Re: Any Evolutionists with the Courage to Resurrect the Defunct Transitional

On 3/14/2011 12:37 PM, Inez wrote:
On Mar 13, 4:59 pm, j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
macaddicted<macaddictedReMoVeT...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John S. Wilkins<j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Inez<savagemouse...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

And after Dembski crushed his 50+ page Web paper with Wilkins in 3 lines
in his "No Free Lunch."

I would so love for somebody to type out that three line crushing for
all to see...

Here are a couple. You are referenced in the index on page 14 and in end
note 73 from chapter 6. Elsberry has an additional reference on pages
352-3. Those direct references are below as I'm not sure which three lines
Pagano is referencing.

No Free Lunch
Copyright 2002 by Rowman& Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Page 14

---Quote--- (entered as in printed original, with line breaks, except as
noted)
John Wilkins and Wesley Elsberry attempt to offer a general argument for
why the filter is not a reliable indicator of design. Central to their
argument is that if we incorrectly characterize the natural necessities of
the chance processes that might have been operating to account for a
phenomenon, we may omit an undirected natural cause that renders the
phenomenon likely and that thereby adequately accounts for it in terms
other than design. Granted, this is a danger for the Explanatory Filter.
But it is a danger endemic to all of scientific inquiry. Indeed, it is
merely a restatement of the problem of induction—to wit, that we may be
wrong about the regularities (be they probabilistic or necessitarian) that
have operated in the past and are applicable to the present (for more in
this vein see 6.7).22
---End Quote---

Endnote: 22.
For the critique by John Wilkins and Wesley Elsberry see their article
"The Advantages of Theft over Toil: The Design Inference and Arguing from
Ignorance," _Biology and Philosophy_, forthcoming.

So his crushing reply to our paper that argues that his EF does not do
what he said it did is that this is about induction? Well duh. I am
whelmed by this crushing. If he can't defend his claim that we can
identify design by the use of induction, it fails.







From section 6.7
Page 352-3
---Quote---
The Naturalized Explanatory Filter makes clear how naturalism has been
used historically to derail the design inference whenever design has come
too close to challenging naturalism. Because the Naturalized Explanatory
Filter is a subterfuge, once exposed it requires further rationalization
to keep it afloat. Wesley Elsberry performs the the needed damage control
by proposing still another variant of the Explanatory Filter:

"My explanatory filter has one more alternative classification than
Dembski's, that of unknown causation. This alternative recognizes that the
set of knowledge used to make a classification can alter the
classification. By allowing an event to be classified as due to unknown
causation, I simultaneously reduce the number of false information and
also identify those events whose circumstances require further study in
order to resolve a causative factor. The use of unknown causation as a
category is common in those day-to-day operations of humans looking for
design in events, such as forensics. Forcing final classification of
events under limited knowledge ensures that mistakes in classification
will be made in Dembski's explanatory filter." 73

Elsberry casts himself and his modified filter as defending scientific
rigor and caution. But in fact he is offering nothing more than the
Naturalized Explanatory Filter. The category of "unknown causation" is a
provisional holding category introduced to avoid the conclusion of design
so long as designers unacceptable to naturalism are implicated. As soon as
some expla- nation acceptable to naturalism becomes available, that
category is immediately discarded.
---End Quote---

Endnote: 73 (I've truncated the web references as I'm entering this on my
iPad and autocorrect is making a hash of the text. This block is not
entered with the line breaks in the original for that reason.)
Quoted from (web reference viewed 11 June 2001). See also John Wilkins and
Wesley Elsberry, "The Advantages of Theft over Toil: The Design Inference
and Arguing from Ignorance," _Biology and Philosophy_, forthcoming. els
berry's modified filter has been widely cited as effectively rebutting my
original filter. For instance, the National Center for Science Education
official endorses Elsberry's modified filter—(web reference viewed 11 June
2001). See as well Taner Edis, "Darwinin Mind: 'Intelligent Design' Meets
Artificial Intelligence, " -Skeptical Enquirer_ 25(2) (March/April 2--1):
36. Besides adding another terminal node to my filter (i.e. "unknown
causation"_, Elsberry's modified filter also concedes to natural selection
events that end up at the design node. In fact, Elsberry's modified filter
miscarries in both places where it challenges my original filter: As we saw
in chapters 4 and 5, natural selection cannot account for complex specified
events that end up in the design node. What's more, Elsberry's category of
unknown causation amount to a disingenuous display of
ignorance—intelligence and only intelligence is known to generate specified
complexity, and to pretend otherwise by cloaking knowledge in ignorance is
tendentious (in this case serving to promote naturalism, which is a
metaphysical position, in the name of science).

I wonder why he ignores my contribution to that and refer sto
"Elsberry's modified filter". With all credit to Wesley, I came up with
that modification and diagram.

If that's a crushing rebuttal, ignoring the argument made and dismissing
it as a problem of induction, when that is the very point at issue here,
then I have to say, it's like being crushed by an arthritic lapdog
without teeth.
--

Pagano is an expert in detecting crushings that no one else can
perceive. It is a happy thing for him that he reviles verification as
a valuable thing.

But at least he shares. I had thought he limited Emperor's New Crushings to his own arguments.

Mitchell Coffey



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