Re: [asa] A case of non-biological ID

On Jan 12, 2008, at 11:20 AM, Iain Strachan wrote:

>
> So for the reasons I've outlined, I consider that the deduction that
> the pattern is intentional is a pretty sound one.
>
> I don't think you've really addressed that, and have just assumed that
> it's an "alleged pattern" that isn't really there. Could you address
> the issue of how perhaps one can deduce intentionality, as
> distinguished from finding an obscure pattern by ingenuity.

I don't believe it's possible to do that and that's my main point. You
will recall I originally stated that this had the same weakness as
biological ID. At least in biological ID Dembsky went through
considerable trouble -- and unsuccessfully in my opinion -- to
distinguish complexity and specified complexity. This is to try to get
around the truly profound problem of distinguishing patterns from
ingenuity. As I have stated in the past the way you can best detect
design is by asking the designer. In the case of biological ID we do
have a statement by the Designer in Scripture. In this case, there was
nothing stated by the Designer to indicate that the Bible contains
triangular numbers qua triangular numbers. So, in the end this makes
this even weaker than biological ID.

Rich Blinne (Member ASA)

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Received on Sat Jan 12 16:18:43 2008