Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Aahz · 09-01-2002, 08:22 AM

Don't know if anybody has posted this. Quite good, IMO.

<a href="http://www-polisci.mit.edu/BR27.3/orr.html" target="_blank">Clickety</a>

And true to form Dembski responds almost instantly.

<a href="http://www.designinference.com/documents/2002.08.Orr_Response.htm" target="_blank">Clack</a>

Notice how Dembski completely ignores what I think is the most devastating part of Orr's review, that the No Free Lunch Theorems do not apply as Dembski says they do. Dembski's review focuses on some tangential bit and ignores the serious criticism. More evidence that Dembski is a dishonest jerk.

Coragyps · 09-01-2002, 12:18 PM

Nice article - I have a much better sense of just what Dembski is going on about now.
Orr mentions that the ID'ers are coming to the Texas textbook committee next year! Does anyone have any details?

demrald · 09-01-2002, 12:22 PM

Aahz

Quote:

More evidence that Dembski is a dishonest jerk.

It is quite distressing that someone so well-read and intelligent as Dembski would behave in such a manner.

Here are some major problems with Dembski's assessment of Orr's arguments:

Quote:

Hume's concern is therefore met with Aristotle's distinction between nature and design. Nature produces things by self-organization and generation; design (the Greek techne, usually translated "art") produces things by impressing form from without. Thus, to use one of Aristotle's examples, acorns have it within themselves to produce oak trees, but raw wood does not have it within itself to produce ships. As Aristotle put it, "The art of ship-building is not in the wood." Indeed, it requires design.

It's interesting that Dembski begins by referring to Hume, then using the argument from design, which has been unable to overcome Hume's criticism for nigh unto three centuries now. As Hume might snugly reply, if biological organisms are like ships, why shouldn't we also say they require numerous designers? <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Quote:

Behe's "chief claim was that Darwinism just couldn't get here from there [i.e., achieve irreducible complexity]." According to Orr, that claim is "dead wrong." Why? Not because Orr provided detailed, testable, causally specific instances of the Darwinian mechanism producing irreducible complexity, but because he can imagine a Darwinian scenario that gives rise to irreducible complexity. Orr's criterion for possibility is conceivability.

I don't see how this is a valid criticism of Orr. If the argument "Darwinism couldn't possibly account for irreducible complexity" is met with "Sure it can: look at scaffolding and incremental indispensability," the first claim has been refuted.

Dembski responds to this: This enables [Orr] to sidestep the real limitations confronting the Darwinian mechanism and focus instead on the sheer possibilities that an unbridled imagination can create for the Darwinian mechanism.

Is Dembski accusing Orr of being a subjectivist here, or is he doing something else? Most likely the latter, as he then says, "This is also why he doesn't like my demand for "causal specificity," which requires Darwinists to demonstrate that their selection mechanism actually has the causal power to produce irreducible complexity." But this is simply a switch and bait, because the argument was never about evidence in the first place, but about the possibility of irreducible complexity resulting from Darwinism. Intellectual dishonesty indeed.

Dembski's closing line:

Quote:

The subtext of Orr's review, though unintended, is that Darwinism is not a solution to the problem of biological complexity but an exercise in delusion by which evolutionary biologists convince themselves that they've solved the problem when in fact we haven't.

This appears to be anti-science in general. Of course, it wouldn't be so ludicrous for Dembski to take this position if he didn't attempt to use scientific methodology to support his own views. If Dembski truly thinks that intuitive speculation in the sciences is "an exercise in delusion," one has to wonder why he's even pretending it can support anyone's positions.

[ September 01, 2002: Message edited by: demrald ]

Aahz · 09-01-2002, 10:12 PM

Quote:

This appears to be anti-science in general. Of course, it wouldn't be so ludicrous for Dembski to take this position if he didn't attempt to use scientific methodology to support his own views. If Dembski truly thinks that intuitive speculation in the sciences is "an exercise in delusion," one has to wonder why he's even pretending it can support anyone's positions.

Tell me about it. I think this is something Homer Simpson might come up with.

Homer: You can't trust science, and to prove I have this scientific study that....

Rational Person: Wait Homer, doesn't your scientific study rely on science?

Homer: Yes, that is the beauty of it, using science to show that sci...ence...is......d'oh!

Ted Hoffman · 09-02-2002, 05:35 AM

Aahz,
Thanks for the links. It enabled me to learn a lot about Dembski's arguments.

