The Upside of Amazon Manipulation
| December 20, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design, The Design of Life |
THE DESIGN OF LIFE is being shamelessly manipulated by the Darwinists at Amazon (go here). Not only are they posting negative reviews that give no indication that the reviewers have read the book but they are also voting up their negative reviews so that these are the first to be seen by potential buyers.
The following 1-star review, posted 8 hours ago, illustrates the Darwinists’ level of discourse at Amazon:
By E. Duran (San Jose, CA USA) – See all my reviews
I just finished reading this book without vomiting. I had to go back and read Darwin’s “Origin of Species” again to remove the bad taste out of my mouth.
This is the whole review, unedited and unabridged. Even more pathetic is that “44 of 50 people found the following review [i.e., Duran's review] helpful.” (As of 4:10pm CST, 20Dec07)
While such behavior by Darwinists may seem unjust, there are two upsides:
(1) As the saying goes, there’s no negative publicity. Sales are brisk, especially through www.thedesignoflife.net.
(2) I’ve been talking with the producers of EXPELLED (www.expelledthemovie.com) about making this book a companion volume to Ben Stein’s film.* Thanks PZ Myers, Wesley Elsberry, Peter Irons, and others for strengthening my hand in these negotiations.
———————
*Recall that Carl Zimmer’s THE TRIUMPH OF EVOLUTION was the companion to the 2001 PBS Evolution Series.
113 Responses to The Upside of Amazon Manipulation
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I] StephenB:
Thanks for the kind words.
I hope my remarks at 86 – 87 give an adequate summary on what is in fact the main focus, proper, of this thread of discussion.
However, I see the exchange with Q on incidental and tangential matters continues, and I see you havbe pointed out a significant summary on the core issues and objections Q has made.
I do think a remark or two on causality additional to your clear comments, will help. So, DV I will speak to them, and then briefly turn to the Amazon “reviews” watch.
II] Q:
I see your:
I remark, and bearing in mind the educartional issues of the advanced High School and College contexts [having successfully taught science and related areas, as well as critical thinking (and even introductory philosophy), at both levels]:
III — > Amazon “reviews” watch:
62 reviews as of this post, 28 x 5 *, 33 x 1 * , 1 x 3 *. The 1-star “reviews” still dominate the “most helpful,” an none of the three posted are actually credibly reviews based on reading and seriously responding tot he book, DOL.
“208 of 230” claim to find IDC’s “review” helpful. He has been unresponsive to the corrections of his gross blunders here at UD, especially his notion that intelligent agents do not create information, as was most recently addressed by me in 87, point 12. So great and fundamental is his blunder that it deserves to be again highlighted:
To this, my simple direct response is:
Over to you, IDC.
The unplayed ball is plainly in your court.
GEM of TKI
PS: Would one of UD’s readers or commenters who has a customer account at Amazon care to post a summary of the correctives by myself and others as a part of a review of IDC et al?
StephenB mentioned “Here is the answer I suspect that you would probably like to give: …”. I understand why you may be cynical, but that is not a fair assumption.
I appreciate your comments – especially the comment that [1] (I assume the first [1] in post 90) would be sufficient. Specifically, you mentioned “[1] Mr. Q answers: Intelligent innovation is different from mechanical necessity. For that reason we can only detect the EFFECTS of intelligent agency. …”
That was an essential part of the point I was trying to make – that with the intelligent designer of ID, any claims about the causality of its agency must stop at effect, and can’t extend back to cause. Which is different from other analyses of causality, in which cause and effect can be included. I apologize for being so wordy or clumsy that it wasn’t clear. Besides, in a high-school science class, that form of answer correlates to the answer of the big-bang – science can’t answer what caused it, but it can try to answer what it caused.
Q:
RE your response to StephenB’s Intelligent innovation is different from mechanical necessity. For that reason we can only detect the EFFECTS of intelligent agency. …”, i.e.:
First, here is SB’s context:
In short, you have quote-mined SB, Q; distorting what he ACTUALLY said — a general point about agents we can observe every day in the here and now — into a strawman making a point that “supports” your agenda.
