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Toxic
Forum Elder

Joined: 25 Dec 2007
Posts: 1542

Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:59 am Post subject:

I realized that corno is using examples directly from the Intelligent Designists book, so I'll provide already used refutations to those arguments.

Quote:

So the SETI scientist are trying to determine which noise is merely random noise and which noises are attempt to communicate. This is exactly the same thing as ID. It is entirely within the realm of science.

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William Dembski, for example, has written that "Intelligence leaves behind a characteristic signature". The characteristics of intelligence are assumed by intelligent design proponents to be observable without specifying what the criteria for the measurement of intelligence should be. Dembski, instead, asserts that "in special sciences ranging from forensics to archaeology to SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), appeal to a designing intelligence is indispensable".[183] How this appeal is made and what this implies as to the definition of intelligence are topics left largely unaddressed. Seth Shostak, a researcher with the SETI Institute, refuted Dembski's comparison of SETI and intelligent design, saying that intelligent design advocates base their inference of design on complexity—the argument being that some biological systems are too complex to have been made by natural processes—while SETI researchers are looking primarily for artificiality.[184]

Also note the emboldened text, which we've seen repeatedly from corno in this topic: How this appeal is made and what this implies as to the definition of intelligence are topics left largely unaddressed.

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the test for design is called specified complexity

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The soundness of Dembski's concept of specified complexity and the validity of arguments based on this concept are widely disputed. A frequent criticism (see Elsberry and Shallit) is that Dembski has used the terms "complexity", "information" and "improbability" interchangeably. These numbers measure properties of things of different types: Complexity measures how hard it is to describe an object (such as a bitstring), information measures how close to uniform a random probability distribution is and improbability measures how unlikely an event is given a probability distribution.

Disinformation.

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When Dembski's mathematical claims on specific complexity are interpreted to make them meaningful and conform to minimal standards of mathematical usage, they usually turn out to be false. Dembski often sidesteps these criticisms by responding that he is not "in the business of offering a strict mathematical proof for the inability of material mechanisms to generate specified complexity".[21] Yet on page 150 of No Free Lunch he claims he can prove his thesis mathematically: "In this section I will present an in-principle mathematical argument for why natural causes are incapable of generating complex specified information." Others have pointed out that a crucial calculation on page 297 of No Free Lunch is off by a factor of approximately 1065.[22]

Disinformation.

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Dembski's calculations show how a simple smooth function cannot gain information, he therefore concludes that there must be a designer to obtain CSI. However, natural selection has a branching mapping from one to many (replication) followed by pruning mapping of the many back down to a few (selection). These increasing and reductional mappings were not modeled by Dembski. In other words, Dembski's calculations do not model birth and death. This basic flaw in his modeling renders all of Dembski's subsequent calculations and reasoning in No Free Lunch irrelevant because his basic model does not reflect reality. Since the basis of No Free Lunch relies on this flawed argument, the entire thesis of the book collapses.[23]

Disinformation.

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According to Martin Nowak, a Harvard professor of mathematics and evolutionary biology "We cannot calculate the probability that an eye came about. We don't have the information to make the calculation".[24]

Disinformation.

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Dembski's critics note that specified complexity, as originally defined by Leslie Orgel, is precisely what Darwinian evolution is supposed to create. Critics maintain that Dembski uses "complex" as most people would use "absurdly improbable". They also claim that his argument is a tautology: CSI cannot occur naturally because Dembski has defined it thus. They argue that to successfully demonstrate the existence of CSI, it would be necessary to show that some biological feature undoubtedly has an extremely low probability of occurring by any natural means whatsoever, something which Dembski and others have almost never attempted to do. Such calculations depend on the accurate assessment of numerous contributing probabilities, the determination of which is often necessarily subjective. Hence, CSI can at most provide a "very high probability", but not absolute certainty.

Disinformation.

Quote:

Another criticism refers to the problem of "arbitrary but specific outcomes". For example, if a coin is tossed randomly 1000 times, the probability of any particular outcome occurring is roughly one in 10300. For any particular specific outcome of the coin-tossing process, the a priori probability that this pattern occurred is thus one in 10300, which is astronomically smaller than Dembski's universal probability bound of one in 10150. Yet we know that the post hoc probability of its happening is exactly one, since we observed it happening. This is similar to the observation that it is unlikely that any given person will win a lottery, but, eventually, a lottery will have a winner; to argue that it is very unlikely that any one player would win is not the same as proving that there is the same chance that no one will win. Similarly, it has been argued that "a space of possibilities is merely being explored, and we, as pattern-seeking animals, are merely imposing patterns, and therefore targets, after the fact."[25]

Disinformation.

