From Neurologica today I read this quote from creationist Michael Egnor writing in the creationist Discovery Institute’s website:
Complexity can arise without intelligent design, but complexity is not the same thing as design.
Huu-whaaaaa? He clearly didn’t run that by Michael Behe. Because, according to Behe, and virtually all other ID proponents, complexity is the one thing you can use to determine design. That has been their entire argument – life is “too complex” to have arisen without a designer. Now Egnor, writing in the Discovery Institute’s own paper, states clearly that this is not true. And I didn’t take it out of context – read the whole thing. Finally, Egnor says something sensible. Although one wonders how such a blunder was allowed to slip in.
I’m bookmarking that page for the next time some creationist insists life is “too complex” to have arisen without a designer. “Complexity can arise without intelligent design” – official, The Discovery Institute.
Someone ought to preserve a copy of the full article accessible somewhere on the web other than a skeptic's blog. No doubt when they realize what they have done they will try to make it go away, say it never existed, that the skeptics made it up and that they twisted it out of context.
I wonder, does this blunder become evidence of the lack of intelligent design (I know, that was nasty, but not beneath me.)
Posted by: Bob Airhart | April 10, 2008 at 08:38 AM
Your post is simply grasping at straws. Comical.
Posted by: Alt Numlock | April 10, 2008 at 10:23 AM
No that I'm defending Behe's point of view, I think it is also nonsense. But I think his deal is with irreducable complexity, not complexity itself.
Posted by: Techskeptic | April 10, 2008 at 11:51 AM
One of the best IDiot quotes I've seen so far.
Posted by: King of Ferrets | April 10, 2008 at 02:52 PM
Is God irreducibly complex in ID, or is he in a separate category altogether?
The irreducible complexity argument is clearly a loser. You first have to prove living beings are irreducibly complex, which has been tried, but obviously can't be done.
Posted by: Joseph | April 10, 2008 at 04:14 PM
I thin Behe thinks he HAS proven that vrious things are irreducibly complex. For this he give examples of the eye and flagellum. both of which have been debunked now.
The problem with any of their arguments is not the idea, but the assumption of God.
For example, if he did find something irreducibly complex, then he would actually have a case. Wouldn't he? I dont mean thing that are easy to debunk, like the eye example. I mean something like a metal skeletal structure. or something like that.
Or would we continue to look for natural ways for something like that to occur?
Posted by: | April 10, 2008 at 08:15 PM
Posted by: King of Ferrets | April 10, 2008 at 08:27 PM
Behe can find IC forever and a day and it won't matter because irreducible complexity can evolve. Even though we can debunk some supposedly IC structures and say "That's not really irreducibly complex," even if he found something that was IC by his own definition, it would prove absolutely nothing. Evolution can remove parts as well as add them, thus IC is perfectly evolvable. Design is completely unnecessary.
If we can't find a way to debunk it ever, they have a case that will stand forever.
We don't even have to debunk specific cases, because since IC is evolvable, we've debunked the whole mess at an even higher level.
Moreover, I would argue that his ideas are the problem because (1)they are tied intrinsically to his god assumption, and (2)they are scientifically useless. Saying "That's IC!" does as much for biology as defining a certaing type of structure as "flugastic." It adds nothing to science whatsoever. The idea of IC exists only so someone can say "That is IC, therefore God."
It makes about as much sense as saying "That is flugastic, therefore flarshnikit."
Posted by: Akusai | April 10, 2008 at 09:57 PM
If you combine ID with an omnipotent god, it seems you'd also have a problem. Nothing can be irreducibly complex if there's an omnipotent being that could reduce it if he wanted to.
Posted by: Joseph | April 11, 2008 at 06:45 AM
Your post is simply grasping at straws. Comical.
Yes, the creationists are trashing their one and only "argument" if you can call it one and he is grasping at straws...
Way to turn around the facts!
Comical.
By the way, irreducible complexity is a prediction of Evolution, which means that it is evidence for Evolution!
So look for irreducible complex systems all you want, you are just providing evidence for Evolution!
Oh, one more thing: Ìsn't it possible to bring the page back using the Wayback Machine in case they remove it?
Posted by: Tom S. Fox | April 11, 2008 at 10:33 AM
Akusai,
that was a very good point (in my eyes at least) that I had not read before. I think I had a Flugasm reading it.
Tom,
Yes wayback machine should be able to take care of archives, but it may be unreliable becuase it doesnt record every page of every site every day.
When you say Irreducible Compexity is a prediction of evolution, did you mean in the way that Akusai discusses, or in another capacity? honestly, I had not heard that before,while of course I heard of deletions before. What it says to me is that becuase deletions happen, we have no good way to detect true irreducible complexity. It just ends up meaning that we don't know the steps that a creature took to get to a certain state, but we assume it got there.
I can magine why that doesnt st well with god bots. By "assume" I mean we have seen deletions, we have seen a multitude of mechanisms by which an organism evolves, just becuase we missed a few steps and can't back track, doesnt mean its time to bring inthe sky daddy, we just presume that the missing steps are there, whether we know what they are or not.
right?
Posted by: Techskeptic | April 11, 2008 at 02:32 PM
Next time before you embarrass yourselves you might want to take a few minutes out of your busy day of bringing "rationality" to the world and actually try to understand what you are criticising.
If you'd cared to look, you would learn that Intelligent Design proponents do not make the simple claim that complexity is evidence of design. They say that *specified* complexity is evidence of design. If you have wind blowing leaves from a tree and scattering them on the ground, you have an undesigned complex pattern. If you have a child spell their name with the leaves you have a specified complex pattern.
I don't think you'll see the Discovery Institute hurry to delete an article that's only problem is your lack of understanding.
Posted by: Croath | April 11, 2008 at 05:33 PM
Croath:
On the contrary, I have seen many make that claim. Here, for instance. The whole of ID is built upon variants of the "X is so complex that it could not have evolved" argument from personal ignorance. Ah. And how do we measure that? Can you even give a useful definition of what specified complexity is? And here it sounds like you're making the same categorical error that the vast majority of IDists make: claiming that there is some quality inherent to "designed" objects which objectively and individually sets them apart from non-designed objects. There isn't. We distinguish "design" from "non-design" by comparison. Things that have been designed by intelligent agents tend to differ noticeably from the natural surroundings in which they are found. It's why Paley's watch lying next to the stream in the woods sticks out, while the deer drinking downstream doesn't.
Techskeptic and others: I think this discussion might benefit from the definition of Irreducible Complexity as used by the IDists. All they use it to mean is that you have some structure where, if you remove any one of its many parts, the structure no longer functions. Since "half a wing" or "half an eye" is no good, these structures could not have evolved, and must have been designed.
As you all already know, what scientists have found is that IDists are, as usual, full of it. The paths to "irreducible complexity" are myriad. In the case of many things, as has been noted, physical structures may evolve over time, then disappear over time once they are no longer useful; the usual analogy is to scaffolding, which is taken down once the building is finished, leaving a structure that could not have been built on its own.
In the case of the eye, what we have is more of a general trend toward greater precision. An eye which sees half as well as a modern eye is, in fact, better than no eye at all. And we can trace the development of the eye by looking at various species with eyes that fall all along the developmental spectrum.
The other ID favorite example, the bacterial flagellum, is a different sort. With the eye, when you take away parts, you end up with a less functional (but still beneficial) organ. With the flagellum, when you take away certain parts, you end up with a perfectly functional organ which performs a somewhat different function. The other path toward "irreducible complexity" results from the attribution of purpose to biological features, and a flawed assumption that that function must have always been the function of that feature. What happens fairly often in biology is that structures with one function get appropriated and modified into structures with significantly different functions, by only adding a few parts. Again, with this, we can trace the development by examining similar species with differently functioning organs.
Something like a metal skeleton wouldn't necessarily be irreducible complexity in the ID definition, it would (potentially) be a biological feature that had no known physiological cause or origin. Basically, the X-Men would be excellent evidence for some sort of design, since (as far as I know) there is no known physical or physiological mechanism which could even be expressed by genes (let alone acted upon by mutation and natural selection) that would allow a person to control the weather or teleport in space.
If we came across animals with biological features that clearly defied known physical laws and the limitations of gene expression, then we might give some serious consideration to the ID/Creationist hypothesis; it wouldn't necessarily mean an immediate rejection of evolution, but if we couldn't figure out the mechanism which allowed the gun-wolf's biological weaponry to be expressed and modified over time through heredity, then we'd have to give some real thought to overhauling the paradigm.
Also, we'd be a hell of a lot more careful outside. A wolf with guns growing out of it? Now that's scary.
Posted by: Tom Foss | April 11, 2008 at 06:28 PM
Tom Foss,
You have read both my statement, and that of the person you linked to, uncharitably. You could have reasonably taken my claim to be refering to those qualified to represent Intelligent Design - such as the Discovery Institute. Instead you thought I was speaking on behalf of every internet poster with an opinion favourable to ID. I'm sure there's some people who assert ridiculous things in the name of Darwinism, but I wouldn't uncharitably associate you with making their claims, or count them as being representative. I would correct them and point out how they're not actually representing the best modern thought on the subject. You should, when debating, give your opponent charity in taking what the strongest claim of theirs could be - that way you stop picking around the edges and can get straight to the heart of the matter to see who is right.
Also, the person you linked to spoke of "biological complexity". He was *very* specific about the complexity he was referring to, not just any complexity we find in the world. I don't see anything in is his post, at a glance, that requires us to think that he meant complexity in general is evidence of design.
You also have a simplistic and immature understanding of the Intelligent Design claims. It is not simply that "it could not have evolved". It goes much deeper than that - but I will leave that for another time to keep this conversation more focussed.
I didn't claim to be able to explain precisely what specified complexity is. I was just pointing out that ID proponents (those who well represent it) distinguish between just general complexity and specified complexity. Whether there are issues with specified complexity, or in making this distinction, is an independent question.
And my answer would be that given that specified complexity refers to complexity that is meaningful to a mind, it is going to be difficult - if not impossible - to pin down an exact definition that will allow us to perfectly distinguish. Two points:
1. Being unable to pin down the definition exactly doesn't make it useless. We have plenty of phrases that defy a precise definition yet are still profoundly useful. I might refer to a "pile of sand", but then we might wonder how much sand is required to make something a pile? So too, there are clear cut cases where complexity is specified and where it is not.
2. Dembski's methods were never intended to distinguish perfectly between all cases of design and non-design. It was merely meant to be reliable when it does assert the presence of design. Plenty of design might slip through the net though. Plenty of cases of specified complexity might remain undetected. It was never claimed to be more than that.
I didn't claim it was anything inherent in the objects themselves. A painting might be beautiful. That doesn't mean the beauty is in the paint, the canvas, the frame or any of the matter it's composed out of. The beauty exists in the mind of the observer to whom that arrangement of matter is meaningful. This is what we are trying to detect - purposeful arrangement of matter by a mind. Not some inherent quality in the objects themselves.
And how is that a refutation of anything I claimed? How does this highlight any supposed categorical error you think I've made?
This is not the only way we distinguish design from non-design. That's just one way. ID doesn't claim to have *the* only way of detecting design, just one way, and an imperfect way. When it detects design, it will always be correct - but sometimes it won't detect design when in fact there is design. Other methods might help in different scenarios.
I have no idea what your point is here. Are you meaning to beg the question, by supposing that the deer is not designed? This is the very question we are discussing. You can't point to the deer as not designed, and expect me to say, "of course!" I look at the deer and see design. I distinguish between the deer and a rock, not the deer and a watch, where design is concerned. Even Richard Dawkins sees the appearance of design in nature - don't you?
