Over at the self-styled Intelligent Reasoning, we have Joe G saying in this post that there really is a scientific statement lurking somewhere in ID, based upon Behe's statement
Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles to be confident of the design of anything: the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components.
He also offers this note:
To test the design inference specific criteria must be met. Criteria such as irreducible complexity, complex specified information and/ or the mere presence of counterflow.
To falsify the design inference all one has to do is to demonstrate that the object/ event in question can arise via nature, operating freely- ie it is reducible to matter, energy, chance and necessity.
However, Joe G misses a couple of basic problems with his arguments. First of all, the effects of design can exactly resemble the effects of nature. In fact, design uses naturally occurring elements to make changes. If I come across a few pebbles that have fallen onto some solid rock, and i move one or two pebbles into a configuration that I find pleasing, and leave the other 8-10 alone, there is no evidence that the resulting configuration is designed. Outside of finding actual fingerprints, or recognizing the configuration himself, Joe G would not even suspect design. Secondly, Behe's entire characterization is full of weasel-words, as any naturally generated ordering of separated components can be deemed 'not sharply dependent' or 'not truly identifiable' at need.
A post in the August 2009 archive of Intelligently Sequenced
titled "Commonly Employed Arguments Against ID", we see the attempted response:
39] ID is Nothing More Than a “God of the Gaps” Hypothesis may be the most common anti-ID argument.
ID is not proposing “God” to paper over a gap in current scientific explanation. Instead ID theorists start from empirically observed, reliable, known facts and generally accepted principles of scientific reasoning:
(a) Intelligent designers exist and act in the world.
(b) When they do so, as a rule, they leave reliable signs of such intelligent action behind.
(c) Indeed, for many of the signs in question such as CSI and IC, intelligent agents are the only observed cause of such effects, and chance + necessity (the alternative) is not a plausible source, because the islands of function are far too sparse in the space of possible relevant configurations.
(d) On the general principle of science, that “like causes like,” we are therefore entitled to infer from sign to the signified: intelligent action.
(e) This conclusion is, of course, subject to falsification if it can be shown that undirected chance + mechanical forces do give rise to CSI or IC. Thus, ID is falsifiable in principle but well supported in fact.
Of course, this is swallowed whole, despite that:
(a) I agree here.
(b) There are no reliable, scientific signs of designers.
We infer design by analogy top known human designers.
(c) There are no "islands of function" in the significantly multi-variate space described by typical protein construction. Function at a point (w', x', y', z') that, on a local level, ends quickly in direction w will often be unchanged in direction x and changed only mildly in directions y and z. Now, replace that four-dimensional model with a more common 100-dimensional model, and the notion of islands of function is easily seen to be preposterous. Further, the whole notion of "plausible source" is a direct invocation of a 'designer of the gaps'.
(d) Generally, the principle of "like causes like" comes from magic, not science.
(e) Every testable formulation of CSI and IC has been been falsified. This has resulted in definition changes to the concepts, especially IC, to the point they are identified post hoc instead by prior standards. That is, first they look at a sequence/construct, check to see if there is an origin, and only proclaim it CSI/IC after no origin exists. This a manifestly non-science.
Posts
14 comments:
1- Too bad neither IC nor CSI have been falsified. You have nothing. Every alleged falsification has been refuted.
2- I fully understand that designers can mimic nature and therefor the design inference can miss some cases of design. Dembski goes over this in "No Free Lunch"
3- Transcription and translation, with their error-correction, proof-reading and editing, are evidence for ID. Or do you think it is scientific to say "it just happened"?
4- There are reliable scientific signs of designers and we do not infer design by analogy.
5- Behe's alleged weasel words exist in your mind.
DEmbski in "No Free Lunch":
”When the Explanatory Filter fails to detect design in a thing, can we be sure no intelligent cause underlies it? The answer to this question is No. For determining that something is not designed, the Explanatory Filter is not a reliable criterion. False negatives are a problem for the Explanatory Filter.
This problem of false negatives, however, is endemic to detecting intelligent causes. One difficulty is that intelligent causes can mimic law and chance, thereby rendering their actions indistinguishable from these unintelligent causes. It takes an intelligent cause to know an intelligent cause, but if we don't know enough, we'll miss it.”
This is why further investigation is always a good thing. Initial inferences can either be confirmed or falsified by further research.
Intelligent causes always entail intent. Natural causes never do.
Hi, 1 brow!
invitation:
http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?act=SF;f=14
One Brow,
The link Rich provided would be perferct for you as ignorance and stupidity pass for meanigful discourse.
Also you will never, ever be asked to substantiate anything- especially when it comes to your anti-ID PoV.
Joe G,
1) Since CSI and IC are not specific enough to be falsifiable, of course any alleged falsification would fail. You might as well try to falsify the statement "Life is pretty, so it must be designed".
2) Between the false negatives adn false positives, Dembski's attemtps at design dectection turn out not to be very revealing.
3) Nothing is proof of ID by fiat. Provide the mechanism by which the designer initiated the transcription, translation, etc., along with experimental designs that validate these mechanisms, and then we can discuss the scientific nature of ID.
4) Your claim is empty until I see an example. IC and CSI have produced false negatives and false positives. What's your methodology?
5) Yes, they do exist in my mind, after I read them in print or on the web. My mind is not the source for them.
Intelligent causes always entail intent. Natural causes never do.
Would termites be an intelligent cause or a natural cause?
