On December 1, SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) researcher Seth Shostak posted this brief essay. It's purpose was to dispel the myth that the techniques proffered by ID folks for the purpose of detecting intelligently-caused signals bear any resemblance to those used by SETI. (William Dembski in particular is fond of making this comparison). Shostak made two especially important points. First:
Later we come to this:Well, it's because the credibility of the evidence is not predicated on its complexity. If SETI were to announce that we're not alone because it had detected a signal, it would be on the basis of artificiality. An endless, sinusoidal signal -- a dead simple tone -- is not complex; it's artificial. Such a tone just doesn't seem to be generated by natural astrophysical processes. In addition, and unlike other radio emissions produced by the cosmos, such a signal is devoid of the appendages and inefficiencies nature always seems to add -- for example, DNA's junk and redundancy. (Emphasis in original)
Fine points, well made.There's another hallmark of artificiality we consider in SETI, and it's context. Where is the signal found? Our searches often concentrate on nearby Sun-like star systems -- the very type of astronomical locale we believe most likely to harbor Earth-size planets awash in liquid water. That's where we hope to find a signal. The physics of solar systems is that of hot plasmas (stars), cool hydrocarbon gasses (big planets), and cold rock (small planets). These do not produce, so far as we can either theorize or observe, monochromatic radio signals belched into space with powers of ten billion watts or more---the type of signal we look for in SETI experiments. It's hard to imagine how they would do this, and observations confirm that it just doesn't seem to be their thing.
I provided some further commentary on this article later that day in this blog entry over at EvolutionBlog. I pointed out that as much as I liked Shostak's article, I felt he had made a small error that would permit people like Dembski to weasel his way out.
Shostak, you see, used the term “complexity” in it's everyday sense. In other words, he was viewing “complex” as the opposite of “simple.” But in ID fantasy land “complex” means something different. When used by people like Dembski, the word is meant to refer to phenomena that are improbable when viewed as the result of chance or natural causes alone. This distinction, I felt, would allow Dembski to argue that what Shostak was referring to as “artificiality” falls under the rubric of what Dembski calls “complexity.”
In other words, he could argue that the very things that alerted Shostak to the presence of artificiality (not produced by a natural source), were the same things that would alert Dembski to complexity (something very improbable without the input of intelligence).
As I predicted, Dembski took this approach when he replied to Shostak the following day:
But in fact, my criterion for design detection applies to the very signals that Shostak's SETI Institute is looking for. Yes, as narrow bandwidth transmissions, the signals are simple to describe. But they are difficult for purely material processes to reproduce by chance. So we have simplicity of description combined with complexity in the sense of improbability of the outcome. That's specified complexity and that's my criterion for detecting design.
More recently, Casey Luskin parroted the same defense.
Now, this answer is plainly inadequate even if we were to accept Dembski's musings about detecting design. In his world a probability calculation is required to establish that something is complex. And specification is supposed to be something more rigorous than “simplicity of description.” So until Dembski fills in those details, it is difficult to take seriously his claims here.
But there is a more serious objection, and it is one I also made in my original blog entry. The point of Shostak's argument lies not in some semantic distinction between “artificiality” on the one hand and an idiosyncratic view of “complexity” on the other. It is that SETI researchers have a firm basis in experience for concluding that the sort of simple tones Shostak describes could not be produced naturally. It is that experience, and not some back of the envelope probability calculation, that provides the foundations for SETI's work.
To use another favored example of ID folk, we know that Mt. Rushmore is not the result of weathering and erosion because we have seen the effects of those forces on countless other mountains. That is what alerts us to the fact that Mt. Rushmore represents something requiring a special sort of explanation. But no one in his right mind draws that conclusion from a probability calculation.
It is precisely this experience that Dembski lacks in forming conclusions about what evolution can and cannot produce. In drawing conclusions about what evolution is likely to produce in the course of four billion years, we have only one example to look at. This simple fact exposes the folly of trying to discuss the probability of a flagellum or a blood clotting cascade. It would require God-like knowledge of natural history to carry out these sorts of probability calculations. And that is why Dembski blathers about mathematics when he is trying to impress people with how rigorous his work is, but quickly retreats to intuitive arguments when pressed for details. It is why his one example of an actual probability calculation, for the bacterial flagellum, in Section 5.10 of No Free Lunch, was easily seen to reside upon a mountain of false assumptions.
