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Author Topic:   The ID Fallacy
wnope
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 12 (239223)
08-31-2005 7:58 PM


I have tried researching Dembski, Behe, and Johnson, yet can only find a single type of argument, the same fallacy.
It is generally referred to as "Argument from Ignorance", but I would like to expand on that phrase.
Every ID argument to date relies on the same seemingly innocent premise: the choices for origin are naturalism, chance, or design. This is the basis of Dembski's explanatory filter.
Granted, this premise is true.
The fallacy occurs because in every argument, regardless of how many numbers or words are used to mask the fact, Intelligent Design assumes that "Evolution" is synonymous for "Naturalism".
If you could show that there is no natural way or way by chance for Irreducibly Complex organisms can occur, then yes, the organism/organelle was designed.
However, Evolution is not Naturalism. Evolution is simply one theory. If disproven, then all that has been shown is that Evolution, not naturalism, is not an option. So the filter fails along with all other "one or the other" claims.
An example of this fallacy is applying it to before the discovery of genetics. How could Evolutionary Theory describe heredity? It couldn't be chance, and Evolution couldn't explain it. Therefore, because Evolution and chance are not options, heredity is passed down by a designer.
We now know that is nonsense, but how is this different from the current claim on Irreducible Complexity?

Replies to this message:
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 Message 11 by Brad McFall, posted 09-03-2005 6:04 PM wnope has not replied

  
AdminNosy
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From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
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Message 2 of 12 (239228)
08-31-2005 8:02 PM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 3 of 12 (239247)
08-31-2005 9:06 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by wnope
08-31-2005 7:58 PM


i think the other problem is that it's two stacked fallacies that operate like logic.
the first is basically an argument from icredulity:
"i don't believe evolution could do this! it's impossible!"
the second is an argument from ignorance:
"i don't know what could have made this, therefor god did it."
fact is that neither holds up. there are other methods besides the strictest form of darwinian evolution. if you show for instance that simple successive modification doesn't work, then there are other options that happen on their own within multiple steps of simple successive modification: co-option, scaffolding, etc.
just because behe doesn't realize that these things happen in any evolutionary system doesn't mean the biologists (and computer scientists) don't. behe's ignorance of the field is not an argument. it's ignorance.

אָרַח

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 4 of 12 (239704)
09-01-2005 4:56 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by wnope
08-31-2005 7:58 PM


... make that fallacies ... ?
Welcome to the fray.
There are several logical fallacies involved:
(1) False Dilemma
Forbidden
(2) Argument from ignorance
Forbidden
(3) Appeal to popularity
Forbidden
(4) Appeal to authority
Forbidden
(5) Hasty generalization
Forbidden
(6) Unrepresentative sample
Forbidden
(7) False analogy
Forbidden
(8) Begging the question
Forbidden
(9) Strawman
Forbidden
(10) Affirming the consequent
Forbidden
(11) Untestability
Forbidden
(12) Failure to elucidate
Forbidden
... and others. These are just the easy ones, where examples come to mind as you read them.
Welcome to the fray.
Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 5 of 12 (239949)
09-02-2005 12:34 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by RAZD
09-01-2005 4:56 PM


Re: ... make that fallacies ... ?
(12) Failure to elucidate
Forbidden
behe's guilty of something similar. he claims that darwin's theory is a magical "black box" -- something that you put something into, and get something else out of without knowing how it works. but we know how darwinian evolution works. behe presents a "black box" explanation. he doesn't propose how something is intelligently designed -- he provides no mechanism.
the explanation is doesn't explain anything.

אָרַח

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wnope
Inactive Member


Message 6 of 12 (240129)
09-02-2005 10:41 PM


General Public
RAZD- you are right on every account, but you're doing what almost every other anti-ID person does. Give an excellent rebuttal, but not one that can understood by the general public. We say "argument from ignorance", and among ourselves know exactly how. But I think of the reasons ID is at large is because no one takes the time to simply state how it is an argument from Ignorance.

