 million unborn children, the attempt to undermine marriage, the takeover of education, the subversion and ideologisation of science as materialism dressed in a lab coat and more, you will see why the ongoing absurdity will also eventually collapse.
But coming back, computation is not conscious thought, PERIOD.
KFkairosfocus
January 26, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
Ok, I guess you're conceding these points:
1) Meyer and Dembski disagree on the central claim of ID
2) Since we can't rule out what we don't know, we can't rule out the category of all lawlike causes because we do not know all of the lawlike causes.
3) As far as we know, the three categories of the EF are all reducible to law+chance, or possibly even law alone
Good progress!
Now let's clean up this little matter:
You don’t need to know anything about electricity to know that thunderstorms and lightning are subject to law-like regularity.
The issue is not about thunderstorms, but about the pattern of lightning strikes observed. (You know this of course, but as usual you're trying to run around in circles to avoid the inevitable).
So, Stephen, please explain how someone who knew nothing of electricity could possibly explain the law-like causes of why lightning would strike the churches more than other buildings.
In fact, as I've pointed out to you, people (religious folks at least) actually did attribute the pattern of lightning strikes to intelligent agency for a long time, even after Ben Franklin and others explained why the lightning was seeking out churches more than other buildings. Finally the science was so clear that most people conceded it wasn't some intelligent agent after all.
Like you said, we can't rule out what we don't know. We don't know all law-like causes, so we can't rule out all law-like causes for biological complexity.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 26, 2014
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RDF
The pattern of lightning strikes passed the node regarding law-like caueses, because nobody understood electricity. It passed the node regarding chance, because chance could not account for it.
Are you cuckoo? There were no such nodes because no ID scientist was there. Have you forgotten your own scenario? Just to refresh your memory, it’s a what if exercise about an ID scientist using the Explanatory Filter in another century.
Wow, that is a novel attempt to rebut my steeples argument! It is also perfectly ridiculous. These people did not understand anything about electricity, nor that lightning was in fact an electrical phenomenon. How could they then conclude that there was a lawlike explanation for the fact that lightning struck church steeples so much more often than surrounding buildings?
Irrelevant. You don't need to know anything about electricity to know that thunderstorms and lightning are subject to law-like regularity.
But there was no question that churches for some reason got way more than their share of strikes, and no clue how a lightning bolt could be directed from the clouds to a steeple unless an intelligent agent was looking down and aiming the lightning bolt.
If you know that thunderstorms and lighting are subject to law-like regularity, you will associate law like regularity to that phenomenon as well.StephenB
January 26, 2014
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Mark Frank:
1) There is no empirical justification to warrant the inference that design is the best explanation for lightning hitting church steeples.
True
Just as there is no empirical justification that design is the best explanation for life.
And yet the evidence has been presented. Strange, isn't it?
2) However, neither explanation can be falsified either.
That is false- we have said how to falsify each explanation. Again your ignorance means nothing here.
Not unless something is specified about the motives and capabilities of the designer.
We don't need to know that.
So here we have Mark Frank, totally incapable of supporting the claims of his position, attacking science as if his attacks mean something.Joe
January 26, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
The kind of cause that is being ruled out must be defined in order to distinguish it from other kinds of causes that have not yet been ruled out, which must also be defined. It is the category that tells us what we are ruling out with respect to this specific organism or artifact. If we don’t know what we are ruling out, then we can’t rule it out.
Yes!! I could not have said it better myself! If we don't know what we are ruling out, then we can't rule it out. Since we do not know every lawlike cause, we can't possibly rule out the category of all lawlike causes.
Two assumptions can be made: [a] there are only three reasonable categories of causes to consider, law, chance, and design...
But as I've explained many times, as far as anyone knows, "design" may itself be nothing but "law+chance", so that is only two categories. And again as I've explained many times, "chance" may itself be nothing but "law" (if, for example, quantum randomness turns out to be as much the result of law as a coin flip). So as far as anyone knows, there is only, at bottom, one single category of causes; in other words, the world may be ontologically monistic. Which means all this talk of ruling out categories of causes is nothing but a metaphysical commitment to ontological pluralism. You can't escape this.
The differences among them– Meyer, Behe, and Dembski–has to do with individual methodologies that are being used and the exact texture of the claims that are being made in those individual contexts.
Meyer and Dembski disagree about the primary claim of ID. Meyer says that ID's primary argument is that certain features of the world are best explained by a conscious, rational, deliberative agent. Dembski contradicts that, and makes clear that ID cannot scientifically support an inference to a designer that is a conscious agent. Don't spin this - they just disagree about the central claim that ID makes.
If ID scientists had lived in earlier times, they would, by virtue of understanding the principle of law-like regularity, have recognized that phenomenon in a thunderstorm. It would never have advanced past the first node.
