From: Dawsonzhu@aol.com
Date: Tue Jul 01 2003 - 11:14:24 EDT
Josh Bembenek wrote:
> > Firstly, perhaps it would help
> > to have a catalogue or reference list of all bold "proof" claims IDers
> make
> > such that the rest of us can be more familiar with the exact arguments
> that
> > are detestable.
>
>
I think statements connected with "the Wedge" are often bordering
on this. There is an aura of hype around the ID. Perhaps they don't
come out and say "we _have_ the proof", but it sure comes across
like "we _will have_ the proof and _very soon_".
Regardless of the ultimate outcome of ID, the hype reminds me of
some of the things that sometimes annoy me about proponents
in artificial intelligence (AI). In the mid sixties, Minsky is attributed
to saying at that time (in Life magazine),
"In from three to eight years we will have a machine with the general
intelligence of an average human being. I mean a machine that will
be able to read Shakespeare, grease a car, play office politics, tell a joke,
have a fight. At that point the machine will begin to educate itself with
fantastic speed. In a few months it will be at genius level and a few
months after that its powers will be incalculable." It seems that later
he claims this was a joke, and perhaps so because I can sense some
hyperbole. But there was a strong sense that HAL 9000 was coming
_soon_ whatever his protests to the contrary. (See "Hal's Legacy:
2001's computer as dream and reality", MIT press, Cambridge, 1997).
Hans Moravec also goes a bit over the top I think even now. See
for example his Scientific American article (December 1999 issue). Not
all AI folk are so obnoxiously certain of the swift development of
humanoid robots or their eminent place in society _given_ such conscious
entities actually can be developed in the first place. Nevertheless, the few
that are this way often seem to also champion something much akin to an
inverted ID message. Therefore, my inclination is that the truth is
omewhere in the middle.
I do not object to the fact that people in the ID movement usually
doubt evolution (at least as championed by Dawkins & CO), nor that
they want to try to figure out these probabilities. I do however find
the hype objectionable, for much the same reason I object to any
scientists who grossly overstate their place without at least having
a sound prototype sitting on the laboratory bench when the
announcement is made. Caution is in order, and I think ID proponents
often do not heed that warning.
by Grace alone we proceed
Wayne
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