Missing The Point

I can’t help it. I really can’t. I just can’t help deconstructing poor or fallacious arguments. And Dembski’s blog is chock full of them. Yesterday, BarryA, in Identify the Indian or Shut Up, re-tools one of the old saws in the creationist tool bag – the argument that archaeologists determine design in items they find, just like IDists do in nature. I covered this before in SETI, archeology and other sciences – actually a rebuttal to an argument made by Casey Luskin. Barry is making the same argument, although this time it’s about finding sharp stones that look like arrowheads.

The other day I got into an argument with one of my friends who insisted that the literally hundreds of pieces of flint in my grandfather’s collection, each showing an almost identical chip pattern, could not possibly be accounted for by blind unguided natural forces like erosion. I have to admit he made a fairly impressive mathematical case and I was beginning to waver. But then my friends at Panda’s Thumb came to my rescue. They argue that a design inference is illegitimate unless the person asserting the inference can also identify the designer.

I don’t know about the PT guys, but that’s not how I would put it. I would say that archaeologists can infer design because they know something about the putative designer. For one – they know they are human. That means we know something about their habits (they eat meat), limitations (they have no claws, etc) and strengths (they compensate by being smart enough to design weapons). Also, if an artifact is found within an obvious human encampment, the object is likely to be of human origin. So although we cannot know the identity of the designer (a rather silly straw man), we do know something about the designer, and can draw inferences from that knowledge. Barry continues:

I pointed to one of the stones in the frame my grandfather gave me (It continues to hang on my wall for sentimental reasons, not because there is anything special about the stones themselves). I said, “OK, Mr. Smarty Pants. If the pattern on that stone is designed, tell me who the designer was.” He was, of course, stumped, so I declared myself the victor in the argument. Yet another triumph for materialist reasoning!

Of course, archaeologists don't have to "identify" the Indian - just knowing it was an Indian is enough.  (Although ironically, Barry's grandfather might not have actually known enough to be able to do that in most cases.  No matter.)  The problem with ID is not that they can’t identify the designer. The problem is that they know nothing about the supposed designer, and so have no way of inferring design in the complex patterns we find in nature.  Still – I think I’ll borrow Barry’s headline and modify it so it represents the true archaeologists’ argument, and play it back at him. IDists – tell us something about the designer (eg how he designs / why he designs / how he manufactures his designs / what strengths and limitations does he have) – something that would allow us to infer design in nature - or Shut Up.

Comments

[Rev. BigDumbChimp]

Barry A is an idiot. I covered the same post the other day. The fact that his low functinoing grey matter thinks this is somehow a notch on the bed post of ID is just plain humor. Bad anologies are commonplace with the creationists/IDists but this one is just fucking stupid. Period.

[Rev. BigDumbChimp]

Um. by the other day... I mean today.

[wrg]

You have, of course, hit the issue quite precisely. Once his deliberately broken analogy is fixed, it merely highlights once more the complete absence of predictive power in Intelligent Design. Supposedly, these pseudoscientists have discovered some systematic properties of what were assumed to be naturally formed organisms. If this were true, they'd actually know something. From this knowledge, what do they deduce? What mystery does the Design Hypothesis illuminate?

"Magic man done it."

"Oops, wait, did I say magic man? Actually, I can't say whether the Designer (hallowed His or Her Name may or may not be) was magic at all, or even a man. Certainly, I can't talk about any Sons he, she, or it may or may not have had, let alone whether He was or was not resurrected on a day which may or may not be Easter."

Well, these are just some of many things Intelligent Design can't tell us. If it can't tell us about the designer, though, maybe it can tell us something new about the organisms themselves? Unfortunately, it seems not, except to point at examples found through real science and say they would have done it better. You know, if they actually conducted any research and had any results at all to publish.

[marty]

That post and the comments on UD made my brain hurt and leak out my ears. I'd like to know if that was normal?

[Techskeptic]

When I was a smart ass kid, my mom told me to finish my food because there were starving people in Ethiopia. I looked at my asparagus, and a thought came to my head:

"Oh yeah? Name one!"

I still had to eat the damn asparagus, even my mom knew that while it was a funny argument, it didn't change the fact that a)I should still eat my asparagus and b)there were, in fact, people starving in Ethiopia.

She should have made Barry eat his asparagus instead.

[Big Al]

This does remind me of a TV programme I saw a couple of years ago and then again last week. It's all about how our stupid, brutish ancestors couldn't possibly have been intelligent enough to make the pyramids/animal shapes on the Naza plain/Stonehenge etc., unless cuddly ol' aliens came down and did it with antigravity.

