Evaluating Dembski's ID

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FrankSchnabel

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I would like to engage in a thorough-going evaluation of William Demsbki’s version of intelligent design. I would first like to address it from a philosophy of science angle, for many say it is illegitimate and wrong-headed even to ask the question whether design can explain biology. Then I would like to get into the guts of Demski’s theory. Hopefully there are some math/probability/statistics folks lurking around here who can shed some light on it.

Any takers?

cordially,

Frank
 
FrankSchnabel said:
Sure Frankie,

ID just ain’t scientifick. So there!
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lol, hi Frankie
Could you elaborate the theory?
As a Christian, it is clear to me that God did design everything, but I see no reason why He couldn’t have used evolution and natural selection and such to achieve the current result, and future improvements too.
 
The idea is to see if science can detect design.

What is intelligent design?
Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system’s components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.
 
Is intelligent design a scientific theory?

Yes. The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.
 
Hey Buff,

ID posits a third category of explanation of biological phenomena. In addition to necessity and chance (and combinations thereof) there is design.

Now to reject design as a possibility from the get-go, doesn’t seem too scientfick to me. Sounds like dogmatism. Dogmatic naturalism actually. So I agree that ID is a subject to which the scientific method can be applied.
 
Well, biology certainly isn’t my field, so hopefully I’ll learn something. :cool:
And hopefully there won’t be a thread explosion tomorrow sometime between 10 and 12, when I’m in class. :mad: to other threads!
 
buffalo said:
The idea is to see if science can detect design.

What is intelligent design?
Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system’s components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.
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OK, so present the research that ID “scientists” have presented. Like in peer reviewed journals.
 
Hey Hound,

Yes, I’m hoping to learn sumptin too.

cordially,

The Schnobbster
 
buffalo said:
Is intelligent design a scientific theory?

Yes. The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.
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Seriously, irreducible complexity has not been an issue in evolution theory for quite a long time now. The eye, and flagella, etc. have been thoroughly explained within very understandable science. It really isn’t a fruitful area for IDers anymore. You should give it up because it makes you seem very behind the curve of real science.
 
Now to reject design as a possibility from the get-go, doesn’t seem too scientfick to me.
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Nor is accepting it uncritically, before there’s any evidence for it. And that’s pretty much what ID has done. It’s a religious belief whose adherents would like us to accept as science.

But they started out with their beliefs, and are now trying to find evidence to support it. Exactly the opposite of science, which first looks at evidence, and then tries to figure out why it happens.
Sounds like dogmatism. Dogmatic naturalism actually.
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It might seem wrong to you, but it works. Works better than almost anything else humans can do. Precisely because it is the opposite of dogmatism.
So I agree that ID is a subject to which the scientific method can be applied.
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Unfortunately not. The very basis of ID, that of a divine “designer” (as opposed to the Christian Creator) is a religious assumption that is untestable.
 
Dembski hasn’t published in conventional venues. So that is a negative agin him and ID. But then check out the documentary No Intelligence Allowed. But I don’t want to get into that whole can o’ worms. Let’s just look at the case Dembski makes in his books: The Design Inference, No Free Lunch and The Design Revolution.
 
OK, so present the research that ID “scientists” have presented. Like in peer reviewed journals.
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Yes. Scientific journals, preferably ones that don’t include UFOs, flat earth, and the like.
 
Hey Barb,

You sed: “Nor is accepting it uncritically, before there’s any evidence for it.”

I agree. Let’s not accept ID uncrictically.

You sed: “It’s a religious belief whose adherents would like us to accept as science.”

It is no secret that Dembski is an Evangelical Christian. But let’s not let that bias us. Francis Crick said once that he undertook his life’s work with the aim of promoting and proving an atheistic world view. Should we then discount all his science by reason of his atheistic bent?

You sed: “The very basis of ID, that of a divine “designer” (as opposed to the Christian Creator) is a religious assumption that is untestable.”

Dembski’s ID does not argue for a divine designer. It makes no claims regarding the designer or even how he implements his design. It just claims to have a reliable method for detecting design.
 
FrankSchnabel said:
Hey Barb,

You sed: “Nor is accepting it uncritically, before there’s any evidence for it.”

I agree. Let’s not accept ID uncrictically.

You sed: “It’s a religious belief whose adherents would like us to accept as science.”

It is no secret that Dembski is an Evangelical Christian. But let’s not let that bias us. Francis Crick said once that he undertook his life’s work with the aim of promoting and proving an atheistic world view. Should we then discount all his science by reason of his atheistic bent?

You sed: “The very basis of ID, that of a divine “designer” (as opposed to the Christian Creator) is a religious assumption that is untestable.”

Dembski’s ID does not argue for a divine designer. It makes no claims regarding the designer or even how he implements his design. It just claims to have a reliable method for detecting design.
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SETI is a perfect example of searching for design.

If one looks at a computer what are the signatures of design?
 
buffalo said:
Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design
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With due respect I think you fail to understand what peer reviewed scientific journals are. The publications you listed (cut and paste) are not quite at the same level. Therein is part of the problem for IDers. Serious science doesn’t publish ID theories because there is no research to publish. It’s just opinions.

It must be testable and that implies refutable.

Here’s the basis. If an Id proponent finds evidence that refutes then ID position would he change his mind? A real scientist would change his mind in a New York minute if he found evidence that definitively disproved evolution. Would an IDer give up his design theories in such a situation?
 
Buff’s list indicates that’s Dembski’s first book was peer reviewed. (Bet they don’t make that “mistake” again!).

But let’s don’t dwell on this aspect of the debate. Let’s just look at what Dembski sez. Unfortuantely I’ve lost my copy of the 1st book, so I will draw primarily on his third book, The Design Revolution.
 
Namesake said:
With due respect I think you fail to understand what peer reviewed scientific journals are. The publications you listed (cut and paste) are not quite at the same level. Therein is part of the problem for IDers. Serious science doesn’t publish ID theories because there is no research to publish. It’s just opinions.

It must be testable and that implies refutable.

Here’s the basis. If an Id proponent finds evidence that refutes then ID position would he change his mind? A real scientist would change his mind in a New York minute if he found evidence that definitively disproved evolution. Would an IDer give up his design theories in such a situation?
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How does SETI test for signals 24/7. They have algorithms that crunch the numbers.

Now how do we know that a computer was designed? Can we put this recognition into a formula? That is what they are after.

Let them do their research. Science is full of dead end travels. If they fail then it will go away. What are some of you so afraid of?
 
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