Wow, that is a novel attempt to rebut my steeples argument! It is also perfectly ridiculous. These people did not understand anything about electricity, nor that lightning was in fact an electrical phenomenon. How could they then conclude that there was a lawlike explanation for the fact that lightning struck church steeples so much more often than surrounding buildings? Lightning didn't always strike church steeples of course; aside from the clear preference for the churches, the distribution of strikes was apparently random. But there was no question that churches for some reason got way more than their share of strikes, and no clue how a lightning bolt could be directed from the clouds to a steeple unless an intelligent agent was looking down and aiming the lightning bolt.
And of historical interest is the fact that people did indeed conclude that an intelligent agent was responsible. See for example:
http://www.miltontimmons.com/ChruchesVsLightningRod.html
or
http://etb-pseudoscience.blogspot.com/2012/04/lightning-and-enlightenment-ben.html
or
http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Gods-Thunder-Franklins-Lightning/dp/0812968107
You are at the end of your rope here, but you just won't let go. I have explained this to you many ways, and the steeples argument makes this perfectly clear, but you just won't admit it. You said it yourself: If we don't know what we are ruling out, then we can't rule it out You can't rule out all lawlike causes if you don't know what all the lawlike causes might be. They couldn't rule out electricity because they didn't know what electricity was.
They were unjustified to invoke "intelligent agency" just because they couldn't explain the lightning strikes. And ID is unjustified to invoke "intelligent agency" just because we can't explain things like flagella.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 25, 2014
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VB #501 #502
I think I am using the term falsified as it relates to Science where new observations, experimental tests, etc can over turn existing theories. Certainly the current understanding of lightning hitting church steeples would fall into that category of falsifying an ID inference.
As to falsification Mark maybe you could tell me what empirical justification today’s ID proponents could point to warrant the inference that design is the best explanation for lightning hitting church steeples?
I have been giving hurried and incomplete responses to all of this. I will try to do better.
1) There is no empirical justification to warrant the inference that design is the best explanation for lightning hitting church steeples. Just as there is no empirical justification that design is the best explanation for life.
2) However, neither explanation can be falsified either. Not unless something is specified about the motives and capabilities of the designer. An omnipotent designer can do anything.
3) Also note an omnipotent designer who wants to do X is always the best explanation for X in the sense that given the hypothesis there is 100% probability of the observed result.
Most people reject the designer for lightning hitting steeples because they find an explanation with these properties unsatisfactory and once we have an alternative explanation we feel no need for it anymore. In the case of life you have not got an explanation that satisfies you, so the designer explanation exists as a sort of fall back. There is no evidence for it, but it can’t be falsified either. It would still not be falsified if the Darwinian mechanism were reconstructed mutation by mutation from the beginning of time because an omnipotent designer always provides an alternative which actually explains the observation even better than the best scientific hypothesis (in the sense of 3 above).
I know that the response will on the lines of “life shows CSI/FSCI/dFSCI and where ever we observe CSI/FSCI/dFSCI and the cause is known it turns out to be a designer”. I think this is an obfuscation, CSI/FSCI/dFSCI is not a property of an outcome which can be correlated with a cause, but a mathematical relationship between a specific hypothesis and an outcome (so the CSI/FSCI/dFSCI of an outcome will vary depending on which hypothesis you are considering). But I don’t propose to replay that debate yet again. Mark Frank
January 25, 2014
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Hi RD
The EF presuspposed that “real teleology” is a valid conclusion that can be reached by ruling out law and chance.
That is the problem, because there is no way to rule out those categorically, but only specifically, and we do not know everything specifically.
The kind of cause that is being ruled out must be defined in order to distinguish it from other kinds of causes that have not yet been ruled out, which must also be defined. It is the category that tells us what we are ruling out with respect to this specific organism or artifact. If we don't know what we are ruling out, then we can't rule it out.
Let’s take something that supposedly passes the EF, like a bacterial flagellum or the DNA translation apparatus. The EF says “No combination of law+chance could ever result in such a thing”. But there is no valid way to establish that. All we can establish is “We do not currently have an explanation for how that came to exist”. Yet the EF presupposes that in this situation, when no other explanation is forthcoming, the correct answer is “real teleology”. That is Dembski’s error.
Two assumptions can be made: [a] there are only three reasonable categories of causes to consider, law, chance, and design or [b] a fourth category may exist that no one has ever discovered or even been able to imagine.
I think the first assumption is reasonable (yes, it is an assumption and it has been put on the table as assumption) and the second assumption is unreasonable, considering the fact that Plato first established those categories 2500 years ago and no one else has seriously challenged them since then or even proposed a possible alternative. Nevertheless, if [b] is found to be true, then ID is falsified--and admits it has been falsified.
