I see, Demski publishes his stuff with Cambridge University Press under rigorous peer review, and you present an obviously pop. level blog with an insulting title that I am supposed to take seriously? As to the more specific problems…If you ever took Dembski seriously for one second, you should read this.
scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/06/dishonest_dembskithe_universal_1.php
If you read it, and still take him seriously… oh well.
Situation A:
)No mathematician would endorse that nonsense that Dembski publishes. If you have any information that such idiocy was published in a peer reviewed paper, please present the journal and the article. Your little example only shows that you did not understand the blog. You cannot argue after the deal that it was “improbable” and therefore it must have been arranged. EVERY deal is equally improbable. And yet, one of them surely will manifest itself. What is and would be extremly improbable is to PREDICT any specific outcome. But people who are ignorant of mathematics and probability theory don’t understand this.
No mathematician would endorse that nonsense that Dembski publishes. If you have any information that such idiocy was published in a peer reviewed paper, please present the journal and the article. Your little example only shows that you did not understand the blog. You cannot argue after the deal that it was “improbable” and therefore it must have been arranged. EVERY deal is equally improbable. And yet, one of them surely will manifest itself. What is and would be extremly improbable is to PREDICT any specific outcome. But people who are ignorant of mathematics and probability theory don’t understand this.
Did you seriously think I was bluffing when I called Dembski a peer-reviewed publisher?
Suppose in twelve draws in a row, I got the number, 1,2,3,4,5,6. Would you consider that the result of chance?
Anytime someone tells me that I can understand a nuanced statistical argument with elementary reasoning I know that I am dealing with someone who doesn’t understand that nuanced statistical argument.If you ever took Dembski seriously for one second, you should read this.
scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/06/dishonest_dembskithe_universal_1.php
If you read it, and still take him seriously… oh well.
In mathematics there is no need for authorities, actually there are no authorities. I am truly surprised the Cambride Press gave its name to such a book. But editorial errors are also not unheard of.
This sounds unlikely. A couple of minutes on Google shows that Cambridge UP has only published one book by Dembski (another is part edited by him). The book, The Design Inference was published in 1998, yet the 2005 Dover trial contains the following exchange:
If anyone’s interested, while googling for the previous post I found a review of Dembski’s work, it’s the first in this pdf, which explains it a bit and concludes he’s on an obscure road to nowhere.
Thanks for the research.
It is quite helpful to dismantle the myth about Dembski. I only concentrated on a simple example to show that “improbable” does no lead to “designed”.Intelligent design is a different sort of thing from the fine-tuning argument. Dembski’s best arguments are where he applies his argument to the fine-tuning of the universe for life. I do not propose to defend the ID position here.
Still refusing to answer any of my examples? Let me be very direct, choose to answer or ignore it at your leisure.
That is not what Dembski’s argument is all about.
If enough people would be dealing enough hands, it would be mathematically certain that such an occurrence would happen.
Then you clearly never read his work, because in the book I cite above, he is explicit that it is not improbability alone that signals design, but “specified complexity.”
Ah, the multiverse hypothesis. By proposing this, you seem to be admitting that the chance hypothesis actually is too weak to survive on its own. Excellent.
(and again, if you do, can we get together for a drink and a friendly game of cards…)To use an undefined, but “good sounding” phrase will not help his case.
No multiverse at all. I did not say and do not need that. All I am saying that if the probability phase-space is large enough, then even the most improbable events will happen.
You are not allowed to shuffle. A simple card-shuffling device will do. And then we can play that double or nothing, Oh, yes we can. As many times as you wish, or as long as you run out of money. When can we start?Btw, just for fun. Suppose, you are I were playing cards. I won 12 times in a row with blackjack.
Suppose, you actually show good sense and accuse me of cheating. Suppose then that I reply, “No! Wait Serious! I am not cheating, rather there is a multiverse where all possibilities are being actualized. Actually, in one of these, you yourself are indeed winning 12 times in a row!”
Then, to show you that there are no hard feelings, I offer you double or nothing on the next throw. You do take that bet right?
That you don’t understand it is beside the point.
You said if there are enough draws, then it is not surprising if any combination comes up. This is the multiverse hypothesis.
Is he arguing on the basis of multiple trials? Or is asking about the occurrence of a given outcome given a single trial? (And, in the course of that argument, demonstrating that even if there were a multiplicity of trials, there would still be an insufficient number of them to demonstrate a greater-than-negligible chance of the outcome occurring?)
Hmm… that’s quite the assumption, don’t you think?
Again, we’re talking multiple trials. In any case, 20 reds is only slightly less than 2^20, which is 10^6. That’s orders of magnitude smaller than numbers we’re talking about here! To get to an equivalent number to our blackjack example, we’d be talking about something like 1130 reds coming up. I think, at that point, someone would have started asking “is there something about this table that explains things better than ‘well, it could happen, mathematically speaking!’…?”
Right – it seems that the difference here is that the trial has already occurred; we are, in fact, here. Now we calculate the odds of the outcome occurring. The odds are so mind-bogglingly against, that it’s not unreasonable to ask whether there’s something else in the mix. Must there be something else in the mix? Not necessarily. Is the probabilistic argument the most reasonable argument available? That’s precisely what’s in play.
Hmm… I haven’t heard of this one before…
No, it is a Kolmogorov space. Simple mathematics, has nothing to do with the physical universe. Have you studied probability theory?
It is not suspicion. There is nothing to be suspicious about - since nothing suspicious has happened. First show me those 12 blackjacks in a row using a card shuffling machine - then and only then we can speak. The universe is not a “conscious” opponent. The proper experiment must emulate reality, and there is no “shuffler” out there. That is what you attempt to show, but you are not allowed to use “dirty pool”.