Re: [asa] Apologetics Conference

There are better outlines of the argument. Remember that Dembski
conflates chance to include what we commonly consider to be chance as
well as regularity. In other words, we see something which we cannot
explain by appealing to chance or regularity, since specification in
biology is trivial (function), anything we cannot explain yet is thus
designed.
Thus the question becomes: Designed by who or what. Remember that
Dembski made an incredible concession

      Before I proceed, however, I note that Dembski makes an
important concession to his critics. He refuses to make the second
assumption noted above. When the EF implies that certain systems are
intelligently designed, Dembski does not think it follows that there
is some intelligent designer or other. He says that, "even though in
practice inferring design is the first step in identifying an
intelligent agent, taken by itself design does not require that such
an agent be posited. The notion of design that emerges from the
design inference must not be confused with intelligent agency" (TDI,
227, my emphasis).

Source: Ryan Nichols, The Vacuity of Intelligent Design Theory

As to the application to the fine tuning again it is based on our
ignorance, ignores the possibility that we are but one of countless
multiverses or that if the universe had been outside a (so far poorly
defined range of constants), we would not have existed. In other
words, we are biased, since our existence requires a 'well enough
tuned universe'

Finally the claim that SETI, archaeology, etc apply the design
inference is contradicted by a simple survey as to how 'design'
inferences are made. Remember that ID relies on purely negative
information while real science relies on positive information.

So let's not get confused by the confusing language and terminology
as well as the inflated claims of Intelligent Design proponents.

ID's eliminative approach has rendered it scientifically vacuous. In
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/inference1.cfm I explore a claim
that the design inference was used by seismologists to detect the
Korean nuclear test explosion. Needless to say, the claim is as
vacuous as the claim that our ignorance of the flagellum is evidence
of design, especially since some very good and plausible scenarios
have been proposed and new findings have ended up supporting
predictions made.

Remember specified complexity is nothing more than a statement of
ignorance. Complexity refers to our inability to define a hypothesis,
including a design hypothesis, which explains a particular event.
Specification in many cases is a trivial addition. Using 'technically
impressive' terminology fails to hide the foundation of the design
inference which as Del Ratzsch so well described as the "set
theoretic complement of regularity or chance". In fact, in the
examples of scientific design, it has been shown that the hypothesis
of the event explained by a design hypothesis is large enough that a
false positive can be eliminated. However, science will remain always
tentative. In case of ID, science has to be ruled the decisive voice
as any false positives would render the method useless (so states
Dembski). And yet, we know of countless false positives when it comes
to 'design inferences'.

Remember that ID cannot even compete with our ignorance as it
provides no estimates for the probability of the event having arisen
under a particular design hypothesis. In fact, all effort is avoided
to add any scientifically relevant information as to this design
hypothesis.

Hope this clarifies.

On Nov 15, 2006, at 8:00 PM, jack syme wrote:

> 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
>>
>>
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>
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Received on Wed Nov 22 00:20:45 2006