Explanatory Filters and Intelligent Design
Keith Woodard
wrote:
<snip>
>This assumes that the Explanatory Filter produced by Dembski
>is the One True Explanatory Filter. Other filters are not
>only possible, but preferable. Let me illustrate by
>constructing a different Explanatory Filter and making a
>case for its superiority.
>Given a phenomenon to be explained, pass it through the
>following Explanatory Filter:
>1) If the phenomenon can be ascribed to random processes,
>no further explanation is necessary. (The first condition
>represents a null hypothesis. The random process hypothesis
>serves admirably as a null hypothesis, and is to be preferred
>as a null hypothesis to either law-like physical process or
>intelligent causation.)
>2) If the phenomenon can be traced to the action of known laws
>regarding physical processes, no further explanation is
>necessary. (Law-like physical processes posit fewer entities
>than intelligent causation, and should be considered prior to
>intelligent causation.)
>3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
>which we have past experience of having been produced by
>the action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to
>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
>explanation is necessary.
<snip>
Couldn't Dembski argue that we have past experience of IC systems
having been produced by the action of an intelligent agency?
Kind regards,
Keith
Replace nospam with att
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 8 Aug 1998 "Wesley R. Elsberry" <w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com>
>wrote:
KW><snip>
WRE>This assumes that the Explanatory Filter produced by Dembski
WRE>is the One True Explanatory Filter. Other filters are not
WRE>only possible, but preferable. Let me illustrate by
WRE>constructing a different Explanatory Filter and making a
WRE>case for its superiority.
WRE>Given a phenomenon to be explained, pass it through the
WRE>following Explanatory Filter:
WRE>1) If the phenomenon can be ascribed to random processes,
WRE>no further explanation is necessary. (The first condition
WRE>represents a null hypothesis. The random process hypothesis
WRE>serves admirably as a null hypothesis, and is to be preferred
WRE>as a null hypothesis to either law-like physical process or
WRE>intelligent causation.)
WRE>2) If the phenomenon can be traced to the action of known laws
WRE>regarding physical processes, no further explanation is
WRE>necessary. (Law-like physical processes posit fewer entities
WRE>than intelligent causation, and should be considered prior to
WRE>intelligent causation.)
WRE>3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
WRE>which we have past experience of having been produced by
WRE>the action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to
WRE>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
WRE>explanation is necessary.
KW><snip>
KW>Couldn't Dembski argue that we have past experience of IC systems
KW>having been produced by the action of an intelligent agency?
I don't see that this poses any difficulty for my EF. Humans
routinely produce IC systems. In these cases, our prior
experience leads to our classifying something as having been
designed. However, ICness is neither necessary to nor
sufficient for a conclusion of design to be made upon that
attribute alone. Humans also design systems that are not IC,
which means that ICness is not a necessary attribute of
design. Evolutionary processes are capable of producing IC
systems, which means that ICness is not a sufficient condition
upon which one may conclude design.
I'm trying to understand in what sense ICness could have an
impact upon the operation of my EF, and I haven't been able
to figure out just what might have been intended. Care to take
another shot at it?
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"Close my eyes\And I am there"-BOC
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>In article <365b3c41....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>On 8 Aug 1998 "Wesley R. Elsberry" <w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com>
>>wrote:
<snip>
>WRE>3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
>WRE>which we have past experience of having been produced by
>WRE>the action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to
>WRE>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
>WRE>explanation is necessary.
>
>KW><snip>
>
>KW>Couldn't Dembski argue that we have past experience of IC systems
>KW>having been produced by the action of an intelligent agency?
>
>I don't see that this poses any difficulty for my EF. Humans
>routinely produce IC systems. In these cases, our prior
>experience leads to our classifying something as having been
>designed. However, ICness is neither necessary to nor
>sufficient for a conclusion of design to be made upon that
>attribute alone. Humans also design systems that are not IC,
>which means that ICness is not a necessary attribute of
>design. Evolutionary processes are capable of producing IC
>systems, which means that ICness is not a sufficient condition
>upon which one may conclude design.
It seems reasonable that non-intelligently-guided evolutionary
processes could produce relatively simple IC systems, under
circumstances where distinct, successive functions could serve as
"bridges," but with complex systems where no one can imagine what the
intervening functions could be, this could begin to seem unlikely.
>I'm trying to understand in what sense ICness could have an
>impact upon the operation of my EF, and I haven't been able
>to figure out just what might have been intended. Care to take
>another shot at it?
ICness would be caught by filter three, and you'd thereupon ascribe
intelligent agency, if I understand you correctly.
Keith Woodard
<snip>
intelligent agency. You might change the wording of filter three to:
If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for which we have
past experience of ONLY having been produced by the action of an
intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency as
a cause, and no further explanation is necessary.
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 24 Nov 1998 21:41:04 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>In article <365b3c41....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>On 8 Aug 1998 "Wesley R. Elsberry" <w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com>
>>>wrote:
KW><snip>
WRE>3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
WRE>which we have past experience of having been produced by
WRE>the action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to
WRE>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
WRE>explanation is necessary.
KW><snip>
KW>Couldn't Dembski argue that we have past experience of IC systems
KW>having been produced by the action of an intelligent agency?
WRE>I don't see that this poses any difficulty for my EF. Humans
WRE>routinely produce IC systems. In these cases, our prior
WRE>experience leads to our classifying something as having been
WRE>designed. However, ICness is neither necessary to nor
WRE>sufficient for a conclusion of design to be made upon that
WRE>attribute alone. Humans also design systems that are not IC,
WRE>which means that ICness is not a necessary attribute of
WRE>design. Evolutionary processes are capable of producing IC
WRE>systems, which means that ICness is not a sufficient condition
WRE>upon which one may conclude design.
KW>It seems reasonable that non-intelligently-guided
KW>evolutionary processes could produce relatively simple IC
KW>systems, under circumstances where distinct, successive
KW>functions could serve as "bridges," but with complex systems
KW>where no one can imagine what the intervening functions could
KW>be, this could begin to seem unlikely.
Behe makes the claim that indirect routes to IC are
increasingly unlikely as the complexity of the system gets
higher. Behe, however, fails to establish that this assertion
is true.
WRE>I'm trying to understand in what sense ICness could have an
WRE>impact upon the operation of my EF, and I haven't been able
WRE>to figure out just what might have been intended. Care to take
WRE>another shot at it?
KW>ICness would be caught by filter three, and you'd thereupon
KW>ascribe intelligent agency, if I understand you correctly.
Kevin does not understand me correctly. I just established
above that ICness is neither a necessary nor a sufficient
attribute to conclude design by. If ICness is the only
attribute under consideration at filter three, I would move
the event under consideration to the fourth class -- "unknown
causation".
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"There's More Than One Way To Do It"-Perl Slogan, PP
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
I've added an element to Behe's argument. And, while neither of us
has established their validity, they both seem reasonable, at least to
me, that some argument should be advanced before rejecting them.
>WRE>I'm trying to understand in what sense ICness could have an
>WRE>impact upon the operation of my EF, and I haven't been able
>WRE>to figure out just what might have been intended. Care to take
>WRE>another shot at it?
>
>KW>ICness would be caught by filter three, and you'd thereupon
>KW>ascribe intelligent agency, if I understand you correctly.
>
>Kevin does not understand me correctly. I just established
>above that ICness is neither a necessary nor a sufficient
>attribute to conclude design by. If ICness is the only
>attribute under consideration at filter three, I would move
>the event under consideration to the fourth class -- "unknown
>causation".
I'm afraid I wasn't quite quick enough at cancelling this. I posted a
revision suggesting you change the wording of filter 3 to:
"If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for which we have
past experience of ONLY having been produced by the action of an
intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency as
a cause, and no further explanation is necessary."
As it stands, it says nothing to suggest the requirement of
sufficiency.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>On 24 Nov 1998 22:37:17 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
<snip>
>>Kevin does not understand me correctly. I just established
>>above that ICness is neither a necessary nor a sufficient
>>attribute to conclude design by. If ICness is the only
>>attribute under consideration at filter three, I would move
>>the event under consideration to the fourth class -- "unknown
>>causation".
>
>I'm afraid I wasn't quite quick enough at cancelling this. I posted a
>revision suggesting you change the wording of filter 3 to:
>
>"If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for which we have
>past experience of ONLY having been produced by the action of an
>intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency as
>a cause, and no further explanation is necessary."
>
>As it stands, it says nothing to suggest the requirement of
>sufficiency.
But I predict even my suggested revision will ultimately make you
extremely unhappy. Because there must have been a time when all IC
systems we knew of were known to be artificial. And, in that context,
we must ascribe the first flagellum we encounter to intelligent
agency.
And so, too, the second ...
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
[snip]
>
>Couldn't Dembski argue that we have past experience of IC systems
>having been produced by the action of an intelligent agency?
>
Does not help. We can find six classes of systems:
1) IC system designed by a designer
2) non-IC systems designed by a designer
3) IC systems with no designer
4) non-IC systems with no designer
5) IC systems with an unknown origin
6) non-IC systems an unknown origin
That systems of class 1 exist does not tell us that systems of class 5
belong to class 1. And when we replace "designer" with "H.S.", then
the claim collapses completely.
Matt Silberstein
-------------------------------------------------------
I am alone because I want to be alone.
And the fingerprints on the gun ... let's not forget that.
From _Mister Boff: Unclear on the Concept_ by Tony Martin
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
[snip]
>It seems reasonable that non-intelligently-guided evolutionary
>processes could produce relatively simple IC systems, under
>circumstances where distinct, successive functions could serve as
>"bridges," but with complex systems where no one can imagine what the
>intervening functions could be, this could begin to seem unlikely.
>
And how does your ability to imagine constrain the universe?
[snip]
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
[snip]
>
>I'm afraid I wasn't quite quick enough at cancelling this. I posted a
>revision suggesting you change the wording of filter 3 to:
>
>"If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for which we have
>past experience of ONLY having been produced by the action of an
>intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency as
>a cause, and no further explanation is necessary."
>
>As it stands, it says nothing to suggest the requirement of
>sufficiency.
>
Since we can find IC system that did not have a designer, this does
not apply. And since the whole point of Paley's watch is that life
does not look like machines, I can't see how to make you extension
work.
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 24 Nov 1998 22:59:27 -0500, qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith Woodard)
>wrote:
>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:37:17 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
KW><snip>
WRE>Kevin does not understand me correctly. I just established
WRE>above that ICness is neither a necessary nor a sufficient
WRE>attribute to conclude design by. If ICness is the only
WRE>attribute under consideration at filter three, I would move
WRE>the event under consideration to the fourth class -- "unknown
WRE>causation".
KW>I'm afraid I wasn't quite quick enough at cancelling this. I posted a
KW>revision suggesting you change the wording of filter 3 to:
KW>"If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
KW>which we have past experience of ONLY having been produced by
KW>the action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to
KW>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
KW>explanation is necessary."
KW>As it stands, it says nothing to suggest the requirement of
KW>sufficiency.
I don't see that it would improve the alternate EF I proposed.
I'll append my alternate EF below.
KW>But I predict even my suggested revision will ultimately
KW>make you extremely unhappy. Because there must have been a
KW>time when all IC systems we knew of were known to be
KW>artificial. And, in that context, we must ascribe the first
KW>flagellum we encounter to intelligent agency.
KW>And so, too, the second ...
No, that's a non sequitur. ICness doesn't mean design. Is
there some way for me to state that more clearly? Even if
Kevin were to establish that at some time t the implication
"design -> IC" held true, that does not mean that "IC ->
design" at any time, not even t.
For everybody else, here's my alternate EF one more time.
See the whole post at
http://x2.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=383732124
Given a phenomenon to be explained, pass it through the
following Explanatory Filter:
1) If the phenomenon can be ascribed to random processes, no
further explanation is necessary. (The first condition
represents a null hypothesis. The random process hypothesis
serves admirably as a null hypothesis, and is to be preferred
as a null hypothesis to either law-like physical process or
intelligent causation.)
2) If the phenomenon can be traced to the action of known laws
regarding physical processes, no further explanation is
necessary. (Law-like physical processes posit fewer entities
than intelligent causation, and should be considered prior to
intelligent causation.)
3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
which we have past experience of having been produced by the
action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe
intelligent agency as a cause, and no furtherexplanation is
necessary.
4) If no known random, law-like physical, or intelligent
causes can be identified, then the phenomenon can only be said
to be the result of a currently unknown process.
Note that my Explanatory Filter introduces a fourth
classification not present in Dembski's filter, that of a
phenomenon having an unknown cause.
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"Redeemed from the cell\Into which he'd been thrown" - BOC
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 24 Nov 1998 22:37:17 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>On 24 Nov 1998 21:41:04 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>>In article <365b3c41....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>>On 8 Aug 1998 "Wesley R. Elsberry" <w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com>
>>>>>wrote:
KW><snip>
WRE>3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
WRE>which we have past experience of having been produced by
WRE>the action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to
WRE>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
WRE>explanation is necessary.
KW><snip>
KW>Couldn't Dembski argue that we have past experience of IC systems
KW>having been produced by the action of an intelligent agency?
WRE>I don't see that this poses any difficulty for my EF. Humans
WRE>routinely produce IC systems. In these cases, our prior
WRE>experience leads to our classifying something as having been
WRE>designed. However, ICness is neither necessary to nor
WRE>sufficient for a conclusion of design to be made upon that
WRE>attribute alone. Humans also design systems that are not IC,
WRE>which means that ICness is not a necessary attribute of
WRE>design. Evolutionary processes are capable of producing IC
WRE>systems, which means that ICness is not a sufficient condition
WRE>upon which one may conclude design.
KW>It seems reasonable that non-intelligently-guided
KW>evolutionary processes could produce relatively simple IC
KW>systems, under circumstances where distinct, successive
KW>functions could serve as "bridges," but with complex systems
KW>where no one can imagine what the intervening functions could
KW>be, this could begin to seem unlikely.
WRE>Behe makes the claim that indirect routes to IC are
WRE>increasingly unlikely as the complexity of the system gets
WRE>higher. Behe, however, fails to establish that this assertion
WRE>is true.
KW>I've added an element to Behe's argument.
What was the added element?
KW>And, while neither of us has established their validity, they
KW>both seem reasonable, at least to me, that some argument
KW>should be advanced before rejecting them.
I'm having trouble attaching referents to the phrases.
What is it that is being rejected, and what is the topic
of the argument that should be advanced?
WRE>I'm trying to understand in what sense ICness could have an
WRE>impact upon the operation of my EF, and I haven't been able
WRE>to figure out just what might have been intended. Care to take
WRE>another shot at it?
KW>ICness would be caught by filter three, and you'd thereupon
KW>ascribe intelligent agency, if I understand you correctly.
WRE>Kevin does not understand me correctly. I just established
WRE>above that ICness is neither a necessary nor a sufficient
WRE>attribute to conclude design by. If ICness is the only
WRE>attribute under consideration at filter three, I would move
WRE>the event under consideration to the fourth class -- "unknown
WRE>causation".
KW>I'm afraid I wasn't quite quick enough at cancelling this.
KW>I posted a revision suggesting you change the wording of
KW>filter 3 to:
KW>"If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
KW>which we have past experience of ONLY having been produced by
KW>the action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to
KW>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
KW>explanation is necessary."
KW>As it stands, it says nothing to suggest the requirement of
KW>sufficiency.
As noted in another message, the amendment doesn't seem to
change anything that needs changing.
My original alternate EF post can be read at
http://x2.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=383732124
A collection of links to past messages of mine on the topic
of Dembski's arguments for ID can be found at
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/evobio/evc/argresp/design.html
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"But you've gotta blame someone\For your own confusion"-RR
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 24 Nov 1998 21:41:04 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>In article <365b3c41....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>On 8 Aug 1998 "Wesley R. Elsberry" <w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com>
>>>wrote:
[Big snip]
I've already handled the issues presented in this message.
See
http://x4.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=415400212
and
http://x4.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=415388993
A list of my messages on the topic of Dembski's arguments is at
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/evobio/evc/argresp/design.html
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"we dropped freddy off the fire escape into the alley with military honors" -a.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>Woodard):
>
>[snip]
>>
>>I'm afraid I wasn't quite quick enough at cancelling this. I posted a
>>revision suggesting you change the wording of filter 3 to:
>>
>>"If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for which we have
>>past experience of ONLY having been produced by the action of an
>>intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency as
>>a cause, and no further explanation is necessary."
>>
>>As it stands, it says nothing to suggest the requirement of
>>sufficiency.
>>
>Since we can find IC system that did not have a designer, this does
>not apply. And since the whole point of Paley's watch is that life
>does not look like machines, I can't see how to make you extension
>work.
I don't think it works either. But please explain how Wesley's
wording implies the requirement of sufficiency.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>Woodard):
>
>[snip]
>
>>It seems reasonable that non-intelligently-guided evolutionary
>>processes could produce relatively simple IC systems, under
>>circumstances where distinct, successive functions could serve as
>>"bridges," but with complex systems where no one can imagine what the
>>intervening functions could be, this could begin to seem unlikely.
>>
>And how does your ability to imagine constrain the universe?
It doesn't, of course. But we humans traditionally judge explanations
for which we can easily imagine mechanisms as more liklely than those
for which we can't. It's not that we think our imagination
"constrains the universe." But we do think it can, in this sense,
give us an indication of what is possible.
If we can't imagine how a defendant could have committed a crime,
we're more likely to acquit. If we can't imagine how natural
astronomical processes can broadcast a long series of prime numbers,
we're more likely to ascribe it to intelligence.
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>In article <365b8a4e....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:59:27 -0500, qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith Woodard)
>>wrote:
>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:37:17 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>
>KW><snip>
>
> WRE>Kevin does not understand me correctly. I just established
> WRE>above that ICness is neither a necessary nor a sufficient
> WRE>attribute to conclude design by. If ICness is the only
> WRE>attribute under consideration at filter three, I would move
> WRE>the event under consideration to the fourth class -- "unknown
> WRE>causation".
>
>KW>I'm afraid I wasn't quite quick enough at cancelling this. I posted a
>KW>revision suggesting you change the wording of filter 3 to:
>
>KW>"If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
>KW>which we have past experience of ONLY having been produced by
>KW>the action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to
>KW>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
>KW>explanation is necessary."
>
>KW>As it stands, it says nothing to suggest the requirement of
>KW>sufficiency.
>
>I don't see that it would improve the alternate EF I proposed.
>
>I'll append my alternate EF below.
>
>KW>But I predict even my suggested revision will ultimately
>KW>make you extremely unhappy. Because there must have been a
>KW>time when all IC systems we knew of were known to be
>KW>artificial. And, in that context, we must ascribe the first
>KW>flagellum we encounter to intelligent agency.
>
>KW>And so, too, the second ...
>
>No, that's a non sequitur. ICness doesn't mean design. Is
>there some way for me to state that more clearly?
I never thought you believed it did, Wesley. That's been clear to me
all along. My major point is not about your beliefs, but about the
language of your third filter. It seems to me to imply that ICness
means design, and you have yet to explain why you think it does not.
>Even if
>Kevin
Keith :-)
>were to establish that at some time t the implication
>"design -> IC" held true, that does not mean that "IC ->
>design" at any time, not even t.
Again, I'm not making that claim myself. I'm just surprised to see
that implication in the language of your third filter.
<snip>
>3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
>which we have past experience of having been produced by the
>action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe
>intelligent agency as a cause, and no furtherexplanation is
>necessary.
According to this, if phenomenon P is a member of a class for which we
have past experience of having been produced by the action of an
intelligent agency, we are justified in ascribing P to intelligent
agency.
You seem to agree that ICness is a class for which we have past
experience of having been produced by the action of an intelligent
agency.
So if P is an IC system, how do you escape the implication that we can
reasonably ascribe it to intelligent agency? I want to be clear that
I'm not referring in any way to your personal beliefs about whether
ICness implies design. I know very well you reject that proposition.
Let's restrict this discussion to the implications of the language of
your third filter.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>Woodard):
>
>[snip]
>>
>>Couldn't Dembski argue that we have past experience of IC systems
>>having been produced by the action of an intelligent agency?
>>
>Does not help. We can find six classes of systems:
>
>1) IC system designed by a designer
>2) non-IC systems designed by a designer
>3) IC systems with no designer
>4) non-IC systems with no designer
>5) IC systems with an unknown origin
>6) non-IC systems an unknown origin
>
>That systems of class 1 exist does not tell us that systems of class 5
>belong to class 1.
Matt, I'm making a point about the language of Wesley's third filter.
Please examine that and explain why you disagree with me.
<snip>
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
>On 25 Nov 1998 00:50:51 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>wrote:
>
>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>Woodard):
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>>It seems reasonable that non-intelligently-guided evolutionary
>>>processes could produce relatively simple IC systems, under
>>>circumstances where distinct, successive functions could serve as
>>>"bridges," but with complex systems where no one can imagine what the
>>>intervening functions could be, this could begin to seem unlikely.
>>>
>>And how does your ability to imagine constrain the universe?
>
>It doesn't, of course. But we humans traditionally judge explanations
>for which we can easily imagine mechanisms as more liklely than those
>for which we can't. It's not that we think our imagination
>"constrains the universe." But we do think it can, in this sense,
>give us an indication of what is possible.
>
>If we can't imagine how a defendant could have committed a crime,
>we're more likely to acquit. If we can't imagine how natural
>astronomical processes can broadcast a long series of prime numbers,
>we're more likely to ascribe it to intelligence.
And so, if we can't imagine how life could have formed naturally, it
must have been by some unknown, unevidenced, unconstrained being
because we can imagine such a being. If you say so.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
The more difficult it is to explain, without recourse to teleology,
observed features of life, the more likely the teleological
explanations become. Or so it seems to me.
Matt Silberstein
If someone told you that the world had to be comprehensible, they
lied.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
I agree it isn't necessarily comprehensible. But science more or less
assumes that it is.
Mark Isaak
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>It seems reasonable that non-intelligently-guided evolutionary
>processes could produce relatively simple IC systems, under
>circumstances where distinct, successive functions could serve as
>"bridges," but with complex systems where no one can imagine what the
>intervening functions could be, this could begin to seem unlikely.
Not to me.
>>I'm trying to understand in what sense ICness could have an
>>impact upon the operation of my EF, and I haven't been able
>>to figure out just what might have been intended. Care to take
>>another shot at it?
>
>ICness would be caught by filter three, and you'd thereupon ascribe
>intelligent agency. You might change the wording of filter three to:
>
>If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for which we have
>past experience of ONLY having been produced by the action of an
>intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency as
>a cause, and no further explanation is necessary.
The logically equivalent flip side of that filter is that, for the class
of phenomena for which we have NO past experience of having been produced
by an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to rule out such an agency.
--
Mark Isaak atta @ best.com http://www.best.com/~atta
"That which you know, you ignore because it is inconvenient. That
which you do not know, you invent." - J. Michael Straczynski
Mark Isaak
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>If we can't imagine how a defendant could have committed a crime,
>we're more likely to acquit. If we can't imagine how natural
>astronomical processes can broadcast a long series of prime numbers,
>we're more likely to ascribe it to intelligence.
Only because it's easier for us to imagine the intelligence, since many of
us have had first-hand experience with it. We're not likely to ascribe
the cause to something we can't imagine in the first place, even though
that's most likely.
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
>On 25 Nov 1998 12:28:50 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>wrote:
>
>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>Woodard):
>>
[snip]
>>>The more difficult it is to explain, without recourse to teleology,
>>>observed features of life, the more likely the teleological
>>>explanations become. Or so it seems to me.
>>>
>>If someone told you that the world had to be comprehensible, they
>>lied.
>
>I agree it isn't necessarily comprehensible. But science more or less
>assumes that it is.
>
No, it does not. And you can't just assert an answer in order to make
it comprehensible. Science is a search for that which is
comprehensible based on the observation such searches have had success
in the past. No assumptions about how the world works. Even the
assumption that the rules that operate here and now does not assume
that rules operate or that everything follows rules.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>Woodard):
>
>>On 25 Nov 1998 12:28:50 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>>Woodard):
>>>
>[snip]
>
>>>>The more difficult it is to explain, without recourse to teleology,
>>>>observed features of life, the more likely the teleological
>>>>explanations become. Or so it seems to me.
>>>>
>>>If someone told you that the world had to be comprehensible, they
>>>lied.
>>
>>I agree it isn't necessarily comprehensible. But science more or less
>>assumes that it is.
>>
>No, it does not.
You sound very sure. I'm curious just how certain you are about this.
>And you can't just assert an answer in order to make
>it comprehensible.