In fact, your analogy is *extremely* poor. Suppose that the watch is designed by the watchmaker Frank from town. Suppose also that the deer is designed by God. We have here the deer in an environment designed by God - the grass, trees, flowers, insects, and so on. And then we have the watch - designed and built by Frank. It stands out not because one is designed and the other is not - rather because they have two different designers with different styles and intentions.
An analogy of this would be a server room full of computers, cables, air conditioners, etc - and then a toilet right in the middle of it. The toilet doesn't stand out because it alone was designed - but rather because it is out of place in the style and intention of the design - indeed even in the precision and complexity.
The main point here is that your analogy doesn't beget only one explanation, and doesn't support your conclusion.
Posted by: Croath | April 11, 2008 at 08:52 PM
Tom:
Yes, I think we are all on the same page. I just had not really connected genetic deletions to irreducible complexity before, even though I was quite familiar with both concepts. Makes perfect sense.
Croath,
I am damn sure Tom will chime in with a far more complete response, and more eloquent than I, so I will wait for that. I just had a few little questions:
I distinguish between the deer and a rock, not the deer and a watch, where design is concerned.
Why? Why is that the comparison you would make? Why isnt the rock just as designed as the deer? Because the deer has moving parts? So do clouds and lava. The watch and the deer are the things you should be comparing because of what is common to the surroundings. Becuase one is more complex? What about a dinner plate? A deer certainly is more complex than a dinner plate, but you would examine the deer for design before the dinner plate?
The things you choose to distinguish make have no rhyme or reason to it.
Suppose that the watch is designed by the watchmaker Frank from town. Suppose also that the deer is designed by God. We have here the deer in an environment designed by God - the grass, trees, flowers, insects, and so on. And then we have the watch - designed and built by Frank.
Difference is that I can go ask frank if he made the watch. Not only can he answer it, he can show me how, show me which parts to use.
Now let me ask God: "God, did you make all the deer, the grass, the flowers, the insects, and so on?"
sorry I don't speak cricket. Perhaps you do, when God give you assembly instructions, I'd like to see them. I've been through the bible, there are no assembly instructions for a deer in there.
Further, even if it was not frank, I know that watchmakers exist, There is plenty of evidence(I can't believe creationists haven't gotten past the watchmaker analogy after 150 years)... Aww screw it I'm not arguing paleys watchmaker argument, that stupid argument has been through the wringer for 150 years, its dead and gets more idiotic every time it gets brought up.
Same with toilet in a server room. What an enlightened rehash of Paley's watchmaker. [sarcasm]. I can go to a toilet manufacturer and see toilets being made. I can go to a computer manufacturer and see computers being made (they even will have toilets there).
Both places have tons of documentation and people to talk to to find out how things were made.
The supposition "Toilets were made by man" has tons of traceable, repeatable, measurable, evidence. The supposition "God made deer" has only faith.
Posted by: Techskeptic | April 12, 2008 at 08:39 AM
awww shit. sorry about the html.
Posted by: Techskeptic | April 12, 2008 at 08:40 AM
lol... ok i'll close it now
Posted by: Techskeptic | April 12, 2008 at 08:41 AM
Tech:
"I am damn sure Tom will chime in with a far more complete response..."
http://xkcd.com/406/
;)
Posted by: Martin | April 12, 2008 at 09:21 AM
You made an absolute claim ("Intelligent Design proponents do not make the simple claim that complexity is evidence of design.") I pulled out one example from my own experience (one of several, but just the most easily linked) where an ID proponent (qualified enough to be an authorized writer on Dembski's blog) made that claim, refuting your absolute statement. It may be that the True ID Proponents don't espouse such troglodytic views, that they would never say "complexity proves ID" and instead say "a certain sort (irreducible, specified, etc.) of complexity proves ID," which is why I moved on to the link exposing the problems with "specified complexity" as Dembski skated around it, notably his misunderstanding of the examples he used, and his inability (or unwillingness) to provide any workable definition of what "specified complexity" is, and how we could objectively measure it.
I linked to the first post in a long conversation, which turned (rather quickly) to discussion of Russian Quantum Physicists and SETI--i.e., information "complexity." PaV's argument, throughout, was that IDists, like SETI, can infer design simply by the complexity of the "signal," without any knowledge of the Designer or any outside comparison. As we said there, repeatedly, what SETI (and archaeologists, for that matter) look for is not complexity, but artificiality--significant difference from nature. That's okay, IDists have a simplistic and immature understanding of how the universe functions, so it's even. So they make a distinction, but you don't know what the distinction is. And how do you know that the distinction is valid? That it has any merit? That it's based on anything measurable or quantifiable? That it's objective in any fashion? I could make the distinction between "left socks" and "unspecified socks" in my sock drawer, but it doesn't mean that such a distinction represents anything in reality.Taking a look at Egnor's post, it seems to be much the same thing. He claims that "complexity" is not enough to demonstrate ID, but "design" is. It looks like he's claiming that anything with "purpose" must have been "designed" (it's muddy, I'll admit, and he doesn't give a decent definition, despite trying an argumentum ad Websterum), specifically DNA. Whether or not something has a "purpose" is not an objective standard of measurement, nor is it something that would be unique to designed objects. It's merely a rhetorical trick designed to support ID through language, since it isn't supported through evidence.
But let's move on, because I think I can kill two birds here with the same stone.
Sounds like you're arguing backwards, which is basically what Egnor was doing with "design." Here's the rub: intelligent agents are capable of assigning meaning and ascribing purpose where none exists.Take, for instance, one of the classic blunders of the Moon Landing Hoax crew. They have a picture of one of the astronauts on the moon, standing next to a rock that appears to have the letter "C" carved into it. This, they say, is proof that the rock was a prop, marked by some prop master, and placed in a specific spot on the set, though accidentally rotated so the prop designation letter was visible to the camera. They have seen a symbol that has meaning to the human mind, and have ascribed a purpose to it--namely, to keep track of the various props used on the moon landing set.
And here's where they went wrong: there's no letter "C" on the rock; it doesn't even exist in the original photos. What has happened is that an eyelash or hair of some sort was on the picture when it was copied, looking like a letter "C," but actually just being a curved line. They have seen "meaning" and "purpose" where none actually existed.
It's the same with the folks seeing Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich and Mary in an underpass stain: human intelligence is largely built around the capacity to discern patterns and infer intent; the problem is that those abilities don't turn off, and often lead to false positives. We seek patterns or images in random sequences (pareidolia), and we assign intent and volition to things which possess none--the remnants of the same instincts which led us to see storms and earthquakes as remnants of the gods are the likely cause of us getting upset at computers and cars when they don't work correctly.
The point: complexity that is meaningful to a mind may not be inherent to the complex object. It may instead be inherent to the mind--i.e., it may be utterly subjective.
Yes, having an uncertain definition may be useful in some cases. Having an uncertain definition at the core of your scientific hypothesis, however, is less useful. If you were claiming that a "pile of sand" has enough free energy to power a city, but a "heap of sand" does not, then you better be able to fairly specifically define the difference between the two, or be dismissed as having an unfalsifiable hypothesis.In science, even if your definitions aren't crystal-clear, they ought to be objectively measurable. Speaking from a very charitable point of view, if "specified complexity" is evidence for a Designer, then the first step is not pointing out instances of specified complexity, but going to the lab or the drawing board to see if there is some objective metric, something actual, that separates "complexity" from "specified complexity."
I'm not asking for perfection, I'm asking for some measurable standard. Science doesn't have a problem with error; missing some hits and hitting some misses are part of the game. We recalibrate, tighten the controls, and try to refine our methodology. But before we can do any of that, there needs to be some set of measurable criteria by which we can distinguish between these two categories. "Meaningfulness" is entirely subjective. Thank you for so perfectly illustrating my point. You're right, "beauty" isn't an objective quantity that we can measure in the painting itself, it's a purely subjective quality that exists in the mind of the observer. Just like "meaningfulness." And how can you do that without either knowledge of the mind who arranged the matter, or comparison to some objective standard of non-design? How do you, as an observer, distinguish between a Jackson Pollock and a canvas where a cat knocked over a bunch of cans of paint?Specified Complexity and Irreducible Complexity are both attempts by IDists to create an arbitrary, objective metric by which to determine design. Neither one is based on a real, measurable quantity, just on ascribed "purpose" and "meaning."
Is "specified complexity" something we can measure given only the "specified complex" object? If yes, then you're claiming that the "meaningfulness" or "design" is inherent to the object, which has not been shown to be the case; in fact, the opposite has been: that we distinguish "design" either by knowing the designer's purpose, or by discerning artificiality--difference from nature. If no, then it's an admission of precisely my point: that design is distinguishable from non-design only through comparison. You're right, I was mistaken in calling it the only way. The other way requires some knowledge of the designer. I'm not certain that I'd claim it would always be correct. It may often be correct, but not necessarily always. I'd like to know what "other methods" you have. No, I mean to state the obvious, by showing that the deer is not artificial. We distinguish design from non-design by how it differs from nature around it and in general. Watches are very different compared to natural objects and structures; they are made of different materials, organized in different fashions, and so on. Deer and trees and grass, however, are not different from natural objects and structures; they are made of the same materials, organized in the same fashions, and so forth. It's why we describe one set of objects as "artificial" and one as "nature." No, I point to the deer as non-artificial, and unless we're in EPCOT Center and it's an animatronic deer, I expect you to say "of course!" And by what criteria do you make that distinction? What about the deer screams design, while the rock screams non-design? I think you misunderstand what Dawkins meant by "appearance"--he's saying that, to us, certain structures may appear (i.e., seem) to be designed. We may ascribe purpose to them, we may think "gosh, that's really complex," but the "appearance" of design in nature is much like the "appearance" of the Virgin Mary on a tortilla--it exists in the mind of the flawed human observer, not in the actual object. And my analogy was poor? How do you distinguish between the deer designed by God and the rock, apparently made-but-not-designed by God (according to your earlier statement)?You're right, part of the reason that we can recognize that the watch is designed is because we are familiar with watches, and with the sort of intelligent agents which design and use watches. We have evidence of the existence of the agents who build watches, and we have other watches built by those agents to serve as comparisons. We know the general purpose of those watches, because we know the mind of the watchmaker, and his likely purpose in making that watch.
We don't know any of those things about the sort of being who might design trees and deer. We don't know that they exist, we don't know what purpose they have, and we don't have any examples of things we're sure they've designed, to compare to other objects. If nature is designed, then until we encounter the Designer and discover its purpose, or until we have some objective criteria for distinguishing design from non-design in nature (the way we distinguish design from non-design through artificiality--contrast with nature), then we have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not anything in nature is designed.
Yes, you're clearly so much better at analogy. Once again, the toilet stands out because it is significantly different from its surroundings (in terms of shape, composition, and complexity) and because we know something about the designer (the likely intended purpose of the servers and the toilet).Naturally, you acknowledge this: "it is out of place in the style and intention of the design." We know it is out of place in style, because we compare it to the things around it. We know it is out of place in intent, because we know the mind of the Designer and what its intents were in designing these objects. Nature, however, is not out of place in nature. We don't know the mind of the nature-designer, primarily because we have no evidence of the nature-designer's existence. So, if the style's no different, and the intent is unknown, then how do we distinguish design?
