Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Neocon's Seminar Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mitch Blevins who wrote (598)	5/14/2001 2:36:23 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1112

Hello Mitch, Reading with interest some of the commentary on Dembski. This critique by Eli Chiprout shows very clearly that the hypothesis does not prove intelligent design. Although the author is a theist who happens to believe in intelligent design, he yet feels compelled to point out that Dembski has not made the case. Dembski himself states, "Thus even though a design inference is frequently the first step toward identifying an intelligent agent, design as inferred from the design inference does not logically entail an intelligent agent. The design that emerges from the design inference must not be conflated with intelligent agency.", and then, "we defined design as the set-theoretic complement of the disjunction regularity-or-chance. Nothing in this definition entails a causal story, much less an intelligent agent, much less still a supernatural or occult power." However, he tries to presume a directed contingency in any case--a case which is neither supported by the data nor by the mathematics. Chiprout states, "The problem is that "design" des(E) is characterized in terms of the complement of chance and regularity. This is obviously an epistemic characterization because if design can mimic chance or regularity and I have no way of knowing, I will classify it with one of those. Or if regularity can mimic chance then the same will happen. Dembski says "defining design as the set-theoretic complement of the disjunction regularity or chance guarantees that the three modes of explanation are mutually exclusive and exhaustive". We note that it is an arbitrary (different people with different knowledge will classify differently) mode of explanation, not a causal factor of an event that we are characterizing. It needs to be made clear that in fact ontologically designed items can fall into the chance bin, chance items can fall into the regularity bin and that regularity items can fall into the designed bin since these are not causal explanations." His essay is well worth a thoughtful read. His mathematical and logical objections to Dembski's hypothesis for design seem insurmountable; so for the time being, one may only say that Dembski is interesting, and has opened some exciting doors. members.aol.com