As Tom English’s post critiquing Dembski, Ewert, Marks, (eg Ewert) is being swamped with OT stuff, I offer this as a place to discuss the lack of substantive responses to Tom English and Joe Felsenstein so that any substantive response to Tom’s points will be more visible.
163 thoughts on “Failure to Respond: open thread!”
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We have posted our hypotheses, Alan. And there isn’t any evolutionary theory.
This is ridiculous, Joe. You can’t advance a statistical argument and then claim others must do the work.
LoL! It is your position, cupcake, that I am asking you to support. Thank you for admitting that you cannot do so
The rules of this site prevent me saying other than you must be utterly, -utterly, I say – mistaken. However, simply by providing a link, you could correct my misapprehension.
No evolutionary theory? Alleles change in frequency under a process I call environmental design, resulting in differential survival and reproduction. Variation in alleles arises from processes one could generally describe as mutation. Reiteration of both processes can result in morphological change over time. There’s quite a lot of references in the literature on evolutionary theory.
You’re entitled to the view that evolutionary theory is bunk. It defies reality that you should assert no such theory exists.
ET correct tautology
Umm that isn’t a theory, Alan.
ID is based on three premises and the inference that follows (DeWolf et al., Darwinism, Design and Public Education, pg. 92):
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
No Joe,
P(T|H) is Demsbski’s concept, it comes from:
http://billdembski.com/documents/2005.06.Specification.pdf
And is “Moreover, H, here, is the relevant chance hypothesis that takes into account Darwinian and other material mechanisms.”
Should Barry join us we’ll do an “ID BASICS” thread so you can both get up to speed (with the primary stuff, anyway) and actually understand that which you wish to advance.
LoL! If “H” is relevant chance hypothesis that takes into account Darwinian and other material mechanisms, then that refers to YOUR position, cupcake. And that means you need to provide something and you can’t.
Frankie,
Why would I want to even try and provide that? It’s not my argument. If you want to advance the argument, do the work, or admit you can’t / wont.
It’s your position, cupcake. But I do understand why you wouldn’t want to try to support it.
They can be created through conscious design but they don’t have to be.
Depending on how you define information, yes
Wrong. Natural evolutionary processes have been demonstrated capable of creating both new information and IC systems.
Since your premise 1 and 3 are demonstrably wrong your inference is invalid.
The reason P(T|H) even exists is because your position doesn’t have anything else. If it did then we wouldn’t be having this discussion. And if you can’t even provide an “H” for your claims then it is clear it isn’t science.
No one has ever demonstrated that NS can produce IC. You are sadly mistaken.
No one ever claimed NS by itself can produce IC. However the process of genetic variations filtered by NS and retained as heritable traits does the job quite nicely.
Break tradition and go read a science book Joe.
Frankie,
You’re wholly wrong, Joe, It is not my position that all evolutionary mechanisms can be enumerated and calculated.
You don’t have anything else, cupcake. There isn’t any way to test the claims of your position. That means it isn’t science
LoL! Natural selection includes heritable traits- random variation, fecundity and heritability- that is natural selection. And there isn’t any evidence that non-telic processes can produce IC. You are either lying or bluffing
Joe the toaster repairman claims the theory of evolution isn’t science. Now all he has to do is get the scientific community to agree with him. Stay tuned!
That’s tuned Joe, not “tunie” BTW.
There isn’t any theory of evolution.
Adapa gets schooled on natural selection and because of that throws a hissy-fit
You forgot to add “Stonehenge!!” and “the evidence supports baraminology!!” to your IDiot rants Joe. You’re slacking.
Adapa gets schooled on natural selection and because of that throws a hissy-fit
Alan Fox,
I’ve seen that claim a few times over the past few years. It seems to be rising to the top of the fetid contents of the cauldron of what passes for creationist thought. If you have the time, it would be great to have an OP containing what you wrote, and comments by other scientists, to point to the next time that nonsense is spouted.
There isn’t a theory of evolution and what Alan posted isn’t a theory. Scientific theories require quantification, and you cannot provide that for mechanisms such as natural selection, drift and neutral changes.
I challenge Patrick, Alan or anyone else to link to this alleged theory of evolution. Do not link to people talking about it as if it exists. Please link to the actual theory.
Thank you. And if you cannot do so then admit it is nonsense to say that a theory of evolution exists.
I challenge Frankie, Phoodoo or Mung or anyone else to link to this alleged theory of Intelligent Design. Do not link to people talking about it as if it exists. Please link to the actual theory.
