Re: [asa] Innate design detector?

An innate tendency may help us understand why humans are often seeing
design where there is none. That is relevant to ID which relies on
humans to detect 'design'.
If our own mind tends to trick us and if ID relies on no false
positives lest it be useless, it seems that it makes a lot of
difference to ID. No she does not provide a test to determine if a
design is real or mistaken and neither does ID. As such neither give
any guidance as to the relevance of an ID inference but that's not
the point here. IDers argue that design inferences are reliable, she
shows that this may be a flawed premise.

Intuitions about design should not be discounted but should also not
be blown out of proportions until some supporting positive evidence
can be found. Broadus explains why the innate sensor may be overly
sensitive to false positive, as missing a true positive can be quite
costly... It's better to be safe than sorry.

As such this work is a real problem for ID proponents who argue that
the design inference is reliable, free from false positives and have
no way to show one way or the other if the inference is reliable. In
fact, it seems that our innate design detector may be overly
sensitive to 'design' and be triggered by false positives.
To argue that this affects evolution misses the point. Science does
not rely on negative arguments but rather on positive arguments.
While I can see that such an argument may be tempting it also
misunderstands the nature of science.

On Nov 2, 2006, at 8:51 AM, David Opderbeck wrote:

> Testable predictions, empirical research... man these seem like
> virtual gold mines compared to the ID argument.
>
> You are missing the point. She provides a way of testing whether
> there is any such thing as innate pattern recognition by evaluating
> that function in autistic children. Again, so what? She does not
> provide any test for determining when recognition of a pattern as
> designed is legitimate or mistaken.
>
> OTOH, if you want to suggest that a test for innate pattern
> recognition is really that significant, it seems to me that, if
> anything, this could support an ID position. After all, ID people
> say precisely that God has designed us such that we are capable of
> recognizing design. An evolutionary basis for this capability --
> recognizing design enhances survival value -- supports the notion
> that our intutions about the "appearance" of design in cosmology
> and biology are sound.
>
> There doesn't seem to be any basis in this paper for suggesting
> that "false positives" in recognizing design enhance survival
> value. This is particularly so if the autistic child test for the
> presence of innate pattern recognition is a good test, because
> errors in the pattern recognition function such as those
> experienced by autistic children would result in disfunction that
> would likely decrease survival. We shouldn't expect that "false
> positives" would enhance survival value, unless we buy into the
> argument that evolution leaves us with no reason to trust our sense
> information -- an obviously self-defeating proposition, because
> then we wouldn't be able to trust the sense information that leads
> us to believe in common descent. This is, of course, a common
> argument against the coherence of evolutionary theory.
>
> So, absent some testable hypothesis concerning why the intution of
> design in biology is a "false positive" -- and no such hypothesis
> is presented -- this paper, if novel at all, might actually lend
> some support to an ID position, at least to the position that
> intuitions about design can't be discounted.
>
>
> On 11/2/06, Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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 12:12:05 2006