Re: [asa] Apologetics Conference

Did you even read the article that I provided?

From William Lane Craig:

"Dembski outlines a ten-step Generic Chance Elimination Argument:
  1.. One learns that some event has occurred.

  2.. Examining the circumstances under which the event occurred, one finds
that the event could only have been produced by a certain chance process (or
processes).

  3.. One identifies a pattern which characterizes the event.

  4.. One calculates the probability of the event given the chance
hypothesis.

  5.. One determines what probabilistic resources were available for
producing the event via the chance hypothesis.

  6.. On the basis of the probabilistic resources, one calculates the
probability of the event's occurring by chance once out of all the available
opportunities to occur.

  7.. One finds that the above probability is sufficiently small.

  8.. One identifies a body of information which is independent of the
event's occurrence.

  9.. One determines that one can formulate the pattern referred to in step
(3) on the basis of this body of independent information.

  10.. One is warranted in inferring that the event did not occur by chance.

This is a simplification of Dembski's analysis, which he develops and
defends with painstaking rigor and detail.

Dembski's analysis will be of interest to all persons who are concerned with
detecting design, including forensic scientists, detectives, insurance fraud
investigators, exposers of scientific data falsification, cryptographers,
and SETI investigators. Intriguingly, it will also be of interest to natural
theologians. For in contemporary cosmology the heated debate surrounding the
fine-tuning of the universe and the so-called Anthropic Principle will be
greatly clarified by Dembski's Law of Small Probability.

Consider the application of the above Generic Chance Elimination Argument to
the fine-tuning of the universe:

  1.. One learns that the physical constants and quantities given in the Big
Bang possess certain values.

  2.. Examining the circumstances under which the Big Bang occurred, one
finds that there is no Theory of Everything which would render physically
necessary the values of all the constants and quantities, so they must be
attributed to sheer accident.

  3.. One discovers that the values of the constants and quantities are
incomprehensibly fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent, carbon-based
life.

  4.. The probability of each value and of all the values together occurring
by chance is vanishingly small.

  5.. There is only one universe; it is illicit in the absence of evidence
to multiply one's probabilistic resources (i.e., postulate a World Ensemble
of universes) simply to avert the design inference.

  6.. Given that the universe has occurred only once, the probability of the
constants and quantities' all having the values they do remains vanishingly
small.

  7.. This probability is well within the bounds needed to eliminate chance.

  8.. One has physical information concerning the necessary conditions for
intelligent, carbon-based life (e.g., certain temperature range, existence
of certain elements, certain gravitational and electro-magnetic forces,
etc.).

  9.. This information about the finely-tuned conditions requisite for a
life- permitting universe is independent of the pattern discerned in step
(3).

  10.. One is warranted in inferring that the physical constants and
quantities given in the Big Bang are not the result of chance.

One is thus justified in inferring that the initial conditions of the
universe are due to design."

----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Nield" <d.nield@auckland.ac.nz>
To: "jack syme" <drsyme@cablespeed.com>
Cc: "gordon brown" <gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu>; <dickfischer@verizon.net>;
<asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 10:00 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] Apologetics Conference

> jack syme wrote:
>
>> But isnt the fine tuning of the physical constants of the universe, used
>> as an example of specified complexity by the ID folks?
>
> No. Specified complexity is something more specific than fine tuning.
> Fine tuning (e.g. the anthropic principle) was around well before Dembski
> introduced the concept of specified complexity. I have no problems with
> fine tuning. I do have problems with specified complexity in biological
> systems.
> Don
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Wed, 15 Nov 2006 23:00:58 -0500