(Please, no more that 5 points at at time. 1 point at a time would be better still)
SB: You are the one who said that ID (which covers all ID proponents) presupposes libertarian dualism.
Covers ALL ID proponents? Oh, please give it a rest. How can anyone possibly say anything about ALL ID proponents, considering the big tent of ID contains people who dramatically contradict each other? For example, I’ve shown the Meyer and Dembski contradict each other on the central claim of ID, which is that the evidence supports an inference to conscious agency.
ID has been defined. No ID proponent disputes that definition. It applies across the board. Therefore, when you say ID presupposes dualism, you are, by definition, including all ID scientists in that claim.
The differences among them-- Meyer, Behe, and Dembski--has to do with individual methodologies that are being used and the exact texture of the claims that are being made in those individual contexts.
The point is not about God being angry, obviously. It is that ID would conclude that some undefined intelligent agent would be the best explanation.
If ID scientists had lived in earlier times, they would, by virtue of understanding the principle of law-like regularity, have recognized that phenomenon in a thunderstorm. It would never have advanced past the first node.
Likewise, it is not an empirically supported conclusion to imagine that some intelligent agent caused flagella......
That is precisely what we are arguing about. You are affirming that claim and I am disputing it. To repeat the claim is not to argue for it.StephenB
January 25, 2014
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RDFish's arguments will have some merit when all textbooks are changed to "we don't know" as opposed to pushing darwinian and materialistic dogma as science.
I could say with almost 100% certainty that if "we don't know" was presented and all possible categories of cause are allowed in the scientific discussion- necessity, chance and design- every IDist on the planet would be happy with that.
IOW RDF is definitely picking on the wrong dog in this fight. How very little-minded of him.Joe
January 25, 2014
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Hi StephenB,
The EF Filter establishes the category of dualism because it must remain open to the prospect of dualism. It does not presuppose that real teleology is a “valid conclusion” for any given artifact.
The EF presuspposed that "real teleology" is a valid conclusion that can be reached by ruling out law and chance. That is the problem, because there is no way to rule out those categorically, but only specifically, and we do not know everything specifically.
Let's take something that supposedly passes the EF, like a bacterial flagellum or the DNA translation apparatus. The EF says "No combination of law+chance could ever result in such a thing". But there is no valid way to establish that. All we can establish is "We do not currently have an explanation for how that came to exist". Yet the EF presupposes that in this situation, when no other explanation is forthcoming, the correct answer is "real teleology". That is Dembski's error.
You are the one who said that ID (which covers all ID proponents) presupposes libertarian dualism.
Covers ALL ID proponents? Oh, please give it a rest. How can anyone possibly say anything about ALL ID proponents, considering the big tent of ID contains people who dramatically contradict each other? For example, I've shown the Meyer and Dembski contradict each other on the central claim of ID, which is that the evidence supports an inference to conscious agency.
ID science would never propose such an absurd hypothesis. ID science insists that it cannot detect the intentions of the designer.
Very funny. The point is not about God being angry, obviously. It is that ID would conclude that some undefined intelligent agent would be the best explanation.
The pattern of lightning strikes passed the node regarding law-like caueses, because nobody understood electricity. It passed the node regarding chance, because chance could not account for it. The only known cause of something that could plan a trajectory from the clouds to a church was an intelligent agent; no unguided material cause was known that could do that. Therefore, according to ID methodology, the conclusion would have been that an intelligent cause was the best explanation.
Except, as you point out, that would be an absurd hypothesis, because in fact there are no gods or other intelligent agents in the clouds aiming lightning bolts. They hit church steeples preferentially because of the law-like causes that nobody understood in the 18th century.
Likewise, it is not an empirically supported conclusion to imagine that some intelligent agent caused flagella or eyeballs, simply because we in the 21st century don't happen to understand how they came about.
Cheers,
RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
January 25, 2014
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MF # 497
As to falsification Mark maybe you could tell me what empirical justification today’s ID proponents could point to warrant the inference that design is the best explanation for lightning hitting church steeples?
Mark when you have time I would be interested in your response. Thanks
Vividvividbleau
January 25, 2014
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MF
VB 497
I am sorry. That was very badly expressed. What I meant was while most people would reject a conclusion of design that has never been falsified.
We may be talking past each other. I think I am using the term falsified as it relates to Science where new observations, experimental tests, etc can over turn existing theories. Certainly the current understanding of lightning hitting church steeples would fall into that category of falsifying an ID inference.
In another sense I would agree with you that absolute falsification is impossible but that is true for pretty much everything.
