What is an ID proponent's basis of comparison? (edited)

There are many things wrong with Dembski's CSI concept. here are three important examples.1) It was intended to formalise the way that humans recognsie design. It doesn't. By relying on purely negative argumentation - "design" is even defined negatively - it ignores the fact that we work with ideas of what designers do, and more importantly how designs are implemented. Although not a fatal flaw in the method, we should recognise that it is less than it was meant to be - and also that ID proponents who attempt to co-opt all instances of design detection as uses of CSI are wrong to do so.2) It is impractical to use in many cases - including the very cases where ID proponents would like to use it. (Dembski has even complained about it, although for some reason blaming his opponents rather than himself.) For this reason alone CSI has little real significance to the discussion of ID versus evolution - except, perhaps, as an example of ID's failures.3) The constraint imposed by specification is too loose. Dembski treats a specification constructed after the fact - knowing and using the outcome to produce the specification - to be the same as a prediction made in advance. But this is not the case. There is stll an element of "painting the targets around the bullet holes". There may be many other results which would also be found to be "designed" - and Dembski's methodology ignores this.
This is actually a serious problem - for any non-trivial specification the probability calculated will be too low, and cannot be validly compared to the probability bound. Even if the method were revised to take this into account the new method would be even less practical.In short CSI is overhyped, almost completely useless and still vulnerable to false positives.

CSI is binary. Either you are over the probability bound or you aren't.Dembski measures information in terms of "bits" - which is an improbability measure (-log2 p(x) where p(x) is the probability).
A probability of 0.5 is 1 bit, 0.25 is 2 bits, 0.125 is 3 bits etc.Really, the basic method is not at all original. Show that all the alternative explanations are too improbable to be worth considering and accept the one you have left. (But there are huge problems in the details - for instance if there are two possible pathways to a result, when do you consider them to be different explanations and when do you lump them together as one ?)I do have The Design Inference which explains the method, but I have to say that it is very badly written. If I had less of a mathematical background I'm not sure I could have worked it out correctly (it's unclear enough that an idea of what it SHOULD say is very helpful !). It also has the justification of his "Universal Probability Bound", too although I find the argument to be less than entirely convincing. The bound is low enough, though, that I can't call it a fatal problem (but I doubt whether it can be considered a significant contribution either).I found the book remaindered at a major bookstore in town, which is the only reason I bought it. And it's only worth it so that I can counter arguments based on Dembski's claims.

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Actually it is a deductiove method. If you remove chance and necessity you are left with design as a logical conclusion. Why because that is the inference to the best explanation. Since from experience we know that an intelligence can create design. So it is logical to infer design, and say an intelligence had a part in it.

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None of this addresses my point. The Design Inference is purely negative. Actual designe detection uses positive evidence, too, to construct an inference to the best explanation. Therefore the Design Inference fails to fully capture the way in which we identify design.

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Dembski has calculated the CSI for the flagellum. Read the No Free Lunch.

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I was aware of this example and Dembski completely botched it.1) He ruled out evolutionary explanations on the grounds that Behe asserted that IC systems couldn't evolve. Unfortunately Behe (correctly) admitted in Darwin's Black Box that IC systems could evolve by what he called "indirect" routes. Behe dismisses this option only on the grounds that he considers it too improbable - however he has not provided any solid grounds for this, and even if he did the probability could still be greater than Dembski's probability bound.2) Dembski failed to provide an adequate specification. This is a very important point because the probability calculation that must be done is the probability that the specification is met. Without a valid specification that can be used in the calculation the necessary calculation cannot be done.3) Dembski calculated the wrong probability (and apparently botched the calculation, too - by 65 orders of magnitude). Of course he couldn't calculate the right probability because he wrongly ruled out evolution a priori and failed to provide an adequate specification.
Instead he produces a probability based on randomly assembling an individual flagellum from protein sub-units - without taking into accunt the actual mechanisms by which a flagellum grows.

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No, actually he doesn't. He specifically says that what you are calling is a fabrication, not a specification. When you can describe a pattern of an event, without looking at that event first, you have a specification. So it's not after the fact.

