The Human Question

BD cites the following as a defense against the criticism that IDers use of mechanistic reasoning when doing ID stuff.  According to BD, this article distinguishes two senses of the word 'mechanistic,' which two terms are confused by critics of ID: Polanyi, Michael.  "1960s Life Transcending Physics and Chemistry," in the August 1967 of Chemical and Engineering News.

Still working through my notes on Dembski... and after that I have plenty to say about the end of Shermer's Why Darwin Matters . But this claim by BD is interesting: his professed approach to science is that of a constructive empiricist.  That is, he looks at a scientific hypothesis as a source of fruitful prediction more than as an accurate representation.

I am surprised and impressed at how well-argued much of this book is.  But the following things said by him in The Design Revolution seem quite propagandistic, nutty, creationist or a combination thereof 1. That "Darwinism" (the very use of this name is, in my opinion, problematic, because Darwin made use not only of his own explanatory mechanism but that of Lamark) makes no predictions other than vague ones about the pathways of evolution. I would reply by saying that there are many pre/retro -dictions that neo-Darwinians have made and had confirmed.  But the only currency Dembski is accepting is precise knowledge of the mutations that brought about macro evolution. He is not giving credit at all where an enormous amount is due. To make this objection I must distinguish between predictions that could have been made simply on the basis of the acceptance of descent with modifications (i.e., a prediction that could as easily have been made by a  Lamarkian or possibly ...

The difference is, according to Dembski, that Miller denies that you can be scientific about that.

At one point he affirms a kind of law of conservation of information, but at another point he says that a simple roll of the dice can increase the amount of information.  Is the latter an exception because of the role of a human intelligence?  But that intelligence did not know the outcome: it could have been replaced by a dice rolling machine, etc.  Or a natural event could have caused the dice to roll.  In such a case, would information have been increases or decreased?

Bill Dembski has a witty argument that, if you posit an infinite number worlds exist, all talk about probability breaks down. I may not have his argument just right, but here goes. In one possible universe, Rubenstein sits down an hits keys randomly on the piano, but beautiful music comes out. How do you know that you are not in that universe? Etc. He seems to be onto something. But what would he say about the possibility that we live in an infinitely old and oscillating universe? With an infinite number of future possible universe scenarios, wouldn't the same thing happen as he described with an infinite number of universes? So if he were confronted with this question would he be forced to argue as well that we live in a finitely aged universe? If he said "no," would this response weaken the point he made with the Arthur Rubinstein example? (mentioned in earlier post)

He uses the archer analogy: Aquinas would like that! (in fact, I think he does use it in the Summa contra gentiles ). He admits that ID cannot prove classical theism: a Hindu or deist may subscribe to ID. May I add that a polytheist may feel right at home with ID: after all, there's no reason why there can't be as many intelligent sources of design as there are species of organism. He never says that scientific creationism is stupid! I think this is a rhetorical move on his part (he's trying to get them onto his bandwagon): uh, let's call it "rhetorical silence." But doesn't Dembski's make some Darwinians wonder whether Demski is secretly a card carrying creationist? If he is silent on this issue, it's not because of a commitment to saying the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth: it's rather a commitment to persuading someone with whom he does not in fact agree when it comes to the issue of descent with modification. The...