Dembski in particular is fond of arguing that scientists draw design inferences all the time (in SETI, forensic pathology, and archeology, for example). Typically he tells us this after bemoaning the fact that scientists simply dismiss design out of hand as a legitimate explanation. But the point made here applies to those other branches of science Dembski mentions. In every case where scientists draw actual design inferences it is based on extensive background knowledge of the relevant natural forces and the sorts of designers whose action is being hypothesized.
ID folks refuse to address this point, with good reason. It is obvious and fatal to Dembski's entire approach. It is not that Dembski's arguments are currently in a preliminary form, but with some tweaking might be ready for prime time. It is that his whole method is fundamentally and irretrievably flawed.
61 Comments
steve s · 7 December 2005
Glen Davidson · 7 December 2005
Worldwide Pants · 7 December 2005
If we could perform the probability calculations, such calculations would render Dembski's methods superfluous. If I calculate that the natural occurence of something is ridiculously improbable, why can't I skip all the EF/CSI stuff and just conclude that it didn't occur naturally?
I was amused by one IDer's comment on Dembski's SETI thread: I think "specified improbability" might be a better term than "specified complexity". The commentor doesn't realize that substituting the word complexity for improbability is an obfuscation, intended to mask the fact that Dembski's method is pure question-begging. Of course, the obfuscation comes at a price. Dembski has to call a rectangular monolith complex, which makes him look rather silly.
John Marley · 7 December 2005
Orgel's Second Rule
steve s · 7 December 2005
buddha · 7 December 2005
Mark Perakh · 7 December 2005
Glen Davidson · 7 December 2005
steve s · 7 December 2005
Tice with a J · 7 December 2005
steve s · 7 December 2005
I know this is off the SETI vs ID topic, but I nominate, for Panda's Thumb's motto, ""From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review,"
from that Templeton guy.
Wesley R. Elsberry · 7 December 2005
Lord Monar · 7 December 2005
neuralsmith · 7 December 2005
Lord Monar,
Did you ever think that maybe that complex background noise is God and that it is that noise of God that is the source of CSI?
djlactin · 7 December 2005
(apologies for the previous... my postings have recently been sent to the black hole...)
i think this entire discussion is chasing a red herring. trashing demski is preaching to the choir here.
here's what i think is the crucial distinction between SETI and IC:
the foundation of all scientific endeavor is curiosity allied with skepticism: all observations are subjected to scrutiny and only enter the body scientific when verified beyond all reasonable doubt. the more revolutionary the observation the greater the scrutiny. this philosophy also applies to SETI (in spades).
the process of skeptical scrutiny will apply to any putative signal from space: it will be ruthlessly dissected by a huge body of incredulous investigators who will first attempt to discredit it as a hoax, an earthly signal reflected off from nearby object, a trace from a man-made satellite or deep-space probe, a naturally occurring physical phenomenon, etc., until they have exhausted ALL conceivable (and some currently inconceivable) natural explanations.
only when natural expanations have been eliminated will the signal be acknowledged as such (and even then, intense skepticism will remain).
this the difference between SETI and IC: the IC folk have not exhausted all possible natural explanations ; they simply apply a cunningly-disguised "hurricane assembling a 747 in a junkyard" argument to assert that we should stop looking for them.
IC advocates a surrender in science's attempt to explain what we see: an abandonment of curiosity.
k.e. · 7 December 2005
I posted this elsewhere so excuse the double post
Dembski's and many Fundies nightmare = The Dream of Reason
Obscured by Dembski using Sesquipedalian Obscurantism
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A640207
Perfectly illustrated in art by Goya, Munch, Bosch
In Literature by Kafka, Joyce, Nabokov, Conrad
http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/eighteenth-century_studies/v030/30.4ciofalo.html
http://www.infinitematrix.net/stories/swanwick/sleep_of_reason_1.html
Anton Mates · 7 December 2005
roger Tang · 7 December 2005
Moreover, the SETI folks aren't trying to rule out natural explanations. They're looking for signals of non-"natural" origin in the sense of artificiality, but they assume designers who are the product of nature and whose attributes can therefore be guessed at. That's why they're looking for "Earth-size planets awash in liquid water," rather than, say, black holes. SETI hopes to detect phenomena best explained by a certain class of naturalistic explanation; the IDers hope to detect miracles. That makes all the difference in the world.