Then I suppose we have the same problem.--Summer Glau
Ah, yes, I should have known that Bill Dembski, Discovery Institute fellow and major league ID proponent, would let totally unqualified people write guest posts about Intelligent Design on his blog about Intelligent Design, without correcting them. Silly me. Well, hell, if we're getting straight to the heart of the matter, why don't we look at the evidence. IDies first.Posted by: Tom Foss | April 12, 2008 at 09:29 AM
I'm interested to know what qualifies the shysters of the fraudulently named Discovery Institute to pontificate more than anyone else about irreducible complexity. What is special about their qualifications? After all they neither conduct nor publish research, nor do the actually "discover" anything. All they seem to do is invent and make assertions about ID in an attempt to provide a post hoc explanation for their preferred religious delusion. What's more, in denying the connection between ID and their preferred religious delusion, they do seem to demonstrate ample talent for lying.
But of course they are lying for God, so that's alright then.
Posted by: pv | April 12, 2008 at 02:18 PM
"God's only excuse is that he does not exist." -- Stendahl
Posted by: bipolar2 | April 13, 2008 at 06:56 PM
I'm sure this must have been asked before but is God complex (irreducibly complex, specifically complex) or is he simple? If he is complex then was he designed? If so, by whom? If not, then how is he both complex and yet undesigned? If he is simple, how did he design and create such complex things?
I recall some thirty-odd years ago, at eleven years old, having a teacher tell the class "See this blackboard duster? The felt and timber did not just happen to make a duster, someone made it. That's how we know the world was made by God and doesn't just exist."
I asked him "Who made God?" and he replied "Oh, he always existed." Any religious inclinations I'd had ended there.
Posted by: AndyD | April 17, 2008 at 04:47 AM
[quote]I'm sure this must have been asked before but is God complex (irreducibly complex, specifically complex) or is he simple? If he is complex then was he designed? If so, by whom? If not, then how is he both complex and yet undesigned? If he is simple, how did he design and create such complex things?[/quote]
Regardless of who you ask, the answer always comes down to: Magic. God (or a designer) is magical, and is not bound by known laws of physics, likely because he exists outside of space and time, so the standard rules don't apply to him. In other words he's an exception.
We may as well just say everything that exists is due to magic.
And because we have no way of examining magic, therefore he the designer is beyond examination also. So don't ask questions. God did it, end of story. Which also means that Jesus was indeed born through a magical sperm that impregnated a virgin girl who happened to be married (poor Joseph), and died on a cross to be resurrected 3 days later. And that's that.
Posted by: lostn | April 17, 2008 at 07:02 PM
Lostn, the fact that I can't be 100% sure you're joking is kind of sad.
Posted by: King of Ferrets | April 17, 2008 at 08:10 PM
Hmm, perhaps I wasn't as clear as I should have been. That was sarcasm, but it is exactly what an apologist of ID would say. They'll leave out the Jesus bit of course, to sound quasi scientific, but that is their answer.
Posted by: lostn | April 18, 2008 at 11:19 AM
Dear Summer Glau,
I thought you reserved this appellation for times when you mercilessly destroy the credibility of your interlocutor both as a person able to formulate any thoughts and represent those thoughts in an intelligble way. As it is, your post is bereft of any real counter arguments, spelling or grammar corrections. It is instead a work of misunderstanding and perhaps hidden admissions.
Let's go back to the start - I came here to point out that the Intelligent Design movement, as it is best represented, does not make the simple and false claim that complexity is evidence of design. As it stands, this point is unrefuted. If you see anyone say this, you should point out to them kindly that they are not so well equipped to represent ID in its strongest form.
The problem in general with your response is an inability on your part to keep clearly in your mind the idea that there can be more than one method of detecting design. Just like there is more than one way to detect the presence of a house. Some methods work better than others in differing circumstances. So a lot of my response will involve pointing out to you false assumption when you make it. I know you said in your last post "You're right, I was mistaken in calling it the only way", but despite this admission, you still seem to make errors as though you do think it is claimed to be the only way.
Now I have problems with your method of responding. Though it may endear you to other fans of this site, it will prevent you from becoming a respected opponent of ID. To speak precisely, you attribute arguments to me that later on in the very same post I make clear I am not making. This uncharitable form will win you arguments in the sense that you will frustrate your opponent to the point where he gives up. But you won't achieve anything because you are right, or your reasons are compelling.
For example,
Here you seem to be claiming that I thought this other poster was not qualified, where I was in fact just making the general point that I don't have to defend every internet poster. Regarding this person specifically I said:
So I did not claim that this person was mistaken or unqualified - that was very clear in my response. I merely said that I don't have to defend every claim made by someone who has favourable opinions about ID.
You even went on to say,
Indicating that you understand the point I was making is a valid, and possibly true one. So we could have skipped all this nonsense around it.
Another example of you reiterating a point that I already answered later on, you say:
Yet I had already said in my previous post that,
Maybe, for your sake, I should have made the point more explicit, so here it is: we are able with certain cases to say clearly "this is a pile of sand but that is not. This third collection, I cannot say, it is too borderline". What matters is that there are times when we can make such distinctions, not that we can make the distinctions in all cases. In the case of "left socks" and "unspecified socks" we can never explicitly for any cases when one falls into one category and another into the other. This point was implicit to my argument - but perhaps not clear enough for you. This is not a situation where counter-examples, like your socks scenario, are relevant.
Let me make this more explicit in another way for you. Let's say I make the statement "some dogs have no hair". I then show you a dog that has no hair. You respond by saying, "this third dog, it has hair!" That response is not relevant. We're only interested in the fact that there are some instances of the scenario I outlined, not that there are exceptions.
Let me press it home with another example of the point I was originally making. You might claim that humans and apes share a common ancestor that is not human or ape. Let's imagine we put all the generations, from that common ancestor, to your father, in a line. Then I ask you, starting with your father, then your grandfather, his father, and so on, to go down the line and tell me the point where that creature is no longer human. I think you would not be able to say clearly, but would rather indicate "somewhere around this stage". Does your inability to precisely pin down the definition of a human make the appellation useless? Of course not. And there are a myriad of cases like this in both science and our every day living that make the point trivial.
There are cases when we can clearly point and say "this is not specified complexity", such as leaves scatterred on the ground, and "that is specified complexity", such as the words in this post. Having troubling areas between does not make the concept useless or unhelpful, even to scientists.
Nevertheless, Demsbki defines specified complexity as being cases where we have a very high improbability that is yet easily described. A sequence of coin tosses showing HHHHHHHHHH is easy to describe as "10 heads in a row", whereas HTHHTTTHHT is not easily described. (Just a note on this, Intelligent Design does not attribute 10 heads in a row to design, this example is merely to illustrate a limited point - the simple explicability of specified patterns).
Now onto a point you make,
I would be very interested to know how you define artificiality. I would suspect that the concept of specified complexity and artificiality are not contrary. Different, yes, and relevant to sometimes different cases. If we were to receive a signal from deep space that could be decoded into a video of an alien vista, that would be an example of specified complexity that indicates design. This does not mean that:
a) Specified complexity is the only indicator of design
b) Artificiality is the only indicator of design
c) SETI actually uses specified complexity like the way it did in the movie Contact
d) SETI needs to use specified complexity for that to be valid
It is a mistake for you to say that just because SETI looks for artificiality that this is the only way design can be detected. My understanding is that the movie Contact is used by ID proponents because it involved celebration for discovering a signal which encoded primary numbers in it. That still works effectively as an example of design being detected via specified complexity. It doesn't matter whether SETI proper looks for such complexity or not. It's sufficient to note that such specified complexity, when found, does in fact indicate design. On this point, in the book "The Design of Life", Dembski argues that the artificiality which SETI pursues is in fact a case of specified complexity, but I indicate this merely as a curiosity. It's not at all essential to my point.
Now moving down to where you think you make a telling point, but really just miss the purpose of ID,
And then you go on to outline carefully the obvious - that we can sometimes see design when in fact we have chance.
As I said before, your understanding of ID claims is rudimentary, and here it is outlined well. There are two points I want to drive home carefully:
1. Intelligent Design, at least Dembski's Explanatory Filter, does not claim to be able to catch every instance of design, but just that when it does catch it, it is never a false positive
2. Intelligent Design is not intended to be the only means of detecting design
Now I know I've made these points before in this post, but I'm going to take the opportunity to reiterate them so that hopefully you, and others reading, will understand them. William Dembski calculated his own estimate of the universal probability bound to be 1 in 10^150. Anything that exceeds this should be called "impossible". Demsbki was not the first person to propose a value for this, but last I heard, his was the most generous. Now there are two important things to note from this:
1. An event with a probability of less than 1 in 10^150 should be considered impossible precisely because it is so improbable. We should not expect to get any false positives given such probabilities.
2. There will be *many* design events that will slip through a net this small. Tossing a coin 10 times in a row, and getting heads, might in fact be the product of a coin with heads on both sides. But the probability of this is 1 in 2^10. Not very improbable, and therefore William Dembski's method would miss this.
So the reason why your telling point misses the mark should be quite obvious now. Yes, we might mistakenly see design in the cases you outlined, but these cases would be missed by Dembski's filter anyway. His design filter was not meant to catch all cases of design, but it was meant to be always right when it says it has design.
Now we head into murky waters,
Suppose we go to another world and discover a sphere made of titanium, and we can see images that appear engraved on the surface showing mountains and oceans. When we move to within one meter of the presence of this sphere, we find in our mind's eye a compelling and lucid tour of the world on which we have arrived, flying past mountains at top speeds, diving to the ocean depths. Then suddenly it ends. When others approach it they report the same experience.
We have no need of any knowledge of the designer, their intentions, or their means, to attribute design. Why would you think we do?
I do not know what you mean by "some objective standard of non-design".
As for the Jackson Pollock and cat scenario, I point you back to earlier in this post where I make the point about Intelligent Design dealing with the highly improbable and obvious cases of design. We do not need to be able to distinguish all cases of design from non-design with one method. I don't know that the ID method can be used in this scenario, so I don't see the relevance.
I would probably agree with this depending on how you define your terms. Obviously design will always be measured, in some way or another, to an intelligence. Eg, a murder made to look like an accident will accord to the intentions of the villain. An irreducibly complex system only finds its origins at the hands of an intelligent designer, so again we compare it to the kinds of works a designer produces vs chance or law.
If you understand these things the same way as me, then I see no tension between what you claim and the claims of ID.
I'm not sure why it's relevant, but I'll indulge. One method for detecting design I have besides the Intelligent Design method is the accordance of events to someone's statements of what they intend. Eg, someone says to me "I intend to arrange our backyard to look like a dry desert". I then go to their house a few weeks later and see that their backyard has changed since I last saw it, and now looks like a dry desert. I detect design because it accords with what I heard an intelligent designer announce they planned to do, and so it makes that probability much higher than that of chance.
It's not perfect, but it's served me well. The ID methods are meant to be much more precise - that when they get a positive, they're always right. But they miss a lot in the process.
I'm sorry, but this is in fact begging the question. If the ID guys are right, then the deer is artificial (pending the release of your definition of artificial). You haven't demonstrated the deer is not artificial, this is the very thing in question. And thus, when you say,
you are asserting more than you are entitled to.
Here you aren't leaning on any concrete reasons, but just depending on the ambiguity of terms like "nature". I already agreed with you that watches are very different in those ways from the other set of things that includes deer, trees and grass. Nature, however, can itself be divided further - for example between living and non-living matter. And I just here say there is clear design in living nature, but it's not at all clearly evidenced in non-living nature. There isn't anything here at all in your argument to say that the watch is artificial yet the deer is not (if we define artificial as, say, not occuring by natural law or chance).
I confess to not understanding how you can ask this question and not see the answer yourself. As I quoted earlier, Dawkins himself said that life has the appearance of design (and I'll get to your comment on this soon). The Deer shows many traits of design, but in particular contains irreducibly complex systems. Francis Crick said that biologists must constantly remind themselves that what they see is not designed. So I don't understand how you can ask "what about the deer screams design". This is a common reaction of people who are introduced to the complexity of life.
