Perhaps the following belongs in a new thread, but I recently watched your discussion with James Tour on Capturing Christianity.
During the discussion keep saying there is a non-zero chance that life formed naturalistically. Can you clarify the point you are trying to make there? Are you just saying it is possible life formed naturally, no matter how improbable?
In his book, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design, Dr. William Dembski estimates a “Universal Probability Bound”. He argues that we can calculate the total probabilistic resources available in the universe by multiplying the estimated number of elementary particles (10^80), by the number of seconds since the Big Bang (he uses 10^25 to be conservative), by the number of physical states available per second (10^45, corresponding to Planck Time – the smallest meaningful unit of time). The figure he gets is 10^150. Of course, there are several assumptions built into that estimate, but they seem reasonable to me. He contends that anything with a probability less than the Universal Probability Bound will remain improbable even after all conceivable probabilistic resources are considered. He also argues that his estimate is the most conservative (largest) of anything in the literature. Dr. Demski cites others such as Emile Borel who calculated 10^50, the National Research Council which uses 10^94 in securing cryptosystems, and computer scientist Seth Lloyd who estimated 10^120 as a universal probability bound.
Sure life might have happened naturally, but when it comes to plausibility, it seems to me like Intelligence is a superior explanation (for OOL) given the extraordinarily low probabilities from combinatorial and chemical standpoint.
What I find odd about Dr. Tour’s stance is it sounds like he wants to infer design given these small probabilities, yet he never states this conclusion - only that we’re collectively baffled from a naturalistic standpoint (I agree, but I also think a design inference is also justifiable). He always says he doesn’t know of a reliable way of measuring Intelligent Design, but it seems like the inference is implied, yet not stated. Would you agree? Regarding his charges of public and educational misinformation on OOL, I completely agree with him and think it’s a huge problem. It seems like you disagree? I used to think we had all this OOL stuff sorted out when I watched the Science Channel as a teenager, and it had a huge bearing on my worldview. I became an atheist nihilist.
Paraphrasing your comments later, you say “For ID to work you need to have a robust model of what the designer will and will not do. That’s the fundamental thing you need to have. ID currently doesn’t work that way. It wants us to recognize design without considering a designer and that’s just… I’ve never seen design recognized in science without considering who the designer is, and what it can or can’t do.”
I’m confused by this. It almost sounds like you are saying we must know design intent and constraints in order to infer design? Perhaps you can clarify what you mean here?