Doesn't it also make a difference that when SETI folks DO get a "non-natural" signal, they're going to try their best to look FOR natural explanations? Like how LGMs became pulsars?
kay · 8 December 2005
So.... Dembski has developed a method to tell exactly how improbable something is?
Quick, get the man a hot cup of tea and let's conquer the galaxy on our infinite improbability drives!
RupertG · 8 December 2005
SETI is absolute poison to ID. It binds to all the ID receptors tighter than ID itself can manage, and then delivers a killer payload.
What's ID got? A pseudo-mathematical treatment of 'very improbable' events - well, so has SETI with the Drake Equation. ID is connected with information theory, and so is SETI. ID's very existence is based on the idea that design is detectable - and so, of course, has SETI. ID's got a massive appeal to the metaphysical and spiritual: so has SETI. I doubt there's anyone involved in either who isn't inspired by the hope that they'll witness a discovery that will fundamentally change our view of ourselves and our place in the universe. ID's got... well, there the well runs dry. ID has nothing else.
But SETI has more. SETI does not conflate improbability and design per se; it is quite clear about context and mechanism, where ID has nothing to say. It is not afraid to show its workings. It says things about the designers. Most importantly, SETI uses its ideas to determine a plan of action which it then executes. Experiments, remember them? Early work has produced results that have led to more sophisticated approaches, it is branching out to optical and other fields, there is an amateur and professional side to it. You can do SETI.
As a result, SETI has made the transition from being something mildly eccentric and a bit embarrassing to a respectable, funded, publishing field that adds to and draws from the main corpus of science. ID cannot do this. It is drastically incomplete, in a way that SETI remorselessly illustrates.
I lied above, of course. The well hadn't quite run dry. There is one thing that ID has which SETI lacks. ID is theology, not a science. It is "just the Logos of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory."
SETI might well embody the spirit of golden age SF, but nobody's praying to the aliens.
R
Dene Bebbington · 8 December 2005
No matter how much Dembski tries to ally his methods with the likes of SETI, the fact remains that nobody is properly using his formal methods to detect design. That includes himself.
k.e. · 8 December 2005
Hmmmmm
.....infinite improbability drives....Dembski to drop all pretense of philosophy,religion, sweetness and moderation ....to project his true inner-self as expressed on his blog. I would say "definite probability drives" him.
Not to go down the without a gasp he is still trying to redefine the meaning of the world around him e.g. Fundamentalism is redefined as someone else, but not him....the lesser of two evils has already been exploded when it comes to Fundamentalism. Not in politics though.
The Absurdity of the Fundamentalist.
hypocrisy, ambiguity, and moral confusion
MaxOblivion · 8 December 2005
I think you guys are beating around the bush. Its really quite simple
SETI:: We know how such artifical signals might be produced, we know what technology (radio/whatever) might be harnessed and how physics is exploited to produce such signals. I.E. WE KNOW HOW THEY DID IT
ID:: We know nothing about how a designer might produce its designs, we know nothing about what technology might be harnessed or how physics can be exploited to design and create life. I.E. IDCers BASE THEIR CONCLUSIONS ON IGNORANCE.
Chris Lawson · 8 December 2005
To buddha:
The difference between SETI and ID can be summed up in the fact that *if* a SETI scan revealed a bizarre signal, the first thing the scientists do is check that it came from space and was not generated on Earth. Then they would try to find a natural explanation for the signal. This is what happened with pulsars. When they were first detected, they were nothing more than incredibly regular bursts of radio noise. They sure looked designed. But further investigation revealed them to be natural phenomena.
In contrast, ID looks at something and tries to find evidence of design in it, and if it appears to be designed ID concludes immediately that it was designed, refuses to investigate further, and even refuses to acknowledge evidence that it wasn't designed. The best example of this is the bacterial flagellum, which Behe concluded was designed despite the fact that there is a wealth of evidence for its evolutionary heritage. This evidence has now been made available to Behe and he simply refuses to ackowledge it. This is how ID works.
