ID starts with an unfounded assertion that design is that which remains once natural processes of regularity and chance have been eliminated. Or in other words, 'design' is the set-theoretic complement of chance and regularity (Del Ratzsch). Let's stop at and consider the following: Why should we accept this when available empirical evidence and logic suggests that there is nothing necessarily supernatural about intelligence. In fact, intelligent behavior seems quite well reducible to regularities and chance as polling, profiling, advertising and many other arenas show. Intelligence is in other words predictable and since intelligence has the ability to make choices given multiple options, there will be a certain level of variation or uncertainty present. Amazon for instance uses this to propose to its users, items of interest based on their own past interests as well as based on the interests of those who have bought similar items. And as Dembski himself admits, sciences such as criminology, archaeology, cryptography and SETI all rely on the design inference. Since Dembski also argues that science as it exists right now rejects the design inference a-priori, it seems clear that Dembski's design is different from the design detected by the sciences. But let's for the moment accept ID's Explanatory Filter approach. How is the EF applied in biology? Well,through the concepts of specification and complex information. Specification is trivial in biology as it refers to function and information refers to the negative log(2) of the probability. Now we get into some interesting territory. Dembski argues that if something can be explained as a regularity, its probability becomes close to 1 and the information goes to 0. But the same applies then to intelligent design. If something can be explained as intelligently designed, the amount of information is zero. So that does not really work well. So perhaps we can define the amount of information as the likelihood that the item arose under uniform probability? Under that scenario, something is 'designed' if it has a function and if its pure chance probability is too low. But then we still do not know if designed means 'designed by regularity/chance' or 'designed by an intelligence' (remember I am for the moment accepting the distinction between the two and I am showing how even accepting the distinction the filter suggests that the two explanations are nothing different). So how does the filter work? Well, it argues that if chance alone does not explain it and if regularities cannot explain it (yet) then we have to accept 'design' as the default explanation. So 'design' includes anything from 'intelligent designer' to 'an unknown regular process'. Once again ID fails to explain how to distinguish between actual and apparent design. And now the best one. Even if we accept 'design', Dembski has shown that this does not necessarily need to involve an intelligent designer. Confused?... I bet... Ryan Nichols points out that:Excellent points Allen. ID proponents seem to be quick to claim that science is using ID's approach to detect design but on closer scrutiny these claims fall apart quickly. ID is inherently a claim based on ignorance (elimination) and while it uses some 'fancy sounding' terms like complex specified information, the terms are used in a manner which conflates ID's terminology with how science uses such terminology.
— PvM
Source: Ryan Nichols, Scientific content, testability, and the vacuity of Intelligent Design theory, The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 2003 ,vol. 77 ,no 4 ,pp. 591 - 611 As Elsberry has shown, given Dembski's logic, natural selection matches his definition of an intelligent designer. Once again we notice how ID fails to distinguish between apparent and actual design. And since ID refuses to propose positive hypotheses, it is thus doomed to be unable to deal with the issue of apparent versus actual design in any scientifically relevant manner. And that is why Intelligent Design is scientifically vacuous. In future postings I will address various concepts related to the Intelligent Design thesis, discussing such topics as 'Complex Specified Information', the 'Explanatory Filter', the 'argument from ignorance', the concept and impact of 'false positives', the 'law of conservation of information', the 'displacement theorem' and various other topics to show not only why the foundation of Intelligent Design is fundamentally flawed but also that ID's claims are outright incorrect. Rather than rejecting ID a-priori, I am willing to entertain the concept of ID being scientifically relevant. As I have shown and will show, ID, by virtue of its flawed foundation, is doomed to remain scientifically vacuous and that so far ID's contributions, or perhaps better stated, lack thereof, to science have shown my predictions to be validated. In the tradition of Laudan and pragmatic thinking, I intend to show that ID is 'bad' science."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).
— Nichols
26 Comments
Registered User · 18 June 2006
I am willing to entertain the concept of ID being scientifically relevant.
Huh? You must mean that you are willing to pretend that ID is scientifically relevant. Surely you know by now that it is not. I mean, I've known since its inception that it is not scientifically relevant. Hasn't that been the case with most scientists?
In future postings I will address various concepts related to the Intelligent Design thesis, discussing such topics as 'Complex Specified Information', the 'Explanatory Filter', the 'argument from ignorance', the concept and impact of 'false positives', the 'law of conservation of information', the 'displacement theorem' and various other topics to show not only why the foundation of Intelligent Design is fundamentally flawed but also that ID's claims are outright incorrect.
Just some friendly advice, Pim: both you and Allen McNeill tend to err on the side of the verbose in your analyses, offering unnecessarily large piles of dust for creationists to kick up in everyone's faces. I think others have already addressed these topics succinctly and carefully. Why not just link to talkorigins? Why beat dead horses (and give the impression to newbies that the horse hasn't been bludgeoned into unrecognizable highway jerky).
In my opinion, a better use of PT bandwidth is to document the new lies that the Discovery Institute and other creationist propagandists are continually spewing forth in their press releases and other announcements.