Not clear what you're referring to.
>Science is a search for that which is
>comprehensible based on the observation such searches have had success
>in the past.
Yes...
>No assumptions about how the world works.
I can think of several just off the top of my head:
That the future will tend to resemble the past.
That our senses provide decent information about the objective world.
That our memory provides a decent indication of past real events.
That no "supernatural forces" ever suspend the laws of nature.
The assumption that the world is governed by strict causation was once
a huge assumption. Quantum mechanics thrashed it, and I don't think
the problem of how exactly to salvage causation has yet been solved.
But I think it's still assumed that most macro events -- even chaotic
ones -- are governed by causation, and that even quantum events are
governed by some sort of probabilistic causal laws.
Now, it's true that regularities are observed, not assumed. But it
turns out that's not the same thing as causation. While we can
observe B regularly following A, we can't observe A *causing* B. To
this day, the question of what causation actually means remains a
philosophical controversy with nothing close to a consensus.
>Even the
>assumption that the rules that operate here and now does not assume
>that rules operate or that everything follows rules.
Again, I'm not clear what you mean by this.
Wesley R. Elsberry
KW>[snip]
KW>It seems reasonable that non-intelligently-guided evolutionary
KW>processes could produce relatively simple IC systems, under
KW>circumstances where distinct, successive functions could serve as
KW>"bridges," but with complex systems where no one can imagine what the
KW>intervening functions could be, this could begin to seem unlikely.
MS>And how does your ability to imagine constrain the universe?
KW>It doesn't, of course. But we humans traditionally judge
KW>explanations for which we can easily imagine mechanisms as more
KW>liklely than those for which we can't. It's not that we think
KW>our imagination "constrains the universe." But we do think it
KW>can, in this sense, give us an indication of what is possible.
KW>If we can't imagine how a defendant could have committed a crime,
KW>we're more likely to acquit. If we can't imagine how natural
KW>astronomical processes can broadcast a long series of prime numbers,
KW>we're more likely to ascribe it to intelligence.
What do either of these have to do with IC?
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"We understand, we understand\Fear is real but so do I" - BOC
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 25 Nov 1998 01:04:08 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:59:27 -0500, qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith Woodard)
>>>wrote:
>>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:37:17 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
[...]
WRE>No, that's a non sequitur. ICness doesn't mean design. Is
WRE>there some way for me to state that more clearly?
KW>I never thought you believed it did, Wesley. That's been clear
KW>to me all along. My major point is not about your beliefs, but
KW>about the language of your third filter. It seems to me to imply
KW>that ICness means design, and you have yet to explain why you
KW>think it does not.
It doesn't seem to me to imply any such thing, which means that
I don't see anything to explain.
WRE>Even if Kevin
KW>Keith :-)
Ooops.
WRE>were to establish that at some time t the implication
WRE>"design -> IC" held true, that does not mean that "IC ->
WRE>design" at any time, not even t.
KW>Again, I'm not making that claim myself. I'm just surprised
KW>to see that implication in the language of your third filter.
I'd be surprised, too, since AFAICT it isn't there.
KW><snip>
WRE>3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
WRE>which we have past experience of having been produced by the
WRE>action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe
WRE>intelligent agency as a cause, and no further explanation is
WRE>necessary.
KW>According to this, if phenomenon P is a member of a class for
KW>which we have past experience of having been produced by the
KW>action of an intelligent agency, we are justified in
KW>ascribing P to intelligent agency.
KW>You seem to agree that ICness is a class for which we have
KW>past experience of having been produced by the action of an
KW>intelligent agency.
Not that I see. IOW, no, I do not agree with that. IC is
an *attribute* of a system, not a *class* of phenomena.
KW>So if P is an IC system, how do you escape the implication
KW>that we can reasonably ascribe it to intelligent agency?
"IC -> design" is false if for any system X, X has the IC
attribute but is not due to design. Biological production of
IC means that such systems exist, thus "IC -> design" is
false.
Beyond that, Dembski distinguishes between "design" and
"agency".
[Quote]
These two moves - ruling out regularity, and then ruling out
chance - constitute the design inference. The conception of
design that emerges from the design inference is therefore
eliminative, asserting of an event what it is not, not what it
is. To attribute an event to design is to say that regularity
and chance have been ruled out. Referring Caputo's ballot line
selections to design is therefore not identical with referring
it to agency. To be sure, design renders agency plausible. But
as the negation of regularity and chance, design is a mode of
explanation logically preliminary to agency. Certainly agency
(in this case cheating) best explains Caputo's ballot line
selections. But no one was privy to Caputo's ballot line
selections. In the absence of an exact causal story, the New
Jersey Supreme Court therefore went as far as it could in the
Caputo case.
[End Quote - WA Dembski, The Design Inference, pp.19-20]
KW>I want to be clear that I'm not referring in any way to
KW>your personal beliefs about whether ICness implies design.
KW>I know very well you reject that proposition. Let's restrict
KW>this discussion to the implications of the language of
KW>your third filter.
Right. There is no endorsement of "IC -> design" in what
I wrote. That was a short discussion.
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"to resist the insidious process of assimilation" - archy
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 25 Nov 1998 00:50:49 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
KW>[snip]
KW>Couldn't Dembski argue that we have past experience of IC systems
KW>having been produced by the action of an intelligent agency?
MS>Does not help. We can find six classes of systems:
MS>1) IC system designed by a designer
MS>2) non-IC systems designed by a designer
MS>3) IC systems with no designer
MS>4) non-IC systems with no designer
MS>5) IC systems with an unknown origin
MS>6) non-IC systems an unknown origin
MS>That systems of class 1 exist does not tell us that systems of
MS>class 5 belong to class 1.
KW>Matt, I'm making a point about the language of Wesley's third
KW>filter. Please examine that and explain why you disagree with me.
Because it doesn't say anything that could be remotely construed
to endorse the implication Matt shows is invalid above?
[Quote]
WRE>3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
WRE>which we have past experience of having been produced by the
WRE>action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe
WRE>intelligent agency as a cause, and no further explanation is
WRE>necessary.
[End Quote]
KW><snip>
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"yours for less justice and more charity" - archy
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 25 Nov 1998 09:16:38 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)>>>On 25 Nov 1998 00:50:51 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
[...]
KW>The more difficult it is to explain, without recourse to
KW>teleology, observed features of life, the more likely the
KW>teleological explanations become. Or so it seems to me.
Let me pose an alternative phrasing.
"The more difficult it is to explain, without recourse to
teleology, observed features of life, the less obviously
invalid the teleological explanations become. Or so it
seems to me."
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"any mutt can write plays for this london public" - archy
may...@andrews.edu
> Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
> >On 8 Aug 1998 "Wesley R. Elsberry" <w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com>
> >wrote:
>
> KW><snip>
>
> WRE>This assumes that the Explanatory Filter produced by Dembski
> WRE>is the One True Explanatory Filter. Other filters are not
> WRE>only possible, but preferable. Let me illustrate by
> WRE>constructing a different Explanatory Filter and making a
> WRE>case for its superiority.
>
> WRE>Given a phenomenon to be explained, pass it through the
> WRE>following Explanatory Filter:
>
> WRE>1) If the phenomenon can be ascribed to random processes,
> WRE>no further explanation is necessary. (The first condition
> WRE>represents a null hypothesis. The random process hypothesis
> WRE>serves admirably as a null hypothesis, and is to be preferred
> WRE>as a null hypothesis to either law-like physical process or
> WRE>intelligent causation.)
>
> WRE>2) If the phenomenon can be traced to the action of known laws
> WRE>regarding physical processes, no further explanation is
> WRE>necessary. (Law-like physical processes posit fewer entities
> WRE>than intelligent causation, and should be considered prior to
> WRE>intelligent causation.)
>
> WRE>3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
> WRE>which we have past experience of having been produced by
> WRE>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
> WRE>explanation is necessary.
>
> KW><snip>
>
> KW>Couldn't Dembski argue that we have past experience of IC systems
> KW>having been produced by the action of an intelligent agency?
>
>
> impact upon the operation of my EF, and I haven't been able
> to figure out just what might have been intended. Care to take
> another shot at it?
I don't think IC is the problem as much as functional complexity (although
all IC systems are functionally complex); functional complexity is so closely
associated with design that we call natural selection a "design-mimicking"
law because it produces functional complexity. If natural selection can be
ruled out (although obviously this has never happened) we must suspect
something rather bizarre, like design theory or a teleological law. How do we
know when to favor design over teleological laws? Probably when the
teleological law resembles a conscious entity in any respect other than the
fact that it's teleological.
--vince
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
may...@andrews.edu
mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein) wrote:
> In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
> Woodard):
>
>
> >It seems reasonable that non-intelligently-guided evolutionary
> >
Keith is right; it's unlikely that many of these bridges would be around.
That's why we need the concept of IC developing at the same time as the system
(or after the system develops) to show how IC systems could have evolved. I
think some people call it coevolution.
Matt Silberstein
>In article <366f9bf3...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>,
> mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein) wrote:
>> In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>> Woodard):
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> >It seems reasonable that non-intelligently-guided evolutionary
>> >processes could produce relatively simple IC systems, under
>> >circumstances where distinct, successive functions could serve as
>> >"bridges," but with complex systems where no one can imagine what the
>> >intervening functions could be, this could begin to seem unlikely.
>> >
>> And how does your ability to imagine constrain the universe?
>
>Keith is right; it's unlikely that many of these bridges would be around.
Really? So we go from "I can't imagine how" to "It is unlikely". You
both seem to think that your ability to imagine says something about
how things work.
>That's why we need the concept of IC developing at the same time as the system
>(or after the system develops) to show how IC systems could have evolved. I
>think some people call it coevolution.
>
Or change in function. Or ...
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>In article <365be87c....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>On 25 Nov 1998 00:50:51 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>wrote:
>>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>>Woodard):
>
>KW>[snip]
>
> KW>It seems reasonable that non-intelligently-guided evolutionary
> KW>processes could produce relatively simple IC systems, under
> KW>circumstances where distinct, successive functions could serve as
> KW>"bridges," but with complex systems where no one can imagine what the
> KW>intervening functions could be, this could begin to seem unlikely.
>
>MS>And how does your ability to imagine constrain the universe?
>
>KW>It doesn't, of course. But we humans traditionally judge
>KW>explanations for which we can easily imagine mechanisms as more
>KW>liklely than those for which we can't. It's not that we think
>KW>our imagination "constrains the universe." But we do think it
>KW>can, in this sense, give us an indication of what is possible.
>
>KW>If we can't imagine how a defendant could have committed a crime,
>KW>we're more likely to acquit. If we can't imagine how natural
>KW>astronomical processes can broadcast a long series of prime numbers,
>KW>we're more likely to ascribe it to intelligence.
>
>What do either of these have to do with IC?
They're simply illustrations of the principle in the paragraph above.
Aside: I'll respond to all your posts as quickly as I can. Work,
family and the need for sleep are interfering, but I'm spending all my
free time thinking about this. Part of the problem is my ideas are
changing (dare I say "evolving"?) and it sometimes takes me a while to
slog through their ramifications.
For example, right now I'm thinking: why bring regularity into it at
all? Why not just one filter: complexity-specification?
I find your illustrations involving Mercury and pulsars powerful, but
I think Demski's critics in general underestimate the power of his
"Made by Yahweh" and SETI illustrations.
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>In article <365be8f2....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>On 25 Nov 1998 01:04:08 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>In article <365b8a4e....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:59:27 -0500, qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith Woodard)
>>>>wrote:
>>>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:37:17 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>WRE>No, that's a non sequitur. ICness doesn't mean design. Is
>WRE>there some way for me to state that more clearly?
>
>KW>I never thought you believed it did, Wesley. That's been clear
>KW>to me all along. My major point is not about your beliefs, but
>KW>about the language of your third filter. It seems to me to imply
>KW>that ICness means design, and you have yet to explain why you
>KW>think it does not.
>
>It doesn't seem to me to imply any such thing, which means that
>I don't see anything to explain.
>
>WRE>Even if Kevin
>
>KW>Keith :-)
>
>Ooops.
>
>WRE>were to establish that at some time t the implication
>WRE>"design -> IC" held true, that does not mean that "IC ->
>WRE>design" at any time, not even t.
>
>KW>Again, I'm not making that claim myself. I'm just surprised
>KW>to see that implication in the language of your third filter.
>
>I'd be surprised, too, since AFAICT it isn't there.
>
>KW><snip>
>
>WRE>3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
>WRE>which we have past experience of having been produced by the
>WRE>action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe
>WRE>intelligent agency as a cause, and no further explanation is
>WRE>necessary.
>
>KW>According to this, if phenomenon P is a member of a class for
>KW>which we have past experience of having been produced by the
>KW>action of an intelligent agency, we are justified in
>KW>ascribing P to intelligent agency.
>
>KW>You seem to agree that ICness is a class for which we have
>KW>past experience of having been produced by the action of an
>KW>intelligent agency.
>
>Not that I see. IOW, no, I do not agree with that. IC is
>an *attribute* of a system, not a *class* of phenomena.
It seems to me it defines a class. Would you agree that systems with
the attribute of ICness fall into the class of IC phenomena?
>KW>So if P is an IC system, how do you escape the implication
>KW>that we can reasonably ascribe it to intelligent agency?
>
>"IC -> design" is false if for any system X, X has the IC
>attribute but is not due to design. Biological production of
>IC means that such systems exist, thus "IC -> design" is
>false.
I argue below that this runs counter to your third filter.
>Beyond that, Dembski distinguishes between "design" and
>"agency".
>
>[Quote]
>
>These two moves - ruling out regularity, and then ruling out
>chance - constitute the design inference. The conception of
>design that emerges from the design inference is therefore
>eliminative, asserting of an event what it is not, not what it
>is. To attribute an event to design is to say that regularity
>and chance have been ruled out. Referring Caputo's ballot line
>selections to design is therefore not identical with referring
>it to agency. To be sure, design renders agency plausible. But
>as the negation of regularity and chance, design is a mode of
>explanation logically preliminary to agency. Certainly agency
>(in this case cheating) best explains Caputo's ballot line
>selections. But no one was privy to Caputo's ballot line
>selections. In the absence of an exact causal story, the New
>Jersey Supreme Court therefore went as far as it could in the
>Caputo case.
>
>[End Quote - WA Dembski, The Design Inference, pp.19-20]
I don't see the relevance of this to your third filter. However, as
an aside, I think you're correct Dembski is backtracking here. It
implies to me he doesn't think regularity, chance and agency exhaust
the possibilities.
>KW>I want to be clear that I'm not referring in any way to
>KW>your personal beliefs about whether ICness implies design.
>KW>I know very well you reject that proposition. Let's restrict
>KW>this discussion to the implications of the language of
>KW>your third filter.
>
>Right. There is no endorsement of "IC -> design" in what
>I wrote. That was a short discussion.
I hope we can prolong it a bit more. I hope this is a clearer outline
of my argument. Perhaps you can identify its fallacy.
Premise: If a phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
which we have past experience of having been produced by the
action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe
intelligent agency as a cause, and no further explanation is
necessary. [Your filter.]
Premise: The class of IC systems is a class of phenomena for
which we have past experience of having been produced by the
action of an intelligent agency. [You seem to agree.]
Premise: Phenomenon P falls into the class of IC systems. [By
hypothesis.]
Conclusion: P is a phenomenon for which it is reasonable to ascribe
intelligent agency as a cause, and no further explanation is
necessary.
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
>On 25 Nov 1998 19:43:51 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>wrote:
>
>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>Woodard):
>>
>>>On 25 Nov 1998 12:28:50 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>>>Woodard):
>>>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>>>>The more difficult it is to explain, without recourse to teleology,
>>>>>observed features of life, the more likely the teleological
>>>>>explanations become. Or so it seems to me.
>>>>>
>>>>If someone told you that the world had to be comprehensible, they
>>>>lied.
>>>
>>>I agree it isn't necessarily comprehensible. But science more or less
>>>assumes that it is.
>>>
>>No, it does not.
>
>You sound very sure. I'm curious just how certain you are about this.
>
>>And you can't just assert an answer in order to make
>>it comprehensible.
>
>Not clear what you're referring to.
>
>>Science is a search for that which is
>>comprehensible based on the observation such searches have had success
>>in the past.
>
>Yes...
>
>>No assumptions about how the world works.
>
>I can think of several just off the top of my head:
And I really mis-spoke. Science makes assumptions, but they are
rebuttable for the most part. And any assumptions made by science are
made by people who look for their car keys and eat breakfast because
they are hungry.
>That the future will tend to resemble the past.
Which is support.
>That our senses provide decent information about the objective world.
Interesting phrasing. I agree, but I have to think about the
implications.
>That our memory provides a decent indication of past real events.
No, I don't think so. Or, rather, I don't make assumptions about your
memory. I certainly make what seem to you assumptions about my own
mental state, but I don't think that is particular to science.
>That no "supernatural forces" ever suspend the laws of nature.
>
Not at all. All science says is that it won't propose such an
explanation. Faced with the occurrence of such an event all science
could say is "we don't understand this". Which, btw, contradicts you
claimed assumption that the world is comprehensible.
[snip without cause ;-) ]
>>Even the
>>assumption that the rules that operate here and now does not assume
>>that rules operate or that everything follows rules.
>
>Again, I'm not clear what you mean by this.
>
This is my wording of your first assumption above. I think mine is a
bit more accurate and helpful. Maybe not.
Anyway, getting back to your claim that science assumes the world is
comprehensible. I would say that science divides the world into
comprehended stuff and non-comprehended stuff. It does not assume that
non-comprehended will end up an empty set.
may...@andrews.edu
mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein) wrote:
> In talk.origins I read this message from may...@andrews.edu:
>
> >In article <366f9bf3...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>,
> >> In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
> >> Woodard):
> >>
> >> [snip]
> >>
> >> >
> >
>
> Really? So we go from "I can't imagine how" to "It is unlikely". You
> both seem to think that your ability to imagine says something about
> how things work.
Well, I don't necessarily agree with his reasoning, but I agree with his
conclusion. The bridges are unlikely to the extent that the systems are
composed of many highly specified components. If there are a few highly
specified components, or if there are many components of low specificity,
chance could easily be a factor. But as both of these variables increase, you
get closer and closer to making a 747 airplane out of a hurricane: so you need
something other than chance, namely natural selection.
> >That's why we need the concept of IC developing at the same time as the
system
> >(or after the system develops) to show how IC systems could have evolved. I
> >think some people call it coevolution.
> >
> Or change in function. Or ...
Change in function is the same as function bridges, so it has the same
problems as those discussed above.
Mark Isaak
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>I hope this is a clearer outline
>of my argument. Perhaps you can identify its fallacy.
>
>Premise: If a phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
>which we have past experience of having been produced by the
>action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe
>intelligent agency as a cause, and no further explanation is
>necessary. [Your filter.]
As stated, this premise says that it's reasonable to ascribe everything to
an intelligent agency, since everything has something in common with
something that people have made. You need to add another qualifier here,
and change the conclusion slightly:
Premise: If a phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for which we
have past experience of having been produced by the action of an
intelligent agency AND ONLY BY ACTION OF AN INTELLIGENT AGENCY, it is
reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, ALTHOUGH A DIFFERENT
EXPLANATION MAY SHOW UP WITH FURTHER INVESTIGATION.
>Premise: The class of IC systems is a class of phenomena for
>which we have past experience of having been produced by the
>action of an intelligent agency.
However, we have a little experience of IC systems occurring without help
of an intelligent agency, and no reason to expect that such occurrence is
not commonplace.
Personally, I think that the defining characteristic of design is a
designing agent, and that the way to test design is to find the agent.
Design theorists don't like this definition, though, because it doesn't
give them the answers they want.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>Woodard):
>
>>On 25 Nov 1998 19:43:51 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>>Woodard):
>>>
>>>>On 25 Nov 1998 12:28:50 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>>>>Woodard):
>>>>>
>>>[snip]
>>>
>>>>>>The more difficult it is to explain, without recourse to teleology,
>>>>>>observed features of life, the more likely the teleological
>>>>>>explanations become. Or so it seems to me.
>>>>>>
>>>>>If someone told you that the world had to be comprehensible, they
>>>>>lied.
>>>>
>>>>I agree it isn't necessarily comprehensible. But science more or less
>>>>assumes that it is.
>>>>
>>>No, it does not.
>>
>>You sound very sure. I'm curious just how certain you are about this.
<snip>
>>That our memory provides a decent indication of past real events.
>
>No, I don't think so. Or, rather, I don't make assumptions about your
>memory. I certainly make what seem to you assumptions about my own
>mental state, but I don't think that is particular to science.
Not saying these are particular to science.
Actually, though, the extent to which science relies on human memory
is an interesting question. So much today is recorded automatically.
It's not like the old days, when astronomers would periodically pull
their eyes from the telescope as they sketched the canals.
>>That no "supernatural forces" ever suspend the laws of nature.
>>
>Not at all. All science says is that it won't propose such an
>explanation.
What exactly is the difference?
It happens, from time to time, that an experiment leads to an
anomalous outcome. This has even occurred in attempts to measure
fundamental constants.
If a dozen outcomes form a close grouping, but one is quite different,
two possibilities leap to mind:
* Something went wrong with the anomalous experiment.
* There was a fluctuation in the fundamental constant at the
time/place of the anomalous experiment.
I contend that scientists will embrace the former every time. But
why? What is the justification for this behavior? I submit it is
simply the assumption I mentioned.
You're doubtless familiar with the experiment published in the April
1907 issue of AMERICAN MEDICINE concerning "soul substance."
http://www.artbell.com/duncan.html
It seems that Dr. Duncan MacDougall weighed some folks in the process
of dying, and found that a significant fraction of an ounce seemed to
unaccountably vanish from the body at the point of death.
I have no doubt fault can be found with Dr. MacDougall's procedures.
But what's revealing is that this experiment has apparently never been
replicated. Why? In my opinion, this is because scientists simply
assume such phenomena don't occur.
Of course, unless we define "supernatural" more precisely, it's not
clear soul substance falls into that category. But I think it's fair
to say that evidence of phenomena that seem incongruent with the
mainstream scientific paradigm won't be taken seriously by scientists
in general, even if, as in the MacDougall case, there's no scientific
evidence against it. In an important sense, this is an assumption by
science about how the world works.
>Faced with the occurrence of such an event all science
>could say is "we don't understand this". Which, btw, contradicts you
>claimed assumption that the world is comprehensible.
To say that the world is comprehensible is not to say it's entirely
comprehended at the present time.
[snip without cause ;-) ]
[snip because 2 can play this game ;-)]
>Anyway, getting back to your claim that science assumes the world is
>comprehensible. I would say that science divides the world into
>comprehended stuff and non-comprehended stuff. It does not assume that
>non-comprehended will end up an empty set.
Once again, we don't want to confuse "comprehensible" with
"comprehended."
Matt, the comprehensibility of the universe is widely recognized as
one of the founding assumptions of modern science. Hmmm...what kind
of a quote do I have for you on this? Let's see...well, here are a
few: "The modern practice of science is premised upon the radical
assumption that the physical universe is comprehensible to humans."
Also, "...the implied limit on human comprehension is profoundly
anti-scientific." And, "In education as well as practice, the axiom
of comprehensibility should be emphasized as the wellspring of
scientific endeavor."
I could go on, but that should suffice.
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>In article <365c1d93....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>On 25 Nov 1998 09:16:38 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>wrote:
>>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>>Woodard):
>>>>On 25 Nov 1998 00:50:51 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>>>wrote:
>>>>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>>>>Woodard):
>
>[...]
>
>KW>The more difficult it is to explain, without recourse to
>KW>teleology, observed features of life, the more likely the
>KW>teleological explanations become. Or so it seems to me.
>
>Let me pose an alternative phrasing.
>
>"The more difficult it is to explain, without recourse to
>teleology, observed features of life, the less obviously
>invalid the teleological explanations become. Or so it
>seems to me."
I think it goes too far to say teleological explanations are obviously
invalid. If we ignore the issue of possible counter-evidence (IC
sysems, etc.), I think it's fairer to say that Occam's razor indicates
teleological explanations are less likely to be valid.
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>In article <365beada....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>On 25 Nov 1998 00:50:49 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>wrote:
>>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>>Woodard):
>
>KW>[snip]
>
> KW>Couldn't Dembski argue that we have past experience of IC systems
> KW>having been produced by the action of an intelligent agency?
