From: Alexanian, Moorad (alexanian@uncw.edu)
Date: Fri Nov 22 2002 - 22:57:01 EST
I do not think one can talk about design without invoking function.
The latter takes you beyond the physical into the non-physical, which
is based on concepts not described by science. For instance, a mouse
trap involves someone's intention to kill. Death may be described
physically but killing requires non-physical concepts. Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Blake Nelson [mailto:bnelson301@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 4:43 PM
To: Glenn Morton; pruest@mysunrise.ch; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: RE: Dembski and Caesar cyphers
Glenn, et al.
I am going to take a wild stab here on something that
I have read absolutely nothing about other than part
of what has gone back and forth between you and others
on the list. I know that you assert that Dembski
cannot detect design, because any random sequence can
be made to be meaningful by coming up with a post hoc
code to make it say something meaningful. This may or
may not be detrimental to Dembski's project.
In looking for relationships among data I can ALWAYS
come up with an equation that matches all the data
points EXACTLY. This is nothing unusual. The problem
is, in finding an equation that actually describes the
relationship (if one exists). If I am writing the
equation to specifically hit all the data points
(rather than finding a general relationship among the
data), I use up all my degrees of freedom and the
results are not going to be statistically significant.
Thus, my solution is obviously ad hoc.
My strong intuition is that there is an easy way to
distinguish between something post hoc and clumsy like
your "code" and something that appears to be designed.
If your code were an equation, I would easily reject
it as not likely to be design, because I have no
degrees of freedome left, so to speak.
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