Thank you. And if you cannot do so then admit it is nonsense to say that a theory of Intelligent Design exists.
Which site rule permits you to move comments to any location other than Guano? You just make up new rules as you go along?
Mung,
I would go further than that Mung. What gives him the right to remove off topic posts at all? How can Alan, an obviously biased member, decide who is on topic and who isn’t, when this site likes to brag about how no one is censored? That pretty much negates that claim.
It would be interesting to see how many materialists posts (would be even worse if we looked at percentages of posters here) get moved for being off topic, as compared to sane people posts (non-atheists).
I think we probably already know the outcome here.
OMagain,
Who said there was a theory of ID? There isn’t a theory of archaeology. There isn’t a theory of forensic science. There are just testable entailments, which ID also has.
But thank you for admitting that there isn’t any theory of evolution.
Alan, I noticed that you didn’t respond to my comments on nested hierarchies. Does that mean you now agree with me? Or is it that you just don’t have any rebuttal?
Both the Discovery Institute and the morons at UD say it.
Discovery Institute: This briefing packet was developed in order to provide you with clear and accurate information about the scientific theory of intelligent design:
UD: The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause
What were you saying Joe?
Adapa,
Strange that neither one of your links posts a theory of ID. So perhaps you should take it up with the authors of those posts to see what they say. Perhaps they are referring to a theory of design detection.
The rules are not carved in stone. The featured thread has involved Tom English in much hard work and we hope from a response from an ID-proponent with some expertise in the papers of Dembski, Ewert and Marks that Tom is addressing. Maybe even a visit from Winston Ewert?
So, as has been done before with landmark technical posts, comments that don’t at least attempt to discuss the DEM papers and the responses of English and Felsenstein will move, in this case to this thread.
If you search for the quoted phrase “The theory of intelligent design” in Google you get before any search results at all:
bolding, amusingly, in original.
I fear phoodoo thinks phoodoo’s comments are technical and on-topic.
Go ahead and gripe to the DI and UD Joe. They’re the ones directly contradicting you.
OMagain,
ID makes testable claims and that means that ID is more scientific than evolutionism will ever be.
Especially the “nutsack” parts. 🙂
What’s the contradiction? They both posit theories of design detection. A theory of ID would include all of the questions that come later, after design has been detected. It would include the how the design was implemented.
Joe your clown buddies used the term “theory of Intelligent Design”. Maybe you should lobby them to change the words if you disagree.
heh. http://www.discovery.org/a/2640
We already know how the design was implemented Frankie! It was implemented via design, because design is a mechanism, remember?
What are you talking about? I thought you were quite sure the bacterial flagellum was designed? Are you now saying you have doubts?
Rather a giveaway, Joe. “Would include”? Sort of suggests you are saying:
A theory of ID [if there were such a theory] would include all of the questions that come later, after design has been detected.
In which case I agree with you. 🙂 I also wonder how you plan to detect “design” before deciding what it entails.
LOL! Poor Joe, er, Virgil, er, Frankie is having a bad morning. 🙂
The criteria for inferring design in biology is, as Michael J. Behe, Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University, puts it in his book Darwin ‘ s Black Box: “Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles to be confident of the design of anything: the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components.”
Intelligent Design makes testable claims. And these claims are tested and can be potentially falsified via Newton’s four rules of scientific investigation, AKA Occam’s Razor/ parsimony.
ID is based on three premises and the inference that follows (DeWolf et al., Darwinism, Design and Public Education, pg. 92):
This tells you not only what to look for- the positive case- but also follows Newton and Occam in that if you can slice off the designer by showing that mother nature, father time and their offspring, emergence are all that is required, the design inference is refuted.
Both IC and CSI are examples of work and counterflow. Neither can exist without the intervention of an intelligent agency.
What is irreducible complexity? Wm. Dembski in No Free Lunch, refined the definition as:
If anyone is wondering, just search for:
“design is a mechanism” joe
I can find no comment from you in this thread other than the one I’m quoting that mentions “nested hierarchies”. I may have missed it so feel free to post a link.
Correct, I posted my comment in the wrong thread. I will post it in the correct thread so you can avoid an intelligent response there.
Yes, design is a mechanism by definition. And yes when the claim was made the claim also said design is not a specific mechanism but it entails specific design mechanisms.
Alan Fox,
We know what the design entails and we have told you what the design entails.