From: Glenn Morton (glenn.morton@btinternet.com)
Date: Tue Nov 19 2002 - 00:04:50 EST
Iain wrote:
>Glenn,
>
>With all due respect, I think you're missing the point of
>Dembski's argument.
>The whole point is that one can detect design in an apparently
>random sequence
>of letters precisely because there exists a _compact_ description of the
>encryption key (in the case of a Caesar cypher a single number in
>the range 1-25
>that gives you the letter shift required to produce the encoded message).
And I still think you miss the key point. If I present Dembski a random
sequence, WITHOUT the key, and even without the knowledge that there is a
key, Dembski will conclude that there is no design. That is what Dembski
says over and over in the books. Random sequences mean no design. But,
then AFTER this conclusion, I provide him with a Vigenere keyword which
turns that into a readable sentence. By providing him a key, I have told him
that this is a designed sequence. His methodology didn't detect the design,
I TOLD HIM IT WAS DESIGNED!!! What kind of methodology is it that needs me
to tell him it is designedn in order for his methodology to work?????
>
>Your example of having a cypher key that is the same length as the
>message is
>irrelevant. Of course, given any random sequence, one can produce
>a key that
>is the same length as the original that can turn it into a
>Shakespeare sonnet,
>or a limerick, or the Vladivostok train timetable, or whatever you
>want, but it does not prove design, because it is clear you can
>produce such a
>key with probability one. But the probability, given a long
>sequence of random
>letters, that a simple cypher can produce an intelligible message
>is close to
>zero, and hence if one does exist, then you have good a good case
>for making a
>design inference, because a simple cypher key can only represent a
>very small
>fraction of all the possibilities, hence given a random sequence there is a
>very small probability that the range of keys available will lead
>to an intelligible message.
Are you aware, that one way to encode and decode a message is to provide the
sender and receiver a book of random letters. Then upon sending the
message, you send what appears to be a random sequence of letters plus the
starting point in the book of random letters. Then letter by letter, the
code is decoded.
You miss the point again because my point is not that a random sequence of
letters can produce a Shakespearean Sonnet, but that Dembski's methodology
simply doesn't detect design without being told that something is designed.
That isn't even a scientific method if it depends on subjective knoweledge.
If Dembski had a method which actually worked, it would be able to detect
design even if I didn't tell them that it was designed.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
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