Intelligent Design to be taught at University of Kansas

Ah, PvM, struck down in his prime by the merciless and poorly designed KwikXML.

Should double check my postings. Corrected...

Dr.Mirecki sure has a sense of humour!

Hmm, let's think who'd be a better judge of the religious nature of ID - a doctor of theology, or a lawyer? I'll have to think about it.

Mirecki will go down in history as a laughingstock

— John Calvert

At least it's being taught in the right department with a title that does not distort ID's true nature.

Alittle farther in the fox article it says:
"To equate intelligent design to mythology is really an absurdity, and it's just another example of labeling anybody who proposes (intelligent design) to be simply a religious nut," Calvert said. "That's the reason for this little charade."

WHy are there soooooo many examples of that do you think?

That will take ...oh all of 5 minutes ?
ctrl h [creationism] tab [intelligent design] ctrl a

Calvert alreayd IS a laughingstock. What an idiot.

By perpetuating the ID myth, Calvert is probably making lots of $$$ ... an idiot? I don't know, seems pretty well educated. But a scoundrel, for sure.

I think mythology is being maligned when it is put on an equal basis as ID.

But, heck, ID is in the classroom. Why isn't everyone happy?

an idiot? I don't know, seems pretty well educated. But a scoundrel, for sure.

Wow this is funny,
Prof. Mirecki sounds like he has a pretty good sense of humour.
By jings; I bet there are some heckles rising in the ID crowd.

I have a few mental images of red faces and stamping feet in the Disco institute.

What about the "academic freedom" talking point that the intelligent design creationists are always using? Could it be that they're not actually interested in academic freedom at all?

I have a few mental images of red faces and stamping feet in the Disco institute.

That's an insult to disco.

googling for "disco institute" does return www.discovery.org as its first entry. :}

Googling for "disco institute" does return www.discovery.org as its first entry. :)

Don't tell me the Darwinists have invaded the religious studies department at KU!

Oh, the humanity!

Does this mean that if Scientology and Intelligent Disco ever got together that John Travolta would be leading the revivals? Praise the Lord and pass the Spandex!

The one problem is that ID isnt valid theology. Its equally out of place in a religion class as it would be in a science class.

Here are some course titles where I think ID would fit well:
Public Relations 420: Lying with a Straight Face
Marketing 370: Selling Crap to the Gullible
Political Science 403: Modern Crackpottery as a Political Movement
Econ 760: Really Bad Ideas that will Cripple America's Economy

I can imagine a scenario where this will backfire from your perspective. Suppose Mirecki knows no science. Now you can dismiss that as a non-concern by saying that it doesn't matter given that ID is not science. But if I were in his class, I could (and I would) ask him detailed questions about fine-tuning. If he continually flubbed the answers, or answered unconvincingly---well you get the picture.

Heddle's Skool Daze, hmmmm?

The thing is, there are obviously going to be guest lecturers. So, to be relevant, your questions would likely be posed to a cosmologist in front of 100 or so undergraduates.

Waterloo! Waterloo! Waterloo!

cn mgn scnr whr ths wll bckfr frm r prspctv. Spps Mrck knws n scnc. Nw cn dsmss tht s nn-cncrn b sng tht t dsn't mttr gvn tht D s nt scnc. Bt f wr n hs clss, cld (nd wld) sk hm dtld qstns bt fne-tnng. f h cntnlly flbbd th nswer, r nswrd ncnvncngl---wll gt th pctr.

drtomaso, on a more serious note, dont forget:

Social Psychology 327: Social Influence

Mr. Heddle proposes: Suppose Mirecki knows no science. Now you can dismiss that as a non-concern by saying that it doesn't matter given that ID is not science. But if I were in his class, I could (and I would) ask him detailed questions about fine-tuning.

Did you fail to notice that there will be several faculty brought in as guest lecturers? I can virtually guarantee you, there will be a scientist or two in the mix, who no doubt could easily deal with your "fine-tuning" red herring.

Dr. Mirecki is chair of the KU religious studies dept. Religious studies properly addresses the history of the evolution/creationism controversy in the U.S., and this I know because that was my major, and I studied creationism whilst earning my BA in that discipline.

Specifically, in 1989 at the U of Wisc-Oshkosh I enrolled in an inter-disciplinary "Evolution v. Creationism" seminar co-taught by a geologist and a prof of the Old Testament. A biologist and a physicist also addressed the class.

ID clearly picks up where full-blown YEC leaves off, as anyone with a passing familiarity with the content, personalities, tactics and motives of the latter would know. Indeed, Dembski has credited YEC godfather Henry Morris with having influenced him.

At any rate, Dr. Mirecki is not the first to address ID/creationism in the context of religious studies, and I am certain he will not be the last. Good for him.

If he continually flubbed the answers, or answered unconvincingly---well you get the picture.

On a more serious note---more serious than Heddle's repetitive mention of fine tuning when that has nothing to do with Darwin, evolution, natural selection or any other aspect of evolution and origins---does Mirecki plan on taping the lectures or offering the new course as an extension course to Kansas residents? Aside from the KBOE, six of whose members learn all they need to know from the Bible, many Kansan's might find the course enlightening.

You know, just to be fair, or maybe...rational, we should not simply compare or state that intelligent design is a mere mythology. I can see the rhetorical value in doing so, but c'mon, ID is quite different from say, the greek myths.

As far as I am understanding it, ID begins with observations concerning the type of information produced when intelligent agents act, and then seeks to define some criteria for this (specified complexity, SC), arguing that natural mechanisms cannot produce SC, and then further seeks to identify SC in living systems or the natural world. This seems to me to be a far more reasonable project than opponents often let on. Calling ID a mythology seems a bit silly.

Why not just repeatedly show why the arguments for ID are neither valid nor sound?

MS

ID needs to be understood in the "history of ideas"
the people behind it, their motives, their relationship with "identity politics" and Mammon.

Their co-opting of postmodernist (Vichy and reality denial)verbal obfuscation to support their pseudoscience(magical thought), their attempt to change the meaning of language and logic, the court cases(the cold light of the law has shown them to be ..well not to put too fine a point on it.... Blatant Liars), the battle for the hearts and minds of Religious and Political Leaders not to mention their blatant misuse of the media.

The science is actually irrelevant to them because they want a vote by scientists and have science run as a "democracy" -

They don't like the vote so they want to change the rules from truth to Truth (democracy to Theocracy)as defined by their interpretation of truth/Truth that may sound schizophrenic to normal people but not to them)

Funny I thought peer review was the search for truth/Truth
but,but,but.....
need I go on?

David But if I were in his class, I could (and I would) ask him detailed questions about fine-tuning. If he continually flubbed the answers, or answered unconvincingly---well you get the picture.

Mark Studdock objects: You know, just to be fair, or maybe...rational, we should not simply compare or state that intelligent design is a mere mythology. I can see the rhetorical value in doing so, but c'mon, ID is quite different from say, the greek myths.

It is all of fair, rational and accurate to denominate ID as a species of myth, specifically, creation myth. That is what it is, and students of religion study that genre of myth.

YEC nakedly parallels a literal rendering of the Genesis creation accounts. Depending on which ID adherent you consult, so does ID; other IDers opt for the logos myth in the Gospel of John, i.e., "In the beginning was the Word & etc..." I believe that is Dembski's take.

"I think the guy is going to fall all over himself," Calvert said. "I would love to go to his class and say, 'Explain to me how DNA arose in the primordial soup?'"

John Altevogt, a conservative columnist and activist in Kansas City, said the situation was the equivalent of David Duke teaching about race relations or Fred Phelps teaching about homosexuality. "These guys should not be teaching classes in religion, because they're both bigots," Altevogt said of Mirecki and a fellow faculty member who could not be reached for comment Monday.

Shiva I don't think they take

"The answer to the meaning of Life the Universe and Everthing is 42 Heddles"

ARR! Methinks they be feelin me blade should they include THE HOLY FSM with such bilge as ID! I'll show em yon myths, the myth that keelhaulin can be survivied! The scurvy bastards!

"I think the guy is going to fall all over himself," Calvert said. "I would love to go to his class and say, 'Explain to me how DNA arose in the primordial soup?'"

CJ Bing!
Heddle's Skool Daze, hmmmm?

Yes the smell of liniment as he walks by the gym and all those cute young things in tight clothing prancing around in an endless Bacchanalian garden -forever springtime.

He just can't make up his mind.

AND lets not forget the renewll/Renewall of culture/Culture
I have a tip for the Prof P. Mirecki
-hah! he don't need no tips.
Like his TRUE photo tho.

Carol/Heddle remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magritte

Heddle and Carol and all the others go to his class and choke down a few cold facts.

The ID movement is the perfect diagram for when logic meets faith, objectivity meets subjectivity.

Pandoras Box.
If you put "god in a box" and that box is a mind...

The result's are ?

.......never mind they still won't get IT.

Bah
AND lets not forget the renewal/Renewal of culture/Culture
NO HIDDEN MEANING

"I think the guy is going to fall all over himself," Calvert said. "I would love to go to his class and say, 'Explain to me how DNA arose in the primordial soup?'"

Provost tries to put class in context; conservatives threaten to attack funding for higher education By Sophia Maines (Contact) Wednesday, November 23, 2005 A Kansas University official tried Tuesday to calm critics of a new religion class that labels intelligent design as "mythology," but conservatives said they might take aim at the university's funding. "It is unfortunate that the course title's reference to 'mythologies' has been misconstrued," Provost David Shulenburger said in a written statement released Tuesday afternoon. "The terms 'myth' and 'mythology' are common in the academic study of religion and not an affront. A myth refers to the common use of stories or rituals to symbolize in a meaningful manner the core beliefs of a religion; it does not refer to any religion as a whole." But some conservatives, such as Sen. Kay O'Connor, R-Olathe, were unmoved. "Why poke a stick in somebody's eye if you don't have to?" she said. "If you're going to have an intelligent design course and call it mythology, I think in the very least it's a slap in the face to every Judeo-Christian religion that's out there."

But some conservatives, such as Sen. Kay O'Connor, R-Olathe, were unmoved. "Why poke a stick in somebody's eye if you don't have to?" she said. "If you're going to have an intelligent design course and call it mythology, I think in the very least it's a slap in the face to every Judeo-Christian religion that's out there." And John Altevogt, a conservative columnist and activist in Kansas City, said Tuesday that state officials should require the university to change the name of the Department of Religious Studies to the "Department of Religious Intolerance." "If we can't do that," Altevogt said, "maybe we settle for some cuts in spending."

Provost David Shulenburger said in a written statement released Tuesday afternoon. "The terms 'myth' and 'mythology' are common in the academic study of religion and not an affront. A myth refers to the common use of stories or rituals to symbolize in a meaningful manner the core beliefs of a religion; it does not refer to any religion as a whole."

That is not some form of special pleading. When I took my major in religious studies -- a discipline that is essentially akin to cultural anthro or sociology -- "myth" was offered as a term of art. Multiple of my instructors, including many teaching outside the context of the evolution debate, advised that in the scholarly context it would be wrong to conclude that myth = not true, the common connotation. I also studied Native American religious myths, and I can assure one and all that the last thing these left-of-center professors intended to do was to insult Native Americans when they (the instructors) applied the term myth to various Indian religious narratives.

Religions generally contain creation myths and other sorts. That is the simple fact of the discipline. Attacking religious studies for its employing this term is not much different than insisting on a lay and incorrect understanding of the term "theory" wrt to science and evolution.

"Why poke a stick in somebody's eye if you don't have to?" she said. "If you're going to have an intelligent design course and call it mythology, I think in the very least it's a slap in the face to every Judeo-Christian religion that's out there."

Heh good point Stephen. We really should be writing these things down, so when a JBozo type shows up and says "Blah blah nothing to do with religion" we can just toss up 20 quotes showing otherwise.

Should I observe that it's the Department of Religious Studies, not the Department of Theology? It's not written into the contract that the Department should sign on to Biblical literalism.

Univ. of Kansas Takes Up Creation Debate

Tuesday November 22, 2005 5:01 PM

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) - Creationism and intelligent design are going to be studied at the University of Kansas, but not in the way advocated by opponents of the theory of evolution.

A course being offered next semester by the university religious studies department is titled ``Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies.''

``The KU faculty has had enough,'' said Paul Mirecki, department chairman.

``Creationism is mythology,'' Mirecki said. ``Intelligent design is mythology. It's not science. They try to make it sound like science. It clearly is not.''

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5432170,00.html

We are also stuck with the Kansas Citizens for Science, run by Jack Krebs. This site, purporting to be about science education, has been taken over by a band of about eight atheists who viciously attack and try to drive from the board anyone trying to suggest anything in disagreement.

What they do is to use their view of science to consistently post anti-religion diatribes, making pronouncements about ethics and politics along the way, that go beyond anything science can discuss.

I think Mirecki's course is an appropriate venue for this kind of debate. And I don't see any problem in their approaching it from a highly critical perspective at a public university, because the whole wedge strategy is basically just a simple propaganda technique of making your opponent appear to be unreasonably biased without exposing your own biases (in this case, I would argue, much more severe ones) by employing specious criticisms rhetorically (not logically) supported by ad populum appeals to a sympathetic target audience.

Their use of the word "mythology" in the course title, I honestly believe, is provocative and that was probably the intent. So they might want to rethink that title, but I guess it helps it fit into the religious studies curriculum since that department is hosting the course. But regardless of the title, I think a critical perspective for the course is absolutely fair game given the rules of academic freedom and in light of the disengenuous political and rhetorical ploys through which the creationist and ID movements have foisted this ridicuous debate upon the academic community, particularly in Kansas.

My only concern is that they don't miss this opportunity to delve into the IDists arguments and show the students why they are fallacious. In the venue of a university class, you really have the time and a disciplined audience to explore those issues in some depth. So they should present the evidence and arguments for evolutions as well as the ID arguments and their critiques to show the students that scientists really do have good reasons for believing in evolution and rejecting ID that are independent of the metaphysical presumptions of individual scientists.

ID arguments have been thoroughly debunked in books and in scientific and philosophical writings, but the critiques have not gotten the same degree of exposure among non-scientific educated lay persons as the ID arguments themselves because they have been presented in popular books that, I strongly suspect, sell better than anti-ID popular books and that are read are by people who, for the most part, do not have the scientific, mathematical or philosophical background to see what's wrong with them. I would hope that this course at Kansas might be the begining of an effort within academia to redress this imballance.

Are intelligent design and string theory birds of a feather?

Mike talks about taking a "critical perspective" in view of "academic freedo"...bahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

"Freedom" for YOUR side, you mean.

outeast: There's an old joke that theology professors believe and religious studies professors don't.

Unfortunately, most of the students who should learn the lessons here are not likely to take such a course ...

As far as I am understanding it, ID begins with observations concerning the type of information produced when intelligent agents act, and then seeks to define some criteria for this (specified complexity, SC), arguing that natural mechanisms cannot produce SC, and then further seeks to identify SC in living systems or the natural world. This seems to me to be a far more reasonable project than opponents often let on. Calling ID a mythology seems a bit silly.