The rock shows no signs of design. This does not mean the rock is not designed (such as a prop with the letter C on it). It's just I have no reason to think that it is.
I didn't misunderstand. I was saying that, even if you don't think deer are designed, they at least have the appearance, or seemingness, of being designed. I don't know what you thought I meant.
This is again irrelevant. All you're making is the trivial observation that this one method we have to detect design (being familiar with watches) does not work in another case (where we are not familiar). That says nothing about the Intelligent Design arguments. You're again assuming that there can only be one method for detecting design, which is false.
What is most worrying is the direction your argument, what you think is reasonable. Here's what I mean, and your comment to frame the discussion:
You here say "some objective criteria for distinguishing design from non-design in nature", this is exactly what ID is trying to achieve. I worry about how much you are trying to achieve. It seems, if your arguments are successful, that even *if* we grant that an intelligent designer created life on earth, science would not be able to learn anything about it. That despite the cold hard fact that life was designed, we can never know it. And that's just absurd to say that it's beyond the reach of science. More importantly, if you think that science would be incapable of detecting design even if it were present, then surely we should refrain from opinion as to whether life was designed or not - rather than committing to a naturalistic explanation of it.
Hold on a moment here. Why is this relevant? I was criticising your conclusion that we distinguish between the watch and the deer because one is designed and the other was not. Prior to Darwin, the popular opinion was that the deer is designed. Yet even then they were able to distinguish between the two. So why do you think I'd disagree about your reasons *why* we can distinguish? The point was that the distinction can be made in more than one way.
To talk about our knowledge of the designer and their intended purpose is irrelevant to the point I was making. Moreover, even if it *were* relevant, we are still able to claim that we have ideas what the intention of a designer of grass, trees and deer was - the Bible account gives one such attempt to explain the intentions of the designer. So you fail here too in supposing we see no intention in the deer.
My analagy was perfectly suited to the point I wanted to make. Clearly I am so much better at analogy than you.
Just to let you know upfront, I probably won't remember to check back here to see if there's any responses. Thanks for your time.
Posted by: Croath | April 20, 2008 at 03:05 AM
IDists throw around terms like "specified complexity" and "irreducible complexity" to get around precisely what you're saying--the fact that "complexity alone" would be an idiotic gauge for any concept. The problem is that neither "specified" nor "irreducible" complexity has been defined in a measurable way; we often hear (true or otherwise) IDists say that the eye/flagellum/clotting system is "too complex" to have evolved through natural selection, which suggests that there is some kind of barrier, a level or type of complexity, beyond which natural causes cannot reach. Until they give that barrier a definition, until they develop a testable hypothesis with regard to their claims of "[special type] complexity," it remains special pleading and appeal to personal incredulity.
The analogy master returns. What, pray tell, are the ways of detecting design which do not rely on comparison or prior knowledge of the designer? That's okay, I don't ask for their respect. In fact, if I were gaining the respect of the crowd of liars, charlatans, crybabies, idiots, and anti-science Luddites at the Discovery Institute and its affiliates, I'd think I was doing something terribly wrong. They respect neither science nor the scientific method, they respect neither the intelligence of the American populace nor the importance of examining reality as it is, so I guess I'm in good company. If that's the case, then I apologize. But I reserve judgment until I see your claims. Ah, the Discovery Institute motto. Funny, this is what you actually said: Emphasis added. You begin by saying that I should have taken your claim to mean that you were talking about those who were qualified to speak on ID, then you said "instead" (suggesting that I was not doing as you said I should in your first sentence) and talked about "every internet poster with an opinion favourable to ID." Now, I don't think I'm wrong in seeing the very clear implication that the "internet poster" was not "qualified to speak on ID."And, as I said before, I wasn't talking about "every internet poster," I was talking about a single internet poster (in this instance) who authored posts about ID on Bill Dembski's ID blog. If that's not "qualified," then Dembski ought to have higher standards.
I think your claim that the person was unqualified is clear. But I wasn't asking you to defend every claim made by people friendly to ID, I was refuting your "no IDist says complexity is proof of design" with an IDist who did. I'm not asking you to defend that person, I'm just demonstrating that your absolutist claim, even with the qualifier of "qualified," was incorrect. No, actually, it wasn't. Perhaps I wasn't obvious enough with capitalizing "True ID Proponents," but I was accusing you of a No True Scotsman fallacy. You claim that No ID proponent would make Claim X, I show you an ID proponent who makes Claim X, and you say, 'well, no qualified ID proponent would say that.' Far from being a valid point, it's a classically fallacious one. And my point, with the socks example and the "pile/heap of sand" example, is that when you make a distinction between two things, such a distinction is meaningless unless it represents some aspect of reality. If I am presented with two otherwise identical socks or mounds of sand, and I say "this one is a left sock, and this is an unspecified sock," or "this is a pile of sand, but this is a heap of sand," I should be able to give some explanation of why I made those distinctions (and those distinctions should hold up under testing). If I can't explain the distinctions, or if my distinctions fail under a test, then we can reasonably conclude that my distinctions do not represent a quality which exists outside of my mind.But I think the argument from analogy has derailed at this point, so let me bring it back to ID. We may be able to look at some organ, say the eye, and say "this is complex," and then look at something like a hydrogen atom and say "this is not complex" (though even then, that distinction is fairly arbitrary), which is akin to looking at a mound of sand grains and calling it a "pile of sand," and looking at an empty spot on the floor and calling it "not a pile of sand." Vague definitions may be useful with regard to such binary distinctions.
What ID is doing, however, is not a binary distinction; instead, they look at certain structures and call them "specified/irreducibly complex," while other structures may be complex, but not in those special ways. In this case, there needs to be a much more specific definition, which needs in turn to be based on objective, observable, real qualities of the objects being examined. Otherwise, it becomes the same as making the distinction between "left" and "unspecified" socks, where any difference between the two is either purely subjective or purely arbitrary.
Vague "I know it when I see it" distinctions may be good enough for obscenity judgments in court; they aren't good enough for science. The definitions and distinctions must at least be specific enough to be testable and falsifiable; so far, I have seen no such definition for "specified complexity;" on the other hand, "irreducible complexity" is fairly specific, but relies on a flawed understanding of how evolution works, and can be explained through far more parsimonious mechanisms than "goddidit."
Why would I make that claim? It's not true. Humans are apes. "Apes," or more specifically, "great apes" is a collective term for members of the Hominidae family, to which we belong. I might, however, say that "humans and monkeys share a common ancestor which is neither human nor monkey." Carry on. The difference being that there are defining characteristics of Homo sapiens, which allow differentiation even from other members of the Homo genus, let alone other members of other families. You're right, I might not be able to draw a line and say "on this side, human, on this side, not." But I could use the specific defining characteristics of humans and the specific defining characteristics of our ancestors and cousins and whatnot, to come pretty close.The possibility (in fact, a likely probability) is that there would be some generation(s) where making a distinction between "human" and "nonhuman" (or even between "homo sapiens" and the direct ancestor species) would be as arbitrary as making a distinction between left and unspecified socks. One might be able to say "on this side is H. erectus (or whichever species is the specific ancestor), due to these features. On this side is H. sapiens, due to these features. These generations in between, however, cannot be definitively classified one or the other."
Once again, if the distinction you're making doesn't represent a feature of nature, then it's utterly arbitrary and subjective.
The problem with the definition of "specified complexity" (for instance) is that it breaks down immediately, not just at certain fuzzy levels of reality. It lacks any degree of specificity beyond "I knows it when I sees it." If the definition of "human" were "I knows it when I sees it," then we'd be utterly unable to study the other hominids for what they are.
And what's the definition that allows you to make that distinction? On what objective characteristics is that distinction based? Define "very high improbability" and "easily described." And how does this relate to biology, since you admit that the analogy doesn't? "Difference from nature," as I already said. There are other features that SETI looks for as well (based on hypotheses about the transmitters), but as far as artificiality goes, that's pretty much what it boils down to. But don't take my word for it, here's what SETI has to say: ...except when it doesn't. Sure looks like you're bootstrapping "idealized unrealistic fictional example of using specified complexity to indicate design" to conclude "all specified complexity indicates design." With regard to the "decoded alien video," in order to detect it, we'd first have to compare it to natural signals, from which it would have to differ, or we'd discard it as noise. In order to decode it, we'd have to know something about how it was encoded--i.e., the process by which it was designed. Long before we'd reach the "specified complexity," we would have already had to use other methods to determine that it was of intelligent origin.If, instead, we searched through all the natural signals, looking for something that could be decoded, chances are we'd find all sorts of things that appeared to be snippets of signals or patterns or whatnot--things that appeared to be designed, but weren't. It'd be radio pareidolia, the SETI equivalent of seeing Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich.
That's good, because Dembski is wrong, and Contact depicts an unrealistic scenario. Ah, the Courtier's reply. You keep saying that, yet not offering anything which changes my understanding of ID. And how does it screen out false positives? As far as I can tell, it's not even a useful means of detecting design; if you're any indication, then it merely stretches the word "design" to mean "anything biological," thus robbing it of any explanatory power. By what criteria did he make this distinction? Why should anything be categorically labeled as "impossible"? That's not a scientific distinction. And this would only be useful in a system operating on pure chance and a time frame limited enough that a 1 in 10^150 chance wouldn't be an inevitability.Even so, this is a ridiculous assumption. If I had a 10^151-sided die, this would suggest that the probability of landing on any one side would be so low as to render it impossible. Thus, the die could never land on any side. While a 10^151-sided die would be an improbable creation (it'd have to be pretty large to differentiate it from a sphere), it certainly wouldn't be impossible. Heck, I bet we could create a virtual one with no problem whatsoever.
I thought you said that getting head 10 times in a row wasn't an example of design. Again, this is all utterly meaningless except in a system that operates according to pure chance. Except that such a filter cannot detect design in any chemical or biological process, since they don't operate according to pure chance. They operate according to mechanistic laws, which significantly alter the accuracy of probability determinations. That's a large part of why Fred Hoyle's 747 analogy falls apart: biological systems don't assemble according to random chance. Because such an experience differs from our normal experience. And because it's apparently not a world made entirely of titanium spheres with recognizable engravings on them (and even that would stand out in a universe where engraved titanium spheres were a rarity).So, yet again, we determine design by comparing it to nature, in this case, to our natural experiences.
Clearly. It's exactly what I've been saying since the beginning: to determine design, you need either a point of comparison (something that was not designed) or knowledge of the designer relevant to how the object was designed or likely to be designed. Except that many of the things which Intelligent Design claims are designed aren't obvious. That the eye was designed is not "obvious," that a bacterial flagellum could have evolved is not "improbable." These are utterly arbitrary distinctions, based on no evidence and no qualities of reality. So in order for you to claim that biological features are designed, you first have to prove that there is a designer.Incidentally, I disagree with your phrasing there; design will always be measured according to knowledge of a designer or difference from its natural surroundings.
Except that every system and feature which has been described as "irreducibly complex" can be explained perfectly through evolutionary processes. It is not a useful determinant of design; it relies on a flawed understanding of evolution (that structures are assembled piece by piece toward one specific purpose; that "partial" structures are not useful). It is not an indicator of design, it is an indicator of someone who misunderstands how biology works. So in other words, you needed knowledge of the designer in order to detect design. Incidentally, had you not known your neighbor's intentions, you might notice that his dry, desert lawn is bounded on all sides by distinct property lines, separating it from the green grass and clover and dirt of the other neighboring lawns. You might then rightly think "I wonder what my neighbor did to his lawn," since it is so different from the surrounding lawns.Gosh, all that sounds vaguely familiar...