That’s not cricket.
Worse, had you simply and plainly addressed the point SB DID make, you would at once have seen the obvious answer to your labourious attempts to push designers as far away from recognisability as you can get.
Namely, that we are immediately familiar with the fact that design is a mental activity that manifests itself in reliably empirically recognisable and identifiable material traces: e.g. the FSCI in a house, such as the one in which you may live. (Thus, any attempt to restructure science [and reasoning about cause-effect more generally], that — as we have now seen repeatedly in this thread — cannot account for something as familiar as the houses in which we live, is blatantly intellectually bankrupt.)
Please, please, rethink Q; and consider what you are still diverting this thread from dealing with.
GEM of TKI
As for misquoting, Kairosfocus, I suggest that you rethink my position, if not only slightly. You mentioned to me “you would at once have seen the obvious answer to your labourious attempts to push designers as far away from recognisability as you can get.”
My point is that I am not making claims about the designers. I am asking that claims about intelligence/agency/causality be structured so that they do not provide inferences about the designer.
Your argument still provides inferences about the designer.
Just like you did immediately did above in 93 when you wrote “we are immediately familiar with the fact that design is a mental activity …” How can you know or even safely infer that the designer has mental activities? (rhetorical, no additional reply needed.)
Nontheless, I agree that this turned into a threadjack – I did not intend to, but in my interest of pursuing the topic, I lost track. I apologize for that.
Q: Since we have come this far, I may as well ask the final question: If we cannot safely infer that the design is a product of mental activity (intellectual innovation?), what would the option or options be.
Q:
Re your:
To this, I respond:
That you, at this point, evidently insistently refuse to see the force of or respond appropriately — cogently, on the merits — to this chain of argument is telling. For, dismissals and repeated question-begging assertions in the teeth of common sense and experience [such as the cite above] are not cogent arguments.
To wit, I am very close to concluding that your intent here is more to play rhetorical games and distract attention from a serious issue, the proper focus for this thread; than to deal with any really serious issue.
Indeed, your last comment is precisely a classic example of the attempt to unwarrantedly push designers out of the picture, that I pointed out earlier today. You have no just cause for complaint against my fair comment to that effect.
I would therefore caution you to pay heed to the advice of StephenB above, a Moderator.
Meanwhile, over at Amazon: 30 x 5*, 33 x 1*, 1 X 3*. The Darwinista gamers still hold the “most helpful” reviews slots. Jurassicmark’s review is exemplary.
In toto:
–> BTW, JM, could you itemise the errors you observed; so they can be corrected pronto?
–> I agree on the issue of errors. Indeed, way back my own profs used to caution that their lectures were not perfect and students were responsible at that level to pick up and correct errors.
Unfortunately, by sharp contrast, 210 of 232 claim to find IDC helpful, and he is still missing in action on his blunder that intelligent agents do not produce information.
GEM of TKI
StephenB – I agree with you that this diversion should be brought to an end in this thread. To do so, I’ll give the answer to your final question of “If we cannot safely infer that the design is a product of mental activity (intellectual innovation?), what would the option or options be.”
As you suggested in [1] above, we don’t know the options with regards to the intelligent designer of ID. Because, we have no way of knowing the nature of the designer. We might infer the nature, but that is no more than a guess.
I say a guess, even though some may argue that the guess/inference makes sense. But, identifying any of the options about the designer of ID, including its mental activities, is no more than a black-box invstigation. That is, we first make observations about our experiences that describe links between agency and causality. Then, we examine the observable results of another event, and extraplate the causality – like that the intelligent designer of ID must have mental activity. The underlying assumption is that the new situation shares similar properties as the earlier situations.
But, we know with certaintude that the designer need not operate with the same properties – because the designer could be in all of time and space, not experiencing beginning or end, and have other differences that have been considered through history.
This is why I’ve been insisting, but will discontinue doing so in this thread (unless others bring it up again for clarification), that the claims about agency and causality must not be phrased so broadly as to make positive assertions about the intelligent designer of ID.