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You are incorrect here. A specification must be - in Dembski's term "separable" from the event. That is it must be one that can be DESCRIBED without appealing to specific featues of the event. Perhaps it is better understood as a specification that might reasonably be proposed without detailed knowledge of the event.However it is absolutely legitimate - according to Dembski - to use knowledge of the event in proposing the specification (e.g. the specification Dembski uses in the Caputo case is based on the knowledge that the results favoured the Democrats, and the degree to which the results favoured them).

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Actually, Behe didn’t admit that they could evolve through indirect routes. Rather he admitted that, as a bare possibility, IC systems might have evolved by unknown indirect routes.

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That looks like hair-splitting to a point where I can't see a relevant difference.In fact, the only relevant difference would be if you meant to say that Behe did think that it was impossible for the flagellum to evolve. But that isn't what you are saying at all.

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The argument of intelligent design advocates is not that we can absolutely rule out evolution.

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That is not what I said, was it ? The question is why Dembski didn't calculate the probability of the flagellum evolving. If he didn't think that it was impossible then his method required that he do so.

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Rather, the argument is that intelligent design has much more evidence supporting it than evolution

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They may say that, but if they do they're lying. Look at the transcript of the Dover trial where Behe rejects the evolution of the immune system simply on the grounds that evolutionists haven't worked out every little detail yet. If the evidence really favoured ID, don't you think he could come up with something rather better than making ridiculous and one-sided demands ?Come to that, which ID does the evidence support ? YEC special creation or Behe's view of common descent occasionally interrupted by God the Divine Genetic Engineer ? To speak of evidence for ID is to miss the fact that ID is not a single view but a mix of views, with major differences between them.

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It’s important to understand what is going on here. The evolutionists are basically willing to say anything to support their theory, including "the evidence for evolution is invisible." When people say things like "evolution by subtracting parts" or "add a part, make it necessary," they are effectively substituting imagination for evidence.

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It IS important to understand what is going on. That is why I have to correct your misrepresentation. The sort of thing that really happens is that an ID proponent - call him Michael - claims that there is no scenario for the evolution of a particular feature. Someone - let's call him Nick - goes and produces such a scenario. Then the ID proponent moves the goal-posts saying that the scenario isn't evidence. But it was never intended to be evidence. Just an answer to the original complaint.

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Indeed, intelligent design advocates are often accused of lacking imagination. Even if it was completely impossible for evolution to make something like the bacterial flagellum, people would still just say "the evidence disappeared."

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Of course this isn't true. People wouldn't just say that "the evidence disappeared".

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On the other hand, consider that intelligent design has much more going for it than imaginary evolution. Any objective method for design detection that we can apply to the bacterial flagellum comes up with the answer designed.

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And which "objective tests" would those be ? Dembski's hopeless failure to apply his own method correctly hardly qualifies as "objective".

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In every instance that we have a chance to observe the origin of specified complexity, it is always the result of choices made by an intelligent agent.

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Of course this is question begging. In fact we have every reason to suppose that evolution can produce "specified complexity" in the ordinary sense - and Dembski's version has not been detected in life at all.

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Furthermore, in using the explanatory filter, we are simply using standards that are expected to work in many other sciences, such as the SETI program

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Misrepresentation of the SETI program - which is very much based on ideas about what a designer is likely to do (as opposed to Dembski's negativity) is one of the standard ID talking points.

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When we apply this same logic to the flagellum, the conclusion is designed. Paraphrasing Dembski, if a creature looks like a dog, smells like a dog, feels like a dog, and pants like a dog, the burden of evidence lies on the person who says it isn't a dog. The same logic applies to remarkable machines like the bacterial flagellum - the burden of evidence lies with those who want to deny it's design.

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That is hardly an objective test. It is purely a subjective impression - and a superficial one at that. ID needs to go a lot further before it could be considered science. In the meantime scientists are looking into flagellum evolution and are finding the evidence that they did indeed evolve.

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Explain, how exactly is it purely negative.

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Odd how you suddenly fail to understand the argument.It is purely negative because it relies solely on eliminating alternatives. No positive design hypothesis is stated, nor is any argument made for it.

