Re: Has SRNissen actually cracked open one of Dembski's works?


jgrisham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
SRNissen wrote:


Of course it does. To claim that the Intelligent Designer proposed by
the ID people could be anybody but God is to demonstrate a staggering
lack of intellectual integrity.

To the extent that any IDist would genuinely indicate a designer is
absurd. It's not a theory of an intelligent designer, but of
intelligent design... just as Evolution doesn't indicate an
evolutioner.

Evolution is a process which we observe in nature, and operates
independently of mind. There is no more need for an "evolutioner" than
there is for a "gravitationer". Evolution is driven by genetic
variation and selection, and if there were no genetic variation or
selection there would be no evolution.

Design, on the other hand, is a process which does not operate
independently of mind. I am a designer. If my head were cut off, I
would no longer be able to design anything. To claim an equvalence
between design and designer and evolution and "evolutioner" is a best
silly, and at worst downright dishonest.


Besides, I'm a christian. If I start talking about an intelligent
designer, I am talking about God. As this analysis is supposed to
actually have some integrity, I'm not going to hide that behind
obfuscating words like "designer" when "God" is so much shorter and
accurate.

But, "God" fails to be an accurate term for anything scientific.

Which is why the DI scrupulously avoids the term in the pretence that
they are scientific.

There
may be natural phenomenons that are commonly attributed to a general
concept of deity that can't be examined until you separate them from
the concept of God.

There is *no* phenomenon, natural or otherwise, which can be examined
scientifically unless you separate them from the concept of God.

Those natural phenomenons may dictate design and
reflect intelligence without being deity.

Unless we form hypotheses about the processes which drive such
phenomena which can be tested against the evidence, we cannot
investigate those phenomena using the tools of science. Unless we have
the opportunity of a dialogue with the designer, it is hard to tell if
an object is designed. Archaeologists may have great difficulty in
distinguishing between artefacts and natually occuring objects, and do
so on the basis of testable hypotheses of manufacture, not of design.
Design may be inferred from the evidence of manufacture, but that is by
no means conclusive: objects which are the by-product of a
manufacturing process are manufactured, but no designed.

We can't really get to them
if we assume deity.

We can't get to anything in science if we assume deity. The DI people
know this, which is why they try to conceal the fact that this is their
assumption.



Unsurprisingly, it's tough going. After putting the A Priori
assumptions down, I've only got something like half a page worth of
text, and half of that is about what I'm not trying to do, rather than
what I'm trying to do.

SRNissen must be new to the history of science. Virtually every
scientific theory of which I am aware makes "a priori," or otherwise
untestable assumptions, guesses at initial conditions, and models
unknowns as "black boxes." The fact that he considers "a priori"
assumptions unique to ID theory demonstrates his niavete.

Uhm... yes? Exactly? In what way have I claimed that this was not the
way of ID?

Read for comprehension, Pagano: "After putting the A Priori assumptions
down does not mean I reject them. It means I put them down on paper, as
words.

These are the A Priori assumptions I put down on paper as the basis of
my analysis:

1: The material world (Hereafter World) is an actual place, and not
just a delusion.

Our perception of it, unfortunately, must largely be a delusion.
Everything we think we see, touch, taste, hear and smell are only
electrical impulses bouncing around in our brains. We have no sense of
these electrical impulses (a.k.a. reality), but the delusion they
create in the midst of other delusions and any number of psychological
defects we call "mind", "conciousness", "subconciousness" and
"awareness".

2: God exists, and has the following characteristics
God's existence is not material
God is omnipotent, and can affect the material world
God may have more characteristics, but these are not assumed A Priori.

We're not credible observers of the material world and even if we were
we couldn't be certain that God is not material.

3: Naturalistic Methodology (hereafter Naturalism) can be used to
explain anything that happens in the material world.

Untrue. Anomolies persist.

There is no point in investigating those anomalalies unless you presume
that they can be explained. The persistence of anomalies is what drives
investigation.

Has somebody else already tried this? It would save me quite a bit of
time if somebody could re-post or link an analysis like this for me -
I'm mostly doing this for my own amusement, but if it turns out that
something like this has been posted to this NG five times within the
last year, I don't really feel like bothering to do it again.

All of Dembski's full length works are largely accessible to an
audience with a general education background. Perhaps you could post
those areas that you think are suspect.

His refusal to label the designer "God." His methods of detecting
design. The four non-IC examples of IC. His staggering
misrepresentation of statistics.

This assumes for the sake of argument that you have actually cracked
open Dembski's works rather than attempting a rather transparent
attempt at getting someone to summerize it for you.

I have, but even if I hadn't, it wouldn't matter. I'm not trying to
re-create Dembskis works. I'm trying to re-create the arguement for ID
from the ground up, without utilizing logical fallacies or bad science.

When I set out, I expected it to be hard. I did, however, not expect
people like you to actually criticize me for attempting to create a
logically solid structure for you to base your beliefs on, instead of
the lies and balderdash you have right now.

Evolution isn't a fixed theory, it grows, absorbing the latest data as
it comes in, changing and adapting to that data... evolving.

Something which ID cannot do, because it is no more than that assertion
that if evolution in small incremental stages is falisfied, there is no
other option than an "intelligent designer". This assertion makes no
predictions, and can accomdate any evidence without changing the
assertion one iota. This is what makes it scientifically useless.

We've seen
research on intelligence and today on Junk DNA that Dembski predicted

He did? Where?

and that data is being absorbed. Since Dover, ID is considered dead

As science it was never alive.

and
that's just freeing up the data, releasing it from political scutiny.

So you are asserting that there is a whole class of data which science
was not investigating because of it's ID implications.

Which data?

Inevitably, when ID is forgotten, elements will persist and simply be
part of Evolution.

No element of ID ever made any inroads into any branch of science.
There is no element of ID in science to persist.

RF



JTG 5/1/06


Regards,
T Pagano

- SRNissen

FABRICATE DIEM, PVNC

- SRNissen

FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC

.

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