No, the deer is not artificial. It does not differ markedly from the nature around it. How is "nature" an ambiguous term? And I disagree. What is "clear design" in nature, and how do you distinguish that from "non-design" in nature? Or are you merely claiming that all living matter is designed? In that case, you've merely redefined what "designed" means, and have robbed it of any explanatory power. Yes, and in the next clause he calls it the "illusion of design." If you can't see how the appearance of design can occur in non-living matter, then your re-definition of "design" is more ridiculous than originally thought. I can see complex geometric patterns in snowflakes; why don't those have the "appearance of design"? I can see geometric patterns in crystals and various sorts of rocks; why wouldn't that be an "appearance of design"? What differentiates the jewels in an earring from those in a geode or another crystal-forming rock? If I walk along the stream and find a very round, very flat rock on the riverbed, might I not conclude, based on your same criteria, that it was perfectly designed for skipping across water?If you're going to claim that living matter has "obvious" signs of design, then why not non-living matter? Why not see the "obvious" signs of design that the ancients saw in the sky, naming clusters of stars after the things they were clearly designed to resemble?
Which can be explained quite easily without a designer. The fact that you continue to cite this suggests that you haven't looked at all at the scientific literature, and that you haven't learned at all from the mistakes of folks like Mike Behe at the Dover trial. That may endear you to your creationist pals, but it won't make you a respected opponent of actual science. I'd say this is good advice for any human being prone to pareidolia (and I realize that's redundant). Yes, we must all constantly remind ourselves that things which may appear to be meaningful patterns often aren't. Moreover, Crick's specialization was in molecular biology, examining nonliving matter like DNA molecules and proteins. So this really doesn't support your point at all.Not to mention that the quote you're mining is from Crick's 1988 book, toward the end of his belief in directed panspermia. The discovery of ribozymes led him to re-evaluate directed panspermia, since that discovery would make abiogenesis much more easily imagined.
No, I'm demonstrating that we have two ways of detecting design: comparison with nature, and knowledge of how the designer works. You have been able to provide no other method to determine design in the real world; your only mechanisms are a useless probability metric (which would be great if biology and chemistry operated on chance, but they don't) and the "obvious" appearance of design, which is utterly subjective, arbitrary (why living, but not non-living? Does it apply to DNA? DNA is non-living matter) and unscientific. No, it's exactly what ID initially assumes, along with the existence of some designer. You can't start with the conclusion and work backwards; you have to start with observation. Actually, that's one of scientists' main complaints about Intelligent Design. Even if we grant that some biological features are designed, what does that tell us? What predictions can that make? What experiments does that suggest? So far, bupkis. Even if we grant the main premise of ID, it does absolutely nothing to further our understanding about the natural world. Contrast this with evolutionary theory, which makes myriad predictions: where transitional fossils are likely to be found and what they will look like, how known selection pressures may affect populations, etc. Not without something to measure it by. It's pretty much the same as Last Thursdayism: the universe could have been created in media res last Thursday, with the illusion of being billions of years old, with all our memories implanted, and we'd never know. Science can only determine what the evidence says is the case. And in the case of biology, the evidence testifies to descent with modification from a common ancestor. No, surely we should accept the null hypothesis until the evidence suggests otherwise. Because that's how science works.But you seem to be operating on the assumption that there's no evidence to contradict the claim that life was designed, when in fact there is ample evidence. Not only can "irreducible complexity" be reduced, not only can purpose be explained through natural selection, but all the physical evidence, from fossils to genes to morphology, points to an unbroken line of descent with modification through random mutation and nonrandom natural selection. The so-called "appearance of design" is a function not of reality, but of the tendencies of the human brain, which assigns patterns and purposes and meanings where none exist.
If ID wants to claim design in nature, they have to start with some observation, or some testable hypothesis, not with the conclusion.
And, as I said before, that's not the conclusion that I made. My conclusion had absolutely nothing to do with design, and everything to do with artificiality (and, subsequently, with knowledge of the designer). Paley's conclusion was "Design," and Paley's conclusion was based on false premises. Because the reason for the distinction didn't change due to Darwin. The distinction has to do with the fact that the deer and the watch are different. And my point is that you haven't offered any way to make the distinction that doesn't rely on subjective assumptions or redefined words. No, here you fail in (again) assuming your conclusion. If we had prior knowledge of a Designer's existence, and prior knowledge of how the Designer worked, we might be able to distinguish whether or not a natural object was designed. We have no such prior knowledge, because there is no evidence for the Designer, and there is no evidence that the Bible accurately describes reality (and plenty of evidence that it doesn't). Similarly, there is no criteria for distinguishing "design" from "non-design" in nature that represents any real quality. Instead, you have to make arbitrary distinctions (between "living" and "non-living" matter) or subjective judgments, neither of which are based on verifiable observation, and thus, neither of which is science. No, your analogies have been about as suited to your points as a toilet in a server room. When they've fit your points at all, they've illustrated my points better than yours.Incidentally, your arguments have had something else in common with a toilet, but I'll let you make that distinction.
Ah, I see, no true IDist would make such a claim. And anyone who does, well, that's not a true IDist. It's all so clear now.Posted by: Tom Foss | April 20, 2008 at 11:26 AM
Ah yes. Ye olde argument from big numbers fallacy.
Posted by: Skemono | April 20, 2008 at 12:32 PM
The ID methods are meant to be much more precise - that when they get a positive, they're always right.
and you know this....how? I read your long post and you keep claiming this, without a single link as to how you know this. Was there an experiment?
I can imagine the experiment..
Thing..............filter.......Dembski
corkscrew..........Designed....."Right!"
Pebble.............Not-designed."Right!"
Picasso painting...designed....."Right!"
Cat................designed....."Right!"
Dembski, "See? my filter always detects design!".
Posted by: Techskeptic | April 20, 2008 at 06:27 PM
Ok, I had the site open still this morning and refreshed. Very frustrating.
Here you continue your irrational, thoughtless, and completely uncharitable approach of attributing arguments you already know I reject. Your own words:
So why have you returned again to this argument which you already acknowledged was possibly not true? You ought to be embarassed.
Are you willfully ignorant, or do you just play the fool in the hopes that your opponents won't point it out? I already provided analogies that counter this, for example, your ability to pin down where homo sapients end and our ancestor species begins. There are definitions and explanations for specified complexity. They are not able to be applied precisely to all cases, but that doesn't matter! I provided a counterexample to your ridiculous assertion, and you are yet to demonstrate otherwise.
And again you play the fool, a role you seem quite adept at. I already said, in response to your claim "that design is distinguishable from non-design only through comparison", by saying:
Moving on...
Oh really? Let's see what *you* wrote:
There are two nuggets you say that required responding to:
1. "many make that claim" - I responded by pointing out that I am not required to defend every point made by "the many" supporters of ID
2. That this specific person is an example of the many ("Here, for instance") - I responded by pointing out that this person didn't make the error you attributed to them. And given your tactics debating with me so far, I seriously doubt your ability to accurately represent your opponents viewpoints. So I did not criticise this person's ability to represent ID.
I was right in my response, you were wrong in your critique of it.
And I answered this criticism right at the start by saying that the person in question didn't make the error you attributed to them! Can't you remember anything? I didn't know they were a trusted blogger on Demsbki's site at the time I wrote that he didn't make that error. I defended him, not even knowing he was more eminently qualified than others. So I didn't make this error you attribute to me! It's all there in this page's history - just go have a look.
Your inability to separate the two points I made, despite me clearing them up, is staggering.
Precisely my point. Now I would make another point here about your lack of a precise measurement for saying "this definition is precise enough to be useful, but that definition is too vauge", and point out the regress - but I fear the point would be lost on you, so I'll leave it at that. Now that we've established that my point about the piles of sand, and the definition of homo sapien, are relevant, let me provide for you an explanation of specified complexity.
I know it's quite long - but having demolished your argument that an imprecise definition is a problem, I can now give it to you.
1. Comparison is not a problem with the ID theory - I already pointed out in my last reply that specified complexity, as I understand it, involves comparison. So your point, whatever it's against, is not against ID
2. To decode it we don't need to know in advance how it was encoded - we reverse engineer communications already. If there is a new method of encoding, we don't need to know the process by which that was designed in order to begin the task of decoding it. Sure, that would make it easier. But it's not necessary! We can still discover it with just the encoded video, via clever tricks or brute force
You have locked in your head that there is this one way of approaching things. Regarding SETI, again I point out to you that I was referring only to the movie Contact. I said that in the book "The Design of Life" they argue that SETI does in fact use specified complexity, but I did not present that argument here. You act as though I did. Go read it yourself if you're interested, I don't care to flesh that point out here. You seem to think that certain things are relevant when they are not.
Because, as should be obvious to a half-way competent person, it sets a very high standard of requirement. I already said this in my earlier post:
Do you actually read what I write? You come across as a lazy debater, who time and time again reiterates what's already been pointed out.
You are a lazy critic of Intelligent Design. Do I need to do all your homework for you? This "impossible" is not a strict one. Dembski calculated this based on the amount of possible events that could have taken place in the universe from the beginning. If I recall correctly, the maximum possible number of events that could have taken place is 10^150. Look it up yourself if you want to know. It merely say, "this is so unlikely, given the time our universe has existed, as to say it's impossible". Much like it's impossible that quarks should move in just the right way so as to turn your desk into a chair. Sure, it's physically possible in some vastly improbable scenario. But we effectively call it impossible.
This is another embarassing and rushed reply of yours:
1. There is not enough matter in this universe to create such a die, which merely displays your ignorance of the reason why it's set to 1 in 10^150. You would have understood this if you bothered to find out more about ID before rushing to criticise. It's clear you haven't even looked at the rudimentaries of what the ID guys are saying.
2. Even with enough matter, you've completely missed the point. What is said to be impossible is the specification *prior* to the rolling of the die of what the result would be. Eg, specifying that the result rolled will be "5435246226". We are saying "it's impossible for the die we are about to roll to end up with the result 5435246226". It's not impossible in a logical way - it's impossible in terms of probability. It's so improbable that we call it impossible
3. Your worst blunder, you misapply the concept. We're talking here about events that have a probability of 1 in 10^150. You've just gone and described a scenario where the probability is 1. Are you really that stupid? Or is there a culture here of making idiotic replies that you hope your opponents won't notice? You're saying, "if I roll a six sided die, the probability is 1 that I get a result". So what? We're talking about the probability of a specific outcome, not the probability that *any* outcome will occur! The analogy is competely inept.
I said here that it could be designed, such as using a coin that is heads on both sides, but that this is not something Dembski's filter can detect. We might detect design in this case by examining the coin, but that's nothing to do with the Intelligent Design guys. There's nothing contradictory in my claims here, you're just too lazy to see the subtleties. Quit quibbling over irrelevancies, and spend some time actually looking at what's being argued.
Let me educate you a little about Intelligent Design claims. Consider what Irreducibly Complex Systems demonstrate:
1. Direct Darwinian Pathways cannot produce IC systems - it's not only improbable, it is logically impossible
2. Indirect Darwinian Pathways have never been demonstrated to produce IC systems. These indirect pathways are not subject to natural selection, precisely because they are indirect. So they are indeed the product of chance
Natural Selection is not just chance. It lends higher probability to the survivability of creatures better adapted to the environment, thus removing from the gene pool those disadvantageous traits, and propagating the advantageous ones. But indirect darwinian pathways go outside of natural selection precisely because they are indirect. They cannot be selected for because the system does not exist prior. Natural selection does not operate here.
And Fred Hoyle's 747 example is entirely apt when applied to the origin of life in the first place, before natural selection plays a role.
