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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Information, Specified Complexity, and the Explanatory Filter

chance, Dallas Conference on Science and Faith, Daniel Reeves, Discovery Institute, functional information, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, molecular biology, necessity, specified complexity
On a new episode of ID the Future, listen to the third and final portion of a talk given at the 2020 Dallas Conference on Science and Faith. Daniel Reeves, Educational Outreach Coordinator at Discovery Institute, rounds out his explanation of intelligent design theory. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Far from being “Gee whiz, that’s complicated; it must be designed!” the theory relies on well-defined concepts such as specified complexity and an explanatory filter that allows one to distinguish designed events from chance, necessity, or a combination of the two. The key lies in the molecular biological realm: detecting functional information.  Photo: Daniel Reeves, by Nathan Jacobson. The post Information, Specified Complexity, and the Explanatory Filter appeared first on Evolution News.
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