Risiko

Does anyone on this forum know if it is possible to apply the ID "theory" of specified complexity to a real-world example?

For instance couldn't a spontaneous mutation leading to cancer be classified as an example of specified complexity?

If not, why?

theyeti

Specified complexity is just a code-word for extreme improbability. If specifed event has a likelihood of less than 1 in 10^150 of occuring, then it's said to have specified complexity. Of course, this just begs the question of whether or not you know if your probability calculation is correct. The calculation is going to be different depending on which hypothesis you take into consideration, and there are a potentially limitless number of hypotheses. That's why in the real world we compare hypotheses and try to figure out which is the most likely, rather than simply eliminating one and concluding another one must be correct, even though it has no support of its own.

In fact, specified complexity should be dispensed with entirely because it's a superfluous middle-man. It works like this:

extremely improbably --> specifed complexity --> design.

Instead, it would make more sense to say:

extreme improbability --> design.

Rather than specifed complexity being a reliable indicator of design as Dembski claims, it's really just a label applied to something after you've already decided that it was designed.

It would have to have a combined probability of less than 1 in 10^150. I strongly doubt that any combination of mutations that would lead to most cancers would have such a low probability, but it brings up the interesting point of what it means to be "specified". Dembski assumes that an object which fits a pattern (whatever that means) is specifed. Basically, he just engages in a buch of mumbo-jumbo math whose outcome is to say that something is specified if he says it's specified.

theyeti

Risiko

Thanks for the answer theyeti!

MortalWombat

Does that mean that the ordering of United States Senators as they file into the Capitol Building in the morning has specified complexity?

1/100! = 1.07 X 10^-158
= 1 in 9.3 X 10^157 probability of any particular ordering of senators occuring.

theyeti

IDist answer: The order in which the senators enter the Captiol is not specified in advance. It doesn't matter in which order they enter. Therefore, while it's complex (which really means improbable) it's not both specified and complex. OTOH, had you specifed the order in advance, then this would have been an example of design (someone told them which order to go in, for instance) because chance could not account for it. (Hey, I'm good at this!)

My answer: The whole "specificity" issue is the real problem. Who says anything is specified in advance? Is a bacterial flagellum specifed, or will any propulsion system do? For that matter, why should "propulsion" be specified? Lots of bacteria don't even have that.

theyeti