Did you really expect him to answer your question?
That does not appear to be correct:
In the past decade, Bayesian confirmation theory has firmly established itself as the dominant view on confirmation; currently one cannot very well discuss a confirmation-theoretic issue without making clear whether, and if so why, oneâs position on that issue deviates from standard Bayesian thinking.
Abduction versus Bayesian Confirmation Theory, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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This appears to be bog-standard God of the Gaps argumentation â itâs âtoo hardâ so the-Designer-who-is-God did it.
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Who gets to decide whether it is âhardâ? Shouldnât it be the consensus of the experts working in the relevant fields? Cosmologists, abiogenesis-researchers, evolutionary biologists, geneticists, biostatisticians, etc? Rather than an ill-qualified bunch of philosophers, theologians, scientists-working-in-other-fields, etc.
The same article also explicates problems finding a rigorous implementation of the âinference to the best explanationâ:
In textbooks on epistemology or the philosophy of science, one often encounters something like the following as a formulation of abduction:
ABD1
Given evidence E and candidate explanations H 1,âŚ, H n of E, infer the truth of that H i which best explains E.An observation that is frequently made about this rule, and that points to a potential problem for it, is that it presupposes the notions of candidate explanation and best explanation, neither of which has a straightforward interpretation. While some still hope that the former can be spelled out in purely logical, or at least purely formal, terms, it is often said that the latter must appeal to the so-called theoretical virtues, like simplicity, generality, and coherence with well-established theories; the best explanation would then be the hypothesis which, on balance, does best with respect to these virtues.
Does it? Says who? Doesnât design first have to be a candidate explanation to begin with? Without a working definition of what qualifies as an explanation, itâs unclear why anything should be. Hence my question you ignored: What does it mean to you for something to be an âexplanationâ?
Also, in order that one of them gain from the loss of others, surely we must first establish that no unknown ones are overlooked. In other words, we do not only need to establish that design is one candidate explanation, but also that design, the laws of physics, chemistry, and in addition chance as a cause, comprise the totality of all conceivable explanations. Only then does the argument hold, that one of them is rendered more plausible when ever all the others are rendered less so.
Thirdly, as Tim already points out, it is unclear what âhardnessâ of assignment means. This goes back to my question of what the means is by which one candidate explanation is rendered better than another, which of course you also ignored. Without one such metric, there is no telling why any particular assignment is âhardâ or not. Putting it in different words than I did does not remedy the problem. Lacking a mechanism to make such judgement, how ever you call it, we do not have reasons to prefer any one explanation over any other. This is a problem for you, if you want your personal preference to be understandable or respectable, let alone shared by fellow thinkers.
Hi Dan
Having more time to think about this interesting question I think the answer is all repeatable patterns support the design inference. Any bell shaped distribution supports the design inference. Perhaps the tighter the shape the stronger the inference.
"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible " from âPhysics and Realityâ(1936), in Ideas and Opinions, trans.
Einstein
I donât know what this is supposed to mean, but it sounds like a probability calculation. I thought you said we werenât allowed to use those?
Hi Andrew
It means that if the universe is the product of design we are going to see design everywhere. The fact we can do statistics is because the universe is designed and is based on a system with predictable outcomes.
The question Dan asked is how to you differentiate design from non design. This is indeed a tough question because if you are in a designed system everything is reducible to design.
I have a painting in front of me which I know is the product of design. Is there anything about the painting that is not. The answer is no. Although the canvas has a weaker design signal it is still designed.
The same issue exists as we observe our universe, We can see objects with weaker design signals than a flower such as a rock but we cannot claim the rock is not the product of design as like the flower it is made of atoms.
Citation for this claim please.
It would also help if you could provide a precise and rigorous definition of what you mean by âthe design inferenceâ.
Preferably one that also explains how the results of dice rolls support a design inference.
Perhaps @colewd thinks that dice wouldnât work if the universe wasnât designed.
Iâm more curious as to whether he thinks that heavily asymmetric statistical distributions â which arenât even remotely âbell shapedâ donât support his âthe design inferenceâ.
I thought you said we werenât allowed to use those?
Hi Andrew
Probability calculations are very valuable however as you said earlier without sufficient data you may need to proceed without them.
Having more time to think about this interesting question I think the answer is all repeatable patterns support the design inference.
Given that miracles are (purported) events that donât fit ârepeatable patternsâ, and are also considered to be evidence of the intervention of a divine designer, it is hard to see how anything doesnât âsupport the design inferenceâ according to Bill.
Given that miracles are (purported) events that donât fit ârepeatable patternsâ, and are also considered to be evidence of the intervention of a divine designer, it is hard to see how anything doesnât âsupport the design inferenceâ according to Bill.
Simple logic:
The universe was designed
â Everything in the universe was designed
â Everything has the characteristics of design
â Everything supports the design inference
And now weâve come full circle. You went from disagreeing with my original claim to agreeing with it, without acknowledging that you even changed your view
The universe was designed
â Everything in the universe was designed
â Everything has the characteristics of design
â Everything supports the design inference
But that would mean that evolution and common descent (as part of âeverythingâ) are designed/characteristics of design/supports the design inference â which raises the question of why Bill has such problems with them.
Ah, but have you considered⌠because?
And now weâve come full circle. You went from disagreeing with my original claim to agreeing with it, without acknowledging that you even changed your view
Your original claim to Gil was:
All teleological arguments are, at their core, claims that P(Life|God) >> P(Life|~God), or at least that P([some feature of the universe]|God) >> P([some feature of the universe]|~God).
The counter point I was making was that teleological claims can also include inference to the best explanation and not just a probability claim. Most our decisions do not include probability calculations despite probability analysis being a great analytical tool.
But you havenât explained what you meant by âinference to the best explanation.â Can you give an example of how you would decide between a hypothesis and a null hypothesis using âinference to the best explanationâ without any kind of probabilistic reasoning?
Good question. Need a little time to prepare a proper answer. If you want a head start look up abductive reasoning. It turns out this was the basis for Darwins original argument for UCD.