Re: [asa] Innate design detector?

It helps us understand why some detect 'design' in biology even
though there is a considerable risk of false positives. The question
of purpose in biology may always remain an open question as it is
presently based on our ignorance and unless we manage to learn more,
there will always be issues where we lack knowledge and are quick to
jump to design conclusions, as this is our innate tendency.

Remember that Dembski argued that the presence of false positives in
inferring design would render his approach useless.
Nevertheless, this innate tendency may help explain such things as
superstition, alien landings, etc. Who does not remember watching the
clouds pass by and seeing 'designs'.
So if we are hard wired to detect design, especially when we lack
additional explanations, then I see this as a very relevant issue
even to our so called design as some claim has been detected in for
instance biology.

On Nov 1, 2006, at 10:35 AM, David Opderbeck wrote:

> The paper doesn't seem terribly interesting. We're hard-wired to
> infer purpose from certain perceptual patterns; sometimes our
> inferences are correct, sometimes they're not. Whether the
> perception of purpose in biology is a correct inference is an open
> question. So what?
>

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Received on Wed Nov 1 15:03:16 2006