CSI and Design

As my debate opponent claims below, do we use CSI principles in determing whether intelligence exists? And can we apply these principles to the biological world?

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Everywhere else in the world around us, we (mostly unconiously) use Dembski's prnciples of detecting CSI to determine whether intelligence exists. Forensic science uses it to examine patterns and evidence at crime scences to determine intent or accident. Archeology uses it to determine whether an item is a whethered rock or an arrowhead or tool. Cryptographers use it to determine whether a code exists or not. We all use the CSI principle to recognise the evidence of design...except, it seems, when it comes to the naturalistic view of the biological world around us. It is the naturalistic view that pre-determines the outcome. It is the naturalistic view that starts with the assumption the everything can be explained using natural processes. Since the principle of CSI works for everything else when detecting intelligent design, why should the biological world be any different?

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moved by the Queen

He's half-right. Biology is the only situation where we don't look for design.But there's one obvious difference - the other fields mentioned are all studies of human culture and artifacts. If I want to observe qualities about the designer of an arrowhead, all I have to do is look down at my hands. It's easy to infer that something was designed in a world full of entities capable of design.You can only infer design if the existence of designers is a given. What makes biology different is that there's no observed designer capable of designing life. You can't infer the existence of a designer only from a speculation that something was designed. You have to have the designer before you can conclude design. The way ID theorists try to do it is backwards.

outblaze quotes somebody...who, I'm not sure as there is no attribution:

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We all use the CSI principle to recognise the evidence of design...except, it seems, when it comes to the naturalistic view of the biological world around us.

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Incorrect.It is the other way around. When it comes to the biological world around us, we conclude that it was naturalistic and not designed.Why? Because the biological world around us shows no evidence of design. Every example of design that we see shows the complete abandonment of systems in favor of more efficient ones. In biology, we find continued adjustment of the system that came before.If a horse were designed, it would not have bone splints in its legs that sometimes atavistically develop into extra toes. A horse, after all, is a single-toed animal so why have structures for extra ones?Simple: It wasn't designed.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

that's a little misleading.supposing the universe were filled with super-intelligent aliens.would the theory of evolution change? not exactly. our thoughts on origins might, but overall the fact that evolution happens will not change. the guiding force may no longer be natural selection, but artificial, but it's still evolution.in other words, the existance of god would not be enough to conclude that evolution is a lie.

Well, ok, so show me one of them.That's the thing, I guess. If somebody wants to claim that something was designed, it's not enough to point out similarities to things we know are designed. Ive got to see the designer.But no designer capable of designing life is known to exist. So how can we possibly come to the conclusion that life is designed? It's just stupid.

Arachnophilia writes:

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supposing the universe were filled with super-intelligent aliens.

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would the theory of evolution change? not exactly. our thoughts on origins might, but overall the fact that evolution happens will not change. the guiding force may no longer be natural selection, but artificial, but it's still evolution.

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While I certainly agree that artificial selection is just as capable an agent of evolution as natural selection, the existence of super-intelligent aliens would not change evolutionary theory in the slightest unless we had evidence that they were actively engaged in artificial selection.The existence of a designer does not mean anything was designed. However, we cannot infer the action of design without knowing something about how the designer could have done it.And if the designer's handiwork is indistinguishable from natural actions, by what criteria do we choose the designer over the natural process?Suppose I were to take a handful of change and toss it on the ground. I then take an identical handful of change and deliberately and precisely place the coins in the exact same pattern. Would you be able to tell the difference?One thing we have noticed is that designers are incapable of creating truly random patterns. So if you were to see something that looked random, by what criteria would you claim design since designers have such difficulty with randomness?Of course, that leads us to a question of mine that never gets answered:Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

No, he's absolutely wrong. Nobody uses Dembski's CSI as a formal method - not even Dembski. And nobody in their right mind would limit themselves to a purely eliminative argument for design when inference-to-best-explanation reasoning is available in almost every case. Dembski's simple "design" is a very poor explanation (since it says almost nothing) and pretty much relies on the limitations of the CSI methodology to be a viable option.The formal version of CSI is all but unusable. I know of NO successful applications to any non-trivial example.The informal version is far too limited to encapsulate how we detect design. It does not, for instance, discriminate between useful tools like arrowheads and odd-shaped pieces of flint. It does not let us take into account evidence of flint-working in the vicinity. It doesn't even attribute any positive significance to the typical marks of human working - to CSI they are just "improbable" given an origin other than "design". And let us not forget that informal "recognition" of design is quite definitely error-prone.So to sum it up.Nobody uses the formal form of CSI on a regular basis.More informal methods of determining design go beyond CSI - and CSI can only "win" in cases where the evidence is too limited for anything other than eliminating other explanations. But in any such case a conclusion of "design" would have to be highly tentative since the evidence would be so weak.

What if NASA finds a metal object on Mars that shows evidence of having been smelted, worked, hand tooled, etc. in some way, but we don't have any evidence of 'designers.' What would you conclude from that find? Would you conclude this object just occurred naturally as part of natural forces?I'm not arguing for creationist ID, I think that Rrhain uses a good example (one of a myriad) which show the concept is bankrupt, but isn't there some point where we can look at an object, or a series of objects, and infer they were not created by any natural forces of which we are aware?

