you tried to counter against behe in post 90, but not dembski. and again there you quoted me out of context in one place.
Opps! Your right. My mistake. That
was rather sloppy of me...
dembski takes the assertion that you can take the present and make a case for the improbability of it happening by random chance from events in the past, which is absurd.
First, you are oversimplifying Dembski's claim and effectively mischaracterizing it. Here is what Dembski himself has said concerning his explanatory filter:
...it is not just the sheer improbability of an event, but also the conformity of the event to a pattern, that leads us to look beyond chance to explain the event.
And even when you can rule out chance, you still also have to rule out natural regularity to be able to infer intelligent design. Only when an something is improbable, conforms to a specific, and cannot be plausibly attributed to natural regularity is design able to be logically inferred.
And that same logic is not "absurd" when it is used in other scientific endeavors, such as forensic sciences, archeology, cryptanalysis, etc. Why is the application of the same logic and processes used to infer intelligent design in other scientific endeavors, absurd when it is applied to the idea of speciation?
it's nothing more than a mathematical trick.
How? It is easy to label it as such, but without specifics, that critique is without substance and worthless.
Since you don't give any specifics, I am left to assume what you are talking about. Given the
review by Pigliucci of Dembski's book that you cite in the "wall 'o' text" post you are spamming, I am assum you are talking about this line:
Although Dembski cloaks his logic with semi-obscure (and totally useless in practice) pseudo-mathematical jargon and symbolism, the essence of his argument is easy to understand.
Maybe this passage from that
rebuttal of Pigliucci's review that I posted would help clarify:
Pigliucci, in fact, makes only one criticism which is directed at the actual content of The Design Inference. It is that Dembski "cloak his logic with semi-obscure (and totally useless in practice) pseudo-mathematical jargon and symbolism." Presumably the bulk of the book (for instance, the demonstration of Caputo's rigging) is trivial and obfuscates with jargon that which should just be left to common sense. I have heard many of my students make similar criticisms of formal logic. They simply do not appreciate the importance of attempting to make precise and set on a rigorous foundation patterns of reasoning which appear common-sensical. Pigliucci fails to appreciate Dembski's attempt to do the same for the patterns of reasoning we employ when we attempt to discern whether an intelligent agent is responsible for certain phenomena we observe. Dembski's attempt may or may not fail (I am agnostic here) but his project is neither trivial, nor a gratuitous (or "pseudo") use of mathematical symbolism.
...the present is here no matter the probability.
a good anology is take 3 friends, shuffle a deck of 52 cards, and keep track of each card and the order it's dealt. you could look back, and say how improbable that they were dealt. you could say to each other, we could sit down and play cards for the rest of our lives and never have it happen again. and you'd be right.
never the less, they were dealt out, and that was the order.
so whether it is improbable or not becomes irrelevent. it happened just the same.
Now this is nothing more then a red herring aimed at misdirection to set up a straw man. Dembski is not arguing that the present is not here. Demski is only concerned with weather the event in question occurred through chance, natural regularity or intelligent design. the improbability of something occurring is very relevant in determining from which of those processes the event occurred. It is only irrelevant if you are not interested in determining that; possibly simply wanting to assume that it is due to natural causes and leave it at that (speculation).
and as for trashing dembski, when he stops making extraordinary claims (you have heard extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, not just assertion) and solves the problem of induction (he won't), then he might be believable.
What "problem of induction"? All science is built on induction. To draw a conclusion from observed events (empirical research) is to use inductive reasoning.
You are actually attempting to justify trashing Dembski?! That is very telling.
FYI; his claims are only "extraordinary" if you have a prejudice against them. And, either way, that doesn't justify trashing him. But it would justify that prejudice
And that is what seems to be the case for you. Considering both the post you are spamming, the fact that you are mischaracterizing Dembski in this post (either intentionally, or due to a lack of understanding due to a lack of consideration of his ideas on your part), this...
but simple minds will take him at his word.
...your blatant attempt to poison the well by smearing anyone who would "take him [Dembski] at his word" and the fact that you are making superficial smears of his idea (calling it "absurd" and a "a mathematical trick") in what appears to be another attempt to poison the well it seems that you have a prejudice against Dembski's ideas and are unwilling to consider them. Your understanding of his work only seems to come from people decidedly hostile to, and contemptuous of his work, suggesting an attempt to rationalize an out-of-hand dismissal of Dembski's work.
