What are the core principles of ID?

[stcordova (Salvador Cordova)]

Hi,

Actually it’s pretty simple, I showed a picture of the card tents (houses of cards) and asked CSI-proponents to make the case that it’s designed based on CSI. It doesn’t work. If they can’t do this for a simple case, how will this work for much harder cases?

Same for 500 fair coins found on a table in the 100% heads configuration. I got conflicting CSI analyses for these trivial cases.

[stcordova (Salvador Cordova)]

@Dan_Eastwood

It’s the redefinition of evolution that kills this argument. All I need to show this is toss a jar of 500 coins in the air, pick up all the tails, put them back in the jar. I then repeat this process, tossing and collecting the tails about 10-11 times, and I will have all or nearly all heads remaining on the ground. I will have arrived at 500 reads by a random process plus selection , where selection is the important detail the 500 coins argument ignores.

The fallacy here is the hasty assumption that natural selection would actually work that way. It definitely will not work in a pre-biotic environment where there are no mechanisms of inheritance. So evolutionary biology is inapplicable to the problem of Abiogenesis (even by the admission of evolutionary biologists).

[Faizal_Ali]

Then, of course, there was the famous “Mathgrrl” affair:

http://www.softwarematters.org/mathgrrl.html

[Dan_Eastwood]

@stcordova

The fallacy here is the hasty assumption that natural selection would actually work that way. It definitely will not work in a pre-biotic environment where there are no mechanisms of inheritance. So evolutionary biology is inapplicable to the problem of Abiogenesis (even by the admission of evolutionary biologists).

A potential frame shift here, but …

@stcordova

Same for 500 fair coins found on a table in the 100% heads configuration. I got conflicting CSI analyses for these trivial cases.

…perhaps I mistook your intent with the coins example. Sorry!

I have never seen any ID interpretation that would limit CSI to the question of abiogenesis only. I agree that CSI - if it could be made workable at all - should first be shown to be applicable to simple problems.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@stcordova

The fallacy here is the hasty assumption that natural selection would actually work that way.

It’s not a fallacy to point out selectiom was not taken into account. This doesn’t answer the question if selection is sufficient, but it does correctly identify a gross oversimplification in their arguement.

[Dan_Eastwood]

@stcordova

The fallacy here is the hasty assumption that natural selection would actually work that way. It definitely will not work in a pre-biotic environment where there are no mechanisms of inheritance. So evolutionary biology is inapplicable to the problem of Abiogenesis (even by the admission of evolutionary biologists).

OK, taking that at face value, isn’t Design also a hasty assumption? Would Design “work that way” in the absence of natural selection? We have a pretty good idea how natural selection operates (post abiogenesis), but no idea how Design works at all*. ID should face the same questions and criticisms made of evolution and abiogenesis. ID should not (IMO) be an excuse to avoid those questions.

* It could be miracles, and you can have faith in miracles if you like. It is not my intent to criticize faith.

[stcordova (Salvador Cordova)]

@Dan_Eastwood

ID should face the same questions and criticisms made of evolution and abiogenesis. ID should not (IMO) be an excuse to avoid those questions.

This wasn’t a question of ID, it was a question of mechanical feasibility and probability.

I don’t believe ID/Creation can ever be formally proven.

[Giltil (Gilbert Thill)]

@stcordova

Actually it’s pretty simple, I showed a picture of the card tents (houses of cards) and asked CSI-proponents to make the case that it’s designed based on CSI. It doesn’t work. If they can’t do this for a simple case, how will this work for much harder cases?

I don’t know exactly what is your example of the card tents, but I don’t see the problem of CSI not being able to infer design in this case since CSI is not supposed to detect design in all cases. Dembski made it clear; CSI works as a net that captures true positives but can allows some false negatives to pass through. The important point is that this net doesn’t capture false positives.

[Faizal_Ali]

@Giltil

I don’t know exactly what is your example of the card tents, but I don’t see the problem of CSI not being able to infer design in this case since CSI is not supposed to detect design in all cases. Dembski made it clear; CSI works as a net that captures true positives but can allows some false negatives to pass through. The important point is that this net doesn’t capture false positives.

Oh. So then it could have been applied to the scenarios described below, and not produce positive results. Why have no ID researchers yet done this, then?

http://www.softwarematters.org/mathgrrl.html

[stcordova (Salvador Cordova)]

Hi Gilbert,

Bill Dembski was my friend and mentor, and in 2007 he encouraged me to join him and Robert Marks as a graduate student with scholarship at Baylor to deconstruct the Avida, Tierra, and Weasel programs. The lab I was going to work in, Evolutionary Informatics Lab, was shut down by the University President after Bob Marks made some pro-ID comments. I ended up at another school instead, taking classes at night near Baltimore, MD.

I preface my remarks to point out, my disagreement with my mentor and friend is not a person issue. I just couldn’t get Bill’s math to work.

I invite anyone to make a CSI computation for the design of the Cards “tents”. There are more straightforward ways to show this using basic mechanics.

I’m trying to start and ID college course, and I’m not going to tell students to analyze designs which I myself can’t even make reasonable estimates for!

So, I’m not so much saying Bill is wrong, but I don’t think CSI is helpful at all.

Let’s take it down a step. Let’s try to analyze man-made designs with CSI. If we can’t do that, how are we going to infer God-made designs?

If anyone can do a CSI calculation that is above assailability for man-made designs like the card tents, then I’m happy to try to post it in the archives of the ID/Creation online buffet-style college level course I’m trying to assemble.

And, btw, Bill Dembski has said he’s left the ID movement.

Thanks for you comment.

[Faizal_Ali]

My understanding is that CSI has never been applied by anyone, anywhere to a single real-life biological system in such a way that shows that CSI cannot be produced by natural biological processes. Am I wrong about that? If not, could you provide the example?

[stcordova (Salvador Cordova)]

I think you’re generally right. How about CSI for even a man-made design?