This is basically a repeat of what you just said in the last post, and what I refuted in my last post. I'm not going to refute this again.
It is indeed a repeat of what I have asked before, but you have not provided any refutiation or answer to the question. You claimed that people are using the EF, and your reference to someone else who makes the same unsupported claim is not evidence for the claim.
Who is using the EF?. The way to support your claim is to proivide a reference to someone who is
using the EF. You haven't even tried.
Here's what the evidence says: Dembski can not calculate the probability of chance for the backerial flagellum.
Here's what you say: Noone can calculate the probability of chance for anything.
As I clearly stated, twice before and now for the third time, I do not claim that Dembski's failure to calculate the probability of chance for the bacterial flagellum leads to the conclusion that no-one can calculate the probability of chance for the bacterial flagellum. It
does not lead to the conclusion that no-one can calculate the the probability of chance for the bacterial flagellum. What
does lead to the conclusion that no-one can calculate the probability of chance for the bacterial flagellum is the fact that
nobody has the data required to do so. All you have to do is demonstrate that data, as I discuss below.
Although there are a lot of possibilities as to how something could have happened, many of these can be discounted because the probability is so minutely small (it's like we have a million grains of sand). What we instead must consider is the more probably ideas. Sure, we lose some accuracy doing this, but if the calculations lead to a 10*-20 probability when we only need a 10*-10, then that margin of error would be a nonfactor.
Interesting assertion. What
evidence and/or
calculations do you have to support it? How do you
know what are the most probable dseas? What are the most probable ideas for the bacterial flagellum arising by chance, and why are these the most probable ideas?
Irrelevant.
I'm glad to see that you can refute what I said in a one-word, unexplained response
I expanded on that one word, and explained exactly why your response was irrelevant, in the rest of the post (to which you did not respond). As I wrote:
quote:
Since the last possible conclusion of Dembski's EF is not "insufficient information to reach a conclusion", it's snake oil. No matter what the nature of the tests are, the wrong last possible conclusion dooms it.
See that "No matter what the nature of the tests"? That's why the complexity/specification criterion is irrelevant.
Sure, you can list these flaws, we can debate them, but are any of them a true science-stopper?
Yup. Absolutely, unless the EF is totally reformulated, and maybe not even then. As I wrote,
quote:
Since the last possible conclusion of Dembski's EF is not "insufficient information to reach a conclusion", it's snake oil. No matter what the nature of the tests are, the wrong last possible conclusion dooms it.
And the total inability to get past the second test in the filter also dooms it.
And there are other fatal flaws, that are too complex and technical to go into detail here. See
The advantages of theft over toil: the design inference and arguing from ignorance:
quote:
We show that if Dembski's filter were adopted as a scientific heuristic, some classical developments in science would not be rational, and that Dembski's assertion that the filter reliably identifies rarefied design requires ignoring the state of background knowledge. If background information changes even slightly, the filter's conclusion will vary wildly. Dembski fails to overcome Hume's objections to arguments from design.
and
Information Theory, Evolutionary Computation, and Dembski's "Complex Specifed Information":
quote:
Intelligent design advocate William Dembski has introduced a measure of informa tion called "complex specifed information", or CSI. He claims that CSI is a reliable marker of design by intelligent agents. He puts forth a "Law of Conservation of Information" which states that chance and natural laws are incapable of generating CSI.
In particular, CSI cannot be generated by evolutionary computation. Dembski asserts that CSI is present in intelligent causes and in the flagellum of Escherichia coli, and concludes that neither have natural explanations. In this paper we examine Dembski's claims, point out significant errors in his reasoning, and conclude that there is no
reason to accept his assertions.
There's a difference between being not perfect and being fatally flawed.
Yup. But the EF
is fatally flawed, as I pointed out over several messages now. And your only response has been more unsupported assertions and more failure to even try to support your previous asserions.
Neither evolution or ID are perfect, so we give them their proper treatment and teach the controversy in our schools.
Evolution is so far the best and only scientific theory extant. There's nothing else to teach. There's no scientific theory of ID. There's no applications of the EF; you have failed to come up with one despite repeated requests. There's no scientific controversy, just a few "Christian" sects trying to force their religion into science classes; note that they've totally given up on establishing ID as science and are concentrating on school boards. There's no disagreement among experts.
However, to exclude a certain form or origins science does not just mean that it's inferior, it means that it is completey and undoubtedly unscientific. You can nitpick mistakes with the EF here or there, but you can't prove it be completely and undoubtedly unscientific.
Sorry, the burden of proof is on you. You want the EF accepted as science, you (or the ID community) need to
demonstrate that it is such and
realistically address the criticisms. Not with mere assertions, not with packing school boards with creationists, but in the arena of science.
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