Let's look at the "WOW!" signal, a massive radio spike that was detected by the Big Ear Radio Observatory in 1977. You can read Jerry Ehrman's account of it here (http://www.bigear.org/wow20th.htm). Note that after analysing the WOW! signal, Ehrman and his colleagues went through every possible non-ET explanation they could think of, from overhead aircraft to scintillation, and even after concluding that each and every one of these explanations was not sufficient to explain the signal, they concluded (in Ehrman's words) "Thus, since all of the possibilities of a terrestrial origin have been either ruled out or seem improbable, and since the possibility of an extraterrestrial origin has not been able to be ruled out, I must conclude that an ETI (ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) might have sent the signal that we received as the Wow! source. Of course, being a scientist, I await the reception of additional signals like the Wow! source that are able to be received and analyzed by many observatories. Thus, I must state that the origin of the Wow! signal is still an open question for me. There is simply too little data to draw many conclusions. In other words, as I stated above, I choose not to "draw vast conclusions from 'half-vast' data"."
To this day, the WOW! signal is seen not as proof of ET intelligence, but an open question. It could just as easily be a natural phenomenon that occurs too rarely to be observed regularly. If SETI had anything in common with ID, the WOW! signal would have been hailed as the triumphant proof of ET intelligence. In fact, it has a better hold on the claim for an intelligent agent than all the "IC" systems Behe came up with like bacterial flagella and clotting cascades, because the WOW! signal at least remains unexplained.
Wesley R. Elsberry · 8 December 2005
conspiracy theorist · 8 December 2005
JohnK · 8 December 2005
The most useful contribution Seth Shostak could provide is to list all the assumptions (and that means all, whether overt or implicit or buried so deep one never notices) that SETI makes - and would eventually make to be convinced - regarding the nature/qualities/properties of the "designers" of the signals SETI is searching for.
My amateur list is surpisingly long.
Moses · 8 December 2005
buddha · 8 December 2005
Patrick · 8 December 2005
Flint · 8 December 2005
steve s · 8 December 2005
There are things we could find which would be strongly suggestive of intelligence. If we pointed the telescopes at Alpha Centauri and found a broadcast of As Alpha Centauri Turns, that would be hard to refute. Or if we put Golgi complexes under the electron microscope and saw "© 4004 BC GodCo Enterprises LLC®" But that doesn't have anything to do with Dembski's babbling.
shenda · 8 December 2005
"What is the hypothesis that SETI tests? That ETs exist? That ETs do not exist? What are the falsification criteria that SETI uses for this hypothesis, whatever it is?"
I am certainly not an expert on SETI, but I did know several of the project's founders. The following is my observations from casual conversations with them.
The SETI hypothesis is that there *may be* ET's generating detectable signals. At present, SETI is mainly doing the basic research and data collection need to be able to detect that signal if it exists.
As stated, the SETI hypothesis is not really falsifiable, but if over a period of time (decades? centuries?) with no detection of an ET signal, it is probable that the hypothesis will fall into disfavor.
The history of the SETI Project is an excellent example of how science works. At the beginning of the project there were very high expectations that they would detect an ET signal(s) very quickly --- within the first few years. Some even expected it within days or weeks. Then reality set in, in the form of the vast quantity and diversity of signals detected, and they were forced to rethink their basic assumptions.
Since then, SETI has matured and focused on data collection and formulating new ideas about what an ET signal would look like, and how it would be detectable. Along the way SETI has contributed to the sum of scientific knowledge in such areas as the nature of cosmic signals, data/signal processing and Information Theory (Real Information Theory!).
One of the big "Ooops" that SETI has given us was during the Congressional hearings about the continuation of their funding. In response to questions about evidence to support their hypothesis, they coined (or copied?) the phrase "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." While this is correct in some ways, it has become one of the most abused sayings that I know of. They also lost their funding. (On the bright side, the "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." T-shirts were really neat!)
ID resembles SETI as a frog resembles a prince --- they are only separated by magic.
steve s · 8 December 2005
Even Heddle's fine tuning could suggest design, if we just had some way of knowing the probability of having various laws/constants of physics, some amazing algorithm which could tell us what arrangements could produce life out of that whole combination space, and some way of knowing how many times a universe has come about.
jim · 8 December 2005
jim · 8 December 2005
Buddha,
Here's a list of the "best" candidates so far:
Candidates
Lower values are better.
PaulC · 8 December 2005
We can detect design. The problem is that we have no foolproof way to eliminate every false positive. Biology was replete with false positives for design through most of human history. Thanks to our understanding of evolution, we have improved the specificity of our design detection. Viewed this way, ID represents a step backwards that purports to increase sensitivity but merely reduces specificity. For the time being, SETI does not even need to rule out false positives; it just needs to narrow down the field of candidates. Time and research on these candidates will tell if intelligence is the best explanation.