We are also stuck with the Kansas Citizens for Science, run by Jack Krebs. This site, purporting to be about science education, has been taken over by a band of about eight atheists who viciously attack and try to drive from the board anyone trying to suggest anything in disagreement What they do is to use their view of science to consistently post anti-religion diatribes, making pronouncements about ethics and politics along the way, that go beyond anything science can discuss.

Posted by CBBB on November 23, 2005 01:21 PM (e) (s) ... Using Dembski's system one would find that the formation of ice crystals is SC - which implies that ice crystals are designed, which we know is not true (unless there's some magical, invisible, spirit that goes around creating ice crystals).

Praise! Evilution has been a "theory on the ropes" for some time now, and is clearly down for the count. I agree that it is time to give our attention to some of science's other demonic doctrines.

* Gravity - This one is already on the ropes, soon to be replaced by the Intelligent Falling Theory, where objects are guided back down to the ground by guardian angels.
* Relativity - Relativity leads to relative morality, and is therefore both evil and false. God is absolute and unchanging. Relativity is a lie, and I wouldn't trust anything that whoever the author of so-called "relativity" has to say.
* Inertia - Inertia says that objects at rest stay at rest, and objects in motion stay in motion. If inertia is true, then how am I able to leave my house to go to church, and how am I able to stop once I get there?
* Global Warming - The Earth is climate controlled by God Himself. If He wants to fiddle with the temperature controls, who are we to ask a bunch of stupid questions? To be replaced by Divine Thermostat Theory.
* Continental Drift - The continents are in exactly the same spot where they have been since The Flood. To be replaced by the Sin Theory of Earthquakes.
* Probability - "God does not play dice with the universe." -- Albert Einstein.

However, I want to hold off debunking String Theory for a while, because there are some things that I like about it.

String theory postulates 11 dimensions (seven more than sinful man can perceive), and that all of the individual particles that make up the world are actually strings that have been plucked to vibrate at a particular frequency.

Well, I think we all know Who is plucking those strings, amen. If we could peer into those extra dimensions, we would see the LORD, and he would be playing the largest stringed instrument you have ever seen! HALLELUJAH!

Pastor Billy-Reuben
landoverbaptist.net

It's like the only statistical technique Dembski knows about is the Binomial theorem. All his examples of trying to use probability to disprove that something is randomly formed are based on "coin-flipping".

All his examples of trying to use probability to disprove that something is randomly formed are based on "coin-flipping".

Okay realistically I don't know this for a fact I haven't seen all his examples of trying to use probability to disprove that something is randomly formed.

Didn't find you on the list here (at the bottom of the page). http://www.phys.cwru.edu/events/cosmol03.php It would have been fun to watch you ask your questions there! Looks like the those folks had better things to do.

R.O. That signifies precisely nothing.

CBB Claims: First of all ID DOES NOT begin with OBSERVATIONS, not does it include them in any way. It begins with the pre-concieved conclusion that God Created life and tries to twist the facts into conforming to that position. I've just read this article by a mathematician, Jeffrey Shallit, and a biologist, Wesley Elsberry. It is fairly long (about 50 pages) and in some parts pretty technical but it pretty much demolishes the mathematical foundations of Dembski's concepts of SC.

We'll see what the Information Theory community thinks of ID soon enough. I recently emailed someone on the board at the IEEE ITSOC about the matter.

My guess? They'll think of ID what the Biologists, Physicists, etc think of ID.

Are ID and String Theory birds of a feather, someone asks?

No. Many scientists do not find the research program (not theory) known as string theory qualifies as science yet, despite the following advantages it has on ID: The support of major scientific groups and universities, that the investigation of the hypotheses has produced real discoveries in mathematics, that the research is being done by some highly-qualified, respected scientists, that it has produced thousands of papers, that it is fundamentally a scientific enterprise, not a Public Relations one, and that none of its advocates is known to be a serial liar.

I look forward to the opportunity for Dembski's work and Shallit/Elsberry to be compared by knowledgeble students

which btw, speaking of string theory, if Krauss thinks it is "a colossal failure", and yet it's so much better than ID for the reasons I mentioned, what's that mean he thinks about ID? Wonder what he'd say about Dave Heddle's reruns?

I look forward to the opportunity for Dembski's work and Shallit/Elsberry to be compared by knowledgeble students in math, computer science, and electrical engineering, even physics.....

Ah, The poster's name is Rev. Dr. Lenny Flank, not Flake - sorry about that!

...although I can assure you that Flank does at least like his pizza crust flaky, so you weren't entirely wrong.

And then there are those who would contend that there are a few other flaky things about the Rev. Dr. as well.

but since my livelihood depends, in part, on his already-inadequate tips, there I will not go.

Posted by CBBB on November 23, 2005 08:36 PM (e) (s) I look forward to the opportunity for Dembski's work and Shallit/Elsberry to be compared by knowledgeble students in math, computer science, and electrical engineering, even physics.....

Sal, Your strong reliance on quotes in your so-called "critique" makes it highly dubious. Far from being the work of an expert in Computer Science this seems more like the work of a failing english major. While I am a 2nd year Undergrad student who is not a mathematical genius and thus do not have the specific knowledge to debunk the claims of your or Dembski I would like to point out that the Shallit/Elsberry paper was very well organized and STRAIGHTFORWARD in its review of Dembski's thesis. It presented a clear point-by-point rebuttle of Dembski's position. On the other hand your "rebuttle" of the rebuttle is FAR from clear and straightforward, to me this makes it suspect along with the fact that it's rebuttle seems to rely heavily on quotes and it does not refute many of the major problems presented by Shallit/Elsberry.

In ADDITION it should be noted that your review of the Elsberry/Shallit paper presents the paper as being "helpful" to ID and that it's criticisms are "constructive" and will be taken into account in order to make the ID theory stronger. This stands in stark contrast to the reality that in the TWO years since the Elsberry/Shallit paper was published Dembski has NOT recanted or retracted any of his major arguements, nor has Dembski attempted to incorporate or implement any of the paper's suggestions into ID.

OK, Stephen, that was good enough that I'm gonna have a little mercy on ya tonight:

One piping hot extra-large flaky-crusted pizza coming right up! On the house!

Oh, and don't worry about the tip. The flaky herpetologist in the corner sucking down the pitcher of lager already took care of it for ya...

I do not expect Sal to respond to my simple concerns because he has proven himself to be dishonest. But I hope anyone who is just passing through this website realises that if Sal had a legitimate point he would stay to defend it instead of constantly restorting to this tactic of vanishing after each post. This is the SECOND time he has done this today. His original post was almost identical to his most recent one and he ignored all my comments on the previous thread.

CBBB wrote: Sal, Your strong reliance on quotes in your so-called "critique" makes it highly dubious. Far from being the work of an expert in Computer Science this seems more like the work of a failing english major.

CBBB wrote: I myself am a Math/CS Student at the University of Waterloo where Shallit teaches so your assertion that serious students of computer science, math, etc. would appreciate Dembski's work is unfounded in my opinion, although I am only a second year undergraduate. Never-the-less even I can grasp many of Shallit's criticisms of ID.

Sal, I'd love to debate you, but, alas, you don't have the credentials.

So, here's the deal. I want you to publish a paper in the AAAS journal, Science, and we'll have a debate there. May I suggest a title: "The Theory of Intelligent Design."

Publish the paper and we'll be in a debate.

Now, failing publication, simply submit your manuscript along with the rejection letter from the AAAS to the Pandas Thumb and we'll debate its content here. In ten years I haven't seen a single case of an "intelligent design" paper being rejected from Science or Nature. Of course, one has to submit a paper first.

The ball's in your court, Sal. What's it going to be?

Sal, it is true I have not read Dembski's material. Perhapes that is a mistake but I don't feel I have to read up on Astrology to know that it is a crock of crap. Creationism/ID, like Astrology seems like bunk to me on the face of it. The fact that there is no testible, falsifiable hypothesis for it has caused me to believe this.
In that regard I suggest you take a crack at Lenny Flank's questions. Although I am surprised you actually responded this time instead of jumping to another thread.

I suggest you send in your critique to people who are knowledgable enough to review it. Yes, I mean Peer-Review, just like the Shallit/Elsberry paper was sent to peer review, if you are so confident that your rebuttle sound than why not send it in?

My 2 cents: I don't think it will work. Like asking an atheist to teach a class on theism, an adesignist can't effectively teach designism. To be taken seriously, the U of K should get a designist to teach the class, at least the portion on ID.

Just a thought. Just passing through. May be back, may not. No replies necessary.

Hey, RMB (Runs Mouth Badly?), since you seem to take ID so seriously, why don't you take a whack at answering Lenny's simple questions?

Nah, didn't think so...

My 2 cents: I don't think it will work. Like asking an atheist to teach a class on theism, an adesignist can't effectively teach designism.

I think you're arguing from an invalid assumption.

For starters, if design >IS< science, then its major concepts HAS to be comprehensible and teachable by non-design advocates. If it is NOT science, but is religion, then it has to be clear enough to be taught by outsiders, or you're just talking about a cult here.

You do know that non Muslims can teach Islamic classes and Jewish teachers can teach classes on Christianity, right?

KU official responds to course critics

Sal, I'm not even insisting in my comments that Dembski is right

Another word for "low specificational complexity" is SIMPLICITY!

CSI may very well be able to infer design. That is irrelevent, can it distinguish between artifacts which are design and not designed reliably? According to Shallit/Elsberry it cannot and that is the criticism you failed to address.

Maybe it's because I'm an empirical biologist, but I get terribly impatient about all this discussion of CSI and TSPGRID and the rest of the alphabet soup. Sometimes it seems as though we're actually helping to generate a smokescreen of confusion by discussing all of the philosophy-of-science and statistical issues.

My own beef with Dembski's work is much simpler. I read The Design Inference and No Free Lunch, among others, and I can't find any point where all of this highfalutin' math can be connected to actual biology.

The argument's simple, at its core, and predates ID by many decades. Dembski says "It's very unlikely that X could have evolved, therefore it must have been designed."

The rebuttal's also simple: Exactly how unlikely is it that X evolved? Show me the math. Show me the detailed calculations, taking into account what we know about population genetics, evolutionary history, natural selection, drift, population sizes, mutation rates, etc. Show me how you know that the evolution of X, or something equivalent, is so improbable.

Without such calculations, filled in with the appropriate details about mechanisms and reasonably accurate estimates of the variables involved, all of this mathematico-philosophical superstructure doesn't demonstrate a thing.

Proposed name change:
Intelligent design (ID) becomes Miraculous Intervention(MI) - thats what that Behe & crew are proposing. Its still "God of the Gaps" but by now the gaps are very small. a few nanos wide.
If the 'design' is implicit in the structure of the natural world, then we have Natural Science.
If the 'design' is only at a few difficult points (Centrioles?) then we have "Miraculous Intervention"
The thing about miracles is, they spoil Natural Science, because anywhere,anytime, big Nobodaddy might flip in a miracle, so research becomes impossible.

Behe does seem to be saying that the IrredComplex points are few, so I assume he accepts, or pretends to accept, that natural selection copes with 99% of what we see, and Nobodaddy handles the other 1%, from time to time, 'leaning in' and Miraculously 'appearing' a new string of DNA in some organism, which then happens to code for a bunch of proteins all at once. Can someone tell me if this is actually the ID/MI position? Or do they want the other 99% later so that *every* mutation is the work of Nobodaddy/FlyingSpaghettiMonster? Or just the beneficial mutations? But Behe isnt just going for the mutations, that would be merely simply feel-good SituationalistHumanism. He is stating that some sets of proteins (Complement?) *must* appear simultaneously, so if one had a microscope focused at that time, one would see a largish chunk of DNA instantaneously appear and insert itself in the genome. Reminds me a bit of Hoyles continuous creation, except that Nobodaddy is Intelligent. At least smart enough to get mentioned in Kansas.
Personally I dont care if no biology is taught to high school students , they can pick it up later.

#2 Why have you never acknowledged that a crucial calculation on page 249 of No Free Lunch is off by about 65 orders of magnitude, even though you were informed of this in 2002? (I have seen Dembski address this by the way but he lies and states that if his calculation were correct than it would actually IMPROVE his arguement - which is FALSE. Why did Dembski lie about this?)

— CBBB

Corksrew wrote: IIRC, it does improve his argument. It came up in Shallit's deposition. The point Shallit and Elsberry were making was more along the lines of "what kind of muppet makes mistakes like this and then has the nerve to call himself a mathematician?" Salvador: I may have trouble reading your entire critique (I'm only an undergrad), but I wanted to say thanks for the links at the start relating to target recognition. Very interesting, and relevant to a couple of my future career opportunities :)

CBBB: Sal, it is true I have not read Dembski's material. Perhapes that is a mistake but I don't feel I have to read up on Astrology to know that it is a crock of crap.

CBBB: Further more, while I have only been visiting Panda's Thumb for a short time I have seen the poster "Rev. Dr. Lenny Flake" has on Many, Many opportunities asked you to respond to some basic, fundemental questions about ID and you have on every occassion I have seen, evaded these simple questions about the scientific legitimacy and foundations of ID.

Posted by Salvador T. Cordova on November 24, 2005 04:20 AM (e) (s) ... You come to the discussion demanding I convince you? Not my intent to waste time on people acting like experts on literature they haven't even read. How are you in a position to evaluate the accuracy of Shallit's claims over Dembski's literature when you haven't even read Dembski's literature? So why do I show up here? Some IDists lurk and read what goes on. They might worry that the PandaThumbites here might actually have a point. I'm here to reassure them that for the most part the PandaThumbites are gullible Darwinbots swallowing wholesale what their leaders tell them about ID...

Darwinbots eh? Sounds quite cool - do they sell them in any major retail establishments; I'd quite like to get one for a young relative this Christmas.

Salvador: I'm having a little trouble with some of your article, specifically post 4 (the one with the pill box). I'm fine on the information theory (yes your numbers are correct), but I'm having trouble figuring out how conceptual and physical complexity are being derived from this. Is there a formal (i.e. lots of greek letters :P) definition floating around?

By Sophia Maines (Contact) Thursday, November 24, 2005 Topeka --- Critics of a Kansas University course on intelligent design say an e-mail written by the professor proves the course is meant to mock religious fundamentalists. KU Provost David Shulenburger said Wednesday he regretted the words used in the e-mail, but he backed the professor and the course, maintaining it would be taught in a professional manner like all other courses. In a recent message on a Yahoo listserv --- a venue where groups of people post questions and comments on a particular topic --- Paul Mirecki, chairman of KU's department of religious studies, described his upcoming course "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationisms and other Religious Mythologies." "The fundies want it all taught in a science class, but this will be a nice slap in their big fat face by teaching it as a religious studies class under the category 'mythology,'" Mirecki wrote. He signed the note "Doing my part (to upset) the religious right, Evil Dr. P."

Bertand Russell's take on myths seems rather appropriate:
"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."

Read on for criticism of post 2 of Salvador's critique, this being the only bit that I both understand (it's the non-technical bit) and contest. Also, a little explanation for the laymen amongst us of what the Communication Theory formulation of 'information' is all about. Alert: being an undergrad, it's quite likely that I'm wrong on some of this. Take with biiig pinch of salt. I'll comment on more when I feel I understand it well enough.

