Re: [asa] Innate design detector?

It presents a clear hypothesis and ways to test it. Perhaps anyone
with common sense already knows this but it seems that amongst ID
proponents this information may be largely absent. In fact, while
there exists some parallel research, I have seen few people make this
quite novel argument. After all, it's much easier to play monday
morning quarterback and say... of course... anyone knew this. It's
much harder to write a novel paper on this topic and present ways to
test the hypothesis. If a design detector innate to humans is no big
deal then I see no big deal for a moral grammar either. Seems all to
be common sense :-)

As Allen points out

<quote>Somewhere in this spectrum is a cross-over point at which
actual intentionality/agency disappears and facticious intentionality/
agency takes over. It is the location of that cross-over point that
constitutes the hinge of the argument between evolutionary biologists
and ID theorists.</quote>
Broadus also makes some interesting predictions

<quote>Broaddus’s analysis of autism as a possible example of
malfunctioning “agency detection” is, IMO, brilliant, and presents an
immediately testable hypothesis: that autistic children lack well-
tuned “agency detectors,” and that this at least partially explains
their well-known indifference to intentional agents, such as other
people (including their parents), animals, etc.</quote>

MacNeill ends with

<quote>Broaddus not only presents a cogent hypothesis concerning the
existence of such an agency/intentionality detector/module in humans,
she proposes several possible ways of testing whether or not such a
detector actually exists, and to “map” its dimensions, capabilities,
biases, and limitations. I believe that this opens up a very fruitful
area of empirical research into such detectors, and can ultimately
lead to much more clarity about an issue that so far has generated
much more heat than light.</quote>

Testable predictions, empirical research... man these seem like
virtual gold mines compared to the ID argument.

On Nov 2, 2006, at 5:38 AM, David Opderbeck wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>

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Received on Thu Nov 2 11:31:03 2006