>
>MS>Does not help. We can find six classes of systems:
>
>MS>1) IC system designed by a designer
>MS>2) non-IC systems designed by a designer
>MS>3) IC systems with no designer
>MS>4) non-IC systems with no designer
>MS>5) IC systems with an unknown origin
>MS>6) non-IC systems an unknown origin
>
>MS>That systems of class 1 exist does not tell us that systems of
>MS>class 5 belong to class 1.
>
>KW>Matt, I'm making a point about the language of Wesley's third
>KW>filter. Please examine that and explain why you disagree with me.
>
>Because it doesn't say anything that could be remotely construed
>to endorse the implication Matt shows is invalid above?
>
>[Quote]
>
>WRE>3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
>WRE>which we have past experience of having been produced by the
>WRE>action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe
>WRE>intelligent agency as a cause, and no further explanation is
>WRE>necessary.
>
>[End Quote]
>
>KW><snip>
I've handled this on another post.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from may...@andrews.edu:
>
>>In article <366f9bf3...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>,
>> mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein) wrote:
>>> In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>> Woodard):
>>>
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>> >It seems reasonable that non-intelligently-guided evolutionary
>>> >processes could produce relatively simple IC systems, under
>>> >circumstances where distinct, successive functions could serve as
>>> >"bridges," but with complex systems where no one can imagine what the
>>> >intervening functions could be, this could begin to seem unlikely.
>>> >
>>> And how does your ability to imagine constrain the universe?
>>
>>Keith is right; it's unlikely that many of these bridges would be around.
>
>Really? So we go from "I can't imagine how" to "It is unlikely". You
>both seem to think that your ability to imagine says something about
>how things work.
<snip>
I should clarify and expand on this. Imagination does play a role,
but I think the term "intuition" would be closer to the mark. And,
yes, I do think it tells us something about how things work.
Let's consider Wesley's LGM-1 and Dembski's SETI examples side by
side. (We'll refer to Dembski's hypthesized source as DHS-1.)
To the extent that LGM-1's signal is regular (it repeats every 1.34
seconds) it lacks complexity. It does show complex variations in
intensity, but these match no independently specified pattern anyone
can identify. We'll assume a state of knowledge such that no one can
imagine what lawlike mechanism could explain the signal's properties.
DHS-1 puts out a signal matching the pattern of a long series of prime
numbers. No one can think of a lawlike mechanism for this either.
Despite the failure of imagination in both cases, confidence in the ID
theory would be justified only for DHS-1. I think Dembski is correct
that this is due to its specified complexity.
But no matter what degree of specified complexity is present, how can
we ever justify any degree of confidence that no unknown lawlike
mechanism could produce such a signal?
I don't believe we have anything more than the human intuitive
judgement that this would be unlikely in the extreme.
Whether this intuition is hard-wired or the result of experience is
difficult to say, but my vote would be for elements of both. A
capacity for a reasonably accurate intuitive sense of how the world
operates would certainly have survival value.
I think this same intuition is especially well-developed in those
responsible for major scientific breakthroughs.
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 26 Nov 1998 03:16:23 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>In article <365be8f2....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>On 25 Nov 1998 01:04:08 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>>In article <365b8a4e....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:59:27 -0500, qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith Woodard)
>>>>>wrote:
>>>>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:37:17 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>>>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
[...]
KW>You seem to agree that ICness is a class for which we have
KW>past experience of having been produced by the action of an
KW>intelligent agency.
WRE>Not that I see. IOW, no, I do not agree with that. IC is
WRE>an *attribute* of a system, not a *class* of phenomena.
KW>It seems to me it defines a class.
Yes, the class "systems that have the attribute of ICness".
That is *not* the class "phenomena that have been produced via
intelligent agency", which is the class that my item 3 deals
with.
KW>Would you agree that systems with the attribute of ICness
KW>fall into the class of IC phenomena?
Yes, but as I show above, it doesn't really make any difference
whether a class can be constructed around ICness, since that
is not the class under discussion.
KW>So if P is an IC system, how do you escape the implication
KW>that we can reasonably ascribe it to intelligent agency?
WRE>"IC -> design" is false if for any system X, X has the IC
WRE>attribute but is not due to design. Biological production of
WRE>IC means that such systems exist, thus "IC -> design" is
WRE>false.
KW>I argue below that this runs counter to your third filter.
I don't believe that the argument holds, and I point out a
fallacy, as was requested. See below.
WRE>Beyond that, Dembski distinguishes between "design" and
WRE>"agency".
WRE>[Quote]
WAD>These two moves - ruling out regularity, and then ruling out
WAD>chance - constitute the design inference. The conception of
WAD>design that emerges from the design inference is therefore
WAD>eliminative, asserting of an event what it is not, not what it
WAD>is. To attribute an event to design is to say that regularity
WAD>and chance have been ruled out. Referring Caputo's ballot line
WAD>selections to design is therefore not identical with referring
WAD>it to agency. To be sure, design renders agency plausible. But
WAD>as the negation of regularity and chance, design is a mode of
WAD>explanation logically preliminary to agency. Certainly agency
WAD>(in this case cheating) best explains Caputo's ballot line
WAD>selections. But no one was privy to Caputo's ballot line
WAD>selections. In the absence of an exact causal story, the New
WAD>Jersey Supreme Court therefore went as far as it could in the
WAD>Caputo case.
WRE>[End Quote - WA Dembski, The Design Inference, pp.19-20]
KW>I don't see the relevance of this to your third filter.
It was additional commentary.
KW>However, as an aside, I think you're correct Dembski is
KW>backtracking here. It implies to me he doesn't think
KW>regularity, chance and agency exhaust the possibilities.
Not "agency"; "design". And he explicitly states that the
alternatives are exhausted.
[Quote]
Defining design as the set-theoretic complement of the
disjunction regularity-or-chance guarantees that the three
modes of explanation are mutually exclusive and exhaustive.
[End Quote - WA Dembski, TDI, p.36]
KW>I want to be clear that I'm not referring in any way to
KW>your personal beliefs about whether ICness implies design.
KW>I know very well you reject that proposition. Let's restrict
KW>this discussion to the implications of the language of
KW>your third filter.
WRE>Right. There is no endorsement of "IC -> design" in what
WRE>I wrote. That was a short discussion.
KW>I hope we can prolong it a bit more. I hope this is a
KW>clearer outline of my argument. Perhaps you can identify
KW>its fallacy.
KW>Premise: If a phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena
KW>for which we have past experience of having been produced
KW>by the action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to
KW>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
KW>explanation is necessary. [Your filter.]
KW>Premise: The class of IC systems is a class of phenomena
KW>for which we have past experience of having been produced
KW>by the action of an intelligent agency. [You seem to agree.]
This is where the fallacy lies, and I object to the
characterization of even "seeming" to agree to this. I have
explicitly stated my disagreement with each opportunity given.
The class defined as "systems having the attribute of ICness"
(Class-IC) is *not* the class "phenomena for which we have
past experience of having been produced by the action of an
intelligent agency" (Class-IA). Keith would have to show that
there was no *possibility* that any instance in Class-IC could
fall outside membership in Class-IA for his further argument
to stand. Now, one way to make the argument valid would be to
restrict Class-IC further, so that it was the class of
"systems with the attribute of ICness that are known by prior
experience to have been produced by an intelligent agent"
(Class-IC-IA). This, though, does not introduce any problem
for my filter.
KW>Premise: Phenomenon P falls into the class of IC systems.
KW>[By hypothesis.]
KW>Conclusion: P is a phenomenon for which it is reasonable to
KW>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
KW>explanation is necessary.
This is fallacious because Class-IC has not been shown to have
no possibility of an instance outside of Class-IA. My filter
is not prone to the problem that Keith has been talking about
concerning ICness.
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"You know they all see, but most of them pass" - BOC
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
>On 27 Nov 1998 17:04:58 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>wrote:
>
[snip]
>Matt, the comprehensibility of the universe is widely recognized as
>one of the founding assumptions of modern science. Hmmm...what kind
>of a quote do I have for you on this? Let's see...well, here are a
>few: "The modern practice of science is premised upon the radical
>assumption that the physical universe is comprehensible to humans."
>Also, "...the implied limit on human comprehension is profoundly
>anti-scientific." And, "In education as well as practice, the axiom
>of comprehensibility should be emphasized as the wellspring of
>scientific endeavor."
>
>I could go on, but that should suffice.
>
Ok. I don't like it and I disagree with it, but my want and desires
are irrelevant. I will accept that plenty of people do take as an
assumption that the world is comprehensible.
Matt Silberstein
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 27 Nov 1998 17:04:58 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>wrote:
[...]
KW>Once again, we don't want to confuse "comprehensible" with
KW>"comprehended."
KW>Matt, the comprehensibility of the universe is widely
KW>recognized as one of the founding assumptions of modern
KW>science. Hmmm...what kind of a quote do I have for you on
KW>this? Let's see...well, here are a few: "The modern practice
KW>of science is premised upon the radical assumption that the
KW>physical universe is comprehensible to humans." Also, "...the
KW>implied limit on human comprehension is profoundly
KW>anti-scientific." And, "In education as well as practice, the
KW>axiom of comprehensibility should be emphasized as the
KW>wellspring of scientific endeavor."
KW>I could go on, but that should suffice.
Well, Matt might not accept my say-so as a relevant authority.
Those are from my "Enterprising science needs naturalism" essay,
aren't they?
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"Priests are expendable," said Simony. "There's too many of them."-SG
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
[snip]
>
>I should clarify and expand on this. Imagination does play a role,
>but I think the term "intuition" would be closer to the mark. And,
>yes, I do think it tells us something about how things work.
>
>Let's consider Wesley's LGM-1 and Dembski's SETI examples side by
>side. (We'll refer to Dembski's hypthesized source as DHS-1.)
>
>To the extent that LGM-1's signal is regular (it repeats every 1.34
>seconds) it lacks complexity. It does show complex variations in
>intensity, but these match no independently specified pattern anyone
>can identify. We'll assume a state of knowledge such that no one can
>imagine what lawlike mechanism could explain the signal's properties.
>
Remember that the patterns of a snowflake and the Mandelbrot Set are
also the product of a "regularity".
>
>DHS-1 puts out a signal matching the pattern of a long series of prime
>numbers. No one can think of a lawlike mechanism for this either.
>
>Despite the failure of imagination in both cases, confidence in the ID
>theory would be justified only for DHS-1. I think Dembski is correct
>that this is due to its specified complexity.
>
>But no matter what degree of specified complexity is present, how can
>we ever justify any degree of confidence that no unknown lawlike
>mechanism could produce such a signal?
>
>I don't believe we have anything more than the human intuitive
>judgement that this would be unlikely in the extreme.
>
>Whether this intuition is hard-wired or the result of experience is
>difficult to say, but my vote would be for elements of both. A
>capacity for a reasonably accurate intuitive sense of how the world
>operates would certainly have survival value.
>
Hubris, as well, could have that survival value.
>I think this same intuition is especially well-developed in those
>responsible for major scientific breakthroughs.
>
And for major blindness.
Try this, instead. For some phenomenon X I will grant you that it
could not have been produced by chance and could not have been
produced by a regularity (natural law). I will even grant you that X
was produced by some designer billions of years ago. I will give you
all that. Now what? We all accept it was designed. What does that tell
us? What do we now know about the designer? AFAICT, nothing.
Mark Isaak
Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>Woodard):
>>one of the founding assumptions of modern science. Hmmm...what kind
>>of a quote do I have for you on this? Let's see...well, here are a
>>few: "The modern practice of science is premised upon the radical
>>assumption that the physical universe is comprehensible to humans."
>>[etc.]
>>
>Ok. I don't like it and I disagree with it, but my want and desires
>are irrelevant. I will accept that plenty of people do take as an
>assumption that the world is comprehensible.
Science is based on the premise that more of the universe is
comprehensible than is currently comprehended. How many scientists,
though, believe that *everything* will someday be comprehended? Not me,
and I suspect very few others.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>Woodard):
>
>>On 27 Nov 1998 17:04:58 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>wrote:
>>
>[snip]
>
>>Matt, the comprehensibility of the universe is widely recognized as
>>one of the founding assumptions of modern science. Hmmm...what kind
>>of a quote do I have for you on this? Let's see...well, here are a
>>few: "The modern practice of science is premised upon the radical
>>assumption that the physical universe is comprehensible to humans."
>>Also, "...the implied limit on human comprehension is profoundly
>>anti-scientific." And, "In education as well as practice, the axiom
>>of comprehensibility should be emphasized as the wellspring of
>>scientific endeavor."
>>
>>I could go on, but that should suffice.
>>
>Ok. I don't like it and I disagree with it, but my want and desires
>are irrelevant. I will accept that plenty of people do take as an
>assumption that the world is comprehensible.
I'm afraid you're a bit too much of a gentleman and a scholar for my
taste. You were supposed to self-righteously demand a source for my
quotes. My response would have been great, trust me.
Why can't I get any cooperation around here?
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
I'll assume the phrase "phenomena that have been produced via
intelligent agency" is not intended to remove the reference to past
experience, and that it refers to the same class as "phenomena for
which we have past experience of having been produced by the action of
an intelligent agency."
In this context, my answer is that, at some point in our history, all
known IC systems were artificial. At that point, Class-IC would have
to be considered a wholly included subclass of Class-IA, which is the
class your item three deals with.
>KW>Would you agree that systems with the attribute of ICness
>KW>fall into the class of IC phenomena?
>
>Yes, but as I show above, it doesn't really make any difference
>whether a class can be constructed around ICness, since that
>is not the class under discussion.
It would seem to me a wholly included subclass of the class under
discussion.
<snip of now-superfluous text>
>KW>However, as an aside, I think you're correct Dembski is
>KW>backtracking here. It implies to me he doesn't think
>KW>regularity, chance and agency exhaust the possibilities.
>
>Not "agency"; "design". And he explicitly states that the
>alternatives are exhausted.
Only because of his odd definition of design. That's my point. I'm
speculating he chose it because "agency" -- the traditional meaning of
design -- did *not* lead to possibility exhaustion. This is an
inconsequential point, but I wanted it clear I was paying attention --
at least on this point.
<snip>
> KW>I want to be clear that I'm not referring in any way to
> KW>your personal beliefs about whether ICness implies design.
> KW>I know very well you reject that proposition. Let's restrict
> KW>this discussion to the implications of the language of
> KW>your third filter.
>
>WRE>Right. There is no endorsement of "IC -> design" in what
>WRE>I wrote. That was a short discussion.
>
>KW>I hope we can prolong it a bit more. I hope this is a
>KW>clearer outline of my argument. Perhaps you can identify
>KW>its fallacy.
>
>KW>Premise: If a phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena
>KW>for which we have past experience of having been produced
>KW>by the action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to
>KW>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
>KW>explanation is necessary. [Your filter.]
>
>KW>Premise: The class of IC systems is a class of phenomena
>KW>for which we have past experience of having been produced
>KW>by the action of an intelligent agency. [You seem to agree.]
>
>This is where the fallacy lies, and I object to the
>characterization of even "seeming" to agree to this. I have
>explicitly stated my disagreement with each opportunity given.
Well, you did agree that "humans routinely produce IC systems." And,
while you skipped ahead and deemed this insufficient to consider IC
systems designed, you haven't yet specifically addressed this
interposing premise.
(However, just as I wouldn't want readers unintentionally left with
the impression I was ignoring your stated disagreements, I wouldn't
want to suggest you've been ignoring my premise. What happened was
that, in my last post, I made explicit this previously implicit
premise, precisely because you were rejecting the conclusion. I did
not, and still do not, see what justification you could have for
rejecting the premise, yet, without rejecting it, its hard to see how
you could reasonably reject the conclusion.)
You hadn't, until now, explicitly said that the fact that humans
routinely produce IC systems is insufficient to consider them a class
for which we have past experience of having been produced by
intelligent agency. I was foolish enough to think you would not hold
this position, and I apologize.
I do think most folks would consider the routine human production of
IC systems sufficient to consider them a class for which we have past
experience of having been produced by intelligent agency. While you
have explained why you don't think IC systems warrant a design
inference, I don't think you've advanced a justification for the
position that human production of IC systems is insufficient to
consider them a class for which we have past experience of having been
produced by intelligent agency.
>The class defined as "systems having the attribute of ICness"
>(Class-IC) is *not* the class "phenomena for which we have
>past experience of having been produced by the action of an
>intelligent agency" (Class-IA).
The issue isn't whether Class-IC is identical with Class-IA, but
whether Class-IC is a wholly included subclass of Class-IA. I
maintain that, at least before we discovered biological IC systems, it
was.
>Keith would have to show that
>there was no *possibility* that any instance in Class-IC could
>fall outside membership in Class-IA for his further argument
>to stand.
First, this appears to be a new requirement. At least, I can't find
it anywhere in your EF.
Second, consider its implications. Presently, all known occurrences
of the element americium form a wholly included subclass of Class-IA.
Now, suppose a future interstellar probe encounters americium far, far
away. One would have thought stage three of your filter would compel
us to assign this to Class-IA.
The concept underlying stage three was, I thought, that if we're
convinced every known representative of a class is artificial, the
class is considered a wholly included subclass of Class-IA. Hence, on
encountering a phenomenon not of our manufacture, but whose attributes
qualify it for membership in this subclass, we'd be honor-bound to
assign it to Class-IA.
But apparently not. Another requirement now stands in our path.
Possession of the attributes defining a wholly included subclass of
Class-IA is no longer sufficient for inclusion in Class-IA. We must
also show the absence of any *possibility* an unknown lawlike or
random process could have produced the phenomenon. Your EF, with this
requirement, would therefore bar the distant americium from membership
in Class-IA.
Nor would it allow us to ascribe Dembski's "Made by Yahweh" and SETI
cases to intelligence. This seems to me a major drawback, since most
folks would think it unreasonable not to invoke intelligence under
those circumstances.
How could science ever disprove the possibility that *any* phenomenon
-- including one whose attributes define a wholly included subclass of
Class-IA -- could be produced without IA? I'm frankly unable to
conceive of any circumstance under which your stage three could ever
be triggered. Could you provide an illustration?
>Now, one way to make the argument valid would be to
>restrict Class-IC further, so that it was the class of
>"systems with the attribute of ICness that are known by prior
>experience to have been produced by an intelligent agent"
>(Class-IC-IA). This, though, does not introduce any problem
>for my filter.
I, of course, imagine I've just refuted your attempt to refute my
argument. :-)
>KW>Premise: Phenomenon P falls into the class of IC systems.
>KW>[By hypothesis.]
>
>KW>Conclusion: P is a phenomenon for which it is reasonable to
>KW>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
>KW>explanation is necessary.
>
>This is fallacious because Class-IC has not been shown to have
>no possibility of an instance outside of Class-IA. My filter
>is not prone to the problem that Keith has been talking about
>concerning ICness.
This "no possibility" requirement, which I can't find in the wording
of your EF, would presumably apply not only to Class-IC, but to any
wholly included subclass of Class-IA. If the Hubble telescope were to
detect an enormous Rolex in orbit around Sirius, this requirement
would preclude its membership in Class-IA. Since science is incapable
of proving the absence of any possibility that unknown lawlike
processes could create a given phenomenon, this would seem to set the
bar unreasonably high.
A reflection on our debate so far. Whichever of us is wrong has
certainly marshaled some ingenious and wonderfully persuasive
arguments on behalf of his untenable position.
I'm not yet sure who that is, but my hat is off to him.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>Woodard):
>
>[snip]
>>
>>I should clarify and expand on this. Imagination does play a role,
>>but I think the term "intuition" would be closer to the mark. And,
>>yes, I do think it tells us something about how things work.
>>
>>Let's consider Wesley's LGM-1 and Dembski's SETI examples side by
>>side. (We'll refer to Dembski's hypthesized source as DHS-1.)
>>
>>To the extent that LGM-1's signal is regular (it repeats every 1.34
>>seconds) it lacks complexity. It does show complex variations in
>>intensity, but these match no independently specified pattern anyone
>>can identify. We'll assume a state of knowledge such that no one can
>>imagine what lawlike mechanism could explain the signal's properties.
>>
>Remember that the patterns of a snowflake and the Mandelbrot Set are
>also the product of a "regularity".
Yes... ?
>>DHS-1 puts out a signal matching the pattern of a long series of prime
>>numbers. No one can think of a lawlike mechanism for this either.
>>
>>Despite the failure of imagination in both cases, confidence in the ID
>>theory would be justified only for DHS-1. I think Dembski is correct
>>that this is due to its specified complexity.
>>
>>But no matter what degree of specified complexity is present, how can
>>we ever justify any degree of confidence that no unknown lawlike
>>mechanism could produce such a signal?
>>
>>I don't believe we have anything more than the human intuitive
>>judgement that this would be unlikely in the extreme.
>>
>>Whether this intuition is hard-wired or the result of experience is
>>difficult to say, but my vote would be for elements of both. A
>>capacity for a reasonably accurate intuitive sense of how the world
>>operates would certainly have survival value.
>>
>Hubris, as well, could have that survival value.
Doesn't seem to me hubris would have quite the survival value as a
capacity for an intuitive sense of how the world works.
>>I think this same intuition is especially well-developed in those
>>responsible for major scientific breakthroughs.
>>
>And for major blindness.
I don't follow.
>Try this, instead. For some phenomenon X, I will grant you that it
>could not have been produced by chance and could not have been
>produced by a regularity (natural law). I will even grant you that X
>was produced by some designer billions of years ago. I will give you
>all that. Now what? We all accept it was designed. What does that tell
>us? What do we now know about the designer? AFAICT, nothing.
You are correct, sir.
Ivar Ylvisaker
Keith Woodard wrote:
Are you implying that children in America's public schools should be taught
that intelligent design is an authentic scientific concept?
Ivar
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>In article <36610269....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>On 27 Nov 1998 17:04:58 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>KW>Once again, we don't want to confuse "comprehensible" with
>KW>"comprehended."
>
>KW>Matt, the comprehensibility of the universe is widely
>KW>recognized as one of the founding assumptions of modern
>KW>science. Hmmm...what kind of a quote do I have for you on
>KW>this? Let's see...well, here are a few: "The modern practice
>KW>of science is premised upon the radical assumption that the
>KW>physical universe is comprehensible to humans." Also, "...the
>KW>implied limit on human comprehension is profoundly
>KW>anti-scientific." And, "In education as well as practice, the
>KW>axiom of comprehensibility should be emphasized as the
>KW>wellspring of scientific endeavor."
>
>KW>I could go on, but that should suffice.
>
>Well, Matt might not accept my say-so as a relevant authority.
>Those are from my "Enterprising science needs naturalism" essay,
>aren't they?
Well, why not start at the top, I always say. Indeed two of them were
from your excellent paper at:
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/zgists/wre/projs/ntatse.html
The one about "profoundly anti-scientific" was actually from a 18 Feb
1997 T.O. post in a thread in which Matt was participating.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>
>Keith Woodard wrote:
>
>> On 2 Dec 1998 11:40:32 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >Try this, instead. For some phenomenon X, I will grant you that it
>> >could not have been produced by chance and could not have been
>> >produced by a regularity (natural law). I will even grant you that X
>> >was produced by some designer billions of years ago. I will give you
>> >all that. Now what? We all accept it was designed. What does that tell
>> >us? What do we now know about the designer? AFAICT, nothing.
>>
>> You are correct, sir.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Keith
>
>Are you implying that children in America's public schools should be taught
>that intelligent design is an authentic scientific concept?
I'm sorry, Ivar. My expertise is not in the area of primary school
curriculum.
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
>On 2 Dec 1998 11:40:32 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>wrote:
>
[snip]
>>>I think this same intuition is especially well-developed in those
>>>responsible for major scientific breakthroughs.
>>>
>>And for major blindness.
>
>I don't follow.
>
Ironically enough, you did. This "intuition" leads to the "it was
designed" results, which you agree below tells us nothing. So, ISTM,
it blinds us from looking for meaningful explanations.
>>Try this, instead. For some phenomenon X, I will grant you that it
>>could not have been produced by chance and could not have been
>>produced by a regularity (natural law). I will even grant you that X
>>was produced by some designer billions of years ago. I will give you
>>all that. Now what? We all accept it was designed. What does that tell
>>us? What do we now know about the designer? AFAICT, nothing.
>
>You are correct, sir.
>
Then what is your point? The result Dembski (and others) strive for
has no value, even if their logic did (which it does not).
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 1 Dec 1998 00:56:58 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>In article <365f0b32....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>On 26 Nov 1998 03:16:23 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>>In article <365be8f2....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>>On 25 Nov 1998 01:04:08 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>>>>In article <365b8a4e....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:59:27 -0500, qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith Woodard)
>>>>>>>wrote:
>>>>>>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:37:17 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>>>>>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
This has gone on a while, eh?