Post 2:

You claim that it's easy to distinguish between a designed system and a system arising from chance. Two counterarguments: firstly, it's not always easy, and secondly these are not the only two options. A selective environment results in systems that can't really be described as random, despite their not being designed. This is what makes genetic algorithms such a powerful tool - you don't need to design the system, you just need to set up the environment and let it gradually improve itself.

You describe a chemist being able to distinguish synthesised molecules from natural ones as an example of spotting design. But surely this ability is based on what might be termed historical precedent (no organisms as of today are able to manufacture D-amino acids, hence it must be synthetic) rather than any intrinsic 'designedness' of the molecule? If biologists suddenly discovered a species of bacteria that could produce D-amino acids, the chemist would reassess his opinion. Such historical context doesn't apply when attempting to determine if life itself was designed as, without begging the question, we can't determine which features might occur naturally and which must be the work of a designer.

An aside: the science of encryption is not, on the whole, concerned with stealthiness - referring to the science of steganography might be more appropriate.

Post 4:

Yes your figures are correct. For the laymen here, I'll quickly recap what's meant by the mathematical formulation of information. It's broadly speaking a measure of the amount of inference you can draw from a given event, based on its probability. So, for example, if your wife says "Does my bum look big in this?" and you respond with "Mmmm" half the time, the information capacity of that is only -log_2[1/2] = 1 - a comparatively small value. Your wife really can't tell a lot from "Mmmm". This may or may not be a good thing.

However, if you look up from the gadgets you're browsing and instantly run screaming from the room, that's a less probable event by far. If it occurs, for example, one time in 1024 (of course, every man knows that this would never happen more than once...) then the information content is -log_2[1/1024] = 10, a much higher value. Your wife now knows that the clothes she was trying on are very very bad, and also that you're sleeping on the couch tonight.

The reason we use a rather odd-looking formulation like minus log to the base 2 of the probability is because this allows us to "add" information - the information conveyed by you looking up, saying "Mmmm" and then running screaming from the room would be -log_2[1/2*1/1024] = 11 = 1 + 10 = -log_2[1/2] + -log_2[1/1024]

As I said, I'm having trouble with some of the lingo in the second half of this paragraph, specifically the terms "conceptual complexity", "physical complexity" and, more mundanely, "specification" (you're just using this to mean "event" right?). I also haven't come across the term "K-complex" before (well, not outside Algebraic Topology, where it evidently means something quite different) - are there any resources you'd recommend?

Ah, The poster's name is Rev. Dr. Lenny Flank, not Flake - sorry about that!

That's true I don't answer Reverend Flake's questions. It must seem I consider attending to him as a low priority.

ID is religious myth

Posted by 'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank on November 24, 2005 08:49 AM (e) (s) ... Hey Sal, why don't you tell everyone why only Chrisitans are allowed to be officers in IDEA clubs. Why not Jews, or Muslims, or Buddhists? Is there a legitmate SCIENTIFIC reason for that? Or are we just seeing plain old fashioned fundamentalist religious bigotry in action?

Care to go over the calculations?

— Salvador T. Cordoba

My own beef with Dembski's work is much simpler. I read The Design Inference and No Free Lunch, among others, and I can't find any point where all of this highfalutin' math can be connected to actual biology. The argument's simple, at its core, and predates ID by many decades. Dembski says "It's very unlikely that X could have evolved, therefore it must have been designed."

That's true I don't answer Reverend Flake's questions. It must seem I consider attending to him as a low priority. By the way, I like the name you gave Reverend Lenny Flake. :-)

That's true I don't answer Reverend Flake's questions. It must seem I consider attending to him as a low priority. By the way, I like the name you gave Reverend Lenny Flake. :-)

Posted by CBBB on November 24, 2005 09:16 AM (e) (s) That's true I don't answer Reverend Flake's questions. It must seem I consider attending to him as a low priority. By the way, I like the name you gave Reverend Lenny Flake. :-)

You come to the discussion demanding I convince you? Not my intent to waste time on people acting like experts on literature they haven't even read. How are you in a position to evaluate the accuracy of Shallit's claims over Dembski's literature when you haven't even read Dembski's literature?

You demand I spoon feed you on the concepts in the books which you've not read? Ok, say ahhh......

Sal, you can fool every dumbass Math Undergrad who thinks Math is the Be-All-End-All of Science, but some of us know that there is much more to the story than that.

As I said, I'm having trouble with some of the lingo in the second half of this paragraph, specifically the terms "conceptual complexity", "physical complexity" and, more mundanely, "specification" (you're just using this to mean "event" right?).

Reading CBBB's latest post, and having read Sokal's book, I just got an idea. Perhaps we should start submitting fake ID papers to the ID "journals", full of jargon-laced nonsense, and see how many are accepted.

Sal, you can fool every dumbass Math Undergrad who thinks Math is the Be-All-End-All of Science, but some of us know that there is much more to the story than that.

— CBBB

Well it seems to me that ID is just a bunch of buzzwords. Sal's article actually reinforced this perception.

Hey! That's a complete mistruth!

Perhaps we should start submitting fake ID papers to the ID "journals", full of jargon-laced nonsense, and see how many are accepted.

Tom Bearden's MEG http://www.cheniere.org/ (winner of not 1 BUT 2 Nobels!) He is surrounded by a loyal band of cheering sycophants who go out of their way to threaten and silence their critics. This is rather ironic given their constant complaints that a vast conspiracy has successfully suppressed (and continues to suppress) all information about "free energy" because what it would do to established energy interests. Above note from Phil Karn at Qualcomm who debunked another Shannonite http://www.ka9q.net/vmsk/

Perhaps we should start submitting fake ID papers to the ID "journals", full of jargon-laced nonsense, and see how many are accepted.

— steve s

The purpose would be to later reveal that ID "papers" x, y, and z are just gibberish.

Corkscrew wrote: You claim that it's easy to distinguish between a designed system and a system arising from chance.

Two counterarguments: firstly, it's not always easy, and secondly these are not the only two options.

Corkscrew wrote: A selective environment results in systems that can't really be described as random, despite their not being designed.

Corkscrew: This is what makes genetic algorithms such a powerful tool - you don't need to design the system, you just need to set up the environment and let it gradually improve itself.

Corkscrew wrote: So far he hasn't convinced me, despite my being overqualified on all counts (third year maths undergrad, obsessed with number theory, thick as a post).

If it seems that I stated that, or if it seems that is what I meant, I need to clarify because that does not reflect my position. It can be extremely difficult to discern designed from non-designed systems. The Explanatory Filter and Dembski's technique are oriented to detecting designs that the designer is willing, if not eager to be detected as designed.

— Salvador

It can be extremely difficult to discern designed from non-designed systems

That is a mathematical subtlety that escapes most.

My more modest goal is that our claims are understood such that a clearer and fairer judgment of our claims soundness or value can be made

Mr. Cordova, why have you nor any other ID advocate set up a methodical program to test for designed things? Why has no one written up the explanatory filter for peer review in any journal, math, biology, chemistry, physics, English, rhetoric, French, home economics, physical education, design, fashion, etc.?

In short, what evidence have you that anything you propose works?

Louis suggests I'm implying: 3.There are objects that are not designed that we cannot detect as being designed.

Intelligent causes can do things that unintelligent causes cannot and can make their actions evident. When for whatever reason an intelligent cause fails to make its actions evident, we may miss it. But when an intelligent cause succeeds in making its actions evident, we take notice. This is why false negatives do not invalidate the explanatory filter. The explanatory filter is fully capable of detecting intelligent causes intent on making their presence evident. Masters of stealth intent on concealing their actions may successfully evade the explanatory filter. But masters of self-promotion intent on making sure their intellectual property gets properly attributed find in the explanatory filter a ready friend. ...... The explanatory filter is a net. Things that are desgned will occasionally slip past the net.....This problem cannot be fixed. Nevertheless we want to be very sure that whatever the net does catch includes only what we intend it to catch, to wit, things that are designed. Only things that are designed had better end up in the net. If this is the case, we can have confidence that whatever the filter attributes to design is indeed designed. from Mere Creation pages 106-107, Dembski's essay on "Redesigning Science".

Paul Mirecki, chairman of KU's Religious Studies Department, wrote in an e-mail that the course was his response to religious fundamentalists promoting the study of intelligent design and creationism in the state's public schools. "The fundies want it all taught in a science class, but this will be a nice slap in their big fat face by teaching it as a religious studies class under the category 'mythology,' " the message said. The message was sent Saturday to a list-serve group for the Society of Open-Minded Atheists and Agnostics, a student organization for which Mirecki serves as faculty adviser. Mirecki addressed the message to "my fellow damned" and signed off with: "Doing my part to (tick) of(f) the religious right, Evil Dr. P."

And, more importantly Louis, as brought up by Shallit/Elsberry if we have a non-designed object/event that is NOT simple and seems to be improbable will Dembski's filter correctly, and reliably identify it as not designed?

Sal has not addressed this point. He claims his first post is a refutation of the Shallit/Elsberry paper, however the vast majority of that post shows how Dembski's filter can detect design WHICH WAS NOT THE CRITICISM OF SHALLIT/ELSBERRY. The Criticism was the Dembski's method for detecting design was incoherent and that his method could not reliably distingish between designed/not-designed.

Sal's rebuttle concerns itself only with the weakest arguements of the Shallit/Elsberry paper and completely ignores many of the very strong arguements. Sal then claims that the paper is refuted or that it is unreliable even though, after 2 years, the VAST majority of the paper's arguements still stand solid.
I once again ask Sal to comment on Shallit/Elsberry's claim that Dembski uses an incoherent method to detect "complexity" (improbability). For example the Caputo (Democrat/Republican) example calls Dembski's methodology into serious question.

Sal,

Are you suggesting that ID is NOT a Religious Programme?
How absurd.

I can more effectively respond to your other points.

Sal, no matter how much rhetoric you employe or how many fancy math symbols or made up technical words you write. Until you can provide a satisfactory answer to AT LEAST Question #1 from Lenny you are simply engaged in Pseudoscience. Don't you realise that talking about Complex Systems or Information Theory doesn't change a damn thing? You're blowing hot air! You can't even answer a few BASIC questions.

Ahh yes, yet another Darwhinist bloviating arrogantly about material they haven't even read, much less understood. I wasn't even suggesting you accept Dembski's literature as correct, but simply compare the way Shallit and Elsberry represent Dembski's work versus what Dembski actually wrote.

You come to the discussion demanding I convince you? Not my intent to waste time on people acting like experts on literature they haven't even read. How are you in a position to evaluate the accuracy of Shallit's claims over Dembski's literature when you haven't even read Dembski's literature?

So why do I show up here? Some IDists lurk and read what goes on. They might worry that the PandaThumbites here might actually have a point. I'm here to reassure them that for the most part the PandaThumbites are gullible Darwinbots swallowing wholesale what their leaders tell them about ID.

Sal's rebuttle concerns itself only with the weakest arguements of the Shallit/Elsberry paper and completely ignores many of the very strong arguements. Sal then claims that the paper is refuted or that it is unreliable even though, after 2 years, the VAST majority of the paper's arguements still stand solid. I once again ask Sal to comment on Shallit/Elsberry's claim that Dembski uses an incoherent method to detect "complexity" (improbability). For example the Caputo (Democrat/Republican) example calls Dembski's methodology into serious question.

"Before I proceed, however, I note that Dembski makes an important concession to his critics. He refuses to make the second assumption noted above. When the EF implies that certain systems are intelligently designed, Dembski does not think it follows that there is some intelligent designer or other. He says that, "even though in practice inferring design is the first step in identifying an intelligent agent, taken by itself _design does not require that such an agent be posited. The notion of design that emerges from the design inference must not be confused with intelligent agency_" (TDI, 227, my emphasis). (We'll revisit this concession below.) "

Not only is ID poor science, it is poor theology. It reduces God to a magic word to use whenever we are stymied by a lack of information. It renders God as being everything we cannot explain. If we do not understand a natural process, it must be God's work.

Sal, you and Dembski are frauds.

The Explanatory Filter and Dembski's technique are oriented to detecting designs that the designer is willing, if not eager to be detected as designed.

I hope my clarification takes care of your concern. In the diagrams dembski provides, it may seem that there are only 2 options, but a more thorough reading will show that there are actually 3. 1. Not Designed, and Rejected as not designed 2. Designed, but rejected as not designed 3. Designed, and accepted as designed #2 happens frequently. For example,if one is trying to camouflage a target, it is a designed object, but the designers wish to conceal it's design and make it appear indistinguishable from a natural object.

There is no problem if one does not accept mine or Dembski's claims. My more modest goal is that our claims are understood such that a clearer and fairer judgment of our claims soundness or value can be made. Much of the critiques of Dembski's work are not accurate characterizations of his claims or definitions. I was naive enough at first to believe Dembski's critics (including his former teacher) would accurately portray his work. I'm finding that to not be the case.

Once Again Sal Consider the "Natural" examples outlined in the Elsberry/Shallit paper. Consider the example of the Oklo Nuclear Reactor given in that paper. Are these "misrepresentations"? If so then demonstrate how Dembski was misrepresented. If they are not they stand as a disasterious critique of ID. Stop telling lies for God!

"As for your example, I'm not going to take the bait. You're asking me to play a game: "Provide as much detail in terms of possible causal mechanisms for your ID position as I do for my Darwinian position." ID is not a mechanistic theory, and it's not ID's task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories. If ID is correct and an intelligence is responsible and indispensable for certain structures, then it makes no sense to try to ape your method of connecting the dots. True, there may be dots to be connected. But there may also be fundamental discontinuities, and with IC systems that is what ID is discovering."

I'd say that ID critics do accurately portray ID arguments.

Hi CBBB,
Isn't Sal just amazing? When was the last time you heard such hypocrisy?

Sal and his ilk remind me of game show hosts...
Plenty of catch phrases, good makeup and cosmetics...but totally hollow ( then ask a difficult question and it is time for a commercial break).

You may as well try to knot fog or herd cats as engage them in meaningful conversation.

Let's explore Behe's testimony in Dover

Q: It does not identify who the designer is, correct?
A That s correct. Let me just clarify that. I m talking about the scientific argument for intelligent design based on physical data and logic, yes.
Q You believe it s God, but it s not part of your scientific argument?
A That s correct.
Q It does not describe how the design occurred.
A I m sorry?
Q Intelligent design does not describe how the design occurred.
A That s correct, just like the Big Bang theory does not describe what caused the Big Bang.
Q Does not identify when the design occurred.
A That is correct.
Q In fact, intelligent design takes no position on the age of the earth or when biological life began.
A That s correct.
Q But think it was --- the earth as billions of years old or 10,000 years old.
A That s correct.
Q It says nothing about what the designer's abilities are.
A Other than saying that the designer had the ability to make the design that is under consideration, that's correct.
Q It sounds pretty tautological, Professor Behe.

and

A Well, as I think I said in response to the question, we know the designer had the ability to make the design. So, but beyond that, we would be extrapolating beyond the evidence, so we can t say more than that.
Q And we know nothing about the designer s limitations.
A Well, we have to infer what we have from the data, and the data tell us that a designer can make a certain object. It does not say what the designer might not do. our everyday world somebody who makes some simple object might be able to make a more complex one or so on.
Q Intelligent design says nothing about the intelligent designer s motivations?
A The only statement it makes about that is that the designer had the motivation to make the structure that is designed.
Q How can intelligent design possibly make that statement, Professor Behe?
A I don t understand your question.
Q How can it possibly say anything about the intelligent designer s motives without knowing anything about who the intelligent designer is?

