The Design Inference Game

03/03/03 | Moi

[general_re]

I thought a new thread was a good idea, and here seems to be a good place to put it, so as not to clutter up "News". The only topic available was "heated discussion", though. ;)

If any clarification about the pictures is needed, just say so, and I will try to at least highlight the part that I am interested in for you. Remember that I'm interested in the objects or structures or artifacts being represented, so don't be thrown off if the illustrations seem abstract.

[stanz]

Whoa!!!!!!!!!!After spending the last 9 hours in a law office, I come home to find a thread that tries to answer all of the unknowns in the universe in 497 posts. This is far to much for my nimble brain. Psssst....is doc still here? I've had all the fire and brimstone I can stand in the form of litigation attorneys.

[general_re]

It looks like it was drawn on foundation, on a Langenstroth type frame.

What a coincidence - that's exactly what I was going to say. Errr, yeah ;)

So, given that you seem to know a heck of a lot more than I do about the lifestyles of bees, would you say that an emergent structure like a beehive fits what we commonly think of when we say something is "designed"?

[CobaltBlue]

Langenstroth invented a way of making moveable frames made out of wood, which fit inside the wooden boxes we commonly think of beehives, and can be removed to inspect the bees or to harvest the honey.

When most people think of natural style beehives, they think of a sort of half-oval structure that is in a niche. That's actually a skep, also man made for man's convenience, typically of straw. Old fashioned.

In fact, bees in the wild build their hives in holes in trees, and crotches of trees, and inside walls of houses, and hollow logs. Inside a hole with walls, essentially.

And a wild bee hive consists of parallel rows of double sided wax structures exactly like the photo you posted only following the configuration of the natural structure.

Langenstroth, an eccentric genius, noticed the regularity with which bees do everything. The size of the cells is quite regular, for example, and so is the space between the combs, and as you can see in the photo, the combs always line up back to back offset so that the strongest part of one side is on the weakest side of the other.

Is that design? No more than a bird nest. Is a bird nest an example of design?

Is it an example of free will? No more than salmon swimming upstream to spawn at the place of their birth.

I never did understand the intelligent design argument, by the way. Are they arguing that human beings are Clockwork Oranges? Are they all Calvinists arguing predestination? Do they not believe in free will?

[Dimensio]

The catch-all Creationist response, however, is that because God created it all, there is going to be some form of intelligent design apparent in it to some extent.

I don't expect that to be a universal Creationist "rebuttal", but IMO there are enough of them who won't be able to understand why that response makes the "argument from design" functionally useless.

[general_re]

Is that design? No more than a bird nest. Is a bird nest an example of design?

Oddly, I thought about posting a bird's nest, but couldn't locate a good image of what I wanted - there are some South American birds that build really spectacularly complicated nests.

Anyway, whether it fits the notion of "design" or not, it's pretty clearly not intelligently designed, given what we know about bees. Which leads to the question of whether or not "mindless" forces can produce emergent structures in the universe that appear to be designed, much as "mindless" bees can produce emergent structures that appear to be designed.

Interesting. Hopefully we'll get a nice counterpoint from some of FR's resident ID proponents, since you're asking questions that I really can't answer from an ID perspective ;)

[general_re]

I'm not sure how helpful that explanation will be to anyone, though - even Dembski avoids that sort of thing. After all, implicit in the very idea of the design inference is the notion that some things are designed, and some things aren't. If everything is designed, what good is a design inference that can only tell us that some things were designed? Or even worse, if everything is designed, what do we need a design inference for in the first place?

[Dimensio]

Actually, that's a common problem with the argument that design is inherent in the universe (an ID argument that I've heard more than once). When asked for examples of something that is "not designed" so that we may use it as a reference for comparsion, they either balk or throw up "theoretical" examples that lack any useful detail and, because they are only theoretical, have absolutely no useful value as evidence.

[general_re]

I'm not sure how you could avoid either simple tautology or somewhat more complicated circular arguments in that case, though.

A: Everything was designed.
B: Okay, how do we know that?
A: Everything shows evidence of design.
B: What evidence?
A: (...)
B: And how do we know that's evidence of design?
A: Because everything was designed.

...and so forth.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I missed it too. I do know what # 10 is just by looking (I think.)

[Doctor Stochastic]

Number 10 is amusing. It's not an optimal packing. So, were it designed, the design was not perfect, only good enough.

It raises the question whether a perfect designer would create an imperfect (but adequate) design.

[CobaltBlue]

>>Anyway, whether it fits the notion of "design" or not, it's pretty clearly not intelligently designed, given what we know about bees. <<

Given the complexity with which bees communicate (see, e.g., the "waggle dance"), I am unwilling to concede that intelligence isn't involved in their structure building.

However, given the absolute uniformity of the various elements of their structures, I will easily concede that there is no creativity involved.

Human beings put a great deal of emphasis on creativity, and bees are clearly rigid in their behaviors, but does that necessarily mean that they are not intelligent?

I concede that trees and other plant life are not intelligent, nor are rocks, but bee social behavior is so incredibly complex, and there are feedback mechanisms involved. Feedback = intelligence because there is choice, and a method of choosing.

[general_re]

It's not an optimal packing. So, were it designed, the design was not perfect, only good enough.

Is that because, as CobaltBlue suggests, it may have been constructed to conform to some external structure, or is it inherently sub-optimal?

[general_re]

Feedback = intelligence because there is choice, and a method of choosing.

On the other hand, if it's pure stimulus-response, does that fit the definition of intelligence? Your thermostat provides a feedback mechanism for the furnace, but that's not exactly what I would call "intelligent" ;)

[Doctor Stochastic]

It's inherent. The bees sometimes slip into the optimal packing for a few rows, but then they revert to the sub-optimal form. This happens in the wild or in hives.

Survival of the adequate.

[CobaltBlue]

I was just thinking that certain crystals have similar structures, so the structure itself doesn't tell you whether the thing was constructed with intelligent design.

Unless they are arguing that repeating regular structures are evidence of intelligent design, and, I suppose, things that are amorphous evidence of no design?

[general_re]

...so the structure itself doesn't tell you whether the thing was constructed with intelligent design.

Ah, but that is exactly what ID theory says - that you can infer design purely from the structure of a thing, without any other knowledge other than of the inherent properties of the thing itself.

But I take it you're likely to be rather skeptical of that claim ;)

[general_re]

Ah. Well, even if the designer isn't a particularly brilliant fellow, he's at least generally competent ;)

[Doctor Stochastic]

Running a wastepipe through a recreational area qualifies a barely adequate. I don't know if it rises to the level of competent.

[general_re]

I dunno - maybe it was a conserving-one's-materials kind of thing. He works in mysterious ways, etc., etc. ;)

[Diamond]

So -- I want to be sure I understand your position -- are you saying that although intelligence can mimic nature, nature can't produce something that looks as if it were designed by intelligence?

That's a very perceptive question, but in order to answer properly I think it is necessary to clarify the meaning of "nature" as used in your distinction between "nature" and "intelligence".

Cordially