WRE>[...]
KW>You seem to agree that ICness is a class for which we have
KW>past experience of having been produced by the action of an
KW>intelligent agency.
WRE>Not that I see. IOW, no, I do not agree with that. IC is
WRE>an *attribute* of a system, not a *class* of phenomena.
KW>It seems to me it defines a class.
WRE>Yes, the class "systems that have the attribute of ICness".
WRE>That is *not* the class "phenomena that have been produced via
WRE>intelligent agency", which is the class that my item 3 deals
WRE>with.
KW>I'll assume the phrase "phenomena that have been produced
KW>via intelligent agency" is not intended to remove the
KW>reference to past experience, and that it refers to the same
KW>class as "phenomena for which we have past experience of
KW>having been produced by the action of an intelligent agency."
Yes. Good catch.
KW>In this context, my answer is that, at some point in our
KW>history, all known IC systems were artificial. At that point,
KW>Class-IC would have to be considered a wholly included
KW>subclass of Class-IA, which is the class your item three deals
KW>with.
And my answer is that that reasoning is fallacious. Hopefully
the reasons why will become clearer by the end of this
response. Basically, we can take "Class-IA(E) -> des(E)" as
valid, but "Class-IC(E) -> des(E)" does not gain validity
simply because some examples of Class-IC are also examples of
Class-IA.
KW>Would you agree that systems with the attribute of ICness
KW>fall into the class of IC phenomena?
WRE>Yes, but as I show above, it doesn't really make any difference
WRE>whether a class can be constructed around ICness, since that
WRE>is not the class under discussion.
KW>It would seem to me a wholly included subclass of the class
KW>under discussion.
In the state of limited knowledge that Keith stipulates elsewhere,
or is this a stronger assertion?
The stronger assertion is trivially false, so I'll assume that
the limited case is at issue. What I see being attempted is
to sneak in instances that my alternate filter does not
accept. We can posit the existence of some subset of Class-IA
with some attribute, it doesn't matter which. Let's see...
the tool chest over there is red, and falls in Class-IA. The
Coca-Cola can beside me has red on it, and is Class-IA. The
screwdriver handle is red, and also Class-IA. Some limited
state of knowledge can be posited in which Class-Red is a
proper subset of Class-IA. Is "Class-Red(E) -> des(E)"
therefore justified? Once we come to a common acceptance that
such exercises do not yield valid inferences, then we can move
on to dealing with the specific or ad hoc claims that Class-IC
is qualitatively different from other potential subsets of
Class-IA, and thus must be considered on its own merits. What
those merits might be, though, remain a mystery.
One clue to see if an implication is not quite what it seems
on first glance is to examine the logically-equivalent
contrapositive. Thus, we examine "~des(E) -> ~Class-Red(E)",
and find that the implication says things far beyond the
ability of logic to determine or constrain.
KW><snip of now-superfluous text>
I saw somebody using a quote attributed to me as a tagline the
other day. It read, "Never agree with me -- it shakes my
self-confidence." I don't recall having said that, but I
think it's something I might have wanted to say at some time.
(Of course, the other time someone has quoted me for a sig was
even more obscure, something like, "If cucumbers and
watermelons had antigravity, sunsets would be more
interesting.")
KW>However, as an aside, I think you're correct Dembski is
KW>backtracking here. It implies to me he doesn't think
KW>regularity, chance and agency exhaust the possibilities.
WRE>Not "agency"; "design". And he explicitly states that the
WRE>alternatives are exhausted.
KW>Only because of his odd definition of design. That's my
KW>point. I'm speculating he chose it because "agency" -- the
KW>traditional meaning of design -- did *not* lead to possibility
KW>exhaustion. This is an inconsequential point, but I wanted it
KW>clear I was paying attention -- at least on this point.
OK.
KW><snip>
KW>I want to be clear that I'm not referring in any way to
KW>your personal beliefs about whether ICness implies design.
KW>I know very well you reject that proposition. Let's restrict
KW>this discussion to the implications of the language of
KW>your third filter.
WRE>Right. There is no endorsement of "IC -> design" in what
WRE>I wrote. That was a short discussion.
KW>I hope we can prolong it a bit more. I hope this is a
KW>clearer outline of my argument. Perhaps you can identify
KW>its fallacy.
KW>Premise [1]: If a phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena
KW>for which we have past experience of having been produced
KW>by the action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to
KW>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
KW>explanation is necessary. [Your filter.]
KW>Premise [2]: The class of IC systems is a class of phenomena
KW>for which we have past experience of having been produced
KW>by the action of an intelligent agency. [You seem to agree.]
I added numbers to the above for later reference.
WRE>This is where the fallacy lies, and I object to the
WRE>characterization of even "seeming" to agree to this. I have
WRE>explicitly stated my disagreement with each opportunity given.
KW>Well, you did agree that "humans routinely produce IC
KW>systems." And, while you skipped ahead and deemed this
KW>insufficient to consider IC systems designed, you haven't yet
KW>specifically addressed this interposing premise.
Whereas I feel that I *have* addressed this premise, or at
least that I have given explicit arugments that are
inconsistent with or contradictory to this premise, and thus
am at a loss as to how this premise can be attributed to me,
even implicitly.
KW>(However, just as I wouldn't want readers unintentionally
KW>left with the impression I was ignoring your stated
KW>disagreements, I wouldn't want to suggest you've been ignoring
KW>my premise. What happened was that, in my last post, I made
KW>explicit this previously implicit premise, precisely because
KW>you were rejecting the conclusion. I did not, and still do
KW>not, see what justification you could have for rejecting the
KW>premise, yet, without rejecting it, its hard to see how you
KW>could reasonably reject the conclusion.)
KW>You hadn't, until now, explicitly said that the fact that
KW>humans routinely produce IC systems is insufficient to
KW>consider them a class for which we have past experience of
KW>having been produced by intelligent agency. I was foolish
KW>enough to think you would not hold this position, and I
KW>apologize.
KW>I do think most folks would consider the routine human
KW>production of IC systems sufficient to consider them a class
KW>for which we have past experience of having been produced by
KW>intelligent agency. While you have explained why you don't
KW>think IC systems warrant a design inference, I don't think
KW>you've advanced a justification for the position that human
KW>production of IC systems is insufficient to consider them a
KW>class for which we have past experience of having been
KW>produced by intelligent agency.
Because Class-IC is, in my opinion, no more tightly linked to
design than Class-Red is. When we limit our knowledge set
such that we have a subset of Class-IA simply due to not
examining the rest of that class, we must forego any inference
that relies upon the membership of an instance in Class-IA,
because we have introduced indeterminacy on that point in our
definition of the second class. If we wish to use an
implication based upon the second class, it must be justified
on its *own* merits, not from the merits of another class.
Premise [2] establishes a class of phenomena known by past
experience to be due to intelligent agency *only* for those
instances which already have membership in Class-IA.
Attempting to utilize membership in Class-IC to infer design
without checking for membership of that instance in Class-IA
is an error.
WRE>The class defined as "systems having the attribute of ICness"
WRE>(Class-IC) is *not* the class "phenomena for which we have
WRE>past experience of having been produced by the action of an
WRE>intelligent agency" (Class-IA).
KW>The issue isn't whether Class-IC is identical with
KW>Class-IA, but whether Class-IC is a wholly included
KW>subclass of Class-IA. I maintain that, at least before we
KW>discovered biological IC systems, it was.
Just as for just about any attribute that one cares to name,
some knowledge set can be constructed that would make the
class so constructed a proper subset of Class-IA. This
doesn't make any of the resulting
"ignorance-subclass-of-Class-IA(E) -> des(E)" implications
valid. My filter works upon membership in Class-IA. Those
instances that have joint membership in Class-IA and Class-IC
will be found to be due to design. Those instances in
Class-IC but not Class-IA will not be. I fail to see where
the difficulty lies.
WRE>Keith would have to show that
WRE>there was no *possibility* that any instance in Class-IC could
WRE>fall outside membership in Class-IA for his further argument
WRE>to stand.
KW>First, this appears to be a new requirement. At least, I
KW>can't find it anywhere in your EF.
IMO, it's packaged into logic. If Class-IC cannot be shown to
be a proper subset of another class when *all* its possible
instances are considered, then no inference based upon the
other class can be said to be transferable to Class-IC. Any
implication made from the basis of membership in Class-IC
would have to be established upon other grounds than simply
having some instances with membership in the other class.
KW>Second, consider its implications. Presently, all known
KW>occurrences of the element americium form a wholly included
KW>subclass of Class-IA. Now, suppose a future interstellar
KW>probe encounters americium far, far away. One would have
KW>thought stage three of your filter would compel us to assign
KW>this to Class-IA.
KW>The concept underlying stage three was, I thought, that if
KW>we're convinced every known representative of a class is
KW>artificial, the class is considered a wholly included subclass
KW>of Class-IA. Hence, on encountering a phenomenon not of our
KW>manufacture, but whose attributes qualify it for membership in
KW>this subclass, we'd be honor-bound to assign it to Class-IA.
KW>But apparently not. Another requirement now stands in our
KW>path. Possession of the attributes defining a wholly included
KW>subclass of Class-IA is no longer sufficient for inclusion in
KW>Class-IA. We must also show the absence of any *possibility*
KW>an unknown lawlike or random process could have produced the
KW>phenomenon. Your EF, with this requirement, would therefore
KW>bar the distant americium from membership in Class-IA.
No, this is in error. Keith is mixing up testing for
membership in Class-IA with the point under discussion, which
is whether membership in a *different* class allows us to use
the logical arguments, inferences, and implications that were
based upon the relations pertaining to Class-IA. I see no
problem in my alternate EF in assigning membership of distant
americium to Class-IA (pending vetting by physicists on that),
and thus to design. The analogy really would be, "Americium
is produced by action of intelligent agents, but not in
detectable quantities via natural causes. Americium is
radioactive. Therefore, finding radioactive materials in
detectable quantities indicates the action of an intelligent
agent." There is a difference in assigning *membership in*
Class-IA and in coming up with a class to substitute as if it
*were* Class-IA.
KW>Nor would it allow us to ascribe Dembski's "Made by Yahweh"
KW>and SETI cases to intelligence. This seems to me a major
KW>drawback, since most folks would think it unreasonable not to
KW>invoke intelligence under those circumstances.
Since I don't think that Keith has demonstrated my alternate
EF to have this drawback, I think it is a moot point.
I haven't previously addressed the "Made by Yahweh" example,
but I have discussed SETI before in threads earlier this
year. SETI doesn't provide a problem either for my alternate
filter nor for my viewpoint.
KW>How could science ever disprove the possibility that *any*
KW>phenomenon -- including one whose attributes define a wholly
KW>included subclass of Class-IA -- could be produced without IA?
KW>I'm frankly unable to conceive of any circumstance under which
KW>your stage three could ever be triggered. Could you provide
KW>an illustration?
Testing membership in Class-IA is a different process from
finding a substitute for Class-IA. All the usual examples
of intelligent agency are found to be in Class-IA.
As to the difficulty of showing that the substitute for
Class-IA actually allows us to treat it as if it were itself
Class-IA, well, that really is a point to consider seriously.
One might suspect that given the amount of brainpower that
has gone into the problem since the 1700's that some further
progress might have been made on that score if it were easy
to do.
WRE>Now, one way to make the argument valid would be to
WRE>restrict Class-IC further, so that it was the class of
WRE>"systems with the attribute of ICness that are known by prior
WRE>experience to have been produced by an intelligent agent"
WRE>(Class-IC-IA). This, though, does not introduce any problem
WRE>for my filter.
KW>I, of course, imagine I've just refuted your attempt to
KW>refute my argument. :-)
I agree that Keith's imagination is in excellent shape. ;-)
KW>Premise [3]: Phenomenon P falls into the class of IC systems.
KW>[By hypothesis.]
KW>Conclusion: P is a phenomenon for which it is reasonable to
KW>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
KW>explanation is necessary.
WRE>This is fallacious because Class-IC has not been shown to have
WRE>no possibility of an instance outside of Class-IA. My filter
WRE>is not prone to the problem that Keith has been talking about
WRE>concerning ICness.
KW>This "no possibility" requirement, which I can't find in
KW>the wording of your EF, would presumably apply not only to
KW>Class-IC, but to any wholly included subclass of Class-IA. If
KW>the Hubble telescope were to detect an enormous Rolex in orbit
KW>around Sirius, this requirement would preclude its membership
KW>in Class-IA. Since science is incapable of proving the
KW>absence of any possibility that unknown lawlike processes
KW>could create a given phenomenon, this would seem to set the
KW>bar unreasonably high.
As I argued above, the requirement is really just how I
perceive logic to work. I may get corrected on that by any of
several regulars around here who really know logic inside and
out.
I think the bar is exactly high enough. Why do we need a
substitute for Class-IA? If someone is going to propose a
substitute for Class-IA, how do they lay Hume's ghost?
KW>A reflection on our debate so far. Whichever of us is
KW>wrong has certainly marshaled some ingenious and
KW>wonderfully persuasive arguments on behalf of his untenable
KW>position.
KW>I'm not yet sure who that is, but my hat is off to him.
We'll get him a beer at the Panda's Thumb after the dust
settles. Heck, we'll both get a beer after the dust settles,
OK?
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"Day is OK and the sun can be fun\But I live to see those rays slip away" - BOC
Ivar Ylvisaker
Keith Woodard wrote:
> On 2 Dec 1998 22:38:36 -0500, Ivar Ylvisaker <ylvi...@erols.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >Keith Woodard wrote:
> >
> >> On 2 Dec 1998 11:40:32 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Try this, instead. For some phenomenon X, I will grant you that it
> >> >could not have been produced by chance and could not have been
> >> >produced by a regularity (natural law). I will even grant you that X
> >> >was produced by some designer billions of years ago. I will give you
> >> >all that. Now what? We all accept it was designed. What does that tell
> >> >us? What do we now know about the designer? AFAICT, nothing.
> >>
> >> You are correct, sir.
> >>
> >> Kind regards,
> >>
> >> Keith
> >
> >Are you implying that children in America's public schools should be taught
> >that intelligent design is an authentic scientific concept?
>
> I'm sorry, Ivar. My expertise is not in the area of primary school
> curriculum.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Keith
>
I was trying to clarify the intent of your words. The Supreme Court has
interpreted the first amendment to the Constitution to mean that Creationism
cannot be taught in the public schools. A document on the U.S. Department of
Education web site, entitled "Religion in the Public Schools: A Joint Statement
of Public Law" (http://www.ed.gov/Speeches/04-1995/prayer.html) discusses this
issue:
"6. These same rules apply to the recurring controversy surrounding theories of
evolution. Schools may teach about explanations of life on earth, including
religious ones (such as "creationism"), in comparative religion or social
studies classes. In science class, however, they may present only genuinely
scientific critiques of, or evidence for, any explanation of life on earth, but
not religious critiques (beliefs unverifiable by scientific methodology).
Schools may not refuse to teach evolutionary theory in order to avoid giving
offense to religion nor may they circumvent these rules by labeling as science
an article of religious faith. Public schools must not teach as scientific fact
or theory any religious doctrine, including "creationism," although any
genuinely scientific evidence for or against any explanation of life may be
taught. Just as they may neither advance nor inhibit any religious doctrine,
teachers should not ridicule, for example, a student's religious explanation for
life on earth."
A paper in the T.O. Archives (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.html) argues
that "Intelligent Design" is a new guise for creationism.
Are you asserting that intelligent design is supported by "genuinely scientific"
evidence and that, therefore, books like "Of Pandas and People" can legitimately
be used in the classroom? Or are your words merely "human intuitive judgments"
of no scientific significance?
Ivar
Wesley R. Elsberry
Mark Isaak <at...@best.comNOSPAM> wrote:
>In article <3691d8bc...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>,
>Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>Woodard):
KW>Matt, the comprehensibility of the universe is widely recognized as
KW>one of the founding assumptions of modern science. Hmmm...what kind
KW>of a quote do I have for you on this? Let's see...well, here are a
KW>few: "The modern practice of science is premised upon the radical
KW>assumption that the physical universe is comprehensible to humans."
KW>[etc.]
MS>Ok. I don't like it and I disagree with it, but my want and desires
MS>are irrelevant. I will accept that plenty of people do take as an
MS>assumption that the world is comprehensible.
MI>Science is based on the premise that more of the universe
MI>is comprehensible than is currently comprehended. How many
MI>scientists, though, believe that *everything* will someday be
MI>comprehended? Not me, and I suspect very few others.
My point with discussion of the axiom of comprehensibility is
that *each* phenomenon examined via the scientific method is
assumed to be comprehensible, not that *every* phenomenon will
be comprehended.
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"Forest keys and whirlwind cold\Green keys too and keys of gold" - BOC
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
<snip>
>MI>Science is based on the premise that more of the universe
>MI>is comprehensible than is currently comprehended. How many
>MI>scientists, though, believe that *everything* will someday be
>MI>comprehended? Not me, and I suspect very few others.
>
>My point with discussion of the axiom of comprehensibility is
>that *each* phenomenon examined via the scientific method is
>assumed to be comprehensible, not that *every* phenomenon will
>be comprehended.
Perhaps now you begin to see why I'm known as a "brilliant tactician."
Kind regards,
Keith "Divide and Conquer" Woodard
Keith Woodard
wrote:
I'll have to read it. My impression, though, is that ID doesn't
require creationism, and that most ID believers aren't creationists.
I'll say this, too. I'm satisfied that no valid proof for the
existence of God is known to Western philosophy, and I'd be shocked if
one ever surfaced.
But I don't agree that ID should a priori be held as a possibility
unworthy of consideration no matter what evidence is uncovered. In
fact, I've not yet heard anything to convince me it's not worthy of
consideration in the case of the flagellum.
>Are you asserting that intelligent design is supported by "genuinely scientific"
>evidence and that, therefore, books like "Of Pandas and People" can legitimately
>be used in the classroom? Or are your words merely "human intuitive judgments"
>of no scientific significance?
I'm unfamiliar with "Of Pandas and People." However, under the
conditions Matt described, I think ID should be considered a
reasonable scientific hypothesis.
Kind regards,
Keith
replace nospam with att
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>Woodard):
>
>>On 2 Dec 1998 11:40:32 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>wrote:
>>
>[snip]
>
>>>>I think this same intuition is especially well-developed in those
>>>>responsible for major scientific breakthroughs.
>>>>
>>>And for major blindness.
>>
>>I don't follow.
>>
>Ironically enough, you did. This "intuition" leads to the "it was
>designed" results, which you agree below tells us nothing. So, ISTM,
>it blinds us from looking for meaningful explanations.
In the example below, other explanations were examined and ruled out.
How is that blindness? Under those circumstances, I think the
blinders would consist in refusing to consider the possibility of IA.
Why you assume further investigation won't disclose evidence allowing
us to make further inferences about the IA in question is beyond me.
Are you opposed to SETI, then?
>>>Try this, instead. For some phenomenon X, I will grant you that it
>>>could not have been produced by chance and could not have been
>>>produced by a regularity (natural law). I will even grant you that X
>>>was produced by some designer billions of years ago. I will give you
>>>all that. Now what? We all accept it was designed. What does that tell
>>>us? What do we now know about the designer? AFAICT, nothing.
>>
>>You are correct, sir.
>>
>Then what is your point? The result Dembski (and others) strive for
>has no value, even if their logic did (which it does not).
Value judgments are subjective. Fair assesment of the evidence has
value to me, in and of itself.
Mark Isaak
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>My impression, though, is that ID doesn't
>require creationism, and that most ID believers aren't creationists.
You are correct that ID doesn't require creationism, but the reason people
are pushing it is to force God into classrooms by the back door.
>I'll say this, too. I'm satisfied that no valid proof for the
>existence of God is known to Western philosophy, and I'd be shocked if
>one ever surfaced.
If one does, I'll return to being an atheist. A God which will subject
Himself to Western philosophy is not one I could have any respect for.
>But I don't agree that ID should a priori be held as a possibility
>unworthy of consideration no matter what evidence is uncovered. In
>fact, I've not yet heard anything to convince me it's not worthy of
>consideration in the case of the flagellum.
Before design (intelligent or otherwise) can be worthy of consideration,
it needs to be defined. Dembski and other design theorists have eschewed
the usual definition (roughly, "the results of an intelligent designer');
they try to use the word with no definition at all for it.
>I'm unfamiliar with "Of Pandas and People." However, under the
>conditions Matt described, I think ID should be considered a
>reasonable scientific hypothesis.
Can it be a scientific hypothesis if there will never be any hope of
confirming or disconfirming evidence? Because that's the status which ID
theory has had for the last millenium, and it hasn't changed recently.
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
>On 2 Dec 1998 23:57:10 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>wrote:
>
>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>Woodard):
>>
>>>On 2 Dec 1998 11:40:32 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>>>>I think this same intuition is especially well-developed in those
>>>>>responsible for major scientific breakthroughs.
>>>>>
>>>>And for major blindness.
>>>
>>>I don't follow.
>>>
>>Ironically enough, you did. This "intuition" leads to the "it was
>>designed" results, which you agree below tells us nothing. So, ISTM,
>>it blinds us from looking for meaningful explanations.
>
>In the example below, other explanations were examined and ruled out.
>How is that blindness? Under those circumstances, I think the
>blinders would consist in refusing to consider the possibility of IA.
>
The blindness was in arguing for a position that, even if true, tells
you absolutely nothing. SFW if a designer did it. The designer could
have done it in a lab on Xordax, in a Lab on Earth, in a lab in the
8th Dimension, or in clay and water on Earth. Successful
identification of design, without any information about the mechanism
of implementing the design is useless in the extreme.
>
>Why you assume further investigation won't disclose evidence allowing
>us to make further inferences about the IA in question is beyond me.
>Are you opposed to SETI, then?
>
>>>>Try this, instead. For some phenomenon X, I will grant you that it
>>>>could not have been produced by chance and could not have been
>>>>produced by a regularity (natural law). I will even grant you that X
>>>>was produced by some designer billions of years ago. I will give you
>>>>all that. Now what? We all accept it was designed. What does that tell
>>>>us? What do we now know about the designer? AFAICT, nothing.
>>>
>>>You are correct, sir.
>>>
>>Then what is your point? The result Dembski (and others) strive for
>>has no value, even if their logic did (which it does not).
>
>Value judgments are subjective. Fair assesment of the evidence has
>value to me, in and of itself.
>
So identifying design, even if the designer may have been tiny IPUs
pushing atoms around, seems to have value to you? Ok, but it have none
in the context of science. And that is not a subjective judgement.
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
[snip]
>I'll have to read it. My impression, though, is that ID doesn't
>require creationism, and that most ID believers aren't creationists.
>
>I'll say this, too. I'm satisfied that no valid proof for the
>existence of God is known to Western philosophy, and I'd be shocked if
>one ever surfaced.
>
>But I don't agree that ID should a priori be held as a possibility
>unworthy of consideration no matter what evidence is uncovered. In
>fact, I've not yet heard anything to convince me it's not worthy of
>consideration in the case of the flagellum.
>
The small problem that we lack any evidence at all that an appropriate
designer existed at the appropriate time and place seems rather
convincing to me. Find such evidence and the design concept moves
forward. Until then, I see no way to distinguish "An unknown,
unevidenced, unconstrained entity" did it, "God did it" and "An IPU
did it".
[snip]
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>Woodard):
>
>>On 2 Dec 1998 23:57:10 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>>Woodard):
>>>
>>>>On 2 Dec 1998 11:40:32 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>[snip]
>>>
>>>>>>I think this same intuition is especially well-developed in those
>>>>>>responsible for major scientific breakthroughs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>And for major blindness.
>>>>
>>>>I don't follow.
>>>>
>>>Ironically enough, you did. This "intuition" leads to the "it was
>>>designed" results, which you agree below tells us nothing. So, ISTM,
>>>it blinds us from looking for meaningful explanations.
>>
>>In the example below, other explanations were examined and ruled out.
>>How is that blindness? Under those circumstances, I think the
>>blinders would consist in refusing to consider the possibility of IA.
>>
>The blindness was in arguing for a position that, even if true, tells
>you absolutely nothing. SFW if a designer did it. The designer could
>have done it in a lab on Xordax, in a Lab on Earth, in a lab in the
>8th Dimension, or in clay and water on Earth. Successful
>identification of design, without any information about the mechanism
>of implementing the design is useless in the extreme.
