The design inference

John Paul: There are a couple of things I don't understand about Dembski's model.If I understood "Design Inference" correctly (and I'm not an information specialist), he defines specified complexity thus:1. a phenomenon or object matches some pre-defined meaningful pattern ("specificity")
2. the phenomenon or object has a low probability of occuring through purely natural mechanisms without intelligent intervention ("complexity")It would seem to me that it would be impossible to determine the specificity of an object without detailed knowledge of its causal history, otherwise how do you determine meaningful pattern (or determine whether a given pattern was meaningful)? I have a similar question about complexity - how do you determine the difference between "apparent complexity" (Dembski's term, I think) and true complexity?Dembski defines a designed phenomenon or object as one that displays specified complexity, because SC can only come from intelligence. Therefore, when Dembski asserts that living organisms display specified complexity, he is essentially asserting it is designed. This appears circular: since SC can ONLY come from intelligence, the pre-requisite for something like a living organism to be designed is that it is complex (i.e., designed). The filter appears to be set up only to accept positives. IOW: anything the user wants to declare designed will automatically be selected as designed, and anything the user doesn't want to declare designed will be an example of "apparent" design.I'd appreciate your explanation for this seeming paradox.

Joz: This is the whole problem with Dembski's filter: specified complexity can only come from intelligent design, because any specified complexity known not to have an intelligent origin is not really specified complexity (i.e., it is "apparent" complexity). This of course means that anything examined by the filter where the origin of it is not known defaults to "intelligently designed".Basically, design must be determined a priori because to use the filter you have to assign a meaningful pattern to some phenomenon or object before you can determine the probability of it occurring (since CSI theory doesn't take into consideration orgins or causation). As a low probability of natural occurrance is a requirement for design, anything with a low probability of natural occurance AND which contains some observer-assigned "meaning" by definition exhibits specified complexity and hence is designed.Can you say "circular reasoning"?This is, of course, why allegedly IC systems or structures are ALWAYS detected by the EF as containing CSI - they were determined IN ADVANCE to be designed because they are defined as irreducible.I wonder if JP, whose vast knowledge of this subject is humbling, could possibly explain whether the EF can be used to detect other design in nature? Specifically, whether design is apparent in higher order systems such as a tropical rainforest biome? I think this would be a wonderful example of CSI. Here we have a highly complex system exhibiting emergent properties that are much more specified than would be evident from a mere summing of the components. Do CAS exhibit design?