Quote:

More evidence that Dembski is a dishonest jerk

Surely, this is not necessary?

You notice however that Oors question below, goes unanswered:

Quote:

What's gained by replacing a mysterious material order with an equally mysterious designer?... It would have been interesting to hear Dembski's

Dembski says:

Quote:

In particular, I argue that since biological systems exhibit specified complexity, intelligence is involved in their production (just when and how is a matter for further study)

Maybe then, he should explain whether a food-chain needs a designer and who created the food chain.

Even if a designer did exist, there is no evidence that he (the designer) is completely intelligent. Its like watching a dice being rolled and then when it lands six-up, one decides a master gambler rolled it - only for a toothless baby to emerge behind the curtain. There are numerous species which DO NOT exhibit any evidence of an intelligent designer at work like the useless eyes of cave-dwelling creatures which live and die in the dark, the high affinity of haemoglobin to carbon monoxide than for oxygen, the preponderant waste of life in nature etc.
Intelligence can't be limited to perceivable results alone.

Behe's arguments for irreducible complexity have been refuted well (both the mousetrap and the flagellum examples).

Where does that leave Dembsky? As Oor points out, his main undoing when applying the evolutionary algorirthms was to assume that evolution had a specific target.

He must go back to the drawing board and write another bestseller and make more money.

[ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: Intensity ]

Kip · 09-02-2002, 08:56 AM

I have no sympathy for ID people, such as Demski, who are, quite dishonestly, attempting to defend Christianity with bad logic. The question of ID itself, however, does interest me. In particular, I am alarmed by the seemingly dogmatic belief that there was no "designer" (in the broadest sense of deism and not the God of any revealed "Scripture" which are obviously as real as leprechauns). Orr raises this point in the article: Darwin did not disprove the existence of any designer but he (supposedly) removed the need for any such hypothesis and provided evidence that strongly suggests there was no "design". Yet, so many Christians and atheists have the attitude that Darwin proved that there was no designer. People refer to the lack of "telos" or "intent" and say "evolution has no intentions and is" to use Dawkins' word "blind".

Such conclusions are quite hasty. I certainly do not think deists, much less Christians, have established that there was a designer or telos. But I am also not convinced that there cannot be some intelligent designer. I am agnostic about the position and maintain that human origins remains largely mysterious. Indeed, I suspect that is why so many people jump to the "no designer" conclusion because that gives closure. The uncertainty of skepticism may be too discomforting.

What do I mean by an intelligent designer? Science has ruled out much already. No such designer fashioned each species. The planet earth (as opposed to others), the terrestial carbon based form of life (as opposed to other forms), and the various species on earth (as opposed to other conceivable species) surely have very little significance. No, the designer that I am pondering is more like:

A. a genetic engineer who either (outside this universe in a parent universe) "cooks" the laws of physics to favor the emergence of evolving organisms, the eventual outcome of his experiment which is largely unpredictable (as computers often are).

or

B. an extra terrestrial intelligence that "plants the seed" of pre-DNA RNA and other genetic codes upon various planets

I think that A is much more likely than B (indeed B seems silly but the question has been raised before) and that both A and B are quite improbable. But I do not think that either is impossible. The main reason I do not think that either is possible is because there is an obvious trend of explaining life with natural causes. Every time we need to answer a question, we never need to appeal to a designer, no matter how deep we inquire, this always seems to be the case, that metaphysical naturalism is true and that we are simply exist, alone and without context. But that is a trend, not a law (like Moore's "Law").

The problem, for everyone, is that these can be scientific questions, and I am glad that someone is finally trying to answer them with science or information theory and not rhetoric. I made the objection on this message board before, asking essentially "don't the laws of physics, if the world is determined, HAVE to be cooked to produce life?" and was met with the reply, "if the world is like the cellular autonoma Game of Life, would we still need a designer if the board was sufficiently big?" In other words, how many monkeys with typewriters do you need to produce Shakespeare without thinking Shakespeare has been cooked into the typewriters?

But that is a question that neither Darwin nor the Bible has answered. It is a statistical question, about randomness and information theory, that can only be answered by science. If intelligence can be a product not only of another intelligence (God) but also of a selection mechanism with sufficient randomness, the question is "do we have enough randomness"? And of course, the universe is very old (15 billion years) and unfathomably large. So the case against the designer is quite strong, but is it convincing? To settle the question, we simply solve this scientific question, "is there enough randomness?" We cannot just look at the huge, old universe, the success of natural explanations, and assume that it is.