It would be at least a first step toward the truth, under your
hypothesized conditions where no other explanation suffices. You
still haven't explained why you assume further investigation wouldn't
turn up evidence allowing us to make further inferences about the IA
in question.
However, as nothing else comes to light, I see no reason science
should shrink from the truth about that.
>>Why you assume further investigation won't disclose evidence allowing
>>us to make further inferences about the IA in question is beyond me.
>>Are you opposed to SETI, then?
>>
>>>>>Try this, instead. For some phenomenon X, I will grant you that it
>>>>>could not have been produced by chance and could not have been
>>>>>produced by a regularity (natural law). I will even grant you that X
>>>>>was produced by some designer billions of years ago. I will give you
>>>>>all that. Now what? We all accept it was designed. What does that tell
>>>>>us? What do we now know about the designer? AFAICT, nothing.
>>>>
>>>>You are correct, sir.
>>>>
>>>Then what is your point? The result Dembski (and others) strive for
>>>has no value, even if their logic did (which it does not).
>>
>>Value judgments are subjective. Fair assesment of the evidence has
>>value to me, in and of itself.
>>
>So identifying design, even if the designer may have been tiny IPUs
>pushing atoms around, seems to have value to you?
This notion that tiny Inter-Parliamentary Unions might push atoms
about is new to me. I think William of Occam might have something to
say about its likelihood.
> Ok, but it have none
>in the context of science. And that is not a subjective judgement.
And how did you arrive at this conclusion?
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
[...]
Keith, how's your news feed? I wrote a "ping" article, and
am waiting breathlessly for your "pong".
See
http://x6.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=418142360
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"than to live a long time and be bored all the while" - archy
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>Woodard):
>
>[snip]
>
>>I'll have to read it. My impression, though, is that ID doesn't
>>require creationism, and that most ID believers aren't creationists.
>>
>>I'll say this, too. I'm satisfied that no valid proof for the
>>existence of God is known to Western philosophy, and I'd be shocked if
>>one ever surfaced.
>>
>>But I don't agree that ID should a priori be held as a possibility
>>unworthy of consideration no matter what evidence is uncovered. In
>>fact, I've not yet heard anything to convince me it's not worthy of
>>consideration in the case of the flagellum.
>>
>The small problem that we lack any evidence at all that an appropriate
>designer existed at the appropriate time and place seems rather
>convincing to me.
Your hypothesized conditions that neither chance no regularity could
account for Phenomenon X would constitute evidence of just that.
>Find such evidence and the design concept moves
>forward. Until then, I see no way to distinguish "An unknown,
>unevidenced, unconstrained entity" did it, "God did it" and "An IPU
>did it".
Again with the Inter-Parliamentary Unions.
Matt, the alternatives
* some intelligent entity
* a Judeo-Christian God
are rather easily distinguished on the basis of specificity.
The possiblity of some form of carbon-based life on Europa is worthy
of scientific consideration. (And it would be even if we currently
had no idea how to gain further relevant information. We once had no
idea how to identify the composition of the stars, and would not have
been blamed for thinking it might be impossible. Nonetheless, that
should not have stopped scientists from speculating the stars might be
distant suns, and from keeping in mind that data relating to this
would be scientifically desirable.)
The possibility that entities whose properties qualify them as
Springer spaniels is too specific -- and thus too unlikely -- to be
worthy of scientific consideration.
Therein lies the difference.
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>In article <36675eec....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>Keith, how's your news feed? I wrote a "ping" article, and
>am waiting breathlessly for your "pong".
>
>See
>http://x6.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=418142360
Hi Wesley,
Well, tell your pals to stop pestering me and I can get on with
it. :-) (They're a bit quicker and easier to deal with, so it's hard
to resist the temptation.)
Actually, I couldn't believe how quickly you turned out that ping.
But then, I'm not a brilliant scientist.
It's actually a terrific tactical advantage for you. It means our
posts will be read in pairs, with yours second. No way would I send
them to my friends that way. The proper order is just the reverse,
IMO. I hope intelligent readers will take that into account.
Unfortunately, considering my offline obligations, I'll be surprised
if I post my pong before tomorrow afternoon.
Ivar Ylvisaker
[snip]
> But I don't agree that ID should a priori be held as a possibility
> unworthy of consideration no matter what evidence is uncovered. In
> fact, I've not yet heard anything to convince me it's not worthy of
> consideration in the case of the flagellum.
[snip]
> However, under the conditions Matt described, I think ID should be considered a
> reasonable scientific hypothesis.
I have no problem with scientists speculating about gods, demons, the tooth fairy,
intelligent design, evolution, or anything else. But science requires that genuine
scientific hypotheses be testable. I have seen no convincing evidence in this thread
or elsewhere that ID is a testable hypothesis.
The Constitution separates religion and government. My concern is that Dembski and
others intend use his Design Inference as a weapon in a campaign to end this
separation. Dembski discusses his views more fully in the articles at
http://www.discovery.org/crsc/crscviews/dembskiarts.html.
Nothing in this post is intended to delay your response to Wesley's long, complex
post about classes inside of classes.
Ivar
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
>On 3 Dec 1998 14:56:02 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>wrote:
>
>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>Woodard):
>>
>>>On 2 Dec 1998 23:57:10 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>>>Woodard):
>>>>
>>>>>On 2 Dec 1998 11:40:32 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>>>>wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>[snip]
>>>>
>>>>>>>I think this same intuition is especially well-developed in those
>>>>>>>responsible for major scientific breakthroughs.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>And for major blindness.
>>>>>
>>>>>I don't follow.
>>>>>
>>>>Ironically enough, you did. This "intuition" leads to the "it was
>>>>designed" results, which you agree below tells us nothing. So, ISTM,
>>>>it blinds us from looking for meaningful explanations.
>>>
>>>In the example below, other explanations were examined and ruled out.
>>>How is that blindness? Under those circumstances, I think the
>>>blinders would consist in refusing to consider the possibility of IA.
>>>
>>The blindness was in arguing for a position that, even if true, tells
>>you absolutely nothing. SFW if a designer did it. The designer could
>>have done it in a lab on Xordax, in a Lab on Earth, in a lab in the
>>8th Dimension, or in clay and water on Earth. Successful
>>identification of design, without any information about the mechanism
>>of implementing the design is useless in the extreme.
>
>It would be at least a first step toward the truth, under your
>hypothesized conditions where no other explanation suffices. You
>still haven't explained why you assume further investigation wouldn't
>turn up evidence allowing us to make further inferences about the IA
>in question.
>
I guess I am confused how further investigation could do that, but
could not provide some other explanation. Remember, we got to
"designer" by running out of any other ideas or evidence or ways to
get more evidence. We got to designer by exhausting all other
possibilities. Now you want, somehow, to continue to investigate?
[snip]
>>So identifying design, even if the designer may have been tiny IPUs
>>pushing atoms around, seems to have value to you?
>
>This notion that tiny Inter-Parliamentary Unions might push atoms
>about is new to me. I think William of Occam might have something to
>say about its likelihood.
>
Please distinguish this "designer" from a Invisible Pink Unicorn
(blessed be her name). How does one get sliced and not the other?
>> Ok, but it have none
>>in the context of science. And that is not a subjective judgement.
>
>And how did you arrive at this conclusion?
>
By slicing out the designer and finding that I have not changed the
explanatory value.
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 26 Nov 1998 03:18:51 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>In article <365be87c....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>On 25 Nov 1998 00:50:51 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
[...]
KW>For example, right now I'm thinking: why bring regularity
KW>into it at all? Why not just one filter:
KW>complexity-specification?
I think that Keith has a good point here. If
complexity-specification is really a signature of a
designer/design relationship, why bother with the folderol of
an eliminative multi-step filter? Why not simply identify the
"design" attribute and leap to the indicated conclusion?
KW>I find your illustrations involving Mercury and pulsars
KW>powerful, but I think Demski's critics in general
KW>underestimate the power of his "Made by Yahweh" and SETI
KW>illustrations.
I don't recall mentioning Mercury. I think both the "Made By
Yahweh" and SETI examples support my alternate explanatory
filter, since hallmarks and attributes of communicated
messages are things that we have past experience of having
been due to the action of intelligent agents. They don't tell
us how to recognize novel designer/design relationships, which
is Dembski's real goal. Dembski did not set out to formalize
the reliable recognition of design for the benefit of those
sciences and humanities that already employ design inferences.
(This is ironic, since those groups are the ones that will
benefit most from Dembski's work on elimination of chance
explanations.) It is clear that Dembski's target (the one
that is pre-painted in place) is to have biological phenomena
identified as being due to design. This is definitely an
unknown designer/design relationship. Nothing in Dembski's
work so far convinces me that he has found a reliable means of
identifying novel designer/design relationships.
Complexity-specification still has the problem of induction
to overcome, and Hume's ghost still seems quite active.
Have a look at
http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od172/dembski172.htm
I think that Dembski's final line in the review of Kaufmann's
"At Home in the Universe" is applicable to more than just
Kaufmann's book.
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"He'll be dying for a good cause." "A good cause?" "<i>I</i> like it."-SG
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>In article <3665f477...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>On 1 Dec 1998 00:56:58 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>In article <365f0b32....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>On 26 Nov 1998 03:16:23 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>>>In article <365be8f2....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>>>On 25 Nov 1998 01:04:08 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>>>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>In article <365b8a4e....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>>>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:59:27 -0500, qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith Woodard)
>>>>>>>>wrote:
>>>>>>>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:37:17 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>>>>>>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
Sorry about the delay. I tried to make it something that would take
more than ten minutes to ping back this time. Here's hoping.
I agree that "Class-IC(E) -> des(E)" *shouldn't* so gain validity.
Unfortunately, unless the word "only" is inserted into your third
stage, it seems to me its wording implies exactly that.
As I mentioned, there was a time when all known examples of Class-IC
clearly belonged to Class-IA. If we couldn't infer under those
conditions that any possibly existing unknown members of Class-IC
would also belong to Class-IA, I'd like to know the conditions under
which we could infer that *any* phenomenon of unknown origin would
belong to Class-IA.
Consider the general case. If all known members of Class-X belong to
Class-IA, does your EF allow the inference that any possible unknown
members of Class-X also belong to Class-IA? If yes, why wouldn't this
hold true for Class-IC? If no, what is the utility of your third
stage?
> KW>Would you agree that systems with the attribute of ICness
> KW>fall into the class of IC phenomena?
>
>WRE>Yes, but as I show above, it doesn't really make any difference
>WRE>whether a class can be constructed around ICness, since that
>WRE>is not the class under discussion.
>
>KW>It would seem to me a wholly included subclass of the class
>KW>under discussion.
>
>In the state of limited knowledge that Keith stipulates elsewhere,
>or is this a stronger assertion?
>
>The stronger assertion is trivially false, so I'll assume that
>the limited case is at issue.
I've already indicated the line by which, given the limited case, I
think I can establish the stronger. So I agree the limited case is
our issue.
>What I see being attempted is to sneak in
I would interject that terms like "sneak" and "smuggle" are sometimes
used in critical analyses to indicate illegitimacy without necessarily
implying deliberate deception. I assume that's the case here. I
think we have an honest disagreement regarding the legitimacy of my
citing examples that lead to problems with your EF.
>instances that my alternate filter does not accept.
Would these instances perhaps be classes of which we can't be sure
we've examined every member in the universe? If so, that would be a
healthy portion of all classes of phenomena.
>We can posit the existence of some subset of Class-IA
>with some attribute, it doesn't matter which. Let's see...
>the tool chest over there is red, and falls in Class-IA. The
>Coca-Cola can beside me has red on it, and is Class-IA. The
>screwdriver handle is red, and also Class-IA. Some limited
>state of knowledge can be posited in which Class-Red is a
>proper subset of Class-IA.
Our knowledge of most phenomena is likely to be limited for the
foreseeable future. If your EF is to be useful, it must function
properly under those conditions. It is, after all, presumably
intended to allow us to draw inferences about phenomena of unknown
origin.
Here, of course, you've specified a hypothetical condition we know to
be ludicrous. Unlike the case of IC systems, there was never a time
when all known red phenomena were artificial. However, I assume our
readership is capable of bearing this in mind, so by all means
proceed.
>Is "Class-Red(E) -> des(E)" therefore justified?
My answer to this is the short answer to your entire post: the only
way I can see to rescue your EF from this absurdity is by -- as I
think you've done later in this post -- effectively altering stage
three from:
Stage 3: "If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
which we have past experience of having been produced by the action of
an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency
as a cause, and no further explanation is necessary."
to:
Revised Stage 3: "If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena
we have past experience of ONLY having been produced by intelligent
agency, AND IT HAS BEEN SHOWN THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY THE PHENOMENON
COULD HAVE BEEN PRODUCED WITHOUT INTELLIGENT AGENCY, it is reasonable
to ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further explanation
is necessary."
However, this effectively guts that stage of your EF, rendering it, as
far as I can see, utterly impotent.
>Once we come to a common acceptance that
>such exercises do not yield valid inferences, then we can move
>on to dealing with the specific or ad hoc claims that Class-IC
>is qualitatively different from other potential subsets of
>Class-IA, and thus must be considered on its own merits. What
>those merits might be, though, remain a mystery.
I fail to see why sauce for Class-IC shouldn't be sauce for other
subsets of Class-IA.
>One clue to see if an implication is not quite what it seems
>on first glance is to examine the logically-equivalent
>contrapositive. Thus, we examine "~des(E) -> ~Class-Red(E)",
>and find that the implication says things far beyond the
>ability of logic to determine or constrain.
Very true. As I've said, I believe your EF can be rescued from this
only by interpreting it as Revised Stage 3 above.
<snip>
> KW>Premise [1]: If a phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena
> KW>for which we have past experience of having been produced
> KW>by the action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to
> KW>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
> KW>explanation is necessary. [Your filter.]
>
> KW>Premise [2]: The class of IC systems is a class of phenomena
> KW>for which we have past experience of having been produced
> KW>by the action of an intelligent agency. [You seem to agree.]
>
>I added numbers to the above for later reference.
Thanks. One of the many mistakes I didn't notice until after posting.
>WRE>This is where the fallacy lies, and I object to the
>WRE>characterization of even "seeming" to agree to this. I have
>WRE>explicitly stated my disagreement with each opportunity given.
>
>KW>Well, you did agree that "humans routinely produce IC
>KW>systems." And, while you skipped ahead and deemed this
>KW>insufficient to consider IC systems designed, you haven't yet
>KW>specifically addressed this interposing premise.
>
>Whereas I feel that I *have* addressed this premise, or at
>least that I have given explicit arguments that are
>inconsistent with or contradictory to this premise,
The contradiction didn't escape me. I was wondering how you'd resolve
it. Making the premise explicit was intended to force the issue, and
it did.
>and thus am at a loss as to how this premise can be attributed
>to me, even implicitly.
I felt it was implied by "humans routinely produce IC systems," and
that you wouldn't dispute something that seemed to me so eminently
reasonable. I've already apologized for my presumption.
>KW>(However, just as I wouldn't want readers unintentionally
>KW>left with the impression I was ignoring your stated
>KW>disagreements, I wouldn't want to suggest you've been ignoring
>KW>my premise. What happened was that, in my last post, I made
>KW>explicit this previously implicit premise, precisely because
>KW>you were rejecting the conclusion. I did not, and still do
>KW>not, see what justification you could have for rejecting the
>KW>premise, yet, without rejecting it, its hard to see how you
>KW>could reasonably reject the conclusion.)
>
>KW>You hadn't, until now, explicitly said that the fact that
>KW>humans routinely produce IC systems is insufficient to
>KW>consider them a class for which we have past experience of
>KW>having been produced by intelligent agency. I was foolish
>KW>enough to think you would not hold this position, and I
>KW>apologize.
>
>KW>I do think most folks would consider the routine human
>KW>production of IC systems sufficient to consider them a class
>KW>for which we have past experience of having been produced by
>KW>intelligent agency.
And now that you've confirmed you would not so consider, we have an
easy test allowing readers of this thread to determine with whom they
agree. Anyone believing that routine human production of X is
sufficient to consider X something we have past experience of having
been produced by humans agrees with me. Anyone believing it isn't is
in your corner.
Fair enough?
>While you have explained why you don't
>KW>think IC systems warrant a design inference, I don't think
>KW>you've advanced a justification for the position that human
>KW>production of IC systems is insufficient to consider them a
>KW>class for which we have past experience of having been
>KW>produced by intelligent agency.
>
>Because Class-IC is, in my opinion, no more tightly linked to
>design than Class-Red is.
If Class-Red were a subset of Class-IA, it would, of course, present
the same problem. I agree you've solved this problem, but, I contend,
only at the cost of gutting your EF.
>When we limit our knowledge set
Our knowledge is necessarily limited...
>such that we have a subset of Class-IA simply due to not
>examining the rest of that class,
Well, this suggests an unwillingness to examine the entire class.
That's not the issue. The issue is the fact that we rarely have the
ability to examine an entire class, and no way to eliminate the
possibility that we haven't.
>we must forego any inference
>that relies upon the membership of an instance in Class-IA,
>because we have introduced indeterminacy on that point in our
>definition of the second class.
But this indeterminacy would seem a property of any subset of
Class-IA. If your third filter doesn't allow us to extrapolate from
phenomena of known origin, then I don't understand how it would allow
us to draw any inferences at all about phenomena of unknown origin.
> If we wish to use an
>implication based upon the second class, it must be justified
>on its *own* merits, not from the merits of another class.
>Premise [2] establishes a class of phenomena known by past
>experience to be due to intelligent agency *only* for those
>instances which already have membership in Class-IA.
>Attempting to utilize membership in Class-IC to infer design
>without checking for membership of that instance in Class-IA
>is an error.
To see how well this accords with the language of your third stage,
here it is again:
Stage 3: "If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
which we have past experience of having been produced by the action of
an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency
as a cause, and no further explanation is necessary."
But, if I understand what you've just told us, we must interpret it
thusly:
"If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena we have past
experience of having been produced by intelligent agency, it is by no
means reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, because
unexamined representatives of the phenomenon form a class separate
from examined representatives, and what's true of the one is not
necessarily true of the other. Further explanation *is* necessary."
I indicated above my opinion that this guts your third stage by
effectively replacing it with:
Revised Stage 3: "If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena
we have past experience of ONLY having been produced by intelligent
agency, AND IT HAS BEEN SHOWN THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY THE PHENOMENON
COULD EVER HAVE BEEN PRODUCED WITHOUT INTELLIGENT AGENCY, it is
reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
explanation is necessary."
>WRE>The class defined as "systems having the attribute of ICness"
>WRE>(Class-IC) is *not* the class "phenomena for which we have
>WRE>past experience of having been produced by the action of an
>WRE>intelligent agency" (Class-IA).
>
>KW>The issue isn't whether Class-IC is identical with
>KW>Class-IA, but whether Class-IC is a wholly included
>KW>subclass of Class-IA. I maintain that, at least before we
>KW>discovered biological IC systems, it was.
>
>Just as for just about any attribute that one cares to name,
>some knowledge set can be constructed that would make the
>class so constructed a proper subset of Class-IA. This
>doesn't make any of the resulting
>"ignorance-subclass-of-Class-IA(E) -> des(E)" implications
>valid. My filter works upon membership in Class-IA. Those
>instances that have joint membership in Class-IA and Class-IC
>will be found to be due to design. Those instances in
>Class-IC but not Class-IA will not be. I fail to see where
>the difficulty lies.
I believe this interpretation of your third stage is expressed by
Revised Stage 3. My problem with it is that I can't see how it could
ever be applied to phenomena of unknown origin.
>WRE>Keith would have to show that
>WRE>there was no *possibility* that any instance in Class-IC could
>WRE>fall outside membership in Class-IA for his further argument
>WRE>to stand.
>
>KW>First, this appears to be a new requirement. At least, I
>KW>can't find it anywhere in your EF.
>
>IMO, it's packaged into logic. If Class-IC cannot be shown to
>be a proper subset of another class when *all* its possible
>instances are considered, then no inference based upon the
>other class can be said to be transferable to Class-IC. Any
>implication made from the basis of membership in Class-IC
>would have to be established upon other grounds than simply
>having some instances with membership in the other class.
I take it by "packaged into logic," you mean it's logically implied by
the language of your third stage. Here again are the two versions.
If I understand you, the revised version expresses your intent
precisely. (If not, I'll be happy to stand corrected.) I can't for
the life of me see how the two can share the same meaning.
Revised Stage 3: "If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena
we have past experience of ONLY having been produced by intelligent
agency, AND IT HAS BEEN SHOWN THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY THE PHENOMENON
COULD EVER HAVE BEEN PRODUCED WITHOUT INTELLIGENT AGENCY, it is
reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
explanation is necessary."
Original Stage 3: "If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena
for which we have past experience of having been produced by the
action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe
intelligent agency as a cause, and no further explanation is
necessary."
>KW>Second, consider its implications. Presently, all known
>KW>occurrences of the element americium form a wholly included
>KW>subclass of Class-IA. Now, suppose a future interstellar
>KW>probe encounters americium far, far away. One would have
>KW>thought stage three of your filter would compel us to assign
>KW>this to Class-IA.
>
>KW>The concept underlying stage three was, I thought, that if
>KW>we're convinced every known representative of a class is
>KW>artificial, the class is considered a wholly included subclass
>KW>of Class-IA. Hence, on encountering a phenomenon not of our
>KW>manufacture, but whose attributes qualify it for membership in
>KW>this subclass, we'd be honor-bound to assign it to Class-IA.
>
>KW>But apparently not. Another requirement now stands in our
>KW>path. Possession of the attributes defining a wholly included
>KW>subclass of Class-IA is no longer sufficient for inclusion in
>KW>Class-IA. We must also show the absence of any *possibility*
>KW>an unknown lawlike or random process could have produced the
>KW>phenomenon. Your EF, with this requirement, would therefore
>KW>bar the distant americium from membership in Class-IA.
>
>No, this is in error. Keith is mixing up testing for
>membership in Class-IA
Which -- I think you're saying -- is relevant to the americium
matter...
> with the point under discussion,
By which you mean the point concerning IC systems. (I'm spelling out
my understanding so you can correct me if I'm wrong.)
>which
>is whether membership in a *different* class allows us to use
>the logical arguments, inferences, and implications that were
>based upon the relations pertaining to Class-IA.
Here's what I understand you to be saying about this, which we've been
discussing in the context of IC systems. "Look, Keith, you're
refusing to recognize that the set of all examined IC systems is
distinct from the set of all examined and unexamined IC systems.
Whatever else you may say about them, they are *different* classes.
So even if the set of examined IC systems were a subset of Class-IA
(which it manifestly is not), that would by no means imply that the
set of examined and unexamined IC systems is also a subset of
Class-IA. The best you can say of the set of examined and unexamined
IC systems is that it is a subset of the union of Class-IA with the
set of unexamined IC systems. It's impermissible for you, while
readers of this thread are momentarily distracted, to cunningly
substitute this latter class for Class-IA. Logic does not allow us to
apply arguments, inferences, and implications based on Class-IA to
this latter separate and distinct class."
If that's not what you're saying, Wesley, I apologize for
misunderstanding you. If it is what you're saying, I agree deductive
logic doesn't permit the use of sets containing only examined members
to make inferences about sets with the same attributes but which also
contain unexamined members. However, inductive logic does so permit.
In fact, it was my impression that your third stage was an application
of the principle of induction -- one of the principles, as you know,
on which science rests.
I had thought your third stage (at least after insertion of the word
"only") could legitimately be interpreted this way: if all known
instances of Phenomenon P are known to be members of Class-IA, we may
infer that any possible unknown instances of Phenomenon P are also
members of Class-IA. (This phraseology should make plain that I'm
innocent of attempting to substitute any other class for Class-IA.)
If your third stage wasn't intended to use induction this way, then
I'm at a loss as to how it would allow us to do anything useful at
all.
> I see no
>problem in my alternate EF in assigning membership of distant
>americium to Class-IA (pending vetting by physicists on that),
>and thus to design. The analogy really would be, "Americium
>is produced by action of intelligent agents, but not in
>detectable quantities via natural causes. Americium is
>radioactive. Therefore, finding radioactive materials in
>detectable quantities indicates the action of an intelligent
>agent."
This answer confuses me because it suggests your filter operates
exactly as I originally envisaged. Why wouldn't the objections you
raised in the IC context apply here? There was a time all known
representatives of Class-IC belonged to Class-IA. You've pointed out
this was due to limited knowledge, and you've implied that awareness
of that limitation should have deterred us from ruling out the
possible existence of other representatives of Class-IC that are not
members of Class-IA.
