>At 11:32 AM 12/2/96 EST, Jim Bell wrote:
>
>Wow, its been a long time since I've seen so much hot air compressed
>into such a small space. Don't you realize that every criticism you
>have raised against evolution applies to ID multiplied by a factor
>of (at least) 10?
>
Sorry about following up my own post. It is possible that I was too
rough on Jim. When he concluded his post with "Help me out here"
I thought he said "Help me out this here window", and I was only
too happy to oblige ;-).
My general approach is to be blunt about what I'm thinking. I hope
this bluntness doesn't detract from the general points that I was
making, points that need to be addressed by ID'ers, and points
I'm going to continue to make until they are addreesed.
Also, I did not intend my remarks as a personal attack on Jim,
rather an attack on his approach to the debate.
Now, let's look again at one of my points. Previously I wrote:
"How do you propose to test ID?".
In a response to Glenn, Jim wrote:
'The ID argument is not "wait and see." It is "SEE! Now what's
the most reasonable explanation?"
In this area, Behe has shown that science has not provided
any naturalistic explanation. That doesn't mean we shouldn't
keep looking. Indeed, ID should be subject to falsification
experiments.' -- Jim Bell
This implies that the lack of a naturalistic explanation is somehow
a test of ID. This is the argument from the false or missing alternative.
The lack of a naturalistic explanation implies only that a naturalistic
explanation hasn't been found. This lack says nothing about ID. I've
argued previously that this type of mentality comes very close to
a kind of scientism. The methods of science are all powerful, if a
naturalistic explanation exists, science will be able to find it.
Conversely, if science is unable to find an explanation then there
probably isn't one.
Chaitin's algorithmic complexity theory paints a different picture.
If a phenomena's complexity exceeds the complexity of our mental
faculties, then even though that phenomena might be highly
ordered (ie compressible into a simple algorithm or law) that order
will forever elude us, except we stumble over it by luck. Given this
inherent uncertainty, the absence of a physical explanation for a
phenomena cannot be be taken as evidence that a physical
explanation doesn't exist. Also, given this uncertainty, it is not
reasonable to talk about whether or not the existence of a
physical explanation is reasonable.
Ah, this reminds me of one of my favorite Pascal quotes:
"It is not certain that all is uncertain,
to the glory of skepticism" -- Pascal, Pensees
So, again we have the question. How do we test ID? Lets approach
this question from the point of view of complexity theory. What
we need is a theory of intelligent designers, so we can tell what
kinds of things it is possible for intelligent designers to design.
Now I think its clear that the complexity of the intelligent designer
should exceed the complexity of the designed object. Since we are
unable to find any physical explanation for these objects
we conclude that their complexity also exceeds the complexity of
our minds. But now, our minds are supposed to arrive at a theory
for intelligent designers which implies that, unless we're really
lucky, then our minds must be more complex than that of the
intelligent designer.
Brian Harper | "If you don't understand
Associate Professor | something and want to
Applied Mechanics | sound profound, use the
The Ohio State University | word 'entropy'"
| -- Morrowitz
Bastion for the naturalistic |
rulers of science |