Unfortunately, to answer that question scientifically we need to know certain data. We need to know what is necessary for life to exist. We know very very little about these requirements. We only know about terrestial life, but obviously, there are countless other conceivable and possible fundamental types of living matter. I am not an expert in astrobiology or statistics, but I think we would also need information about other universes (even if this is the only universe!). You cannot have statistics with only one data point, and so any attempt to measure randomness, within this universe, is bound (if I understand correctly) to be a meaningless tautology: what exists exists. We could not know any probabilities or measure randomness. This sort of data will not be available any time in the near future and I cannot imagine, without radical techno-optimism, how we could ever obtain this data even in the distant future.

So, I am very glad to see Demski applying Information Theory to this problem, because that is a step in the right direction of solving this problem. I am very disappointed, however, to see that his work essentially demonstrates nothing, and moreover, is used essentially to further his Christian agenda. Creationists have muddied the reputations of skeptics who have a real interest in answer the question of human origins.

[ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ]

[ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ]

demrald · 09-02-2002, 09:08 AM

Kip

Quote:

A. a genetic engineer who either (outside this universe in a parent universe) "cooks" the laws of physics to favor the emergence of evolving organisms

or

B. an extra terrestrial intelligence that "fertilizes" various planets with pre-DNA RNA and other genetic codes

The problem with either of these is that they are beyond the purveys of science. That is, neither of them can be empirically verified or falsified. As to the mathametical prospects, though I myself am also agnostic as to the question of a mysterious "designer," I'm leery of applying statistics to the universe on a grand scale, because coming to any cogent conclusions requires having other universes to use as a basis of comparison.

Kip · 09-02-2002, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by demrald:
Kip

The problem with either of these is that they are beyond the purveys of science. That is, neither of them can be empirically verified or falsified. As to the mathametical prospects, though I myself am also agnostic as to the question of a mysterious "designer," I'm leery of applying statistics to the universe on a grand scale, because coming to any cogent conclusions requires having other universes to use as a basis of comparison.

I entirely agree. I am also leery and that is why I wrote this:

Quote:

I am not an expert in astrobiology or statistics, but I think we would also need information about other universes (even if this is the only universe!). You cannot have statistics with only one data point, and so any attempt to measure randomness, within this universe, is bound (if I understand correctly) to be a meaningless tautology: what exists exists. We could not know any probabilities or measure randomness. This sort of data will not be available any time in the near future and I cannot imagine, without radical techno-optimism, how we could ever obtain this data even in the distant future.

[ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ]

demrald · 09-02-2002, 10:55 AM

Quote:

I entirely agree. I am also leery and that is why I wrote this:

D'oh!

Aahz · 09-02-2002, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Surely, this is not necessary?

Calling Dembski a dishonest jerk is a factual statemetn, IMO. He has called critics stalkers, his little responses to reviews are often quite insulting and smarmy. His work is so sloppy it is highly unlikely it can be attributed to sloppiness.

Quote:

an extra terrestrial intelligence that "fertilizes" various planets with pre-DNA RNA and other genetic codes

While Dembski et. al. are reluctant in some of their writing to point to God and leave room for this one, I think this answer really isn't an answer. It just pushes back the question. Suppose life on this planet is the result of aliens (hey, stop sniggering this is just for illustrative purposes). Now, these aliens are going to undoubtedly be complex life forms and their biological structure willl undoubtedly exhibit specified complexity. So who made them? More aliens? Infinite regress?

So Dembski, et. al. fully intend for their viewpoint to point solely to God and nothing else.

Another example of their dishonesty I'm afraid.

09-01-2002, 08:22 AM	#1
Aahz Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: LA Posts: 84	Review of Dembski by Orr Don't know if anybody has posted this. Quite good, IMO. <a href="http://www-polisci.mit.edu/BR27.3/orr.html" target="_blank">Clickety</a> And true to form Dembski responds almost instantly. <a href="http://www.designinference.com/documents/2002.08.Orr_Response.htm" target="_blank">Clack</a> Notice how Dembski completely ignores what I think is the most devastating part of Orr's review, that the No Free Lunch Theorems do not apply as Dembski says they do. Dembski's review focuses on some tangential bit and ignores the serious criticism. More evidence that Dembski is a dishonest jerk.