But we're in the same predicament with respect to americium.
Currently, all known representatives of Class-Americium belong to
Class-IA. But our knowledge is still limited. How can we, in good
conscience, rule out the possible existence of other representatives
of Class-Americium that are not members of Class-IA?
In other words, how do we meet the requirement, which you believe
packaged into logic, of showing the absence of any possibility that
americium can be produced without IA?
>There is a difference in assigning *membership in*
>Class-IA and in coming up with a class to substitute as if it
>*were* Class-IA.
I addressed this several paragraphs above. The validity of my answer,
of course, depends on whether I understand your point correctly. If I
do, the short answer is that I'm not substituting any other class for
Class-IA. I'm using those members of Class-X that are of known origin
to draw an inference about members of the same class (i.e. with the
same attributes) but of unknown origin. The inference is that they,
too, are members of Class-IA.
>KW>Nor would it allow us to ascribe Dembski's "Made by Yahweh"
>KW>and SETI cases to intelligence. This seems to me a major
>KW>drawback, since most folks would think it unreasonable not to
>KW>invoke intelligence under those circumstances.
>
>Since I don't think that Keith has demonstrated my alternate
>EF to have this drawback, I think it is a moot point.
Wesley, if -- while keeping in mind the requirement to show the
complete absence of any possibility a phenomenon could be produced
without IA -- you can explain how your third stage would allow us to
ascribe these two illustrations to IA, I'll agree your EF lacks this
drawback. If you can't, then I think it would be fair to say the
drawback is present.
>I haven't previously addressed the "Made by Yahweh" example,
>but I have discussed SETI before in threads earlier this
>year. SETI doesn't provide a problem either for my alternate
>filter nor for my viewpoint.
I'm somewhat familiar with your earlier posts concerning SETI, and I
agree with every point of yours I've read on that subject. But I
don't think you've addressed the SETI case in the context of the
requirement to show the absence of any possibility the signal could be
generated without IA.
>KW>How could science ever disprove the possibility that *any*
>KW>phenomenon -- including one whose attributes define a wholly
>KW>included subclass of Class-IA -- could be produced without IA?
>KW>I'm frankly unable to conceive of any circumstance under which
>KW>your stage three could ever be triggered. Could you provide
>KW>an illustration?
>
>Testing membership in Class-IA is a different process from
>finding a substitute for Class-IA. All the usual examples
>of intelligent agency are found to be in Class-IA.
As I've indicated, I don't think a substitute for Class-IA enters into
this at all.
What I'm asking for here is a concrete illustration of how your third
stage could ever be triggered, in view of its requirement to show the
complete absence of any possibility Phenomenon P could be created
without IA. A single example would suffice.
>As to the difficulty of showing that the substitute for
>Class-IA actually allows us to treat it as if it were itself
>Class-IA, well, that really is a point to consider seriously.
>One might suspect that given the amount of brainpower that
>has gone into the problem since the 1700's that some further
>progress might have been made on that score if it were easy
>to do.
<snip>
> KW>Premise [3]: Phenomenon P falls into the class of IC systems.
> KW>[By hypothesis.]
>
> KW>Conclusion: P is a phenomenon for which it is reasonable to
> KW>ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no further
> KW>explanation is necessary.
>
>WRE>This is fallacious because Class-IC has not been shown to have
>WRE>no possibility of an instance outside of Class-IA. My filter
>WRE>is not prone to the problem that Keith has been talking about
>WRE>concerning ICness.
>
>KW>This "no possibility" requirement, which I can't find in
>KW>the wording of your EF, would presumably apply not only to
>KW>Class-IC, but to any wholly included subclass of Class-IA. If
>KW>the Hubble telescope were to detect an enormous Rolex in orbit
>KW>around Sirius, this requirement would preclude its membership
>KW>in Class-IA. Since science is incapable of proving the
>KW>absence of any possibility that unknown lawlike processes
>KW>could create a given phenomenon, this would seem to set the
>KW>bar unreasonably high.
>
>As I argued above, the requirement is really just how I
>perceive logic to work. I may get corrected on that by any of
>several regulars around here who really know logic inside and
>out.
This is a point on which you and I sharply disagree, and I too would
appreciate hearing from amateur or professional logicians. However, I
must acknowledge that you know considerably more about logic than most
of us, including me.
Incidentally, I notice you didn't dispute my claim that the Rolex
would sail undisturbed through your third filter. Was this an
oversight?
>I think the bar is exactly high enough.
At a level an interstellar Rolex couldn't clear? Are you sure that's
optimum?
>Why do we need a
>substitute for Class-IA? If someone is going to propose a
>substitute for Class-IA, how do they lay Hume's ghost?
This must be a reference to induction. Were I debating anyone else,
the fact that I don't see its significance wouldn't trouble me.
Unfortunately it's you, so I'm left wondering what I'm missing. Why
would Hume's ghost haunt these EF's any more than it does the rest of
science?
>KW>A reflection on our debate so far. Whichever of us is
>KW>wrong has certainly marshaled some ingenious and
>KW>wonderfully persuasive arguments on behalf of his untenable
>KW>position.
>
>KW>I'm not yet sure who that is, but my hat is off to him.
>
>We'll get him a beer at the Panda's Thumb after the dust
>settles. Heck, we'll both get a beer after the dust settles,
>OK?
The Panda's Thumb? That's on the Ediacara campus, isn't it?
Terrific idea.
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 3 Dec 1998 01:21:17 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>In article <3665f477...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>On 1 Dec 1998 00:56:58 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>>In article <365f0b32....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>>On 26 Nov 1998 03:16:23 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>>>>In article <365be8f2....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>On 25 Nov 1998 01:04:08 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>>>>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>In article <365b8a4e....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>>>>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:59:27 -0500, qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith Woodard)
>>>>>>>>>wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>On 24 Nov 1998 22:37:17 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>>>>>>>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
KW>Sorry about the delay. I tried to make it something that
KW>would take more than ten minutes to ping back this time.
KW>Here's hoping.
Yes, I do believe Keith has a success here. I'm certainly
going to have to take more than ten minutes. There are also
some significant points concerning induction that Keith
raises.
I am going to re-cast things a bit, hopefully to improve
clarity. This will involve a fair amount of snipping. If
there's something specific that Keith thinks should be
addressed at more length that got snipped, he's welcome to
re-ask.
I began with Dembski's Explanatory Filter, which proposed three
stages and three categories. Step 1: Assign events matching
regularity as due to regularity. Step 2: Assign events matching
chance as due to chance. Step 3: Compare chance and design as
alternates and classify into one or the other.
I proposed an alternative explanatory filter, and argued that it
was superior to Dembski's original.
[Quote]
Given a phenomenon to be explained, pass it through the
following Explanatory Filter:
1) If the phenomenon can be ascribed to random processes, no
further explanation is necessary. (The first condition
represents a null hypothesis. The random process hypothesis
serves admirably as a null hypothesis, and is to be preferred
as a null hypothesis to either law-like physical process or
intelligent causation.)
2) If the phenomenon can be traced to the action of known laws
regarding physical processes, no further explanation is
necessary. (Law-like physical processes posit fewer entities
than intelligent causation, and should be considered prior to
intelligent causation.)
3) If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
which we have past experience of having been produced by the
action of an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe
intelligent agency as a cause, and no further explanation is
necessary.
4) If no known random, law-like physical, or intelligent
causes can be identified, then the phenomenon can only be said
to be the result of a currently unknown process. Note that my
Explanatory Filter introduces a fourth classification not
present in Dembski's filter, that of a phenomenon having an
unknown cause.
[End Quote - WR Elsberry, http://x4.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=383732124]
It may well be that both Dembski's original filter and my
alternate will be found to be invalid. I can accept that.
I still believe that my filter fixes some problems that
Dembski's EF contains. Thus, I do not see that my alternate
EF could be found to be invalid while holding that Dembski's
original EF is valid.
I'm going to re-formulate some of the terms in the discussion
so far.
Let's consider the problem of inferring design.
Intelligent agents design things or act to cause certain
events. The class containing these events can be termed DTIA,
for "due to intelligent agency". Some events in DTIA will be
indistinguishable in their attributes from events not in DTIA,
where one reason is the capability of intelligent agents to
engage in deception. Membership in DTIA is determined by
knowledge that an intelligent agent caused a particular event.
But we would like to be able to proceed from the information
in the event itself rather than knowledge about the design
process and agent responsible for an event, and conclude that
an intelligent agent acted. We can approximate this by
considering our past experience of the action of intelligent
agents. We can consider it reasonable, usually, to conclude
that an intelligent agent caused an event if an event under
consideration has the attributes of other events that we know
to be in DTIA, and that these attributes when considered in
sum represent the necessary and sufficient evidence that
intelligent agency acted to produce the event. We can call
this class PEIA, for "previous experience of intelligent
agency". It should be noted that DTIA is secure, but PEIA is
not. That is, any event in DTIA is known to be due to
intelligent agency, for that is how the membership is defined.
DTIA(E) -> des(E) is tautologous. But PEIA(E) -> des(E) is
not established as a completely valid implication. We treat it
as being valid provisionally, but it shares in the problem of
induction.
Some would like to go further in detecting the action of
intelligent agents than even the inductive method involving
PEIA can take them. What about detecting previously unknown
design/designer relationships from the attributes of an event?
Can there be some signature of design that clearly, and logically,
demonstrates that intelligent agency has been at work, even
without having prior experience pertaining to the particular
event?
Let's start with what does not work. We know that class
definitions and subsets are two different things. Examining
PEIA for attributes by which we can infer design does not
work. We might use such exploration to suggest other classes
to try and develop a link to design from, but in the absence
of such a link, saying that some other class defined on an
attribute shared by some members of PEIA implies design is
simply erroneous. I have used the example of designed things
that have the color red as an attribute. We can define a
class, RED, that could be evaluated as a potential basis for
implying design. The point of conjecturing about class RED is
that it is obviously invalid. The basis of its invalidity can
be *seen* by example, that is, any phenomenon or event that
occurs with the attribute of the color red that was not due to
design shows that the implication is invalid. But its
invalidity is also established *in principle* because we
cannot establish that RED is a proper subset of PEIA. The
invalidity of inferring design from membership in RED does not
mean that no instances in RED are not members of PEIA. If we
established RED on the basis of a red toolchest, red
screwdriver, and red floppy disk, and were presented with a
red flashlight of a type we had not seen before, we could
assign membership to RED and to PEIA, but only its membership
in PEIA would allow us provisionally (with the same caveats
and reservations typical to conclusions drawn from induction)
to conclude design. The membership in RED was actually of
no relevance to the decision to classify the red flashlight
as having been designed. Other class definitions might
intersect properties that do relate to making a design decision,
but the same critique still carries just as much force as it
does for excluding membership in RED as forming a basis for
implying design.
[...]
KW>My answer to this is the short answer to your entire post:
KW>the only way I can see to rescue your EF from this absurdity
KW>is by -- as I think you've done later in this post --
KW>effectively altering stage three from:
WRE>Stage 3: "If the phenomenon falls into the class of
WRE>phenomena for which we have past experience of having been
WRE>produced by the action of an intelligent agency, it is
WRE>reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no
WRE>further explanation is necessary."
KW>to:
KW>Revised Stage 3: "If the phenomenon falls into the class of
KW>phenomena we have past experience of ONLY having been produced
KW>by intelligent agency, AND IT HAS BEEN SHOWN THERE IS NO
KW>POSSIBILITY THE PHENOMENON COULD HAVE BEEN PRODUCED WITHOUT
KW>INTELLIGENT AGENCY, it is reasonable to ascribe intelligent
KW>agency as a cause, and no further explanation is necessary."
KW>However, this effectively guts that stage of your EF,
KW>rendering it, as far as I can see, utterly impotent.
So in the big picture, I could be wrong if I claimed that
my alternate EF had utility in the real world. OK, I can
live with that. On the other hand, as flawed as my EF
might be if Keith's arguments were correct, I could still
take comfort in the fact that my alternate EF still is
comparatively better than Dembski's original.
But Keith's argument is not correct. "Reasonable" covers some
territory, and I consider the amount of induction that PEIA
requires a reasonable amount to allow in making a design
inference.
Keith's objections based upon ICness share in the problem I've
elucidated with respect to RED above. When presented with a
huge Rolex orbiting Saturn, we can easily see that such a
construct has membership in PEIA. On the other hand, we might
detect a lump of gold orbiting Saturn instead, with no
indication that it was anything other than a large
naturally-formed nugget. Keith's objection concerning ICness
and my stage 3 is analogous to construction of the class GOLD
from the existence of a Rolex in PEIA, and then claiming that
all further members of GOLD also show design. This is an
error. Logic just doesn't work that way. It doesn't matter
whether the defining attribute of a class is only held in
common with members of PEIA or not, as long as there is no
proof that the new class is a proper subset of PEIA, there can
be no implication assigned to the second *class* as if the
*class* were itself a *member* of PEIA. And that is exactly
what Keith says is a problem for my alternate filter, that it
does not treat the *class* IC as if it were a *member* of
PEIA. This is not a problem. It is not a mistake. It is not
an error. It is just that way it should be.
WRE>Once we come to a common acceptance that
WRE>such exercises do not yield valid inferences, then we can move
WRE>on to dealing with the specific or ad hoc claims that Class-IC
WRE>is qualitatively different from other potential subsets of
WRE>Class-IA, and thus must be considered on its own merits. What
WRE>those merits might be, though, remain a mystery.
KW>I fail to see why sauce for Class-IC shouldn't be sauce for
KW>other subsets of Class-IA.
I certainly am *not* advocating that other classes derived
from attributes of members of PEIA have any greater validity
in implying design than IC. I think the validity level of
all such classes is quite stable at zero.
[...]
KW>I do think most folks would consider the routine human
KW>production of IC systems sufficient to consider them a class
KW>for which we have past experience of having been produced by
KW>intelligent agency.
KW>And now that you've confirmed you would not so consider, we
KW>have an easy test allowing readers of this thread to determine
KW>with whom they agree. Anyone believing that routine human
KW>production of X is sufficient to consider X something we have
KW>past experience of having been produced by humans agrees with
KW>me. Anyone believing it isn't is in your corner.
KW>Fair enough?
My stage 3 defines a class I consider equivalent to PEIA. It
is membership in PEIA that is at issue, not a class whose
definition consists of a different criterion. Just because
some events occur that have one criterion in common in
addition to being produced by an intelligent agent does not
mean that that criterion defines a class to be treated as if
it were eitehr PEIA itself or a member of PEIA. Someone
agreeing with Keith is actually agreeing to a principle
whereby RED, GOLD, RADIOACTIVE, or IC could be considered the
basis for implying design. Agreeing with me means that
membership in *PEIA* is the basis for implying design, and
that those other criteria are not.
[...]
WRE>we must forego any inference
WRE>that relies upon the membership of an instance in Class-IA,
WRE>because we have introduced indeterminacy on that point in our
WRE>definition of the second class.
KW>But this indeterminacy would seem a property of any subset
KW>of Class-IA.
Bingo!
KW>If your third filter doesn't allow us to extrapolate from
KW>phenomena of known origin, then I don't understand how it
KW>would allow us to draw any inferences at all about phenomena
KW>of unknown origin.
It is not the purpose of my alternate EF to find *novel*
designer/design relationships. But it is the purpose of it to
successfully identify known designer/design relationships.
The designer/design relationship is not determined by its
point of origin, and thus unknown origin is not a problem. I
don't see any problem with the SETI examples and whatnot
fitting into PEIA.
WRE> If we wish to use an
WRE>implication based upon the second class, it must be justified
WRE>on its *own* merits, not from the merits of another class.
WRE>Premise [2] establishes a class of phenomena known by past
WRE>experience to be due to intelligent agency *only* for those
WRE>instances which already have membership in Class-IA.
WRE>Attempting to utilize membership in Class-IC to infer design
WRE>without checking for membership of that instance in Class-IA
WRE>is an error.
KW>To see how well this accords with the language of your
KW>third stage, here it is again:
WRE>Stage 3: "If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena for
WRE>which we have past experience of having been produced by the action of
WRE>an intelligent agency, it is reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency
WRE>as a cause, and no further explanation is necessary."
KW>But, if I understand what you've just told us, we must
KW>interpret it thusly:
KW>"If the phenomenon falls into the class of phenomena we
KW>have past experience of having been produced by intelligent
KW>agency, it is by no means reasonable to ascribe intelligent
KW>agency as a cause, because unexamined representatives of the
KW>phenomenon form a class separate from examined
KW>representatives, and what's true of the one is not necessarily
KW>true of the other. Further explanation *is* necessary."
I have no idea why Keith would think that it must be
interpreted that way, since interpreting it that way is an
error.
Assigning membership in PEIA to an event is easier than
proving another class is a proper subset of PEIA.
Let's stipulate that mousetraps of some configuration show the
attribute of IC. Now, someone employing my EF is handed such
a mousetrap and asked to classify it. Chance is rejected.
Regularity is rejected. Because the person examining the
mousetrap has prior experience of mousetraps, it is found to
be a member of PEIA, and design is concluded. Let's say that
we now try to classify a defective mousetrap, perhaps one that
has no springs. The ICness of the functioning mousetrap is
missing here. And yet, the defective mousetrap can be
assigned to PEIA, and design concluded, since we have prior
experience of both mousetraps and goof-ups in the assembly
process. Contrast this with being handed an object shrouded
in a box labeled, "Is IC". We aren't allowed any other
information, and can't open the box. Even assuming that
whatever is inside does actually have the IC attribute, we
cannot conclude that the concealed object is a member of PEIA,
*even if* the only other prior experience of ICness we have is
of events that have been classified as being in PEIA. Behe's
black box of IC is impotent to lead to a conclusion of design.
KW>I indicated above my opinion that this guts your third
KW>stage by effectively replacing it with:
KW>Revised Stage 3: "If the phenomenon falls into the class of
KW>phenomena we have past experience of ONLY having been produced
KW>by intelligent agency, AND IT HAS BEEN SHOWN THERE IS NO
KW>POSSIBILITY THE PHENOMENON COULD EVER HAVE BEEN PRODUCED
KW>WITHOUT INTELLIGENT AGENCY, it is reasonable to ascribe
KW>intelligent agency as a cause, and no further explanation is
KW>necessary."
I should say that I really don't see that there is anything
particularly wrong with Keith's amendment to my #3, but that
I don't agree that my #3 is as restrictive as Keith's
replacement, or that it effectively is the same thing.
[...]
WRE> My filter works upon membership in Class-IA. Those
WRE>instances that have joint membership in Class-IA and Class-IC
WRE>will be found to be due to design. Those instances in
WRE>Class-IC but not Class-IA will not be. I fail to see where
WRE>the difficulty lies.
KW>I believe this interpretation of your third stage is
KW>expressed by Revised Stage 3. My problem with it is that I
KW>can't see how it could ever be applied to phenomena of unknown
KW>origin.
The knowledge of the origin of a phenomenon or event, or lack
of it, is not a bar to being found to be a member of PEIA, and
thus Keith's Revised Stage 3 is not equivalent.
[...]
KW>I take it by "packaged into logic," you mean it's logically
KW>implied by the language of your third stage.
No, I mean that *in priniciple* that the kind of operation
that Keith seeks to do in substituting IC for PEIA is invalid.
This is beside any indication that the real world shows that
such substitution is invalid in a particular case.
KW>Here again are the two versions. If I understand you, the
KW>revised version expresses your intent precisely. (If not,
KW>I'll be happy to stand corrected.) I can't for the life of me
KW>see how the two can share the same meaning.
KW>Revised Stage 3: "If the phenomenon falls into the class of
KW>phenomena we have past experience of ONLY having been produced
KW>by intelligent agency, AND IT HAS BEEN SHOWN THERE IS NO
KW>POSSIBILITY THE PHENOMENON COULD EVER HAVE BEEN PRODUCED
KW>WITHOUT INTELLIGENT AGENCY, it is reasonable to ascribe
KW>intelligent agency as a cause, and no further explanation is
KW>necessary."
WRE>Original Stage 3: "If the phenomenon falls into the class
WRE>of phenomena for which we have past experience of having been
WRE>produced by the action of an intelligent agency, it is
WRE>reasonable to ascribe intelligent agency as a cause, and no
WRE>further explanation is necessary."
The original version expresses my intent. Precisely? I don't
know about that. The revised version is too restrictive to
express my intent. Membership in PEIA is what my #3 is about.
[...]
WRE>No, this is in error. Keith is mixing up testing for
WRE>membership in Class-IA
KW>Which -- I think you're saying -- is relevant to the americium
KW>matter...
Yes.
WRE> with the point under discussion,
KW>By which you mean the point concerning IC systems. (I'm
KW>spelling out my understanding so you can correct me if I'm
KW>wrong.)
By example, the class IC is stated by Keith to stand-in for
PEIA, and this is *not* what my #3 says.
WRE>which
WRE>is whether membership in a *different* class allows us to use
WRE>the logical arguments, inferences, and implications that were
WER>based upon the relations pertaining to Class-IA.
KW>Here's what I understand you to be saying about this, which
KW>we've been discussing in the context of IC systems. "Look,
KW>Keith, you're refusing to recognize that the set of all
KW>examined IC systems is distinct from the set of all examined
KW>and unexamined IC systems. Whatever else you may say about
KW>them, they are *different* classes. So even if the set of
KW>examined IC systems were a subset of Class-IA (which it
KW>manifestly is not), that would by no means imply that the set
KW>of examined and unexamined IC systems is also a subset of
KW>Class-IA. The best you can say of the set of examined and
KW>unexamined IC systems is that it is a subset of the union of
KW>Class-IA with the set of unexamined IC systems. It's
KW>impermissible for you, while readers of this thread are
KW>momentarily distracted, to cunningly substitute this latter
KW>class for Class-IA. Logic does not allow us to apply
KW>arguments, inferences, and implications based on Class-IA to
KW>this latter separate and distinct class."
Pretty much. It's just that this does not lead, ineluctably
or otherwise, to Revised Stage 3.
In trying to tie this to how we can see that the general
process is invalid in the specific case of class IC, I think
that I did not communicate well that this process is invalid
*in principle*. It doesn't really matter what we do or do not
know about membership in Class X (although the state of
knowledge is relevant to an empirical review of the status of
the claim, a "reality check"). If there is no way to show
that Class X is not a subset of Class Y, then there is no
validity to a claim that the implication "X(A) -> des(A)"
based upon a valid implication "Y(E) -> des(E)", *unless* one
can show that A = E, in which case knowing X(A) is superfluous.
KW>If that's not what you're saying, Wesley, I apologize for
KW>misunderstanding you. If it is what you're saying, I agree
KW>deductive logic doesn't permit the use of sets containing only
KW>examined members to make inferences about sets with the same
KW>attributes but which also contain unexamined members.
KW>However, inductive logic does so permit. In fact, it was my
KW>impression that your third stage was an application of the
KW>principle of induction -- one of the principles, as you know,
KW>on which science rests.
Inductive logic is fallible. Dembski, though, claims that his
EF produces *no* false positives. I don't claim that my
alternate would make no false positives, merely fewer false
positives than Dembski's. I allow a certain amount of
induction in my EF. Keith's Revised Stage 3 would reduce that
amount further, but beyond what I believe to be necessary. I
am not willing to extend the amount of induction to include
secondary classes in my alternate EF, nor did the wording of
my #3 imply that I would do so. On this point, I fear that
further discussion simply is not warranted, and we shall, if
this is not considered dispositive, simply have to agree to
disagree.
The conduct of science, as a practical matter, does use
induction, usually in the production of hypotheses. However,
induction is pretty much eschewed in the testing of those
hypotheses, or at least should be.
KW>I had thought your third stage (at least after insertion of
KW>the word "only") could legitimately be interpreted this way:
KW>if all known instances of Phenomenon P are known to be members
KW>of Class-IA, we may infer that any possible unknown instances
KW>of Phenomenon P are also members of Class-IA. (This
KW>phraseology should make plain that I'm innocent of attempting
KW>to substitute any other class for Class-IA.)
Keith, please read the following paragraph very carefully.
That doesn't mean that IC is acceptable as a basis for
inference of design. Let's say that we look at a bunch of
designed flashlights, and we find that all of them utilize
electricity. If we were to use the class ELECTRIC as if it
were PEIA, then we would on that basis be able to imply design
for thunderstorms. Electricity is *not* a flashlight, it is
an *attribute* of a flashlight. ICness is *not* Phenomenon P,
it is an *attribute* of Phenomenon P. If Phenomenon P is due
to design, what makes Phenomenon P a member of DTIA is *not*
simply its attribute of ICness. What causes us to then place
Phenomenon P into PEIA is *not* simply the attribute of
ICness.
