Posted on 03/03/2003 8:27:25 AM PST by general_re
I know of one item for certain that you missed, which gives you at least a 10% error rate.
I think I mis-identified at least more than one pic. I'm curious which one you think I missed.
The final score isn't announced yet.
That must mean we're in overtime:^)
For a concept which claims that design and nature can always be distinguished, it doesn't look good.
The concept is a criteria based filter, and I am not aware of anyone who claims a 100% accuracy rate for the test. Like a medical test, some false negatives or false positives are bound to slip through the net. The goal is to minimize the inaccuracies as much as possible.
The following may resurrect our previous discussion on this thread, but I don't quite understand your distinction between nature and design. What if nature is designed? On the other hand, even if it were not, what are the hallmarks of design? The question is, where we know that something is designed, are there distinguishing traces of that intelligent agency that can be detected? I think the idea of the test is to be able to distinguish the 'accidental' and/or that which can be reduced to physical/chemical laws, from something that is the result of some intelligent agency.
Cordially,
Cordially,
The correct answers are all at post 543. You may have missed #2. The only one I know for certain that you got wrong is #4, at post 149, your answers at 166 and 173--175.
I think you missed the termite mound #6, but it's debatable. I'll leave it to general_re to give you the score.
My take on all of this is that nature (in #4) can fool us into thinking there's intelligent design involved. It's not really remarkable (in #2) that we can immitate nature. Anyway, I see no simple test for finding the trademark of the Intelligent Designer.
My initial impression is this - we know that some of these things are the product of intelligent agency. Specifically, 1, 2, 5, and 9 were produced by humans, and thus must be the product of intelligent agency. But the problem is, the answers given in those cases were inconsistent - you determined 1 was designed, 2 was not, 5 was, and 9 wasn't. Or, more accurately, in the cases of 2 and 9, you were unable to conclude that they were designed artifacts, when we know for a fact that they are.
This does not really inspire confidence in the design inference, as I sure you can imagine. After all, if it has what appears to be a 50-50 shot with artifacts known to be the product of intelligent agency, how can we have confidence in what it tells us about artifacts that we don't know about?
Which is why, to my mind, it's worthwhile to begin with the things we know are designed by intelligent agency. If the design inference can reliably and repeatedly tell us things that we already know through other means, then we may begin to consider the issue of what it is telling us about things that we currently think might have naturalistic origins. But by that score, the design inference didn't do so well - no better than flipping a coin would have done, as a matter of fact.
Yes I did miss number 2, because as I had pointed out earlier, intelligent agents can mimic chance or natural laws. By #9, though I had caught on to the general's devious pattern:^) Also, I also mis-identified #4 as your neighbor's patio.
I think you missed the termite mound #6, but it's debatable. I'll leave it to general_re to give you the score.
Yes, I mis-identified #6 as an ant-hill.
My take on all of this is that nature (in #4) can fool us into thinking there's intelligent design involved. It's not really remarkable (in #2) that we can immitate nature. Anyway, I see no simple test for finding the trademark of the Intelligent Designer.
Yes, I also agree with you here; if there is a test for dectecting design, it is certainly not simple.
Cordially,
Well, actually, with regard to #2, it wasn't until #9 that I caught on to my own stipulation that design can mimic chance, the criterion being useless for ELIMINATION of design; and only useful for DETECTION of design.
After all, if it has what appears to be a 50-50 shot with artifacts known to be the product of intelligent agency, how can we have confidence in what it tells us about artifacts that we don't know about?
I actually agree with you here; that is indeed the question. I tend to think that if there is a reliable test then there is a lot of research and refinement that needs to occur.
I tend to look at the problem like a murder mystery, sort of like the way we could tell whether Laci and Conner Peterson were murdered, or whether their deaths were accidental. If we were on Scott's jury, would we have any credulity in his tale of an amazing coincidence that he just happened to be fishing in the same general locale where his wife and son's bodies were found, but that he had no part in their deaths? The question I keep asking myself is how to quantify something that we intuitively decide all the time, which is, how we determine whether something is accidental or caused by an intelligent agent.
Cordially,
Agreed. Ping me when that happens. I'LL show them this thread:^)
Cordially,
What I conclude from this exercise is that there is not yet a reliable test for determining the presence of intelligent design. That being the case (at least at this stage of our knowledge) it seems that ID "theory" is not yet a theory, because it can't be reliably tested. Thus, ID remains conjecture, and those who claim that it's a valid alternative to evolution are a wee bit premature. At this stage, evolution stands alone, as the only scientific theory that accounts for the diversity of life on earth. (As always, if new information is discovered, this conclusion may change.)
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