09-02-2002, 08:56 AM	#6
Kip Regular Member Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: not so required Posts: 228	I have no sympathy for ID people, such as Demski, who are, quite dishonestly, attempting to defend Christianity with bad logic. The question of ID itself, however, does interest me. In particular, I am alarmed by the seemingly dogmatic belief that there was no "designer" (in the broadest sense of deism and not the God of any revealed "Scripture" which are obviously as real as leprechauns). Orr raises this point in the article: Darwin did not disprove the existence of any designer but he (supposedly) removed the need for any such hypothesis and provided evidence that strongly suggests there was no "design". Yet, so many Christians and atheists have the attitude that Darwin proved that there was no designer. People refer to the lack of "telos" or "intent" and say "evolution has no intentions and is" to use Dawkins' word "blind". Such conclusions are quite hasty. I certainly do not think deists, much less Christians, have established that there was a designer or telos. But I am also not convinced that there cannot be some intelligent designer. I am agnostic about the position and maintain that human origins remains largely mysterious. Indeed, I suspect that is why so many people jump to the "no designer" conclusion because that gives closure. The uncertainty of skepticism may be too discomforting. What do I mean by an intelligent designer? Science has ruled out much already. No such designer fashioned each species. The planet earth (as opposed to others), the terrestial carbon based form of life (as opposed to other forms), and the various species on earth (as opposed to other conceivable species) surely have very little significance. No, the designer that I am pondering is more like: A. a genetic engineer who either (outside this universe in a parent universe) "cooks" the laws of physics to favor the emergence of evolving organisms, the eventual outcome of his experiment which is largely unpredictable (as computers often are). or B. an extra terrestrial intelligence that "plants the seed" of pre-DNA RNA and other genetic codes upon various planets I think that A is much more likely than B (indeed B seems silly but the question has been raised before) and that both A and B are quite improbable. But I do not think that either is impossible. The main reason I do not think that either is possible is because there is an obvious trend of explaining life with natural causes. Every time we need to answer a question, we never need to appeal to a designer, no matter how deep we inquire, this always seems to be the case, that metaphysical naturalism is true and that we are simply exist, alone and without context. But that is a trend, not a law (like Moore's "Law"). The problem, for everyone, is that these can be scientific questions, and I am glad that someone is finally trying to answer them with science or information theory and not rhetoric. I made the objection on this message board before, asking essentially "don't the laws of physics, if the world is determined, HAVE to be cooked to produce life?" and was met with the reply, "if the world is like the cellular autonoma Game of Life, would we still need a designer if the board was sufficiently big?" In other words, how many monkeys with typewriters do you need to produce Shakespeare without thinking Shakespeare has been cooked into the typewriters? But that is a question that neither Darwin nor the Bible has answered. It is a statistical question, about randomness and information theory, that can only be answered by science. If intelligence can be a product not only of another intelligence (God) but also of a selection mechanism with sufficient randomness, the question is "do we have enough randomness"? And of course, the universe is very old (15 billion years) and unfathomably large. So the case against the designer is quite strong, but is it convincing? To settle the question, we simply solve this scientific question, "is there enough randomness?" We cannot just look at the huge, old universe, the success of natural explanations, and assume that it is. Unfortunately, to answer that question scientifically we need to know certain data. We need to know what is necessary for life to exist. We know very very little about these requirements. We only know about terrestial life, but obviously, there are countless other conceivable and possible fundamental types of living matter. I am not an expert in astrobiology or statistics, but I think we would also need information about other universes (even if this is the only universe!). You cannot have statistics with only one data point, and so any attempt to measure randomness, within this universe, is bound (if I understand correctly) to be a meaningless tautology: what exists exists. We could not know any probabilities or measure randomness. This sort of data will not be available any time in the near future and I cannot imagine, without radical techno-optimism, how we could ever obtain this data even in the distant future. So, I am very glad to see Demski applying Information Theory to this problem, because that is a step in the right direction of solving this problem. I am very disappointed, however, to see that his work essentially demonstrates nothing, and moreover, is used essentially to further his Christian agenda. Creationists have muddied the reputations of skeptics who have a real interest in answer the question of human origins. [ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ] [ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ]</p>

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09-01-2002, 12:18 PM	#2
Coragyps Veteran Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Snyder,Texas,USA Posts: 4,411	Nice article - I have a much better sense of just what Dembski is going on about now. Orr mentions that the ID'ers are coming to the Texas textbook committee next year! Does anyone have any details?

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