Stonehenge and ID

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Originally posted by John Paul:
Dembski derived the Design Explanatory Filter:
start with an event- E
Does E have a High Probability of occurring?
if yes it is attributed to regularity.
If No, we ask does E have an intermediate probability of occurring?
if Yes we can attribute it to chance.
If No we ask does E have a Small Probability of occurring AND is it specified?
If Yes we attribute it to Design.
if No we attribute it to chance.

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I agree with joz - let's get this topic back up to the top of the list. It has always struck me that Dembski's work has serious formal and informal flaws.One of the most interesting informal flaws is that his intuitively persuasive examples rely on additional, but unstated, information for their persuasive power.JP infers from an ordered grid of 100 x 100 pine trees that their disposition is the result of design. But the inference here inlcudes additional premises from our knowledge of how trees naturally dispose themselves.The much quoted "filter" also has an informal flaw (in addition to its formal failings) which you can think of as follows:All designed objects exhibit features of regularity, because the process of design is that of manipulating regularity - the engineer works with the "regular" properties of metals.The issue is how we decide between the two positions - design and regularity. The chance hypothesis and it's position in the filter, is, I suspect, a red herring in Dembski's argument - a way of biasing the reader towards a design hypothesis because intuitively they will skip over the chance hypothesis.The thought that regularity may have occured by chance is egregious, even though there are circumstances in which it will occur. For example, a colleague won some money on the national lottery: the winning numbers were based on her families birthdays and the modest amount won was exactly enough to pay for the repairs needed to her car. Intuitively, she felt this outcome to be "designed": in her case "fated" in some way. And indeed many would be intuitively persuaded by this example.The jump from regularity to design is therefore made easier - the extra step "feels" like we are adding an additional valuable judgement and therefore our conclusion is somehow more vindicated.Dembski could eliminate chance as the first step of the filter by detecting any regularity in the object of vanishingly small probability - though the formal difficulty of justifying this inference would remain. Instead he segues the reader into accepting a design hypothesis. (From my reading of his books, I do not believe this is deliberate on Dembski's part - he has perhaps been seduced himself by intuitive comfort the move provides.)If chance is eliminated first, the remaining options of designed and undesigned regularity are now to be distinguished - but the probability to be considered is no longer "did this occur by pure chance?" but "did this occur by an accumulation of regularities?" Regularity has already been observed in the object - which is why chance was eliminated - subsequently the probability of its state being the result of accumulated regularities is many orders of magnitutude greater.

I'm glad to see you have also taken to rubbishing the so-called filter. It's good to see you doing so so effectively.

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Originally posted by John Paul:
John Paul:
Next box- does this formation have an intermediate chance of occurring? Again it has never been directly observed and for some reason our minds can't fathom it was built by man and we won't accept giants, so on to box 3.

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I wish creationists would follow your example. Presumably if we can't fathom it was designed and we won't accept a designer we can just skip the design step?Pretty cool, though. Used this way, the filter works!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by John Paul:
[b] John Paul:
In reality I was cutting out the chase and getting TO the DESIGN box. Read it again.[/QUOTE]Ok - here goes ...

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Again it has never been directly observed and for some reason our minds can't fathom it was built by man and we won't accept giants, so on to box 3.

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Well, to paraphrase Ms Spears - Oops! You did it again. The whole point of the design inference is that the nature of the designer doesn't matter. It's supposed to be an entirely objective method of deciding if something has been designed without regard to the nature of the designer. You can't just say "our minds can't fathom it was built by man and we won't accept giants" without destroying the purpose of the filter. [QUOTE][b]Honestly, my inability to accept that giants built these structures would lead me to seek the evidence so that I may ascertain the truth.[/QUOTE][/b]Good. [QUOTE][b]Truthfully reading his book The Design Inference would do his filter more justice than I am.[/QUOTE][/b]
I read it - and some of his other stuff, and some of his articles and articles by others. I even sat through a dire video by Behe. And I took the time to check Dembski's symbolic logic, and I loaned my copy to my old Logic tutor from Uni - and we both found it hopelessly misguided.You see, I'm interested in how we infer design, because one of my abiding interests is in the early writing and languages of man and often we have to try to understand whether marks on artifacts are deliberate or accidental, and if regular whether they are intended to be reegular by design or are the result of a process which gives rise to regularity, and whether they have meaning or are purley decorative. Unfortunately, Dembski's filter fails to help in cases where we don't have additional clues to contextualise our inferences.

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OK DNA enters box #1. Does DNA have a high probabilty of originating via purely natural processes?We have never observed DNA do this.

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Just because we haven't observed it doesn't mean there is not a high probability it occurs. Certain species of whales have never been observed breeding or giving birth - but it seems very probable indeed that they do, wouldn't you agree? Very poor logic.

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That doesn't mean it can't happen but it just doesn't happen regularly. On to box #2.

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I hope you're not confusing two meanings of "regular"? Happening frequently v conforming to rules or laws. Looks like you are. Rather twists the application of the filter, don't you think? There are of course other meanings, too - or perhaps you think the "regular army" is a body of soldiers with notably healthy bowels?Don't worry, you're in good company with this linguistic technique. Dembski flits from one meaning of "information" to another as it suits him, too.[b] [QUOTE]Does DNA have an intermediate probability of origination via purely natural processes? Again DNA has never been observed originating via purely natural processes.[/b][/QUOTE]The same logical fallacy again - you must be fond of it.[b] [QUOTE]Even if we put all the amino acids we know are in living organisms into a flask, DNA does not form. On to box # 3[/b][/QUOTE]How on earth would you expect it to? I agree we do not know the environmental factors required to make DNA form - however, that doesn't mean it is impossible. The calculation of the probability of DNA forming depends entirely on the conditions required for it to form - we do not know what they are, so we cannot even begin to calculate the probability. It may be that, given the right conditions, there is a very high probability indeed that DNA will form. Don't mistake my intention here - I have no interest in DNA or primordial goo or whatever - it is the form of argument and the logic that concerns me. The logic fails.
Your discussion of the third box is confessed speculation, so I'll largely leave it, except for this:
[b] [QUOTE]Is DNA specified? Yes, unless it is shown that any DNA sequence would give rise to a living organism.[/b][/QUOTE]I don't understand you here at all. I fail to see what any strand giving rise to a living organism has to do with specification. It's like saying that aeroplane blueprints are only specificied if every single one of the planes can fly, or every fragment of a drawing defines a component that can fly.
Let's see if DNA is "specified" in Dembski's flawed use of the term...
Is it "detachable"? Can a pattern in it be recognized? Certainly not "tractably" in the mishmash of junk DNA, orphan genes, fragments, pseudogenes, retroviral sequences etc.
Could one distinguish between DNA being "specified" (in Dembski's sense) and "fabricated" (in Dembski's sense): I cannot see how, but I would be interested in an explanation. [QUOTE]CSI (complex specified information) is the hallmark of the design inference and ever since Darwin's black box has been opened it can no longer be ignored.[/B][/QUOTE]It is indeed the "Hallmark" of the ID movement - sentimental, unoriginal, but comforting. And worth about 2 bucks.