06Feb 2023 by Post

SETI: Inventing Minds to Find Minds

aliens, Aristotle, design detection, Frank Marchis, Gaia, habitable zone, Howard Glicksman, intelligent causes, Intelligent Design, materialists, Mountain View, natural causes, Nature (journal), Paul Sutter, Physics, Earth & Space, programmers, radio signals, rocks, SETI, SETI Institute, signals, Steve Laufmann, Your Designed Body
SETI has a new technique to recognize patterns in gobs of data: invent intelligences to search for extraterrestrial intelligence that might be artificial. Source
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28Jul 2022 by Post

In Critiquing Dembski, Jason Rosenhouse Prioritizes Imagination over Reality

Ann Gauger, Arthur Hunt, bacterial flagella, biological structures, circular reasoning, Conservation of Information, design detection, Douglas Axe, Evolution, Günter Bechly, information, Intelligent Design, James Madison University, mathematics, mind, molecular machines, natural selection, Ola Hössjer, Panda's Thumb, probability space, Robert J. Marks, rotary motors, royal flush, specified complexity, The Failures of Mathematical Anti-Evolutionism, William Dembski, Winston Ewert
Jason Rosenhouse, a mathematician who teachers at James Madison University, is the author of the recent book The Failures of Mathematical Anti-Evolutionism. The purpose of the book is to discredit the mathematical and algorithmic arguments presented by ID proponents against the plausibility of undirected evolution crafting complex novelties. Rosenhouse focuses much of his critique on William Dembski’s design-detection formalism based on specified complexity. Dembski responded in detail to Rosenhouse’s arguments, highlighting Rosenhouse’s confusion over Dembski’s theoretical framework and its application to biological systems (here,here). Rosenhouse in turn responded to Dembski’s critique. His counter-response, published at Panda’s Thumb, reveals that his opposition to Dembski is not based on any flaws in the substance of Dembski’s work but instead on Rosenhouse’s unassailable faith in the limitless Read More › Source
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25Mar 2022 by Post

The Logic of Design Detection

Archaeology, Complexity, cryptography, design detection, DNA, Evolution, insurance fraud, Intelligent Design, probability, Rosetta Stone, scientific method, Signature in the Cell, specification, The Design Inference, What Is the Evidence for Intelligent Design? (series), William Dembski
Editor’s note: This article is an excerpt from a chapter in the newly released book The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos. We are presenting Dr. Meyer’s chapter as a series, in which this is the third post. Find the full series so far here. In The Design Inference, mathematician William Dembski explicates the logic of design detection. His work reinforces the conclusion that the specified information present in DNA points to a designing mind.  Dembski shows that rational agents often detect the prior activity of other designing minds by the character of the effects they leave behind. Archaeologists assume that rational agents produced the inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone. Insurance fraud investigators detect certain “cheating Read More › Source
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16Jan 2021 by Post

Avi Loeb: “Nature Does Not Produce Such Things”

'Oumuamua, aliens, astronomer, astrophysicist, Avi Loeb, design detection, design filter, explanatory filter, extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrials, Harvard University, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Intelligent Design, Live Science, Michael Egnor, Physics, Earth & Space, Podcast, solar system, space archaeology, William Dembski
Loeb describes his journey to a radical position on the strange interstellar visitor that’s been dubbed 'Oumuamua. Source
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18Jun 2020 by Post

Chance, Necessity, and Design

automobiles, chance, chassis, critics, design, design detection, differential, doors, explanatory filter, Intelligent Design, Jonathan Waldman, Joshua Swamidass, kinetic theory of heat, necessity, probability, repudiation, retirement, rust, Rust: The Longest War, Sean McDowell, shocks, Uncommon Descent
ID supporters continue to send me emails about Josh Swamidass. The latest hammers on a comment I made in 2008 at Uncommon Descent, namely: “I’ve pretty much dispensed with the EF [Explanatory Filter]. It suggests that chance, necessity, and design are mutually exclusive. They are not. Straight CSI is clearer as a criterion for design detection.” I would not write that now. In my view the filter is just fine and it neither conflates nor falsely differentiates the three modes of explanation (chance, necessity, and design). My comment back then should be seen as an unnecessary concession to critics, not as undercutting the filter per se. To properly use the Explanatory Filter, it is vital to identify what exactly one is trying to explain. Take a rusted automobile. In Jonathan Waldman’s wonderful…
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24Feb 2020 by Post

Where Science and Faith Meet: Westminster Conference, April 3-4, in Philadelphia

betrayal, biology, cosmic fine-tuning, cynicism, Daniel Reeves, design detection, Early Church, faith, Faith & Science, foresight, Intelligent Design, John West, Marcos Eberlin, Melissa Cain Travis, nanomachines, Parents, Philadelphia, reproduction, science, scientific evidence, scientists, Secularism, Stephen Meyer, students, teachers, Vern Poythress, Westminster Conference on Science and Faith, youth track
It’s possible to simplistically sweep aside challenges to a materialist picture of reality. Proponents of atheism do this all the time. And it’s possible to sweep aside challenges, or what seem to be challenges, to a theistic understanding. People do this, too, all the time. Neither is intellectually satisfying. And the latter sets a trap for young people. Parents and educators might feel it’s the safest way to take shelter from claims by scientists and other academics that are thought to engender cynicism and undermine faith. But what happens when young people grow up, are immersed in a university or secular culture, and realize how little they were prepared for or exposed to counterarguments against their family’s religious tradition? The resulting sense of betrayal has been reported many times. Youth…
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