SETI researchers might disagree (Shostak seems to) but it strikes me as an overstatement to call a very simple artificial-looking signal from a plausible planetary source anything like clear evidence of an intelligent origin. I appreciate the SETI project but I see its current role as finding candidate signals. When we find a suitably compelling candidate, then it will be time to revisit the strength of evidence for intelligence.
I disagree that narrow-band sinusoidal wave would be strong evidence of intelligence, though it would be a strong candidate for further investigation. It's only evidence of an as-yet-unidentified process, possibly of technological origin, and possibly due to some kind of coincidence. Any hypothesis about such a signal would have to look for some kind of coincidental arrangement of matter capable of producing it which, if simple enough might be a more compelling explanation than intelligence. I.e., given an intelligence capable of producing such a beacon intentionally, you'd wonder why they didn't make it less ambiguous. If you never found anything besides that sine wave, and even if you found such a signal nowhere else (evidence against the coincidence hypothesis, since it would be too unlikely to re-occur anywhere else in range) it seems more in the category of frustrating anomaly than proof of intelligence.
I'm suddenly reminded of the scene in the post-nuclear novel _On The Beach_ where a morse code signal is thought to be coming from Seattle and the expedition sent to investigate finds that the coding key is just being pushed by the wind due to chance arrangment with a broken window frame. In that case, the signal is still evidence of functioning transmission equipment, just not an intelligent operator. But it does require a lot of context to conclude that the signal comes from a radio built by humans. Establishing this context in an extraterrestrial source won't be easy.
ID supporters are disingenuous in their claims, though. SETI researchers might come out with an argument for discovery of intelligence, but much of the scientific community would prefer the null hypothesis until it became untenable. You would expect to see a flurry of alternative models for producing the signal.
I think the key difference between SETI and ID is that SETI understands that the case is not closed until there is a reasonable mechanism for producing the signal and some sort of positive evidence for its existence. It is unscientific to base a conclusion on the negative argument that you haven't figured out any other way for it to happen. Note that in mathematics, you can actually prove a negative (e.g. impossibility of trisecting an angle with compass and straightedge) but as Dembski's fumbling shows, there is no known negative proof to distinguish between the creative power of evolution and intelligence despite rather strenuous efforts to find one.
PaulC · 8 December 2005
sanjait · 8 December 2005
I find it a little hard to believe that astronomers would posit that nothing in the cosmos would produce a signal resembling a sine wave, but buddha does raise the interesting question of what signal would be required to infer "intelligence" or "design".
My guess is that we would draw on our own experience as signal transmittors, receivers and interpreters to form a hypothesis. On the assumption that ET life is trying to signal us, we suppose what signals we would use, such that they would be easily understood and filtered from a background of other cosmic noise. We might use a signal that repeats an pattern of common mathematical series that we guess cosmic objects wouldn't create, like ascending and descending prime numbers or binomial expansions (I'm sure a halfway talented mathematician could think of many more). This is somewhat similar, I suppose, to Demski's complex specified information.
It must be noted however, that this method is a fairly rough and subjective one, and in no way justify Demski's God-like probability calculations. In the end, it still relies on our experience as signal "designers." This differs greatly from ID, in that IDists loudly proclaim to have no understanding of the methods of the universal or life Designer, which would preclude one from using this experience based method to infer design in nature, let alone make a model accurate and complete enough to realistically calculate probability. As others here have similarly pointed out, in this light Demski appears to be a fraud on multiple levels.
Bayesian Bouffant, FCD · 8 December 2005
IDC could take another cue from SETI. The popular SETI@HOME program harnessed the excess power of millions of home computers to help further SETI research. Perhaps someone at the Discovery Institute could come up with a IDC@HOME application to help with processing of the voluminous data associated with IDC research programs...
I'm sure the Templeton Foundation could be hit up for money to do the necessary programming.
jim · 8 December 2005
sanjit,
As I understand it, they are NOT looking for a sine wave. They're looking for characteristics that look like signals that we'd use to transmit information across interstellar space.
High power, narrow bandwidth, non-drifting (frequency), repeating, etc.
SETI@Home is in now way try to determine what information is "in" the signal or its shape (other than gaussian in frequency &/or time).