And so on. The designer designed because he was motivated to design it, he had the ability to design it because he designed it, but we don't really know much of anything....

In Sal's opinion if we don't embelish the ID claims with the same ridiculous level of pointless technical jargon that Dembski does we are misrepresenting their arguements.

Sal seems happy enough to respond when he thinks he can attract a convert or when someone wants to talk about Omega Spaces but actually ask pointed questions about the fundementals of ID or the Strong Arguements of Shallit/Elsberry's critique on Dembski's methods and he's out of here.

Sal, Provide us with real world applications of Dembski's notions of CSI and the EF. And I do mean DEMBSKI'S notions and not trying to claim that Shannon Information is the same as Dembskism or something.

If it seems that I stated [it's easy to distinguish between a designed system and a system arising from chance], or if it seems that is what I meant, I need to clarify because that does not reflect my position. It can be extremely difficult to discern designed from non-designed systems. The Explanatory Filter and Dembski's technique are oriented to detecting designs that the designer is willing, if not eager to be detected as designed.

— Salvador

First of all, the word random carries a lot of connotations and is subject to conflation and equivocation. ... I try to use the word directed and non-directed, or purposeful and non-purposeful, guided or unguided.

— Salvador

The number of bits generated by a genetic algorithm may be significantly larger than the output number of bits. The TSPGRID program by Shallit and Elsberry essentially did that. However the bits of CSI should not be equated with the number of bits in the output nor with the number of bits used to implement the genetic algorithm. That is a mathematical subtlety that escapes most. To see the distinctions I'll have to walk through some detailed examples.

— Salvador

I should note, what may seem trivial for you as an intelligent designer is challenging for a blind purposeless non-deterministic process. For example, it does not take much effort to make 500 coins heads from some general starting configuration. A blind purposeless non-deterministic process would be quite inadequate to do the same.

— Salvador

When you program the environment in a GA, you are using the computer as a tool, but what is trivial to you (as in the act of programming) is difficult for a non-deterministic, unprogrammed, unguided process.

— Salvador

Let me know if what I have written in this post clarifies my position. I think it will address some of your other concerns, and then I can more effectively respond to your other points.

— Salvador

Oh no Sal, You've Been Foiled Again! Confound it!

I still need help understanding exactly (preferably in proper mathematical symbols) what you mean by physical and conceptual complexity if I'm to proceed further through your critique

You are in a vulnerable position to be debating with me unless you even have the works in question to discuss. If you have them handy, then we can compare notes. Do you have them?

You are in a vulnerable position to be debating with me unless you even have the works in question to discuss.

You are a paper tiger Sal.

In the diagrams dembski provides, it may seem that there are only 2 options, but a more thorough reading will show that there are actually 3. 1. Not Designed, and Rejected as not designed 2. Designed, but rejected as not designed 3. Designed, and accepted as designed #2 happens frequently. For example,if one is trying to camouflage a target, it is a designed object, but the designers wish to conceal it's design and make it appear indistinguishable from a natural object.

There is actually a fourth option which Dembski ignored in his original works with a specious claim namely the falese positive "not designed and detected as designed". This is the real problem of the design inference approach and is thus routinely ignored.

Any links to resources on K-complexity would also be gratefully received.

Posted by CBBB on November 24, 2005 02:40 PM (e) (s) You are a paper tiger Sal.

The distinction between type I error (Cordova's "#2") and type II error (which Cordova ignores) is taught in the first week or two in every undergraduate statistics course.

Corkscrew asked: what I was talking about was the ability of a system, if set up in a way that promotes "fitness", to achieve a surprisingly high level of directedness from undirectedness. That this occurs is made clear by the many places where genetic algorithms are used.

Sal,
answer Lenny's questions or bugger off plse.
You are spouting none-sense.

Unfortunately this doesn't quite address my point. I maintain that there are situations even outside of the life sciences where disagreement can arise over whether an object appears to be "designed" or not (my cooking tends to fall into this category...) the classic example being artifacts like the "face on mars", which look just designed enough to really freak people out. My point here is that the intuitive concept of "this looks designed" doesn't necessarily translate in any useful way into a more rigorous framework. This isn't something you need to counter (unless you really think I'm wrong), just something that needs to be kept in mind lest we stray from the path of mathematical rigour.

GA algorithms are very powerful. What I was trying to point out was that its ability to solve problems ultimately is attributable to the implementor or designer of the genetic algorithm. An essential ingrediant to a genetic algorithm's success is the intelligence that implemented and programmed the algorithm. The machinery to implement GA's requires intelligence, this is borne out through the analysis of the required elements for a successful GA.

The EF and varios techniques Dembski offers are not meant to detect all design.

But will the EF mistakenly detect design when there is none present? You have not addressed this real and dangerous possibility.

There are some structures I think are very amenable to analysis such as the Biological Turing Machines which we find in living cells...

Is this another example of one of Dembski's greatest logical sins: proof from extended/false analogy?
I think it could be. Sounds an awful lot like "Flagellum are outboard motors".

I don't think you are coming closer to unerstanding his claims.

His claims are bogus, you reinforce this view by dodging even simple questions just as Dembski does.

How many experiments, for example, are needed to be run before we have confidence we have justified a law of nature?

AT LEAST ONE Sal, which you guys have yet to do. You don't even have one.

Regarding K-complexity, or Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity or algorithmic entropy, you can get an informal sense of by way of illustration in ZIP files.

If I have an original ASCII 1 Megabyte file containing all zeros, it has low Kolmogorov Complexity compared to a JPEG file of the same size. One can try to compress a JPEG file and find it just doesn't compress any further. That's because it is K-complex. The file with all zeros can be compressed because it is not K-complex and thus can be compressed.

A more formal description here is at wikipedia:
K-Complexity.

K-complexity is a measure of how much a set of symbols resist being described by an algorithm with fewer bits than the set of symbols. A highly K-complex set of symbols are essentially resistant to data compression algorithms.

Dembski refers to k-complexity for certain classes of conceptual information. That should not be confused with his usage of "probabilistic complexity" which simply means improbability.

We have at least two complexities of interest:

1. K-complexity
2. Probabilistic complexity

Both are in Dembski's writings.

Salvador

Again, I'm not saying one must accept his thesis, but I don't think you are coming closer to unerstanding his claims.

That should not be confused with his usage of "probabilistic complexity" which simply means improbability.

lol Sal,
Give it up.
You are sounding ridiculous.

Answer 1 or 2 of Lenny's questions or go away.

His claims are bogus, you reinforce this view by dodging even simple questions just as Dembski does.

— cbbb

Lenny's Question #1 is VERY sensible (actually all of his questions are) and pertinent to your whole field of endevour. If you can't answer it than no amount of making up terminology or slapping around useless symbols will help.

Remember the fundemental rule of mathematics:

If you start from a false premise you will reach a false conclusion.

Sal NEVER addresses the reality that the Premise of Dembski's work is False. Everything beyond that is irrelevent.

Corkscrew commented: That may or may not be true [GA's requiring a designer], but it's a little outside the scope of this discussion, which is, if I'm correct, aimed at whether life could have evolved rather than whether the environment it evolved in was natural or contrived.

Right, I forgot to Mention. ID is basically compatiable with anything - it doesn't take any REAL positions or make any testiable predictions. It doesn't take risks, it stays very vague so you can't disprove it.

Also see Shallit/Elsberry's criticism of the Displacement Theorem in their paper. This Criticism (as with almost all of the others) has yet to be addressed by Dembski, Sal, or any other IDer.

Corkscrew: Salvador: I'm having a little trouble with some of your article, specifically post 4 (the one with the pill box). I'm fine on the information theory (yes your numbers are correct), but I'm having trouble figuring out how conceptual and physical complexity are being derived from this. Is there a formal (i.e. lots of greek letters :P) definition floating around?

Actually, in Dembski's conception the mechanism by which a designer acts to fabricate design may be through a contrived environment. His analysis gives an idea of the level of design (information in bits) that the designer would have to infuse into the GA. If the designer chose to use natural selection to infuse an organism with Complex Specified Information, he shows that the selective forces require a certain level of design which he measures (in terms of bits) through his Displacement Theorem

— Sal

Also see Shallit/Elsberry's criticism of the Displacement Theorem in their paper. This Criticism (as with almost all of the others) has yet to be addressed by Dembski, Sal, or any other IDer.

— CBBB

GAME OVER SAL.

"In fact, he seems to (finally) accept that natural selection can infuse information just like an intelligence" where does he do this? I don't challenge your statement, I just haven't come across it, because I don't consider Dembski's output worth reading.

Dembski's displacement theory comes after Shallit and Elsberry's paper.

I must be thinking of something else then. I was refering to that criticism you just brought up when I said this:

..or will you reduce your God to the status of a Deist God...

Corkscrew observed: On the other hand, as the genetic algorithms example shows, directedness does not necessarily equate to a director. If, to choose a silly example, dice were to "breed", and dice that averaged lower values when rolled a lot were "killed" off by distraught gamblers, it would be no surprise to see that the population of dice ended up horribly biased towards the higher scores. Eventually you'd get a population of dice that rolled sixes every time. Then, if you rolled 500 of them, it would not be outside the bounds of probability for them to all come up sixes. This is an example in which a blind, non-deterministic algorithm (I can't speak for its purposelessness) would be quite adequate to produce a result that appears "designed".

Given what we know, in the absence of any further evidence to the contrary, such and such artifact is hypothesized to be designed. It is not an insistence that it is designed, but a hypothesis. It is a tentative hypotesis subject to Popperian falsification.

The rebuttal's also simple: Exactly how unlikely is it that X evolved? Show me the math. Show me the detailed calculations, taking into account what we know about population genetics, evolutionary history, natural selection, drift, population sizes, mutation rates, etc. Show me how you know that the evolution of X, or something equivalent, is so improbable. Without such calculations, filled in with the appropriate details about mechanisms and reasonably accurate estimates of the variables involved, all of this mathematico-philosophical superstructure doesn't demonstrate a thing.

This is what makes genetic algorithms such a powerful tool - you don't need to design the system, you just need to set up the environment and let it gradually improve itself.

The number of bits generated by a genetic algorithm may be significantly larger than the output number of bits. The TSPGRID program by Shallit and Elsberry essentially did that. However the bits of CSI should not be equated with the number of bits in the output nor with the number of bits used to implement the genetic algorithm. That is a mathematical subtlety that escapes most. To see the distinctions I'll have to walk through some detailed examples.

Intelligence acts by changing probabilities. Equivalently, intelligence acts by generating information.

By intelligence, here, I mean something quite definite, namely, the causal factors that change one probability distribution into another and thus, in the present discussion, transform a blind search into an assisted search.

In general, to justify the reduction of intelligence to stochastic mechanisms, these mechanisms need to supply a complete, self-consistent account of how changes in probability or net increases in information arise. As we shall see, the mathematics of blind and assisted searches precludes such an account, whether for neo-Darwinian assisted searches or for assisted searches in general.

Remember the fundemental rule of mathematics: If you start from a false premise you will reach a false conclusion.

I would posit, we are coming close to that stage regarding the biological Turing Machine.

Here we go again, proof based on extended analogy.

"In fact, he seems to (finally) accept that natural selection can infuse information just like an intelligence" where does he do this? I don't challenge your statement, I just haven't come across it, because I don't consider Dembski's output worth reading.

PvM, was that a reply to me? If so I don't understand it.

iI would posit, we are coming close to that stage regarding the biological Turing Machine.

Translation: I'm full of crap.

Before we go any further Sal I would like you to comment on the criticisms from Shallit/Elsberry concerning Dembski's methods of calculating improbability/complexity. These criticisms cast a dark shadow over Dembski's entire "hypothesis".

Salvador refers to a paper by Albert Voie, to argue that "I would posit, we are coming close to that stage regarding the biological Turing Machine. Systems, such as the Turing Machine and self-replicating automata can not be attributable to any law of physics or chemistry or combination of chance and necessity."

I'd encourage Sal, to propose a more in depth and logical evaluation of his claim elsewhere. In fact I'd argue that science may have solved this 'paradox' already.

More later. Turkey is waiting

One more time, Sal:

1. What is the scientific theory of intelligent design, and how do we test it using the scientific method?

2. According to this scientific theory of intelligent design, how old is the earth, and did humans descend from apelike primates or did they not?

3. what, precisely, about "evolution" is any more "materialistic" than weather forecasting, accident investigation, or medicine?

4. do you repudiate the extremist views of the primary funder of the Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, Howard Ahmanson, and if so, why do you keep taking his money anyway? And if you, unlike most other IDers, are not sucking at Ahmanson's teats, I'd still like to know if you repudiate his extremist views.

5. Why are you undermining your own side by proclaiming here that ID is all about defeating "atheism" and "anti-religion", while your side is desperately trying to argue in court that ID has nothing at all whatsoever to do with religion or religious apologetics? Are your fellow IDers just lying under oath when they testify to that, Sal?

Any time you are ready, Sal . . . . . After all, we don;t want all the lurkers to think that you CAN'T answer these simple questions, and are just a dishonest evasive blowhard. Right, Sal?

1900's Creationist: "Evolution is a lie."
1980's Creationist: "A little evolution is fine. But a lot of evolution is wrong."
2005 Creationst: "All of evolution could be fine, but probably not."

Looks like you guys are coming around, Sal, you're just really slow.

Natural Selection can infuse information. Dembski and others have said it is possible that Natural Selection was used to infuse CSI into biotic reality, but it does not mean it's probable, and in the unlikely event Natural Selection was used to infuse CSI, the Selective forces would have to be under intelligent guidance, such as an intelligent selective breeder.... For the sake of argument, I admit it as logical possibility, but not a high probability.

Sal, you talk alot about calculating probabilities but I would like you to comment on the Shallit/Elsberry paper which provides evidence showing that Dembski's probability calculations are highly dubious and often have nothing to do with real world events.

Also why did you claim that the Shallit/Elsberry paper did not successfully refute Dembski but then provided no real evidence to back up your claims? Why do you insist that you have addressed the criticisms present in the Shallit/Elsberry paper but then in your so-called "rebuttle" you fail to take on any of the major arguements of the Shallit/Elsberry paper and instead largely address unrelated issues? Why do you continue to avoid answering even basic questions that have been asked by Lenny Flank time and time again on this Blog? Why do you believe that mathematics can be used to refute a science grounded in observation and experimentation?

In that research, programs able to perform a number of logic functions evolved under a regime employing only random mutations and selection. All of the information necessary to calculate CSI is readily available. The starting point (the Ancestor program) and the ending programs of 23 runs are available. All the latter are "specified" in proper Dembskian terms: their functions (functional specifications are permitted) were specified prior to the runs. The complete evolutionary history of the case study run is available.

And finally, why do you feel it neccesary to defend God with lies and dishonesty?