I don't particularly need your analysis of other sites, and don't find your characterization regarding stupidity or ignorance to be reliable. Thanks for the advice, though.
Rich,
Thank you for the invitation. I've seen the site, but I'm already too extended as it is.
1- CSI and IC are more specific than anything your position has to offer.
2- What false positives?
3- Science is not about proof and design is a mechanism.
Then there is Dr Spetner's "non-random evolutionary hypothesis" and Dr Davison's "prescribed evolutionary hypothesis"
So what do you have to support your position on transcription and translation?
Nothing? That is what I thought.
You are allegedly a software engineer- the ribosome is a genetic compiler. And you have no answer as to how culled random mutations could create such a thing.
4- What example do you have to support your position?
And without anything to substantiate your claim about IC and CSI there isn't any reason to believe you.
5- Termites are intelligent agencies.
And yes you would find my characterization to be unreliable. However just look at what you post and you will fit right in over there.
But thank you for proving that your position boils down to nothing more than the refusal to accept the design inference.
1. The are so non-specific they can't be definitively assigned to any biological construct. If all in the eye of the beholder.
2. Primates not creating Vitamin C is an excellent example of a false positive.
3. How does the ID "mechanism" work? Describe it. I doubt you can, because it's not actually a mechanism.
By contrast, we know how mutations happens. We know what natural selection does. We know what mass extinction are and how they work. Etc.
4. You have claimed there are reliable scientific indicators of design that are not by analogy. It's up to you to support it, not I.
5. Under what definition of intelligence? Is there any life you see as not being intelligent?
I don't really care where I fit in, and find your attempts to place me in some category to be amusing and pointless.
I don't refuse to accept the design inference a priori, actually. I'm just waiting for evidence.
1- They are more specific than anything your position has to offer.
They can be definitively assigned to biological structures.
2- Primates not creating Vit C is a false positive for what?
3- Design is a mechanism. Also directed mutaion is a specific design mechanism.
Your ignorance of Dr Spetner and Dr Davison are not refutations.
4- IC, CSI and counterflow are relaible indicators.
And to refute the design inference all you have to do is step up and actually support your claims.
It is that easy.
5- Under the definition that nature, operating freely could not build a termite mound.
Termites leave traces of their activity behind- traces that are not attributable to nature, operating freely.
And no amount of evidence will satisfy you. And you will never substantiate your position with actual scientific data.
Also I would like to offer a minor correction.
Over at the self-styled Intelligent Reasoning, we have Joe G saying in this post that there really is a scientific statement lurking somewhere in ID, based upon Behe's statement
"Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles to be confident of the design of anything: the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components."
If we observe what Behe describes we should at least be able to check out the possibility of design.
If science is interested in the reality behind the existence of what is being investigated then figuring out what it is reducible to would be key to that investigation.
For example Stonehenge, even though made up of Mother Nature's stones, is not reducible to the actions of Mother Nature, ie nature, operating freely.
If it were then geologists would be studying it.
My apologies One Brow.
It appears that you do not even understand what is being debated.
You should really figure that out before jumping into a debate.
1- They are more specific than anything your position has to offer.
I doubt you understand "my side" well enough to describe what it may or may not have to offer.
They can be definitively assigned to biological structures.
Assigning them is meaningless. You can assign the term "pretty" just as easily. When they can be defined independent of a biological structure, and then applied to biological structures, that will be meaningful.
2- Primates not creating Vit C is a false positive for what?
For the explanatory filter of the design inference of course. Before the discovery of DNA, there was no chance explanation for this inability, and the inability is not necessary. It even serves the function of making sure the primates stay in a range with plants that produce vitamin C. Thus, the explanatory filter produced the result of design.
Of course, now that we know the truth is a random frame shift mutation disabled vitamin C production, it turned out the filter produces false positives.
3- Design is a mechanism. Also directed mutaion is a specific design mechanism.
A mechanism is an explanation of how something works. Design is not a mechanism, there is no "how". Directed mutation (presumably you are referring to the ability of ceertain bacteria to increase their mutationalrates in sebments of their genetic code) is a mechanism, but it operates on a material level with no input from a designer. There is no designer mechanism.
Your ignorance of Dr Spetner and Dr Davison are not refutations.
I presume you mean Dr. Lee Spetner, whose engagnement in nonesense probability speculations and other creationist pseudoscience renders his work oot, and Dr. Eric Davidson, whose work in the type of directed mutations you refer to above involves no designer. The former has been thoroughly refuted and the latter offers no evidence for design.
4- IC, CSI and counterflow are relaible indicators.
Indicators that can not be defined beforehand. You might as well say "pretty" is a reliable indicator.
And to refute the design inference ...
Thje design inference is irrefutable.
5- Under the definition that nature, operating freely could not build a termite mound.
Under that definiton, my refrigerator is intelligent. Nature, operating freely, could never turn water into ice in Illinois in July at an altitude of less than 200 feet above sea level.
And no amount of evidence will satisfy you. And you will never substantiate your position with actual scientific data.
I don't confuse my philosophical position with a scientific one.
If we observe what Behe describes we should at least be able to check out the possibility of design.
Behe's criteria is nonesense. The has an ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components. A clay pot in an archeological dig has no separate components at all.
My apologies One Brow.
It appears that you do not even understand what is being debated.
Jus because my responses don't fit into the categories you have laid out in your head does not mean I don't understand.
sorry, teh above comment should read: "The water cycle has an ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components."
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