If any signals do pass all of the current tests, I'm sure a lot more tests will be devised to decrease the possibility of the candidate having a natural origin.
Note that their processing seems to me (and I have no special knowledge in these areas), that due to the quantity of information they have to filter (TBs+), their tests are designed to minimize false positives.
This is the opposite of ID. SETI assumes the signal is natural or man-made unless they're shown otherwise.
ID assumes the biological entity is designed unless proven otherwise. Then they still claim it was designed and ignore the evidence.
B. Spitzer · 8 December 2005
dogscratcher · 8 December 2005
Dembski says, "So we have simplicity of description combined with complexity in the sense of improbability of the outcome. That's specified complexity and that's my criterion for detecting design."
This definition of "complexity" would also include natural artifacts like quartz crystals, if one has no background knowledge in geology (and or chemistry). If someone with no knowledge of geology finds a crystal, using Dembski's "criterion for detecting design" it seems they would be obligated to accept that it was a "designed" object. Only because we know how crystals are naturally formed does it appear that they are not "designed."
It seems as if Dembski equivocates in his usage of "complexity." On the one hand (as in this case) he uses his special (operational?) definition meaning "improbability of the outcome," whereas when convenient, he uses the more standard definition "a whole made up of complicated or interrelated parts."
Bayesian Bouffant, FCD · 8 December 2005
SETI@HOME has now evolved to become a part of the reducibly complex BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing). There's a few options related to medical or biomedical research, but I don't see any explicitly doing evolutionary biology research or using evolutionary algorithms.
idlemind · 8 December 2005
Jason · 8 December 2005
Jason · 8 December 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 8 December 2005
snaxalotl · 8 December 2005
"What would convince you of ET intelligence?"
maybe being able to do something useful with ET information (in the sense that the information could be interpreted as being ABOUT something like spaceship design rather than being about star systems), unlike ID which consistently produces nothing of any practical use
Clark · 8 December 2005
I think a better approach for dealing with IDist is to ask them which particular genetic sequence in any given species is one which could not have evolved using currently known methods. We can't say exactly which genes are needed to produce the flagellum, but niether can IDist. So skip, for now that difficulty. Instead, like SETI, search the geneome for "designed" sequences, ones that somehow look unnatural. If we cannot ID any uniquely designed genes, given the known processes for genetic change, then we should accept that all genes are evolved rather than designed.
PaulC · 8 December 2005
Steve · 9 December 2005
Jason,
What you are talking about is what a Bayesian would call a prior probability. With regards to Mt. Rushmore, we have extensive background information that tells us that weathering and erosion don't account for that kind of result (very clearly defined faces of historical people). So we set a very low probability for nature doing it, and conversely a very high probability that an intelligent agency did it. Then we factor in that there are things like historical evidence documenting the intelligent agent at work, and in the end you have a probability that if it isn't 1, it is so damn close the difference is virtually meaningless.
This is why Dembski goes to great length's to attempt to discredit the Bayesian approach. Givne Dembski's formal training in mathematics, namely probability theory, he has to know he is being misleading, and this makes him an outright liar.
Chris Lawson · 9 December 2005
To buddha:
You asked, "What would convince you of ET intelligence? Two WOW! signals? Three? Perhaps these may all have "natural" explanations. Will the existence of ETs (and the cause of these WOW! signals) remain an open question until there is direct evidence?"
Well, you see, there's the point really. It would take a lot to convince me of ET signals. It would take a lot for the SETI researchers too. Which is why the WOW! signal is still considered a mystery rather than the IDist approach of declaring anything mysterious as proof of intelligence.
To answer your last question there, *there is no definitive test for intelligence in a signal* no matter how much Dembski pretends otherwise. At the moment, the only way we can detect intelligence in a signal is by recognition, not by empirical testing, and of course subjective pattern recognition is well known to create false positives. So the SETI scientists are always guarded in their statements about candidate signals, whereas the ID movement jumps to conclusions based on the flimsiest (and often misunderstood) evidence. So, yes, at this point in time I would only accept as evidence of ETI (i) a signal that was obviously artificial (and I don't have precise guidelines for making that decision) or (ii) some independent evidence for it being ETI outside the signal itself.