In physical reality, such selective forces might well have closer to probability 0%, not 100%.

What is this based on? I would say that an organism that is ill prepared to survive in a certain environment would have a high probability of death without reproduction.

Various video games allow the user to wander through make believe worlds, and simulate all sorts of scenarios that have no basis in physical reality.

Much like the ramblings of you and Dembski?

A physical artifact or event exhibits CSI if it conforms to some sort of blueprint (mental or otherwise) and the object is improbable.

You're dead in the water Sal. How is this Probability calculated?!?!?! According to Shallit/Elsberry Dembski's calculations of probability are dubious. I refer you to the "Election Ballot Example" give in the Shallit/Elsberry Paper.

Shallit/Elsberry still stands as a great impediment to Dembskist Ideology. TWO years has passed since publication and it still stands virtually unchallenged.

Pleading Pleading Pleading,
Cordova's Special Pleading,
ID's Corpse Was Bleeding,
And Diiiiiied!

Nice try Sal, but later on in this very thread (as well as many others) you dismiss "simple" objects with a wave of your hand as being outside the remit of the filter and methodology you claim to have.

So my understanding of your "reply" was pretty accurate. Complicity of the designer indeed! I mean honestly Sally, you can bloviate all you like about biological Turing machines and Kolmogorov complexity (terms and concepts you CLEARLY know less about than even someone so removed from that field as I am) but your twittering all boils down to your designer. After all you claim your filter and emthods are dependant on the whimsy of this designer. I can see it now "Oh I the desinger wish this design to be detectable, but I shall make this piece of design look undesigned". It's just the argument from mystery that we have been subjected to by the more cretinous godsters for centuries (the smart theists don't bother with this total rot). Get a new record Sally!

It's so obvious you're trying to hide your Designer behind cloaks of mystery and loquacious garbage. And we all know who you think that designer is {wink}. If I were similarly religious to you, which thankfully I am not, I'd have to be pretty damned unsure of my faith to lie like you do in order to "support" it. Frankly you're just a bit pathetic.

I love the part about how it doesn't matter that you can get more bits out of the running algorithm than the programmer put in, because there are these landscape bits, that just exist somewhere, which don't have to be put in, but still count on the input side, so the Law of Conservation of Information still obtains. It's kind of like an idiotic Information Theory version of Helmholtz free energy. You don't have to put in all the bits, because some will just naturally flow in from the environment.

Einstein said it best: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and
I'm not sure about the universe."

Regarding Avida, no provision for the probability of selective forces existing in physical reality is made. Well acatully, it's given a 100% chance of existence once one puts it in the parameter file. In physical reality, such selective forces might well have closer to probability 0%, not 100%.

I explored the calculations here: CSI and Evolutionary Algorithms

I'm telling you the only measure of probability that the IDers know is the uniform Binomial Theorem.

Also I don't understand this factory analogy - if there's conservation of information and the factory "infuses" the it's outputs with CSI than to conserve the information in the universe wouldn't the factory decline in CSI? That makes no sense but I guess because it's Beheist-Dembskism.

I've come to the conclusion, reading that Sal post that CSI is like Auras. It's some mystical concept that we are just supposed to accept as being there and it can't be reliably quantified or verified but it supposedly permiates the Universe.

I'm curious to see how long my comment/questions remain on teh UncommonDesc site
Comment by Hamilton --- November 24, 2005 @ 8:12 pm
- apologies to the shade of Bill Hamilton for using his name
- hint to would be Hamiltonians: password on www.bugmenot.com

Sal has shown how his familiarity with evolutionary theory is quite minimal.

Well done Sal. Hard to defend ID in real life, isn't it.
Or is that not your intent?

Sal's objections show that he accepts that selective forces can create CSI but now the argument somehow has moved to 'the probability of such selective forces' is small...

ID seems to be becoming more and more scientifically vacuous every time Sal posts. Well done Sal, you have undermined yet another aspect of ID

1. What is the scientific theory of intelligent design, and how do we test it using the scientific method? 2. According to this scientific theory of intelligent design, how old is the earth, and did humans descend from apelike primates or did they not? 3. what, precisely, about "evolution" is any more "materialistic" than weather forecasting, accident investigation, or medicine? 4. do you repudiate the extremist views of the primary funder of the Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, Howard Ahmanson, and if so, why do you keep taking his money anyway? And if you, unlike most other IDers, are not sucking at Ahmanson's teats, I'd still like to know if you repudiate his extremist views. 5. Why are you undermining your own side by proclaiming here that ID is all about defeating "atheism" and "anti-religion", while your side is desperately trying to argue in court that ID has nothing at all whatsoever to do with religion or religious apologetics? Are your fellow IDers just lying under oath when they testify to that, Sal? Any time you are ready, Sal ... . . After all, we don;t want all the lurkers to think that you CAN'T answer these simple questions, and are just a dishonest evasive blowhard. Right, Sal?

Sal the Crackpot: 0
Panda's Thumb: 10^150

Sal knows he can't provide real answers to those questions, he knows he's a crackpot but he has to keep telling his lies for Jesus.
I'm sure you'll be well rewarded in the afterlife for your defense of Christ through dishonesty and cowerdice.

Sal how true is your "The Truth"
Does it not say that lying is against GOD ?

I said it once and I'll say it again:

GAME OVER, Sal.

Jeff Shallit will continue to cast a shadow over the ID movement.

RBH claims: So now Salvador is denying that differential reproductive success occurs in varying environments, or at least it has a near zero probability of occurring.

No, it's the kind of selective forces, the kind that can make large scale biological innovation. No question there are selective forces, but do such forces exist to make large scale biological innovation.

You mean the dying out of organisms not equipt for their environment and the survival of ones that are? What's to question in that?

No, it's the kind of selective forces, the kind that can make large scale biological innovation. No question there are selective forces, but do such forces exist to make large scale biological innovation.

Here we are back to the old Creationist Micro/Macro evolution game.

Old Crackpot Sal.

No, it's the kind of selective forces, the kind that can make large scale biological innovation. No question there are selective forces, but do such forces exist to make large scale biological innovation.

RBH claims: I'm still waiting to see an actual calculation of "CSI" on a range of complicated objects of known provenance.

I'm still waiting to see an actual calculation of "CSI" on a range of complicated objects of known provenance.

— RBH

I thought I had provided adequate examples, but rather than argue that, let's go back to Avida. Can you provide the ratio of the number of functional genomes versus the space of all possible genomes given a genome length, or at least an approximation? If not, then I'll give you an example, but since you are enamored with Avida we can try that first.

— Sal

Are we Attempting another one of ID's Famous Probability calculations to disprove evolution?
May I refer you to the 2003 paper by Shallit/Elsberry? http://www.antievolution.org/people/wre/papers/eandsdembski.pdf

Sal Have the IDists ever calculated the CSI in the input of a genetic Algorithm or Artifical Life program and then calculated the CSI in the output?

And why do you think an arguement from probability is a solid way to disprove evolution? How do you know your probability calculations are based on the correct assumptions?

As showing in the 2003 paper by Shallit/Elsberry, http://www.antievolution.org/people/wre/papers/eandsdembski.pdf , many of Dembski's probability calculations are based on ridiculous assumptions that have no grounding in the real world. Dembski also uses two different ways to calculate probability depending on the circumstance. How do you respond to these charges which, if true, demolish the entire basis of Dembski's work.

Sal seems to suggest that plenty may exist, just that they are, without much evidence, considered to be improbable.

The assertion that the EF will have a very low probability of producing false positives is based on the assumption that almost everything that exhibits SCI is designed. So as we can see the belief that the EF has a very low chance of producing false positives is reached via circular reasoning.
The probability of a false positive being produced by the EF is low because most objects that exhibit SCI are designed, this is conclusion is based on the underlying assumption of the EF.

As it stands SCI is a term that has no relevence to biology or Computer science outside Dembskiworld. No one uses it Sal and no one cares about it out side of Dembskiworld. You guys better get some tests going to show WHY anyone should give a damn about Beheist-Dembskism.

Indeed, some of the testimony in the Dover trial suggested this circularity in the arguments of ID proponents. Interesting but so far ID still has nothing much contributed scientifically

I find it funny that Sal comes around here being the big-man who has all the answers but he hasn't even addressed any of the concerns I've raised. Nor has he ever addressed the questions of Lenny.

He is a very professional Propagandist however. Maybe before he was an actual scientists but now he is nothing more than a crank-pseudoscientist who spews Dembski Cult Propaganda.

Is it even reasonable, whether in biology or elsewhere, to think that the assisted searches that successfully locate small targets in large spaces should be conceived as purely the result of stochastic mechanisms?

— Dembski

The No Free Lunch Regress, by demonstrating the incompleteness of stochastic mechanisms to explain assisted searches, fundamentally challenges the materialist dogma that reduces all intelligence to chance and necessity.

— Dembski

I am starting to think that Sal is a parody.
Surely it is someone posting as a joke.

In physical reality, such selective forces might well have closer to probability 0%, not 100%.

What is this based on? I would say that an organism that is ill prepared to survive in a certain environment would have a high probability of death without reproduction.

Sal,

On behalf of the many lurkers here, may you please address at least the first question the "Rev. Dr." asks you?

As long as ID claims to be scientifically based, question #1 is completely fair....Your avoidance of this particular question is starting to make my hair hurt.

I will attempt an honest answer at Dr. Rev. Sir Lenny Flank's first question. Actually first two questions...

1. What is the scientific theory of intelligent design, and how do we test it using the scientific method?

The scientific theory of intelligent design says that everything in the universe is designed by a Curiously Unspecified Presumed Intelligent Designer (Cupid for short). I know this is the case because I believe it to be true. It's true because I believe it, I believe it because it's true. It's a scientific theory because I say it is.

How do we test it using the scientific method? Well, we look at something and we can plainly see that it's obviously been designed. Because I believe that Cupid exists, and everything in the universe was designed by Cupid, then it's obvious, OK? I don't need to test stuff that's obvious (sheesh!).

Posted by Salvador's House Elf on November 25, 2005 04:56 AM (e) (s) ...

1. What is the scientific theory of intelligent design, and how do we test it using the scientific method? 2. According to this scientific theory of intelligent design, how old is the earth, and did humans descend from apelike primates or did they not? 3. what, precisely, about "evolution" is any more "materialistic" than weather forecasting, accident investigation, or medicine? 4. do you repudiate the extremist views of the primary funder of the Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, Howard Ahmanson, and if so, why do you keep taking his money anyway? And if you, unlike most other IDers, are not sucking at Ahmanson's teats, I'd still like to know if you repudiate his extremist views. 5. Why are you undermining your own side by proclaiming here that ID is all about defeating "atheism" and "anti-religion", while your side is desperately trying to argue in court that ID has nothing at all whatsoever to do with religion or religious apologetics? Are your fellow IDers just lying under oath when they testify to that, Sal? Any time you are ready, Sal ... . . After all, we don;t want all the lurkers to think that you CAN'T answer these simple questions, and are just a dishonest evasive blowhard. Right, Sal?

That is pretty funny. H'mmmmm, I think I can smell pizza.

— Stephen Elliott

Salvador T. Cordova,

Perhaps you can illustrate CSI with the the Biblical Equations? Douglas J. Bender is still waiting for your appraisal.

In Christ.

Where I think it falls down is in equating evolution by naturalistic means as "finding a small target in a large space".

GAME OVER Sal. Go back to your "Complexity Calculators" and try to prove evolution is wrong because it would need to generate too much "complexity".

Man you and your groupies are quite the pseudoscientists.

I thought I had provided adequate examples, but rather than argue that, let's go back to Avida. Can you provide the ratio of the number of functional genomes versus the space of all possible genomes given a genome length, or at least an approximation? If not, then I'll give you an example, but since you are enamored with Avida we can try that first.

Where I think it falls down is in equating evolution by naturalistic means as "finding a small target in a large space". This smacks of ascribing purpose to evolution, to imply that because an organism is the way it is, that the particular genetic code is the target. Whatever "search" is going on in evolution (and it's a "search" without an ultimate destination) is small steps, and very much in parallel, unlike the implication of a singular target-driven assisted search.

Sorry Sal you base all your ID "theory" on the assumption that "a biological system can be accurately model by coin flipping and dice rolling or any other discrete uniform probability model" well that's exactly where you're entire grand theory falls to pieces Sal.

Not only are Dembski's words Written in Jello but the entire edifice of ID is built on it.

Sal has absolutely failed to stand up to a single criticism here. Can there be no doubt that he is merely a psuedoscientist?

It seems like Sal is some sort of professor. Well I think we should tell his students that we have a sure-fire way to get him to dismiss class early:

Stand up in class and ask him "What is the scientific theory of ID and how is it testiable using the scientific method?"

Sal will promptly get up and run from the room screaming about "Omega Spaces" and "cellular Turing Machines".

I am starting to think that Sal is a parody. Surely it is someone posting as a joke.

— Stephen Elliott

Posted by CBBB on November 25, 2005 01:45 PM (e) (s) Sal has absolutely failed to stand up to a single criticism here. Can there be no doubt that he is merely a psuedoscientist?

It seems like Sal is some sort of professor. Well I think we should tell his students that we have a sure-fire way to get him to dismiss class early:

Oh...From his posts he gave the impression that he holds some sort of professorship or higher level research position at a University (I suspected George Mason because his name links to the GMU IDEA Club Webpage).

I mean his so-called "Rebuttle" of the Shallit/Elsberry paper mentions research he worked on and what not with respect to molecular machines and quantum computing.

I was operating under the idea that Sal really knew what he was talking about but he was just basing his stuff on Dembskis' baseless assertions and false assumptions.
So, basically he's nowhere near qualified to take on a mathematician of the caliber of Jeff Shallit.

Not to be elitist here but he makes it sound like Shallit/Elsberry made "boneheaded", sophomoric mistakes in their paper and I assumed he had the background knowledge comparable to Shallit.

PvM responded:

There is actually a fourth option which Dembski ignored in his original works with a specious claim namely the falese positive "not designed and detected as designed". This is the real problem of the design inference approach and is thus routinely ignored.

— Alexey Merz

Oh, for crying out loud. The distinction between type I error (Cordova's "#2") and type II error (which Cordova ignores) is taught in the first week or two in every undergraduate statistics course. Is Cordova really that ignorant? Is he really that mendacious? How shall we decide?

Oh...From his posts he gave the impression that he holds some sort of professorship or higher level research position at a University (I suspected George Mason because his name links to the GMU IDEA Club Webpage). I mean his so-called "Rebuttle" of the Shallit/Elsberry paper mentions research he worked on and what not with respect to molecular machines and quantum computing.

I see. Well as I've mentioned before since his "Rebuttle" doesn't actually seem to address any of the questions raised by the Shallit/Elsberry paper it isn't even really a Rebuttle to begin with.
Like I said his writing seems to paint Shallit as some sort of half-assed mathematician when in reality he's way above both Sal and Dembski's levels.
the Shallit/Elsberry arguements stand on their own, of course, regardless of the academic status of it's authors but this now shows that Sal's arrogant tone (all those snotty smiley and surprised faces) in his articles was completely unwarrented.

History always repeates itself

Sal Plays Sancho to the self proclaimed "Don"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote

each basking in the light shining from the open doors of their private hells.