KW>If your third stage wasn't intended to use induction this
KW>way, then I'm at a loss as to how it would allow us to do
KW>anything useful at all.
It might not be useful. I could live with that. It just
doesn't happen to be non-useful due to what Keith has been
saying about ICness.
WRE> I see no
WRE>problem in my alternate EF in assigning membership of distant
WRE>americium to Class-IA (pending vetting by physicists on that),
WRE>and thus to design. The analogy really would be, "Americium
WRE>is produced by action of intelligent agents, but not in
WRE>detectable quantities via natural causes. Americium is
WRE>radioactive. Therefore, finding radioactive materials in
WRE>detectable quantities indicates the action of an intelligent
WRE>agent."
KW>This answer confuses me because it suggests your filter
KW>operates exactly as I originally envisaged. Why wouldn't the
KW>objections you raised in the IC context apply here?
The problem is that the quoted piece was supposed to show the
*obvious* invalidity of the kind of process that the ICness
discussion leads to, and to be illustrative of what was
*wrong* in the *misinterpretation* of my #3. If we find
americium in quantity elsewhere, we infer design based upon
membership in PEIA (pending that all-important vetting by the
physicists), and *not* simply because americium is
radioactive. Similarly, simply knowing that something has
ICness as an attribute implies nothing about its membership in
DTIA or PEIA, whether we only know ICness as a property of
items in DTIA or not.
[...]
KW>In other words, how do we meet the requirement, which you
KW>believe packaged into logic, of showing the absence of any
KW>possibility that americium can be produced without IA?
I don't have to. It isn't a requirement for finding that
americium has membership in PEIA. And what would analogously
be required is showing that *radioactivity* cannot be produced
without the intervention of intelligent agency, not the
instance of a radioactive substance, americium. This would be
a requirement for showing that the *class* RADIOACTIVE could
take the place of PEIA, just as Keith has proposed the class
IC could take the place of PEIA.
WRE>There is a difference in assigning *membership in*
WRE>Class-IA and in coming up with a class to substitute as if it
WRE>*were* Class-IA.
KW>I addressed this several paragraphs above. The validity of
KW>my answer, of course, depends on whether I understand your
KW>point correctly. If I do, the short answer is that I'm not
KW>substituting any other class for Class-IA. I'm using those
KW>members of Class-X that are of known origin to draw an
KW>inference about members of the same class (i.e. with the same
KW>attributes) but of unknown origin. The inference is that
KW>they, too, are members of Class-IA.
And we know, logically, that such inferences are not secure.
The question is how much insecurity can we allow before we are
dealing in simple wish-fulfillment. I think that "PEIA(E) ->
des(E)" is the limit of my tolerance for insecurity. Keith's
mileage may vary.
KW>Nor would it allow us to ascribe Dembski's "Made by Yahweh"
KW>and SETI cases to intelligence. This seems to me a major
KW>drawback, since most folks would think it unreasonable not to
KW>invoke intelligence under those circumstances.
WRE>Since I don't think that Keith has demonstrated my alternate
WRE>EF to have this drawback, I think it is a moot point.
KW>Wesley, if -- while keeping in mind the requirement to show
KW>the complete absence of any possibility a phenomenon could be
KW>produced without IA -- you can explain how your third stage
KW>would allow us to ascribe these two illustrations to IA, I'll
KW>agree your EF lacks this drawback. If you can't, then I think
KW>it would be fair to say the drawback is present.
Finding a message in English encoded in the genetic structure
of all living things that says, "Made by Yahweh" would
definitely fall in PEIA. We are familiar by prior experience
with hallmarks and other forms of labelling. Finding a long
series of prime numbers encoded in a radio stream from a
distant star would definitely fall in PEIA. We are familiar
by prior experience with signal content in radio transmissions
and with the attributes of prime numbers. "PEIA(E) -> des(E)"
is considered valid by #3. Case closed.
WRE>I haven't previously addressed the "Made by Yahweh" example,
WRE>but I have discussed SETI before in threads earlier this
WRE>year. SETI doesn't provide a problem either for my alternate
WRE>filter nor for my viewpoint.
KW>I'm somewhat familiar with your earlier posts concerning
KW>SETI, and I agree with every point of yours I've read on that
KW>subject. But I don't think you've addressed the SETI case in
KW>the context of the requirement to show the absence of any
KW>possibility the signal could be generated without IA.
Since I am only testing the potential-SETI signal for
membership in PEIA, I don't have to meet the stricter
requirements for establishing "class-X(E) -> des(E)".
Consider the point addressed.
KW>How could science ever disprove the possibility that *any*
KW>phenomenon -- including one whose attributes define a wholly
KW>included subclass of Class-IA -- could be produced without IA?
KW>I'm frankly unable to conceive of any circumstance under which
KW>your stage three could ever be triggered. Could you provide
KW>an illustration?
WRE>Testing membership in Class-IA is a different process from
WRE>finding a substitute for Class-IA. All the usual examples
WRE>of intelligent agency are found to be in Class-IA.
KW>As I've indicated, I don't think a substitute for Class-IA
KW>enters into this at all.
*My* approach doesn't require it, and even argues against
trying to cobble up a substitute. Keith's approach *is*
to use a substitute class.
KW>What I'm asking for here is a concrete illustration of how
KW>your third stage could ever be triggered, in view of its
KW>requirement to show the complete absence of any possibility
KW>Phenomenon P could be created without IA. A single example
KW>would suffice.
But I am not looking for a substitute for PEIA, just whether
event E fits in PEIA. The Nick Caputo example works for me.
Event: under county clerk Nick Caputo, Democratic candidates
end up on the top line of ballots 40 out of 41 times. Caputo
claims to use a randomization method to select top billing.
Statistics show that the odds are against 40 out of 41 trials
having this outcome. Caputo is a Democrat. It is generally
believed that top billing on ballots constitutes an advantage
for a candidate. We have prior experience of political cheats
doing things to favor their party or candidates. We can
conclude that Nick Caputo's case falls in PEIA, and is tagged
as design.
I've given several other examples, including ones that address
the ICness bit directly, elsewhere in this post.
WRE>As to the difficulty of showing that the substitute for
WRE>Class-IA actually allows us to treat it as if it were itself
WRE>Class-IA, well, that really is a point to consider seriously.
WRE>One might suspect that given the amount of brainpower that
WRE>has gone into the problem since the 1700's that some further
WRE>progress might have been made on that score if it were easy
WRE>to do.
KW><snip>
[...]
KW>Incidentally, I notice you didn't dispute my claim that the
KW>Rolex would sail undisturbed through your third filter. Was
KW>this an oversight?
Yes. It's just fatigue. I can only type, "You are mistaken,"
so many times before I get too tired to catch all the
instances.
WRE>I think the bar is exactly high enough.
KW>At a level an interstellar Rolex couldn't clear? Are you
KW>sure that's optimum?
I have no problem putting an interstellar Rolex in PEIA, but I
don't do so based upon its membership in GOLD. I have no
problem putting mousetraps in PEIA, but I would not do so on
the basis of membership in IC. Nothing in #3 indicates that I
would.
I don't know that accepting "PEIA(E) -> des(E)" *is* optimum.
For certain endeavors, it will be. For example, while
forensic investigators probably apply something close to
"PEIA(E) -> des(E)" in order to overlook relatively few
criminals attempting to cover their tracks, juries (should)
employ a standard closer to "DTIA(E) -> des(E)" in order to
minimize the number of innocent people wrongly found guilty of
a crime.
WRE>Why do we need a
WRE>substitute for Class-IA? If someone is going to propose a
WRE>substitute for Class-IA, how do they lay Hume's ghost?
KW>This must be a reference to induction. Were I debating
KW>anyone else, the fact that I don't see its significance
KW>wouldn't trouble me. Unfortunately it's you, so I'm left
KW>wondering what I'm missing. Why would Hume's ghost haunt
KW>these EF's any more than it does the rest of science?
The fact that induction is the end of the line for design
detection is the worry. In the rest of science, induction
typically gets followed up and tested by deductive methods.
The use of multiple independent lines of evidence that
indicate the same thing is one such method employed in
reconstruction of phylogenies. Dembski does not propose a
test for the reliability of his method of detecting design,
but rather asserts that the logic is sound and the premises
are valid, therefore the conclusion of design follows.
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"And a little bit of water goes a long way\Cause it's hot" - BOC
Adamski
>
>Complexity-specification still has the problem of induction
>to overcome, and Hume's ghost still seems quite active.
He and Kant regularly haunt the yearly gathering of the Metaphysical
Society. Hume said of one of his books, 'It fell dead-born from the
presses'. He wasn't wrong.
>Have a look at
>http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od172/dembski172.htm
>I think that Dembski's final line in the review of Kaufmann's
>"At Home in the Universe" is applicable to more than just
>Kaufmann's book.
You're talking about your own work, right?
Wes, have you got a page with your critique of self-organising models
I could have a look at. You know my stance on dredging through
interminable home pages.
Dembski's review can be summed up as casting Kaufmann as Dr. Strangelove
or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the Real World and Love NK
Boolean Networks.
I asked Dembski to come on TO and debate you (he said get back to him
November, remember), but I never received a reply but that may have
something to do with my change of isp's. I recall asking him whether his
book has been reviewed in the professional mathematics or philosophy
journals.
Also I asked Dembski about this example he gives in one(or is it all?)
of his Discovery pieces, about not understanding the gurgling of said
Chinaman ('chink' as Musgrave puts it) and interpreting it as gibberish
,en passant citing Wittgenstein, a homosexual who liked to wear
fishermens' polonecked wooly jumpers.
Now, Dembski says that the hearer is unable to distinguish these sounds
from all other possible utterances; is he saying that not only can one
not semantically understand a natural language, but one cannot
semiotically characterise it thus, or perhaps because they speak so
quickly or write so stupid, that we haven't the time to decode it, so
to speak? How would this relate to SETI?
Is Dembski mentioning parapsychology at all? This seems an excellent
field of inquiry. Here the agency problem is problematic, as it is
complicated by the issue of fraud, but it doesn't employ notions of
previous human action.
I don't agree with Dembski's assertion that YHWH inscribed on cells
would compel sceptis to belief, as employing the weak anthropic
principle or MWH solves all conceivable problems, and should be used in
court as soon as possible as a test case. As they say, for believers a
miracle isn't necessary, and for unbelievers, never sufficient.
Dembski's filter shouldn't include anything: following Godel there is
no rigorous concept of randomness, theres no regularity/law either for a
variety of reasons and there is no design because it, properly
understood, would be subsumed, into the other two categories, if they
existed.
Now do you see why Wittgenstein was wont to say: "Wovon man nicht
sprechen kann, darueber man muss schweigen"?
I tracked down Dean Kenyon but same problem. I can't believe that anyone
would actually ignore an Adamski communication, so it must have been
lost in cyberspace.
--
"Raisa, I should like to introduce His Holiness, who is the highest
moral authority on earth, but he's also a Slav."
Mikhail Gorbachev, meeting Pope John Paul II, 1989
John Wilkins
<ada...@mobius1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Ian was reporting on vernacular and vulgar Australian usage. He was not
promoting it as a correct or proper way to speak, nor would he. IIRC, he
was actually commenting on the implicit racism in another person's play on
words.
|,en passant citing Wittgenstein, a homosexual who liked to wear
|fishermens' polonecked wooly jumpers.
Which of course makes everything he wrote false and incoherent? What
possible significance does this have that is not ad hominem?
--
John Wilkins, Head, Graphic Production, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
of Medical Research, Melbourne, Australia
<mailto:wil...@WEHI.EDU.AU><http://www.wehi.edu.au/~wilkins>
Homo homini aut deus aut lupus - Erasmus of Rotterdam
PZ Myers
wil...@wehi.edu.au wrote:
John, you should never, ever take Adamski seriously. He just likes to see
his own words rattle around next to one another on the web -- meaning is
irrelevant.
--
PZ Myers
Keith Woodard
wrote:
He seems to be speaking to us from an overstuffed chair in one of
those English men's clubs.
I like it.
Wesley R. Elsberry
Adamski <ada...@mobius1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <1998120513...@cx33978-a.dt1.
WRE>Complexity-specification still has the problem of induction
WRE>to overcome, and Hume's ghost still seems quite active.
A>He and Kant regularly haunt the yearly gathering of the
A>Metaphysical Society. Hume said of one of his books, 'It fell
A>dead-born from the presses'. He wasn't wrong.
WRE>Have a look at
WRE>http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od172/dembski172.htm
WRE>I think that Dembski's final line in the review of Kaufmann's
WRE>"At Home in the Universe" is applicable to more than just
WRE>Kaufmann's book.
A>You're talking about your own work, right?
I wasn't there, but it is equally applicable to my pages,
since I do not answer any of the big questions of abiogenesis
in those pages. Then again, I didn't claim to do so, either.
A>Wes, have you got a page with your critique of
A>self-organising models I could have a look at. You know my
A>stance on dredging through interminable home pages.
I have to admit ignorance of Adamski's stance on web pages,
finite or interminable. Somewhere in all that stuff, there is
code that I started for simulating heterogenous NK boolean
networks, which seemed an obvious extension of Kaufmann's work
with NK boolean networks with fixed and equal numbers of
interconnects per node. As for an actual readable critique of
Kaufmann, I'm afraid I haven't got one.
A>Dembski's review can be summed up as casting Kaufmann as
A>Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the
A>Real World and Love NK Boolean Networks.
This is true, but I think I may be picking up cues from Dembski
on the level of acidity that he considers appropriate for a
review. It helps me figure out what phrasings I should use.
A>I asked Dembski to come on TO and debate you (he said get
A>back to him November, remember), but I never received a reply
A>but that may have something to do with my change of isp's. I
A>recall asking him whether his book has been reviewed in the
A>professional mathematics or philosophy journals.
Dr. Dembski knows where to find me if he wants to talk. He
has a busy schedule, I'm sure.
A>Also I asked Dembski about this example he gives in one(or
A>is it all?) of his Discovery pieces, about not understanding
A>the gurgling of said Chinaman ('chink' as Musgrave puts it)
A>and interpreting it as gibberish ,en passant citing
A>Wittgenstein, a homosexual who liked to wear fishermens'
A>polonecked wooly jumpers.
A>Now, Dembski says that the hearer is unable to distinguish
A>these sounds from all other possible utterances; is he saying
A>that not only can one not semantically understand a natural
A>language, but one cannot semiotically characterise it thus, or
A>perhaps because they speak so quickly or write so stupid, that
A>we haven't the time to decode it, so to speak? How would this
A>relate to SETI?
I think that Dembksi can perhaps be held not to have selected
an entirely appropriate example, but on the other hand it is
not entirely inappropriate. Our ignorance will cause us to
miss some instances of design and attribute them either to
chance or to regularity. The example does not work well,
because even before an observer previously unfamiliar with
Chinese starts to comprehend elements of the language, the
observation of people interacting and using Chinese for
communicating concepts should convince the observer that a
language system is in place. Observers of a unkown language
should be held to be ignorant, not stupid.
A>Is Dembski mentioning parapsychology at all?
pp.25-26.
A>This seems an excellent field of inquiry. Here the agency
A>problem is problematic, as it is complicated by the issue of
A>fraud, but it doesn't employ notions of previous human action.
Dembski discusses the parapsychologists as attempting to make
a design inference to establish "psi" phenomena, and debunkers
attempting to show that such design inferences are flawed,
through poor methodology or fraud.
It may be interesting to note that Dembski only mentions the
debunkers in his reference to parapsychology in
http://www.origins.org/real/ri9602/dembski.html.
A>I don't agree with Dembski's assertion that YHWH inscribed
A>on cells would compel sceptis to belief, as employing the weak
A>anthropic principle or MWH solves all conceivable problems,
A>and should be used in court as soon as possible as a test
A>case. As they say, for believers a miracle isn't necessary,
A>and for unbelievers, never sufficient.
The "YHWH" example in Dembski's "First Things" article doesn't
say that skeptics would be forced to believe, but rather that
the concept that YHWH really did make all cells would have to
be entertained.
A>Dembski's filter shouldn't include anything: following Godel
A>there is no rigorous concept of randomness, theres no
A>regularity/law either for a variety of reasons and there is no
A>design because it, properly understood, would be subsumed,
A>into the other two categories, if they existed.
I'm speechless.
Is this a variant of postmodernism?
A>Now do you see why Wittgenstein was wont to say: "Wovon man
A>nicht sprechen kann, darueber man muss schweigen"?
If I had clue one about German, I might. I know only enough
not to say something like, "I have a bird," in German.
A>I tracked down Dean Kenyon but same problem. I can't believe
A>that anyone would actually ignore an Adamski communication, so
A>it must have been lost in cyberspace.
;-)
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"Like a false and nervous squid\Oh no more horses, horses" - BOC
Keith Woodard
<w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>In article <365f07cc....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>On 26 Nov 1998 03:18:51 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>In article <365be87c....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>On 25 Nov 1998 00:50:51 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>>>wrote:
>>>>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>>>>Woodard):
>
>[...]
>
>KW>For example, right now I'm thinking: why bring regularity
>KW>into it at all? Why not just one filter:
>KW>complexity-specification?
>
>I think that Keith has a good point here. If
>complexity-specification is really a signature of a
>designer/design relationship, why bother with the folderol of
>an eliminative multi-step filter? Why not simply identify the
>"design" attribute and leap to the indicated conclusion?
>
>KW>I find your illustrations involving Mercury and pulsars
>KW>powerful, but I think Demski's critics in general
>KW>underestimate the power of his "Made by Yahweh" and SETI
>KW>illustrations.
>
>I don't recall mentioning Mercury.
Sorry. I was thinking of something else.
>I think both the "Made By
>Yahweh" and SETI examples support my alternate explanatory
>filter, since hallmarks and attributes of communicated
>messages are things that we have past experience of having
>been due to the action of intelligent agents.
You may be right, but I currently have a contrary opinion. I don't
want to lay it out right now because I already have my hands full.
> They don't tell
>us how to recognize novel designer/design relationships, which
>is Dembski's real goal. Dembski did not set out to formalize
>the reliable recognition of design for the benefit of those
>sciences and humanities that already employ design inferences.
>(This is ironic, since those groups are the ones that will
>benefit most from Dembski's work on elimination of chance
>explanations.) It is clear that Dembski's target (the one
>that is pre-painted in place) is to have biological phenomena
>identified as being due to design. This is definitely an
>unknown designer/design relationship. Nothing in Dembski's
>work so far convinces me that he has found a reliable means of
>identifying novel designer/design relationships.
>
>Complexity-specification still has the problem of induction
>to overcome, and Hume's ghost still seems quite active.
How does complexity-specification involve induction?
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>On 5 Dec 1998 08:23:52 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>In article <365f07cc....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>On 26 Nov 1998 03:18:51 -0500, "Wesley R. Elsberry"
>>><w...@cx33978-a.dt1.sdca.home.com> wrote:
>>>>In article <365be87c....@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>>>>Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>>>>On 25 Nov 1998 00:50:51 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>>>>>wrote:
>>>>>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>>>>>Woodard):
[...]
WRE>I think both the "Made By
WRE>Yahweh" and SETI examples support my alternate explanatory
WRE>filter, since hallmarks and attributes of communicated
WRE>messages are things that we have past experience of having
WRE>been due to the action of intelligent agents.
KW>You may be right, but I currently have a contrary opinion.
KW>I don't want to lay it out right now because I already have my
KW>hands full.
OK. I can live with Keith holding a contrary opinion. I
shall continue to stick to my opinion in the interim.
[...]
WRE>Complexity-specification still has the problem of induction
WRE>to overcome, and Hume's ghost still seems quite active.
KW>How does complexity-specification involve induction?
Detecting C-S can be done deductively. It is using the
detected C-S attribute to infer agency that relies upon
induction. See TDI section 2.4, starting on page 62. Dembski
shows that intelligent agents do produce events with the C-S
attribute. Dembksi does not show that C-S implies agency.
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"From year to year, we're looking for adventure" - BOC
John Wilkins
qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith Woodard) wrote:
|On 7 Dec 1998 07:51:09 -0500, my...@astro.ocis.temple.edu (PZ Myers)
|wrote:
|
|>In article <wilkins-0712...@mac332.wehi.edu.au>,
|>wil...@wehi.edu.au wrote:
|>
|>>In article <55BWCGA6...@mobius1.demon.co.uk>, Adamski
|>><ada...@mobius1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
|>>
|>> |In article <1998120513...@cx33978-a.dt1.
|>> |>
|>> |>Complexity-specification still has the problem of induction
|>> |>to overcome, and Hume's ghost still seems quite active.
|>> |
|>> |He and Kant regularly haunt the yearly gathering of the Metaphysical
|>> |Society. Hume said of one of his books, 'It fell dead-born from the
|>> |presses'. He wasn't wrong.
|>> |
|>> |>Have a look at
|>> |>http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od172/dembski172.htm
|>> |>I think that Dembski's final line in the review of Kaufmann's
|>> |>"At Home in the Universe" is applicable to more than just
|>> |>Kaufmann's book.
|>> |
|>> |You're talking about your own work, right?
|>> |Wes, have you got a page with your critique of self-organising models
|>> |I could have a look at. You know my stance on dredging through
|>> |interminable home pages.
|>> |
|>> |Dembski's review can be summed up as casting Kaufmann as Dr. Strangelove
|>> |or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the Real World and Love NK
|>> |Boolean Networks.
|>> |
|>> |I asked Dembski to come on TO and debate you (he said get back to him
|>> |November, remember), but I never received a reply but that may have
|>> |something to do with my change of isp's. I recall asking him whether his
|>> |book has been reviewed in the professional mathematics or philosophy
|>> |journals.
|>> |
|>> |Also I asked Dembski about this example he gives in one(or is it all?)
|>> |of his Discovery pieces, about not understanding the gurgling of said
|>> |Chinaman ('chink' as Musgrave puts it) and interpreting it as gibberish
|>>
|>>Ian was reporting on vernacular and vulgar Australian usage. He was not
|>>promoting it as a correct or proper way to speak, nor would he. IIRC, he
|>>was actually commenting on the implicit racism in another person's play on
|>>words.
|>>
|>> |,en passant citing Wittgenstein, a homosexual who liked to wear
|>> |fishermens' polonecked wooly jumpers.
|>>
|>>Which of course makes everything he wrote false and incoherent? What
|>>possible significance does this have that is not ad hominem?
|>>
|>
|>John, you should never, ever take Adamski seriously. He just likes to see
|>his own words rattle around next to one another on the web -- meaning is
|>irrelevant.
|
|He seems to be speaking to us from an overstuffed chair in one of
|those English men's clubs.
|
|I like it.
|
I immediately envisioned Adamski with a bad case of gout, and now I feel
much better. Thanks.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>Woodard):
>
>[snip]
>
>>As I mentioned, there was a time when all known examples of Class-IC
>>clearly belonged to Class-IA.
>
>A tree falls in the forest (with no one around to hear) crossing a
>steam. Animals use the tree to cross the stream. The parts of the
>system are the tree, the stream, the banks, and the animals. The
>function is to move animals from one side to the other. Remove any
>part and the system fails. This perfectly fits the IC definition. I
>don't see any intelligent agency involved.
I'm responding to this before other posts because it's a great
question with a quick answer.
I think you're right here. But it seems reasonable to me that we
could define a level of specified complexity that would be extremely
unlikely to issue from chance.
I do think Wesley's making a larger point, applicable to more than
just Class-IC. In any case, hopefully he'll play along for the sake
of our discussion.
Keith Woodard
wrote:
>Keith Woodard wrote:
Ivar, there are aspects of this that require me to think some before
responding, so I'll wait until my discussion with Wesley has ended. I
hope no one takes my facetious reference to "pestering" the wrong way.
I respect everyone participating in my threads, and I have a lot to
learn from all of you.
Ivar Ylvisaker
Keith Woodard wrote:
> On 4 Dec 1998 01:31:03 -0500, Ivar Ylvisaker <ylvi...@erols.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >Nothing in this post is intended to delay your response to Wesley's long, complex
> >post about classes inside of classes.
>
> I hope no one takes my facetious reference to "pestering" the wrong way.
I interpreted your remark as humorous and meant mine the same way. Wesley had complained
that you were not responding fast enough. (Interpret the second and third sentences in
this paragraph as humorous.)