Vividvividbleau
January 25, 2014
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That should read,
The EF Filter, insofar as it establishes the category of [design], must remain open to the prospect of dualism. It does not presuppose dualism. According to the evidence, certain features in nature are best explained by an intelligent agent rather than unguided, naturalistic causes. Hence, the implication of dualism comes from the evidence, not from a metaphysical presupposition, which would render the evidence redundant and ineffectual.StephenB
January 25, 2014
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VB 497
I am sorry. That was very badly expressed. What I meant was while most people would reject a conclusion of design that has never been falsified.Mark Frank
January 25, 2014
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RDF:
The difference is between analyzing the structure of the EF per se on one hand, and using the EF to analyze some particular observation on the other hand. With respect to the latter, you are correct: One does not presuppose “real teleology”, but rather concludes it after eliminating other causes. But with respect to the structure of the EF itself, there is a presupposition that “real teleology” is a valid conclusion that should be adopted whenever some observation can’t be......
The EF filter does not presuppose the truth of metaphysical dualism. The EF Filter establishes the category of dualism because it must remain open to the prospect of dualism. It does not presuppose that real teleology is a “valid conclusion” for any given artifact. If it did, there would be no reason to evaluate the evidence.
SB loses point 1
I don't think so.
SB: And demonstrated that you know absolutely nothing about Michael Behe’s work, which you grudgingly conceded.
RDF: Good grief, Stephen – I am telling you honestly that I do not know the answer to your question!! I’ve never read much from Behe – just some of his quotes from the Dover trial and stuff about irreducible complexity. If you’d like to talk about Behe’s opinion, why don’t you simply tell me what it is?
You are the one who said that ID (which covers all ID proponents) presupposes libertarian dualism. Now you admit that you don’t know anything about Behe, which means that you were blowing smoke when you made your claim. If you don’t know what one of the most prominent ID proponents says about the inference to design, then you should not make uniformed, sweeping statements about what ID "presupposes."
SB loses point 2
If it makes you feel better to think so, then it might be good therapy for you.
You’ve now flip-flopped yet again, conceding that mind/body dualism IS central to ID, after denying it over and over again and calling the mind/body problem irrelevant.
No, I haven't done anything of the kind. You are, as usual, confused. I said that mind/body dualism is not presupposed as a metaphysical truth.
SB loses point 3
It's probably better to let others make that judgment.
.
If it’s irrelevant, why are you trying to defend it now?
Because you made a false statement that needed correction. You said that there is no empirical justification for saying that mind is irreducible to law/chance. So I corrected you.
SB loses point 4
Where have I read this before?
The church steeple argument is perfectly analogous to ID.
1) The pattern of lightning strikes could not be accounted for by lawlike cause
2) The pattern of lightning strikes could not be accounted for by chance
3) The lightning was aimed at the churches, and there is only one sort of thing that can aim anything: an intelligent agent.
Can tornados aim things? Can erosion aim things? No – only intelligent agents can aim things, and so the firm conclusion of ID scientists in the 18th century would be, by the exact same reasoning you use today, that an intelligent agent was responsible for the pattern of lightning strikes.
Because there are so many things wrong with that statement, I will limit my rebuttal to just one point. Others can tell you about its remaining flaws.
ID science would never propose such an absurd hypothesis. ID science insists that it cannot detect the intentions of the designer. You should know that by now. This is your big problem. You continue to attack ID for what you want it to be, not for what it is.
SB loses point 5
One should not triumphantly beat his chest and yell like Tarzan while he is sinking in quicksand.
Nobody here has even tried to rebut this argument.
It has been rebutted now.
There, that was easy. Now if you would like to take one point at a time, I will try to help you through your intellectual trials. However, if you continue to scatter multiple points all over the page in an attempt to avoid a rigorous discussion of any one issue, then I will simply have to give one sentence rebuttals.
SB loses point #5.
SB: 0
RDF: 5
I think we need another scorekeeper. But thank you for playing.StephenB
January 25, 2014
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Oops
Mark 477
Although most people would now reject the conclusion of ID scientists about lightening and church steeples that explanation has still not been falsified.
Mark which ID scientists came to this conclusion?
Amazing how an analogy and a poor one at that has morphed into a conclusion made by ID scientists that has been rejected !
As to falsification Mark maybe you could tell me what empirical justification today's ID proponents could point to warrant the inference that design is the best explanation for lightning hitting church steeples?
Vividvividbleau
January 25, 2014
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Mark 477
Although most people would now reject the conclusion of ID scientists about lightening and church steeples that explanation has still not been falsified.
Mark which ID scientists came to this conclusion?
Amazing how an analogy and a poor one at that has morphed into a conclusion made by ID scientists that has been rejected !
As to falsification Mark maybe you could tell me what empirical justification today's ID proponents could point to warrant the inference that design is the best explanation for lightning hitting church steeples?
Vivid
