Evolutionary explanations are supposed to be ruled out based on probability calculations. In reality I’ve never heard of Dembski coming close to doing that - in one case the reason was Behe said so which doesn’t even seem to be true.
This is an easy attack point for both Dembski's and Behe's positions. They each use different methods of ruling out evolution as a possibility and their critics have pretty much hammered away at those failings. The straight probability calculations are completely flawed. Here is one such critique:
http://scienceblogs.com/.../dishonest-dembskithe-universal-1
quote:
Let’s look at Dembski’s own words first:
>Specifically, within the known physical universe there are estimated to be no
>more than 1080 elementary particles. Moreover, the properties of matter are
>such that transitions from one state to another cannot occur at a rate faster
>that 1045 times per second. Finally, the universe itself is about a billion
>times younger than 1025 seconds (assuming the universe is around 10 to 20
>billion years old). .these cosmological constraints imply that the total
>number of specified events throughout cosmic history cannot exceed
>1080 * 1045 x 1025 = 10150.
He goes on to assert that this is the maximum number of trials that could have occurred since the beginning of the universe, and that for anything less likely than that which is observed to occur, it is not reasonable to say it is caused by chance.
Here’s the fundamental dishonesty: None of those numbers have *anything* to do with what he’s supposedly trying to prove. He’s trying to create a formal-sounding version of the big-number problem by throwing together a bunch of fancy-sounding numbers, multiplying them together, and claiming that they somehow suddenly have meaning.
But they don’t.
It’s actually remarkably easy to show what utter nonsense this is. I’ll do a fancy one first, and a trivial one second.
So any state of particles within that cube is an event with probability considerably smaller than 1 in 105232. So what Dembski is saying is that *every* possible configuration of matter in space in the entire universe is impossible without intelligent intervention.
And the trivial one? Grab two decks of distinguishable cards. Shuffle them together, and lay them out for a game of spider solitaire. What’s the probability of that particular lay of cards? 104! , or, very roughly, something larger than 110166. Is god personally arranging ,my cards every time I play spider
There is more in the article, but it is not hard to find any number of sound attacks on this probability BS.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
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