I am happy to accept “Intelligent Design” as a scientific hypothesis to account for the development of life, as proposed by yourself, Dr Dembski, as long as you stand by this definition of intelligence:

‘ by intelligence I mean the power and facility to choose between options–this coincides with the Latin etymology of “intelligence,” namely, “to choose between” ‘

Febble then goes on to make her case based on the above definition of intelligence as if that is all there is to the meaning of intelligence when describing ID. The above quote from ” Intellligent Design Coming Clean” was not in fact being used to give a complete definition of the word “intelligence” when used by ID theorists to explain ID, rather it was a definition used within the context of making distinction between introspection and intelligence.

Here is the context:

Introspection (always a questionable psychological category) plays at best a secondary role in how initially we make sense of intelligence.

Even later in life, however, when we’ve attained full self-consciousness and when introspection can be performed with varying degrees of reliability, I would argue that even then intelligence is inferred. Indeed, introspection must always remain inadequate for assessing intelligence (by intelligence I mean the power and facility to choose between options–this coincides with the Latin etymology of “intelligence,” namely, “to choose between”). For instance, I cannot by introspection assess my intelligence at proving theorems in differential geometry, choosing the right sequence of steps, say, in the proof of the Nash embedding theorem. It’s been over a decade since I’ve proven any theorems in differential geometry. I need to get out paper and pencil and actually try to prove some theorems in that field. Depending on how I do–and not my memory of how well I did in the past–will determine whether and to what degree intelligence can be attributed to my theorem proving.

What Febbler has tried to do is take a statement out of the context from which it was being used and then try to use that statement as being all there is to say on the subject of intelligence of the intelligent design theories and theorists. If a person were honest and serious about a critique of ID then they would have first studied in depth ID theory before trying to make a critique. If they would have done that then they would have come to the conclusion early on that the “intelligence” behind intelligent design in ID theory is an intellectual intelligence, not an algorithmic equation that can display signs of choice through a non intellectual process. I am sure Febble had known this to be the case, but instead of dealing with ID theory head on, she instead chose to make some specious semantic arguments.

If you limit the definition of intelligence to “the ability to make choices”, then of course many non intellectual processes can be considered intelligent. A good example is how a phone answering service works. You call a number and then a recorded voice comes on and asks you to make choices. You then select a number or say a phrase and then the answering service program chooses where to send you next. There is no intellectual choice being made by the answering service, but it does have the power and ability to make a choice. Cells and other parts of living things also make non intellectual choices based on biochemistry. There is the research into making computers able to become artificially intelligent. None of those types of intelligence are functioning due to an intellectual desire, they are based on algorithmic phenomena, not on the ability to desire and then make intellectual decisions free from the constraints of mechanical unconscious directives.

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Another widespread erroneous view of natural selection must also be refuted: Selection is not teleological (goal-directed). Indeed, how can an elimination process be teleological? Selection does not have a long-term goal. It is a process repeated anew in every generation.

“Finally, to sladjo, I get the feeling you would really be shocked by the low level of respect the Bible carries here in the UK. The consensus seems to be that one “picks & chooses” the nice bits & ignores the “silly” bits (people living to 900, seas parting etc). Church of England bishops here openly doubt virginal birth, for example, and no-one bats an eyelid. As for Catholics & the origin of life, well, that isn’t NDE, is it, as surely that’s only meant to cover the subsequent development of life…”

I’m not shocked, littlejon, I’m just worried… But what you choose is what you will get… You say that your bishops openly doubt virginal birth… I ask myself how much time will pass until they’ll doubt Jesus as a savior, and finally, God… Are they still calling themselves Christians ?…

Quickest way to comprehend ID is to read No Free Lunch.

Here are a couple possible definitions for “chance/randomness”

1.) True Randomness: Stuff just happens with no cause-and-effect. Things just pop into existence. Molecules just bop around for no reason at all.

2.) Unpredictability: Things happen in a cause-and-effect relationship, but the causes are so numerous that our finite minds don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of predicting what the effects would be. Additionally, many many very very slight changes in the varous causes can have slight or significant impacts on the effects. Lots of molecules moving around in the atmosphere heated by the sun, affected by chemical reactions, human activity, etc. produce weather patterns. The weather patterns are unpredictable (or only somewhat predictable) due to an overwhelmingly enormous number of effects we don’t fully understand, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have causes.

3.) Lack of Direction: The presence or absence of purposes defined by an Agency (see my “free will” post). When a purposeful Agent is present, things happen “on purpose.” When the purposeful free-will Agent is absent, things happen due to purely physical, unguided cause-and-effect relationships.

Theists (well, some of them), ID’ers, Creationists, etc., think of “chance” in terms of #2 and #3. Atheistic evolutionsists think of “chance” in terms of only definition #2. NOBODY thinks of “chance” in terms of defnition #1, except for atheists who want to present definition #1 as a straw man representing what theists, ID’ers, etc. believe. (and I’m not quite sure what to make of where TE’s fall in what definition of “chance” they would embrace; it seems it might vary depending on which individual TE you talk to).

How would be know if something was intentional or not? One way has to do with how natural selection is constrained in conservation of genomic information. The following article describes something that natural selection can’t yet account for.

The Sound of Circular Reasoning Exploding
by DaveScot on December 7th, 2006 · 133 Comments

You’re still making mistakes in describing rm+ns. Saying it learns from mistakes is misleading. It needs constant reinforcement of what it learns or it forgets even faster than it learned. This known as conservation of genomic information. Anything that is not immediately useful (no selection value) is not conserved within the genome forever. The genomic information with no immediate use gets peppered with random mutations and quickly becomes useless as a result. This is really basic stuff you don’t know.