Circular argument. You can't conclude that an object has been smelted, hand-tooled, etc. without first concluding that it's the product of design, in which case, you still need the designer first. Your question assumes design without satisfying the prerequesite for design - a designer. You're asking me if I would look at an object I had already concluded was designed and conclude it was designed. You'll pardon me if I don't find that question sensical. There's no such object, though. Even designed objects are created by natural forces. There's no difference between a rock in the rock polisher and a rock at the bottom of a stream - you're still wearing down a rock.

that was exactly my point.(froggy, that was a hypothetical point. i know people have made some outrageous claims on this board, but that was not one of them. it was a hypothetical situation to illustrate this point) this is a very good point. i watched a video documentary today with dr. richard dawkins, based on his "blind watchmaker" book. it was in interesting, if dated, show. he demonstrated his evolution program, although not as effectively as in his book.the problem with his biomorphs, and even the hamlet analogy, is that it is DIRECTED evolution. it has a goal of producing something. it is not, inherently, blind. it's artificial selection. are the results of artificial and natural selection inherently different? not really. it's kind of tricky to tell from the end results, and one really is design by definition. with artificial selection, we select for certain characteristics. the design part doesn't happen all at once, but is really an evolutionary process.do creationists ever argue against artificial selection? i mean, people have only been breeding dogs for a few thousand years, right? a pug and a husky are essentially very different animals. but these changes could have concievably happened naturally, free of human interference.basically, i'm just trying to re-itterate the point that even supposing intelligent design did in fact happen, it would not negate evolution in the slightest. random is a funny word. human beings look for patterns. but the point may well be true. i would imagine, supposing god exists, that he'd be smart enough to institute natural laws, and not have to make every apple fall from every tree himself. of course, maybe god is natural law? who knows. this is philosophy and religion, and really has very little to do with studying the natural world. because apparently, things do follow standard natural laws, and god doesn't talk to us a lot. and even if it's just god being consistent that makes masses attract so it looks like gravity, it's really essentially no different from the laws of gravity.so i'd say it doesn't really matter, and we'll just move on studying things scientifically and leave god to theologians.

i'm gonna play devil's advocate. (or in this case, creationist's adovcate) question:at what point does it become so obvious of a design that there is no other choice to conclude a designer existed? theoretically.here's a theoretical example.now, we all know that no culture has ever lived in antarctica, as it's been covered in a polar ice cap for a few million years. but suppose on expedition there, a whole city is found, complete with writings, pottery, etc. everything but skeletons.would it be reasonable to say that some intelligence fashioned the city, the pottery, and the writing? if the writing was, say, greek, could we conclude that people who knew greek could probably have written it? or would we have to find the actual skeletons because without it it's just some extremely weird weathering phenominon?here's a non-theoretical example. stonehenge: made by man or natural processes?sometimes, the simplest and best explanation is that people made something. it is however not valid to assume that everything that looks like it was designed was in fact designed. the bimini road for instance, was not. the japanese underwater pyramids were probably not. the face on mars was not. lenin in the shower curtain was not.but these are all things that require you to squint your eyes a little and think of something else, and actual evidence disproves them. same with behe and irreducible complexity. but could not, in some examples, there be enough evidence for design that a designer must have existed, without other knowledge? can't we look at ancient writings and cave paintings and not have to bother with the question of "did man really make this?" because sometimes, that's all we really have.

actually, here's a better question.borrowing from carl sagan, suppose aliens with a radio telescope near vega at some point pick up an old tv broadcast, and decide to make contact. how, from just their message, would they be able to convince us that they in fact existed and were not just a really wonky pulsar or some other funny stellar event?This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 06-07-2004 04:12 AM

Right, right, I put it badly; and, though I hope you know what I was getting at, I'll rephrase:1-NASA finds a metal sphere on Mars. The metal is unlike any other metal in the immediate area. It appears to be polished. We have no evidence of intelligent life on Mars.Can you reasonably conclude that this is only the product of natural forces? Would this still rule out any indication or suggestion of intelligent design?CF responds to my question: I realize that. I was speaking hypothetically.If you find an object that appears to be an ancient stone tool, but you can't rule out that this object wasn't created by natural forces, this doesn't invalidate or prove that object was designed, but it suggests it might be doesn't it? At what point does one begin to accept that maybe this object might have been designed rather than occur naturally even if we can't confirm the existence of the designer? Never?

Not ever. You can't conclude design without knowing about a designer, already. Yes, because there's this country called "Greece" where designers who speak greek live. There's a bunch of them there, you can go and see them.But in regards to life, there aren't any designers there. There were no humans present those billions of years ago, because they hadn't evolved yet. And there are no other entities capable of design in this universe, as far as we can tell. So who's there to do the designing? Nobody. Man, obviously. If I need to see a designer capable of stacking rocks, all I have to do is look in the mirror. Humans exist and are designers, obviously, so we don't usually have to look too far to find a capable designer.But when we're talking about a time when no humans existed, there's nobody left to do the designing. Certainly you can't infer the existence of a designer just because something looks designed. That's nonsensical.

Well the 'you've got interstellar mail' icon might give it away. I assume they would use patterns so deliberate that chance could not account for the transmission - Fermat's, prime numbers, something like that.It's a good point that I was trying to make - at what point do you conclude or even suspect that there might be intelligence behind the phenomenon?