Ivar
Matt Silberstein
Woodard):
>On 5 Dec 1998 12:16:38 -0500, mat...@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein)
>wrote:
>
>>In talk.origins I read this message from qwoo...@nospam.net (Keith
>>Woodard):
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>>As I mentioned, there was a time when all known examples of Class-IC
>>>clearly belonged to Class-IA.
>>
>>A tree falls in the forest (with no one around to hear) crossing a
>>steam. Animals use the tree to cross the stream. The parts of the
>>system are the tree, the stream, the banks, and the animals. The
>>function is to move animals from one side to the other. Remove any
>>part and the system fails. This perfectly fits the IC definition. I
>>don't see any intelligent agency involved.
>
>I'm responding to this before other posts because it's a great
>question with a quick answer.
>
>I think you're right here. But it seems reasonable to me that we
>could define a level of specified complexity that would be extremely
>unlikely to issue from chance.
>
This did not issue from "chance" along. Certainly gravity is a force.
Certainly those animals did not randomly move across the bridge. No
one suggests that any aspect of the world is due to complete chance.
Aspect of certain events go in the chance category, not the whole
event. And evolution, as we keep on saying, is certainly not a chance
process, it is a combination of chance and "regularity".
>I do think Wesley's making a larger point, applicable to more than
>just Class-IC. In any case, hopefully he'll play along for the sake
>of our discussion.
Wesley attacks the logic, I attach the assumptions. If either of us
are right, the whole argument fails. Since I have shown one easy
example of an IC system not do to design or an intelligent agent the
whole notion that IC implies ID or IA is refuted. If you want to come
back and claims that there is some class of "Specified Complex IC"
(SCIC) systems that imply ID or IA, then do so. I suspect that you
will find that all of your SCIC examples are biological. IOW, you will
end up implying that life implies a designer because life implies a
designer.
Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more
to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (who was an aviator and aircraft designer
when he wasn't being the author of classic children's books)
Adamski
>
>Ian was reporting on vernacular and vulgar Australian usage. He was not
>promoting it as a correct or proper way to speak, nor would he. IIRC, he
>was actually commenting on the implicit racism in another person's play on
>words.
Wait, is it correct that Abos get special welfare payments?
Sometimes walking around London Town, I get the feeling that I've
been transported to the Acts of the Apostles. Many people are speaking
in tongues.
> |,en passant citing Wittgenstein, a homosexual who liked to wear
> |fishermens' polonecked wooly jumpers.
>
>Which of course makes everything he wrote false and incoherent? What
>possible significance does this have that is not ad hominem?
Following The Catcher in the Rye, digressions are usually considered a
good thing.
Though Wittgenstein was a bandit, I've chosen to overlook it or rather
"Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent". Unlike Foucault
who spent his leisure time buggering in bath-houses, Wittgenstein was
a sensitive soul who found the whole business loathsome.
From the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"He progressed rapidly in mathematical logic; according to Russell, he
"soon knew all that I had to teach." Russell remarked that getting to
know Wittgenstein was "one of the most exciting intellectual adventures"
of his life. Wittgenstein, he said, had "fire and penetration and
intellectual purity to a quite extraordinary degree."
[...]
Feeling that the Tractatus had exhausted his contributions to
philosophy, Wittgenstein sought some other vocation. He became an
elementary school teacher and beginning in 1920 taught in various tiny
villages in Lower Austria. During this period he was severely unhappy
and frequently thought of suicide. He was helped, however, by his
relationship with his young pupils. Painful frictions eventually
developed between Wittgenstein and some of the other teachers and
villagers, and in 1925 he abandoned his career as a school teacher."
"Wittgenstein, Ludwig" Britannica CD 98 Standard Edition 1994-98, EB
Inc.
Yes, one must avoid painful frictions.
When in Austria, Wittgenstein had been in the Vienna Boys' Choir. All of
them.
A copy of the Tractatus is here:
http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html
Numerous Wittgenstein links and articles:
http://www.ags.uci.edu/~bcarver/ludwig.html
Your comment about ad hominem was noteworthy and not just because
someone actually managed to spell it correctly. It implied that
the charge of homosexuality was is derogatory. Do you feel that
homosexuality is something to be ashamed of?
> |
> |Now, Dembski says that the hearer is unable to distinguish these sounds
> |from all other possible utterances; is he saying that not only can one
> |not semantically understand a natural language, but one cannot
> |semiotically characterise it thus, or perhaps because they speak so
> |quickly or write so stupid, that we haven't the time to decode it, so
> |to speak? How would this relate to SETI?
> |
> |Is Dembski mentioning parapsychology at all? This seems an excellent
> |field of inquiry. Here the agency problem is problematic, as it is
> |complicated by the issue of fraud, but it doesn't employ notions of
> |previous human action.
> |
> |I don't agree with Dembski's assertion that YHWH inscribed on cells
> |would compel sceptis to belief, as employing the weak anthropic
> |principle or MWH solves all conceivable problems, and should be used in
> |court as soon as possible as a test case. As they say, for believers a
> |miracle isn't necessary, and for unbelievers, never sufficient.
> |
> |Dembski's filter shouldn't include anything: following Godel there is
> |no rigorous concept of randomness, theres no regularity/law either for a
> |variety of reasons and there is no design because it, properly
> |understood, would be subsumed, into the other two categories, if they
> |existed.
> |
> |Now do you see why Wittgenstein was wont to say: "Wovon man nicht
> |sprechen kann, darueber man muss schweigen"?
> |
> |I tracked down Dean Kenyon but same problem. I can't believe that anyone
> |would actually ignore an Adamski communication, so it must have been
> |lost in cyberspace.
>
--
I already understood newspapers and journalism when I was a boy.
They wrote about hackneyed things which one knew without having
to read about them. They filled pages because the pages had to
be filled.
Vaslav Nijinsky, Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky
John Wilkins
<ada...@mobius1.demon.co.uk> wrote a load of nasty, and pretty vicious
non-sequiturs, thus convincing me (as many have suggested) that I should
henceforth ignore what he writes. Consider it a boycott, if you like, but
life is too short to get into a shit-flinging match with a sewer worker.:
No, but charging homosexuality with the implication of intellectual
weakness in order to "refute" the content of a philosophical argument is
sheer bastardry. Even if you are agreeing with Wittgenstein, the comment
was unnecessary and irrelevant, and marks you as someone to avoid in
conversation. I shall try to do so in the future, even when you slander my
friends.
--
Keith Woodard
"Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information":
http://www.discovery.org/crsc/crscviews/idesign2.html
and I'm fascinated. I can't resist interrupting our discussion to
present a different take on Dembski's false positives. Once again,
I'll use your August 22 message beginning the Explanatory Filters
thread as a springboard.
************************
<snip>
>I reject Dembski's assertion that his Explanatory Filter is
>not subject to false positives. I have noted above and will
>demonstrate below the existence of at least one class of false
>positive classification to which Dembski's filter is
>susceptible.
>[Quote]
> And this brings us to the problem of false positives. Even
> though the Explanatory Filter is not a reliable criterion for
> eliminating design, it is, I argue, a reliable criterion for
> detecting design.
Dembski's unclear language here caused you to misunderstand him. What
he means is that his EF sometimes falsely eliminates design but never
falsely detects design.
> The Explanatory Filter is a net. Things that
> are designed will occasionally slip past the net. We would
> prefer that the net catch more than it does, omitting nothing
> due to design. But given the ability of design to mimic
> unintelligent causes and the possibility of our own ignorance
> passing over things that are designed, 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.
<snip>
> My second argument for showing that the Explanatory Filter is
> a reliable criterion for detecting design may now be
> summarized as follows: the Explanatory Filter is a reliable
> criterion for detecting design because it coincides with how
> we recognize intelligent causation generally. In general, to
> recognize intelligent causation we must observe a choice among
> competing possibilities, note which possibilities were not
> chosen, and then be able to specify the possibility that was
> chosen.
"Actualized possibility" is an acceptable definition of "information"
in the technical sense. This is important because, according to
information theory, necessity -- regularity -- can't create
information.
>[End Quote - W Dembski,
>http://www.origins.org/real/ri9602/dembski.html]
>It is a contradiction that Dembski's Explanatory Filter has
>the property of not always accurately eliminating design and
>also has the property of making no false positive
>identifications of design. If the filter cannot accurately
>eliminate all cases that have the appearance of design when
>design is not present, then we necessarily have cases where
>design can be inferred where that conclusion is not warranted.
This is the misunderstanding I alluded to above. He's saying it *can*
accurately eliminate all cases of design when design wasn't present.
The problem is it sometimes eliminates design when it was present.
<snip>
>Dembski's second argument is simply inadequate to the task of
>leading to his conclusion. Our general capability to
>recognize design is due exclusively to our past experience
>with designed phenomena, where we know both the attributes of
>the designer and the produced phenomena.
Dembski doesn't agree.
You have in the past successfully argued that we're incapable of
recognizing information without some experience with its medium of
transmission. I believe Dembski would agree with you.
Where you and he disagree is that you claim the only valid criterion
for design detection is the set of known design/designer
relationships, while he claims it is complex specified information.
How to decide between the two?
Let's examine the Caputo case, where both criteria are present.
We'll first remove specified complexity and posit that Democrats had
been placed on top only 23 out of 41 times. Would we still convict
Caputo? It would seem that, without specified complexity, known
design/designer relationships -- even in concert with his Italian
heritage -- would not suffice.
Now, suppose we reinstall specified complexity, and, to make the
example more extreme and therefore clearer, suppose Democrats had been
placed on top in 3999 out of 4000 cases. We then remove your
criterion by supposing no one in history had ever cheated. Assuming
we had some way of verifying the reliability of the randomization
procedure used, it seems to me the only reasonable conclusion would be
that human cheating had, tragically, finally occurred. The specified
complexity would, as I see it, be enough.
Although on the evolution issue I agree with you and disagree with
Dembski, on this narrow issue I agree with him.
Moreover, I believe known design/designer relationships are subsumed
under the criterion of specified complexity. In the example of
Paley's watch, human-made watches comprise the basis for the
specification. In other words, known design/designer relationships
are one form of specification.
>We use the knowledge
>of relationships due to design to identify examples of those
>relationships. Using this capability to assert that we can
>recognize previously unknown designed relationships is begging
>the question.
He's not using that capability. He's using specified complexity.
>The extrapolation which Dembski assumes is
>reliable is, in fact, unreliable. Dembski's Explanatory
>Filter will permit false positives as follows: For phenomena
>which are caused by law-like physical processes which are
>currently unknown to humans, Dembski's filter may falsely
>identify them as being due to the action of an intelligent
>agency, since we will be able to specify a pattern in either
>case.
Dembski is pointing out that, if the tenets of information theory are
correct, it is impossible for deterministic processes to create
complex specified patterns.
>Phenomena in that class will pass Dembski's first
>filter, because the law-like process which generates the
>phenomena is not known and cannot be so classified.
It doesn't matter whether or not the laws are known. Generally
accepted principles of information theory imply that, as Dembski
writes in the aforementioned article, "necessity is by definition
incapable of producing information, much less complex specified
information."
<snip>
> Let us take as an example the light emitted by
>samples of certain ores before the discovery of radioactivity.
>The composition of the ores comprised a specification. The
>effect could not be attributed to law-like physical process,
>since no process capable of producing the effect was known to
>exist at the time. The effect was not random; light was
>emitted from all ores of similar composition.
The problem here is that light emitted from all ores of the same
composition doesn't constitute a complex, independently-specified
pattern.
<snip>
Wesley R. Elsberry
Keith Woodard <qwoo...@nospam.net> wrote:
KW>Wesley, in preparing my reply, I stumbled across Dembski's
KW>"Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information":
KW>http://www.discovery.org/crsc/crscviews/idesign2.html
KW>and I'm fascinated. I can't resist interrupting our
KW>discussion to present a different take on Dembski's false
KW>positives. Once again, I'll use your August 22 message
KW>beginning the Explanatory Filters thread as a springboard.
KW>************************
KW><snip>
WRE>I reject Dembski's assertion that his Explanatory Filter is
WRE>not subject to false positives. I have noted above and will
WRE>demonstrate below the existence of at least one class of false
WRE>positive classification to which Dembski's filter is
WRE>susceptible.
WRE>[Quote]
WAD> And this brings us to the problem of false positives. Even
WAD> though the Explanatory Filter is not a reliable criterion for
WAD> eliminating design, it is, I argue, a reliable criterion for
WAD> detecting design.
KW>Dembski's unclear language here caused you to misunderstand
KW>him. What he means is that his EF sometimes falsely
KW>eliminates design but never falsely detects design.
We could argue over whether taking Dembski at his word constitutes
a misunderstanding on my part, but why bother?
WAD> The Explanatory Filter is a net. Things that
WAD> are designed will occasionally slip past the net. We would
WAD> prefer that the net catch more than it does, omitting nothing
WAD> due to design. But given the ability of design to mimic
WAD> unintelligent causes and the possibility of our own ignorance
WAD> passing over things that are designed, this problem cannot be
WAD> fixed. Nevertheless, we want to be very sure that whatever the
WAD> net does catch includes only what we intend it to catch, to
WAD> wit, things that are designed.
KW><snip>
WAD> My second argument for showing that the Explanatory Filter is
WAD> a reliable criterion for detecting design may now be
WAD> summarized as follows: the Explanatory Filter is a reliable
WAD> criterion for detecting design because it coincides with how
WAD> we recognize intelligent causation generally. In general, to
WAD> recognize intelligent causation we must observe a choice among
WAD> competing possibilities, note which possibilities were not
WAD> chosen, and then be able to specify the possibility that was
WAD> chosen.
KW>"Actualized possibility" is an acceptable definition of
KW>"information" in the technical sense. This is important
KW>because, according to information theory, necessity --
KW>regularity -- can't create information.
I'll ask Keith to give a reference for "information theory"
making this claim. I think that what Keith will find is that
William Dembski and Stephen Meyer make this claim, rather than
"information theory". See further commentary below.
WRE>[End Quote - W Dembski,
WRE>http://www.origins.org/real/ri9602/dembski.html]
WRE>It is a contradiction that Dembski's Explanatory Filter has
WRE>the property of not always accurately eliminating design and
WRE>also has the property of making no false positive
WRE>identifications of design. If the filter cannot accurately
WRE>eliminate all cases that have the appearance of design when
WRE>design is not present, then we necessarily have cases where
WRE>design can be inferred where that conclusion is not warranted.
KW>This is the misunderstanding I alluded to above. He's
KW>saying it *can* accurately eliminate all cases of design when
KW>design wasn't present. The problem is it sometimes eliminates
KW>design when it was present.
Whether it is a misunderstanding on my part or a mistake on
Dembski's is of little importance. What is important is
evaluation of the claims. With Dembski's definition in TDI of
"design" as being the set-theoretic complement of "reg(E) V
ch(E)" and the further stipulation that "design" does not
imply agency, I find little reason to be contentious
concerning finding that some event E is "due to design" sensu
Dembski. It is the step from "design" to "agency" that I
see as being problematic for Dembski.
Since I specifically addressed the "false positive" claim
further on, I fail to see how I misunderstood anything.
KW><snip>
WRE>Dembski's second argument is simply inadequate to the task of
WRE>leading to his conclusion. Our general capability to
WRE>recognize design is due exclusively to our past experience
WRE>with designed phenomena, where we know both the attributes of
WRE>the designer and the produced phenomena.
Well, let me amend the statement above slightly due to my
reading in TDI.
Dembski's second argument is simply inadequate to the task of
leading to a conclusion of intelligent agency. Our general
capability to recognize intelligent agency is due exclusively
to our past experience with designed phenomena produced by
intelligent agents, where we know both the attributes of the
agent and the produced phenomena.
KW>Dembski doesn't agree.
KW>You have in the past successfully argued that we're
KW>incapable of recognizing information without some
KW>experience with its medium of transmission. I believe
KW>Dembski would agree with you.
KW>Where you and he disagree is that you claim the only valid
KW>criterion for design detection is the set of known
KW>design/designer relationships, while he claims it is complex
KW>specified information. How to decide between the two?
Well, I've now amended my claim to reflect the terms that
Dembski uses in TDI. The point at issue isn't "design",
but rather the conclusion of "agency".
KW>Let's examine the Caputo case, where both criteria are
KW>present.
KW>We'll first remove specified complexity and posit that
KW>Democrats had been placed on top only 23 out of 41 times.
KW>Would we still convict Caputo? It would seem that, without
KW>specified complexity, known design/designer relationships --
KW>even in concert with his Italian heritage -- would not
KW>suffice.
KW>Now, suppose we reinstall specified complexity, and, to
KW>make the example more extreme and therefore clearer, suppose
KW>Democrats had been placed on top in 3999 out of 4000 cases.
KW>We then remove your criterion by supposing no one in history
KW>had ever cheated. Assuming we had some way of verifying the
KW>reliability of the randomization procedure used, it seems to
KW>me the only reasonable conclusion would be that human cheating
KW>had, tragically, finally occurred. The specified complexity
KW>would, as I see it, be enough.
C-S falls into "design" by definition. "Agency" is not
established by C-S, though. The link between agent and
event in the Caputo case was known all along.
KW>Although on the evolution issue I agree with you and
KW>disagree with Dembski, on this narrow issue I agree with
KW>him.
It's not my fault that Dembski redefined "design".
KW>Moreover, I believe known design/designer relationships are
KW>subsumed under the criterion of specified complexity. In the
KW>example of Paley's watch, human-made watches comprise the
KW>basis for the specification. In other words, known
KW>design/designer relationships are one form of specification.
That could be completely true and not affect my position one
whit, as my discussions of class PEIA show.
WRE>We use the knowledge
WRE>of relationships due to design to identify examples of those
WRE>relationships. Using this capability to assert that we can
WRE>recognize previously unknown designed relationships is begging
WRE>the question.
KW>He's not using that capability. He's using specified
KW>complexity.
This is exactly what I have been pointing out in our ping-pong
posts. Dembski has PEIA to examine. C-S is an attribute
shared by various events in PEIA. Dembski proposes that we
can then use C-S as a reliable indicator of agency. But this
is not a deduction; it is an induction.
WRE>The extrapolation which Dembski assumes is
WRE>reliable is, in fact, unreliable. Dembski's Explanatory
WRE>Filter will permit false positives as follows: For phenomena
WRE>which are caused by law-like physical processes which are
WRE>currently unknown to humans, Dembski's filter may falsely
WRE>identify them as being due to the action of an intelligent
WRE>agency, since we will be able to specify a pattern in either
WRE>case.
KW>Dembski is pointing out that, if the tenets of information
KW>theory are correct, it is impossible for deterministic
KW>processes to create complex specified patterns.
AFAICT, these "tenets of information theory" are Dembski's
personal tenets.
I challenged Dembski on this precise point at the NTSE using a
GA employed upon a TSP problem as an example. Dembski's
response was to invoke the "creeping intelligence" objection.
This is Creationist Objection #5 in my essay at
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/zgists/wre/papers/antiec.html.
I rather like my response. Note well that Dembski
specifically classified GAs as being in the class of
algorithms that could not produce CSI.
WRE>Phenomena in that class will pass Dembski's first
WRE>filter, because the law-like process which generates the
WRE>phenomena is not known and cannot be so classified.
KW>It doesn't matter whether or not the laws are known.
KW>Generally accepted principles of information theory imply
KW>that, as Dembski writes in the aforementioned article,
KW>"necessity is by definition incapable of producing
KW>information, much less complex specified information."
AFAICT, these tenets are *not* generally accepted. I can be
proven wrong easily enough by the citation of information
theoretic work that doesn't come from a member of the ID camp.
Shortly, an information source in information theory is often
taken to be a random generator. Pseudo-random number
generators using linear congruence methods are completely
deterministic (and thus represent "necessity" well), and yet
could used as the random generator source of information.
This disposes of the "incapable of producing information" part
of the claim made above. I challenged Dembski on the CSI part
of the claim at the NTSE. I responded to his rebuttal in
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/zgists/wre/papers/antiec.html.
If algorithms cannot produce information, then why did Dembski
have an analysis of natural selection which attempted to place
an upper limit on the number of bits of information that could
be attributed to the action of natural selection? Dembski
says, "From these observations it is clear that selection can
accumulate a lot of information over successive generations."
(1997 NTSE essay) That's very interesting from the viewpoint
of a claim that information theory "says" that algorithms are
incapable of producing information.
If you examine Dembski's paper from the NTSE and then look at
TDI, one thing that becomes apparent is that the prominent
claim that "functions, algorithms, and natural law" are
incapable of producing information or CSI is much less
prominent in TDI. It is so much less prominent, in fact, that
I haven't yet found it in what I have read of TDI. Part of
this change may have been due to the question period following
Dembski's presentation at the NTSE, where Dr. Bill Jefferys
took apart Dembski's analysis of the limit on information
increase due to natural selection.
KW><snip>
WRE> Let us take as an example the light emitted by
WRE>samples of certain ores before the discovery of radioactivity.
WRE>The composition of the ores comprised a specification. The
WRE>effect could not be attributed to law-like physical process,
WRE>since no process capable of producing the effect was known to
WRE>exist at the time. The effect was not random; light was
WRE>emitted from all ores of similar composition.
KW>The problem here is that light emitted from all ores of the
KW>same composition doesn't constitute a complex,
KW>independently-specified pattern.
KW><snip>
Why not?
Since the time when I wrote that, I have read of the example
that Flietstra uses in response to Michael Behe of "fairy rings".
Perhaps we could substitute that one if the one I gave doesn't
fit.
Dembski's NTSE essay:
http://www.dla.utexas.edu/depts/philosophy/faculty/koons/ntse/papers/Dembski.html
--
Wesley R. Elsberry, Student in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Tx A&M U.
Visit the Online Zoologists page (http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry)
Email to this account is dumped to /dev/null, whose Spam appetite is capacious.
"It's certainly uncontaminated by cheese." - MP
Adamski
<wil...@wehi.edu.au> writes
>In article <3Dv1sBAH...@mobius1.demon.co.uk>, Adamski
><ada...@mobius1.demon.co.uk> wrote a load of nasty, and pretty vicious
>non-sequiturs, thus convincing me (as many have suggested) that I should
>henceforth ignore what he writes.
Interesting use of the third person. The monologue as dialogue. My
feeling is that his boycott will not extend to refusing to reading this
post.
IIRC it Wilkins who replied to my post which was in response to one of
Wes'. Now why was Wilkins reading my post anyway, in a thread I don't
think he has ever frequented? To tap my encyclopaedic knowledge of
evolutionary biology? Or for another reason? You decide.
As many have suggested? Name one, apart from Myers?
And if you thought that my non-sequiturs were nasty and pretty vicious
you really ought to get out more.
> Consider it a boycott, if you like, but
>life is too short to get into a shit-flinging match with a sewer worker.:
Boycotts can be quite effective, though usually only when the target
actually notices, let alone cares about, it. If Wilkins hadn't
announced this boycott, would Adamski have even noticed?
Take my similar experience with Harter. In this case, remember, he was
following me around, like a dog with a bone. Now, of who Harter is, or
of his work, I neither know nor care. He is definitely a 'big man
playing a very small instrument' and I don't care for his tune.
Is life too short? Is this another argument from imperfection?
> |
> |Your comment about ad hominem was noteworthy and not just because
> |someone actually managed to spell it correctly. It implied that
> |the charge of homosexuality was is derogatory. Do you feel that
> |homosexuality is something to be ashamed of?
>
>No, but charging homosexuality with the implication of intellectual
>weakness in order to "refute" the content of a philosophical argument is
>sheer bastardry.
The boycott apparently hasn't lasted even the length of one post! Terms
like bastardry can make illegitimate children feel stigmatised and
should be avoided.
> Even if you are agreeing with Wittgenstein, the comment
>was unnecessary and irrelevant, and marks you as someone to avoid in
>conversation.
Trying to have it both ways! Your inability to decide on what I am
guilty of here merely reflects your prejudices. An actual re-reading
of my initial post would clearly indicate that neither of your charges
is the case; Wittgenstein was just the source of Dembski's example.
Wittgenstein was a sensitive soul who would never be found giving BJ's
to strangers in public parks, which explains why he never entered
British politics.
> I shall try to do so in the future, even when you slander my
>friends.
Please be so kind to <plonk> me, then our paths need never cross again
and you can sink back to the obscurity your talent craves. You can
return to the comfort of the mutual admiration society you share with
your friends; those friends hundreds or thousands of miles away at the
end of telephone lines. You really ought to get out more.
Actually, I'll continue to read your posts. Never for a moment have I
taken your synthetic ire seriously; you really are an uncommonly amusing
and ironic fellow.
--
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.
Thomas Jefferson