Re: [asa] YEC and ID arguments

*However, somewhere between these statements
and rhetoric that comes out elsewhere, this is what they are insinuating
they have in their hand. And so, to anyone watching such a confrontational
style as often comes out, this sure looks like they are saying "this
PROVES".
*
Again, read Dembski's chapter on epistemic support that I referenced. I
don't think there's any such "insinuation" at all. This seems like an
unwarranted attribution of motive to me.

Do other popularizers, including Johnson perhaps, insinuate and even state
such things? Yes. But agree or disagree with Dembski and Behe, the notion
that there's some sort of stealthy agenda to claim "proof" of God is unfair.

On 10/21/06, Dawsonzhu@aol.com <Dawsonzhu@aol.com> wrote:
>
> dopderbeck@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> That's why Dembski talks about a "design inference," just like your
> inference concerning the latent variable. In fact the method of inference
> you describe sounds just like the method folks like Dembski and Behe
> describe.
>
>
>
> In a quick executive summary:
> Dembski's aim in "The Design Inference" was to find a base line
> where you could say, "this cannot occur by chance". To discuss
> his idea as he worked toward this goal, he used well defined
> and indisputable examples such as tossing a fair coin, rolling
> fair die, or shuffling a fair card decks. They were all
> probabilities that can be decided irrefutably and with absolute
> certainty.
>
> Now, technically, there are some uncertainties if you enter
> in the physics of shuffling, rolling a die, what surfaces
> are used, past history, individual factors, etc. This would
> be much closer to what Iain is talking about, I think.
>
> Behe does not provide any quantitative estimation for his arguments
> (at least in Darwin's Black Box). However, I suppose you could
> take irreducible complexity to mean "the likelihood of structure X
> appearing
> by chance crosses Dembski's baseline", and therefore, you "infer" design.
> However, I recall the rhetoric was certainly a bit stronger than that.
>
> At any rate, we can understand that this is an application of
> fully estimable quantities. It is not dealing with the
> underlying uncertainties of real systems and unexplained
> factors that seem to influence the outcome. Gambling casinos
> basically use this. They can "infer" pretty well if someone is
> cheating because they know the odds and their "baseline" is
> well above the noise level where the physical uncertainties of
> cards and dice may become significant.
>
> A major problem is that, in application to biology, these
> quantities are not so easy to estimate (like card games),
> and I suspect are biased by all parties to their advantage.
>
> So, OK, I admit that Dembski does not say "this PROVES" directly,
> in what I have read, and possibly, we can take the word "infer" to
> mean a weaker position. However, somewhere between these statements
> and rhetoric that comes out elsewhere, this is what they are insinuating
> they have in their hand. And so, to anyone watching such a confrontational
>
> style as often comes out, this sure looks like they are saying "this
> PROVES".
>
> ... and what is it that all we religious folk really long to hear? So
> there you go....
>
> by Grace we proceed,
> Wayne

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Received on Sat Oct 21 18:55:43 2006