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Actually no. He ruled out evolution because of the NFL theorem.

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No. In fact that whole claim that IC systems are CSI is based on the assumed impossibility of evolving IC systems. Even though Behe - the supposed authority behind the claim - doesn't even agree.

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All the specifications are there. The number of genes, and the numbers of proteins used to make a flagellum.

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That sounds like a pretty clear example of a "fabrication". And it is not even adequate for Dembski's actual calculation (there is nothing for the "configuration" aspect, for instance),

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Well like I said before. He ruled out the evolution because of the NFL theorem. So the only thing you are left with is blind chance.

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Even if you were correct, that would still be invalid. The NFL theorems do not (and obviously cannot) show that evolution can never work.

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But you always use the knowledge of the event together with your background knowledge. And thais background knowledge in this case is that the 40 out of 41 cases teh Democrats were first on the ballot. And that this coresponds to an independently givven pattern of Democrats having more chance at winning elections, and that Caputo himself was a democrat.

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I was answering your false assertion that the use of the event to derive a specification was invalid. I note that you implicitly acknowledge that that assertion was false.However I note that you have helped prove my initial point - that in real design detection cases we use positive evidence when we can. The fact that Caputo supported the Democrats and was in a position of authority that might have enabled him to rig the draw is indeed relevant - but it is not part of Dembski's Design Inference. That method avoids any talk of possible designers. You automatically appeal to that circumstantial evidence, just as I said.

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Actually, I have been scanning the transcripts of the Dover trials and I look for specific things that support what posters such as RAZD and PaulK have stated around here. So far, I just haven't found them. Could I have overlooked them? I think psychology can explain people interpreting information into a way they want to hear.

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Which may well include you.I am prepared to give specific references for any claims I have made. You just have to ask.

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It is not my point of view that evolutionists haven't worked out every little detail yet.

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It isn't ? Well it is Behe's - and it's obviously true because working out every little detail is a huge task and may not even be possible. Which is one reason why I question Behe's motives in making such extravagant demands of his opponents.

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The point of view of Behe isn't that they have worked out every little detail and that there are hurdles in IC systems such as the vertebrate immune system.

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Even if that were so it is should not be necessary to go into the lengths that Behe demands to show that those hurdles are not the problem that Behe assumes that they are.

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"Every little detail" tells me Darwin has worked out the basic step by step details. If this is so then, why would you say it hasn't worked out every little detail?

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I'm not even sure what you mean here.

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And really, why would more IC systems such as the flagellum be a ridiculous one-sided demand?

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I guess you are missing the point. Behe demands that evolutionists work out every little detail about how the immune system evolved. But ID doesn't offer that level of detail - and Behe doesn't require them too. THAT is what is one-sided. Isn't that obviously one-sided ?

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That doesn't appear to be hair-splitting to me. Behe is telling us there "might" be but nobody has showed me a good tortuous route that explains how to build a classic one.

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It doesn't look that way. And if it were, how would it be relevant ? EIther Behe does claim that IC systems could not evolve or he doesn't. It seems to be agreed on both sides that he doesn't.

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If Darwinian conjecture can be used to build a great model or explanation then, why aren't the more well known authors advancing a good model?

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Perhaps they have other priorities than defeating an argument that was incomplete when it was first made - and is still missing a vital part. Maybe they are more interested in advancing scientific knowledge than dealing with a sideshow.

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I think he should require (not necessarily demand) that Darwinism needs to be explained on a biochemical level.

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THere is a difference between expecting scientists to do productive work on investigating how evolution does occur and has occurred. It is quite another to reject evolution in any particular case until every little detail has been worked out.

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...Darwinists can show me a series of mammals that illustrate whale evolution and I could say, "I see that there appears to be descent with modification but how do I know it happened by natural selection acting on ramdom mutations?"

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Scientifically we must stick with known mechanisms until they are shown to be inadequate. If you wish to take a faith position to the contrary that is your business. But you would have no business demanding that your opinion has any place in science classes.

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Also, I don't believe in your "Behe's extravagant demands" in defense of evolution. The same defense could have been used as a defense of various other scientific theories that may seemed to explain the evidence at the time.