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Apart from such theoretical considerations, critics cite reports of evidence of the kind of evolutionary "spontanteous generation" that Dembski claims is too improbable to occur naturally. For example, in 1982, B.G. Hall published research demonstrating that after removing a gene that allows sugar digestion in certain bacteria, those bacteria, when grown in media rich in sugar, rapidly evolve new sugar-digesting enzymes to replace those removed.[26] Another widely cited example is the discovery of nylon eating bacteria that produce enzymes only useful for digesting synthetic materials that did not exist prior to the invention of nylon in 1935.

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Other commentators have noted that evolution through selection is frequently used to design certain electronic, aeronautic and automotive systems which are considered problems too complex for human "intelligent designers"[27]. This strongly contradicts the argument that an intelligent designer is required for the most complex systems. Such evolutionary techniques can lead to designs that are difficult to understand or evaluate since no human understands which trade-offs were made in the evolutionary process, something which mimics our poor understanding of biological systems.

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Dembski's book No Free Lunch was criticised for not addressing the work of researchers who use computer simulations to investigate artificial life. According to Jeffrey Shallit:
The field of artificial life evidently poses a significant challenge to Dembski's claims about the failure of evolutionary algorithms to generate complexity. Indeed, artificial life researchers regularly find their simulations of evolution producing the sorts of novelties and increased complexity that Dembski claims are impossible.[22]

Toxic
Forum Elder

Joined: 25 Dec 2007
Posts: 1542

Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:54 am Post subject:

Let's make this really simple for you corno. Here's the basis for determining whether a theory qualifies as scientific or not—the scientific method:

Let's look at the question of "where did humans come from?" Care to fill out the chart and show us how ID's theory on creation is a valid scientific theory?

Timetheos
Known Associate

Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 432
Location: Seattle

Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 2:58 pm Post subject:

Excellent posts Toxic.

I would also add that in most cases, the tests need to be repeatable.

Timetheos
Known Associate

Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 432
Location: Seattle

Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 2:59 pm Post subject:

Reality is reality. Faith is faith. If we gain new facts and data that alter our understanding of reality, it is faith that must move, not reality.

Quote:

Faith is a belief in the trustworthiness of an idea that has not been proven.

(emphasis added; RTFW)

Last edited by Timetheos on Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:17 pm; edited 1 time in total

Timetheos
Known Associate

Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 432
Location: Seattle

Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:15 pm Post subject:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolut.....81_01.html

Quote:

Ken Miller: Reconciling Science and Faith:

Fifty years ago, no one knew why flowers bloomed; the phenomenon baffled researchers and bolstered creationists, who pointed to gaps in science as proof of the existence of a higher being. A half century later, we know that a plant's genes tell an ordinary cluster of leaves to bloom and scatter pollen in springtime as a way to reproduce.

Is this yet another victory for evolutionists who rule out any notion of God?

No, says Kenneth R. Miller, a biology professor at Brown University and author of the book Finding Darwin's God. Miller, a devout Catholic and evolutionist, believes God and science can coexist in the chapel and the lab. The key, Miller says, is to set aside the assumption that science and religion rule each other out. Miller does this by considering two separate realities: a material reality that relies on science and forms the basis for the theory of evolution, and a spiritual reality based on faith that gives our lives value and meaning.

This theory of two realities sits at odds both with creationists who discount science and evolution and with scientists who suggest that life is simply the existence of organisms and is without a higher purpose. Instead, Miller's theory points to a deity that created a self-sufficient world, which functions virtually independently from God's influences. In this view, God used science and physics to create a complex world and then allowed it to evolve on its own. God created the genes that tell a flower to bloom and spread pollen; God created the common ancestry among organisms first noted by Darwin; and God created the evolutionary process that ultimately resulted in our own human consciousness. This awareness, Miller says, points to a spiritual influence that holds our civilization together and gives humans a moral responsibility for the care of the planet.

Miller recognizes that while science can tell us many things, such as why a flower blooms, it will never be able to prove, or disprove, the existence of a higher being. The question of God, for Miller and anyone else, still comes down to one thing: faith.

