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Author
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Topic: Testable hypotheses in ID
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edmund
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Member # 206
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posted 04. May 2002 17:21
I just finished reading Dembski's No Free Lunch , and while I was very pleased to see an entire chapter devoted to ID as a scientific research program, I found myself quite disappointed by what I found in that chapter. In particular, Dembski only gives two predictions which he says can be tested:
1) ID predicts specified complexity. I am not convinced that this is really a prediction. Since design can be inferred only on the basis of SCI, design can't really predict SC so much as provide a possible explanation for it. Also, as Dembski notes elsewhere, design may be operating even when no SCI is detectable.
2) ID predicts "certain patterns of technological evolution". It is not made clear exactly what these patterns are, why design should predict them, and why other potential forces should not, which I found disappointing.
I'm uncomfortable with this situation. While I can imagine any number of observations which would explode our current understanding of Darwinian evolution (say, an animal genetically programmed to offer itself up to its predators when they are hungry), I can't imagine any potential observation which would really disprove ID.
I've also noticed a trend on this board, most recently in the discussion of front-loading. Cooption could, as Mike Gene suggests, be a sign that an organism was pre-designed for future evolution. But it also fits exactly with the Darwinian view that evolution makes do with whatever it has on hand. In general, a lot of the intelligent-design scenarios seem to converge, when discussed in detail, to predict the same observations we would predict from "natural" evolutionary mechanisms. This is a problem, because Dembski suggests that design should then drop out of the scientific discussion as superfluous.
It seems to me that ID can only make testable hypotheses about the empirical world if it first makes hypotheses about the motivations and abilities of the designer. If this statement is incorrect, what hypotheses is ID making, and how can we test them? If it is correct, what characteristics might we attribute to the designer, and how might we test those hypotheses?
--edmund
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 04. May 2002 21:42
An organism surviving and reproducing is analogous to something trying to successfully complete a maze with multiple branches and decision point. In order to make survive and reproduce, the organism must make a number of successful transitions or state changes. In a similar fashion successfully completing a maze requires successfully selecting the proper branch or decision at each decision point.
There are three basic methods of successfully surviving and reproducing or completing the maze. These are
1. Knowing in advance which change of states to make or which branches to select at each decision point.
2. Rules for interpreting environmental information which are then used to select the appropriate state change or branch selection based on environmental information.
3. Intelligence or ‘figuring out how to successfully complete the maze or make the appropriate state change after beginning life or after entering the maze.
Intelligent design ‘predicts’ that there is complexity in living organisms which can explained by Darwinian processes and which can only be explained by the operation of intelligence. 1)A demonstration that biological systems exhibit intelligence as defined above, and 2) a demonstration that this intelligence is capable of creating complexity which did not exist and which can not be explained in terms of the information of types 1 and 2 above which existed at the beginning of a life time, would, in my opinion, be consistent with intelligent design and not with Darwinian theory.
If, again this is my opinion, you create techniques for measuring intelligence and the creation of complexity, then you have created a method for testing intelligent design and Darwinian theory.
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Moderator
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Member # 1
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posted 04. May 2002 21:49
Dear edmund,
At Brainstorms we prefer to leave the windows open so that the fresh air of creative freedom can blow through.
Our intention at Brainstorms is not to "explode our current understanding of Darwinian evolution" and neither do we wish to "explode" any other models that scientists and philosophers use to understand the data before them.
What we want is exploration. We are beginning to see this happen at Brainstorms, and it is very encouraging. However, posts that seek to pit one model against another in an "all or nothing" WWF match don't serve our purposes. We have no desire to prove or disprove anything, but only to understand the world as it is.
Your mention of "an animal genetically programmed to offer itself up to its predators when they are hungry" is absurd, as that is NOT what we find in natural history. Natural history is a great deal more ambiguous and that is precisely why WWF Smackdowns do a disservice to the conversation.
Your inquiring "about the motivations and abilities of the designer" can surely be discussed on ISCID, but only in proper context. What is the proper context? When the natural world gives us clues that deserve explication. However, when the natural world is not so forthcoming, several participants on Brainstorms have given us examples of using design concepts, without needing to know the puposes and abilities of the designer.
The one bit about your post that I deem worthy of Brainstorms is this:
quote:
Cooption could, as Mike Gene suggests, be a sign that an organism was pre-designed for future evolution. But it also fits exactly with the Darwinian view that evolution makes do with whatever it has on hand.
If you would like to discuss this topic with Mike Gene on the Front-Loading thread, feel free. Criticism is surely welcome. But only when given constructively and not destructively. The difference is huge.
Edmund, in order to post at Brainstorms you need to realize that this board is different than other boards. The rules of the game have changed. Pariticipants here do not come to shut down the conversation but to engage in it. By all indications, your post is an attempt rehash old arguments and to put the lid on the can. Game over. The battle has been won.
Nope. The game has just begun (at least here at Brainstorms).
This is no longer Model A vs. Model B in a schoolyard fistfight. At Brainstorms, we ask, "how can Model A inform Models B and C" and vice versa. A great example of this are the recent comments by Mike Gene which consider the notions of design via evolution and evolution by design.
[ 04 May 2002, 21:56: Message edited by: Moderator ]
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