Given: Snukldorf is defined to include only things that sparrows can’t make.
Therefore: if you see snukldorf, it wasn’t made by a sparrow.

I submit that hypermoderate is correct, and that the tautological nature of the CSI argument has been pointed out by several people and never addressed by Dembski. You can do one of four things with this assertion:

1. Demand that I back it up with evidence.
2. Explain why it’s incorrect.
3. Proclaim it wrong, but offer no explanation.
4. Censor it and ban me.

I’m hoping you’ll take one of the first two options, but I suspect you’ll go with #4.

You missed the fifth option. Pat you on the head and say “that’s nice, sonny”. -ds

Your concern about sampling bias is a valid one. I would answer it this way: In science, we sometimes have to choose between two hypotheses which fit the data equally well. If the two hypotheses have a chance element, it makes sense to prefer the one which is more probable. If we choose the more probable explanation, we’re more likely to be correct, although there is no guarantee. We might be wrong. In any case, we keep our eyes open and are prepared to modify or abandon our chosen hypothesis as more data comes in.

In Dembski’s framework, there are two possible explanations for why we are here. One of them, as you suggest, is that a statistical fluke occurred which created CSI via sheer luck, leading to us. Another is that we were designed. Dembski would presumably argue that the second is overwhelmingly more probable than the first. Though you cannot rule out the first absolutely, you’re far more likely to be right by betting on the second.

It reminds me of something I’ve thought about in connection with the multiverse hypothesis. If there really exists an infinitude of universes with differing physical constants, laws, and starting conditions, then presumably there exists a universe somewhere much like ours, but where every coin ever tossed has come up heads. Scientists there are convinced that there is some deep explanation for this regularity, but have been unable to find it. From our perspective we can say “You just got (extremely) lucky (or unlucky).”

Inside that universe, the right thing to do is to look for a deterministic explanation of the coin-tossing phenomenon, because the alternative is so improbable. From the outside, we know that the improbable alternative happens to be the true one.

Okay, that’s it. Find somewhere else to babble. -ds

Hi great_ape,

If that were Dembski’s argument, there would be little to object to. There would also be nothing new, as that argument has been around since long before Dembski. To restate, it simply says “Everything is either at least partially designed, or it is undesigned. If one of these alternatives is extremely unlikely, the other is overwhelmingly likely.” It’s just an application of Aristotle’s Law of the Excluded Middle.

What Dembski is trying to do is different. He’s trying to introduce a concept, CSI, as an independent, reliable indicator of design. Find something with CSI, and you know it was designed. Salvador certainly interprets Dembski’s argument this way, which is why he suggests that “some architectures are recognized by engineers as designed, and it’s only a matter of asking if a biological system conforms to our pre-conceived pattern and if the pattern can be shown to have 500 bits of information.”

But the very definition of CSI requires that unintelligent causes be incapable of producing it, and so via the excluded middle something that has CSI is by definition designed. So to say that CSI is a reliable indicator of design is simply to say “Something that is designed can be reliably inferred to have been designed.” Quite true, but also quite circular.

And we’re left with exactly the same question we had before the concept of CSI was introduced, which is “Could natural selection (or other unintelligent causes) have produced the living structures we see around us today?”

Translated into Dembski’s terms, we would say “Structures with CSI are designed, but it’s an open question whether living structures have CSI, by Dembski’s definition of the term.”

You’re about to get the boot for stupidity. According to you the following is circular reasoning:

Given: Sparrows can’t make bicycles.
Therefore: If you see a bicycle, it wasn’t made by a sparrow.

This isn’t circular reasoning. It’s a simple deduction. Stop wasting comments with this idiocy. Last warning. -ds

I do not see any fundamental circularity in Dembski’s argument. It basically boils down to “if it’s ludicrously unlikely that it was produced by unintelligent materialistic causes, it can be comfortably inferred that it was produced by some kind of intelligent agency.” False positives will occur, but they should be ludicrously infrequent. The informative, non-circular essence of the argument is that a probabilistic framework for this kind of thing might be arranged so that we can make reasonable inferences on these matters similar to the kind of inferences we make concerning whether the sun will come up tomorrow, etc. Think what you may about logistical details involved in making such a calculation, but I don’t see it as inherrently circular or tautological.

As a scientist, I would be mildly concerned with sampling bias coming in to play, though. Assuming they can be calculated–however ludicrous the probabilities might turn out to be–**if** our existence as questioners was, in fact, contingent upon such occurrences happening via nonintelligent mechanisms, then the probability of our, as reasonably complex sentient beings, observing such complex structures is shifted to 1. So ultimately I think Dembski may have to make an even stronger case. Not only is achieving a certain threshold of specified complexity highly unlikely given the overall system, but it is, in fact, not possible at all. Only then can the anthropomorphic “sample bias” argument be finally put to rest. I would be interested to hear people’s thoughts on this.

It’s readily admitted that ID can produce false negatives.

ds,

1. A tautology is a form of circular reasoning (try Googling “tautology circular reasoning”).
2. Why do you think the Dembski quotes are non-circular?

Regards,
Hypermoderate

You call what you wrote “reasoning”? -ds

It is Dembski, not me, who defines specified complexity in terms of the probability of producing a structure via material mechanisms:

From Chapter 12 of The Design Revolution:
“Indeed, to attribute specified complexity to something is to say that the specification to which it conforms corresponds to an event that is vastly improbable with respect to all material mechanisms that might give rise to the event.”

Another quote from Chapter 10:
“For something to exhibit specified complexity therefore means that it matches a conditionally independent pattern (i.e., specification) of low specificational complexity, but where the event corresponding to that pattern has a probability less than the universal probability bound and therefore high probabilistic complexity.”

And from Chapter 12 again, regarding the possibility of false positives:
“Even though [the absence of] specified complexity is not a reliable criterion for eliminating design, it [the presence of specified complexity] is a reliable criterion for detecting design.”

Thus Dembski’s own words illustrate the circularity of the argument.

To recap:
1. According to Dembski, specified complexity is only present if the event is “vastly improbable with respect to all material mechanisms that might give rise to the event.”
2. Specified complexity is “a reliable criterion for detecting design.”

The circularity is obvious: if it wasn’t produced by material mechanisms, then it wasn’t produced by material mechanisms. Therefore it was designed.

Is this anything like natural selection’s survival of the survivors? You meant to show a tautology, not circular reasoning. You accomplished neither. -ds

1. To quantify the CSI contained in a structure, you need to know how probable it is for that structure to come about by non-intelligent means.

I believe this is incorrect.

2. To quantify that probability, you need to understand all of the non-intelligent mechanisms that could potentially produce the structure in question, and you need to be able to estimate the probability of success for these mechanisms working separately and in concert.

Which would mean that this also is incorrect.

3. Natural selection is one of the mindless mechanisms available for producing biological complexity.

And this is both unintelligible and unproven.

1. How does one establish the claim that “natural selecton” is mindless?

2. How does one establish the claim that natural selection is a mechanism?

3. How does one establish the claim that natural selection is capable of producing biological complexity?

4. Since natural selection is just one of the mindless mechanisms available for producing biological complexity, what are the others, and why doesn’t one need to take those into account as well?