I'm telling you Corno: Two separate domains. Two separate areas of concern. A person may BELIEVE that exploring the natural laws my take them closer to God, but that doesn't PROVE there is a God, and there is no scientific experiment they can conduct to SHOW it.

On top of all of this, we have a practical consideration: when we are in the classroom, we are in an environment in which there are multiple belief systems. To respect these, it's best not try and catapult a belief system (Separation of Church and State). The school system, government, and science, with respect to spiritual matters, should be agnostic.

Timetheos
Known Associate

Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 432
Location: Seattle

Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:29 pm Post subject:

Corno, please read this: http://www.findingdarwinsgod.c.....index.html

Father Murphy's explanation of the flower was early ID.

cornopean
Forum Elder

Joined: 20 Dec 2006
Posts: 3534

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:43 pm Post subject:

Timetheos wrote:

Quote:

why is it so disgusting for a person to want a reasonable faith

There is a yawning gap between "reasonable" and "proven". It's not unreasonable to believe in God. It's unreasonable to try to inject God into Physics, Chemistry, and Biology.

first, I am not sure what you mean by "proven" here. I freely admit that the existence of God can't be proven in the same way that we prove things in geometry. but reasonable to me means that we don't just believe things like people believe in Santa Claus but we have real evidence that undergirds our beliefs. There is rational belief and irrational belief. I think a person needs to have a rational faith.

Last edited by cornopean on Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:07 pm; edited 1 time in total

cornopean
Forum Elder

Joined: 20 Dec 2006
Posts: 3534

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:47 pm Post subject:

Timetheos wrote:

Quote:

thing. It is something the greatest Christians pursued zealously with varying degrees of success.

Prove it.

all the books on Christian apologetics, Christian evidences, and defending the Christian faith. This kind of literature is as old as Christianity. The same thing exists in Jewish and Islamic communities. We want evidence for what we beleive. We don't want to die and find out that our faith was an empty chimera. We like to think that our beliefs are true.

cornopean
Forum Elder

Joined: 20 Dec 2006
Posts: 3534

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:07 pm Post subject:

Toxic wrote:

Let's make this really simple for you corno. Here's the basis for determining whether a theory qualifies as scientific or not—the scientific method:

Let's look at the question of "where did humans come from?" Care to fill out the chart and show us how ID's theory on creation is a valid scientific theory?

Let's start even smaller. Let's deal with cells.

Step #1 - Ask question.
Was the human cell a result of ID or unguided forces?

Step #2 - Background research
this might involve studying what characteristics indicate to us that something is designed or not. What sets apart designed objects from undesigned objects. What is it that immediately leads us to beleive that Mt. Rushmore was designed and the Grand Canyon wasn't?

Step #3 - Construct hypothesis
The human cell is the result of ID (or is not the result...).

Step #4 - testing/experimentation
get out the microscopes and examine all the parts of the cell. map it out on paper and see if the cell and its parts have the characteristics or patterns that we discovered in step #2.

Step #5 - conclusions
the cell has many structures or patterns that cannot (or can) reasonably be accounted for by unguided forces.

Step #6a - hypothesis is true/false
based on the testing done in step #4, the cell must be the product of ID (or must not be the product of ID).

Step #6b - think try again
a possible retest would be to conduct several laboratory experiments. these experiments would recreate all sorts of different environments to see if cell structures might form under certain conditions. For example, could the right "primordial soup" be reconstituted and manipulated in different ways to see if the right conditions might result in cell structures being produced. as many different "soups" should be experimented with as possible. The goal here is to run experiments to see if there is a possible pathway from the building blocks of the cell to the actual cell structures that is not guided by any intelligence.

Step #7 - report results
write a book/journal article.

Timetheos
Known Associate

Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 432
Location: Seattle

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:48 pm Post subject:

Quote:

We don't want to die and find out that our faith was an empty chimera. We like to think that our beliefs are true.

By definition, that's what faith is. When it comes to belief systems, everyone of us can wrong.

I don't believe your faith is rational. God is not some old man on a throne, mucking with DNA or causing hurricanes with his magic wand. My God is an infinite. SHe is the creator. God of the spirit. Is that rational? From what I've seen and experienced, I believe so, but others will say not. I don't believe hard core aetheists are rational, as they can't probe anything either. Probably the most rational is the agnostic.