Contrary to the assertion of Kairosfocus that I want to “push designers out of the picture”, the opposite is true. I’m suggesting that options for the designer be left open – and not excluded through inferential arguments – lest the arguments unduly exclude the true nature of the intelligent designer of ID. Even logical inferences need not pan out every time.
Q: Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to simply say, “You know, I just can’t think of any other options, so intelligent agency is the most likely explanation.” As G. K. Chesterton once said, “the purpose of opening the mind is to close it on something solid (truth). Somehow, you seem fearful or unwilling to do the closing—even when a ton of evidence from above and below is trying to push your jaw shut. Bless your heart.
StephenB, yes, including the caveat of “the most likely” as part of the explanation makes much sense.
Kairosfocus was making his position in more absolutes, however.
kairosfocus:
In the spirit of full disclosure I must acknowledge that I am not a moderator—only a humble blogger.
I: StephenB:
Thanks for the correction.
Your G K Chesterton cite is spot on.
II: Q:
RE:
–> The crucial error is in the highlighted: we are agents ourselves, so investigating inference to design is NOT a black-box investigation. It is an open box explanation.
–> Then, we are able to detect reliable signs of intelligent agency in action, e.g. FSCI.
–> Absent adverse worldview implications for the evo mat view, we would not hesitate to confidently induce that on the evidence in hand the nanotech of the cell, the increments in informatio0n to get body plan level biodiversity and the underlying organised complexity of the life facilitating cosmos are on reliable induction also designed by agents.
–> In short, selective hyperskepticism.
III] Re Amazon watch:
Nos of reviews is the same overnight.
IDC’s review is up to “211 of 234″ finding it “helpful.” I now see a page 2, up to Dec 28, and that IDC has yet to deal with his decisive blunder.
So great and fundamental is his blunder that it deserves to be again highlighted:
THAT is the level of what “211 of 234″ find “helpful.”
To this sort of Darwinista ignorance, my simple direct response is, again:
Over to you, IDC and co.
The unplayed ball is plainly in your court.
GEM of TKI
PS: Q, kindly read what I have repeatedly said, cited and linked on the inherent, inescapably provisional nature of scientific inference, here, and even here [for teachers] or here. [for students and the wider public].
In short, your implication — even possibly insinuation — of unwarranted dogmatism on my part is in the teeth of easily available evidence to the contrary. I have pointed out that science is inherently provisional and workds by empirixcally anchored inference to best explanation — AKA abduction. The design inference is of just this order and is therefore scientific.
What is happening, onlookers, is that well-warranted implications and explanations of evidence [cf the always linked and the above] are cutting across the expectations of a dominant worldview in the academy, and so selective hyperskepticism in the form of Cliffordian/ Saganian evidentialism is being trotted out in its defence.
We must not let that happen.
Happy New Year.
GEM of TKI
Kairosfocus said in 101, “The crucial error is in the highlighted: we are agents ourselves, so investigating inference to design is NOT a black-box investigation. It is an open box explanation.”
Wow. How about this course correction: We are agents ourselves, so when we investigate ourselves and the world around us, we can consider it as an open box investigation.
But, nothing in the known world binds the properties of the intelligent designer of ID to our properties. This alone imposes limitations on how far we can extrapolate our knowledge to make claims about the intelligent designer. The intelligent designer of ID is in a metaphorical black box, to us.
You have no evidence – because none is physically or logically available – that the intelligent designer is or must be bound by the same laws that provide the observations about the real world. As such, your arguments that extend to make positive assertions about the intelligent designer of ID must be modified to avoid making such claims. The confidence of those claims must be reduced to that appropriate to extrapolation, a weak form of induction.
BTW: I did read your linked information. Your comments about induction on that site even confirm that your explicit claims about the intelligent designer on this site are stated with unfounded confidence. Check here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning to see the limits of the inductive claims you’ve made about the intelligent designer of ID.
