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Darwinists Now say “Parsimony Smarsimony.”
| September 4, 2007 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
“In science, parsimony is preference for the least complex explanation for an observation. This is generally regarded as good when judging hypotheses. Occam’s razor also states the ‘principle of parsimony.’” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsimony
In the post below (“Multiverse of the Gaps”), I point to a recent paper in which a Darwinist attempts to get around the extremely small probability (less than 1 in 10 raised to the negative 1,018) of life emerging by chance by invoking an infinite “multiverse.”
 The question for the class today is which is the most parsimonious hypothesis: One designer or infinite universes?
39 Responses to Darwinists Now say “Parsimony Smarsimony.”
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bornagain77 writes:
I made a very similar argument myself back in January of 2002 in response to a paper by William Dembski posted at ISCID (see http://www.iscid.org/papers/De.....012002.pdf )
In the discussion I wrote:
To which Dembski responded:
After I read his response, I agreed Dembski was right regarding this. The paper, by the way, provides a great analysis of the subject of this discussion thread. I recommend it to anyone interested.
Donald I would argue that the postulation of an infinite number of other universe’s trying an infinite number of parameters, both known and unknown, is absolutely crushing to the materialistic philosophy for they have opened up the “infinity can of worms”. Since they can by no means say what these parameters are in these other universe’s then it is also infinitely possible for a Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Eternal Being to exist. My point is that if they are forced into making this allusion they default in logic for now it is infinitely possible for God to exist. If it is infinitely possible for God to exist He certainly does exist. If God certainly does exist then infinite blind chance is subject to His will since he is omnipotent!
To me it seems clear, the logic has failed the materialists in this matter!
jordan
“God” (defined as an infinite being where all things are possible) and an infinite multiverse (defined as an infinite space where all things are mandatory) are both non-scientific. Remember the old saw “A theory that explains everything explains nothing”.
Intelligent agency capable of building complex machines is already instantiated in this universe at least once. One additional intelligent agency in the observable universe is clearly more parsimonius.
The ID hypothesis stated as follows is perfectly scientific according to Popper’s famous example with swans (all swans are white).
Just as the observation of one black swan will falsify Popper’s example – one observation of a complex machine designed without intelligent agency will falsify the ID hypothesis.
Behe’s recent book “Edge of Evolution” is very important as it describes an observation (p. falciparum replicating trillions of times) where the ID hypothesis could have been falsified but instead was a confirmed prediction of ID (no complex machines without intelligent agency). It’s hard to imagine a better test of random mutation’s real-world ability than analyzing genetic change in a eukaryote at the nucleotide level over orders of magnitude more replications than all mammals that ever lived.
“All complex machines are intelligently designed.”
Which lads to the conclusion that all life, which is all irreducibly complex, has been intelligently designed.
“Just as the observation of one black swan will falsify Popper’s example – one observation of a complex machine designed without intelligent agency will falsify the ID hypothesis.”
The corresponding conclusion is that one example of life which can be shown to have been “designed” without an intelligent agency will falsify the ID-hypothesis.
I think the concept of infinity is much more useful for negating than for affirming. I am not a mathematician, but don’t we use infinity to establish limits rather than describe possibilities. In philosophy, don’t we use the term “infinite regress” to explain what is not possible so that we can know what must be. Isn’t it just a dramatic way of proving a hypothesis to be false by proving the opposite to be true.
Sure, we can think about infinity in the abstract and be awed by it, but I don’t see how we can consider it as the answer to a riddle when it presents a larger riddle itself. To me, Dembski’s comment about infinite universes constituting “inflated explanatory resources” sums it up nicely. Or am I misusing his point here.
bornagain77
In terms of raw logic, I would agree. However, in terms of what materialists (or naturalists) mean when they talk about infinite resources, no. I think Dembski is right: the only reason multiverses are even considered is because the known probabalistic of this universe are inadequate.
The key phrase is probabalistic resources. An infinite supernatural entity, such as God, is not a probabalistic resource, but something categorically and quantitatively different. If it were otherwise, then it could be said that God just happens to be one of those entities that occur from time to time — given infinite probabalistic resources. I don’t want to even contemplate the theology of that!!!
StephenB
No, I think you’ve got it right! The whole point is rescue chance from the contraints of limited probabilities. So, let’s just say that available probabalistic resources for chance to work are infinite and voila! chance is rescued!! And how do we do that? Oh easy…Just postulate an infinite number of (and this is the tricky part) unobservable universes! The materialist’s mantra — infinity: works every time its tried!!!
[...] It’s nice to see that some of my thoughts in my previous post have actually been proposed by others, so I wasn’t just making them all up!
See Darwinists Now say “Parsimony Smarsimony” for example. Of particular interest, one of the comments notes that Behe has written: In a nutshell: In an infinite multiverse, probabilities don’t matter. Any event that isn’t strictly impossible will occur an infinite number of times… [...]
Jordan wrote:
“Clearly the multiverse hypothesis (whatever its flaws) is more qualitatively parsimonious than the God hypothesis, since it postulates more things of the same kind as opposed to an entirely new kind of thing.”
I cannot see how you can say that the God hypothesis is an entirely new kind of thing. You need to show that a consciousness of the specific God hypothesis that is placed against the multi-verse hypothesis is NEWer in either a materialist sense or the dualist sense that fits perfectly with the God hypothesis presented. In either case (materialist or dualits) is the God hypothesis certainly not new in relation to the multiverse.
In the materialist argument God is a material construct of brain chemistry as is the multiverse and both of them is materially unprovable.