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To: LindyBill who wrote (3818)	12/7/2002 7:01:29 AM
From: D. Long	Respond to of 6901

"Design detection." I like that. Sounds real technical. Pfft. For the counterpoint, I recommend the TalkOrigins archive. talkorigins.org Derek

To: LindyBill who wrote (3818)	12/7/2002 9:25:09 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 6901

Interesting critique of Intelligent Design here: csicop.org Excerpt: >>Many a science fiction tale tells how a hero defeats a computer by posing a problem it was not programmed to deal with. It then starts saying "does not compute!" in a synthetic yet anxious voice, and finally goes up in smoke. Unlike the rule-bound machine, however, we think human intelligence at its best is flexible, innovative. We confront situations beyond what we have prepared for, and if we do not always succeed, we still often come up with novel approaches to the problem. As Dembski's argument that information is conserved makes clear, it is difficult to see how new content can be generated mechanically. Artificial intelligence (AI) researchers ask us to imagine machines that perform a variety of complicated tasks, learning about and responding to their environment in sophisticated ways. But if these machines remain within the bounds of their programming, it is natural to attribute intelligence not to them but to their designers. ID voices this suspicion: that no pre-programmed device can be truly intelligent, that intelligence is irreducible to natural processes. Such intuitions underlie not only ID but some respectable criticisms of AI, including those based on Goedel's incompleteness theorem. This has recently been championed by Roger Penrose, the eminent physicist (1989, 1994); Goedel's theorem is attractive because it reveals how any rule-bound system has blind spots because it is unable to step outside of a pre-defined framework. And though Dembski considers Penrose to be insufficiently anti- naturalistic, ID requires at least some such critique of AI to be sound. It turns out, however, that all that is needed to add the required flexibility to a machine is to let it make use of randomness. A random function, because it is patternless, can be used to break out of any pre-defined framework. It serves as a novelty-generator. Plus we can prove a "completeness theorem" showing all functions can be expressed as a combination of rules and randomness. So if all we claim is that humans are flexible in a way not captured by rules, randomness alone does the trick. There is no other option (Edis 1998b). [CB - not sure if I buy this - maybe humans have a very large set of non-random responses that is sufficiently large to deal with almost all situations that require a different approach.] Now we need to use randomness for actual creativity. And we already know an excellent mechanism for putting bare novelty to work: natural selection. Dembski's claim that randomness does not help create content is incorrect; a Darwinian process is different from altering a message through fixed selection criteria. Everything is subject to random modification-there are no predetermined criteria; nothing but mindless replication and retention of successful variants. A fuller understanding of something as convoluted as human creativity is a long way off. But fundamental objections like those ID raises have largely been overcome. It is almost certain that randomness and Darwinian processes are vital in the workings of our brains. So our current sciences of the mind are full of ideas like neural Darwinism, Darwin machines, memes, and multiple levels of Darwinian mechanisms depending on competing processes to assemble our stream of consciousness (Dennett 1995). Variation-and-selection, today, is beginning to be vital for theories of mind as well as biology. A Darwin Detector What, then, are we to make of ID? It now seems like a bad argument, concocted of pointless complaints against evolution on one hand, and flawed intuitions about information and intelligence on the other. Discarding ID, however, would be hasty. Important theories about the world convince us by ruling out serious alternatives. Historically, evolution took shape against then-compelling notions of design. ID may be wrong, but it is also a decent update of Paley with a real intellectual appeal. Its errors provide a useful contrast, highlighting what is correct in evolution. Confronting the information-based arguments of ID is especially helpful in revealing how profound an idea evolution is. As ID proponents suspect, Darwinian thinking is not confined to biology; it anchors a naturalistic understanding of all complex order, even including our own intelligence. Hence today, Darwinism is central to a thoroughly naturalistic picture of our world. So in defending their religious views, ID proponents pick the correct target. They are also right to emphasize how designed artifacts and living things are similar. And Dembski's criteria of contingency, complexity, and specification do reveal a special kind of order they share. The irony is, what these criteria actually detect is that there were Darwinian processes at work. The complexity of life is directly produced through evolution, but an artifact also is an indirect product of the variation-and-selection processes that must be a part of creative intelligence. Defenders of evolution can now allow themselves a wry smile. Intelligent Design is as close to respectable as anti-evolution intuitions are likely to get, and Dembski has made a good stab at making ID rigorous. And what we end up with is a Darwin detector.<<