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What you are saying here is unclear. Are you suggesting that Behe's argument is valid because it could be used to defend a correct position ? Or do you believe that all opponents of established scientific theories must make unreasonable and entirely one-sided demands ? Or is it something else entirely ?

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I was indirectly referring to page 13 of "Darwin's Black Box" subtitled LITTLE JUMPS, BIG JUMPS. There are large hurdles for Darwin in biochemistry such as IC systems. Also there are hurdles for other biochemical pathways that are not necessarily IC complex as explained in "Darwin's Black Box".

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No, that was what you wrote before the part I questioned. It should be easy to work out the part I was referring to because I quoted it.

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I don't believe it when someone tells me that Behe doesn't read the journals. On page 136 and 137 Behe quotes from "Molecular Evolution of the Vertebrate Immune System".

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I didn't say that Behe didn't read the Journals so I am not sure why you bring this point up.

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It is one-sided but that would be assuming that it is impossible for an intelligent designer to build complex systems.

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Well there is a massive non-sequitur. I think it is becoming clear who has the problems with bias.

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Obviously it would be relevant if someone could produce a unambiguous route that can build a flagellum.

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Well, no it wouldn't be. The question is whether Behe claimed that it was impossible for IC systems to evolve. What somebody else does could hardly change Behe's words.

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It is interesting that a creator would leave just enough evidence of an existence as seen in biochemistry.

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By which you mean that the designer should leave so little evidence that you have to rely on a designer-of-the-gaps argument, Just as if there were no designer after all !

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Maybe many of them are. Maybe one author could do both. I don't know if Richard Dawkins is more interested in advancing atheism or science.

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So far as I know, Dawkins hasn't been a working scientist for quite a long time.But as we know even if a scientist were inclined to present the speculative model that you are asking for, IDists would damn them for presenting a speculative model. So why make the effort, instead of keeping on working as they have been ?

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It is not that he or I am rejecting evolution based on any particular case. It is that we reject it based on numerous cases. You know this man.

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You either misunderstand me or badly misunderstand Behe. Behe does not deny that some evolution happens, nor does he deny common descent. He ONLY rejects evolution in particular cases. Yet his reasons for doing so have more to do with a strong personal bias than the weight of the evidence.

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What you are wrote is rhetorical.

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No, it is factual.

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Where does a theory become inadequate?

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A well-established theory very rarely becomes inadequate - and never because we have not yet worked out all the details of how it accounts for past events. More typically a theory is replaced by a better theory. But ID has nothing to offer.

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I'm sure your science will never allow any possibility of an IDer to become involved in an explanation.

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I am sure that if that is true there will be very good reasons.

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"Science is the only methodology can can find truth and science cannot find god so if you believe that god doesn't exist, then this is not the truth." Prove that statement with the scientific method.

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Since I have never claimed that, then why should I care about proving it ?

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What I am saying is that using the "extravagant demands" argument could be used as a defense for anything even if that something isn't considered to be valid. or example, "I don't like you attacking my beliefs in spontaneous generation because you are making extravagant demands from me."

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Of course it can't be honestly used against any argument. Because it relies on the opponents actually making extravagant demands. As Behe is doing.

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It wasn't you.

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Then why bring it up in a post addressed to me ?

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If that was true then there wouldn't be intelligent people arguing all of this with others.

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But it is true. Behe is explicitly appealing to the fact that we have not fully developed evolutionary explanations for complex (and ancient)_ biochemical systems. Yet evolutionary scientists are continuing to work on the problem and continuing to develop answers. This argument is no safer than the argument Behe uses to use against whale evolution - relying on an absence of intermediate fossils (I have no doubt that the discovery of those fossils was one of the things that started Behe moving towards acceptance of common descent).

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It could mean that the designer wanted to hide himself or herself from humanity. Why?

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Maybe because there is no designer. But then again ID is very reluctant to talk about why their designer did whatever they think he she or it did (and they don't even agree on that).

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Are they really that concerned about what the IDists do?

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Anyone who produces a scenario in reaction to IDist claims is clearly concerned about what they do. You can't have it both ways.