You may want to somehow try to validate your beliefs, but science is absolutely the wrong place to do that. I remember studying this in the 10th grade in biology at Catholic school: Science was literally built to take magic/spirit out of the equation. It focuses on what can be proven, what is repeatable, what is shared experience.

That doesn't make science anti-religous, it just address different domains. Science is natural; religion is the supernatural.

Timetheos
Known Associate

Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 432
Location: Seattle

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:50 pm Post subject:

cornopean wrote:

Timetheos wrote:

Quote:

thing. It is something the greatest Christians pursued zealously with varying degrees of success.

Prove it.

Timetheos
Known Associate

Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 432
Location: Seattle

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:53 pm Post subject:

cornopean wrote:

Toxic wrote:

Let's make this really simple for you corno. Here's the basis for determining whether a theory qualifies as scientific or not—the scientific method:

...

Let's look at the question of "where did humans come from?" Care to fill out the chart and show us how ID's theory on creation is a valid scientific theory?

Now that's just pathetic.

Toxic
Forum Elder

Joined: 25 Dec 2007
Posts: 1542

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:57 pm Post subject:

Quote:

Step #2 - Background research
this might involve studying what characteristics indicate to us that something is designed or not. What sets apart designed objects from undesigned objects. What is it that immediately leads us to beleive that Mt. Rushmore was designed and the Grand Canyon wasn't?

Glad you ignored everything I said in the last few posts on this subject.

Quote:

Step #5 - conclusions
the cell has many structures or patterns that cannot (or can) reasonably be accounted for by unguided forces.

And what patterns/structures are those? I didn't mean to hypothetically set up what this might look like, I meant that you should fill it out and prove it.

Quote:

a possible retest would be to conduct several laboratory experiments. these experiments would recreate all sorts of different environments to see if cell structures might form under certain conditions. For example, could the right "primordial soup" be reconstituted and manipulated in different ways to see if the right conditions might result in cell structures being produced. as many different "soups" should be experimented with as possible. The goal here is to run experiments to see if there is a possible pathway from the building blocks of the cell to the actual cell structures that is not guided by any intelligence.

Have those done this test repeatedly and found it to be true? How do you determine that something is "primordial soup", and that it's the right primordial soup?

We're not going anywhere with this...

cornopean
Forum Elder

Joined: 20 Dec 2006
Posts: 3534

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 1:33 am Post subject:

Timetheos wrote:

By definition, that's what faith is. When it comes to belief systems, everyone of us can wrong.

I agree but some faith is just stupid. like faith that when I eat french fries and pizza every day, smoke like crazy, and get drunk on weekends....I will live to be 90. that is an irrational faith. the available evidence tells us otherwise. my faith that my car will successfully take me to work every day is a rational belief. All the evidence points towards a successful trip.

So my faith in God is either irrational or rational. If I find evidence to support it, it is rational and vice versa. So for me, the design that is apparent in the world is good evidence for my belief that there is an almighty and personal God out there.

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I don't believe your faith is rational. God is not some old man on a throne, mucking with DNA or causing hurricanes with his magic wand. My God is an infinite. SHe is the creator. God of the spirit. Is that rational? From what I've seen and experienced, I believe so, but others will say not.

Do you believe in the same basic God as the three theistic religions, Islam, Judaism, Christianity? Then we aren't far apart here.
and isn't it contradictory to say that your God created everything and then deny intelligent design?

Quote:

You may want to somehow try to validate your beliefs, but science is absolutely the wrong place to do that. I remember studying this in the 10th grade in biology at Catholic school: Science was literally built to take magic/spirit out of the equation. It focuses on what can be proven, what is repeatable, what is shared experience.

if God created this world, then I expect to find evidence of this fact in the world He created. That seems rather obvious to me.

Quote:

That doesn't make science anti-religous, it just address different domains. Science is natural; religion is the supernatural.

but the vast majority of this world's people both past and present believe that the supernatural somehow interacts with the natural world. You haven't presented any evidence to lead me to believe that this many people are mistaken.

cornopean
Forum Elder

Joined: 20 Dec 2006
Posts: 3534

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 1:35 am Post subject:

Timetheos wrote:

cornopean wrote:

Toxic wrote:

Now that's just pathetic.

when most thinking people read your response, they are going to declare me the winner in this debate. You'd better come up with something better than this. Smile

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