Just my two cents.
PvM · 18 June 2006
Henry J · 18 June 2006
Not to mention that a scientific hypothesis is supposed to start with a set of observations that show a consistent repeatable pattern, so that the hypothesis has something that it's intended to explain.
Evolution explains nested hierarchy of species living at the same time, the tendency of species in the same taxa to be modified copies of the same earlier species, and the tendency of related species to be geographically near each other. (Just as every successful theory in science has its own list of observed patterns to be explained.)
Wake me up when somebody identifies the consistent repeating pattern that is "explained" by I.D.
Henry
Shalini, BBWAD · 18 June 2006
[Wake me up when somebody identifies the consistent repeating pattern that is "explained" by I.D.]
Henry, be careful. You might NEVER wake up again.
;-)
Pete Dunkelberg · 19 June 2006
Here is a rousing review of another intro to IDC:
http://www.nysun.com/article/34637
pwe · 19 June 2006
Ooh, I won't claim to be any expert on these matters; but the way I believe to have understoood Dembski, the EF works like this:
(1) If the probability of an event occuring by chance (= not design) is high, conclude regularity.
(2) If the probability of the event occuring by chance is medium, conclude chance.
(3) If the probability of the event occuring by chance is low, but there is a simple (short) description of it, conclude design. Otherwise conclude chance.
Dembski's way of looking at it is as a competition between design and chance. Since - as he claims - design can mimic chance, the EF needs to be eliminative. If we started out with a design hypothesis, there would be no filter, because anything can be designed. E.g. any accidental death could be a murder.
So, there is the requirement of low probability for the event in question to occur by chance, before anything with design enters into the picture. That the "complexity" part of "specified complexity". The "specified" part is that a simple description is required.
Think about shuffling a deck of cards. There are 52! different possible shuffles, all proncipally equally probable. But say somebody shows you a deck with the cards suite by suite and in ascending order within each suite, you are more likely to think that wasn't a result of a random shuffle than if there is no recognizable pattern to the order. For most shuffles, there is no short description, it'll be an enumeration of each individual card, perhaps with an abbreviation somewhere such as "Two-Four of Clubs", but rarely much better than that.
Todd · 19 June 2006
pwe · 19 June 2006
Bruce Thompson GQ · 19 June 2006
Tyrannosaurus · 19 June 2006
As exposed by PvM, Nichols, and others since the IDiots and its myriad explanations cannot discern between "natural" design and "intelligent" design, how much more irrelevant their whole exercise can be? There is only one possible reason for their continued push for this IDea, and that is religious proselytism plain and simple. These religious Jihadist will stop at nothing and will bend any resemblance of truth to reach their forgone conclusion of a Creator.
Bill Gascoyne · 19 June 2006
Torbjörn Larsson · 19 June 2006
pwe says:
"So, there is the requirement of low probability for the event in question to occur by chance, before anything with design enters into the picture. That the "complexity" part of "specified complexity". The "specified" part is that a simple description is required."
You should have a look at http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/06/dembskis_profound_lack_of_comp.php where computer scientist Mark Chu-Carroll explains what Dembski is nearly defining. Note "nearly" since Mark finds that Dembski hedges all definitions so they aren't unchanging and explicit.
Dembski says "It follows that the collection of nonrandom sequences has small probability among the totality of sequences so that observing a nonrandom sequence is reason to look for explanations other than chance."
This is, according to Mark, "demonstrates a total lack of comprehension of what K-C theory is about, how it measures information, or what it says about anything".
Dembski identifies the low probability events with complexity, and simple description with specification. Mark notes: "In information-theory terms, complexity is non-compressibility. But according to Dembski, in IT terms, specification is compressibility. Something that possesses "specified complexity" is therefore something which is simultaneously compressible and non-compressible."
Note that SC already is a vacuous concept. But Dembski wants to make sure of it. "The only thing that saves Dembski is that he hedges everything that he says. He's not saying that this is what specification means. He's saying that this could be what specification means. But he also offers a half-dozen other alternative definitions - with similar problems. Anytime you point out what's wrong with any of them, he can always say "No, that's not specification. It's one of the others.""
Mark CC and PvM seems to be a nice tag team. Mark can explain why specific concepts like IC and SC are vacuous, PvM the whole IDiocy.
Henry J · 19 June 2006
Re "Henry, be careful. You might NEVER wake up again."
Oh. Yeah. Good point. Let's then drop that thar paragraph from my previous reply. :)
Henry
roophy · 20 June 2006
pwe · 20 June 2006
Bruce Thompson GQ · 20 June 2006
Moses · 20 June 2006
I can explain that ID in one word:
Poof!
