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Author
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Topic: A study in design detection.
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Bruce Fast
Member
Member # 924
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posted 24. April 2006 22:44
At ID.Plus I saw this post "Sagan's Implicit Endorsement of Specified Complexity as a Design Detector." It got me to thinking about how we detect human design in nature.
Sagan point to an eggplant that resembles Richard Nixon. This level of similarity is certainly seen in cloud formations, and ink splots.
As one who lives in the Canadian sub-arctic, I am confronted by the inuksuk. It took antropologists a while to figure out why the original inhabitants built these figures, but no-one ever questioned that they had human origin.
Consider also the arrowhead. One would hardly mistake this example as a phenomenon of nature.
However, these are also identified as arrowheads. Certainly at some point natural rocks are mistaken as arrowheads. If some natural rocks are mistaken as arrowheads, does that somehow force us to conclude that all arrowhead shaped stones that we find are the product of nature? Of course not. Once something has sufficient complexity and specificity, the inference of design made with the utmost confidence.
[ 24. April 2006, 22:46: Message edited by: Bruce Fast ]
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Poul Willy Eriksen
Member
Member # 1976
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posted 18. May 2006 09:43
Hello Bruce,
You write
quote:
However, these are also identified as arrowheads. Certainly at some point natural rocks are mistaken as arrowheads. If some natural rocks are mistaken as arrowheads, does that somehow force us to conclude that all arrowhead shaped stones that we find are the product of nature? Of course not. Once something has sufficient complexity and specificity, the inference of design made with the utmost confidence.
The question is, when does something have sufficient complexity and specificity? Some of the presumed arrow heads in the linked page may be debated - but if they were found at a place with clear indications of settlement of hunters, that would increase our confidence, wouldn't it? Is it enough to look at an object itself? Or do we need to consider, where it's found? What is most reliable? A supposed antiquity in a merchant's shop or one found in an excavation? We require better proof, if some object is found "off site" than if it isn't - there is more than one variety of intelligent design.
cheers
- Poul Willy Eriksen
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