Kairosfocus says “I have pointed out that science is inherently provisional and workds by empirixcally anchored inference to best explanation — AKA abduction. The design inference is of just this order and is therefore scientific.”
I agree with you on this, and have not been arguing that point – unless the inferences are extended to make positive claims the intelligent designer of ID. You’ve made such claims several times on this thread.
I think StephenB helped me to see the difference in our arguments. Claims about the “best” explanation have implicit limits. That is, they are constructed around some external criteria, to provide the basis of “best”. “Best”, for example, may be “that which most correlates to observation.” I don’t dispute that much of your argument includes the element of “best explanation.” But, “best” is not necessarily the same as “truth”. Your claims, when extended to the intelligent designer so that they give positive claims about the designer, are framed as though they are “truth” -i.e. this is how the designer is.
Maybe we’re just talking past each other. Perhaps you implicitly meant that your specific and explicit claims about the intelligent designer are open to doubt, and that your best explanations don’t really extend to making claims about the intelligent designer as though they are truth. I don’t know.
Can we delay this for a different time? I am concerned about the back and forth in a threadjack.
Q: Again, you drop a rhetorical bomb and then ask for an immediate postponement of dialogue; do one or the other, but not both..
Your comments on induction make it clear that you are still bound by the Hume/Kant imperative, which, in effect, reduces all inferences to a presupposition.. Unless, you consult Adler’s “little error at the beginning,” you will continue to doubt the integrity of your own mind.
In approaching this problem, we have only two choices. Either we accept the paradox of theism (dualism) or we must live with the contradictions and self refuting absurdities of materialism (monism). In other words, we have a choice between truth (in the form of “virtual certainty” not apodictic certainty) and error (unreasonable uncertainly or hyper-skepticism)
A designer’s mind is not bound to the physical laws of cause and effect, even though the designer’s body most certainly is. This is a paradox; it is not a contradiction. Our mind is independent of and can cause changes in the physical universe, while our brain is, at the same time, subject to those same laws. If you cannot understand or refuse to accept the distinction between the mind and the brain, you cannot acknowledge the connection between the immaterial agent and the material causal chain.
Hearken back to my example about the mind as the causal agent that arranges matter in such a way that a house is brought into existence. By your logic, we cannot, without having had prior experience on the matter, safely assume that an intelligent agent started the ball rolling. In effect, you are rejecting the kind of self-evident truth the makes rationality possible in the first place. You are doing the very same thing that Hume/Kant influenced so many to do—reject the correspondence between our mind and the real world. I notice that you did not follow up on my suggestion to consult Adler and his explanation of the “little error in the beginning,” Instead you chose to visit Wikipedia, who has made it their business, either through ignorance or malice, to institutionalize this error. So why would you send us to that site for “instruction.”
In fact, there is nothing to prevent us from reasoning our way all the way back to the first agent as an originating cause. The ultimate designer, as immaterial agent (perhaps a pure non- material spirit and not a composite of body and soul [mind] as we are), need not be “in” the causal chain to be a causal agent. Remember, the non-material can influence the material without being material. If the ultimate designer is God, then God is outside those laws even as He brings them into being and sustains them. That means that he in not bound by his own laws. If you question this argument, then you must also question Aristotle’s “prime mover” argument as well. Moving backwards in the causal chain allows us to conclude only the EXISTENCE of an intelligent agency—not its essence or its identity. The designer’s ATTRIBUTES must be a matter or philosophical speculation or religious belief, or, as in the case of human agency, prior experience, because science simply cannot take us there. We should think neither too little (Hume/Kant skepticism) nor too much (apodictic certainty) concerning what reason can do.
There is no real disagreement between kairosfocus and myself about the level of confidence involved. I am not positing, as you suggest, that the inference is merely a best guess. My conditional language acknowledges only the line between “virtual certainty” and “apodictic certainty.” From a scientific perspective we accept virtual certainty as truth because it is the only rational way to live. Hyper-skepticism bids us to live in the twilight zone between virtual certainty and apodictic certainty. Cynics often visit that land but no really lives there. As someone once put it, “even the solipsist looks both ways before crossing the street.”
