From: Josh Bembenek (jbembe@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 22 2002 - 11:54:44 EST
Glen et al.-
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"I am glad you agree with my criticism of Dembski's methodology. If
Dembski's method can't tell determine that some sequence is not designed,
then all sequences have the possibility of being designed. That means that
he can't discriminate between designed and non-designed sequences, which is
my point entirely. His method can't and doesn't work. But it has fooled
and misled a bunch of people into believing that Dembski has a method of
detecting God's design in the world. Put simply, he hasn't. Your last
sentence encapsulates my entire criticism."
-At best you've delineated a situation where the filter will give a false
negative, or a non-design reference to something designed. I think atheists
and critics should be and are much more worried about false positives.
Along these lines anything the filter calls "designed" should be seen as
non-design structures for some reason. Who cares if the filter can't pick
up some cryptic sequence or not? You are arguing that the filter cannot
discriminate between designed and non-designed sequences among the class of
sequences that the filter will give a non-design inference for. Fine, some
designed structures will not be recognized. However, what we really care
about is what to make of the sequences that are given a positive design
inference. The question is whether we can positively assert that something
like the flagellum bears the features of design. For the flagellum, we know
the code, the translation and the final product, we don't need to discuss
cryptic messages. If the flagellum is not designed, the only options for
the filter is for it to actually give indications of non-design or give a
false positive. Conversely a flagellum is designed, the filter can only
readout design or give a false negative. False negatives are irrelevant to
critics, because they don't want to see biological design and falsely
calling a design structure not designed suits them well. Dembski, however,
is worried about false negatives because he is trying to detect design in
nature. Only for those objects for which design is detected by the filter
should we be interested in further exploring whether or not they are really
designed. As for true or false negatives, those issues can be explored
later, but the fact that you have identified what you believe to be a false
negative doesn't invalidate the approach.
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