Replies to this message:
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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 7 of 12 (240132)
09-02-2005 10:57 PM


If ID were a science
it would be developing and testing a reliable way of determining the degree of specified complexity in an object. I should be able to take anything I like, whether it be a snowflake, a geode, a rock, a mouse, and apply a standardised procedure. That procedure should give me the degree of specificed complexity (or whatever it is that the ID proponents call their imagined property).
Science goes after data. A scientific concept is one you should be able to measure. Why aren't the ID people coming up with the needed measuring procedure?

  
ramoss
Member (Idle past 611 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 8 of 12 (240222)
09-03-2005 8:32 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by wnope
09-02-2005 10:41 PM


Re: General Public
It is very simple , actually,
What Behe does is say 'We can not understand how this happened, so therefore it was done by an intelligent designer (wink wink, god).
However, in his original book, every problem he came up with that he proclaimed to be 'Irreducable complex' has been shown to have a well defined path. They were problems that were currently were being worked on when he was writing his book. They have been solved.. indeed, at least one of them was solved even before his book went to publication.
Just because we don't know something doesn't mean that 'GOD DID IT'.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 9 of 12 (240229)
09-03-2005 10:11 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by wnope
09-02-2005 10:41 PM


Re: General Public
that's why I linked each fallacy to a site that describes them.
... now if we have to spoon-feed from there .... :rollyeyes:

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by wnope, posted 09-02-2005 10:41 PM wnope has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Annafan, posted 09-03-2005 1:46 PM RAZD has replied

  
Annafan
Member (Idle past 4578 days)
Posts: 418
From: Belgium
Joined: 08-08-2005


Message 10 of 12 (240264)
09-03-2005 1:46 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by RAZD
09-03-2005 10:11 AM


Re: General Public
I agree with wnope though...
The message itself is important, but it is only efficient if it is understandable and well-worded from the point of view of the general public. Look at people like Duane Gish: it doesn't matter that he's (was?) constantly recycling rebutted arguments, simply because he has the charisma and knows how to draw the audience in. That is an important challenge: how to defend evolution, which is hampered by its complexity, to an audience that typically lacks necessary background.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 11 of 12 (240297)
09-03-2005 6:04 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by wnope
08-31-2005 7:58 PM


Johnson's information
I called up Ken Ham on live radio from a street in New Orleans over a decade ago and suggested that Phil Johson got lost in Cornell's new entomology library which with the push of a button a whole shelf would move electronically.
I dont think that Phil has a "type of argument" although one can see his legal training in the new outlines he provided to the debate.
Instead, Phil Johnson seems to be stuck on discerning where in academia the accounting for the "origins of genetic information is." The difference between Phil and me is that while we both have never carried out personal study of radioactive dating (unless my info on Phil is somewhat dated) I will and will constrain my thinking by what "times" might be involved. The reason Phil does not think future study times might be needed is because he thinks that the scientists themselves will change the science rather than the science "discovering" something it currently doesnt posses. In that I categorically differ from him, which is why I was willing to tell Ham that Phil was "lost" in his own outline and didnt read the details for the deconstruction it was not. There are other creationists with this ability. Please dont get me wrong.
Phil didn't think that the origins of the genetic information is in the biochemistry or physiology. I do. Yes, I think there are big changes coming in biology but I think that information measures might be projected (even if not original) onto biochemical data not that there will be some newly informed population of scientists. The change will be gradual not saltic on my view.
This does not make Phil J, formulaic by any means. At least that is how I see it. I have just recently realized that the scope of Phil's "alteration" within creationism might be supported by rejecting Weyl's support contra Kant of by a German author ( I have not read(more later if I can get a translation) writing around the time of the first world war as to how "people" are (in my own interpretation) a consistent class of the 2nd class of Cantorian ordinals. I think that will be in biochemistry not simple boolean overlays on data that informs genetics.

This message is a reply to:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 12 of 12 (240311)
09-03-2005 8:15 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Annafan
09-03-2005 1:46 PM


Re: General Public
it doesn't matter that he's (was?) constantly recycling rebutted arguments, simply because he has the charisma and knows how to draw the audience in.
hmmm
like the last election.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 10 by Annafan, posted 09-03-2005 1:46 PM Annafan has not replied

  
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