Stephen B:
VERY well said!
I think I can let your remark stand as the final word on the substantial issues raised by Q.
On observing that Q reportedly works in the US education system, with ACLU et al breathing over his shoulder and lawsuits or dismissals threatening at the drop of a hat or an unguarded politically incorrect remark — shades of of days and places one had thought were relegated to the darker pages of history — I think we can now understand the dilemma he faces; thanks to the Judge “copycat” Joneses et al of this world.
–> For shame, ACLU! For shame, NCSE!
–> For double-shame, Ms Barbara Forrest!
–> For double-dip double-shame, US and world Media!
–> For triple-dip, triple-shame, educators and academics!
For quintuple-dip, five- times- five- thousand- quintillion- times over shame, educated people as a class!
For, it is plain that the design inference is so strong that it is compelling on the merits.
So strong in fact that the only way to resist it in the secularism-distorted educational setting of the USA is to resort to patent absurdirties stemming from rejecting self-evident truth about ourselves and other intelligent agents!
The above thread is proof enough of that.
Maybe, Design of Life and other similar works can help us climb out of the hole we have dug ourselves into.
That of course brings us to the look at the state of the Amazon “reviews” mess.
A second reasonable review has happened in recent days, though marred by an unreasonable expectation of the book, that it should be in effect a new research compilation and the dismissal of cogent arguments. But read it, the second 3* review, here.
A flavour-giving excerpt of Mr Marshall’s effort:
I should note en passant, that when one is providing a balancing work and is int he context of comparative difficulties across live options, one is not making a circular argument. It is the unreasonable demand to present the evolutionary materialist view of origins as though it were established unquestionable fact doubted only by the “ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked” that is circular and in this context an utterly indefensible resort to indoctrination and mind manipulation in the classroom.
A glance at the comments on the Jurassicmark review starts with John Kwok’s — obviously habitual — personal attack and name-calling, then it heads south from there.
Brent Mortimer replied at first in kind, then after several comments presented a reasonable outline of the ID case — it was voted down just like his other comments; so that one has to explicitly request that the post be shown. [And, Mr Kwok -- a self-proclaimed libertarian! -- has the nerve to call Dr Dembski a "fascist" and advocate of censorship for objecting to Mr Kwok's own earlier personal attack in the name of a "review"???]
Sad, and ever so telling on Mr Kwok and ilk.
With the long train of abuses and usurpation now on repeated public view, we would be well advised to recognise the Darwinistas as would-be tyrants, and to turn back their power grabs — before it is too late.
GEM of TKI
Dr Dembski, Dr Wells and Ms O’Leary:
I took a further follow-up look at the Darwinista “reviews” and see evidence of outright slander and possible libel. (Are not the Amazon people responsible for the contents of their web site?)
At minimum, several of the tactics and claims exposed below need to be brought to the attention of the public so they can see for themselves what is going on on the ID issue on the part of the Darwinistas.
Maybe the below and some previous stuff needs to become part of Expelled, as someone else suggested.
Okay, to monitoring:
–> The reviews count on DOL is the same this AM, 65.
–> The Darwinista “gaming” pseudo-reviews still dominate the “most helpful” list.
I decidewd to take a look at the Marshall, 3* review and see what happened with comments:
1] Strike ONE . . .
For instance, here is S Allen’s attempt to answer to Marshall’s unanswered request on “instances of mutations that produce helpful biological innovations”:
–> In short, this Darwinista — duly having been misled by TalkOrigins and the like ilk of dishonest advocates — has not seen that there is a major difference between minor changes to existing biological information systems and the required evo mat mechanisms to credibly sustain origin of life and body-plan level biodiveristy.
This alone is sufficient justification for the need for a current basic, textbook level survey of the issue of design as it pertains to biological systems that are rich in functionally specified, complex information.
Of course, DOL is precisely such a textbook, pace all the Darwinista objections to such a presentaiton. Their own ignorance betrays their arguments!