There was a very grinny, chirpy guy who ended up by saying,

"Hey, have you ever thought that the only way we'll ever prove aliens didn't visit us is if they come down and tell us they didn't? Have you ever thought of that? Now just think about it a minute. Pretty smart argumment, huh?"

He crossed his arms over his chest and grinned like the Cheshire Cat.

I'm a pretty peaceful sort of person, but I so wanted to punch him right in the kisser. Completely irrational, I know, but inside my head, I was raving,

"I don't believe it! He really thinks the inability to disprove something somehow makes it more likely! He actually thinks that crap is a clever, knockdown argument for the existence of aliens! I don't bloody beLIEVE it!"

Then I realised this was the only reason I watched the programme. The balancing rationalist pundit (for once, getting a reasonable amout of time to rebut) was pretty damn' annoying, too, but I really just wanted to see if the last guy was as obnoxious and obtuse as I remembered him.

I guess I am rather against crap arguments, no matter what side they support.

[Bronze Dog]

"Hey, have you ever thought that the only way we'll ever prove aliens didn't visit us is if they come down and tell us they didn't? Have you ever thought of that? Now just think about it a minute. Pretty smart argumment, huh?"

And yet, I have a feeling that if Spock beamed down and told him they never visited Earth, he'd reply, "Well, what about the Klingons?"

[TechSkeptic]

are there any atheists who think ID is a rationale theory?

I mean at least atheists could be the most unbiased.

I realize at first glance this seems like a totally stupid question. Is it truly impossible for an atheist (not believing in god) to believe in ID (an intelligent designer, perhaps from the planet Marflop, maybe they made life but not rocks or elements). I realize this would lead to who made the Marflops, but since the IDers claim to not care about who the designer is, then that part of the argument is gone.

The IDers like to say they they dont need to know about the designer to find design (i've been reading the unbelievably inane comments- filled with analogy, hypotheticals and simply obtuse reasoning -these folks not only think ID is an alternative theory, they think its the only theory- scary)

Of course I'm guessing that you must believe in God, despite a total lack of evidence, in order to follow ID. Right? I thought I would ask.

[Tom Foss]

are there any atheists who think ID is a rationale theory?

Yes, the Raelians. They believe in panspermia, and the intelligent design of Earth organisms by advanced alien life forms. They're cuckoobananas, but they're technically atheists. It's the scientists who have a problem with the ID hypothesis.

I realize this would lead to who made the Marflops, but since the IDers claim to not care about who the designer is, then that part of the argument is gone.

Not really; ID may be unconcerned with the nature of the designer, but that's part of why they're not scientists. A scientist would have to know some things about the Designer before even proposing its existence.

Of course I'm guessing that you must believe in God, despite a total lack of evidence, in order to follow ID. Right? I thought I would ask.

In order to follow mainstream, Discovery Institute ID, you have to believe in a very specific God, despite a total lack of evidence. Again, if ID were about science and not about shoehorning Creationism where it doesn't belong, they'd embrace the Raelians and the other panspermia types, and the Intelligent Design advocates from other religions, rather than shutting them out.

[TechSkeptic]

its funny, I was just having a conversation with a catholic, about what you are talking about here.

There is this dude

http://www.harunyahya.com/theauthor.php

Who put together this site

http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/

and sent a bunch of pretty picture books to biologists recently.

My thought was, is it possible to use ID as a way to bring together christians and muslims? Is it possible that it may be the method to provide peace? At least they could agree on something.

I realize its a long shot, and the answer is probably 'no', but nothing else seems to work, including trying to get religious people to stop wasting their time with religion.

[Tom Foss]

My thought was, is it possible to use ID as a way to bring together christians and muslims? Is it possible that it may be the method to provide peace? At least they could agree on something.

I doubt it; the hardcore on both sides, who are the ones who don't get along anyway, both reject ID in favor of good old-fashioned Creationism. And the Muslim and Christian ID types will, necessarily, disagree about the nature of the Designer (despite claiming not to care about that sort of thing), since they don't really approach the matter with any kind of scientific rigor.

[Iskra]

"Yet another triumph for materialist reasoning!"

This, to me, is the most telling comment of all. Both arguments are materialistic. Human designers are material, operate through material means and use material objects. Hand, chipping stone, stone to be chipped all of these things are material. No matter which person won this argument, it would be a victory for materialism, unless he thinks ancient Indians used magic to make arrow heads...