The point you made that I just quoted above, don't you think that the ID guys are well aware of it? They know how natural selection works, and they're not refuting that. They're saying that there are cases where natural selection doesn't apply, indeed no mechanistic process applies, and Darwinian theory breaks down here and reduces to chance. Again, I suspect these subtleties will be lost on you, as you've failed to grasp even simpler concepts. Do some research, spend the time to understand it.
1. You need to establish a proof to demonstrate that the only ways to detect design is by having either a point of comparison to something not designed, or knowledge of the designer
2. You need to show how it is that the Intelligent Design group fails to have this point of comparison you require. They do indeed compare with non-designed things as a point for making their claim to design
I really think you have no idea what you're talking about, because very little of what you're saying seems to be a criticism of Intelligent Design - rather just criticisms of your own misconceptions.
This does not make sense! We show there is a designer by showing that these features are designed. You've got the whole approach backwards! We infer the designer based on the presence of design. Having a designer is no guarantee that a particular design exists - but design does in fact guarantee a designer.
If I granted your disagreement, you still wouldn't be criticising Intelligent Design.
Is there no limit to your ignorance? You asked me what other ways there were to detect design. I gave you one! Here you're acting as though I was telling you how ID claims work! But I wasn't, I was answering your question about other ways to detect design. So what if it needed knowledge of the designer?
I agree! So what? This says nothing against the ID claims! I was answering a simple question of yours, which seemed irrelevant anyway.
Let me educate you yet again. Let us say that humans create nanotechnology, superb programming, such that we have robots that can replicate. These robots use the resistors, capacitors, circuit boards, pistons, springs, metal exteriors, glass, copper wires, etc, that we are all used to. These robots know how to harvest the natural resources of their world to reproduce, and also harvest the parts from broken robots. We've designed them to have all kinds of forms and functions, but our end goal was simply a sustainable "robot ecology". In these worlds, we could define "nature" to include this robot life. Therefore, by definition, a robot "deer" equivalent would not differ markedly from the "nature" that surrounds it. A biological lifeform though would stand out markedly. That's what you're doing - you're defining nature to be what you want it to be, then declaring victory as though you've made a telling point. You haven't. You've just begged the question, assuming what you hope to prove, namely, that the deer is not designed.
No doubt there is some idiotic logic behind this argument, but you'll have to explain it. I am not just "claiming" that all living matter is designed. ID guys are not showing that it shows sure indicators that we normally attribute to design. ie, that there is empirical evidence that life is designed. But we haven't gone into those details of why yet. We're still trying to establish a more elementary point - which is the method of detecting design. You want to jump ahead too quickly.
I know he considers it the "illusion of design"! I never made any point that depended on him not thinking that! He just happens to be wrong.
You stoop yet again to a new low of thinking! I don't know how anyone could be impressed with your writings. You are not listening to what I've written. Dembski's filter is mean to detect only design in certain cases! I've made that very clear, *very* clear, that there are cases of design that will slip through the net. You make irrational, uncharitable, ignorant assumptions and tear them down. This above is another irrelevant quibble talking about things that were never claimed.
Whereas you have failed to show:
a. A proof for your claim that comparison or knowledge of designer are the only two ways
b. That ID is not properly a case of design detection through comparison
As I said. Irrelevant.
Posted by: croath | April 20, 2008 at 09:15 PM
But for the vast majority of cases, I can distinguish between H. sapiens and H. erectus, because we have specific definitions of the characteristics of those species.
And so far all you've been able to provide is "complexity that is meaningful to a mind," which contains a subjective, arbitrary quantity in its definition, and "very improbable events which can be described easily," which applies only in a universe that does not exist. No, what matters is that they are not able to be applied objectively in any cases. Yes, you said that. It really didn't help your case, since I'd already said the same thing. We distinguish design from non-design through comparison with nature (i.e., the surrounding universe) or prior relevant knowledge of the designer. You have yet to provide any other method for distinguishing design which does not either rely on subjective judgment, redefine words, or presuppose the existence of a designer. The point is not that "specified complexity" is merely too vague, it's too vague and it cannot be shown, so far as you have described it, to represent any objective quantity. Demolished? Right. Keep telling yourself that. I read the relevant portions of Dembski's text there, and see what ought to be obvious. All his mathematical jargon--when it isn't wrong and contradictory--is a ploy to distract from the fact that he's trying to apply probabilities to processes that don't function according to chance, and trying to talk about probabilities with regard to language as if that had any relevance to science. As I said above, for this equation to be meaningful at all, biological and chemical processes would have to function according to pure chance, which they don't. Additionally, language would have to have some objective correlation to the things it describes, which again, it doesn't. If you assume all life, or all of nature, to be "designed," then yes, comparison is a problem. We distinguish design from non-design by using nature as our standard of non-design. When you start assuming that features in nature are designed, you remove the explanatory power of comparison. No, I didn't act as though you did. I specifically said that it was good that "The Design of Life" wasn't essential to your point, since Dembski was wrong about SETI.And I'd be perfectly willing to accept "other ways" of approaching things, if they could be shown to work. So far, I haven't seen any method of objectively distinguishing design from non-design which doesn't boil down to one of the two methods I've mentioned throughout this conversation.
It sets a very high requirement that is utterly useless in the real world. And yet somehow, it manages to collect the whole of living organisms in its net, and claim that there are no false positives. What is it with you woos and projection? Says someone who knows nothing about biology. It's not "my homework" for you to back up your claims. It's called the "burden of proof." Actually, he lists it as 10^120, the number of "bit operations" that could have occurred in the universe in its history. The number is neat, but utterly useless for what Dembski is trying to do. Dembski's whole probability argument (as any probability argument does) falls apart once random chance stops being the driving factor. Chemical and biological processes are not governed by pure chance; they function according to nonrandom physical laws, and evolution, which is pretty much the antithesis of random chance. The reason that would be so improbable is in part because physical laws prevent it from happening. Those same physical laws cause other things--such as certain reactions between various complex molecules--to occur.Incidentally, science wouldn't call such a thing "impossible." "Highly improbable" will do quite nicely, and there's no reason to use words imprecisely.
I can create a die with infinite sides. It's called a sphere. I'm curious just how much matter such a die would take to create. I mean, in theory, I could just take a sphere and then lop off enough bits at the correct angles to get a 10^150-sided die, but I might run into some problems on the Planck scale. Which is why I said it would be easier to do in a virtual space. I think that goes a bit beyond the basics of what they're saying, don't you? Not that it matters, of course, since these numbers are only meaningful for random chance processes. Ignoring that such a thing wouldn't be impossible under any definition of the term, how does that have anything to do with biology? Apparently you don't understand how probability works. The probability of landing on any side of a 10^150-sided die is 1 in 10^150. I admit that I was a bit flip, but the point remains. The probability of any outcome is 1 in 10^150, so every outcome is equally "impossible" under the Dembski model. But since some outcome must occur (as you said, the probability of there being an outcome is 1), then something with the probability of 1 in 10^150 is bound to occur. It doesn't necessarily take a billion years for a "once in a billion years" phenomenon to happen; it just means it'll happen at some point in those billion years. Similarly, even if the universe has gone through only 10^150 bit operations in its existence, that doesn't mean that something with a probability of 1 in 10^151 has never occurred. It just means that if it does occur, that specific outcome is unlikely to occur again for about 10^151 bit operations.But I'm still not seeing the connection to nature. Who's predicting these specific chance events before the fact? What chance events are occurring?
You're wrong, plain and simple. An irreducibly complex system is one, according to Michael Behe, "composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning." This would be a problem for evolution if biological features could have only one function, and if evolution were teleological. Since neither is the case, we have multiple pathways to irreducible complexity:1. The co-opted organ model. This is the case with the bacterial flagellum. When you take away parts of the existing flagellum, it's true, you no longer have a functioning flagellum. What you have instead is a fully functioning secretory apparatus. Evolution is perfectly capable of adapting existing structures to new purposes with minor changes.
2. The increasing utility model. This is the case with the eye. Behe (and others) would claim that half an eye is no good, and they'd be wrong. The most primitive form of eye, a patch of photosensitive cells, may provide a greater survival advantage than no photosensitivity whatsoever. A concave patch of such cells would provide yet greater advantage; a more concave patch, with an aperture to let in light, would be more accurate still. A lens would be more accurate yet, and a musculature system to control the focal length of the lens would confer an even greater advantage. As features of the eye developed, from flatworms to vertebrates, the eyes became more useful. If you remove part of the eye, it's not that you no longer have a functioning eye, you just have an eye that is less functional. Such systems are easily explained through evolution.
3. The scaffold model. There are various examples of this, such as the human Vitamin C production gene and the mammalian lungs. The first creatures with rudimentary lungs breathed primarily through gills. Their air bladders allowed them to breathe for short periods of time on land or out of water (like the lungfish). Since ability to be on land conferred a survival advantage, the individuals with the most efficient and expansive air bladders tended to survive more. Over time, the air bladders became fully functioning lungs, and the gills no longer conferred any advantage; they were superfluous. Since they were no longer advantageous, they were no longer selected for, and eventually became vestigial until they disappeared altogether. It's the same way that a scaffold is built in order to construct a building, but once the building is finished, the scaffold is taken down. The structure which was necessary to allow the organism to evolve the "irreducibly complex" feature was rendered obsolete by the same feature. What the hell are you talking about? What is an "indirect Darwinian pathway"? What is an example of an Irreducibly Complex system that cannot be shown to have evolved through natural selection? Where does chance enter into the evolutionary process? As near as I can tell, you're trying to invalidate the idea that an organ can change functions, as with the bacterial flagellum. That's about as much as I can find on the subject of "indirect Darwinian pathways," and it really doesn't make sense. Darwinian pathways are undirected in general; the distinction is arbitrary. Why doesn't natural selection apply in these instances? If a mutation confers a greater survival benefit, then it is acted upon by natural selection. If a bacteria which could move its excretory system survived more than one which couldn't, that bacterium would survive and reproduce more. There's nothing from barring natural selection from acting in such an instance, nor is there any entrance of chance into the system beyond the stage of genetic mutation.
I took the definition of indirect Darwinian pathway from ISCID, which was rather vague and cursory on the subject. If you have a different understanding of the term, please elucidate it.
No, it isn't, because chemical interactions are no more governed by chance than are biological mechanisms. Molecules may only combine in certain ways under certain conditions; chance need not be involved.And that's ignoring the possibility that there may even be some aspect of chemical selection operating on that level, but I think such things are still in the hypothetical stage.
And some examples of these cases would be, what, exactly? Proof is for mathematicians. I'm speaking from the only methods which have been shown to produce reliable results. And what are the non-designed things in nature? Rocks? You have yet to provide a reason why we should consider "living matter" to be "designed," but not "non-living matter." That's the problem with ID; it starts with its assumptions and looks for the evidence to support them. If it were a matter of finding characteristics and drawing conclusions and categories from them, it would be a different story. Instead, it starts from the assumption of a being which can design things that we observe in nature, and works from there. And what, in nature, would cause you to infer a designer if you didn't already assume one existed? It's ID which has the whole approach backwards; when you examine nature without assuming a designer, you end up with evolutionary science. I asked you for other ways to infer design, besides the ones I provided. You gave an analogy which illustrated one of the methods I provided. So far, you've given nothing else, except subjective criteria ("obvious," "meaningful") and useless probabilities. Yes, it says everything about the ID claims. Let me lay it out, one more time.We have two reliable, objective methods of determining whether or not object X is designed.