To put it another way, SETI is in its infancy. SETI is based on a hypothesis: that ETI civilisations make detectable signals. This is obviously not a coherent theory, and as a hypothesis it is open to changing as detection methods improve. It fails to be falsifiable in the broad sense: there is no test that can possibly exclude any possibility of ET intelligence somewhere in the universe. But it is falsifiable in the particular, ie. a search of a given range of frequencies in a given region over a given range of time. But this doesn't automatically exclude SETI from science. I have two rejoinders to this. The first is that I don't like Popper's "falsifiability" as a definition of science precisely because it excludes scientific endeavours such as SETI and indeed any simple survey. When a scientist tests a sample of the population in order to estimate the rate of, say, chlamydia, the scientist is not performing a classic hypothesis test and can hardly be doing anything falsifiable and yet it is undeniably a scientific activity. I much prefer to use the term "testable" even though I realise that many here would disagree with me.
SETI is currently not at the stage of broad hypothesis testing. It is closer to the stage of Charles Darwin on the Beagle or Alfred Russell Wallace heading out to the Indonesian archipelago. They are going exploring to see what they can see. SETI might be as successful as Darwin and Wallace and come to make a discovery as profound as evolution. Or they may end up like Columbus, who went to find India and found the New World instead. Or they may end up finding nothing. The ID movement, on the other hand, has no chance whatsoever of discovering anything because it refuses to go exploring.
Chris Lawson · 9 December 2005
Er...the point about SETI being at the exploratory stage was meant to be my second rejoinder, in case that wasn't clear.
Michael Rathbun · 9 December 2005
With respect to Mt Rushmore, we need not trouble ourselves overmuch with abstract calculations of the likelihood of the faces themselves being natural.
Instead we can actually visit the site and observe
- tool marks on the faces
- tool marks on chips of rock below
- abundant evidence of the use of explosives
- evidence of the powerhouse, the winches, the scaffolding and other mechanisms now absent
- evidence of the continued presence of over 400 human beings in the vicinity for a brief period
Not to mention that an exhaustive search of the planet's surface would turn up the original model, records of the project, plans, correspondence, stuff in the Congressional Record...
CBBB · 9 December 2005
Because it LOOKS designed
Wrong Jason. The big difference is that SETI has a pretty good understanding of the forces in the universe whereas Dembski (or anyone for that matter) does not have the understanding of biological history to be able to calculate the probabilities of an event. That's the Big, Important difference here.
Dembski's argument to disprove evolution is based on the assumption that evolution by natural selection is wrong to begin with.
CBBB · 9 December 2005
The theoretical basis behind Dembskism is not solid enough to be able to accurately detect design compared to other uses of "design detect".
Bayesian Bouffant, FCD · 9 December 2005
Jason · 9 December 2005
Paul C,
The algorithms are "intelligently designed."
:^)
(I realize there are evolutionary algorithms that aren't directly designed. These would analogize to Deism to me, I guess.)
:^)
CBBB,
Um, I don't think anyone has a full grasp on how the universe works. Dark Matter? Inflation? Come on. If SETI found a big green square floating in some other plantery system, they could ASSUME it was manufactured, but they wouldn't KNOW it was. In this case, I don't think seeing is believing, especially based on our paltry understanding of cosmology.
Bayesian Bouffant, FCD,
I think the argument goes: If future archeologists came upon Mt. Rushmore...
I think, though, it's far more fun to ask an ID person if the BACK of Mt. Rushmore is designed. They have to say, no, it happened by "natural forces." Natural forces, you ask? You mean that the back of Mt. Rushmore didn't come about by a miracle? It wasn't "created?" The structure we see is the result of millions of years of weathering and erosion? Then if they are a closet YEC, they'll be forced to defend something they don't believe in order to look like a "true" ID person. Then you can get into the Grand Canyon, plate techtonics, the physical impossibility of Noah's flood, etc. A YEC will have to divorce himself from all the Biblical crap. At least it will move them in the right direction (even though they'll secretly not give up on their cemented pre-conceptions, maybe just maybe they'll see a glimmer of the light.)
Andrew McClure · 9 December 2005
k.e. · 9 December 2005
Jason said
"
it's far more fun to ask an ID person if the BACK of Mt. Rushmore is designed"
That reminds me of one of the funniest cartoons I've ever seen
Don Martin from Mad Mag.
Picture If you will a helicopter tour of Mt. Rushmore
1st frame everyone oohs and ahhs over the front view
they all fly around the back and you see the rest of bodies carved out kneeling down.