Today I heard about William Dembski and a work he published called The Design Inference. The basic concept is that if something cannot be explained by a law, and is too statistically unlikely to be explained by chance, then it must have been designed. Dembski says that life itself is such a highly unlikely event that conforms to a discernible pattern, so therefore it, by itself, is evidence of intelligent design.
I completely agree.
Apparently Dembski has been criticized in the past for this by folks who say that if a given event happens with low probability and confroms to a discernible pattern, there are two possible reasons for it: 1) intelligent design or 2) necessity.
That argument does really debunk anything; it just offers another option. Fine, let's roll with it. I'm assuming this argument is for natural selection, but we're not there yet. First of all, I don't see how necessity explains anything about how the universe came from nothing or how life could come from inorganic matter. What necessity could there possibly be here? What about humans specifically then? Necessity could explain our physical bodies and some thought processes, but how could it possibly explain why we have the ability to discover the laws of the universe in which we live and even have this argument?
I am more than star dust, and the evidence for it is that I have the ability to realize it.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
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2 comments:
Please let me fix your first paragraph to make it more honest.
Today I heard about William Dembski and a work he published called The MAGIC Inference. The basic concept is that if something cannot be explained by a law, and is too statistically unlikely to be explained by chance, then it must have been MAGICALLY CREATED. Dembski says that life itself is such a highly unlikely event that conforms to a discernible pattern, so therefore it, by itself, is evidence of A MAGIC MAN.
Preliminarily, what Dembski means by “necessity” is that the phenomenon is governed by a known natural law.
The problem with Dembski’s formulation is that it it assumes design in cases where we are presently ignorant of the cause of a phenomenon. Run through his “explanatory filter” for a given phenomenon. Can we demonstrate that it is caused by chance? If so, assign the cause to chance. If not, can we demonstrate that a law covers the phenomenon? If so, assign the cause to natural law. If not, then assign the cause to design.
There are three problems with this. First, he makes the 3 categories exclusive, without any justification: how do we know that chance, necessity, and design are the only categories? What is his evidence that design is a category at all?
Second, physical evidence is required for both the “chance” and “law” categories, but NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER is neede for the “design” category. It is merely assumed, without any justification.
Third, you will certainly agree that we do not yet know every physical law, that many laws remain to be discovered. Yet, if we have no evidence that a phenomenon is covered by a presently known law, then Dembski labels it under “design.” That is, design is the same as ignorance of an unknown law.
Therefore, Dembski’s argument, like all other ID arguments, ultimately reduces to god-of-the-gaps. Design is anything that has not yet been explained.
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