Re: [asa] Innate design detector?

What hypotheses? It says people are wired to perceive design because
recognizing certain designed patterns can enhance survival value; and it
says that people sometimes mistakenly perceive design when it's not there.
Big deal. Anyone with common sense already knows that. The interesting
thing would be a way of filtering true design from false positives. The
author says nothing about that. It's a nice little undergraduate summary
term paper, but that's about it.

On 11/2/06, Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> ID is basically useless yes or at least scientifically vacuous. Is the
> paper useless? It proposes some very interesting hypotheses and how to test
> them. That by itself places it outside the league of ID which is based on
> our ignorance.
> Hope this clarifies
>
>
>
> On Nov 1, 2006, at 9:01 PM, David Opderbeck wrote:
>
> So the paper you cited, like ID in your estimation, is basically useless?
>
> On 11/1/06, Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Exactly why ID is flawed...
> >
> > On Nov 1, 2006, at 11:08 AM, David Opderbeck wrote:
> >
> > *It helps us understand why some detect 'design' in biology even
> > though there is a considerable risk of false positives*.
> >
> > No it doesn't, because it gives us no criteria for sifting true
> > positives from false positives.
> >
> >
> > On 11/1/06, Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com > wrote:
> > >
> > > 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 Thu Nov 2 08:58:00 2006