From: Glenn Morton (glenn.morton@btinternet.com)
Date: Sat Nov 23 2002 - 12:56:51 EST
Blake wrote:
>Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2002 2:01 PM
>To: Glenn Morton; Josh Bembenek; iain.strachan@eudoramail.com;
>
>
>--- Glenn Morton <glenn.morton@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> It does invalidate the approach IF every sequence he
>> analyzes still has the
>> possibility of being designed. There is no ability
>> to distinguish by use of
>> the methodology.
>
>Glenn,
>
>I think what you are missing is the idea of
>statistical significance and probability. I doubt
>Dembski claims he can come up with a method to
>absolutely detect design or the absence thereof. As
>with any statistical inference, it is a question of
>probabilities that it is or is not designed.
I never claimed Dembski said he could come up with an absolute. NOTHING
(sorry Iain) is absolutely perfect and without error in life. My
father-in-law was one of the judges who was first involved in admitting DNA
evidence into the court room. At Christmas shortly after the trial, he was
telling me about this new DNA matching technique. He told me that the
experts had said that a match was a one in a hundred billion or so (whatever
the number was it was greater than the human population). I don't Bill I
didn't believe those stats. He was shocked. I told him that nothing on
earth is that sure. I said there is lab error, typo error, experimental
error etc. I said, whatever the number will be it will be less than what
the experts were saying. He dismissed me that Christmas as a curmudgeon.
Years later when data came out for highly inbred communities (Amish), twins,
siblings etc, which could indeed match, Bill apologized to me. The early
efforts were less statistically significant than now exists. Thus, I never
require 100% certainty. It don't exist.
But what also doesn't exist in Dembski's methodology is a way to rule in
design without someone telling him it is designed (this 'side knoweledge he
speaks of). Since any sequence can be designed, as I have shown, the only
way for him to discriminate is for someone to tell him which is which.
Since I presume God didn't tell him personally that the flagellum is
designed, that then is the issue at hand. And it can't be decided by
Dembski's method unless Dembski claims God told him so.
>
>So, the fact that you can come up with a code _post
>hoc_ to say it was designed because it now means
>something (when it wasn't designed to mean that in the
>first place) is absolutely immaterial to the question.
Science works on objective data. If I say that gravity attracts at an
inverse square rate, that can be tested numerically. No one has to tell me
that it is so. I can test it, you can test it, Paul Seely can test it. We
will all come to the same OBJECTIVE (sorry Iain) conclusion within the range
of experimental error. Dembski's method relies on 'side knowledge' which is
highly subjective. You know things I don't; I know things you don't. Thus
our conclusions, based upon our side knowlege, are not objective. Dembksi
claims that he has an objective method, but an method for establishing
design, which can't handle the difference between a post-hoc and pre-hoc spy
codes is one that can't tell the difference between design and randomness.
Is
gangangangangan.... designed or random?
is
banbeiganbeiganbeiganbei...designed or random?
is
bganieggainbnneeiaignabie designed or random?
is
orpptirykchsdotyuidsfgisr6 designed or random?
What is the criteria for desiding, Blake? How do you tell the difference?
What I showed with the Vigenere cipher is that one can't tell the difference
without being told. All of the above sequences, quite frankly can be either
designed or random.
>
>Heck, SETI has a set of criteria for determining
>whether communications appear to be designed. Are you
>saying that they cannot distinguish between ET
>communications and background noise because you can
>come up with a "code" that makes, say cosmic
>background radiation, mean something? That is simply
>silly.
Tell me what exactly their criteria is? Is a dolphin sound designed or
random? Even hearing a dolphin communicate with a mate, we can't understand
it. We have no idea what is being communicated or if anything is being
communicated. Think of trying to communicate with a cat. How do I interpret
a meow? We will have the same problem if we hear Rigelian dolphins
whistling in their microphones. Shoot, the first astronomers who heard
pulsars thought they were cosmic lighthouses. They were wrong. We will
only be able to detect aliens IF (sorry Iain) they communicate about things
and in a manner familiar to us. Only if they work anthropomorphically will
we be able to detect them. That is equivalent to being told that the signals
are designed.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
>
>
>
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