2] Strike TWO . . and TWO-A
Peter Irons [of "Mr Kwok can freely personally attack Dr Dembski in the name of a review but Dr Dembski cannot properly complain about it" infamy, rated as the no 1 "most helpful review . . ."]] then weighs in with this “helpful” piece:
–> In fact, Denyse responded at Dr Dembski’s request to an already mounting Darwinista gaming of the reviews, DECEMBER 19, here.
Opening words:
–> And now there is a twisting of the truth of the narrative through this second “HE HIT BACK FIRST” complaint.
Later in the same commen Mr Irons goes on to claim that “I caught Dembski in a case of “attempted copyright violation” in his book.”
Namely, he claims that:
–> As I understand it of course there is a very different side to that story, as was reported here at UD Nov 22 by Dr Dembski:
–> this puts a very different colour on Mr Irons’ claims, and not in his favour at all.
But also, notice the CONSISTENT rhetorical pattern: we see yet again the use of unjustified personal attack in the hope that it will distract people from looking at the case on the merits.
–> And, if one uses a clip from a source pending permission while a book is in draft, but withdraws it from the book on failing to obtain permission [which is what the cited evidence obviously substantiates], that is NOT stealing, Mr Irons.
–> Worse, the actual evidence of the videos is that the macromolecules of life in play in the cells information systems are of course vastly beyond the reach of chance + necessity on the gamut f the observed cosmos.
[ . . . ]
3] Strike-out!
Darby M’Graw then completes the Darwinista strike-out:
–> I guess the list of peer -reviewed publications at the DI web site does not count.
Nor, plainly, does Minnich’s research presented in open court to Judge “Copycat” Jones who then went on to deny the facts in front of him, on the advice of the dishonest advocates over at ACLU and NCSE.
As to socio-cultural agendas, I guess the obvious evidence that the response of DI is to an existing and open secularist agenda does not count: HE HIT BACK FIRST again.
4] On the Wedge strategy . . .
BTW, for readers’ information, this is what the “infamous” Wedge Strategy is, in core essence [the entire document can be perused at the linked page]:
For shame, Dr Forrest and fellow Darwinistas!
Uncle Charlie is turning in his grave over at Westminster Abbey on what his supporters have become!
GEM of TKI
PS: For the record,and for fair-minded onlookers, here is DI’s list of ID-supportive peer-reviewed etc scientific research.
IMHCO,this alone is more than sufficient to give the lie to the mindlessly repeated claim that ID thinkers do not do publishable professional grade research, and the associated philosophically question-begging and historically unjustified allegation that ID is “not science.” [Cf Dan Peterson's telling review on the culture war that has now exploded even into reader reviews at Amazon. Notice in particular his remarks on the contribution of design thinkers to the advance of science.]
Moreover, in light of the notorious events over Mr Sternberg and Mr Gonzalez, we ALSO know that there is a Darwinista campaign of censorship, career busting, calumny, slander and libel to discredit such ID research and researchers.
[Surprise, the DOL pseudo-review campaign is plainly yet another stanza on this sickening song of oppression and injustice by advocates of a world view that is in a lot of trouble on the merits: evolutionary materialism. Shades of the deceptive en-darkenment and destructive power games by the power-brokers in Plato's Cave!]
That, too should tell us a lot, and none of it good on the evo mat agendas, which — as the pseudo-reviews at Amazon on DOL all too bluntly tell us — plainly ARE about political control by a destructive ideological agenda that has corrupted science, education and the culture at large, not free play of informed discussion on serious ideas and issues.
Cho man, do betta dan dat!
GEM of TKI
well, I actually have the book and I love it. And yes it discusses the latest Douglas Axe’s research…the book is worth it just for this section alone.
What else is covered: pseudogenes, therapsids, whales, panda thumbs, evo-devo, co-options, origin of life and a lot more.
“I’m also tired of the ID argument that similarity in living things could be explained just as well by a common designer as by a common ancestry (140); this seems terribly ad hoc to me. God could just as well be entirely original with each new species.”