Torbjörn Larsson · 20 June 2006
pwe,
I am symphatetic to the view that complexity is contingent. For example, in neuroscience Tononi proposes a measure on neural complexity which is based on the mutual information between subsystems. It makes neural complexity maximise between completely random and completely regular systems, which is consistent with what he observes in his application. ( http://www.striz.org/docs/tononi-complexity.pdf )
But Mark makes the valid point that if Dembski uses K-C theory to specify specification, he must also use it to define complexity. Otherwise he is inconsistent there too.
pwe · 21 June 2006
peter · 21 June 2006
"Intelligent" design isn't science, it's magic. That's your lesson, no further instruction necessary.
Salvador T. Cordova · 22 June 2006
PvM,
In case you weren't aware. One of my posts yesterday was held up in the moderation queue.
Salvador
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 June 2006
Wow, first Donald, now Sal. FL can't be far behind. Maybe even Heddle will pop in, and make it a grand reunion.
But hey, Sal, the last hundred or so times that you were here, you tucked tail and ran without answering a few simple questions. I have 31 simple questions for you, but I'm happy to take them two or three at a time.
Let's start with:
What, precisely, about "evolution" is any more "materialistic" than, say, weather forecasting or accident investigation or medicine. Please be as specific as possible.
I have never, in all my life, ever heard any weather forecaster mention "god" or "divine will" or any "supernatural" anything, at all. Ever. Does this mean, in your view, that weather forecasting is atheistic (oops, I mean, "materialistic" and "naturalistic" ---- we don't want any judges to think ID's railing against "materialism" has any RELIGIOUS purpose, do we)?
I have yet, in all my 44 years of living, to ever hear any accident investigator declare solemnly at the scene of an airplane crash, "We can't explain how it happened, so an Unknown Intelligent Being must have dunnit." I have never yet heard an accident investigator say that "this crash has no materialistic causes --- it must have been the Will of Allah". Does this mean, in your view, that accident investigation is atheistic (oops, sorry, I meant to say "materialistic" and "naturalistic" --- we don't want any judges to know that it is "atheism" we are actually waging a religious crusade against, do we)?
How about medicine. When you get sick, do you ask your doctor to abandon his "materialistic biases" and to investigate possible "supernatural" or "non-materialistic" causes for your disease? Or do you ask your doctor to cure your naturalistic materialistic diseases by using naturalistic materialistic antibiotics to kill your naturalistic materialistic germs?
Since it seems to me as if weather forecasting, accident investigation, and medicine are every bit, in every sense,just as utterly completely totally absolutely one-thousand-percent "materialistic" as evolutionary biology is, why, specifically, is it just evolutionary biology that gets your panties all in a bunch? Why aren't you and your fellow Wedge-ites out there fighting the good fight against godless materialistic naturalistic weather forecasting, or medicine, or accident investigation?
Or does that all come LATER, as part of, uh, "renewing our culture" ... . . ?
Oh, and hey Sal, why is it that all of DI's funding comes from fundamentalist Christian political groups and Reconstructionist nutjobs? Why is it that the Templeton Foundation, which focuses on issues of science and religion (right up ID's alley, eh?) won't fund DI?
Time to tuck tail and run again, Sal.
Torbjörn Larsson · 22 June 2006
pwe says:
"The magic trick then is as follows: we have a string of length N that can be compressed into a string of of length at most k with k = N; BUT HOW LOW CAN WE GO? That's the "specified" thingy. The complexity thingy gives an upper limit, and the specified thingy gives a lower limit. The more specified the string is (the lower the lower limit), the less random is the string. The less random the string is, the more the string is chosen by deliberate design."
Ok, I see your point too. You are saying that we could decode this as a minmax solution.
But Dembski isn't doing this - he hasn't given any condition for selecting the minmax. Mark's analysis points to him believing he is asking for a low probability compressible string without realising that this could be a minmax problem.
And if he realises that this is what he asks for - is it what he wants to have? And how should the minmax be selected - has different deigners different requirements? How does the designers design? (As if Dembski would want to answer that!)
As it is, Mark's analysis of this being inconsistent stands.
Torbjörn Larsson · 22 June 2006
maybe I should point out that for Dembski correcting this he must not only specify how the designer works, he must also realise that he chooses the wrong definitions for information and complexity. If he does that the result would be that he is both falsifying the designer idea and confirming instead of rejecting evolution.
But yes, he would go from inconsistent ID to consistent scientific theory. As if!
pwe · 23 June 2006
Torbjörn Larsson · 1 July 2006
The midsummer holiday was long and eventful, apparently so was this thread.
"that simply makes him appear almost human."
It also makes him wrong.
""maybe I should point out that for Dembski correcting this he must not only specify how the designer works, he must also realise that he chooses the wrong definitions for information and complexity. If he does that the result would be that he is both falsifying the designer idea and confirming instead of rejecting evolution."
I am unsure about, what exactly you mean here. Please elaborate."
If Dembski would correct his definitions to be aligned with, instead of conclict with, normally used definitions they might be useful. He would for example see that his law of information conservation would be aligned with entropy and directly point to the need for environmental input of information instead of designer input. They would also support evolution if they were, since evolution already describes or purports to describe what he purports to describe.
"He doesn't want any verification/falsification of the designer."
Agreed.