joz

quote:
Apparently something is an example of specified complexity if....

Its this definition of SC that seems, to me, to cause fatal problems to the EF, after all from 2 above an object or event is complex if it has a low probability of occuring through purely natural mechanisms without intelligent intervention. Note low not no is the word preceeding probability. Its origin, natural or designed, presumeably is independant of its specifity, therefore following these definitions a natural object can be CS....

We then look at what the EF has to say:


Where did the possible natural CS go? somewhere between the original definitions and the filter it seems to have gone MIA.....

Also if it was included the filter would have to include a line that evaluated the probability of a possible designer exsisting i.e:

...... goto 3)

3)Does E have a Small Probability of occurring AND is it specified?
If No we attribute it to chance,
if yes is there reason to attribute E to a designer?
If yes E could be the result of design OR nature,
if no then E can be attributed to nature.

Untill the EF contains the possibility of natural CSI I think it is spurious and circular.....

Can anyone spot any holes in that line of reasoning?

tgamble

[quote]Originally posted by joz:
[QB]quote:
Apparently something is an example of specified complexity if....
Isn't it being predefined what is being proposed?

ahem, lottery tickets, license plates...

theyeti

The more pertinent problem here IMO is how Dembski conflates "complexity" with "probability". What's he's really saying is that the event is improbable, not complex. This sort of semantic confusion is ubiquitious throughout his work, and makes his otherwise facile arguments difficult to understand.
It doesn't really matter in this case. By "low" Dembski means so low (10^-150)that it can't reasonably be expected to happen within the life time of the universe. This isn't the real problem -- the real problem is in figuring out how "specificity" is anything but subjective. Low probability events happen all the time (e.g the specific arrangement of atoms in the sun), but since no one considers them specified, there's no reason to think that they are indicative of design. For example, which of the following is the specification?

• A certain bacterial flagellum
• Any one of the many different bacterial flagella
• Any device that functions just like a bacterial flagellum
• Any device that facilitates bacterial motility
• Any complex bacterial adaptation

It matters greatly for Dembski's argument which one can be said to be the specification, but "matching some pre-defined meaningful pattern" is hardly a useful way to determine this. Naturally, Dembski takes the most specific one he can, but no one sees any reason to think that bacteria had to have a flagellum like the one we see (half of all bacteria species don't have flagella), or even that they had to obtain any sort of motility at all. Maybe in most universes, bacteria would never get flagella. So what?
No, Dembski defines CS as something that cannot have arisen through natural means. If it looks like CS but it arose through natural means, that just means that the probability was not below his universal bound and thus didn't really have CS to begin with. It's simply not possible to falsify his CS criterion -- one can only show that CS does not exist. This is yet another one of Dembski's obfuscations, because he uses the term as if it's a independently verifiable property of living things. It's not. It's a probablistic argument that depends on the likelihood of the event in question, and not just any event, but the sum total of all natural events, even those that we may not have yet discovered. That's the real problem with his CS -- it must take issue with what we know of natural law, including natural selection (which Dembski does a shitty job of) and it must also take into account the unknown, which Dembski never does. He just bitches about how Darwinists supposedly have no answers without realizing that his own argument must reject all possible answers.

theyeti

Undercurrent

That's the problem with IDers. There are no pre-defined meaningful pattern that he makes reference to. Every "pre-defined" pattern the ID-ists would have us believe had to be designed (e.g. bacterial flagellum, human immune system) is really something they've looked at, found a pattern in, and post-hoc told us that that pattern was pre-defined.

m.

[ September 13, 2002: Message edited by: Undercurrent ]</p>

joz

Interesting points I like the one about the lack of preselected patterns....

Albion

Predefined by whom? Meaningful to whom? This sounds like a loaded definition.

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

Something to point out:

God is specified, and is most certainly complex. Yet, God has a very low probability of existing. Yet, as is often claimed, he DOES exist. The only possible explanation then is that God is designed. Now then, who is this designer? Well, to be designed, there must be an intelligence. There is only one source of observed intelligence, so draw your own conclusions on that.