So life should look like it was the result of multiple designers instead? Looks like somebody needs to read the Biotic Message by ReMine.
KF –(Are not the Amazon people responsible for the contents of their web site?)
As I understand it, no as pertaining to reader comments — providing the post are not edited by the website owner.
Trib, Ari and onlookers:
Thanks for the remarks.
As I continue to review the “reviews” [and comments] at Amazon, I appreciate that Amazon disclaims LEGAL responsibility for the comments on their site. However, I suspect that does not remove moral culpability for hosting slander, personal attacks and outright BIGOTRY. (Cf below.)
Of course if the powers that be there are unresponsive to moral suasion, maybe they deserve to suffer the loss of credibility that Wikipedia is currently suffering, and maybe they will respond when it affects their bottom-line. On track record of say the ending of the slave trade and slavery, such moral suasion will be stoutly resisted and yielding to loss of financial viability will only be a slow process.
In short, yet another battle of financial and public opinion attrition.
Back at Amazon, we are still at 65 reviews, and it is worth the while to feature one of the positive reviews, not least because it exposes the deceptive and contempt-driven nature of the now commonly encountered “standard” Darwinista rebuttal tactics. I guess they have no shame, but we need to understand how they argue in “live” situations, so we can anticipate and/or respond effectively.
So, now, Techie of Kansas, Dec 30:
He is first noteworthy for pointing to UD as a place where the other side of the story can be heard, and second for pointing to the central issue of CSI:
S Allen and IDC of course try to rebut, and — predictably — have a triumphalistic Darwinista cheering section.
Excerpting:
1 –> In short, the question is distorted then begged by exploiting the ignorance and presumed disinclination of the likely audience to check out the other side of the story. [Cf my always linked, for details.]
2 –> SA, first, FYI: as my always linked, Appendix 3 will show,WD DID NOT ORIGINATE THE CONCEPT OF COMPLEX, SPECIFIED INFORMATION. Leslie Orgel et al did, in the natural course of OOL research across the 1970′s; as they realised that living things exhibited a pattern that is not just complex in the sense of high contingency, and not just ordered in the sense that say a crystal (or a vortex) are ordered, i.e. — and as I outline for newbies in my always linked — living systems exhibit functionally specified, often fine-tuned [i.e adversely sensitive to random perturbations beyond as very limited scale], organised complexity that requires algorithmic, coded information to work:
3 –> In short, CSI, originally developed as a DESCRIPTION of on- the- ground- facts to be explained by thinkers on the origin of life. FYI IT IS A LITTLE HARD TO REFUTE A MASSIVELY DOCUMENTED — not at all “refuted” — FACT.
4 –> Next, however “complexity” may be used by other thinkers on information in other situations, it is an obviously valid use of the term to describe situations of extremely high contingency such that the configuration space taken up by all possible permutations involves significantly more “cells” than the number of possible quantum states taken up by the 10^80 or so particles in our observed cosmos across its credible lifetime. (This quantifies “complexity” by use of a greater than metric. In effect if there are more than about 500 – 1,000 bits worth of information storing capacity in a system, it is complex in the sense that is relevant.)
5 –> Further to this, the complexity is used not just in any old random way, but to effect functionally specified, algorithmically coded — i.e. complex — information that carries out life processes that are sensitive in general to random perturbation. In short, there are well defined relatively isolated points, islands and archipelagos of relevant functionality within the config spaces in question. For instance, minimally functional cells, as Meyer reported in the PBSW article, require roughly 300 – 500,000 DNA bases in their genetic code, to cover the proteins etc for life to work. Just 300k 4-state elements sets a config space of order 9.94 *10^180,617 cells. [This is vastly more than the 10^150 or so states that the 10^80 particles of our observed cosmos will take up across its credible lifespan.] “Complexity” is a reasonable description, and the functionally specified cells are plainly going to be seriously isolated int eh relevant config space.
6 –> Thus, a random-walk search [even with functionality filtering at each stage – aka “natural selection” of one kind or another] that begins at any arbitrary point in that space, will be maximally unlikely to EVER reach a functional configuration relevant to life, on the gamut of our observed universe.