1. Compare object X to its surroundings, and specifically (if possible) to similar objects in its surroungings. If it differs significantly from its surroundings in terms of organization, composition, and so forth, it may be the product of design (the metric of artificiality)
2. Examine your prior knowledge. Do you know of objects similar to object X, which were themselves designed? Do you know of a designer who designs objects similar to object X? Do you know of a designer who expressed plans to design something that fits the description of object X? Does object X have features that you know are often the product of designers? If you can answer yes to some of these questions, then it may have been designed (the metric of prior relevant knowledge about the designer).
For ID to be a workable scientific hypothesis, it must propose some separate method that is at least as reliable as those; moreso, probably, since it invalidates one and fails to meet the other. ID proposes to distinguish design in nature. Since these are natural objects which are the purportedly designed things, comparing them with their surroundings will not be a useful method of determining design; if they differed markedly from their surroundings, then we would not consider them natural. With regard to the second, ID functions with absolutely no knowledge of a designer. They do not know if a being exists with the ability to design things in nature, they do not know how a being would likely work, what that being's purposes would be in designing things, what features that being would be likely to include in its designs, and so forth. The act of designing an object which is indistinguishable in terms of composition and organization from the natural world is utterly foreign to the experience of anyone.
So ID must have some separate method. "Obvious" and "meaningful" are arbitrary and subjective descriptors, and are thus useless in a scientific pursuit. Specified Complexity is based on an unrealistic universe, and thus is not a useful descriptor. Irreducible Complexity can be better explained without the unparsimonious hypothesis of an unknown, unseen, unproven designer, so it is not useful for distinguishing design. What, then, is ID's objective method for reliably determining design?
Which would require the same arbitrary redefinition of "nature" which you're trying to perpetrate here. Again, and again, I reiterate: that is not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that the deer is part of nature, it occurs naturally, it is not crafted by any known intelligence. Contrast this with a robot deer, which is crafted by a known intelligence, contrast this with a bird's nest or a beaver dam, which are crafted by known intelligences, and which are distinguishable from the naturally-occurring piles of sticks that we might find in the vicinity. Even if we were to agree that the deer was designed, it was designed by a being with the capacity to design nature; it is not somehow foreign to the natural world around it. It does not stand out as artificial, because if we were to term the deer "artificial," the term would lose any explanatory power.I'm not assuming the consequent, I'm arguing a different point, which you seem to be utterly incapable of noticing. Artificiality and design are not the same thing; one may be an indicator of the other, but they are not the same thing. This should not be a point of contention; so far as I know, ID is not arguing that designed objects are somehow separate from nature, instead that objects in nature are designed.
And what are those indicators? "Specified complexity" is not an empirical derivation, and "irreducible complexity" is not a problem for evolution. So what is this empirical evidence? Ye gods, if this is "too quickly," I'd hate to see what "ponderously slow" is like. And do you have any evidence to back that up? Certain cases which do not occur in biology. You keep saying that sort of thing, as if it's of any value. Do you think that calling an argument "irrelevant" is a refutation? No, you ignorant tool, asking why you see "obvious" signs of design in living matter, but not in non-living matter, is not "irrelevant." It is perfectly relevant, because it helps get to the assumptions you're making about the characteristics of design. Answer the damn question: what characteristics of "design" exist in living matter that do not also exist in non-living matter? Actually, I've shown both. Repeatedly. And you have yet to provide any alternative metric that does not rely on subjective criteria or an unrealistic picture of the universe. And you ought to be far more embarrassed that you have failed twice to recognize obvious references to one of the most basic logical fallacies. So, here it is in bold print: you are committing the No True Scotsman fallacy. And I already explained the problems in your analogies, mainly that a distinction is only useful if it represents something in nature. As I said, it's entirely probable that, for a few generations, there is no clear distinction between H. sapiens and H. erectus in reality. Obviously, as I have said repeatedly, any distinction I make which is not based on real, definable quantities, is entirely subjective and arbitrary.Posted by: Tom Foss | April 21, 2008 at 12:06 AM
Tom,
Indirect Darwinian Pathways include those examples you gave, such as scaffolding, and co-opting parts. Dembski write about it in Irreducible Complexity Revisited.
I spent time reading the ID literature to evaluate their claims and understand them as best as I could. I suggest you do the same.
Posted by: Croath | April 21, 2008 at 01:26 AM
I also recommend you read this article (particularly the comments), which I've linked at least twice in this conversation, and which takes apart the problems with Dembski's definitions of specified complexity. Not only does he rely on equivocation between various definitions of simplicity, but he relies on a(n apparent) misunderstanding of a mathematical theory which contradicts his point; the ultimate consequence is that "specified complexity" is an oxymoron.
Again, the Courtier's Reply. Tell you what: provide me with the peer-reviewed ID literature. Show me the ID literature that has been tested through replication. Send me a link to ID literature that is supported by the evidence, that makes testable hypotheses, that makes predictions for outcomes--you know, like science. All I've seen from you, all I've seen from the vast majority of ID literature, is "science/evolution/natural selection/materialism can't explain...," and every single time, the evidence proves that claim wrong. It's an argument from ignorance, an argument from personal incredulity, special pleading, and so forth. They're applying distinctions and limitations to nature which do not exist ("direct" vs. "indirect" Darwinian pathways, "micro-" vs. "macro-" evolution, etc.). When it's not fallacious, it's demonstrably wrong.I suggest, before you try trotting out yet another fallacious Dembski piece as a smoking gun for Intelligent Design, that you make sure it hasn't already been addressed.
Not only is there no reason that natural selection can't act on such pathways, but there's evidence that it has. I suggest you read the scientific literature, rather than uncritically accepting everything said by Dembski. Dembski's proposed barriers are contradicted by the evidence.Posted by: Tom Foss | April 21, 2008 at 07:36 AM
Rather than open myself up to another No True Scotsman fallacy, I'm issuing a challenge, Croath: provide one example of a system that you think is irreducibly complex, and thus is a problem for evolution to explain.
Posted by: Tom Foss | April 21, 2008 at 09:48 AM
I've been keeping up with this thread, and Tom has been holding it up spectacularly well, especially when considering how frustrating his opponent can be. However, on this one minor point I cannot help but chime in, having some specific knowledge and qualification in the field of physics.
This is a misunderstanding of quantum mechanics that is common not only among ID advocates, but among the layman populace in general. Such a scenario is not simply very unlikely; it is truly impossible according to physical law. While quantum mechanics is indeed stochastic on small scales, that probabilistic nature does not extend to the scale of everyday life. Impossible, strange, random events like this are as absolutely impossible as we considered them to be, before the advent of quantum mechanics.
Posted by: Tercel | April 21, 2008 at 11:58 AM
Sorry for this off topic post:
Tercel,
two quick questions. What parameter is the probability of quantum mechanics tied to. For example, the strange things that happen with things with relativity theory is tied to speed. As things approach the speed of light, they get heavy, and time slows down (on the speeding thing). Is there a variance that is tied to size or somethng?
Second: would Toms analogy been better if he said something to the effect of 'its possible that the atoms in your body line up in such a way relative to the wall in front of you that should allow you to walk through it'
I am clearly one of those laymen you are talking about, I was just interested.
Posted by: Techskeptic | April 21, 2008 at 01:57 PM
Well I'm certainly happy to talk about it! Before I start though, I should explain my qualifications, because I don't want to give the impression that I am some sort of world class physicist. I have a B.S. in physics from the University of Rochester, and I'm currently working as an engineer in a research facility while I work on my masters in optics. My understanding of quantum physics comes from 1 semester of introductory QM, and 1 semester of more advanced quantum theory. Note that all of this would be considered basic introductory material from the perspective of anybody with a graduate degree in physics. That said, my understanding is still far beyond that of the majority of people (which is, of course, not meant as any disrespect to laypeople. I myself am quite the layperson on many subjects). Anyway, on to your questions:
1) As it would be stated in a textbook, my statement about quantum effects not being present on large scales is called the Bohr Correspondence Principle, which mandates that the quantum description of a system must reduce to the classical description in the limit of very large quantum numbers. "quantum numbers" in this case has a technical meaning that I don't need to get into here, but in this context, a system with large quantum numbers refers to a system with a large number of elements (ie. huge numbers of atoms) or high energy levels.
For example, the energy levels allowed for an electron orbiting a nucleus are quantized, as you may remember from high school chemistry or physics. However, higher energy levels are also more closely spaced, so that they eventually mimic a continuous (not quantized) distribution. This is why free electrons (which could be considered as being in a ridiculously high energy level with respect to whatever atom they were ejected from) can be manipulated as if they can take on a continuum of energy states.
A more tangible example is that of a simple harmonic oscillator such as a pendulum, or a mass oscillating on an ideal spring. The quantum equivalent would be a particle in a potential energy well. In its lowest energy state, the particle is most likely to be found at the center of the potential well. This would be like saying that a swinging pendulum spends most of its time hanging straight down. Of course, real pendulums spend most of their time at the ends of their swing, where their velocity is lowest. These two facts are reconciled when the particle in the potential well is boosted to higher energy levels. As the energy level rises, the probability distribution describing the particles position becomes more and more like that of a pendulum; low in the middle and high at the edges.
This one is classic:) The answer is that this is also just as completely impossible as it sounds. The confusion arises because, in our experience, solid things interact by physically touching each other. It therefore seems reasonable that, atoms being mostly empty space (itself a misunderstanding, although much more tolerable and subtle), they should be able to line up such that they slip past one another.
To explain what actually happens, we need to consider what happens on an atomic scale when atoms "touch." It turns out that the behavior we see when solid objects touch is actually due to the electrostatic repulsion of the electron clouds surrounding each atom. Because atoms are neutral overall these forces are very short range, but can be incredibly strong. We are not used to experiencing such strong electrostatic forces because the fields we are able to generate in every day life are comparatively weak, relative to the field you would find a few angstroms from an electron.
The consequence, of course, is that the atoms themselves do not actually touch in a mechanical sense. Their electric fields simply interact. This cannot be avoided by any sort of "lining up" of atoms. Indeed, atoms are constantly jiggling about due to thermal motion, so if we could walk through walls in this manner, it would be easy to do simply by applying constant pressure.
I hope this has helped, and not caused further confusion. Keep in mind that I learned this a few years ago, and I don't have my books in front of me.
Posted by: Tercel | April 21, 2008 at 02:56 PM
I know I've already written too much, but I thought of another example that should be very instructive.
Most people probably do not realize this, but the interactions which govern radioactive decay are entirely quantum mechanical, and therefore probabilistic. In other words, given a single atom of a radioactive substance, one cannot predict exactly when it will decay. All that can be done is to determine the probability that it will decay in a given period of time (or, equivalently, the average time you would expect the particle to last before it decays). From this, one can trivially calculate the half-life of a collection of such atoms.
The interesting thing is that, for a large collection of atoms (any amount you would ever observe in daily experience would qualify) the half-life is extremely precise and deterministic. If you have a sample of uranium-238 (half-life=4.468×10^9 years) of 12*10^23 atoms, and come back to it in exactly 4.468×10^9 years, then exactly half of it will have decayed. This is correct and repeatable to many decimal places.
In other words, on the scale of human experience, quantum effects always average out to the classical behaviors we are familiar with. Quantum mechanics is not magic.
Posted by: Tercel | April 21, 2008 at 03:10 PM
Someone else on this blog who knows quantum mechanics? I think I might cry.
I left the point alone in part because it was largely (Croath's favorite word) irrelevant, but also because it's been awhile since I did anything substantial with QM. Still, I think I'd be a little less cavalier with the term "impossible."