Dembski Quixote!

Actually that SHOULD be

Dembski-Xote

Salavador been back yet? -- didn't think so - and after all the lovely troll food you left out for him? - perhaps he's just lurking...
ARE YOU LURKING SAL? - WANT TO ANSWER LENNY'S QUESTIONS YET!.
no.. thought not,
he'll probably pop up on another thread soon enough....

Well I plan to join Lenny in his crusade, I'm going to wave the Shallit/Elsberry stick whenever I see him post here.

Because Sal seems to be big into the Math/CS arguements to help support ID, but it seems like those arguements were completely demolished in Shallit/Elsberry.

Sal is known for playing hide and seek when the heat gets turned up. Watch him come back and argue as if nothing has happened, raising the same objections and arguments.
Sal's 'arguments' are well known for its 'stasis'.

Sal is a good propagandist though. When he first showed up on this thread he really gave me the impression that he knew what he was talking about and could defend his position. But like I said he's shown himself to be a paper tiger.

There's a worse problem with Dembski's "Searching Large Spaces". It is this. An evolving population is already on a target T

— RBH

Most mutations have relatively little phenotypic effect, and thus most of the "searching" is in the close vicinity of the already successful population

— RBH

Since a population preferentially samples the portion of the whole space that is near a known fitness peak, the assumption of a uniform PDF over the whole space, employed in Dembski's model, is invalid...

— RBH

Do you notice that Sal comes here and argues for Dembski, but Dembski (reads but) almost never comes here himself? There's a good reason for this. Sal is naive enough to be a true believer. He really thinks there's scientific merit here, and one day he'll convince the scientists. Dembski knows there isn't. He's not wasting his time on us. His actions are geared toward converting the religious and scientifically ignorant folk. Dembski and Cordova behave in different ways because they have different motives.

But like I said he's shown himself to be a paper tiger.

As regards the EF and the asserted but unjustified "low probability" of false-positives, hasn't it crossed Dembski's addled mind that such an algorithm would, overnight, revolutionize archaeology?

There is no better refutation of these probabilistic arguments, in my opinion, than the IDers' stubborn refusal to apply them to anything in the real world.

Vacuous is as vacuous does, in other words.

Danger! Fire Hazard! No naked flames!

(apropos of paper tigers and straw men)

Anyway, it has amused me for a year or two to think of all us variety of individuals in society as variations awaiting the filtering of events. Think of people who seem to rise to the outlandish occaision they find themselves in, and how some peopel dont seem to to fit in any time at all.
(note- this is not a scientific claim, just an idea. Feel free to critiscise)

Comment #60055 Posted by CJ O'Brien on November 25, 2005 05:23 PM (e) (s) As regards the EF and the asserted but unjustified "low probability" of false-positives, hasn't it crossed Dembski's addled mind that such an algorithm would, overnight, revolutionize archaeology?

You know what Steve S, I was thinking about that myself.

If you read Cordova's first post which was supposedly trying to refute Shallit/Elsberry - he praises Shallit and Elsberry for their suggestions to ID, especially their Appendix Suggestion for a new version of SCI based on K-Complexity. He mentions how the Shellit/Elsberry suggestions will help to solve many problems in ID and lead to new research paths (like they had any to begin with any way). But on the other hand Sal seems like an educated person, you'd think after coming here over and over and being unable to answer basic questions his confidence in ID would have been shot down by now. I mean as far as I can see his arguements have never been able to widthstand basic questioning.

Testing the EF would be pretty straightforward. Theoretically it IS falsifiable (although ID theory as a whole is not), you could pick an object which is known to have been created naturally and see if the EF delivers the right prediction. Or you could pick an object for which the history was unknown and use the EF and then try to find the real cause via an independant method.

Do you notice that Sal comes here and argues for Dembski, but Dembski (reads but) almost never comes here himself? There's a good reason for this. Sal is naive enough to be a true believer. He really thinks there's scientific merit here, and one day he'll convince the scientists. Dembski knows there isn't. He's not wasting his time on us. His actions are geared toward converting the religious and scientifically ignorant folk. Dembski and Cordova behave in different ways because they have different motives.

CBBB,
Sal's "confidence in ID" stems from his confidence in an inerrant scripture.

Furthermore, he is a narcissist and a XXXXXX XXXXXX [PvM: See my following comment]. Arguments and evidence are never going to make him rethink anything, however reasonable he may occasionally pretend to be.

Sal works on defense related projects!?

If you read Cordova's first post which was supposedly trying to refute Shallit/Elsberry - he praises Shallit and Elsberry for their suggestions to ID, especially their Appendix Suggestion for a new version of SCI based on K-Complexity.

In fact, Sal, you have provided not one example that can be mapped into biological processes.

Natural Selection Goes the Wrong Way RBH: While the assembly language of the avida platform is itself Turing complete, meaning that one could write a Universal Turing machine in it, the Ancestor critter with which a run starts is emphatically not a Turing machine. Sal: Sorry RBH, I take no pleasure in rebuking your quotes, but the bolded part is patently ridiculous. How in the world is a Turing Complete language implemented if there is not a Turing Machine infrastructure underlying the system. RBH: Salvador is correct: It is a Turing machine.

RBH wrote: Very well, go ahead with Avida. But drop the "we" --- it's your conception, so you calculate it. Your probability calculations require knowing the number of functional genomes and the size of the space of all genomes, and it's your claim that the ratio is too small, so you calculate them. And do it with the Avida critters, since we have full information on their provenance. I'll watch: this is a spectator sport for me now, and it's becoming boring. Try something a little closer to what evolutionary theory suggests happens. Coin tossing is sooo yesterday's Henry Morris, y'know.

You can call people being misguided, or misunderstanding the relevant concepts but the accusation of lying requires too much evidence that is mostly unavailable to us.

What about Bill Buckingham?

Seriously, PvM, the evidence required to show that someone is truly "misguided" is really no different in kind from the evidence required to show that someone is truly "dishonest." For example, in order to show that someone willfully intends to deceive others, all that is needed is evidence of some motive to deceive and evidence that facts contrary to those asserted by the alleged deceiver are known by the alleged deceiver.

With all due respect to Mr. Cordova (by which I mean "very little respect, indeed"), Mr. Cordova has been busted flat-out lying on this blog and I do not recall him every recanting or apologizing for his fabrications which were incontrovertibly willful.

Do you need me to provide you with a link to the comment in question where Mr. Cordova was caught lying to us all, willfully and undeniably????

Let me know and I will spend the time needed to dig it up so you can refresh your memory, Pim.

I understand that this is "your thread" and you can "do whatever you want."

By why would you choose to revise history in favor of Salvadore Cordova????????

That seems like an odd thing to do, from my perspective.

PvM: He's not very good at it but it's still funny to observe him trying to inflate the importance of ID

Posted by Salvador T. Cordova on November 25, 2005 08:18 PM (e) (s) Well, thank you for you hospitality on this thread, Pim. I'll respect your requests of me in this thread. I do believe the original topic was the KU class, but Corkscrew seemed sincere in soliciting information, and out of respect for RBH, I thought it appropo to respond to him....

By intelligence, here, I mean something quite definite, namely, the causal factors that change one probability distribution into another and thus, in the present discussion, transform a blind search into an assisted search.

In general, to justify the reduction of intelligence to stochastic mechanisms, these mechanisms need to supply a complete, self-consistent account of how changes in probability or net increases in information arise. As we shall see, the mathematics of blind and assisted searches precludes such an account, whether for neo-Darwinian assisted searches or for assisted searches in general.

Well, I thought I'd ask about the functional space of Avida genomes, it doesn't surprise me that you don't have an answer as I believe even the Avida authors were at a loss themselves in their attempts to measure complexity. But it's ultimately a moot point, I said, if one's intent were to somehow show that novel CSI was created by AVIDA, we could be generous (only for the sake of argument) and even grant that all the sum total of all the bits, output was CSI, but as I pointed out, the constraints of the designer's choices are expressed through the design of Avida (and the parameter files), and therefore the CSI output, whatever number you affix is evidence and an accounting of the designer's infusion of CSI to the output channel....

— Sal

Re "claim that an index measures something about biological systems without ever once having calculated that index in the domain of interest boggles my mind."

Having a boggled mind sounds uncomfortable.

Re "and it can't be reliably quantified or verified but it supposedly permiates the Universe."

Use the force, Luke! (or whoever.)

Re "and can I remind you all 'do not feed the troll'?"

Those reminders don't seem to work reliably. ;)

Henry

Hey Sal, any time you are ready, you just let me know, OK?

One more time:

*ahem*

1. What is the scientific theory of intelligent design, and how do we test it using the scientific method?

2. According to this scientific theory of intelligent design, how old is the earth, and did humans descend from apelike primates or did they not?

3. what, precisely, about "evolution" is any more "materialistic" than weather forecasting, accident investigation, or medicine?

4. do you repudiate the extremist views of the primary funder of the Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, Howard Ahmanson, and if so, why do you keep taking his money anyway? And if you, unlike most other IDers, are not sucking at Ahmanson's teats, I'd still like to know if you repudiate his extremist views.

5. Why are you undermining your own side by proclaiming here that ID is all about defeating "atheism" and "anti-religion", while your side is desperately trying to argue in court that ID has nothing at all whatsoever to do with religion or religious apologetics? Are your fellow IDers just lying under oath when they testify to that, Sal?

Well, I thought I'd ask about the functional space of Avida genomes, it doesn't surprise me that you don't have an answer as I believe even the Avida authors were at a loss themselves in their attempts to measure complexity.

But it's ultimately a moot point, I said, if one's intent were to somehow show that novel CSI was created by AVIDA, we could be generous (only for the sake of argument) and even grant that all the sum total of all the bits, output was CSI, but as I pointed out, the constraints of the designer's choices are expressed through the design of Avida (and the parameter files), and therefore the CSI output, whatever number you affix is evidence and an accounting of the designer's infusion of CSI to the output channel....

Further, the analysis of CSI does not fall to every obviously designed object. There is the issue that the specification must be tractably analyzable, that means we can put a number on the ratio of specified outcomes to all possible outcomes. Since you did not have a number for that ratio, until one does so, AVIDA's output will remain outside the domain of affixing exact numbers. Even the Avida authors are finding it problematic to affix complexity numbers to their own system. But, I point out it's a moot point, Avida only restates a tautology: if selective pressures exist to make large scale biological innovation, then large scale biological innovation will happen....

The question is of course whether, such a set of selective pressures can even exist in biotic reality. Awfully hard to selectively breed a fish into a horse, what makes you all think a blind watchmaker can do any better....

But like I said he's shown himself to be a paper tiger. The primary prey of which is the straw man. Oh, the carnage.

The question becomes then, what are the probabilities of the circumstances. For example, how likely is it that your evolving dice example can really happen. In theory yes, but in actuality, probably not. Thus one would highly suspect deliberate design of the population of dice you suggested (or perhaps some manufacturing error)....

— Salvador

Why won't you answer Flank's questions, Cordova?

For more on "teaching" ID as a way of increasing openness to evolution at the university level see this news item in Science:

http://www.michaelbalter.com/HominidHighlights/11_26_2005|Teaching_the_intelligent_design_controversy.php

I see that this link may be too long for the page. If so, please go to

http://www.michaelbalter.com

then to News and then to Hominid Highlights to find the item.

Mr Balter,

Instead of ID, why not include lessons comparing creationism and evolution in the classroom. Why is ID so special? And if you were to include such an agenda-driven ideology as ID into the classroom, what makes you think it wouldn't morph into something else, further obfuscating the divide between religion and science to those still learning?

Why is there not enough time in church or in religious classes to discuss ID?

we're waiting Sal.. (10^150:1 that Sal either wanders off to another thread or comes in with another tangential post)

For more on "teaching" ID as a way of increasing openness to evolution at the university level see this news item in Science:

So now we have TWO self-promoting preachers in the same thread.

— RDLF

ABSTRACT American adults and K---12 students frequently report nonrationalist views about creationism and evolution. Efforts to force educators to include material on "intelligent design" theory are causing widespread concern in the science education community. I report here the effects of a modified approach to a majors-oriented college introductory biology course. The course was modified to connect with the experiences, knowledge, and beliefs that most students bring to college, with the intent of engaging prior learning about creationism and evolution and of emphasizing the nature of science. The effects of this approach on student creationist or evolutionist attitudes were compared with the effects of two other sections of the same course that were taught by different instructors during the same academic quarter. The modified approach produced more attitude change than the other approaches. It included some material whose use has been discouraged by science educators, including discussion of creation myths and use of an intelligent design---oriented book as a foil to a mainstream book on evolution in seminar discussions. Keywords: undergraduate, evolution, creationism, prior learning, critical thinking.

Here is a simple exercise to show the vacuity of Dembski's displacement theorem. What Dembski is arguing is that every event/natural phenomena can be embedded in a larger set that includes the natural phenomena as well as all possible causal factors and conditions that contribute to the phenomena. In Cordovian terms, every machine has a more complicated factory. Thus, explaining the machine by the factory is not good enough for the IDist. But, think about the implications of such glib dismissal. In effect, whether initially low probability or high probability, any event in the final Dembskian analysis is zero probability. Drop a brick. Is the brick's falling a highly probable event? But what caused the brick to fall in such a highly probable fashion. Well, one has to then consider in Dembskian fashion the various constants and physical laws that could apply to a falling brick. If you say to yourself, why, there are infinitely many of them, you are on the right track. Set up a uniform probability and notice that the probability of choosing laws and constants that produce what we see in the falling brick (within experimental error) may actually be quite small. We then repeat the analysis. What set of metaphysics can produce this narrow, "finely-tuned" range of physical constants and laws? And we take a trip around the merry-go-round again. In the final analysis, even a highly probable event becomes improbable under analysis via the Displacement Theorem. So what? In Cordovian terms, the brick-falling factory is more complicated than the brick falling. But the factory of brick-falling factories is even more complicated. Therefore, this analysis triggers a design inference. Something "intelligent" is causing the brick to fall. In what sense is that conclusion cogent?

Nothing escapes the "displacment theorem." Ironically, the "displacement theorem" rejects final causation, and justifies requiring an explanation for the Designer. In particular, any putative Designer proffered to explain ID can also be be embedded in a larger class of Designer-causing agents (RBH's MDT comes to mind). On the one hand, to reject this existence of this larger set would be special-pleading. On the other hand, because WAD rejects the selection of any one Designer-causing agent by chance (indeed, the probability using Dembskian analysis with uniform distribution would be zero), it is therefore natural to ask via Dembski's Displacement Theorem, who is this Designer-Designer?

Everything else in Dembski's paper is just math jargon. Mathematical results are tautologous with respect to its premise. If no one accepts the premise or conclusion, then there is no point in taking up Dembski's offer to review all the intermediate steps.

Michael Balter,

It is an honor to see you here. I enjoyed the article you wrote a few months back which caused quite a stir.

Let me affirm Mirecki's academic freedom, and I'm applaud that he his moving the discussion forward.

Salvador

In fact the paper, which is based on a study by Verhey is very relevant to the discussion. Lenny, this is one of your many knee jerk reactions which make reading your comments often so painful.