7 –> At the same time, we see, even routinely, a source of just such FSCI. Namely, intelligent agents. Indeed, in EVERY observed case of such – pace IDC – where we do know directly the causal story, the directly observed source of FSCI is agency. And, given what we just outlined, that is highly unsurprising [Cf here, my discussion of nanobots and microjets in a vat, to see the force of the underlying statistical thermodynamics and information theory issues and principles at work.] Thus, on inductive inference to best explanation, the most credible source for such FSCI where we just happened not to have seen it s cause directly is again agency.
8 –> When therefore IDC attempts to “reduce” agency to chance + necessity [as has been long since addressed above, fr. Comments 29 – 30 and onward to the summary in 86 – 87, which stand unanswered by him to this date], he is whistling in the dark as he goes by the graveyard. BOO! [And, BTW, Mr Schneider over at Talk Origins, as is all too usual for that utterly untrustworthy and even at points plainly intellectually shabby site, does not know what he is talking about -- on a charitable reading.]
9 –> In this context, IDC’s last comment at Dec 28, is all too revealing of the whistling past the graveyard in the dark mentality:
10 –> IDC, since when has chance + necessity alone been shown through direct observation to create FSCI in the sense described above? By whom, where, and with what credibility? [Not to mention, if there is a law of the universe that forces the emergence of cell-based life, what would that imply, given the issues raised in my always linked, section D on cosmological fine-tuning? (Hint: what would best account for the required algorithmic information written into the laws and parameters of the cosmos, given that they are exquisitely finely tuned in the aggregate? H'mm: wouldn't that count as "in the beginning LOGICALLY AND DYNAMICALLY STRUCTURED INFORMATION was . . . and WITHOUT THIS LOGOS WAS NOT ANYTHING MADE, THAT WAS MADE?) Nah . . . justa coincidence! NOT]
11 –> And of course, IDC then (having failed to resolve the matter on the merits) improperly resorts to igniting the usual anti-theistic hostility of Darwinistas. There is a name for that IDC: BIGOTRY.
In short, IDC: BOOO!
GEM of TKI
H’mm:
Two more reviews over the weekend, which further underscore what is going on at Amazon on Design of Life:
1] D Moore ["Evolutionary biologist"]:
Vs,
2] Sean McDowell “High School Teacher”:
Now, no prizes for guessing which of these is credibly an actual review of the book by someone who has read and thought seriously about it, and which is a 1* dismissal without having seriously considered that the “reviewer” may not have exactly cornered the market on the truth.
In short, the game continues.
But, Darwinistas, we are watching, and we are not impressed by the calibre of arguments we have been seeing. IDC et al, this means you — the rest of the 1* crowd’s mindless ad hominems and the like don’t even rise to the level of arguments.
[NB: I use CROWD very deliberately: the 1* dismissals plainly and objectively show a a breakdown of moral responsibility resulting from being one of an unaccountable, impulsive and easily manipulated group that can act out its aggressive impulses without regard to consequences. Think, long and hard, about what that is telling us on what you Darwinistas are liable to do if you gain the unchecked power in our civilisation that you plainly crave. Or should that be: "do AGIAN," given what your intellectual progenitors HAVE repeatedly done over the past 100 or so years, in the name of "science" and "progress" and "Darwin" . . .]
So, if you would take time to read books such as DOL and actually seriously grapple on the merits with what they are raising, we would be more impressed. And, less inclined to view your behaviour as a warning that calls us to act in self defense before a long train of abuses and usurpations gets beyond possibility of restraint.
As it is, it looks a whole lot like what Socrates must have felt like on coming back into the Athenian cave to try to open minds and thus liberate the denizens, only to be viciously — and in his case, fatally — attacked.
GEM of TKI
PS: Onlookers, why not do a straight or spin test on the reviews over at Amazon, across the 5*, 1* and 3* reviews? Who passes, who fails, why? What should we do?