Particularly, I would mention, with respect to Techskeptic's example. I agree that, if we're talking about lining up empty spaces with nuclei, that's not going to work under the way that masses interact. However, as I recall, there is a vanishingly tiny possibility that all of the atoms composing Techskeptic's body will simultaneously tunnel through the wall. But I could be remembering incorrectly. Half the fun of a Quantum Physics course is imagining the effects on a macroscopic scale. I'd really like to figure out how to deconstructively interfere with someone's de Broglie wavelength.
Posted by: Tom Foss | April 21, 2008 at 03:33 PM
My last post didn't make it obvious, it seems - I'm not planning any further in depth responses. This has gotten too long, and diverged to cover too many topics, each alone requiring a lot of writing. We can't even agree that I was right about what I initially came here to say - that ID, when strongest presented, doesn't claim that complexity alone leads to a design inference.
Since we can't even agree on that simple point, I don't see how we're going to be able to resolve more complex topics.
Posted by: Croath | April 21, 2008 at 03:46 PM
Hello Tercel
Thanks for sharing all that stuff (off topic or not, who gives a shit ;). I’m still a bit confused by what you mean with ”truly impossible”.
The tunneling effect Techskeptic was asking about is of course a well known quantum mechanical phenomena, but even some scattering problems (classically forbidden) on a macro scale return non-zero transmission coefficients. My understanding is that QM’s probabilistic nature extends to wherever the theory is applicable, and therefore I ask: Are you suggesting that 1) the theory of quantum mechanics actually breaks down (i.e. it is not applicable) in the example given by Techskeptic, or that 2) the probability of someone going through a wall is theoretically zero or 3) the probability is just ridiculously small? I guess you would need a new wide-screen calculator for 3) if this is the case.
Oh. And I’D suggest you spend some time to actually look at my evidence that 2) is the not the right answer: Tunneling
Posted by: Martin | April 21, 2008 at 06:19 PM
Scattering experiments meaning particle scattering? This would be quantum mechanical, not classical. If you truly do mean macro scale, like marbles hitting a wall, then no, I doubt there would be any transmission, unless you were firing marbles from a gun.
Yes, of course.
It doesn't break down, it reduces to the same results as predicted by classical physics.
I believe so, yes. Remember though, I'm not a practicing physicist. I could be wrong, although I really don't think so.
A youtube video of David Copperfield walking through the Great Wall of China? I hope you are joking!
Posted by: Tercel | April 21, 2008 at 07:22 PM
In short, you're claiming that irreducibly complex systems cannot possibly evolve.
You're so completely wrong, it's hilarious.
That's because you can't seem to remember what you initially came here to say. Let's step into the Wayback Machine and visit the top of the page, where your comment is recorded for all to see:
Nothing in there at all that modifies it to "when strongest presented", like you're now making up.
In short, because we don't blindly accept your most transparent lies, goalpost-moving, and logical fallacies, you're not going to bother making more obfuscatory ones.
Posted by: Skemono | April 21, 2008 at 11:11 PM
Thanks for your input, Skemono. Now scroll down a little more where I qualified my initial statement after Tom Foss first points out what you've just said. I'm well aware of the oversight in my original statement, but I indicated further down what it was I meant to say. Here it is for your reference:
and so forth.
Posted by: Croath | April 22, 2008 at 02:49 AM
Skeptico replies to Croath
You wrote: If you'd cared to look, you would learn that Intelligent Design proponents do not make the simple claim that complexity is evidence of design. They say that *specified* complexity is evidence of design.
So it’s specificity plus complexity that equals design. But what is “specificity”? From Dembski’s No Free Lunch:
and
To summarize:
1) It’s specified if it’s functional,
2) All biological systems are functional,
3) Therefore all biological systems are specified.
By Dembski’s own definition, ALL biological systems are specified. Therefore, the only remaining criterion to determine design, once we have established we are talking about a biological system, is complexity. In other words (and this is the bit you're missing), the only metric Dembski uses to determine if a living object is designed, is complexity. Except that Egnor just said complexity does not imply design. Oops!
Of course, the above deconstruction just goes to highlight the vacuousness that is Dembski’s “specified complexity”. But that's not really my problem, is it?
Posted by: Skeptico | April 22, 2008 at 02:12 PM
Tercel
Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the word “scattering”. What I was trying to say was that if you have a marble with kinetic energy E approaching a potential barrier (e.g. a "rectangular shaped hill", represented here by V = mgh) it will, classically, be "truly" impossible that the marble will pass the barrier if E < V.
The quantum mechanical probability, however, is not zero even in this macroscopic case with a marble with E < V, and it’s not zero in Techskeptics attempt to tunnel into his bank either, like Tom suggests. As far as I understand, QM doesn’t say "absolutely impossible", but rather that the small probabilities make the events exceedingly improbable. I’m not sure this distinction is worth anything, but I got the feeling this was part of Techs question. This could be either an Olympic nit-picking candidate, or have interesting philosophical implications, depending on who you are i guess.
Posted by: Martin | April 22, 2008 at 02:23 PM
Skeptico,
No, your problem is a lack of careful thinking. Either that or willful deceit hoping your opposition doesn't notice your slippery tactics.
I said complexity alone does not imply design. Specified complexity does. Your response? You argue that in cases where we already have specificity we only need complexity. So where exactly did you expect me to disagree? I can't believe you think you've made a telling point - but if you were the one who created this blog entry, I shouldn't be surprised at the juvenile level of understanding.
In fact, you're trying hard to commit an error in equivocating, but you've made the steps so explicit that it doesn't work. When you say:
You want us to think, "yeah it's just complexity we need", forgetting that biological systems come with specificity already. But you so clearly outlined just earlier that biological systems do include specified complexity. So I don't see any problem here for ID or my initial claim.
Posted by: Croath | April 22, 2008 at 04:16 PM
Skeptico replies to Croath
Re: No, your problem is a lack of careful thinking.
No, that’s your problem.
Re: You want us to think, "yeah it's just complexity we need", forgetting that biological systems come with specificity already.
Not forgetting at all. In fact, that was the point. Dembski claims ALL biological systems have specificity. And you repeat this point. Therefore the only EXTRA thing we need is complexity.
Re: But you so clearly outlined just earlier...
I outlined Dembski’s claim. Since that was what you were basing your argument on.
Re: …that biological systems do include specified complexity. So I don't see any problem here for ID or my initial claim.
The problem is it’s a made-up (and rather circular) criterion that includes ALL living things. So by Dembski’s definition, any living thing that is also complex, must have been designed. The problem for ID is that (a) “specified” really means nothing and (b) complex does not mean designed. And Egnor just confirmed (b) for us.
Posted by: Skeptico | April 22, 2008 at 04:41 PM
You couldn't think of something novel, so you continue the juvenile thinking and respond with a simple "no, you are!" I guess that's what passes as wit around here.
Why on earth do you think you're making a good point? This is precisely what they're arguing - life shows specificity. Combined with complexity, we have evidence of a designer (as long as you follow Dembski's explanatory filter steps).
It seems perhaps your objection is rooted in an apparent circularity. You will need to outline the circularity explicitly, by pointing out where the ID guys use their conclusion as a premise in his argument.
Posted by: Croath | April 22, 2008 at 06:24 PM
Martin:
I see now what you meant. I feel pretty sure that, in your classical example with a marble, there would be a truly zero probability of the marble tunneling through the barrier. However, I cannot prove this and I'm not sure why I feel this way, so I'm not making any claim that I'm definitely correct.
I do think it is an interesting question though. There are certainly people qualified to answer it, but I am not one of them. In any event, lets end our off-topic discussion here. It's been fun:)
Posted by: Tercel | April 22, 2008 at 06:58 PM
Ignoring, for a moment, that these are different definitions for "specificity" and "complexity" than Dembski gives in the article Croath linked (and Mark Chu-Carroll eviscerated) before; ignoring, for a moment, that "specificity" is most assuredly not a property exhibited by all biological systems; ignoring all that, how is specified complexity supposed to be evidence of design? Or, at the very least, how is it supposed to be a problem for evolution?
Evolution doesn't predict that organisms will develop useless systems; the process may be messy and full of redundancies and unnecessary bits, but every biological system uses energy. If a system doesn't confer advantages to offset the energy cost, it'll either become a liability to survival (in places where there is significant competition for resources), or it will no longer be selected for (if resources are plentiful, and there is no deleterious effect from the superfluous organ). Either way, evolution predicts that it will become vestigial or be deleted. Features that are purposeful--that are specified--are a predicted outcome of evolution.
And there's no barrier in evolution toward complexity. Besides the examples of "irreducible" complexity above, which are all quite easily explained by evolution, there are any number of evolutionary paths toward greater complexity. Since evolution proceeds in an undirected and nonteleological way, we expect a certain degree of genetic noise--redundancies, moderate inefficiencies, vestigial features, roundabout paths--evolution may engage in streamlining when the chaff becomes a burden to reproduction and survival, but otherwise some of those unnecessary bits stick around.
So specification (in terms of purposefulness) is explained perfectly well by evolution, and complexity is explained perfectly well by evolution. We wouldn't expect more complex organisms to somehow have fewer or less specified systems; in many cases, greater complexity can allow for greater differentiation of organs, and thus greater specification.
So, even if we grant the false dilemma (ID vs. evolution), it seems that we have two possible explanations for specified complexity. Ignoring the mountains of evidence in favor of evolution, and judging the two purely by Occam's Razor, we have one explanation that relies on biological mechanisms and physical laws, which are known to exist, and one explanation that relies on an invisible, super-powerful, nature-designer, who is not known to exist. Even if we ignore the substantial evidence for evolution, evolution is the more parsimonious explanation for specified complexity.
The only way "specified complexity" points to a designer is if you assume the designer a priori.
What the IDists have done here is define themselves into semantic victory. The IDists have not "shown" specificity, they have merely defined "specificity" so broadly as to include "all living systems." That shows nothing except an ability to redefine words when it's convenient. They start by assuming that all living things already satisfy half their criteria for proof of design, then use the other half to seal the deal.Posted by: Tom Foss | April 22, 2008 at 09:28 PM
croath,
I have asked this twice. Could you explain to me how anyone verifies Dembski's filter works without presuming first that all biological systems are designed?
Posted by: Techskeptic | April 23, 2008 at 05:15 AM
Re: You couldn't think of something novel, so you continue the juvenile thinking and respond with a simple "no, you are!" I guess that's what passes as wit around here.
No, I was just stating the truth. And exposing your vacuous comment for what it was. That’s the problem when you start throwing vacuous insults around – they can be turned around to bite you back.
Re: This is precisely what they're arguing - life shows specificity. Combined with complexity, we have evidence of a designer (as long as you follow Dembski's explanatory filter steps).
But Dembski provides no useful definition of specificity and no reason to suppose SC means design. It is just a definition that conveniently includes all life – thus proving the conclusion he wanted to reach. But SC is not a test for design – evolution is capable of producing SC. Now Egnor has at least admitted part of that.
Posted by: Skeptico | April 23, 2008 at 07:35 AM
Allow me to add a few questions to the growing list that Croath is ignoring:
1. Do you believe in the existence of the Christian god?
2. Did you hold this belief before you believed in intelligent design?
3. Who do you believe the intelligent designer to be?
4. Why do you hold to the opinion that living matter is designed and non-living matter is not?
5. How do you define living and non-living matter?
6. If non-living matter was not designed, then how did it come to exist?
7. Do you believe that non-living matter is not complex?
8. Do you believe that non-living matter is not subject to or does not demonstrate evidence of specificity?
That'll do as a start.
Posted by: Jimmy_Blue | April 23, 2008 at 07:43 AM
I love you Tom Foss! You are so witty and intelligent. :D
Can I have your babies?
Posted by: lostn | April 25, 2008 at 07:49 PM