Mr Balter, Instead of ID, why not include lessons comparing creationism and evolution in the classroom. Why is ID so special? And if you were to include such an agenda-driven ideology as ID into the classroom, what makes you think it wouldn't morph into something else, further obfuscating the divide between religion and science to those still learning? Why is there not enough time in church or in religious classes to discuss ID?

In fact the paper, which is based on a study by Verhey is very relevant to the discussion.

I would go further and say that Lenny sees his role as a thought policeman whose job it is to tell us how stupid ID'ers are

and to discourage any serious discussion of how best to counter ID. This is a losing strategy.

I would welcome discussion of the Verhey paper here.

Michael Balter, It is an honor to see you here.

Posted by 'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank on November 26, 2005 11:21 AM (e) (s)... Think you've found a friend, Sal? I wouldn't count on it. Now answer my questions.

The primary relevance of the Verhey paper is that it shows the value of engaging with and respecting the beliefs of creationists/Id'ers as a strategy for making them more open to evolutionary thinking. What situations it is relevant to is a matter for discussion. The 87% of Americans who think that way are not all members of the Discovery Institute nor do they all carry copies of the Wedge document in their pockets. The issue here is whether we are going to settle for calling people stupid and ignorant--Lenny's stock in trade, getting very tiresome--or whether we are really serious about winning this fight or at least making progress. The poll numbers on American attitudes towards evolution have not changed in 20 years.

Corkscrew: Have just noticed I completely missed a couple of points in your responses, including the second half of the post I was reading (I have no idea how I managed that, please blame my sleepiness). Thanks for the more thorough definition of probabilistic complexity and K-complexity, and your examples.

I still think we need a formal definition of probabilistic complexity - as the snowflake-related comments in my last post show, it obviously can't just be equated with the information content. It sounds you're loosely defining it as "the probability of a given low K-complexity state arising from an unspecified high K-complexity state". Does this sound right, or is there another formal definition I should be looking at here?

Corkscrew commented: Responding to your next response to me (to avoid losing the thread any further I'm not trying to keep track of your responses to others) [regarding voie's paper]:

Corkscrew: It looks like the paper only discusses the origin of life, which isn't really the topic under discussion here.

Just to elaborate on the above: It seems to me that there are two overlapping but not identical concerns expressed on Panda and other blogs about this issue. One is the intrusion of religion into the schools represented by the ID campaign. The other is the lack of scientific thinking on the part of much or most of the public. The majority of Americans think that "alternatives" to evolution should be taught in the schools. You can fight one court battle after another, and perhaps win most of them, but the basic problem does not go away: Most people look to religion rather than science for the explanation of how humans got here. Unless you deal with that, you will be fighting this battle forever. And you don't influence religious people by telling them they are stupid and ignorant. Again: What is the goal here? What do we want in the end?

Corkscrew,

There is something at ISCID that I wrote that I should clarify.

A JPEG is K-complex, but there is an aspect to it which is not, that is, the bit stream obeys a formal grammar.

Much like you can diagram English sentences, and especially computer languages to be "compressed" into a small body of rules, the grammar of JPEG files can be reduced to a finite number of grammar rules. From this perspective, a JPEG file is "specificationally simple".

The JPEG file is:

1. K-complex in the entire bit stream (that's why a ZIP program will not succeed in compressing it further)

2. Probabilisically Complex

3. Specificationally simple (the grammar rules it abides by are NOT K-complex)

I apologize for any confusion I may have caused. Please ask questions.

Salvador

Please ask questions.

Glad to

— RDLF

From reading the study that Michael Balter mentions, I would suggest that what it shows is that putting the evidence in front of people to show how erroneous the ID position is seems to produce more people who agree with evolution rather than disagree. Which is a good thing.
But I am still somewhat wary about ideas of including it in classrooms, in part because of the difficulties of communicating the evidence sufficiently well. Which could probably be overcome some way anyway.

Anyway, it does at least suggest that the best way of dealing with it all is to show the evidence, something taht Pandas thumb denizens do most of the time anyway. Then of course they get a little hacked off when people ignore it anyway, which is perfectly normal human behaviour.

I apologize for any confusion I may have caused. Please ask questions.

'Reverend Doctor' Flank:

2. According to this scientific theory of intelligent design, how old is the earth, and did humans descend from apelike primates or did they not?

Dembski seems to believe that we did not, although as usual when he's quoting something supporting the Young Earth element of the big tent he remains remarkably reticent about his own opinions and caveats to the ludicrousness. It is almost as if he didn't wish to alienate his more overtly religious supporters while at the same time attempting to attack science through intentionally ambiguous arguments. Which I think we all agree would be dishonest and wrong.

Michael Balter:

'Thought policing' involves observing someone constantly through various means, particularly while they are unaware, for any subtle signs of disobedience. In contrast 'The Reverend Doctor' Flank is an individual on the Internet demanding a minimum standard of empirical evidence from proponents of pseudoscience. Moreoever the vast majority of us do not care much about what people personally believe, though we definitely do care about the scientific education of state schoolchildren and the public in general. This is a blog dedicated to the discussion of evolution, biology, science, education, and their political opponents. It is not unfair or outside the remit of this blog to question Intelligent Design proponents about how exactly their ideas are scientific, nor is it an example of 'thought policing'.

-The Rev. Schmitt.

I would go further and say that Lenny sees his role as a thought policeman whose job it is to tell us how stupid ID'ers are and to discourage any serious discussion of how best to counter ID. This is a losing strategy.

— Michael Balter

I would welcome discussion of the Verhey paper here.

I didn't say it wasn't. But Verhey himself has already said that Balter is wrong about it.

— Lenny

I see my role as getting dishonest people to answer questions, opr to show all the lurkers that they CAN'T.

— Lenny

I am wondering, though, why YOU are here. Why aren't you out there debating IDers, to show all of us poor dumb dimwits who don't appreciate your genius how it's done?

— Lenny

Dover is about to make any anti-ID strategy irrelevant.

— Lenny

Further to talk about debating creationists and even ID people, if I recall correctly, that has been done several times before, on radio, national TV, at special debate evenings at universities etc etc. The problem always seems to be that the ID and creationists dont play by scientific rules, and it is quite hard to make the point about the science when you only have five minutes and your opponent has just made a bunch of arguments that are mostly incorrect or simply lies.
Nevertheless, it does seem that some debates have gone the scientists way, but I dont know of any actual surveys or evidence to show what effect they have had on the listening populace.
So I would be interested if anyone can suggest how scientists are supposed to effectively debate ID/ creationists given the obvious restraints of time and argument.

I am not sure what you mean by 'Verhey said that Balter is wrong'?

I think you getting close but not quite there.

— Salvador

I think I can understand your outraged feelings, but let me point out it was published in an obscure paper in the Netherlands. English is not Voie's or the editor's native language...

— Salvador

One can hopefully see, that even on the assumption that Darwinian evolution is correct (I don't believe it is, but for the sake of argument let's say it is), in like manner, there is the problem of why the sum total of naturalistic forces created things that look designed.

— Salvador

Actually, this highlights a significant disconnect. IDist wish to bring the discussion to the origin of life and hammer on it hard. Dembski and Behe and other IDists accept common descent, they are not creationists like me or Paul Nelson. Dembski will even offer that there is remote chance Darwinian Selection accounts for complexity, and his displacement theorem attempts to quantify that probability. But the origin of life is of much interest to all IDists, and there is broad consensus in the ID community of the problems it poses.... Part of the reason is the origin of life is a little more amenable to analysis (much like analyzing coin flips). The probability distributions from chemical experiments and principles of physics are better defined. There are substantial bodies of literature on Turing Machines and a growing body of literature in nano-molecular engineering. In contrast, when Darwinian evolution is attacked head on, there is too much room for uncertainty and highly general statements. Some areas can be addressed in a mathematical fashion, but many are still at this time up in the air as far as data.

— Salvador

Lenny is referring to Verhey's comment on another thread that he did not think his approach is appropriate to high schools. I have discussed this with Verhey since and while I do not want to speak for him I believe that he has modified his views on this. Gary Hurd said that he would start a separate thread on the Verhey paper once Verhey is ready to discuss it. My post was limited to bringing Science's news item on this to the attention of this thread and to give my own views on it briefly.

— Michael Balter

I just realised I completely missed out the entire point of my hacker diversion - that the sort of code produced by someone like this is incredibly similar in appearance to the sort of code that is produced by a genetic algorithm - incredibly efficient due to being optimised to a fault, but almost completely illegible to any even remotely normal person.

The specific example that springs to mind was the attempt to use a genetic algorithm approach on a field-programmable gate array to produce a system capable of distinguishing between high- and low-frequency sounds. Now, most sane programmers would do this by implementing a timer system and playing off of that. Problem is, the FPGA only had 100 gates, which isn't nearly enough. So the approach should have been doomed to failure. After about 40,000 generations (iirc), they had a winner - which only used 33 of the gates. And no-one could figure out how the hell it worked. It used every dirty trick in the book and then some, apparently using some kind of time-delayed looping of signals as a clock. Even more puzzlingly, three of the gates weren't actually connected to anything - no input, no output - yet when they tried to remove them the system stopped working.

Mel would have understood what those gates did.

One can hopefully see, that even on the assumption that Darwinian evolution is correct (I don't believe it is, but for the sake of argument let's say it is), in like manner, there is the problem of why the sum total of naturalistic forces created things that look designed.

— sal

Balter and Cordova commenting in tandem?

Hahahahaah!

Too much fun.

Here's Balter:

And you don't influence religious people by telling them they are stupid and ignorant.

So, tell us, Oh Wise Journalisming One, how do we "influence" self-identifying "religious people" like Salvador Cordova?

And how do we show rubes who fall for Salvador Cordova's dissembling and misrepresentations that Salvador Cordova is, uh, not an honest human being?

Please educate us all, Oh Wise Journalisming One.

Here's my suggestion: write an article about Salvadore Cordova and his strange relationship with Bill Dembski and show how these two self-identifying "religious people" twist, distort and (yes) make up facts in their efforts to persuade rubes that scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to keep their "theories" from being given a "fair hearing".

Write that article, Oh Wise Journalisming One, in such a way that even simple folks who lack a deep scientific education will understand how pathetic and dishonest Mr. Cordova and Mr. Dembksi are.

Do you think you are capable of doing that, Oh Wise Journalisming One?

I am not sure, but theoretically you should be able to write such an article and get it published without a great deal of effort. After all, you are "credentialed" as a journalist and have a "reputation" as such and you are "on our side."

Am I right, Mr. Balter?

So, tell us, Oh Wise Journalisming One, how do we "influence" self-identifying "religious people" like Salvador Cordova?

— Registered User

Here's my suggestion: write an article about Salvadore Cordova and his strange relationship with Bill Dembski and show how these two self-identifying "religious people" twist, distort and (yes) make up facts in their efforts to persuade rubes that scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to keep their "theories" from being given a "fair hearing".

— Registered User

But Lenny does seem to be overeager at times to 'expose' when listening is better than responding.

Balter's suggestions IF properly implemented at the K12 level could be very effective. The problem so far is that the average teacher is ill-equipped to discuss these issues and give due credit to them.

I would like to suggest that there are various different classes of peopel we are trying to address here. There are people who will listen to reaoned argument. There are those who accept reasons and evidence that much better when wrapped up with some humour and with evidence showing how one side (you know which one I mean) has distorted and lied and so on. The first group might be put off listening to such an argument. Then theres those who are not interested and have closed minds. And there are probably more. The question is which kinds of people are you trying to reach? Online, one to one, you can tailor your arguments to fit. In a mass audience its a lot harder.

So I would be interested if anyone can suggest how scientists are supposed to effectively debate ID/ creationists given the obvious restraints of time and argument.

Balter and Cordova commenting in tandem? Hahahahaah! Too much fun.

Moreoever the vast majority of us do not care much about what people personally believe

Unnecessary. We don't have to rip the shit out of the other side, we just have to show that we're right.

Even I, who have been involved in this issue since I first published on it in 1987, am starting to get a little tired of Registered User and Lenny filling the thread (and the blog) with strident shrieking.

RBH

Corkscrew

Anyone can do ad hominem

For the record, I wasn't advocating ad hominem attacks. I was advocating compiling the evidence that Dembski and Cordova are self-contradicting hypocrites with a tendency to fabricate, exagerate and distort, and presenting that evidence in a straightforward way that is accessible to lay readers who are not scientifically literate.

Americans do tend to come around to the side of accuracy when the liars are exposed and called out. It just takes a while and it takes a lot of people willing to stand up and speak the truth without fear of being called a traitor or ... an atheist or a Satan-worshipper.

We don't have to rip the shit out of the other side, we just have to show that we're right...

Um, yeah, the question is how to go about showing people who are scientifically illiterate that you are "right" about a scientific fact.

I recommend the approach of exposing charlatans for who they are. It works quite well. Religious charlatans hide behind their religion and cry "persecution" when their bogus "scientific" claims are debunked. That behavior is the type of behavior that we can not afford to permit any longer.

You'll note that the Psychic Friends aren't pushing to have psychic phenomenon taught in public schools. Did you ever wonder why that it is?

Consider one possible answer: if they pushed really hard, they would be exposed as charlatans for all the public to see. As it stands, psychics and ghostbusters are treated quite favorably by the television networks. The psychics like it this way. It's a good balance for them. If the psychics tried to get their garbage in public schools through legal maneuvers, the backlash against their diseased industry would be severe and quick. Note the key distinction between psychics and ID peddlers: the psychics don't have the same access to the sword and shield of Christian fanaticism.

To sum up: ID peddling and creationism is a movement. The movement has leaders who are not terribly difficult to identify. Those leaders are hypocritical sleaze artists of the lowest order -- a fact which is readily established.

Why run away from the opportunity?

Finally, Corkscrew, let me remind you that swearing isn't allowed here.

RBH

Even I, who have been involved in this issue since I first published on it in 1987, am starting to get a little tired of Registered User and Lenny filling the thread (and the blog) with strident shrieking.

Huh.

On my computer you can simply skip past comments written by individuals whose viewpoints bore you.

Even I, who have been involved in this issue since I first published on it in 1987, am starting to get a little tired of Registered User and Lenny filling the thread (and the blog) with strident shrieking.

You know, I was teaching ID in college biology classes as early as 2002. Why doesn't Fox TV report about me?

I have sent a few comments to Gary Hurd, if he'd like to use them to open a new thread to discuss my BioScience paper. I've also put a PDF of the paper on my web site, at http://www.cwu.edu/~verheys .

As has been said before, the woeful state of the US public's understanding of science in general and evolution in particular is strong evidence that what we've been doing isn't working. A generation of scientists has been taught that if we ignore creationists, they'll go away, but that isn't working this time. This is not surprising, because the creationists actually learn from each iteration of their efforts, and modify their strategy.

It seems to me that ID is a very effective strategy to exploit the weaknesses of US science education, and education in general. When the "Contrarian, or just lame" thread started, I generally felt that fixing higher education (and not just science education) was my highest priority, but a few events have caused my position to evolve. I have to -- we all have to -- believe that it's possible to improve education in high school as well as college. We also have to focus on things we can change, like our own actions, and not too much on things we can't change, like federal funding for education.

That what's being done now isn't working is a given. I do think there are aspects of my approach that could be adapted to high school, and I even think it's possible they could be adapted without teaching ID and while presenting a (more) realistic view of how science works.

Nobody is going to 'toss you out' but you may want to consider the impact of this 'shrieking'. People get 'turned off' by Sal for very similar reasons.

Balter

As I have said to Lenny many times, the goal is to foster scientific thinking in the face of polls that show 87% of Americans believe either ID or straight out creationism.

Here's a straightforward question for Mr. Balter to answer (though his track record for answering such questions is pathetically low):

Do the polls which show that, over the past three years, an increasing number of Americans find George Bush dishonest and incompetent reflect a public that is increasingly sophisticated in its understanding and appreciation for political science?

Or has something else happened?

Do the polls which show that, over the past three years, an increasing number of Americans find George Bush dishonest and incompetent reflect a public that is increasingly sophisticated in its understanding and appreciation for political science? Or has something else happened?

Americans have been forced to abandon some of their illustions by the stark evidence that the war in Iraq is going down the toilet, that 2.000+ Americans have been killed (Iraqi civilian deaths don't do it for most Americans), and that there were no weapons of mass destruction---and that's just for starters.

Wow, thanks for responding Mr. Balter! You're on your way.

You appear to believe that Americans have not become more educated in political science and how politics work, generally, in the past three years.

I agree with you.

My understanding is that most Americans live in the United States and so have no way of knowing how many US soldiers were killed there or whether any weapons of mass destruction were found. I also am aware that there are groups of individuals who deeply believe that weapons of mass destruction were found, or are still hiding there, or were simply moved by Saddam Hussein prior to our invasion of the country.

So how do you suppose the American public came to be aware of this "stark evidence"?

Also, how did Americans come to relate this evidence to George Bush's honesty and competence?

Finally, how it possible that some Americans (like yours truly) realized that most of what has taken place since we invaded Iraq was inevitable because we were being lied to, but a majority of Americans was convinced that Saddam Hussein was getting ready to drop a nuclear bomb somewhere?

How can you explain that?

it is more a matter of seeing that the objections to evolution raised by the ID'ers do not stand up to scrutiny

Is that like how Americans "see" that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Or how Americans "see" that 2000+ soliders have been killed?

Americans live in the United States.

How do they "see" what happens all the over in Iraq?

If there is an implied parallel with the ID debate, I would not agree that the issues are equivalent.

Why are they not equivalent?

Do you think that there is an actual "controversy" in science about whether life on earth evolved versus whether it was created by some mysterious aliens?

If not, then how did it come to pass that Americans believe there is a "controversy," Mr. Balter?

THen ask yourself: how did it come to pass that a great many Americans believed (and continue to believe) that Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks on the Twin Towers?

I know how it came to pass, Mr. Balter. Do you?

You should know. It's 2005, after all.

As has been said before, the woeful state of the US public's understanding of science in general and evolution in particular is strong evidence that what we've been doing isn't working. A generation of scientists has been taught that if we ignore creationists, they'll go away, but that isn't working this time.

But to say that what you believe in your private home or church is not relevant to the ID debate is just naive

since the debate as usually framed by both sides is science vs religion.

In the ID situation, it is more a matter of seeing that the objections to evolution raised by the ID'ers do not stand up to scrutiny. Verhey's paper shows that this works.

Nobody is going to 'toss you out' but you may want to consider the impact of this 'shrieking'. People get 'turned off' by Sal for very similar reasons.

For the record, I wasn't advocating ad hominem attacks. I was advocating compiling the evidence that Dembski and Cordova are self-contradicting hypocrites with a tendency to fabricate, exagerate and distort, and presenting that evidence in a straightforward way that is accessible to lay readers who are not scientifically literate.

— Registered User

Re "Even more puzzlingly, three of the gates weren't actually connected to anything - no input, no output - yet when they tried to remove them the system stopped working."

ROFL

Wonder if that has something to do with quantum effects... ?
Or might the "removing" of some gates affect the spacing between the remaining ones? (and thereby affect the timing of signals between them.)

Henry

Even I, who have been involved in this issue since I first published on it in 1987, am starting to get a little tired of Registered User and Lenny filling the thread (and the blog) with strident shrieking. RBH

Professor Verhey wrote: A generation of scientists has been taught that if we ignore creationists, they'll go away, but that isn't working this time. This is not surprising, because the creationists actually learn from each iteration of their efforts, and modify their strategy.

Creationists are evolving quite rapidly, and improving in their fitness for public discurse, faster than their pro-Darwin counterparts. That's the real irony. :-) Salvador

... another Lenny dodging post Sal .. just as I predicted.. Salvador wrote: I apologize for any confusion I may have caused. Please ask questions.

The issues Shallit, Elsberry, RBH, corkscrew, and PvM bring to the table are deeper challenges to the ID hypothesis than what Flank has to offer.....hence from the viewpoint of ID, they are the ones I would rather deal with for the sake of ID friendly and creationist lurkers watching this thread.

w/r/t Lenny Flank, he could do with a little less troll feeding. It's good that he asks the same basic questions to creationists, who can't answer them, but that would have more power if he made the questions short and simple. Anyway, filling the comment sections with arguments with trolls and dishonest creationists doesn't accomplish anything.

1. What is the scientific theory of intelligent design, and how do we test it using the scientific method? 2. According to this scientific theory of intelligent design, how old is the earth, and did humans descend from apelike primates or did they not? 3. what, precisely, about "evolution" is any more "materialistic" than weather forecasting, accident investigation, or medicine? 4. do you repudiate the extremist views of the primary funder of the Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, Howard Ahmanson, and if so, why do you keep taking his money anyway? And if you, unlike most other IDers, are not sucking at Ahmanson's teats, I'd still like to know if you repudiate his extremist views. 5. Why are you undermining your own side by proclaiming here that ID is all about defeating "atheism" and "anti-religion", while your side is desperately trying to argue in court that ID has nothing at all whatsoever to do with religion or religious apologetics? Are your fellow IDers just lying under oath when they testify to that, Sal? Any time you are ready, Sal ... . . After all, we don;t want all the lurkers to think that you CAN'T answer these simple questions, and are just a dishonest evasive blowhard. Right, Sal?

Corkscrew wrote: To summarize: I need a more formal definition of probabilistic complexity, I suggest we let the abiogenesis/creation thing go for the moment, and

Corkscrew wrote: I contest that what we see in life is evidence of directedness not of design, on the basis that any designer worth his salt would do stuff in a far more sensible fashion rather than using outmoded design models that inevitably cause problems further down the road.

Sal, there **is no** ID hypotghesis. None. At all.

THAT is the biggest threat to ID. It simply has nothing to offer.

If you disagree, please please please pretty please with sugar on it, do go ahead and tell us (1) what this scientific theory of ID is, and (2) how we can test it using the scientific method.

(sound of crickets chirping)

Chirp.

Comment #60219 Posted by Henry J on November 26, 2005 05:50 PM (e) (s) Re "Even more puzzlingly, three of the gates weren't actually connected to anything - no input, no output - yet when they tried to remove them the system stopped working." ROFL Wonder if that has something to do with quantum effects... ? Or might the "removing" of some gates affect the spacing between the remaining ones? (and thereby affect the timing of signals between them.) Henry

This leads however to a substantive criticism of ID, "how do we know something is indeed improbable?" Recall, unlike traditional creationism (which dealt with absolutes), ID is more modest in its approach in that it offers ideas as a falsifiable hypotheses, not some creed of faith.

— Sal

In sum: The "probabilistic complexity", or "improbability" is customarily calculated according to accepted conventions. Further, the probabilistic complexity (improbability) of an event is not always tractable, hence even if the artifact is designed, it may not be subject to such analysis. Let me know if that clarifies "probabilistic complexity" sufficiently.

— sal

Creationists are evolving quite rapidly, and improving in their fitness for public discurse, faster than their pro-Darwin counterparts. That's the real irony.

— Sal

Creationists are evolving quite rapidly, and improving in their fitness for public discurse, faster than their pro-Darwin counterparts. That's the real irony.

Creationists are evolving quite rapidly, and improving in their fitness for public discurse, faster than their pro-Darwin counterparts. That's the real irony.

steve s,

Re "Does ROFL mean you found it ridiculous?"

Funny, not ridiculous. I figured the "unused" elements would have some affect on the elements that are connected to something, perhaps from quantum and/or electromagnetic properties.

Henry

This discussion of the relationship between Avida and evolution suggests to me what all that junk DNA is--what we're dealing with here is well commented code!

When we get the genome deciphered it'll read like

void MakeHemoglobin(*alpha, *beta, *gamma)
{
chain += new alpha;
chain += new beta;
chain = chain-gamma;
if (malaria ==true)
betachain[17]=T;
}
// basically I had to break the hemoglobin a bit
// in order to make up for that crappy Plasmodium
// disaster Frank came up with. Don't know what
// he was thinking. Glad they fired his ass.
// known bugs: Thalessemia, Methemoglobin, etc etc.
// need to totally rewrite this whole kludge someday

Cordova

For what it's worth, I believe, Verhey, Balter, RBH, corkscrew's, Shallit, Elsberry, Reuland, talkorigins, etc. approach to dealing with ID to be more of a threat to ID's advance than Lenny Flank & friends approach...

And why should anyone believe you about this subject when you have demonstrated habitual evasiveness and dishonesty when it comes to every other aspect of your hobby?

But let's think about this for a second.

In which sort of world are folks like Sal more likely to thrive?

A world in which lengthy pages of scientific arguments are laid out side by side with lengthy creationist lies?

Or a world in which folks who attack scientists for doing their job are openly ridiculed and treated with scorn and contempt, much like we treat the once-tolerated racists and woman haters?

In which world are folks like Sal and their "theories" more likely to thrive?

I'm sorry, Sal, but more and more folks are on to your sad little ignorance-peddling scheme.

The trial in Dover sure made you look like a stooge, Sal. Yes: you. And you're not the only one.

Get ready to reap the whirlwind of your deceit, Sal.

— Salvador

Wonder if that has something to do with quantum effects... ? Or might the "removing" of some gates affect the spacing between the remaining ones? (and thereby affect the timing of signals between them.)

— Henry J

In sum: The "probabilistic complexity", or "improbability" is customarily calculated according to accepted conventions. Further, the probabilistic complexity (improbability) of an event is not always tractable, hence even if the artifact is designed, it may not be subject to such analysis. Let me know if that clarifies "probabilistic complexity" sufficiently.

— Salvador

Unless one has the teleological goals to measure what a "good" design is, it is premature to suggest it is a bad design.

— Salvador

This discussion of the relationship between Avida and evolution suggests to me what all that junk DNA is---what we're dealing with here is well commented code!

— steve s

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/nov/27/2nd_ku_class_denies_status_science_design_theory/?city_local 2nd KU class denies status of science to design theory By Sophia Maines (Contact) Sunday, November 27, 2005 Intelligent design — already the planned subject of a controversial Kansas University seminar this spring — will make its way into a second KU classroom in the fall, this time labeled as a “pseudoscience.” In addition to intelligent design, the class Archaeological Myths and Realities will cover such topics as UFOs, crop circles, extrasensory perception and the ancient pyramids. John Hoopes, associate professor of anthropology, said the course focused on critical thinking and taught how to differentiate science and “pseudoscience.” Intelligent design belongs in the second category, he said, because it cannot be tested and proven false. “I think this is very important for students to be articulate about — they need to be able to define and recognize pseudoscience,” Hoopes said. News of the new class provided fresh fuel to conservatives already angered that KU planned to offer a religious studies class this spring on intelligent design as “mythology.” “The two areas that KU is trying to box this issue into are completely inappropriate,” said Brian Sandefur, a mechanical engineer in Lawrence who has been a vocal proponent of intelligent design. Intelligent design is the idea that life is too complex to have evolved without a “designer,” presumably a god or other supernatural being. That concept is at the heart of Kansas’ new public school science standards — greatly ridiculed by the mainstream science community but lauded by religious conservatives — that critique the theory of evolution. More controversy Hoopes said his class would be a version of another course, titled Fantastic Archaeology, which he helped develop as a graduate student at Harvard University. The course will look at the myths people have created to explain mysterious occurrences, such as crop circles, which some speculate were caused by extraterrestrials. The course will explore how myth can be created to negative effects, as in the case of the “myth of the moundbuilders.” In early American history, some people believed the earthen mounds found primarily in the area of the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys were the works of an ancient civilization destroyed by American Indians. The myth contributed to the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which relocated American Indians east of the Mississippi to lands in the west, Hoopes said. “It was that popular explanation that then became a cause for genocide,” Hoopes said. That example shows the need to identify pseudoscience, he said. “What I’m trying to do is deal with pseudoscience regardless of where it’s coming from,” he said. But Sandefur said intelligent design was rooted in chemistry and molecular biology, not religion, and it should be discussed in science courses. “The way KU is addressing it I think is completely inadequate,” he said. Hoopes said he hoped his class stirs controversy. He said students liked to discuss topics that are current and relevant to their lives. “Controversy makes people think,” he said. “The more controversy, the stronger the course is.”

Hmm, I think that that probably deserves its own thread here, otherwise most people are going to be put off by the 339 posts preceding it and aren't going to get the benefit. I can feel the indignation steaming off of this Sandefur guy.

But Sandefur said intelligent design was rooted in chemistry and molecular biology, not religion, and it should be discussed in science courses.

From what I've seen on this site, ID appears to be rooted (on the assumption that it has roots) in mathematics. I think I'm getting to the point where I need to roll up my sleeves and get digging in Dembski's papers. If I manage to, and find that (as I currently suspect) it's incorrect, would anyone be interested in my attempting to write a refutation?

Bwhaaaahahahahah
I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop
"Politic's and Propoganda" the rise of the 4th Riech

Corkscrew

Good luck.

do a search on Shallit on PT
There are a few
http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000112.html

Dembski uses extremely tortured language.
I have to pull it apart and put them back together changing the order, removing double negatives. One of his favorite tricks is to splurge out a whole sentence that when deconstructed is completely meaningless, just metaphysical mumbling.

He refuses to allow his "Special magic Words ^TM" to be redefined in plain language that communicates a common understanding or if he does he will change it whenever you try and give it a meaning in true crackpot science style.

Sal will waste weeks of your time setting up the proverbial SM allowing you flail away.

So to save time pin the meaning of the "Special magic Words ^TM" first by short simple understandable words that don't look Magic and don't allow him to move an inch which he will I promise. I suggest You set the terms - plain language only. Like CSI = "cute".= zero meaning= neutral= Because I say it looks made by god.

Remove code words like designer designed > manufacturer product

In fact the whole thing blows up when you just say CSI=cute and designed = product of god=any life anywhere, everywhere.

The argument is totally worthless in my view because it is god in a box and fails basic logic.

On top of all that they won't put it to Lenny's test

Your suspicions will be rewarded

Sooo...

Hope that helps

I am closing this thread due to its size. I will be reporting on a new development at the University of Kansas soon, and hope to use that thread to continue our 'discussion' with Salvador on the scientific vacuity of Intelligent Design.